Chapter 12

Tom, the boy, could not have gone on. It would have been blankly impossible. But Tom, the man, was a new creature. While waiting for the reply to his telegram, he plunged doggedly back into the scholastic whirlpool, kicked, struggled, strangled, got his head above water, and found, vastly to his own amazement, that the thing was actually compassable in spite of the mighty distractions.

The return telegram from Gordonia was a day late. Knowing diplomacy only by name, Caleb Gordon had gone directly to Dyckman for information regarding the Farleys' movements. Dyckman was polite to the general manager, but unhappily he knew nothing of Mr. Farley's plans. Caleb tried elsewhere, and the little mystery thickened. At his club, Mr. Farley had spoken of taking a Cunarder from Boston; to a friend in the South Tredegar Manufacturers' Association he had confided his intention of sailing from Philadelphia. But at the railway ticket office he had engaged Pullman reservations for six persons to New York.

This last was conclusive, as far as it went; and Japheth Pettigrass supplied the missing item. The Dabneys and the Farleys made one party, and Japheth knew the steamer and the sailing date.

"Party will sail by White Star Line Baltic, New York, to-morrow. New York address, Fifth Avenue Hotel. Papers to you care 271 Broadway by mail yesterday," was the message which was signed for by the doorkeeper at the mines and metallurgy examination room in Boston, late in the forenoon of the second day; and Tom looked at the clock. Nothing would be gained by taking a train which would land him in New York late in the evening; so he plunged again into the examination pool and thought no more of Chiawassee Consolidated until his paper on qualitative analysis had been neatly folded, docketed and handed to the examiner.

The hands of his watch were pointing to eight o'clock the following morning when Tom made his way through the throng in the Grand Central station and found a cab. The sailing hour of the _Baltic_ was ten, and he picked his cabman accordingly.

"I shall want you for a couple of hours, and it's double fare if you don't miss. 271 Broadway, first," was his fillip for the driver; and he was speedily rattling away to the down-town address.

The taking of the cab was his first mistake, and he discovered it before he had gone very far. Time was precious, and the horse, pushed to the police limit, was too slow. Tom signaled his Irishman.

"Get me over to the Elevated, and then go to Madison Square and wait for me," he ordered; and by this change of conveyance he obtained his mail and won back to the Fifth Avenue Hotel by late breakfast time.

From that on, luck was with him. The Farleys, father and son, were in the lobby of the hotel, waiting for the others to come down to the café breakfast. Tom saw them, confronted them, and went at things very concisely.

"I have come all the way from Boston to ask for a few minutes of your time, Mr. Farley," he said to the president. "Will you give it to me now?"

"Surely!" was the genial reply, and the promoter signed to his son and drew apart with the importunate one. "Well, go on, my boy; what can I do for you at this last American moment?--some message from your good father?"

"No," said Tom shortly; "it's from me, individually. You know in what shape you have left things at home; they've got to be stood on their feet before you go aboard the _Baltic_."

"What's this--what's this? Why, my dear young man! what can you possibly mean?"--this in buttered tones of the gentlest expostulation.

"I mean just about what I say. You have smashed Chiawassee Consolidated, and now you are going off to leave my father to hold the bag. Or rather I should say, you are taking the bag with you."

The president was visibly moved.

"Why, Thomas--you must be losing your mind! You've--you've been studying too hard; that's it--the term work up there in Boston has been too much for you."

"Cut it out, Mr. Farley," said Tom savagely, all the Gordon fighting blood singing in his veins. "You've got a thing to do, and it is going to be done before you leave America. Will you talk straight business, or not?"

The president adjusted his eye-glasses, and gave this brand-new Gordon a calm over-look.

"And if I decline to discuss business matters with a rude school-boy?" he intimated mildly.

"Then it will be rather the worse for you," was the defiant rejoinder. "Acting for my father and the minority stock-holders, I shall try to have you and your son held in America, pending an expert examination of the company's affairs."

It was a long shot, with a thousand chances of missing. If there was anything criminal in the Farley administration, the evidences were doubtless well buried. But Tom was looking deep into the shifty blue eyes of his antagonist when he fired, and he saw that he had not wholly missed. None the less, the president attempted to carry it off lightly.

