The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar
page 59 of 109 (54%)
page 59 of 109 (54%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
dees strik'."
"Damn the fruit!" cheerily replied the Irishman, artistically disposing of a mouthful of tobacco juice. "It ain't the fruit we care about, it's the cotton." "Hear! hear!" cried a dozen lusty comrades. Mr. Baptiste shook his head and moved sorrowfully away. "Hey, by howly St. Patrick, here's that little fruit-eater!" called the centre of another group of strikers perched on cotton-bales. "Hello! Where--" began a second; but the leader suddenly held up his hand for silence, and the men listened eagerly. It might not have been a sound, for the levee lay quiet and the mules on the cotton-drays dozed languidly, their ears pitched at varying acute angles. But the practiced ears of the men heard a familiar sound stealing up over the heated stillness. "Oh--ho--ho--humph--humph--humph--ho--ho--ho--oh--o --o--humph!" Then the faint rattle of chains, and the steady thump of a machine pounding. If ever you go on the levee you'll know that sound, the rhythmic song of the stevedores heaving cotton-bales, and the steady thump, thump, of the machine compressing them within the hold of |
|