Samuel Merwin - Calumet K

Bannon in person superintended rigging the new hoist. It was ready for work within two hours after the accident. "She's guyed a little better than the other was, I think," said Bannon to the foreman. "You won't have any more trouble. Go ahead."

"How about the load?"

"Carry the same load as before. You weren't any more than keeping up."

Five minutes after the noon whistle blew, on Saturday, every carpenter and laborer knew that Bannon had "pulled a gun" on Reilly. Those who heard it last heard more than that, for when the story had passed through a few hands it was bigger and it took longer to tell. And every man, during the afternoon, kept his eyes more closely on his work. Some were angry, but these dropped from muttering into sullenness; the majority were relieved, for a good workman is surer of himself under a firm than under a slack hand; but all were cowed. And Bannon, when after dinner he looked over the work, knew more about all of them and their feelings, perhaps, than they knew themselves. He knew, too, that the incident might in the long run make trouble. But trouble was likely in any case, and it was better to meet it after he had established his authority than while discipline was at loose ends.

But Hilda and Max were disappointed. They were in the habit of talking over the incidents and problems of the day every night after supper. And while Hilda, as Max used to say, had a mind of her own, she had fallen into the habit of seeing things much as Max saw them. Max had from the start admired, in his boyish way, Peterson's big muscles and his easy good nature. He had been the first to catch the new spirit that Bannon had got into the work, but it was more the outward activity that he could understand and admire than Bannon's finer achievements in organization. Like Hilda, he did not see the difference between dropping a hammer down a bin and overloading a hoist. Bannon's distinction between running risks in order to push the work and using caution in minor matters was not recognized in their talks. And as Bannon was not in the habit of giving his reasons, the misunderstanding grew. But more than all Max felt, and in a way Hilda felt, too, that Peterson would never have found it necessary to use a revolver; his fists would have been enough for a dozen Reillys. Max did not tell Hilda about all the conversations he and Peterson had had during the last week, for they were confidential. Peterson had never been without a confidant, and though he still shared a room with Bannon, he could not talk his mind out with him. Max, who to Bannon was merely an unusually capable lumber-checker, was to Peterson a friend and adviser. And though Max tried to defend Bannon when Peterson fell into criticism of the way the work was going, he was influenced by it.

During the few days after the accident Hilda was so deeply distressed about the injured man that Max finally went to see him.

"He's pretty well taken care of," he said when he returned. "There's some ribs broken, he says, and a little fever, but it ain't serious. He's got a couple of sneaking little lawyers around trying to get him to sue for damages, but I don't think he'll do it. The Company's giving him full pay and all his doctor's bills."

Nearly every evening after that Max took him some little delicacy. Hilda made him promise that he would not tell who sent them.

Bannon had quickly caught the changed attitude toward him, and for several days kept his own counsel. But one morning, after dictating some letters to Hilda, he lingered.

"How's our fund getting on?" he said, smiling. "Have you looked lately?"

"No," she said, "I haven't."

He leaned over the railing and opened the box.

"It's coming slow," he said, shaking his head. "Are you sure nobody's been getting away from us?"

Hilda was seated before the typewriter. She turned partly around, without taking her ringers from the keys.

"I don't know," she said quietly. "I haven't been watching it."

"We'll have to be stricter about it," said Bannon. "These fellows have got to understand that rules are rules."

He spoke with a little laugh, but the remark was unfortunate. The only men who came within the railing were Max and Peterson.

"I may have forgotten it, myself," she said.

"That won't do, you know. I don't know but what I can let you off this time—I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Vogel: I'll make a new rule that you can come in without wiping your feet if you'll hand in a written excuse. That's the way they did things when I went to school." He turned to go, then hesitated again. "You haven't been out on the job yet, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"I rather think you'd like it. It's pretty work, now that we're framing the cupola. If you say so, I'll fix it for you to go up to the distributing floor this afternoon."

She looked back at the machine.

"The view ain't bad," he went on, "when you get up there. You can see down into Indiana, and all around. You could see all Chicago, too, if it wasn't for the smoke."

There was a moment's silence.

"Why, yes, Mr. Bannon," she said; "I'd like to go very much."

"All right," he replied, his smile returning. "I'll guarantee to get you up there somehow, if I have to build a stairway. Ninety feet's pretty high, you know."

When Bannon reached the elevator he stood for a moment in the well at the west end of the structure. This well, or "stairway bin," sixteen by thirty-two feet, and open from the ground to the distributing floor, occupied the space of two bins. It was here that the stairway would be, and the passenger elevator, and the rope-drive for the transmission of power from the working to the distributing floor. The stairway was barely indicated by rude landings. For the present a series of eight ladders zigzagged up from landing to landing. Bannon began climbing; halfway up he met Max, who was coming down, time book in hand.

"Look here, Max," he said, "we're going to have visitors this afternoon. If you've got a little extra time I'd like to have you help get things ready."

"All right," Max replied. "I'm not crowded very hard today."

"I've asked your sister to come up and see the framing."

Max glanced down between the loose boards on the landing.

"I don't know," he said slowly; "I don't believe she could climb up here very well."

"She won't have to. I'm going to put in a passenger elevator, and carry her up as grand as the Palmer House. You put in your odd minutes between now and three o'clock making a box that's big and strong enough."

Max grinned.

"Say, that's all right. She'll like that. I can do most of it at noon."

Bannon nodded and went on up the ladders. At the distributing floor he looked about for a long timber, and had the laborers lay it across the well opening. The ladders and landings occupied only about a third of the space; the rest was open, a clear drop of eighty feet.

At noon he found Max in an open space behind the office, screwing iron rings into the corners of a stout box. Max glanced up and laughed.

"I made Hilda promise not to come out here," he said. He waved his hand toward the back wall of the office. Bannon saw that he had nailed strips over the larger cracks and knot holes. "She was peeking, but I shut that off before I'd got very far along. I don't think she saw what it was. I only had part of the frame done."

"She'll be coming out in a minute," said Bannon.

"I know. I thought of that." Max threw an armful of burlap sacking over the box. "That'll cover it up enough. I guess it's time to quit, anyway, if I'm going to get any dinner. There's a little square of carpet up to the house that I'm going to get for the bottom, and we can run pieces of half-inch rope from the rings up to a hook, and sling it right on the hoist."