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diff --git a/75475-0.txt b/75475-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2644d87 --- /dev/null +++ b/75475-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7307 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75475 *** + + + + + +THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND + + + + + THE “DO SOMETHING” + BOOKS + + BY + HELEN BEECHER LONG + + JANICE DAY + THE TESTING OF JANICE DAY + HOW JANICE DAY WON + THE MISSION OF JANICE DAY + + 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated + Price per volume, $1.25 net + + GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY + NEW YORK + + +[Illustration: “I leave you, Miss Clayton, to keep things straight here!” + + (_See Page 138_)] + + + + + THE GIRL HE LEFT + BEHIND + + BY + HELEN BEECHER LONG + + Author of + The “Janice Day” Books + + ILLUSTRATED BY + R. EMMETT OWEN + + GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY + NEW YORK + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY + GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY + + _All rights reserved_ + + PRINTED IN U. S. A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I “So Perfectly Capable” 11 + + II A Comparison 22 + + III “Dogfennel” 30 + + IV The Skinners 41 + + V The Dream of a Star 53 + + VI Two Good-byes 66 + + VII Leading Up to a Climax 77 + + VIII A Puzzling Situation 89 + + IX The Duty Devolves 98 + + X Love and Business 107 + + XI War Is Declared 121 + + XII The Image He Took Away 129 + + XIII The Awakening 140 + + XIV Benway’s Discovery 152 + + XV From “Over There” 164 + + XVI The Clouds Thicken 175 + + XVII A Rendezvous With Death 185 + + XVIII The Wrath of the Hun 198 + + XIX Uncertainties 205 + + XX So Far Away! 216 + + XXI The Burden 224 + + XXII The Fight 231 + + XXIII Comparisons 241 + + XXIV Opening the Way 248 + + XXV Compensation 259 + + XXVI His Awakening 265 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + “I leave you, Miss Clayton, to keep things + straight here!” (_See Page 138_) _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + He did fire--futilely, perhaps--as the great + car circled clumsily above the spot (_See + Page 201_) 200 + + “I nominate her as assistant manager, to hold + the job till Frank Barton comes back!” + (_See Page 227_) 227 + + “You have been in my thoughts continually--the + girl I left behind” (_See Page 268_) 268 + + + + +THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND + + + + +CHAPTER I + +“SO PERFECTLY CAPABLE” + + +Ethel Clayton gathered the several letters with their accompanying +checks in a neat sheaf and rose from her desk, which was placed nearest +the door of the manager’s office. With the papers in her left hand she +went to the door on which was stenciled “Mr. Barton” and opened it +without waiting for a reply to her knock. She knew only Jim Mayberry +was in the room with the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company. + +As she pushed the door inward she heard Frank Barton saying: + +“I am puzzled what answer to make them, Jim.” + +The manager was at his desk. Mayberry, leaning back in his chair, +nodded understandingly and in agreement. The general manager was not +in the habit of taking the superintendent of the factory into his +confidence in particular instances and Mayberry was alive to that fact. +He listened. Listening, and keeping one’s mouth shut, never hurt a man +yet. + +The girl at the door of the office waited, too. Her business with the +manager was important, if not imperative. + +“The Bogata people have been good customers of ours in the past,” went +on Barton, reflectively. “But I have inside information that their +credit is wabbly. It is strained, just as ours has been. If we tied up +twenty to thirty thousand dollars in their particular line of goods, +and then had the goods left on our hands, it might be fatal to the +Hapwood-Diller Company, even now. + +“The expansion of mercantile values and the increase in profits have +not struck our kind of production, as you very well know, Jim. Our +stock is not listed among the ‘war brides.’ Rather it might better be +termed a ‘war widow.’ The company has had a hard pull, Jim. We can’t +afford to take many chances.” + +Again the superintendent sat tight and merely nodded. The declining +sun delivered slanting rays in through the high windows of the general +manager’s office. The two men--neither of whom had arrived at thirty +years--sat with preternaturally grave faces, one ruminating upon the +event that had unexpectedly arisen in the affairs of the concern they +had both worked for since boyhood; the other possibly giving much more +thought to his own personal matters. + +For Jim Mayberry, without being in the least neglectful of his duties +as superintendent of the factory, was a person given much to the +contemplation of what he called “the prime law of nature: Looking out +for Number One.” He did, however, suggest: + +“Those Bogata people have been all right folks, Frank. The factory’s +made money on their orders.” + +“That’s just it,” the manager returned briskly, but with a gesture that +betrayed his indecision. + +He was a tall, black-haired, virile fellow, clean shaven, good color in +his cheeks, and impeccably dressed. Mayberry, in contrast, had light +hair which already he plastered across his crown to hide an incipient +bald spot. He wore a small blond moustache and had numerous wrinkles +about his eyes. + +“Just the same it is not safe, I firmly believe, to accept the order. +But a brusk refusal might do the Hapwood-Diller Company untold harm at +some future time. The Bogata concern may come back. Miracles do happen.” + +“Better accept the order then,” Mayberry put in. “We can postpone +filling it. We don’t have to give a bond. If they really prove to be +shaky, we can renege.” + +The girl, who had come in and softly closed the door, flashed the +superintendent a glance that was all scorn for business ethics thus +expressed. But Barton replied quite calmly: + +“Two objections to that, Jim. In the first place the Hapwood-Diller +Company has always based its policy on honor. Secondly, it is unwise +for us to tie up any money at all in beginning a job we do not intend +to complete.” + +“Aw!” grunted the superintendent. His vocabulary--at this juncture at +least--seemed not to be extensive. + +There had been a rising murmur in the street under the open windows for +some minutes. Now the sudden crash of martial music broke upon their +ears. Barton’s countenance became vivid with interest, and he swung +himself erect and strode to the nearest window. + +“Here come the boys,” he said, pride vibrating in his voice. He was +very military looking. Nothing but the “setting up exercise” could ever +have made his shoulders so very square and his splendidly muscled torso +taper to so narrow a waist. + +Mayberry rose and sauntered after him. “Mailsburg’s heroes,” he +observed. “I suppose you’re wishing you were marching away with them, +Frank.” + +The other said nothing, but his eyes glowed. The marching column swung +around the corner following the band--a column in khaki, a color +already becoming familiar on the streets although war was not many +months old. + +Ethel had gone to the other window and was likewise looking out upon +the quota of the National Guard, with packs and rifles, on their way to +the railroad station. A little group of women, girls and children clung +to the column and kept pace with it. The men spectators seemed rather +ashamed to follow on, but stood, nevertheless, on the curb to watch the +boys go by. + +“I expect they’ll have a hot old time down at that training camp,” +drawled Mayberry. + +Barton did not seem to hear him. His hand came to salute as the colors +went by. + +A volume of voices rose from below as the band music drifted into the +distance. + +“And mebbe marching to their graves!” + +“It’s a shame that some that can least be spared have to go while them +that would never be missed keep out of it.” + +“You’re right! Some of ’em’s got fathers an’ mothers, an’ wives!” cried +a shrill voice, “while them that ain’t got a soul dependent on ’em----” + +“There’s one yonder,” was the quick rejoinder. “And had all the benefit +of Guard training too!” And the speaker, a woman, directed the gaze of +her companions to the office window. + +Mayberry chuckled. “They’ve pinned you to the wall, Frank,” he murmured +in the ear of the white-faced manager. + +Ethel Clayton had turned suddenly from the window. “Have you time to +sign these checks and letters before the outgoing mail, Mr. Barton?” +she asked. + +He took the papers, but did not verbally reply for a moment. His +countenance had become calm again, if still pale, when he had seated +himself in his chair and turned in it so that the others could both +observe him. + +“I will sign them at once, Miss Clayton,” Barton said quite composedly. +“But first----” + +For a moment his gaze centered upon her. There was something wholly +good to look at in the girl’s face and figure. Had she not dressed +so practically for her work her personal attractions would have been +further enhanced. Mayberry was watching her, too; and his gaze betrayed +a certain eagerness, whereas the manager’s eyes merely revealed +expectancy. Then he flicked a glance in Mayberry’s direction. + +“Perhaps Miss Clayton might give us a word of advice upon this matter, +Jim?” he said questioningly, and with a quizzical little smile. + +The superintendent, a little startled, shifted his gaze from the girl’s +face to the manager’s countenance. Ethel, perfectly composed, waited +for the explanation of Barton’s observation. + +“Woman’s intuition forever!” the latter ejaculated. + +“What do you mean, Frank?” hastily demanded Jim Mayberry. “If you and I +don’t know what to do----” + +Ethel flushed faintly, but looked questioningly at the manager. The +implied doubt of her ability in Mayberry’s tone possibly piqued her. +Frank Barton said in his good-natured, easy manner: + +“Oh, we know _what_ to do. But it’s the way the thing is done. You know +about this new Bogata order, Miss Clayton?” + +“Of course, Mr. Barton.” + +“I do not see how we can accept it. The Bogata Company is not in good +financial standing. But we must not offend them. The refusal must be +one to which they cannot take exception. It is a big order, and they +have sent it in without question, just as though they expected us to +get to work on it with merely an acknowledgment of the favor.” + +“I see,” the girl said in her composed way. + +“You are so perfectly capable, Miss Clayton,” laughed the general +manager. “See what you can do with the matter. Do you think we can keep +within the lines of safety, and yet make no enemy of the Bogata people?” + +“I believe it can be done, Mr. Barton,” replied the girl. + +There was a decision in her manner of speaking that revealed Ethel +Clayton as being quite what the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller +Company had said she was--“capable.” + +“See what you can do with a letter, then,” Barton went on, producing +the order sheets in question and handing them to her along with the +letters and checks he had signed. + +She left the private office without further word. Jim Mayberry was +frowning. + +“You’re trusting a good deal to that girl, Frank,” he growled. + +“I’ve never trusted anything to her yet that she hasn’t handled all +right,” the manager replied easily. “If I manage to--to get away, Jim, +you’ll find her a great help here.” + +“Uh-huh!” grunted the superintendent. “Maybe.” + +“You are insular,” laughed Frank Barton. “The women are forging to the +front, man. Miss Clayton is far more capable than some of the heads of +departments who have grown gray here.” + +“Maybe,” agreed the superintendent. “But I don’t want to see her out +there in overalls, bossing my men around. Don’t forget that, Frank.” + +The superintendent arose and strolled out of the private office. In the +larger desk room he halted and watched the “capable” girl at her desk +nearest the manager’s door. Ethel was the “buffer” between much outside +annoyance and the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company. + +There were gold and red lights in her chestnut hair; the pallor of +her countenance was not unhealthy; merely she was not enough in the +open. But where the sun had kissed the bridge of her nose there was a +sprinkle of tiny freckles. There were flecks of gold, too, in her brown +eyes. Her mouth and chin were firm rather than soft, and the gaze of +her eyes direct; nevertheless there was nothing unfeminine about her +appearance. + +The severest critic could hold no brief against the charms of her +figure. Her arms were beautifully rounded, her wrists tapering, her +hands just the right size. She had a naturally small waist, and the +lines of her hips showed that her limbs were slenderly yet strongly +built. She was a tall girl. + +The superintendent caught her eye after a moment, she looking up +thoughtfully from the papers before her. + +“You want to handle that business with gloves, Ethel,” he advised in +a low voice. “Barton’s hardly himself to-day--the boys going away and +all. He thinks that, with three years’ experience in bossing those +sappies around the armory, he should jump right into this war. Get to +be a general or something right off the handle,” and he chuckled. + +Again the girl’s face flushed softly and she dropped her gaze. She made +him no reply at all, but Mayberry went on: + +“And that Fuller girl’s got him running around in circles, too. You can +see he isn’t himself, or he would not balk at such an order as this +from the Bogata people. Why, they’re all right folks. The factory’s +made a lot of money out of their orders. And here----” + +“Did Mr. Barton ask you to discuss this matter with me, Mr. Mayberry?” +asked the girl coldly and without looking up again. “If not, please +remember that he has commissioned me to write a letter to them that +will meet his approval. Don’t bother me now.” + +“Oh, pshaw, Ethel!” the man said, smiling down at her unctuously. +“Don’t take every little thing so blame seriously. Frank Barton and I +were kids together. I can’t fall down and worship him the way some of +you do. Anyway, you’d better show him how to take a chance with these +Bogata people--if you really want to _help_. I know they’re all right.” + +“Why don’t you tell that to Mr. Barton?” the girl asked rather tartly. + +“Oh, pshaw!” chuckled the superintendent. “Let it go till to-morrow. +It’s almost closing time, anyway. Take a little spin in that car of +mine before supper, will you?” + +“Thank you; no.” + +“Aw! don’t act so offishly, Ethel. You’ve never been to ride with me +yet.” + +“I understand that other girls have--to their sorrow,” Miss Clayton +responded in a tone that cut through even Jim Mayberry’s skin. He +flushed dully and his lazy eyes began to glow. + +“Don’t believe everything you hear, Ethel,” he said. “I want to talk to +you about that. Let me drive you home to-night and I’ll explain these +stories that you have heard.” + +He strolled away as Little Skinner came across the room to ask a +question. Could it be that Little Skinner had received a secret +signal to break in upon the superintendent’s objectionable line of +conversation? At least, her business with Ethel was brief. + +The latter’s attention immediately returned to the problem the manager +had put up to her for solution. She was made proud whenever Frank +Barton did anything like this, and of late it was not infrequent that +he had shown his trust in her ability. + +Yet there was a sting in the way he had spoken, too. She knew well +enough that the sting was unintentional on his part. Never had the +general manager been other than scrupulously polite to her. She was +always “Miss Clayton” to him, and he deferred to her in many ways and +was as courteous in his busiest moments as he could have been meeting +her at a social affair. That was Frank Barton’s way. + +But-- + +She found that her gaze had wandered from the papers before her to +the small mirror set into the rather ornate inkstand that stood upon +her desk--a birthday present from her office mates not many months +before. The girl reflected there was, Ethel Clayton very well knew, +better looking than the average girl. Her even features were quietly +beautiful. She perhaps lacked the verve and dash possessed by some +girls. She had one particular girl in mind as she thought this. +She lacked the tricks of the social trade too, that that same girl +possessed. + +She shrugged her shoulders and brought her attention back with a jerk +to the matter in hand. But there was faint disgust in her tone as she +murmured: + +“Yes, just as he says: ‘Miss Clayton is so perfectly capable.’ Pah!” + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A COMPARISON + + +She read the letter from the Bogata Company and again glanced through +the order. It was a large one. It called for certain supplies she knew +the factory did not have on hand. She realized that the goods ordered +were all of a special pattern and would be practically useless either +to the Hapwood-Diller Company or to any other concern save the Bogata +people if the latter should be unable to take the goods. + +Yet this letter assumed that the order would be accepted and the goods +turned out without any hesitancy on the part of the manufacturers, and +upon the usual terms. The Bogata Company ignored the possibility of the +Hapwood-Diller Company having heard of its financial embarrassments. +The letter and accompanying order were sent, Ethel was sure, in a +spirit of bravado. To use a common phrase, the Bogata people were +“trying to put something over.” + +If the scheme went through, all well and good. The Hapwood-Diller +Company might be made the means of saving the Bogata people from actual +and complete collapse. Ethel knew, however, that her employing concern +was in no shape to assume such a burden. Yet if the firm ordering the +goods finally pulled out of its quagmire of financial difficulty, its +friendship rather than its enmity was to be desired. + +Her mind centered upon the matter, the logical circumstances connected +with it marching in slow procession through her brain. She was +acquainted with every important order now on the factory’s books. +Even Jim Mayberry had no better grasp of the details of the factory’s +affairs than Ethel Clayton. + +Suddenly she got up and went to a file cabinet wherein was listed the +particulars of all orders as yet unfinished. She began to figure with +pencil and pad upon the already promised output of the factory and its +possible output when the force was driven at top speed. + +Her calculations led her to certain unmistakable conclusions. She went +back to her desk, calmly wrote the letter, typed it, and took the +letter and her figures in to Barton. He was about to close his desk for +the day. + +“Do you think you have succeeded?” he asked, smiling and taking the +typed sheet from her hand. But in a moment he glanced up quickly and +with a slight frown. “What is this you say here, Miss Clayton? We +cannot accept the order because of work already contracted for? Why, +that----” + +“Is the plain truth, Mr. Barton!” she exclaimed, putting forward +her array of figures. “The factory is now working maximum hours and +with a full crew in all departments. I have heard you say yourself +that either extra help or overtime cuts into the profits rather than +increases them. To fulfill contracts we have accepted, if you took on +this of the Bogata Company, we would have to run the machines longer +hours and pay extra wages. The Bogata people offer no price for their +work to cover such an increased cost. My letter embodies the actual +truth without going into particulars; but my statements can be easily +proved if they are inclined to be critical.” + +Barton’s face had been gradually lighting up, and it was with real +admiration that he said at her conclusion: + +“Fine! I’ll sign that and you can put it in the mail in the morning. +Has John gone to the post-office?” + +“Yes, Mr. Barton.” + +“The morning will do,” said the general manager, affixing his signature +to the letter. “You certainly are a capable assistant.” + +She flushed at his words as she turned from his desk; and the color +remained in her countenance for some time. But it was not a flush of +pleasure. Indeed, the expression of her countenance was not at all +happy as she closed her desk and left the main office a little later. + +At the street exit she hesitated; then she went back through the drying +and cutting rooms and had John Murphy let her out of the side gate +which would not be opened for an hour yet for the exit of the factory +hands. She had caught a glimpse of Jim Mayberry sitting in his car out +in front. + +She did not like the superintendent, and for more reasons than one. In +the first place, he was one of those men who seem to have no respect at +all for girls who worked. Ethel was not sure how well he was received +by Mailsburg people whose first thoughts were of society. But Mayberry +had a bad reputation among many respectable people. Careful mothers and +fathers frowned on his attentions to their daughters. + +As she turned into Burnaby Street on her way home she saw Frank Barton +ahead of her. His military stride was likewise taking him briskly +homeward. The girl might have hastened her own steps and joined him; +but she hesitated, for that was not like Ethel Clayton. Her association +with the handsome general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing +Company had been entirely on a business footing. The fact that they +attended the same church had scarcely brought them together outside the +offices of the concern. + +Barton was well liked by most Mailsburg people. Especially had he been +commended for his work of the last two years--since he had been raised +to the pinnacle of general manager of the biggest manufacturing concern +in the town. + +Yet there are always carping critics in every place and in any event. +As mark the criticism hurled at the young manager from the sidewalk +that afternoon as the boys were marching from the National Guard Armory +to the railway station. + +Ethel knew that the suggestion that Barton was a slacker must have hurt +the general manager cruelly. She, perhaps as well as anybody else, knew +why Frank Barton, trained in the Guard, and a military man from choice, +was not marching away with this first quota at the call to arms. + +If many Mailsburg people looked at Barton in the way suggested by the +careless criticism which had lately reached his ears, Ethel Clayton +knew that the manager’s existence was going to be a hard one. She +did not want to see him go to the war. Indeed, she was by no means +inspired as yet with any degree of patriotism. The war was too remote +and our reason for entering into it too theoretical. The blood of but +few of our men had been shed, and those were, as a rule, such as were +connected with the more spectacular portions of the service, nor had +our women and children been butchered by the Hun. + +In her heart Ethel longed to say something to Frank Barton to ease the +wound which he had suffered that afternoon. Should she overtake him and +speak? And then, even while she hesitated, the humming of a smoothly +running automobile sounded behind her. + +She turned to look, startled, fearing it was Jim Mayberry. But a girl +was driving the car that swerved in toward the curb, stopping just +beside the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company. + +“Oh, Mr. Barton!” + +The girl in the car was handsome, but with a high color and a shrill +voice. She had a great deal of light hair, which was carefully dressed; +she wore an expensive motor hat and veil; her cerise motor coat was of +heavy silk. If the frame ever sets off the picture to advantage, then +Helen Fuller was a work of art! + +“It’s just too, too lovely that I should catch you this way, Mr. +Barton,” she cried, as Ethel approached nearer. “You can’t say you are +busy and I am _sure_ it is not yet dinner time. I _must_ see you about +our garden festival. You know, for the Red Cross. We _all_ must do our +bit _these_ days. Do hop in and advise with poor me.” + +Ethel came within range of Barton’s vision. He gave her as usual one +of his warm, kind smiles, lifting his hat. Helen Fuller stared at +the passing girl, who plainly heard her scornful query: “One of your +factory hands, Mr. Barton?” + +“One of our office force--and one of the most valuable on the pay roll +of the Hapwood-Diller Company, Miss Fuller, I assure you.” + +But the cheerful reply did not take the barb out of the wound Helen +Fuller’s question had made. A little farther along the street, however, +Ethel shook herself and murmured: + +“What a perfect fool I am! It is ridiculous to mind anything that Helen +Fuller says. She remembers very well going to school with me and that +I was always at or near the head of the class and she at the foot. +That was before Grandon Fuller had that stock in the company left him +by Uncle Diller. Dear me! how the possession of money changes some +people.” Then, and cheerfully, she exclaimed aloud: “Ah! here’s Benway.” + +A young man with a perfectly splendid head of brown curly hair, +flawless complexion, level brows, fine, open gray eyes set well apart, +a straight nose and lips not full enough to be sensuous but not too +thin, the whole countenance softened by a cleft chin and humorous lines +at the corners of his mouth--that was Benway Chase. + +He came swinging along the walk and seized Ethel companionably by her +right arm, although that placed him upon the inner side of the path. +She met his look with one of pleasure, and they went on together like +the good comrades they were. + +People whom they knew and met greeted them with a matter-of-course air. +To see Ethel Clayton and Ben Chase together was nothing astonishing for +Mailsburg folk. They had been neighbors and chums since they were in +rompers. + +Her brightness of countenance faded when her old chum left her at the +gate of the Clayton cottage. She cast a commiserating glance after him +as he went on, whistling. It was not until then that the withered, +useless right arm of the young man became really noticeable. + +She called to her mother that she was home from work and went up to her +room to freshen her dress for dinner. Benway slipped out of her mind as +she did this--and most other things, save one. That was a comparison +she had begun to make on Burnaby Street between herself and Helen +Fuller. + +Was she jealous of the other girl? Why should she be? She was sure she +would not care to change places with Miss Fuller, money and all, for +any consideration. Yet-- + +She saw Frank Barton getting into the Fuller car, which Helen drove +so conspicuously about the streets of Mailsburg. Ethel Clayton could +not do that! Ethel must work, and dress plainly six days in the week +because of her position. Miss Fuller was always dressed as gaily +as a bird of paradise. And one must confess that men’s eyes were +attracted--sometimes blinded--by gay clothes. Frank Barton could not be +blamed for being a man. No. She had no complaint to make against Frank +Barton. He was always polite and kind and appreciative. + +“And he’d be all of that to a stray kitten that chanced to cross his +path!” she ejaculated in sudden disgust. “Helen Fuller has something to +offer him that I haven’t.