O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 — On Strike

From _The Popular Magazine_ "Furthermore, howadji," ventured Najib, who had not spoken for fully half an hour, but had been poring over a sheaf of shipment items scribbled in Arabic, "furthermore, I am yearnful to know who was the unhappy person the wicked general threatened.

Or, of a perhaps, it was that poor general himself who was bethreatened by his padishah or by the--" "What on earth are you babbling about, Najib?"

absent-mindedly asked Logan Kirby, as he looked up from a month-old New York paper which had arrived by muleteer that day and which the expatriated American had been reading with pathetic interest.

Now, roused from his perusal by Najib's query, Logan saw that the little Syrian has ceased wrestling with the shipment items and was peering over his employer's shoulder, his beady eyes fixed in keen curiosity on the printed page.

"I enseeched you to tell me, howadji," said Najib, "who has been threatening that poor general.

Or, perchancely, who has been made to cower himself undertheneath of that fierce general's threatenings.

See, it is there, howadji.

There, in the black line at the left top end of the news.

See?"

Following the guidance of Najib's stubby, unwashed finger, Kirby read the indicated headline: GENERAL STRIKE THREATENED

"Oh!"

he answered, choking back a grin, "I see.

There isn't any 'general,' Najib.

And he isn't threatened.

It means--" "May the faces of all liars be blackened!"

cried Najib in virtuous indignation.

"And may the maker of the becurst newspage lie be doubly afflictioned!

May his camels die and his wives cast dust upon his bared head!

For he has befooled me, by what he has here enprinted.

My heart went out with a sweet sorrowfulness for that poor general or for the folk he bethreatened.

Whichever it might chance itself to be.

And now the news person has made a jest of the truth.

But he--" Kirby's attempt at self-control went to pieces.

He guffawed.

Najib eyed him sourly; then said in icy reproof: "It is known to all, howadji, that Sidi-ben-Hassan, the sheikh, was the wisest of men.

And did not Sidi-ben-Hassan make known, in his book, that '_Laughter is for women and for hyenas_'?

Furthermore--" "I'm sorry I laughed at you, Najib," returned Kirby, with due penitence, "I don't wonder you got such an idea, from the headline.

You see, I have read the story that goes under it.

That's how I happen to know what it means.

It means that several thousand workmen of several allied trades threatened to go on strike.

That will tie up a lot of business, you see;

along a lot of lines.

It will mean a general tie-up--a--" From Najib's blank face, the American saw his more or less technical explanation was going wide.

Still remorseful at having hurt his factotum's feelings, Kirby laid the paper aside and undertook to simplify the matter.

"It's like this," said he.

"We'll say a gang of men aren't satisfied with the pay or the hours they are getting.

They asked for more money or for shorter hours; or for both.

If the demand is refused, they stop working.

They won't go back to their jobs till they get the cash and the hours they want.

That is known as 'going on strike.'

When a number of concerns are involved in it, it's sometimes called 'a general strike.'

This paper says a general strike is threatened.

That means--" "I apperceive it, howadji!"

exclaimed Najib.

"I am onward to it, now.

I

might have known the printed page cannot lie.

But, oh, my heart berends itself when I think of the sad fate of those poor folk who do the stroking!

Of an assuredly, Allah hath deprived them of wisdom!

"Not necessarily," argued Kirby, wondering at his henchman's outburst of sympathy for union labourers so many thousand miles away.

"They may win, you know; or, at least, get a compromise.

And their unions will support them while they are out of work.

Of course, they may lose.

And then--" "But when they make refusal to do their work," urged Najib, "will not the soldiers of the pasha cut them to ribbons with the kourbash and drive them back to their toil?

Or if the pasha of that pashalik is a brutesome man, will not he cast those poor fellaheen into the prison and beseize their goods?

And I answer, howadji, he will.

Wherefore my eyes are tearing, for the men who have so unlucklessly--" "Hold on!"

exhorted Kirby; albeit despairing of opening the mind of a man whose forebears for thousands of years had lived in a land where the _corvée_--forced labour--was a hallowed institution; and where the money of employers could always enlist the aid of government soldiery to keep the fellaheen at their tasks.

"Hold on!

That sort of thing is dead and done with.

Even in the East.

Chinese Gordon stamped out the last of it, in Egypt, years ago.

If a man doesn't want to work, he can't be forced to.

All his boss can do is to fire him and try to get some one in his place.

When a whole factory of men strike--especially if there are any big contract orders to fill in a rush--the employers sometimes find it cheaper to give them what they want than to call in untrained strikebreakers.