"What do you think of this, Vincent?" he said, turning to his son. "Here is Tom Gordon--our Tom--talking wildly about investigations and arrests, and I don't know what all. Shall we give him his breakfast and send him back to school?"

Tom cut in quickly before Vincent could make a reply.

"If you're sparring to gain time, it's no use, Mr. Farley. I mean what I say, and I'm dead in earnest." Then he tried another long shot: "I tell you right now we've had this thing cocked and primed ever since we found out what you and Vincent meant to do. You must turn over the control of Chiawassee Consolidated, legally and formally, to my father before you go aboard the _Baltic_, or--_you don't go aboard_!"

"Let me understand," said the treasurer, cutting in. "Are you accusing us of crime?"

"You will find out what the accusation is, later on," said Tom, taking yet another cartridge from the long-range box. "What I want now is a plain, straightforward yes or no, if either of you is capable of saying it."

The president took his son aside.

"Do you suppose Dyckman has been talking too much?" he asked hurriedly.

Vincent shook his head.

"You can't tell ... it looks a little rocky. Of course, we had a right to do as we pleased with our own, but we don't want to have an unfriendly construction put on things."

"But they can't do anything!" protested the president. "Why, I'd be perfectly willing to turn over my private papers, if they were asked for!"

"Yes, of course. But there would be misconstruction. There is that contract with the combination, for example; we had a right to manipulate things so we'd have to close down, and it might not transpire that we made money by doing it. But, on the other hand, it might leak out, and there'd be no end of a row. Then there is another thing: there is somebody behind this who is bigger than the old soldier or this young foot-ball tough. It's too nicely timed."

"But, heavens and earth! you wouldn't turn the property over to Gordon, would you?"

The younger man's smile was a mere contortion of the lips. "It's a sucked orange," he said. "Let the old man have it. He may work a miracle of some sort and pull out alive. I should call it a snap, and take him up too quick. If he wins out, so much the better for all concerned. If he doesn't, why, we left the property entirely in his hands, and he smashed it. Don't you see the beauty of it?"

The president wheeled short on Tom.

"What you may think you are extorting, my dear boy, you are going to get through sheer good-will and a desire to give your father every chance in the world," he said blandly. "We discussed the plan of electing him vice-president, with power to act, before we left home, but there seemed to be some objections. We are willing to give him full control--and this altogether apart from any foolish threats you have seen fit to make. Bring your legal counsel to Room 327 after breakfast and we will go through the formalities. Are you satisfied?"

"I shall be a lot better satisfied after the fact," said Tom bluntly; and he turned away to avoid meeting Major Dabney and the ladies, who were coming from the elevator to join the two early risers. He had seen next to nothing of Ardea during the three Boston years, and would willingly have seen more. But the new manhood was warning him that time was short, and that he must not mix business with sentiment. So Ardea saw nothing but his back, which, curiously enough, she failed to recognize.

Picking up his cab at the curb, Tom had himself driven quickly to the office of the corporation lawyer whose name he had obtained from Mr. Clarkson the day before, and with whom he had made a wire appointment before leaving Boston. The attorney was waiting for him, and Tom stated the case succinctly, adding a brief of the interview which had just taken place at the hotel.

"You say they agreed to your proposal?" observed the lawyer. "Did Mr. Farley indicate the method?"

"No."

"Have you a copy of the by-laws of your company?"

Tom produced the packet of papers received that morning from his father, and handed the required pamphlet to Mr. Croswell.

"H'm--ha! the usual form. A stock-holders' meeting, with a resolution, would be the simplest way out of it; but that can't be held without the published call. You say your father is a stock-holder?"

"He has four hundred and three of the original one thousand shares. I hold his proxy."

The attorney smiled shrewdly.

"You are a very remarkable young man. You seem to have come prepared at all points. I assume that you are acting under your father's instructions?"

"Why, with his approval, of course," Tom amended. "But it is my own initiative, under the advice of a good friend of mine in Boston, thus far. Oh, I know what I'm about," he added, in answer to the latent question in the lawyer's eyes.

