The mills started as well as any new mills could be expected to start. They did not run perfectly; minor defects developed, machines ran stiffly, hot-boxes developed, belts required tightening; but Jim Ashe was willing to praise his millwrights for good work done. As he walked through the big plant between rows of machines which chugged or punched or sawed rhythmically; as he watched hardwood logs crawl up the slide at the rear of the mill, and pass through a multitude of processes to emerge into the warehouse finished clothespins or dishes or bowls, he felt a sense of pride in the thing he was doing. He was drawing straight from Nature to minister to the necessities of man. It was no ignoble task.
If profits came to him, they would be honestly earned profits, the results of labor. He was not wasting as timber had been wasted before his day. Every scrap of wood that came into his mill was utilized. Modern machinery made possible a saving in timber that thirty years ago would have run into hundreds of millions of feet of pine, had the pioneer wasters availed themselves of it. Thin band-saws turned a minimum of each log into ashes; with them Jim got seven boards where old-time circular saws had been able to give but six. Resaws redeemed the slabs, took from them the finest gold of the timber which lay just under the bark. In other days slab-piles had been known to burn constantly for years, a savage waste. Sawdust, remnants of slabs, edgings furnished the fuel which gave him his power. Here was nothing of which to be ashamed; much to justify pride. Here was an enterprise a man might defend before the court of posterity.
But if the mills ran to Jim’s satisfaction at first they did not improve as he demanded. In ten days from the beginning there swept over the plant a pestilence of mishaps, each mishap causing the shutdown of a department, sometimes of the whole mill. It did not abate, but continued maddeningly. The shrill toot of the little whistle which commanded the engineer to stop motion became a throb in a sore tooth to Jim. Each accident was small; the total of them reached dangerous magnitude.
Jim called in Nelson, head millwright, and his superintendent, John Beam. They came wearing the faces of harried men.
“In three days,” Jim said, shortly, “we’ve lost five hours in shut-downs. Why?”
“Every night,” said Nelson, “we inspect every belt, every pulley, every gear, every machine. We make sure nothing is wrong—and next day a dozen things go wrong.
“The last shut-down was for a split pulley on the main shaft. I went over that shaft last night myself. That pulley was as tight and sound as any pulley could be. And it twisted off this morning. We had to shut down yesterday to fix the main driving-belt. Four rivets had come loose and she’d have pulled clean apart. There wasn’t a sign of a loose rivet night before last—I’d take my oath on it.” He looked gloomily out of the window. The thing was twanging on his nerves as well as on Jim’s.
“John and I aren’t trying to make excuses for ourselves. We’d be tickled to death to take the blame if we could only fix it on to ourselves. What makes me want to roll over and howl is that we can’t fix it any place. In spite of all we can do these things happen. It’s just as he says about what he’s seen. Things I know were sound and in perfect runnin’ condition at night goes wrong in the mornin’. And how in blazes are we goin’ to explain the nails?”
“What nails?” Jim asked.
“In the logs. Every sawyer expects to find some nails when he’s sawin’ maple. Especially in a sugar country. They was drove in to hold sap buckets. But a man don’t expect to find ’em in beech and birch—and he don’t expect to find brand-new ten-penny nails, neither. The saw-filer’s tearin’ his hair. If it keeps on we won’t have a saw to cut with in the big mill. You know what a nail’ll do to a saw, Mr. Ashe.”
“Why doesn’t the sawyer keep his eyes open for them?” Jim snapped.
“Keep his eyes open! Mr. Ashe, before he puts a log on the carriage now he goes over it from end to end. You can’t see a nail that’s countersunk so the head’s half an inch in.”
“The way you say that sounds as if you meant something. Out with it.”
“I mean,” said Nelson, doggedly, “that it looks to me as if somebody was plantin’ them nails so’s we’d saw into ’em. I mean it looks to me like somebody sneaked in here and tampered with things after we get through inspectin’. I mean that the things that’s happened in this mill couldn’t ’a’ happened without bein’ helped to happen.” John Beam nodded his head in agreement.
“That’s nonsense,” Jim said, emphatically.
“Maybe it is. Maybe a crazy man’s doin’ it. But, Mr. Ashe, it’s bein’ done. I know it as well as if I’d seen the feller doin’ it.”
“How about the watchmen?”
“All of ’em worked for us in the old mills. ’Tain’t none of them. I’d take my Bible oath on that.”
Jim sat silent a moment, scowling at the floor.
“You men know what shut-downs mean,” he said. “Here’s five hours in three days—half a day’s time gone. That means a loss in wages alone of a hundred dollars, which is a small part of it. It’s got to stop. I don’t care whether these accidents are accidents or whether somebody is arranging them-they’ve got to quit, and quit sudden. Suppose we lose a hundred dollars every three days. That’s two hundred a week and ten thousand a year. Have you talked about this to anybody?”
