By the terms of Joe's contract with Wismer & Holden, these astute
millmen had agreed to pay cash for the logs on delivery. Joe held them
to this, refusing acceptances at thirty and sixty days. He was thus at
once in a position to reduce his liabilities and sustain his credit,
which had been seriously strained, with his own bank.
His mill was running at capacity. All day the air was vibrant with the
hum of it, the thunder of the log carriages, the deep raucous drone of
the big saws, the higher pitched voices of the smaller. All day a stream
of shaggy, brown logs, prodded by pike poles, was swept upward in
dripping procession on an endless chain, tossed on iron beds, flung
against the saws, rolled on carriers as rough boards to other saws--to
edgers, trimmers and planers--and disgorged from the farther end of the
mill in a dozen grades of product to be carried to the piling yards and
drying sheds. Day and night the smoke from burning sawdust in the huge,
stack-like consumer poured upward to the sky.
Thus the producing end of his business was satisfactory. Not less so
were the sales. In addition to a particularly brisk local demand,
Wright's activities had resulted in some excellent contracts not only
for immediate, but for future delivery. There would be no lack of a
market for every foot the mill could turn out. Also there was no car
shortage. The tacit agreement which Locke had been able to obtain as
part of the price of withdrawing his action was being held to rigidly.
The firm could sell all its mills could cut and deliver all it could
sell. Naturally Wright and Joe were pleased and congratulated each other
upon the rosy outlook.
"It looks as if we were over the hump," said Joe one afternoon. "Those
are good contracts you landed. I want to show you that I appreciate all
you have done. Left to myself I'd have been as helpless as a baby in
this business."
"Oh, I don't know," said Wright. "You pick up things pretty fast. I've
been paid for whatever I've done. But apart from that I've been with
this concern a good many years and your father always treated me well.
Funny if I wouldn't do all I could for you. You've come pretty near
making good so far. You made the big cut that your father planned to
make and you brought the logs down. That's all he could have done, and I
tell you not even Crooks knows the logging business better than he did.
So far as showing your appreciation goes it isn't necessary--or, anyway,
that can wait till you are in better shape. I'm not shouting for money
the minute I see your head above water."
"I know you're not, but at the end of the year we'll fix things up on a
better basis," said Joe.
While Joe was occupied with his business, Jack was busy, too. Mysterious
packages were constantly arriving at Bill Crooks's home. As the wedding
day drew near the patter of these became a downpour. Jack's friends gave
luncheons in her honour, and she was "showered" with articles of alleged
usefulness or ornament.
She and Joe, sitting chatting one night in her den, heard the heavy,
decided tread of the old lumber baron in the darkened hall. Suddenly
there was a stumble, a wrathful bellow, and Bill Crooks's voice raised
in insistent demand for the name of the thus-and-so-forth wretch who
left boxes in the hall, mingled with a prophecy as to his ultimate fate.
"What kind of 'fire' and 'nation' were you speaking of, dad?" asked Jack
as he appeared in the door.
"Never mind," growled Crooks, who was under the impression that his
remarks had been sotto voce. "This house is being cluttered up with a
bunch of junk. I've peeled a six-inch strip of hide clean off my shin.
Who left that box out there?"
"I think you did."
"Hey?"
"I think you did. You took it from the expressman."
"Huh?" snorted Crooks. "If I did I didn't leave it in the middle of the
hall. I put it out of the way behind the hatrack. Somebody moved it out.
That's only one thing. There's a hundred others. You've got enough truck
to start a china shop or a jewellery store or a whitewear sale!"
"I don't get married every summer," his daughter returned placidly. "We
have to have things. And then our friends are good to us. I know one
darling old grouch who gave me a big cheque. Remember what he told me to
do with it?"
"I didn't need to tell you. You can get away with a cheque without
instructions. Never knew a woman who couldn't."
"You told me to 'blow it' on myself--not to put a dollar of it into
house furnishings."
