A MAN'S BUSINESS
_Signs of trouble at the Enterprise--A possible partnership--He
travels fastest who travels alone--John Carmichael--Feeding the
peoples of the earth--I drive for Dround_
"Do you see that big, fat fellow talking with Mr. Joyce?" the cashier
whispered to me one morning as I passed her cage. "He's Dround's
manager--his name is Carmichael. When he shows up, there is trouble
coming to some one."
Dround & Co. was the name of the packing firm that the Enterprise dealt
with. I tied up my bundles and made up my cash account, thinking a good
deal about the appearance of the burly manager of the packing-house.
Pretty soon Mr. Carmichael came out into the front store very red in the
face, followed by the elder Joyce, who had been drinking, and they had
some words. The cashier winked at me.
The Enterprise had been doing a good business. It was run on a new
principle for those days--strictly cash and all cut prices, a cent off
here and there, a great sale of some one thing each day, which the house
handled speculatively. The brothers Joyce kept branching out, but there
wasn't any money to speak of behind the firm. The Drounds and a
wholesale grocer had backed it from the start. Nevertheless, we should
have got on all right if the elder Joyce had given up drinking and the
younger one had not taken to driving fast horses. Latterly no matter how
big a business we did, the profits went the wrong way.
That evening, as Hillary Cox and I walked over to the Piersons', she
said to me abruptly, "There's going to be a new sign at the Enterprise
before long!"
The smart little cashier must have divined the situation as I had.
"Cox's Market?" I suggested jokingly.
"Why not Harrington & Cox?" she retorted with a nervous little laugh. We
were on the steps then, and Ed joined us, so that I did not have to
answer her invitation. But all through the meal I kept thinking of her
suggestion. It was nearly two years since she had introduced me to the
Enterprise, and I had saved up several hundred dollars in the meantime,
which I wanted to put into some business of my own. But it did not quite
suit my card to run a retail market. After supper the others left us in
the dining room, and when we were alone Hillary said:--
"Well, what do you think of the firm name? It wouldn't be so impossible.
I've got considerable money saved up, and I guess you have some in the
bank, too. It wouldn't be the first time in this town that a clerk's
name followed a busted owner's over the door."
She spoke in a light kind of way, but a tone in her voice made me look
up. It struck me suddenly that this thing might mean a partnership for
life, as well as a partnership for meat and groceries. Hillary Cox was
an attractive woman, and she would make a splendid wife for a poor man,
doing her part to save his money. Between us, no doubt, we could make a
good business out of the old Enterprise, and more, too!
"That firm name sounds pretty well," I answered slowly, somewhat
embarrassed.
"Yes--I thought it pretty good."
Suddenly she turned her face shyly away from my eyes. She was a woman,
and a lovable, warm-hearted one. Perhaps she was dreaming of a home and
a family--of just that plain, ordinary happiness which our unambitious
fathers and mothers took out of life. I liked her all the better for it;
but when I tried to say something tender, that would meet her wish, I
couldn't find a word from my heart: there was nothing but a hollow
feeling inside me. And the thought came over me, hard and selfish, that
a man like me, who was bound on a long road, travels best alone.
"I don't know as I want to sell coffee and potatoes all my life," I said
at last, and my voice sounded colder than I meant to make it.
"Oh!" she gave a little gasp, as if some one had struck her. "You're
very ambitious, Mr. Harrington," she said coldly. "I hope you'll get all
you think you deserve, I am sure."
"Well, that wouldn't be much--only I am going to try for more than I
deserve--see?" I laughed as easily as I could.
We talked a little longer, and then she made some kind of excuse--we
had planned to go out that evening--and left me, bidding me good night
as if I were a stranger. I felt small and mean, yet glad, too, to speak
the truth--that I hadn't made a false step just there and pretended to
more than I could carry through.
Some time later Slocum looked in at the door, and, seeing me alone, came
into the room. He had a grim kind of smile on his face, as if he
suspected what had been happening.
"Where's Grace?" I asked him.
"Just about where your Hillary is," he answered dryly; "gone off with
another fellow."
I laughed. We looked at each other for some time.
"Well?" I said.
"He travels fastest who travels alone," he drawled, using the very words
that had been in my mind. "But it is a shame--Miss Cox is a nice woman."
"So is the other."
"Yes, but it can't be--or anything like it."
And the difference between us was that I believe he really cared.
* * * * *
So the Enterprise Market crumbled rapidly to its end, while I kept my
eye open for a landing-place when I should have to jump. One day I was
sent over to Dround's to see why our usual order of meats hadn't been
delivered. I was referred to the manager. Carmichael, as I have said,
was a burly, red-faced Irishman--and hot-tempered. His black hair stood
up all over his head, and when he moved he seemed to wrench his whole
big carcass with the effort. As I made my errand known to him, he
growled something at me. I gathered that he didn't think favorably of
the Enterprise and all that belonged thereto.
"They can't have any more," he said. "I told your boss so the last time
I was over."
I hung on, not knowing exactly what to say or do.
"I guess they must have it this time," I ventured after a while.
"'Guess they must have it'! Who are you?"
He thrust his big head over the top of his desk and looked at me, laying
his cigar down deliberately, as if he meant to throw me out of the
office for my impudence.
"Oh!" I said as easily as I could, "I'm one of their help."
"Well, my son, maybe you know better than I what they do with their
money? They don't pay us."
I knew he was trying to pump me about the Enterprise. I smiled and told
him nothing, but I got that order delivered. Once or twice more, having
been successful with the manager, I was sent on the same errand.
Carmichael swore at me, bullied me, and jollied me, as his mood happened
to be. Finally he said in earnest:--
"Joyce's got to the end of his rope, kid. You needn't come in here
again. The firm will collect in the usual way."
I had seen all along that this was bound to come, and had made up my
mind what I should do in the event.
"Do you hear?" the Irishman roared. "What are you standing there for?
Get along and tell your boss I'll put a sheriff over there."
"I guess I have come to stay," I replied easily.
"Come to stay?" he said with a grin. "How much, kid?"
[Illustration: _"Do you hear?" the Irishman roared._]
"All you will give me."
"What are you getting?"
"Twenty."
"I'll give you fifteen to drive a wagon," he said offhand, "and I'll
fire you in a week if you haven't anything better with you than your
cheek."
"All right," I said coolly, not letting him see that I was ruffled by
his rough tongue.
In that way I made the second round of the ladder, and went whistling
out of Dround's packing-house into the murky daylight of the Stock
Yards.
[Illustration: _My part was to drive a wagon for Dround at fifteen a
week._]
I liked it all. Something told me that here was my field--this square
plot of prairie, where is carried on the largest commissariat business
of the world. In spite of its filth and its ugly look, it fired my blood
to be a part of it. There's something pretty close to the earth in all
of us, if we have the stomach to do the world's work: men of bone and
sinew and rich blood, the strong men who do the deeds at the head of the
ranks, feed close to the earth. The lowing cattle in the pens, the
squealing hogs in the cars, the smell of the fat carcasses in the heavy
wagons drawn by the sleek Percherons--it all made me think of the soft,
fertile fields from which we take the grain--the blood and flesh that
enter into our being.
The bigness of it all! The one sure fact before every son and daughter
of woman is the need of daily bread and meat. To feed the people of the
earth--that is a man's business. My part was to drive a wagon for Dround
at fifteen a week, but I walked out of the Yards with the swagger of a
packer!