TOMMY, as he followed Mr. Nevin about, told himself that this was a new
world and that wisdom lay in behaving accordingly; but, to his dismay,
he found himself measuring his surroundings with the feet and inches
of his old life. He was again a Freshman at college. At college the
upper-classmen--old employees--naturally loved the old place. But so
did the Freshmen--in advance. He ought, therefore, to love the Tecumseh
Motor College.
Strangely enough, not one of the men to whom he was introduced by Mr
Nevin seemed concerned with what the new-comer might do for the greater
glory of the shop. Boy-like, he attached more importance to the human
than to the mechanical or commercial side of life. This was wisdom that
with age he would, alas, unlearn!
Tommy's life had been checked suddenly; the emergency brakes jammed down
with an abruptness that had jolted him clean out of his normal point of
view. What usually requires a dozen years and a hundred disillusionments
had been accomplished for him with one tremendous tragedy. His father's
deed not only fixed Tommy's life-destination, but made him feel that his
entire past could not now be an open book to his most trusted friends.
This gave him a sense of discomfort for which he could find no
alleviation except in resolving not to lie gratuitously about
anything else. But Tommy did not know that this was his reward for not
sacrificing his manhood to the secret.
Mr. Thompson's orders were that he must familiarize himself with
everybody in the shop and also their work. Because he realized this
thoroughly he made up his mind, with a quickness that augured well for
his future, that he must not tie up with the clerks in the office. The
Tecumseh Company made and sold motor-cars. Therefore, the men with whom
Tommy must associate, in the intimacy of boarding-house life, should be
men from whom he could learn all about Tecumseh motors.
The one compensation of tragedy is that it strengthens the strong; and
only the strong can help the world by first helping their own souls. The
secret was working for Tommy instead of against him.
“I say, Mr. Nevin.” There was in Tommy's attitude toward his guide
not only the appeal of frankly acknowledged helplessness, but also a
suggestion of confidence in the other man's ability and willingness to
answer understandingly.
Nevin smiled encouragingly. “What's troubling you, young man?”
“I've got to find a boarding-house. I'm less particular about the grub
than about the boarders.” Mr. Nevin's face grew less friendly. Tommy
went on, “I'd like to live where the chaps in the shop eat.”
“They mostly live at home,” said Nevin, friendly again. He liked young
Leigh's attitude of respectful familiarity. To Tommy Mr. Nevin was a
likable instructor at college.
“I don't know whether I make myself plain to you, Mr. Nevin, but I'd
like to be among men who know all about motors--theory and practice, you
know. There must be some who board somewhere. If I could get in the same
house I'd be tickled to death, sir.”
Nevin liked the “sir”-ing of young Leigh, which was not at all servile.
“Let's take a look round and I'll see whom I can recommend.”
Nevin led the way, Tommy followed--at a distance, tactfully, to give Mr.
Nevin a chance to speak freely about T. F. Leigh. Nevin talked to three
or four men, but evidently their replies were not satisfactory. A young
man in overalls, his face smutted, his hands greasy, walked by in a
hurry. He was frowning.
“There's your man!” said Nevin to Tommy, planting himself squarely in
the other's path. “Bill!”
“Hello, Mr. Nevin! What's the trouble now that your great experts can't
locate?”
“No trouble this time. Pleasure! Bill, do you live or do you board?”
“I believe I board.”
“Any room at the house for a friend of mine?”
“I don't know. Mrs. Clayton's rather particular.”
“She must be,” said Nevin. “Bill, shake hands with Mr. Leigh.”
Tommy extended his hand. Bill looked at him, at the “swell clothes” and
the New York look and the dean hands, and held up his own grease-smeared
hands and shook his head.
Tommy was confronted by his first crisis in Dayton in the shape of a
reluctant hand. Grease stood between him and friendship. By rights his
own hand ought to be oily and black. He was not conscious of the motives
for his own decision, but he stepped to a machine near by, grasped an
oily shaft with his right hand, and then held it, black and grease and
all, before Bill. Mr. Nevin laughed. Bill frowned. Tommy was serious.
