Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1906 — The Manager Of the B. & A. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Manager Of the B. & A.

By VAUGHAN KESTER

CHAPTER I. OAKLEY was alone in the bare general offices of the Huckleberry line, as the Buckhorn and Antioch railroad was commonly called by the public, which It betrayed in the matter of meals and connections. He was lolling lazily over his desk with a copy of the local paper before him and the stem of a disreputable cob pipe between his teeth. 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 bad filled the ear since morning grew out of the stillness. Big drops of rain driven by the wind flashed 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 6 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 th% 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 boss, Protected by dripping yellow oilskins, 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 uptown to the postofflce. 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 bis capabilities, but within a week a change was patent to every one connected with the road. The trains l>egan to regard their schedules, and the slackness and unthrlft 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 hliq 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. Trip matter was that Clarence had concluded to take a brief vacation. After leaving the i>ostoffice he skirted a vacant lot and retired behind his father’s red barn, where he applied himself diligently to a cigarette. 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 heightened. “It’s an awfully wet day; it’s just sopping!” Oakley waived this bit of gratuitous information. “Did yon run all the way?” “Yep. every step,” with the Impudent mendacity that comes of long practice. “It’s rather curious you didn’t get back sooner.” Clarence looked at the clock. “Was I gone long? It didn’t seem long to me,” he added, with a candor he Intended should disarm criticism. “Only a little over half an hour, Clar-

ence. I guess you may as well go home now.” “Good night, Mr. Oakley,” with happy alacrity. >€. “Good night, Clarence.” The door into the yards closed with a bang, and Clarence, gleefully skipping the mud puddles which lay in his path, hurried his small person off through the rain and mist. Oakley glanced at his letters. One he saw was from General Cornish. It proved to be a brief note, scribbed in pencil on the back of a telegram blank. The general would arrive In Antioch that night on the late train. He wished Oakley to meet him. The other letter was in an unfamiliar hand. Oakley opened it. Like the first. It was brief and to the point, but he did not at once jgrasp its meaning. This Is what he read: Dear Sir—l inclose two newspaper clippings which fully explain themselves. Your father is much interested in knowing your whereabouts. I have not furnished him with any definite information on this point, as I have not felt at liberty to do so. However, I was able to tell him I believed you were doing well. Should you desire to write him, I will gladly undertake to see that any communication you may send care of this office will reach him."'Very sincerely yours, EZRA HART. It was like a bolt from a clear sky. He drew a deep, quick breath. Then he took up the newspaper clippings. One w£s a florid column and a half account of a fire in the hospital ward of the Massachusetts state prison and dealt particularly with the heroism of Roger Oakley, a life prisoner, In leading a rescue. The other clipping, merely a paragraph, was of more recent date. It announced that Roger Oakley had been pardoned. Oakley had scarcely thought of his father in years. The man and his concerns—his crime and his tragic atonement—had passed completely out of his life, but now he was free, if he chose, to enter it again. There was such suddenness in the thought that he turned sick on the moment; a great wave of self pity enveloped him, the recollection of his struggles and his shame—the bitter, helpless shame of a childreturned. He felt only resentment toward this man whose criqie had blasted his youth, robbing him of every ordinary advantage, and clearly the end was not yet. True, by degrees, he had grown away from the memory of it all. He had long since freed himself of the fear that his secret might be discovered. With success he_had even acquired a certain complacency. Without knowing his history, the good or the bad of it, his world had accepted him for what he was really worth. He was neither cowardly nor selfish. It was not alone the memory of his own hardships that embittered him and turned his heart against his father. His mother’s face, with its hunted, fugitive look, rose up before him in protest. He recalled their wanderings in search of some place where their story was not known and where they could begin life anew, their return to Burton, and then her death. • For years it had been like a dream, and now he saw only the slouching figure of the old convict, which seemed to menace him, and remembered only the evil consequent upon his crime. Next he fell to wondering what sort of a man this Roger Oakley was who had seemed so curiously remote, who had been as a shadow in his way preceding the presence, and suddenly he found his heart softening toward him. It was infinitely pathetic to the young man, with his abundant strength and splendid energy, this Imprisonment that-had endured for almost a quarter of a century. He .fancied his father as broken and friendless, as dazed and confused by his unexpected freedom, with bls place in tlje world forever lost. After all, he could not sit In judgment or avenge. So far as he knew he d never seen his father but once. I Ast there bad been a hot, dusty journey by stage; then be had gone through a massive iron gate and down a narrow passage, where he had trotted by his mother’s side, bolding fast to her band. All this came l>ack in a jerky, disconnected fashion, with wide gaps gud lapses he could not fill, but the Impression made upon his mind by his father had been lasting and vivid. He still saw him as he was then, with the chalky prison pallor on his haggard face—a clumsily made man of tremendous Bone and muscle who had spoken with them through the bars of his cell door while his mother cried softly behind her shawl. The boy had thought of him as a man In a cage. He wondered who Ezra Hart wg*. for the name seemed famUiar. At length he placed him. He was the lawyer who had defended his father. He was puzzled that Hart knew where he w;,s. He had hoped the little New England village bad lost all track of him, but the fact that Hart did know convinced him it would be quite useless to try to keep his whereabouts a secret from bls father even If he wished to. Since Hart knew, there must be others also who knew. He took up the newspaper clippings again. By an odd coincidence they had reached him on the very day the governor of Massachusetts had set apart for his father’s release.

