OAKLEY took the satchel from General Cornish's hand as the latter stepped from his private car.
“You got my note, I see,” he said. “I think I'll go to the hotel for the rest of the night.”
He glanced back over his shoulder, as he turned with Dan towards the bus which was waiting for them at the end of the platform.
“I guess no one else got off here. It's not much of a railroad centre.”
“No,” agreed Oakley, impartially; “there are towns where the traffic is heavier.”
Arrived at the hotel, Oakley led the way up-stairs to the general's room. It adjoined his own. Cornish paused on the threshold until he had lighted the gas.
“Light the other burner, will you?” he requested. “There, thanks, that's better.”
He was a portly man of sixty, with a large head and heavy face. His father had been a Vermont farmer, a man of position and means, according to the easy standard of his times. When the Civil War broke out, young Cornish, who was just commencing the practice of the law, had enlisted as a private in one of the first regiments raised by his State. Prior to this he had overflowed with fervid oratory, and had tried hard to look like Daniel Webster, but a skirmish or two opened his eyes to the fact that the waging of war was a sober business, and the polishing off of his sentences not nearly as important as the polishing off of the enemy. He was still willing to die for the Union, if there was need of it, but while his life was spared it was well to get on. The numerical importance of number one was a belief too firmly implanted in his nature to be overthrown by any patriotic aberration.
His own merits, which he was among the first to recognize, and the solid backing his father was able to give, won him promotion. He had risen to the command of a regiment, and when the war ended was brevetted a brigadier-general of volunteers, along with a score of other anxious warriors who wished to carry the title of general back into civil life, for he was an amiable sort of a Shylock, who seldom overlooked his pound of flesh, and he usually got all, and a little more, than was coming to him.
After the war he married and went West, where he resumed the practice of his profession, but he soon abandoned it for a commercial career. It was not long until he was ranked as one of the rich men of his State. Then he turned his attention to politics, He was twice elected to Congress, and served one term as governor. One of his daughters had married an Italian prince, a meek, prosaic little creature, exactly five feet three inches tall: another was engaged to an English earl, whose debts were a remarkable achievement for so young a man. His wife now divided her time between Paris and London. She didn't think much of New York, which had thought even less of her. He managed to see her once or twice a year. Any oftener would have been superfluous. But it interested him to read of her in the papers, and to feel a sense of proprietorship for this woman, who was spending his money and carrying his name into the centres of elegance and fashion. Personally he disliked fashion, and was rather shy of elegance.
There were moments, however, when he felt his life to be wholly unsatisfactory. He derived very little pleasure from all the luxury that had accumulated about him, and which he accepted with a curious placid indifference. He would have liked the affection of his children, to have had them at home, and there was a remote period in his past when his wife had inspired him with a sentiment at which he could only wonder. He held it against her that she had not understood.
He lurched down solidly into the chair Oakley placed for him. “I hope you are comfortable here,” he said, kindly.
“Oh yes.” He still stood.
“Sit down,” said Cornish. “I don't, as a rule, believe in staying up after midnight to talk business, but I must start East to-morrow.”
He slipped out of his chair and began to pace the floor, with his hands thrust deep in his trousers-pockets. “I want to talk over the situation here. I don't see that the road is ever going to make a dollar. I've an opportunity to sell it to the M. & W. Of course this is extremely confidential. It must not go any further. I am told they will discontinue it beyond this point, and of course they will either move the shops away or close them.” He paused in his rapid walk. “It's too bad it never paid. It was the first thing I did when I came West. I thought it a pretty big thing then. I have always hoped it would justify my judgment, and it promised to for a while until the lumber interests played out. Now, what do you advise, Oakley? I want to get your ideas. You understand, if I sell I won't lose much. The price offered will just about meet the mortgage I hold, but I guess the stockholders will come out at the little end of the horn.”
Oakley understood exactly what was ahead of the stockholders if the road changed hands. Perhaps his face showed that he was thinking of this, for the general observed, charitably:
“It's unfortunate, but you can't mix sentiment in a transaction of this sort. I'd like to see them all get their money back, and more, too.”
His mental attitude towards the world was one of generous liberality, but he had such excellent control over his impulses that, while he always seemed about to embark in some large philanthropy, he had never been known to take even the first step in that direction. In short, he was hard and unemotional, but with a deceptive, unswerving kindliness of manner, which, while it had probably never involved a dollar of his riches, had at divers times cost the unwary and the indiscreet much money.
No man presided at the board meetings of a charity with an air of larger benevolence, and no man drove closer or more conscienceless bargains. His friends knew better than to trust him—a precaution they observed in common with his enemies.
“I am sure the road could be put on a paying basis,” said Oakley. “Certain quite possible economies would do that. Of course we can't create business, there is just so much of it, and we get it all as it is. But the shops might be made very profitable. I have secured a good deal of work for them, and I shall secure more. I had intended to propose a number of reforms, but if you are going to sell, why, there's no use of going into the matter—” he paused.
