The Major Part 6

In the matter of providing for the expense of his education Larry himself began to take a not unimportant part. During the past two years he had gained not only in size but in the vigour of his health, and in almost every kind of work on the farm he could now take a man's place.

His mother would not permit him to give his time and strength to their own farming operations for the sufficient reason that from these there would be no return in ready money, and ready money was absolutely essential to the success of her plans. The boy was quick, eager and well-mannered, and in consequence had no difficulty in finding employment with the neighbouring farmers. So much was this the case that long before the closing of school in the early summer Larry was offered work for the whole summer by their neighbour, Mr. Martin, at one dollar a day. He could hardly believe his good fortune inasmuch as he had never in all his life been paid at a rate exceeding half that amount.

"I shall have a lot of money, mother," he said, "for my high school now.

I wonder how much it will cost me for the term."

Thereupon his mother seized the opportunity to discuss the problem with him which she knew they must face together.

"Let us see," said his mother.

Then each with pencil and paper they drew up to the table, but after the most careful paring down of expenses and the most optimistic estimate of their resources consistent with fact, they made the rather discouraging discovery that they were still fifty dollars short.

"I can't do it, mother," said Larry, in bitter disappointment.

"We shall not give up yet," said his mother. "Indeed, I think with what we can make out of the farm and garden and poultry, we ought to be able to manage."

But a new and chilling thought had come to the lad. He pondered silently, and as he pondered his face became heavily shadowed.

"Say, mother," he said suddenly, "we can't do it. How much are you going to spend on your clothes?"

"All I need," said his mother brightly.

"But how much?"

"I don't know."

"How much did you spend last year?"

"Oh, never mind, Lawrence; that really does not matter."

But the boy insisted. "Did you spend thirty-one dollars?" His mother laughed at him.

"Did you spend twenty?"

"No."

"Did you spend fifteen?"

"I do not know," said his mother, "and I am not going to talk about it.

My clothes and the girls' clothes will be all right for this year."

"Mother," said Larry, "I am not going to school this year. I am not going to spend thirty-one dollars for clothes while you and the girls spend nothing. I am going to work first, and then go to school. I am not going to school this year." The boy rose from his chair and stood and faced his mother with quivering lips, fighting to keep back the tears.

Mother reached out her hand and drew him toward her. "My darling boy,"

she said in a low voice, "I love to hear you, but listen to me. Are you listening? You must be educated. Nothing must interfere with that.

No suffering is too great to be endured by all of us. The time for education is youth; first because your mind works more quickly and retains better what it acquires, and second because it is a better investment, and you will sooner be able to pay us all back what we spend now. So you will go to school this year, boy, if we can manage it, and I think we can. Some day," she added, patting him on the shoulder, and holding him off from her, "when you are rich you will give me a silk dress."

"Won't I just," cried the boy pa.s.sionately, "and the girls too, and everything you want, and I will give you a good time yet, mother. You deserve the best a woman ever had and I will give it to you."

The mother turned her face away from him and looked out of the window.

She saw not the fields of growing grain but a long vista of happy days ever growing in beauty and in glory until she could see no more for the tears that quietly fell. The boy dropped on his knees beside her.

"Oh, mother, mother," he said. "You have been wonderful to us all, and you have had an awfully hard time. A fellow never knows, does he?"

"A hard time? A hard time?" said his mother, a great surprise in her voice and in her face. "No, my boy, no hard time for me. A dear, dear, lovely time with you all, every day, every day. Never do I want a better time than I have had with you."

The event proved the wisdom of Mrs. Gwynne's determination to put little faith in the optimistic confidence of her husband in regard to the profits to be expected from the operations of the National Machine Company. A year's business was sufficient to demonstrate that the Mapleton branch of the National Machine Company was bankrupt. By every law of life it ought to be bankrupt. With all his many excellent qualities Mr. Gwynne possessed certain fatal defects as a business man.

With him the supreme consideration was simply the getting rid of the machines purchased by him as rapidly and in such large numbers as possible. He cheerfully ignored the laws that governed the elemental item of profit. Hence the relentless Nemesis that sooner or later overtakes those who, whether ignorantly or maliciously, break laws, fell upon the National Machine Company and upon those who had the misfortune to be a.s.sociated with it.

