Windy McPherson's Son

by Sherwood Anderson

For a moment Sam stood looking at the money on the table and at the back of the man by the window, burning with indignation. He felt that he should like to take hold of the man’s throat and press as he had once pressed on the throat of Windy McPherson. And then a cold gleam coming into his eyes he cleared his throat and said, “You are short here; you will have to build this pile higher if you expect to interest me.”

The man by the window shrugged his shoulders—he was a slender, young-looking man in a fancy waistcoat—and then turning and taking a roll of bills from his pocket he walked to the table, facing Sam.

“I shall expect you to be reasonable,” he said, as he laid the bills on the table.

When the pile had reached twenty thousand, Sam reached out his hand and taking it up put it in his pocket. “You will get a receipt for this when I get back to the office,” he said; “it is about what you owe our company for overcharges and crooked material. As for our business, I made a contract with another company this morning.”

Having got the buying end of the Rainey Arms Company straightened out to his liking, Sam began spending much time in the shops and, through Colonel Tom, forced big changes everywhere. He discharged useless foremen, knocked out partitions between rooms, pushed everywhere for more and better work. Like the modern efficiency man, he went about with a watch in his hand, cutting out lost motion, rearranging, getting his own way.

It was a time of great agitation. The offices and shops buzzed like bees disturbed and black looks followed him about. But Colonel Tom rose to the situation and went about at Sam’s heels, swaggering, giving orders, throwing back his shoulders like a man remade. All day long he was at it, discharging, directing, roaring against waste. When a strike broke out in one of the shops because of innovations Sam had forced upon the workmen there, he got upon a bench and delivered a speech—written by Sam—on a man’s place in the organisation and conducting of a great modern industry and his duty to perfect himself as a workman.

Silently, the men picked up their tools and started again for their benches and when he saw them thus affected by his words Colonel Tom brought what threatened to be a squally affair to a hurrahing climax by the announcement of a five per cent increase in the wage scale—that was Colonel Tom’s own touch and the rousing reception of it brought a glow of pride to his cheeks.

Although the affairs of the company were still being handled by Colonel Tom, and though he daily more and more asserted himself, the officers and shops, and later the big jobbers and buyers as well as the rich LaSalle Street directors, knew that a new force had come into the company. Men began dropping quietly into Sam’s office, asking questions, suggesting, seeking favours. He felt that he was getting hold. Of the department heads, about half fought him and were secretly marked for slaughter; the others came to him, expressed approval of what was going on and asked him to look over their departments and to make suggestions for improvements through them. This Sam did eagerly, getting by it their loyalty and support which later stood him in good stead.

In choosing the new men that came into the company Sam also took a hand. The method used was characteristic of his relations with Colonel Tom. If a man applying for a place suited him, he got admission to the colonel’s office and listened for half an hour to a talk anent the fine old traditions of the company. If a man did not suit Sam, he did not get to the colonel. “You can’t have your time taken up by them,” Sam explained.

In the Rainey Company, the various heads of departments were stockholders in the company, and selected from among themselves two men to sit upon the board, and in his second year Sam was chosen as one of these employee directors. During the same year five heads of departments resigning in a moment of indignation over one of Sam’s innovations—to be replaced later by two—their stock by a prearranged agreement came back into the company’s hands. This stock and another block, secured for him by the colonel, got into Sam’s hands through the use of Eckardt’s money, that of the Wabash Avenue woman, and his own snug pile.