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diff --git a/old/51982-0.txt b/old/51982-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b2c6454..0000000 --- a/old/51982-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6049 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Simeon Tetlow’s Shadow, by Jennette Lee - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you’ll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Simeon Tetlow’s Shadow - -Author: Jennette Lee - -Release Date: May 3, 2016 [EBook #51982] -Last Updated: February 20, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMEON TETLOW’S SHADOW *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - - - - - - - - -SIMEON TETLOW’S SHADOW - -By Jennette Lee - -New York: The Century Co. - -1909 - -[Illustration: 0011] - -[Illustration: 0012] - - -TO - -GERALD STANLEY LEE - - - - - -SIMEON TETLOW’S SHADOW - - - - -I - - -IT was turning dusk in the office, though it was scarcely three o’clock -and outside the sun was still shining, beyond the busy streets. The two -men sitting on opposite sides of the small room bent closer to their -desks. The younger glanced up and got up to turn on the electric light. -The little scowl that had begun to form itself on the face of the older -man changed to a look of relief. His pen moved faster over the paper. - -The older man was Simeon Tetlow, President of the “R. and Q.” Railroad. -It might almost be said that he _was_ the road. Its minute ramifications -and its great divisions were hardly more than the nerves and arteries -that threaded Simeon Tetlow’s thin frame. And the orders that went out -from the tiny office, high up in the big block, were the play of his -flitting finger-tips upon the keyboard of the whole clanking system. The -tiny, shriveled figure gave no hint of the power that ticked carloads of -live stock and human beings to their destination and laid its hand upon -roads half dead, or dying, or alive and kicking, sweeping them gently -into the system, with hardly a gulp. - -Simeon Tetlow was an iron man, wiry and keen--an intellect without heart -or soul or conscience, his co-workers would have told you. Each new -road absorbed, each influx of power, seemed only to tighten a spring -somewhere inside that shot the bolt. He could work day and night without -tiring; and that was the reason, in part, why at forty-two he was -president of the “R. and Q.” road; and the reason why at forty-two his -hand, when it reached out for its abstemious glass of water, trembled so -that it was quickly withdrawn. No one knew the man. No one guessed the -nervous horror that often racked the small frame driven relentlessly by -its big brain. - -He reached out for a slip of paper that lay at hand and ran his eye over -it, jotting down a few figures. Then he pushed it to one side and went -on writing. The younger man came across the office and laid another slip -of paper on the desk. He took the one that had been pushed aside, made -a memorandum on it, and filed it in a pigeon-hole at the right. He was a -short, young man, with broad shoulders and a round face. The face as -it bent above the slip of paper had a dull look. There was a kind of -patience in it not usual in so young a man, and when he turned his eyes -to his employer they glowed with a clear light, as if something were -shining behind them. - -“What is it, John?” The man reached out a nervous, groping hand. His -gaze had not left the page before him. - -“This one next, sir.” The young man touched the outstretched hand with -the slip of paper. - -“Yes, yes.” It was almost testy. - -The other returned to his desk and the scratching pens raced with the -minutes. - -A call-boy entered with a handful of letters. The young man took them -and ran them through his fingers. He arranged them in piles, reserving -a part for himself. These he read, making notes and filing them rapidly. -One letter, the one at the bottom of the pack, was not addressed to the -great corporation, but--in a fine, small hand--to “John Bennett.” He -read this one last, looking thoughtfully at the lines and folding it -with slow fingers. The patient look was still in his face, but the light -of the eyes was gone. It seemed to have sunk back, leaving the flesh -dull and heavy. - -His employer glanced up suddenly. His quick eye sought the electric -bulb, with a flash of impatience, and returned to its work. - -The young man rose and turned on more lights. He moved about the room, -putting things away for the night. - -Simeon Tetlow finished his letters and pushed them from him. The young -man came across and began to gather them up. His dull face came in range -of his employer’s eye. - -“Give those I ’ve marked to Hanscom. Have the rest ready in the morning. -I shall dictate.” - -“Yes, sir.” The young man finished gathering them up. - -The man glanced again, half-impatiently, at the heavy face. The room -seemed suddenly gloomy, in spite of the red-hot wires looping the light -about them. - -The young man brought a hat and coat and laid them beside his employer. -“May I speak to you a minute, sir?” he asked as he put them down. - -The other glanced again, sharply, at his face. “Go ahead.” His hand was -reaching for the hat. - -“I shall have to hand in my resignation, sir.” The young man said it -slowly, as if repeating something he had learned by heart. - -The hand on the hat drew back. “What ’s that?” He laughed curtly and -shot a look of suspicion at the impassive face. “More money?” - -The face flushed. “No, sir.” He hesitated a little. “My mother is sick.” - -“Umph!” The man’s face cleared. “You don’t need to resign for _that_.” - He did not ask what was the matter with the mother. He had not known -that John had a mother. She seemed to be springing into existence very -inconveniently. “Get a nurse,” he said. - -“She has had a nurse. But she needs me, I think.” He did not offer more -details. - -The older man shrugged his shoulders a little--a quick shrug. He pushed -forward a chair with his foot. “Sit down. Your father dead?” quickly. - -“No, sir. But--father is--father.” He said it with a little smile. -“She’s never had anybody but me,” he went on quickly. “She’s been sick -ever since I was a little thing, and I’ve taken care of her. It frets -her to have a woman around. She does n’t wash the dishes clean, and her -cooking is n’t really very good.” He was smiling a little as he said it. - -The man shot a quick look at him. “You ’re going home to wash dishes?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Um-m.” The fingers played a little tune on the desk. “I ’ll raise you -twenty-five a month. Get a better nurse.” - -The boy shook his head. “I ’m afraid it would n’t do.” He was -hesitating. “I think she misses me.” - -“Umph! Very likely!” The man glanced at him over quick spectacles. -“What ’s the matter with her? Sit down.” He touched the chair again with -his foot. - -The young man sat down. “We don’t know what it is. She cannot -walk--cannot stand--a good deal of the time--and sometimes she suffers. -But it is a kind of nervousness that is hardest to bear. She cannot lie -quiet. Something seems to drive her.” - -The man nodded. His fingers opened and closed. “What else?” he said -brusquely. - -“That ’s all--except that it quiets her to have me around. I can get -work in Bridgewater and do the housework nights and mornings.” - -The man was scowling at him intently. - -“It ’s what I ’ve always done, till I came here,” he said quickly. - -“Washed dishes and cooked and made beds?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“It’s no work for a _man_.” - -“I know.” The dull face smiled a little. “The boys always called me -’Sissie Johnny.’” - -“Umph! I ’m glad they did!... ’Sissie Johnny’!” He smiled grimly -and took a card from the desk before him, holding it a minute in his -fingers, snapping it back and forth. “Has she ever seen a specialist?” - -The young man shook his head. “No, sir.” The man wrote a few words on -the card and blotted it quickly. “Take her to see Dr. Blake. He is the -best nerve specialist in five hundred miles. If she is n’t well enough -to go to him, have him come to her. I ’ll pay the bill.” He thrust -himself into his hat and coat and got himself out of the room, shrugging -nervously. - -The young man stood with the card in his hand, looking at it, a little -smile on his lips. Then he went about, turning out all the bulbs but one -and putting away papers and arranging the room for the night. - -It was a small, rough room--hardly more than a corner cut off from the -top floor by board partitions. The rest of the floor, outside, was -used only for storage. Simeon Tetlow had achieved here what he -wanted--complete solitude. There was, on the first floor, a magnificent -apartment with lordly mahogany chairs, a baize-covered table and oil -paintings, where twice a year he met his directors; and on the floor -above it was a spacious room bearing on its panel the bronze token, -“President’s Office.” It was occupied at present by three young lady -typewriters who clacked their machines and arranged their hair -and adjusted the shades on the plate-glass windows to suit their -convenience, while in the little room at the top of the building the -president of the corporation hunched himself over a four-dollar desk and -scowled at the dim light that came through the half-sized windows. For -three days after it was finished, Simeon Tetlow occupied the spacious -room below designed for the president of the corporation. Then he -gathered together his few belongings and fled to the top. His gigantic -brain could only work when free from distraction. The mere sense that -some one might rap, even on the outer door of the stately office, -paralyzed him, and his nervous frame, once set a-jangle, trembled, -and palpitated for hours. The mere forbidding of intrusion was not -sufficient. Some well-meaning idiot, laden with news of importance, -would break over the command, and hours of careful thought would be -whirled aloft in the smoke of Simeon’s wrath. He fled to the -loft, dropping, as it were, a trapdoor behind him. No one was to -follow--unless summoned. No literary man was ever more jealous of -solitude. But no mere literary man could think a railroad into existence -or quench a wheat crop with a nod. If Simeon Tetlow’s body had matched -his brain, there would have been no limit to his power. As it was, he -remained a mighty general without an army, a head without hands and -feet. The details of life frustrated him at every point. He could meet -his directors, serene in the knowledge that the road was prospering -beyond all bounds. He could carry to them the facts and figures and -proofs of prosperity--in his head. But the papers that recorded these -facts, the proofs in black and white, were never forthcoming at the -right moment. They took to themselves wings--of paper; they flitted and -skulked and hid; they lay on the top of the pile before him and grinned -at him, their very faces changed to a diabolic scorn that he should not -know them. - -This was the Simeon Tetlow of three years ago. Then there entered, one -morning, in response to his summons for a call-boy, a short, square -youth with a dull face. Simeon did not note him as he came in. He forgot -that he had called for a boy. His mind was busy with projects of import. -When it came back, with a start, he recognized that some one had been -with him, for ten minutes or more, who had not worried and irritated him -by merely being alive. He shot a keen glance at the dull face. The light -of the eyes was turned to him, waiting to serve him. - -After that Simeon summoned the boy again and again, on one pretext or -another. He made excuses to see him. He advanced him from post to post. - -At last, about a year ago, he nodded at a desk that had been installed, -overnight, across the room: “You are to work there and your pay will be -raised a hundred.” - -The boy took possession of the desk with as little stir as if he had -received some casual order. He did not ask what his work was to be, -and Simeon Tetlow did not tell him. The big brain had found hands -and feet--almost, it might seem, lungs and a few other useful, vital -organs--and it used them, as it had used the nervous, shaking body -before--relentlessly. For the first time in his life Simeon found his -papers ready to his hand. He attended his first directors’ meeting, -sitting at the head of the green baize table, like a man in a dream. The -right paper slipped to his finger-tips and lingered there; the figures -formed themselves in seemly ranks and marched up and down the green -baize parade in orderly file. The effect upon the directors was, at -first, a little startling. They had become wonted to Simeon hurried, -gasping, and impatient--and to dividends. They were almost afraid of -these cold facts and figures. They looked at them cautiously, through -gold-rimmed glasses, received their dividends--and took heart. - -Each day some new comfort found its way to Simeon’s desk. The morning -that the box of elastic bands appeared there was a holocaust of joy -among the papers. He used nearly the whole box the first day. He had -never owned an elastic band before. He was president of the great -corporation, but it had not occurred to him that he had a right to -elastic bands. He slid them up and down his nervous fingers in sheer -energy of delight. But he did not mention them to John, nor John to him. -It was John who provided the new letter-file that cut the work in -half, and had the grimy windows washed till they shone like plate, -and arranged the desk ’phone so that Simeon could dictate to the -stenographer three floors below, without knowing, or caring, who sat at -the other end taking his crisp words with harried, compliant fingers. -Hitherto, dictating had burdened Simeon’s life. He had written dozens -of letters himself rather than endure the presence of a stenographer for -even half an hour; and the sound of a girl clacking drove him wild. - -The letters that were not dictated into the telephone were written in -John’s round, conscientious-looking hand. If there were anything that -one human being could do for another that was not done in the office, -Simeon did not know what it was--nor did John. A clothes-brush that -brushed them twice a day hung by Simeon’s hat and coat; and if Simeon’s -neckties were still shabby and his collars a little frayed, it was -because John had not yet discovered the remedy. Some days a luncheon -appeared on Simeon’s desk, and some days he went out to luncheon; and he -could not have told which, except that it was always the thing that he -would have done had he devoted hours of thought to it all. - -He did not give thanks to John, and John did not expect them. The lamps -in his eyes had not been lighted for that--nor for money.... - -He went about the room now in his slow, considerate way, attending to -each detail of locking up, as carefully as if he were not to be first -on the ground in the morning.... He would return to start the day. -Later--perhaps at noon--he would slip away. That would make least -trouble.... To come in the morning and find him gone!--John felt, -through all his short, square figure, the shock to the nervous, -quivering one. He did not need to reason it out. He did not even know -that he thought it. It was an instinct--born the first day he came into -Simeon Tetlow’s office and saw the thin figure seated before its chaotic -desk wrestling its way through mighty things.... He had thought of his -mother as he stood there waiting for orders. She had fairly driven him -away. “Go and be a _man!_” she had said; “I shall ruin you.” And she -had smiled at him courageously.... And he had come away, and had taken -the first thing at hand--a call-boy, kicking his heels against a bench -with a dozen others. And this was his employer.... So he had stood -waiting when Simeon Tetlow had looked up and seen the lamps aglow. - -That was three years ago. And tonight Simeon, plodding home through the -foggy gloom, was swearing a little under his breath. - -“It ’s the weak spot in the boy,” he said testily; “I believe he’s soft -at the core.” - -He inserted his latchkey, grumbling still. “Wash dishes--will he? Damn -him!--Umph!--Damn him!” And yet it was as if he had said: “Bless him!” - The great door swung noiselessly open, and he went in. - - - - -II - - -The woman was looking into the dusk. Her hair, short like a boy’s, -curled a little about the ears. She pushed it back as she looked, her -eyes deepening and widening. It was a gentle face, with a sharp line -between the eyes, that broke its quiet. She sank back with a little -sigh. Foolish to look.... He could not come. She must think of -something.... The twilights were long and heavy.... What was it he had -written?... Hollyhocks? yes; that was it!--in the garden. He had said -she should have them--next summer. She leaned back with closed eyes -and folded hands, watching them--pink and rose and crimson, white with -flushing red, standing stiff and straight against the wall. They were so -cool and sturdy, and they brought the sunshine.... The dark floated wide -and lost itself in a sky of light. The smile crept back to her lips. -She stirred a little. The door opened and closed.... His hands scarcely -touched her as he bent and kissed her. - -“It’s you--!” a little cry of doubt and delight. - -“It’s me, mother.” The words laughed to her quietly. - -She put out a hand. “How long can you stay?” She was stroking his coat. - -“Always.” - -“What--?” The hand pushed him from her. The eyes scanned his face. - -“Always,” he repeated cheerfully, “if you want me.” - -She shook her head. “I don’t want you. I wrote you I was--happy.” - -“Yes. You wrote it too often--and too hard.” He was smiling at her. But -the lamps were misty. “Did you think I would n’t see?” - -“Oh, dear--oh, dear--dear, dear!” It was a little wail of reproach at -his foolishness--and hers. “And you were doing so well!” - -“I can do better here. What’s burning!” He sniffed a little. - -She glanced anxiously toward the kitchen. “Your father put some crusts -in the oven to brown. It can’t he--” - -“It can’t be anything else,” said John. - -When he came back he told her of the great Dr. Blake. - -They sat in silence while the room drew dark about them. - -Now and then she reached out and touched his coat softly. - -“Tomorrow then--!” half-doubtfully, when he bade her good night. - -“Tomorrow we shall see the great doctor,” he assented cheerfully. “Good -night, mother.” - -“Good night, my son.” - -The great doctor looked her over keenly, with eyes that saw everything -and saw nothing. - -“A little trouble in walking!” - -“Yes.” - -“And nervous sometimes--a little!” - -He might have been a neighbor, inquiring after her health. The little -woman forgot herself and her fear of him. She told him, very simply, of -the long nights--when the walls seemed closing in and there was no -air except under the sky, and her feet refused to carry her. The line -between her eyes grew deeper as she talked, but the hands in her lap -were very quiet. She did not shrink while the doctor’s sensitive -fingers traveled up and down her spine with almost roseleaf touch. Only -once she gave a quick cry of pain. - -“I see. I see. A little tender.” - -“Yes.” It was almost a gasp, with a quick drawing in of the lip. - -“I see.” He nodded. “Yes. That will do--very nicely.” - -He led her away to another room--to rest a little before the journey. -When he returned his glance met the boy’s absently. - -He arranged trifles on his desk--paperweight and pens and blotter--as -affairs of importance, before he spoke, casually: - -“She will always be ill--Yes. It is a hopeless case--Yes.” He paused a -little between the words, giving the boy time. “She will suffer--more -than she has yet. But we can help a little.” He had drawn a paper toward -him and was writing his hieroglyphics with slow care, not looking up. -“We will ease it, all we can. Keep her mind at rest. Make her happy.” - He turned his spectacles on the young man. “You can make her happy. That -will do more for her than I can.... Will she live? Yes, yes. Longer than -the rest, perhaps.... Shall you tell her?--not today, I think--some -other time. She is a little tired. She is a brave woman.” - - - - -III - - -SIMEON Tetlow glanced up sharply. The door had opened without a sound. -“You ’ve come. Umph!” He shoved the pile of letters from him. - -“Sit down.” - -The air was full of sunshine. Even in the dingy office it glinted and -shone. - -Across its radiance Simeon studied the dull face. “Well!” - -The eyes of the boy met his, half-wistfully, it seemed. “She needs me, -sir,” he said. Simeon stirred uneasily. “Seen Dr. Blake?” - -“Yes, sir. He says he cannot help her.” - -“Umph!” Simeon shifted again in his chair. His eye dropped to the pile -of papers beside him. - -The boy’s hands had reached out to them. Almost instinctively the -fingers were threading their way among them, sorting and arranging in -neat piles. - -Simeon watched the fingers jealously. It was as if he might spring upon -them and fasten them there forever. The young man’s eyes traveled about -the room, noting signs of disorder. “I can stay today,” he said slowly. -He hesitated. “I can stay a week, sir, if you want me.” - -“I don’t want you a week.” The man was looking at him savagely. “You -must bring them here!” he said. - -“Here!” in doubt. - -The man nodded. “They can live here as well as anywhere!” - -The boy pondered it a minute. He shook his head slowly. - -“They would n’t be happy,” he said. “She has friends there, in -Bridgewater--people she’s known ever since she was a little girl--and -father has his work. He ’s an old man. It would n’t be easy for him to -get work here. He has an easy job--” - -“Work enough here,” growled Simeon. He was studying the boy’s face -keenly. Was it possible the fellow was making capital of all this? He -threw off the thought. “Work enough here,” he repeated. - -John considered it again. He looked up. The lamps threw their clear -light into the future. “I ’d thought of that, sir,” he said slowly, “and -I ’ve talked about it--a little. But I saw it hurt them. So I dropped -it.” - -“You ’re missing the chance of a lifetime,” said Simeon. “There are men -working below that’d give ten years off their life to get what you’ve -got without trying.” - -The boy’s quiet eye met his. - -“Oh, you ’ve tried--you’ve tried. I don’t mean that,” he said testily. -“But it’s a case of fitness--the chance of a lifetime,” he repeated -significantly. - -The boy looked at him. “I know it, sir. I’ve thought about it a long -time. It ’s hard to do. But, you see, we never have but one father and -mother.” - -The other met it, blinking. “Umph!” - -“I shall try to get something at the Bridgewater office. I thought -perhaps you would recommend me if there was a vacancy.” - -“There is n’t any,” said Simeon shortly--almost with relief. - -“The second shipping-clerk left week before last.” - -“You don’t want that?” - -“I think I do.” - -Simeon turned vaguely toward the pigeonholes. The boy’s quick eye was -before him. “This is the one, sir.” - -Simeon smiled grimly. He drew out a blank from its place and filled it -in. “You won’t like it,” he said, holding the pen in his teeth while he -reached for the blotter. “It ’s heavy lifting, and Simpson ’s no angel -to work under. No chance to rise, either.” He was glaring at the boy, a -kind of desperate affection growing in his eyes.. - -The boy returned the look mistily. “You make it a little hard, sir. I -wish I could stay.” He half held out his hand and drew it back. - -Simeon ignored it. He had taken down a ledger and picked a letter from -the pile before him. The interview was over. The President of the “R. -and Q.” Railroad was not hanging on anybody’s neck. - -“It ’s the other ledger, sir,” said John quickly, “the farther one.” He -reached over and laid it deftly before his employer. - -Simeon pushed it from him savagely. “Go to the devil!” he said. - -The boy went, shutting the door quietly behind him. - - - - -IV - - -IT was six o’clock--the close of a perfect June day. Not even the -freight engines, pulling and hauling up and down the yard, with their -puffs of black smoke, could darken the sky. Over in the meadow, beyond -the network of tracks, the bobolinks had been tumbling and bubbling all -day. It was time to close shop now, and they had subsided into the long -grass. In the office the assistant shipping-clerk was finishing the last -bill of lading. He put it to one side and looked at his watch. A look of -relief crossed his face as he replaced it and climbed down from the high -stool. It had been a hard day in the Bridge-water freight-office. -News had come, in the early morning, of a wreck, three miles down the -track--a sleeper and a freight had collided where the road curves by -the stonework of the long bridge, and John had been sent down to help in -looking after the freight. - -It was one of the worst wrecks the road had known. No one placed the -blame. Those on the ground were too busy to have theories; and those at -a distance had to change their theories a dozen times during the day. -At noon word came that the president of the road was on his way to the -scene of the accident. The news reached John as he was getting into the -wrecking-car to return to the office. He paused for a flying minute, -one foot on the step of the car. Then he swung off, and the car moved on -without him. He spent the next half hour going over the ground. He made -careful notes of every detail, recalling points from memory, taking -measurements, jotting down facts and figures with his swift, short -fingers. When he had finished he took the next wrecking-car back, making -up for lost time by lunching at his desk while he worked. - -All the afternoon he had been doing the work of three men.... Six -o’clock. He got down from the high stool, stretching himself and rubbing -his arms. In ten minutes the special would pass. He glanced out through -the office window at the back of the building. High at the top of the -sandy bank a bunch of clover bloomed against the sky, huge heads, with -pink-and-white hearts--a kind of alfalfa--perhaps a seed from some -passing freight. He had seen them, flaunting there, between hurried -snatches of work, all the afternoon. He would pick them and carry them -to her. But not now.... He looked again at his watch. He wanted to see -the special when it passed. It would not stop, probably, but he might -catch a glimpse of Simeon Tetlow. He had often wished he might see -him, and he had often thought of his face the morning he said good-by. -Beneath the anger in it had been something the boy could not fathom--a -kind of entreaty.... He must find some way to give him the notes he had -made of the wreck. He stepped out on the platform, looking up and down -the shine on the tracks. The sun, coming low across the meadow -beyond the tracks, made everything beautiful. A whistle sounded. The -special--at the upper bridge. In five minutes it would pass. A smile -curved his lips. The sound of quick bells and puffs and wheels came -pleasantly to him from the engines at work in the yard down beyond the -freight-house. A long train at the left was backing in slowly. John -watched it and jingled some pennies in his pockets. He was thinking -of Simeon Tetlow, the smile still on his lips.... Suddenly the smile -stopped. The fingers gripped the pennies and held them fast.. .. His eye -flashed along the top of the slow-moving train.