“No,” said Nelson.
Beam shook his head,
“Is there any talk in the mill?”
“Haven’t heard any.”
“Well, keep quiet about it. If you fellows are right, we don’t want to advertise it. Now clear out of here and do the best you can. Keep your eyes open. Don’t get suspicious of anybody till you have mighty good reason. I’d hate to think it was any of the crew.”
“It’s somebody that knows the run of things.”
“Yes.”
“What possible reason could anybody have, Mr. Ashe—”
“That’ll be my job—to find out. This suspicion of yours is upsetting. I want to think about it. Then I’ll do something.”
Nelson’s eyes twinkled as he glanced sideways at Beam. As they went out Jim heard him say in a low tone:
“You bet he’ll do somethin’—and it’ll come sudden and astonishin’. Sudden Jim!” There was a note of affection in Nelson’s voice as he pronounced the name.
Jim settled down to think about it. That some one was planning deliberately to cripple the plant by injuring its machinery was illogical. It affronted Jim’s reason. Yet it was a theory impossible to dismiss. It must be considered. In that case, who had an adequate motive? Nobody, so far as Jim could see at first glance.
He set up the possibilities, only to knock them down one by one. It might be the work of a man with a mania for malicious destruction. Highly improbable, thought Jim. It might be workmen or a workman with a grievance practising sabotage. But so far as Jim knew there was no discontent; the crew were satisfied; there had been no complaints, no unrest. That possibility must be dismissed. It might be some individual in Diversity with a grudge to work off against the company. But Jim had never heard of conflict between the company and a citizen, nor had unfriendliness developed since his arrival. This, too, was dismissed.
Who had an interest in the failure of the concern? A thought which lay deep in his mind, which he had hoped to conceal even from himself, obtruded: the Clothespin Club. As an organization of men who had fought upward through adverse conditions, against obstacles, side by side with his father, Jim did not believe them guilty. But organizations of honorable business men often employ underlings, concerning whose methods their masters neglect to make close inquiry. Might this not be the case? It was the sole possibility to stand erect before Jim’s reason.
The Club brought up speculations on Morton J. Welliver—which led to Michael Moran and Zaanan Frame. They led to the Diversity Hardwood Company, of which Moran was now the head. Should the Ashe Clothespin Company fail, who was most likely to succeed it? Who would be in the best position to take over the wreck and operate it? To that question there was but one answer—the Diversity Hardwood Company. Now Jim became obsessed by a real suspicion—and he would act upon it until evidence showed him he was at fault. He would move on the theory that Welliver, Moran, and Frame were not clean of hand. Frame! What had he to base a suspicion of Zaanan Frame upon? Nothing but an evident acquaintance with Welliver, a patent closeness of relations to Moran. No, the old justice’s name must stand among the suspected.
“Where’s Mr. Ashe?” roared an angry voice in the outer office.
Jim heard Grierson’s parchment voice give the direction, and heavy feet pounded down the hall to his door. Watson, foreman of the veneer room, burst in, a huge veneer knife in his arms—no mean weight. “Look at that,” he said, belligerently, dropping the knife on Jim’s desk with a bang. “Look at that! Two knives this mornin’.”
There was plain to view a generous nick on the cutting edge.
“What did it?” Jim asked.
“Nail. Twice this mornin’. Now I’ve got to shut down one lathe till the other knife’s ground down. What land of timber is this, anyhow, with nails hid all over it?”
“Nothing the matter with your eyesight, is there?”
Watson glared at Jim, shook a grimy finger at him.
“I kin see nails as far as anybody, but I can’t look through an inch of timber to ’em. We always look out for nails, but it’s easy to see ’em. Bolts come to us from the vats with the bark peeled, and mostly the peelers get the nails with their spuds. But nobody kin see a nail that’s sunk an inch and the hole plugged. Yes, sir, that’s what I mean. The hole was plugged!”
“How do you know?”
“Strip of veneer showed it. Slice of plug was still stickin’ in. And we went over a dozen more bolts with a fine-tooth comb. We found one with a spot in it that looked suspicious. Dug it out and it was a plug! And we notched in and hit the nail. Now what does that mean?”
“It means you’re to keep your mouth shut about it, and tell some kind of a story to your gang to keep their mouths shut.”
“Somebody’s goin’ to get hurt,” Watson said, darkly.
“Yes,” said Jim, slowly, “somebody is going to get hurt—bad.”
“I s’pose I’ll have to look over every bolt with opery-glasses,” growled Watson.
“I’ll give you a man who is to do nothing else. Tell Beam I said so.”
Jim put on his coat and hat and went to dinner. His physical machine was such that it required nourishment, no matter what was happening to the mental department. Some men lose their appetites when things go wrong. Not so Jim Ashe. Some men drown their troubles in drink. Jim had his drowned three times daily in hunger.
