ROGER OAKLEY carried out his threat to find work for Jeffy. As soon
as the outcast was able to leave his bed, he took him down to the
car-shops, which were destined to be the scene of this brief but
interesting industrial experiment.
It was early morning, and they found only Clarence there. He was
sweeping out the office--a labor he should have performed the night
before, but, unless he was forcibly detained, he much preferred to let
it go over, on the principle that everything that is put off till the
morrow is just so much of a gain, and, in the end, tends to reduce the
total of human effort, as some task must necessarily be left undone.
As Roger Oakley pushed open the door and entered the office in search
of his son, his charge, who slunk and shuffled after him with legs which
bore him but uncertainly, cast a long and lingering look back upon the
freedom he was leaving. The dignity of labor, on which his patron had
been expatiating as they walked in the shortening shadows under the
maples, seemed a scanty recompense for all he was losing. A deep,
wistful sigh escaped his lips. He turned his back on the out-of-doors
and peered over the old man's shoulder at Clarence with bleary eyes. Of
course, he knew Clarence. This was a privilege not denied the humblest.
Occasionally the urchin called him names, more often he pelted him with
stones. The opportunities for excitement were limited in Antioch, and
the juvenile population heedfully made the most of those which existed.
Jeffy was a recognized source of excitement. It was not as if one stole
fruit or ran away from school. Then there was some one to object, and
consequences; but if one had fun with Jeffy there was none to object but
Jeffy, and, of course, he didn't count.
“Is my son here, Clarence?” asked Roger Oakley.
“Nope. The whistle ain't blowed yet. I am trying to get the place
cleaned up before he comes down,” making slaps at the desks and chairs
with a large wet cloth. “What you going to do with him, Mr. Oakley?”
He nodded towards Jeffy, who seemed awed by the unaccustomedness of
his surroundings, for he kept himself hidden back of the old man, his
battered and brimless straw hat held nervously in his trembling fingers.
“I am going to get work for him.”
“Him work! Him! Why, he don't want no work, Mr. Oakley. He's too strong
to work.” And Clarence went off into gales of merriment at the mere
idea.
For an instant Jeffy gazed in silence at the boy with quickly mounting
wrath, then he said, in a hoarse _tremolo_:
“You durned little loafer! Don't you give me none of your lip!”
Clarence had sufficiently subsided to remark, casually: “The old man'd
like to know what you got for that horse-blanket and whip you stole from
our barn. You're a bird, you are! When he was willing to let you sleep
in the barn because he was sorry for you!”
“You lie, durn you!” fiercely. “I didn't steal no whip or
horse-blanket!”
“Yes, you did, too! The old man found out who you sold 'em to,” smiling
with exasperating coolness.
The outcast turned to Roger Oakley. “Nobody's willing to let by-gones be
by-gones,” and two large tears slid from his moist eyes. Then his manner
changed abruptly. He became defiant, and, step-ing from behind his
protector, shook a long and very dirty forefinger in Clarence's face.
“You just tell Chris Berry this from me--I'm done with him. I don't like
no sneaks, and you just tell him this--he sha'n't never bury me.”
“I reckon he ain't sweatin' to bury any paupers,” hastily interjected
the grinning Clarence. “The old man ain't in the business for his
health.”
“And if he don't stop slandering me”--his voice shot up out of its
huskiness--“if he don't stop slandering me, I'll fix him!” He turned
again to Roger Oakley. “Them Berrys is a low-lived lot! I hope you won't
never have doings with 'em. They'll smile in your face and then do you
dirt behind your back; I've done a lot for Chris Berry, but I'm durned
if I ever lift my hand for him again.”
Perhaps he was too excited to specify the exact nature of the benefits
which he had conferred upon the undertaker. Clarence ignored the attack
upon his family. He contented himself with remarking, judiciously:
“Anybody who can slander you's got a future ahead of him. He's got
unusual gifts.”
