CHAPTER XXIV
“I am afraid Jack is having trouble with his Quarterly Board. He is very late, and I am sure will be terribly tired, for he has had a hard day’s work.”
“My dear Mrs. Robinson, don’t worry about your husband. I am quite sure he will get his own way. You know, he has a gift in that direction.”
“But, Mrs. Gunning, you know, because Mr. Gunning must have told you, how slow some of the deacons are to get his point of view.”
“Never mind, my dear,” said Mrs. Gunning.
Mrs. Gunning was a comfortable person whose ample and billowy proportions radiated an atmosphere of maternal and cheery good nature. She had dropped in to spend the evening with her pastor’s wife, who was not in a condition to be left long alone.
“The Board cannot understand the needs of the Mission,” said the minister’s wife, “and those people down there need help so badly, and they are working so hard, with their wretched equipment in that old shed, to keep things going.”
“I know, my dear. Frank is very interested, and I am sure that he will he able to do something with the Board. He has often told me of the work they are doing. He hears about it from young Mr. Dalton. You know he is in our office. And really it is quite wonderful how the Mission has got hold of him. He has made friends with that young fellow, Gaspard you know, who plays our organ sometimes.”
“Oh, yes,” cried the minister’s wife enthusiastically. “Isn’t he a perfect dear? I think he is a lovely boy. And so shy. I can’t get hold of him, somehow. But he is doing wonderful work in the Mission, all the same, with the men and boys. Jack is quite taken with him. You know, all this summer he has taken those boys for hikes down the water-side. He camps with them, quite in the Indian fashion—you know he lived for years among the Indians.”
“So I understand,” said Mrs. Gunning. “I know he is doing Dalton good. That young man has been keeping straight all this summer. Of course, he never goes to church, you know, but he is always at the Mission. Such a clever young fellow—brilliantly clever, Frank says—but very fast, my dear, very fast. You know what I mean.”
The minister’s wife did not know, but her nod might mean anything.
“I do hope,” she said, “that the Board won’t be mean about it. Jack is so very keen about the boys. There! I hear him.” She jumped to her feet and ran to the door. There followed exclamations and silences, and Jack came in, triumph written on his face.
“We put it over, Mrs. Gunning! We put it over! Or at least your excellent husband did.”
“Oh, indeed? And of course you just looked on.”
“Well,” said the minister, “I gave the thing a shove. Gunning will be along in a minute or two and he will give you the details.”
In a short time Gunning arrived, a big man with a thoughtful, intelligent face and shrewd eyes with a humorous twinkle in them. The minister’s wife welcomed him warmly.
“So you did it!” she cried. “It was perfectly splendid of you. We have just heard from Jack.”
“Heard what?” said Mr. Gunning, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
“Heard all about you and how you put it over.”
“Oh, indeed?” replied Mr. Gunning. “Well, that’s very nice hearing, I must say.”
After the first cups of tea had been disposed of, the minister’s wife demanded a full account of the evening’s proceedings from her husband.
“Did you have a big fight, Jack? Tell us all about it. And begin at the beginning.”
“Fight? I should say so. I was backed into my corner and over the ropes when friend Gunning waded in. And after he got through we only had to shovel up the remains.”
“Do begin at the beginning, Jack. I don’t like your way of jumping into the middle of things.”
“Well,” said Jack, “it is a good story, a great story, and I shall give it to you as best I can. But you ought to have been there to really get the atmosphere. The proposition I put up to the Board, you see, was this, that if they would undertake the equipment of a Mission House I, with my friends down there, would undertake the erection of a building; I would look after the outside if they would look after the inside, in other words. Well, I put up the bluff as vigorously as I could, threw the dare at them and told them to come on.”
“But, Jack,” remonstrated his wife in a shocked tone, “you can’t do that.”
