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For convenience in calling him up to the bar and in designating him among other blue-shirted bipeds, a temporary appellation, title, or epithet was conferred upon him by the public. Personal peculiarities formed the source of the majority of such informal baptisms. Many were easily dubbed geographically from the regions from which they confessed to have hailed.
Then as, with the red, quartered ensign fluttering above the head-lamp and each end platform crowded, the train passed the last construction camp, a swarm of blue-shirted toilers cast their hats into the air, and the scream of the brakes was drowned in a mighty cheer, while I found myself cheering vehemently among the rest.
Quickly the staff officers made the rounds, received the reports of the detachment commanders and the boat crews, and returning, with soldierly salute, gave the results to the commanding officer, who had taken position with the captain on the bridge. For five or ten minutes the upper deck was dotted by squads of blue-shirted soldiers, grouped in disciplined silence about the boats.
Blue-shirted, broad-shouldered teamsters from the tops of high piled wagons bawled at scurrying pedestrians. On the sidewalks in boxes, bags, and barrels, lay oranges from Florida and California, figs from Arabia, bananas from Jamaica, nuts from the hills of Spain and the plains of Africa, cabbages from Ohio, beans from Michigan, corn and potatoes from Iowa.
Like a brown lizard the fat squaw scuttled to Rhoda's side. In a little dressing-room formed by fallen rock, Rhoda put on the boy's clothing. Molly helped the girl very gently. When she was done she smoothed the blue-shirted shoulder complacently. "Heap nice!" she said. "Make 'em sick squaw heap warm. You no 'fraid!
"Ham-string 'en!" yelled a blue-shirted butcher, pausing beside us and panting. "Quick, you fool ham-string 'en!" For some reason the young man seemed to hesitate. Likely enough he did not hear; perhaps had lost presence of mind. At any rate, for a second or so, his arm hung on the stroke, and as the bull swerved again he jabbed his bayonet feebly at the haunch. The butcher swore furiously.
But who and what were these darting along the flanks of the coming host, lashing furiously in and out, ever guiding, controlling, commanding even while hurrying on? No blue-shirted, slouch-hatted, broad-belted troopers these! No cheering comrades of the stalwart th, but in their stead few, but far more skilful, the most accomplished herdsmen in all creation, Indians by the dozen.
Neither would labor any more. A burly Negro, with crinkly, bullet-shaped head, leaned against a post; a brawny spiker, naked to the waist, his wonderful shoulders and arms brown, shiny, knotted, scarred, stood near, sledge in hand; a group of Irishmen, red-and blue-shirted, puffed their black pipes and argued; swarthy, sloe-eyed Mexicans, with huge sombreros on their knees, lolled in the shade of a tree, talking low in their mellow tones and fingering cigarettes; Chinamen, with long pig-tails and foreign dress, added strangeness and colorful contrast.
She was a scow-schooner we both knew well, carrying a cargo of one hundred and forty tons and a spread of canvas greater than other schooner on the bay. "How d'ye do, Ole," Charley greeted a big blue-shirted Swede who was greasing the jaws of the main gaff with a piece of pork rind. Ole grunted, puffed away at his pipe, and went on greasing.
The next act in this performance was the appearance of the baby-carriage, borne by the blue-shirted deck-hand, and followed by the young woman carrying the baby. The carriage was humbly set down by its bearer, who departed without looking to the right or left, and the baby was quickly deposited in it. Then the young woman stepped to the rail and looked anxiously upon the pier.
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