This was on Tuesday. During the rest of the week Bob worked hard. Even a
skilled man would have been kept busy by the multitude of details that
poured in on the little office. Poor Bob was far from skilled. He felt
as awkward amid all these swift and accurate activities as he had when
at sixteen it became necessary to force his overgrown frame into a
crowded drawing room. He tried very hard, as he always did with
everything. When Collins succinctly called his attention to a
discrepancy in his figurings, he smiled his slow, winning, troubled
smile, thrust the hair back from his clear eyes, and bent his lean
athlete's frame again to the labour. He soon discovered that this work
demanded speed as well as accuracy. "And I need a ten-acre lot to turn
around in," he told himself half humorously. "I'm a regular ice-wagon."
He now came to look back on his college triumphs with an exaggerated but
wholesome reaction. His athletic prowess had given him great prominence
in college circles. Girls had been flattered at his attention; his
classmates had deferred to his skill and experience; his juniors had, in
the manner of college boys, looked up to him as to a demi-god. Then for
the few months of the football season the newspapers had made of him a
national character. His picture appeared at least once a week; his
opinions were recorded; his physical measurements carefully detailed.
When he appeared on the streets and in hotel lobbies, people were apt to
recognize him and whisper furtively to one another. Bob was naturally
the most modest youth in the world, and he hated a "fuss" after the
delightfully normal fashion of normal boys, but all this could not fail
to have its subtle effect. He went out into the world without conceit,
but confident of his ability to take his place with the best of them.
His first experience showed him wholly second in natural qualifications,
in ability to learn, and in training to men subordinate in the business
world.
"I'm just plain dub," he told himself. "I thought myself some pumpkins
and got all swelled up inside because good' food and leisure and
heredity gave me a husky build! Football! What good does that do me
here? Four out of five of these rivermen are huskier than I am. Me a
business man! Why I can't seem even to learn the first principles of the
first job of the whole lot! I've _got_ to!" he admonished; himself
grimly. "I _hate_ a fellow who doesn't make good!"' and with a very
determined set to his handsome chin he hurled the whole force of his
young energies at those elusive figures that somehow _would_ lie.
The week slipped by in this struggle. It was much worse than in the
Chicago office. There Bob was allowed all the time he thought he needed.
Here one task followed close on the heels of another, without chance for
a breathing space or room to take bearings. Bob had to do the best he
could, commit the result to a merciful providence, and seize the next
job by the throat.
One morning he awoke with a jump to find it was seven o'clock. He had
heard neither whistle, and must have overslept! Hastily he leaped into
his clothes, and rushed out into the dining room. There he found the
chore-boy leisurely feeding a just-lighted kitchen fire. To Bob's
exclamation of astonishment he looked up.
"Sunday," he grinned; "breakfus' at eight."
The week had gone without Bob's having realized the fact.
Mrs. Hallowell came in a moment later, smiling at the winning, handsome
young man in her fat and good-humoured manner. Bob was seized with an
inspiration.
"Mrs. Hallowell," he said persuasively, "just let me rummage around for
five minutes, will you?"
"You that hungry?" she chuckled. "Law! I'll have breakfast in an hour."
"It isn't that," said Bob; "but I want to get some air to-day. I'm not
used to being in an office. I want to steal a hunk of bread, and a few
of your good doughnuts and a slice of cheese for breakfast and lunch."
"A cup of hot coffee would do you more good," objected Mrs. Hallowell.
"Please," begged Bob, "and I won't disturb a thing."
"Oh, land! Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Hallowell, "there's
teamsters and such in here all times of the day and night. Help
yourself."
Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman's canvas lunch bag, was
walking rapidly up the River Trail. He did not know whither he was
bound; but here at last was a travelled way. It was a brilliant blue and
gold morning, the air crisp, the sun warm. The trail led him first
across a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded rises,
green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently melted snow. Then
came a fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable
tangle--oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack--and through it all an
abattis of old slashing--with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of
tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along one of
these strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but refused to move
faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike tail.
The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses. The poles were
old and slippery, and none too large. Bob had to walk circumspectly to
stay on them at all. Shortly, however, he stepped off into the higher
country of the hardwoods. Here the spring had passed, scattering her
fresh green. The tops of the trees were already in half-leaf; the lower
branches just budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from
above. Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered the
ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless carpet. Through it
pushed the early blossoms of the hepatica. Grackles whistled clearly.
Distant redwings gave their celebrated imitation of a great multitude.
Bluebirds warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers
searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional remarks. The sun
slanted through the forest.
Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received these things
gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of physical joy
and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than with an analysis of its
components. At one point, however, he paused. The hardwoods had risen
over a low hill. Now they opened to show a framed picture of the river,
distant and below. In contrast to the modulated browns of the
tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off
hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue steel.
Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses.
Again, the river was clear. While Bob watched, a man floated into view.
He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log so small that the
water lapped over its top. From this distance Bob could but just make it
out. The man leaned carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he
floated, graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to
the mill.
Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.
"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to himself.
"They're always guying the fellows that tip over their cranky little
shells."
He stopped short.
"I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn to do it. I
sure _am_ a dub!"