“So they thought, my dear, and at first they were quite ready to cover my bet. Of course, when I said equipment they were doubtless thinking in terms of their ancestors’ ideas, a little cabinet organ and a few hymn books, rows of benches, with or without backs, some godly pictures and scripture charts on the walls, costing in all somewhere about two hundred dollars. I made the diplomatic blunder of going into details too early in the game. But when in my enthusiasm I began to elaborate and set down one thing after another—kitchen and kitchen furnishings, piano, gymnasium, library, magic lantern, and a nice cosy parlor, with some extras—you ought to have seen their faces gradually lengthen. By Jove! their chins were down near their stomachs!”
“Oh, Jack!” exclaimed his wife.
“Well, that is a little extreme, I confess. But you ought to have seen Busted’s face.” Gunning smiled slowly at the recollection.
“‘And what would all this cost?’ he inquired. ‘Well, not more than twenty-five hundred dollars,’ I said jauntily. ‘Ah!’ said Busted, and his tone appeared to settle the whole question.
“In vain I tried to draw a picture of the cosy, cheery, happy home idea for these waifs and strays of the streets. The chill that settled down on that Quarterly Board set me looking round for my overcoat. Then they fell upon it, singly and in groups. Finally old Busted summed up the case, eulogising the enthusiastic idealism of ‘our young pastor,’ but reminding the Board that they were business men and must deal with cold, hard facts in a business way. Then he proceeded to make his eternal speech upon our congregational indebtedness, our need of equipment, the cost of operation, music——”
“Music!” exclaimed his wife. “Goodness knows our music doesn’t cost very much. Of course we pay our organist—how much, Mr. Gunning?”
“About seven hundred.”
“Think of it! Seven hundred dollars for the best organist in the city! Poor dear old man!”
“He is not very strong,” said Mrs. Gunning sympathetically.
“No, he’s not. And if it were not for the help that young fellow Gaspard has been giving him he would have had to resign six months ago.”
“What a wonderful player he is!” said Mrs. Gunning. “Of course, we must keep Mr. DeLaunay, but really you know I enjoy the young man’s playing very much better.”
“And what happened, Jack?” asked his wife.
“Well, I was gathering myself for a final leap into the arena, with my resignation fluttering in my hand, when friend Gunning stepped in, in his usual quiet and effective manner. He made a regular jury speech. He began by putting a little edge of deeper blue on Busted’s picture, and then when he was nicely inside their guard he took them down the Bay on a Sunday afternoon excursion and introduced them to a camp scene, Indian style, wigwam and camp fire, twenty boys, young devils from the waterfront, gathered round a young fellow who was holding them fascinated, enthralled, so much so that they hardly noticed brother Gunning slipping in among them. What was he giving them? Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ up to date. The actual scene I believe was the struggle with Napoleon. ‘I know a little about artistic speech,’ says brother Gunning, ‘or at least I thought I did, but this young man was a revelation to me. He had everything, literary finish, artistic color, religion, all being poured into the ears and eyes and hearts of these young ragamuffins, the prospective criminals of our city.’ Dear ladies,” continued Jack in solemn tones, “he had ’em all gulping, and when he was done the thing was over.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Gunning. “I made my little contribution. It was really Mickey Dunn that did the trick.”
“By Jove! Mickey came in like a whirlwind,” said Jack. “Mickey was priceless. Believe me, if the whole thing had been carefully prepared and staged it could not have been better put on. The climactic effect was perfect. Little Mickey—you know him, a little Irish runt, with a brogue you could cut off in chunks—began telling them of the parental difficulties in his own family with his own rapscallions, three of them at least of the street Arab age, from sixteen down. ‘Roamin’ the streets they were,’ said Mickey, ‘an’ me whalin’ the life out of them to get them to Sunday school and to church, till their mother’s heart was clean bruk for them.’ Then Mickey proceeded to give them a picture of these rapscallions of his who were going the way straight to the devil and breaking the hearts of their mother and father in the process, and how they were gripped by this young chap. ‘He got them in,’ says Mickey, ‘with a quare sort of Sunday school,athaletics, an’ boxin’ an’ handspringin’ an’ the loike, and now they’re off the streets and niver a fear has their mother for them. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!’