--No one in sight--level -tracks--the special two minutes off--the freight taking her track.... -The switch, if he could make it--It was not a thought, but a swift turn -of the short legs. Never had they seemed to him so fat and heavy beneath -him. Yet they were flying over the ties as the wind sweeps a field. -The short, strong body dropped itself upon the switch and hung there, -gripping--a whirl of cinders and blast and roar. ... Had he come fast -enough?... Ages passed. He lifted his head and looked back up the long -tracks. The freight was still backing in slowly. The special--like -an old lady who has taken the wrong crossing--was emitting a sound -of dismay, a quick, high note. The wheels reversed and she came back, -puffing and complaining, in little jerks. - -When the train halted Simeon Tetlow stepped down from the platform. His -hand, as it left the iron rail, trembled a little. He thrust it into -the pocket of his light coat, looking up and down the tracks with stern -glance. The glance fell upon John mopping his brow. - -The president of the road moved toward him slowly. “What ’s up?” It was -short and sharp. - -John waited a minute while he mopped his brow again and replaced the -handkerchief. He was thinking fast--for two. “I--I wanted to see you, -sir.” One glance at the man had told him everything--the shaking hand -clinched in the pocket, the quivering nerves, the dusty journey, the -anxiety and fierce need of help. One more shock and the tension would -give way. “I wanted to see you, sir,” he repeated quietly. - -Simeon was looking at him keenly, up and down. “So you stopped my -special?” - -John nodded. “Yes, I stopped it--I guess I stopped it.” His voice almost -laughed at the words. He was tugging at something in his pocket. -“I wanted to give you these, sir.” He had fished out the handful of -papers--old envelopes, scraps, bits of newspaper margins--covered with -writing and figures. “I was down there this morning--to the wreck,” he -said quickly. “Things were pretty well mixed up--I thought you might -like to see how they lay. I made some notes.” - -“Ah-h!” It was a long-drawn breath-something between a snarl and a -laugh. “Come inside.” - -They went into the special, with her hideous decorations of plush and -imitation leather. The president nodded to the seat beside a table -covered with telegrams and newspapers and memoranda: “Sit down.” - -He seated himself opposite the boy, his elbow on the table and his head -resting on the hand. Beneath its shelter his swift eyes looked out, -scanning the boy’s face. “Well!” It was sharp and quick. - -The boy smiled at the familiar note. He ran over the papers in his -fingers, selecting one near the bottom. “This is the way things lay when -we got there. We were first on the ground. I had a good chance to see,” - he said simply. - -“I ’ll warrant.” Simeon growled a little, leaning toward it. - -The boy moved nearer to him. “These are the sleepers--the freight lay -this way, over to the left. They must have struck just as the last car -left the bridge.” - -“I see.” Simeon reached out a hand for the paper. It trembled mistily as -he bent above it. “I see.” The tone held a note of satisfaction. “What -else?” He looked up quickly. - -John was sorting the papers, a half-smile on his slow lips. A sense of -happiness held his stubby fingers. - -The president’s eyes rested on the dull face for a long minute. His -hand, holding the paper, had ceased to tremble. He was resting in the -strength of this body, short and sturdy and full of willing life. No one -knew what that stubby-fingered boy had meant to him--what plans for the -future had been cut off. The boy was to have been closer than a partner -for him, closer than his own body, through the years. He was to have -lived with him--shared his fortune, good and bad.... No one had guessed. -He himself had not quite known--until, one day, the door closed -behind the boy and he found himself sitting before a desk, trying with -trembling fingers to make an entry in the ledger.... He had worried -along since then as best he could.... And now he was sitting in the -quiet car with the boy opposite him. The freight outside was pulling -away with slow, disturbed puffs. The low sun shone through the car, and -a glow of red plush lifted itself about them and filled the car with -clear, rosy light. - -The boy looked up. His eyes met the watching ones, and a quick light -flashed into them, touching the lamps of service to flame. “This is the -next one, sir.” He looked down again at the papers and held one out. - -The president pushed it aside with a touch. His eyes searched the boy’s -face. “Tell me what happened--just now!” - -“Just now--!” The boy looked up, waiting, his lips half apart. - -The president nodded. “You know--When we stopped--What was wrong!” - -The boy waited a minute. “No. 39 had your track,” he said at last, -quietly. “She’s gone now. That’s her whistle--up the yard.” He turned -his head a little. - -The president’s eyes still scanned the dull face. “And you changed the -switch!” - -“Yes, sir.” - -The president pushed the papers farther from him, making a place for -both arms on the table. He leaned forward a little. “So that’s what you -left me for?” - -The boy looked up, startled. “What, sir!” - -The president nodded slowly. “To turn a switch, I suppose--” The thin -hand lifted to his lips was trembling now as a leaf quivers at a sudden -wind. - -“Some one else would have seen,” said the boy quickly. - -“Nobody sees--but you.” He crunched out the words. “When are you coming -back?” - -“Back!” - -“To the office--I need you.” He gulped a little over the words. He had -never said as much to any one. - -The lamps, with their still glow, were turned toward him. “I want to -come, sir.” - -“Well?” - -“We talked it over last night--She wants me to do it--She will come with -me--But--” - -The president of the road was looking down now--waiting. - -The boy’s eyes studied the worn face with its wrinkles, the thin, hard -lips and stern lines. Something in it made his heart suddenly go from -him. “I think I’m coming, sir,” he said simply. - -The face did not look up. It worked strangely for a moment. - -Then it dropped in the folded arms on the table and rested there. - -The boy fell to sorting the telegrams. - -When the man looked up the face was quiet. But something had gone from -it--a kind of hard selfishness. The gentleness that touched the lines -had left them free. He smiled a little wistfully as he held out his hand -for the papers. “I’m ready now. Go ahead.” - -In ten minutes the papers were all in his hands, and the special was on -her way to the wreck. The boy watched it out of sight. Then he turned -away and crossed the tracks to the sandy bank, whistling softly--little -breaths of sound that broke into lightest bubbles of joy as he -climbed the bank. He was going to gather the clover blossoms, with the -pink-and-white hearts, to carry home to her. - - - - -V - - -The man at work in the garden looked up with sudden interest. A -light whistle had caught his ear--“That you, Johnny?” He looked out -through the vista of currant-bushes and peas to the path that skirted -the house. “You there?” he called. - -The youth, who had come around the corner, nodded casually. “How is -mother?” - -The old man got slowly to his feet, rubbing his knees a little. “All -right, I guess. She was out here with me a while ago, but I took her -in.--You got some flowers for her?” He glanced at the pink-and-white -blossoms in the boy’s hand. - -“I got them on the bank by the track--Has she had a good day?” - -“Putty good, I reckon. Putty good.” He was coming down between the peas, -limping a little. “They found out who’s to blame--?” - -The boy was moving toward the house, but he turned back with a little -gesture of silence. “She does n’t know?” - -The older man looked a little guilty. “Well--yes--fact is--I told her. -She kind o’ got it out o’ me,” he added in defence. - -The boy smiled. “She always gets it out of you.--Never mind if it has -n’t hurt her.” He turned again toward the house. - -She was very quiet as he entered the room. The blinds were closed and -the little light that came through the shutters made a kind of cool -dusk. He crossed to the lounge and laid the flowers by her hand. The -delicate fingers reached out and closed over them. “Clover blossoms,” - she said softly. “I was wishing today--We used to have them in the -yard-before the lawn-mower--” The fingers strayed here and there, -touching them gently. “Are they crimson?” - -“Guess again.” His voice was full of gentle love. - -“Not crimson, no.... But they ’re not white, either--” - -“But you ’re warm,” he said. - -The eyes flashed open and looked at him. “What happened today?” - -“Father told you--about the accident?” - -“The accident--Yes. But there was something else--” - -He laughed quietly. “You always know, don’t you! Was it good or bad!” - -She hesitated a second. “Good--for you.” - -“And for all of us, mother.” He bent toward her. “We were talking about -it last night--about my going back--if he wanted me.” - -“Yes--Have you heard from him!” - -“I ’ve seen him.” - -“Today!” - -He nodded. “He came down to look after the accident, and his train -stopped a minute at the office. He wants me--I think he needs me--But it -’s for you to say, mother--you and father.” - -The breath of a sigh came to her lips and changed to a smile. “Ah, if -you can get your father to go--” - -He smiled back, his eyes searching her face for the slightest shadow -that should cross it. “He ’ll go,” he said decisively. “And he ’ll like -it--after we get there. But will _you_ like it, mother! That ’s what I -’m afraid of--You ’ll miss your friends--and little things--” - -“I shall have you,” she returned quickly, “and your father--and -President Tetlow.” - -He smiled a little at the picture. But his face had suddenly cleared. “I -believe you _would_ like him,” he said. “I never thought before how much -alike you are--you two--in some ways!” - -She laughed out. “He’s a terrible hard man to get on with!” - -He bent and kissed her cheek lightly. “For other people, perhaps--not -for you--or me.” She had lifted the clovers and was looking at them. -“How beautiful they are!” she said softly. They dropped again to her -side. “I want to go.” She was looking at him with clear eyes. “And I -want _you_ to go--I didn’t see how it was when we talked it over last -winter--how much it would mean to you. I dreaded the change and your -father is so hard to move--and I thought, too, that it would be too much -for you--having me to look after and all the responsibility besides. -I did n’t see then--but I’ve been thinking about it months now, lying -here. You really liked the work there and that made it easy--” She was -looking at him inquiringly. - -He nodded slowly. “I liked it--I don’t think I ever did any work I -liked so well. It was almost as if I thought things out myself. I can’t -explain how it felt--but somehow I used to forget, almost, that I was -n’t planning things--It seemed so natural to do them--the things he -wanted done.” - -“I know.” She sighed softly. “How he must miss you!” - -He seemed not to have heard her. He was following his thought, clearing -it to his slow mind. “You ’re right in the midst of things down there. -It’s like being fireman on one of these big engines, I guess--every -shovelful you put in, you can see her fly just as if you were doing it -yourself. Here it ’s different, somehow. I do first one thing and then -another, but nothing seems to count much.” - -“It ’s like being a brakeman,” she suggested. - -“That’s it! I never thought of that! But I’ve always said I’d rather -be fireman on any old engine than a high-class brakeman--Pullman or -anything.” - -Again the little breath of a sigh that changed quickly to a smile. -“We won’t be brakemen any more,” she said. “We ’ll go live on the -engine--right by the throttle--that’s what you call it, is n’t it?” A -little laugh covered the words. - -He bent and kissed her again. “Dear mother! You shall never go if you do -not want it.” - -“Ah, but I want it--more than anything in the world. But there is your -father--?” - -“There is father,” he said decisively. “But first we ’ll have supper.” - -He went out into the kitchen and she lay in the half-dusk with the -flowers clasped in her fingers. Presently she lifted them and drew them -across her cheek. “It was good in You to make flowers,” she said softly, -“thank You for them. ... Thank You....” The words trailed away to a -breath as she held the flowers to the light, turning them a little and -shaking them softly apart to look into their cool fragrance. - -Then she touched them again to her cheek and lay with closed eyes. - -When the boy came in a few minutes later, he stood for a moment watching -her before he set the slender glass of water on the table and turned -to the window, opening the blinds and letting in the late light. Her -eyelids lifted and she looked out at him dreamily. “I must have been -asleep,” she said. “I was picking flowers in the meadow at home and the -wind blew in my face. I ran a little way--” She held out the flowers to -him. “Put them in water for me, John.” - -He took them and shook them apart, dropping them lightly into the glass -of water on the table. - -“They are drooping,” she said regretfully. - -“Yes, but they will come up.--Supper is ready.” He had placed an arm -under her shoulders and lifted her from her place as easily as if -she were a child. They waited a moment while she slipped to her feet, -steadying herself a little. Then they moved slowly toward the door, her -weight half resting on the arm that guided her. Any one watching them -would have seen where the boy had gained his gentle bearing. He leaned a -little as they went, his soul absorbed in serving her; and something of -the dignity and courage of the slender shoulders seemed to have passed -into the heavier ones, as if they, too, bore the burden and the pain -with heroic spirit. - -To the old man, waiting by the stove, tea-pot in hand, there was nothing -heroic in the sight of the two in the doorway. They were simply John and -Marcia and they had always walked together like that, almost from the -time John could toddle across the floor. Then her hand had rested on -the boy’s shoulder and he had looked up, now and then, under the weight, -saying, “Does it hurt this way, mother?” Now he did not need to ask. He -guided the slight figure, half carrying it, lightly, as if it had been a -part of himself. - -The old man set the tea-pot on the table and drew out her chair -clumsily. “We’ve got lettuce for supper,” he said proudly, “and -redishes, and tomorrow night they ’ll be a mess of peas, if nothin’ -happens.” - -She sank into the chair with a little sigh and a smile of pleasure at -the dainty table. The lettuce lifted itself crisply and the radishes -glowed pink and white in their dish. A silence fell for a moment on the -little group. They had never formed the habit of saying grace; but when -the mother was well enough to be in her place, there was a quiet moment -before they broke bread. - -John looked at her now, a little shade of anxiety in his face. Then he -began to talk of the day’s happenings, the old man chiming in with the -odd effect of a heavy freight, shacking back and forth through the whirl -of traffic. To the boy and his mother talking was a kind of thinking -aloud--elliptical flashes, sentences half-finished, nods intercepted and -smiles running to quick laughs. To the old man it was a slower process, -broken by spaces of silence, chewing and meditating. Now and then -he caught at some flying fragment of talk, holding it close--as to -near-sighted eyes. - -“You wa’n’t thinkin’ of moving to Bay-port?” He asked the question -humbly, but with a kind of mild obstinacy that checked the flow of talk. - -“That’s what we wanted to ask you, father.” - -The boy had raised his voice a little, as if speaking to a person who -was a little deaf. - -The old man sat down his tea-cup and rubbed his finger thoughtfully -along his chin. “I don’t b’lieve I ’d better go,” he said slowly. He -shook his head. “I don’t see how I can go nohow.” - -The boy glanced swiftly at his mother. A little line had fallen between -her eyes. The slower processes of the man’s mind were a nervous horror -to her quick-moving one. - -She leaned forward a little. “We want to go, Caleb, because it will be -better for John,” she said slowly. - -He nodded imperturbably. “Yes, it ’ll be better for the boy.” He glanced -at him kindly. “I know all about it’s being better for the boy. We -talked about it last winter, and if you ’d made up your minds to go -then, I would n’t ’a’ said a word--not a word.” - -“But it will be better now--easier to go. There is n’t any other -difference from what there was last winter.” - -“Yes, they’s a difference,” said the old man slowly. “I did n’t hev my -squashes then.” - -“But you have n’t got them now,” said John. “They won’t be ripe for -months--” - -“Six weeks,” interrupted the old man solemnly. “They are just a-settin -’.” - -“But we can buy squashes in Bayport, Caleb.” - -He looked at her mildly. “Yes, we can buy ’em, but will they be them -squashes!--You know they won’t be, and Johnny knows they won’t.” His -look changed a little to severity. “When a man’s done what I have for -them squashes--Why, I dug that ground and I fertilized it, and I’ve -weeded and watered and fussed and tended them all spring, and when a man -’s done that much, a man wants to _eat ’em!_” It was a long speech for -the old man, and he chewed in gloomy silence. - -The man looked up again and saw them shining at him. “I want to go, -Johnny,” he said, and his thick lips trembled a little, “I want to do -what’s best for you. You know it and your mother knows it.” He was -looking at her humbly. - -“Yes, Caleb, I know.” The line had vanished from her eyes. Dear old -Caleb!--How slow he was and how right, always, in the end! - -“How would it do, father, if we had the things sent down to us?” said -the boy. - -The man’s mouth was open, regarding him mildly. “If we had, what sent, -Johnny?” - -“The garden stuff--peas and beets and squashes and so on?” - -The dull look lightened. “Maybe we could--and it would seem good to eat -the same ones we raised, would n’t it?” He looked at him appealingly. - -“We’d all like it, and it would be good for mother--to have the things -fresh from home.” - -“So ’t would, Johnny. So ’t would. Who’ll we get to tend ’em?” The -thought puckered his forehead in anxious lines. - -“There ’s Stillwell,” said John absently. He was not looking at the old -man, but at his mother’s face. - -It was turned to him with a little smile. “I am glad,” she said, as if -he had spoken. - -“You are tired?” - -“Yes--it has been a long day--so much has happened.” - -“I will help you to bed,” he said, thoughtfully, “and then I must go -back to the office for a little while.” - -She looked at him inquiringly. “Tonight?” - -“Only for a little while. The special goes back at eight--I want to tell -him.” - -She made a swift gesture. “Don’t wait. Your father will help me.” - -“I ’ll help her, Sonny. You run right along,” said the old man kindly. - -“I am a little late,” said the hoy, looking at his watch. “I ’ll have -to hurry. But I ’ll be back before you ’re asleep.” With a little nod he -was gone. - -They looked at each other across the vacant place. “I do know how you -’re goin’ to stand it,” said the old man slowly. - -“I shall not mind.” She spoke with quick decision, “but it will be hard -for you--leaving the garden and the place.” - -“We ’ve lived here thirty year,” he said thoughtfully. - -“Thirty-one,” she responded. - -“So ’t was--thirty-one last May.” - -He came around and laid a clumsy hand on her shoulder. “You want I -should help you, Marcia?” - -“No, Caleb, I ’ll sit here a little--perhaps till the boy comes back. I -like to look at the garden from here.” - -The old man’s glance followed hers. “It is putty,” he said. “You see how -them squashes hev come on since morning?” - -“Yes.” She smiled at him in the dim light. “Seems’s if you could most -see ’em grow,” said the old man with a little sigh. He took up his -battered hat. “Well, I ’ll go see Stillwell. Like enough he ’ll be glad -to do it.” - -But when he was outside of the door, he did not turn toward Stillwell’s. -He went down the garden path instead, stooping now and then to a plant -or vine, patting the mold with slow fingers. At the end of the garden he -dropped to his knees, feeling cautiously along the bed that skirted the -high board fence.... “Coming on fine,” he said, “and hollyhocks is what -she wanted most of all.” His fingers strayed among them, picking off -dead leaves, straightening stems and propping them with bits of stick. -While he worked he talked to himself, a kind of mumbling chant, and -sometimes he lifted himself a little and looked about the garden, much -as a muskrat sits upon its haunches and watches the outer world for a -moment before it dives again to its home. Once he looked up to the -sky and his fingers ceased their work, his face wore a passive look. -Kneeling there in the half-light, his big face lifted and the fragrance -of the garden rising about him, he seemed to wait for something. -Then his face dropped and his fingers groped again among the plants. -By-and-by he got to his feet, stamping a little to shake out the -stiffness. “It ’s better for the boy,” he said humbly. “I ’ll go see -Stillwell right off.” - - - - -VI - - -The special was halting, with little puffs, and the president swung -down from the steps. He looked about him with a nervous, running glance -up and down the platform. If the boy were not here, he could not -wait.... - -“Hello!” He laid his hands on a pair of broad shoulders that pushed -toward him out of the dusk. “I want you--right off!” - -“All right, sir, I’m coming.” There was a note of joy in the voice that -warmed the older man’s heart. - -“You ’re ready, are you?” He had turned toward the steps, with quick -motion. - -The boy laughed a little, hurrying beside him. “Not tonight. I must -wait. There are things--” - -The president paused, one foot on the step, glaring at him. “What -things--Telegraph--” He waved a hand toward the office. - -“It is n’t that.” The boy spoke quickly, the puffs from the engine -driving his words aside. Nothing could seem important except that great -engine, panting to be off, and the nervous man gripping the rail at his -side. “It is n’t that, sir. It is my mother and the moving. I must see -to that first.” - -“Oh, they ’re coming, are they?” The hand on the rail relaxed. - -“Yes, sir.” - -The president stepped back to the platform. He made an impatient gesture -to the engineer and turned to the boy. “How long do you want?” It was -the old, sharp tone. - -But the boy smiled, looking at him with shining eyes. “We might walk up -and down,” he suggested. - -“Oh, walk--if you want to!” growled Simeon. He fell into a quick trot, -matching the boy’s stride. - -“Things are bad down there!” He jerked out the words. “Damn fool work!” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“And the fault’s here.” He nodded toward the maze of tracks that -stretched away in the dark. - -“Tomlinson is an old man,” said the boy. - -“Old fool!” retorted the other. “Must have been asleep--drunk!” - -“I don’t think he drinks,” said the boy quietly. “The hours are long--he -’s old--he may have dropped off.” - -“He ’ll drop off now,” said the other grimly, “--way off--How long will -it take--this moving business?” - -The boy waited a minute. “I want to come now, sir, right off--tomorrow. -But my mother is not well--You see we must wait for the right day, and -there is the house to look out for and my father--” - -“Don’t you know I need you?” said Simeon gruffly. - -The hoy looked at him again. It was plain, even in the obscure light, -that the man was driven.... He had never seen him like this; and he -thought rapidly. The engine had ceased its puffs, but he felt the great -throbbing power waiting there behind it. His blood thrilled to it, -drifting in his veins. To be off with this man--shaping the course of a -world! They had come to the end of the platform and he stopped, wiping -away the great drops that had gathered on his forehead. - -“It ’s a hot night,” said Simeon testily. “Come into the car--get -something cool.” The tone was almost crafty and the boy smiled, shaking -his head. “Not tonight!” - -Already the slow, patient underhold had regained its power. He spoke -in his old, slow fashion, choosing his words with care. “I can’t go -tonight, sir. But I ’ll come the first thing in the morning, if that -will do. A few days won’t matter. The moving can wait till this thing is -straightened out.” He motioned toward the east, where the wreck lay. - -They had turned and were pacing back toward the engine. Insensibly -Simeon’s gait had slowed to the boy’s even tread and his breathing had -slackened its quick beat. He looked at the great eye blazing toward them -through the dusk. “You won’t come,” he said, “not till you ’re good and -ready. But I tell you--I shall dock your pay!” - -The boy laughed out. “I will come tomorrow, sir, if she keeps well.” - -“Oh, tomorrow!” said Simeon. It might have been years from the tone. - -He stepped on to the platform of the car. “I can get along without you,” - he said. The train had started and the words rumbled back, out of the -roar of smoke. But to the boy, standing with his hat in his hand, they -were an appeal for help, a call from the whirl and rush of the world for -something that he had to give. - -He turned away and went down the street, wondering a little at the -strangeness of the day. - -It was a radiant night. - -He looked up to the sky--the same sky that the man in the garden had -lifted his face to, a little while ago, kneeling among the plants. But -the stars were out now, lighting its gloom. The boy thought suddenly of -his mother’s eyes and quickened his pace. She would be waiting for him, -looking into the dark. He felt a little thrill of pride in her courage. -... She would make the sacrifice for him without a murmur. Yet it was -not for him--nor for the man who needed him. But behind him--behind them -all--a great hand seemed reaching out to the boy, beckoning him, drawing -him to his place in the world. - - - - -VII - - -SPEEDING that night toward Bayport, through the dark and the stars, -Simeon Tetlow’s thoughts were often on the hoy. He was haunted by the -wreck. It was shattered glass, and charred wood, and blood everywhere, -and trampled grass and leaves.... But across the face of the wreck moved -the hoy’s eyes as they had turned to him, following his train into the -night. - -With the boy again, he could do all that he had ever planned--and more. -In spite of his harsh words, flung back as the train started, his heart -was aglow. John was coming back to him and together they could work out -the plan that held him.... He could not have told the plan to any one; -it was hardly articulate, even to himself. He paced up and down the -tawdry car, his hands, tense at his sides, opening and closing with the -swift thought that crowded upon him. It had been coming to him through -the months, while he had groped and wrestled alone. Slowly it had been -forming deep below--shaping itself out of life--a vision of service. And -today he had seen it stretching before him, unrolling its web of thought -as the train tracked the fertile country. All day he had looked out upon -wide fields, scarred and broken by late frosts, on orchards and meadows -and stretches of plain, half-tilled; and always, in the distance, the -mountains, filled to the brim with ore. It was a rich country, but -starved, straitened--and no one knew better than the President of the -“R. and Q.” road the cause of its poverty. Across its length and breadth -stretched the road--like a great monster that sprawled, sucking its -lifeblood. He had known it, always,--and he had not cared. Let the -country take care of itself. There was always enough for the road--and -for dividends. He had put them off, when they had come to him begging -better rates--leniency in bad seasons. There was not a farmer, up and -down the region, that did not know Simeon Tetlow. He had a name among -them. “The road was not there for its health.” They knew his face as he -said it, and they hated it. As he sped through the night, he seemed to -feel it closing in upon him--a cloud of malevolence settling upon him -from the hills, rising from the valleys, shutting in on every side--and -he, alone in its midst, tracking the great country--his hand reaching -out to grasp its wealth.... But not now. He had seen it in the slow days -that lay behind--a new vision. Sitting alone in his high office, he had -watched the great system stretching out--not to drain the wealth of the -country, not the huge monster that battened on its strength, but a -vital necessity--a thing of veins and arteries, the highway of its life -current--without which life itself must cease altogether or run feeble -and clogged. The great imagination that could think a railroad into -existence had brooded on the picture, sitting alone in its high office, -watching the system stretching away, branching in every direction, -lighting up the surrounding hills. And today, when the Boy had said he -would come back, the man had known that the picture would come true. - -The porter had brought in his supper, placing it noiselessly before -him on the table, but the president of the road had pushed it from him, -leaning a little forward, gazing at the picture that glowed and filled -the horizon. He drew his hand hastily across his eyes and the porter -moved forward. - -“Supper, sah.” - -“Yes--yes.” But he did not stir. His eyes were fixed on the dark window, -staring into the night. - -The porter reached out a hand to draw down the blind, but the president -stayed him with a smile. - -“Let it he, Sam. I am ready now.” - -He ate with quick, nervous motion, his eyes still on the window. -Glimmers of light from the hills struck across it--towns glinted -and sparkled and slipped into the night. The eyes followed them -eagerly--each gleam of light, each flash of power. It was a new -country--_his_ country. It should Be what he chose to make it--a fertile -land. - -The supper had been removed and the porter had set down the box of -cigars on the table and withdrawn to his own place. The train rumbled -through the night with swift shrieks and long, sliding rushes of sound. -The president of the road reached out for a cigar. But the hand that -held the lighted match trembled and whirred. He threw it aside, with an -impatient sound, and struck another, taking the light with quick, tense -puffs. It caught the spark and glowed. He dropped the match upon its -tray. There was a look in his eyes that was half fear. He had been a man -of iron--but the iron was shaken, shattered.... They threw the worn-out -engine on the scrap-heap.... But not yet--Give him a year, two years, to -make the dream come true. He saw the country bud and blossom and fling -its promise on the air. In the ground he heard the grass grow, creeping. -The grain beneath the mold could not move its silken filaments so -lightly that his ear did not catch the sound; and from the mountains -the ore called, loud and free, knocking against its walls. The mountains -opened their great sides, and it poured down into the valleys--wealth -for all the world--It should come true.... Time and strength--and John! - -The cigar had gone out and he tossed it aside, throwing himself on the -red cushions and staring at the ceiling that swayed to the swift run of -the engine. Then he closed his eyes and the boy’s face was before him, -smiling. He slept fitfully. The train rumbled and jarred through his -sleep, but always with its song of iron courage. - -VIII - -THERE were no dreams in the eyes of the President of the “R. and Q.” - road the next morning. The office was a chaos of papers; they lay on the -desk and on chairs, and covered the floor. “When John opened the door -and stepped in, the president was running distracted fingers through his -hair and diving into the chaos. He came up with a grunt. - -“I wish you’d find that statement the C. B. and L. sent last month--and -be quick about it!” - -With a smile the boy hung up his hat and went down on his knees into the -chaos, filing, selecting, discarding, with the old care. - -Simeon returned to his desk, growling. He took up the telephone receiver -and put it to his ear, his scowl alert for blunders.... “What?--No!