The general meditated in silence for a moment. “I'd hate to sacrifice my interests if I thought you could even make the road pay expenses. Now, just what do you intend to do?”
“I'll get my order-book and show you what's been done for the shops,” said Oakley, rising with alacrity. “I have figured out the changes, too, and you can see at a glance just what I propose doing.”
The road and the shops employed some five hundred men, most of whom had their homes in Antioch. Oakley knew that if the property was sold it would practically wipe the town out of existence. The situation was full of interest for him. If Cornish approved, and told him to go ahead with his reforms, it would be an opportunity such as he had never known.
He went into his own room, which opened off Cornish's, and got his order-book and table of figures, which he had carried up from the office that afternoon.
They lay on the stand with a pile of trade journals. For the first time in his life he viewed these latter with an unfriendly eye. He thought of Constance Emory, and realized that he should never again read and digest the annual report of the Joint Traffic Managers' Association with the same sense of intellectual fulness it had hitherto given him. No, clearly, that was a pleasure he had outgrown.
He had taken a great deal of pains with his figures, and they seemed to satisfy Cornish that the road, if properly managed, was not such a hopeless proposition, after all. Something might be done with it.
Oakley rose in his good esteem; he had liked him, and he was justifying his good opinion. He beamed benevolently on the young man, and thawed out of his habitual reserve into a genial, ponderous frankness.
“You have done well,” he said, glancing through the order-book with evident satisfaction.
“Of course,” explained Oakley, “I am going to make a cut in wages this spring, if you agree to it, but I haven't the figures for this yet.” The general nodded. He approved of cuts on principle.
“That's always a wise move,” he said. “Will they stand it?”
“They'll have to.” And Oakley laughed rather nervously. He appreciated that his reforms were likely to make him very unpopular in Antioch. “They shouldn't object. If the road changes hands it will kill their town.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Cornish, indifferently.
“And half a loaf is lots better than no loaf,” added Oakley. Again the general nodded his approval. That was the very pith and Gospel of his financial code, and he held it as greatly to his own credit that he had always been perfectly willing to offer halfloaves.
“What sort of shape is the shop in?” he asked, after a moment's silence.
“Very good on the whole.”
“I am glad to hear you say so. I spent over a hundred thousand dollars on the plant originally.”
“Of course, the equipment can hardly be called modern, but it will do for the sort of work for which I am bidding,” Oakley explained.
“Well, it will be an interesting problem for a young man, Oakley. If you pull the property up it will be greatly to your credit. I was going to offer you another position, but we will let that go over for the present. I am very much pleased, though, with all you have done, very much pleased, indeed. I go abroad in about two weeks. My youngest daughter is to be married in London to the Earl of Minchester.”
The title rolled glibly from the great man's lips. “So you'll have the fight, if it is a fight, all to yourself. I'll see that Holloway does what you say. He's the only one you'll have to look to in my absence, but you won't be able to count on him for anything; he gets limp in a crisis. Just don't make the mistake of asking his advice.”
“I'd rather have no advice,” interrupted Dan, hastily, “unless it's yours,” he added.
“I'll see that you are not bothered. You are the sort of fellow who will do better with a free hand, and that is what I intend you shall have.”
“Thank you,” said Oakley, his heart warming with the other's praise.
“I shall be back in three months, and then, if your schemes have worked out at all as we expect, why, we can consider putting the property in better shape.”—A part of Oakley's plan.—“As you say, it's gone down so there won't be much but the right of way presently.”
“I hope that eventually there'll be profits,” said Oakley, whose mind was beginning to reach out into the future.
“I guess the stockholders will drop dead if we ever earn a dividend. That's the last thing they are looking forward to,” remarked Cornish, dryly. “Will you leave a six-thirty call at the office for me? I forgot, and I must take the first train.”
Oakley had gathered up his order-book and papers. The general was already fumbling with his cravat and collar.
“I am very well satisfied with your plan, and I believe you have the ability to carry it out.”
He threw aside his coat and vest and sat down to take off his shoes. “Don't saddle yourself with too much work. Keep enough of an office force to save yourself wherever you can. I think, if orders continue to come in as they have been doing, the shops promise well. It just shows what a little energy will accomplish.”
“With judicious nursing in the start, there should be plenty of work for us, and we are well equipped to handle it.”
“Yes,” agreed Cornish. “A lot of money was spent on the plant. I wanted it just right.”
“I can't understand why more hasn't been done with the opportunity here.”
“I've never been able to find the proper man to take hold, until I found you, Oakley. You have given me a better insight into conditions than I have had at any time since I built the road, and it ain't such a bad proposition, after all, especially the shops.” The general turned out the gas as he spoke, and Oakley, as he stood in the doorway of his own room, saw dimly a white figure moving in the direction of the bed.