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +“DOGFENNEL” + + +Frank Barton stepped into the car beside Miss Fuller and was whirled +away, a willing captive. To tell the truth, the general manager of the +Hapwood-Diller Company had been so busy fitting himself for his present +situation with the corporation, which he had now held two years, that +he had found little play-time. Having been motherless since childhood, +and always sisterless, he probably knew less about women than any +normal man in Mailsburg who had arrived at the age of twenty-eight. + +No girl had before so plainly shown that she was interested in him--and +Miss Fuller only recently. Her curiosity had first been piqued by +hearing Grandon Fuller speak in strong approval of the manager. Barton +had pulled the concern out of a slough of financial trouble that had +threatened to ruin the Hapwood-Diller Company. + +The Fullers had not always been wealthy. At least, not the +Grandon-Fuller branch. Not until Israel Diller died and left them the +bulk of his holdings in the Hapwood-Diller Company were they any better +off than their neighbors on the far end of Burnaby Street, where Ethel +Clayton and her mother and the Chases still lived. + +With the money Mrs. Fuller--an ambitious woman--had set out to be the +leader of Mailsburg’s society. To a certain degree she had succeeded. +Helen was growing up to be a society devotee and with scarcely a +sensible idea in her head. But she had beauty, and she made the most of +that. + +It was the thing, too, to be alive with interest in some semi-public +topic or other; and Helen was alive to the value of self-advertising. +A week never went by that her name did not appear in the society news +of the city or county papers. She had been out just as long as Frank +Barton had been manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company. + +She did not really care a fillip for Frank Barton--not at this +time--nor for any other man. But she thoroughly enjoyed the reputation +of having more men dangling after her than any other girl in Mailsburg. +She even endured the society of that “tame cat,” Morrison Copley; for +at least he counted! + +“Really, Mr. Barton,” Helen said, having got the manager beside her in +the driving seat of the car. “Really, you show very little interest in +your country’s welfare. Don’t you realize _yet_ we are _at war_?” + +Barton’s face was rather glum, but he tried to speak lightly. “I read +something about it in the papers. I’ve been so extremely busy, Miss +Fuller, I fear I should only know of it from hearsay if the Germans +sailed up the creek and landed at old Hammerly’s dock.” + +“The boys of the National Guard marched away to-day!” she cried. + +“Yes. That does make it look serious,” he agreed in a graver strain. + +“Everybody should do his or her bit, Mr. Barton,” the girl said with an +admonitory air. “I am _astonished_ at you. As I tell Morry Copley, if +I were a man nothing should keep me out of uniform. I _do_ think those +khaki colors are awfully _sweet_.” + +“I fear,” Barton said grimly, “that the fellows who put on khaki +because it looks ‘sweet’ will not make particularly good soldiers.” + +“Morry Copley, for instance?” and she laughed at herself and at the +non-present Copley. “Oh, well, you know what I mean. It really seems +_too_ bad that so many of you men in this town are not a bit patriotic.” + +“You’ve got me wrong, Miss Fuller,” the manager said hastily and in +considerable earnestness. “I do not think I lack patriotism. But one +must fulfill one’s duty.” + +“Oh, business!” she exclaimed, scornfully. + +He was on the defensive. “Your father’s income from our company is what +enables you to drive about in this car, Miss Fuller,” he said bluntly. + +“Now, _don’t_, for pity’s sake, talk _business_ to me. I really don’t +understand a thing about it. I presume that girl who passed us just +now--Clayton is her name?--may possess all the business acumen needed. +I haven’t _her_ experience.” + +And Frank Barton, startled, wondered why Helen Fuller had taken the +trouble to slur Ethel Clayton. + +The Fuller house, built on the exodus of the family from Burnaby +Street, was just the dwelling one knowing Grandon Fuller and his wife +would expect it to be. It was very large and very important looking, +with a lot of gingerbread trimming about the eaves and veranda roof and +the porte-cochère. + +A footman in a conspicuous livery stood at attention as Helen stopped +her car under the covered way. With a silver whistle this flunky +summoned a man from the garage to take the automobile. Barton followed +his hostess to the other end of the veranda where quite a party--mostly +the younger matrons and the girls of Mailsburg’s smart set--were +gathered. Tea had been made and two other liveried servants were +rolling service tables about from group to group. + +“Well, I have accomplished something,” Helen said, after an apology for +not being at home when her guests arrived and dropping with assumed +weariness into a comfortable chair. Immediately her maid put a knitting +bag into her lap and her mistress seized the needles with avidity. +“Every stitch counts, you know,” she went on. “I only wish I might knit +while I drive my machine. But that is impossible. And I told father +I’d drive the car myself and so let Charles, our chauffeur, enlist. We +women must do our part. Let’s see, Marie; how many of these sweaters +have I done for the soldiers?” + +“That is Mam’selle’s second this fortnight,” said the French maid, +without losing her composure. That she did nine-tenths of the work, +Helen merely rattling the needles while company was present, was not a +matter for the world to know. + +“You all know Mr. Barton, I think,” Helen went on, placing the manager +in a chair near her, as though he were a stray kitten she had picked +up on the street and brought home as a curiosity. “I’ve managed to +interest _him_ in our garden party. Really, he should be made to do +a good deal for the Red Cross. He has not done a sin-gle sol-i-ta-ry +thing as yet for the _cause_. I tell him he is a slacker of the first +water.” + +Some who chanced to hear her smiled. Frank Barton’s ears fairly burned. +It was no joke for him; yet he admitted that Miss Fuller did not +understand--_would_ not understand, perhaps--why he was not in khaki. + +“Bah Jove!” drawled the high and somewhat effeminate voice of Morrison +Copley, “Mr. Barton has plenty of company in this burg. I heard old +Hammerly say he thought of offering a reward for the discovery of a +single man within the conscription age here who joins from patriotic +motives. He says patriotism died out in Mailsburg in the last +generation.” + +“By the way, Morry,” asked a fellow with the bulging shoulders of +a prizefighter together with a dissipated face, “how did _you_ get +exempted?” + +“Dependent parent,” returned Copley. “You know, mothaw really couldn’t +get on without me.” + +“That’s true enough,” sneered the other. “Madam Copley would be lost +without her baby boy.” + +Morrison Copley did not, however, lack the keener weapons of retort. +“That’s all right, Bradley. I understand you gave the exemption board +the names of two dependent barkeepers.” + +The laugh that followed this sally enabled Frank Barton to recover his +composure. These fellows boldly acknowledged their lack of patriotic +feeling. He knew that his reasons for claiming exemption until the +Hapwood-Diller Company was in good shape again were, at least, +commendable. + +In a desultory way plans were made for the forthcoming garden party to +raise funds for the local Red Cross chapter. Barton did not find that +either his advice or his efforts were much needed. But he did get a +chance to talk with Miss Fuller; and he was not a deep enough student +of feminine nature to understand just how shallow she was. + +The Fullers were of the best socially there was in Mailsburg, despite +the fact that their money had come to them comparatively late. Mrs. +Fuller’s maiden name had been Diller, and the Dillers dated their +aristocracy in the county back to pre-Revolution days. To Barton, whose +antecedents had been quite unimportant, such connections in a social +way seemed worthy. + +“Come again to see me, Mr. Barton, when I am alone,” Helen whispered, +when he rose to follow the very first group with their knitting bags +that made its departure. “One must give one’s self more or less to +one’s guests when there is a crowd like this. I want you to take dinner +with us soon--quite _en famille_. Will you?” + +Barton promised. Grandon Fuller had always been cordial with him, and +he was glad to be _persona grata_ with the family. After all, it meant +considerable to him to be taken up by the Fullers. + +He was the only person on this occasion to walk away from the house. +The others rode in some kind of vehicle. But somebody got into step +with Barton less than ten yards from the gateway. + +“What brings you into the swagger part of the town, Frank?” demanded +a harsh voice. “You are not hatching something with Fuller to +double-cross the rest of the Hapwood-Diller stockholders?” + +The young manager knew the character of the speaker too well to be +offended. Macon Hammerly wore an apparent grouch to shield himself from +the importunities of his fellowmen. He actually could not say “No” to +any request or favor asked, unless he shouted it. + +He was a dry old fellow with stiff, badly brushed iron-gray hair and an +aggressive chin-whisker. He was the last man in Mailsburg to wear “half +leg” boots and had a local cobbler make them for him. He kept a feed +and grain store down on the docks and possessed in all probability more +cash in the bank than any other man in town. But he made no display of +it. + +He was distantly related to the Fullers; and he made no display of +that, although Helen called him “Uncle.” He bent a curious and somewhat +disapproving eye upon Barton as he waited for his answer. + +“I was just calling there.” + +“Huh! On whom?” + +“Miss Fuller took me up into her car and brought me over. It seems +there is to be a garden party for the Red Cross----” + +“Expected it must be something about a cross,” grumbled Macon Hammerly. +“Red Cross or what not, it will be the double-cross for you if you +don’t look out. You’ve nothing in common, Frank, with that dogfennel.” + +“With _what_?” asked Barton, chuckling. “That’s a new one!” + +“A new name for that inconsequential, useless crowd that circle about +Grandon Fuller’s gal? Huh! D’you know any better name for them? There +ain’t nothing more useless and picayune along the road than dogfennel. +That whole bunch isn’t worth the powder to blow it to Halifax!” + +“‘Dogfennel’,” and Barton still chuckled. “I don’t know but you are +rather hard on our common may-weed. But I grant you that some of those +people I met back there are quite as futile as the name implies. But +Miss Fuller herself! She is a remarkably pretty girl.” + +The old man in the linen duster and the broad-brimmed hat was quite as +emphatic as Barton expected him to be. “So’s dogfennel pretty--if you +like weeds. I don’t want to see you mixing in with that crowd, Frank. +How’s business?” + +“Better. Had to turn down a big order to-day, but I think we were +justified in doing so.” + +“Huh! Who says so? You and Jim Mayberry?” growled Hammerly, who kept in +quite close touch with the factory affairs. + +“Not altogether,” Barton smilingly replied. “We took the advice of Miss +Clayton.” + +“Huh! You _did_?” Hammerly listened quietly to the manager’s +explanation, commenting in his usual tart way, but with open +satisfaction: “You do show some sense once in a while, Frank. She’s +got a head on her, that Ethel Clayton. And you are right, I’ll bet a +cooky! The Bogata people are due to bust inside of three months. Mark +my words.” + +The two men separated at a corner and Barton strode on to his boarding +house and the dinner which he knew would be dished up cold to him now. +Mrs. Trevor played no table favorites in her ménage. The manager of the +Hapwood-Diller Company was not happy. His reflections were tinged with +a hue of disgust at his own equivocal situation. + +He knew he had good and sufficient reason for not enlisting the minute +of the declaration that a state of war with Germany existed. The same +reason had kept him at home when many of his comrades in the Guard had +gone to the Mexican Border. + +He had been spending his strength and thought to one end since being +placed in charge of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company. The +war had struck the concern hard, cutting off or doubling the price +of supplies without broadening the market for manufactured wares or +increasing the profit on them. + +Upon the dividends of the company many families in Mailsburg depended +for their very daily bread. Had the dividends been reduced or even +passed for several successive quarters, the Fullers would have got +along all right; but there were stockholders whose livelihood depended +utterly upon the factory running on full time and turning a profit on +every dollar’s worth of product that left the shipping room. And Frank +Barton seemed to be the only man to keep it so running. + +For the most part these needy folk were widows or orphans or old people +past working age, who had received their stock from one or another +of the original owners of the factory. These helpless people Barton +had felt particularly his charge. To throw up his job and join the +colors might ruin the small fry depending upon the success of the +Hapwood-Diller Company’s affairs. Until of late he had scarcely found +breathing space to think of anything save the business of the factory. + +But now! The boys marching away earlier in the day had stabbed Frank +Barton to the quick. He was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. +It was only those who knew him best who suspected the rankling wound +he suffered when his course was unfavorably compared with that of the +guardsmen whose brother-in-arms he had been. + +Even Helen Fuller had accused him of being a slacker, and had compared +him with Morry Copley and that Bradley fellow. Barton’s gorge rose as +he thought of this. + +“A slacker, eh?” he muttered to himself. “A slacker, am I?” + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SKINNERS + + +Jim Mayberry was smoking his second cigarette when a girl came out of +the main door of the factory offices. She was a slim, rather startled +looking girl. Her flaxen hair was pulled back so tightly as to raise +her eyebrows perceptibly; this opened very wide her eyes and seemed +even to pull the point of her nose up a little and raise her upper lip +to display two little rabbit teeth. + +“Hello, Skinner,” said the superintendent. “Isn’t Ethel ’most ready?” + +“Hello, Jim Mayberry,” responded the girl, who felt no obligation to +show the superintendent any particular respect outside the factory. +“Going to take me home in your flivver?” + +“Aren’t you afraid to ride with me?” asked the man with a slow smile. + +“Nope. You try to get funny with _me_ and I’ll scratch your eyes out.” + +“My!” drawled Mayberry, “aren’t you the catty thing?” + +“You’d think so,” rejoined the flat-chested girl with all the strutting +boastfulness of a boy. “No feller’s ever going to kiss _me_ if I don’t +want him to.” + +“I bet you!” agreed the superintendent with mock admiration. “But +where’s Ethel?” + +“You aren’t waiting for her, are you, Jim?” the slim girl asked, +giggling. + +“I thought I was.” + +“Then there’s another thought coming to you,” declared the delighted +Skinner. “Ethel went long ago--out through the side gate. Guess she +must have suspected you’d be waiting here.” + +Mayberry uttered a brief and impolite expletive. That did not trouble +Mabel Skinner. She lived in a house full of rough men. Her mother was +dead and an older sister kept house for the Skinners. The children of +Sam Skinner had not been brought up according to the Puritan acceptance +of the term. Like Topsy, they had “just growed.” + +“She wouldn’t ride in that flivver with you anyway,” Mabel Skinner +added. “But I would.” + +“Jump in, then, Little Skinner,” the superintendent said, without +further advertising his chagrin. + +“I hope my Sunday School teacher won’t see me,” the girl observed, +getting in beside him quickly. “If she does she will know I am riding +fast to perdition. And _do_ make your old rattle-bang go as fast as +possible, Jim. I just love to scoot over the road. Gee, if I’d only +been made a boy instead of a girl, I’d have been a jockey.” + +“Hear the girl!” chuckled Mayberry, who was really after all too +good-natured to be spiteful to his guest. “You’ll be up in one of +these flying machines yet.” + +“Oh, that would be grand! I’d go to France and join the flying corps. +That girl from Texas that got over there with the first batch of Yankee +soldiers--did you read about her? They got on to her and sent her back. +That’s because she got married to one of the buddies. Catch _me_! I +wouldn’t marry the best man alive.” + +“You won’t,” prophesied Jim Mayberry, still chuckling. + +“Smartie! Anyhow, I wouldn’t fall for any man I’ve ever seen yet. Not +even Mr. Barton,” she added, as though there might be some doubt in her +mind about the general manager. + +“Humph! who has fallen for him?” demanded the superintendent +suspiciously. + +“Every girl in town but me,” declared Mabel Skinner promptly, but +grinning impishly, “He’s an awfully nice man, is Mr. Barton.” + +“Yes. I’d fall for him myself if I were a girl, I guess,” Mayberry +agreed. + +“Yes--you--would! Say, that’s my corner!” + +“I know. But I’m going to spin you around the reservoir and bring you +home the other way.” + +“Oh, bully!” ejaculated the girl, fairly jumping in her seat. “I’m +being run away with by a man. Never thought it would happen to me. I +really wish you wasn’t so trifling, Jim Mayberry. I’d maybe sue you +for breach of promise.” + +“Then I’m safe, am I?” he asked. + +“As far as I am concerned you are. I wouldn’t really marry you on a +bet, Jim. Don’t you know that?” + +He was highly amused. Mabel Skinner’s tart tongue always delighted him. +She lived in one of the poorer quarters of the town. When he finally +brought the machine into her street it created a sensation. People +left their supper tables to see Mabel Skinner brought home in the +superintendent’s car. + +“What’s the matter, Mab? Broke a leg?” demanded one lout of a boy, with +an impudent grin for Mayberry, and who was just slipping out of the +Skinners’ gate. This was “Boots” Skinner, next younger of the clan than +Mabel. + +“Both of ’em, or you wouldn’t catch me ruining my reputation riding +home with Mr. Mayberry. Don’t tell anybody, Boots.” + +The superintendent of the Hapwood-Diller factory found that it was he +who felt some confusion in bringing Mabel home. The latter took her +time in getting out of the car. + +“I’m awfully much obliged to you, Mr. Mayberry,” she said, in a shrill +and penetrating voice, so that the interested neighbors could all hear. +“I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t brought me. Walked, +I guess. Well! ‘Over the river!’” + +She popped into the house before he could get the starter into action +under the fire of the neighbors’ chuckles. They all knew Mabel Skinner; +and most of them had sized up Jim Mayberry for what he was, too. + +Mayberry drove down into Mailsburg’s business quarter and stopped +before the Bellevue Hotel. He often took his dinner there and spent the +evening, as well, in some upper room where there were shaded lights, +much cigar smoke, the clink of glasses and the rattle of poker chips. + +The superintendent had been born and brought up in Mailsburg, as Frank +Barton had been; but his family was now scattered. He and Barton had +been the closest of chums at school. Mayberry owned quite as bright +a mind as the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company; but he +lacked the balance of his friend. + +Had it not been for the inspiration of Barton’s companionship and +example Mayberry would never have obtained the eminence he had in the +factory. In truth, his old chum had actually boosted Mayberry into +the superintendent’s job after having been himself elected manager of +the concern. Not that Mayberry was not well fitted for this position. +But he lacked that quality of ambition to have gained it for himself +without Frank Barton’s good offices. At that, he lacked the grace of +gratitude. + +The Bellevue was the gathering place of the sporting men of the town. +When Mayberry came out from dinner, Mr. Grandon Fuller occupied one of +the easy chairs on the porch. Fuller’s taste for society was not like +that of his wife and daughter. He was a big, pursy man with a shock of +white hair and a ruddy countenance. He had a hail-fellow-well-met air +for most occasions, and his jovial manner made him popular with most +people. In local politics he had some prominence. + +“Hey, young man!” he called to Mayberry, “you’ve no engagement, have +you? Smith is getting up a party for a little game. Will you join us?” + +“Not to-night, Colonel,” returned the superintendent, giving Fuller a +handle to his name that always delighted the rich man. He had been on +the governor’s staff once. “I am sorry. I have an appointment.” + +“Tut, tut! can’t you let the girls alone for one night, Son?” and +Fuller’s laugh was unctuous. + +“’Pon my word it’s business.” + +“Thought nobody had to trouble their heads about business up at the +factory except Barton?” + +“But Barton may not be there always,” laughed the superintendent, +although the suggestion of the manager’s omnipotence did not please +him. Everybody praised Frank Barton’s business acumen. Mayberry, being +Barton’s close friend, knew just how weak the fellow really was! This +was Mayberry’s thought; but he made no display of this feeling, saying: + +“It really is business, Colonel. I am sorry not to be able to join you +and the other gentlemen. But we really all have to work up there at the +factory. Barton may get the bulk of the credit. You know how it is when +a fellow once gets into the limelight.” + +“Yes,” chuckled Fuller. “But they tell me a lime never gets into the +limelight. Don’t tell me Frank Barton is to be counted among the citrus +fruit.” + +“Never!” responded Mayberry. “But, then, there are others working for +the Hapwood-Diller Company too who are not lemons. Good-night.” + +He went down the steps whistling cheerfully and Mr. Fuller looked +quizzically after him. + +“Bright young fellow, just the same,” murmured the man. “Perhaps may be +made more useful, even, than Barton. But I fear neither Helen nor the +wife would stand for _him_ as a dinner guest; whereas, Barton----” + +These cryptic observations were unheard by Mayberry of course. And the +frown on his brow belied his cheerful whistle and airy remarks to Mr. +Fuller. He got into his car, started it, and drove away from the hotel +with the secret feeling that he would enjoy running over a dog. + +He kept on through the old part of Mailsburg and down past the docks +and over the Stone Bridge. The creek was a wide, oilily flowing +stream--save in the time of the spring freshets. He took the Creek +Road and rolled easily out of town and along past the farms and wooded +strips which intervened between Mailsburg and Norville. + +He drove slowly and looked at the illuminated dial of the clock before +him frequently. It was plain that he had a rendezvous here in the open. +Some one has said: “If you have a secret to tell, select the middle +of a ten-acre lot.” Mayberry’s appointment suggested secrecy, for he +finally stopped near the bank of the creek with an open, sloping field +on the other hand, and no cover but a rock beside the road. + +There was shadow enough about the rock, however, to protect the figure +of a man on the landward side. But the scent of his tobacco permeated +the air. + +“Hello, Blaisdell?” Jim Mayberry said quietly and questioningly, having +brought his car to a stop just opposite this rock. + +“Welcome, dear boy,” was the prompt reply. The waiting man stretched +his long limbs and came out of the shadow, still puffing his pipe, to +rest a foot upon the step of the car. Mayberry lit a cigarette and +pinched out the glowing end of the match before dropping it. “What’s +the news?” asked Blaisdell. + +“Kind of bad--for you and me,” Mayberry admitted. + +“What do you mean? Doesn’t that order go through?” + +“It may not. I’m no intriguer, Blaisdell. I can keep you informed; but +I am not up in diplomacy. Barton has heard some yarn about you fellows. +He is for turning the order down--flat.” + +“Can’t you influence him? I thought you and he were thicker than the +hair on a dog’s neck.” + +“We’ve always been chums,” drawled Mayberry. “That doesn’t give me any +hold over Frank’s processes of reasoning. And he can talk me off my +feet. I didn’t agree to do the impossible, Blaisdell. If the order goes +through the best I can do is to rush it.” + +“Yet you expect to get your rake-off,” sneered the other. + +“That’s my legitimate graft. It’s for letting everything go through +smoothly. You know, in my position, I can favor your company, +Blaisdell.” + +“It doesn’t seem that you can--not if this order clogs the chute. I am +frank to tell you, Jim, we’ve got to get those goods without question +or we shall be in untold trouble.” + +“Ye-as,” drawled the superintendent, “so I inferred. That is what is +bothering Barton. He seems to be wise to the state of your credit.” + +“He doesn’t _know_ it,” snapped the other. “He only suspects. Nobody +knows it but Billings, Hempstead, me and--you.” + +“And I’m sitting tight and saying nothing. I want my rake-off on the +order of course--By jinks, I _need_ it! Money is as scarce with me +just now as gold filling in a hen’s teeth.” + +“Then do something to help us,” urged Blaisdell. + +“I’ll do all I can. If I were in charge--Oh, well! I _could_ do +something in that case.” + +“Say! any chance of that happening?” demanded the other and with +eagerness. + +“I--don’t--know. There may be. Frank has got the war fever. Fact! Any +fellow that got exempted as easy as he did----” + +“By the way,” asked Blaisdell, “how did you get past the board?” + +“Conscientious objector,” replied Mayberry glibly. “Sure! My mother and +father were Quakers and I often attended the Friends’ Meeting House,” +and he laughed. + +“You are a liar, Jim,” said the other frankly. “The Quakers are putting +their young men into the Red Cross and all such work. That claim +don’t go. I believe it cost you money. Doc Flammer has bought a new +runabout--and it’s a better car than you drive, Jim. I believe that +foxy medico knows how to feather his nest.” + +“I really have a bad heart,” said the superintendent of the +Hapwood-Diller Company seriously. “Quite a murmur. You can hear it +sometimes without the stethoscope.” + +“But the doc never advised you to cut out the tobacco, did he?” drily +queried Blaisdell, as Mayberry lit another cigarette at the coal of +his first. “Now, see here, to get back to biz: You say Barton has the +fever?” + +“He’s wanted to go all along. You should hear him talk! He makes me +sick!” scoffed the superintendent. “If he should go I shall step into +his shoes _pro tem_. He wants to go to the officers’ training camp +at Lake Quehasset. _Then_ I might be able to help you fellows--and +myself--Blaisdell.” + +“You think Barton will immediately turn down our order? Before he goes +away--if he does go?” + +“I believe he has already.” Mayberry gave no particulars, but he spoke +of the letter the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company had ordered +written that afternoon. It was not to his advantage to say anything +about Ethel Clayton and the confidence Barton had in her good sense and +ability. + +“Postpone the sending of that letter, Jim,” said Blaisdell hastily. “It +has not left the office yet, has it?” + +“I do not believe so. It was too late for the last mail,” Mayberry +agreed. But he was puzzled. + +“I’ll tell you what I mean,” Blaisdell said, leaning nearer to the +superintendent. He laid a hand upon the latter’s shoulder. His lips +were close to Mayberry’s ear. Nobody could have heard then what he +said, not if they had been at Blaisdell’s elbow. And there was nobody +so near. A few minutes later the superintendent turned his car and +started back toward Mailsburg while Blaisdell strolled away in the +opposite direction. Then it was that a cramped figure rolled out from +the shadow on the creek side of the great rock. + +“Those two chumps purty near made me late setting my lines,” observed +Boots Skinner under his breath. “The moon’ll be up in a few minutes and +then mebbe I’d git nabbed. + +“Old Man Hammerly says that if I’m caught doing this ag’in he’ll give +me all the laws allows--an’ then some. The old jackdaw! I bet he never +gits the chance. + +“That’s the way. Ain’t no chance for a poor feller, jest as dad says. +Such rich chaps as them two can plan to do all the devilment that they +want, and nobody dast touch ’em. But me! I ain’t let to ketch a mess +o’ fish in peace. Huh! Jest the same, me an’ dad will have a fish-fry +for breakfast,” and he grinned in the darkness, carefully baiting his +hooks. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE DREAM OF A STAR + + +Mrs. Clayton was a Diller. She often stated this fact with pride. + +“The Dillers, my dear, are among the very oldest and the very best +families in the country; and when one has family as every sensible +person recognizes, money is of secondary importance,” Ethel’s mother +insisted over and over, in season and out. + +“All very well, dear,” agreed the girl cheerfully. “But money is more +essential to our daily comfort than blue blood. I presume I am glad I +have Diller blood in my veins. I am much gladder I have Diller brains +in my head; for they enable me to earn twenty dollars a week--more than +any other girl earns, I do believe, in Mailsburg.” + +Mrs. Clayton, with all her horror of things common, could not deny +that Israel Diller had been the saviour of the family by his business +ability. He went into trade and he made good in it. By grace of +his doing so, and leaving her a few shares of the Hapwood-Diller +Company--and Grandon Fuller’s wife a good many--both the Claytons and +the Fullers were benefitted. Indeed, Mrs. Clayton and Ethel lived much +more comfortably in the little cottage at the end of Burnaby Street +by grace of the dividends from those shares than they had while Mr. +Clayton was alive. + +“But I sometimes wonder,” Mrs. Clayton sighed, “how it came about +that Mehitable Fuller and I should have been so unevenly treated by +Great-uncle Israel. Mehitable never did a hand’s turn for old Mr. +Diller in her life. While you can remember yourself, Ethel, although +you were but a tiny girl, that the old gentleman was brought here that +time he had typhoid and he was a care on my hands for six months.” + +“Oh, Mother!” + +“I’m not begrudging the care,” her mother hastened to say. “And of +course his lawyer afterward brought me the money for his board--six +dollars a week for twenty-seven weeks. And I signed a paper saying it +was all I could expect. Still--Well! if he had been alone in his own +home and had had to hire a trained nurse and all that he’d have paid +out a lot more money than he did.” + +“Now, Mother, never mind all that,” Ethel urged. + +“No, I realize it doesn’t sound nice,” Mrs. Clayton agreed. “But it +seems funny. When I see those Fullers driving around so haughtily, and +read about Mehitable, that I went to school with, and that pug-nosed +girl of hers----” + +“Mercy! don’t let anybody hear you speak of Helen Fuller’s nose in such +terms,” laughed Ethel. “And Helen is pretty. You’ve got to acknowledge +that.” + +“Her nose _is_ a pug,” declared Mrs. Clayton. “That’s got nothing to do +with those stocks. Great-uncle Israel’s will was peculiar. So they all +say. No administrator mentioned. And he died with Gran Fuller right in +the house----” + +“Don’t!” begged Ethel. “You must not intimate any wrongdoing, when +there can have been no wrongdoing.” + +“What do you know about it? And you but a chit of a girl at the time!” +demanded Mrs. Clayton. “Anyway, Gran Fuller was there, and he found the +will. Mr. Mestinger, the lawyer, was dead then.” + +“But the witnesses were alive if the lawyer wasn’t. Of course it was +Mr. Diller’s honest will.” + +“And he gave all that lump of money to Mehitable who never scarcely +spoke to him, and only a little, meaching few stocks of the +Hapwood-Diller Company to me. Oh, well, small favors thankfully +received. The money’s very welcome every quarter.” + +Of course, Ethel was the recipient of a fairly comfortable salary. But +they could not have lived so nicely as they did upon her weekly stipend +only. Moreover, it was but recently that the girl was able to earn the +amount at present paid her. + +“And there was a time,” pursued Mrs. Clayton on this particular +evening, “when I came near selling the shares for a song.” She and +Ethel were sitting, after the dinner dishes were cleared up, on the +sheltered porch. “Grandon Fuller made me an offer for my stock. That +was just before Mr. Barton was made manager, and people said the +company was going to fail.” + +“Mr. Barton has done wonders,” declared the girl with admiration. + +“Oh, I don’t know,” responded her mother deprecatingly. “I suppose +business just chanced to change. But it’s lucky we held on to our +stock.” + +“It was Mr. Barton who saved us and the rest of the small +stockholders,” the girl said firmly. + +“Well, I suppose you must say so. I presume you feel some gratitude +to him for raising your pay. You never would have got it without his +say-so.” + +“I hope I earn it,” Ethel observed with some sharpness. “I believe I +am worthy of my wages, just as Mr. Barton is worthy of the credit of +having put the Hapwood-Diller Company on its feet.” + +“Still talking shop?” asked the cheerful voice of Benway Chase. He had +come up the walk without the widow and her daughter hearing him till he +spoke. + +“Oh, Ethel is singing the praises of that wonderful Mr. Barton, as +usual,” her mother said. + +“I’ll join in,” Ben Chase chuckled, and he sat down on the step of the +porch to fill and light his pipe. “We’ve got to hand it to Mr. Barton, +Mrs. Clayton. He did another good deed to-day. Promised to take me into +the offices.” + +“Oh, Ben!” exclaimed the girl in sheer delight. “Did you speak to him +as I advised you?” + +“Certainly did. I got tired of waiting on the pleasure of those other +people who had promised me a job. I have spent every cent we can +afford getting a business course and just because I am left-handed the +business men I have seen hem and haw over hiring me--or even giving me +a chance to show them I am as quick as a fellow with two hands.” + +“Dear me, Bennie, don’t talk in that way,” murmured Mrs. Clayton. + +“Nobody wants a fellow with one hand--not really!” exclaimed the young +man with vigor. “They won’t take me in the army--though a fellow could +work a machine gun very well with one paw,” and he laughed without +managing to get much mirth into the sound. + +“But your Mr. Barton is different,” he added, turning to Ethel. “I saw +him to-day at lunch hour--while you were out, Ethel. He never said a +word about my bum wing. By the way, did you know he was going away?” + +“Who’s going away?” asked Mrs. Clayton, scenting gossip. + +“Not Mr. Barton?” cried her daughter quickly. + +“Spoke as though he expected to be absent from the offices in the near +future. Said you and that Jim Mayberry would break me in all right. +What did he mean if it wasn’t that he expected to be absent?” + +The girl looked at him breathlessly and her face was actually pale. +Mrs. Clayton drawled: + +“I suppose he must mean to take a vacation.” + +“That’s not it, is it?” Benway Chase asked Ethel, realizing that she +was deeply moved. + +“It’s the war!” gasped the girl. + +“The war?” rejoined her mother. “What’s that to do with Mr. Barton? +He’s exempt, isn’t he?” + +“He will enlist. I knew he would!” The girl’s hands were clasped in +real agony and her voice showed imminent tears. “Oh, I knew he would!” + +“Not really?” exclaimed Benway, forgetting to keep his pipe alight. +“Mr. Barton can’t be spared, can he?” + +“I suspected all along how he felt about it,” moaned the girl. “Ever +since April when war was declared--even before.” + +“But, goodness! there are so many other men to go,” cried her mother. +“And you were just saying that he was necessary to the well-being of +the Hapwood-Diller Company, Ethel. Surely he will not desert us.” + +“The business is in very good shape again--thanks to him,” Ethel +answered, trying to recover her composure. “I suppose he feels that +now, at least, he can go to the officers’ training camp. And if we get +along all right I just know he will go to France.” + +Benway whistled--low and thoughtfully. “He’s that kind of a chap, I +guess,” he observed. “Goodness knows, this town is full of those who +think differently. The boards had the hardest time getting their full +quota for this first draft. There’s got to be a general awakening +before the second call comes----” + +“But war is dreadful!” cried Mrs. Clayton. + +“It must be. But we haven’t come to a realization of it yet or we’d all +be glad to try to help keep it in Europe, instead of letting it dribble +over here after militarism has ruined the less prepared countries over +there. This war is going to mean a good deal. The government is awfully +particular about the men they take right now; but they won’t be so +particular before it is all over. + +“Why!” cried the young fellow with a break in his voice that showed a +deeper emotion, “even the Red Cross or the Y. M. C. A. won’t accept for +service a fellow with a single solitary thing the matter with him!” + +Ethel, who had slipped down into a seat on the step beside him, +suddenly patted his shoulder in a sisterly way. She knew that he had +tried to serve his country under the banner of the Cross of Peace and +had been refused because of his withered arm. + +“Heigho!” added Benway, shrugging his shoulders and swallowing his +emotion, “that’s neither here nor there. Mr. Barton spoke as though he +expected to leave soon, anyway. I expect Ethel, here, will pretty near +be boss of those offices while he is gone. How about it, Ethel? Going +to be a hard taskmaster to yours truly?” + +“I am afraid if Mr. Barton goes that my influence there will be curbed +rather than increased,” the girl said with gravity. + +“No!” + +“Naturally Mr. Mayberry will be boss. Mr. Mayberry does not consider me +as capable as does Mr. Barton.” + +“Jim Mayberry!” exclaimed Ben. “He’s dead in love with you, they say.” + +The girl’s head came up and she turned a haughty look upon her friend. + +“Do you consider that complimentary to me?” she demanded. + +“No. But complimentary to his good sense,” returned Benway. “I don’t +know much about Mayberry; only that he hangs about the Bellevue too +much.” + +“You’ve said it all,” Ethel declared, with less sternness. “I do not +like Mr. Mayberry.” + +“All right. I shan’t like him, either, then,” said Benway cheerfully. +“But, goodness, girl! you can’t blame men for falling in love with you. +I wonder the whole town doesn’t tail along after you when you walk down +the street.” + +She laughed at him then--and with him. + +“There is one thing about your compliments, Ben,” she said. “They may +lack grace; but they are unmistakable. Ridiculous! There are hundreds +of girls in Mailsburg better looking than I am.” + +“Now, did I say anything about looks?” he asked her wickedly. “It’s +your sweet disposition that makes you so many friends.” + +“Like Jim Mayberry, I suppose?” she said in some disgust. + +They continued to wrangle in a friendly way. Mrs. Clayton, frankly +yawning, bade them good-night. The moment her mother withdrew Ethel’s +manner changed. She removed herself a little from Benway’s vicinity and +her witticisms ceased. + +“I believe I shall retire early myself, Ben,” she said. “This has been +a trying day. I--I shall be glad to have you in the offices with us.” + +“Shall you?” There was something in his tone that increased her +seriousness. + +“If I can do anything there to help you, let me do it,” she said +earnestly. “You know we have always been such chums, Ben.” + +“Haven’t we?” Again the disturbing accent. She started to rise. He +caught her hand. “Wait,” he said. “Let me say a little something to +you, Ethel.” + +“Ben! Ben! Had you better? You know----” + +“I know--everything you can tell me,” he interrupted bitterly. “I know +I am only half a man. A fellow shy a wing hasn’t much chance in this +world. I ought to know it after all my experience. Especially as the +folks have no money to back me. But I have a whole brain----” + +“I’ve always told you that, Ben,” she hastened to say. “A perfectly +good brain. I would not harp so much on that withered arm.” + +“No, perhaps you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t unless the old arm happened to +be hitched to your shoulder, as it is to mine. No, it is easy enough to +say to a cripple, ‘Forget it.’ Wait till you try it yourself! Though, +Heaven forbid! I hope you will never suffer such a handicap, Ethel.” + +“Oh, Benway!” + +“Now, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Ethel,” he returned, and +patted her hand. “Fact is, I feel rather toppy to-night myself. I know +that Mr. Barton is taking me on for just what he thinks is in me, and +no more. He must think that a withered arm will not make me less useful +around the offices of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Influence is not +getting me this footing. + +“And he was kind enough to say,” went on the boy, “that he saw no +reason why I should not rise there as he had risen. He told me how +he began in one of the shops and worked up. Of course, I am not +beginning just in that way; but he says that a practical knowledge +of the mechanical end of the business is not absolutely necessary to +advancement. + +“If I make good, Ethel--if I prove that the stuff is in me to get up in +the business world, after all----” + +“Of all your friends I shall be the one who will be the most delighted, +Ben,” she interrupted, rising now with finality. “Don’t forget that +I have always said it was in you to make something of yourself. +Even if your parents could not afford to send you to college, I +know--absolutely know--you will make your mark.” + +“Well, yes,” he said, rather piqued that she had not let him finish. +She stood above him now, looking down. + +“Good-night, Benway. I suppose you will come to the offices on Monday?” + +“Yes, I’ll see you then, Ethel, every day,” he said wistfully. + +“Good-night,” she repeated and went quickly within. Once inside +the screen door she watched his shadowy figure down the path. “‘No +influence’?” she murmured. “He does not suspect how I fairly had to beg +Mr. Barton to give him a chance! Poor Benway! Poor, poor boy!” + +The girl went on to her bedroom. She stood a moment in the darkness. + +“Frank Barton going--leaving--” she gasped. “Oh, why can’t he see? Why +can’t he see?” she added, moaning. + +Then she began her preparations for bed. + +Benway Chase crossed the road and entered the field that divided his +own home from the end of Burnaby Street. This was a surburban locality. +There was the fine smell of new-mown hay in his nostrils. Half way +across the field he stumbled upon a cock of hay that had been thrown up +for the night, and he fell upon it, rolling upon his back luxuriously +and gazing back. + +There was a light in a certain window of the Clayton Cottage. He had +watched it many a night, for he knew that it was the window of Ethel’s +room. Above the rooftree hung a brilliant star. He had watched that, +too, often and again. And when the light in Ethel’s room was snuffed +out he fixed his eyes on the star and dreamed. + +It was only a boy’s dream at best. It was a foolish dream, perhaps. But +Benway Chase often dreamed it. + +He was fully a year older than Ethel Clayton; but sometimes she made +him feel very much younger than she. Dreamer by nature, he; and she one +of those practical souls that chafe in the bodies of women. At least, +they chafe where women’s growth is hampered. But Ethel was numbered +of the emancipated. She was a business woman. Moreover, she was a +successful business woman. + +As she had said, no girl in Mailsburg in all probability earned a +larger wage than she did. She had a grasp upon the details of the +business of the Hapwood-Diller Company that fitted her without +question for a position as important as that of Jim Mayberry for +instance. Indeed, she was better informed and more capable than even +Frank Barton realized. + +The manager merely found her surprisingly helpful on occasion. He +respected her; he admired her good business sense displayed at these +times. Ethel Clayton did not wish to be admired by the manager for any +such reason. + +Perhaps hers, too, was a dream of a star. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TWO GOOD-BYES + + +After the porter, who dusted and removed the waste paper, Mabel Skinner +was the first of the office force to arrive at the Hapwood-Diller +Company the next morning. + +Her startled face was preternaturally grave on this occasion. Before +she even removed her hat and the tight little jacket she wore, the girl +went to the mail basket on Ethel Clayton’s desk, dumped the outgoing +letters on its flat surface, and ran through them quickly, scrutinizing +each address. She did this twice and then puzzlement, as well as +gravity, showed in her sharp features. She stacked the letters slowly +again in the basket, deep in thought. + +Then she went to the letter files. She found under the B heading a +quantity of correspondence relating to the Bogata Company of Norville. +But there was nothing of recent date. It seemed no letter had been +written the day before by the Hapwood-Diller Company to the Bogata +people. + +“Well,” the girl sighed, “I know Boots is an awful liar. But this time +he fooled me. Guess I’ll keep my nose out of what don’t concern me. But +that Boots!” + +And that evening she gave the recreant Boots a most decisive thrashing +out behind the barn. For any older Skinner that could not trounce a +younger Skinner, male or female, was not worthy of the clan. + +Mabel’s appearance at her desk when the rest of the office force +arrived caused much comment. + +“Life is short and time is fleeting,” said Sydney, the bookkeeper. “We +are warned of the Great Change to come. Little Skinner is here on time +and at work.” + +“That happens three days before you die, Syd,” responded Mabel +sepulchrally, and made no further explanation, not even to Ethel. + +Ethel went about her work with some feeling of depression. Barton had +said nothing directly to her about going away. Indeed, he was not +likely to take Ethel Clayton into his confidence in private matters. +Yet she understood now, from several things he had been doing of late, +that he had it in mind to absent himself from the offices. + +Jim Mayberry was in conference with the general manager on more than +one occasion during the next few days. Ethel could only be thankful +that the superintendent seemed to have too much on his mind to bother +her. He did not even mention her refusal to ride with him in his car. +But the girl thought more than once of the possibility of Mayberry’s +becoming objectionable when Barton was gone and he, the superintendent, +had charge of affairs. + +On Monday Benway Chase came into the offices. Ethel had paved the +way for his reception by her associates, and Benway was made to feel +welcome at once. Only Mayberry seemed surprised to see him. + +“Why, say!” drawled the superintendent, “what does Barton expect to +make of _you_?” + +“I’m after your job, Mr. Mayberry,” responded Benway, smiling into the +rather sneering face of the older man. “You don’t mind, do you?” + +“Not if you can cop it,” said the other. “But it takes a two-fisted +man to handle some of the huskies we’ve got in the shops. Don’t forget +that.” + +The intimation was brutal, but the boy with the withered arm only paled +a little about the lips. + +“You know,” he said coolly, “we left-handed chaps have all the luck. +Ask any ball fan.” + +Mayberry laughed shortly and passed on. Ethel was particularly kind to +Benway for the rest of that day, and Mabel Skinner, who also had heard +the superintendent, stuck out her tongue at his retreating figure. + +“He’s such a nasty thing!” she whispered to Ethel. “I wish his old +flivver would try to climb a telegraph pole with him--or go into the +ditch!” + +For Skinner was a strong partisan of Ethel’s. Her friends were +Skinner’s friends and her enemies Skinner’s particular foes. Besides, +the younger girl had at once taken a fancy to Benway Chase. In looks +alone the young fellow had the advantage of any man Mabel Skinner had +ever seen before--not barring the general manager, whom she worshipped +as a kind of god. + +A smile from Benway Chase would turn almost any girl’s head. He had the +darlingest curls! His complexion was finer and clearer than any girl’s +Skinner knew. There were shades of brown and red in his cheeks that +reminded her of a ripe russet apple. + +“My!” she whispered to herself, her china-blue eyes staring from her +head more staringly than usual, “wouldn’t I just like to put my two +hands into his hair and pull it--ever so gently? And his eyes are just +as lovely as our setter-pup’s. Oh, my! And of course he’s set his heart +on Ethel!” + +She was not jealous of Ethel. Skinner was much too modest to feel +such an emotion for one whom she so much admired. She considered +Benway Chase as far above her as the moon and stars. She thought them +beautiful in much the same way as she admired Benway. + +In the middle of that week Ethel was called into the manager’s office +at an unusual hour--not long before closing time. He usually dictated +his letters in the morning. But she carried her notebook and pencil +when she answered the summons. + +“No letters, Miss Clayton,” Barton said, smiling and wheeling sideways +in his chair to face her. “Sit down. This is a business conference----” + +“Oh! Mr. Mayberry----” + +“I’ve talked to Jim,” said Barton quickly. “I’ve been hammering things +into him this fortnight, off and on. He has finally got to the point +where he admits he may be able to swing things here for a bit while I +run away.” + +Ethel flashed him a glance that he could not help but note. He raised +an admonishing hand. + +“Don’t think I am running away from duty, Miss Clayton. I believe we +are in such shape now--the Hapwood-Diller Company, I mean--that the +business will run smoothly under the guidance of Mr. Mayberry--and you. +I am banking a good deal on you, Miss Clayton,” his kindly smile again +lighting up his face. + +“On me, Mr. Barton?” she hesitated. + +“You are such a perfectly capable person, Miss Clayton,” he said. “I +believe you have a better grasp on details here than almost anybody +else. Of course, Mr. Mayberry and I ought to know fully as much +as you do; but the other day you proved that we did not,” and he +laughed. “That Bogata matter, you remember. We had overlooked the +very point which we should have remembered. You did not overlook it. +Therefore----You see? + +“That is exactly what I mean. Jim is all right. He has a grasp of the +mechanical part of the business. But you must run the office end, more +or less----” + +“But, Mr. Barton! you are not going to remain away for long, are you?” +she interposed. + +“I cannot say, Miss Clayton,” he returned gravely. “We none of us know +what this war may amount to. I only know that I can be of some help +if the war continues; and with my experience in the Guard I should be +preparing to give my country all the help in my power if I am called +on. I am leaving for the training camp at Lake Quehasset this evening.” + +She could not suppress a murmur, and the pallor of her cheek was +marked, but he noticed neither. + +“The exemption board allowed my claim of business need. But I am +promised to the service if the business here can get along without me. +The time has now come to try it,” and he laughed a little whimsically. +“You know, a dead man is seldom missed, no matter how important his +place in life seems to be. After a little somebody is found to fill his +shoes. I fancy it will not be so hard, Miss Clayton, to fill mine. + +“I am depending on Mr. Mayberry and you, Miss Clayton, to keep the +stockholders of the company satisfied that I can be spared. We have +some months’ training in camp in any case. I have felt the call from +‘over there’ for a long time. I own frankly,” he added, his voice +vibrant with emotion, “that had I been free, I should not have waited +for our Government to declare war before getting into the scrimmage. + +“But never mind that! I was held here. You know something of the +circumstances we faced two years ago when I took hold. Now we seem to +have got out of the mire. We’re standing on firm ground. With ordinary +care everything should go smoothly with the Hapwood-Diller Company. Can +I depend on you to do your part, Miss Clayton?” + +“Oh, yes, Mr. Barton! I will! I will!” cried the girl with clasped +hands, but looking away from him. + +“Fine! Help Mr. Mayberry all you can. He’s rather brusk, perhaps, but +he knows the business. Still---- + +“I’ve one favor to ask of you, Miss Clayton. It is important, and it is +particular. I want you to write to me.” + +She looked at him then. But there was nothing in his serious face to +warrant the slight flush that came into her cheeks. + +“I’d like to have you write me about once a week. Consult nobody as to +what you write, but just detail as briefly as you please matters as +they occur--business matters and whatever you may think will give me a +correct impression of the situation of affairs in the factory and the +office. + +“I haven’t the least idea,” he added, once again smiling, “that things +will not run along all right. But I shall be anxious--nervous, if you +will. Mayberry will write, of course. But you will look on things with +quite different eyes from the way he will look at them. In the first +place, you are a woman and you have a different mental slant upon every +occurrence from that of a man, it seems to me. I am sure anything you +may have to report will be illuminating.” + +“Yes, Mr. Barton.” + +“Will you do it, Miss Clayton?” + +“Am I to understand I am to render a weekly report and keep the matter +secret from everybody--even from Mr. Mayberry?” + +“I am exacting no spy-duty from you!” he said hastily. “That is not my +meaning.” + +“I understand you perfectly, I think,” Ethel said gently. “You +undoubtedly will be anxious.” + +“But I want the truth--the exact truth, Miss Clayton,” Barton went on. + +“Yes, I understand that too,” she replied. + +They arose at the same moment and Frank Barton put out his hand. “You +will be of great help to me, I am sure, Miss Clayton,” he said, her +hand lost for a moment in the embrace of his larger palm. “You have +been of sure and practical assistance to me on many occasions. I know +you will be of equal aid to Mayberry. Now, good-bye, Miss Clayton. I +hope I shall not add much to your burdens.” + +“Oh, Mr. Barton! I am glad to do anything within reason. I feel that it +is but a small thing I do compared with what you must face.” + +At that he flushed suddenly, and like a boy. “Oh that!” he murmured. +“My duty has held me here. Now duty calls me elsewhere. Duty is our +master, Miss Clayton. Good-bye.” + +“And--I hope you--will return to us safely,” she said, her eyes filling +with tears. + +“Thank you, Miss Clayton. I hope to come back all right. I believe +I shall,” he said cheerfully, and sat down immediately to sort some +papers upon his desk. He did not look again in her direction as she +went out of the private office. + +He heard the raucous note of an automobile horn a little later. +He stacked the documents together and stuck them in their proper +pigeonhole. He was leaving his desk open for Jim Mayberry to use if he +wished. + +Stepping quickly to the window Barton saw the Fuller car stopping at +the curb. Helen was driving, and was alone. He took down his hat and +dust-coat and passed rapidly through the office. But at the outer door +he stopped a moment and looked back. He faced the entire office force +from that position. + +“Be good children till I return--all of you,” he said, laughing. “I +am banking heavy on you, Sydney. Good-bye, all. I want to hear good +reports of you while I am away.” + +Mayberry was to meet him later and go to the train with him. But Helen +Fuller had come to take him for a spin and for a little talk on this, +his last day in town. Somehow, he had not been invited to dinner as +she suggested. Was it because Grandon Fuller after all considered the +general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company of less importance to his +schemes, now that he was going away? + +“Dear _me_, Mr. Barton,” sighed Helen, dexterously turning the car, “my +conscience _condemns_ me.” + +“Why so?” + +“I fear something I may have said is sending you off like this--so +_suddenly_--and to train for the army. Dear me! suppose you should be +killed or wounded?” + +“Scarcely likely in the training camp,” he returned, happy in the +concern the girl seemed to show. + +“Oh, but _afterward_! For I know you will go over there, Mr. Barton. I +feel it! And if anything _I_ have said----” + +“I am sure,” he told her quietly, “that you have said nothing to me +or to any of your gentlemen acquaintances regarding our duty in this +trying time that was not perfectly justified, Miss Fuller.” + +“Oh, do you _think_ so?” she cried. “Do you _know_, Mr. Barton, I +am greatly tempted to go to France _myself_. Some girls I know have +already gone. You know, really, it puts one on the _qui vive_ to hear +so much about it--and--and all that,” she added rather vaguely. + +He was so much in earnest himself, he felt so strongly the exaltation +of his decision, that he did not notice the futility of her speech. And +then Helen Fuller was strikingly, if a little flamboyantly, pretty. He +nodded with pursed lips. + +“It’s a job we all have to decide for ourselves. I can imagine how you +feel, Miss Fuller. As for myself, I’ve got to be in it!” + +“It’s too bad,” she drawled, “that you couldn’t influence Morry Copley +to go with you.” + +“Well, Mr. Copley now will have to decide for himself, won’t