“When Mickey had got through the atmosphere had risen to the boiling point. Those old chaps were wiping away the tears, and oh, b-hoys! the thing was over and done with, and a resolution enthusiastically passed pledging twenty-five hundred dollars at least if and when I finish the outside of the building.”
“Oh, Jack! splendid! wonderful!” cried his wife. She rose from her place and ran round to Mr. Gunning. “Oh, dear Mr. Gunning! I’d love to kiss you!”
“Go on!” shouted Jack. “I’ll hold Mrs. Gunning.”
“And now what about your part of the contract?” asked Mrs. Gunning. “How are you going to get the outside done?”
Jack winked slowly at her. “Ah! I didn’t tell them all I knew about that. That is a mystery, a great secret. But I will tell you, Mrs. Gunning, if you give me your solemn promise not to whisper it to your dearest friend. It is that young Gaspard again. Seems to me, for a man who doesn’t like my preaching—and he doesn’t, and I’m not sure that he likes me very well——”
“Oh, Jack! He adores you,” said his wife.
“Well, he regards me as a heretic. But all the same, that young Gaspard must have some secret mesmeric power with boys and men. You know he has a job now with Dan Tussock, a contractor—you know him, Gunning.”
“Know him? Well, rather! I’ve known him for years. You see, I’m his legal adviser. And I’ve pulled him out of many a hole. He’s a great old card, but he’s sound at heart.”
“Well, wait a minute,” said Jack. “Young Gaspard, in some mysterious way has effected some sort of organization which embraces old Tussock, Dalton and himself. Do you know anything about it?”
“Well, I know a little,” said Mr. Gunning. “It is a partnership of sorts. Dalton looks after the legal end of the business, Tussock runs the work, I don’t know just where Gaspard comes in—he’s time-keeper, treasurer, pay master—but they’re getting on quite well, I believe—land clearing, with some real estate transactions thrown in.”
“Real estate?” said the minister’s wife in rather a shocked voice.
“Oh, they are on thoroughly sound lines,” said Mr. Gunning. “Dalton will see to that. But of course you can’t count on Tussock. He’s liable to blow up any day. He’s already gone through two fortunes.”
Jack’s face grew grave. “It is a doubtful proposition, I know,” he said, “but after all, Gunning, aren’t we all doubtful propositions? We’re all liable to blow up, each in his own way. We have got to have some faith, eh? Well, anyway,” he continued hopefully, “Gaspard began by getting Dalton, an old varsity athlete, working those boys into some sort of gymnastic exercises. I have watched him closely, and he’s a master hand with boys.”
“I believe he is,” said Mr. Gunning. “But the reaction upon Dalton is quite striking. I believe he has quite cut out the drink, and for the last nine months has kept straight. Of course, I don’t know how long it will last.”
“You old pessimist!” cried Jack indignantly. “Have a bit of faith, eh? Why not? Well, as I was saying, Gaspard got Dalton, and then, but how he did it the Lord only knows—and I mean that, for it is the Lord’s doing, ‘and wondrous in our eyes’—he got old Tussock down there. The old boy had nothing to do with his evenings, and Gaspard shrewdly guessed that his idle moments were his dangerous moments. So he has got him involved in the Mission enterprise and in its work.”
“Yes, that has been the ruination of Dan Tussock. He has had nowhere to spend his evenings except those low-down hotels.”
“Oh, by the way,” interrupted Jack, “Gaspard worked a rather fine thing there. You know he has struck up a great friendship with the DeLaunays, father and daughter—quite captured Miss DeLaunay, who is quite an artist, by the way, and that is something of an achievement, for she is rather superior. I fancy they were rather hard up and had some vacant rooms, but however it was managed Gaspard, Dalton and old Tussock, no less, are all domiciled with the DeLaunays, where they have comfortable, clean and very congenial quarters. And that, you see, Gunning, removes Tussock from one of his danger spots. But where was I? Oh, yes. This young Gaspard got Tussock interested, got him busy fixing up the old shed, patching and mending, till one night in disgust Tussock put up a bluff to the boys, offering lumber and material if they would get their fathers and big brothers to turn in and do the work. Gaspard nailed him on the spot, Dalton jumped in, a building organisation was effected, and I have been holding them back as to building construction till I saw my way toward the inside equipment. But tomorrow—tomorrow! ladies and gentlemen—we shall break ground. Hurrah!”