“I'd figure close on all repair work. The thing is to get them into the habit of coming to us. Don't forget the call, please. Six-thirty sharp.”
The slats creaked and groaned beneath his weight. “Good-night.”
THE next morning Oakley saw General Cornish off on the 7.15 train, and then went back to his hotel for breakfast Afterwards, on his way to the office he mailed a check to Ezra Hart for his father. The money was intended to meet his expenses in coming West.
He was very busy all that day making out his new schedules, and in figuring the cuts and just what they would amount to. He approached his task with a certain reluctance, for it was as unpleasant to him personally as it was necessary to the future of the road, and he knew that no half-way measures would suffice. He must cut, as a surgeon cuts, to save. By lopping away a man here and there, giving his work to some other man, or dividing it up among two or three men, he managed to peel off two thousand dollars on the year. He counted that a very fair day's work.
He would start his reform with no particular aggressiveness. He would retire the men he intended to dismiss from the road one at a time. He hoped they would take the hint and hunt other positions. At any rate, they could not get back until he was ready to take them back, as Cornish had assured him he would not be interfered with. He concluded not to hand the notices and orders to Miss Walton, the typewriter, to copy. She might let drop some word that would give his victims an inkling of what was in store for them. He knew there were unpleasant scenes ahead of him, but there was no need to anticipate. When at last his figures for the cuts were complete he would have been grateful for some one with whom to discuss the situation. All at once his responsibilities seemed rather heavier than he had bargained for.
There were only two men in the office besides himself—Philip Kerr, the treasurer, and Byron Holt, his assistant. They were both busy with the payroll, as it was the sixth of the month, and they commenced to pay off in the shops on the tenth.
He had little or no use for Kerr, who still showed, where he dared, in small things his displeasure that an outsider had been appointed manager of the road. He had counted on the place for himself for a number of years, but a succession of managers had come and gone apparently without its ever having occurred to General Cornish that an excellent executive was literally spoiling in the big, bare, general offices of the line.
This singular indifference on the part of Cornish to his real interests had soured a disposition that at its best had more of acid in it than anything else. As there was no way in which he could make his resentment known to the general, even if he had deemed such a course expedient, he took it out of Oakley, and kept his feeling for him on ice. Meanwhile he hided his time, hoping for Oakley's downfall and his own eventual recognition.
With the assistant treasurer, Dan's relations were entirely cordial. Holt was a much younger man than Kerr, as frank and open as the other was secret and reserved. When the six-o'clock whistle blew he glanced up from his work and said:
“I wish you'd wait a moment, Holt. I want to see you.”
Kerr had already gone home, and Miss Walton was adjusting her hat before a bit of a mirror that hung on the wall back of her desk. “All right,” responded Holt, cheerfully.
“Just draw up your chair,” said Oakley, handing his papers to him. At first Holt did not understand; then he began to whistle softly, and fell to checking off the various cuts with his forefinger.
“What do you think of the job, Byron?” inquired Oakley.
“Well, I'm glad I don't get laid off, that's sure. Say, just bear in mind that I'm going to be married this summer.”
“You needn't worry; only I didn't know that.”
“Well, please don't forget it, Mr. Oakley.”
Holt ran over the cuts again. Then he asked:
“Who's going to stand for this? You or the old man? I hear he was in town last night.”
“I stand for it, but of course he approves.”
“I'll bet he approves,” and the assistant treasurer grinned. “This is the sort of thing that suits him right down to the ground.”
“How about the hands? Do you know if they are members of any union?”
“No, but there'll be lively times ahead for you. They are a great lot of kickers here.”
“Wait until I get through. I haven't touched the shops yet; that's to come later. I'll skin closer before I'm done.” Oakley got up and lit his pipe. “The plant must make some sort of a showing. We can't continue at the rate we have been going. I suppose you know what sort of shape it would leave the town in if the shops were closed.”
“Damn poor shape, I should say. Why, it's the money that goes in and out of this office twice a month that keeps the town alive. It couldn't exist a day without that.”
“Then it behooves us to see to it that nothing happens to the shops or road. I am sorry for the men I am laying off, but it can't be helped.”
“I see you are going to chuck Hoadley out of his good thing at the Junction. If he was half white he'd a gone long ago. He must lay awake nights figuring how he can keep decently busy.”
“Is the list all right?”
“Yes. No, it's not, either. You've marked off Joe Percell at Harrison. He used to brake for the Huckleberry until he lost an arm. His is a pension job.”
“Put his name back, then. How do you think it's going to work?”
“Oh, it will work all right, because it has to, but they'll all be cussing you,” with great good humor. “What's the matter, anyhow? Did the old man throw a fit at the size of the pay-roll?”
“Not exactly, but he came down here with his mind made up to sell the road to the M. & W.”
“You don't say so!”
“I talked him out of that, but we must make a showing, for he's good and tired, and may dump the whole business any day.”