On the other hand, sometimes, the boss can bring the men to terms.

It all depends."

Yielding to the human joy of imparting instruction to so interested a listener, Kirby launched forth into an elaboration of his theme; trying to expound something of the capital-and-labour situation to his follower; and secretly wondering at the keen zest wherewith his words were listened to.

Seldom was Kirby so successful in making Najib follow so long an oration.

And he was pleased with his own new-found powers of explaining Occidental customs to an Oriental mind.

Now, Logan Kirby knew the tangled Syrian character and its myriad queer slants, as well as it can be given to a white man to know it.

Kirby's father had been a missionary, at Nablous.

He himself had been born there, and had spent his boyhood at the mission.

That was why--after he had completed his engineering course at Columbia's school of mines and had served an apprenticeship in Colorado and Arizona--the Cabell Smelting Company of New York had sent him out to the Land of Moab, as manager of its new-acquired little antimony mine.

The mine--a mere prospect shaft--was worked by about thirty fellaheen--native labourers--supervised by a native guard of twelve Turkish soldiers.

Small as was the plant, it was a rich property and it was piling up dividends for the Cabells.

Antimony, in the East, is used in a score of ways--from its employment in the form of kohl, for the darkening of women's eyes, to the chemical by-products, always in demand by Syrian apothecaries.

This was the only antimony mine between Aden and Germany.

Its shipments were in constant demand.

Its revenues were a big item on the credit side of the Cabell ledger.

Kirby's personal factotum, as well as superintendent of the mine, was this squat little Syrian, Najib, who had once spent two blissfully useless years with an All Nations Show, at Coney Island; and who there had picked up a language which he proudly believed to be English; and which he spoke exclusively when talking with the manager.

Kirby's rare knowledge of the East had enabled the mine to escape ruin a score of times where a manager less conversant with Oriental ways must have blundered into some fatal error in the handling of his men or in dealing with the local authorities.

Remember, please, that in the East it is the seemingly insignificant things which bring disaster to the feringhee, or foreigner.

For example, many an American or European has met unavenged death because he did not realize that he was heaping vile affront upon his Bedouin host by eating with his left hand.

Many a foreign manager of labour has lost instant and complete control over his fellaheen by deigning to wash his own shirt in the near-by river or for brushing the dirt from his own clothes.

Thereby he has proved himself a labourer, instead of a master of men.

Many a foreigner has been shot or stabbed for speaking to a native whom he thought afflicted with a fit and who was really engaged in prayer.

Many more have lost life or authority by laughing at the wrong time or by glancing--with entire absence of interest, perhaps--at some passing woman.

Yes, Kirby had been invaluable to his employers by virtue of his inborn knowledge of Syrian ways.

Yet, now, he was not enough of an Oriental to understand why his lecture on the strike system should thrill his listener.

He did not pause to realize that the idea of strikes was one which carries a true appeal to the Eastern imagination.

It has all the elements of revenge, of coercion, and of trapping, of wily give-and-take, and of simple and logical gambling uncertainty, which characterize the most popular of the Arabian Nights yarns and which have made those tales remain as Syrian classics for more than ten centuries.

"It is of an assuredly a pleasing and noble plan," applauded Najib when Kirby finished the divers ramifications of his discourse.

"And I do not misdoubt but what that cruel general betrembled himself inside of his boots when they threatened to strike.

If the stroking ones may not be lawfully attackled by the pashalik troops, indeed must the general--" "I told you there wasn't any general!"

interrupted Kirby, jarred that his luminous explanations had still left Najib more or less where it found him, so far as any lucid idea was concerned.

"And I've wasted enough time trying to ding the notion of the thing into your thick head.

If you've got those shipment items catalogued, go back to the shaft and check off the inventory.

The first load ought to be on the way to the coast before sunrise to-morrow.

Chase!"

As he picked up the duplicate sets of the list and ran over their items once more, Kirby tried to forget his own silly annoyance at his failure to make the dull little Syrian comprehend a custom that had never reached the Land of Moab.

Presently, in his absorption in his work, the American forgot the whole incident.

It was the beginning of a rush period at the mine--the busiest month in its history was just setting in.

The Alexandretta-bound shipment of the morrow was but the first of twelve big shipments scheduled for the next twenty-nine days.

The restoration of peace and the shutting out of several Central European rivals had thrown an unprecedented sheaf of rush orders on the Cabell mine.