--You -’ve copied that wrong--The _last_ one--yes.... Tom_lin_son, I said--not -Thompson--Oh, Lord! _Tomlin--L-i-n_...” - -John slipped quietly from the room. At the door marked with the bronze -token, “President’s Office,” he paused. The typewriters clattered -merrily within and through the ground glass he caught a haze of -pompadours rising against the light. He opened the door and looked in. -The young women at the typewriters did not look up--except with their -shoulders. The one by the large window scowled fixedly at her machine, -her fingers fidgeting and thumping the keys. Her mouth wore a look of -fine scorn and her blue eyes glinted. - -John returned to the outer office. The head bookkeeper looked up with a -nod. “Morning, John. Moving along up above!” - -The boy nodded a slow reply. “Where is Edith?” he said. - -“Oh--Edith?” The man thought a moment with pen suspended. The light from -the hanging bulb fell on his lined face. “Edith? Oh, yes. Congdon took -her. Billing-room, I guess. Back to stay?” - -“Not for long.” The boy had disappeared through the swinging door at the -end of the room. - -The young man seated at another desk in the room followed him with -curious glance. “Who is that?” he asked, turning a little on his stool -and staring at his companion. - -The head bookkeeper nodded absently. “That is John Bennett.” His finger -was on the column, tracing a blunder to its source. - -“And who in hell is John Bennett?” demanded the other slowly. - -“You ’ll find out--if you stay long enough,” replied the head bookkeeper -pleasantly. He placed his finger on the column and jotted figures on the -little pad at his side. He laid aside the pad. “He ’s Simeon Tetlow’s -shadow,” he said. “The two Bridgewater boys over there by the window.” - He nodded his head. “They call him ’Sissie Johnny.’” - -“Looks like a fool and acts like Lord of Creation,” muttered the other. - -“That ’s what he is,” said the head bookkeeper. He had no time for -conversation just then. He was close on the track of his mistake. -Moreover, the assistant bookkeeper was a thorn in his side. The -appointment had been none of his--one of old man Tetlow’s blunders, he -called it savagely when he had time to talk. - -The assistant bookkeeper took up his pen, looking at it musingly. He -knew, perhaps better than the head bookkeeper, to what he owed his -appointment. Six months ago he had been in the employ of the rival road. -Just why he had left them was his own affair, as were also the wires -that had been pulled in his behalf along the “R. and Q.” Well, he -was here. He had gathered much interesting information in his six -months--information that might be valuable--very valuable--some day. He -dipped his pen in the ink.... As for this John Bennett.... The pens were -both at work now, flying fast. - -“You want Edith?” Congdon, the head billing-clerk, looked up from his -file of bills with a little scowl; it changed slowly to pleasure. “Why, -how are you, John? Did n’t know you were back... Edith--Well, yes, I -took her--wanted another hand here. Marshall said they could spare one -from the office. So I took the littlest.” He smiled genially. - -“Littlest and best,” said John. - -The other laughed out. “I began to suspect it--The old man wants her -back?” - -“Right off.” - -Congdon turned a little in his place. “Oh, Edith!” He raised his voice -and the girl across the room looked up. - -He beckoned to her and she came slowly, leaving her machine with a -little touch that was almost a pat, as if it said, “Coming back very -soon.” - -“Yes, sir.” She stood before them waiting, a slight, dark girl, with -clear glance. - -“Ah,” the man’s eyes dwelt on her kindly. “They want you back in the -office, Edith. You need n’t stop to finish.--I ’ll put some one else on -those.” - -She turned away with a look that was almost a smile of pleasure. Half -way to her table she paused and came back. “I can take my machine, can’t -I?” - -He laughed tolerantly. “Oh, take it along, if you want to--Nobody else -wants it.” - -John followed her to the table. “I ’ll carry it for you, Edith.” - -She slipped out the paper she had been at work on and began gathering up -the trifles from her table. - -When he set down the machine in the president’s office, a ripple of -eyebrows passed it by--glances too busy for comment. The clatter of the -typewriters rose and hummed. The hive could not pause for a worker more -or less. She slipped into her place with a little smile and nod, waiting -while John shifted the telephone connection and swung a bulb, with its -green shade, conveniently in place. - -The little bell rang sharply and she leaned to the receiver. “Hello!” - -John crossed to the young woman by the window. She had finished a sheet -and was drawing it out with a quick swirl. - -“All done?” he asked pleasantly. - -She ignored him, rubbing out an offending word and blowing away the -black fuzz before she looked up. “What is it?” she said sharply. Her -hair, which was red and crisp, glinted as she turned her head. - -John’s eyes followed it with a little look of pleasure. There was -something about that color that always made him happy. He did not know -this and it had never occurred to him to be diplomatic. But a hint of a -smile crossed the girl’s mouth. - -“Well?” She was looking at him tolerantly. - -He drew a sheaf of papers from his pocket. “These are to be -copied--leaving blanks here, and here--Send a boy when they are done. He -wants two carbons--very clear.” - -“All right.” She took them from him with a look of relief. It might be -an honor to take down ’the old man’s dictation, but it was an honor she -could dispense with. She fluffed her fingers toward the glinting hair -and descended on the keys. - -John stood for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the crisping hair in -the wide window-light. The girl had turned her head a little and it -twinkled, but did not look up. - -As he crossed the room, he glanced casually at the new occupant. Her -head was bent to the receiver and a little smile played about her lips. -“Yes--yes--yes?--yes.” Her fingers moved quickly and she nodded once or -twice as if listening to something pleasant. “She _likes_ to work for -him,” thought John, “same as I do.” - -With a look of satisfaction on his round face he closed the office door -behind him. He had accomplished, without a jar, what perhaps no other -man in the service could have done. But he was not thinking of -this--he hardly knew it. He was planning what Simeon should have for -luncheon--something hot and staying.... - -He reached out a hand to a boy who was hurrying toward the elevator. -“Hold up, Sandy. What’s that?” - -“A note for the president.” It was the tone of pride. - -John smiled a little as he held out his hand. “I ’ll take it to him--and -here--” The hoy’s face had fallen, “Take this--” He wrote hastily on a -pad--“Carry that, one o’clock sharp, to the Holman House. They ’ll give -you a luncheon for the president. Sprint, won’t you?” - -“You bet.” The smile was stealing back to the boyish face. - -John nodded. “Bring it up yourself--set it on the box by the door--not -later than one, mind.” - -The boy nodded and was gone, tucking the note in his pocket. It did -not occur to him to question the authority of this slow-moving young -man--hardly more than a boy himself. - -It did not occur to any one to question it, as he made his way in a -sort of slow-looking, fast fashion about the building, doing the things, -little and big, that came to his hand. One did not think of the boy -apart from his eyes. It was as if a spirit dwelt there, guiding the -slowness and sureness, and men yielded to it, as they yield to the light -when it shines on them. - -If the boy had known his power or guessed it, it would have vanished, -slipped from him, even while he put out his hand to it. But he had -always been slow and stupid--not clever like other boys--and needing -time and patience for his work. He knew that it rested his mother to -have him do things for her, and that Simeon Tetlow needed him. Beyond -that his mind did not travel. He could not have told how he knew men’s -thoughts--read their minds, almost, when their eyes looked into his--any -more than he could have told why certain colors made him happy, or why -he had chosen Edith Burton out of the office force for Simeon’s private -work. Things came to him slowly. He stood motionless, sometimes, -waiting--almost stupidly, it seemed--before a piece of work, a decision -to be made--but when he put out his hand to it, he held it with firm -grasp. - -Simeon did not look up when he came back. He was speaking into the -telephone, a look of comparative peace on his face. - -John swept aside the heap of bills and memoranda that covered the desk -across the room. Then he looked about for the dust-cloth. He found it in -the pocket of one of Simeon’s old coats on the wall. A piece of cheese -fell to the floor as he shook it out. And Simeon, looking around as he -hung up the receiver, smiled for the first time in weeks. - -“So that ’s where I put that cheese, is it? I got it one day for -luncheon--forgot where I put it--did n’t have any luncheon that day at -all.” He was looking at it regretfully. - -John tossed it into the waste basket, a look of disapproval in his face. -He wiped the dust from his desk, arranging the files of papers he had -collected from the floor and placing them in pigeon-holes. - -Simeon watched, a look of something like contentment creeping to his -face. “You found that statement yet?” The question was almost mild. - -“Yes, sir.” John picked up the paper and handed it to him. “They ’ve -made double charge on those forty boilers, have n’t they?” Simeon took -it and glared at it. “That ’s what I can’t find out,” he said. “I -can’t find out.” He sighed impatiently and laid it on the desk while he -reached for another set of papers. - -John, watching the face, was struck anew by the weariness in it. It was -the face of an old man. - -He held out his hand. “Suppose I take it, sir. I ’ll be down in the yard -this afternoon and I ’ll look it up.” - -There was a sound of jingling glass outside the partition. - -John stepped quickly to the door. - -“Here, Sandy. Take this to McElwain in the yard. Tell him I ’ll be down -in half an hour.--Here ’s your luncheon, sir.” He brought in the tray -and placed it on the table, setting a chair before it and drawing the -cork from the bottle. He removed the napkin that covered the tray. “Your -luncheon ’s ready, sir.” - -With a sigh of satisfaction, the President of the “R. and Q.” Road rose -from his desk. - -“There’s a fresh towel, sir, and I brought up some soap.” - -With another sigh, the president of the road obeyed. - - - - -IX - -SImeon was looking over his mail, grumbling and fussing. He pushed a -pile of letters toward John when he returned from luncheon. “They’re -coming in--thick and fast,” he said. - -“What are they?” - -“Damages.” He was scowling absently at the sheet in his hand. “Mail was -full of it this morning. Here’s another.” He tossed it to the boy. - -John gathered them up, looking at them thoughtfully. - -“Take ’em to McKinnon,” said Simeon. “He ’ll tend to ’em for us.” - -“Shall I read them first?” - -Simeon snorted a little. “Read ’em?--Yes, read ’em, if you want to. You -won’t find them very entertaining. _I_ did n’t.” - -The boy was turning them over slowly. - -“I ’ll pay ’em--every just claim,” said the old man. His shoulders were -hunched a little forward, as if he were talking to himself. “I ’ll pay -the just ones--every last cent. But the fakes can look out--that’s all!” - His jaw set itself firmly. - -The boy had taken them to his desk and was going through them, making -notes from them slowly. The heavy look in his face held a kind of pain. -He was seeing it again--the wreck--the flare of fire; there were groans -about him and shrill calls--hysterical women--and there had been a -child.... He glanced across at Simeon. - -The old man’s face, bent to his work, was gray and haggard. He looked -up, meeting the boy’s eye. - -“It ’s a terrible thing!” he said as if answering the look. “I can’t get -it out of my mind.” His hand shook a little reaching for the paper. “I’d -give the year’s profits--” he said slowly. - -“Have to,” said the boy quietly. - -The shrewd business look flashed back to the man’s face. “You can’t -tell,” he said brusquely. “We shall settle ’em out of court--all we -can.” - -“Won’t it cost more?” - -“A little, maybe. Some we ’ll pay a little more, perhaps, than the court -would allow. But it ’s cheaper--in the end. The public won’t get scared. -It’s bad having things gone over and raked up for folks to read. Let ’em -sleep. We ’re ready and willing to pay costs--Keep the thing quiet. It’s -only the fakes that bother--” He gave a little sigh. - -The boy was staring at the letter in his hand. He put it down and -crossed to Simeon’s desk, taking oat the handful of notes he had made -the night of the wreck. He ran them through his fingers and replaced -them, smiling a little. “What’s tha?” asked Simeon. - -“I wanted to see if I made a note. I don’t think I did, but I can -remember.” He went over and picked up the letter again. “It ’s this man -Spaulding.” - -A light shot to Simeon’s face. - -“I think I saw him there.” - -“You did!” The light had gone out suddenly. “Fight it--You testify in -court.” - -The boy was looking down at the letter thoughtfully. “It ’s a good thing -I asked,” he said. - -“Asked what?” - -“His name,” said the hoy. “I don’t know why I did it. One of the -brakemen told me. He limps a little, does n’t he?” - -“He ’s the man,” said Simeon promptly. “Rascal! Known him thirty years. -He could n’t tell the straight truth if he tried--no more ’n he can walk -straight.” His mouth shut grimly. “He won’t get a cent out of _this_ -road--not while _I_ run it!” - -“I don’t think he will,” said the boy quietly. “He was there--at the -wreck. I saw him. But he came in a buggy.” - -“Buggy?” Simeon sat up. - -The boy nodded. “And he went away in it.-It was while I was looking -after the freight--along toward the end. I had sealed the cars that -were n’t broken up and I was trying to tally odds and ends--Things were -scattered, you know?” - -The man’s eyes assented gloomily. - -“I was down in that gully to the left, looking after things, and I came -on the horse and buggy tied there--a little way in from the road.” - -Simeon was smiling now, a look of exultation in his eyes. “You saw him?” - -“He came down and got in while I was there--” - -“See you?” - -“It was a little off in the trees where I was; but I saw him quite -plainly. It was getting light then--four o’clock, at least.” - -Simeon chuckled. He reached out a hand. “Let’s have his claim--Twenty -thousand, is it?” He looked at it. “Ten cents would buy him--body and -soul!” he said scornfully. “Just like him--to hear of it and drive -across country--five miles--to get evidence!” He looked at John -shrewdly. “Perjury’s a good thing--put him where he belongs--where he -’ll stay put, too. He won’t go driving across country, making up claims -for damages for quite a spell, likely, if he pushes this one.” He tapped -the paper in his hand. “Twenty thousand he wants, does he? Let him get -it--work for it--making shoes!” He replaced the letter in his desk. - -“We ’ll keep that,” he said. “We won’t trouble McKinnon with it--not -just yet.” - -He returned to his work, a look of satisfaction in his face, and went -through the remaining letters, laying them one side, making a note for -reference. “That’s all!” He placed the last one on its pile and gathered -up the bunch. “There ’s one thing I ’ve noticed,” he said drily, “folks -that get to handing in their claims inside of twenty-four hours ain’t -very badly damaged.” - -The boy looked up absently. “Did you mean this, sir?” He had picked up -a letter from the pile and he brought it across, laying it on Simeon’s -desk. Across one corner of it a note was scrawled in Simeon’s small, -crabbed hand. - -He looked at it with a snort. “Why should n’t I?” he demanded. - -John surveyed it thoughtfully. “I did n’t know but you would like to -read it again.” Simeon took it in his hand. “I’ve read it a number of -times already,” he said. “You see what it means, don’t you?” He was -looking over the top of his glasses at the boy’s face. - -The boy nodded. “They mean that you will promise to hold to the rates of -the last two years.” - -“They don’t say so--” - -“It _means_ that,” said the boy. - -Simeon nodded. “That’s what I make out. Well--I don’t do it--I don’t -promise the C., B. and L. anything. You understand?--not _anything!_” He -was glaring at the boy. - -“Yes, sir.” He held out a hand. “I only wanted to make sure.” - -Simeon handed him the letter. “The C., B. and L. is a big road,” he -said. “They ’ve got smart men, but they can’t run the ’R. and Q.’--not -yet.” He pointed to the words scrawled in the corner. “You write what -I’ve marked there. Don’t let it go downstairs.” - -The boy went back to his desk. - -Simeon wrote with level brows, scowling at the paper before him. -By-and-by he looked up. The boy, bending over his desk, had a troubled -look. The president of the road watched him a few minutes in silence. He -pushed back his papers. “Oh, John--?” - -The boy looked up. “Yes, sir.” - -“Don’t you worry about that. It gives them a chance to cut. But they’ve -been doing it all along on the side. I have pretty clear proof they -carried Thornton & Birdwell last year for six--five and three-quarters, -part of the time, and a rebate besides.” - -“But this means open fight,” said the boy. He was looking down at the -note. - -“And it ’s what I want,” said Simeon quickly. “They’ve had their spies -on me long enough. Let ’em come out and fight for what they get.” - -The boy was still looking at the paper, a question in his eyes. “You -don’t think they will connect with the Bridgewater terminus?” he said. - -Simeon’s eyes were on him shrewdly. “I think they ’ll _try_ to.” - -“And if they--do--?” - -“If they do, they ’ll find they can’t--not this year, nor next.” - -The boy looked up quickly. - -Simeon nodded. “You remember telling me last year that the Bardwell farm -would block their road and that you thought it could be got?” - -“I knew they needed money,” said John. “They took a fair price,” said -the old man drily. - -The boy’s face lighted slowly--“They can’t put through their road!” - -“Not without a lot of trouble. They can compel us to sell--maybe. But it -will take time--and it will take a lot of money,” he said grimly. - -The boy’s face answered the look in his. “You going to fight ’em?” - -The man nodded slowly. “I ’m going to fight ’em.” He touched the letter -with his hand. “Do you know what that rate would mean for the road?” - -“It has paid pretty well for two years,” said the boy thoughtfully. - -“And it would pay again,” said the man. He looked at the boy. “It would -pay three years--perhaps four--for the road. But it would n’t pay the -country.” - -The boy looked at him, a little puzzled light in his face. - -Simeon surveyed him a minute. Then he turned away, as if half ashamed. -“What did you find out from McElwain about those boilers?” - -The boy glanced at the clock. “He ’s to have the statement at five. I -’ll get it now.” When he had gone from the room, the man sat looking -thoughtfully at his desk. He could not understand the feeling that had -suddenly gripped him--a kind of shame--holding him back from revealing -to the boy his purpose. He had faced the world with selfishness, but -when virtue tried to look out from his eyes, they had faltered and -turned away. - - - - -X - - -John went slowly down the stairs, pondering the quick words that had -been spoken. What did it mean? He had never known the President of the -“R. and Q.” to give a thought for any one or anything--except the road. -He must be going to pieces--talking about the good of the country. ... -The boy had always felt, in a vague way, the region hating Simeon--his -hand against every man and every man’s hand against him--and John had -been his henchman, serving him faithfully; his quarrels had been John’s -quarrels and his battles John’s battles. Again and again the boy’s -heavier hand had steadied his; they had fought to win and they had given -no quarter. But now.... The boy’s brow puckered in a little puzzled -frown.... Now, Simeon was turning his back on profit.... He was bringing -on himself difficulties and annoyance--What was up? He shook his head -and plunged into the yard. - -When he came out, he had forgotten his questioning. He held McElwain’s -statement.--The C., B. and L. account was a clear overcharge--a mistake, -perhaps; but it seemed to the boy there had been too many mistakes of -that kind in his absence; and things were coming to the president of the -road that should never have troubled him. No wonder he looked harassed -and driven. But that should be changed now. He should have the quiet he -needed for his work. The boy’s heart glowed and he whistled lightly as -he sprang up the stairs. - -He laid the statement before the president. - -The president grunted a little--puffs of smouldering wrath. He searched -out the C., B. and L. statement, pinning them together with quick stab. - -The boy was gathering up the letters for the mail, licking each stamp -and affixing it with slow precision in its corner, right side up. It -would have troubled John’s orderly soul had an ex-president gone out of -the office, standing on his head. In the midst of the work he stopped, -his eye held by an address on the envelope before him. He opened his -mouth and glanced at Simeon, hesitating. He drew a stamp across the -convenient tongue and placed it on the envelope, crowding it down -with firm palm, his eye still on the address. He looked again at the -president and laid the letter one side, going on with his stamps. When -he had finished, he bundled them together, the letter that he had laid -aside on top. - -Simeon was making ready to go, fussing a little at his desk. - -“I ’ll take care of those,” said John. He came across. “Did you want -this to go?” He was holding out the letter. - -Simeon dropped an eye to it curtly. “What’s the matter with it? It’s -plain, is n’t it--‘Hugh Tomlinson, Bridgewater’?” He turned again -fretfully to the desk. - -The boy hesitated. “I thought it might be his dismissal?” he said. - -“It is.” - -“They ’re very poor, sir.” - -The man shot a look at him under keen brows. “That letter is not about -their being poor,” he said. - -John laid it again on the desk. He brought Simeon’s hat, brushing it a -little and holding it out. - -The man took it brusquely, crowding it on to his head, and moved toward -the door. He passed the letter without a glance. - -“Good night, sir,” said John. - -“Good night.” It was a half growl, muffled by the closing door. - -The boy finished his work in the room. He glanced about; it was all -right now, except the grime on the windows--and there must be some sort -of shade for them these hot days.... Awnings--? He went to the window -and leaned out, looking for fastenings.... Yes, that would do. He would -order them in the morning. His eye dropped to the street. It fell on -the figure of the president on the opposite side walking slowly and bent -like an old man. It almost seemed to the boy watching, that the figure -shook a little, as with a kind of palsy. The boy’s eyes grew deep, -following him out of sight. - -Before he had turned away, he became conscious that another figure had -emerged from a doorway somewhere and was standing looking after the -feeble, retreating one. Then it turned and re-entered the building. - -He closed the window, puzzling a little in his mind, half-wondering -where he had seen the man before.... He gathered up the letters from -the table, glancing at them absently.... Then it came to him--The new -bookkeeper, Harrington. The president had told him--The one that had -taken Carpenter’s place. - -He went out, locking the door behind him. The letter on the top he still -held a little apart from the others, dropping it into the box by itself, -holding it back to the last, as if hoping somehow to defeat its end. -When it fell with a little swish upon the others, he turned away -hurriedly. He was thinking of Ellen’s face--Tomlinson’s wife--the -morning of the wreck. - -“He done it, Johnny,” she had said piteously, wiping the wetness from -her gray cheek. “And they ’ll turn him off, but it’s hard on an old -man--and there’s not a cent laid by--not since the bairns came. We’d a -bit before that, but it went for the boy’s burying--” The boy was Eddie, -killed on the road the year before, a brakeman--Tomlinson’s only son. -John had known him well. They had been schoolmates. “It’s hard on the -bairns,” she had said.... They had come to live with Tomlinson--a boy -and a girl. - -He was walking slowly now, not thinking, hardly conscious of himself, -hut feeling the misery in the old woman’s voice. At the corner he paused -a little, staring at the opposite wall. What had he forgotten to do.... -The desks were locked and the door.... His fingers felt the key in his -pocket.... And the copy was ready for Whitcomb in the morning.... And -the windows? Yes, they were closed.... But he must go hack. He would -remember when he got there what it was.... With a little sigh he had -turned back. He walked more quickly now.... He would measure the windows -for the awnings. Perhaps that was what he was trying to remember. He -sprang up the stairs quickly and was on the upper floor almost before -there was time for thought. His coming had been swift, and perhaps too -silent for a man in the upper loft who looked up with startled glance at -the sound of a foot on the stair. He moved quickly from the place he had -been standing in and met the boy half way in the big room, his glance -full of nonchalance. - -John stared at him a little. Then his brow raised itself. - -The man returned the look, smiling. “Jolly old place!” he said, moving -his hand toward the loft, “lots of room.” - -The boy looked at him slowly. “No one comes up here,” he said. - -“Except the old man. I know,” said the other pleasantly, “but I wanted -some files for the morning--early. Thought I ’d save time getting them -now--Save bothering the old man, too.” - -“You did n’t find them, did you?” He was looking into the man’s eyes. - -They flickered a little. “Well, I have n’t had time.” He laughed, -easily. “I only want a couple of dozen.” He moved away a few steps. - -“You won’t find them here,” said John. - -“They ’re over here,” said the man, looking back. - -“I guess not.” - -The man moved quickly to a box and raised the cover. - -The hoy looked in with a startled glance. “Those belong on the third -floor,” he said sharply. - -“Very likely,” said the man. “I don’t know about that. I ’m new here.” - He had taken out a handful of the files and closed the box. “I don’t -run the business, you know. But I know where to find things when I want -’em.” He spoke almost as if the last words had escaped without volition. -It was a challenge to the clear eyes looking into his. - -“They will be moved down tomorrow,” said the boy. “They will be more -convenient down there,” he added. - -“That’s all right,” said the other smoothly. He had recovered his -temper. “Glad to have seen you.” He went softly down the stairs, with -little tripping steps that tapped. - -The boy’s eyes followed him slowly. He went into the office and closed -the door behind him. For a long minute he stood looking at Simeon’s -desk. Then he went across to it. He sat down before it and tried the -lid. It was locked securely, as he had left it. He did not open it, but -sat motionless, gazing before him. Dusk settled in the room--shadows -crept in from the comers. But the boy had not stirred.... At last he -raised himself with a little sigh. He had come back none too soon. His -slow, sensitive nature felt things that he could not have said. The -president needed him--more than either of them had known! He opened the -desk deliberately and took out a handful of papers, sorting out certain -ones with mechanical fingers. Even in the dark he knew them; but he -turned on the light for a minute to make sure; he selected certain ones -and placed them together, slipping them into his pocket. Then he turned -out the little looping bulbs and went out, and left the room to the -darkness. - - - - -XI - - -THE next morning a new lock was on the office door and the key lay on -the president’s desk when he came in. He glanced at it sharply. “What’s -that?” - -“I ’ve had a new lock put on; the old one was never very good,” said the -boy. - -The man took up the key and slipped it on to his key-ring without -comment. A hundred times a day the boy did things without consulting -him. If he saw any special significance in this new caution, his face -gave no sign and his hand, as it slipped the ring into his pocket, -trembled no more than usual. But his glance, as it fell on the boy -through the day, held a quiet content. - -Just how wrong things had been going for the last few weeks only -the president of the road knew. It seemed almost as if there were a -concerted plan to harrow him--some hidden power, that chose maliciously -his weakest spot, at the moment when he was most off his guard. Yet he -could never lay his finger on a thing or a person that proved it. He -only felt, helplessly enmeshed by circumstance--he, who had always -driven others, chuckling at their discomfiture! But with the boy to -help--Ah, what could he not do--with the boy! His face lost its driven -look. The new awnings shaded the glare from the windows. It was almost -comfortable in the little office. - -As for the boy, he was watching over Simeon with new care. Not only did -what he had seen the night before make him cautious, but Simeon’s -whole attitude troubled him. There was something about the man--broken, -hesitant--that had never been there before. He had always been nervous, -crabbed, but not like this. It was as if the spring had snapped--or -weakened helplessly under the long strain. One could not tell, at any -moment, whether it would respond to the demands made on it. Now and then -he recovered himself and spoke and acted like his old self. But again -he would relapse into uncertainty, a kind of vague fretfulness and -indecision, more trying than open collapse. It was when he spoke of the -road and its future that he grew most like himself. ... Quietly the boy -took it in--his change of purpose--and his heart moved to it in gentle -understanding. Little by little, Simeon revealed himself--a word here, a -word there--never by full explanation--watching all the time the thought -reflected in the boy’s eyes, and strengthening his courage in the clear -look as it grew and deepened. - -The boy threw himself into the work, body and soul. It was good to be in -the stir of things once more. He liked to feel the steady pound of the -engine under him, as it drove to its work--to see the clear track and -the shining country.... He drew his breath full and deep, and worked -night and day, righting the things that had gone wrong, gathering -details into his hands. - -Simeon Tetlow could plan an edifice that in a night should overtop the -world. But even while he planned, he let slip a myriad details--things -that fluttered and fell and went wrong and threatened the structure at -its proudest foment. The boy gathered them up one by one, little things -of no account, things too minute for Simeon’s notice--and held them -fast. - -The office felt the change. The road felt it--vaguely. There was the -same driving power in the little office, high up in the roof, but -steadied and controlled--less smoke and wrath and ringing of bells in -the orders that came down from the office and a freer, heavier swing to -the big engine as it took the track. - -It was absorbing work, and two weeks went by before the boy saw a chance -to break away. There had been letters from his mother every day, full -of detail--pictures of Caleb packing the dishes with clumsy fingers, or -clearing out the cellar, happy and important, in spite of the parting -from the squashes. John had smiled as he read the letters, but he had -caught the note of courage beneath and sent it back to her full of -cheer.... The moving would not be hard--with all that father had been -doing. Three days would be enough for everything and he had their -new home ready for them, a little house--seven rooms with a garden -stretching to the side and back, for Caleb to dig in. - -“I can raise a few things this year,” Caleb had said when he heard -it--“Lettuce and parsley and reddishes, maybe. And next year we ’ll have -a _real_ garden. I’m going to take up some roots of daffydils and some -jonquils and a stalk of that flowering shrub by the walk.” - -He was occupied with this new hope when John arrived--pottering about -with hoe and trowel--and they left him to his garden, while inside the -house John tied up furniture and packed boxes, with watchful eye upon -his mother that she should not overtax her strength before the journey. -She had been a little restless the first day of his homecoming, -going from room to room with long pauses for rest--a kind of slow -pilgrimage--touching the familiar things softly, her thin hands -lingering on them as if she might not see them again in the new home. - -The boy watched a little anxiously. But her face was still and her eyes -smiling when they met his, and after the first day she sat with him -while he packed, talking of their new home and his work, and when the -carriage left the house, she did not look back--her eyes were on the -boy’s face. - -It had been arranged that they should travel in the baggage-car. Simeon -had spoken gruffly of the special and John had refused it, and she -herself had chosen the baggage-car. “It will interest me, I think,” she -said. There was a free space about her steamer-chair and through the -partly-open door that framed a great picture a fresh breeze blew in, -stirring her hair and bringing a clear color to her cheeks. Her eyes -were like stars, looking out on the fields, and she grew like a child -with the miles. John’s heart lightened as he watched her. What a thing -of courage she was! Sheer courage. Just a frail body to give it foothold -on the earth. The boy could not have said it, but he felt it--through -every dull fiber--the courage that he could never match, but that had -been before every day of life.... He need not have feared the journey -for her--She made holiday of it! - -After a little he left her and went forward. He had seen a man sitting -at the farther end of the car, bent forward, his elbows resting on his -knees, his gaze on the floor of the car. - -He did not look up as John paused beside him, and the boy seated himself -on a box. - -After a time he looked up. “You ’re taking her to the Port?” He nodded -toward the steamer-chair. - -“We ’re all going down.” - -“I heerd it,” said the man. He relapsed into silence. The train -thundered on with hoarse stops and fierce quickening of power as it left -the stations behind. - -The man lifted his head. “He ’s a hard man!” he said. He fixed his -reddened eyes on the boy’s face. “I’ve served the road--man and -boy--forty year.” He said the words slowly, as if they were important. -They became a kind of chant in the roar of the train--“And now I’m -turned off.” - -John waited a minute. His slow mind did not find words to speak to -the haggard face. “I’m going down to see him,” said the man. “The -president!”