Scott Burton, Forester

by Edward G. Cheyney

Scott’s boxing training and endurance stood him in good stead. He was able to put in three hours of extra work even the first night. Later on as he learned the tricks of the trade the work became easier, and he began to enjoy it. There were all classes of men and all nationalities represented in the ten gangs at the shed, Swedes, Norwegians, Austrians, Finns, Poles and one gang of real Southern negroes. It was a problem worth while to study the characters of these different races; to compare the slow sullen plod of the Scandinavian with the carefree cheerfulness of the negroes, to see the contempt of the Irish foreman for all the races of slower wit. It was a liberal education in itself.

He soon learned the workings of the shed and became interested in its methods. The cars rolled in there from the Eastern cities loaded with all kinds of merchandise for all the points of the northwest. The waybills for these cars were sent to the office in the second story of the warehouse where the clerks abstracted them, and wrote out on large sheets of paper the names of consignor, and consignee, and descriptions of the consignments. These abstract sheets were then taken by the foreman as fast as the cars came in and placed on the clips on the platform. Here the check clerks took them in charge.

A gang usually consisted of a check clerk, a caller and five truckmen. The caller read the directions on the freight and loaded it on the trucks, always selecting for any one load boxes which went into the same car. The check clerk checked them off on his abstract and told the truckman where to take it. It was the duty of the check clerk to know every point in the territory and how to reach it.

Scott had started the work with the idea that any educated man had an advantage over any other man not similarly educated, and could excel him at his own work. One day’s experience on the truck handles had very effectually shown him his mistake. He began to realize that a man who had spent several years rolling a truck was quite as much of an expert in his line as a doctor was in his, and that no man could tell him much about it. It was depressing at first, but as he became more expert himself he began to find that he could outdo these men in many ways on account of his better head work. He soon began to enjoy the work in the capacity of a master workman.

All this was extremely interesting to Scott and he felt that he was acquiring invaluable experience. Christmas passed almost unnoticed save that Scott’s box from home furnished them many a grateful lunch when they returned to their rooms at night tired but happy in thrashing over the day’s doings.

But that was not all. There was plenty of fun and humor at the shed as well as elsewhere. One afternoon Scott thought he noticed some freight in the Willmar car which did not belong there. It was the mistake of the check clerk or the caller. No one liked the check clerk, but the caller was popular, and Scott decided to tell him about it.

“Charlie,” he said when he returned to the car, “I think you called some of that stuff wrong. I saw some of your stuff up there in the Willmar that I did not think belonged there.”

Charlie was master of a rough-edged sarcasm and he spared no one. Work was a little slack and he settled down to rub it into Scott.

“You think I made a mistake. You think it don’t belong there. What right have you got to think? Don’t you know that there is a man upstairs who is paid eighteen hundred dollars a year just to sit at his desk and think? He does all the thinking for this place. You just flap your ears like a little jack-ass and push that truck.”

The sally was met by howls of laughter and Scott was obliged to join in them. All the rest of that day whenever he looked at all pensive Charlie broke into his meditations with, “Say, boy, you been thinking any more lately?”