he?” + +She laughed. “It seems he has allowed Mrs. Copley to decide for him,” +she said. + +Somehow their conversation did not take that personal tinge which Helen +desired. To tell the truth, a girl cannot give her escort just the +right feeling of intimacy when both her eyes and her hands are engaged +in guiding a motor-car. Helen finally dropped Barton at his lodgings in +time for dinner, and their good-bye was much more casual than she had +intended it should be. + +“But I shall go over to the camp to see you,” she promised, as she +wheeled away from the curb. “Best of luck!” + +The man stood bareheaded till the girl had turned the corner. But that +night when he closed his eyes, in his Pullman berth, it was the face of +another girl, with brown eyes tear-filled, that rose to his vision and +dissolved only when he sank to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +LEADING UP TO A CLIMAX + + +For Ethel Clayton the days that immediately followed the departure +of the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company were merely busy days. +Positively nothing happened. The particular work that came to her was +not different from that which had been her portion for some months; +only in her oversight of things in general (and that oversight +secretive) was she differently engaged. + +She took her book and pencil into the private office each morning at +the usual hour and took dictation from Jim Mayberry. + +Mayberry was not the clear-headed, forceful thinker that Barton was. +But his letters were brief and to the point nevertheless; he was not a +numbskull. Nor did he lack a grasp of business details quite necessary +to the carrying on of the affairs of the big concern. He worked +faithfully, seemed to neglect nothing; and though he did not admit it, +Ethel felt sure he was thankful to her when she smoothed the crudeness +of his English, or brought out more clearly the points he desired to +make in his correspondence. + +To her satisfaction he did not at first show those amorous proclivities +which had so annoyed her in the past. His thoughts seemed to be +centered on the business of trying to fill both Barton’s and his own +jobs. Or was it that Jim Mayberry had something on his mind other than +the business affairs of the Hapwood-Diller Company to trouble him? + +The office force, of course, buzzed at first because of the departure +of Mr. Barton. But every individual was on his best behavior. They had +all liked the general manager; and, perhaps, they had visions of his +returning suddenly and taking them to task for sins of both omission +and commission. + +Mayberry left the people in the outer office strictly and entirely +alone; even Sydney came to Ethel at times for advice, or to report some +slight matter which needed to be “put up to the boss.” It had been so +before Barton went away, although the girl had not then remarked it. +She was still “the buffer” between the small annoyances of the office +and the man at the head of affairs. + +Grandon Fuller came in one day and had a somewhat extended conference +with the manager _pro tem_. Ethel noted that the holder of so large +a block of the company’s stock seemed to be very friendly with +Mayberry, whereas when Mr. Macon Hammerly came in, as was his wont, he +always timed his calls so as to miss Mayberry. The shrewd old grain +dealer was frank to say that he did not like the present head of the +Hapwood-Diller Company. + +“Jim always looked to me like a well-fed fox,” grumbled Hammerly to +Ethel. “I always wonder who’s pullet he’s just swallowed.” + +Although Mayberry did not greatly disturb Ethel’s quiet pool of +existence, Benway Chase seemed to have been an agitating pebble flung +into it. Her old friend took hold of his duties with all the energy +and keenness of perception that she knew he would display, once he +was given a chance. Sydney and the rest of the office force liked him +immensely. + +On her own part, however, Ethel found him trying. He was promptly +at her gate every morning to accompany her to work; and at night he +escorted her home. It had been like that when they went to school +together. But Ethel felt altogether different about it now. She did not +like to be made conspicuous or to be appropriated in such a fashion. +And when Benway undertook to go to lunch with her, she put her foot +down firmly. + +Yet, she could not hurt his feelings. Because of his affliction she had +been all her life striving to be particularly kind to Benway. From her +earliest remembrance, when she had felt spasms of pity and sympathy for +her little playmate and had impulsively run to him to pat his cheek +and say, “Poor, poor Bennie!” to this very chance she had begged for +him with the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company, Ethel Clayton had +mothered the boy. Naturally and quite unconsciously he took advantage +of her kindness. + +She shrank from having the rest of the office force suspect any +tender relation between herself and the boy. “Boy” was of course the +term in which she thought of him. And when he undertook to time his +absence from the office so as to accompany her to the restaurant which +she usually patronized, she had to put a stop to that. She quietly +inaugurated a system of “taking turn about” for lunch hour which pretty +well put it out of Benway’s power to leave at the same time she did. + +Likewise, she went farther away, to the Orleans Tea Room, instead of +to the place at which it was the custom of most of the Hapwood-Diller +office force to have their midday meal. The tea room was a more +expensive place and was largely patronized by “up town” folk; and it +was because of this change in her habits that Ethel chanced to learn, +not two weeks after the manager’s departure for the training camp, +something that she thought really did not concern her, but which +interested her immensely, as it was connected with Frank Barton. + +She saw one noon a gaily, though beautifully, dressed and unmistakable +figure entering the tea room ahead of her--that of Helen Fuller. Her +escort was Morrison Copley--one of those men whose names made Ethel’s +lips involuntarily curl. And yet, as far as Ethel Clayton knew, there +was nothing bad about Morry Copley. + +She considered it a misfortune that the only empty table should be +next the one occupied by those two from what Macon Hammerly called +“the swagger part of town.” Miss Fuller looked the employee of the +Hapwood-Diller Company over with a cold disdain which might have hurt +cruelly a supersensitive soul. Ethel’s was too well balanced a nature +to be disturbed by the ill breeding of the other girl. + +“You boys are going to be _terribly_ put to it for styles this fall,” +Helen was drawling, her elbows on the table and her hands cupped to +hold her pretty chin. Somebody had told her that the pose became her. +“Everything offered for masculine wear will have a military cut.” + +“I don’t see why we’re to be put to it,” returned Morry, gazing at the +girl before him with doglike devotion. “Belted things always did look +well on me, you know, Nell. I’m slim waisted.” + +“Slim in every way, Morry,” the girl said laughing. “Morrison Copley, +S. S. quite fits you. Slim slacker. My! _I’d_ be ashamed if _I_ were a +man----” + +“Plenty of fellows are going. Those that like army life and--and all +that,” complained Morry. “I don’t see why you should hound me, all +the time, Nell. And mothaw really would make an awful row if I said I +wanted to go.” + +“If you even _said_ so, Morry?” she scoffed. + +“Say, aren’t you satisfied?” demanded the young man with more energy +than usual. “You say you made Frank Barton go to camp. How many scalps +do you want to hang in your wigwam?” + +“Your scalp, as you call it, would look pretty good to me,” she +laughed. “I want to send all the fellows I can. Bradley’s half +promised. He was in the Guard for two years, but got out because he was +too lazy to drill, I suppose,” Miss Fuller said. + +“Pooh, they’re only stalling,” grumbled Morry. “You know just about how +far Brad will get at that training camp. And Barton’s only going for a +show. They’ll never get to France, any of them.” + +“Why don’t _you_ try it, then? If there’s no danger, that should suit +_you_, Morry!” + +“I tell you what!” exclaimed the young man indignantly and forgetting +his drawl, “if I go into this thing I’ll go the whole figure, don’t +forget that! If other fellows go to France I shall go. I won’t hunt me +a soft job here where I can wear a uniform and never smell powder.” + +Helen Fuller looked at him and thoughtfully. + +“I wonder, Morry, if you really _would_,” she finally said. + +Ethel could not help hearing this. Indeed, the heedlessness with which +the two conversed on their private affairs in public made it imperative +that all within earshot should know what they were talking about. + +Slight as was Ethel’s interest in the two, and in their affairs, one +point did not escape her. It could not fail to impress the girl’s mind +and linger in her thoughts. + +Had Frank Barton gone to the training camp because of the bite of Helen +Fuller’s tart tongue? Miss Fuller was taking much commendation for +inspiring the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company with patriotism. +Was Barton’s brand of patriotism of that character? How much influence +did the girl really have over him? + +These questions could not be stilled in Ethel’s mind. She reverted to +them time and again. Helen’s claim that her influence drove her young +men friends to patriotic service seemed to be believed by other people. +Somebody told Ethel on Sunday at church that Charlie Bradley and young +Copley had both gone to the officers’ camp. + +“Of course, it’s more of a lark than anything else for most of those +who go,” said the person who told Ethel. “Fancy Morry Copley trying to +give orders in that squeaky voice of his!” + +Ethel’s letters to Barton were strictly business, without being coldly +formal. She allowed them to sound a note of cool friendliness in the +beginning and at the close but nothing deeper. An expression of hope +for his good health was as warm a phrase as entered into them. His +polite, brief acknowledgments, addressed to her home, showed that +he considered their correspondence nothing more than a business +arrangement. + +She realized that she was by no means the only person in Mailsburg +interested in the absent ones in camp and barracks. The town was +beginning to wake up to the exigencies of the war. The ministers prayed +for the boys on Sunday, and every social and charitable organization in +Mailsburg began to talk of work for the soldiers at least, whether or +not any of them really did much at first. + +At this time in her heart Ethel hated the idea of war so desperately +that the many activities connected with the draft and the going away +and the war itself seemed to her mind both futile and non-beneficial. +If those young men really got as far as France, and into the trenches, +they would be killed. They were merely “cannon fodder” in that case. +And if they did not go--if the war ended, as some people said it would, +before many of them got over there--then all this talk and planning was +so much wasted breath and time and money. + +It was a fact that, at this particular time, Ethel Clayton had little +interest save in her work and in the affairs of the Hapwood-Diller +Company--particularly in Frank Barton’s absence from his post and how +it might affect the concern for which they both worked. + +Just as she felt that there were plenty of other men to go to the war +and that Barton might be spared, so she felt that there were already +too many women, both foolish and wise, giving their time and thought +to war work. The local papers began to be full of news of the various +activities of the several organizations in this connection. In addition +some of those desirous of notoriety were getting a heap of free +advertising. + +“I declare!” said Mrs. Clayton, busily clicking her knitting needles, +“the _Clarion_ toots a loud note almost every day for that girl of +Mehitable Fuller’s. She’s first into one thing and then another--like a +spoiled kitten. And all this folderol about the war seems to give her +more of a chance than ever to show off.” + +“I wonder,” said Ethel, thoughtfully, “if we ought not to think more +about it than we do, Mother? I sit here with my hands idle in the +evening. I wonder if all this knitting I see going on hasn’t a basis of +honest endeavor in it, after all?” + +“Pshaw!” said her mother. + +“I know it looks silly. Looks like a fad. One of the girls in the +office brings her knitting bag. She’s at the switchboard and has more +or less idle time. Instead of reading silly love stories as she used, +she knits.” + +“What does she knit?” + +“Why, she says she hopes it will turn out to be a sweater when she gets +it done; and if it is good enough she will give it to the Red Cross,” +and Ethel laughed gently. + +“Humph!” mumbled Mrs. Clayton. “I wonder if she has a good pattern?” + +Thus grew the stirrings of general interest in Mailsburg in the war and +in our preparations for entering it. Ethel realized amid her manifold +office duties that the undercurrent of their life was becoming more +strongly patriotic. + +It was learned that at least one Mailsburg boy was already at the +front. It was true he had disappeared from town some years before, and +under a cloud; but his mother had always known where he was. + +Now the _Clarion_ came out with a full page on Sunday, “Mailsburg’s +First Boy in France.” Sergeant Willy O’Rourke of General Pershing’s +forces had sent his mother several postal cards from “over there.” Here +they were reproduced, with a tintype of the sergeant and a sympathetic +wash-drawing of Mrs. O’Rourke--a little old woman living down by the +docks who said to the reporter: + +“Shure an’ th’ O’Rourkes was all fighters. ’Tis no wonder Willy got +over there first. Them Garmans’ll have their own troubles now.” + +And yet there was something in it that made the reader choke up. Macon +Hammerly had his brusk comment to make: + +“It may be that Bill O’Rourke left town just ahead of the constable. +I remember well the red-headed gossoon. He wasn’t a mite better than +this Boots Skinner is now. But, by the holy poker! he’s a _man_. +There’s nothing soft and sissified about Bill. If Bill dies for his +country he’ll be doing something better than a whole lot of these +trifling, dawdling fellows will ever arrive at.” + +If he dies for his country! That might be Frank Barton’s fate if he +went “over there.” The thought more than once brought Ethel Clayton +upright in bed at night. It sometimes wet her pillow with tears. Yet, +if it was the truth that Helen Fuller’s influence had urged Barton +away to the wars, Ethel was jealous of the other girl for it, and she +realized the fact with shame. + +Affairs in the Hapwood-Diller Company offices continued much as usual +for several weeks. The directors seemed to think Jim Mayberry a +satisfactory substitute manager. Having the details of the business +at her finger tips as she had, Ethel was quite sure that the +superintendent was attending to his additional duties in an exemplary +manner. + +Ethel checked up much of the work of the other members of the office +staff, especially in the correspondence end of the business, and it was +in looking over a schedule of stock to be ordered she made a discovery +that puzzled her. + +Mayberry had now, of course, the ordering of supplies of all kinds; +but there was little in the manufacturing line that Ethel Clayton did +not know about. Here were certain grades of stock which she had no +idea were called for by any order then on the factory’s books already +contracted for. + +Had Mr. Barton been doing the ordering she would have felt quite free +to hold up the schedule until she could speak to him about it. But she +feared Mayberry might be touchy in any such matter. He was jealous +of his rights, and she hesitated to give him a chance to say she was +overstepping the borders of her field of employment. + +She went to the files and spent some time in checking off the grades of +supplies called for by the orders the factory already had contracted +for. And suddenly--it was quite a startling discovery--she came upon +the schedule of the Bogata Company’s order which she had every reason +to believe had been declined. + +She had a clear remembrance of the letter she had written, Mr. Barton’s +approval of it, even the reason for the order being refused by the +Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company. This reason was connected with +the very purchase of these special supplies she had noted in the +puzzling schedule in her hand. + +It could not be overlooked. There was something wrong in what she had +discovered. + +Fearing she knew not what--a mistake on her own part, perhaps--she +waited until she could find Mayberry disengaged. When she knew he was +in the manager’s office and alone, Ethel ventured to knock upon the +door. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A PUZZLING SITUATION + + +Mayberry glanced up swiftly as she entered the office at his response. +He was rolling a cigarette which he finished and lighted, vouchsafing +her merely a casual nod. Very different treatment, this, from Frank +Barton’s unfailing courtesy. + +“What’s on the docket, Ethel?” Mayberry asked, eyeing her through the +smoke that circled from his lips. “Anything wrong?” + +“I am not at all sure that there is anything wrong, Mr. Mayberry,” she +replied, ignoring the chair he twisted about for her to occupy, and +standing at the end of the desk. “I have found something which puzzles +me so much that I thought it best to have you ratify the order before +it is sent.” + +“What order?” + +She placed before him the schedule for supplies which he had given to +one of the other girls to copy. “These are the items that puzzle me,” +she said, pointing to several which, in summing up, amounted to several +thousand dollars. + +“Well?” he said, his gaze direct and not at all reassuring. + +But Ethel Clayton was not to be easily put down. “I was not aware,” +she said quietly, “that any of our contracts now under way called for +goods of that grade.” + +“Well?” he said again and in the same sneering tone. + +“So I investigated,” Ethel pursued, apparently unshaken, “and I found +this.” She placed before him the papers relating to the Bogata order +which she felt so sure Mr. Barton had refused to consider. + +“Huh? Why shouldn’t you find it?” Mayberry asked in apparent surprise. +Yet he flushed slightly, too. + +“I have every reason to suppose that order refused. You know it, too. +You remember that Mr. Barton asked me to write a letter to that end. I +did so.” + +“I remember there was something said about it,” Mayberry reflected. +“But I heard nothing more about it. Frank said nothing further to me.” + +“No. Because it was settled, Mr. Mayberry,” the girl said more +confidently. “We cannot fill this order.” + +“Indeed? Are you sure about that?” he asked, eyeing her with perfect +composure now. + +“Why shouldn’t I be sure?” she retorted. + +“Well--I don’t know,” he drawled. “If you wrote a letter refusing this +order, Frank saw it, of course?” + +“He O.K.’d it,” she said. + +“And it was sent?” + +“So I presume.” + +“It looks to me as though Frank must have changed his mind,” the +superintendent said with a sly little smile. “He said nothing more +to me about it. He would, it seems to me, if the order was finally +refused. Having once discussed the matter with me, seems to me he would +have done that.” + +“But he thought you understood,” cried the girl, both puzzled and +alarmed. “You know he said the Bogata Company’s credit was involved. +It was not whether the order should be accepted or not that was under +discussion, Mr. Mayberry. It was merely how the refusal should be +couched--in what terms. Don’t you remember?” + +“I admit you seem to have a clearer remembrance of the circumstances +than I,” said Mayberry. “But it looks to me as though Frank had changed +his mind about it without referring to the matter again to either of +us. He probably found out that his fears regarding the Bogata Company’s +credit were unfounded. Otherwise how would I have found the order on +file? We have got to get right to work on it, too. That is why I am +ordering these particular supplies.” + +“But, Mr. Mayberry!” she gasped, “I am quite sure a mistake has been +made. Mr. Barton never intended this order to be filled.” + +“How do you know?” + +“The letter I wrote----” + +“Pooh! I suppose Frank was trying you out--seeing what you could do in +an emergency,” and the superintendent laughed. “He never sent your +letter. The Bogata people are old customers. It would not do to offend +them.” + +“That is just it, Mr. Mayberry,” she cried. “It was a serious matter. I +feel sure--Why! I put the letter in the mail myself.” + +Mayberry sat up straighter in his chair and his gaze became more +intent. He dropped the butt of his cigarette in the ash tray that was +never on the desk when the general manager was there. + +“You mean to tell me,” he asked, “that you posted that letter after +Barton signed it?” + +“No. It was after John made his last trip to the post-office. When Mr. +Barton had signed the letter I sealed it in the envelope, affixed the +stamp, and placed it in the letter basket on my desk with other late +mail.” + +“Humph! Did those letters go out that evening?” Mayberry asked. + +“No. John always takes them when he goes to early post--before I arrive +at my desk.” + +“Then Frank could have regained the letter without your knowing it.” + +“But, Mr. Mayberry! surely he would have said something.” + +“Are you sure? He was not in the habit of taking you--or even me--into +his confidence in most matters, was he?” and Mayberry looked at the +girl keenly. “Where’s the carbon copy of that letter?” + +“I’ll get it,” she said, turning swiftly to the door. + +“And I say, Ethel!” he said. “Bring the Bogata Company’s letter as +well, will you?” + +She resented his familiar way of speaking; but never had she been able +to break Jim Mayberry of calling her by her given name. And he had, +after all, known her when she was still a child. She was gone some +minutes from the private office--long enough for Mayberry to smoke +a second cigarette. She appeared with the proper drawer of the file +cabinet and her countenance had fallen. She had run hastily through the +Bogata correspondence. Here was the letter which had accompanied the +order from the Bogata Company. The copy of the answer she had written +at Frank Barton’s behest, and which he had approved, was not to be +found. + +“I do not understand it, Mr. Mayberry,” the girl declared in a worried +tone. + +“Pshaw! easily enough understood,” the superintendent rejoined. “He +probably conferred with somebody who knew the Bogata people are as safe +as a stone church. So he withdrew the letter from your mail basket +after you went home.” + +“Oh, Mr. Mayberry!” + +“Sure.” Mayberry laughed. “You’ve stirred up a mare’s nest. Don’t +worry.” + +“But I can’t accept your assertion as at all plausible,” the girl +said earnestly. “He surely would have spoken to me about it. The next +day----” + +“His mind was full of army stuff. He did not know half the time what he +was doing here for a week before he went.” + +Ethel knew that was not at all true. But she was not here to quarrel +with the superintendent. However, she said: + +“I remember clearly that Mr. Barton did not remain here later than I +did that evening, Mr. Mayberry. I saw him on the street after I left +the factory by the side gate.” + +“Huh!” Mayberry’s cheeks suddenly burned again and his eyes glittered +as he gazed loweringly upon her. “You seem to remember mighty well what +happened. I remember that evening, too, come to think of it. I was +waiting out in front for you in my car. You stood me up.” + +Scorn leaped suddenly into the girl’s eyes. “I do not understand you, +Mr. Mayberry,” she said tartly. + +“Oh! you don’t, hey?” + +“We are not discussing personalities,” she said, dropping her gaze and +ignoring his ugly look. “This is business. I fear there has been a +serious mistake made.” + +“Nothing of the kind, that _I_ can see,” Mayberry rejoined. “Barton +changed his mind. Why should you bother _your_ head about it further?” + +His sneer bit like acid in a fresh wound; but Ethel checked her temper. + +“I do not mean to interfere in the slightest with your work, Mr. +Mayberry. Mr. Barton brought me into the affair himself. I feel that +all is not right. Let us communicate with Mr. Barton before this order +for stock is sent. It may save the Hapwood-Diller Company several +thousand dollars.” + +“It won’t save us a cent.” + +“But--” + +“I’ve got it all figured out. You see, I’ve had this on my mind a long +time.” + +“Yes, that may be true, still--” + +“It won’t save us a cent, Ethel,” the superintendent drawled again, +having recovered his own temper. “This Bogata order’s got to be filled. +It will do no good to delay the purchase of supplies. It’s Friday now. +If we wrote to-night we could not expect an answer before Tuesday or +Wednesday from Barton. And I can point out to you why even he cannot +change matters now.” + +“Why?” she demanded sharply. + +He picked up the letter which had accompanied the schedule of the order +from the Bogata Company of Norville. If he smiled Ethel did not see it, +for she was eagerly scanning the paragraph to which Mayberry’s finger +pointed: + + “Prices and terms as agreed upon in our last two orders. If we hear + nothing to the contrary within ten days shall consider the order and + terms accepted and will look for delivery of first quota of goods + within ninety days.” + +“Actually,” drawled Mayberry, “this order was accepted by us more than +a month ago. It was evident that Barton did not send the letter you +wrote, and removed the copy of it from the file. The schedule came to +me in the usual way. There is nothing more to be said about it, Ethel. +I believe that Frank himself said something about The Hapwood-Diller +Company never reneging on a job. It would be a bad precedent to do so +when he is absent from his post.” + +He said it so that the girl actually winced. To think of Jim Mayberry +pointing out to her the ethics of the matter! + +“The fact is,” he pursued, coolly, “I have got to get a hustle on to +make the first delivery within the specified time. I have already +arranged to increase the output of Shop Number Two in order to do this. +We shall run four or five hours overtime five days a week, beginning +Monday. We’re crowded with work as it is; and this Bogata order is a +big one.” + +Ethel listened to him in silence. She realized that it was useless to +say anything more. Her heart pounded in her ears, but her countenance +remained pale. She felt the approach of disaster when she turned away +from his desk with the letter file-drawer in her arms. + +“Don’t trouble your head about it, Ethel,” he called after her. “You +take everything too blamed seriously--just as I told you before. It +won’t get you anywhere----” + +But she had closed the door between them. Had she turned to answer she +realized very clearly that she would have said something for which she +might be sorry afterward. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DUTY DEVOLVES + + +Ethel Clayton felt the assurance of wrongdoing on the part of the +superintendent of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Yet she could not tell +why nor how. + +That the concern had been drawn into the Bogata affair by some trick +was without question. Mayberry’s look and words alone would have proved +that to her satisfaction. + +She had a clear and particular remembrance of the circumstances +surrounding the receipt of the order from the Norville company, +Barton’s decision to refuse to fill it, his reason for so doing, and +all. The way in which she had shown the general manager how to refuse +the order without giving offence could not easily be forgotten. + +Mr. Barton had said that the running of the factory on double time, or +crowding the shops with extra workmen, meant a distinct loss of profit +rather than a gain for the Hapwood-Diller Company. The factory was not +arranged for such increase of output. More than one concern has been +ruined by such false prosperity. + +Here Mayberry was planning to put into execution exactly the plan +vetoed by the absent general manager’s good sense. Yet, knowing how the +contracts for their product stood, Ethel believed that such increase in +working hours would be necessary if the Bogata order was to be filled +on time. + +There was a catch there. She felt it. She was convinced that the +superintendent had more knowledge of the subject than he was willing to +admit. + +It all puzzled the girl. Why should Jim Mayberry be so determined to +balk Mr. Barton’s will? And in this particular instance? + +As far as she had been able to see the superintendent had done nothing +in his conduct of the factory’s affairs which would have either +displeased Barton or was contrary to the latter’s methods. Why was the +superintendent so determined to favor the Bogata Company? + +She remembered clearly that the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller +Company was positive of the irresponsibility of the Bogata people. +There was no gainsaying that. She was positive he had not changed his +mind, involving the destruction of the letter she had written and +Barton had signed, the removal of the carbon copy from the files, and +the filing of the schedule of the Bogata Company’s order. + +No! she would not believe Frank Barton had done all that and said +nothing about it to either Mayberry or herself. Yet, if the manager +had not done it, _who had_? + +Who would be benefited by such a favor to the Bogata people? It might +be actually disastrous to the Hapwood-Diller Company--and that thought +frightened Ethel. + +She did not know what to do. That is, what to do to halt the line of +conduct Mayberry had plainly determined to follow. She figured up +the schedule for factory stock again. Between four and five thousand +dollars for special grade raw material, useless except to the Bogata +people, was included in it. + +Knowing well how carefully Barton had watched the outlay for stock +for months--how narrow the line was between profit and loss in every +department indeed--Ethel quite realized that this single purchase would +make a very bad showing upon the books of the Hapwood-Diller Company, +unless the Bogata order was finished and was paid for. + +If that contract was filled and was not paid for, a ruinous deficit +in supplies and labor cost would face the factory at the end of the +fiscal year. And in addition the general manager had assured her he +figured overtime work or an increase of help in the shops as positively +detrimental. + +This order for stock and factory supplies was supposed to go out at +once. It was nearly time for John Murphy to make his last trip for the +day to the post-office. There was absolutely nothing to hold the order +back, and Mayberry, she knew, would take offence if the matter was +retarded. + +It was true that five days must be wasted if Mr. Barton was communicated +with by mail. And that joker in the Bogata Company’s letter seemed to +be a barrier to any attempt to get out of fulfilling the contract at +this late day. Would it do any good to disturb Barton about the matter +at all now? + +If she could only see him! If she could discuss the point with +him--tell him of her suspicions and fears. At least, some of her +suspicions. Ethel scarcely admitted to herself that she positively +identified the person guilty of juggling the letters and the Bogata +order sheets. Merely she felt certain that Frank Barton knew nothing +about it. + +He should know. He must know before more harm was done. + +The order for supplies was before her. She reached across the desk for +the envelope in which to enclose it and her stiff linen cuff caught in +the filigree work of the inkstand the office staff had presented to her. + +It tottered. In another moment the catastrophe had occurred--a deluge +of blue fluid rolled across the desk and the papers on it. + +Ethel sprang up to escape the drip from the top of the desk. + +“Man overboard!” ejaculated Benway Chase, starting for the lavatory for +a towel with which to mop up the ink. + +Little Skinner held the blotted order sheets gingerly by their corners, +to drip over Ethel’s wastebasket. + +“Gee!” she said, hoarsely, “all them papers!” + +“Those papers, Mabel,” admonished Ethel involuntarily. + +For Mabel Skinner was like an actor afflicted with stammering in his +natural character; when once in his part and on the stage he never +stutters. So Mabel, nimble of wit, who was studying stenography at +a night school, hoping to work up to a better position with the +Hapwood-Diller Company, could take the small amount of dictation that +fell to her reasonably well and could transcribe it into fair English: +but she usually talked like a street gamin. + +“They will have to be recopied, Mabel,” Ethel said quietly. “Josephine +has her hands full; will you do it for me?” + +“Sure,” agreed Miss Skinner, shifting her gum. Then she cocked an +apprehensive eye at the clock. “I--I got a date to-night, Miss Clayton; +but I can go without supper----” + +“I don’t wish you to finish it to-night, Mabel. Let me have it +completed sometime to-morrow forenoon.” + +“I’m on,” said the girl, and bore away the streaked and blotted papers +to her machine. + +John was called in to clean up the muss, and after a while Ethel could +resume her seat. Nothing of importance upon her desk had been spoiled +by the ink but the supply order sheets, and fortunately Jim Mayberry +did not come out of the private office until it was all over. It was +Ethel’s business to see that the order was promptly sent. It was her +fault that it was delayed. + +Never before in her business experience had Ethel Clayton deliberately +done such a thing. She was acting upon her own initiative and in a way +that scarcely measured up to her ethical standards. Yet how should she +meet guile save with guile? + +On the way home that evening Benway was bewailing the fact that Mr. +Barton was not in the office so that he could see how well he, Benway, +was fitting into the routine of the office. + +“Even Mr. Mayberry admits I can do the work all right,” the boy said +hopefully. “He said as much yesterday. But I don’t like the fellow, +Ethel. I don’t like the way he looks at you.” + +“‘A cat may look at a king’, Bennie,” she said lightly. + +“But no dog like him should look at a queen, Ethel,” Benway Chase +retorted with a smile and a little sigh. “They are all tarred with the +same brush, Ethel. Every man that comes into the offices wants to hang +over your desk and palaver.” + +“Hush, Ben! How you talk!” she exclaimed, a little flushed and annoyed. +“I declare I’ll have you sent out into the shipping room to work if you +watch me like that.” + +“Pooh!” he laughed. “Is the honey at fault because the bees buzz around +it?” + +“How poetical!” she scoffed. Yet she was secretly displeased. She did +not like to think that the men she met in business hours gave her more +attention than matters relating to business called for. The one man +whose admiration she would have been glad to secure had never, while he +was with them, shown any particular interest in her. + +Ethel was too introspective for her own comfort. + +She wondered all the evening if the thought that was budding in her +mind was germinated by her desire to see Frank Barton. Was it for +business reasons that she determined on her course? Or did she have +another and more personal desire to speak with the general manager of +the Hapwood-Diller Company, face to face? + +However, she considered that the duty had devolved upon her to take +a drastic course. The order for new stock for the factory could be +delayed only forty-eight hours through the accident to the first draft +of the schedule. Instead of its reaching its destination on Saturday, +Ethel saw to it that it was not mailed until after noon on Saturday. +Therefore it would not be received by the dealer to whom it was +assigned until Monday. Meantime---- + +She astonished her mother on Saturday evening by announcing that she +proposed to go to Quehasset on the early train Sunday morning. By +this time the railroad was running excursion trains to the officers’ +training camp on Saturdays and Sundays. Quehasset was becoming a +popular week-end resort. + +“Not alone!” gasped Mrs. Clayton. “Never!” + +“I’d like to know why not?” her daughter asked, rather tartly. “I’ve +been to Boston alone, and that’s farther.” + +“But it won’t look right--all those men, Ethel. You know some of them, +too. There’s Mr. Barton!” + +“I expect to see him,” declared the girl composedly. + +“It--it doesn’t look right,” objected her mother more faintly. + +“I’d like to know why not? I should hope I was old enough to go about +without a chaperon, or----” + +“Let Benway go with you,” urged Mrs. Clayton, hurriedly. + +But that was exactly what Ethel did not wish to do. Indeed, if +possible, she should have liked to keep the knowledge of her trip to +Quehasset from her mother. She hurried away early in the morning, +before most of the folk at that end of Burnaby Street were astir, and +boarded the train which stopped but a minute at the Mailsburg Station +at eight o’clock. + +She noted, as she passed along the High Street to the station, that +more than the usual number of automobiles were abroad and most of +them headed for the Creek Road which was the first lap of the driving +highway to the training camp. + +The Fuller car was one of these she saw. Helen was driving and her +mother and father sat in the tonneau. Her cousins gave Ethel Clayton +not the slightest notice, but she could not help being somewhat +disturbed by the thought that they were likewise bound for the training +camp and that they would see her there with Frank Barton. At any rate, +she hoped to arrive at the army camp first. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LOVE AND BUSINESS + + +Frank Barton had been thinking but little of love and not much about +business. His entire time from the bugle-blown: + + “I can’t get ’em up! + I can’t get ’em up! + I can’t get ’em up in the mor-r-rning!” + +to tattoo at night was filled with thoughts military. In addition to +the regular course in tactics, he was studying special branches, such +as the science of gunfire, range finding, signaling, and the like, for +he wished to be assigned to the Field Artillery branch of the service. + +His former experience in the Guard was of vast assistance to him, +yet he found that even the brief campaign on the Mexican Border had +greatly changed the drill and the training of both officers and men. +New methods were being adopted all the time. He soon realized that a +military formula based upon the experience gained by our War Department +in the Civil War, and upon which basis the National Guard had been +drilled in the past, was almost as old-fashioned as the rules for +conducting a Field of Honor in the time of the Crusaders. + +The Great War has flung into the discard most established measures of +warfare. Fancy, so many years after the tilting with spears, a fighting +man wearing an iron pot on his head! + +Barton had little time for the social life of the camp nor interest in +it. He was only interested in those men about him who were as sturdily +in earnest as himself in learning and getting ahead. Some were getting +into “this army thing,” as they called it, as a profession; some out +of pure patriotism, even if they did not talk about it. In either case +those who were not thoroughly in earnest did not last long. + +He was mildly surprised when Morry Copley and his friend Bradley +arrived in camp--the former arrayed in a uniform cut by a fashionable +tailor, Bradley slouching behind in his heavy way, and with a scowl. +Why either of these fellows had come it was hard for Barton to +understand. + +Reports from the factory encouraged Barton to believe that he might +safely continue his training. Mayberry had driven over in his car once +to see him and they had talked things over. Business seemed running +on well-oiled gears. There had been nothing in Ethel Clayton’s brief +letters to make him apprehensive. The factory and its affairs seemed +far afield from him. + +The camp interests were so manifold that when even a short furlough +was due him Barton did not go home to Mailsburg. Instead he went to +New York to confer with certain high officers of the Department of +the East who he felt sure would bear him in mind if chance arose for +an early assignment to the Front. If business matters remained as +they seemed to be, he was determined to get “over there” as soon as +possible. Pershing’s hundred thousand were on the scene; the engineers +had marched through London and had arrived in France; now it was the +Rainbow Division that was talked of as being almost ready to sail, and +Frank Barton was eager to be assigned to duty with them. + +“Rest your mind easy, Barton,” Grandon Fuller assured him the first +time he came over to Camp Quehasset with his daughter. “We stockholders +appreciate all that you have done; the Board is more than pleased with +your work. But you have trained a good assistant in Mayberry. He’ll do +very well.” + +“I believe he will,” Frank Barton said heartily. He would rather, +however, have had a reassuring word from Macon Hammerly upon this +point. But Hammerly neither wrote to him nor came near the camp. + +Helen was full of her own plans, although she did not forget to show +some interest in Barton’s affairs. She had become an active member of +the Red Cross forces. Being amply able to pay her own expenses, and +with health and freedom, she had the more easily secured permission to +join the very next quota of Red Cross workers sailing from “an Atlantic +seaport”--that in about six weeks. Her mother was to go with her and +establish herself in Paris. + +“Really,” Barton thought, “it is brave of Helen, and wonderfully +unselfish as well.” That the girl made a display of everything she did +was not seen by his blinded eyes. + +Barton was expecting the Fullers over again in their car on this +Sunday, and had accordingly polished his accoutrements and made his +quarters presentable. He shared these last with three other men; but +they were all off for the day, and he himself was duty-free until taps. + +So he was not at all surprised when he heard the rustle of crisp skirts +and a light tapping on his open door. Before he could reply to the +summons he heard Morry Copley’s high voice advising: + +“He must be there, Miss--ah--Really, I’m suah he’s not gone out of the +street this morning. I’ll look around for him if I may?” + +“Thank you,” said a very cool voice. Morry was evidently not being +encouraged. And it was not Helen Fuller who spoke. + +“Miss Clayton!” + +Barton appeared with hand outstretched and a real welcome in his eyes. +But Copley was not to be easily ignored. + +“I say, Barton,” he drawled, “I showed her over here from the camp +entrance, knowing you were at home, don’t you know.” + +“Thanks, old fellow,” Barton said. “This is Miss Clayton’s first visit +to the camp.” + +“Oh, I knew that,” Copley agreed, boldly eyeing the girl and showing +no desire to relieve them of his presence. One of Barton’s Western +brother-rookies would have accused the young exquisite of “horning in.” +“I’m suah if I’d ever seen--er--the lady here before I should have +remembered her.” + +Ethel was plainly ruffled; but Frank Barton burst into hearty laughter. +He considered Morry quite harmless. + +“Miss Clayton, I am sure, will allow me to introduce you, Copley,” he +said cordially, and then smiled at Ethel. “Mr. Copley comes from our +town, Miss Clayton.” + +“Bah Jove! I saw you before in a tea room once,” Morry burst out. “Suah +I did! I was with Miss Fuller, you know. I wonder I did not recognize +you before. You weren’t dressed the same, you know.” + +“If it was on a working day I am sure she was not dressed the same,” +Barton said, looking frankly his approval of Ethel’s Sunday appearance. + +And yet, as she stood bandying light conversation with the two men, +Ethel Clayton was secretly hurt. Would Frank Barton have so casually +introduced Helen Fuller, for instance, to any companion-in-arms who had +forced himself upon them as Morry Copley had? The thought stung her +pride. + +Really Copley seemed more than a little interested in her. He rattled +on boldly, and there was not a chance for her to divert his attention +that she might speak seriously and personally to the man she had come +to see. + +The latter was unfeignedly glad to see her; but he seemed to consider +her visit merely a social one. And that did not altogether please Ethel +Clayton. She had come strictly on business. At least, so she had been +assuring herself. Yet all Barton seemed to care about the factory and +its affairs was expressed in a perfunctory: + +“Everything going on all right at the works, Miss Clayton? Though of +course that is a superfluous question with such capable people as you +and Mayberry on the job. I knew it would be that way.” + +“Really, Mr. Barton, you must not assume too much,” she hesitated, +unable to approach clearly before Morry Copley the matter that so +troubled her and that had brought her to Quehasset. + +“I say,” drawled the latter, “you don’t mean to say Miss Clayton is one +of these really industrious people--like yourself, Barton? Is she, too, +a prop and support of the Hapwood-Diller Company?” + +“She most certainly is!” smiled the general manager. “But I believe she +brings me nothing but good news. How about it, Miss Clayton?” + +It was her chance--perhaps the best one she would have to get him away +from this chattering, inconsequential Morry Copley. “I have one puzzle +to consult you about, Mr. Barton,” she began, when, with a whir and +clash of released gears, a big touring car whirled around the corner +and halted almost directly before the shack. + +“Oh, Jimminy Christmas, see who’s here!” ejaculated Copley. + +“Miss Fuller! Welcome to our city!” joined in Barton, and hastily +descended to the car. + +Morry Copley remained lounging beside Ethel, greeting the girl in the +car with merely the semaphore sign of good comradeship. Helen was +alone, having dropped her mother and father at the Staff Headquarters. +As had been said, Grandon Fuller had once borne the title of “Colonel” +and played the fact now for all it was worth. + +“Don’t let me keep you, Mr. Copley,” Ethel said significantly. + +“No chance!” drawled Morry. “Miss Fuller has no use for me when +Barton’s around. They talk nothing but war and nursing. Gee! I hate to +think of folks getting all mussed up so.” + +“Why, for pity’s sake, did you ever join this camp?” Ethel asked, in +astonishment. + +“I rawther fancied myself in the uniform, don’t you know,” he declared, +but with twinkling eyes. “I say!” he added, “they’re not going for a +spin without us?” + +Ethel leaped to her feet and anger flashed from her eyes, although +Morry did not see it. Miss Fuller was evidently trying to urge Barton +to get into the car. She had punched her starter button and the car +began to throb. + +But Barton turned back to the two on the plank porch of the shack. “Do +come, Miss Clayton,” he urged. “I promised I would take luncheon with +Miss Fuller to-day at the Mannerly Arms, and she has not much time. It +will be quite all right, I am sure. If you have something to say to +me----” + +“My errand is strictly business, Mr. Barton,” Ethel replied shortly. + +“I am sure Miss Fuller will wait----” + +“Oh, bring her along, _do_!” exclaimed Helen from the car and with +impatience. “Come on, Morry. I know _you_ are dying to take her. You’ll +excuse me for not getting out and begging you myself, Miss Clayton,” +she added carelessly. “I suppose it is sometimes necessary to mix +business with pleasure. If you really _have_ to consult Mr. Barton----” + +“I will not detain him long, Miss Fuller,” Ethel said, pale but firm. +“I have neither time nor inclination to go to lunch with you--and Mr. +Copley. She dismissed the latter with a curt nod, and he strolled down +to the car, grumbling, while Barton, a little vexed, took his place +beside the girl who he acknowledged was so capable an assistant in the +factory office. + +“I am sorry to interfere in any way with your affairs, Mr. Barton,” +Ethel hastened to say. “Had I not believed the occasion serious----” + +“Serious for me?” he asked quickly, eyeing her curiously. + +“Serious to the Hapwood-Diller Company,” she replied stiffly. “Of +course I have a double interest in the welfare of the company. My +mother’s income depends upon its profits.” + +“I know that your mother holds some of our stock,” he said patiently. + +“Therefore my particular interest may perhaps be excused.” Ethel could +not help saying this, if it was a mite catty. She could not feel in any +angelic mood at the moment. “In addition, Mr. Barton, you asked me to +keep a watchful eye on things in the office.” + +“I did,” he said with gentleness. + +She flushed more deeply. It was plain that he was quite aware she had +been hurt by Miss Fuller’s manner; and that but increased Ethel’s +vexation. As though it really mattered what Helen Fuller did or said! + +He noted the flush and looked disturbed. + +“Are you not feeling well?” he asked kindly. + +“Oh, yes, I am perfectly well,” she returned quickly. + +“You look as if you might have a headache, or something like that.” + +“It wouldn’t matter if I did have,” she replied, not knowing what else +to say. + +“Oh, yes, it would. I don’t want you to work if you are not well.” + +“Here is the situation,” and she rushed on to state the matter of the +Bogata order with her usual brisk explicitness. + +Barton now gave close attention, and his changing expression betrayed +the value he put upon her story. At its conclusion he demanded: + +“But what’s the matter with Jim? He must know that we all agreed those +people were not to be trusted.” + +“He did not agree to that, it is evident,” Ethel said dryly. “In fact, +his remembrance seems to be hazy regarding the whole matter. Seems to +think you would have spoken to him about it again had you not intended +to accept the order.” + +Barton made an impatient gesture. “That’s Jim all over. Stubborn as a +mule!” he exclaimed. “And yet that very stubbornness makes him of value +in many circumstances.” + +It was plain he had no real suspicion of Mayberry. And Ethel was +determined not to put forward just at that time her own belief in the +superintendent’s treachery. + +“And what have you done about the matter before coming to me?” Barton +asked with a curiosity that Ethel thought she understood. He was not +at all sure whether she had the initiative to balk this thing which she +believed was all wrong. + +“Something wholly feminine, I fear,” she replied, and told him of the +accident to the order addressed to the factory supply people. + +Barton laughed shortly. Evidently he was not displeased. + +“I can see you have a very good reason for not quarreling with +Mayberry. Quite right. Things would by no means go so smoothly if you +two could not work together. You retarded the order so that you could +see me to-day?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what do you expect me to do?” + +“If that Bogata order is not to be filled, you can telegraph the stock +people to hold our order for correction.” + +“Right! You certainly have a grasp of the situation, as you always +have, Miss Clayton,” he said promptly. “I will dictate that telegram. +You can send it from the railroad station as you go back, if you will.” + +“Yes, Mr. Barton,” she responded, whipping out her book and pencil. + +He smiled covertly. She was all business now. + +“Your suspicions are quite correct,” Barton observed. “Somebody +tampered with that letter and order. I did not see the letter or the +carbon copy of it after signing the former. The Bogata people must +have a friend in our offices. Have you any idea----” + +“No!” she exclaimed almost harshly. + +If Barton could not see Jim Mayberry’s hand in the affair surely it was +not her place to tell him. He seemed to ignore utterly the possibility +of the superintendent’s being the person guilty. + +“The Bogata people cannot hold us to any such terms,” Barton went on to +say. “We did not accept the order. Business--especially as important a +matter as this--is not so easily done. Their letter was a good deal of +a bluff as it stood. I should have felt justified in throwing it and +the schedule of their order into my wastebasket. Jim Mayberry is green +yet. I’ll have you take word to him----” + +“Oh, Mr. Barton! if you do that you will make my position terribly +difficult,” she cried. + +“True,” he admitted. “I suppose that is so. I will communicate with +Hammerly. He knows all about the affairs of the Bogata people. We will +let him break the news to Jim,” and he laughed a little. + +“You see, Miss Clayton, we must expect such mistakes as this to creep +in when a fellow is like Jim. He has all the knowledge of the business +that is necessary, I am sure. But he is likely to make mistakes--at +first.” + +She looked at the manager in wonder. Was it possible that his old-time +interest in Jim Mayberry, and the fact that they had been friends for +so long, utterly blinded Barton to the superintendent’s faults? + +“You have a quicker mind than Jim,” went on Barton, easily, “and you +haven’t his stubbornness. I really would not dare accept my lieutenancy +and ask for active duty if Jim had not you at his elbow. I know you +will not let him make any serious error.” + +“But, Mr. Barton!” she cried, under her breath, “you do not expect +really to leave the country so quickly?” + +“Perhaps. I have offered my services. I have got my commission. Really, +my work here has been somewhat like a review of former studies. And +officers are needed----” + +“Not _over there_?” Ethel gasped. + +He did not chance to see her face as he replied quietly: “So we expect. +We are not supposed to talk of it. Certain movements of the War +Department are kept secret. But whatever happens to me I am confident +you and Jim will conduct the affairs of the Hapwood-Diller Company +successfully. Why, this proves it! What he overlooks you will not miss. +Now, will you take a letter to Mr. Hammerly?” + +She held her pencil poised in readiness and nodded. Surely at that +moment she could not have uttered a word. He began to dictate, and +the letter was couched in such terms as to show his belief that Jim +Mayberry was perfectly innocent of all guile in the matter. However, +when it was concluded, Barton said reflectively: + +“But there is a traitor in the offices, Miss Clayton. That we know it +must put you and Mayberry both on guard. I depend on you particularly +to watch for the guilty party.” + +“And suppose I find him?” she demanded quickly. + +“If you cannot reach me,” Barton gravely told her, “then--then go to +Mr. Hammerly. Cross-grained as he is, he is perfectly honest. Besides,” +he added, “next to Mr. Grandon Fuller, he owns more stock in the +Hapwood-Diller Company than anybody else.