. - -He nodded slowly and solemnly. “They say he ’s a hard man. But he shall -hear it to his face--what I ’ve got to say!” - -“You ’re going to ask him for work?” - -“I ’ve asked it--three times. I ’ll ask it four times,” said the man. -“And after that I ’ll curse him.” - -The boy made a quick motion. - -The old face lifted itself, with a tragic look, toward the car. “Is -there aught a man can do?” he demanded. “They ’ve shook the strength out -of me for forty year on the road.... They ’ll not take it from me! -... They ’ve drove me up and down--cold and rain--wind that cut my -in’ards--till I ’m fit for naught but the switch.... They ’ll not take -it from me!” It was a solemn cry. - -The boy listened to it, for a moment, as it died away. The train roared -its echo mockingly. He reached out a hand and laid it on the rough knee. -“Don’t go down today, Tomlinson,” he said slowly. “I want to see him -first.” - -The old man stared at him with grim eyes. “Ye think ye can help me with -him?” he asked sharply. - -“I _know_ I can. But you must wait. I have my mother to look after. I -can’t be at the office--yet. Wait till I ’m there. You take the next -train back and I ’ll write you.” - -“I ’ll not go back,” said the old man slowly, “I ’ll not face Ellen -without news--good or bad. But I ’ll stop off to my daughter’s--in -Hudson. Ye can write me there and I ’ll come.” - -“I ’ll write you before the week ’s up,” said John. “You may not need to -come down.” - -“I thank ye, Johnny,” said the old man. The train had halted at Hudson -and he got stiffly to his feet. - -“It ’s what Eddie al’ays said about you, you ’d help a man out--gi’e you -time!” He chuckled feebly, with returning hope, and climbed down from -the car. - -His mother’s glance met him as he returned to her side. - -He nodded. “He was going down to see the president. But I ’ve got him to -wait.... They ought to do something for him,” he said. - -“Is he strong enough to work?” - -“He’s not strong--except in an emergency, maybe--but he ’s faithful. -That ought to count.” - -“Yes, that ought to count.” She said the words softly under her breath. - - - - -XII - - -JOHN was not back at the office “within the week.” He forgot the office -and Simeon Tetlow and Tomlinson. He had eyes only for a white face -looking up to him from the pillow and his ear listened only for low -moans that broke the darkness. The spirit of courage had driven the thin -body a step beyond the line where the soul has its way, and the body had -turned and struck back. - -Tomlinson, waiting in his daughter’s home, wondered a little at the -silence, but waited, on the whole, content. Since his talk with John a -hope had sprung up in him that, somehow, the boy would do for him what -he could never do for himself. He had started out for Bayport more -because he wanted to look Simeon Tetlow in the face than because he -hoped for justice at his hands. But since he had talked with the hoy, -his purpose had changed imperceptibly and his shrewd Scotch sense of -justice asserted itself. He would speak the president of the road fair. -The man should have his chance. He should not be condemned unheard. So -Tomlinson waited, his sullen mood passing gently into tolerance. - -But his daughter, a buxom woman, many years Eddie’s senior, grew -impatient at the delay. She prodded Tomlinson a little for his inaction. - -“What is it like, that Johnny Bennett--a slip of a boy--can do for ye -with Simeon Tetlow?” she had demanded scornfully when the week had gone -by and no word had come. - -“He has a way ye can trust, Jennie--the boy has,” the old man had -replied. - -“Best trust yourself,” said the woman. - -“Go and stan’ up before Sim Tetlow. Tell him to his face what ye want. -And if he won’t give it to ye--then _curse him!_” - -So the old man wavered forth, half driven to a task to which he felt -himself unequal. But his reliance was on the boy. He would find him and -ask what to do. - -“John Bennett?” The assistant bookkeeper, hurrying back from luncheon -a little late, paused in the doorway, looking at the tall, red-eyed -Scotchman who put the anxious question. - -“John Bennett?” He wrinkled his brow a little, as if trying to place so -unimportant a person--“I think he works up above--top floor. Take the -elevator.” He passed on, chuckling a little at the invasion of the -sacred territory. “‘Nobody comes up here,’” he said mincingly, as he -drew the ledger toward him and plunged into work, harrying to make ap -lost time. - -Tomlinson looked a little fearfully at the iron cage, plying up and -down. He cast an eye about for the more friendly stairway. He was not -afraid of any engine, however mighty and plunging, that held to solid -earth, keeping its track with open sky; but these prisoned forces -and office slaves, clacking back and forth in their narrow walls, and -elevators knocking at a man’s stomach, were less to his mind. He climbed -laboriously up the long stairs, flight after flight, his spent breath -gasping at each turn. At the top floor he gazed around him, his mouth a -little open. - -“A queer place for the lad,” he said to himself, his faith in John -oozing a little as he walked across and knocked at the door of the room. - -There was a moment’s silence; then the scraping legs of a chair, and -silence. - -Tomlinson had raised his hand ready to rap again. The door receded -before his knuckles.... - -It was the president of the road, himself, Simeon Tetlow--whom all men -hated and feared--standing there grim and terrible. - -Tomlinson’s nerveless hand rose to his hat. - -“I’m wanting to ask you something, sir.” - -The man surveyed him with a scowl. “Who told you to come up here?” he -demanded. - -“It were Johnny Bennett, sir.” - -The scowling face changed subtly. It seemed to grow more human beneath -its mask. - -Tomlinson took heart. “It’s only a word I want with you, sir.” - -“Come in.” - -Tomlinson shut the door circumspectly and stood turning his hat in his -fingers. - -“Well?” - -“It ’s the place, sir--I ’m Tomlinson,” he -said.”_Oh--you--are--Tomlinson_--” - -The old man shrank a little, as if each word had struck him lightly in -the face. Then he raised his head. “I ’ve served the road forty year,” - he said, repeating his lesson, “and I’ve never done harm. I’ve worked -early and I’ve worked late for ye, and never a word of complaint.” - -The president of the road stirred sharply. “The Bridgewater wreck--” - -The old man raised his hand. “It’s that I wanted to speak about, Mr. -Tetlow.” There was a simple dignity in the words. “I’d been on duty -seventeen hour--and ten hour before that--with not a wink of sleep. They -run us hard on the hours, sir.” - -“The other men stand it--the young men.” The words had a kind of cutting -emphasis. - -The old man raised his red eyes. “They’ve not gi’ed their strength to -the road, sir, as I have--” He threw out a hand. “The road’s had all o’ -me.” - -Simeon eyed him keenly, the bent look and worn shoulders. His glance -traveled up and down the thin frame slowly.... Not an ounce of work left -in him. - -“We ’ve no place for incompetents,” he said, turning away. - -Tomlinson made a step forward, as if he would touch him with his hands. -Then he stood quiet. “There might be a boy’s place, sir--” - -The man wheeled sharply, driven without and within--“I tell you we’ve -nothing for you. You ’ve done your work. You ’ve had your pay. You ’re -used up.” It was the biting truth and the old man shrank before it. - -“I can’t spend any more time on you,” said the president of the road. He -turned decisively to his desk. - -For a moment Tomlinson stood with bent head. Then he raised his -red-rimmed eyes, fixing them on the man before him. His right hand -lifted itself significantly. “May the God in heaven curse ye, Simeon -Tetlow, as ye have cursed me this day. May He shrivel ye, body and soul, -in hell--” The words were shrill. “Curse ye--curse ye!” - -He drew a step nearer, his eyes still on the other’s face.... Gradually -a change seemed to come over him. The bent figure straightened itself. -It towered above the president of the road, filling the little room. The -chieftain of some mighty Highland clan might have stood thus, defying -his enemy. His lifted right hand grew tense and flung itself, and -a torrent of broad Scotch poured forth. Words of fire, heard in -Tomlinson’s boyhood and forgotten long since, were on his tongue. The -elemental passions were afire within him. Like the slow-burning peat of -his native bogs, his soul, nourishing its spark through the years, had -blazed forth--a scorching torrent. The words rolled on, a mighty flood, -enveloping the man before him. Scathing tongues of flame darted at him -and drew back, and leaped high--to fall in fiery, stinging showers on -his head. - -At the first words of the imprecation the president of the road had -lifted his head with a little smile--almost of scorn--on his lips, as -one might watch some domestic animal reverting to its ancestral rage. -But as the broad Scotch rolled on--stem, implacable and sinister--the -smile faded a little and the man seemed to shrivel where he stood, as if -some fiery blast touched him. When he raised his head again, the look in -his eyes was of cold steel. - -He waited a minute after the voice had ceased, then he lifted his hand -quietly. “You ’ve had your say, Tomlinson. Now I ’ll say mine--You -leave this office and you leave the road. You ’ll never touch brake or -throttle or switch on it again. You ’re not fit--do you understand!” - -He moved his hand toward the door and Tomlinson went out, a tottering -old man once more. - -For a long minute the president of the road stood staring at the closed -door. The hand that had pointed to it had not trembled; but now it -began subtly, as if of its own will, to move. Slowly the vibration -communicated itself to the whole frame till the man threw himself into -a chair, broken from head to foot. He leaned toward his desk, gasping a -little. “My God!” he said under his breath, “My God!” He lifted his hand -and wiped the moisture from his forehead with the dazed look of one who -has come through some mighty upheaval unharmed. - - - - -XIII - - -Another week went by before John was free to go back. The day before -his return he received a letter, addressed in a huge, sprawling hand: - -I seen him. I cursed him. - -Hugh Tomlinson. - -Simeon made no reference to the visit or the curse, and John waited, -wondering a little whether it might be possible, even now, to undo the -consequences of the old man’s folly. - -That there was any connection between Simeon’s growing weakness and -the old Scotchman’s visit did not occur to him. There were difficulties -enough in the office to account for it without going outside. As the -days went by and he watched the worn face, he grew more anxious. A look -haunted the eyes--something almost crafty--they gazed at the simplest -thing as if unseen terror lurked in it; and he started at any sudden -noise as one pursued.... When John, leaning across the desk, pushed a -book to the floor, he leaped to his feet, his hand upraised to strike, -his lip drawn back from his teeth in quick rage. - -That night John made a midnight journey, traveling all night and coming -back at dawn. He had been to consult Dr. Blake, the great specialist, -laying the case before him--withholding only the name of the man whose -health was in question. - -The physician had listened, his head a little bent, his eyes looking out -as if seeing the man whom John described. “It’s the same story--I hear -it every day,” he said. “I call it Ameri-canitis--It does n’t make much -difference what you call it.... He must stop work--at once.” - -“He won’t do it,” said John as promptly. - -The physician looked at him keenly. “I suppose not--one of the symptoms. -You have influence with him--?” - -John shook his head slowly. “Not enough for that. I might get him to do -other things, perhaps.” - -The physician nodded. - -“He would take medicine?” - -John smiled at the picture. - -“Perhaps.” He waited a little. “I ’m afraid he ’s losing his mind,” he -said. “That’s really what I want to know--I don’t dare let him go on.” - -The physician assented. “If I could see him ten minutes, I could tell, -perhaps--more. But not in the dark, like this. You ask too much,” he -said with a smile. - -John gave a quick sigh. “He will never come to you,” he said. - -The physician had drawn a paper toward him and was writing on it. “I can -give certain general directions. If they don’t help, he _must_ come.” - -John waited while the pen scratched on. “These baths,” said the -physician, “are good. They may help.” - -John’s eyes grew dubious--a little wide with anxiety. - -“These other things,” went on the physician, “are for your discretion. -He ’s probably under-nourished. Raw eggs will give him what he -needs--tax him least.” - -“How many?” asked John. - -“All you can get into him.” - -The young man’s eyes grew larger--at the way before him.... - -“He does n’t half breathe, I suppose?” - -“I--I don’t know,” said John. - -“Watch him. Take him in hand. He must breathe deep--all the time, night -and day. Here, I will show you.” He put his hand on the young man’s -chest. “Go on--I ’ll tell you when to stop--” He held the hand in place -a few minutes, then he withdrew it with a smile. “Tell him to breathe -like that,” he said quietly. “He ’ll get well then.” - -“Don’t everybody breathe that way?” asked the youth helplessly. - -The physician laughed out. “If they did, they would n’t be nervous -wrecks.” He handed him the list of instructions. “He must be spared any -nervous worry, of course. That is the most important of all. Good-by. If -he gets unmanageable, send him to me.” - -“I wish I could,” said John with a little smile that was half a frown. -He was not appalled at the details of nursing thrust upon him. He had -cared for his mother too long and skilfully to be worried by these. But -Simeon--yielding gracefully to being dieted--told what to eat and how to -breathe and little things like that--! - -During the home journey he devoted himself to planning ambushes for -Simeon’s obstinacy; and when, after a vigorous bath, he arrived at the -office, he was equipped with a dozen “strictly fresh” eggs in a paper -bag; a small egg-beater in one pocket and a flask of brandy in the -other. This last was a little addition of John’s own--prompted by -wisdom, and a knowledge of Simeon. He put the eggs carefully on a high -shelf. It would not do to rouse untimely prejudice against them by -untoward accidents. The egg-beater and brandy he concealed skilfully -behind a row of ledgers. When Simeon entered a little later, irritable -and suspicious, there was no sign that the office was to be turned into -a kind of fresh air hospital. - -The windows were open and a little breeze came in. John, refreshed by -his bath, was hard at work, the broad, phlegmatic back a kind of huge -mountain of strength. The little man threw himself into his chair with -a grunt. He would rest more looking at that back than he could in a bed -all night, tossing and turning through the hours. - -Schemes had haunted him--visions for the road--New tracks to be run--new -regulations. Investments along the route, a little here and a little -there, not for the corporation, but to build up the country--capital -to help out feeble enterprises. And athwart the visions ran black -shadows--disturbing dreams of the C., B. and L., always waiting, weapon -in hand, to spring upon him.... If only they would fight fair! He had -tossed restlessly, seeking a cool place for his tired head. There was no -time to spend in fighting.--So much to be done--his whole life-work to -build anew.... Then he had fallen again to staring at the vision as it -flared across the night, the vision of light and wonder.... When morning -came, he had slept perhaps an hour.. - -But here, in the cool office, he could rest. The boy came and went with -quiet step, his hand everywhere, yet without hurry, and his thought -running always ahead of Simeon’s, smoothing the way. - -The president of the road had intended to rest, but before he knew it, -he was hurrying feverishly to finish a letter for the ten o’clock mail. -His head throbbed and his hand, as it dipped the pen in the ink, shook -quick spatters across the paper. He swore under his breath, dabbing the -blotter here and there.... There was a gentle shiver of egg shell, a -little whirring sound that buzzed, and then, upon the air of the room, -a subtle, pervasive odor. Simeon raised his head and sniffed. Then he -looked around. The boy was at his elbow. - -“You’d better take this, sir,” he said casually. He set it down beside -him, picked up a pile of papers and returned to his own desk. - -Simeon dropped an eye to the glass of yellow foam. He looked hastily -away. He particularly and fervently hated an egg--and an egg that -foamed--“Bah!” He wrote savagely, the gentle odor stealing up wooingly, -appealingly to his nostrils. He moved restlessly in his chair, throwing -back his head, as if to shake it off. Then his hand reached out -slowly--shook a little--and closed upon it. - -John, with his back to him, went on slowly sorting papers. When he -looked around, the glass, with its little flecks of foam, stood empty -and Simeon was writing fiercely. The boy took the glass to the faucet -and washed it, humming a little, gentle tune to himself as the water -ran. The first step in a long and difficult way had been taken. - -But no one knew better than John that it was only a first step and that -the road ahead was strewn with difficulties.... It was at the seventh -egg that Simeon rebelled openly, and John was forced to retire upon -six-thankful to have achieved as much as this, and thankful to have -discovered the limit. “As many as you can get into him,” the physician -had said. John had not known what this number might be, until the day of -the explosion--when the seventh egg was proffered and rejected. - -He had swept up the fragments of glass and repaired damages with -grateful heart.... Six a day was the limit. But there ought to be a -great deal of nourishment in six eggs. - -That there was, Simeon’s conduct proved. He rose to a kind of new, -fierce strength that exhausted itself each day. - -“He ’s just eggs!” thought the youth, watching him gloomily. “He has n’t -gained an inch. It all goes into work.” And he set himself anew to spare -the nervous, driven frame. - -There were times when he hoped, for a little, that a permanent gain had -been made. But an emergency would arise and three days would be used up -in one blaze of wrath. - -The C., B. and L. was tireless in its attacks, goading him on, nagging -him--now here, now there--till he shook his nervous fists, palpitating, -in air. - -“They’ve held back those machines on purpose,” he said, one morning, -late in September. - -“Those machines” were a consignment of harvesters, sidetracked somewhere -along the C., B. and L. and not to be located. The “B. and Q.” had been -telegraphing frantically for weeks--only to receive cool and regretful -apologies. Farmers were besieging the road. A whole crop depended on the -issue. - -Simeon tossed the last telegram to John with a grunt. “We ’ll have to -give it up,” he said grimly, “it’s too late. But they shall pay for -it--if there is a law in the land, they shall make it good--every cent. -Think of that crop--wasted for deviltry!” He groaned suddenly and the -hand resting on the desk trembled heavily. - -“You could n’t have helped it, sir,” said John. “They would have done -it, anyway, and you’ve made them trouble enough.” - -“I don’t know--I don’t know.” He turned his head restlessly, as if -pursued. “I think any other man would have made ’em.” - -The young man laughed out. “They ’re afraid of you, sir--for their life! -You ’ve _made_ the ’R. and Q.’” - -The man gulped a little. He glanced suspiciously at the door. “I’ve -ruined it, I think,” he said slowly. “_There ’s a curse on everything I -touch!_” - -“Nonsense! Look at _me!_” The young man threw back his head, choosing -the first words at hand to banish the look in Simeon’s face. It was this -look--the shadow haunting the eyes, that troubled him. Sometimes when he -turned and caught it, his own heart seemed suddenly to stop its beat, at -what it saw there. “Look at me!” he said laughing. “You have n’t ruined -_me!_” - -The man looked at him--a long, slow, hopeless look. Then he shook his -head. “It’s no use, John. I’m broken--! The road has used all of me--” - He stopped suddenly, his gaze fixed on the floor.... A memory rang in -his ear. The high Scotch voice thrilled through it. “They’ve not gi’e -their strength to the road, as I have. The road’s had all o’ me.” - -That night John visited Dr. Blake again. - - - - -XIV - - -The assistant bookkeeper had returned from his two weeks’ -vacation--most of which had been spent in the vicinity of the main -offices of the C., B. and L.--feeling a little sore. He had not been -treated with the respect due to a person entrusted with important -interests. Certain reports which represented hours of faithful work had -been looked upon as of little worth, and others--facts most difficult, -even dangerous, to obtain--had been demanded crassly. Moreover, his -statement that the president of the “R. and Q.” was practically a -broken-down man had been openly flouted. - -“You don’t know him,” the manager of the C., B. and L. had declared, -sitting back in his big chair. “He’s been a broken-down man for years. -I’d like to be broken-down, myself, the way he is, a little while!” Eds -chair creaked comfortably. “He ’s a steel trap! That ’s what he is!” he -said sharply. “Look out for your fingers.” - -The assistant bookkeeper had smiled ruefully, rubbing the fingers -together. “Of course, I’ve never seen him before,” he said respectfully, -“but if I know a man that ’s pretty near frazzled out--he ’s the man. -There’s nothing to him but a blaze.” - -“You don’t know him,” said the manager brusquely. He took a sealed -envelope from the desk and held it out.... “When you report again, we -want the names of all parties shipping, with rates--and rebates,” he -added significantly. “This won’t do, you know.” He tapped the report -that had cost the assistant bookkeeper many anxious hours--lightly with -his finger. - -The bookkeeper, whose hand almost of itself had reached out for the -envelope, hesitated a little. “I don’t know that I shall stay with the -’R. and Q.,’” he said softly. - -“Don’t you!” The manager’s keen eyes read his little soul through--and -smiled. “You have n’t any particular position in mind where you can draw -a better salary for keeping one set of books, have you!” - -“I don’t know that I have--just now.” The tone was defiant--but wobbly. - -“All right, stay where you are. You won’t do better. Take my advice. You -’re getting along all right.” - -The assistant bookkeeper glanced again at the envelope--and took it. -“You better see Tetlow, yourself,” he said as he went out. - -The manager nodded. “You ’re all right,” he repeated. - -“Harrington will bear watching,” he said to the division superintendent. -“I don’t trust him.” - -“Don’t trust anybody,” said the superintendent. “You won’t get fooled.” - -“I wish I knew the truth about Sim Tetlow,” went on the other. “It -would be just like him to pretend he was a wreck, and then spring on us -and paw us all over while we ’re getting ready to squeeze him.... You -can’t trust Harrington. He works for his pay.” He touched the report a -little scornfully. “But who knows that Tetlow is n’t paying him--to say -that he ’s a wreck--That makes three salaries--?” - -“Go and see for yourself,” said the other curtly. - -The manager’s face grew thoughtful. The shrewd light spread to his fat -cheeks. “It ’s a good idea. I ’ll do it--right off.” - - - - -XV - - -JOHNS’s second visit to Dr. Blake was much briefer than the first. - -The doctor had refused to advise further without direct consultation. “I -must see the man,” he said decisively. - -And when John had demurred, he had asked the patient’s name. - -“Simeon Tetlow!” he said thoughtfully, but smiling a little. “Why did -n’t you tell me at first it was Sim Tetlow?” - -“Do you know him?” asked John. - -“I knew him years ago, in college. He was n’t what he is now--more human -blood. I knew him pretty well up to the time he was married.” - -John looked up. “I did n’t know he was married!” - -“A beautiful woman,” said the doctor, “too good for him--She died the -next year--and the baby--That was twenty years ago and more........ So -it’s Sim! I might have guessed. There is n’t a man in a thousand miles -that fits the case as he does--Driving himself to death!” - -The young man waited directions. - -“Send him to me,” said the doctor. “He ’ll come--Yes. He won’t mind -seeing _me!_” He laughed a little. - -John started for home with lighter heart. Simeon would obey the great -doctor--and all would be well. He even slept a little on the way. -But when the train reached Bay-port, it was not yet three o’clock. He -hesitated as he left the station. He had not expected to reach home -before morning and his mother was not expecting him. She would be sure -to waken--perhaps lie awake the rest of the night. He turned his steps -toward the “R. and Q.” office building. There was a cushioned settle in -the little upper office; he had had it brought in lately--in the hope -that Simeon would use it. He would spend the rest of the night there, -and be on hand in the morning. - -He turned the key noiselessly in the lock and went in. The great -building lay silent and shadowy as he made his way from room to room, -up flight after flight of long stairs, guided only by the sense of -touch and familiarity. The darkness about him seemed filled with -whispers--plots, counterplots. He felt them vaguely, as he climbed--yet -with a certain serenity of heart. Simeon would see Dr. Blake. All would -be right. Let the master of the road once be master of himself and the -shadows would melt. He crossed the upper loft and went into the little -room. The air was stifling, after the freshness outside, and he threw -open the windows, leaning out to breathe deep. He heard the roar of the -engine coming into the yard on the still air and saw the lights gleam -through the smoke. - -It was a wonderful night. The deep September sky twinkled with stars -and far below him, the city, dark and mysterious and sad, lifted its -glimmering lamps. They broke the darkness, luminous, faint--like some -inner meaning. The youth looking down had a sudden, quickened sense -of power, vast issues, mighty interests. The city slept at his feet, -beautiful, relaxed. Fold upon fold of darkness wrapped it round and his -heart went out to it--helpless there in the darkness--and in its midst, -Simeon--asleep or awake--waiting the new day. A fresh loyalty to the man -swelled within him. The sleeping city touched him in a way he could not -name--its mighty power cradled in the night in sleep. - -He threw himself on the couch and slept. - -It was the lightest click... but he sat up, his eyes fixed on darkness. -The lock clicked again and the door swung open. He felt it move softly -through the black, and close again. A footstep crossed the floor. -John waited. He was leaning forward, staring before him, his slow mind -wrestling with the sounds that came and went, lightly. He was unarmed. -He had only his hands; he clinched them a little and felt the muscles -swell behind them. He was not altogether defenceless! - -The sounds puzzled him. They were methodical, deliberate--not as if -finding out the way, but as if accustomed to the place and to darkness. -... Simeon Tetlow, himself?