He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The brightness of the day
had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change had taken place. Over the sun
banked clouds had drawn. With the disappearance of the sunlight a
little breeze, before but a pleasant and wandering companion to the
birds, became cold and draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy; and
as for the birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew plaintive as
though with the portent of late autumn.
This sudden transformation, usual enough with every passing cloud in the
childhood of the spring, reacted still further on Bob's spirits. He
trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of water caught his attention
to the left. He deserted the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his
way through a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and
puddles, and found himself on the shores of a round lake.
It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by tall, dead brown
grasses. These were in turn fringed by melancholy tamaracks. The water
was dark slate colour, and ruffled angrily by the breeze which here in
the open developed some slight strength. It reminded Bob of a
"bottomless" lake pointed out many years before to his childish
credulity. A lonesome hell diver flipped down out of sight as Bob
appeared.
The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his tread. A stub
attracted him. He perched on the end of it, his feet suspended above the
wet, and abandoned himself to reflection. The lonesome diver reappeared.
The breeze rustled the dead grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed
to be shivering in the cold.
Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple with the
world outside. To his direct American mind the problem was simplicity in
the extreme. An idler is a contemptible being. A rich idler is almost
beneath contempt. A man's life lies in activity. Activity, outside the
artistic and professional, means the world of business. All teaching at
home and through the homiletic magazines, fashionable at that period,
pointed out but one road to success in this world--the beginning at the
bottom, as Bob was doing; close application; accuracy; frugality;
honesty; fair dealing. The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and
imagination; but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some
people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they
were taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this world,
something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in this baffling
and unsuspected incapacity he found a great humility of spirit? In his
fashion he began to remember trifling significances which at the time
had meant little to him. Thus, a girl had once told him, half seriously:
"Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice, big,
blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."
He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten. Now he caught at one
word of it. That might explain it; he was just plain stupid! And stupid
boys either played polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts--or occupied
ornamental--too ornamental--desks for an hour or so a day. Bob
remembered how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins
under the delighted belief that he was driving his father's spirited
pair.
"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said aloud in disgust.
At the sound of his voice the diver disappeared. Bob laughed and felt a
trifle better.
He reviewed himself dispassionately. He could not but admit that he had
tried hard enough, and that he had courage. It was just a case of
limitation. Bob, for the first time, bumped against the stone wall that
hems us in on all sides--save toward the sky.
He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement that somehow
found its prototype in the mournful little lake with its leaden water,
its cold breeze, its whispering, dried marsh grasses, its funereal
tamaracks, and its lonesome diver.
X
But Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped down to the office,
animated by a new courage. Even stupid boys learn, he remembered. It
takes longer, of course, and requires more application. But he was
strong and determined. He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took four years to
make the team--Fatty, who couldn't get a signal through his head until
about time for the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable
seconds after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's"
chopping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did make the team
in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him a very good centre, not
brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.
Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It was a heavy
day's work. The mill was just hitting its stride, the tall ships were
being laden and sent away to the four winds, buyers the country over
were finishing their contracts. Collins, his coat off, his sleeve
protectors strapped closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense
white heat. He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive
interruption. His manner to those who entered the office was civil but
curt. Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with life.
About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation of the tally
board.
"Orde!" said he sharply.
Bob disentangled himself from his chair.
"Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and nervous finger at
three of the tags he held in his hand.
"There's three errors." He held out for inspection the original
sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.
Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement. He had checked the
tags over twice, and both times the error had escaped his notice. His
mind, self-hypnotized, had passed them over in the same old fashion. Yet
he had taken especial pains with that list.
"I happened, just happened, to check these back myself," Collins was
saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made that contract with Robinson
on the basis of what these tags show. We haven't got that much seasoned
uppers, nor anything like it. If you've made many more breaks like this,
if we'd contracted with Robinson for what we haven't got or couldn't
get, we'd be in a nice mess--and so would Robinson!"
"I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."
"Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big enough for the job. I
can't get behind, checking over your work. This office is too rushed as
it is. Can't fool with blundering stupidity."
Bob flushed at the word.
"I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins. "You may be all
right, for all I know, but I haven't got time to find out."
He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone receiver.
"Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I want him to help me.
I don't give a damn for the scaling. You'll have to get along somehow.
The five of you ought to hold that down. Send up Gould, anyhow." He
slammed up the receiver, muttering something about incompetence. Bob for
a moment had a strong impulse to retort, but his anger died. He saw that
Collins was not for the moment thinking of him at all as a human being,
as a personality--only as a piece of this great, swiftly moving machine,
that would not run smoothly. The fact that he had come under Fox's
convoy evidently meant nothing to the little bookkeeper, at least for
the moment. Collins was entirely accustomed to hiring and discharging
men. When transplanted to the frontier industries, even such automatic
jobs as bookkeeping take on new duties and responsibilities.
Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his hat.
"That will be all, then?" he asked.
Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had fallen.
"Oh--yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't take chances on these
things being right."
"Of course not," said Bob steadily.
"You just need more training," went on Collins with some vague idea of
being kind to this helpless, attractive young fellow. "I learned under
Harry Thorpe that results is all a man looks at in this business."
"I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he was lost in the
rapid computations and calculations that filled his hours.