“Well, if he does that there'll be no marrying or giving in marriage for me this summer. It will be just like a Shaker settlement where I am concerned.”
Dan laughed. “Oh, you'd be all right, Holt. You'd get something else, or the M. & W. would keep you on.”
“I don't know about that. A new management generally means a clean sweep all round, and my berth's a pretty good one.”
In some manner a rumor of the changes Oakley proposed making did get abroad, and he was promptly made aware that his popularity in Antioch was a thing of the past. He was regarded as an oppressor from whom some elaborate and wanton tyranny might be expected. While General Cornish suffered their inefficiency, his easy-going predecessors had been content to draw their salaries and let it go at that, a line of conduct which Antioch held to be entirely proper. This new man, however, was clearly an upstart, cursed with an insane and destructive ambition to earn money from the road.
Suppose it did not pay. Cornish could go down into his pocket for the difference, just as he had always done.
What the town did not know, and what it would not have believed even if it had been told, was that the general had been on the point of selling—a change that would have brought hardship to every one. The majority of the men in the shops owned their own homes, and these homes represented the savings of years. The sudden exodus of two or three hundred families meant of necessity widespread ruin. Those who were forced to go away would have to sacrifice everything they possessed to get away, while those who remained would be scarcely better off. But Antioch never considered such a radical move as even remotely possible. It counted the shops a fixture; they had always been there, and for this sufficient reason they would always remain.
The days wore on, one very like another, with their spring heat and lethargy. Occasionally, Oakley saw Miss Emory on the street to bow to, but not to speak with; while he was grateful for these escapes, he found himself thinking of her very often. He fancied—and he was not far wrong—that she was finding Antioch very dull. He wondered, too, if she was seeing much of Ryder. He imagined that she was; and here again he was not far wrong. Now and then he was seized with what he felt to be a weak desire to call, but he always thought better of it in time, and was always grateful he had not succumbed to the impulse. But her mere presence in Antioch seemed to make him dissatisfied and resentful of its limitations. Ordinarily he was not critical of his surroundings. Until she came, that he was without companionship and that the town was given over to a deadly inertia which expressed itself in the collapsed ambition of nearly every man and woman he knew, had scarcely affected him beyond giving him a sense of mild wonder.
He had heard nothing of his father, and in the pressure of his work and freshened interest in the fortunes of the Huckleberry, had hardly given him a second thought. He felt that, since he had sent money to him, he was in a measure relieved of all further responsibility. If his father did not wish to come to him, that was his own affair. He had placed no obstacle in his way.
He had gone through life without any demand having been made on his affections. On those rare occasions that he devoted to self-analysis he seriously questioned if he possessed any large capacity in that direction. The one touch of sentiment to which he was alive was the feeling he centred about the few square feet of turf where his mother lay under the sweet-briar and the old elms in the burying-plot of the little Eastern village. The sexton was instructed to see that the spot was not neglected, and that there were always flowers on the grave. She had loved flowers. It was somehow a satisfaction to Dan to overpay him for this care. But he had his moments of remorse, because he was unable to go back there. Once or twice he had started East, fully intending to do so, but had weakened at the last moment. Perhaps he recognized that while it was possible to return to a place, it was not possible to return to an emotion.
Oakley fell into the habit of working at the office after the others left in the evening. He liked the quiet of the great bare room and the solitude of the silent, empty shops. Sometimes Holt remained, too, and discussed his matrimonial intentions, or entertained his superior with an account of his previous love affairs, for the experiences were far beyond his years. He had exhausted the possibilities of Antioch quite early in life. At one time or another he had either been engaged, or almost engaged, to every pretty girl in the place. He explained his seeming inconsistency, however, by saying he was naturally of a very affectionate disposition.
LATE one afternoon, as Oakley sat at his desk in the broad streak of yellow light that the sun sent in through the west windows, he heard a step on the narrow board-walk that ran between the building and the tracks. The last shrill shriek of No. 7, as usual, half an hour late, had just died out in the distance, and the informal committee of town loafers which met each train was plodding up Main Street to the post-office in solemn silence.
He glanced around as the door into the yards opened, expecting to see either Holt or Kerr. Instead he saw a tall, gaunt man of sixty-five, a little stoop-shouldered, and carrying his weight heavily and solidly. His large head was sunk between broad shoulders. It was covered by a wonderful growth of iron-gray hair. The face was clean-shaven and had the look of a placid mask. There was a curious repose in the man's attitude as he stood with a big hand—the hand of an artisan—resting loosely on the knob of the door.
“Is it you. Dannie?”
The smile that accompanied the words was at once anxious, hesitating, and inquiring. He closed the door with awkward care and coming a step nearer, put out his hand. Oakley, breathing hard, rose hastily from his chair, and stood leaning against the corner of his desk as if he needed its support. He was white to the lips.
There was a long pause while the two men looked into each other's eyes.