CHAPTER H. OAKLEY drew down, the top of his desk and left the office. Before locking the door, on which some predecessor had caused the words, “Department of Transportation and Maintenance; No Admittance Except on Business,” to be stenciled in black letters, he called to McClintock, who, with Dutch Pete, was still fussing over the wheezy switch engine. “Will you want in the office for anything, Milt?’ The master mechanic, who had been swearing at a rusted nut, got up from bls knees and, dangling a big wrench In one hand, bawled back, “No, I guess riot." After turning the key on the department of transportation and maintenance, Oakley crossed the tracks to the station and made briskly off uptown, with the wind and rain blowing In his face. ' He lived at the American House, the best hotel the place could boast In Antioch Oakley was something of a figure. He was the first manager of the road to make the town his permanent headquarters, and the town was grateful. It would have swamped him with kindly attention, but he had studiously ignored all advance*, preferring not to make friends'. In this he had not entirely rucceeded. The richest man in the county, Dr. Emory, who was a good deal of a patrician, had taken a fancy to him and had insisted upon entertaining him at a formal dinner. It was the most impressive function Oakley had ever attended, and even to think of it still sent the cold chills ebursing down his spine. That morning he had chanced to meet Dr. Emory on the street, and the doctor, who could always be trusted to say exactly what he thought, had taken him to task for not calling. There was a reason why Oakley had not done so. The doctor’s daughter had just returned from the east, and vague rumors were Current concerning her beauty and elegance. Now, women were altogether beyond Oakley’s ken. However, since some responsive courtesy was evidently expected of him, he determined to have it over with at once. Imbued with this Idea, be went to his room after- supper to dress. As he arrayed himself for the ordeal he sought to recall a past experience in line with the present. Barring the recent dinner, his most ambitious social experiment bad been a brakeman’s ball in Denver years before when be was conductor on a freight. It was still raining, a discouragingly persistent drizzle, when Oakley left his hotel and turned from the public square Into Main street. This Main street was never an imposing thoroughfare, and a week of steady downpour made it from curb to curb a river of quaking mud. It was lit at long intervals by flickering gas lamps that glowed like corpulent fireflies in the misty darkness beneath the dripping maple boughs. As in the case of most western towns, Antioch had known dreams of greatness, dreams which had not been realized. It stood stock still in all its raw, ugly youth, with the rigid angularity its founders had imposed upon it when they hacked and hewed a spot for it in the pine woods, whose stunted second growth encircled it on every side. The Emory home had once been a farmhouse of the better class. Vari-