"You seem to," was the laconic reply. "Now let us see exactly what it is that you want Mr. Farley to concede."

"I want him to turn over the entire control of the company's business, operative and financial, to my father."

The lawyer smiled again.

"That is a pretty big asking. Have you any reason to suppose that Mr. Farley will accede to any such demand?"

"Yes; I have very good reasons, but I reckon we needn't go into them here and now. The time is too short; their liner sails at ten."

The attorney tilted his chair and became reflective.

"The simple way out of it is to have Mr. Farley constitute your father, or yourself, his proxy to vote his stock at a certain specified meeting of the stock-holders, which can be called later. Of course, with a majority vote of the stock, you can rearrange matters to suit yourselves, subject only to Mr. Farley's disarrangement when he resumes control of his holdings. How would that serve?"

"You're the doctor," said Tom bruskly. "Any way to get him out and get my father in."

"It's the simplest way, as I say. But if the property is worth anything at all, I should think Mr. Farley would fight you to a finish before he would consent."

"You fix up the papers, Mr. Croswell, and I'll see to it that he consents. Make the proxy run in my father's name."

The attorney went into another room and dictated to his stenographer. While he was absent, Tom sat, watch in hand, counting the minutes. It was his first pitched battle with the Farleys, and victory promised. But with industrial panic in the air the victory threatened to be of the Cadmean sort, and a scowl of anxiety gathered between his eyes.

"Never mind," he gritted, with an out-thrust of the square jaw; "it's the Gordon fighting chance; and pappy says that's all we've ever asked--it's all I'm going to ask, anyway. But I wish Ardea wasn't going over with that crowd!"

The conference in Room 327, Fifth Avenue Hotel, held while the carriages were waiting to take the steamer party to the pier, was brief and businesslike. Something to Tom's surprise, Major Dabney was present; and a little later he learned, with a shock of resentment, that the Major was also a minority stock-holder in the moribund Chiawassee Consolidated. The master of Deer Trace was as gracious to Caleb Gordon's son as only a Dabney knew how to be.

"Nothing could give me greateh pleasure, my deah boy, than this plan of having youh fatheh in command at Gordonia," he beamed, shaking Tom's hand effusively. "I hope you'll have us all made millionaihs when we get back home again; I do, for a fact, suh."

Tom smiled and shook his head.

"It looks pretty black, just now, Major. I'm afraid we're in for rough weather."

"Oh, no; not that, son; a meah passing cloud." And then, with the big Dabney laugh: "You youngstehs oughtn't to leave it for us old fellows to keep up the stock of optimism, suh. A word in youh ear, young man: if these heah damned Yankee rascals would quit thei-uh monkeying right heah in Wall Street, the country would take on a new lease of life, suh; it would for a fact," and he said it loudly enough to be heard in the corridor.

During this bit of side play the attorney was laboring with the two Farleys, and Tom, watching narrowly, saw that there was a hitch of some kind.

"What is it?" he demanded, turning shortly on the trio at the table.

The lawyer explained. Mr. Farley thought the plan proposed was entirely too far-reaching in its effects, or possible effects. He was willing to delegate his authority as president of the company to Caleb Gordon in writing. Would not that answer all the requirements?

Tom asked his attorney with his eyes if it would answer, and read the negative reply very clearly. So he shook his head.

"No," he said, turning his back on the Major and lowering his voice. "We must have your proxy, Mr. Farley."

"And if I don't choose to accede to your demands?"

"I don't think we need to go over that ground again," said Tom coolly. "If you don't sign that paper, you'll miss your steamer."

The president glanced toward the open door, as if he half expected to see an officer waiting for him. Then he said, "Oh, well; it's as broad as it is long," and signed.

The leave-takings were brief, and somewhat constrained, save those of the genial Major. Tom pleaded business, further business, with his attorney, when the Major would have had him wait to tell the ladies good-by; hence he saw no more of the tourists after the conference broke up.

