The Quickening Part 27

The homing train, rus.h.i.+ng around the boundary hills of Paradise, set him down at Gordonia late in the afternoon. There was no one at the station to meet him, but there was bad news in the air which needed no herald to proclaim it. Though it still wanted half an hour of quitting time, the big plant was silent and deserted.

Tom walked out the pike and found his father smoking gloomily on the Woodlawn porch.

"You needn't say it, son," was his low greeting, when Tom had flung himself into a chair. "It was in the South Tredegar papers this morning."

"What was in the papers?"

"About our losin' the Indiany contract. I reckon it was what did the business for us, though there were a-plenty of black looks and a storm brewin' when we missed the pay-day yesterday."

Tom started as if he had been stung.

"Missed the pay-day? Why, I left money in bank for it when I went to Louisville!"

"Yes, I know you did. When Dyckman didn't come out with the pay-rolls yesterday evening I telephoned him. He said Vint Farley, as treasurer of the company, had made a draft on him and taken it all."

Tom sprang out of his chair and the bitter oaths upbubbled and choked him. But he stifled them long enough to say: "And the men?"

"The miners went out at ten o'clock this morning. The blacks would have stood by us, but Ludlow's men drove 'em out--made 'em quit. We're done, Buddy."

Tom dashed his hat on the floor, and the Gordon rage, slow to fire and fierce to scorch and burn when once it was aflame, made for the moment a yelling, cursing maniac of him. In the midst of it he turned, and the tempest of imprecation spent itself in a gasp of dismay. His mother was standing in the doorway, thin, frail, with the sorrow in her eyes that had been there since the long night of chastenings three years agone.

As he looked he saw the growing pallor in her face, the growing speechless horror in her gaze. Then she put out her hands as one groping in darkness and fell before he could reach her.

It was her stalwart son who carried Martha Gordon to her room and laid her gently on the bed, with the husband to follow helplessly behind.

Also, it was Tom, tender and loving now as a woman, who sat upon the edge of the bed, chafing the bloodless hands and striving as he could to revive her.

"I'm afeard you've killed her for sure, this time, son!" groaned the man.

But Tom saw the pale lips move and bent low to catch their whisperings.

What he heard was only the echo of the despairing cry of the broken heart: "_Would G.o.d I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son_!"

XXI

GILGAL

In these days of slowing wheels and silenced anvils South Tredegar had its own troubles, and when some one telephoned the editor of the _Morning Tribune_ that Chiawa.s.see Consolidated had succ.u.mbed at last, he did not deem it worth while to inquire whether the strike at Gordonia was the cause or the consequence of the sudden shut-down.

But a day or two later, when rumors of threatened violence began to trickle in over the telephone wires, a _Tribune_ man called, in pa.s.sing, at the general offices in the Coosa Building, and was promptly put to sleep by the astute Dyckman, who, for reasons of his own, was quite willing to conceal the true state of affairs. Yes, there was a suspension of active operations at Gordonia, and he believed there had been some hot-headed talk among the miners. But there would be no trouble. Mr. Farley was at present in London negotiating for English capital. When he should return, the capital stock of the company would be increased, and the plant would probably be removed to South Tredegar and enlarged.

All of which was duly jotted down to be pa.s.sed into the _Tribune's_ archives; and the following morning Tom, doing guard duty with his father, the two Helgersons and a squad of the yard men at the threatened plant, read a pointless editorial in which misstatement of fact and sympathy for the absent and struggling Farleys were equally and impartially blended.

"Look at that!" he growled wrathfully, handing the paper across the office desk to Caleb. "One of these fine days I'm going to land that fellow Dyckman in the penitentiary."

The iron-master put on his spectacles and plodded slowly and conscientiously through the editorial, turning the paper, at length, to glance over the headings on the telegraphic page. In the middle of it he looked up suddenly to say:

"Son, what was the name o' that Indiany town with the big water-pipe contract?"

Tom gave it in a word, and Caleb pa.s.sed the paper back, with his thumb on one of the press despatches.

"Read that," he said.

Tom read, and the wrathful scowl evoked by the foolish editorial gave place to a flitting smile of triumph. There was trouble in the Indiana city over the awarding of the pipe contract. In some way unknown to the press reporter, it had leaked out that a much lower bid than the one accepted had been ignored by the purchasing committee. A munic.i.p.al election was pending, and the people were up in arms. Rumors of a wholesale indictment of the suspected officials were rife, and the city offices were in a state of siege.

Tom put the paper down and smote on the desk.

"d.a.m.n them!" he said; "I thought perhaps I could give them a run for their money."

"You?" said Caleb, removing his gla.s.ses. "How's that?"

The new recruit in the army of business chicane nodded his head.

"It was a shot in the dark, and I didn't want to brag beforehand," he explained. "I wrestled it out Sat.u.r.day night when I was tramping the hills after Doc Williams had brought mother around. One member of the purchasing committee was ready to dodge; he gave me a pointer before I left Louisville. I didn't see anything in it then but revenge; but afterward I saw how we might spend some money to a possible advantage."

Caleb's eyes had grown narrow.

"I reckon I'm sort o' dull, Buddy; what-all did you do?"

"Wired the disgruntled one that there was a letter and a check in the mail for him, to be followed by another and a bigger if his pole proved long enough to reach the persimmons."

The old iron-master left his chair and began to walk the floor, six steps and a turn. After a little he said:

"Tom, is that business?"

"It is the modern definition of it."

"What's goin' to happen up yonder in Indiany?"

"If I knew, I'd be a good bit easier in my mind. What I'm hoping is that the rumpus will be big enough to make 'em turn the contract our way."

Caleb stopped short.

"My G.o.d!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Where's your heart, Buddy? Would you take the chance of sendin' these fellows to jail for the sake of gettin' that contract?"

"Cheerfully," said Tom. "They're rascals; I could have bought them if I'd had money enough; and the other fellow did buy them."

The old man resumed his monotonous tramp up and down the room. The hardness in Tom's voice unnerved him. After another interval of silence he spoke again.

"I wish you hadn't done it, son. It's a dirty job, any way you look at it."

Tom shrugged.

"Norman says it's a condition, not a theory; and he is right. We are living under a new order of things, and if we want to stay alive, we've got to conform to it. It gagged me at first: I reckon there are some traces of the Christian tradition left. But, pappy, I'm going to win.

That is what I'm here for."

Caleb Gordon shook his head as one who deprecates helplessly, but he sat down again and asked Tom what the programme was to be.