Bill looked at Tommy. Then Bill shook hands.
“If you don't mind I'd like to walk home with you to-night. I'll see
Mrs. Clayton and ask if she won't take me,” said Tommy.
Bill was a little taller than Tommy and slender, with clean-cut
features, dark hair, very clear blue eyes, and that air of decision
that men have when they know what they know. He hesitated as he took in
Tommy's clothes and manner. He looked Tommy full in the face. Then he
said, positively:
“She'll take you.”
Mr. Nevin looked relieved. “Come on, Leigh,” he said to Tommy, who
thereupon nodded to Bill, said, “So long!” and followed Mr. Nevin.
“I'm glad Bill took to you,” he told Tommy. “He is one of our best
mechanics, but he is as crotchety as a genius. He distrusts everybody on
general principles.”
“Socialist?” asked Tommy.
“Worse!” said Mr. Nevin.
“Anarchist?”
“Worse!”
“Lunatic?”
“Worse!”
“Philanthropist?”
“Worse!”
“I give up,” said Tommy.
“Inventor!” said Mr. Nevin.
“Good!” Tommy spoke enthusiastically. This was life--to meet people
about whom his only knowledge came from newspaper-reading.
“Leigh,” said Nevin, stopping abruptly, “are you a politician?” The
voice was intended to express jocularity, but Tommy thought he read in
Mr. Nevin's eyes a doubt closely bordering upon a suspicion. Tommy
felt his characteristic impulse to be as frankly autobiographical as he
dared. He did not know that he could not help being what the offspring
of two people to whom love meant everything must be. He wasn't aware
of heredity when he kept his eyes on Mr. Nevin's and replied very
earnestly:
“Mr. Nevin, I'm going to tell you something that must not go any
further.”
“I was only joking. I have no desire to pry into your private affairs,”
said Nevin, when he saw how serious Tommy had become.
“I'm not going to tell you the story of my life,” Tommy explained, very
earnestly; “but something else, I really want to.”
“Shoot ahead,” said Mr. Nevin.
Tommy's position in the shop was a mystery, for Mr. Thompson's
instructions contained no explanation.
“It's just this: I am alone in the world. I have no money and I have no
friends. I've got to make money and I want to have friends here. I'm not
a hand-shaker, but--” Tommy paused.
“Yes?” Mr. Nevin looked a trifle uncomfortable, as men do when they
listen to another man telling the truth about himself.
“I know I'm going to be damned lonesome. Do you know what it means to
have been called Tommy all your life by all the fellows you ever knew,
and all of a sudden to be flung into a crowd of strangers to whom you
cannot say, 'I'm one of you; please be friends'? I'm nobody but Leigh,
a stranger among strangers. And what I want to be is Tom Leigh to people
who will not be strangers. If I push myself they'll mistrust me. If I
don't they'll think I am stuck on myself. Sooner or later I'll have to
be Tom Leigh or get out. I'd rather be Tommy sooner because I don't want
to get out. Do you understand?”
“Sure thing, Le--er--Tommy,” said Nevin, heartily. “And I'll be glad to
help all I can. Come to me any time you want any pointer about anything.
Those are Mr. Thompson's orders; I'd have to do it whether I wanted to
or not. But--this is straight!--I'll be glad to do it, my boy!”
Mr. Nevin was surprised at his own warmth. He was a sort of
general-utility man and understudy of several subheads of departments,
a position created expressly for him by Mr. Thompson, who had a habit of
inventing positions to fit people on the curious theory that it was
God who made men and men who made jobs. In admitting to himself that
he liked young Leigh, Nevin classified the young man as another of
“Thompson's Experiments.”
At quitting-time Tommy hastened to find Bill, whose full name, he had
ascertained, was William S. Byrnes. Bill was waiting for him.
