On the twenty-second of November Bannon received this telegram:--
MR. CHARLES BANNON, care of MacBride & Company, South Chicago:
We send to-day complete drawings for marine tower which you will
build in the middle of spouting house. Harahan Company are building
the Leg.
MACBRIDE & CO.
Bannon read it carefully, folded it, opened it and read it again, then
tossed it on the desk.
"We're off now, for sure," he said to Miss Vogel. "I've known that was
coming sure as Christmas."
Hilda picked it up.
"Is there an answer, Mr. Bannon?"
"No, just file it. Do you make it out?"
She read it and shook her head. Bannon ignored her cool manner.
"It means that your friends on MacBride & Company's Calumet house are
going to have the time of their lives for the next few weeks. I'm going
to carry compressed food in my pockets, and when meal time comes around,
just take a capsule."
"I think I know," she said slowly; "a marine leg is the thing that takes
grain up out of ships."
"That's right. You'd better move up head."
"And we've been building a spouting house instead to load it into
ships."
"We'll have to build both now. You see, it's getting around to the time
when the Pages'll be having a fit every day until the machinery's
running, and every bin is full. And every time they have a fit, the
people up at the office'll have another, and they'll pass it on to us."
"But why do they want the marine leg?" she asked, "any more now than
they did at first?"
"They've got to get the wheat down by boat instead of rail, that's all.
Or likely it'll be coming both ways. There's no telling now what's
behind it. Both sides have got big men fighting. You've seen it in the
papers, haven't you?"
She nodded.
"Of course, what the papers say isn't all true, but it's lively doings
all right."
The next morning's mail brought the drawings and instructions; and with
them came a letter from Brown to Bannon. "I suppose there's not much
good in telling you to hurry," it ran; "but if there is another minute a
day you can crowd in, I guess you know what to do with it. Page told me
to-day that this elevator will make or break them. Mr. MacBride says
that you can have all January for a vacation if you get it through. We
owe you two weeks off, anyhow, that you didn't take last summer. We're
running down that C. & S. C. business, though I don't believe, myself,
that they'll give you any more trouble."
Bannon read it to Hilda, saying as he laid it down:--
"That's something like. I don't know where'll I go, though. Winter ain't
exactly the time for a vacation, unless you go shooting, and I'm no hand
for that."
"Couldn't you put it off till summer?" she asked, smiling a little.
"Not much. You don't know those people. By the time summer'd come
around, they'd have forgotten I ever worked here. I'd strike for a month
and Brown would grin and say: 'That's all right, Bannon, you deserve it
if anybody does. It'll take a week or so to get your pass arranged, and
you might just run out to San Francisco and see if things are going the
way they ought to,' And then the first thing I knew I'd be working three
shifts somewhere over in China, and Brown would be writing me I was
putting in too much time at my meals. No, if MacBride & Company offer
you a holiday, the best thing you can do is to grab it, and run, and saw
off the telegraph poles behind you. And you couldn't be sure of yourself
then."
He turned the letter over in his hand.
"I might go up on the St. Lawrence," he went on. "That's the only place
for spending the winter that ever struck me."
"Isn't it pretty cold?"
"It ain't so bad. I was up there last winter. We put up at a house at
Coteau, you know. When I got there the foundation wasn't even begun, and
we had a bad time getting laborers. I put in the first day sitting on
the ice sawing off spiles."
Hilda laughed.
"I shouldn't think you'd care much about going back."
"Were you ever there?" he asked.
"No, I've never been anywhere but home and here, in Chicago."
"Where is your home?"
"It was up in Michigan. That's where Max learned the lumber business.
But he and I have been here for nearly two years."
"Well," said Bannon, "some folks may think it's cold up there, but there
ain't anywhere else to touch it. It's high ground, you know--nothing
like this"--he swept his arm about to indicate the flats outside--"and
the scenery beats anything this side of the Rockies. It ain't that
there's mountains there, you understand, but it's all big and open, and
they've got forests there that would make your Michigan pine woods look
like weeds on a sandhill. And the river's great. You haven't seen
anything really fine till you've seen the rapids in winter. The people
there have a good time too. They know how to enjoy life--it isn't all
grime and sweat and making money."
