On the day the mills commenced operating Jim Ashe called for a statement
of the company’s condition from Mr. Grierson. As Jim expected, it proved
to be disquieting. The facts were that the mills had cost upward of two
hundred thousand dollars; there was still owing for machinery and
materials some thirty thousand dollars; there was seven thousand dollars
cash in the bank. The weekly payroll was over two thousand dollars.
Other operating expenses, with the cost of supplies and timber, brought
this sum up to five thousand dollars a week—and as yet not a penny’s
worth of manufactured product had been turned out or shipped.
“According to this,” Jim said to Mr. Grierson, “we can run a week. Then
what?”
“Then,” said Mr. Grierson, his voice dry and rattling like one of the
leaves of his ledger, “we’ll have to have some more money.”
“Oh,” said Jim, grimly, “that’s all there is to it, eh? Well, where’ll
we get it? Supposing we are able to begin shipments by the end of next
week—how soon can we expect returns?”
“Thirty days at the best.”
“And in that thirty days we’ll be spending nearly thirty thousand
dollars—which we haven’t got. I have heard of working capital before,
but I never comprehended what a pleasant thing it was to have. Where
does one get money, Grierson?”
“From the bank.”
“To be sure. I guess I’m beginning to understand what father was talking
about when he said he milked the business. That fifty thousand of his
would make a fine plug to put in this hole. But that’s gone. If I know
father, he took it to make me hustle. His sense of humor works that way.
Well, I’ll see what I can puzzle out, Grierson.”
Jim was in a measure prepared to be helmsman of his commercial ship, so
far as the manufacturing and selling of his wares were concerned; but
when the vessel entered financial waters, with a storm blowing and a
tortuous channel to thread, he felt he ought to toot the whistle
frantically and signal for a pilot. But there was no pilot to be had.
There was nothing for it but to slow down and dodge through the reefs,
taking frequent soundings with the lead of good judgment, striving with
his eyes to pierce the vexed waters for hidden rocks. In short, the time
had arrived to spread the bread of uncertainty with the butter of
optimism.
He must have money. Two methods of procuring it presented themselves,
but he liked the features of neither of them. The first was to
borrow—if possible; the second, to sell stock. Without hesitation he
eliminated the latter. He put on his hat, stopped long enough in the
outer office to tell Grierson he was going to the bank, and went out.
He handed his card to Mr. Wills, cashier of the institution, and Mr.
Wills shook hands with him in the manner that cashiers shake hands with
individuals who are to deposit some hundreds of thousands of dollars a
year with them.
“Glad to know you, Mr. Ashe. I was wondering when you’d find time to
drop in to see us.”
“I hope you’ve got lots of money, now that I am here,” said Jim, with
specious confidence.
“Enough to warrant us in locking the vault,” said Mr. Wills. “Anything
special we can do for you to-day?”
“Well,” said Jim, “you could lend me a few dollars.”
“Your father said you might be wanting to borrow,” said Mr. Wills. “He
had, as you know, of course, a conference with our board this spring,
and we stand ready to do what we can for you. We’re a small bank, you
know. Some of our directors were against making a loan of any size to a
corporation, but Zaanan Frame and Mr. Moran were in favor—which wound
up that ball of string. How much will you be wanting?”
“Thirty thousand dollars,” said Jim, half expecting the cashier to jump
to his feet and call a strong assistant to escort him to the street.
“That’s just inside the limit. Need it right away?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Wills fumbled in a pigeonhole and passed Jim a note.
“Make this out, sign it as an officer of your company, and put your
personal indorsement on the back. It’s a demand note, you observe. We
prefer that kind.”
Jim wasn’t clear just what the difference was between that kind and the
other. It didn’t matter. He was going to get the money he
needed—without an effort. It was a shock to him. Were money matters
arranged thus easily? Was money in considerable sums so easy to come by?
He signed the note, and was told the amount would be credited to his
accounts as of that day.
After he had chatted a moment, and thanked Mr. Wills as profusely as he
believed it wise, he turned away. But a sudden recollection stopped him.