“Don't you know me, Dannie?” wistfully. Dan said nothing, but he extended his hand, and his father's fingers closed about it with a mighty pressure. Then, quite abruptly, Roger Oakley turned and walked over to the window. Once more there was absolute silence in the room, save for the ticking of the clock and the buzzing of a solitary fly high up on the ceiling.
The old convict was the first to break the tense stillness.
“I had about made up my mind I should never see you again, Dannie. When your mother died and you came West it sort of wiped out the little there was between me and the living. In fact, I really didn't know you would care to see me, and when Hart told me you wished me to come to you and had sent the money, I could hardly believe it.”
Here the words failed him utterly. He turned slowly and looked into his son's face long and lovingly. “I've thought of you as a little boy for all these years, Dannie—as no higher than that,” dropping his hand to his hip. “And here you are a man grown. But you got your mother's look—I'd have known you by it among a thousand.”
If Dan had felt any fear of his father it had left him the instant he entered the room. Whatever he might have done, whatever he might have been, there was no question as to the manner of man he had become. He stepped to his son's side and took his hand in one of his own.
“You've made a man of yourself. I can see that. What do you do here for a living?”
Dan laughed, queerly. “I am the general manager of the railroad, father,” nodding towards the station and the yards. “But it's not much to brag about. It's only a one-horse line,” he added.
“No, you don't mean it, Dannie!” And he could see that his father was profoundly impressed. He put up his free hand and gently patted Dan's head as though he were indeed the little boy he remembered.
“Did you have an easy trip West, father?” Oakley asked. “You must be tired.”
“Not a bit, Dannie. It was wonderful. I'd been shut off from it all for more than twenty years, and each mile was taking me nearer you.”
The warm yellow light was beginning to fade from the room. It was growing late.
“I guess we'd better go up-town to the hotel and have our supper. Where is your trunk? At the station?”
“I've got nothing but a bundle. It's at the door.”
Dan locked his desk, and they left the office.
“Is it all yours?” Roger Oakley asked, pausing as they crossed the yards, to glance up and down the curving tracks.
“It's part of the property I manage. It belongs to General Cornish, who holds most of the stock.”
“And the train I came on, Dannie, who owned that?”
“At Buckhorn Junction, where you changed cars for the last time, you caught our local express. It runs through to a place called Harrison—the terminus of the line. This is only a branch road, you know.”
But the explanation was lost on his father. His son's relation to the road was a magnificent fact which he pondered with simple pleasure.
After their supper at the hotel they went up-stairs. Roger Oakley had been given a room next his son's. It was the same room General Cornish had occupied when he was in Antioch.
“Would you like to put away your things now?” asked Dan, as he placed his father's bundle, which he had carried up-town from the office, on the bed.
“I'll do that by and by. There ain't much there—just a few little things I've managed to keep, or that have been given me.”
Dan pushed two chairs before an open window that overlooked the square. His father had taken a huge blackened meerschaum from its case and was carefully filling it from a leather pouch.
“You don't mind if I light my pipe?” he inquired.
“Not a bit. I've one in my pocket, but it's not nearly as fine as yours.”
“Our warden gave it to me one Christmas, and I've smoked it ever since. He was a very good man, Dannie. It's the old warden I'm speaking of, not Kenyon, the new one, though he's a good man, too.”
Dan wondered where he had heard the name of Kenyon before; then he remembered—it was at the Emorys'.
“Try some of my tobacco, Dannie,” passing the pouch.
For a time the two men sat in silence, blowing clouds of white smoke out into the night. Under the trees, just bursting into leaf, the street-lamps flickered in a long, dim perspective, and now and then a stray word floated up to them, coming from a group of idlers on the corner below the window.
Roger Oakley hitched his chair nearer his son's, and rested a heavy hand on his knee. “I like it here,” he said.
“Do you? I am glad.”
“What will be the chances of my finding work? You know I'm a cabinet-maker by trade.”
“There's no need of your working; so don't worry about that.”
“But I must work, Dannie. I ain't used to sitting still and doing nothing.”
“Well,” said Oakley, willing to humor him, “there are the car shops.”
“Can you get me in?”
“Oh yes, when you are ready to start. I'll have McClintock, the master mechanic, find something in your line for you to do.”
“I'll need to get a kit of tools.”
“I guess McClintock can arrange that, too. I'll see him about it when you are ready.”
“Then that's settled. I'll begin in the morning,” with quiet determination.
“But don't you want to look around first?”
“I'll have my Sundays for that.” And Dan saw that there was no use in arguing the point with him. He was bent on having his own way.
The old convict filled his lungs with a deep, free breath. “Yes, I'm going to like it. I always did like a small town, anyhow. Tell me about yourself, Dannie. How do you happen to be here?”