"Suppose I did! You don't need house furnishings. There's two houses
ready furnished for you--this one and Kent's. How many blamed houses do
you want to live in, anyway?"
"Oh, Heavens, Joe, give him a cigar!" exclaimed Jack at the end of her
patience. "He's going to be an awful crank of a father-in-law."
Crooks took Joe's cigar and dropped into a chair, while Jack departed in
search of refreshment; men being, as she declared, invariably hungry
when they were not thirsty.
"I've been thinking, Joe," said the old lumberman, "quite a bit about my
business lately."
"Why, what's the matter with it?" asked Joe in surprise, for Crooks's
business, like his own, had been very good indeed.
"Nothing's the matter with it," Crooks replied. "It's good--it's too
good. I've run it for a long time, and now it's beginning to run me."
"I don't quite understand."
"It's this way," Crooks explained: "I'm getting on, and outside of Jack
I've nobody. Now you're going to marry her. It had to be somebody, I
suppose, and I'm glad it's you. Still, there's the business. It's mine,
I made it and I like it--but it's beginning to drive me too much. I
can't go away for a month or a week without being afraid things will be
tied up in hard knots before I get back. If I had a man as good as
Wright it might be different, but I haven't. I have to be on the job
myself all the time, and I'm getting too old for that. I want to take it
easy a little and get the most out of the years that are left me."
"I see," said Joe as Crooks paused.
"You'll know better how it is yourself thirty years from now," Crooks
continued. "I've nobody but Jack. If the boys had lived they'd have been
able to run the business and let me sit back and just give them a hand
now and then. But they died." He was silent for a long moment. "I'll
tell you something, Joe, you were the one thing I envied your father. I
saw you growing up, a good, clean, healthy young fellow, with no bad
habits to speak of--oh, I don't mean that you were any saint; I suppose
you kicked up once in a while, same as any healthy young colt, but there
was nothing vicious about you--and it seemed hard luck that out of my
three boys one wasn't left me. Well, never mind that. Now all I've got
will be Jack's when I get my time. And so I was thinking of making you a
little proposition."
"Yes," said Joe wondering what this was leading up to. "What is it, Mr.
Crooks?"
"I was wondering," Crooks pursued, "whether you'd care to combine our
businesses?"
Joe was thoughtful for a moment. His eyes narrowed a little, and his
brows drew down in a slight frown. He looked at Crooks steadily. The old
lumberman returned his gaze.
"Is there anything behind this, sir?" Joe asked.
"Behind it--how? You don't think I'm putting up a job to freeze you out,
do you?"
"No, not that. But are you making this proposition for Jack's sake? I
mean, do you think I'd make a mess of my business if I ran it alone?
Because if that's really the reason I'd like to show you."
"If I thought you couldn't run your own business I wouldn't want your
help to run mine," Crooks replied. "Mind you, I consider myself able to
give you a few pointers. You've a lot to learn, but you're one of the
young fellows who will learn. Some can't; others won't. I'd hate to see
Jack marry a man I didn't think would make good. I'd tell him so mighty
quick. No, I gave you my real reason."
"It's a good proposition for me, Mr. Crooks," said Joe. "I'm for it, if
we can arrange details. Were you thinking of forming a company?"
"No, I wasn't," said Crooks. "I don't like companies--too much
shenanigan about stock and directors and meetings. A company can't do a
blamed thing without seeing a lawyer first. I own one business which
will be Jack's and yours some day, and you own another. We just make a
little 'greement to run 'em together and divide the profits; and we
arrange who's to do what work--and there you are. Any time things don't
run to suit us we split the blanket. If we tell Locke what we want he'll
put it in shape in half an hour."
"I'll do it," Joe agreed; "but I feel that I'm getting the best of the
bargain in your experience."
"My experience is all right," said Crooks, "but I can't hustle like I
used to--or else I won't. You will, and I'll be able to tell you how.
That makes it an even break. And then you've got Wright. I've wanted him
or some one like him for years."
