The Landloper Part 25

"Yes, but you have been discharged."

"I understand how it is you know so much stuff to tell me," returned the young man, smiling. "Well, Citizen Drew, I'm going to take the first job that offers itself. Tell 'em that!"

"I'm glad of it," said Citizen Drew, with blunt heartiness. "If you have set out to do anything among the plain folks you've got to be at work in the open, earning honest wages, or they'll suspect you. They have been fooled too often by fakes and loafers. But since you advertised yourself in City Hall you may find jobs a little hard to land. It's pretty much of an air-tight proposition, Consolidated influence."

"I have somebody looking after my interests in that line, Citizen Drew.

I'm not worrying." He opened the door. "In fact, there are two mighty helpful chaps whom I'm going to a.s.sociate with more or less from now on."

"Bring 'em with you and let me know 'em. Can't have too many in a good cause."

"I'll bring them--but they are pretty hard to understand--rather slow getting acquainted--lots of folks have no use for them," said Farr, starting down-stairs.

"What are their names?" asked the inquisitive citizen, eager for more additions to his general stock of information.

"I'll tell you later."

But Farr named them to himself when he was on the street.

"Chance and Humility--I hope you are going to stick by me from now on,"

he muttered. "Chance, you have led me into a queer position and into a strange state of mind. Humility, you are helping me to understand. Now, Chance, what have you to say to me?"

It was more of the fantastic whimsy with which Walker Farr played.

His eyes, searching the street after this challenge to Chance, beheld an ice-wagon rumbling past. It was a neat-looking cart, painted white, and bore the advertis.e.m.e.nt, "Crystal Pure Independent Ice Company."

Another wagon, painted dirty yellow, followed. It was a Consolidated ice-cart; Farr knew those carts with their loads of river-ice.

The spectacle of something which promised rivalry to that yellow cart piqued his interest. His mood welcomed the first adventure which Chance presented. He had found Chance playing peculiar pranks with his affairs in the days just past.

He hurried in pursuit of the white cart and accosted the driver.

"Where can I find the manager of this company?"

"He's up at Coosett Lake this afternoon, sir." The man was respectful.

The stranger's garb and demeanor impressed him. "The trolley will take you pretty near it. Take a car in the square--a Halcyon Park car."

Without canva.s.sing the matter further Farr took the car.

He decided that it was a most comforting sensation, this abandoning his problems to Chance! It saved so much fuss and worry.

He found the little lake at the limits of the park area--a hollow among the hills.

Men were busy at the foot of the slope over whose crest he marched. He saw several rough buildings at the edge of the lake, plainly makeshift ice-houses. One was a new structure and the other two were old barns which had been "darned" here and there with new material, and their yawed sides were propped with joists. Men were loading ice upon carts; the translucent cubes flashed in the rays of the sun.

During the process of his little crusade he had become acquainted with the conditions in the city of Marion and he knew that the Consolidated folks controlled the ice-supply as well as the water. They held an iron grip by legislative charter on all the riparian rights along the river and allowed no one else to operate an ice-field. He had seen and sniffed the unwholesome slime which a melted cake of Consolidated ice deposited.

When he found opportunity he accosted a man in corduroy. He was a big chap, bronzed by the sun, and Farr singled him out as the manager because he had been directing the other workers while he toiled himself.

"It's a little business of my own," said the man. "I have started in independent."

"I had thought the Consolidated had control of everything."

"They would control everything if they could. They wouldn't let me run my carts through the city streets if they knew how to stop me. I worked for them fifteen years, lugging their dirty ice on my back, up stairs and down, and I know that crowd. I don't understand much of anything but the ice business, mister, whoever you are. But I wouldn't lug any more of that ice into homes. I put my savings in here, every cent, hired these barns and a sh.o.r.e privilege, and I'm selling clean ice. But I'm going to lose every blamed cent! It's no use. I can't buck 'em. Excuse me! It's no interest to you. My mouth runs away with me when I get talking about that gang."

He went back to the barn to help his men shift a runway.

Farr waited patiently until he was able to speak to the busy man again.

