JOHN SANDERS, LABORER

[The outlines of this story were given me by my friend Augustus Thomas,
whose plays are but an index to the tenderness of his own nature.]


He came from up the railroad near the State line. Sanders was the name on
the pay-roll,--John Sanders, laborer. There was nothing remarkable about
him. He was like a hundred others up and down the track. If you paid him
off on Saturday night you would have forgotten him the next week, unless,
perhaps, he had spoken to you. He looked fifty years of age, and yet he
might have been but thirty. He was stout and strong, his hair and beard
cropped short. He wore a rough blue jumper, corduroy trousers, and a red
flannel shirt, which showed at his throat and wrists. He wore, too, a
leather strap buckled about his waist.

If there was anything that distinguished him it was his mouth and eyes,
especially when he smiled. The mouth was clean and fresh, the teeth
snow-white and regular, as if only pure things came through them; the
eyes were frank and true, and looked straight at you without wavering. If
you gave him an order he said, "Yes, sir," never taking his gaze from
yours until every detail was complete. When he asked a question it was to
the point and short.

The first week he shoveled coal on a siding, loading the yard engines.
Then Burchard, the station-master, sent him down to the street crossing to
flag the trains for the dump carts filling the scows at the long dock.