“Praise the Lord!” ejaculated Mrs. Gunning fervently, who was a good old-fashioned Methodist.
“And before the snow flies the Waterside Mission will be housed in a beautiful, commodious and well equipped building of its own. That is, if Tussock, Gaspard, Dalton and Company hold together. I modestly claim to be a part of the company.”
“The heart of the company,” remarked Gunning.
“Not on your life!” cried Jack. “That’s Gaspard.”
“I do hope and pray they stick to it,” said Mrs. Gunning, earnestly.
“They’re doing awfully well at present,” said Gunning. “Making a good deal of money, and have excellent prospects of making more.”
“To my mind,” said Jack, “they’re making more than money. They’re making men.”
The opinions of both gentlemen were soundly based. The firm of Tussock, Gaspard and Dalton were making money and making it fast, making it by hard, driving work, transforming uncouth, broulé land left hideous and unsightly by axe and fire into smooth and fair building lots for the dwellings of men: fine constructive work; buying by the acre in the rough, selling by the foot in the finished product, and multiplying their investment ten, twenty, one hundred fold. These were the days of the youth of the vigorous, growing Canadian city, the commercial capital of a great province, situated upon one of the world’s great harbors and reaching across the wide Pacific for the trade of the awakening nations of the Orient.
The prospects of the company holding together were perhaps brighter than many of their friends imagined. The bonds that bound them each to the others were other than financial. The head of the firm was Dan Tussock, the organiser and driver of work. With thirty years’ experience in dealing with men, material and machines in all kinds of constructive work, he had mastered the secret of how to apply power to raw material for the service of mankind, which is the secret of industry, as had few in that bustling, rushing, up-building province of British Columbia. Associated with him was the young lawyer, Dalton, a master of all technicalities of his profession, a shrewd negotiator, an alert watch dog against all such predatory creatures as had made prey of Dan Tussock during his checkered and eventful life. With them, the youth Paul Gaspard, inexperienced in the ways of men, ignorant of affairs, but furnished in rich measure with the priceless endowments of a clear, high mind, with instincts for things right and fine, and a heart vastly capable of unlimited loyalty to a friend, even to the obliteration of self.
Already they had cleaned up and disposed of their first acre of land at good profit, and were now embarked in a still more extensive enterprise, the clearing and marketing of a new subdivision of the city. Besides this, in Tussock’s mind new enterprises were taking shape, timber limits and lumber mills were visualising themselves; for Dan Tussock had once been known as one of the lumber kings of the Pacific coast.
The financial affairs of the partnership, the receiving, banking and disbursing of moneys, were in the hands of Paul. It had been settled in joint conference that a certain fixed allowance should be paid to each of the partners, but nothing without the signature of the treasurer. And with loyal adherence to the pact, Tussock and Dalton drew their share and, what was of infinitely greater importance, were living within their means. Both men had passed their word to each other and to Paul that during the life of the partnership no drop of strong drink should pass their lips. To Dan Tussock this involved no serious self-denial, for that indomitable worker loved doing big things and while engaged in worth-while enterprises he was in little danger from the temptations which lay in wait for him during his idle days. But to Dalton the pledge to abstinence from drink was a different matter. Day by day and night and day the desperate, dreary fight went on, and there were nights when but for his environment he would have given up in despair and rushed out to his old haunts, seeking relief from the terrific craving that was gnawing like a vulture at his vitals. In this fight, however, he was more fortunate in his fighting ground than ever before in his life. First of all, he was driven with work. In the office with the change in his habits he found himself entrusted to an ever increasing degree with matters of importance, and after office hours the affairs of the new company so fully occupied his time and engaged his energy that he was only too glad when night came and he yielded himself to the comfort and cheer which his new home with the DeLaunays afforded him.