It was such a chance as Kirby had longed for; a chance to show his rivals' customers the quality of the Cabell product and the speed and efficiency wherewith orders could and would be filled by him.

If he could but fill these new customers' orders in quicker and more satisfactory fashion than the firms were accustomed to receiving, it might well mean that the new buyers would stick to the Cabells, after the other mines should again be in operation.

It was a big chance, as Kirby had explained at some length to Najib, during the past few weeks.

At his behest, the little superintendent had used every known method to get extra work and extra speed out of the fellaheen; and, by judicious baksheesh, had even impressed to the toil several members of the haughty, Turkish guard and certain folk from the nearest hill village.

As a result, the first shipment was ready for the muleteers to carry coastward a full week ahead of schedule time.

And the contract chanced to be one for which the eager wholesalers at Alexandretta had agreed to pay a bonus for early arrival.

The men were even now busy getting a second shipment in shape for transportation by mule train to Tiberias and thence by railway to Damascus.

The work was progressing finely.

Kirby thrilled at the thought.

And he was just a little ashamed of his own recent impatience at Najib, when he remembered how the superintendent was pushing the relays of consignments along.

After all, he mused, it was no reflection on Najib's intelligence that the poor little chap could not grasp the whole involved Occidental strike system in one hasty lecture; and that his simple mind clung to the delusion that there was some fierce general involved in it.

In the Arabian Nights was there not always a scheming sultan or a baffled wazir, in every clash with the folk of the land?

Was it unnatural that Najib should have substituted for these the mythical general of whom he thought he had seen mention in the news headline?

But, soon after dusk, Kirby had reason to know that his words had not all fallen on barren soil.

At close of the working day, Najib had brought the manager the usual diurnal report from the mine.

Now, after supper, Kirby, glancing over the report again, found a gap of terse yet complete reports.

And occasionally Kirby was obliged to summon his henchman to correct or amend the day's tally sheet.

Wherefore, the list in his hand, the American strolled down from his own knoll-top tent toward Najib's quarters.

As Najib was superintendent, and thus technically an official, Kirby could make such domiciliary visits without loss of prestige, instead of summoning the Syrian to his presence by handclap of by messenger, as would have been necessary in dealing with any of the other employees.

Najib's hut lay a hundred yards beyond the hollow where the fellaheen and soldiers were encamped.

For Najib, too, had a dignity to uphold.

He might no more lodge or break bread with his underlings than might Kirby with him.

Yet, at times, preparatory to pattering up the knoll for his wonted evening chat with the American at the latter's campfire, Najib would so far unbend as to pause at the fellaheen's camp for a native discussion of many gestures and much loud talking.

So it was to-night.

Just outside the radius of the fellaheen's firelight, Kirby paused.

For he heard Najib's shrill voice uplifted in speech.

And amusedly he halted and prepared to turn back.

He had no wish to break in upon a harangue so interesting as the speaker seemed to find this one.

Najib's voice was pitched far above the tones of normal Eastern conversation;--louder and more excited even than that of a professional story-teller.

In Syria it is hard to believe that these professionals are merely telling an oft-heard Arabian Nights narrative; and not indulging in delirium or apoplexy.

Yet at a stray word of Najib's, Kirby checked involuntarily his own retreat; and paused again to look back.

There stood Najib, in the center of the firelit circle; hands and head in wild motion.

Around him, spell-bound, squatted the ring of his dark-faced and unwashed hearers.

The superintendent, being with his own people, was orating in pure Arabic--or, rather, in the colloquial vernacular which is as close to pure Arabic as one can expect to hear, except among the remoter Bedouins.

"Thus it is!"

he was declaiming.

"Even as I have sought to show you, oh, addle-witted offspring of mangy camels and one-eyed mules!

In that far country, when men are dissatisfied with their wage, they take counsel together and they say, one unto the other: 'Lo, we shall labour no more, unless our hire be greater and our toil hours less!'

Then go they to their sheikh or whomever he be who hath hired them, and they say to him: 'Oh, favoured of Allah, behold we must have such and such wage and such and such hours of labour!'

Then doth their sheikh cast ashes upon his beard and rend his garments.

For doth he not know his fate is upon him and that his breath is in his nostrils?

Yet will they not listen to his prayers; but at once they make 'strike.'

"Then doth their sheikh betake himself to the pasha with his grievance;

beseeching the pasha, with many rich gifts, that he will throw those strike-making labourers into prison and scourge their kinsmen with the kourbash.

But the pasha maketh answer, with tears: 'Lo, I am helpless!

What saith the law?