When he had eaten his dinner—for the Widow Stickney had only vaguely heard of a strange custom of moving that meal along till six o’clock and having a thing at noon called luncheon; to her, luncheon was something you put up in a basket and took to a picnic—he leaned back in his chair for his usual midday chat with the old lady.
“You’ve lived here long, Mrs. Stickney?”
“Born in the county.”
“You ought to be pretty well acquainted with folks hereabout.”
“Don’t have to live here long to be that. Everybody you meet is boilin’ over with anxiety to give you the true life history of everybody else. You kin git to know Diversity consid’able well in a week, if you’re willin’ to listen.”
“Justice Frame’s lived here a long time, too, hasn’t he?”
“Him and me was children together.”
“Mrs. Stickney, I’m not asking this wholly out of curiosity. I’m new to you all. I’ve got my hands pretty full, and there are people in the world who would be glad to see me spill part of my load. It’s a fine thing to know whom you can depend on and whom you want to shy at. So I’m asking you to tell me something about Zaanan Frame.”
“He’s a stiff-spined old grampus,” said the widow, promptly. “Him and me squabbles so’s the neighbors ’most come a-runnin’ in to part us. He’s powerful set on havin’ his own way—and mostly he gits it. He’s sharper ’n a new sickle. He’s been justice of the peace here since before Mary Whittaker was born, and Mary’s got a boy of ten herself. Hain’t never been nothin’ more ’n just justice of the peace, but he runs the whole blessed county out of his office. He’s one of them things the papers call a political boss; but if I do say it, Zaanan Frame does a good job of it. But he runs it so folks git the wuth of their taxes, and so that them that wants justice gits it.
“About dependin’ on him,” she went on, after drawing a breath, “you won’t never find him dodgin’ about underhand. If he likes you, he hain’t apt to show it by runnin’ up and kissin’ you in public; and if he don’t like you, he don’t cuss you and try to hit you with a pebble whenever you meet—but you soon git to know. I’ve knowed him to give a man he didn’t like all the best of a deal—so nobody’d accuse him of workin’ a personal spite. I’ve knowed him to refuse things to a friend he’d ’a’ done for a stranger. They say he stretches the powers of his office and does things a justice hain’t got no right to do—and I calc’late he does. But it’s in time of need for somebody. He meddles into folkses’ fam’ly affairs, and plans to marry off this girl to that feller—which plans mostly works out to his notion.
“He’s got a sort of notion he was put here by God Almighty to be father and mother to every man, woman, and child in the county. But there hain’t no complaints of him as a parent, though he’s a mean-dispositioned, meddlin’, sharp-tongued, stubborn-minded old coot.
“Diversity hain’t given much to sayin’ anythin’ but meannesses about folks; we don’t speak none about Zaanan, but I calc’late there’s growed men that’ll walk behind him to the cemetery with tears a-runnin’ down their cheeks, and wimmin that’ll be sobbin’ and leetle children that’ll know what it means to lose their pa. If there’s any argument when Zaanan gits to stand before the great white throne, he’s got a right to say: ‘Wait a minnit, Lord, till we kin git in a number of souls that’s here but was bound for the other place till I got my hands on the reins.’ If you’re worryin’ as to where Zaanan Frame stands, I kin tell you—he stands where it’s honestest and lightest for him to stand. My goodness! but hain’t I been goin’ on about him! Thinkin’ as high of him as I do, it’s a wonder I don’t up and make him my third.”
Jim sat gnawing his finger silently for many minutes after the widow was done speaking. She spoke as one who knew. Jim knew she would have testified in a court of law just as she had spoken to him. Nor would she have spoken so except from certainty. He was compelled, therefore, to revise his judgments and suspicions.
“If you were in a hard place, Mrs. Stickney, and needed advice, would you go to Zaanan Frame?”
“I’d hitch up and go at a gallop,” she said.
“That,” said Jim, “is about what I think I’ll do.”
Jim rapped on the door of Zaanan Frame’s office. At the last minute he had been of two minds whether he should go in or pass on about his business. The sound of his own knuckles on the panel decided him.
“Come in,” called Zaanan’s voice.
Jim entered and saw the old justice sitting behind his desk, a sheep-bound volume propped up before him. Over the top of this a pair of sharp blue eyes shaded by bushy eyebrows, each of which would have gladdened the heart of an ambitious young roan could he have had it for a mustache, peered at Jim.
“Huh!” snorted Zaanan.