ous addition* and Improvement* gave It an air of solid and substantial comfort unusual In a community where the prevailing style of architecture was a square wooden box built close to tbe street end of a narrow lot The doctor himself answered Oakley’s ring and led the way into the parlor after relieving him of his hat and umbrella. “My wife you know, Mr. Oakley. This is my daughter.” Constance Emory rose from her seat liefore the wood fire that smoldered on the wide, old fashioned hearth and gave Oakley her hand. He saw a stately, fair haired girl, trimly gowned In an evening dress that to bls unsophisticated gaze seemed astonishingly elaborate. But he could not have Imagined anything more becoming. He decided that she was very pretty. Later he changed his mind. She was more than pretty. For her part Miss Emory saw merely a tall young tollow, rather good looking than otherwise, who was feeling

nervously for bls cuffs. Beyond this there was not much to be said In his favor, but she was willing to be amused. She had been absent from Antioch four years. These years had been spent in the east and In travel abroad with a widowed and childless sister of her father’s. She was, on the whole, glad to be home again. As yet she was not disturbed by any thoughts of the future. She looked on the world with serene eyes. They were a limpid blue and veiled by long dark lashes. She possessed the poise and unshaken self confidence that come of position and experience. Her father and mother were not so well satisfied with the situation; they already recognized that It held the elements of a tragedy. In their desire to give her every opportunity they bad overreached themselves. She had outgrown Antioch -as surely, as she had outgrown her childhood, and it . was as Impossible to take her back to the one as to the other. The doctor patted Oakley on the shoulder. “I am glad you’ve dropped In. 1 hope, now you have made a beginning, we shall see more of you.” He was a portly man of fifty, with kindly eyes rind an easy, gracious manner. Mrs. Emory was sedate and placid, a handsome, well kept woman, who administered her husband’s affairs with a steadiness and economy that 1 had made it possible for him to amass a comfortable fortune from bis straggling country practice. Constance soon decided that Oakley was not at all like the young men of Antioch as she recalled them, nor was he like the men she had known while under her aunt’s tutelage—the leisurely idlers who drifted with the social tide, apparently without responsibility or care. He proved hopelessly dense on those matters with which they had. been perfectly familiar. It seemed to her that pleasure and accomplishment, as she understood them, had found no place in his life. The practical quality in his mind showed at every turn of the conversation. He appeared to hunger after hard facts, and the harder these facts were the better he liked them. But he offended in more glaring ways. He was too intense, and his speech too careful and precise, as If he were uncertain as to his grammar, as, Indeed, he was. Poor Oakley was vaguely aware that he was not getting on, and the strain told. It slowly dawned upon him that he was not her sort, that where he was concerned she was quite alien, quite foreign, with Interests he could not comprehend, but which gave him a rankling sense of inferiority. He had been moderately well satisfied with himself, as. Indeed, he had good reason to be, but her manner was calculated to rob him of undue pride. He was not accustomed to being treated with mixed indifference and patronage. He asked himself resentfully how It happened that he had never before met such a girl. She fascinated him. The charm of her presence seemed to suddenly create and satisfy a love for the beautiful. With generous enthusiasm he set to work to be entertaining. Then a realization of the awful mental poverty in which be dwelt burst upon him for the first time. He longed for some light and graceful talent with which to bridge the wide gaps between the stubborn heights of bis professional erudition. He was profoundly versed on rates, grades, ballast, motive power and rolling stock, but this solid Information was of no avail. He could on occasion talk to a swearing section boss with a grievance and a brogue in a way to make that man his friend for life. He also possessed the happy gift of Inspiring his subordinates with a zealous sense of duty, but bls social responsibilities numbed his faculties and left him a bankrupt for words. The others gave him no assistance. Mrs. Emory, smiling and good humored, but silent, bent above her sewing. She was not an acute person, and the situation was lost upon her. while the doctor took only the most casual part In the conversation. Oakley was wondering how he could make his escape when the doorbell rang. The doctor slipped from the parlor. When he returned he was not alone. He was preceded by a dark young man of one or two and thirty. This was Griffith Ryder, the owner of the Antioch Herald. “My dear,” said he, “Mr. Ryder.” Ryder shook hands with the two ladies and nodded carelessly to Oakley. Then, with an easy, cureless compliment, he lounged down in the chair at Miss Emory’s side. Constance had turned from the strenuous Oakley to the newcomer with a sense of unmistakable relief. Her mother, too, brightened visibly. She did not entirely approve of Ryder, but be was always entertaining in a lazy, indifferent fashion of his own. . “I see. Griff,” the doctor said, “that you are going to support Kenyon. I declare It shakes my confidence In you.” and be drew forward his chair. Like most Americans, the physician was something of a politician, and, as Is also true of most Americans not professionally concerned In the hunt for office, this Interest fluctuated between the two extremes of party enthusiasm before and nonpartisan disgust after elections. Ryder smiled faintly. “Yes, we know just how much of a rascal Kenyon is, and we know nothing at all about the other fellow except that he wants the nomination, which is a bad sign. SupposeJtie should turn out a greater scamp! Really it’s too much of a risk,” he drawled, with an affectation of contempt. “Your politics always were a shock to your friends, but thia serves to explain them,” remarked the doctor, with latent combativeness. But Ryder was not to be beguiled Into argument He turned again to Miss Emory.