Dan roused himself. “I don't know. It's chance, I suppose. After mother's death—”
“Twenty years ago last March,” breaking in upon him, softly; then, nodding at the starlit heavens, “She's up yonder now, watching us. Nothing's hidden or secret. It's all plain to her.”
“Do you really think that, father?”
“I know it, Dannie.” And his tone was one of settled conviction.
Dan had already discovered that his father was deeply religious. It was a faith the like of which had not descended to his own day and generation.
“Well, I had it rather hard for a while,” going back to his story.
“Yes,” with keen sympathy. “You were nothing but a little boy.”
“Finally, I was lucky enough to get a place as a newsboy on a train. I sold papers until I was sixteen, and then began braking. I wanted to be an engineer, but I guess my ability lay in another direction. At any rate, they took me off the road and gave me an office position instead. I got to be a division superintendent, and then I met General Cornish. He is one of the directors of the line I was with at the time. Three months ago he made me an offer to take hold here, and so here I am.”
“And you've never been back home, Dannie?”
“Never once. I've wanted to go, but I couldn't.” He hoped his father would understand.
“Well, there ain't much to take you there but her grave. I wish she might have lived, you'd have been a great happiness to her, and she got very little happiness for her portion any ways you look at it. We were only just married when the war came, and I was gone four years. Then there was about eleven years When we were getting on nicely. We had money put by, and owned our own home. Can you remember it, Dannie? The old brick place on the corner across from the post-office. A new Methodist church stands there now. It was sold to get money for my lawyer when the big trouble came. Afterwards, when everything was spent, she must have found it very hard to make a living for herself and you.”
“She did,” said Dan, gently. “But she managed somehow to keep a roof over our heads.”
“When the law sets out to punish it don't stop with the guilty only. When I went to her grave and saw there were flowers growing on it, and that it was being cared for, it told me what you were. She was a very brave woman, Dannie.”
“Yes,” pityingly, “she was.”
“Few women have had the sorrow she had, and few women could have borne up under it as she did. You know that was an awful thing about Sharp.”
He put up his hand and wiped the great drops of perspiration from his forehead.
Dan turned towards him quickly.
“Why do you speak of it? It's all past now.”
“I'd sort of like to tell you about it.”
There was a long pause, and he continued:
“Sharp and I had been enemies for a long time. It started back before the war, when he wanted to marry your mother. We both enlisted in the same regiment, and somehow the trouble kept alive. He was a bit of a bully, and I was counted a handy man with my fists, too. The regiment was always trying to get us into the ring together, but we knew it was dangerous. We had sense enough for that. I won't say he would have done it, but I never felt safe when there was a fight on in all those four years. It's easy enough to shoot the man in front of you and no one be the wiser. Many a score's been settled that way. When we got home again we didn't get along any better. He was a drinking man, and had no control over himself when liquor got the best of him. I did my share in keeping the feud alive. What he said of me and what I said of him generally reached both of us in time, as you can fancy.
“At last, when I joined the church, I concluded it wasn't right to hate a man the way I hated Sharp, for, you see, he'd never really done anything to me.
“One day I stopped in at the smithy—he was a blacksmith—to have a talk with him and see if we couldn't patch it up somehow and be friends. It was a Saturday afternoon, and he'd been drinking more than was good for him.
“I hadn't hardly got the first words out when he came at me with a big sledge in his hand, all in a rage, and swearing he'd have my life. I pushed him off and started for the door. I saw it was no use to try to reason with him, but he came at me again, and this time he struck me with his sledge. It did no harm, though it hurt, and I pushed him out of my way and backed off towards the door. The lock was caught, and before I could open it, he was within striking distance again, and I had to turn to defend myself. I snatched up a bar of iron perhaps a foot long. I had kept my temper down until then, but the moment I had a weapon in my hand it got clean away from me, and in an instant I was fighting—just as he was fighting—to kill.”
Roger Oakley had told the story of the murder in a hard, emotionless voice, but Dan saw in the half-light that his face was pale and drawn. Dan found it difficult to associate the thought of violence with the man at his side, whose whole manner spoke of an unusual restraint and control. That he had killed a man, even in self-defence, seemed preposterous and inconceivable.
There was a part of the story Roger Oakley could not tell, and which his son had no desire to hear.
“People said afterwards that I'd gone there purposely to pick a quarrel with Sharp, and his helper, who, it seems, was in the yard back of the smithy setting a wagon tire, swore he saw me through a window as I entered, and that I struck the first blow. He may have seen only the end of it, and really believed I did begin it, but that's a sample of how things got twisted. Nobody believed my motive was what I said it was. The jury found me guilty of murder, and the judge gave me a life sentence. A good deal of a fuss was made over what I did at the fire last winter. Hart told me he'd sent you the papers.”
Dan nodded, and his father continued:
“Some ladies who were interested in mission work at the prison took the matter up and got me my pardon. It's a fearful and a wicked thing for a man to lose his temper, Dannie. At first I was bitter against every one who had a hand in sending me to prison, but I've put that all from my heart. It was right I should be punished.”