“I'll have to stop at the station and get my valise,” apologized Tommy.
“I have a trunk also, but I'd better find out if Mrs. Clayton will take
me.”
“Get an expressman to take it up; she'll take you,” said Bill. He always
spoke with decision when he knew.
They stopped at the station, where Tommy did exactly as Bill--the
upper-classman--said, and then they walked to the boarding-house.
Bill was carrying his dinner-pail and Tommy his dress-suit case. They
walked in silence until Tommy shifted the valise.
“Heavy?” asked Bill, without volunteering to take his turn carrying it.
“No,” said Tommy, “but I wish I was carrying a dinner-pail like yours.”
“I'll swap,” said Bill, stopping.
“Oh no; I mean I'd like to feel I belonged in the shop.”
“With the clothes you've got on?” said Bill.
“I can't afford to get any other clothes just yet.”
“You might save those for Sunday.”
“No money,” said Tommy, and they walked on.
He was aware that he was talking and acting like a little boy with a new
toy. But, on the other hand, he was very glad to find that the world was
not the monster he had feared. There was no need to be perennially on
your guard against all your fellow-men. They seemed willing enough
to take you for what you frankly acknowledged you were. And the
consciousness was not only a great relief, but a great encouragement,
by obviating the necessity of fighting with another man's weapons, as
happens when a man is trying to be what he thinks you want him to be.
They arrived at the boarding-place, a neat little frame house,
commonplace as print and as easy to read.
Bill took Tommy to the kitchen and introduced him to Mrs. Clayton. “I've
brought you another boarder.”
Mrs. Clayton looked at Tommy dubiously. “I don't know,” she said. “The
front room is--”
“The room next to mine will do,” said Bill. “The one Perkins had.”
“Well--” she began, vaguely, looking at Tommy's clothes.
“How much?” asked Tommy, anxiously. His tone seemed to reassure the
landlady.
“Eight dollars a week,” she answered. “But when the front room--”
“It's as much as I can afford to pay,” said Tommy, quickly. It wouldn't
leave much to send home out of the fifteen Thompson said he would pay.
Seventeen thousand dollars! And there was need of haste! The tragedy
showed in the boy's face.
“Of course that includes the dinner,” said Mrs. Clayton, hastily, “same
as Mr. Byrnes.”
“Deal's closed,” said Bill. “Come on, Leigh.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Clayton,” said Tommy, glad to find a home. He
impulsively held out his hand.
Mrs. Clayton shook it warmly. As if by an afterthought, she asked, “You
are a stranger here?”
“Yes, ma'am; I only got in this morning.”
“He is in the office,” put in Bill, in the voice of an agency giving
financial rating. “Come on, Leigh.”
Tommy followed Bill, who took him to the room lately occupied by
Perkins. A small, dingy room it was. The bed was wooden. The three
chairs were of different patterns. The wash-stand, pitcher, and basin
belonged to a bygone era. The carpet was piebald as to color and plain
bald as to nap. The table was of the kind that you know to be rickety
without having to touch it. Altogether it was so depressing that it
seemed eminently just. It epitomized the life of a working-man.
It induced the mood of loneliness Tommy had felt when he stepped off the
train. But this time there was no exhilaration, no desire to dramatize
the glorious fight of Thomas Francis Leigh against the world.
Tommy turned to his companion. “Look here,” he said, a trifle
hysterically, “I'm not going to call you Byrnes. Do you understand? You
are Bill. My name is not Leigh, but Tommy; not Tom--Tommy! If there is
going to be any--anything different I'll go somewhere else.”
Tommy looked at Bill defiantly--and also hopefully.
“All right,” said Bill, unconcernedly. “She gives pretty good grub. My
room is next door.”
And then Tommy felt that his old world had been wiped off the map. He
was beginning his new life--with friends! A great chasm divided the two
periods. And in that knowledge Tommy found a comfort that he could not
have explained in words.