“Your father Is not a practical politician or he would realize that It la only common thrift to send Kenyon back, for I take It he has served his country not without profit to himself. Besides, he is clamorous and persistent and there seems no other way to dispose of him. It’s either that or the penitentiary.” Constance laughed softly. “And so you think he can afford to be honest now? What shocking ethics!” “That is my theory. Anyhow I don’t see why your father should wish me to forego the mild excitement of assisting to re-elect my more or less disreputable friend. Antioch has had very little to offer one until you came,” he added, with gentle deference. Miss Emory accepted the compliment with the utmost composure. Once she had b£en rather flattered ,by his attentions, but four years make a great difference. Either he bad lost in cleverness or she had gained in knowledge. He was a very tired young man. At one time he had possessed some expectations and numerous pretensions. The expectation had faded out of bls life, but the pretense remained in the absence of any vital achievement He was college bred and had gone in for

literature. From literature he had drifted into journalism and had ended in Antioch as proprietor of the local paper, which he contrived to edit with a lively irresponsibility that won him few friends, though it did gain him some small reputation as a humorist. His original idea had been that the management of a countfy weekly would afford him opi>ortunity for the serious work which he believed he could do, but be had not done this serious work and was not likely to do it. He derived a fair income from the Herald, and he allowed his ambitions to sink into abeyance in spite of his cherished conviction that he was cut out for bigger. Oakley had known Ryder only since the occasion of the doctor’s dinner, and felt that he could never be more than an acquired taste, if at all. The editor took the floor, figuratively speaking, for Miss Emory’s presence made the effort seem worth his while. He promptly relieved Oakley of the necessity to do more than listen, an act of charity for which the latter was hardly as grateful as he should have been. He was no fool, but there were wide realms of enlightenment where he was an absolute stranger, so when Constan* and Ryder came to talk of books and music, as they did finally, his only refuge was in silence and ho went into a sort of intellectual quarantine. His reading had been strictly limited to scientific works and to the half dozen trade and technical journals to which he subscribed and from which he drew the larger part of his mental sustenance. As for music, he was familiar with the airs from the latest popular operas, but the masterpieces were utterly unknown, except such ns had been brought to his notice by having sleeping cars named in their honor, a practice he considered very complimentary and possessing value as a strong commercial indorsement. He felt more and more lonely and aloof as the evening wore on, and it was a relief when the doctor took him into the library to examine specimens of Iron ore he had picked up west of Antioch, where there were undeveloped mineral lands for which he was trying to secure capital. This was a matter Oakley was Interested in, since It might mean business for the road. He promptly forgot about Miss Emory and the objectionable Ryder and In ten minutes gave the doctor a better comprehension of the mode of procedure necessary to success than that gentleman had been able to learn in ten years of unfruitful attempting. He also supplied him with a few definite facts and figures in lieu of the multitude of glitterlug generalities on which be had been pinning his faith* as a means of getting money into the scheme. , When at last they returned to the parlor they found another caller had arrived dprlng their absence, a small, shabbily dressed man, with a high, bald head and weak, nearsighted eyes. It was Turner Joyce. Oakley knew’ him just as he was beginning to know every other man, woman and child in the town. Joyce rose hastily, or, rather, stumbled to hl* feet as the doctor and Oakley entered the room. “I told you I was coming up, doctor,” he eaid apologetically. “Miss Con-