“You’ve made it pretty evident,” Jim said, stiffly, “that you don’t like me. I can’t say I have felt any uncontrollable affection for you—”
“Whoa there!” said Zaanan, closing his book, Tiffany’sJustices’ Guide, which he maintained to be the greatest contribution to human knowledge, especially of the law, since Moses received the tablets of stone. “Young feller, if you hain’t too young to learn, lemme tell you it’s possible to ketch more flies with maple sugar than you kin with stummick bitters. Jest smooth down the hair along your back and don’t go walkin’ round me stiff-legged like a dog lookin’ for a fight.” Zaanan’s eyes twinkled. “Now, then, set and onbosom yourself.”
“I’ve come to see you, Judge, because I have been assured that friend or enemy can trust you—”
“The Widder Stickney’s been flappin’ her wings and cacklin’,” observed Zaanan. “Um! I figgered you’d be to see me—or else you wouldn’t. Gittin’ ready to kick out, but you need a wall to lean against, eh?”
“Kick out? What makes you think I’m getting ready to kick out? And at whom?”
“‘Whom,’” quoted Zaanan. “I’ve heard of that there word. It’s grammar, hain’t it, but I dun’no’s I ever expected to hear it spoke in Diversity. How’s the meals to the widder’s?”
“Very good, indeed,” said Jim, nonplussed.
“You hain’t the only boarder, I hear tell.”
“No; Miss Ducharme is there, too.”
“I want to know,” said Zaanan, his eyes twinkling again. “Makes it pleasanter, I calc’late—you two young folks together.”
“I think Miss Ducharme could bear up under the blow if I were to board some place else.”
“Um!” said Zaanan. “Mill hain’t runnin’ very good, I hear.”
“That’s what I came to see you about—that and other things.”
“Good mill, hain’t it? New machines? Ought to run, hadn’t it?”
“It ought to and it’s going to. But, Judge, it looks a lot as if somebody didn’t want it to.”
“Um! That might mean consid’able and it might mean nothin’. Accordin’ to my notion one of the easiest ways of givin’ information is to think up words that mean what you want to tell and then to say ’em. Beatin’ round the bush may scare up a rabbit, but you hain’t huntin’ rabbits. Eh?”
“Well, then, somebody has been tampering with our machinery to make it break down. Somebody has been driving nails into our logs to dull our saws. Whoever it is has made us shut down five hours in the last three days.”
“You figger somebody’s doin’ it deliberate?”
“Yes.”
“Got any proof?”
Jim laid before the old man such evidence as he had, but it was sufficient. Zaanan wagged his head.
“Calc’late there hain’t no doubt of it. Suspect anybody special?”
“I haven’t any suspicion who is working the mischief, but I have an idea he isn’t doing it for himself.”
“Somebody’s hirin’ him to do it, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Who might it be?”
“There are only two interests who would have any motive in breaking me. One is the organization of clothespin manufacturers. I’m in a fight with them now because they wanted to run my business. The other is the Diversity Hardwood Company.”
“Hum! I figgered from what Welliver said a spell back that he wasn’t tickled to death with you and your doin’s. You hain’t a bit afraid who you’re suspicious of, be you?”
“I’ve got to be suspicious of everybody—and I’m going to be till I know who can be trusted.”
“Kind of suspected me a mite, eh? Figgered I was tarred with the Welliver and Moran stick?”
“I got to thinking pretty hard when I saw you with them the morning after my row with Welliver. You seemed to be pretty good friends.”
“Calc’late we be. Knowed ’em a long time.”
“Judge, you don’t need any more to show you I’ve a bad situation to deal with. I came to you—I don’t just know why I came to you. On impulse, I expect.”
“Sudden Jim,” said Zaanan, with a chuckle.
“You’ve heard that, eh?”
“Yes. You was sayin’ you come to me on impulse. Must ’a’ figgered I’d be some use to you. Nobody’d climb a greased pole if ’twa’n’t for the five-dollar bill tacked on top of it. Was you wantin’ advice or money or the loan of my shot-gun?”
“I think,” said Jim, slowly, “that what brought me here was a vague sort of hope of finding a friend. When a fellow’s up against a fight he feels lonesome. He likes to know there’s somebody besides himself to depend on. I had no reason to expect it—quite the contrary, perhaps. Anyhow, I believe you could help me with this particular problem if you wanted to.”
“Young feller, a justice of the peace has a heap of duties, some set down in the statutes and some that just come nat’ral. I’ve been justice more ’n thirty year, and I calc’late them duties that no legislature ever thought up is the most important. F’r instance, I married Kitty Fox and Pliny Hearter. That was consid’able of a transaction; but it was consid’able more of one to git ’em back to lovin’ and trustin’ after they’d started runnin’ round for a lawyer to git ’em a divorce. The law don’t give me the right to do quite a stretch of the meddlin’ I do; but it sort of appertains to this here office, and I do it. You don’t want nothin’ of me that’s printed in law-books. So far’s bein’ your friend—why, I hain’t makin’ no sich agreements. Friends hain’t made by writin’ out contracts to that effect. I hain’t seen enough of you to git to yearnin’ over you. But I’ll ease your mind some on one p’int—I hain’t actively concerned to do you no harm. Also, I hain’t got no prejudices ag’in you.”
