CHAPTER V
For the next fortnight Jim Ashe was too busy to give thought to his new environment, to study the new world to which he had been translated. He was studying the clothespin business. It is true he did not come to his work wholly unprepared; being Clothespin Jimmy’s son, that was impossible. His father had talked it, thought it, dreamed it. Jim had assimilated it with his meals. Also, as a boy, before his college days, in vacation times when college days arrived, he had worked in the mills and acquired for the business that distaste which he once vainly fancied was to lead him down widely different vocational paths.
As a lad he had counted and packed pins; later he had dogged in the sawmill; one vacation he had calloused and slivered his hands feeding the drum. He had scaled timber; he had been chore-boy for old Pazzy Miller, the pinmaker. These various jobs were given him out of his father’s wisdom to show him the how and the why of all steps in the manufacture. Nor was he ignorant of other branches of the business, for clothespins were not the sole product, though they were its backbone. He was not unacquainted with the mysteries of the veneer lathe nor with the making of wood ashes. He understood somewhat the technic of the turner, and the processes which went to the making of wooden spoons, rolling-pins, drumsticks, and the like—all turned from seasoned lumber.
Those things he knew as a workman. Something of the marketing problems his father had been able to drop unsuspected into his mind, but this was all incoherent, not card-indexed and pigeonholed and ready for instant use. Jim spent his time—not occupied by immediately pressing concerns and events—in preparing the knowledge he had, in adding to it; in short, in preparing himself as best he could to handle and husband the property that was his. It was surprisingly like trying to swim after a course of twenty lessons from a correspondence school.
A week before the machinery was ready to turn over, the office force with its paraphernalia arrived from the old office and was installed in the new. It consisted of one stenographer, picked by Clothespin Jimmy wholly for efficiency and not at all for adornment; of a middle-aged bookkeeper, who seemed to have been born with something more than the normal quantity of organs, for there grew from his forehead a green eye-shade, without which he was never seen, and there sprouted in his right hand a pen. There was also an assistant bookkeeper, whose business in life was to act and look as much like the bookkeeper, Mr. Grierson, as possible; and a shipping-clerk, whose familiarity with freight-rates and with the occult business of routing freight-cars so they would arrive where they were intended to go, instead of at the other side of the continent, was such as to arouse Jim’s admiration.
The clothespin war was as yet a minor trouble. He had one letter from the secretary of the Club, informing him that the price he had quoted was cut by another five per cent. This cut he met immediately. A flood of orders came in from brokers, traveling-men, wholesalers—all rushing to take advantage of the low market to stock up. These Jim culled over carefully, accepting only enough to keep his plant running to capacity, not overloading himself with orders which he would have to fill in case of a cessation of hostilities and consequent soaring of price.
He called into conference his superintendent, millwright, master mechanic, and the foremen of his departments, but it was not a conference, as the event proved. It consisted merely of a brief statement by Jim.
“The job you fellows are up against,” he said, “is to manufacture better and cheaper than anybody else. Prices are down. I believe we can still show a profit. Any man who has an idea that will save a tenth of a cent on a box of pins will find it profitable to bring it to me. What’s the best day’s average you made in the old plant, Pete?”
“Seventy-five boxes a machine,” said the old pinmaker.
“I’m expecting eighty here,” Jim told him. “It costs as much to operate a machine making sixty boxes as it does eighty. If you can make eighty, the extra five will come close to being profit. Don’t let a machine, a lathe, a saw, waste machine hours. Everything has got to run; it has got to run constantly, and it has got to produce the greatest quantity that is physically possible. I’m depending on you men. We have a new crew in large part. I want them to feel I’m depending on them. Tell every girl, every man of the crew, that the Ashe Clothespin Company is depending on her or on him, and that each may depend on me. If I expect them to give me a square deal, I expect myself to give them a square deal. Tell them that. There’ll be no dissatisfaction or labor trouble here if I can help it—and I can. I guess that’s all. Now get at it.”
The men looked at one another; old Pete scratched his head and grinned, and they filed out. Their feeling, if one was to judge from their faces, was one of satisfaction and confidence. They believed in the new boss, and that is the first step toward a feeling of affection.
It was that afternoon that Zaanan Frame drove his old horse Tiffany—named, as Jim found out, after the greatest of legal books, Tiffany’s Justices’ Guide—up to the mill and rheumatically climbed to the office.
“Afternoon,” said he. “Name’s Jim, hain’t it?”
Jim nodded curtly. He suspected the justice of being no friend of his, but an ally of the other camp.
“All right, Jim. Last names was made for fellers that git to be postmasters. Couldn’t sort the mail without ’em. Hain’t for every-day use no more ’n plug hats.”
“What can I do for you, Judge?” Jim asked, offishly.
The old fellow regarded him a moment in silence.
“Wa-al, you might put more sugar into your coffee. Need sweet’nin’ up. Still livin’ to the hotel, eh? All the comforts of home? Suits you to a tee?”
“The meals are all right,” said Jim, unbending a trifle, “but that’s all you can say.”
“Um! What’s home without a motto over the door? Hain’t met Mis’ Stickney? Course not. Widder woman twice repeated. Machinery runnin’? Um! Got her goin’ quicker ’n folks expected.”
“We hurried things up a bit.”
