The business of the day was done, and the noise and hurry attending its doing had given way to a sudden hush. Other sounds than those that had filled the ear since morning grew out of the stillness. Big drops of rain driven by the wind splashed softly against the unpainted pine door which led into the yards, or fell with a gay patter on the corrugated tin roof overhead. No. 7, due at 5.40, had just pulled out with twenty minutes to make up between Antioch and Harrison, the western terminus of the line. The six-o'clock whistle had blown, and the men from the car shops, a dingy, one-story building that joined the general offices on the east, were straggling off home. Across the tracks at the ugly little depot the ticket-agent and telegraph-operator had locked up and hurried away under one umbrella the moment No. 7 was clear of the platform. From the yards every one was gone but Milton McClintock, the master mechanic, and Dutch Pete, the yard buss. Protected by dripping yellow oil-skins, they were busy repairing a wheezy switch engine that had been incontinently backed into a siding and the caboose of a freight.
Oakley was waiting the return of Clarence, the office-boy, whom he had sent up-town to the post-office. Having read the two columns of local and personal gossip arranged under the heading “People You Know,” he swept his newspaper into the wastebasket and pushed back his chair. The window nearest his desk overlooked the yards and a long line of shabby day coaches and battered freight cars on one of the sidings. They were there to be rebuilt or repaired. This meant a new lease of life to the shops, which had never proved profitable.
Oakley had been with the Huckleberry two months. The first intimation the office force received that the new man whom they had been expecting for over a week had arrived in Antioch, and was prepared to take hold, was when he walked into the office and quietly introduced himself to Kerr and Holt. Former general managers had arrived by special after much preliminary wiring. The manner of their going had been less spectacular. They one and all failed, and General Cornish cut short the days of their pride and display.
Naturally the office had been the least bit skeptical concerning Oakley and his capabilities, but within a week a change was patent to every one connected with the road: the trains began to regard their schedules, and the slackness and unthrift in the yards gave place to an ordered prosperity. Without any apparent effort he found work for the shops, a few extra men even were taken on, and there was no hint as yet of half-time for the summer months.
He was a broad-shouldered, long-limbed, energetic young fellow, with frank blue eyes that looked one squarely in the face. Men liked him because he was straightforward, alert, and able, with an indefinite personal charm that lifted him out of the ordinary. These were the qualities Cornish had recognized when he put him in control of his interests at Antioch, and Oakley, who enjoyed hard work, had earned his salary several times over and was really doing wonders.
He put down his pipe, which was smoked out, and glanced at the clock. “What's the matter with that boy?” he muttered.
The matter was that Clarence had concluded to take a brief vacation. After leaving the post-office he skirted a vacant lot and retired behind his father's red barn, where he applied himself diligently to the fragment of a cigarette that earlier in the day McClintock, to his great scandal, had discovered him smoking in the solitude of an empty box-car in the yards. The master mechanic, who had boys of his own, had called him a runty little cuss, and had sent him flying up the tracks with a volley of bad words ringing in his ears.
When the cigarette was finished, the urchin bethought him of the purpose of his errand. This so worked upon his fears that he bolted for the office with all the speed of his short legs. As he ran he promised himself, emotionally, that “the boss” was likely to “skin” him. But whatever his fears, he dashed into Oakley's presence, panting and in hot haste. “Just two letters for you, Mr. Oakley!” he gasped. “That was all there was!”
He went over to the superintendent and handed him the letters. Oakley observed him critically and with a dry smile. For an instant the boy hung his head sheepishly, then his face brightened.
“It's an awfully wet day; it's just sopping!”