A COMPARISON
She read the letter from the Bogata Company and again glanced through
the order. It was a large one. It called for certain supplies she knew
the factory did not have on hand. She realized that the goods ordered
were all of a special pattern and would be practically useless either
to the Hapwood-Diller Company or to any other concern save the Bogata
people if the latter should be unable to take the goods.
Yet this letter assumed that the order would be accepted and the goods
turned out without any hesitancy on the part of the manufacturers, and
upon the usual terms. The Bogata Company ignored the possibility of the
Hapwood-Diller Company having heard of its financial embarrassments.
The letter and accompanying order were sent, Ethel was sure, in a
spirit of bravado. To use a common phrase, the Bogata people were
“trying to put something over.”
If the scheme went through, all well and good. The Hapwood-Diller
Company might be made the means of saving the Bogata people from actual
and complete collapse. Ethel knew, however, that her employing concern
was in no shape to assume such a burden. Yet if the firm ordering the
goods finally pulled out of its quagmire of financial difficulty, its
friendship rather than its enmity was to be desired.
Her mind centered upon the matter, the logical circumstances connected
with it marching in slow procession through her brain. She was
acquainted with every important order now on the factory’s books.
Even Jim Mayberry had no better grasp of the details of the factory’s
affairs than Ethel Clayton.
Suddenly she got up and went to a file cabinet wherein was listed the
particulars of all orders as yet unfinished. She began to figure with
pencil and pad upon the already promised output of the factory and its
possible output when the force was driven at top speed.
Her calculations led her to certain unmistakable conclusions. She went
back to her desk, calmly wrote the letter, typed it, and took the
letter and her figures in to Barton. He was about to close his desk for
the day.
“Do you think you have succeeded?” he asked, smiling and taking the
typed sheet from her hand. But in a moment he glanced up quickly and
with a slight frown. “What is this you say here, Miss Clayton? We
cannot accept the order because of work already contracted for? Why,
that----”
“Is the plain truth, Mr. Barton!” she exclaimed, putting forward
her array of figures. “The factory is now working maximum hours and
with a full crew in all departments. I have heard you say yourself
that either extra help or overtime cuts into the profits rather than
increases them. To fulfill contracts we have accepted, if you took on
this of the Bogata Company, we would have to run the machines longer
hours and pay extra wages. The Bogata people offer no price for their
work to cover such an increased cost. My letter embodies the actual
truth without going into particulars; but my statements can be easily
proved if they are inclined to be critical.”
Barton’s face had been gradually lighting up, and it was with real
admiration that he said at her conclusion:
“Fine! I’ll sign that and you can put it in the mail in the morning.
Has John gone to the post-office?”
“Yes, Mr. Barton.”
“The morning will do,” said the general manager, affixing his signature
to the letter. “You certainly are a capable assistant.”
She flushed at his words as she turned from his desk; and the color
remained in her countenance for some time. But it was not a flush of
pleasure. Indeed, the expression of her countenance was not at all
happy as she closed her desk and left the main office a little later.
At the street exit she hesitated; then she went back through the drying
and cutting rooms and had John Murphy let her out of the side gate
which would not be opened for an hour yet for the exit of the factory
hands. She had caught a glimpse of Jim Mayberry sitting in his car out
in front.
She did not like the superintendent, and for more reasons than one. In
the first place, he was one of those men who seem to have no respect at
all for girls who worked. Ethel was not sure how well he was received
by Mailsburg people whose first thoughts were of society. But Mayberry
had a bad reputation among many respectable people. Careful mothers and
fathers frowned on his attentions to their daughters.
As she turned into Burnaby Street on her way home she saw Frank Barton
ahead of her. His military stride was likewise taking him briskly
homeward. The girl might have hastened her own steps and joined him;
but she hesitated, for that was not like Ethel Clayton. Her association
with the handsome general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing
Company had been entirely on a business footing. The fact that they
attended the same church had scarcely brought them together outside the
offices of the concern.
Barton was well liked by most Mailsburg people. Especially had he been
commended for his work of the last two years--since he had been raised
to the pinnacle of general manager of the biggest manufacturing concern
in the town.
Yet there are always carping critics in every place and in any event.
As mark the criticism hurled at the young manager from the sidewalk
that afternoon as the boys were marching from the National Guard Armory
to the railway station.