Jim shrugged his shoulders. “It was a ridiculous sort of notion for me to come like this, without any idea what I wanted. I need help, but what kind of help I don’t know. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re not with the enemy, whoever they are.”
“You mentioned names—on suspicion. One of the onhealthiest habits a man ever got into. I’ve knowed folks to die of it. You’ve figgered out for yourself who’s after your pelt, and why. But you hain’t got no more proof than ol’ man Simpkins had when he wanted me to git leetle Georgie Reed up before me for stealin’ melons. The ol’ man missed a big melon—next day Georgie was bein’ doctored for stummick-ache. ’Twa’n’t out of reason. It was evidence I was willin’ to weigh and pass on in private. I calc’late Georgie et that melon. But as a court of law I couldn’t do nothin’ but declare Simpkins ’u’d have to show plainer proofs. That’s your fix. But, young feller, if I was you I calc’late I’d kinder keep my specs wiped clean and I wouldn’t let my hair grow down over my ears to speak of. G’-by.”
Jim was astonished. Never had he been thus bruskly dismissed. He strode out of the office; but a sense of humor came to his rescue. He turned and bade the old justice good afternoon. Zaanan did not appear to hear.
Zaanan turned the pages of Tiffany’sJustices’ Guidefor fifteen minutes after Jim’s departure. Then he raised his voice in a call for Dolf Springer. Dolf, it happened, was whittling on Zaanan’s doorstep. It was his custom to do so during Zaanan’s office hours, for Dolf desired greatly to be useful to the dictator of Diversity County’s politics. Dolf’s ambition carried him so high as to make him covet the office of pathmaster. Therefore he lay in wait for opportunities to serve Zaanan.
“Perty busy, Dolf?” Zaanan asked. “Time all took up to-day?”
“Got a while to spare, Judge.”
“Think of takin’ a drive, Dolf? Eh? Was that what you was plannin’ on?”
“I was goin’ out for a spell.”
“Um! What direction, Dolf? Didn’t happen to be goin’ out the River Road, did you?”
“That’s exactly where I was goin’. Had a errant out that way.”
“Take you far, Dolf? So far you couldn’t git back to-night?”
“It might, Judge.”
“Wa’n’t goin’ far’s Gilder’s, was you—up back of the Company’s Camp Three?”
“Goin’ a leetle past there, Judge.”
“Um! Know Gilders?”
“Calc’late to.”
“If you was to see him, Dolf, d’ you figger on stoppin’ for a chat? And if you do, what be you goin’ to talk about?”
“I’d mention I hadn’t seen him for a long spell.”
“To be sure.”
“And I’d mention I seen you to-day.”
“Uh-huh. S’pose it would occur to you to say somethin’ to the effect that it looked like business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was comin’? Eh? And that fellers with an ax to grind had better git out the grindstone? Eh?”
“Come to think of it, I guess I’d make some sich observation.”
“And would you kind of speak about the new clothespin-mill? And allude to how the whistle’s always tootin’ for it to shut down on account of somethin’ bustin’?”
“It ’u’d be int’restin’ news to Gilders.”
“’Twouldn’t be any more ’n nat’ral for you to wonder what was the cause of it? Eh? Might suggest that somebody up his way could explain it. ’Twouldn’t be s’rprisin’, would it?”
“Likely to be so,” said Dolf.
“G’-by, Dolf,” said Zaanan.
“G’-by, Judge,” said Dolf.
In ten minutes Dolf was driving a livery rig out the River Road. A twelve-mile ride lay before him, and he did not lag. Some hours later he stopped, tied his horse to a tree by the roadside and plunged into the woods—jack-pine, scrub-oak, underbrush. Fifteen minutes’ scrambling brought him to an insignificant clearing with a log shanty in the middle of it. He stopped cautiously and looked about. Then he called: “Steve! Hey, Steve Gilders!”
A man, perhaps forty-five years old, stood by the shanty door. A moment before the space had been empty. He did not seem to come to that spot from anywhere, but simply to be there all at once. He was what our grandmothers would have called a “fine figger” of a man. Upward of six feet two inches he was, and handsome of feature. The handsomeness was marred by a somberness, a sternness of demeanor.
The admiration he excited was chilled by the rifle he carried under his arm—and the manner in which he carried it. It explained why Dolf had taken the precaution to call before he ventured near.
“What’s wanted?” inquired Gilders.
“Zaanan Frame sent me.”
The man’s face relaxed. “Then you’re welcome. Come in.”