Not to lose time, Tom took a noon train back to Boston, first wiring his father to try and keep things in _statu quo_ at Gordonia for another week at all hazards. Winning back to the technical school, he plunged once more into the examination whirlpool, doing his best to forget Chiawassee Consolidated and its mortal sickness for the time being, and succeeding so well that he passed with colors flying.

But the school task done, he turned down the old leaf, pasting it firmly in place. Telegraphing his father to meet him, on the morning of the third day following, at the station in South Tredegar, he allowed himself a few hours for a run up the North Shore and a conference with the Michigan iron king; after which he turned his face southward and was soon speeding to the battle-field through a land by this time shaking to its industrial foundations in the throes of the panic earthquake.

XIX

ISSACHAR

In accordance with Tom's telegram, Caleb Gordon met his son at the station in South Tredegar, and they went together to breakfast in one of the dining-rooms of the Marlboro. Tom's heart burned within him when he saw how the late stress of things had aged his father, and for the first time in his life he opened a vengeance account: if the Farleys ever came back there should be reckoning for more than the looting of Chiawassee Consolidated. But this was only the primitive under-thought. Uppermost at the moment was the joy of the young soldier arrived, fit and vigorous, on his maiden battle-field.

"You don't know how good it seems to get back home again, pappy," he said, over the bacon and eggs. "I've been grinding pretty hard this year, and now it's over, I feel as if I could whip my weight in wildcats, as Japheth used to say. By the way, how is Japheth?"

Caleb Gordon smiled in spite of the corroding industrial anxieties.

"Japheth's going to surprise you some, I reckon, son; he's gone and got religion."

Tom put down his knife and fork.

"Why, the old sinner!" he laughed. "How did that happen?"

"Oh, just about the way it always does," said Caleb slowly. "The spirit moved your Uncle Silas to come out to Little Zoar and hold a protracted meetin', and Japhe joined the mourners and was gathered into the fold."

"Pshaw!" said Tom, in good-natured incredulity. "Why, the very meat and marrow of his existence is his horse-trading; and who could swap horses and tell the truth at the same time?"

"I don't know," was the doubtful reply. "But Brother Japheth allows that's about what he aims to do. It's sort o' curious the way it works out, too. About a week after the baptizin', Jim Bledsoe came down from Pine Knob with a horse to swap. 'Long about sundown he met up with Japhe, and struck him for a trade on a piebald that the Major wouldn't let run in the same lot with the Deer Trace stock. They had it up one side and down the other; Brother Japhe tryin' to tell Bledsoe that his piebald was about the no-accountest horse in the valley, and Jim takin' it all by contraries and gettin' more and more p'intedly anxious to trade."

"Well?" said Tom, enjoying his return to nature like any creature freed of the urban cage.

"They came to the trade, after a tolerable spell of it," Caleb went on, "and the last thing I heard Japhe say was, 'now you recollect, Brother Bledsoe, I done told you that there piebald's no account on the face of the earth--a-lovin' of my neighbor like I promise' Brother Silas I would.'"

Tom laughed again. There was the smell of the good red soil in the little story, a whiff of the home earth reminiscent and heartening. But the under-thought laid hold on Japheth and his change of heart.

"Japhe was about the last man in Paradise, always excepting Major Dabney," he said half-musingly. "Haven't you often wondered what sort of a maggot it is that gets into the human brain to give it the superstitious twist?"

Caleb's gentle frown was the upcast of paternal bewilderment, partly prideful, partly disconcerting. He was not yet fully acquainted with this young giant with the frank face, the sober gray eyes, and the conscious grasp of himself. More than once since their meeting at the steps of the Pullman car he had felt obliged to reassure himself by saying, "This is Tom; this is my son." There were so many and such marked changes: the quick, curt speech, caught in the Northland; the nervous, sure-footed stride, and the athletic swing of the shoulders; the easy manner and confident air, not of college-boy conceit, but of the assurance of young manhood; and, lastly, this blunt right-about-face in matters of religion. Caleb was not quite sure that this latter change was entirely welcome.

"Whereabouts did ye learn to call it superstition, son? Not at your mammy's knee, leastwise," he said, in sober deprecation.

