“I haven’t got the head fo’ it, suh, an’ that’s the Lawd’s truth,” he said earnestly, protesting his advancement. “I’m a willing worker, suh, yo’ know that; I’m free to admit it fo’ myself, but I’m no office man, and that gal that’s markin’ up our books, suh, she’s a little worse’n what I am!”
Mr. Carey put a kind hand on his shoulder. “Now, now, Ben, you just quit running yourself down! You suit me! I reckon I know honesty and ability when I see ’em. You’ve been with us——”
“Oh, I know all that, suh,” old Ben shook his head. “I’m honest, and I can boss the hands, but I’m no office man. Now, if you was to get rid of Miss Minnie——”
“But what do you reckon you’d find for her to do, Ben?” the owner worried.
“Lawd, I wasn’t fixing to find her another job, suh! I was just aiming to get her out of this one, and get that boy Luke in!”
“I could give her a mighty nice letter, of course,” Mr. Carey mused. “Luke, did you say? Why, Ben, do you reckon that boy could do our books, young as he is, and green?”
“He’s young, but he’s not green,” the superintendent contested. “Why, that feller handles figgers as easy as you’n me handles a knife and fork! And he’s right from business college, you might say—two—three years—right hot off the griddle, and you know in time there never was a harder worker.”
Mr. Carey, a little dazed at the suddenness of it, agreed with the proviso that Miss Minnie be provided for, and the thing worked out for Luke Manders as swiftly and smoothly as if Dr. Darrow had motivated it by his wishes, or the ancient granddam who had seen in him “a young-un with a headpiece, smartest of ary Manders ever heerd tell of.” Miss Minnie was comfortably placed in a needlework shop and the young mountaineer climbed up on her stool in the dim and breathless office of the Altonia Mill, and dived deep into the sea of difficulties and discrepancies which she had abandoned to him.
“By gad, Luke,” the owner wiped his steaming forehead, “I never dreamed poor Minnie was getting us into such a snarl! Of course, I knew she was no lightning striker, but her father was my father’s third cousin, and when he died and left her without a penny, why I naturally had to keep an eye on her—blood’s thicker than water— But, good Lord, I believe it’d have been cheaper to board her at the hotel and hire a man here!”
“I reckon so, sir,” Luke Manders agreed with him gravely. Gravely was the word for Luke Manders. He talked gravely, and walked gravely, and worked gravely, and it was to be seen that he thought gravely. There was no jest and youthful jollity in the young man from the mountains. He was as silent as one of the tall trees he had left behind him, and as strong, yet with always the sense of leashed action—action and power. Mr. ’Gene Carey and old Ben Birdsall felt it and leaned on it, and Miss Ada Tenafee felt it and feared it, and Glen Darrow felt it and rejoiced and exulted.