Dolf followed him. “Zaanan sent a message, but I can’t make head or tail to it,” he said.
“Probably ’twa’n’t intended you should,” said Gilders.
“Anyhow,” Dolf said, “Zaanan he told me to come a-drivin’ out here and say to you that fellers with a ax to grind had better git their grindstone out; and that business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was ahead; and that the new clothespin-mill was havin’ trouble with its machinery and somebody up this here way might be able to explain what was the matter. Don’t seem like much of a message to drive twelve miles to deliver.”
“Huh! Goin’ right back?”
“Zaanan acted like he wanted me to stay till mornin’.”
“Git your hoss then. You kin sleep here.”
Dolf went obediently after his animal. Steve Gilders shut his eyes and smiled. It was a peculiar thing to see. Somehow it was not reassuring, but exceedingly sinister. He had read Zaanan’s message correctly. He knew what to do.
When Dolf came back Gilders was gone, nor did Dolf see his host again that night. But that worried Dolf very little. Indeed, it must be said he slept more comfortably for Gilders’s absence.
At sunrise Gilders appeared out of the woods, strode lithely into the shanty, laboriously wrote a letter to Zaanan—which he sealed carefully—and delivered it to Dolf.
“I calc’late you’d better make tracks for town,” he said.
Dolf did not argue the matter.
When Jim Ashe returned to the mill after his conversation with Zaanan Frame he found the machinery idle, employees pouring out of the entrances. He walked past them and into the building in a frame of mind that would have rendered him undesirable as a dinner companion. Another breakdown!
He found Nelson and Beam standing below a couple of mechanics who were working over a pair of big gears. They only nodded curtly at his approach, for apparently their patience, like Jim’s, was close to the fusing-point.
“Now what?” Jim asked.
“Core gear. Stripped the wooden teeth out of it.”
“How?”
Nelson shrugged his shoulders, but Beam replied. “Just got started after dinner,” he said. “I was standin’ not ten feet from here when I seen that solid gear lift up into the air, it looked like two foot, and come down smash onto the wooden teeth. Twouldn’t be so bad if we had a spare set of teeth, but we hain’t.”
“Got to cut ’em out,” supplemented Nelson.
“How long does that mean?”
“If we work all night we ought to get to runnin’ by noon to-morrow—with luck.”
“Who’s to blame?” Jim demanded
“Who drove the nails in the logs?” John Beam replied, a trifle sullenly. “Nelson went over those gears last night. I seen him. He says there wa’n’t anythin’ wrong then.”
Jim set his teeth; the urge to action came over him that had earned him the name of Sudden Jim. He recognized it, expected himself to do something decisive—and was surprised that he did not. Instead he found himself reflecting coolly, choosing the better from the worse course of action.
“It can’t be helped now, boys,” he said. “Speed up and get her going again—and keep quiet about it.”
He turned on his heel and went up to the office, where he found the noon mail on his desk. The first letter he opened was the resignation of his salesman for New York and New England, a man of exceptional ability, whose sales mounted to many car-loads a year, and whose customers were his customers, not those of the Ashe Clothespin Company. Winkleman could take them with him to whatever firm he had sold his services. Jim knew well Winkleman had not abandoned the woodenware trade—he had gone over to Welliver or some other of the enemy. Here, Jim recognized, was the shrewdest blow of the war.
Jim went on opening his mail. Another letter was from Silvers, his Chicago representative. This man handled the product of Jim’s mills as a part of his brokerage business. He was able; no week passed that did not see at least one car-load consigned to him or to his customers.
What’s up? (the letter said). Welliver wants me to drop you and come over to him. Says your goose is cooked and offers me an extra two and a half per cent. commission. Says you started this clothespin rumpus. Had a contract ready for me to sign, and wanted me to drop you unsight and unseen, I wouldn’t do it, but his offer is tempting.
What’s up? (the letter said). Welliver wants me to drop you and come over to him. Says your goose is cooked and offers me an extra two and a half per cent. commission. Says you started this clothespin rumpus. Had a contract ready for me to sign, and wanted me to drop you unsight and unseen, I wouldn’t do it, but his offer is tempting.
There was more to the communication, but here we have the heart of it. One blow followed another. The attack had commenced in earnest and Jim was on the defensive. He had declared war, but had not struck a blow. Now he must act swiftly, intelligently, efficiently. First he wired Silvers:
Won’t meet Welliver’s offer. We’re sound. If you can’t stick by us in fight don’t want you anyhow. Want men can depend on. Wire answer.
Won’t meet Welliver’s offer. We’re sound. If you can’t stick by us in fight don’t want you anyhow. Want men can depend on. Wire answer.
Next he called in Grierson.
“What percentage of our business is in New York and New England?” he asked.
“A quarter, maybe.”
