"Ye see," she said, turning to Babcock, "that man Duffy tried to do me,--he's the sergeant at the fort--and Dan McGaw--ye know him--he's the divil that wanted to work for ye. Ye know I always had the hauling of the coal at the fort, an' I want to hold on to it, for it comes every year. I've been a-watchin' for this coal for a month. Every October there's a new contractor, and this time it was me friend Mr. Crane I've worked for before. So I sees Duffy about it the other day, an' he says, 'Well, I think ye better talk to the quartermaster, who's away, but who'll be home next week.' An' that night when I got home, there lay a letter from Mr. Crane, wid another letter inside it Sergeant Duffy had sent to Mr. Crane, sayin' he'd recommend Dan McGaw to do the stevedorin'--the sneakin' villain--an' sayin' that he--Duffy--was a-goin' to inspect the coal himself, an' if his friend Dan McGaw hauled it, the quality would be all right. Think of that! I tell ye, Mr. Babcock, they're divils. Then Mr. Crane put down at the bottom of his letter to me that he was sorry not to give me the job, but that he must give it to Duffy's friend McGaw, or Duffy might reject the coal. Wait till I wash me hands and I'll tell ye how I fixed him," she added suddenly, as with a glance at her fingers she disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing a moment later with her bare arms as fresh and as rosy as her cheeks, from their friction with a clean crash towel.
"Well!" she continued, "I jumps into me bonnet yisterday, and over I goes to the fort; an' I up an' says to Duffy, 'I can't wait for the quartermaster. When's that coal a-comin'?' An' he says, 'In a couple of weeks.' An' I turned onto him and says: 'Ye're a pretty loafer to take the bread out of Tom Grogan's children's mouths! An' ye want Dan McGaw to do the haulin', do ye? An' the quality of the coal'll be all right if he gits it! An' there's sure to be twenty-five dollars for ye, won't there? If I hear a word more out of ye I'll see Colonel Howard sure, an' hand him this letter.' An' Duffy turned white as a load of lime, and says, 'Don't do it, for God's sake! It'll cost me m' place.' While I was a-talkin' I see a chunker-boat with the very coal on it round into the dock with a tug; an' I ran to the string-piece and catched the line, and has her fast to a spile before the tug lost head-way. Then I started for home on the run, to get me derricks and stuff. I got home, hooked up by twelve o'clock last night, an' before daylight I had me rig up an' the fall set and the buckets over her hatches. At six o'clock this mornin' I took the teams and was a-runnin' the coal out of the chunker, when down comes Mr.--Daniel--McGaw with a gang and his big derrick on a cart." She repeated this in a mocking tone, swinging her big shoulders exactly as her rival would have done.
"'That's me rig,' I says to him, p'intin' up to the gaff, 'an' me coal, an' I'll throw the fust man overboard who lays hands on it!'
An' then the sergeant come out and took McGaw one side an' said somethin' to him, with his back to me; an' when McGaw turned he was white too, an' without sayin' a word he turned the team and druv off. An' just now I met Mr. Crane walkin' down, lookin' like he had lost a horse. 'Tom Grogan,' he says,'I hate to disappoint ye, an' wouldn't, for ye've always done me work well; but I'm stuck on the coal contract, an' the sergeant can put me in a hole if ye do the haulin'.' An' I says, 'Brace up, Mr. Crane, there's a hole, but ye ain't in it, an' the sergeant is. I'll unload every pound of that coal, if I do it for nothin', and if that sneak in striped trousers bothers me or you, I'll pull him apart an' stamp on him!'"
Through all her talk there was a triumphant good humor, a joyousness, a glow and breeziness, which completely fascinated Babcock. Although she had been up half the night, she was as sweet and fresh and rosy as a child. Her vitality, her strength, her indomitable energy, impressed him as no woman's had ever done before.
When she had finished her story she suddenly caught Patsy out of her father's arms and dropped with him into a chair, all the mother-hunger in her still unsatisfied. She smothered him with kisses and hugged him to her breast, holding his pinched face against her ruddy cheek. Then she smoothed his forehead with her well-shaped hand, and rocked him back and forth. By and by she told him of the stone that the Big Gray had got in his hoof down at the fort that morning, and how lame he had been, and how Cully had taken it out with--a--great--big--spike!--dwelling on the last words as if they belonged to some wonderful fairy-tale. The little fellow sat up in her lap and laughed as he patted her breast joyously with his thin hand. "Cully could do it," he shouted in high glee; "Cully can do anything." Babcock, apparently, made no more difference to her than if he had been an extra chair.
As she moved about her rooms afterward, calling to her men from the open door, consulting with Jennie, her arms about her neck, or stopping at intervals to croon over her child, she seemed to him to lose all identity with the woman on the dock. The spirit that enveloped her belonged rather to that of some royal dame of heroic times, than to that of a working woman of to-day. The room somehow became her castle, the rough stablemen her knights.
On his return to his work she walked back with him part of the way. Babcock, still bewildered, and still consumed with curiosity to learn something of her past, led the talk to her life along the docks, expressing his great surprise at discovering her so capable and willing to do a man's work, asking who had taught her, and whether her husband in his time had been equally efficient and strong.
Instantly she grew reticent. She did not even answer his question. He waited a moment, and, realizing his mistake, turned the conversation in another direction.
"And how about those rough fellows around the wharves--those who don't know you--are they never coarse and brutal to you?"
"Not when I look 'em in the face," she answered slowly and deliberately. "No man ever opens his head, nor dar'sn't. When they see me a-comin' they stops talkin', if it's what they wouldn't want their daughters to hear; an' there ain't no dirty back talk, neither. An' I make me own men civil, too, with a dacint tongue in their heads. I had a young strip of a lad once who would be a-swearin' round the stables. I told him to mend his manners or I'd wash his mouth out, an' that I wouldn't have nobody hit me horses on the head. He kep' along, an' I see it was a bad example for the other drivers (this was only a year ago, an' I had three of 'em); so when he hit the Big Gray ag'in, I hauled off and give him a crack that laid him out. I was scared solid for two hours, though they never knew it."
Then, with an almost piteous look in her face, and with a sudden burst of confidence, born, doubtless, of a dawning faith in the man's evident sincerity and esteem, she said in a faltering tone:--"God help me! what can I do? I've no man to stand by me, an' somebody's got to be boss."
