Part 4

“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