Here Roger Oakley saw fit to interfere in behalf of his protégé. He
shook his head in grave admonition at the grinning youngster. “Jeffy is
going to make a man of himself. It's not right to remember these things
against him.”
“They know rotten well that's what I'm always telling 'em. Let by-gones
be by-gones--that's my motto--but they are so ornery they won't never
give me a chance.”
“It's going to be a great shock to the community when Jeffy starts
to work, Mr. Oakley,” observed Clarence, politely. “He's never done
anything harder than wheel smoke from the gas-house. Where you going to
put up, Jeffy, when you get your wages?”
“None of your durn lip!” screamed Jeffy, white with rage.
“I suppose you'll want to return the horse-blanket and whip. You can
leave 'em here with me. I'll take 'em home to the old man,” remarked the
boy, affably. “I wouldn't trust you with ten cents; you know mighty well
I wouldn't,” retorted Jeffy.
“Good reason why--you ain't never had that much.”
Dan Oakley's step was heard approaching the door, and the wordy warfare
ceased abruptly. Clarence got out of the way as quickly as possible, for
he feared he might be asked to do something, and he had other plans for
the morning.
Jeffy was handed over to McClintock's tender mercies, who put him to
work in the yards.
It was pay-day in the car-shops, and Oakley posted a number of notices
in conspicuous places about the works. They announced a ten-per-cent,
reduction in the wages of the men, the cut to go into effect
immediately.
By-and-by McClintock came in from the yards. He was hot and perspiring,
and his check shirt clung moistly to his powerful shoulders. As he
crossed to the water-cooler, he said to Dan:
“Well, we've lost him already. I guess he wasn't keen for work.”
Oakley looked up inquiringly from the letter he was writing.
“I mean Jeffy. He stuck to it for a couple of hours, and then Pete saw
him making a sneak through the cornfield towards the crick. I haven't
told your father yet.”
Dan laughed.
“I thought it would be that way. Have you seen the notices?”
“Yes,” nodding.
“Heard anything from the men yet?”
“Not a word.”
McClintock returned to the yards. It was the noon hour, and in the shade
of one of the sheds he found a number of the hands at lunch, who lived
too far from the shops to go home to dinner.
“Say, Milt,” said one of these, “have you tumbled to the notices?--ten
per cent, all round. You'll be having to go down in your sock for coin.”
“It's there all right,” cheerfully.
“I knew when Cornish came down here there would be something drop
shortly. I ain't never known it to fail. The old skinflint! I'll bet he
ain't losing any money.”
“You bet he ain't, not he,” said a second, with a short laugh.
The first man, Branyon by name, bit carefully into the wedge-shaped
piece of pie he was holding in his hand. “If I was as rich as Cornish
I'm damned if I'd be such an infernal stiff! What the hell good is his
money doing him, anyhow?”
“What does the boss say, Milt?”
“That wages will go back as soon as he can put them back.”
“Yes, they will! Like fun!” said Branyon, sarcastically.
“You're a lot of kickers, you are,” commented McClintock,
good-naturedly. “You don't believe for one minute, do you, that the
Huckleberry or the shops ever earned a dollar?”
“You can gamble on it that they ain't ever cost Cornish a red cent,”
said Branyon, as positively as a mouthful of pie would allow.
“I wouldn't be too sure about that,” said the master-mechanic, walking
on.
“I bet he ain't out none on this,” remarked Branyon, cynically. “If he
was he wouldn't take it so blamed easy.”
The men began to straggle back from their various homes and to form in
little groups about the yards and in the shops. They talked over the cut
and argued the merits of the case, as men will, made their comments on
Cornish, who was generally conceded to be as mean in money matters as
he was fortunate, and then went back to their work when the one-o'clock
whistle blew, in a state of high good-humor with themselves and their
critical ability.