“Who sells heaviest there?”
“Plum and Mannikin.”
“One of them has hired away Winkleman.”
Grierson made a crisp, crackling sound with his lips. It indicated dismay. Jim smiled grimly.
“We’re going to increase our Eastern business,” he said. “We haven’t pushed it as we might, just as those Eastern factories haven’t pushed for orders in the West. But we’re going to. We’re going after all we can get anywhere we can get it. It’s three o’clock. I want you to catch the six-o’clock train for Buffalo. Then New York and Boston. Go and pack. By the time you’re back here I’ll have your instructions ready for you.”
“But, Mr. Ashe—”
“Hustle,” said Jim. It was Sudden Jim speaking now.
In an hour Grierson was back, dubious, flustered.
“Grierson,” said Jim, “you know the personnel of the woodenware business better than I. Here’s what I want you to do: Land the best woodenware broker in Buffalo to handle our line for the city and western New York. Get him! Give him seven and a half commission, if necessary. Have him sign a contract like Levine’s in Cleveland. Then hit for New York. There’ll be soreness somewhere over this Winkleman business. It must have cut into somebody’s territory. You know who to go to. We want the biggest—somebody with a sales organization. Offer them all New York and all New England outside of Boston. If they hang out for Boston, give it to them, too. If they don’t insist on it go to Boston and repeat the dose. I want somebody who will sell our goods—and keep us hustling to fill orders. We’ll put a dent in Plum and Mannikin. Now you’ll want to bury your young man in directions for his guidance while you’re gone. Get at it. And don’t come back here unless you’ve got what I want.”
Grierson was blinking. “Your father was a swift mover when he was r’iled,” said he; “but for suddenness, and for landing a hard punch, I guess you are a little ahead of him. I’ll do my best, Mr. Ashe.”
Jim’s next move was a wire to Philadelphia. Pennsylvania was the home ground of the Jenkins mills, and Jim was determined to hit as many heads as he could. Any woodenware man worthy of the name was familiar with the house of Sands & Stein, of the Quaker City. Jim’s wire said:
If interested handing our whole line Pennsylvania exclusive territory wire.
If interested handing our whole line Pennsylvania exclusive territory wire.
These things accomplished, Jim entered upon the routine of his work, which occupied him until six o’clock was near. Just as he was leaving the office a telegram arrived from Silvers.
“I’m no quitter,” it said, tersely, and Jim knew that he had found at least one dependable man.
As Jim approached he saw a man seated on the Widow Stickney’s porch. He wondered if the widow was entering on a campaign to conquer her “third,” and had invited him to supper as an opening gun. Jim was not familiar enough with Diversity’s citizens yet to identify an individual by his legs, and this one’s face was concealed by the climbing vine. If Jim had been a native of the village he would have experienced no such difficulty, for Diversity’s male inhabitants were as easy to distinguish by their pants as by their faces. We recognize a man by his face because that is the face he has always worn. The same rule held true of Diversity’s trousers. Old Clem Beagle still went to church in the garments that covered him when he was married sixty years before.
When Jim climbed the porch he was convinced that the widow had nothing whatever to do with the visitor. It was Michael Moran, and Jim wondered just who in that house was responsible for his presence.
“How do you do, Mr. Ashe?” said Moran, rising and extending his hand. “I just learned you were boarding here. Glad to hear it. Makes it more interesting for Miss Ducharme, I imagine, and she needs cheering up considerable.”
Jim responded to the greeting, experiencing at the same time a dubiety as to Moran’s sincerity. Indeed, without any adequate reason for his belief he was of the opinion that Moran was not pleased with his presence.
“Sort of protegee of mine—Miss Ducharme. Father was walking boss for me. I always take supper with her when I’m in town, if I can manage it,” Moran explained.
Jim nodded. He was remembering that it was on the morning following a visit of Michael Moran’s to Diversity he had first encountered Marie, on the top of a knoll from which a view might be had of far countries. Her reckless mood, reckless words, were fresh in his mind, and he would have been glad to know if Moran had anything to do with the matter.
“Everything starting off well at the mill?”
“Very well, indeed,” said Jim.
“I see you’ve started shipments. Hope you’ve been getting cars as you wanted them. If you ever have any difficulty, just let me know.”
“Thank you,” said Jim. His mind was only casually on what Moran was saying; it was striving to penetrate to what he was thinking. From the morning of his first sight of the man Jim had been repelled by him. That, of course, was to be laid to the fact that Moran was first seen in company with Welliver. But since then Jim had been led to suspect him as an active enemy. Stories—gossip, perhaps—that came to his ears led him to set Moran down as a shifty individual, a man who looked to the right and unexpectedly threw his brick to the left. Also he had heard from Tim Bennett and others hints regarding Moran’s attitude toward women. But there was proof of nothing. Jim was fair enough to admit this. All was hint, rumor, or deduction from flimsy bases.
