Evening Star Newspaper, May 7, 1933, Page 70

By ELLIS PARKER BUTLER . O , automobiles, no telephones— they had not yet been invented. The big river packets gliding up and down the Miscissippi in majesty; log rafts fleating down; axes ringing in the northern woods. The levee at Riverbank, on the Iowa side of the big river, sloped gently from Front street to the river, at one end the fish markets, at the other the seamboat warehouse and the p house of the newly installed water- works system; a hydrant on the corner by 3chmid’s Boat Store, painted green, still smelled of paint. Joe Flannagan, one of Schmid's clerks, dasbed out of the boat store and ran across the sand of the levee to the steamboat warehouse. The noble packet Continental was just sweeping in a great curve to come to land; she might stay an hour and she might stay two hours while the sweating Negro roustabouts, singing, rolled barrels aboard, toted crates at a loose-kneed lope, loading and unloading. Joe had to get the Continental’s list of sup- plies needed, get back to the boat store, get the order filled and the goods delivered aboard before the lines were cast off and the boat left, The packets never waited. At the door of the bcat store, all in white, stood Tessie Schmid, old Hein Schmid’s daugh- ter, just 18 and pretty. When Joe Flannagin came loping back with the boat order she stood aside to let him rush into the store. AT old Heine Schmid took the order and ran his eye over it and shouted, “Two hams, Art'ur " and the rush of filling the Conti- nental's order began. Goods were thrown into baskets and checked on the list. All was hustle and hurry. And, suddenly, Tessle Schmid screamed. Joe Flannagan was nearest the dcor. He had in his hands a case of bottled beer—24 bottles—and what he saw outside was a huge bearded fellow grinning at Tessie, who shrank away from him. Joe did not hesitate. He raised the case above his head and threw it. It hit the bearded glant in the chest and he went down. Tessie fled into the store. : *That might have ended the trouble if Joe Flannagan had not had red hair, but he did have the reddest hair that ever grew on a wild Irishmans head and he leaped for the prue- trate giant, grasping one of the bottles of beer. He broke that over the matted head of the fallen man, and before the glass had stopped clattering on the boardwalk a fist caught Joe on the jaw and sent him tumbling into the street. ‘The fist that had struck him was that of one of the bearded giant’s fellows. This was in the late Spring of the year. Every Fall saw a flow of hard-handed Jumber- jacks on their way to the Michigan and Wis- sconsin forests, and every Spring saw their return down the river, noisy, ready for any deviltry, spending their money and drinking _ bhard. In Summer and early Fall they worked in the harvest fields; in Winter they felled the glant pines. The fight that began when Joe Flannagan threw the case of beer was a grand one. block on which Schmid’s Boat Store stood —except for the boat store itself—a long of frame buildings, half of which were saloons. Police whistles blew, men came running from Main street and a battle royal began. The townsmen were too many for the lum- berjacks. They forced the woolen-shirted woodsmen back across the levee, fists and clubs and bricks all used in the mix-up, and when the Continental swung away from the warehouse the jeers of the crowd on the levee rang in the ears of the lumberjacks. uAN' what did th’ dhirty divil do t' ye?* Joe Flannagan asked Tessie Schmid. One of his eyes was closing, his nose was “He put his hand on me,” Tessie said. “He said, ‘Hello, my pet,’ and put his filthy hand on my shoulder. He was drunk.” “'Tis & shame I did not murder him,” said Flannagan. boys —the police hurried to the levee and massed at the foot of the gangplank, herding back aboard any of the always-thirsty lumberjacks. Not another lumberjack went ashore in Riverbank that Spring. Not a Jumberjack was * THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. T, MAY ¥, 083, ~ A tale of the river packet days, when men were tough lllustrated By GEORGE SCARBC Before the glass had stopped clattering on the boardwalk a fist caught Joe on the jaw and sent him tumbling into the street. They yelled with laughter as they talked the fun they were going to have. Joe Flannagan, red-headed and with face, had no premonition whatever that troubl was coming. Riverbank had no thought that trouble was aboard the Little Mac. newly organized Responsible Hose Company No. 1 was quartered. Five men were in the one room that constituted the entire interior of the building and they sat at a pine table playing poker. “Waitin’ for you, Joe,” one of them said. “Sit in and take a hand. They played steadily on. Dinny, to stretch his legs, went into Barney Hogan’s saloon next door for a pail of beer and they passed it around the table, each drinking heartily. From half a mile up the river came the sound of the Little Mac's siren—*00000—00000—O0 —O0—Oo0"—two long and three short, the first two drawn out until the deep throaty sound “He put his hand on me...He said, ‘Hello, my pet’...He was drunk” echoed back from the Illinois bluffs 6 miles back from the river. “She’s comin’,” said Joe Flannagan and threw down his cards. ‘When the Little Mac swung up to the ware- house—the river was at spring flood—Joe Flan- nagan was at the wide river-door ready to leap onto the landing-stage, but he did not leap. Two big black roustabouts stood on the end of the stage ready to jump with the mooring lines, but they did not jump. As the Little Mac bumped against the pro- tecting piles Big Bill Guffy and his 40 lum- berjacks ran up the stege yelling like Indians. “Right straight through!” they yelled, swinging their axes around their heads. The two roustabouts dodged and fell splashing into the river. The boat-agent, clip-board in hand, turned and ran. The flat of an ax struck the city marshal and sent him sprawling. 1ITHE redhead!” shouted Big Bill Guffy and swung his ax at Joe Flannagan. If the blow had landed Joe Flannagan would have been split from cranium to crotch but it did not land. Like a legged eel Joe Flannagan dropped to the floor, wiggled five feet on his belly and leaped up and ran. He ran like a frightened deer. Big Bill Guffy’s ax came down, its edge em- bedded in the floor, and before he could jerk Joe Flannagan was out of the ware- running across the levee sand. d lumberjacks, with Big Bill Guffy also. Shouting and swear- kept in a compact mass and ran for of the row of Front street buildings axes bit into the side wall of Gus saloon, and Gus ran screaming from Guffy. “In one end and out the other!™ At the end of the levee the siren of the waterworks pump house was blowing one steady blast of alarm. The high school bell took it up and clanged out its alarm call. “Right straight through!” shouted Big Bill . “In one end and out the other, pards!® and his ax swung. PForty axes swung. Joe Flannagan, running from warehouse, dashed into the hose sponsible Hose Company No. the door and put his back against “Dinny! Mack!” he panted. * bejacks; th’ hairy divil I slang th’