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They're just common roustabouts, and most of 'em have gunpowder in place of brains. They don't want facts or reason either; what they like is Grady's oratory. They think that's the finest thing they ever heard. They might all be perfectly satisfied and anxious to work, but if Grady was to sing out to know if they wanted to be slaves, they'd all strike like a freight train rolling down grade.
"Then, I think I'll let you juggle the big coffeepot in the cook tent for the edification of the hungry roustabouts," grinned Mr. Sparling. "What do I do?" "Do, young man do?" "Yes, sir."
Some of the scenes of this took place on the steamer, and then, when the captain announced that he would have to tie up for half a day to enable the "roustabouts" to go ashore and cut wood for the boiler, Mr. Pertell said: "Then we'll go ashore, too. I want to get some pictures in which a small boat will figure. So we'll take the camera along, Russ, and get some of those views I spoke of."
There seemed no possible way of separating them; they never fell out with each other in the natural course of events; they never fought when drunk, as other friendly roustabouts sometimes did, for the Carmi Chums never got drunk; there never sprang up any coolness between them because of love for the same lady, for they did not seem to care at all for female society, unless they happened to meet some old lady whom one might love as a mother rather than as a sweetheart.
"The job I had have in mind for you," spoke up Milo. at a glance from Hade, "is on this key, here. I need an extra man in the main storehouse to oversee the roustabouts there. At this season Roke is too busy outdoors to keep the right kind of eye on them. The pay won't be large to start with. But if you make good at it. I may have something better to offer you on the mainland. Or I may not.
It 'uz pow'ful hot, deckhan's en roustabouts 'uz sprawled aroun' asleep on de fo'cas'l', de second mate, Jim Bangs, he sot dah on de bitts wid his head down, asleep 'ca'se dat's de way de second mate stan' de cap'n's watch! en de ole watchman, Billy Hatch, he 'uz a-noddin' on de companionway; en I knowed 'em all; en, lan', but dey did look good!
"Any of you fellows know this kid?" demanded the trainman, flashing his lantern into Teddy's face. "He says he's with the show." "Put him off!" howled one of the roustabouts who had been sleeping on the flat car under a cage. "Never saw him before." "You sit down there, young man. Next stop, off you go," announced the brakeman sternly. "I'll bet you I don't," retorted Teddy Tucker aggressively.
The captain might determine such trivial matters as hiring or discharging men, buying fuel, or contracting for freight; the clerk might lord it over the passengers, and the mate domineer over the black roustabouts; but the pilot moved along in a sort of isolated grandeur, the true monarch of all he surveyed.
The levee was crowded with passengers and their friends and relatives. Negro roustabouts were hard at work hustling freight and baggage aboard. Charley saw their trunk carried over the gangplank and he nudged his father and pointed, for several passengers, dressed in California costume, were carrying up the gangplank rolls of bedding just like theirs!
Sandy sat on the pile of trunks watching with great interest the novel sight of hurrying passengers, different from any people he ever saw before; black "roustabouts," or deck-hands, tumbling the cargo and the firewood on board, singing, shouting, and laughing the while, the white mates overseeing the work with many hard words, and the captain, tough and swarthy, superintending from the upper deck the mates and all hands.
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