Here they huddled in a dirty car filled with smoke and were
whirled with frightful speed for hours through a flat and smiling
country. The noise, the smoke and the unaccustomed motion made Antonio
ill again, and when the train stopped at Lambertville, New Jersey, the
padrone had difficulty in rousing him from the animal-like stupor into
which he had fallen.
The Italians crowded together upon the platform, gazing helplessly at
one another and at the padrone, who was cursing them for a lot of stupid
fools, and bidding them get upon a flat car that stood upon a siding.
Antonio had to be pushed upon it by main force, but the journey this
time was short, and in half an hour he found himself upon an embankment
where hundreds of Italians were laboring with pick and shovel in the
broiling sun. Here he also was given a pick and told to go to work.
Toni soon became accustomed to his new surroundings. Every night he and
the rest were carried to Lambertville on flat cars and in the mornings
were brought back to the embankment. The work was no harder than that to
which he had been used, and he soon became himself again.
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