The next day the _Herald_ dealt with the situation at some length. The
whole tone of the editorial was rancorous and bitter. It spoke of the
parsimony of the new management, which had been instanced by a number of
recent dismissals among men who had served the road long and faithfully,
and who deserved other and more considerate treatment. It declared that
the cut was but the beginning of the troubles in store for the hands,
and characterized it as an attempt on the part of the new management
to curry favor with Cornish, who was notoriously hostile to the best
interests of labor. It wound up by regretting that the men were not
organized, as proper organization would have enabled them to meet this
move on the part of the management.
When Oakley read the obnoxious editorial his blood grew hot and his mood
belligerent. It showed evident and unusual care in the preparation,
and he guessed correctly that it had been written and put in type in
readiness for the cut. It was a direct personal attack, too, for the
expression “the new management,” which was used over and over, could
mean but the one thing.
Dan's first impulse was to hunt Ryder up and give him a sound thrashing,
but his better sense told him that while this rational mode of
expressing his indignation would have been excusable enough a few years
back, when he was only a brakeman, as the manager of the Buckhom and
Antioch Railroad it was necessary to pursue a more pacific policy.
He knew he could be made very unpopular if these attacks were persisted
in. This he did not mind especially, except as it would interfere with
the carrying out of his plans and increase his difficulties. After
thinking it over he concluded that he would better see Ryder and have
a talk with him. It would do no harm, he argued, and it might do some
good, provided, of course, that he could keep his temper.
He went directly to the _Herald_ office, and found Griff in and alone.
When Dan strode into the office, looking rather warm, the latter turned
a trifle pale, for he had his doubts about the manager's temper, and no
doubts at all about his muscular development, which was imposing.
“I came in to see what you meant by this, Ryder,” his caller said, and
he held out the paper folded to the insulting article. Ryder assumed to
examine it carefully, but he knew every word there.
“Oh, this? Oh yes! The story of the reduction in wages down at the
car-shops. There! You can take it from under my nose; I can see quite
clearly.”
“Well?”
“Well,” repeated Ryder after him, with exasperating composure. The
editor was no stranger to intrusions of this sort, for his sarcasms were
frequently personal. His manner varied to suit each individual
case. When the wronged party stormed into the office, wrathful and
loud-lunged, he was generally willing to make prompt reparation,
especially if his visitor had the advantage of physical preponderance on
his side. When, however, the caller was uncertain and palpably in awe of
him, as sometimes happened, he got no sort of satisfaction. With Oakley
he pursued a middle course.
“Well?” he repeated.
“What do you mean by this?”
“I think it speaks for itself, don't you?”
“I went into this matter with you, and you know as well as I do why
the men are cut. This,” striking the paper contemptuously with his open
hand, “is the worst sort of rubbish, but it may serve to make the men
feel that they are being wronged, and it is an attack on me.”
“Did you notice that? I didn't know but it was too subtle for you.”
He couldn't resist the gibe at Oakley's expense.
“Disguised, of course, but intended to give the men less confidence in
me. Now, I'm not going to stand any more of this sort of thing!”
He was conscious he had brought his remarks to a decidedly lame
conclusion.
“And I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Oakley, I'm editor of the _Herald_,
and I don't allow any man to dictate to me what I shall print. That's a
point I'll pass on for myself.”
“You know the situation. You know that the general will dispose of his
interests here unless they can be made self-sustaining; and, whether you
like him or not, he stands as a special providence to the town.”
“I only know what you have told me,” sneeringly.
Oakley bit his lips. He saw it would have been better to have left Ryder
alone. He felt his own weakness, and his inability to force him against
his will to be fair. He gulped down his anger and chagrin.
“I don't see what you can gain by stirring up this matter.”
“Perhaps you don't.”
“Am I to understand you are hostile to the road?”
“If that means you--yes. You haven't helped yourself by coming here as
though you could bully me into your way of thinking. I didn't get much
satisfaction from my call on you. You let me know you could attend to
your own affairs, and I can attend to mine just as easily. I hope you
appreciate that.”
Dan turned on his heel and left the office, cursing himself for his
stupidity in having given the editor an opportunity to get even.