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WAR IS DECLARED + + +“For pity’s sake, Mr. Barton, _do_ come away,” Helen Fuller cried at +last. “We’ll _never_ have time for luncheon.” + +“Beg pardon. Business must be attended to before we can take our +pleasure, always,” and Frank Barton laughed. + +But Ethel’s countenance was quite composed again. She did not even +glance in Miss Fuller’s direction as she closed the notebook and put it +and the pencil into her bag. + +“Good-day, Miss Clayton,” Barton said, taking her hand. “I will not +thank you for coming to me on this business, for I know your deep +interest in the company’s affairs. That was merely your duty. But to +see you again has been a pleasure. Even should I be assigned to foreign +duty suddenly, I shall hope to see all my Mailsburg friends at least +once before I sail. I send my regards to everybody in the office.” + +It was like that. He did not consider her call a personal one. Yet +that was not altogether Frank Barton’s fault, for Ethel had made it +plain that she had come only on business. The young manager of the +Hapwood-Diller Company was no more dense than any other man. + +Helen’s voice, with a tartness in it that could not be mistaken, +reached them again: + +“_Do_ hurry, Mr. Barton! I presume if you were fighting in the trenches +it would all have to stop while you gave your attention to some factory +matter.” + +He laughed and ran down the steps to the car. The engine of the latter +began to roar again. + +“Coming, Morry?” Helen asked, as the wheels began to revolve. + +“Two’s company, three’s a gang,” he drawled, waving his hand. +“Farewell. I am going to show Miss Clayton around the camp.” + +This he insisted on doing. After the brusk departure of Barton in the +car Ethel was too proud to show any chagrin. Besides, Morry Copley was +evidently desirous of pleasing her. She noted that he had assumed quite +a military carriage and concluded that his few weeks in camp had done +him a world of good. + +“Won’t you let me call on you when I come back to Mailsburg on +furlough, Miss Clayton?” he asked, when he had showed her everything of +general interest in the camp. + +“Most certainly not!” Ethel exclaimed bluntly. “You know very well Mrs. +Copley would be horrified if you visited a working girl, Mr. Copley.” + +“Aw, fiddle!” returned Morry in disgust, “I’m not half as much tied to +her apron strings as you think.” + +“Perhaps you should be,” Ethel laughed. “What will she say if you +really are ordered to France?” + +“Mothaw really thinks this is all play. She has no idea we’ll really +go. At least, not such fellows as Bradley and me.” + +“And--will you?” Ethel wickedly observed. + +“If I get my commission I’ll be off before she knows it--poor dear +lady,” he declared. “Don’t you people in Mailsburg fret. There are some +men in this camp besides Frank Barton.” + +Ethel sent the telegram holding up the stock order as instructed by +Barton, and when she arrived home late in the afternoon she transcribed +her notes of the letter to Mr. Macon Hammerly and sent it to that +gentleman by special messenger. The latter appeared in the offices of +the Hapwood-Diller Company early on Monday morning. For once he seemed +to wish to catch Jim Mayberry at his desk. + +“Let’s see,” scowled Macon Hammerly, eyeing the superintendent blackly, +“have you managed to find a hat in town big enough for you, Jim?” + +“I have ’em made to order--and stretchable,” grinned the younger man, +never at a loss for an answer when he met Hammerly, whom he just as +cordially disliked as Hammerly disliked him. “What’s biting you now?” + +“A suspicion that you have a swelled head is eating on me,” frankly +announced the old grain dealer, his bushy eyebrows meeting again. “I’ve +come to give you a mite of advice.” + +“Thanks!” returned Mayberry, encouragingly. “I’ve been expecting this +visit ever since Frank went away. It must have pained you to keep away +so long.” + +“Not exactly,” returned Hammerly. “It’s only surprised me that I +haven’t had to come around before. I told Barton I’d keep an eye on +you.” + +“Thanks again,” growled Mayberry, and this time he did not look so +pleasant. Hammerly was quite unmoved. + +“Here’s the trouble,” he said, quietly watching the superintendent. +“Barton wrote me to look up the Bogata people again.” + +The hit was palpable. Mayberry jumped in his chair. He lifted his face +to stare at the old man in open surprise. + +“Seems there’s an order kicking around the office here from them. +Barton had his doubts about accepting it. Now there _is_ no doubt. +You’re not to do a stroke of work on those goods.” + +“Who says so?” snapped Mayberry. “Who’s in charge here, I want to know, +Mr. Hammerly?” + +“_You_ won’t be,” said the other softly, “if you don’t take well meant +advice.” + +“Why! that order’s been accepted long ago. I’ve ordered some of the +stock. I’ve planned to begin the work this week.” + +“Change your plans, Jim Mayberry. Change your plans,” said Hammerly +in a more threatening voice. “You’re not in power here. Barton may +come back any day and polish you off. And this Bogata business is +settled--for all time. Don’t make a mistake.” + +“Why, we can’t----” + +“You’re right. You can’t fill the order. Pull in your horns. The Bogata +Company are going to have a New Year’s present of a receivership. +And I’m hanged if I’ll stand by and see them try to bolster up their +rotten credit with the credit of the Hapwood-Diller Company. They don’t +happen to owe this firm anything, Jim; but they owe everybody else in +the world who would give ’em a cent’s worth of credit. You kill their +order.” + +“I tell you it can’t be done,” muttered Mayberry. + +“If you don’t Barton will come here and do it himself. He’s already +wired your supply people to hold that order you sent for correction. +You’re not going to run this factory into debt one penny’s worth to aid +the Bogata people.” + +Mayberry sprang up, his heavy face aflame. “If you were a younger man, +Mr. Hammerly----” + +“Forget my age, Jim. I’ve never seen the day yet that I couldn’t handle +a chap of your size and shape,” and he let his keen eye run over +Mayberry’s obese figure. “You’re as stubborn as a mule. Perhaps that’s +all the matter with you. But you’ve got your instructions. All you need +to do is to follow them. Write to the Bogata people and tell them this +factory can’t fill their order.” + +“I don’t see by what right----” + +“None at all. I’m butting in,” said Hammerly turning to the door. “But +you’d better think it over.” He went out chuckling, and after a while +Mayberry cooled down. He knew well enough Hammerly’s power on the +board. He soon grew calm enough to study the thing out. + +Barton had called on Hammerly for advice again. How had Barton heard of +the Bogata matter? Just one answer to that question. Ethel Clayton! + +Mayberry’s expression when he came to this conclusion boded ill for +Ethel. He knew just how he stood personally with her. Not that he +cared more for Ethel Clayton in the first place than he did for half a +dozen other girls. Only it had piqued him that she should have been so +disdainful of his advances. + +Now he had a real reason, he told himself, for considering Ethel in the +light of an enemy. She had thwarted his intention of jamming the Bogata +order through the factory before Barton became aware of what he was +doing. The success of the scheme meant much in a financial way to the +superintendent. + +Now he could not do it. It was true that he had got his orders from +the old grain merchant. Hammerly would surely keep his eye on him +hereafter--if he had not already been doing so. + +Mayberry knew he had a friend in Grandon Fuller. But he did not know +yet just how much of a friend Mr. Fuller was. Nor why he was friendly +with him! Mr. Fuller had not yet shown his hand. + +Fuller was the heaviest stockholder in the Hapwood-Diller Company and +was, of course, on the board of directors. But it was doubtful if he +could swing more votes than Macon Hammerly. + +Angry as he was, Mayberry felt that it would be the part of wisdom to +keep from an open break with the grain dealer. Besides, Barton had not +gone to France yet--if he ever did. + +A telegram came from the supply house: + + “We hold your order as requested subject to correction.” + +Mayberry sent for Ethel. + +“What do you know about this, Ethel?” he demanded, glowering at her as +she read the telegram. + +“Just as much as you do, Mr. Mayberry,” she declared, composedly enough. + +He thought that over a bit. Then he dictated a a letter to the +Bogata Company bluntly refusing to fill their order and without +even explaining or apologizing for the seeming delay in answering +their letter. He had managed to do exactly what Barton had tried to +avoid--giving the Bogata people offence. If the miracle happened, and +the Bogata people “came back,” they would never feel friendly again +toward the Hapwood-Diller Company. + +As for Mayberry and Ethel, war was declared between them. There could +be no further doubt of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE IMAGE HE TOOK AWAY + + +Although Frank Barton was still manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company, +he had turned his salary back into the treasury of the concern ever +since joining the training camp at Lake Quehasset. + +It was not long after the flurry regarding the Bogata Company +order that a suggestion was made in the directors meeting of the +Hapwood-Diller Company that Barton be removed and Mayberry be put in +his place as manager. The suggestion came from Grandon Fuller. Macon +Hammerly opposed it. + +“I am told that Barton will sail shortly with a contingent of our brave +boys for the other side,” Mr. Fuller declared pompously. “I fancy he +has merely neglected to resign in the stress of other business. Mr. +Mayberry has shown his ability and capacity for management. I do not +see why Brother Hammerly should object.” + +“Patriotic reasons,” said the opposing member of the board dryly. “I +object to kicking a fellow out of his job because he is going off to +fight his country’s battles. Let things rest as they are, Fuller.” + +“Do you mean all through the war?” demanded Mr. Fuller, with some heat. + +“Why not? Frank Barton pulled this company out of a slough of despond +that pretty near swamped us. If he comes back alive I, for one, want to +see him manager again.” + +“But what about Mr. Mayberry?” + +“How is _he_ hurt?” snorted the old grain merchant. “He’s sitting here, +tight enough, while another man is fighting in his place. The least he +can do is to hold Barton’s job for him.” + +That killed the suggestion for the time being. The matter leaked out of +the board room, however, and Ethel Clayton heard of it. She wondered +if, after all, the Fullers were such good friends of Frank Barton as +they seemed to be. + +Likewise she began to wonder what would happen to her if Jim Mayberry +ever got the full power over the office force that he had in the +factory. He might then discharge her on some easily trumped-up pretext. +The thought was not a pleasant one. + +Of late, on several occasions Mayberry had criticized her work, +especially her management of the office staff. He aimed some shafts +of his rough wit, too, at Benway Chase, although he could find no +complaint to make in the new clerk’s work. + +For Benway really showed a remarkable aptitude for his position. He was +always energetic. When a member of the shipping room force was away for +a while, Benway took on the duties of checker in addition to his usual +work, which latter he did not in the least neglect. + +When Mayberry noticed this he said: + +“So you are out to master the whole business, are you, Chase? Going to +be the wheelhorse, driver and spotted dog under the hind axle.” + +“I told you, Mr. Mayberry, I was out for your job,” Benway said coolly. +“Every little bit a fellow learns puts him so much farther ahead.” + +“Think so, do you?” sneered the superintendent. + +But Ethel knew Benway was getting a firm grasp on the details of the +office work that made him exceedingly useful. He very quietly relieved +her of some of the duties which had a way of falling upon her shoulders. + +Barton had been in the habit of depending on her bright mind and +willingness to a great degree. Mayberry deliberately shirked much of +the routine work as he could. And of course it all fell upon Ethel and +made her burden the heavier to bear. Sometimes she was held at her post +until long after the others were gone for the day. + +Benway Chase would have remained to help or to accompany her home on +these occasions had she allowed him to, and she had fairly to drive +Little Skinner home. The latter would have done all Ethel’s work for +her had she been able. + +“Take it from me!” the slangy Mabel declared. “That Jim Mayberry lets +you slave here while he’s playin’ poker down to the Bellevue or +runnin’ about the country in that flivver of his. I wish’t Mr. Barton +would come back. He wouldn’t see you abused. Miss Clayton--’deed he +wouldn’t!” + +Ethel had not heard from Barton since her visit to the training camp, +although she wrote to him briefly each week as she had promised. +Nothing special had arisen in the daily affairs of the Hapwood-Diller +Company to cause her sufficient worry to bring it to Barton’s notice. +And with the little trials, of course, she had no intention of +troubling him. + +Mailsburg’s first quota of drafted men marched past the factory one +day to the railway station. The streets were lined with silent people +for the most part. But the buildings were cheerful with bunting and +flags. It was Ethel who insisted that the factory front be decorated in +addition to the great silk flag which Barton had raised first with his +own hands and which John raised each morning and took in at night. + +Mayberry grudgingly shut down the shops for an hour that the hands +might cheer more than a hundred of the drafted men who had left the +Hapwood-Diller Company to don the army khaki. + +Service flags began to appear all over the town after that. Mrs. +Trevor, Barton’s former landlady, hung out one with a single star on +it, and Ethel was told that the grim old woman kept Barton’s chair at +the table for him and allowed nobody to sit in it. + +Almost every day something happened to remind Ethel that the war was +coming closer and closer to her. Her mother was knitting for the Red +Cross. She did not say much about this work save to mention with a +sniff that she hoped she could turn out as good work as those snips of +girls she saw knitting in the cars and on the park benches. + +“And I expect to see them take those awful looking knitting bags to +church with them one of these days,” was likewise Mrs. Clayton’s tart +comment. + +One day Ethel saw Morry Copley in town. It was while she was out +to lunch and, without seeing her, he bustled past so importantly +that she could not escape the thought that there must be something +afoot--perhaps some assignment of troops or officers that affected +Frank Barton as well. Morry wore the insignia of a second-lieutenant. + +She hurried back to the office with the expectation of seeing Barton. +Surely he would not come to town without looking in upon them! But the +afternoon dragged by without his appearance. She said nothing to her +office mates regarding her expectations. + +Each time the door opened she started and looked up, expecting to see +him--tall and handsome in his khaki--enter the office. It made her +nervous. There were mistakes in her work that put her back so she had +to remain after hours again. When Benway wanted to help her she snapped +at him and sent that surprised young man home “with a flea in his ear.” + +Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Barton had been cooling his heels +in the Fullers’ reception hall. He had sent up his card to Helen and +the maid had come down to say that the young lady was very busy. Would +Monsieur wait? + +Monsieur would--most assuredly he would! He had not seen or heard from +Miss Fuller since the Sunday on which both she and Ethel Clayton had +chanced to come to Camp Quehasset. And now, save for a conference with +Mr. Hammerly, he had sacrificed most of his time in Mailsburg to speak +confidentially to Grandon Fuller’s daughter. + +He waited her pleasure with such patience as he could master. He had +come to think of Helen during most of his waking hours. At least if his +military duties and studies were to the fore, the thought of Helen was +ever present in the back of his mind. + +She was going to France he knew; but he might never see her over there. +Just now he was feeling very keenly the fact that he was assigned +to the Front and that he might, within a very short period, be in +desperate danger of death. + +A precious hour and more he waited. Occasionally he saw a soft-footed +serving man or a maid pass his lonely alcove. Nobody spoke to him. +Finally the noise of a car under the porte-cochère awoke hollow echoes. +Immediately the sound of voices came from above. Down the broad +staircase tripped Helen. + +“Oh, mercy _me_, Mr. Barton! Are _you_ here? And waiting _all_ this +time? That stupid maid! I was so busy with my dressmaker that I could +not possibly come. And then--the maid never reminded me.” + +She might have delivered him a physical blow in the face and he would +have felt or shown it no more keenly. She was gorgeous in frock and +hat, and she smiled upon him in her old alluring way. But his spirit +fell from its heights. A dressmaker had been of more importance! She +had depended upon her maid to remind her that he was waiting to see her! + +“I hoped to see you for a few minutes, Miss Helen,” he said quietly. “I +am going away.” + +“Of course! So am I!” she cried. “But I must be off now to the +Northup’s dinner. The car is waiting. It’s too late for me to refuse, +Mr. Barton. And there is a dance afterward that I positively _must_ +look in at. Dear _me_! I’ll really be _glad_ to be over there and at +work in a hospital. This running around to dinners and dances and what +Morry Copley calls ‘tea-fights’, is just killing me. + +“Can’t I see you in the morning, Frank?” + +He wanted to tell her that in the morning he would already be at sea. +But that was forbidden. + +“I am afraid not. I have to go back on the eight-ten.” + +“Oh! Not so _soon_! Really?” There was much lacking in her tone--much +of warmth that he had expected. “Well, best of luck! Hope to see you +‘over there,’ you know. Bye-bye!” + +She ran out to the car, turning to wave her hand as she got in. And +that after he had waited an hour! Had Macon Hammerly been right after +all? He had said: + +“The Fullers only want you for what they can get out of you. Grandon +Fuller was never known yet to do anything without a purpose behind +it. Look how he hung about Israel Diller--was right on the spot when +the old chap died. You don’t suppose Diller made Grandon Fuller rich +because he _deserved_ riches, do you?” + +His wasted hour caused Barton to miss the office force at the factory; +but he went that way to the station, hoping to see Mayberry at least. +His mastery of the Hapwood-Diller Company’s affairs seemed a long way +behind him now. Indeed when a man faces war the past grows small to +him in any case. It is what is going to happen to him that completely +obsesses his thought. + +Barton thrust his head in at the office door, having opened it softly. +A single strong light was ablaze over Ethel Clayton’s desk. The +remainder of the room was in shadow. + +The girl had evidently finished the task that had kept her so late, for +her desk was cleared up and she sat back in her chair, dreaming. Her +gaze was fixed on the door of the private office; but Frank Barton +could not see her face until he spoke. + +“Nobody here but you, Miss Clayton? I am certainly glad to see you. All +the rest gone?” + +She turned her face toward him slowly, appearing not to be startled at +all by his coming. “They are all gone, Mr. Barton,” she said quietly, +and reached up quickly to turn the shade of the electric lamp so that +the light no longer fell on her face. + +“Mayberry gone, too?” he asked, coming in with his hand held out. + +“He is out of town, I believe,” Ethel told him, her voice unshaken, +rising to meet him. + +“I am sorry I missed them all,” Barton said, grasping her hand for a +moment warmly. “You will have to give them my regards and best wishes.” + +“Will you not stay over night?” + +“I fear that will be impossible. I am on my way to catch the eight-ten.” + +“You are not going away _now_? Not for _good_?” + +Barton laughed. “I hope to come back safely,” he said. “But this is +good-bye for some time, Miss Clayton----” + +He caught her arm and steadied her as she swung against the desk. Her +eyes closed and he saw suddenly that she was very pale. + +“Are you faint? You’re working too hard!” he cried. “Look here, Miss +Clayton, you must take better care of yourself. I shouldn’t feel half +so safe in going away if you were not right here on the job. You’ve +got to be good to yourself.” + +“I--I was a little faint. It’s all right, Mr. Barton,” she murmured. +“Nothing serious, I assure you. I’m not one of the fainting kind, as +you know.” + +“No indeed!” he cried admiringly. “I bank on you and your very good +sense, Miss Clayton. You are not like other girls. I did not know for +a moment but that my announcement startled you. I should have been +flattered!” and he laughed. + +She was silent. He could not see her face well, for she kept it turned +from the lamp. Finally she said: “Naturally I am troubled that you +should be going--so far away. Oh, this war is terrible, Mr. Barton!” + +“Yes. All wars have been terrible. The one that touches you nearest +seems the most terrible. But after all, Miss Clayton, it doesn’t matter +much how one dies as long as death is inevitable.” + +“That is fatalism! Perhaps it is the right soldier spirit,” she +murmured. Then she turned to face him again and her countenance was +quietly radiant. “But why should we who stop at home add to your +burdens? We should send you away with a smile.” + +“I wonder!” he exclaimed. “I wonder if we fellows ought not to go away +with a smile--to furnish those we leave behind with courage? Those we +leave behind must do our work. War is waste, you know, when all is said +and done. I leave you, Miss Clayton, to keep things straight here,” +and he smiled warmly again as his hand once more sought hers. “Write +to me,” and he told her how to address him through the War Department. +“Good-bye!” + +He wheeled swiftly and marched to the door. His upright carriage and +squared shoulders made his back look almost strange to her. She stood +before the desk leaning against it, her hands clinging tightly to its +edge. Her knuckles were perfectly white from the pressure of her hands +upon the wood--that grasp which actually kept her from falling. + +But her face showed none of her terror and weakness. He turned at the +door to smile and nod to her again. The image he took away in his mind +was of her perfectly composed, smiling face. And again it was the +memory of Ethel Clayton, not of Helen Fuller, that he carried away as +the Girl He Left Behind. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE AWAKENING + + +Frank Barton had gone to the Front. He would be where there was battle, +murder, and sudden death! War had become a horrid, living reality to +Ethel Clayton. + +She heard that Morrison Copley had been in town to bid his mother +good-bye and had gone away, too, bound for the transport. Likewise that +Charlie Bradley, that hulking fellow who had been so notorious about +town, supposedly had sailed at the same time Barton had gone to France. + +Ethel had occasion to pass the Fuller house within the week. It was +shuttered and empty looking. The _Clarion_ had told, in a column and a +half, of the last reception tendered Helen Fuller and her mother before +their departure. Grandon Fuller was living at the Bellevue and seemed +rather relieved than otherwise, so people said, that his wife and +daughter had gone abroad. + +But Ethel did not scoff now--she had never done so openly--at the idea +of flighty Helen Fuller settling down to Red Cross work. Secretly she +wished that she, too, were on the way to France. Suppose Frank Barton +should be wounded! Some woman would attend him in the hospital. It +might even fall to Helen’s lot. Had Ethel gone to France it might be +her fate to nurse Barton. + +She felt a sudden and bitter distaste for her work in the offices +of the Hapwood-Diller Company. The drab business affairs of every +day disgusted her. Although she neglected nothing, Ethel had no +satisfaction in what she did. + +The war filled more and more space in the daily papers. But there was +no news of the Rainbow Division, with which it was believed Barton and +the other young officers from Mailsburg had sailed. Everything was so +secretly done! + +There was the story that sifted back from France to the families of +some of the soldiers of the unit from the West, who thought they were +bound for New York by train, but who found themselves alighting in New +Orleans and going aboard the troop ships there, to sail for southern +France by the way of Gibraltar. + +The fact that the country was honeycombed by German and Austrian spies, +and by those whom the enemy’s money could buy, was becoming slowly a +settled conviction, even in Mailsburg. Those of German birth and name +would in time be ostracised. It could not be helped. It was in the +nature of things. + +The man who in war time calls himself too broad-minded to hate the +enemy is often one who has not yet awakened to the seriousness of war. +The enemy-alien in our midst should tremble for his personal safety. +Otherwise he becomes a menace. + +Just off Burnaby Street was a little shop where, ever since Ethel was +a child, had sat a little old German cobbling shoes. He was a marked +character in this part of the town where the residents were mostly of +the old, native American stock. + +Somebody has said that the trade of tailor breeds socialists and +pessimists. So being a cobbler used to breed philosophers of a kindly +sort. Gessler had been wont to hand out bits of homely and comfortable +philosophy with his mended shoes. + +The war had changed his attitude toward life, it seemed. Until the +United States had got into it he had talked eagerly with everybody who +would listen. + +The Kaiser he hated, for he was a “Prussian, arrogant and brutal.” + +“My father used always to say that there would be war if that +bloodhound came to the throne!” he frequently said. But he likewise was +proud of his race. “The whole world is fighting them and can’t beat +them already!” he cried. + +Now that his adopted country was arraigned against the fatherland, +Gessler was very glum and silent. He did not have so much work as +before; but he sat all day on his cobbler’s bench, his hammer in his +hand, often staring out of the window with empty eyes. + +On her way to work one morning Ethel carried a pair of shoes to be +mended. But when she reached the corner in sight of which the little +German’s shop stood, she hesitated. How could she approach Gessler and +speak to him with that pleasant familiarity that had been her custom. + +She could think of him only now as an enemy. Every German was an +enemy! His countrymen in their terrible undersea craft might sink the +transport upon which Frank Barton had sailed. The war had come home +to Ethel Clayton! It was real to her at last, as it becomes real to +everybody who has a personal stake in it. + +She took the shoes to another cobbler and went on her way to the office. + +These days Ethel was almost vexed with Benway Chase because he +continued to be so enthusiastic about his work and interested in it. He +never seemed to flag in his tasks; and he might really be, as he had +laughingly said, fitting himself for Jim Mayberry’s position. + +He spent most of his noon hour talking with the foremen of the +different shops. He learned much about the practical working of the +factory system; yet he never neglected his own particular tasks. + +Mabel Skinner still considered Benway the most wonderful young man who +had ever crossed her path; but she worshiped from afar. She did not +dream of preening her poor plumage to attract his notice; yet when +he smiled at her in good comradeship Little Skinner was secretly in +ecstasies. + +“Gee!” she confided to Boots, her errant brother, on one occasion, +“when Mr. Chase asked me did I like flowers, an’ give me some of them +late asters from his mother’s garden, I almost swallowed my gum!” + +“Cracky!” scoffed Boots. “That poor fish? Why, he ain’t got but one +good wing!” + +“An’ he can put over a spitter with that that _you_ can’t hit, +Smartie,” retorted his sister vigorously. “And he’s a gentleman, Mr. +Chase is!” + +“Cracky!” repeated Boots. “Seems to me, if I was a girl I’d fall for a +feller that could gimme something besides a flower an’ a sweet smile. +Like that Jim Mayberry. He’s got a flivver and could take you ridin’.” + +“He only took me once,” said Mabel complacently. “And I guess he must +have give you a ride in his buzz-cart, too, that time, or you wouldn’t +have give me that dream about Jim and Sam Blaisdell of Norville workin’ +in cahoots against Mr. Barton.” + +“Huh! That warn’t no dream,” grumbled Boots. “You think you’re allus +so smart, Mab Skinner. I heard ’em talkin’ all right ’bout how to do +Mr. Barton. And it had something to do with the Bogata works down to +Norville, just as I told you.” + +“Well, that egg never hatched, then,” declared his dubious sister. + +They might have suspected the incubation of another egg had she known +how often Jim Mayberry was in consultation with Mr. Grandon Fuller +these days at the Bellevue, although Mabel Skinner of course knew +little about the inside affairs of the Hapwood-Diller Company. It might +have aroused any person’s suspicions to mark the superintendent’s +intimacy with the largest stockholder of the concern. + +Mr. Fuller had not again suggested the removal of Barton and the +appointment of Mayberry as manager. Indeed, with the former already out +of the country and in the Service, that change did not seem necessary +to the carrying to conclusion of any schemes Mr. Fuller might have. + +Not that there was anything wrong showing on the surface of affairs. +The factory seemed to be running quite as usual. But as the end of the +business year approached Ethel could not fail to note that the reports +on output were not so favorable as they had been earlier in the year. +As, of course, it was not really within the compass of her work she +could not discover why this should