--The thought flashed at him and drew back. -... A light stole through the gloom--the focused glow of the electric -pocket candle on a desk across the room--Simeon’s desk. - -John leaned forward, holding his breath. - -... Behind the candle, a vague form--a massive head and shoulders, -bending above the lock of the desk.... The key was fitted in and the top -lifted. Then, for the first time, the man seemed to hesitate, his head -turning itself a little in the shadow and waiting, as if disturbed. The -glow of the candle suddenly went out and the steps moved stealthily. -John straightened himself--the clinched hand ready.... The steps receded -slowly and a hand fumbled at the open window, lowering it without sound -and drawing down the thick shade. The man moved to the other window and -closed it. The youth on the lounge caught the muttered sound of his -own name, as if in imprecation.... Then the steps again. ... And -suddenly the soft candle--shining in the dark. - -The man reached into the half-gloom of the desk for a ledger. He seemed -to know without hesitation which he wanted. He opened it and fell to -work, apparently in the middle of a page, the sinister eye of the candle -traveling up and down the columns, the scratching pen transcribing -figures to a kind of muttered accompaniment. - -John recognized the book, in the shadowy light.... He ought not to have -left it there. He had more than half guessed this thing before.... So -this was the reason why Hemenway & Hill countermanded their order for -fifty cars, a week ago, and Gardner & Hutchinson changed their mind -about shipping their wheat the thirtieth... and this thing had been -going on for weeks?--months?... No, it was only within six weeks that -the book had been tampered with.... His mind ran back over the time, -fitting each coincidence in place.... So this was it! It was state -prison for the man.... But suppose he were not arrested?... Suppose he -were let to go free--in fear of his life.... John, watching, gauged the -man, sitting there in the night, his busy pen writing his own doom.... -He should go on sending the reports. The enemy should have their -bulletin from day to day, but it should be compiled by John Bennett. The -scribe should have only the work of copying.... It might save time if -the arrangement were completed now. He moved his hand a trifle toward -the wall behind him, groping a little. The next minute the room was a -blaze of light and the man at the desk was on his feet, stifling a quick -cry--blinking at the looping bulbs of light. He made a swift step toward -the door; but some one, broad-shouldered and smiling, stood against it. - -“Sit down, Harrington,” said John quietly. - -The man’s hands swung out blindly. Then they fell to his sides. He was -panting a little, as if he had come a long distance. But his eyes were -fixed on John’s face with a little sneer. “Think you ’re clever, don’t -you!” he said doggedly. - -“I wish I were,” said John, “though it does n’t seem to have done you -much good,” he added after a moment. - -The man’s fingers were fumbling at the desk, striving to gather up and -destroy the papers jotted with figures. - -“Let those alone!” said John. - -The fingers ceased their work, but they still moved restlessly, playing -on the air. The sudden fright had done its work.... Quietly, bit by bit, -John laid the plan before him. - -“But I tell you I don’t _dare_ do it,” said the man. His voice was a -kind of shrill moan. - -“Do you dare _not_ to?” asked the young man. - -There was silence in the room. - -“All right.” It was crafty, with a sullen note just below the surface. -“You give me the figures and I ’ll copy ’em and send ’em.” - -“_I_ will send them,” said John slowly, “and so long as you play fair, -no one else knows it. But if you betray us by one breath--I give the -matter over to President Tetlow--” - -The man had started. “No,--You won’t do that--No!” He was almost -cowering before him. - -John smiled a little, looking down at him. So it was still a name to -conjure with! His mind wandered inconsequently to the bag of eggs on the -high shelf and the egg-beater hanging on its nail behind the cupboard -door. The man little knew that they were President Tetlow. He was still -a terror to evil doers. “One breath--and I tell him!” said John sternly. - -The man shrank a little. “I ’ll do it,” he said. He, himself, could not -have accounted for the fear that held him. He knew that the president of -the “R. and Q.” road was a broken man; he had sworn it to the manager of -the C. B. and L.; but none the less he was afraid. A phrase that he had -heard long since, stirred in his mind--“You don’t cross Sim Tetlow and -live!” He wanted to live--the assistant bookkeeper--he desired earnestly -to live--and to prosper. He had done his best for years--Yet it seemed -always to evade him. - -“I ’ll do it all right for you--I ’ll act on the square,” he said -magnanimously. - -“Oh, no--You ’ll do what you have to,” said John. - -A sudden hatred of this young man flared in the assistant bookkeeper’s -heart. Then he remembered the look in Nixon’s face--manager of the C. B. -and L.--the day he had seen him last. It struck him that the two looks -were curiously alike. “I hate Nixon!” he said viciously, “I ’ll be glad -to get one on him.” - -“Does n’t he pay you well?” asked John. - -The man writhed a little. “That’s my affair,” he said. - -“All right. Keep it your affair,” said John. “He ’ll pay you--same as -ever--and you ’re to take it.” - -The man stared at him. His jaw had dropped a little. He moved toward -the door. “You ’re a deep un. I don’t want anything to do with you.... I -can’t face Nixon--every month, I tell you. He’d kill me!” - -“You face him--or Simeon Tetlow,” John said. “You take your choice.” - He moved back from the door and the man stepped toward it. He opened -it quickly and went out. The sound of his footsteps, hurrying as if -pursued, died away in the outer loft. - -The young man stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the disordered -desk. Then he gathered up the papers and returned the ledger to its -place. He locked the desk and turned off the blaze of light before he -opened the windows. He stood looking down at the city in the mysterious -night. Then he threw himself on the couch and slept till the morning. - - - - -XVI - - -SIMEON was tearing open his morning’s mail, fussing and growling. -“There ’s another--” He tossed it to John. - -The young man read it without comment. It was from the farmers of Elk -Horn County--the second within a month--accusing the road of keeping -back cars to force up rates. - -“They’ve had their share,” grumbled Simeon from his mail. - -“More, too,” said John. He scowled his brow a little. “No. 8 brought in -thirty-five empties yesterday,” he said slowly. - -Simeon wheeled a little, “Where to?” - -“Somers--most of them.” - -“And Somers shall have ’em,” said Simeon. He wheeled back again. “Let -the Elk Horners run a road of their own. They know so much. Let their -press agent get at it--Make cars out o’ wind and haul ’em with talk.” - He plunged again into the mail, tearing and gritting his way through. -Suddenly there was silence in the room--A long hush-- - -The young man looked around. - -The president of the road was huddled a little forward, his eyes on a -letter that his shaking hands tried in vain to steady. - -John stepped quickly to his side. But the man did not look up. His eyes -seemed glued to the few lines that covered the page. When the shaking -hand dropped to the desk, he sat staring at nothing where the lines had -been. - -John went out noiselessly and mixed an egg and placed it beside him. -He knew from the look in Simeon’s face that he had not slept, and he -guessed that he had had no breakfast. - -“You ’d better take this, sir,” he said quietly. - -Simeon’s hand groped a little toward it and drew back. “I tell you I -can’t see him,” he said sharply. - -“Who is it, sir?” - -“Nixon--” He touched the paper beside him. “He wants to talk over rates. -I tell you I can’t see him--I can’t!” It was almost a cry. - -The young man took up the letter. “Perhaps you won’t need to, sir.” - His slow eyes were on the words. “It’s only the rates,” he said -thoughtfully. - -“Do you believe it?” The president of the road leaned toward him -a little, hissing the words at him. “He says what he wants is an -appointment for seeing _me!_” He lifted the haggard face, the bitter -laugh drawing back the thin lips from his teeth. “What do you think our -stock ’d be worth the next day? I tell you it ’s a trap!” He lifted his -shaking hand. He looked at the light through it. “He wants to see _me!_” - he repeated bitterly. “Let him come,” he said shrilly; “let him--” The -hand dropped to the desk. “I ’ve lost my nerve, John!” he whispered -helplessly. “I’ve lost my nerve!” - -“Better take your egg, sir,” said John. - -Simeon reached out blindly and gulped it down. His hand quivered as he -wiped the little yellow line from his lips. - -John’s eyes were on his face--“Had you thought of seeing Dr. Blake?” he -asked. - -The hand paused in mid air. “Yes--I’d--thought--of that.” - -The young man picked up the letter. “Wednesday ’s Nixon’s day, is n’t -it? Why not see Dr. Blake Wednesday?” - -The man leaned forward. “What about Nixon?” - -“I ’ll see Nixon, sir,” said John. - -Simeon stared at him a minute--“What would you say to him!” - -“I don’t know--yet.” - -Simeon stared again. Then he chuckled a little. “I believe you could,” - he said grimly. “He ’d go away thinking I was a prizefighter!” - -John’s hand rested lightly on the shaking one, holding it firm, and his -eyes were on the quivering, driven face. “He ’d go away thinking the -truth, sir--that you are a big man.” - -Simeon smiled a little shame-facedly, drawing away the hand. “I ’m a big -fool,” he said shortly. “There is n’t a bigger anywhere--except you!” - -The young man’s face expressed content. “You will see Dr. Blake?” - -“I ’ll see Blake--yes.” The shadow had returned again to his face, -blotting out hope. He had drawn a sheet of paper toward him. - -“I ’ll see Blake if you want me to. But Blake can’t help--” - -“Blake can, if anybody can,” said John stoutly. - -“If anybody can--yes.” It was a half whisper. He was writing wearily, -like an old man. Presently the pen stopped and he sat staring before -him.... A little look of hope stole into the set face. He took up his -cheque-book and filled in a cheque in his fine, scrawling hand. - -He looked around. The young man was hard at work. He waited a minute, -impatient. Then he spoke, hesitating a little between the words, -“Oh--John--?” - -“Yes, sir.” He came across. - -“I thought you might like to make a present--to your friend Tomlinson?” - He was holding out the slip of paper indifferently. - -The youth looked down. It was a cheque for a thousand dollars. His face -lighted with a quick smile. “It looks as if _you_ were the friend,” he -said. - -“Tomlinson ’s no friend of mine,” said Simeon gruffly. “But you can send -it.” - -“It shall go today, sir.” He was moving away. - -Simeon’s hand reached out to him. “It ’s to come from you, you -understand?” - -The young man paused. He shook his head slowly. “He knows we have n’t a -cent in the world.” - -“Make it from the directors then--for services rendered.” He laughed--a -little bitterly. - -“Yes, sir--from the directors--for services rendered.” John wrote the -letter and sent it. But he knew that the cheque that went with it was -not recorded on the books of the “R. and Q.” Road. - - - - -XVII - - -The manager of the C. B. and L. was being shown into the president’s -office--not the little room on the upper floor, but the one with the -bronze token on the door. The typewriters had been driven out for the -day on some pretext of cleaning. - -As the manager entered the office, he saw a young man seated at the -desk, his round head and broad back absorbed in work. His impatient eye -swept the room--no one else! - -“I--ah--I wish to see President Tetlow,” he said sharply. - -The young man at the desk rose and turned slowly, facing him. The -manager was conscious of a pair of clear, straight eyes looking into his. - -“I asked down below for Tetlow,” he said a little less brusquely. - -“Is it Mr. Nixon?” said John. - -“Manager of the C. B. and L.,” said the man. - -The slow smile on John’s face made him welcome. “President Tetlow asked -me to see you, sir--” - -“Where is he?” There was a flash of suspicion in the tone. - -“He was called out of town. An old friend wrote, asking to see him -today.” - -“Did n’t know Sim Tetlow had any friends--any old ones,” said the -manager. - -“Will you sit down, sir?” said John. He drew forward one of the -capacious chairs and the man sank into it, giving a little nip to each -trouser leg, just above the knee, before he settled back comfortably, a -hand resting on either arm of the big chair. He glanced about the room. -“Comfortable quarters,” he said. - -The young man was standing opposite him. - -“President Tetlow asked me to give you any details you might wish, sir, -and to represent him as far as I can.” - -The man in the big chair surveyed him for a moment. “And who might _you_ -be?” he asked pleasantly. There was more than a bint of irony in the -light words. - -“I am John Bennett,” said the young man. - -“Um-m. I am glad to know. And do you hold--any particular position?” - -The young man was looking at him steadily. A slow smile had crept into -his eyes. “I never thought _what_ I am,” he said. - -The manager smiled too--in spite of himself. “You don’t think you ’ve -made a mistake in assuming that Tetlow expected you to see me?” - -John’s eyes were quiet. “No, sir. He said I was to give you all the help -I can. I know about the books--orders and correspondence and things like -that,” he added after a minute, “I can perhaps tell you what you want to -know.” - -The manager was searching his memory.... What was it Harrington had -reported--a new private secretary--he might make trouble? Ah, yes--“You -have not been here long?” he said abruptly. - -“Since June,” replied the young man. - -“I’m afraid you won’t do,” said the manager, but with a little more -respect in his voice. “The deals I want to talk over go back two or -three years.” - -“I was with President Tetlow then,” said John. “I came about four years -ago. During the last year I ’ve been off for a while.--My mother was -ill.” - -“Mother was ill?” He whistled softly between his teeth. It might, after -all, be good luck that Tetlow was away. This simple youth would reveal -more in half an hour than Simeon would let out in a week. - -He would win his confidence. - -He settled back a little in the chair. “Tetlow a hard man to work for?” - he asked casually. - -John’s smile answered his, “I guess everybody thinks so,” he said. - -The man nodded. “I guess so.--They say he ’s a good deal broken, -though--works too hard?” - -“He works harder than any man I ever saw,” replied John. - -“Begins to tell on him, don’t it?” The man seemed to be watching a fly -on the window. - -“You mean--?” John’s face expressed slow interest. - -“I mean he ’s about used up,” said the manager, flashing a look at him. - -John shook his head, and the slow smile grew in his face. “You _think_ -he ’s used up and then you find--he is n’t. That’s the kind of man -President Tetlow is.” - -The manager gave a dry smile. “I’ve noticed that ’s the kind he is, -myself.” He turned suddenly, his eyes boring into the young man. “What -’s all this bother about rates this year!” he asked. “Don’t he know the -roads can’t stand it?” - -“He thinks the country can’t stand it,” said John. - -“The country!” The man stared at him, moistening his lips a little with -his tongue. He shook his head. “Never heard of the country before,” he -said. - -John smiled. “President Tetlow wants to make the ‘R. and Q.’ a benefit -to the region.” The man sat back in his chair. He spread his legs a -little. Then he opened his mouth. He laughed. There was affectation in -the laugh, perhaps, but beneath it was solid amusement and scorn. “Sim -Tetlow--philanthropist!” He shook his head,--“Look out for him!” he -said. - -“You think he don’t mean it, sir!” said John. - -“I think he don’t mean it,” said the big man. - -John’s clear eyes looked into the small, fat ones and the man stirred a -little in his chair and sat up. “Do you believe it?” he asked. - -“I know it,” said John. “He does n’t start out on things he can’t carry -through.” - -“That ’s right,” muttered the man. His face was thoughtful. - -“He’s always run the road before for the corporation. He’s running it -now for everybody.” - -“Well, it ’s beyond me.--_I_ don’t make money for everybody.” He seemed -to be digesting it. - -The young man had taken up some papers from the desk. “President Tetlow -wanted me to ask you about these,” he said. - -“What are they!” The man swung his eyeglasses to his nose and held out -his hand. “They are affidavits.... about those harvesters....” - -“Oh!” The manager sank back a little. He took off the glasses, tapping -the table with them. “Well!” - -“He wanted me to ask what you are going to do about it,” said John. - -“What does he expect we ’ll do?” it was smooth and non-committal. - -John consulted the paper. “He expects you ’ll pay for them.” - -A little look crossed the man’s face. “Oh, no. I guess not.” - -“He asked me to say that otherwise he will take action.” - -The man’s face fell a little. “Take it into court--He can’t win.” - -“They ’ve just won against the Lake Shore--those planting machines.” - -“That was Indiana,” said the man quickly. - -“Yes, that was Indiana. But McKinnon has three or four other similar -cases, scattered about. He says they ’ve all won.” - -“I told Buxton it was a fool thing to do!” muttered the man half under -his breath. - -“That ’s what President Tetlow said,” remarked John quietly. - -“Um-m--Did he? What else did he say?” - -John smiled a little. “He said if you were going to try to do him, it -was safer to do him inside the law.” - -“Hm-m--How much is he going to stick us for?” - -“Twelve thousand.” - -“Can’t do it,” said the man. He sat up very straight and folded his -fingers across his stomach, guarding his rights. - -“He said it would be worth that--The whole district has suffered. The -crop ’s a dead loss.” - -“Why don’t he let them fight for themselves?” - -“I guess he thinks he ’s more used to it than they are.” - -The manager of the C. B. and L. looked at him a moment. “Tell him we ’ll -settle for ten thousand--and not a cent more.” - -John made a note. “I ’ll tell him, sir.” - -The man was not in good humor. The calm eyes of the young man, and -a certain sense of moral inferiority that came upon him, made him -restless; and the obvious respect that this young man felt for the -President of the “R. and Q.” was not encouraging. But it occurred to -the manager suddenly that every man has his price and he drew a little -breath of relief, relaxing in his chair. - -Ten minutes later, when he took up his hat to go, he could not, for the -life of him, have told whether the young man, holding open the door for -him, was too stupid or too virtuous to take advantage of a very good -offer that had been dangled before him. But he had a distinct impression -that he should like to overhear some young man in his employ speak of -him as this young man was speaking of Simeon Tetlow. - -As he went through the outer room, the manager of the C. B. and L. -passed very close to a desk where a bookkeeper was busy with columns of -figures. But the manager did not glance that way and the bookkeeper did -not lift his busy eyes from the page before him. - - - - -XVIII - - -The typewriters had been reinstalled in the president’s office and -John, in the little upper room, was giving the president of the road -a detailed account of the preceding day--including the visit from the -manager of the C. B. and L. - -“That’s good,” said Simeon. “That’s good--as far as it goes.” But -his thin face still wore an anxious look and he sat slouched a little -forward, his eyes on the floor. The morning’s mail lay on the desk -behind him, untouched. - -John’s eyes turned to it. “You saw Dr. Blake?” - -Simeon stirred uneasily. “Yes.” He drew a quick sigh and turned toward -the desk. “Yes--I saw him.” - -He glanced at the mail, but he did not touch it. His hand seemed to -have lost volition and when John spoke again he gave no sign that he had -heard. - -The young man stepped to him quickly and touched his arm. - -The man looked down at it vacantly. Then he lifted his hand and touched -the spot where the hand had rested. He looked up, a thin, anxious smile -quivering his face. “I can’t seem to think--” he said. - -“You ’re tired out,” said John promptly. “Did you have any breakfast?” - -“Yes, I had--I think I had it--” - -“What was it?” - -He ran his hand across his forehead. Then he looked at John. “I can’t -seem to think,” he said helplessly. “I think I ’m sleepy.... I’m so -sleepy....” - -The young man helped him to the couch and stood looking down at him. The -eyelids had fallen and he seemed in a light slumber; his face still wore -its seamed and exhausted look, but the anxiety had left it He breathed -lightly like a child. - -After a minute John turned away and gave himself to the work of the -office. No one came to break the quiet, and the figure on the couch did -not stir. - -Late in the afternoon he sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking confusedly -about the office. “I’ve been asleep!” he said in a tone of surprise. - -“Are you rested, sir?” - -“First rate.” He shook himself a little and got up from the couch. “Mail -come?” - -“Yes, sir.” He handed him the letters. - -“I ’ve answered these.” He handed him another pile ready for signature. - -Simeon read them through with untroubled face, and signed those that -were ready. He seemed more like himself than John had seen him for -weeks; but the young man, watching him anxiously, was afraid to question -him again. - -When the letters were finished, Simeon turned to him with a smile. -“Blake’s an old granny!” he said. - -The young man made no reply. His steady eyes were on the thin face. - -Simeon nodded re-assuringly. “I ’m all right.--You ’d ’a’ thought, to -hear him talk, the funeral was to-morrow.” He gave a short laugh. “I -guess he hypnotized me for a spell. I knew I’d be all right as soon as I -got back to you.” He smiled at the youth affectionately. - -“What did he say?” asked John. - -Simeon reflected. “Said I must stop--right off--Be an idiot if I did -n’t.--Idiot if I did!” he muttered shortly. - -“You _could_ stop--for a while?” It was the merest suggestion. - -But the man turned fiercely--the old trembling awake in him. “You don’t -know! You _can’t_ know!” He threw the words from him. “You ’ve staved -off Nixon. But there are other things--worse things than Nixon--” - -“I don’t know anything much worse,” said John quietly. - -Simeon stared at him a minute. Then he turned it aside with a motion of -his hand. He leaned forward, speaking low and fast--“The directors--two -weeks off--two weeks--I _must_ stay, I tell you!” - -“Yes, sir.” It was the old tone of quiet deference and Simeon yielded to -it. “Give me two weeks,” he said more quietly. “Let me meet them with a -straight record--and then--” - -“And then?” The watching eyes held him. - -“Then I ’ll go,” he said grudgingly, “--If you make me.” - -John weighed it for a minute. “Did you ask Dr. Blake about the two -weeks?” he said. - -Simeon fidgeted at his desk. - -“Did you?” - -“Yes.” It was a growl, half-defiant. - -The silence in the room was unbroken. John began to arrange things for -the night. The man at the desk watched him, resentful, suspicious. - -When the room was in order, the young man came across. He placed his -hand on Simeon’s shoulder. “All ready, sir.” - -Simeon started a little. He motioned to the chair. “Sit down.” - -The young man sat down, looking at him quietly. - -Simeon was holding a paper, fingering it absently; he had retained it -when John put away the others, covering it with his hand. He glanced -down at it now once or twice, as if about to speak. But when he opened -his lips, it was not about the paper. - -“Blake does n’t know,” he said harshly. The young man’s face clouded. -“Don’t you trust him, sir?” - -Simeon spun the paper a little contemptuously on the desk. “I trust -him--Yes--I trust Blake where he knows.” - -“He knows about you, sir.” John, remembering the minute accounts he had -given of Simeon’s condition, smiled a little as he said it. - -But the eyes looking into his did not smile. They held a kind of dumb -fear, and the man shook his head. “He does n’t know--” - -“Why did n’t you tell him sir?” - -“I could n’t!” He glanced cautiously over his shoulder and lowered his -voice. “He would n’t have believed--nobody ’d believe!” - -“But he might help, sir.” - -The man shook his head dully. “He can’t help. Nobody ’can help.--I ’ve -had my chance--” He broke off and sat staring before him, as if at some -nameless thing. - -The young man watched him with perplexed eyes. Something mysterious, -terrible, held the man in its grip--some intangible thing. Almost, -it seemed to him, he could put out his hand and touch it. Then, in -a breath, it was not there.... There was only Simeon--sitting with -pitifully bowed head, fingering the paper. - -He looked up after a minute. “The Bard-well lease expires today,” he -said, holding up the paper. - -John nodded. He was not thinking of the Bardwell lease. He was trying to -follow the elusive clue that had looked out at him and withdrawn.... - -“The road takes possession tomorrow,” said Simeon. - -“Yes, sir.” John’s mind came back to the farm. - -“I ’d thought--” Simeon hesitated, “I ’d thought we might put some one -on, for the winter.” - -“Rent it?” asked John. - -“No--we can’t rent it till spring; Nobody would want it now, but -we could put some one on.” He waited a minute. “There ’s your -friend--Tomlinson--” - -John leaned forward, his face alight--“He’d like it, sir. He used to -live on a farm--in Scotland.” - -“I judged as much,” said Simeon drily. “He can have it, rent free, till -spring. Then the road will talk about terms--we shan’t be hard on him.” - He said the last words with a little gulp. He was looking down at the -paper trembling in his hands. - -“He will like it,” said John heartily. “And it will be good for the -little Tomlinsons--There are two children, you know?” - -“I don’t know anything about them,” said Simeon wearily. “I don’t -care--whether there are children--or not. He can have the farm, if he -wants it, rent free.” He looked about for his hat. “I ’m going home,” he -said. “I’m tired.” - -The freshness of his sleep had left him. He was old and haggard once -more. And John, as he handed him his hat, was struck anew by the misery -in the face. - -“I am going in a minute, sir. Don’t you want me to walk along with you?” - -“No, no. I ’m all right. Stay and write your letter. You’d better send -it tonight.” - - - - -XIX - - -HE went slowly toward the door--a bent old man. But at the door, he -paused and looked back, his lip moving tremulously. - -John sprang toward him. “What is it, sir?” - -“I can’t--go away--not before the fifth-two weeks. Blake must give me -that two weeks! _You_ know what it means--if I go now!” His voice was -harsh and he lifted his gaunt, shaking hand to the broad shoulder that -bent toward him. “It’s ruin--John--for the road! I _can’t_ do it! It’s -my _life!_” - -The strong hand reached up to the quivering one and drew it down, -holding it fast. “You shall not go, sir. You shall stay here till the -fifth--and save the road.” The low, quiet tone was full of confidence. - -But Simeon’s voice broke across it harshly. “Blake said he would n’t -give me a day--not twenty-four hours!” he said hoarsely, “You should -have heard him talk!” He shuddered a little. - -“Never mind, sir,” said John. “You _shall_ stay--if you want to.” - -The helpless eyes devoured his face. “I can’t!” He half whispered the -words. “I’m afraid!” - -“Listen, sir.” John’s face was close to his and a kind of power seemed -to pass from the clear eyes into the wavering ones. “You shall stay if -you want to.” - -“If I want to?” repeated Simeon vaguely. - -“Yes. Listen.” He had led him back to his chair and placed him in it. -“Now I will tell you.” - -Simply, as if to a child, John laid the plan before him. It was not -something new--thought of on the spur of the moment. For weeks the youth -had seen the approach of some such crisis as this and his slow mind -had been making ready for it, working out the details with careful -exactness. If the road could be tided over the semi-annual meeting, -everything was saved. In spite of the attacks of the C. B. and L. and -in spite of Simeon’s quixotic schemes for the country, there would be -a comfortable dividend to declare. And with Simeon at the head of the -table--not a wreck apparently, but the competent, keen-witted man whom -the directors knew and trusted--all would be well. After that, let -rumors get abroad--The directors would buy up any frightened stock -that might be thrown on the market. There could be no attack on the -road--with their confidence unshaken. - -Simeon’s face, as he listened, lost its strained-look and his lips -seemed to move to the slow words that unfolded the plan to him. - -“You could do it?” questioned John. - -“I could do it,” said Simeon with a deep breath. “It ’s easy--after what -I have been through.” - -“You are to do as I tell you--exactly?” - -“There’s Blake,” said Simeon, the look of fear coming back to his face. - -“I ’ll see Blake,” said John promptly. “Now, you are going home to rest, -sir. I ’ll write the letter to Tomlinson and then I ’m through.” - -“Yes--yes, write the letter to Tomlinson,” said Simeon. “The sooner the -better.” - -And John, as he sat down to write it, had no glimpse of the clue that -was laughing at him, to his face, while his pen moved over the paper; -he had no suspicion that the farm, offered rent free, was a last -desperate attempt to lift a Scotch curse.... He saw only Tomlinson’s -face--when he should read the letter--and the children playing on the -Bardwell farm. - -The physician gave his consent reluctantly. “You may be able to carry it -through, but it’s a great risk. He ought to stop now--at once.” - -“He ’s more quiet, sir,” said John, “less nervous. He wants to -sleep--falls asleep at his desk sometimes.” - -Dr. Blake smiled a little grimly. “The next stage he will not be so -quiet,” he said. “Best not tempt nature too far.” - -John’s face grew thoughtful. “It would kill him to do it.” - -“To stop now--What ’s the difference-two weeks, or now?” - -He listened as John laid the facts of the case before him. “But he’s -rich--even if the road goes to pieces. Better lose the road than his -reason--his life!” - -John smiled. “I think the road is his reason--his life. He has lived in -it so long that he does n’t quite know, I think, which is Road and which -is Simeon Tetlow.” - -The physician was looking with interest at this stupid, slow-speaking -young man, who seemed to put his finger so exactly on the truth. - -He nodded. “Yes, I know--organic, almost But there are other roads. He -could build up another. He ’s a young man still--young in years. Let him -recover and he will be as eager to fight as ever.” - -“It is n’t quite that, sir.” The slow mind groped for prosaic words in -which to clothe Simeon’s radiant dream. “He’s not fighting just for the -love of it. He thinks the country has been injured--the road has made -money out of it without paying back--and he wants to make good. If the -road goes to pieces--if the C. B. and L. buys it up--he could never do -it. I think it would kill him.” - -The physician’s head was bent in thought. “So Sim Tetlow loves men--like -that--as much as that!” He looked up candidly. “Do you know I should -have said that there was nobody in the world he would turn his hand over -for. And now you tell me he’s been killing himself for farmers.” - -The young man’s face flushed a little. “I don’t think it’s farmers, -sir--nor--nor--anybody. It’s just the _country!