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Ah, the smiling morning sun, the green leaves, the gentle fresh winds of heaven! Rourke was down in an earthen excavation under the depot platform when I arrived, measuring and calculating with his plumb-bob and level, and when I looked in on him hopefully he looked up and smiled. "So here ye arre at last," he said with a grin. "Yes," I laughed.
Early the first morning of a two-week job on the new plant of the Western Castings Company, Chet Ball, glancing down from his dizzy perch atop an electric-light pole, espied Miss Anastasia Rourke going to work. He didn't know her name or anything about her, except that she was pretty. You could see that from a distance even more remote than Chet's.
He retreated first behind the depot, and then when Rourke had gone to work once more down in his hole, came back and took a safe position on guard over the hitherto sadly neglected opening. When the next train came he was there to shove the boards over before it neared the station, and nothing more was said about the matter. Rourke did not appear to notice him.
I would hear, and then would see him rushing for the office, a defiant and even threatening mason at his heels; Rourke demanding that I make out a time-check at once for the latter and go down to the "ahffice" and get the money, the while the mason hung about attempting to seduce other men to a similar point of view.
Rourke was about all the time now, arguing and gesticulating with this man or that, fighting with this one or the other, and calling always to some mason or other to "come down" and get his "time." "Come down! Come down!"
Shewer, they're no crapin' Eyetalians, that'll let ye taalk to thim as ye pl'ase. Indade not. Ye'll have to fight with them fellies." "Well, that's a queer state of affairs," I remarked, and then added, "Do you think you can handle them, Rourke?" "Handle thim!" he exclaimed, his glorious wrath kindling in anticipation of a possible conflict. "Handle thim, an' the likes av a thousand av thim!
One was called Kate Rourke; she was a girl of fifteen years of age, showily dressed, with flashing eyes, long earrings in her ears, false jewellery round her neck, and a smart, rather shabby hat, trimmed with a lot of flowers, placed at the back of her head. Hanging on Kate's arm might have been seen Hannah Johnson, in all respects that young lady's double.
Jimmie was away behind the depot somewhere, smoking perhaps, and Rourke was, as usual, down in the hole. This time misfortune trebled itself, however, by bringing, not the general foreman, but the supervisor himself, a grave, quiet man, of whom Rourke stood in the greatest awe. He was so solid, so profound, so severe. I don't believe I ever saw him smile.
"No," said Kate Rourke, bending forward at that moment; "we are out for a spree all by our lone selves." Kate gave a loud laugh as she spoke. The lady started back, and could not help contrasting Kathleen's face with those of the other girls. She bent towards her husband and whispered in his ear.
Rourke, and let me work for you?" I asked hopefully, after explaining to him why I was here. "Shewer," he replied. "Ye'd do fine." "Would I have to work with the Italians?" I asked, wondering how I would make out with a pick and shovel. My frame was so spare at the time that the question must have amused him, considering the type of physique required for day labor.
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