“You know, of course, that I’ve taken over the control of the Diversity Hardwood Company?”
“I had heard it.”
“That and my railroad will bring us in touch considerable. Before long we ought to hit on some sort of basis so we can work together for the benefit of both of us. We’re in a position to help each other in a dozen ways.”
“By driving nails in each other’s logs,” Jim thought, but he smiled and agreed that co-operation seemed advisable.
“Conditions in the county aren’t what they ought to be,” said Moran after puffing briefly on his cigar. “You and I—with the influence we can exert—ought to be able to do a lot to remedy matters.”
“As how?” Jim asked, really curious to know what Moran was approaching.
“You and I represent practically the whole of the county’s business interests. We ought to have more of a say in running things than we have. As it is now—well, we haven’t much of anything to say. Zaanan Frame says it all, and he’s a stiff-backed, hard-headed old scoundrel if there ever was one. Talk about your city political bosses! Zaanan could show them things they won’t be finding out for another twenty years.”
“Pretty strong politically, is he?”
“Just this strong, Mr. Ashe, that he appoints the officers in this county. Appoints ’em. Of course there are elections, but if Zaanan told these farmers and what-not to vote for his horse Tiffany for President of the United States, that horse would come close to carrying the county unanimously. That’s how strong he is. The circuit judge is his; the sheriff is his; the prosecutor is his. What chance has money in such a nest? The worst of it is, the old man’s pretty well off and you can’t reach him.”
“Never can tell till you try,” said Jim.
“I’m in a position to tell, all right. It’s no go. The only thing is to get rid of him. If he could be beaten out of his own job I guess he’d be done for. And I think I can manage it with your help.”
“I’m not aching to meddle with politics any.”
“You will be when he hands you a dose of his medicine. Look at us. Probably a dozen little suits in the justice court every week come before him. What protection have we?” Moran spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Any Tom, Dick, and Harry that wants to goes ahead and sues—and Zaanan sees to it we get the worst of it. Anywhere else we could appeal, but here the circuit court belongs to Zaanan, and it spends as much of its time playing to the gallery and coddling the poor, downtrodden working-man at my expense as Zaanan does.”
“Pretty tough,” said Jim. He told himself that here was first-class evidence to support the Widow Stickney’s praise of Zaanan Frame. It was being admitted he was honest, that influence did not subvert justice. He was a boss, perhaps, but his virtues seemed to stamp themselves on the men his power put in office. Theoretically a boss is bad, Jim thought, but this case seemed to demonstrate there might be exceptions. Suppose Zaanan were absolute monarch of Diversity, what had made him so and what kept him in his place? Apparently it was the fairness, the rugged squareness, of the old man. Apparently he possessed the love and confidence of his people to the point that they were willing to delegate their powers to him in the belief that he would work better for them than they could for themselves.
“You bet,” said Moran. “If we could get in a justice of the peace we could stop all these petty suits right there. Let a couple of dozen of these fellows find out they were going to get beaten, and the whole mess of them would quit. I hate to think how much money Frame costs me a year.”
“Or how much he benefits the man who couldn’t help himself without Zaanan’s court,” Jim thought. “It means much to the poor man to know that his court—the justice’s court—is honest; that he can carry his wrong to it and see it righted! What’s your idea?” he asked aloud.
“We’ll have to get him in the caucus,” said Moran. “Couldn’t beat him at the election. I don’t suppose there are a dozen votes cast against him in the whole county. But that’s quite a while off. I just wanted to mention the matter to you and find out how you looked at it. I’m glad you agree with me.”
“We can do more together than we could separately,” Jim said, jesuitically.
The widow appeared in the doorway and announced supper. Jim waved Moran to precede him, and he walked to the table feeling more sure of his ground than he had been an hour before. His suspicions of Moran rested on a surer foundation—the man was not honest. He was the sort of business man who has brought stigma on his kind by bribery, by conniving at injustice, by seducing officers of justice. He was ruthless. The rights of others only represented something to be overridden. To Jim it seemed that the day when Michael Moran replaced Zaanan Frame as dictator of Diversity would be a black day indeed for the county.
Further, he made up his mind to win that friendship which Zaanan Frame had denied him. In his difficulty he felt a flood of gratitude to good fortune that such a man as Zaanan Frame was at hand and in power. When he took his seat at the table he was more cheerful than he had been for many a day; his face was lighter, his eyes brighter. The widow noticed his changed expression and was deeply curious to account for it. The widow was a motherly soul. Of late she had taken to coddling and worrying over Jim. Hers was a heart that could not be inactive—if man’s persistent mortality discouraged her from taking another husband, she could, at least, secretly adopt a son.