In the wreck of the business Mr. Gwynne's store, upon which the National Machine Company had taken the precaution to secure a mortgage, was also involved. The business went into the hands of a receiver and was bought up at about fifty cents on the dollar by a man recently from western Canada whose specialty was the handling of business wreckage. No one after even a cursory glance at his face would suspect Mr. H. P.

Sleighter of deficiency in business qualities. The snap in the cold grey eye, the firm lines in the long jaw, the thin lips pressed hard together, all proclaimed the hard-headed, cold-hearted, iron-willed man of business. Mr. Sleighter, moreover, had a remarkable instinct for values, more especially for salvage values. It was this instinct that led him to the purchase of the National Machine Company wreckage, which included as well the Mapleton general store, with its a.s.sets in stock and book debts.

Mr. Sleighter's methods with the easy-going debtors of the company in Mapleton and the surrounding district were of such galvanic vigour that even so practiced a procrastinator as Farmer Martin found himself actually drawing money from his h.o.a.rded bank account to pay his store debts--a thing unheard of in that community--and to meet overdue payments upon the various implements which he had purchased from the National Machine Company. It was not until after the money had been drawn and actually paid that Mr. Martin came fully to realise the extraordinary nature of his act.

"That there feller," he said, looking from the receipt in his hand to the store door through which the form of Mr. Sleighter had just vanished, "that there feller, he's too swift fer me. He ain't got any innards to speak of; he'd steal the pants off a dog, he would."

The application of these same galvanically vigorous methods to Mr.

Gwynne's debtors produced surprising results. Mr. Sleighter made the astounding discovery that Mr. Gwynne's business instead of being bankrupt would produce not only one hundred cents on the dollar, but a slight profit as well. This discovery annoyed Mr. Sleighter. He hated to confess a mistake in business judgment, and he frankly confessed he "hated to see good money roll past him." Hence with something of a grudge he prepared to hand over to Mr. Gwynne some twelve hundred and fifty dollars of salvage money.

"I suppose he will be selling out his farm," said Mr. Sleighter in conversation with Mr. Martin. "What's land worth about here?"

"Oh, somewhere about a hundred."

"A hundred dollars an acre!" exclaimed Mr. Sleighter. "Don't try to put anything over on me. Personally I admire your generous, kindly nature, but as a financial adviser you don't shine. I guess I won't bother about that farm anyway."

Mr. Sleighter's question awakened earnest thought in Mr. Martin, and the next morning he approached Mr. Gwynne with a proposition to purchase his farm with its attached buildings. Mr. Martin made it clear that he was chiefly anxious to do a neighbourly turn.

"The house and the stable ain't worth much," he said, "but the farm bein' handy to my property, I own up is worth more to me than to other folks, perhaps. So bein' old neighbours, I am willin' to give four thousand dollars, half cash down, for the hull business."

"Surely that is a low figure," said Mr. Gwynne.

"Low figure!" exclaimed Mr. Martin. "All right, I ain't pressin' it on you; but if you could get any one in this neighbourhood to offer four thousand dollars for your farm, I will give you five hundred extra.

But," he continued, "I ain't pressin' you. Don't much matter to me."

The offer came at a psychologically critical moment, when Mr. Gwynne was desperately seeking escape from an intolerable environment.

"I shall consult Mrs. Gwynne," he said, "and let you know in a few days."

"Don't know as I can wait that long," said Mr. Martin. "I made the offer to oblige you, and besides I got a chance at the Monroe fifty."

"Call to-morrow night," said Mr. Gwynne, and carried the proposal home to his wife.

The suggestion to break up her home to a woman of Mrs. Gwynne's type is almost shattering. In the big world full of nameless terrors the one spot offering shelter and safety for herself and her family was her home. But after all, her husband was her great concern, and she could see he was eager for the change. She made up her mind to the sacrifice and decided that she would break up the home in Mapleton and with her husband try again their fortune.

"But four thousand dollars," she said, "is surely a small price."

"Small? I know it is small, but Martin knows I am in a corner. He is a highway robber."

It was a bitter experience for him to be forced to confess himself a business failure, and with this bitterness there mingled a feeling of hostility toward all successful business men. To him it seemed that in order to win success in business a man must become, like Mr. Martin, a highway robber. In this mood of bitterness and hostility toward successful men, Mr. Sleighter found him the next day.