Mr. Wills had said Zaanan Frame and Mr. Moran had favored the loan. Did
you ever eat cherry pie, delicious cherry pie, and suddenly encounter a
pit which the cook had overlooked? Jim felt much the same way.
“What Mr. Moran is on your board?” he asked.
Wills looked his astonishment.
“Why, Michael Moran, of course!” he said.
As Jim turned off the road on to the mill lot, a man two inches shorter
than he and four inches broader accosted him.
“You’re Mr. Ashe, ain’t you?” the man asked.
Jim nodded and stopped. The man, who wore a calico shirt that, stout as
it was, threatened to rip out at the seams when the big muscles played
beneath, was an individual whose life had not fallen in places of ease.
Work, hard work, had made him. He had triumphed over it. His will and a
splendid body had triumphed, until Jim paid the tribute of his
admiration to the result of it.
“Got any place for a cant-hook man?”
“I think we can use one in the log-yard. Out of a job?”
“Walked out of it. When I heard Mike Moran was goin’ to run the
Diversity Hardwood outfit I quit—sudden.”
Jim waited.
“I worked for him three year back on the South Branch.” The man spat
savagely in the dust. “Self-respectin’ lumberjack wouldn’t ’a’ stayed
twenty-four hours gittin’ what some of them fellers got. Me, it wasn’t
so bad. ‘What was the matter?’ says you. ‘Plenty,’ says I. First, he
starts in gittin’ rid of as good a crew as ever stuck their legs under a
cook-shanty table, and filled up the woods with Polacks and Italians and
Hunkies. Just critters with arms and laigs like folks. Grub was
rotten—rotten! Them poor foreigners got it comin’ and goin’. Knocked
round, fed spoiled meat—and then cheated out of their pay. Oh,
foreigners hain’t the only ones that’s been cheated out of their pay in
Michigan camps. I wisht I had what was comin’ to me fair, Mr. Ashe. Why,
I knowed two Polacks that come out of Moran’s Camp Three, after workin’
from November till April—and they come out owin’ him eighteen dollars!”
“Now, now,” said Jim.
“I’m tellin’ the truth. Wanigan. Jest robbed off’n ’em. Get a plug of
tobacco at the wanigan—charged for six. Like that. And fines. No wonder
he’s gittin’ richer ’n hell. Gittin’ out his timber don’t cost him
nothin’ to speak of. Men like him is drivin’ real woodsmen out of
Michigan. You can go so far with robbin’ an Irishman or a Norwegian or a
Nova-Scotian—and then somethin’ busts. But with them lingo-talkin’
foreigners, why there hain’t no fight to ’em. And he’ll do the same
here. ’Fore another spring the camps’ll be full of ’em—and him robbin’
’em. I’ve heard ugly things of Mike Moran. Not dealin’s with men, I
mean. I’ve had stories whispered to me by men I believed. And one I know
is so. Ask somebody that knows what become of Susie Gilders. I calc’late
some girl’s dad or brother’ll be splittin’ Mike Moran with an ax one of
these days. But I’m talkin’ too much, Mr. Ashe. Didn’t figger to git off
on this rig. How about that job?”
“Report to the superintendent. Tell him I sent you. What’s your name?”
“Tim Bennett.”
“Well, Tim, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I’d hate to have
you think about me as you do about Moran. I’ll try to see you don’t.
These are my mills, and the crew are working for me—but that doesn’t
mean any man or girl is to be afraid of me. If anything goes wrong, tell
me. Once I wanted to do something besides run a clothespin-mill. I
wanted to see if I couldn’t turn in and do something for these Polacks
and Hunkies and Italians—something that would change them from being
foreigners into Americans. But I couldn’t have my way. But this much I
can do—I can see that the folks who work for me get a square deal.
You’ll find the superintendent back by the log-slide.”
Tim hesitated a moment, seemed to have something more to say, but to
find difficulty saying it. Finally he blurted out: “Say, Mr. Ashe, I
b’lieve you and me is goin’ to get on.”
Jim recognized the compliment; it was no small one.