_” - -The physician looked at him a minute--“I see--it ’s impersonal.” - -“Yes, sir. But the country is like a person to him. I think he loves it. -And I know he wants to make up for the harm he’s done it. It would kill -him to give up--now.... Two weeks will do it.” - -“Well--Well. You take the risk, you understand?” - -“Yes, sir.” The clear eyes met his. - -The physician’s looked into them with quiet scrutiny. “You ’re very fond -of him,” he said. - -“I love him, sir,” said the young man. - -“I don’t know why you should,” said the physician. - -The slow smile met his. “I don’t know, either. I think he needs me.” - -“I think he does,” said the physician drily, “more than he knows.” - - - - -XX - - -THE morning of the fifth of October was keen and crisp; a hint of frost -lay on the grass and the air was filled with decks of light. It was -a beautiful country that the “R. and Q.” passed through--hills and -valleys, long stretches of wood and wide sweeps of grain, and slopes -where the orchards crept to the sky, the trees gold and green, and -burdened with fruit. - -To the directors of the “R. and Q.,” looking out from their comfortable -parlor cars on the trees and fields as they sped toward Bayport, it -seemed a land of fatness and dividends. Tetlow would attend to all those -trees. He had never failed them since the first day he laid his nervous, -wiry hand upon the road; he had wrested the last cent from it; and the -road--trees, barns, elevators--jingled into their pockets. They beamed -upon the fertile land as they journeyed through, noting the signs of -plenty with philanthropic eye.... There had been rumors of trouble, -complaints, shortage of cars. What wonder--with branches loaded to the -ground, or propped with staves, and the grain bending with its weight. -They smiled at each other. They knew their man--a giant--keen-sighted -and far-reaching--feared through the country up and down. When he lifted -his hand, the little animals scudded to their holes, and lesser men made -way for him. If the directors did not put the figure into words, they -felt it--through all their comfortable being, as they slid along. Simeon -Tetlow--great man-prosperous “R. and Q.”--fortunate directors! - -They felt it as they took their way to the offices of the “R. and Q.” - and seated themselves in the capacious chairs about the green table. -Tetlow was a little late--they looked inquiringly toward the door. He -was not often late... sometimes hurried and driven, but never late.... -Was Simeon Tetlow late! The door opened and he came in with a little -flurry, dipping subtly to left and right, in short brusque greeting, and -taking his seat. They settled back in their chairs, scarcely noting the -short, square young man, a little to the left, who followed in his wake. - -But when Simeon was seated, the young man remained standing and they -took him in with careless glance. - -Their eyes returned to Tetlow. But he motioned with a slight gesture to -the young man and they looked at him again. - -He stepped forward with a little smile. “President Tetlow cannot speak,” - he said. - -They looked with startled eyes at the president of the road. He nodded -reassuringly and touched his throat with his hand. He opened his lips as -if to speak, but no sound came. He shook his head. - -Then they understood. He had lost his voice--a cold, probably, or -unusual strain upon it. They nodded their sympathy to him, as if they, -too, were suddenly struck dumb. He smiled acknowledgment and touched his -throat and motioned to the boy. - -He had stood with eyes lowered, waiting while the pantomime went on; it -was the only part that he feared. He had drilled his patient carefully. -But his breath came a little fast.... So many things might happen. -... Then he looked up and met the directors’ gaze fixed upon him -expectantly. He consulted the paper in his hand and bent to the pile -that lay on the table before him. - -“President Tetlow wishes to present first the report as a whole.” He -took up a handful of the papers. “He has had duplicate copies made -for further reference.” He passed the handful of papers to the senior -director at the right of the board. - -It was a thrifty device--thought out in the night watches while he could -not sleep... Simeon had never before allowed written reports. This was -unexpected convenience. - -The senior member reached out his hand with a bland smile, swinging -his gold eyeglasses to his nose and surveying the figures. He nodded -affably. - -The young man stood watching with slow look while the papers traveled -down the length of the table.... It was only a guess at human nature. -... Would it work? Would they study the figures--or Simeon Tetlow’s -face? There was too much written on it for them not to see if they sat -there and looked at it. His eyes deepened as he watched them, waiting -respectfully on their convenience. The last paper reached the hand -stretched out for it and he glanced swiftly up and down the double row -of faces.... every eye buried in a paper. - -He drew a quick breath and began to read in clear, even tone. There was -no sense of hurry in the voice, but the words passed in swift flow. He -knew to a minute how long it would take and how long Simeon Tetlow would -keep the cool, inscrutable smile. - -He was listening, his head a little bent, to the even flow of words. -John did not dare to think ahead or see more than one minute at a time. -For two weeks his one thought had been to get through this meeting.... -He had planned, the day carefully.... It was after the periods of heavy -sleep that Simeon was most like himself and he had wakened him from a -long nap this morning, brushing his clothes and placing the papers in -his hand. - -“It is the fifth, sir,” he had said. - -And Simeon had looked at him with a bit of the old, keen smile. - -“You are to meet the directors,” said John close in his ear, “You -remember?” He looked at him anxiously. - -Simeon had nodded reassuringly. “I know. _I ’m_ all right--I can _look_ -all right.” He had said it almost like himself. - -And then John had taken him by the arm and led him to the door of the -Room and pushed him in. Only at the door had he dared release his hold. - -But he need not have feared. To the president of the “B. and Q.” Road, -the green table--with those mighty, iron-bounded men around it--was like -a challenge. He had entered the room with positive eclat; and now he sat -with quiet face listening to the report, a little cynical smile edging -his lips. - -It was the look the directors knew well - -They trusted it as they looked up from their paper.....It was the old, -dividend look. - -John’s eye dropped to it for a moment and his voice quickened a little. -He had come to a difficult part of the report. It was delicate treading -here--“Equipment for the coming year: Thirty-nine new engines will be -needed--twelve of the big Pacific type, the numbers running from 3,517 -to 3,528, and ten combination fast freight and passenger engines of the -2,000 series. The other seventeen....” - -He felt the hoard quiver subtly. They stirred in their places. He knew, -without looking up, the inquiring glances gathering on the impassive -face at the head of the table.... “The other seventeen will be switching -engines and the heaviest kind of freight engines...” The voice went -quietly on, but his hand had dropped ever so lightly on the shoulder -beside him as he turned a page of the report. The shoulder straightened -beneath the touch. - -The president of the road looked up and nodded to the swift, darting -glances--once--twice, the old, keen, reassuring look--intrepid and cool. - -The directors turned the pages with easier fingers, but a new alertness -was in the air. These were details that any one could grasp--with their -implications.... “Six hundred box cars--forty passenger coaches, each to -cost $6,500.” The look of sleepy content was banished from the board. - -But the president of the road met the glances that traveled toward him, -with steady front. The figures had startled the directors, but they -seemed as music in his ears. “Thirty-nine engines--twelve of the big -Pacific type--” sang to him! He sat a little straighter, his quick nod -assenting to each detail and vouching for items that might so easily -have stirred a challenge. - -The directors had no eyes for the young man taking the papers from -Tetlow’s hand, reading them one by one. He was hardly more than a Voice. -They did not note that the stubby hand as it reached out to take a paper -from the trembling one closed upon it firmly for a minute and that -the hand ceased to shake. When the next item was read, the hand lifted -itself from the table with a little gesture of pride and assent. The -proposed improvements and equipment would cost a round million,--But -the road could stand a million dollars--and more.... The lifted hand had -said this eloquently before it dropped. - -The room breathed more easily, and into the voice that read the items -there crept a quiet note of relief. - -Twenty minutes more. - -Ten minutes--now... - -Five minutes.... - -The president of the road swayed a little toward the table. He might be -consulting the paper in his hand--it was the last one--before he handed -it to the sturdy young man beside him to read. - -The young man leaning toward him to take it, blotted out for a moment -the thin, bent figure. When his shoulders straightened themselves again, -the president of the “R. and Q.” was erect in his chair, his inscrutable -face turned toward the directors. - -The young man read rapidly from the paper. It was a summary of items. -They had the substance of it already. This only gathered it into smaller -compass for them, the quiet voice seemed to assure them, as it went -swiftly to the end. - -“There is one point not included in the formal report that the President -intended to speak to you about.” He had laid down the paper and was -looking at them. - -They returned the glance, finding a certain pleasure in this sturdy -young man. - -Simeon looked up with a little, startled glance.... The hand touched his -arm carelessly and rested there while the voice went on speaking. - -“It had been President Tetlow’s wish to ask for a leave of absence--to -take effect at your pleasure--” - -The arm beneath the hand stirred and Simeon ’s mouth opened with an -inarticulate sound. - -The directors glanced at him with sympathetic, humorous smile. - -The senior director was on his feet proposing a motion--Three other -directors, all on their feet, were seconding it--It was carried with a -little informal hurst of enthusiasm. - -Simeon rose to his feet. It was as if he thought that he could respond. - -The directors were looking at him with expectant faces. - -He bowed toward them and opened his lips--and broke into a long, deep, -helpless cough. - -John put up his hand to the directors, smiling, and escorted him swiftly -to the door.... - -There was a pleasant hurry of sound among the directors, a getting into -light overcoats and shaking of hands, a murmur of dividends, and a rush -for trains. - -Up in the little office Simeon Tetlow stood by the window. He held up -his hand--groping, trembling toward the light--He looked at it, and -tried to hold it still--and still looked at it--the light falling -faintly through it.... “They trust me, John! They trust _me!_ But how -dare they trust me!” The shaking hand flickered its quivering, helpless -dance against the light. - -The young man drew it down, covering it with his own. “They trust you, -sir, because you’ve never failed them,” he said quietly. - - - - -XXI - - -The assistant bookkeeper was finishing his accounts for the night. He -made another entry and blotted it before he closed the book and looked -up, with a little offhand nod. - -The young man moved toward him. “President Tetlow asked me to tell you -something, Harrington.” They were alone in the room, but he spoke in a -low tone. - -The bookkeeper’s shoulders squared themselves a little. He had expected -this. He had known it would come--with the directors’ meeting. He jabbed -his pen in a cup of shot and lifted his face sullenly. “Well?” His tone, -too, was low. - -“They raised you five hundred at the meeting,” said John. - -The bookkeeper stared at him. Then his eyes dropped. He studied his -nails for a minute. “What are you talking about?” he muttered. - -“Five hundred dollars--to begin Monday,” said John. - -The bookkeeper looked up under his lids, without lifting his head. “What -do you mean?” he said slowly. - -John waited a minute. When he spoke, a little smile edged the words. “I -thought you’d like to know right off--So you could write the C. B. and -L. that you won’t be able to do anything for them after today.” - -“Did n’t it work?” sneered the man. - -“It worked too well,” said John. “They’ve lost a good twenty thousand -these two weeks--trying to fix it--and the twenty thousand is ours. But -we don’t do business that way--not unless we have to,” he added with -slow emphasis. - -The man looked up. “How are you going to keep tab on me?” he demanded. - -“Won’t the five hundred keep tab?” asked John. - -The man’s smile was wintry. “The C. B. and L. did better,” he said. - -“Yes--they knew what they were paying for--they thought they knew. The -‘R. and Q.’ does n’t.” - -The man stirred a little. “All right. It’s a go.” He took up his pen and -tried the nib on his thumb nail. His eyes were fixed on it. “Cheaper to -fire me,” he said, dipping the pen into the ink. - -“Do you think so?” said John. “Wait a minute, Harrington.” - -The pen paused. - -“The ‘R. and Q.’ will need straight men the next six months--men that -will stand by!” - -The man nodded. He was not looking np. “I have an idea, somehow--” The -young man hesitated. Then he laughed out. “I’ve watched you, you know,” - he said frankly, “I ’ve had an eye on you.” - -“Two of them,” said Harrington. - -“Yes, and I ’ve come to think you may be one of the best men the road’s -got.” - -“That’s what _I’ve_ thought,” said the man drily. - -“I don’t know how you came to be in this C. B. and L. mixup,” said John -quickly, “but I think you stood by them as long as you could--” - -“That’s me,” said the man. - -“--and did their dirty work for them,” added John. - -The man’s face clouded a little. - -“The ‘R. and Q.’ wants that kind of men for clean work--” He paused, -seeking the right words. “I ’m not clever, you know,” said John. He -raised his clear eyes to the man’s face. - -The face sneered a little--then it changed subtly. “I believe you ’re -speaking God’s truth,” he said soberly. - -“I believe I am,” said John. “I ’m not clever--I know it. But the road -needs men that are--Men that know enough to be rascals and won’t,” he -added quietly. - -The man looked at him a minute. Then he laughed--a long, full laugh. It -had a hint of fellowship in it.--“You ’re a rum un,” he said. - -John smiled. “Thank you.” He held out his hand. “It ’sa bargain?” - -The man hesitated a minute. Then he took the hand. “I should think I -could give five hundred dollars’ worth of honesty--and I ’d like to -give as much over as I can afford.” He said it lightly. But there was -a little ring to the words, and the sullen look had vanished from his -face. - -“That’s all right,” said John. He nodded and was gone. - -The assistant bookkeeper sat staring at the pen in his hand--“A rascal,” - he chuckled, “but not a fool rascal!--He said it straight, did n’t he?” - He chuckled again. He drew the sheet of paper toward him. Then he looked -up as if a sudden thought had struck him--“And _he ’s_ no fool either!” - he said slowly. The pen began its letter to the manager of the C. B. and -L. - -When the letter reached the manager, he threw it on his desk with an -exclamation of disgust. - -“What’s up?” said the superintendent. - -“Harrington.” - -“What?” - -“Backed out,” said the manager. - -“More money?” - -“I don’t think so.” He consulted the letter. “Says he’s sick of it--the -whole business.” - -“Virtuous?--His virtue has n’t been of much use the last few weeks,” - suggested the superintendent. - -“Nobody ’s any use,” said the manager tartly. The two weeks’ losses had -worn on his nerves.... “There ’s a man in that office I should like to -get,” added the manager after a minute. “He’s young--sort of a boy. But -I ’ve a notion we could use him--if we knew what he ’d cost.” - -The manager of the C. B. and L. meditated, off and on, the next few -days, what John would cost. He never arrived at any conclusion that -quite satisfied him. Just as he had fixed upon the bait that should -tempt a young man who had his way to make in the world--a pair of clear -blue eyes confronted him, shining mistily. There was a deep, still glow -about that boy when he spoke of Tetlow that made him feel the boy was -beyond him. - -The manager of the C. B. and L. was a practical man and when, in the -process of calculation, he ran up against eyes of a young man, he swore -softly under his breath. - - - - -XXII - - -John was turning the question in his mind all day--where the president -should spend his vacation. But each route that he blocked out presented -at some point an insuperable obstacle, and he was forced hack to the -starting point to begin over.... The place must be far enough from the -road so that Simeon would not be reminded of its existence, yet near -enough for John to return to his mother at an hour’s notice. - -He had watched her with special care in the days that preceded the -directors’ meeting.... If she should grow worse and he could not leave -her? - -But His mind had come to rest hopefully in the look in her face. She -would not fail him. She was even more eager than he in planning for his -absence--Caleb would be with her, and in the city it was easier than in -Bridgewater to get help--the cooking and baking, some of it, could be -bought from the little white shop around the corner.--She entered into -the plan as if the journey were to be made for her sake rather than for -Simeon’s. And John, watching her, knew that she was really better. The -change to the new house and its surroundings had been good for her. -There was even a little pink tinge in her cheeks sometimes and she -declared that the very cracks in the ceiling of the new house were -restful to look at as she lay in bed. She had never known how full of -pain and wakefulness the old cracks were until they had been suddenly -lifted from her. The new cracks should have only hope in them, she said, -with a little smile; they should be filled with beautiful things--the -light that came in at the east window for her--she had not had an east -window at home--and Caleb’s pleasure in his new work and in his garden. -Her window overlooked the garden and she lay for hours looking out at -it and at the sky.... There was not much in the garden yet. But Caleb -pottered about in it, setting out the roots and shrubs he had brought -from home, preparing the asparagus bed and strawberry beds, and trimming -up the few trees and shrubs that bordered it. He was very contented -working in the warm October sun inside the high fence. The roots of his -being stirred softly, making ready to strike down into the new mold -and rest there gently as they had rested in the old garden at home. By -spring he would hardly know the change--any more than the daffodils -and the jonquils that he had planted in a corner by the fence with some -lilies of the valley. - -He had been at work in the garden the day of the directors’ meeting, -and he watched the Boy as he came slowly up the street, his head bent -in thought. Caleb gathered up his tools with little regretful, backward -looks. He had meant to set out that last row of asparagus tonight--But -it was late and the boy looked tired. He set the asparagus plants in the -little shed he had improvised for his tools and covered them carefully -against the night air. Then he went into the house. - -The mother and the Boy were talking in the next room softly and he -thought he would not disturb them. He fussed about, setting the table -and making tea. Even when they were seated at table, Caleb paid little -heed to what was being said; his mind was still digging in the garden, -out in the soft mold. - -Then a word caught his ear and he looked up. “What’s that you were -saying, Johnny--about a farm!” - -“It ’s about President Tetlow. He has to go away, you know!” - -Caleb’s interest relaxed. “I thought it was something about a farm.” He -returned to his plate. - -“I said I wished there were some farm he could go to--” - -“Farms enough,” said Caleb. - -“Do you know a good one?” The boy and his mother both leaned forward. -They had turned the question over and over; they had not once thought of -Caleb who knew the region by heart. - -He chewed slowly. “There ’s a place up Chester County way,” he said at -last, his eyes fixed on it as he chewed. “I used to work there when I -was a boy.” - -“That’s too far away,” said John. - -“You want to be nearby, do ye?” - -“But not too near the railroad.” - -Caleb’s slow mind started on its new quest. - -“There ’s a place up from Bridgewater a ways--It ’s off the road. You -might hear a toot clear nights, maybe--but much as ever--” - -“Who owns it?” - -Caleb shook his head. “Nice folks _used_ to live there--the -Griswolds--but I heerd somewhere ’t they’d sold--” - -A quick look shot into the boy’s face. “You don’t mean the old Bardwell -farm!” - -“That ’s the place,” said Caleb--“I was thinking about that little -house on the creek, about half a mile, cross lots, from the farmhouse. -Anybody ’d be quiet enough there.” - -“The Tomlinsons are there,” said John thoughtfully. - -“There by the creek!” asked Caleb. - -“No, in the farmhouse. I don’t suppose there’s anybody in the little -house.” - -“It could be fitted up,” said his mother quickly. “That ’s better than -boarding; and you must not do the work--with all that will come on you -besides. Mrs. Tomlinson would cook for you.” - -“Ellen Tomlinson is a powerful good cook,” said Caleb solemnly. “I ’ve -et her victuals many a time.” - -“I ’ll go down tomorrow,” said John. “We can have the little house, I -know--It belongs to the road--and I ’ll put in a few camping things. If -Ellen won’t cook for us, we ’ll make shift somehow.” - -“You must not do it,” said his mother. - -“It’s good air,” said Caleb, “--High up.” - -“And very still there--the top of the world,” said his mother with a -little flitting sigh. - -“It’s just the place,” said John. Then he hesitated a minute. Hugh -Tomlinson’s face had suddenly flashed before him--the red-rimmed eyes -and the high, quavering voice.... Would Simeon object to his presence? -He had always refused to speak of Tomlinson and he was gruffly -silent when his name was mentioned.... But he had put him on the -farm--rent-free--and he had sent the cheque--a thousand dollars.... John -weighed the chances... and even while he hesitated, an instinct deeper -than reason told him that the old Scotchman’s presence must be concealed -from Simeon.... He might not mind. But there must be no risk. - -“Tomorrow,” he said, “I ’ll go down to see the Tomlinsons and get the -house ready.” - -The old Scotchman surveyed him with keen eyes. “He wants to come -here?--Sim Tetlow wants to come _here_--to this farm!” - -“Not here,” said John. “He ’ll be at the little house--down by the -creek, you know.” The switchman was silent for a little. “A man can -do what he likes wi’ his own,” he said at last gruffly. “He owns the -farm--I ’ll go--” - -“I hope you won’t go,” John said quickly. “We need some one to cook for -us--good nourishing food--and I was going to ask your wife--?” - -The old man’s eyes still pierced him. “Ye think Sim Tetlow ’ll get well -on food ’t my Ellen ’d cook?--Choke him!” he said. - -John waited a minute. “I was n’t going to tell him who cooked it--I -thought he did n’t need to know.” He turned and looked at the man beside -him. “He needs all the help we can give him, Hugh. He’s desperate.” - -A slow, deep smile had come into the Scotch eyes--They glimmered to -little points and sought the distant horizon. “He must e’en take his -fate,” said the old man grimly, “wi’ the rest o’ us.” - -“But we can help him,” said John. “I feel it. _You_ can help--” - -“I ’ll do naught for him,” said the man sternly. “She’s within door, and -ye can ask _her_. If she ’ll cook for Sim Tetlow, I ’ll bide by what she -says. I ’ll not lift a hand to hinder--or help.” He moved toward the -bam, walking with huge strides, like some grim, implacable fate. - -John watched him for a moment. Then he turned and knocked on the -farmhouse door. - -When he lifted the latch, the little old woman by the stove looked -up, bending gentle eyes upon him. She set down the frying-pan and came -forward, The smile in her face like the October sunshine outside. “It’s -Johnny Bennett,” she said, “and I was telling Hugh, but the morning, I’d -be glad to see him.” - -The young man took the outstretched hand with a sudden lifting of heart. -He forgot the gaunt figure striding from him and saw only the gentle, -wrinkled face in its prim Scotch cap, beaming with light. - -In a dozen words he had laid the story before her. She listened with -intent eyes, her fingers plaiting the edge of her apron in tiny folds. -When he had finished, the apron dropped from her fingers and she -smoothed the pleats one by one. - -“He’s been a hard man to us, Johnny.” - -“Yes.” - -“But I ’ll do it for ye.” - -“I knew you would.” It came from a full heart, and she smiled a little -to him as she gave a final, smoothing touch to the apron. “He sent us -the check, and it was bitter bread we bought wi’ it. But the bread I -bake for him will be sweet,” she said. - -“Thank you, Ellen.” He held out his hand. “It ’s good in you to do it, -and what money can pay for--you shall have, you know.” - -“Money won’t pay for the bread I shall bake him, Johnny,” she said -slowly. “But he’s welcome to it and may the Lord bless it--to him.” - - - - -XXIII - - -SIMEON Tetlow, in the little house by the creek, was growing stronger. - -There had been days of waiting-long, slow days, when he sat dully -passive, staring before him, or lay on the camp bed in a deep sleep. -When he woke, he took the food that John brought him and fell asleep -again. - -Little by little, unseen fingers had come in the silence and smoothed -the lines from the sleeping face, touching the fevered cheeks to -coolness.... He slept now like a child, breathing lightly, and when he -woke, his eyes were clear and fresh--only somewhere in the depths lurked -a little shadow that nothing could efface. - -The shadow kept tally on their days. When it lightened, John’s heart -sang, and when it deepened, he set himself anew to his task. - -For the first days he had not left his patient night or day--except for -brief journeys across the woodlot to the farmhouse to bring the food -that Ellen cooked. Later, when Simeon was able to walk a little and -needed less care, he had made occasional trips to the office of the -road. - -It was during one of these trips that a new factor had entered into the -case. The young man had been gone since early morning and the house was -very quiet, deepening in the long silence to a kind of presence. The -October sun poured in at the windows and a late fly buzzed in the light -on the pane. - -Simeon glanced at it. Then he went and stood by the window looking out. -His eye traveled along the little path that lost itself in the bushes -and undergrowth at the left. It was a path that John had unwittingly -worn in his daily journeys to the farmhouse. But Simeon did not know -this, he did not even know that it was a path. He did not guess that -along it a child was trudging, bringing him health in both her fat -little hands. - -He went back and sat down by the fire, sighing a little. It was an open -fire that blazed and crackled, and as he watched it he dozed. - -The hand on the latch startled him and he sat up--awake.... John was -early.... He turned his expectant face to the door. It swung open -silently, as if unseen hands had pushed it, and he sprang up trembling. -... No one was there.... Then his eye dropped a little and he stood -still--staring at her. - -She was very little, and she was very round and fat, and her cheeks -laughed and her curls danced, and her stout little legs, in their heavy -stockings, had a sturdy sense of achievement. She looked at him gravely. -Then she turned and placing both hands on the door pushed it shut. - -He had not stirred from his place. His eyes were following her, half -doubting.... She was not more real than some of the visions that had -haunted his tired eyes.... But much more charming! - -She confronted the closed door for a moment with a little air of -triumph. Then she nodded at it and turned and came toward him across the -room, her face lifted. - -But still he did not speak. He had moistened his lips a little with his -tongue and his breath came quickly. - -She seated herself on a packing box that served as a chair and crossed -her fat legs at the ankle. She nodded gravely. “I am Ellen,” she said in -a clear, sweet voice, “Who are you?” - -He moistened his lips again, still staring. Then a humorous light crept -into his eyes. “I am--Simeon,” he said gravely. - -She nodded again. “I like Cinnamon. Granny makes them--round -ones--cookies. I like ’em.” - -“And who is Grannie?” he asked. - -“She is--Grannie,” replied the child. “Do you live here?” Her direct -eyes were on his face. - -“Yes, I--live--here.” He said the words slowly and a little sadly. - -“Who does your work?” she asked promptly. - -He leaned toward her, very serious. “A fairy,” he said. - -She slipped from the box and came toward him, her face aglow. “Where -is it?” she demanded. She stood before him very straight--courage and -health and belief in every line of the swift little body. - -He half put out a hand, but she stirred a little and he withdrew it, -leaning