All this was extremely interesting to Scott and he felt that he was acquiring invaluable experience. Christmas passed almost unnoticed save that Scott’s box from home furnished them many a grateful lunch when they returned to their rooms at night tired but happy in thrashing over the day’s doings.
But that was not all. There was plenty of fun and humor at the shed as well as elsewhere. One afternoon Scott thought he noticed some freight in the Willmar car which did not belong there. It was the mistake of the check clerk or the caller. No one liked the check clerk, but the caller was popular, and Scott decided to tell him about it.
“Charlie,” he said when he returned to the car, “I think you called some of that stuff wrong. I saw some of your stuff up there in the Willmar that I did not think belonged there.”
Charlie was master of a rough-edged sarcasm and he spared no one. Work was a little slack and he settled down to rub it into Scott.
“You _think_ I made a mistake. You _think_ it don’t belong there. What right have you got to think? Don’t you know that there is a man upstairs who is paid eighteen hundred dollars a year just to sit at his desk and think? He does all the thinking for this place. You just flap your ears like a little jack-ass and push that truck.”
The sally was met by howls of laughter and Scott was obliged to join in them. All the rest of that day whenever he looked at all pensive Charlie broke into his meditations with, “Say, boy, you been thinking any more lately?”
Another source of amusement which originated with the darky crew, but soon spread to the whole shed, was the popular method of settling all disputes and rough houses. No sooner did two men start to tussle than some enthusiast in the crowd, sometimes one of the combatants if he felt sure of victory, would yell, “Get a board.” That was the invariable war cry. There were always plenty of people to carry it out and as if by magic a husky man would appear with a bed slat. The presence of that bed slat reversed the ordinary methods of wrestling completely. It was no longer the object to come out on top, for the top man got the full benefit of the bed slat laid on with no gentle hand. The agonized expression and bodily writhing of the victim who saw that descending bed slat out of the corner of his eye were the delight of the crowd. The man who could stay underneath with the seat of his trousers glued fast to the platform was the successful combatant in the eyes of all concerned. It was not a position easily maintained, for the exertions of the other man under the stimulus of the bed slat became almost superhuman.