be. + +From the very day Mayberry had been balked in his endeavor to put +the Bogata order through, the tide of fortune for the Hapwood-Diller +Manufacturing Company seemed to have turned. The superintendent never +spoke again about the Bogata Company to Ethel. The latter knew, +however, that Hammerly’s prophecy regarding a receivership for that +concern had come true--and that before the new year. + +In the matter of the shop reports the girl was puzzled and alarmed. It +did not seem to be anybody’s fault; certainly Mayberry did not neglect +his supervision of the factory, and most of the foremen were old and +faithful employees. + +The report of the corporation compared unfavorably with the last +report. A good deal of money was tied up in raw material. Contracts +unfilled and bills not yet collectible were items that bulked big on +the wrong side of the ledger. + +The board voted the usual dividend; but the surplus was much reduced +thereby. And then, suddenly and like the bursting of a bomb, trouble +came. + +The Hapwood-Diller Company stock was listed in the market; that is, it +was traded in by the curb brokers both in State and Broad Streets. One +morning Hammerly came raging into the offices, his _Financial Gazette_ +in his hand, his spectacles pushed up to the line of his grizzled hair, +and his eyes fairly snapping. + +“What’s the meaning of this, I want to know?” he cried, shaking the +financial sheet under Jim Mayberry’s nose as that young man appeared +from the manager’s office. “Do you know anything about this?” + +“About what, Mr. Hammerly?” + +“This trading in Hapwood-Diller shares? It’s been going on for a +week, I understand. Yesterday three hundred shares was sold for +eighty-nine--eleven points off. Never heard of such a thing! Who’s +selling?” + +“Why, bless your heart, Mr. Hammerly,” said the superintendent, “I +don’t know. I own only fifty shares and I haven’t sold them, I can +assure you.” + +“Some tarnal fool is dumping his shares on the market, and at a bad +time. Right after such a poor showing as was made by our last report. +If Frank Barton was on the job such a report would never have been +made.” + +Mayberry flushed. “No man can make bricks without straw, Mr. Hammerly,” +he said. + +“Huh?” snorted the grain dealer. “Who ever told you they made bricks of +straw? That’s about all you know, Jim Mayberry. They make bricks with +clay around these parts. You ain’t in Egypt. But that ain’t neither +here nor there. This here selling of shares--and maybe these were only +wash sales?” added the suspicious old man. “Here! let me see the stock +book, Mayberry.” + +“Ask Ethel for that,” returned the superintendent sharply, and, turning +on his heel, walked away. + +Mr. Hammerly looked after him with lowering brow. “Ha!” he muttered, +“mighty independent of a sudden. Now, I wonder what that means?” + +But he was as pleasant as usual with Ethel. Macon Hammerly approved of +her. He retired to a corner seat to study the list of names to whom +stock, at the reorganization after Israel’s Diller’s death, had been +issued. Most of the local owners of the shares had clung to all their +original allotment, even through the depression at the beginning of +the war before Frank Barton had been elevated to the management of the +concern’s affairs. + +The Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company had always been a very close +corporation. There were some Diller and Hapwood heirs in the West and +South who had traded off their shares in the corporation; but nobody +knew better than Mr. Macon Hammerly just where those shares lay. At +least, up to this date he thought he knew where the bulk of them were. + +The next shock to the working force of the Company, as well as to the +board, was the turning back of the entire order billed to the Kimberly +Binding Company. The order amounted to twelve thousand dollars. The +goods were not according to specifications. + +Jim Mayberry denied all responsibility for this error. The Kimberly +order had been received and the contract signed by Barton. Mayberry +showed that the shop sheets covering the contract had been followed +exactly by the workmen. The duplicates of these papers in the office +were the same as the working plans in every particular. + +But the Kimberly Company produced its copy of the specifications with +two differences in it, one of dimension and the other of quality, +changes which made the finished product absolutely useless to the +Kimberly people. Or for anybody else, for that matter! The product +could merely go into the scrap heap. + +There was a live tilt in the board meeting that day between Mr. Grandon +Fuller and his followers, and Mr. Macon Hammerly. Ethel was in and out +of the room to take dictation, and to furnish books and figures when +required, so she heard much of the wrangle. + +Jim Mayberry sat sullenly in his place at the table and had only one +declaration to repeat: It was not up to him! Mr. Fuller did most of the +talking. + +Barton’s name was signed to the Kimberly schedule. He had O. K.’d it. +Two bad errors had crept into the specifications and the now absent +manager had overlooked them. + +“And he was _absent_, all right, before ever he left here,” Fuller +scoffed. “Absent in his mind if not in body. And his absent-mindedness +has cost us a pretty penny. I can see right now that this board will +have to pass the next dividend.” + +The very next day a block of five thousand shares sold in Boston for +eighty-seven and a half and two hundred in the New York market for +eight-seven flat. + +One evening Ethel came home from work to be greeted by her mother in a +flurried state of mind. + +“Good land, Ethel! What’s the matter with the Hapwood-Diller Company +now? I feared how it would be if Frank Barton went away.” + +Ethel keenly remembered her mother’s expressed doubt of Mr. Barton’s +having much to do with the prosperity of the concern. Now she asked +Mrs. Clayton: + +“What do you think is the matter at the factory? I don’t know what you +mean.” + +“Well, I want to know! And you working right there, too. Here this +little lawyer comes around and offers me a ridiculous price for our +shares----” + +“What lawyer?” + +“I don’t know him. He says he’s from New York. Here’s his card,” and +she handed to Ethel a card on which was engraved “A. Schuster, Atty.” +and an address in a Wall Street building. + +“Anyway, he seems to think he can buy our stock for sixty-five dollars. +That’s all he’ll offer and he just laughed and laughed when I told him +the shares of the Hapwood-Diller Company had never been worth less than +a hundred dollars apiece since they were printed.” + +“What did he say to that?” asked her more than curious daughter. + +“He declared sixty-five was better than it would sell in the market +in a month, unless the company was reorganized and put on a paying +basis. I wonder what Grandon Fuller or Hammerly would say to that? And +you ought to know the truth, Ethel,” added the worried woman. “Aren’t +things going right in the office now that Frank Barton’s gone away?” + +“There is nothing to worry over,” her daughter said stoutly. + +“Well, that’s what I told that little lawyer,” Mrs. Clayton declared. +“I said we’d just got our dividend check same’s usual, and he +said--What do you suppose he said?” + +“I have no idea,” confessed Ethel. + +“That it would be the last one we’d get for many a long day. Can that +be so, Ethel? I don’t know what we should do if our income from those +shares your great-uncle Diller left us should be cut off.” + +“I shouldn’t worry, Mother,” Ethel said composedly. + +Yet this was only one of the many things she began to hear which +suggested a coming catastrophe to the Hapwood-Diller Company. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BENWAY’S DISCOVERY + + +Benway Chase was to prepare a copy of the faulty specification sheet of +the Kimberly Binding Company’s order, to be attached to the report on +that unfortunate affair filed in the records of the board’s proceedings. + +Ethel had not discussed the unfortunate matter with Benway, or with +anybody else. That Frank Barton could have allowed such an error--two +such errors, indeed--to escape his notice was scarcely in accord with +her belief in the general manager’s perspicacity. Her lips merely +tightened when anybody mentioned the tragic happening within her +hearing. + +For it was indeed tragic. Rumors that the factory output was falling +behind and that the Hapwood-Diller Company was facing a situation +similar to that which had threatened it when Frank Barton had first +taken hold as manager, reached Ethel’s ears from all sides. + +Although she could not understand how this mistake in the Kimberly +order could have happened, she accepted the claim of the ordering +company as honestly made, and that without question. The Kimberly +Company was not a second Bogata concern. They wanted the goods ordered +and were amply able to pay for them. The mistakes in the specifications +made much trouble for the purchasing corporation as well as for the +Hapwood-Diller Company. + +This schedule from the Kimberly Binding Company had been copied in +duplicate in the Hapwood-Diller Company’s office, one copy with Frank +Barton’s name upon it being returned to the ordering firm, the other +filed where only properly accredited members of the Hapwood-Diller +Company’s office force supposedly were able to get at it. + +The question as to how the two items on the schedule came to be +different from those on the sheet sent back to the Kimberly Company +bulked just as big in Ethel’s mind as the similar question regarding +the Bogata Company’s order. She felt that the same treacherous hand was +to be suspected. + +It was not Frank Barton’s fault. Of this she was confident. But she +could not put an accusing finger on any person. That there was a +traitor in the Hapwood-Diller office went without saying. This time +Mr. Barton was too far away for her to discuss the point with him, and +Hammerly gave her no opportunity of speaking her mind. + +Benway came with the copy he was making of the faulty schedule and +placed it before her. He was transcribing the paper in his own very +exact, upright handwriting. But he had made a mistake. + +“Do you think that will be noticed, Ethel?” he asked with a measure of +suppressed excitement that she did not at first notice. “See where I +made a bull--and used the acid to take the ink out?” + +“Why, yes, Benway; I see it--now that you call my attention to it. But +really you have made the correction very neatly. I think it will be all +right. The paper only shines a little on the surface where you erased +the ink marks with the acid.” + +“That’s just it, Ethel,” he hissed, close to her ear. “The erasing +fluid leaves the surface of this sort of paper glossy. Now look at +this!” + +He plumped the document he was copying--the schedule in which the two +errors had been found--under her eye. + +“Why, what is it?” + +“See anything wrong about those two mysterious lines?” he demanded, and +now she marked his excitement. + +“Oh, Benway! That’s been all gone over. You can see there have been +no changes made in this original paper. There is no more shine to the +surface where those two errors stand than elsewhere. _That_ was taken +up in board meeting. I heard them discuss it. And I studied it myself. +No. There have surely been no erasures.” + +“Sure?” + +“You are very obstinate, Benway!” exclaimed Ethel impatiently. + +“But look,” he whispered. “Here!” He snapped on the electric light over +her desk. “Look at those places on the slant--with the glare of the +light on them. Don’t you see that the paper has been roughened under +those two faulty lines--and nowhere else on the sheet? And see again! +Under the electric light the surface of the paper seems bluer at those +places than anywhere else. That is a good quality of paper, too.” + +“Is--isn’t it a chance discoloration?” murmured the girl. + +“Don’t you think that’s far-fetched?” demanded Benway. “Two blue +blots--and just where those wrong items are written?” + +“Could they have been caused by drops of water?” + +“Huh! Drops of something!” growled Benway. “I own to that belief. But +never water. Here! Use this reading glass. Don’t you see the raw fibre +of the paper? The surface has been scratched just where those wrong +items stand. Not by the sort of erasing fluid we use in this office; +but by some means. What do you think?” + +Ethel passed the sensitive tips of her fingers lightly over the +indicated spots on the sheet. It seemed to her that she could feel the +slight roughness of the paper that Benway indicated so assuredly. + +“You go back and finish your job, Benway,” she told him finally. “Then +bring me this original. Understand? Say nothing to anybody else about +it.” + +“Sure!” he returned, his eyes snapping. + +“Then if you are asked about it,” she added quietly, “you may say that +you gave me the paper and know nothing at all about it.” + +He looked at her with more seriousness. + +“Say, are you figuring on getting into trouble with----” + +Ethel held up her hand. “You are not supposed to figure on this at all. +Just do as I say, Benway.” + +“Oh! All right, Ma’am,” he said with a mocking little smile and a +twinkle in his eye. + +Even he did not wholly understand the seriousness of the discovery; +but Ethel appreciated it fully. When he brought the original sheet of +specifications back to her she hid it in her dress and at noon instead +of going to lunch she caught a southbound car and rode to the Stone +Bridge. + +On either side of the creek there were docks and warehouses; but Macon +Hammerly’s general store and row of storehouses for feed and grain +and such other things as he dealt in were beyond the bridge and some +distance along what was called the Creek Road. The Creek Road debouched +into the fanning country that adjoined Mailsburg somewhat abruptly, at +the south end of the town. + +Really, Mr. Hammerly was a country merchant, always had been such, and +always would be. He had come into possession of his father’s store when +he was a young man, and it was said that his grandfather had first +engaged in business--the trading of general merchandise for pelts and +farm produce--on this very spot. However, the Macon Hammerly store and +warehouses were well known over a large area. + +Being on the edge of the city the farming people were likely to trade +with him largely. And yet he was not considered a “good fellow.” He was +too sharp and severe in his business methods. + +To his docks the sluggishly moving canal-boats came bringing grain and +feed and coal and other merchandise that he dealt in more largely. And +he was a wholesale dealer in many articles that other merchants in +Mailsburg sold at retail. For one thing, his was the largest seed house +in the county. + +Ethel hurried over the arch of the Stone Bridge and down the narrow, +bricked walk across from the head of the several docks and the doors +of the warehouses upon them. This was an old, old part of the town; +indeed, it had been known as Stone Bridge once; but Mailsburg had grown +out to it and had all but enveloped it with new buildings and better +streets. Only down the Creek Road the land still was checkered with +open fields and patches of wood. + +Before the weather-beaten building in which was Macon Hammerly’s +general store, was a wide, roofed porch. Several bewhittled armchairs, +just “wabbly” enough to be comfortable, stood about upon the platform. +Sometimes these were filled with Hammerly’s ancient cronies--cynics of +a former generation who had been in this world so long that they seemed +to believe they knew better how to run it than Omnipotence! + +Mr. Hammerly was alone at one end of the porch. This was egg-buying +day, and as he dealt largely in eggs--shipping quantities to the larger +cities--the old man usually looked after the buying while his clerks +packed the boxes inside. + +Hammerly believed if a thing was worth doing at all it was worth doing +well. Likewise he believed in that other old saw relative to a man’s +doing anything himself if he wanted to be sure it was done right. He +could not do everything of importance about his store and warehouses; +but he could--and did--buy eggs. + +He watched the farmers and their wives cannily as they brought their +baskets up to the platform. He handled many of the eggs himself. It was +his inflexible rule to refuse all pullet eggs, and he had always in his +pocket a wooden curtain-pole ring of a certain size. If an egg would +slip through that, it was discarded. + +Ethel chanced to arrive at a moment when there was a let-up in the +activities of egg buying. The grain dealer pushed up his spectacles +with that familiar gesture of his and grinned at the girl. + +“You ain’t come away down here on no party call, Ethel?” he said +questioningly. “You know I ain’t in the swagger set, and I don’t serve +pink tea here.” + +“No, sir,” she said, smiling in spite of her serious mood. “I know you +are a perfect barbarian.” + +The man chuckled, but said only: + +“Heard from Frank Barton yet?” + +“Oh, no, sir!” + +“I got you beat, then,” he said, with twinkling eye. “Not direct; but +from Washington. Got a friend there and he’s kept me posted. The troop +ship _Tecumseh_ got over safely--as they all did, in fact. Them German +undersea boats seem to have been too far under the sea to catch ’em. +Frank’s safe in France.” + +“Until he gets into the trenches,” said the girl bitterly. + +“Don’t you be like these other folks, Ethel. Grouchers, every one! +Knocking the war, and looking on the black side of every cloud instead +of on the silver. The good Lord knows I’m no optimist by nature; +but these are the times when every one of us should stretch our +cheerfulness to the breaking point. + +“Frank’s going to be all right. He’s going to do his duty, and he’s +going through with it all and come back to us. That’s my belief, Ethel.” + +“Oh, Mr. Hammerly! I hope you are right.” + +“If things go as smooth here with us as they do over there with him,” +he added, with twinkling eyes, “I reckon all will be well.” + +“Oh, Mr. Hammerly!” she exclaimed again, “things are not going smoothly +here. At least, not with the Hapwood-Diller Company.” + +“So that’s what brings you down here? I ain’t so flattered as I was, +Ethel,” he said good-naturedly. “Let’s hear your trouble.” + +“Oh, you mustn’t think I’m not glad to see you,” she said, hurriedly. + +“O’ course you’re glad,” he said, with something of a grin on his +wrinkled face. He stroked his chin reflectively. “Great times these, +an’ no mistake. If I was only younger----” + +“You’d get into the war, I suppose.” + +“Certain sure, I would. An’ you would, too, if you was a young man.” + +“Perhaps--I really don’t know--it’s all so horrible.” + +“So ’tis, an’ that German Kaiser has got a pile to answer for, believe +me. But now to business. Tell me what’s wrong.” + +“I’m not sure that it’s really wrong. But it looks queer to me.” + +“I see. Got some papers, eh?” + +“Yes.” + +“Let’s see ’em.” + +She displayed the specification sheet and explained hurriedly Benway’s +discovery. The appearance of erasure in two places on the document +seemed plainer to Ethel each time she looked at it. + +“I dunno,” drawled Hammerly, at first doubtful. But the longer he +looked at the two bluish marks the more deeply he was impressed with +the significance of them. “Can it be that we’ve got him at last?” he +finally questioned vigorously. + +“_Him?_” repeated Ethel, curiously. + +“There’s a dirty traitor in this business, Ethel,” declared the grain +dealer. + +“Who do you think it is? Jim Mayberry?” she asked outright. + +“He never did this,” declared Hammerly with emphasis. “He wouldn’t have +brains enough. That’s scarcely seeable, that rubbing out. And see how +close the handwriting has been copied. + +“I see. That is Josephine Durand’s work--the original writing of the +sheet, I mean. We never use the typewriter on these specification +papers, because of the uneven ruling. She wrote both this and the copy +that went back to the Kimberly people with Mr. Barton’s name on it.” + +“I know,” growled Hammerly, still staring closely at the paper. + +“And Josephine is perfectly trustworthy, I am sure. Besides, it does +not seem possible that Mr. Barton did not closely compare the two +papers. Those figures were changed, I am sure, after Mr. Barton left.” + +“Not a doubt on it! Not a doubt on it!” agreed Hammerly. “I’ve seen +something like this afore,” he added, more to himself than to the +girl. “You let me keep this paper, Ethel. We’ll see. How’s your ma?” + +“Worried a good deal, Mr. Hammerly. That lawyer who came around to buy +her shares in the Hapwood-Diller Company really scared mother.” + +“What lawyer?” snapped Macon Hammerly, instantly interested. + +Ethel told of the incident and gave Mr. Hammerly the name and address +of the attorney, Mr. Schuster. “I believe he did secure a few shares +from some of the small stockholders,” Ethel said. “You know Abel +Rawlins had seven shares and Mrs. Henry Cutt a dozen. They sold, mother +says, and she is worried for fear the company is going to smash and we +may lose everything.” + +“How many’s she got, Ethel?” asked the old man, a heavy frown on his +brow. And when Ethel told him, he added: “So? Israel Diller ought to’ve +done better by her than that. She was just as close’t kin to the old +man as Grandon Fuller’s wife.” + +“Oh, we won’t talk about that,” said Ethel, with a gesture of +dismissal. “What is done, is done.” + +“Humph! Mebbe! If it stays done!” grunted Macon Hammerly. “But it’s +been ten years and more now, ain’t it? Well! Howsomever, you let me +keep this paper a spell and see if I can make anything out of it. +I want to compare it with something I saw once--an’ had suspicions +about.” + +He bought no more eggs personally that day--and probably some of pullet +size slipped by. Instead, when Ethel left him, he walked up into the +business section of High Street and there, near the court-house, went +into the office of Alfred Gainor, who, as Mr. Mestinger’s chief clerk, +had fallen heir to most of his clients and their business when the +older attorney died. + +Mr. Mestinger had been the legal adviser of Israel Diller and had drawn +the latter’s will. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FROM “OVER THERE” + + +Ethel Clayton went away from her interview with Macon Hammerly cheered +upon one particular point at least. His outlook upon the chance for +Frank Barton’s continued safety, even if he was in France, was helpful. +And she knew the old grain merchant had Barton’s well-being at heart. + +Crabbed as he was with most people, Macon Hammerly had always betrayed +his interest in the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing +Company and his regard for him. He sometimes said, in his rough way, +that he kept Frank’s welfare in mind because the young fellow did not +know enough to look out for himself. Ethel knew, however, that Hammerly +had not been speaking carelessly about the absent Barton. + +The latter was over the sea in safety, and the girl was devoutly +thankful for it. Indeed she added that thanksgiving to her prayers +before retiring. But she longed to hear personally from Barton. She +had already written him three letters since she had last seen him, all +addressed as he had told her; but they had brought no replies. + +As before, while he was in the training camp, her letters were mostly +regarding office incidents which she knew he would be interested in. +But she had said nothing about the threatened trouble and loss to the +company through the mistake in the Kimberly Binding Company order. +Let somebody else tell the absent soldier that misfortune. Ethel was +determined to put nothing in her letters that was not cheerful. + +She learned very quickly, as thousands of other people were learning +just at that time, how particularly hard it is to write cheerfully to +the men at war. The very fact of sitting down to write to a soldier +on active duty calls up before the mind a picture too terrible to be +ignored. + +How do we know the letter will ever reach the one addressed? What peril +may he not face before our written words reach France and be delivered +to him? + +In Ethel Clayton’s case, too, the pang of jealousy was not lacking. +She realized that her feeling for Frank Barton was not reciprocated. +He had never given her the least cause to believe that he had other +than the merest feeling of comradeship for her. Whereas it was plain +that for Grandon Fuller’s daughter he experienced a much deeper regard. +Nevertheless Ethel was jealous of Helen Fuller. + +Mrs. Clayton thought her daughter was working too hard, and that +business worries depressed her. Benway Chase, too, noted her wan look +and increasing pallor. + +“You’re overdoing it, Ethel,” he said one bleak evening when they were +walking home together. + +“Overdoing _what_?” and her tone of voice admonished him that she did +not welcome his interference. Yet he persevered: + +“You needn’t get mad. You shoulder too much responsibility--and for +that oaf, Jim Mayberry. Let him do some of his own work.” + +She became gentler at once. Ben did not suspect why she so willingly +took upon herself the extra tasks. It was for the absent Barton that +she worked so hard, not for the manager _pro tem_. If he was spared to +come back to Mailsburg and the Hapwood-Diller Company, Ethel was going +to do all she could to hold his job for him! + +“Somebody must do these things, Benway,” she said quietly. “I am in a +responsible position. From the very fact I am a woman, more is expected +of me if I would hold up my end of the work and satisfy everybody. And +if I do not look after the tags of work in the office, who will?” + +“‘Tags of work!’” quoted Benway with emphatic disgust. “If _that_ were +only it! Oh, Ethel! I wish I could do it for you.” + +“Thanks, Benway.” + +“And you won’t even let me help,” he complained. “You don’t even talk +to me about your troubles. Why Ethel! I seem even less your friend now +that I am in the office with you than I used to be.” + +“Goodness, Benway!” she exclaimed with renewed impatience, “you can’t +expect to take my personal troubles or my work on your shoulders.” + +“Why not?” he demanded tenderly. “You know it’s what I’d love to do. +Oh, I wish I had a million and could take you out of all this! That’s +what I wish, Ethel.” + +“Why, I don’t want to give up my work, Benway. Nor do I want to +be rich. At least, I never have thought of being wealthy. And a +million----” + +“Well, I’d get along with even less,” he admitted drolly. “All I really +long for is a loaf, a jug of wine, a flivver, and thou.” + +“My dear boy,” she declared briskly, “you’ll get your first three +wishes much easier than you will your fourth. Leave me out of the +category, please. + +“I don’t want to go off in a flivver with any man and a loaf of bread +and a wine jug. I am wedded to my work. I love it. It’s just as much +my life as it is yours. I have never looked upon my work as a mere +stop-gap between high school or college and the wedded state--as is so +often the case with girls. _This is my job_, and I have no right to +expect you, or anybody else, Benway, to ease it for me.” + +He looked at her aggrieved. “Is it always going to be so, Ethel?” + +“I expect it will be always so,” she returned with less vehemence. +“I am not a marrying girl, Bennie. I wish you’d get that into your +handsome head. Get interested in some other girl--do!” + +“Pshaw! Who told you you were not a marrying girl?” he demanded, +chuckling. “Wait till the right knock comes on the door.” + +“I shan’t hear it. I shall be too busy.” + +He was more serious for a moment. + +“Perhaps there is danger of that. I’ve been knocking myself ever since +I can remember, and I get mighty little response.” + +“Don’t waste your time, Bennie,” she said bruskly. “I tell you frankly: +Marriage is the last thing I expect to accomplish.” + +“You’re wrong. It’s death that is the last thing for us all. But you +can’t break down my hopes, Ethel. I shall continue to knock.” + +Somehow this insistence of Benway’s irritated Ethel more than usual. +She was almost sorry she had ever urged Mr. Barton to take him into the +offices, for the young fellow too plainly betrayed his interest in her. + +It was bad enough for Sydney and the others to note the fact that +Benway was always ready to run her errands or otherwise be at her beck +and call; but Jim Mayberry made his uncouth comments upon it too. + +“You have him trained like a little curly dog, haven’t you?” the +superintendent sneered one day, when Benway had anticipated some need +of Ethel’s. “He fetches and carries better than a retriever. Is he good +for anything else?” + +“You had better ask Sydney if he does his work if you are afflicted +with blindness yourself, Mr. Mayberry,” she said tartly. + +“Oh, I’m not too blind to see there are a good many things going dead +wrong in this office,” Mayberry growled. “But I’m not having my way +here. We are under petticoat rule, it seems.” + +Such hints as this had previously warned Ethel to keep still. Being +unable to have his way with her, Jim Mayberry would be glad to find +cause for bringing her before the Board of Directors for dismissal. She +felt all the time that if he ever did have the backing of the Board +members he would make quick changes in the office. + +She knew herself to be in an uncertain situation. Really, she would +have done better for her future perhaps if she had looked about for +another position. Her record with the Hapwood-Diller Company, if she +left of her own volition, would obtain her work elsewhere. + +But she could not do this. Tacitly she had promised to remain “on the +job.” Barton expected it of her. He had frankly said he felt secure +in leaving the company and going away because she would be there. She +was “the girl he left behind.” He depended upon her to keep things +straight. And perhaps, more than Frank Barton suspected, it was Ethel +who could hold his position for him until he returned from France. + +If he ever did return! This thought scarified her mind continually. It +seemed just as though every German gun and every German bayonet were +pointed straight at the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company. +How could he escape with his life? + +And then the letter came--the letter she had longed for. When John +tumbled it out of his bag upon her desk with the others, Ethel could +not suppress a little scream, for she saw it first of all. Little +Skinner and Josephine heard her and came running. + +“What is it, Ethel?” demanded the latter. + +“It’s a mouse, I bet!” said Skinner. “Some o’ them boys been playing a +joke on you, Miss Clayton?” + +“Why, is it only a letter?” queried the other stenographer. “How you +startled me.” + +“It’s enough to startle anybody,” declared Ethel, making the best of a +bad matter. “It’s from Mr. Barton.” + +At that announcement even Sydney left his desk to draw near. Ethel’s +heart beat a warm alarm, but she could not get out of opening and +reading the missive there and then. Of course he would say nothing in +it that the office force could not safely hear. She knew it would be +merely a kindly message for all. She wished--oh, how deeply!