"I feel that I owe Wright a good deal," said Joe. "He has really run the
business end of the concern. I was thinking of giving him a share in it.
Seems to me something like that is coming to him."
"I'm glad to hear you say so. We'll take him in with us and give him an
interest."
"I want it to come out of my share."
"No. He's going to work for me as much as for you. Wright is a part of
your equipment and a big asset. Whatever interest he gets must come out
of the whole business and not out of one end of it."
They took their proposition in the rough to Locke, and that experienced
adjuster of other men's perplexities proceeded to hammer it into working
shape, finally producing an agreement, clear, concise and satisfactory.
Thus the lumber firm of Crooks & Kent was born.
A couple of days before the wedding, certain quarters of the town--and
also those charged with the duty of enforcing a fair imitation of law
and order therein--began to notice a sudden influx of strangers. They
were for the most part big and very brown, and they walked with a
truculent swagger and regarded the world through humorously insolent
eyes. Also they held together clannishly, and for the most part--to the
relief of the authorities--maintained themselves in a condition of near
sobriety.
"For if ye get too full," big Cooley explained to the bibulously
inclined Chartrand, "ye miss the weddin'. An' it's not the likes of you
is axed to one every day."
"I'll be mos' awful dry, me!" Chartrand complained. He hailed little
Narcisse Laviolette. "_Hola_, Narcisse, _mon vieux!_ Come on, tak'
leetle drink wit' me. Come on, you beeg Cooley. We don't get dronk--_pas
du tout_. We jus' feex ourself so we lak for sing leetle _chanson_."
He hammered the bar with the heavy-bottomed little glass constructed in
the interests of the house to hold one man's size drink and no more, and
burst into alleged melody:
"Dat square-face-gin, she'll be ver' fine,
Some feller lak dat champagne wine--
But de bes' dam' drink w'hat I never saw
Come out of a bottle of _whiskey blanc_.
(O listen to me now, while I'll tol' you how!)
Dere was Joe Leduc an' me, Larry Frost an' Savigny,
Chevrier an' Prevost, Jimmy Judge an' Larribee,
Lamontagne an' Lajeunesse--mebbe fifty mans, I guess;
You would know de whole kaboodle if I ain't forget de res'.
We was drive upon dat reever an' we ron heem down _les Chats_,
An' den we hit dat Quyon where we buy dat _whiskey blanc_!"
"Yell her out, _mes amis!_ Bus' dat roof!"
"Hooraw! hooraw! _pour le_ good ol' _whiskey blanc_!
She's gran' for mak love on, she's bully for fight,
She'll keep out dat col', an'----"
"Shut up!" roared Cooley. "Now you listen here--you ain't goin' to show
up drunk at the boss's weddin', puttin' the whole crew on the hog.
Savvy? You're three parts full now. I'll sober ye, me buck, if it's wid
me feet in yer face!"
And the threat of Cooley, combined with the eloquent profanity of a
self-constituted temperance committee, caused Chartrand to postpone his
celebration. It was Cooley also who constituted himself an authority on
social usage.
"Bein' asked to this weddin'," said he, "the c'rect thing is to put up a
present."
"Sure!"
"That's right, Cooley."
"You bet!"
"We'll do it right while we're about it," said the big man. "Here's ten
dollars in me hat. Sweeten as she goes 'round, boys. Let's buy the boss
an' his girl somethin' good--somethin' they won't be ashamed to keep in
the front room an' tell their friends it come from the boys of Kent's
big drive!"
An hour later the proprietor of Falls City's leading jewelry store was
somewhat startled by an invasion of half a dozen weather-beaten,
rough-looking customers quite different from his ordinary patrons; and
he nearly fainted when the spokesman told him that they were in search
of a wedding present on which they were prepared to expend between three
and four hundred dollars.
In the end they chose a cabinet filled with silver, eying respectfully
the dainty knives, forks, and spoons, and other articles of whose use
they had small conception.