Ethel knew that the suggestion that Barton was a slacker must have hurt
the general manager cruelly. She, perhaps as well as anybody else, knew
why Frank Barton, trained in the Guard, and a military man from choice,
was not marching away with this first quota at the call to arms.
If many Mailsburg people looked at Barton in the way suggested by the
careless criticism which had lately reached his ears, Ethel Clayton
knew that the manager’s existence was going to be a hard one. She
did not want to see him go to the war. Indeed, she was by no means
inspired as yet with any degree of patriotism. The war was too remote
and our reason for entering into it too theoretical. The blood of but
few of our men had been shed, and those were, as a rule, such as were
connected with the more spectacular portions of the service, nor had
our women and children been butchered by the Hun.
In her heart Ethel longed to say something to Frank Barton to ease the
wound which he had suffered that afternoon. Should she overtake him and
speak? And then, even while she hesitated, the humming of a smoothly
running automobile sounded behind her.
She turned to look, startled, fearing it was Jim Mayberry. But a girl
was driving the car that swerved in toward the curb, stopping just
beside the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company.
“Oh, Mr. Barton!”
The girl in the car was handsome, but with a high color and a shrill
voice. She had a great deal of light hair, which was carefully dressed;
she wore an expensive motor hat and veil; her cerise motor coat was of
heavy silk. If the frame ever sets off the picture to advantage, then
Helen Fuller was a work of art!
“It’s just too, too lovely that I should catch you this way, Mr.
Barton,” she cried, as Ethel approached nearer. “You can’t say you are
busy and I am _sure_ it is not yet dinner time. I _must_ see you about
our garden festival. You know, for the Red Cross. We _all_ must do our
bit _these_ days. Do hop in and advise with poor me.”
Ethel came within range of Barton’s vision. He gave her as usual one
of his warm, kind smiles, lifting his hat. Helen Fuller stared at
the passing girl, who plainly heard her scornful query: “One of your
factory hands, Mr. Barton?”
“One of our office force--and one of the most valuable on the pay roll
of the Hapwood-Diller Company, Miss Fuller, I assure you.”
But the cheerful reply did not take the barb out of the wound Helen
Fuller’s question had made. A little farther along the street, however,
Ethel shook herself and murmured:
“What a perfect fool I am! It is ridiculous to mind anything that Helen
Fuller says. She remembers very well going to school with me and that
I was always at or near the head of the class and she at the foot.
That was before Grandon Fuller had that stock in the company left him
by Uncle Diller. Dear me! how the possession of money changes some
people.” Then, and cheerfully, she exclaimed aloud: “Ah! here’s Benway.”
A young man with a perfectly splendid head of brown curly hair,
flawless complexion, level brows, fine, open gray eyes set well apart,
a straight nose and lips not full enough to be sensuous but not too
thin, the whole countenance softened by a cleft chin and humorous lines
at the corners of his mouth--that was Benway Chase.
He came swinging along the walk and seized Ethel companionably by her
right arm, although that placed him upon the inner side of the path.
She met his look with one of pleasure, and they went on together like
the good comrades they were.
People whom they knew and met greeted them with a matter-of-course air.
To see Ethel Clayton and Ben Chase together was nothing astonishing for
Mailsburg folk. They had been neighbors and chums since they were in
rompers.
Her brightness of countenance faded when her old chum left her at the
gate of the Clayton cottage. She cast a commiserating glance after him
as he went on, whistling. It was not until then that the withered,
useless right arm of the young man became really noticeable.
She called to her mother that she was home from work and went up to her
room to freshen her dress for dinner. Benway slipped out of her mind as
she did this--and most other things, save one. That was a comparison
she had begun to make on Burnaby Street between herself and Helen
Fuller.
Was she jealous of the other girl? Why should she be? She was sure she
would not care to change places with Miss Fuller, money and all, for
any consideration. Yet--
She saw Frank Barton getting into the Fuller car, which Helen drove
so conspicuously about the streets of Mailsburg. Ethel Clayton could
not do that! Ethel must work, and dress plainly six days in the week
because of her position. Miss Fuller was always dressed as gaily
as a bird of paradise. And one must confess that men’s eyes were
attracted--sometimes blinded--by gay clothes. Frank Barton could not be
blamed for being a man. No. She had no complaint to make against Frank
Barton. He was always polite and kind and appreciative.
“And he’d be all of that to a stray kitten that chanced to cross his
path!” she ejaculated in sudden disgust. “Helen Fuller has something to
offer him that I haven’t.”