Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1914 — TROLLEY CAR MUTINY [ARTICLE]

TROLLEY CAR MUTINY

By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART.

The reason for the quarrel has nothing to do with the story; It was the usual affair. In which the Girl declares with every appearance of sincerity that she hopes she will never see him again, and the Man gnaws his lip—fashion having abolished the mustache —and declares savagely that she need not worry, she won’t.

The only unusual feature was that the Man was handsome, and did not know it, and the Girl, who was charming, and knew it, was quite unspoiled. •Perhaps it was the rain that had ruffled the current of true love. As he held his umbrella over the Girl, they were as far apart as the poles; the drip was falling on the rim of his hat, and his head being thrown well back—he was vei-y much injured —a little stream of water ran down between the shoulders of his gray raincoat. From one pocket protruded the corner of a gilt tied package, and the little widow who stood just back of them smiled and sighed. When the Wilkinsville car came along he assisted the Girl in ceremoniously. On the platform she turned and spoke to him.

“You have my purse,” she said, icily polite. “May I trouble you for it?” Which meant that she wished to pay her own fare; he was not to dare to do it.

The Man looked uncomfortable, and fished out of one of his big pockets a dainty little patent leather affair with a monogram on it. The Girl wen# to the extreme end of the car and sat down; the Man made his umbrella an excuse to stay on the platform.

The car was comfortably full, but not crowded. In fact, as they discovered later, there were precisely twen-ty-six passengers. The conductor was -collecting the fares. He declined her proffered nickel with a Jerk, of his head toward the door.

“Fare’s paid,” he said; but the Girl insistently held out the money. “There is a mistake,” she said, flushing uncomfortably. “I intend to pay my own fare.”

The conductor took it resignedly. “Well,” he said, “the gentleman back there with the gray raincoat paid your fare, but If you want to pay twice, all right.” He rang up the fare with an air of great probity and went on. The Girl flashed a glance of withering scorn at the back of the car.

The widow was palpitating with excitement; there was a little excrescence under the glove on the third finger on the Giri’s left hand. Perhaps they were engaged! The rain was beating down mercilessly now—the penetrating, all-per-vading rain of February. The windows were steamed and opaque and the tracks were twin canals of sluggish yellow water. The car stopped with a jerk, and the conductor thrust his head in.

"Car ahead, please,” he said sonorously. With a sigh the women began to pick up their bundles and gather their skirts. This was an imposition under which- the Wilkinsvilleites had long groaned. The car. designated plainly for Wilkinsville, would, toward the rush hours of the evening, take its passengers only a certain distance. Then, relying on the toleration and lack of spirit of the average suburbanite, the passengers were transferred to another car, which might or might not be w’aiting ahead, and the original car was hurried back to town. The Man took a band. When one has just quarreled with the only girl, and she has just told him, quite frankly, that she does not care for him any more, he is in the best possible condition to take up a public grievance. “Look here,” he said, stepping into the doorway, “don’t get out, you people. It says Wilkinsville on the front of this car, and we ought to stay on it until it takes us to Wilkinsville.” The conductor reached his hand to the bell rope. The motorman had taken his place at the reverse end of the car, which was now ready to start toward the city again. “All out for Wilkinsville,” said the conductor. "Take the next car ahead.”

An Irish laborer got up and picked up his dinner bucket. "Come on,” he slid. “Yez’ll do it, anyhow’, afther the other car’s gone. The gr-r-reat American people is mighty indepindint—on the Four-r-th of July.” He went out then, but the shaft had told. One passenger stopped in the aisle.

“I demand,” he said, “that this car take us to Wilkinsville. If it doesn’t there will be trouble."

"I guess there will be,” said the conductor, “if missin’ your dinner will be trouble,” Then the Man spoke again.

“Anyone who wishes to should get out now and take the car ahead —if there is one. Those who would like to make this a test case will remain on the car and Insist that it go to Wilkinsville." •

He glanord at the Girl, but she did not move. A woman with a baby got up irresolutely, looked out at the pouring rain, snd sat down again. No one got out; it was mutiny, unanimously agreed upon The conductor jerked the bell rope and the car started back to town.