It saith that a man may make strike at will; and that his employer must pay what is demanded!'

Now, this pasha is named 'General.'

And his heart is as gall within him that he may not accept the rich gifts offered by the sheikh; and punish the labourers.

Yet the law restraineth him.

Then the sheikh, perchance, still refuseth the demands of his toilers.

And they say to him then: 'If you will not employ us and on the terms we ordain, then shall ye hire none others, for we shall overthrow those whom you set in our places.

And perchance we shall destroy your warehouses or barns or shops!'

This say they, when they know he hath greatest need of them.

Then boweth their master his head upon his breast and saith: 'Be it even as ye will, my hirelings!

For I must obey!'

And he giveth them, of his substance, whatsoever they may require.

And all are glad.

And under the new law, even in this land of ours, none may imprison or beat those who will not work.

And all may demand and receive what wage they will.

And--" And Kirby waited to hear no more.

With a groan of disgust at the orator's imbecility, he went back, up the hill, to his own tent.

There, he drew forth his rickety sea chair and placed it in front of a patch of campfire that twinkled in the open space in front of the tent door.

For, up there in the hills, the nights had an edge of chill to them; be the days ever so hot.

Stretching himself out lazily in his long chair, Kirby exhumed from a shirt pocket his disreputable brier pipe, and filled and lighted it.

The big white Syrian stars glinted down on him from a black velvet sky.

Along the nearer peaks and hollows of the Moab Mountains, the knots of prowling jackals kept up a running chorus of yapping--a discordant chant punctuated now and then by the far-away howl of a hunting wolf; or, by the choking "laugh" of a hyena in the valley below, who thus gave forth the news of some especially delicious bit of carrion discovered among the rocks.

And Kirby was reminded of Najib's quoted dictum that "laughter is for women and for hyenas."

The memory brought back to him his squat henchman's weird jumbling of the strike system.

And he smiled in reminiscent mirth.

The Syrian had been his comrade in many a vicissitude And he knew that Najib's fondness for him was as sincere as can be that of any Oriental for a foreigner, an affection based not wholly on self-interest.

Kirby enjoyed his evening powwows with superintendent beside the campfire; and the little man's amazing faculty for mangling the English tongue.

He rather missed Najib's presence to-night.

But he was not to miss it for long.

Just as he was about to knock out his pipe and go to bed, the native came pattering up the slope on excitedly rapid feet; and squatted as usual on the ground beside the American's lounging chair.

In Najib's manner there was a scarce-repressed jubilant thrill.

His beady eyes shone wildly.

Hardly had he seated himself when he broke the custom of momentary grave silence by blurting forth: "Furthermore, howadji, I am the bearer of gladly tidings which will make you to beshout yourself aloud for joyfulness and leap about and besclaim: 'Pretty fair!'

and other words of a grand rapture.

For the bird will sing gleesome dirges in your heart!"

"Well?"

queried Kirby in no especial excitement.

"I'm listening.

But if the news is really so wonderful you surely took your time in bringing it.

I've been here all evening, while you've stayed below there, trying to increase those fellaheens' stock of ignorance.

What's the idea?"

"Oh, I prythee you, do not let my awayness beget your goat, howadji!"

pleaded Najib, ever sensitive to any hint of reproof from his master.

"It was that which made the grand tidings.

If I had not of been where I have been this evening--and doing what I have done--there would not be any tidings at all.

I made the tidings myself.

Both of them.

And I made them for _you.

_ Is it that I may now tell them to you, howadji?"

"Go ahead," adjured Kirby, humouring the wistful eagerness of the man.

"What's the news you have for me?"

"It is more than just a 'news,' howadji," corrected Najib with jealous regard for shades of meaning.

"It is a tidings.

And it is this: You and my poor self and the fellaheen and even those hell-selected pashalik soldiers--we are all to be rich.

Most especially _you,_ howadji.

Wealthiness bewaits us all.

No longer shall any of us be downward and outward from povertude.

No more shall any of us toil early and belatedly.

We shall all live in easiness of hours and with much payment.

_Inshallah!

Alhandulillah!"

_ he concluded, his rising excitement for once bursting the carefully nourished bounds of English and overflowing into Arabic expletive.

Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break.

Then, with mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative.

"To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently.

"We have all stroked ourselfs!"

"You've all done--what?"

asked the puzzled Kirby.

"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also!

We would not berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan.

It is you also who are to stroke yourself.

And--" "For the love of Heaven!"

exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience.

"What are you driving at?

What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'?

