There were nineteen
Irishmen in the gang--big, rough fellows who had picked me out, as
the only "Dutchman," as the butt for their coarse jokes; but when
they saw that the work was plainly too much for me, the other side
of this curiously contradictory, mischief-loving, and big-hearted
people came out. They invented a thousand excuses to get me out of
the line. Water was certainly not their daily diet, but they fell
victims, one and all, to the most ravening thirst, which required
the despatching of me every hour to the spring a quarter of a mile
away to fill the pail. If they could not empty it quickly enough,
they managed to upset it, and, to cover up the fraud, cursed each
other roundly for their clumsiness. Between whiles they worried me
as ever with their horseplay; but I had seen the real man behind
it, and they might have called me Bismarck, had they chosen, without
offence.
The heat, the work, and the slave-driver of a foreman were too much
for them even, and before the end of a week the gang was broken
and scattered wide. I was on the road again looking for work on a
farm.
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