He rose from his chair, striking the ashes from his pipe.
“Ain't it very late, Dannie? I'll just put away my things, and then we can go to bed. I didn't mean to keep you up.”
Oakley watched his precise and orderly arrangement of his few belongings. He could see that it was a part of the prison discipline under which he had lived for almost a quarter of a century. When the contents of his bundle were disposed of to his satisfaction, he put on a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, with large, round glasses, and took up a well-thumbed Bible, which he had placed at one side.
“I hope you haven't forgotten this book, Dannie,” tapping it softly with a heavy forefinger.
KERR and Holt were at Buckhom Junction with the pay-car, a decrepit caboose that complained in every wheel as the engine jerked it over the rails. Holt said that its motion was good for Kerr's dyspepsia. He called it the pay-car cure, and professed to believe it a subtle manifestation of the general's benevolence.
Miss Walton was having a holiday. This left Oakley the sole tenant of the office.
He had returned from Chicago the day before, where he had gone to drum up work.
It was a hot, breathless morning in May. The machinery in the shops droned on and on, with the lazy, softened hum of revolving wheels, or the swish of swiftly passing belts. A freight was cutting out cars in the yards. It was rather noisy and bumped discordantly in and out of the sidings.
Beyond the tracks and a narrow field, where the young corn stood in fresh green rows, was a line of stately sycamores and vivid willows that bordered Billup's Fork. Tradition had it that an early settler by the name of Billup had been drowned there—a feat that must have required considerable ingenuity on his part, as the stream was nothing but a series of shallow riffles, with an occasional deep hole. Once Jeffy, generously drunk, had attempted to end his life in the fork. He had waded in above his shoe-tops, only to decide that the water was too cold, and had waded out again, to the keen disappointment of six small boys on the bank, who would have been grateful for any little excitement. He said he wanted to live to invent a drink that tasted as good coming up as it did going down; there was all kinds of money in such a drink. But the boys felt they had been swindled, and threw stones at him. It is sometimes difficult to satisfy an audience. Nearer at hand, but invisible, Clarence was practising an elusive dance-step in an empty coal-car. He was inspired by a lofty ambition to equal—he dared not hope to excel—a gentleman he had seen at a recent minstrel performance.
McClintock, passing, had inquired sarcastically if it was his busy day, but Clarence had ignored the question. He felt that he had nothing in common with one who possessed such a slavish respect for mere industry.
Presently McClintock wandered in from the hot out-of-doors to talk over certain repairs he wished undertaken in the shops. He was a typical American mechanic, and Oakley liked him, as he always liked the man who knew his business and earned his pay.
They discussed the repairs, and then Oakley asked, “How's my father getting along, Milt?”
“Oh, all right. He's a little slow, that's all.”
“What's he on now?”
“Those blue-line cars that came in last month.”
“There isn't much in that batch. I had to figure close to get the work. Keep the men moving.”
“They are about done. I'll put the painters on the job to-morrow.”
“That's good.”
McClintock went over to the water-cooler in the corner and filled a stemless tumbler with ice-water.
“We'll be ready to send them up to Buckhorn the last of next week. Is there anything else in sight?”
He gulped down the water at a single swallow. “No, not at present, but there are one or two pretty fair orders coming in next month that I was lucky enough to pick up in Chicago. Isn't there any work of our own we can go at while things are slack?”
“Lots of it,” wiping his hands on the legs of his greasy overalls. “All our day coaches need paint, and some want new upholstery.”
“We'd better go at that, then.”
“All right. I'll take a look at the cars in the yards, and see what I can put out in place of those we call in. There's no use talking, Mr. Oakley, you've done big things for the shops,” he added.
“Well, I am getting some work for them, and while there isn't much profit in it, perhaps, it's a great deal better than being idle.”
“Just a whole lot,” agreed McClintock.
“I think I can pick up contracts enough to keep us busy through the summer. I understand you've always had to shut down.”
“Yes, or half-time,” disgustedly.
“I guess we can worry through without that; at any rate, I want to,” observed Oakley.
“I'll go see how I can manage about our own repairs,” said McClintock.
He went out, and from the window Oakley saw him with a bunch of keys in his hand going in the direction of a line of battered day coaches on one of the sidings. The door opened again almost immediately to admit Griff Ryder. This was almost the last person in Antioch from whom Dan was expecting a call. The editor's cordiality as he greeted him made him instantly suspect that some favor was wanted. Most people who came to the office wanted favors. Usually it was either a pass or a concession on freight.
As a rule, Kerr met all such applicants. His manner fitted him for just such interviews, and he had no gift for popularity, which suffered in consequence.
Ryder pushed a chair over beside Oakley's and seated himself. By sliding well down on his spine he managed to reach the low sill of the window with his feet. He seemed to admire the effect, for he studied them in silence for a moment.