"Well," said Hilda, looking down at her pencil and drawing aimless
designs as she talked, "I suppose it is a good place to go. I've seen
the pictures, of course, in the time-tables; and one of the railroad
offices on Clark Street used to have some big photographs of the St.
Lawrence in the window. I looked at them sometimes, but I never thought
of really seeing anything like that. I've had some pretty good times on
the lake and over at St. Joe. Max used to take me over to Berrien
Springs last summer, when he could get off. My aunt lives there."
Bannon was buttoning his coat, and looking at her. He felt the different
tone that had got into their talk. It had been impersonal a few minutes
before.
"Oh, St. Joe isn't bad," he was saying; "it's quiet and restful and all
that, but it's not the same sort of thing at all. You go over there and
ride up the river on the May Graham, and it makes you feel lazy and
comfortable, but it doesn't stir you up inside like the St. Lawrence
does."
She looked up. Her eyes were sparkling as they had sparkled that
afternoon on the elevator when she first looked out into the sunset.
"Yes," she replied. "I think I know what you mean. But I never really
felt that way; I've only thought about it."
Bannon turned half away, as if to go.
"You'll have to go down there, that's all," he said abruptly. He looked
back at her over his shoulder, and added, "That's all there is about
it."
Her eyes were half startled, half mischievous, for his voice had been
still less impersonal than before. Then she turned back to her work, her
face sober, but an amused twinkle lingering in her eyes.
"I should like to go," she said, her pencil poised at the top of a long
column. "Max would like it, too."
After supper that evening Max returned early from a visit to the injured
man, and told Hilda of a new trouble.
"Do you know that little delegate that's been hanging around?" he asked.
"Grady," she said, and nodded.
"Yes, he's been working the man. I never saw such a change in my life.
He just sat up there in bed and swore at me, and said I needn't think I
could buy him off with this stuff"--he looked down and Hilda saw that
the bowl in his hand was not empty--"and raised a row generally."
"Why?" she asked.
"Give it up. From what he said, I'm sure Grady's behind it."
"Did he give his name?"
"No, but he did a lot of talking about justice to the down-trodden and
the power of the unions, and that kind of stuff. I couldn't understand
all he said--he's got a funny lingo, you know; I guess it's Polack--but
I got enough to know what he meant, and more, too."
"Can he do anything?"
"I don't think so. If we get after him, it'll just set him worse'n pig's
bristles. A man like that'll lose his head over nothing. He may be all
right in the morning."
But Hilda, after Max had given her the whole conversation as nearly as
he could remember it, thought differently. She did not speak her mind
out to Max, because she was not yet certain what was the best course to
take. The man could easily make trouble, she saw that. But if Max were
to lay the matter before Bannon, he would be likely to glide over some
of the details that she had got only by close questioning. And a blunder
in handling it might be fatal to the elevator, so far as getting it done
in December was concerned. Perhaps she took it too seriously; for she
was beginning, in spite of herself, to give a great deal of thought to
the work and to Bannon. At any rate, she lay awake later than usual that
night, going over the problem, and she brought it up, the next morning,
the first time that Bannon came into the office after Max had gone out.
"Mr. Bannon," she said, when he had finished dictating a letter to the
office, "I want to tell you about that man that was hurt."
Bannon tried not to smile at the nervous, almost breathless way in which
she opened the conversation. He saw that, whatever it was, it seemed to
her very important, and he settled comfortably on the table, leaning
back against the wall with his legs stretched out before him. She had
turned on her stool.
"You mean the hoist man?" he asked.
She nodded. "Max goes over to see him sometimes. We've been trying to
help make him comfortable----"
"Oh," said Bannon; "it's you that's been sending those things around to
him."
She looked at him with surprise.
