THE next morning Oakley saw General Cornish off on the 7.15 train, and
then went back to his hotel for breakfast Afterwards, on his way to
the office he mailed a check to Ezra Hart for his father. The money was
intended to meet his expenses in coming West.
He was very busy all that day making out his new schedules, and in
figuring the cuts and just what they would amount to. He approached
his task with a certain reluctance, for it was as unpleasant to him
personally as it was necessary to the future of the road, and he knew
that no half-way measures would suffice. He must cut, as a surgeon cuts,
to save. By lopping away a man here and there, giving his work to some
other man, or dividing it up among two or three men, he managed to peel
off two thousand dollars on the year. He counted that a very fair day's
work.
He would start his reform with no particular aggressiveness. He would
retire the men he intended to dismiss from the road one at a time. He
hoped they would take the hint and hunt other positions. At any rate,
they could not get back until he was ready to take them back, as Cornish
had assured him he would not be interfered with. He concluded not to
hand the notices and orders to Miss Walton, the typewriter, to copy. She
might let drop some word that would give his victims an inkling of what
was in store for them. He knew there were unpleasant scenes ahead of
him, but there was no need to anticipate. When at last his figures for
the cuts were complete he would have been grateful for some one with
whom to discuss the situation. All at once his responsibilities seemed
rather heavier than he had bargained for.
There were only two men in the office besides himself--Philip Kerr, the
treasurer, and Byron Holt, his assistant. They were both busy with the
payroll, as it was the sixth of the month, and they commenced to pay off
in the shops on the tenth.
He had little or no use for Kerr, who still showed, where he dared, in
small things his displeasure that an outsider had been appointed manager
of the road. He had counted on the place for himself for a number of
years, but a succession of managers had come and gone apparently without
its ever having occurred to General Cornish that an excellent executive
was literally spoiling in the big, bare, general offices of the line.
This singular indifference on the part of Cornish to his real interests
had soured a disposition that at its best had more of acid in it than
anything else. As there was no way in which he could make his resentment
known to the general, even if he had deemed such a course expedient, he
took it out of Oakley, and kept his feeling for him on ice. Meanwhile
he hided his time, hoping for Oakley's downfall and his own eventual
recognition.
With the assistant treasurer, Dan's relations were entirely cordial.
Holt was a much younger man than Kerr, as frank and open as the other
was secret and reserved. When the six-o'clock whistle blew he glanced up
from his work and said:
“I wish you'd wait a moment, Holt. I want to see you.”
Kerr had already gone home, and Miss Walton was adjusting her hat before
a bit of a mirror that hung on the wall back of her desk. “All right,”
responded Holt, cheerfully.
“Just draw up your chair,” said Oakley, handing his papers to him. At
first Holt did not understand; then he began to whistle softly, and fell
to checking off the various cuts with his forefinger.
“What do you think of the job, Byron?” inquired Oakley.
“Well, I'm glad I don't get laid off, that's sure. Say, just bear in
mind that I'm going to be married this summer.”
“You needn't worry; only I didn't know that.”
“Well, please don't forget it, Mr. Oakley.”
Holt ran over the cuts again. Then he asked:
“Who's going to stand for this? You or the old man? I hear he was in
town last night.”
“I stand for it, but of course he approves.”
“I'll bet he approves,” and the assistant treasurer grinned. “This is
the sort of thing that suits him right down to the ground.”
“How about the hands? Do you know if they are members of any union?”
“No, but there'll be lively times ahead for you. They are a great lot of
kickers here.”
“Wait until I get through. I haven't touched the shops yet; that's to
come later. I'll skin closer before I'm done.” Oakley got up and lit
his pipe. “The plant must make some sort of a showing. We can't continue
at the rate we have been going. I suppose you know what sort of shape it
would leave the town in if the shops were closed.”
“Damn poor shape, I should say. Why, it's the money that goes in and
out of this office twice a month that keeps the town alive. It couldn't
exist a day without that.”
“Then it behooves us to see to it that nothing happens to the shops or
road. I am sorry for the men I am laying off, but it can't be helped.”
“I see you are going to chuck Hoadley out of his good thing at the
Junction. If he was half white he'd a gone long ago. He must lay awake
nights figuring how he can keep decently busy.”
“Is the list all right?”
“Yes. No, it's not, either. You've marked off Joe Percell at Harrison.