"I don't mean to bother you, sir," he said, humbly. "But I am interested in this proposition of yours. I have worked for the Consolidated, myself. I was discharged because I stood up and d.a.m.ned their water before the mayor and aldermen."

"Say, I heard something about that!" cried the iceman, displaying prompt interest and admiration. "The boys said it was good work."

"I mention it merely to put myself right with you."

"Then say on ahead, my friend!"

"Do you tell me you can't make a go of this?"

"I'm afraid I can't. It's a half-mile haul for me to the nearest siding.

The railroad folks don't give me any better rate than they're obliged to--and you know why that is! And I have to have another set of carts for the city delivery. And no capital to work with! I'm up against a crowd that has all the money, plenty of equipment, and has its supply right at the back door of the city--and it belongs at the back door! But you know what the buying public is! The only reason why I have lasted is because my old customers gave me their business and are sticking pretty well."

"My friend," declared Farr, putting his hand on the shoulder bent and ridged by many years of ice-toting, "lots of men who are making money as missionaries are not doing half the good in the world you're doing.

You're certainly showing some of the citizens of Marion the difference between good ice and frozen gobs of pestilence."

"A fellow needs grit, grace, gumption, and a lot of missionary spirit to fight what I'm fighting, mister. I ain't going to say anything about a lot of obstacles the syndicate has put in my way. Those were to be expected in the way of regular business compet.i.tion. But you can see I have only got limited resources here, and I can't afford a big outfit in the city. Sometimes I have run short, the best I could do--and it's mighty little sleep I have. And the Consolidated drivers have refused to sell ice to anybody who has been buying of me even when mothers have pleaded so as to keep milk for sick babies from souring. That's orders from headquarters! You wouldn't think that the same big chaps who boss the governor of the state would get down to such nubbins as that, eh?

But they do--that's their system. They used to tell me that it's the only way a big syndicate can keep its grip--never leave a bar down! Yes, sir, they have blacklisted my customers until they'll be good and give the Consolidated a yearly contract. More than that, they pa.s.s word along that I'll be out of business by another season and that folks who have bought of me this year will be given the go-by next! Can you beat it?"

"Are you going to see out to them?"

"No," said the iceman, grimly. "There are two good reasons: I won't sell and they won't buy. They will kill me out so that n.o.body else will be encouraged to try the scheme again."

"I want a job," stated Farr, curtly. "I want to work for you. Give me a place on one of your carts in the city."

"Say, look here," blurted the other man, frankly astonished, "you look more like a gent than an iceman!"

"No matter what I look like. The main question is, can I lug ice? Feel of my muscle!"

"It may be a poor outlook for your pay--working for me," warned the proprietor. "And if you ever want another job in Marion you may be blacklisted. I don't want to get you into a sc.r.a.pe."

"I can't be in any worse sc.r.a.pe than the one I am in now. Haven't I just told you who I am?"

"Oh, I know that! I reckon you're the same fellow. But, see here, mister, I'm one of those simple kind of galoots--and the less a man knows the more suspicious he is. You ain't wanting to work for me just because you need a job!"

"I do need a job! I have spent the little money I had by me after I was fired by the Consolidated. I had some special expenses--the funeral of a--a friend," he added, wistfulness in his tones. He drove his hand into his pockets and exhibited a few small coins in his palm when he pulled his hand out. "That's my cash--every cent of it!"

"Sure! I see it. But money's easy enough to come at by a fellow like you when he needs it. You haven't come across all square with me yet!" It was not mere inquisitiveness; it was the insistence of a plain man who wanted a definite peg on which to hitch the first warp of a.s.sociation.

"You've got to handle money of mine," he went on. "I'm in a tight place and I have got to have the right men tied up with me. I wouldn't have to ask one of those boys yonder why he wanted to lug ice. But you ain't no ordinary slouch, mister. You don't do things--not many of 'em--unless you've got a good reason for same." It was the instinct of ingenuousness. "Keep it all to yourself if you want to. But in that case you'll have to excuse _me_!"