The
'long-shoremen, the cotton-yardmen, and the stevedores had gone
out on a strike. The levee lay hot and unsheltered under the
glare of a noonday sun. The turgid Mississippi scarce seemed to
flow, but gave forth a brazen gleam from its yellow bosom. Great
vessels lay against the wharf, silent and unpopulated. Excited
groups of men clustered here and there among bales of
uncompressed cotton, lying about in disorderly profusion.
Cargoes of molasses and sugar gave out a sticky sweet smell, and
now and then the fierce rays of the sun would kindle tiny blazes
in the cotton and splinter-mixed dust underfoot.
Mr. Baptiste wandered in and out among the groups of men,
exchanging a friendly salutation here and there. He looked the
picture of woe-begone misery.
"Hello, Mr. Baptiste," cried a big, brawny Irishman, "sure an'
you look, as if you was about to be hanged."
"Ah, mon Dieu," said Mr. Baptiste, "dose fruit ship be ruined fo'
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.
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