"Why, how did you know?"
"I heard about it."
Hilda hesitated. She did not know exactly how to begin. It occurred to
her that perhaps Bannon was smiling at her eager manner.
"Max was there last night and he said the man had changed all around.
He's been friendly, you know, and grateful"--she had forgotten herself
again, in thinking of her talk with Max--"and he's said all the time
that he wasn't going to make trouble----" She paused.
"Yes, I know something about that," said Bannon. "The lawyers always get
after a man that's hurt, you know."
"But last night he had changed all around. He said he was going to have
you arrested. He thinks Max has been trying to buy him off with the
things we've sent him."
Bannon whistled.
"So our Mr. Grady's got his hands on him!"
"That's what Max and I thought, but he didn't give any names. He
wouldn't take the jelly."
"I'm glad you told me," said Bannon, swinging his legs around and
sitting up. "It's just as well to know about these things. Grady's made
him think he can make a good haul by going after me, poor fool--he isn't
the man that'll get it."
"Can he really stop the work?" Hilda asked anxiously.
"Not likely. He'll probably try to make out a case of criminal
carelessness against me, and get me jerked up. He ought to have more
sense, though. I know how many sticks were on that hoist when it broke.
I'll drop around there to-night after dinner and have a talk with him.
I'd like to find Grady there--but that's too good to expect."
Hilda had stepped down from the stool, and was looking out through the
half-cleaned window at a long train of freight cars that was clanking in
on the Belt Line.
"That's what I wanted to see you about most," she said slowly. "Max says
he's been warned that you'll come around and try to buy him off, and it
won't go, because he can make more by standing out."
"Well," said Bannon, easily, amused at her unconscious drop into Max's
language, "there's usually a way of getting after these fellows. We'll
do anything within reason, but we won't be robbed. I'll throw Mr. Grady
into the river first, and hang him up on the hoist to dry."
"But if he really means to stand out," she said, "wouldn't it hurt us
for you to go around there?"
"Why?" He was openly smiling now. Then, of a sudden, he looked at her
with a shrewd, close gaze, and repeated, "Why?"
"Maybe I don't understand it." she said nervously. "Max doesn't think I
see things very clearly. But I thought perhaps you would be willing for
me to see him this evening. I could go with Max, and----"
She faltered, when she saw how closely he was watching her, but he
nodded, and said, "Go on."
"Why, I don't know that I could do much, but--no"--she tossed her head
back and looked at him--"I won't say that. If you'll let me go, I'll fix
it. I know I can."
Bannon was thinking partly of her--of her slight, graceful figure that
leaned against the window frame, and of her eyes, usually quiet, but now
snapping with determination--and partly of certain other jobs that had
been imperiled by the efforts of injured workingmen to get heavy
damages. One of the things his experience in railroad and engineering
work had taught him was that men will take every opportunity to bleed a
corporation. No matter how slight the accident, or how temporary in its
effects, the stupidest workman has it in his power to make trouble. It
was frankly not a matter of sentiment to Bannon. He would do all that he
could, would gladly make the man's sickness actually profit him, so far
as money would go; but he did not see justice in the great sums which
the average jury will grant. As he sat there, he recognized what Hilda
had seen at a flash, that this was a case for delicate handling.
She was looking at him, tremendously in earnest, yet all the while
wondering at her own boldness. He slowly nodded.
"You're right," he said. "You're the one to do the talking. I won't ask
you what you're going to say. I guess you understand it as well as
anybody."
"I don't know yet, myself," she answered. "It isn't that, it isn't that
there's something particular to say, but he's a poor man, and they've
been telling him that the company is cheating him and stealing from
him--I wouldn't like it myself, if I were in his place and didn't know
any more than he does. And maybe I can show him that we'll be a good
deal fairer to him before we get through than Mr. Grady will."
"Yes," said Bannon, "I think you can. And if you can keep this out of
the courts I'll write Brown that there's a young lady down here that's
come nearer to earning a big salary than I ever did to deserving a silk
hat."