■ stance has been very kind. She talk. been telling me of the galleries an* studios. What a glorious experience!’’ A cynical smile parted Ryder’s thin* Ups. “Mr. Joyce feels the isolation of his art here.” The little man blinked doubtfully at the speaker and then said, with a gentle, deprecatory gesture, “I don’t calif It art.” “You are far too modest I have heard my foreman speak In th® most complimentary terms of the portrait you did of his wife. He was especially pleased with the frame. You must know, Miss Constance, that Mr. Joyce usually furnishes the frames, and bls pictures go home ready to the wire to hang on the wall.” Mr. Joyce continued to blink doubtfully at Hyder. He scarcely knew how to take the allusion to the frames. It was a sore point with him. Constance turned with a displeased air from Ryder to the little artist. Therf was a faint, wistful smile on her lips. He was a rather pathetic figure to her, and she could not understand how Ryder dared or had the heart to make fun. “I shall enjoy seeing all that you have done, Mr. Joyce, and of course I wish to see Ruth. Why didn’t she come with you tonight?” “Her cousin, Lou Bentick’s wife, Is dead, and she has been over at his house all day. She was qiilte worn out, but she sent you her love.” Ryder glanced again at Miss Emory and said,, with hard cynicism: “The notice will appear In Saturday’s Herald, with a tribute from her pastor. I never refuse his verse. It invariably contains some scathing comment on the uncertainty of the Baptist faith as a means of salvation.” But this was wasted on Joyce. Ryder rose, with a sigh. “Well, we toilers must think of the morrow.” Oakley accepted this as a sign that it was time to go. Joyce, too, stumbled across the room to the door, and the three men took their leave together. As they stood on the steps 1( the doctor said cordially, “I hope you will both .come again soon, and you, too. Turner,” S? added kindly. Ryder moved off quickly with Oakley. Joyce would have dropped behind, but the latter made room for him at his side. No one spoke until Ryder, halting ort a street corner, said, “Sorry, but it’s out of my way to go any farther unless you’ll play a game of billiards with me at the hotel, Oakley.” “Thanks," curtly. “I don’t play billiards.” “No? Well, it is a waste of time, I suppose. Good night!” And be turned down the side street, whispering softly. “A very extraordinary young man,” murmured Joyce, rubbing the tip of his nose meditatively with a painty forefinger. “And with quite an extraordinary opinion of himself.” A sudden feeling of friendliness prompted Oakley to tuck bis hand through the little artist’s arm. “How is Beutick bearing tbe loss of hl® wife?" be asked. “You said she was your cousin." “No, not mine; my wife’s. Poor fellow! He feels it keenly. They had not been married long, you know.” [TO BE CONTINUED)

“Will you want in the office for anything, Milt?”

“I am glad you've dropped in."