"I'll make the story short," was the reply. "I'm a railroad section hand, an' was lookin' to be made a foreman on a section near New York. I had a pile of friends among the men just above me, and I believe I would have worked up pretty rapidly."
"You would be president of the road by now, 'Jolly,'" put in the 'Duke.'
"I'd be goin' up, anyhow," the other replied. "But one day an order came along from headquarters changin' the make-up of the gangs, an' next week I found myself the only American on an Italian gang, under an Italian foreman. All of us were shifted around the same way. The foreman knew a little English--not much--an' he tried to give me orders in mixed English an' Italian. I told him I wouldn't do anythin' I wasn't told to do in straight American, an' when he started in jabberin' and abusin' me with every bad name he'd heard since he landed, why, I gave him a hammerin'. So, just as 'Hatchet Ben' here was driven out by Slovaks, it was a gang of Italians that gave me my throw-down. I tell you America's all right for everybody but the American He doesn't stand a show."
"That sounds hard for the American working-man," the boy said, "but there must be a lot of them working somewhere, they're not all tramping it."
"The back-country farmer is an American nearly every time," 'Hatchet Ben' replied, "the foreigners don't get so far away from the cities and towns. I don't know why."
"I think I know the reason of that," volunteered Hamilton. "I heard some census men talking about it, and one of them had spent a long time in Italy. He said that while it was true plenty of the peasants worked in the fields, they usually lived together in villages and went to the fields in the morning. Then the farms are very small,--our average-sized farm here would make five or six of them,--and so the village idea can't be made to work in this country, and the Italians won't stand for being separated from the nearest neighbor by a mile or two."
"I can quite understand that," the Englishman said thoughtfully; "it would be far less pleasant living in this care-free fashion of ours if one were doing it alone."
"It may be rather pleasant," Hamilton admitted slipping back into his pocket the necessary details for the schedule which he had secured from the three men while breakfast was being prepared, "but I think a day or two of it would be enough for me, and I certainly wouldn't like your end of it, 'Jolly'!"