back in his chair and gazing with half-shut eyes into the flame. -“You can’t see a fairy, you know,” he said quietly. - -She had bent forward, a hand on either knee, peering intently into the -fire. She straightened herself--“Don’t you see it?” she asked. “Not -ever?” A disappointed look was in the eyes. - -He shook his head. “They come at night, you know.” - -The brown eyes searched his face. Then the curls wagged from side to -side. “That’s a Brownie that comes at night,” she said reprovingly. - -He looked his surprise. “Is it, indeed--a Brownie!” - -She nodded. “Grannie told me.” - -She came nearer and placed her little fat hand on his knee. “I like -you,” she said. - -He scarcely breathed and his face, as he leaned back in the chair, was -very still. - -She tipped forward and peered into it. “Are you asleep?” she asked. It -was almost a whisper--solicitous, but firm. - -He shook his head. The tired eyes opened and looked at her, full of a -kind of sweet light. “I am--resting,” he said. - -She nestled a little nearer to him, carelessly, and looked into the -fire. Presently she hummed to herself....a little crooning song--half -words, half happiness: Then she left him and wandered about the room, -touching things with grave, respectful touches, but with liveliest -curiosity in the peering brown eyes. When she had finished, she went -toward the door. “I am going, now,” she announced. - -He dared not put out a finger to stay her and his eyes did not lift -themselves from the flames. “Come again,” he said carelessly. - -“Yes,” she replied. It was a very grave little word--full of assurance -and comradeship. - -Then she opened the door and went out. - -The fire flared in the sudden gust and he looked around. The door--too -heavy for her to close--swung wide to the October sun, and down the path -the sturdy brown figure was trudging, holding intent on its way. - -Simeon moved to the door and stood looking after it. The sun shone -clear.... Everywhere the serene, level light and in the midst of it, -moving steadily on, a quaint, sturdy figure.... He put up his hand -impatiently, brushing aside something that hindered his gaze. When he -withdrew the hand, he looked down at it and thrust it out of sight, -perplexed and savage and stirred.... “God bless me!” he said, “I’m -growing soft!” - -He closed the door and went back to the seat by the fire, wondering a -little that he should care. - -“She will not come,” he said as he looked into the deep coals. But in -his heart he knew. She came again and again--sometimes every day and -sometimes with long intervals between. When this occurred, Simeon would -grow restless and go often to the window to look where the path emerged -from the undergrowth. It never seemed to occur to him to follow the -path. - -He had showed, from the first, a curious indifference to his -surroundings. They had not come by the way of Bridgewater, but had -left the train at a small station farther up the road and driven across -country eight or ten miles, by night, to the Bardwell farm and the -little house on the creek. To Simeon, in the long empty days that -followed his arrival, the place had no existence. He hardly knew more -than that he ate and slept and that John was always at hand--to turn -his pillow or speak to him or replace the light coverlet when it slipped -off. - -And as strength came to him and they walked every day a little distance -from the house, his indifference to the outer world persisted. He asked -no questions. His mind followed no roads. Sometimes on misty nights, -when the long, slow whistle sounded across the low hills, John would -watch him curiously. But the head was not lifted from the brooding hand -by the fire. The road had slipped out of memory, perhaps--or grown dim -in the visions that haunted his gaze. If he knew where John went, on the -days when he was absent, he made no reference to it. - -Only when the child came, his mind reached out. It reached out to a -little path that lost itself in the underbrush and rustling oak leaves. -He would stand for hours, looking at it wistfully when she did not come. -But he never set foot in the path. It was hers and she came and went as -she pleased. - -With a kind of canny Scotch wisdom, the child had refrained from -speaking at home of her visits. She may have been uneasily afraid that -they would be forbidden if discovered, and she concealed them carefully, -not only from her grandparents, but from her little brother who was her -only companion. It was not always easy to evade him and, then, there -were days when she did not come. But she guarded Simeon’s secret -jealously, as if he were some helpless thing she had come upon unawares -in her trudgings up and down the farm. And from the day she first -strayed into the half-defined path that John’s feet had worn between the -house and the farm, she did not cease to haunt it. - - - - -XXIV - - -WHAT are you doing?” She was standing on tiptoe, her eyes barely over -the edge of the table, watching Simeon’s pencil as it moved over the -paper. - -The pencil continued its curious tracks. Simeon’s eyes were fixed on it -intently. There was no reply. - -She watched it a few minutes in silence. She and Simeon were good -friends. They did not mind the silence, but he would answer--if he -heard--“What are you doing?” It was very quiet--but firm--in the clear, -high voice. - -He looked down. Then he smiled into the level eyes. “I’m drawing a map,” - he said. - -She found a chair and pushed it to the table. She climbed into it and -knelt with her fat arms folded in front of her on the table, bending -toward the paper. - -Simeon paid no heed to her. The pencil went its absent-minded way. - -It was no unusual thing for them to be silent a long while, with an -occasional smile or nod between them, she intent on grave matters, -Simeon following hazy, wavering thoughts. - -But he had never chosen to make pictures. This was something important -and different. She leaned closer, her shoulder touching his. “Is that a -pig?” she asked politely. Her finger indicated a shape in one corner. - -“That is a mountain,” said Simeon. He sketched in a tree or two to -verify it. - -“It ’s a funny mountain,” she said. She drew in her breath a little, -watching the pencil respectfully. - -“It is full of beautiful things,” said Simeon. - -She bent closer to examine it. “Can you see them?” She lifted serious -eyes to his. - -“Yes, I see them--very plain. There is iron and copper and lead--” his -pencil touched the paper, here and there, in little dots, “and silver.” - -“And gold--” said the child in a soft, monotonous voice. They were -playing a game. - -“Not much gold, I’m afraid,” said Simeon, shaking his head, “but it is a -wonderful mountain full of beautiful things--that can’t get out.” - -“_Why_ can’t they get out?” she demanded as if some foolish mystery lay -behind his talk. - -He hesitated a moment. “A bad man keeps them there,” he said. “He has -the key.” - -“Won’t he _let_ ’em out?” It was a shrewd little wondering, groping -question toward the truth, but it was full of sing-song happiness. - -She nestled closer while the pencil went its way, drawing two long lines -that stretched side by side across the paper. They readied the mountain -and stopped. - -“What is that?” she asked. - -“That is a railroad that the bad man will build,” he said, putting in -some extra lines. - -They watched the pencil in silence. - -“I know a bad man,” she said idly, as if it were not important, but -worth mentioning since it concerned Ellen. - -“Do you?” The surprise in the tone was partly real. “Do _you_ know a bad -man?” - -“Yes--I know one.” It was a modest little drawl--an assertion of wisdom -tinged with importance. “He’s a _very_ bad man,” she added. - -“No?” - -The half-teasing note did not touch her. “He kills folks--He killed my -father,” she said tersely. The words were light on her tongue, but -she nodded to him with deep serious eyes that his could not fathom. -Something in the eyes hurt him--a kind of trust and ignorance and deep -appeal. He put his arm protectingly about the little form, drawing it -close. - -“You must not say things like that, Ellen.” - -“Gran’ther says it.” - -“But _you_ must not.... You will not say it again--?” It was half a -command. “Don’t ever say it again, Ellen.” - -“No--o--” It was reassuring and polite-half drawled; and it dismissed -the subject idly--They had dwelt on it too long. - -“Where is the key?” She was dipping toward the paper, peering close. - -“The key?” He stared a little--“Oh--yes--This is the key.” His pencil -touched the parallel lines. - -“That ’s a railroad,” she said promptly. - -He smiled. “It is the key, too--See--” He drew more lines rapidly, “When -this touches the mountain, the iron and silver will come pouring out and -it will run down this track--here, and here--” The pencil moved fast. - -She followed it with grave eyes. She drew a deep breath and leaned -closer to him. She lifted her face with a smile. It had caught the glow -in his--but she did not speak. - -He fell to sketching again and she nestled in his arm. By-and-by she put -out a short finger. “Does folks live there--or Brownies!” she said, half -whispering the words. - -He looked up absently--“Where--Oh--on the mountain?--People live -there--I suppose--” - -“You ever seen them?” - -“No,”--still absently. - -She sighed a little. “I like folks,” she said. - -“What?” He paused in his thought and looked at her with a -smile--tolerant and old--“You like folks, do you?” The look teased her. - -She nodded gravely. “They ’ll be glad--” Her finger was tapping at the -mountain--“They ’ll _like_ to have the beautiful things come _pouring -out_--” She spread her hands with a little gesture of beneficent plenty. - -He stared at her a minute--then he laughed. “I suppose they will.... I -had n’t thought of it.” His eyes dwelt on her fondly. - -“Yes.--They ’ll like it.--They ’re nice folks.” - -“How do _you_ know?--You seen them?” They often played like this. - -“I know.” She nodded wisely. “There’s fahvers and muwers and little -uns--bairns-like me.” She was looking at something far away--Then her -eyes flashed back to his. “They ’ll like it,” she said swiftly, “They -’ll help--They ’ll bring out the beautiful things--great handfuls!” She -threw them out with her lavish little hands. - -He caught them both in one of his. But he was not looking at her. He was -seeing something far off... something the child’s words made him see.... -He looked at it so long that one of the hands freed itself and reached -up to the intent face, stroking it.... Then he looked down and saw her. -He smiled at her--with deep eyes... with the little shadow playing in -them--far back.... “So you love folks?” he said slowly. - -“We must e’en love everybody,” she repeated as if it were a lesson. - -“Everybody?” He looked at her, a little startled at the words. - -The clear eyes lifted themselves--“Gran-’ther says we must do justice to -all men,” she said gravely. “But Grannie says we must forgi’e ’em--she -says we must e’en _love_ ’em.” - -“Then you must love him--the bad man.” He said the words half teasingly, -half gravely. - -Her face clouded. But the eyes were untroubled. “I don’t fink _anybody_ -loves _him_,” she said simply, “But Grannie says we e’en must.” She gave -a little sigh. - -“So you will!” - -“Yes--I love him.” - -The voice was full of her ignorance--a kind of sing-song chant, but -somehow it gripped him strangely.... As if he heard in some inner -world--faint, ringing little bells of joy and sadness and the mystery of -life. - - - - -XXV - - -He sat in front of the fire brooding absently. He had been alone all -day--ever since John left in the early morning. The boy was coming back -tonight. He had said that he would come--but that Simeon must not wait -for him; he must go to bed as usual. It was late now, but Simeon in -front of the fire waited impatiently.... A strange loneliness was on -him. Outside the snow had been falling fitfully all day. The ground -was covered with still whiteness. Across the waste of snow he heard a -distant clock strike softly and far away--eight--nine--ten--and still he -waited, brooding there by the fire. He wanted to see some one--to touch -a friendly hand--before he fell into the deep sleep that would cut him -off. A strange yearning toward his fellowmen had come upon him in the -last days. The child’s words followed him wistfully--“We must e’en love -’em,” he whispered to himself, wondering at the strange tugging at his -heart--Tiny cords seemed to reach out from him, threading their way, -spreading wide-seeking men and women. - -He rose and paced the little room. He was not the man who had entered it -ten weeks ago--broken, helpless in weakness. His step on the floor was -firm and the hand that reached out to the tongs was steady in its grip. -He readjusted a log in the fireplace and replaced the tongs. Then he -stood looking down at the fire. He had grown fond of the flames--leaping -there. He would miss them when he went back to his office--and the cold -town house. He glanced about the little room affectionately. - -... The boy had filled it with love and thoughtfulness from the first -day. It was sweet now with pine and spruce and hemlock--fastened -everywhere--running along the walls and heaped in corners. The boy had -brought it in from the woods for Christmas Day. The scent of it was like -the woods themselves--Something mysterious and deep was in the room. The -woods were in the room. The man breathed deep and looked around him.... -How he would miss it all.... But his work was waiting... and he was -ready. He stretched out an arm straight from the shoulder and looked -with quiet pride at the hand. It did not quiver, by a breath, from -its place. The arm dropped at his side.... He was ready... almost. The -shadow flickered across his face. It retreated to his eyes and crouched -... waiting. He sat down before the andirons and looked defiantly into -the hot coals.... Some senseless, half-crazed words mumbled at him.... -He shrugged his shoulder.... He would not hear them. The firm hand had -clinched itself on his knee.... A face grew out of the fire, red-eyed -and old and imbecile. It swung before his gaze full of hatred and -leering malice, and the clinched hand lifted itself. ... The face was -fading, line by line, in the flickering light. The mumbled words grew -faint. They sank to a whisper... and died away. ... It was the voice of -the child--clear and low, “We must e’en forgi’e ’em.” - -He sank hack, wiping the heads from his forehead. He stared before -him--seeking a way out.... He had offered the man money.... He had -given him the farm, free of rent--and it was a good farm, they said--the -Bardwell farm--Was it not enough?... He brooded on it, sitting there. -The loneliness outside crept into the room.... The snow had ceased to -fall, and through the uncurtained window he caught a glimpse of light -shining. He got up and went to the window and looked out. The white -clouds seemed to be being drawn across the sky by unseen hands; beyond -them the stars shone clear. The snowy landscape glowed faint beneath -them.... Suddenly he uttered an exclamation and turned away. He crossed -quickly to the door and threw it open and stood peering out. - -A little figure was coming up the path, nodding and blowing--Her curls -were afloat and her little face glowed in the light from the door. - -“I ’m coming,” she panted heavily, “I ’ve got here.” - -“I should think you had.” His voice was stern. But he had gathered her -in his arms, holding her close. She struggled a little and he set her -down. “I ’m wet,” she announced--“I’m most wet fru, I guess.” - -He found some old underclothing of John’s and took off the wet -things, holding them up, one by one, to the light and looking at her -reproachfully. She had come apparently in her nightdress, with the -addition of an extra shirt, one stocking, one legging, a pair of -overshoes and her little fur coat and cap. - -“I could n’t find my Fings,” she explained, “not all of my fings--in the -dark.” - -“What did you come for?” asked Simeon severely. - -Her rosy happiness precluded sentiment--and kindness. - -She glanced at the glowing fire and then at his face. She looked down at -her pink toes, peeping from below John’s drawers--The drawers wrinkled -grotesquely on the fat legs and she tried to hold them up a little as -she approached him, humbly.... Simeon was angry--She could see it from -the tail of her eye, as she drew nearer with downcast head. “I wanted to -see Santa Claus,” she said. She had come very close now and she put out -a fat hand, resting it on his knee. - -He bent a little toward her. “You should have waited till tomorrow, -child. Don’t you know I shall have to take you back--” - -She lifted a stricken face. - -“--in the cold and snow,” went on Simeon unheeding. - -Her lip quivered. With a bound she had buried her face in his -breast.--“Don’t take me, Cinnamon!” she wailed--“Please don’t take -me--back!” - -“But your grandfather and grandmother will worry--” - -She lifted a reassuring, streaming face, “They don’t _know_ about me,” - she sobbed, “I am sound asleep.” She snuffed a little and fumbled in the -capacious folds of John’s undershirt for a handkerchief. - -Simeon produced his and she accepted it meekly. She wiped her cheeks -with it and stowed it away. “I peeked--” she said, “in the door and they -was asleep--both of ’em--and Gran’ther was a-snorin’--” - -“Suppose they wake up,” said Simeon. - -She looked at him piteously. “Santa Claus can’t come to our house,” she -said. Her lip trembled. - -“Why not?” - -“He can’t get in.” - -“Oh.” - -“They ’ve shut up the chimbley.” She moved a fat hand toward the -fireplace--“I cried about it,” she explained, “and then I went to -sleep--I prayed too, but that did n’t do any good,” she threw in. “And -then I waked up in the dark and ’membered you, and that’s how I come.” - She nestled to him. - -His arms were close around her. “You shall stay till the clock strikes -twelve--that’s when he comes--” - -She nodded sagely. - -“And then I ’ll carry you home.” - -She sank back with a little sigh of content. The pink toes cuddled -themselves in the warm folds and the moist eyes rested dreamily on the -coals. - -Simeon, holding her in his arms, had a sense of life--its goodness and -fullness. The loneliness had fled from the little room. It was filled -with love, and the world outside was full of friendliness--It held them -close. - -The child stirred a little. “We did n’t hung up my stocking,” she said -drowsily. - -Simeon looked down at the stocking steaming with faint warmth from the -fire. “It ’s too wet,” he said. - -She roused herself and sat up--“Don’t I have no stockings?” she demanded. - -He hesitated. Then he got up and brought one of his own and suspended -it from the corner of the shelf. - -She surveyed it with dubious content. A little question flitted, and she -raised an anxious, startled face. “He might fink it was yours,” she -said. - -“We ’ll tell him,” said Simeon, “the minute he comes.” - -“_I ’ll_ tell him.” The eyes had flashed wide. They shone dizzily--the -little hands clasped themselves--“_I ’ll_ tell him,” she whispered. - -“All right.” - -She sat very straight, her gaze fixed on the exact spot where he should -come.... Her shoulders drooped a little, but she caught them at it and -shook them sternly. Then the eyes blinked--once--twice, and the brown -curls nodded. The watching figure was sinking inch by inch into the -great folds that enwrapped it. She lifted a heavy, dreamy face -to Simeon’s--“I can’t keep--awake--Cinnamon,” she breathed--very -wistful--with little jerks between. - -“Never mind, dear.” He laid a hand on the bending head. “Go to sleep. I -’ll wake you when he comes.” - -With a deep sigh, the head sank against the strong shoulder. The -firelight played across the little figure in its clumsy garments; it -touched the sleeping face and tipped the nodding curls. - -Simeon watched it, the world in his heart speaking low. - - - - -XXVI - - -I’ve lighted the lantern for ye, Hugh.” The rays of the lantern shone -on the meek, wrinkled face, bringing out faint lines and lighting up the -yellow-white hair that framed it. The hair was a little rough from the -pillow. She had not thought to smooth it since--wakened by some inner -voice--she had risen to see that all was well with the bairns. - -“She ’s been long gone,” she said, looking up to him as he drew on his -great mittens and reached for the lantern. “The pillow was cold.” The -face beneath the wrinkled lines tried hard to hold itself steady. - -“You ’re not to worrit, Ellen. I ’ll find her. I ’ll bring her back.” He -had thrown open the door and the cold air rushed in. - -She shrank a little from it, staring at the dark. “She ’ll be fey,” she -said, “wi’ the cold and wet and dark. I must have the kettle hot.” She -turned toward the stove. - -He stooped to examine the snow in the light from the door. Then he -lifted himself, a look of satisfaction in the grim face. “Shut the -door, Ellen,” he called, “I ’ll follow ’em now in the dark.” - -She came quavering. “Can ye see, Hugh!” She strained her eyes toward -him. - -“Shut the door,” he said. “I can follow--wi’ this.” He lifted the lantern -a little and she saw the old face, stern and hopeful. - -She shut the door and watched through the window as the great figure -lunged away. The lantern swayed from side to side with the huge strides, -as if a drunken man carried it across the wastes. But the lantern went -straight. It was making for the oak wood. - -The sky overhead was sown thick with stars, flung like a royal canopy -above the earth. The shepherds keeping watch over their flocks would -have needed no other light to guide them, and Hugh Tomlinson, stooping -to the little fat tracks that spudded through the snow, had little need -of the lantern that swung from his great hand. The tracks led straight -across the country without swerving to left or right. They crossed the -wood and came into the open.... He followed them fiercely, like a great -dog, unheeding whither they might lead. Suddenly, with a muffled cry, he -stopped.... - -Straight before him ran the creek and out from the bank stretched a -frail band of ice. Beyond--the water swirled black and sluggish. -He hurried to the brink and stood staring--not a sound to break the -silence. He strained his eyes across the thin edge of ice. Surely it -could not have borne the weight of a tiny child. He wheeled about and -looked up to the stars. They twinkled in their places--remote and -glad. There was no help in them. Slowly his eyes dropped.... He -started--shading them, as if from a vision, peering forward. There in -the window of the little house, gleamed a light. - -He strode forward blindly, his eyes fixed on it. As he drew near, he -sank to his knees, creeping almost on all fours; but at the window he -clutched the sill and raised himself.... Within the green-trimmed room -with its glinting light and soft glow sat the man and the child--asleep -before the fire. The child’s head rested against the man’s breast and -his face drooped till his cheek touched the modeling curls. - -For a moment Hugh Tomlinson eyed the sweet scene--like some gaunt wolf -at the window. Then he strode to the door and throwing it open entered -without knocking. - -The man at the fire looked up with startled glance. He had been -dreaming, and it might have been an apparition of his dream that loomed -in, out of the night. - -The two men regarded each other. - -The gaunt one stepped forward a pace. “Gi’e her to me,” he said. “She -belongs to me.” - -“And I thought she was mine,” said Simeon. A sad little smile played -about his lips. He moved toward the man, holding out his hand. “Forgive -me, Tomlinson,” he said. - -The Scotchman did not touch the outstretched hand. He looked down at it -dourly. “Gi’e her to me,” he repeated. - -Then, as they stood confronting each other, the bells rang.... They -sounded faint across the snowy waste, striking the hour. The last -stroke died upon the air, and silence settled in the little room--with -greenness and the scent of firs. - -“Peace on earth, good-will toward men,” said Simeon in a low voice. -“Make it peace for me, Hugh Tomlinson.” - -“Gi’e her to me,” said Tomlinson again. - -The man made no reply, but the child reached up a sleepy hand and -slipped it about his neck. “I love Cinnamon,” she said drowsily. - -Then the Scotchman came nearer. The bony hand did not lift itself from -his side and there was no softening of the grim face--“The Lord do unto -ye as ye have done unto me and mine, Simeon Tetlow,” he said solemnly. - -He reached out his arms for the child and the man surrendered her to -them--gently, that the sleeping lids might not wake. The old Scotchman -gathered her in, close--the folds of his great-coat wrapped protectingly -about her. Then, his eyes bent hungrily upon her, without a backward -look, he went out into the night. - -Simeon Tetlow watched him go, with quiet smile. His hands had dropped to -his sides. - -Thoughts played across the thin face--gleams of light and humor and -gentleness. He lifted his head, with a quick glance about the fragrant -room. The fire had died down, but a soft light glowed everywhere. He sat -down holding out his hands to the warmth, the quiet smile still resting -on his face and the shadow in the eyes fading before it, flickering -away to its place in the night. The eyes shone with swift, new light; -it played upon the face as it bent to the coals--the intent, human eyes -gazing at something there.... Slowly the vision lifted itself--shining -rails gleamed upon the night. They lay upon the land, the silvery -tracings branching left and right. A white light shone from them. Simeon -Tetlow, looking with rapt gaze, saw a new world. The curse could not -touch him here.... It could never touch him again. Something cold and -hard had snapped at a word. The forgiveness he had begged of the stern -Scotchman had come to him... . There had been no curse... only the -hardness and bitterness in his heart--that would not say “Forgive.” The -word had lingered at the door of his lips through weeks of pain and the -darkness--wandering rebellion, sick fancies.... “Forgive me, Hugh.” He -had said it--low and humble, unawares, out of the depths... and suddenly -he had stood erect. “Forgive me, Hugh.” He whispered it again, looking -into the deep coals. ... Troops of faces filed before him and he -stretched out dumb hands to them. The coals deepened and spread, and -the great road lay among them. His eyes rested on it wistfully. A still, -clear light was on the country-side.... Miles of wheat and corn, great -tracks of prairie, mountains of ore--lighted by it. But his eye swept -them as a bird sweeps river and wood and plain in its homing flight.... -The light was falling on the faces of men and women and children and the -faces were turned to _him_--waiting. The coals had died to a tiny spark. -He rose and put on fresh wood and the flames leaped and ran up the -green walls. He fell to musing again.... The dream held him.... Life -opened.... Softly the bells were ringing in that other world.... Little -peals that broke and rang--great swinging bells. He bent his head to the -sound. It grew, and died away to lightest touch and rang again, clear -and fresh.... It was nearer now... nearer--He turned his head. The sound -had stopped--at the very door--The boy had come! - -Before he could rise from his place, the door swung open to the -freshness of the night and the boy was at his side.... “Merry Christmas, -sir.” He bent swiftly to the lifted, smiling face--“You are better,” he -cried, bending nearer in the flickering light, doubting and eager. - -“I am _well_, John!” He was on his feet, both hands outstretched to the -boy. - -They stood thus, the fire leaping on their faces, their hands clasped. -... Then they drew apart smiling.... The man moved his hand toward the -dusky, fragrant room. “I am ready to go,” he said. - -The young face lighted. “We need you, sir. We need you the worst way!” - -“At the office?” Simeon motioned to a chair. “Sit down--Tell me.” - -The young man shook his head. “Not tonight.” He looked at his watch. “It -is after one. You must sleep.” - -“I shall sleep,” said Simeon contentedly. “And tomorrow we will talk it -over,” said John. - -“Tomorrow we will go,” said the man. - - - - -XXVII - - -The old Scotchman, striding through the snow, was holding the child -fiercely to him. She had not stirred since he folded the great coat -about her and he felt the warmth nestling there close to his heart. But -the heart beat hot and resentful. Under his breath he swore and muttered -as he stumbled through the wood, straying from the path and finding it -again with gaunt step. The lantern gripped in his tense hand would have -lighted the faint track through the snow. But he did not look down. His -eyes were on a light that glimmered and shifted among the trees, shining -across the long fields of snow beyond.... Ellen was waiting, her -heart sore for the bairn. He clasped the little form closer and strode -on-bitterness in his heart.... “Curse him--!” He had robbed them of work -and their good name and now he would take the child ... luring her from -them through the dark and cold, making her love him. The great arms -strained her close as he stumbled on, coming with each uncertain step -nearer to the glimmering light till it fell full in his face from the -uncurtained window and he flung open the door and strode in. - -She looked up with quick glance. Then a little cry broke from her--“Ye -did na’ find her!” - -He opened the great-coat where she lay like a flower, and the -grandmother came close bending to the soft vision. Her hand touched the -limp one that hung down, its soft, pink palm upturned. - -“The little hand!” she whispered like a slow caress, “It ’s warm, Hugh!” - She lifted her eyes to his face. - -“Aye--warm.” There was no light in the stern face. “Ye best put her in -bed.” He held her out--a little from him--and the child stirred. Her -sleepy eyes opened and smiled to them and closed slowly. The little -smile faded to a dream and the lips groped with words and breathed a -name softly--“Cin-na-mon--” - -The grandmother gave a startled glance. “She is fey!” she said. - -“‘Cinnamon!--’ what does she mean--‘Cinnamon’?” - -The old man looked resentful and said nothing. - -The sleepy lips shaped themselves again--“Gran-nie.” It slipped into a -little sigh of content as she nestled into the arms that reached out to -her. - -The old woman smoothed the tumbled hair and rocked her shoulders gently -to the cradling of her arms. “Where was she, Hugh?