Tom shook his head. "No; and not altogether at yours. But I guess I've worked around to your point of view, after so long a time."

"It's your mammy's faith, all the same, Buddy," said the father gravely. "Let's not belittle it any more'n we can help."

"I don't belittle it," was the quick response. "In some of its phases it is grand--magnificent. We can't always be prying into the cause; the effect is what counts. And there is no denying that the fairy tale which we call Christianity has built some of the most godlike heroes the world has ever seen."

"You're right sure now that it is a fairy story, son?" said the old man, a little wistfully.

"There is no doubt about that," was the decisive rejoinder. "There is room for credulity only in ignorance. Any thinking person who is brought face to face with the materialistic facts--"

Caleb held up a toil-hardened hand.

"Hold on, Buddy; you'll have to pick a place where the water deepens sort o' gradually for the old man or you'll have him flounderin'. I reckon I been sittin' up on the bank all my life, waitin' for somebody to come along and pole the bottom for me in that pool."

"No," said Tom definitively. "There isn't any bank to that pool. You're in it, or you are out of it; one or the other. That was the notion I took with me to Boston. I thought I'd get well up above the eternal wrangle and look down on it--wouldn't believe, wouldn't disbelieve. It can't be done. Jesus, Himself, said, if they've reported Him straight, 'He that is not with me is against me.'"

"Well," said the father, still deprecating, "that's some farther along than I've ever been able to get--not sayin' that I wouldn't be willin' to go." And then: "You don't allow to argue with your mammy about these things, do you, Tom?"

Tom's rejoinder was gravely considerate.

"It is a sealed book between us, now, pappy. She knows--and knows it can't be helped. If I wasn't her son, I hope I should still be the last person in the world to try to shake her faith--or any one's, for that matter. I have merely turned my own back--because I had to."

The old man put down his coffee-cup and the look in his eyes was half-appealing.

"What was it turned you, son?--nothing I've ever said or done, I hope?"

Tom shook his big blond head slowly.

"No, not directly; though I suppose a man does go back to his father for a measuring-stick. But indirectly you, and the other Gordons, are responsible for the best there is in me--and that's the questioning part. Given the doubt, I hunted till I found the man who could resolve or confirm it."

"Who was he?" inquired Caleb, willing to hear more particularly.

"His name is Bauer--the man I've been rooming with. He is a German biologist who was to have been educated for the Lutheran ministry. His people made the capital mistake of sending him to Freiburg for a couple of years as a preliminary, and, when they found out what the German university had done for him, they sent him to Boston, under the impression that the Puritan American city might correct some of his materialism."

Caleb smiled. "That ain't just the way we think of Boston over here," he remarked.

"No; and, of course, Bauer didn't change his point of view. We used to have it up hill and down. I had Scripture--mother and the Beershebans had taught me that--and Bauer had immense reading, flinty Dutch common sense, and a huge lack of the reverence for the so-called sacred subjects which seems to be ingrained in every race but the Teutonic. I fought hard, both for mother's sake and because it was the first time I had ever met a man with his sword out on the other side."

"Well?" said Caleb.

"He downed me, horse, foot and artillery; made me realize as I never had before what an absolute begging of the premises the entire Christian argument is."

"But how?" persisted the iron-master.

"Held me up at the muzzle of the cold facts. For example: do you happen to know that the oldest Bible manuscripts in existence go back only to the fourth century, and are doubtless copies of copies of copies?"

The father had pushed back his chair and was trying to fold his napkin in the original creases.

"No; there's a heap o' things I don't know, son, but I'm willin' to learn. One o' these days, if we ever get out o' this business tangle alive, we'll sit down quiet together and you'll do for me what this Dutchman has done for you. For, in spite of what you say, I've been sittin' on the fence all these years, and I reckon you're the one to help me down."

Tom smiled first at the thought of it and then grew suddenly sober. It is one thing to be serenely critical for oneself, and quite another to set the pace for a disciple. And when that disciple chances to be one's father?

"I don't know about that, pappy," he said, rather dubiously. "I'd like to have you meet some of the people on my side of the road first. Maybe you wouldn't like the company."