“Tent!” yelled Tommy, after examining the tag. “Hully smoke, Jack, we’re goin’ t’ have a tent,” cried he, enthusiastically, as he began to cut the twine about the bundle. Tommy’s eyes widened when he shook the bundle open and found a big silk banner wearing the stars and stripes. “D’ flag! d’ flag, Jack!” he cried excitedly, as he threw the little watchman down and began to roll him up in the silk that lay upon the grass.
The company storekeeper had run a blue pencil through the flag in Tommy’s requisition, and then headed a subscription to buy what the boy wanted. Every trainman on the division, agents, operators, section men—in fact, all who heard of the thing, were eager to contribute, so that the best and biggest flag that could be bought and used in such a place, took less than half the money. The balance was spent for red fire and noise, so that the boys at the bridge, who never knew what it was to have a holiday—who knew it was Sunday once a week because the Highland local didn’t run—could amuse themselves and the people of Lick Skillet without losing any time.
The following day was the Fourth, and the first train up from St. Louis brought the fireworks. It was a great day; the biggest in the history of the settlement, and Tommy McGuire, who had been stoned and chased, freckled Tommy, “Onry Tommy,” whom the priest called “incourageable,” who had been voted a thoroughly worthless boy by all the females in the community—save his mother and little Mary—was easily the captain. And what pleased the agent, Tommy’s champion, who had driven down to the Skillet to see the show, was the fact that Tommy wore his honors easily. There was nothing of the swaggerer about him. To be sure, he awed the other boys, especially the farmer boys from a little way back, and he held the eyes of all the little girls, who envied Mary Connor, who was ever near the master of ceremonies, partly because she felt a sort of security in his company and partly from force of habit, for they were constant companions now. This fact did not escape the notice of the agent. It was a good sign, he said, to see a boy throwing a line out early in life.
Once, when the big flag had become entangled about the pole, Tommy ran up the pump ladder and over the roof of the tank to loosen it. Then, to save time, he slid down a long rope that reached from the roof to within ten feet of the ground. Every one was watching the boy, and when he dropped Mary put her hands to her eyes and said, “Oh!” and then she blushed and all the other girls laughed.
The station agent, who, instead of going to St. Louis to celebrate, had complimented the community by his presence, was, by common consent, the guest of honor. The section men brought a push-car load of lumber and built a big table, upon which the Widow Connor and Mrs. McGuire heaped the best products of their well-worked gardens. There was spring chicken, butter, and buttermilk. The agent stood at the head of the table, Tommy at his right, and little Mary, by a mere accident, at his left. In addition to keeping one eye on the agent and the other on Mary, Tommy looked out for every one. He was especially solicitous for Mrs. Dutton, who had given him the name of “Onry” Tommy, and saw that her plate was kept loaded. He even expressed a regret that the priest could not be there “to git a square once in his life.”
By the middle of the afternoon the news of the “celebration” at the bridge had filtered out among the farmers and reached up to St. Jacobs and down to Troy, and those who had made no arrangements to enjoy the Fourth, came to the water tank that evening to see the fireworks. Tommy had caused the section men to lay boards along one side of the bridge, and when it was dark, having the multitude, to the number of two or three hundred souls, including “Anderson’s nigger,” stationed at a distance, he stood upon the bridge and burned money. If he had dazzled the youth of the community, male and female, by day, he awed them at night. Standing there on the bridge in a blaze of glory, with Mary by his side, making it thunder and lightning, sending sizzling sky-rockets over the tops of tall trees, shooting burning bullets into the blue above, Tommy McGuire was easily the emperor of Lick Skillet, grand, picturesque, and awful.
CHAPTER VII
THE LABOR QUESTION
“Say, Jack, d’ roadmaster won’t know this mule,” said Tommy, standing off and looking the animal over. “Mr. Heidelberg says they’s just one thing ’at looks onryer ’n a long-haired mule, ’at’s a short-haired woman. Women an’ horses should be trimmed alike, an’ men an’ mules.”
With that Tommy put away his clippers and started the mule on his circular journey. The ingenious pump boy had grown tired of the narrow platform in the centre of the circle and conceived the idea of bringing a camp stool and sitting in the shadow of a tree just outside the ring. Immediately the mule walked to the far side of the circle and stopped. Tommy whipped him around the ring and tried it again. The mule stopped. Now up to this point it had made no great difference where the boy sat, but he would conquer the mule. He made a blind for the mule’s off eye, so that he could not see the driver as he went past, but, to his surprise, on the other side of the circle it was the near eye the mule used. He changed it. The mule went around to where he had been stopping, stopped, turned his head until his open eye was brought to bear upon his master, gave a deep sigh, and settled down to rest. Tommy was angry. He now put a blind over both the mule’s eyes, and the animal refused to budge. Tommy gave him a few sharp cracks and gave it up. He thought on the matter a great deal. It was the first time he had failed utterly; the first time he had ever been conquered; and by a mule! It was humiliating. He made a dummy and set it where he had been sitting, started the mule going and dodged behind a sycamore near where the mule was wont to stop. The animal pulled round to the effigy, shied a little, came nearer, smelled of it, snorted, and then began coolly to eat the stuffing out of it—some wisps of hay that were sticking up out of the dummy’s collar.