Samuel Merwin - Calumet K

"I don't know yet, myself," she answered. "It isn't that, it isn't that there's something particular to say, but he's a poor man, and they've been telling him that the company is cheating him and stealing from him—I wouldn't like it myself, if I were in his place and didn't know any more than he does. And maybe I can show him that we'll be a good deal fairer to him before we get through than Mr. Grady will."

"Yes," said Bannon, "I think you can. And if you can keep this out of the courts I'll write Brown that there's a young lady down here that's come nearer to earning a big salary than I ever did to deserving a silk hat."

"Oh," she said, the earnest expression skipping abruptly out of her eyes; "did your hat come?"

"Not a sign of it. I'd clean forgotten. I'll give Brown one more warning— a long 'collect' telegram, about forty words—and then if he doesn't toe up, I'll get one and send him the bill.

"There was a man that looked some like Grady worked for me on the Galveston house. He was a carpenter, and thought he stood for the whole Federation of Labor. He got gay one day. I warned him once, and then I threw him off the distributing floor."

Hilda thought he was joking until she looked up and saw his face.

"Didn't it—didn't it kill him?" she asked.

"I don't remember exactly. I think there were some shavings there." He stood looking at her for a moment. "Do you know," he said, "if Grady comes up on the job again, I believe I'll tell him that story? I wonder if he'd know what I meant."

The spouting house, or "river house," was a long, narrow structure, one hundred feet by thirty-six, built on piles at the edge of the wharf. It would form, with the connecting belt gallery that was to reach out over the tracks, a T-shaped addition to the elevator. The river house was no higher than was necessary for the spouts that would drop the grain through the hatchways of the big lake steamers, twenty thousand bushels an hour— it reached between sixty and seventy feet above the water. The marine tower that was to be built, twenty-four feet square, up through the centre of the house, would be more than twice as high. A careful examination convinced Bannon that the pile foundations would prove strong enough to support this heavier structure, and that the only changes necessary would be in the frame of the spouting house. On the same day that the plans arrived, work on the tower commenced.

Peterson had about got to the point where startling developments no longer alarmed him. He had seen the telegram the day before, but his first information that a marine tower was actually under way came when Bannon called off a group of laborers late in the afternoon to rig the "trolley" for carrying timber across the track.

"What are you going to do, Charlie?" he called. "Got to slide them timbers back again?"

"Some of 'em," Bannon replied.

"Don't you think we could carry 'em over?" said Peterson. "If we was quiet about it, they needn't be any trouble?"

Bannon shook his head.

"We're not taking any more chances on this railroad. We haven't time."

Once more the heavy timbers went swinging through the air, high over the tracks, but this time back to the wharf. Before long the section boss of the C. & S. C. appeared, and though he soon went away, one of his men remained, lounging about the tracks, keeping a close eye on the sagging ropes and the timbers. Bannon, when he met Peterson a few minutes later, pointed out the man.

"What'd I tell you, Pete? They're watching us like cats. If you want to know what the C. & S. C. think about us, you just drop one timber and you'll find out."

But nothing dropped, and when Peterson, who had been on hand all the latter part of the afternoon, took hold, at seven o'clock, the first timbers of the tower had been set in place, somewhere down inside the rough shed of a spouting house, and more would go in during the night, and during other days and nights, until the narrow framework should go reaching high into the air. Another thing was recognized by the men at work on that night shift, even by the laborers who carried timbers, and grunted and swore in strange tongues; this was that the night shift men had suddenly begun to feel a most restless energy crowding them on, and they worked nearly as well as Bannon's day shifts. For Peterson's spirits had risen with a leap, once the misunderstanding that had been weighing on him had been removed, and now he was working as he had never worked before. The directions he gave showed that his head was clearer; and there was confidence in his manner.

Hilda was so serious all day after her talk with Bannon that once, in the afternoon, when he came into the office for a glance at the new pile of blue prints, he smiled, and asked if she were laying out a campaign. It was the first work of the kind that she had ever undertaken, and she was a little worried over the need for tact and delicacy. After she had closed her desk at supper time, she saw Bannon come into the circle of the electric light in front of the office, and, asking Max to wait, she went to meet him.

"Well," he said, "are you loaded up to fight the 'power of the union'?"

She smiled, and then said, with a trace of nervousness:—

"I don't believe I'm quite so sure about it as I was this morning."

"It won't bother you much. When you've made him see that we're square and Grady isn't, you've done the whole business. We won't pay fancy damages, that's all."

"Yes," she said, "I think I know. What I wanted to see you about was— was—Max and I are going over right after supper, and—"

She stopped abruptly; and Bannon, looking down at her, saw a look of embarrassment come into her face; and then she blushed, and lowering her eyes, fumbled with her glove. Bannon was a little puzzled. His eyes rested on her for a moment, and then, without understanding why, he suddenly knew that she had meant to ask him to see her after the visit, and that the new personal something in their acquaintance had flashed a warning. He spoke quickly, as if he were the first to think of it.

"If you don't mind, I'll come around tonight and hear the report of the committee of adjusters. That's you, you know. Something might come up that I ought to know right away."

"Yes," she replied rapidly, without looking up, "perhaps that would be the best thing to do."

He walked along with her toward the office, where Max was waiting, but she did not say anything, and he turned in with: "I won't say good-night, then. Good luck to you."

It was soon after eight that Bannon went to the boarding-house where Hilda and Max lived, and sat down to wait in the parlor. When a quarter of an hour had gone, and they had not returned, he buttoned up his coat and went out, walking slowly along the uneven sidewalk toward the river. The night was clear, and he could see, across the flats and over the tracks, where tiny signal lanterns were waving and circling, and freight trains were bumping and rumbling, the glow of the arc lamps on the elevator, and its square outline against the sky. Now and then, when the noise of the switching trains let down, he could hear the hoisting engines. Once he stopped and looked eastward at the clouds of illuminated smoke above the factories and at the red blast of the rolling mill. He went nearly to the river and had to turn back and walk slowly. Finally he heard Max's laugh, and then he saw them coming down a side street.

"Well," he said, "you don't sound like bad news."

"I don't believe we are very bad," replied Hilda.

"Should say not," put in Max. "It's finer'n silk."

Hilda said, "Max," in a low voice, but he went on:—

"The best thing, Mr. Bannon, was when I told him it was Hilda that had been sending things around. He thought it was you, you see, and Grady'd told him it was all a part of the game to bamboozle him out of the money that was rightfully his. It's funny to hear him sling that Grady talk around. I don't think he more'n half knows what it means. I'd promised not to tell, you know, but I just saw there wasn't no use trying to make him understand things without talking pretty plain. There ain't a thing he wouldn't do for Hilda now—"