He used to brake for the Huckleberry until he lost an arm. His is a
pension job.”
“Put his name back, then. How do you think it's going to work?”
“Oh, it will work all right, because it has to, but they'll all be
cussing you,” with great good humor. “What's the matter, anyhow? Did the
old man throw a fit at the size of the pay-roll?”
“Not exactly, but he came down here with his mind made up to sell the
road to the M. & W.”
“You don't say so!”
“I talked him out of that, but we must make a showing, for he's good and
tired, and may dump the whole business any day.”
“Well, if he does that there'll be no marrying or giving in marriage
for me this summer. It will be just like a Shaker settlement where I am
concerned.”
Dan laughed. “Oh, you'd be all right, Holt. You'd get something else, or
the M. & W. would keep you on.”
“I don't know about that. A new management generally means a clean sweep
all round, and my berth's a pretty good one.”
In some manner a rumor of the changes Oakley proposed making did get
abroad, and he was promptly made aware that his popularity in Antioch
was a thing of the past. He was regarded as an oppressor from whom some
elaborate and wanton tyranny might be expected. While General Cornish
suffered their inefficiency, his easy-going predecessors had been
content to draw their salaries and let it go at that, a line of conduct
which Antioch held to be entirely proper. This new man, however, was
clearly an upstart, cursed with an insane and destructive ambition to
earn money from the road.
Suppose it did not pay. Cornish could go down into his pocket for the
difference, just as he had always done.
What the town did not know, and what it would not have believed even
if it had been told, was that the general had been on the point of
selling--a change that would have brought hardship to every one. The
majority of the men in the shops owned their own homes, and these homes
represented the savings of years. The sudden exodus of two or three
hundred families meant of necessity widespread ruin. Those who were
forced to go away would have to sacrifice everything they possessed to
get away, while those who remained would be scarcely better off. But
Antioch never considered such a radical move as even remotely possible.
It counted the shops a fixture; they had always been there, and for this
sufficient reason they would always remain.
The days wore on, one very like another, with their spring heat and
lethargy. Occasionally, Oakley saw Miss Emory on the street to bow to,
but not to speak with; while he was grateful for these escapes, he
found himself thinking of her very often. He fancied--and he was not far
wrong--that she was finding Antioch very dull. He wondered, too, if she
was seeing much of Ryder. He imagined that she was; and here again he
was not far wrong. Now and then he was seized with what he felt to be a
weak desire to call, but he always thought better of it in time, and
was always grateful he had not succumbed to the impulse. But her mere
presence in Antioch seemed to make him dissatisfied and resentful of its
limitations. Ordinarily he was not critical of his surroundings. Until
she came, that he was without companionship and that the town was
given over to a deadly inertia which expressed itself in the collapsed
ambition of nearly every man and woman he knew, had scarcely affected
him beyond giving him a sense of mild wonder.
He had heard nothing of his father, and in the pressure of his work and
freshened interest in the fortunes of the Huckleberry, had hardly given
him a second thought. He felt that, since he had sent money to him, he
was in a measure relieved of all further responsibility. If his father
did not wish to come to him, that was his own affair. He had placed no
obstacle in his way.
He had gone through life without any demand having been made on his
affections. On those rare occasions that he devoted to self-analysis
he seriously questioned if he possessed any large capacity in that
direction. The one touch of sentiment to which he was alive was the
feeling he centred about the few square feet of turf where his mother
lay under the sweet-briar and the old elms in the burying-plot of the
little Eastern village. The sexton was instructed to see that the spot
was not neglected, and that there were always flowers on the grave. She
had loved flowers. It was somehow a satisfaction to Dan to overpay him
for this care. But he had his moments of remorse, because he was unable
to go back there. Once or twice he had started East, fully intending to
do so, but had weakened at the last moment. Perhaps he recognized that
while it was possible to return to a place, it was not possible to
return to an emotion.
Oakley fell into the habit of working at the office after the others
left in the evening. He liked the quiet of the great bare room and the
solitude of the silent, empty shops. Sometimes Holt remained, too, and
discussed his matrimonial intentions, or entertained his superior with
an account of his previous love affairs, for the experiences were far
beyond his years. He had exhausted the possibilities of Antioch quite
early in life. At one time or another he had either been engaged, or
almost engaged, to every pretty girl in the place. He explained his
seeming inconsistency, however, by saying he was naturally of a very
affectionate disposition.