“There's a little matter I want to speak to you about, Oakley. I've been intending to run in for the past week, but I have been so busy I couldn't.”
Oakley nodded for him to go on.
“In the first place, I'd like to feel that you were for Kenyon. You can be of a great deal of use to us this election. It's going to be close, and Kenyon's a pretty decent sort of a chap to have come out of these parts. You ought to take an interest in seeing him re-elected.”
Oakley surmised that this was the merest flattery intended to tickle his vanity. He answered promptly that he didn't feel the slightest interest in politics one way or the other.
“Well, but one good fellow ought to wish to see another good fellow get what he's after, and you can help us if you've a mind to; but this isn't what I've come for. It's about Hoadley.”
“What about Hoadley?” quickly.
“He's got the idea that his days with the Huckleberry are about numbered.”
“I haven't said so.”
“I know you haven't.”
“Then what is he kicking about? When he's to go, he'll hear of it from me.”
“But, just the same, it's in the air that there's to be a shake-up, and that a number of men, and Hoad-ly among them, are going to be laid off. Now, he's another good fellow, and he's a friend of mine, and I told him I'd come in and fix it up with you.”
“I don't think you can fix it up with me, Mr. Ryder. Just the same, I'd like to know how this got out.”
“Then there is to be a shake-up?”
Oakley bit his lips. “You seem to take it for granted there is to be.”
“I guess there's something back of the rumor.”
“I may as well tell you why Hoadley's got to go.”
“Oh, he is to go, then? I thought my information was correct.”
“In the first place, he's not needed, and in the second place, he's a lazy loafer. The road must earn its keep. General Cornish is sick of putting his hand in his pocket every six months to keep it out of bankruptcy. You are enough of a business man to know he won't stand that sort of thing forever. Of course I am sorry for Hoadley if he needs the money, but some one's got to suffer, and he happens to be the one. I'll take on his work myself. I can do it, and that's a salary saved. I haven't any personal feeling in the matter. The fact that I don't like him, as it happens, has nothing to do with it. If he were my own brother he'd have to get out.”
“I can't see that one man, more or less, is going to make such a hell of a difference, Oakley,” Ryder urged, with what he intended should be an air of frank good-fellowship.
“Can't you?” with chilly dignity. Oakley was slow to anger, but he had always fought stubbornly for what he felt was due him, and he wished the editor to understand that the management of the B. & A. was distinctly not his province.
Ryder's eyes were half closed, and only a narrow slit of color showed between the lids.
“I am very much afraid we won't hit it off. I begin to see we aren't going to get on. I want you to keep Hoadley as a personal favor to me. Just wait until I finish. If you are going in for reform, I may have it in my power to be of some service to you. You will need some backing here, and even a country newspaper can manufacture public sentiment. Now if we aren't to be friends you will find me on the other side, and working just as hard against you as I am willing to work for you if you let Hoadley stay.”
Oakley jumped up.
“I don't allow anybody to talk like that to me. I am running this for Cornish. They are his interests, not mine, and you can start in and manufacture all the public sentiment you damn please.” Then he cooled down a bit and felt ashamed of himself for the outburst.
“I am not going to be unfair to any one if I can help it. But if the road's earnings don't meet the operating expenses the general will sell it to the M. & W. Do you understand what that means? It will knock Antioch higher than a kite, for the shops will be closed. I guess when all hands get that through their heads they will take it easier.”
“That's just the point I made. Who is going to enlighten them if it isn't me? I don't suppose you will care to go around telling everybody what a fine fellow you are, and how thankful they should be that you have stopped their wages. We can work double, Oakley. I want Hoadley kept because he's promised me his influence for Kenyon if I'd exert myself in his behalf. He's of importance up at the Junction. Of course we know he's a drunken beast, but that's got nothing to do with it.”
“I am sorry, but he's got to go,” said Oakley, doggedly. “A one-horse railroad can't carry dead timber.”
“Very well.” And Ryder pulled in his legs and rose slowly from his chair. “If you can't and won't see it as I do it's your lookout.”
Oakley laughed, shortly.
“I guess I'll be able to meet the situation, Mr. Ryder.”
“Perhaps you will, and perhaps you won't. We'll see about that when the time comes.”
“You heard what I said about the M. & W.?”
“Well, what about that?”
“You understand what it means—the closing of the shops?”
“Oh, I guess that's a long ways off.”
He stalked over to the door with his head in the air. He was mad clear through. At the door he turned. Hoadley's retention meant more to him than he would have admitted. It was not that he cared a rap for Hoadley. On the contrary, he detested him, but the fellow was a power in country politics.
“If you should think better of it—” and he was conscious his manner was weak with the weakness of the man who has asked and failed.
“I sha'n't,” retorted Oakley, laconically.
He scouted the idea that Ryder, with his little country newspaper could either help or harm him.