“To be sure. Never seen sich a woman as the Widder Stickney for house-cleanin’. Best housekeeper in the county. Mill makes a heap of difference in Diversity. Kind of irritatin’ to Lafe Meggs up to the store. Says somebody’s always comin’ in and disturbin’ him to buy somethin’ or other. Calc’lates he’ll have to hire a clerk. Lafe’s ambitions mostly requires a sittin’ posture.”
“How big is this town, Judge?”
“About a dozen people and five hundred folks. Take in the newspaper, Jim?”
“I take a Grand Rapids paper.”
“Take in the Diversity paper, Jim?”
“No.”
“Um! Comes out Thursdays. Int’restin’ readin’ into it sometimes. The Widder Stickney got her second husband on the strength of her cookin’. Calc’late she could git a third with it, but she allows husbands is so fleetin’ and funeral expenses is so high ’twouldn’t hardly pay. Name of the paper is the Diversity Eagle. Business perty good, eh? Keepin’ up brisk?”
“We manage to keep from loafing.”
“To be sure. Loafin’s the leadin’ sport here. Calc’late Dolf Springer’s our champion jest now. Interestin’ piece in the paper this week. Several interestin’ pieces. Don’t take it in, eh? Early riser, hain’t you? See you walkin’ ’fore breakfast.”
Jim wondered if the old justice had any ulterior meaning in this observation. He had arisen early each morning and tramped out into the country. Sometimes he had been close to admitting to himself that this was not wholly for the air and exercise. Indeed, he had wondered if something much more material and human had not been at the root of the matter. There, for instance, was that young woman whom he had encountered on top of the knoll. She walked of mornings, too—and she was an interesting if not attractive individual. She puzzled him. He even went so far as to be vaguely anxious about her, for her state of mind had not appealed to him as one conducive to normal and conventional behavior. He wondered if Zaanan Frame knew of that encounter, or knew of that subsequent meeting—and passing—a week later when Miss Ducharme had come face to face with him at a turn of the road and had gone by with nothing to indicate she was aware of his existence except a scornful flash of her black eyes.
“Somebody was sayin’,” he heard Zaanan observe, “that the Widder Stickney had a spare room she was thinkin’ of rentin’. Yes, sir, if I was goin’ to read the Diversity Eagle I figger this week’s issue’d be the one I’d look for. Um! Calc’late Tiffany’s tired of standin’. Have to humor him. Powerful high-spirited boss. Second-floor room on the front, it was. G’-by, Jim. Eagle office is next to Lafe Meggs’s store.”
The old man went out, and it seemed as if he creaked in every joint. Jim heard him pass slowly along the hall and out of the door—and wondered what his visit meant. He reviewed the rambling conversation as best he could; found that in spite of himself he was attracted by Zaanan’s personality. But why had the old fellow come? What had he talked about? Why, about the Widow Stickney and her room, and about the Diversity Eagle. Jim was not yet familiar with Zaanan Frame’s methods, but it did seem clear to him that the old justice wanted him to go to board with Mrs. Stickney; wanted him also to read the current issue of the Eagle.
That evening Jim procured a copy of the Eagle. Its leading article gave the news that Michael Moran had purchased a controlling interest in the Diversity Hardwood Company, and had been elected its president in the place of Henry W. Green, resigned. This was worth while. It was important, for the prosperity of the Ashe Clothespin Company depended on the Diversity Hardwood Company. It was the latter that furnished the birch, beech, and maple from which the clothespins were manufactured. It was with that company that Clothespin Jimmy had negotiated a twenty-year timber contract calling for the delivery in his mill-yard of not less than five millions nor more than ten millions of feet of timber a year. Pursuant to this contract the new mills had been erected. Here was news indeed. What did it signify? What would be its results that touched Jim Ashe? And why had Zaanan Frame wanted him to be apprised—warned—of the event? If Zaanan’s hint to read the paper was of such undoubted value, would not his other suggestion be worth looking into? Jim thought so, and inquired his way to the Widow Stickney’s. She occupied a pleasant, maple-shaded house surrounded by riotous flower-beds and more practical kitchen gardens. It was attractive with the flavor of home. Jim rang the bell.
The result of his call and inspection was that he rented from the widow her second-floor front and arranged to be fed at her table. As he was leaving she hesitated, hemmed, and hawed, as Clothespin Jimmy would have put it, and finally said:
“I got one other boarder. Jest one. Hain’t no objections to that, have you?”
“None whatever, Mrs. Stickney,” said Jim, which was perfectly true. He had neither objections nor curiosity regarding the fact. However, as he walked between the flower-beds to the gate some one turned in and approached him. He looked up, felt himself draw a little sudden breath of surprise, for the individual was Marie Ducharme. Jim knew instantly that she was the other boarder. She passed him, cheeks slightly flushed, eyes straight ahead, without deigning to look at him. He felt a warmth about his ears.
That evening he sat late on the hotel piazza, working on a puzzle.
He could not piece it together. Why had Zaanan Frame wanted him to know of Michael Moran’s new business venture? But, even more difficult of solution, why had Zaanan wanted him to board with the Widow Stickney?
Marie Ducharme insisted on obtruding herself into his puzzlings. It was absurd, he knew, but had she anything to do with the matter?