The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 7

"Why not Harrington & c.o.x?" she retorted with a nervous little laugh. We were on the steps then, and Ed joined us, so that I did not have to answer her invitation. But all through the meal I kept thinking of her suggestion. It was nearly two years since she had introduced me to the Enterprise, and I had saved up several hundred dollars in the meantime, which I wanted to put into some business of my own. But it did not quite suit my card to run a retail market. After supper the others left us in the dining room, and when we were alone Hillary said:--

"Well, what do you think of the firm name? It wouldn't be so impossible.

I've got considerable money saved up, and I guess you have some in the bank, too. It wouldn't be the first time in this town that a clerk's name followed a busted owner's over the door."

She spoke in a light kind of way, but a tone in her voice made me look up. It struck me suddenly that this thing might mean a partnership for life, as well as a partnership for meat and groceries. Hillary c.o.x was an attractive woman, and she would make a splendid wife for a poor man, doing her part to save his money. Between us, no doubt, we could make a good business out of the old Enterprise, and more, too!

"That firm name sounds pretty well," I answered slowly, somewhat embarra.s.sed.

"Yes--I thought it pretty good."

Suddenly she turned her face shyly away from my eyes. She was a woman, and a lovable, warm-hearted one. Perhaps she was dreaming of a home and a family--of just that plain, ordinary happiness which our unambitious fathers and mothers took out of life. I liked her all the better for it; but when I tried to say something tender, that would meet her wish, I couldn't find a word from my heart: there was nothing but a hollow feeling inside me. And the thought came over me, hard and selfish, that a man like me, who was bound on a long road, travels best alone.

"I don't know as I want to sell coffee and potatoes all my life," I said at last, and my voice sounded colder than I meant to make it.

"Oh!" she gave a little gasp, as if some one had struck her. "You're very ambitious, Mr. Harrington," she said coldly. "I hope you'll get all you think you deserve, I am sure."

"Well, that wouldn't be much--only I am going to try for more than I deserve--see?" I laughed as easily as I could.

We talked a little longer, and then she made some kind of excuse--we had planned to go out that evening--and left me, bidding me good night as if I were a stranger. I felt small and mean, yet glad, too, to speak the truth--that I hadn't made a false step just there and pretended to more than I could carry through.

Some time later Sloc.u.m looked in at the door, and, seeing me alone, came into the room. He had a grim kind of smile on his face, as if he suspected what had been happening.

"Where's Grace?" I asked him.

"Just about where your Hillary is," he answered dryly; "gone off with another fellow."

I laughed. We looked at each other for some time.

"Well?" I said.

"He travels fastest who travels alone," he drawled, using the very words that had been in my mind. "But it is a shame--Miss c.o.x is a nice woman."

"So is the other."

"Yes, but it can't be--or anything like it."

And the difference between us was that I believe he really cared.

So the Enterprise Market crumbled rapidly to its end, while I kept my eye open for a landing-place when I should have to jump. One day I was sent over to Dround's to see why our usual order of meats hadn't been delivered. I was referred to the manager. Carmichael, as I have said, was a burly, red-faced Irishman--and hot-tempered. His black hair stood up all over his head, and when he moved he seemed to wrench his whole big carca.s.s with the effort. As I made my errand known to him, he growled something at me. I gathered that he didn't think favorably of the Enterprise and all that belonged thereto.

"They can't have any more," he said. "I told your boss so the last time I was over."

I hung on, not knowing exactly what to say or do.

"I guess they must have it this time," I ventured after a while.

"'Guess they must have it'! Who are you?"

He thrust his big head over the top of his desk and looked at me, laying his cigar down deliberately, as if he meant to throw me out of the office for my impudence.

"Oh!" I said as easily as I could, "I'm one of their help."

"Well, my son, maybe you know better than I what they do with their money? They don't pay us."

I knew he was trying to pump me about the Enterprise. I smiled and told him nothing, but I got that order delivered. Once or twice more, having been successful with the manager, I was sent on the same errand.

Carmichael swore at me, bullied me, and jollied me, as his mood happened to be. Finally he said in earnest:--

"Joyce's got to the end of his rope, kid. You needn't come in here again. The firm will collect in the usual way."

I had seen all along that this was bound to come, and had made up my mind what I should do in the event.

"Do you hear?" the Irishman roared. "What are you standing there for?

Get along and tell your boss I'll put a sheriff over there."

"I guess I have come to stay," I replied easily.

"Come to stay?" he said with a grin. "How much, kid?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Do you hear?" the Irishman roared._]

"All you will give me."

"What are you getting?"

"Twenty."

"I'll give you fifteen to drive a wagon," he said offhand, "and I'll fire you in a week if you haven't anything better with you than your cheek."

"All right," I said coolly, not letting him see that I was ruffled by his rough tongue.

In that way I made the second round of the ladder, and went whistling out of Dround's packing-house into the murky daylight of the Stock Yards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _My part was to drive a wagon for Dround at fifteen a week._]

I liked it all. Something told me that here was my field--this square plot of prairie, where is carried on the largest commissariat business of the world. In spite of its filth and its ugly look, it fired my blood to be a part of it. There's something pretty close to the earth in all of us, if we have the stomach to do the world's work: men of bone and sinew and rich blood, the strong men who do the deeds at the head of the ranks, feed close to the earth. The lowing cattle in the pens, the squealing hogs in the cars, the smell of the fat carca.s.ses in the heavy wagons drawn by the sleek Percherons--it all made me think of the soft, fertile fields from which we take the grain--the blood and flesh that enter into our being.

The bigness of it all! The one sure fact before every son and daughter of woman is the need of daily bread and meat. To feed the people of the earth--that is a man's business. My part was to drive a wagon for Dround at fifteen a week, but I walked out of the Yards with the swagger of a packer!

CHAPTER VI

FIRST BLOOD

_Wholesale--The little envies of life--Learning how to read--What there might be in sausage--Schemes--A rise in life--Big John's favoring eye--Going short of pork--Uncertainty--Five thousand dollars in the bank_