“I hope so, Tim,” he said.
Jim sat down in his chair before his desk and scowled at the wall.
Michael Moran—everywhere that name obtruded itself—Michael Moran and
Zaanan Frame. The pair of them seemed to impend over the Ashe Clothespin
Company like twin thunderclouds, threatening, possessed of destructive
potentialities. They had met, conferred with Morton Welliver after that
gentlemen had delivered his ultimatum. Had that conference concerned
him? Jim believed it had. Just what harm Zaanan Frame was potent to
cause, Jim did not know; but Moran—Moran owned the little railroad, the
sole outlet for Jim’s wares; he controlled the lumber company from which
came Jim’s logs; his voice was preponderating in the bank to which Jim
owed thirty thousand dollars.
A thought came to Jim: If he could buy Moran’s logs and pay Moran a
profit on them—and then himself manufacture them into clothespins and
realize another profit—how great would be Moran’s profit if in his own
mills he manufactured clothespins from his own logs! Jim believed that
in Moran’s place he would covet the Ashe Clothespin Company. And Moran’s
various activities showed him to be an acquisitive individual. But
nowhere had Moran manifested an unfriendly spirit; indeed, he had been
distinctly friendly in the matter of the loan. What then? In any event,
Jim told himself, it would not be time wasted to keep a clear eye on the
man and, if possible, to rear in advance defenses against his possible
attack.
Presently he got up and went into the outer office, where Grierson and
his assistant were making occult entries in black and red ink on the
pages of huge books. These tomes, in which were recorded the daily
history of business transactions, always affected Jim with a feeling of
awe, and secretly he had for Grierson and his young man a profound
admiration. Anybody who could make all those entries and add all those
figures, and then, a month afterward, have the slightest idea what all
the agglomeration was about, was possessed of some divine spark akin to
genius!
“Grierson,” said Jim, “have you ever made the acquaintance of the
creature known as a demand note?”
“Not personally, I thank Heaven,” Grierson said, piously.
“But you know its habits?”
“You’re joking, Mr. Ashe.” Anything akin to humor was not to be
tolerated when it touched a thing so sacred as one of the bits of
business impedimenta.
“I’m exceedingly serious. What can you tell me of the habits and
personal peculiarities of the thing?”
“A demand note,” said Grierson, with musty gravity, “is a negotiable
instrument running for an indefinite period. It differs from a time note
in that it may be presented and payment demanded”—he accented the word
“demanded” in a manner that Jim thought vindictive—“at any time the
holder chooses. Am I clear?”
“Perfectly—and disquietingly. I am to understand that if you give a man
a demand note he may drop in on you casually whenever the notion seizes
him and make you—er—in the undignified language of the soap salesman,
come across? Is that it?”
Mr. Grierson nodded, frowned, peered anxiously at his ledger as if he
feared a figure or two might sneak away from him while his attention was
distracted.
“Can you say anything cheerful about one of them?” Jim persisted.
“The only cheerful thing about a demand note, Mr. Ashe, is to know you
are able to pay it whenever it turns up—which most people are not.”
“That,” said Jim, “is an observation made from great depths of wisdom.”
“I hope, Mr. Ashe, you have not been making any demand paper.”
“Your hope is vain, Grierson. The thing is done. The sword is suspended
over my head. I am now speculating on the possibility of certain
gentlemen cutting the hair that holds it.”
He went back to his desk again with the intention of boring into the
inwardness of the situation, but, strangely, his mind showed a
disposition to wander. It skipped offishly away from demand notes and
speculations regarding Michael Moran; was drawn again and again where
Jim did not want it to go—and where it would not be welcome. Of the
latter he was sure. For it was Marie Ducharme who obtruded and elbowed
aside more serious matters.
Jim moved to the Widow Stickney’s that night. He wondered how Miss
Ducharme would regard his coming. Doubtless it would not decrease the
ill will she felt toward him. Doubtless she would regard it as an
impertinent intrusion. What did it matter how she regarded it? He said
that to himself, but somehow he could not quite convince himself that he
said it with all sincerity.