That home, after an exhausting day of work and struggle with the gnawing craving for drink, from which he was never wholly free, was to him a very gate of Heaven. There he found clean and cheery comfort, the charm of bright and cultured companionship, and music, always music, for which fortunately he had an absorbing passion. From many an hour of despairing conflict he was saved by the DeLaunay piano under the manipulations now of the old master when he was in form and again of Paul when he could spare the time. A royal evening there was at least once a week, when the old organist who had taken charge of Paul’s musical development would seize upon the young man and take him through a book of Mozart’s duets. Or, if Dan Tussock was in his corner with a pipe and appearing too terribly bored with what he called “high falutin’ noise,” Paul would go through a collection of reels, strathspeys and jigs, which would set Dan’s pulses jumping and his feet shuffling time.
There were other evenings when Dalton would give an hour to the overseeing of Paul’s engineering studies, for that young man was hard at work for examinations; or it might be to the discussion of the newest works on Biblical criticism, furnished by Rev. John Wesley Robinson.
But for four nights of the week and for every Saturday afternoon the DeLaunay household had made itself responsible for the Waterside Mission.
In Dan Tussock’s philosophy of life, success in that lifelong struggle against the unsleeping foes that dogged the footsteps of his friend Dalton and himself was bound up with three fundamental essentials, in his own words, “somethin’ to work at, somethin’ to work for, and a friend that keeps a-climbin’.” To these Paul had suggested a fourth, without which the others would prove ineffective, “a Keeper.”
Paul, however, was a chap who never talked religion. His religious faith was that of a child, unspoiled by convention and untrammelled by formulæ. His reading and his talks with Dalton had helped him through a dark and terrible passage in his spiritual experience, helped him back to his faith in his Bible, a faith more intelligently based than formerly and therefore more in touch with the work-a-day problems of life. His faith in the reality, in the friendliness of God, his mother’s God, the God of his childhood days, had never been touched. He was forced to acknowledge his inability to get much out of the sermons of the young and brilliant preacher of the First Methodist Church. They were too academic for him, they left him cold and doubting. But in the preacher’s talks to the Mission folk and especially to the boys and the men Paul found something to “chaw on,” as Dan Tussock said. The preacher was more human, more real, more vitalising, more in touch with the practical things of life. Tussock’s summing up of the difference between the pulpit discourses and the Mission talks, after he had tried both and rejected the former, was accepted by Paul as satisfactory: “In church he looks like he’s earnin’ his money. In the Mission he’s after the boys.” But Dalton would have none of this. “Get out, Tussock,” he said. “Robinson is all right. He has all sorts of fools to handle. In the pulpit he deals with a lot of highbrow theorists and a lot of dyed-in-the-wool hard-shell old time Methodists, who need a jolt now and then to remind them that they are alive. In the Mission he has his coat off, fighting the devil and hell, and, as you say, he’s after the boys.”
By the end of the summer the new Mission house was opened, free of debt, and splendidly equipped for its work. At the opening function, by skilful and united team play on the part of the preacher and Paul, Dalton found himself forced to occupy the chair, to the great advantage of the meeting, while Dan Tussock, to his confusion and disgust, found himself “floor manager and general push of the show,” as he afterwards declared to his friend, Miss DeLaunay, who had come to be his confidante and who had assumed a sort of maternal responsibility for the big-hearted, simple-minded, lonely man.
This important bit of work safely accomplished, and the work on the subdivision being fairly under way, Paul came to Tussock with a request for a month’s leave of absence.
“A month, eh?” said Tussock. “Why, sure thing!”
“I want Dalton, too,” said Paul.
“Dalton? Both of you?” said Tussock, aghast.
“Mr. Gunning is going to take over our work.”
“Oh, all right. You’re free. Where are you goin’? Shootin’ trip?”