"Oh," she said, the earnest expression skipping abruptly out of her
eyes; "did your hat come?"
"Not a sign of it. I'd clean forgotten. I'll give Brown one more
warning--a long 'collect' telegram, about forty words--and then if he
doesn't toe up, I'll get one and send him the bill.
"There was a man that looked some like Grady worked for me on the
Galveston house. He was a carpenter, and thought he stood for the whole
Federation of Labor. He got gay one day. I warned him once, and then I
threw him off the distributing floor."
Hilda thought he was joking until she looked up and saw his face.
"Didn't it--didn't it kill him?" she asked.
"I don't remember exactly. I think there were some shavings there." He
stood looking at her for a moment. "Do you know," he said, "if Grady
comes up on the job again, I believe I'll tell him that story? I wonder
if he'd know what I meant."
The spouting house, or "river house," was a long, narrow structure, one
hundred feet by thirty-six, built on piles at the edge of the wharf. It
would form, with the connecting belt gallery that was to reach out over
the tracks, a T-shaped addition to the elevator. The river house was no
higher than was necessary for the spouts that would drop the grain
through the hatchways of the big lake steamers, twenty thousand bushels
an hour--it reached between sixty and seventy feet above the water. The
marine tower that was to be built, twenty-four feet square, up through
the centre of the house, would be more than twice as high. A careful
examination convinced Bannon that the pile foundations would prove
strong enough to support this heavier structure, and that the only
changes necessary would be in the frame of the spouting house. On the
same day that the plans arrived, work on the tower commenced.
Peterson had about got to the point where startling developments no
longer alarmed him. He had seen the telegram the day before, but his
first information that a marine tower was actually under way came when
Bannon called off a group of laborers late in the afternoon to rig the
"trolley" for carrying timber across the track.
"What are you going to do, Charlie?" he called. "Got to slide them
timbers back again?"
"Some of 'em," Bannon replied.
"Don't you think we could carry 'em over?" said Peterson. "If we was
quiet about it, they needn't be any trouble?"
Bannon shook his head.
"We're not taking any more chances on this railroad. We haven't time."
Once more the heavy timbers went swinging through the air, high over the
tracks, but this time back to the wharf. Before long the section boss of
the C. & S. C. appeared, and though he soon went away, one of his men
remained, lounging about the tracks, keeping a close eye on the sagging
ropes and the timbers. Bannon, when he met Peterson a few minutes later,
pointed out the man.
"What'd I tell you, Pete? They're watching us like cats. If you want to
know what the C. & S. C. think about us, you just drop one timber and
you'll find out."
But nothing dropped, and when Peterson, who had been on hand all the
latter part of the afternoon, took hold, at seven o'clock, the first
timbers of the tower had been set in place, somewhere down inside the
rough shed of a spouting house, and more would go in during the night,
and during other days and nights, until the narrow framework should go
reaching high into the air. Another thing was recognized by the men at
work on that night shift, even by the laborers who carried timbers, and
grunted and swore in strange tongues; this was that the night shift men
had suddenly begun to feel a most restless energy crowding them on, and
they worked nearly as well as Bannon's day shifts. For Peterson's
spirits had risen with a leap, once the misunderstanding that had been
weighing on him had been removed, and now he was working as he had never
worked before. The directions he gave showed that his head was clearer;
and there was confidence in his manner.
Hilda was so serious all day after her talk with Bannon that once, in
the afternoon, when he came into the office for a glance at the new pile
of blue prints, he smiled, and asked if she were laying out a campaign.
It was the first work of the kind that she had ever undertaken, and she
was a little worried over the need for tact and delicacy. After she had
closed her desk at supper time, she saw Bannon come into the circle of
the electric light in front of the office, and, asking Max to wait, she
went to meet him.
"Well," he said, "are you loaded up to fight the 'power of the union'?"
She smiled, and then said, with a trace of nervousness:--
"I don't believe I'm quite so sure about it as I was this morning."