Occasional transients got in, hung on a strap for a time and got out When it reached the down-town district the car became crowded, but the original twenty-six retained their seats, and gradually the car was depleted of all save the Wilklnsvilleites. Conversation became general and animated again; at the car barn a company inspector boarded the car, and to him an appeal was made. He sustained the conductor, however, and then discreetly departed. Two drummers getting on soon afterward gazed electrified at the interior of the car.

“Just run over somebody?” one of them asked the conductor, as a burst of general conversation came through the partly open door. “No,” he said, surlily. “Well, what is that in there —Sunday school convention, or trade union?” the other man asked facetiously. The conductor ran a scornful eye over the indignant suburbanites within.

“There’s twenty-six of them," he said, disgustedly, “and they’re as crazy as a sky-rocket in a snow storm.” He refused to explain further and went in to collect the fares in moody silence.

There had been some demur about the second fare, but after consulation it was decided to pay it The passengers were becoming better acquainted. When a messenger boy took a flying leap and managed to scramble to the platform, he beheld the amazing spectacle of a car full of people in animated conversation with one another.

“Say,” he said, pointing through the glass of the door, “what’s the trolley party?” “Lot of damn lunatics,” snarled the conductor, and lapsed into morose silence. ■

At the end of the line the conductor opened the door with a jerk. “All out," he said. “This car is going back to town.” “We’ll get off at Wilkinsville, and no place else,” said one firmly, and amid a silence broken only by the snapping of watch cases as the mutineers consulted the time, the car started back to town. The Man came in and sat down not far from the Girl, but she only chatted pleasantly with the little widow across from her. The conductor and motorman were not so mirthful now; there was an air of grim determination about the twen-ty-six that made the cold night air warm and comfortable by comparison.

In the meantime a common trouble was bringing the people inside closer together. It developed that the woman with the baby had a cloth bag inside of her coat containing three hundred and fifty-five pennies—“one for every day of his life,” she explained amiably; “I brought them along, it isn’t safe to leave them.”

So the pennies were brought out and suitably exchanged, and the next time the fares were paid in copper, leaving the conductor white with rage and visibly bulging, i It was eight o’clock when the car began its next trip from town. The passengers were growing hungry, and when the last transient had gone, leaving only the steady occupants, the Man conversed secretly with the baker’s boy. As a result the white covered basket was passed around, with a bag of apples from one of the market baskets.

Two passengers weakened at the end of that trip and got off, leaving only a space of empty seat between the Man and the Girl. The little widow eyed the gap disapprovingly, but the Man stonily read the advertisement for somebody’s pork and beans, and the car, after another request from the conductor, a little less courteous this time —that they move into the car ahead —started back to town.

The Girl was feeling very lonely and unhappy. Once or twice she looked at the relentless profile near her, but it was unresponsively classic. Not for worlds would she have shown less spirit than the other women in the car, and got out. But she was stiff from sitting, her head was aching from excitement and hunger—and just a little from the quarreL As for the Man, it is very possible to gaze stonily straight ahead, and y&t see clearly every movement of a girl some distance to your left. He had an ache, too, but it was a lonely sort of heartache.

As for the little widow, she pulled her black veil over the rim of her hat, feeling very sad and alone, and wondering if she had ever been so foolish when she had some one to love her. At the barn the car switched off and rolled slowly, echoingly into the dimness of the building. There it was stopped with a jerk, the conductor switched off the light and heat, and with the motorman made his way to the office. The little widow shivered. What if the Man should go? It would be so like a man to leave at this psychological moment, when the Girl was hunger, and lonely, and forldrn; for the tired eyes and the quiver of a proud chin had not been lost on the woman behind the veil.

The committee shuffled out and struggled through the darkness toward the faint beacon of the office light. After a time they reappeared, led by an apologetic man with a lantern. Across the aisle some one sighed—she could have sworn it was the Girl. And then in a great burst the lights came on again. The little widow gasped and smiled. For across the way the Man and the Girl sat, side by side, their faces radiant.

The little widow smiled through a mist of tears, then she slipped her hand to the throat of her black gown and lovingly touched a locket with » photograph, which hung there.