Say it in Arabic.

Then perhaps I can find what you mean."

"It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing at this slur on his English.

"For there is not such a thing in the Arabic as to make strike.

We make strike.

Thus I say it we 'stroke ourselves.'

If it is the wrong way for saying it--" "Strike?"

repeated Kirby, perplexed.

"What do you mean?

Are you still thinking about what I told you to-day?

If you are going--" "I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since," was the reply.

"And it is because of my much bethoughting that I found my splenderous plan.

That is my tidings.

I bethought it all out with tremense clearness and wiseness.

Then I told those others, down yonder.

At first they were of a stupidity.

For it was so new.

But at last I made them understand.

And they rejoiced of it.

So it is all settled most sweetly.

You may not fear that they will not stand by it.

As soon as that was made sure I came to you to tell--" "Najib!"

groaned Kirby, his head awhirl.

"_Will_ you stop chewing chunks of indigestible language, and tell me what you are jabbering about?

What was it you thought over?

And what is 'all settled'?

What will--" "The strike, of an assuredly," explained Najib, as if in pity of his chief's denseness.

"To-night we make strike.

All of us.

That is one tiding.

And you, too, make strike with us.

That is the other tiding.

Making two tidings.

We make strike.

To-morrow we all sleep late.

No work is to be made.

And so it shall be, on each dear and nice and happy day, until Cabell Effendi--be his sons an hundred and his wives true!

--shall pay us the money we ask and make short our hours of toil.

Then--" Kirby sought to speak.

But his breath was gone.

He only gobbled.

Taking the wordless sound for a token of high approval, Najib hastened on, more glibly, with his program.

"On the to-morrow's morning, howadji," he said, "we enseech that you will write a sorrowsome letter to Cabell Effendi, in the Broad Street of New York; and say to him that all of us have made strike and that we shall work no more until we have from his hands a writing that our payment shall be two mejidie for every mejidie we have been capturing from his company.

Also and likewise that we shall work but half time.

And that you, howadji, are to receive even as we; save only that _your_ wage is to be enswollen to three times over than what it is now.

And say to him, howadji, that unless he does our wish in this striking we shall slay all others whom he may behire in our place and that we shall dynamitely destroy that nice mine.

Remind him, howadji--if perchancely he does not know of such things--that the law is with us.

Say, moreoverly, that there be many importanceful shipments and contracts just now.

And say he will lose all if he be so bony of head as to refuse us.

Furthermore, howadji, tell him, I prythee you, that we--" A veritable yell from Kirby broke in on the smug instructions.

The American had recovered enough of his breath to expend a lungful of it in one profane bellow.

In a flash he visualized the whole scene at the fellaheens' quarters--Najib's crazy explanation of the strike system and of the supposed immunity from punishment that would follow sabotage and other violence; the fellaheens' duller brains gradually seizing on the idea until it had become as much a part of their mucilaginous mentality as the Koran itself; and Najib's friendly desire that Kirby might share in the golden benefits of the new scheme.

Yes, the American grasped the whole thing at once; his knowledge of the East foretelling to him its boundless possibilities for mischief and for the ruin of the mine's new prosperity.

He fairly strangled with the gust of wrath and impotent amaze which gripped him.

Najib smiled up at him as might a dog that had just performed some pretty new trick, or a child who has brought to its father a gift.

But the aspect of Kirby's distorted face there in the dying firelight shocked the Syrian into a grunt of terror.

Scrambling to his feet, he sputtered quaveringly.

"Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you!

Why are you not rejoiceful?

Will it not mean much money for you; and--" "You mangy brown rat!"

shouted Kirby in fury.

"What in blazes have you done?

You know, as well as I do, that such an idea will never get out of those fellaheens' skulls, once it's really planted there.

They'll believe every word of that wall-eyed rot you've been telling them!

And they'll go on a _genuine_ strike on the strength of it.

They'll--" "Of an assuredly, howadji, they will," assented the bewildered Najib.

"I made me very assured of that.

Four times I told it all over to them, until even poor Imbarak--whose witfulness hath been beblown out from his brain by the breath of the Most High--until even Imbarak understood.

But why it should enrouse you to a lionsome raging I cannot think.

I

bethought you would be pleasured--" "Listen to me!"

ordered Kirby, fighting hard for self-control and forcing himself to speak with unnatural slowness.

"You've done more damage than if you had dynamited the whole mine and then turned a river into the shaft.

This kind of news spreads.

In a week there won't be a worker east of the Jordan who won't be a strike fan.