"It won't bother you much. When you've made him see that we're square
and Grady isn't, you've done the whole business. We won't pay fancy
damages, that's all."
"Yes," she said, "I think I know. What I wanted to see you about
was--was--Max and I are going over right after supper, and----"
She stopped abruptly; and Bannon, looking down at her, saw a look of
embarrassment come into her face; and then she blushed, and lowering her
eyes, fumbled with her glove. Bannon was a little puzzled. His eyes
rested on her for a moment, and then, without understanding why, he
suddenly knew that she had meant to ask him to see her after the visit,
and that the new personal something in their acquaintance had flashed a
warning. He spoke quickly, as if he were the first to think of it.
"If you don't mind, I'll come around to-night and hear the report of the
committee of adjusters. That's you, you know. Something might come up
that I ought to know right away."
"Yes," she replied rapidly, without looking up, "perhaps that would be
the best thing to do."
He walked along with her toward the office, where Max was waiting, but
she did not say anything, and he turned in with: "I won't say
good-night, then. Good luck to you."
It was soon after eight that Bannon went to the boarding-house where
Hilda and Max lived, and sat down to wait in the parlor. When a quarter
of an hour had gone, and they had not returned, he buttoned up his coat
and went out, walking slowly along the uneven sidewalk toward the river.
The night was clear, and he could see, across the flats and over the
tracks, where tiny signal lanterns were waving and circling, and freight
trains were bumping and rumbling, the glow of the arc lamps on the
elevator, and its square outline against the sky. Now and then, when the
noise of the switching trains let down, he could hear the hoisting
engines. Once he stopped and looked eastward at the clouds of
illuminated smoke above the factories and at the red blast of the
rolling mill. He went nearly to the river and had to turn back and walk
slowly. Finally he heard Max's laugh, and then he saw them coming down a
side street.
"Well," he said, "you don't sound like bad news."
"I don't believe we are very bad," replied Hilda.
"Should say not," put in Max. "It's finer'n silk."
Hilda said, "Max," in a low voice, but he went on:--
"The best thing, Mr. Bannon, was when I told him it was Hilda that had
been sending things around. He thought it was you, you see, and Grady'd
told him it was all a part of the game to bamboozle him out of the money
that was rightfully his. It's funny to hear him sling that Grady talk
around. I don't think he more'n half knows what it means. I'd promised
not to tell, you know, but I just saw there wasn't no use trying to make
him understand things without talking pretty plain. There ain't a thing
he wouldn't do for Hilda now----"
"Max," said Hilda again, "please don't."
When they reached the house, Max at once started in. Hilda hesitated,
and then said:--
"I'll come in a minute, Max."
"Oh," he replied, "all right" But he waited a moment longer, evidently
puzzled.
"Well," said Bannon, "was it so hard?"
"No--not hard exactly. I didn't know he was so poor. Somehow you don't
think about it that way when you see them working. I don't know that I
ever thought about it at all before."
"You think he won't give us any trouble?"
"I'm sure he won't. I--I had to promise I'd go again pretty soon."
"Maybe you'll let me go along."
"Why--why, yes, of course."
She had been hesitating, looking down and picking at the splinters on
the gate post. Neither was Bannon quick to speak. He did not want to
question her about the visit, for he saw that it was hard for her to
talk about it. Finally she straightened up and looked at him.
"I want to tell you," she said, "I haven't understood exactly until
to-night--what they said about the accident and the way you've talked
about it--well, some people think you don't think very much about the
men, and that if anybody's hurt, or anything happens, you don't care as
long as the work goes on." She was looking straight at him. "I thought
so, too. And to-night I found out some things you've been doing for
him--how you've been giving him tobacco, and the things he likes best
that I'd never have thought of, and I knew it was you that did it, and
not the Company--and I--I beg your pardon."
Bannon did not know what to reply. They stood for a moment without
speaking, and then she smiled, and said "Good night," and ran up the
steps without looking around.