Half a Rogue Part 38

The elder Bennington was one of those men who, with a firm standing on the present, lay admirable plans for the future. He had been in no great hurry to get rich. He went leisurely about it, tantalizing fortune, it might be said. His first venture had shown foresight. At the beginning of the Civil War he had secured an option on many thousand tons of coal. Without taking an actual penny from his pockets, he had netted a comfortable fortune. Again, his foresight recognized that the day would come when the whole continent would gird itself in steel. With his ready money he bought ground and built a small mill. This prospered. He borrowed from the banks, and went on building. Ten years pa.s.sed. The property was unenc.u.mbered; he had paid both interest and princ.i.p.al. He did not believe in stock-holders. He sold no stock. Every nail, bolt and screw was his; every brick, stone and beam. There were no directors to meddle with his plans, no fool's hand to block his progress, to thwart his vast projects. Slowly he became rich, for every piece of steel that went out to the purchasers was honest steel. Sagacity and loyalty overcame all obstacles. Many a time he might have sold at a handsome profit. But selling wasn't his idea; he had a son. Besides, this was his life-work, and he detested the idle rich, which at that time were just coming into evidence.

He never speculated; but he bought government bonds, railroad bonds, munic.i.p.al bonds, for he had great faith in his country. He had the same faith in his native city, too, for he secured all the bank stock that came his way. Out of every ten dollars he earned he invested five, saved three, and spent two. He lived well, but not ostentatiously. He never gave directly to charities, but he gave work to hundreds, and made men self-reliant and independent, which is a far n.o.bler charity. He never denied himself a vacation; he believed that no man should live and die at his desk. There was plenty of time for work and plenty for play; but neither interfered with the other. He was an ardent fisherman, a keen hunter, and a lover of horses.

More than all these things, he was one of those rare individuals one seldom meets--the born father. He made a man of his son and a woman of his daughter. When he sent the boy to England, he knew that the boy might change his clothes, but neither his character nor his patriotism. He voted independently; he was never a party man; thus, public office was never thrust in his way. Perhaps he was too frankly honest. He never worried when his son reached the mating age. "Whoever my boy marries will be the woman he loves, and he is too much his father's son not to love among his equals." He was a college-bred man besides, but few knew this. He had an eye for paintings, an ear for music, and a heart for a good book. It is this kind of man whom nature allows to be reproduced in his children.

He was gruff, but this gruffness was simply a mask to keep at arm's length those persons whom he did not desire for friends.

When he died he left a will that was a model of its kind. There were not a hundred lines in the doc.u.ment. He divided his fortune into three parts, but he turned the shops over to his son John, without stipulations, wholly and absolutely, to do with them as he pleased.

But he had written a letter in which he had set forth his desires. It may be understood at once that these desires readily coincided with those of the son.

John had not begun in the office. On the contrary, during school vacations he worked as a puddler's apprentice, as a molder's apprentice, in the rail-shop, in the sheet-and wire-shops. He worked with his hands, too, and drew his envelope on Sat.u.r.day nights like the rest of them. There was never any talk about John's joining the union; the men looked upon his efforts good-naturedly and as a joke. The father, with wisdom always at his elbow, never let the fishing trips go by. John had his play. At the age of twenty he knew as much about the manufacture of steel as the next one. He loved the night shifts, when the whole place seethed and glowed like an inferno. This manual education had done something else, too. It had broadened his shoulders, deepened his chest, and flattened his back. Many a time the old man used to steal out and watch the young Hercules, stripped to the waist, drag rails to the cooling-room. When John entered college athletics he was not closely confined to the training-tables.

Under the guidance of such a father, then, there could not be as a result anything less than a thorough man.

On the following Monday morning succeeding the encounter with Bolles, John boarded a car and went out to the shops as usual. He found nothing changed. The clerks in the office were busy with huge ledgers, though it is true that many a hand was less firm than on ordinary days. Rumors were flying about, from clerk to clerk, but none knew what the boss intended to do. From the shops themselves came the roaring and hammering that had gone on these thirty years or more.

Bennington opened his mail and read each letter carefully. There were orders for rails, wire rope and sheets for boilers. The business of the concern always pa.s.sed through his hands first. Even when he was out of town, duplicates of all orders were sent to him. He laid each letter in the flat basket; but this morning there was no "O. K.--J.

B." scrawled across the tops. There would be time enough for that later. He rose and went to the window and looked down into the court.