--Where did ye find -her!” - -“Where she ’d no right to he,” he said grimly. - -“She’d no right but to be in her bed,” said the grandmother softly. - -“Ye ’d best put her there,” he responded, looking down at the sleeping -flower-face with unfathomable eyes. - -When she came back she found him sitting by the stove, his gaze fixed -gloomily on its black surface, his body bent forward and his great hands -swung loosely before him. - -She stirred the fire a little and pushed back the kettle on the stove. -“We ’re no needing it, the night,” she said with happy face. - -But there was no happiness in the old face across the stove. - -“What is it, Hugh?” She was looking at him with keen, gentle eyes that -searched his soul. - -“Sim Tetlow,” he said briefly. - -Her hand dropped from the kettle--“Ye ’ve seen him, the night!” - -“He had the bairn,” said Hugh. “He was holding it--in his arms--like his -own.” He looked up to her--bitter hatred in the red-rimmed eyes. - -But she came close to him, her soft dress making no sound. “He cared -for the bairn!” It was half a question--a little cry of disbelief and -longing--“He cared for the bairn!” - -“He were holding her,” said Hugh gruffly--“Same as you--or me.” He lifted -his hand with a swift gesture--“Curse--” - -She caught the hand, holding it to her bosom, forcing it -there--“No--Hugh--no,” she breathed the words with little gasps--“Ye ’ll -no curse--we maun--” - -He turned on her savagely, struggling for a minute to free his hand. -Then his eyes dropped. “Ye ’re a woman,” he said grimly. “Ye ’ve no call -to know.” - -She stroked the hand with thin, knotted fingers, but her lips made no -reply. - -He looked up under fierce brows. “I ’ll do to him as he ’s done to me.” - He said the words with deep accent. - -“No,--no”-- - -He swept aside the words--“He took away my engine,” he said with slow -wrath-- - -“But ye slept, Hugh--And ye could not help the sleeping!” It was a -little cry of defence. - -“I’d been waking, the night and the day--and the night again,” he -replied fiercely, “and I _slept_--Is sleepin’ a crime!--She was safe on -the sidin’,” he added. “There was no harm to Her--” - -She waited with bent head. So many times they had lived through the -steps of his disgrace-- - -“An’ then he gi’e me the switch. He were kind an’ just. He gi’e me the -_switch_ to tend--” Impotent bitterness filled the words--“we--that’d -drove the best engines on the road! Tendin’ a switch--in the freight -yard--” His head sunk a little. - -“Ye was old, Hugh.” It was the little cry again. - -“An’ he will be old!” he broke in with tense, swift gesture--“Old before -his time, bent and broke! Oh, Lord--” He lifted his gaunt face, “Gi’e -him to me! Gi’e him into _my_ hand!” The keen eyes, fixed on -something unseen, stared before him. Hope struggled in them--a bitter, -disbelieving hope. “Gi’e him into my hand!”--he whispered.... “into my -hand!” He bent forward, staring at the vision. Then the face changed -subtly. He drew a quick, deep breath.... His head had dropped to his -breast. - -She bent above him, “Hugh--” She called it to the unseeing eyes--“Hugh!” - -He drew back a little dazed. The look in the face broke--“Why, -Ellen--woman.” He put his arm almost tenderly about her--“What frighted -ye?” he asked. - -“Ye ’ll not harm him?” she cried. She leaned against him, her anxious, -questioning eyes searching his face. - -“I ’ll not harm him,” said the man briefly, “except the Lord deliver him -into my hand--I have it for a sign.” - -Her Scotch blood thrilled to the vague menace of the words. She pressed -closer to him, her thin hands raised to his coat, grasping it on either -side. She looked up into his face--“Hugh, ye must forgi’e--ye must -e’en--” - -“I must e’en do the Lord’s will,” he said sternly. He loosed the -clinging hands--“Ye must sleep, Ellen,” he said more gently. - -Her hands had dropped. They hung loose at her sides. But her meek eyes -were still on his face. “Ye will forgi’e him,” she whispered low, under -her breath. - -But his face gave no sign that he heard. He put out the lantern and -raked together the coals in the stove, covering them carefully with -ashes to save the smouldering heat. “Come to bed, Ellen,” he said when -it was done, “the bairn is safe. Ye can sleep now.” - - - - -XXVIII - - -Who is managing?” said Simeon. - -They had finished breakfast and sat with chairs pushed back from the -table. It was the first question he had asked about the road. He had -devoted himself to the business of getting well as thoroughly as to -any business he had ever undertaken. But he was well now. “Who is -managing!” he said quietly. - -The young man looked at him with a frank smile. “Nobody is managing,” he -said--“That ’s the worst of it. I ’ve been _doing_ things--things that -_had_ to be done--and trying to stave off other people’s managing.” - -Simeon nodded quickly. “That ’s the best thing could have happened. I -hope you ’ve done it.” - -“Well, not altogether--The men in the office were all right.... But the -directors fidgeted some--” - -“Corbin,” said Simeon, “I know.” - -The young man nodded. - -“Oh, I know,” said Simeon testily. “And Dickerman, I suppose--yes, yes, -I know--Go ahead now--Tell me everything.” He leaned forward with elbows -on the table--the old alert look in his eyes. - -When the recital was finished, he stood up, stretching his arms with a -gesture of content. “It might be worse,” he said. - -“You may find it worse than you think,” said the young man, “No head to -anything.” - -“Just legs and arms,” said Simeon. He laid his hand in passing on the -boy’s shoulder. “I’d rather have legs and arms--good ones--than any -heads I know of--except my own,” he added laughing. “When do we go?” - -“I brought down the special last night. She’s at Bridgewater.” - -“Stetson with her! That ’s good. We start tonight--Get there at -ten--Sleep home--Ready for business.” - -John smiled at the old, quick orders and went out to set them in motion. -He looked up to the clear, keen sky with a sudden lightness of heart. -A new day had come. Perhaps the tortoise had something the same feeling -when Atlas stooped his shoulder to the world. - -By night, the little house was stripped of its belongings. Some of them -were packed in bags and boxes and the rest were to be stored in the loft -overhead. The boughs of spruce and hemlock and pine had been taken down -from the walls and burned in the fireplace during the day. The room was -filled with the sweet, pungent odor. - -At the last minute John had hurried to the woods and brought back -an armful of fresh boughs--spruce and pine, hemlock and blue-berried -cedar--clustered thick--and trailing green vines. He tossed them lightly -into the back of the sleigh and sprang in. - -The special was waiting on the siding. They saw the little, flying puffs -rise from her and float on the clear air.... Stetson was ready--with -steam up--They would be off at once. - -The baggage master came forward to help with the bags. He spoke a word -in John’s ear as he passed him. - -The young man glanced quickly toward the engine that puffed and chugged -at the head of the little train. He helped Simeon into the car and -hurried forward. The man standing by the engine looked at him with -troubled eyes. - -“He’s sick,” he said slowly, as John came up. “He was took bad just -after he came down.” He nodded toward the baggage room, “He told me to -fire Up--ready to go ahead. Said you’d know what to do.” - -The young man turned toward the baggage room. The engineer, out of a -heap of blankets, spread across some trunks, regarded him somberly. “I -can’t do it,” he said, “I don’t dare. It gripes too hard when it comes. -It’s easier now, for a minute--But it ’ll come back.” He writhed a -little as he spoke. - -“You must n’t stay here,” said John quickly. He looked about him. - -The man put out a hand. “I’m going,” he said, “as soon as she starts. -I waited for you.” John nodded. “Is there anyone--on the others?” He -motioned toward the yard. - -The man shook his head gloomily--“Freights,” he said. A kind of subtle -pride underran the words--“I would n’t trust ’em with Her.” - -The young man lifted his head--A swift thought had crossed his face. “I -saw Tomlinson on the street as we drove in--Could he-?” - -The man stared at him--“Old Tomlinson?” Justice weighed in the tone. -“You can ask him,” he said grudgingly at last. - -“He ’s all right for it?” questioned John. - -The man writhed a little in his place. But justice held--“He’s all right -if he says so,” he answered. His teeth bit at the under lip, holding it -firm, and he breathed hard. “He’s first-class--Tomlinson. He won’t _say_ -he can take her unless he’s able. You can trust Tomlinson--same as you -would me.” The pride of brotherhood breathed in the words--lifting them -mightily. - -“I ’ll see him,” said John. - -The hand held him back. “Don’t urge him.” He gasped a little for breath -between the words. “If he says he can do it--let him take Her.” - -“I understand,” said John. “I ’ll send some one for you.” He was gone -from the room. - -As he passed the car, he hesitated a minute. Then he sprang up the step -and went in. “All ready!” said Simeon looking up. - -“Stetson ’s sick--Shall we wait over?” - -“Wait over? No! Get somebody--Get _anybody!_” He threw out the words. - -The young man hesitated a minute. He had not mentioned Tomlinson’s name -to Simeon. Something had always pulled him back when he had thought to -do it. “There’s a man--” he said slowly--“lives here--He ’s not running -now--” - -“Competent?” said Simeon. - -“Stetson says so.” - -“Get him.” - -Tomlinson, one foot on the sleigh, looked at him under keen, shaggy -brows. He glanced toward the station, with its wreathing, drifting lines -of smoke. He shook his head. “I’m going home,” he said. He threw the -halter into the sleigh and knocked the snow from his boots against the -side. - -John watched him silently, as he climbed in and gathered up the reins in -big,-mittened hands. - -“We need you, Hugh,” he said slowly. - -The old man nodded--impassive. “Can’t go,” he said. - -“Why not!” - -“_She ’ll_ be waiting.” He pulled a little on the reins. - -“Send some one home with the team--There’s Russell! Get him.” - -The Scotchman glanced with indifferent eye at a man crossing the street. -“I ’ve got my chores to do.” He pulled again on the reins. - -The old horse lifted his head. - -John laid a hand on the sleigh. “See here, Hugh. We need you--There’s no -one else--He told me to get you.” - -The pull on the reins was checked. “_Who_ told you!” - -“President Tetlow. He ’s waiting--” He motioned toward the track where -the special was blowing off steam. Hugh’s eye followed the motion. It -dropped to the young man. “He told you--Sim Tetlow--” he demanded, “He -wants _me_!” - -“Yes. He wants you--But not if you ’re not up to it--” He had remembered -Stetson’s words. - -The old man leaned forward, winding the reins slowly around the whip. “I -’ll take Her,” he said. - -“You ’re not afraid!” said John. Something in the face disturbed him. - -“I ’ll take Her,” said Hugh briefly. - -“Stetson’s jumpers are in the cab,” said John as they came down the -platform. - -“Too short,” said the old man. He was striding with mighty step. - -John glanced at him. “That ’s so--The coat’s all right.” - -“Like enough,” said Hugh absently. His face had an absorbed look--The -eyes beneath the fur cap gleamed like little points of light. When they -reached the engine, the light broke and ran over his face. He mounted -to the cab and laid his hand on the lever--“I ’ll take her down, -Johnny--Don’t you worry.” He nodded to the young man standing below. - -The face cleared. “All right, Hugh--It’s the President of the Road you -’re carrying, you know.” - -“Aye--It ’s Sim Tetlow--I know,” said Hugh. He opened the lever a -little. - -The young man hurried toward the car. - -“All right!” asked Simeon as he came in. The train was in slow motion. - -“All right,” said John. - -Supper was brought in and they ate it leisurely, watching the light -change and fade upon the hills and darkness settle down outside. -Simeon’s eyes came back to the young man’s face. “I mean to know this -country,” he said, “every mile of it.” - -The young man smiled a little. “Don’t you know it now!” - -“I don’t know anything,” said Simeon. “I was born last night.--I was -born last night,” he said looking at the black window in a reverie. “Who -lives along here?” He nodded toward the darkness. “What kind of people!” - -John peered out. “Winchendon, we just passed, was n’t it? I don’t know. -I’ve never been here.” - -“Ever lived outside of Bridgewater!” said Simeon. - -“No, sir.” - -“Tell me about that.” - -“About--!” The lifted eyebrows held it. - -Simeon nodded. “About anything. Steel works--button shop--everything.” - -John thought a minute--“You know as much as I do--more. They do a big -business.” - -“What kind of men?” asked Simeon brusquely. - -“Men?--In the works--you mean?” - -“In them--over them--on top--outside, inside,” said Simeon. “You know -’em, don’t you? Lived with ’em--been to school with ’em--?” - -“Oh--if you mean that--!” A smile had come into the puzzled face. - -“I mean that,” said Simeon. He had lighted a cigar and was watching the -tip intently. - -The cigar went out and was relighted many times before the story of -Bridgewater was finished. The slow mind of the narrator wandered in and -out through the past, nudged by keen, quick questions from the nervous -listener beside him. Little things loomed large--big things faded and -slipped away in John’s vision. It had been a mighty day for Bridgewater -when the county house was built; but Simeon scoffed at the court-house -and listened with rapt face to the story of two truckmen that John knew -who had quarreled over their stand and made up, and joined against a -third and held up the transportation of Bridgewater for three days. - -Simeon sighed a little. “I ’ve never lived,” he said slowly. “I’ve made -money--I’ve sat with my face close to a board, making money, studying -moves--I’ve played a good game--” He said it grimly--“But I ’ve never -lived yet. My father always said ‘Go in to win,’ and there was n’t any -mother.” He said the words between the puffs.... “And then I married--” -He waited a minute--“Yes--I guess I lived--a year. But I did n’t -know-then.” - -There was silence in the car. The train sped through soft, even -darkness. The engine shrieked at a solitary grade crossing and was past. - -The man lifted his head. There was a deep smile in his eyes.... “It -’s all going to be different,” he said slowly, “Just wait till we get -things in hand--I ’m going over the road.”... He drew a map from his -pocket and spread it on the table.... “Here is a place I want to know.” - He pointed to a corner of the map, “They ’re always making a fuss -up there--saying the road’s got to come their way. The division -superintendent says it won’t pay--They say it will. I ’m going up.” - -John leaned forward--“Chester County.” He spelled the name across the -map. “My father knows Chester County.” - -Simeon looked up with quick stare... “Your father?” - -“He lived there when he was a boy.” - -“I must know him,” said Simeon. “I ’ll take him with me.” - -John smiled at the picture--but underneath the smile ran a swift sense -of his father’s presence--its slow, steadying power upon the nervous, -hurrying man. He would rest in the stolid strength of it. “I ’ll bring -him to see you,” he said. - -“Yes--What is your mother like?--You have not told me about your -mother.” He gazed at the boy deeply. - -“There’s no one like her,” said John. “I could n’t tell you. Nobody -could tell about Mother.” His glance had traveled to the rack overhead -where the fragrant boughs hung out, filling the air with light -fragrance--He saw the light in her face and her hands held out to -them--He smiled. - -Simeon sighed and moved restlessly. He held another match to the cigar -and his eye, as it followed the steady hand, filled with quick pride. - -John was watching the hand, too, and the eyes of the two men met. - -“I ’m all right,” said Simeon, throwing away the match with a little -laugh. - -“You ’re all right,” said John with deeper meaning. - -“And I ’m a young man.” He rose and paced a few steps in the car--“I ’m -forty-three--You don’t call that old?” - -The eyes watching him smiled. - -“That is not old,” said Simeon. He stretched himself to his full height, -rapping his chest softly. He threw out his arm--toward the night. “I’m -just beginning,” he said. - -The brakeman passed through the car-carrying something on his arm. A -piece of old cloth, a bit of signal flag, was thrown carelessly across -it. - -John’s eye followed him to the rear of the car. After a minute he got -up and went to the door. He opened it and stepped onto the platform. The -brakeman was bending over the end of the car, peering down at something. -He tested it once or twice with his hand before he scrambled to his -feet. “It ’s the red,” he said as he saw who stood beside him. “It don’t -burn right--” - -“Yes--What’s up?” The train was swirling through the dark and they held -to the guard-rail as they faced each other. - -In his cab, at the other end of the train, the old Scotchman, his body -braced to the swing of the wheels, leaned out, looking back with tense -eyes. - -“Can ye see her, Jim?” - -The fireman leaned beside him, for a moment, piercing the dark with -swift, keen glance, “Nothing there,” he said. - -The train, on the down grade by the river, ran with swift ease through -the night.... No sight--no sound.... Only the great river to the left -slipping--dark and still, and the stars overhead. - -But the two men leaned back, scenting the dark with swift gaze. - -“Nothing there,” said the fireman, peering out, “You must ’a’--” - -He paused--with quick turn. - -A long, low whistle broke the night, echoing against the distant hills. - -The eyes of the two men met. Tomlinson’s hand raised itself with -startled thrust. The answering shriek tore the night.... Once--twice--in -hoarse demand.... - -Again the low, seeking call among the hills. Then silence and the black -river slipping by. - -The fireman sprang to his place. - -Tomlinson’s hand upon the lever quickened its hold, drawing it tense. -“We take no chances,” he said. The engine trembled beneath and leaped to -swifter stride. It swayed through the night. The furnace door flew open -and heaven blazed with roar and glow and swift heat. The faces of the -two men, lurid in the white glare, confronted each other. Then darkness, -and the swift rush of steel on steel--crunching, heavy beats of -sound--and the thrusting roar and smoke.... They were swinging the bend -of the curve now, where the road leaves the river under the mountain -to track across country. Tomlinson, his body half thrown from the cab, -strained back, his peering eyes searching the distant curve. He drew his -hand across them. - -“She ’s there, Jim!.... Look!” The shaking hand flung the words. - -The fireman leaped to his side. A glimmer--a flash--twinkled gleams on -the far curve. - -“It ’s Her!” muttered Tomlinson. - -“86,” said the fireman. - -“The heaviest on the road.” Tomlinson’s hand reached Up.... - -She was running at frightful speed. His quick eye gaged her flight as he -sounded the high, shrill call of warning.... She had not slowed for the -curve.... She was not slowing now! Again the whistle sounded its savage -cry. - -And the note came back--echoing among the hills in little peals that -laughed. - -“Ah--she had heard.... she knew they were there... They were safe now.” - The hand on the lever released its grip.... Gleason was running her. -He was safe--Ten miles more.... Simeon Tetlow, swaying at ease in his -parlor car, need not fear.... They were picked men on the road--and he -ran them hard. They would bring him through.... - -Once more Tomlinson leaned out, looking back with a grim smile.... His -startled gaze threw itself--She was _not_ slowing--“Jim!” It was hoarse -like a whisper--“Jim!--Look!” - -But the fireman, bending to his flaming pot, had not heard. - -The red eyes blazed again to the night.... “Jim!--” The hoarse cry shook -the night. - -The man sprang forward. - -“Look!” He flung a hand. - -The man leaned out. “God!” he said--He strained his eyes.... “The brakes -don’t grip,” he cried fiercely.... “She’s running wild!” The words drove -with the flying wind. He drew back, lifting a white face. “Down grade,” - he whispered. - -“Aye--down grade,” said Tomlinson, quietly. “Pile on the coal, Jim!” He -flung the throttle wide. A great light broke across his face. “Pile on -the coal, Jim!” The engine sprang.--“Stuff her,” he cried. - -Again the flare and roar to the night--Great flying sparks.... Glory and -fierce heat and the mighty power that throbbed to leap its bounds.... -Winged thrust--horns and hoofs, and spilling flame.... - -The old engineer, his hand on the lever, balanced himself to the -plunging flight. His small, peering eyes held the track ahead--they laid -down the road before the wheels. And somewhere--far within--his soul -laughed.... In the hollow of his hand he held him--The man who had -scorned him--thrust him out.... “You shall never touch throttle or brake -or switch on this road.” The wheels ground out the words. They beat them -to powder and flung them--with hitter laugh and roar--upon the night.... -He would not trust! And now he lay, like a baby, swung to the sound of -wheels. Tomlinson laughed and set his teeth and leaned forward, squaring -his shoulders.... His feet gripped the bounding floor. He would carry -him safe.... They need not fear Tomlinson... . - -Back in the car, Simeon Tetlow, absorbed in his map, looked up absently -... his glance on the swaying lamps--“They ’re taking us down pretty -fast,” he said. - -The young man nodded. He was sitting across the table, his head Testing -on his hand, his eyes, with their quiet light, fixed on Simeon’s face. -He had not stirred since he came in from the platform ten minutes ago. - -Simeon, working on his map, looked up now and then with a little smile, -and the quiet eyes smiled back. But something hungry had crept into -them--a look of protection and longing--as if they would shield -something helpless. - -The train, in its heavy swing, lurched a little and Simeon looked up -with a scowl that was half a laugh. The pencil had scrawled a curious, -zigzag course across the paper. “I don’t seem to be running this road,” - he said, “I might as well give up.” He pushed the map from him and -looked at his watch--“9:40--Where are ye?” - -“Just past Dunlop’s crossing,” said John..... At nine-forty, 86 was -due at the crossing--the time-table in his pocket told it to him--five -minutes off. Someone had blundered and she was in their block--close -behind them--pressing upon them.... But the dull face gave no sign. - -“Twenty minutes,” said Simeon. He stretched his arms with a little -yawn--“We ’ll be in by ten--you think!” - -“I think we shall be in before ten,” said the boy. His voice was very -quiet, but the man looked up and saw the light in the eyes. - -He leaned forward. “What is it, John?” - -“Nothing, sir--” He said the words slowly. “I was only wishing I could -do something for you.” - -“Why, Boy--” He turned his head a little, listening--The shrill whistle -had sounded--“What’s that!” - -“Some train at Dunlop’s” said John. - -The train beneath them seemed gathering itself in mighty leaps. - -In the cab, the old engineer, with tense body and set teeth, laughed -grimly--“I ’ll bring him in--_I ’ll bring him in!_” - -The miles leaped behind them, flying. And behind them the express -pounded heavily--soulless--massive--blind... five miles now--three--And -the Scotchman laughed with the great lurches of his cab-- - -The lights of the upper station flashed past... then the lights of the -yard... he threw the lever swiftly into place. The roar slackened and -fell and ceased. The special was gliding easily down to her berth in the -terminal shed. - -The express, under control now, halted at the upper station, her -blind eye glimmering through the dusk toward the little train -that ran--smooth--safe, on its way. She gave a shrill cry--and -puffed--impatient to be off. - -Simeon put away the map in his pocket. He looked out into the busy yard -as they drew in--little lights... slow-pulling freights--busy engines -puffing up and down--smoke and grime. His own work. His heart leaped to -it as he stepped from the car, and he lifted up his face to the great -train shed--as in some great cathedral one looks up--and waits.... -Whirling, drifting smoke--soaring and shimmering into the high roof.... -Bells and voices and the sound of murmured calls... crimson torches -flaring--skimming along the platforms--diving under engines--with -hungry, peering eyes.... He took it in for a moment with deep, full -breath before they swung down the platform. - -Beside the engine an old man was bending with flaring torch, thrusting -it into the heart of her, searching with careful eye for any harm that -had come. - -“Oh--Tomlinson!” said John. - -The figure straightened itself and wheeled about, torch in hand.... -His glance fell on the President of the Road and he stepped forward, -a solemn look in the keen, blue eyes. He reached out a gaunt hand. The -face, beneath its grime, held a deep, quiet power--“I forgi’e ye, Simeon -Tetlow,” he said slowly. “I forgi’e ye,--now.” - -The President of the Road took the grimy hand in his, with firm grip. -“It ’s all right, Tomlinson, all right.” - -He stood for a moment looking up at the tall figure, covered with oil -and dirt--the smoke-stained face full of a kind of dignity.... “You -brought us down fast, Tomlinson,” said the President of the Road with a -little smile. - -“Aye, I brought ye fast,” said Tomlinson. But there was no smile in the -words. - -He was gazing over their heads at something beyond them. - -The express had come to rest in the next berth and the great engine -loomed above them--breathing softly--full of pride and strength. - -The three men looked at her for a minute, as if a magnet held them. Then -the crowd, pouring out of the express, bore down upon them and swept -them along. Tomlinson climbed back to his place in the cab, watching the -two men until they were lost to sight in the jostling, hurrying throng. -The express was a long one and the crowd streamed past... pushing, -laughing... voices called... cramped limbs stretched themselves after -the long ride and hurried a little; the platform resounded to light -steps. - -The engineer of the express leaned from his window, on folded arms, -looking down. He was a quiet man with thoughtful eyes and a -serious face.... The eyes raised themselves and looked across at -Tomlinson--above the heads of the happy, hurrying crowd--a straight, -slow glance. Then he lifted his hand to him--the sign of the -brotherhood--as one who salutes an equal. - -And Tomlinson lifted his hand in return. - -Simeon emerged from the wicket gate, looking about with happy glance. -The popcorn boy, scurrying to his place, the lights flaring and blazing, -cabmen shouting--it was beautiful-all of it. He fell into the old, brisk -walk and John, hurrying beside him, could hardly keep pace with it... . -Joy was everywhere tonight--sound and bustle and quick-moving crowd. The -nervous, hurrying frame vibrated to the city as a child to its mother’s -touch, or the heart to music.... He was back among his own--exile was -done.... They pressed upon him--past him--around him. He jostled elbows, -and was glad. He could have stretched out his hands to them--every one. -The grasp of the old Scotchman’s fingers lingered with him still--It -crept np his arm in tiny thrills and warmed his heart. He must do -something better for Tomlinson. There was strength in the old man -still--with a grip like that! He rubbed his hand and shook his fingers -a little ruefully at the very thought of it. How the old fellow had -loomed--there on the platform--tall and grim! Then--in a flash--he saw -him... in the green room, his head lifted high, his face stem... the -very scent of the room was in the vision, pungent and fresh. - -He drew a quick breath and threw back his head with a little impatient -gesture. “I shall never get out of those woods,” he said. “I can smell -them--yet! lean smell them here.”... - -The boy glanced at him with swift twinkle. “Look behind you, sir.” - -Simeon flashed back a quick look. Behind them was the porter, laden with -bags and mgs. and bundles, and on his great shoulders the green branches -swayed and nodded as he moved. They framed the big face with its -gleaming smile--like some grotesque, dark-skinned dryad in the smoky -station. - -Simeon’s eye sought the boy’s--a little anxiously, it seemed, “Going to -trim the office?” he said. - -He laughed back. “I ’m carrying them home to her.” - -He called a carriage, and the porter stowed away the boxes and bags and -mgs, piling the mass of pine and spruce on the seat in front of them -till the carriage was filled with its subtle fragrance. - -Simeon leaned forward in the half light and plucked a little spray of -the cedar, placing it in his coat. “That is for me,” he said, smiling a -little, as he buttoned the coat over it, “the rest is for her.” - -The great office building loomed at the right as they drove, and -he glanced out quickly. “Same old place!” he said. His face wore a -contented look and his hand reached out, in the dim light, to the stubby -one resting on the boy’s knee and closed upon it for a moment with firm -grasp.... “Tomorrow, Boy,” he said, “we begin again.” - -“Tomorrow, sir,” replied the boy. - -He entered the house lightly, but not so lightly that her sensitive ear -did not catch the sound and hold itself attent to listen--“John?” Her -voice searched the darkness. “John?--Is it you?” - -He came in swiftly--“Bad mother!” He dropped on his knees beside her -and laid his cool cheek to hers.... “Bad mother--to lie awake!” Her -hand reached up to stroke his face.... “How fragrant you are--like the -woods!” - -The fingers strayed a little and touched the feathery sprays and -lingered--questioning. “It is the woods! You have brought me the woods!” - The little cry of joy trembled in her voice. “I shall sleep now.” - -He bent and kissed her. “Good-night, mother.” - -“Good-night, my son..” - -In the dusky, fragrant room she fell asleep, like a child, and she -dreamed that she was-a child and wandered in a wood and that an angel -with shining eyes came to her and walked with her under the green -branches and when he went away she cried to him and he turned and kissed -her and said-- - -“I have brought your breakfast, mother.” So she wakened to another day. - -END. - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Simeon Tetlow’s Shadow, by Jennette Lee - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMEON TETLOW’S SHADOW *** - -***** This file should be named 51982-0.txt or 51982-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/8/51982/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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