"We want a name plate put on her," said Cooley, "showing a lad in river
clothes standin' on a log wid a peavey in his fist; an' above that we
want the date; an' underneath it, 'From Kent's River Crew.'"
It is safe to say that never had the church, to whose support old Bill
Crooks contributed more often than he attended it, held as motley a
gathering as on the morning of the wedding of his daughter and Joe Kent.
Big, brown men, painfully shaven, in aggressively new garments which
cramped their strong muscles and rendered them awkward and ill at ease,
occupied seats beside the members of Falls City's leading families, who
eyed the intruders askance. And here and there, also ill at ease, were
old men and women, dependents of William Crooks and friends of his
daughter, whom they loved.
Joe and his best man entered from the vestry; but there was a slight
delay. They stood before the chancel waiting for the bride and her
father.
"The boss is nervous," Cooley commented to Haggarty in a low whisper.
"Look at him shift on his feet. An' see the ears of him. Red!"
"Small blame to him," Haggarty responded sympathetically. "I'll bet he'd
rather be swappin' punches wid a man twice his own weight."
But Jack entered on her father's arm--a dainty, queenly Jack, clad in
bride-white, her eyes demurely downcast but the small head with the
crown of glossy brown hair carried as proudly as ever.
"An' I used to give her lumps out of the sugar bar'l!" said Jimmy Bowes,
the fat old bull-cook, in sentimental reminiscence.
"Purty as a little red wagon," said Haggarty with approval.
"Mo' Gee! I leave home for dat myself!" commented little Narcisse
Laviolette, who possessed a wife of double his own fighting weight and
offspring of about the same combined avoirdupois. And Cooley, who
overheard this tribute from the little teamster, took offence thereat.
"Shut up, ye blasted little pea-soup!" he growled. "She's the boss's
wife--or as good as. You remember that, and don't try to be funny!"
"Who's try for be fonnee?" demanded Laviolette with indignation at this
unjust interpretation of his well-meant speech. "You give me de swif'
pain, you. Sacre dam! Some tam, bagosh, I ponch your beeg Irish mug!"
"Sh!" rumbled Haggarty. "Can't ye quit yer dam' swearin' in a church?
Shut up, the both of ye!"
The ceremony, which was rapidly changing Jack Crooks into Mrs. Joe Kent,
proceeded, finished. Kisses were showered on her, handshakes and slaps
on the back on Joe. In the midst of these the latter caught sight of a
group of weather-tanned faces in the centre of the church. Their owners
were standing uncertainly, diffident, not caring to mingle with the more
fashionably clad throng that clustered about the principals. Joe turned
to his bride.
"There's Cooley and Haggarty and a bunch of the boys of my river crew,
Jack," he said. "They want to wish us luck, and they're too bashful to
mix. Come on down and shake hands."
"Of course," said Jack.
With his bride on his arm Joe went down the aisle to the men of his
drive, to have his right hand almost permanently disabled in the grips
he received; but the pressure of the big hands that closed bashfully
around Jack's slim fingers would not have crushed a butterfly. "Wishin'
ye good luck an' happiness, ma'am," was the formula, but little varied.
Into the midst of them came old Bill Crooks. "Come on, boys!" he
exclaimed. "There's a wedding spread up at my house, and I want every
man of you there to drink good luck to the bride--and to the new firm of
Crooks & Kent. No holding back, now. Come along, everybody!"
They came along, though most of them would have preferred to go down a
bad piece of water on a single stick of pine, and their coming taxed the
space of Crooks's dining-room--to say nothing of the commissariat and
canteen--to the limit. They ate and drank solemnly, on their best
behaviour and conscious of it, sipping the unaccustomed wines with
reserved judgment.
"What'll be a dose of this?" whispered Regan, eying his champagne glass
with suspicion. "The waitin' gyurls fill it up whenever I empty it. This
makes five I've had and I can't feel it yet. Belike it acts suddint. I
wouldn't want to get full here."
