THE BURDEN
The game of “freeze out” fathered by the heaviest stockholder in
the Hapwood-Diller Company betrayed by Macon Hammerly’s confident
statements was but an incident of that stormy meeting of the board. The
latter was thoroughly reorganized before the end of the session. And
that spelled utter defeat for Mr. Fuller’s plans.
He held some of his friends on the board; but Hammerly was a shrewd
politician. He voted more proxies than Fuller could assemble. The
latter found himself ousted from the chairmanship; the grain merchant
was voted into the vacant place by a satisfactory majority. The smoke
of battle cleared away, leaving Grandon Fuller slumped down in his
chair with a sour face and Jim Mayberry looking glum and at the same
time half-frightened and half-dazed.
“Send for Ethel Clayton,” ordered the new chairman. “We want
stenographic notes of what goes on here. If any of our stockholders
question what we do we must be able to spread before them an exact
report of our actions. Under the old régime this was impossible. There
was too much secret diplomacy here,” and he grinned.
Ethel realized the tenseness of the situation when she came into the
board room, book and pencil in hand. She was given a seat at Hammerly’s
right hand.
“Now,” said the grim looking grain dealer, “you have something to say,
I presume, Jim?” and he looked at the superintendent.
“I say what I said before, Mr. Hammerly,” grumbled Mayberry. “If I
can’t have a free hand I can’t undertake to manage the concern, and
that’s all there is to it.”
“But you can continue as superintendent, I presume?” softly asked
Hammerly. “That job isn’t too big for you, is it?”
The younger man’s face flamed and he answered angrily: “I don’t know
what you mean. Nobody ever complained of my work before.”
“While Barton was on the job to overlook you--no,” admitted the old
man, his sarcasm biting. “True. But things have been going badly in the
various shops. That fire in Number Four the other day, for instance.”
“By thunder!” exploded Mayberry, “you can’t blame me for that! I can’t
be in a dozen places at once.”
“There have been quite unnecessary breakdowns, and work has been
retarded. How do you explain these things?” demanded Mr. Hammerly.
“I--I----”
“I don’t mean to say you are not a good man in your place, Jim,” said
the grain merchant. “But Barton’s job is too big for you. I did not
believe you could begin to fill his shoes at the start.”
“Yet you agreed that Barton should go away?” questioned Grandon Fuller.
“Yes. He wanted to go. For patriotic reasons I could not thwart his
desire. And in addition I knew that if Jim here fell down--as he
has--we would not be helpless.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Seville Baker, who owned a drug store
and had several thousand dollars invested in the Hapwood-Diller Company
stock.
Jim Mayberry’s face was fiery again. Even Grandon Fuller sat up to
stare at Hammerly. The others seemed as much amazed.
The old grain dealer grinned for a moment rather sheepishly. Then a new
expression came into his face, for he turned to look at the girl beside
him. His gnarled right hand crept over her white and well shaped left.
She glanced up from her book, startled.
“I tell you what ’tis,” said Hammerly in his homely way; “if I was as
blind as you other fellers are this board would be about as much good
as an old women’s sewing bee! That’s what!
“There’s been just one person that’s kept things going half smoothly
in the Hapwood-Diller Company since Frank Barton cleared out to be a
soldier. And that person had a good deal to do toward helping Frank
when he was on the job.
“Don’t you fellers know that Miss Clayton here was Frank’s right hand
man? She knows all the ins and outs of things. It was her caught this
poor fish, Jim Mayberry, selling us out to the Bogata Company. She’s
been of much more importance lately, I can tell you. If we pull out of
this hole we are in and pay a dividend again, it will be because of
what she has done.”
Grandon Fuller dragged himself to his feet. He had a power of
repression scarcely second to Hammerly himself. But this was too much.
“You old fool!” he shouted at the grain dealer. “You don’t mean to try
to put a woman in charge of this business? It’s suicidal!”
“I mean just that. I mean Miss Clayton’s able to fill the job, and Jim
Mayberry ain’t. She’s a better man when it comes to business sense than
any of us. I nominate her for the place of assistant manager, to hold
the job till Frank Barton comes back to us--if the poor feller ever
does come back.”
“I won’t vote on such a fool proposition,” cried Fuller wrathfully,
starting for the door.
“Don’t bother to, Grandon,” drawled Hammerly. “You’d be beat if you
did--and you know it. I’ve got more proxies than you have.”
[Illustration: “I nominate her as assistant manager, to hold the job
till Frank Barton comes back.”
(_See page 227_)]
The door of the board room banged. Ethel Clayton had turned to speak,
but Hammerly was scowling at Jim Mayberry, who had risen as though
to follow his fellow-conspirator. “Spit it out, Jim. Tell us what’s on
your chest.”
“I--I----You old fool!” exclaimed the superintendent, “do you think I
am going to work here under a _girl_? To be set aside for her?”
“No; I don’t guess you will,” responded Hammerly. “We’ll give you a
chance to resign if that’s what you want. And I guess your resignation
will be accepted pretty nigh unanimous.”
“But Mr. Hammerly,” begged Seville Baker, feebly, “what will happen to
the works? Mr. Mayberry has been superintendent so long----”
“There’s a good foreman in every shop who has been on his job longer
than Jim Mayberry has voted. They’ve only been hampered by Jim--that’s
the truth of the matter.”
“I will be through at the end of the month, gentlemen,” said Mayberry,
recovering his dignity. “The high hand Mr. Hammerly takes in this
matter----”
“Shoo!” exclaimed the grain merchant with grim pleasantry. “You’ll get
through right here and now. I for one wouldn’t trust you to go out into
the shops again. You go to Sydney and draw your salary to the end of
next month. You broke your contract when you accepted the assistant
managership and extra salary. Your dear friend, Fuller, or his legal
henchman, Schuster, didn’t point that out to you, did they? Sydney’s
got the money all in an envelope for you. Scat!” and he waved both
hands at the angry Mayberry.
“Now,” the old man added, turning to his conferees, “maybe you fellows
think I’ve taken a high hand in these proceedings; but to tell you
honestly, we ought to have both Mayberry and Grandon Fuller arrested.
Only it would have created a scandal that the Hapwood-Diller Company
couldn’t afford at this time.”
“We don’t want any scandal,” came from the corner of the room.
“We’ve had enough trouble as it is,” came from the other side of the
place.
“Let us get right down to a working basis--and let it go at that.”
“What we want to do is to pull up and make some money.”
At this last remark, Macon Hammerly turned to the speaker and smiled
grimly. Then he went on:
“There ain’t no use in denying that we’re in a bad hole. We’ve run
behind for two quarters, and our credit’s hurt by those stock sales.
It’s going to be a heavy burden upon this girl’s shoulders--as it was
upon Frank Barton’s--to pull us out. But she’ll do it! Won’t you,
Ethel?” he demanded heartily.
“Oh, Mr. Hammerly,” the girl murmured.
“Louder! Tell them ‘Yes,’” cried the grain merchant.
“I can only follow in Mr. Barton’s footsteps,” she stammered.
“And good enough!” declared Mr. Baker.
“If you can do half as well as Barton, Miss Clayton,” said another of
the revivified board, “we shall have no complaint.”
“We’ll be behind you, girl,” said Macon Hammerly. “Keep the wheels
turning, speed up the output, and watch the outgoes as well as the
incomes. That’s the secret of success in this business. And the Lord
help you!” he added under his breath, but the excited girl herself did
not hear his less jubilant tone.