His heart beat heavily. There was something besides the possibility of a strike on his mind. But he flung this thought aside and returned to the strike. Was it right or was it wrong? Should he follow out his father's request, letter for letter? To punish two or three who were guilty, would it be right to punish several hundred who were not? And those clerks and a.s.sistants yonder, upon whom families depended, who had nothing to do with unionism, one way or the other, what about them? Fate strikes blindly; the innocent fall with the guilty. The a.n.a.lysis of his own desires was quick enough. Surrender? Not much! Not an inch, not a tenth part of an inch, would he move. If men permitted themselves to be sheep in the hands of an unscrupulous man, so much the worse. He promised himself this much: all those who appealed to him honestly, for these he would find employment elsewhere. There were other mills and shops in town that would be glad enough to employ a Bennington man, which signified capability.

"Mr. Bennington?"

John turned. Chittenden, the young English inventor, stood respectfully just within the door.

"Good morning, Mr. Chittenden. How's the invention going? Did you get that special pulley from Pittsburgh yet?"

"The invention is going very well, sir. But it is not of that I wish to speak."

"Have you joined the union, then?" asked Bennington, with a shade of irony which did not escape the keen-eyed Englishman.

"No!" This was not spoken; it was more like a shout. "I have joined no union, and my brain may rot before I do. The truth is, sir, I hear that if the men go out you'll tear down the shops." He hesitated.

"Go on."

"Well, I do not want this to happen on my account. I am young; I can wait; I'll take my tinkering elsewhere. You've been very good to me sir, and I should hate to see you troubled."

"Chittenden, you can't leave me now. If you do, I shall never forgive you. You are a valuable piece of property just now. You are to be my test case, as the lawyers say. If you go now the men will think I weakened and forced you out. You gave me your word that you would stay here till _I_ told you to go."

"There's nothing more to be said, sir. You may depend upon me."

"Thanks. The day you perfect your machine, on that day I shall find the capital to promote it. Good morning."

"The committee was coming up after me, sir," was the reply.

"Ah!" Bennington's eyes flashed. "Then remain to hear what I have to say to them."

All this while the girl at the typewriter never paused.

Clickity-click! clickity-click! Suddenly all noises ceased, all but the noise of the typewriter. The two men looked at each other quickly and comprehensively. There was a tramping of feet on the stairs, and presently a knock on the door. Clickity-click!

"You may go," said Bennington to the girl.

The girl gathered up her notes and pa.s.sed into the main office.

Again came the knock, more aggressive this time.

"Come in."

The committee, headed by Morrissy, entered with shuffling feet.

Morrissy saw the Englishman and scowled.

"Well, gentlemen?" said Bennington, sitting on his desk and resting a foot on his chair.

"We have come to learn what you intend to do about this Britisher,"

began Morrissy.

"I don't recollect your face," replied Bennington thoughtfully. "How long have you been in the shops?"

"I'm not in your shops," returned Morrissy bl.u.s.teringly.

"In that case," said Bennington mildly, "there's the door. I do not see how this matter concerns you."

"Well, it does concern me, as you'll find soon," cried Morrissy, choking with sudden rage.

"I'll give you one minute to make the foot of the stairs. If you're not there at the end of that time, I'll take you by the collar and help you." Bennington drew out his watch.

"He's the head of our union, Mr. Bennington," interposed one of the men, shifting his feet uneasily.

"Oh! Then he's the man who is really making all this trouble?"

Bennington nodded as if he had just arrived at a solution.

"I'm here to see that my men have their rights." Morrissy failed to understand this mild young man. "And it'll take a bigger man than you to throw me out of here. This Britisher either joins the union or he goes."

"If he joins the union he'll be permitted to continue the perfecting of his invention?"

"His invention is not necessary at present. The output as it is meets the demand."

"Look here, Mr. Morrissy, I'll make you a proposition."

"What?"

"You and I will go down to the molding-room and have it out with our fists. If you win, Chittenden goes; if I win, he stays and the men return to work."

"This isn't no kid's play, Mr. Bennington. You've got a big strike looking you in the face."

Bennington laughed. "I'm afraid you're a coward. So Mr. Chittenden must join the union or go. It isn't a question of wage scale or hours; it simply revolves around Mr. Chittenden. Supposing he joins the union, what will you give him to do?" Bennington's voice was that of a man who wishes to know all sides of the question.

"Well, he'll have to learn where they all started from."

"Mr. Chittenden is an expert machinist."