"Nor me," Cooley agreed. "They're all drinkin' it, an' none the worse.
If they can stand it we can." He gulped down half a glass and thrust his
tongue back and forth experimentally. "Champagne, hey? It has a puckery
taste till it, but no rasp. It might be hard cider wid more fizz.
There's no harm in it. I cud drink enough of it to float a log. Here's
some lad speakin'. Listen to what he says."
They heard the health of the bride proposed in customary language; Joe's
reply, embarrassed, jerky, brief.
"Speaking isn't Kent's strong point," a guest commented. Cooley glowered
at him, resentful of the just criticism.
"He can talk when he has anything to say, and he can curse _fine_!" he
affirmed. He led vociferous cheers as Joe sat down, and cheered almost
equally hard when Crooks concluded five minutes of pointed remarks in
which he announced the formation of the new firm.
But these cheers were as nothing to the leather-lunged roars that bade
Jack and Joe farewell as they stepped into the carriage. With the cheers
came showers of rice. Joe turned up his coat collar; but Jack laughed
back through the fusillade of it, blowing kisses to her father, her girl
friends, and the rivermen, impartially. And the memory of them stayed
with the rough shantymen for years.
The train which bore Joe and his bride on their wedding journey clanked
slowly through the yards following the line of the river. As it looped
around a curve they could see, looking backward from the rear platform
of the last coach which they had to themselves, the mills of Bill Crooks
and of Joe Kent each flying a flag from the topmost point, the silver of
the flowing water checkered with the black lines of the long booms and
the herds of brown logs inside them. In the mills not a wheel turned
that day. But steam was in the boilers, for as they looked it poured
white from the roofs of the engine houses and the bellowing howls of two
fire sirens bade them a joyous farewell.
Jack slipped her hand in Joe's.
"Are you glad?"
"Glad it's over? You bet I am!"
"No--glad we're married?"
"That's a nice question. And you know the answer."
"Of course I do," she admitted happily. "I suppose a wedding trip is a
fine thing. Anyway, it's conventional. But--I'll be glad to come back
home."
"Same here," he agreed. "There's lot to be done--a holy lot. I have to
get right down to work. I want to take all the weight I can off your
father's shoulders. That's up to me. Then, when you come to running two
mills under one management, there must be all sorts of economies
possible, if a fellow could only find out what they are. I don't want to
let Wright do all the finding out for me. Yes, I'll be pretty busy."
"Well, you like the work. That's the main thing."
"That's so," he admitted. "I like it better all the time. I never knew
what real fun was till I had to hustle for myself. A year ago I was no
better than a big kid. I could feed myself and dress myself if somebody
handed me the price, and that just about let me out. And at that I
thought I was having a good time. A good time? Huh! Why, I didn't know I
was alive. Oh, well ... we'll cut out business on this trip--not talk of
it or think of it at all. Shall we?"
"No--o. I like to talk about it. It makes me think I'm helping. If I
were a man----"
"I'm mighty glad you're not. Remember the time you wished you were a
boy?"
"That was before----"
"Before what?"
"You know very well. Before I knew you thought anything of me."
"You are absolutely the best little girl in the world," he said with
conviction. "I always loved you, Jack--ever since we were kids--only I
didn't know it."
She gave his arm a quick little understanding hug, with a new womanly
pride in the hard, swelling muscles that met the pressure. They stood
close together, watching the last silvery reach of the river, burnished,
mirror-like, lustrous beneath the sloping afternoon sun. They had been
born beside it; as children they had played on it, in it; and they loved
it as a part of their lives. It was a treasure stream, bearing to them
year after year the loot of the northern forests--the great, brown
sticks of pine. Changeless and yet ever changing it never failed to
charm. Ages old but ever young it held its children in the spell of its
eternal life. And so as it vanished, shut out by a landscape that seemed
to rush backward as the train gathered speed, their eyes and their
thoughts clung to it; for by the river and with the pine their lifework
lay.