“No. I am going to pay some of that twenty-five thousand. Dalton doesn’t know he is going yet.”
“Well, you sure are some manager!” said Tussock. “Yes, certainly, go. You have earned your holiday, and I guess you’ve got enough to pay most of your twenty-five thousand. What about it?”
“Oh, that’s all right, thank you. I can make a fairly substantial payment.”
“Well, if you want any help, you know where to go, Paul. I owe you a lot more than money can ever pay.”
That night Paul handed all the papers he had taken from Sleeman to Dalton, with his father’s red book. “I want you to go through these for me,” he said. “I am anxious to get clear of this mortgage and everything else.”
Dalton took the papers and spent an hour over them, becoming more and more indignant as he mastered their contents. The day following he went to the Bank of Montreal and continued his investigations. To him the whole affair was absurdly simple.
“Who is this Sleeman?” he asked Paul, when he was ready with his report.
“A neighbour of ours, with whom my father had dealings.”
“A philanthropist, I judge, a friend, and a gentleman, eh? Let me get into grips with him!” said Dalton savagely. “We’ll bring blood out of his heart!”
“I don’t want his blood,” said Paul shortly. “I could have had that. I want to get this mortgage cleaned up.” And thereafter Paul proceeded to give the story of his father’s transactions with Sleeman, as far as he knew them. Dalton listened with set lips and gleaming eyes.
“I should like very much to see this gentleman.”
“You’re going to see him,” said Paul. “You and I leave for the Windermere tomorrow. I’ve got a month, off for both of us from Tussock, and Gunning is to look after our affairs.”
Dalton gazed at him in amazement. “You sure have your nerve! A month’s holiday! You’re one smooth boy, all right.”
“Yes,” continued Paul coolly, “there are some guns at home, and some sheep on the mountains. You’ll go, won’t you, Dalton?”
“Oh, boy!” cried Dalton. “Will I go? This thing, without the guns and the sheep, would bring me, but the two together—well! I’m with you, boy, all the way!”
“We may go up north into the Athabasca,” continued Paul. “I told you about my brother and sister up there. I may bring them back with me.”
“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Dalton. “Anything else in view? What about Alaska? And the Pole? But, ‘lead on, Macduff,’ I’m with you all the way and back. By the way, how much money have you for this mortgage business?”
“I was going to ask you about that. I’ve about five thousand dollars cash and, without counting up, I guess about twenty thousand invested.”
“A lot more than that,” said Dalton, “if my figuring is right.”
“I intend,” continued Paul, “to pay all I can on this mortgage.”
“Look at this, Paul,” said Dalton, flourishing a paper under his eyes.
“What does this mean?” asked Paul, after he had read it, gazing blankly at his friend.
“It means, boy, that from the sale of certain chattels, five thousand dollars was realised and deposited by Colonel Pelham to your credit some six years ago, which, with interest, amounts now to just about six thousand dollars.”
Paul continued to gape at him. “Six thousand dollars! If I had only known! But,” he added quickly, “I’m glad I didn’t know. If I had there would have been no firm, Tussock, Gaspard and Dalton, and I should not have found two of the best friends a man ever had. We’ll turn this in too on the mortgage. We ought to be able to almost clean it up.”
“Not if I know it!” cried Dalton. “This Sleeman is a robber. By Jove! I’ll make him cut down this thing to bare bones before I’m through with him. No fifteen thousand dollars of mortgage money for him—the old skinflint! He takes a mortgage for fifteen thousand, pays your father ten thousand, keeping five thousand back for interest. Ten per cent., prepaid! Oh, we’ll get him. Then, there’s a bundle of I O U’s which he holds, nearly two thousand dollars more, which I suspect have been already met, if your father’s red book is correct, and it has every mark of being a most exact record. I say, Paul! What about paying what you can on this mortgage and having the rest transferred to the company and getting the thing out of this robber’s hands?”
“Could that be done, Dalton?”
“Sure, it can be done. I’ll see Tussock about it.”