--that it +might be of so intimate a nature that she could not read it aloud to +them. + +He was within sound of the guns at the Front already. No locality was +particularized, for that would have been censored, but if he could hear +the heavy cannonade from his training camp it would not be long before +his battalion would be marching into the trenches. + +No fear for the future was breathed through Barton’s chatty, friendly +letter. He gave such a picture of the camp, and the boys in khaki, +and the people about them, that even Sydney--his face working +spasmodically--clenched his fist and muttered: + +“By heaven! how I wish I was over there with him.” + +Benway’s eyes shone, too; and Mabel Skinner expressed for the hundredth +time the desire she had to be a boy. + +“Why, I tell Boots that if I was him I’d run away and swear I was +nineteen and enlist.” + +“It’s tough on you, Skinner,” drawled Jim Mayberry, who chanced to +be passing through and heard this outbreak. “Nothing but a pair of +trousers between you and glory.” + +Little Skinner remembered that it was in office hours, so she made no +retort. Otherwise Mayberry would never have got away with it, as she +declared afterward. + +However, she was really trying to eschew rudeness, especially within +the hearing of Benway Chase. Once or twice, as Ethel would not let him +hang around for her after hours, Benway had walked along with Mabel. +The girl had been delighted by these attentions. She began to dress +more quietly and gradually the startled expression left her face, for +she learned to arrange her hair more tastefully. Her improvement was +marked enough for others besides Ethel to notice it. + +“By jove!” ejaculated Sydney, “our Skinner is coming into her own. She +looks more like a girl should and less like a boy dressed up in girl’s +togs.” + +It was only Ethel, however, who suspected why Mabel was changing both +in manner and in appearance. That the girl worshiped Benway Chase +from afar Ethel did not doubt; but at first she was not sure that she +approved. Little Skinner came from such a very poor and “shiftless” +family. Should Benway look on Mabel with favor, Ethel feared that his +mother would be horror-stricken. Yet Ethel had told Benway she would be +glad to see him interested in some other girl. + +If Barton’s letter did not cheer Ethel in large measure it linked her +more closely to the war and its activities. Hard as she had to work in +the offices, she found time to be active in the local Red Cross chapter +to which she belonged. + +She insisted, too, in buying several of the second issue of Liberty +Bonds, although Mrs. Clayton was not in favor of her so doing. + +“We have all the stocks and bonds and such things we can afford,” the +troubled woman declared. “If the Hapwood-Diller stock is going downhill +(and they tell me the Board will really pass the next dividend) we’ll +have to dig right into our little bank account, or else live as poor as +church mice.” + +“Oh, it’s not as bad as that, Mother,” the girl declared. “I have a +steady income, you must remember--and that’s a good deal.” + +“Yes, but not as much as it ought to be. I declare, in these times, +with prices of everything going up, wages should be about doubled.” + +“If we doubled on the wages, we’d have to close down.” + +“But you didn’t have to take more bonds.” + +“I thought it was our patriotic duty to do that.” + +“Let them do it that have more than we have, Ethel.” + +“I think everybody ought to do all he or she can.” + +“Well, maybe. But it’s hard on poor folks. And there’s another thing,” +added Mrs. Clayton suddenly. + +“What is that?” + +“I never did see such times! I couldn’t get sugar at all to-day; though +that trouble’s ’most over, they say. And if we didn’t have coal in our +cellar we’d go without a fire, I guess. You’d better hang on to what +money you’ve got, Ethel.” + +“I’d like to know who’s been talking to you again about the company +being in difficulties!” her daughter said sharply. “It’s not so.” + +“They tell me the shares are selling as low as seventy-five in Boston. +Flory Diller’s all of a twitter about selling. She wants to buy a piano +player, anyway; and if she sells her shares the money will belong to +her and never mind what John says, she’ll have that player.” + +“It is such foolish people as Flory that make all the trouble,” +grumbled Ethel. “I wish you would not listen to them, Mother.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE CLOUDS THICKEN + + +News of the first raid against American troops in the trenches appeared +in the newspapers. There were but three deaths and a few captured and +missing; but the fact that a part of the American contingent had been +really in action could not fail to fire the imagination and swell +patriotic hearts on this side of the ocean. + +But to Ethel, when she read, the three stark bodies laid to rest on +November the fourth in a little French village far back of the lines +loomed a more important thing than all else. To her troubled mind it +was only pitiful--not great--that a French general should, standing at +salute beside those graves, say: “In the name of France, I thank you. +God receive your souls. Farewell!” Nor did it bring aught but tears to +her eyes to read the translation of the inscription put at the foot of +these graves: + + “Here lie the first soldiers of the great Republic of the United + States who died on the soil of France for Justice and Liberty, + November 3, 1917.” + +No. She could not yet feel the exaltation of spirit that had seized +Frank Barton and thousands of others in these early months of the war. +She had begun to feel her duty toward it, but she deplored the fact of +war and could not yet believe in the necessity for it. + +It was all a horrid nightmare. The shocking fact that men were being +shot down, killed or maimed, still usurped all other thought regarding +it in her mind. Even Frank Barton’s letter, in which he pictured the +conditions in France and something of what he had already seen of the +effect of the German invasion, inspired Ethel with nothing but fear for +his safety. + +He should be back in Mailsburg and at his desk in the Hapwood-Diller +Company offices. That is the way she saw it. And especially now, for +Ethel felt that there was some underhand work going on that she could +not fathom. + +Since taking the Kimberly Binding Company schedule to Mr. Hammerly she +had heard nothing from the grain merchant. Nor had she seen him. But +Mr. Grandon Fuller came to confer with Jim Mayberry one day, and when +the latter sent out for Ethel to come into the private office the girl +intuitively knew that immediate trouble was brewing. + +But she entered the room with perfect composure. Fuller, lounging in +his chair, looked at her with heavily lidded eyes. He left the talking +at first to Mayberry, and the latter was brusk indeed. + +“Where’s that specification sheet of the Kimberly order, Ethel?” + +“There is a copy of it attached to the report made for the Board, Mr. +Mayberry,” she said quietly. + +“I want the original. I can’t find it on file,” snapped Mayberry. + +“I do not know where it is,” she told him quite promptly. + +“What! You don’t know whether it is in the office or not?” + +“It is not in the office at present. Where it is I do not know. But the +copy is exact. Isn’t that sufficient?” + +“You know well enough it isn’t what I want,” said the superintendent +roughly. “You are taking too much upon yourself, Ethel. You gave that +paper to Hammerly.” + +“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked. + +“Let me tell you that he isn’t manager here----” + +“Nor are you, Mr. Mayberry. I prefer not to be spoken to in this +manner. I saw no reason to refuse Mr. Hammerly permission to examine +the paper. If Mr. Fuller had asked for it I should have considered it +quite proper to hand it to him.” + +She knew well enough by the expression upon the stockholder’s +countenance that she had hit the bull’s-eye. But Mayberry, red-faced +and blustering, declared: + +“You usurp too much power here, Ethel. It has annoyed me before. I may +not be manager in name; but if I can’t be boss of the works without a +girl’s interference, I’ll throw up the job entirely.” + +“No! Don’t say that, Mayberry!” interposed Fuller significantly. “Wait +until the Board meets again. We will see then.” + +“You get that paper--get it at once!” ordered Mayberry in his very +ugliest tone. “And don’t let another private paper of this company go +out of the office--do you hear?” + +“I am not deaf, Mr. Mayberry,” she said tartly. “You need not roar at +me.” + +“Who are you working for, young woman?” Grandon Fuller asked, but in a +moderate voice. “The Hapwood-Diller Company, or Macon Hammerly?” + +“_I_ am working for the company,” she said with significance. + +“You will not be for long,” growled Mayberry. “Get that schedule back +from old Hammerly----” + +“You will have to ask him for it, Mr. Mayberry,” she said. “If that is +all you called me in for, I have plenty to do outside,” and she walked +out of the private office. + +Ethel was quite sure that she could make herself no more disliked +than she was already by both the superintendent and the principal +stockholder. But whatever came of the incident she proposed to keep +her self-respect. She would not allow any one to bully her. + +It was open war now, however, between Jim Mayberry and herself. When +Mr. Fuller had gone the angry superintendent strode out to her desk. He +took no pains to smother his rage or his voice when he spoke to her. + +“You’ll learn mighty soon, Ethel, that Frank Barton has lost his +influence in this concern--and there’ll be no come back, either. He’s +gone for good, whether the fool dodges a bullet or a bit of shrapnel or +not. He’s through here. + +“And so you will be, and that very soon, if you don’t take a different +tone here. I may lack power to discharge you right now, but I shan’t +lack that power long. Then we’ll have a house cleaning,” and he glared +over the office as though he felt the enmity of Ethel’s desk-mates. + +“Going to clean up for fair, are you, Jim?” asked Sydney, who +felt secure in his position, for he had been bookkeeper for the +Hapwood-Diller Company when the present superintendent was merely a boy +in one of the shops. “You’ll have your hands full if you intend to run +both the offices and the shops, won’t you?” + +“I’ll show you as well as this blame girl----” + +Benway Chase slipped down from his stool and started toward the +superintendent. Ethel stood up, her own hands clenched and her eyes +aflame. + +“As long as I _am_ at work here, Mr. Mayberry, I refuse to be insulted +and browbeaten by you. If you have any instructions for me, let me hear +them. I don’t wish to hear anything else.” + +Mayberry stamped out of the room. Mabel Skinner gave three cheers under +her breath. + +“Oh, Miss Clayton! Ain’t you lovely! I’d have slapped his face!” she +added in approval. + +This brought a laugh, and the office quickly simmered down. But Ethel +knew the matter was not ended. She could not help feeling worried about +the future. If Jim Mayberry had his way she would soon be out of a +situation. + +Then at home her mother was forever talking about the decreasing value +of the Hapwood-Diller shares. She heard of other friends selling out +their stock at low prices. + +She set her lips more firmly and refused to believe that disaster +threatened the concern that Frank Barton had all but sweated blood to +put on a paying basis. Yet there were signs enough that affairs were +not as they should be. There were little breakdowns in the machinery +that never happened before. One shop was closed for two days and the +work fell behind thereby. The profit was sliced completely from one +job, she knew, because of these handicaps. + +And she was helpless to avert these crippling accidents, nor could she +point out who was at fault. Certainly there was no happening wherein +she could honestly accuse Mayberry of guiltiness, no matter how much +she may have believed him to be at the bottom of the trouble. + +He had a good and valid excuse to offer the Board of Directors when +that body should investigate these petty affairs. Naturally he could +not give his attention so closely to the workmen as before. The foremen +ran their several departments more to suit themselves than when +Mayberry did not have to do two men’s work. It began to be remarked by +high and low alike that Jim Mayberry could not be expected to be both +superintendent and manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company! + +And these whispers pointed to but one thing: The appointment of another +superintendent and the establishment of Mayberry in Frank Barton’s +place. The situation grew more and more difficult. + +The possible end of these things troubled Ethel daily and hourly. Not +so much that she feared losing her own position. That would be sad, but +not a catastrophe. + +Her main thought was for the future of the Hapwood-Diller Company. +There was a conspiracy against the concern. Who fathered the traitorous +design, and the object of it, she did not know. Jim Mayberry might +be only a tool, for, with Macon Hammerly, Ethel considered the +superintendent a weakling after all. + +She doubted and feared Grandon Fuller. Yet he was the largest +stockholder in the concern--or his wife was, and he managed his wife’s +affairs. Surely it could not be pleasing to him to see the shares of +the company falling in the open market. + +These matters were really outside of Ethel Clayton’s province. Yet they +would have been vitally troubling to Frank Barton were he at home and +in charge of affairs. And Ethel felt herself to be on watch for him. + +If she might only confer with him! If she could tell him her suspicions +and reveal to him her worry over the Hapwood-Diller Company! This +longing obsessed her. + +Arriving at home one evening rather early she saw, before reaching the +gate, a stranger leaving the premises. He was a small, black-haired man +who walked briskly away from the Clayton cottage. Her mother met her at +the door. + +“He’s been here again, Ethel!” she exclaimed tragically when her +daughter ran up the steps. + +“Who has been here?” + +“That Schuster. The lawyer who wants to buy our shares of stock. But he +won’t give us but sixty now. My dear! I am afraid something dreadful is +going to happen.” + +“There’s something going to happen to him!” ejaculated the girl with +emphasis. “Is that he yonder--that little runt?” + +“Yes. And he said--” + +But Ethel was down the steps and out of the gate without listening to +further particulars. She saw the man turn the corner and walk quickly +toward the car line. There was a path across the open fields past +Benway Chase’s house that brought one more quickly to the car tracks. +Ethel went this way. + +“It’s the only thing to do,” she told herself. “The only thing to do.” + +She was much disturbed in mind, and her course of action was by no +means exactly clear to her, just yet. But she was doing some quick +thinking. + +Ordinarily she would not have minded had she met Benway, but now she +did not want to stop to talk, and so watched her chance to slip past +the house unobserved. + +“Perhaps he’d try to help me, but I guess I don’t want his assistance,” +she reasoned. + +She almost ran the distance. While yet some rods from the car line, +she saw a car bowling along but a short block away. She waved her hand +frantically. + +The motorman was not looking her way, and consequently did not see her. +Then she called to him, and he braked up in a hurry. + +“Always willing to accommodate the ladies,” he remarked with a grin. + +She was already aboard the car, therefore, when the lawyer swung +himself up on the step and entered. There were several passengers and +he gave nobody more than a cursory glance. Therefore (and Ethel was +glad of the fact) he did not know her or suspect her identity. + +There was a scheme afoot either to ruin the Hapwood-Diller Company, +or, more probably, to “freeze out” the smaller stockholders. Of this +the girl was confident. She believed A. Schuster was doing the secret +work for the plotters, and it might be that, if she trailed him, she +could learn just who it was who was at the bottom of this dastardly +conspiracy. + +If Frank Barton were here, and possessed her knowledge of affairs and +her suspicions, would he not do the same? She believed so, and she +believed the situation called her to the task. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH + + +At just this point in Ethel Clayton’s business troubles, when she +wished so heartily that she could have the benefit of Barton’s advice, +the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company was thinking very +little indeed of such tame affairs as those relating to the factory in +Mailsburg. + +Like those other thousands who have a rendezvous with death on the +battleline, the intensive training and preparation for that event was +filling his whole thought, as well as taking up all his time. The +regiment to which Frank Barton was attached had plunged immediately +into such grilling work as many of the men had never in their lives +experienced. + +In the first place, Barton’s detachment was billeted in a little +village which had before that day on which the American soldiery +marched in, escaped all contact with the Yankees, or, indeed, any +one outside its local confines. It was but a tiny collection of farm +cottages and stables builded together far back in feudal times for +protective reasons. Sanitation was an unknown word to the inhabitants. + +Barton’s captain was taken down with pleuropneumonia almost at his +landing from the troop ship _Tecumseh_, and was in a hospital. +Barton as ranking lieutenant was in charge of the company of nearly +two hundred men. With the medical major he had the well-being, both +mental and physical, of these men upon his hands. It was a situation of +responsibility. + +His second in command appeared before him on the first morning, +saluted, and said: + +“Lieutenant Barton, I have to report, sir, that this place--er--really, +Lieutenant, _it stinks_.” + +“So my nose tells me, Lieutenant Copley. The doctor likewise agrees +with us.” + +“Bah jove!” groaned Morrison Copley, who could not altogether cast his +drawl on such sort notice. “What is to be done about it?” + +“Clean up!” announced Barton vigorously. + +And that was their first job. Precious piles of stable scrapings that +had occupied the little courtyards before the farmers’ cots, or had +been heaped in stable penthouses since time immemorial, were forked +into carts and spread upon the fallow ground outside the village. + +It was a shock to the villagers, and at first they raised a great +clamor, for custom was being vastly disturbed. But when they were made +to see that the mules and horses of the American forces were adding +daily to the fertilizer piles and that the Yankee boys in removing +the manure to the fields were doing the farmers’ work, and that for +nothing, objections died among the French population of the village, if +not entirely among the soldiers themselves. But they made that village +clean and kept it clean. + +Once Frank Barton burst out laughing and had to retreat to his +quarters to recover. The thought had struck him suddenly that if Madam +Copley--the haughty, somewhat snobbish Madam Copley--could see her son +bossing a gang forking over steaming manure piles, she would probably +swoon. + +It was rather startling, too, when one considered what a metamorphosis +had come over Morry Copley. Even his voice had changed. Its shrillness +had been modified and when he gave an order now it was with the snap of +a whiplash in his tone. + +Morry was diplomatic, too. In the cleaning up of the village this +ranked high, for he managed such French as he possessed most adroitly +and made the peasants who first thought they were being robbed agree +with him that it might be a good thing, once in a hundred years, to +scrape the manure platforms--and even the cobbled village street--right +down to the bone. + +From that first week of occupancy, when effectual sanitary measures +were put into practice, right through the long season of trench +training that followed, Barton and his detachment were never idle +enough to suffer from homesickness. + +Although the training field and trenches for this American division +were near enough to the battlefront for the big guns to be heard, they +were well hidden, and were defended from the enemy aircraft by a +special squadron of French flying machines and sentinel airplanes. + +The plan of the German military leaders to bring some great disaster +upon the first American troops to arrive back of the battlelines, was +not yet accomplished. That the attempt would be made again and again +until the catastrophe was assured was well understood by the Americans +as well as by the allied training officers working with the division. + +“The Boche will get you if you don’t watch out,” became a byword in +the Yankee camps. Perhaps the frequent cry of “wolf! wolf!” made the +Americans at last somewhat careless. Men who have always joked about +the lack of intelligence of German saloon-keepers and delicatessen +shopmen are not likely to be easily impressed by stories of Fritz’s +super-powers under the sea, on the earth, or in the air. + +Working with his men all day and studying at night made up the round of +Barton’s existence during these first weeks in France. It was not often +he gave much attention to outside matters, or thought upon anything but +military tactics. + +It was true there was a desire in the back of his mind at first to +learn how Helen Fuller was and where she was stationed in France--if +she really had come over. He wrote a friendly note to her addressed in +care of the Red Cross headquarters in Paris, but received no reply. + +Then arrived Ethel’s first three letters, all in one mail. The +picture in them of Mailsburg and the affairs of the Hapwood-Diller +Manufacturing Company, pleased Barton greatly. He had not realized +before how hungry he was for news. + +Jim Mayberry seemed to have forgotten him altogether. He was not so +dense that he did not understand Mayberry’s character in a measure. +Barton had never expected gratitude from the boyhood friend he had made +superintendent of the factory. Ethel’s letters, however, hinted at none +of the trouble Mayberry was making in Barton’s absence. + +They were just cheerful narratives of the daily happenings that she +knew would interest the absent manager. He had already written one +general missive addressed to her; but now he sat down and replied +particularly to Ethel Clayton--a warm and friendly letter inspired by +a feeling that he had not before realized he held for the girl whom he +had always considered so “capable.” + +He remembered how she had looked at him from her desk on the evening +of his final departure from Mailsburg. Actually he had never forgotten +this picture of the girl he had left behind to watch over the affairs +of the concern he had done so much for and which had meant so much to +him. She seemed to mean a deal more in his thought, too, than merely a +capable office assistant. + +And she was a pretty girl. That Sunday she had visited the camp +at Lake Quehasset! There was no girl he knew who could look more +attractive. Why had he never noticed it before that day? Hers was a +less glowing, a less striking beauty than Helen Fuller’s, but it was a +beauty that once noted never lost its attraction for the appreciative +eye. + +The lonely man in camp or barracks is sure to contemplate the memory of +his friends and acquaintances among womankind, and Barton’s mind dwelt +as never before on the girls and women he knew in Mailsburg. + +“Why,” he thought, as he closed the long letter to Ethel, “I might have +tried to make a friend of her. I wonder why I did not try? Miss Clayton +is very much worth while.” + +The wound caused by Helen Fuller’s treatment of him at the last, +was still raw. He felt that she had deliberately cultivated his +acquaintance, had made him believe she had more than a passing interest +in him, only to make the fall of his hopes seem the greater. + +He wondered if Helen had really had for him exactly the same feeling +that she had for Morrison Copley or Charlie Bradley. Was she merely a +coquette, playing with men as a fisherman plays a trout--and for the +same reason? Was it merely for sport that she had exerted herself to +charm him? + +Frank Barton felt all the hurt that a man of his kind does when he +awakes to the fact that he has been made a fool of by a guileful +woman. But he did not feel that pique which often turns a man from one +woman to accept the salve of another’s sympathy. In thinking of Ethel +Clayton and writing to her he had no such thought as this in mind. + +No. Instead he threw himself with all his strength into his work. +He was acting ranking officer of his company, and he felt all the +responsibility which that implies. He desired to have his boys show at +inspection a higher degree of training than any other company in the +regiment. He kept his brother officers, as well as the non-commissioned +officers, up to the scratch by both example and precept. + +“Barton’s a shark for work,” they all said. “He just eats it up!” + +The notice of staff officers was drawn to his command and it brought +Lieutenant Barton some special attentions. He was taken with a group of +other advanced officers to the front line trenches and there learned +much of the actual work of modern warfare--much that would help him +when his brave boys “went in.” + +And then, back with his detachment once more, the men of which were +“fit as a fiddle” and ready for any work, Frank Barton saw that day for +which he had been preparing all these long weeks and months. + +It did not come just as he expected. He and his men were not moved +to some sector of the front where they would slip into the places of +wearied and mud-encrusted poilus at night. They did not go to the Hun +in fact; the Hun came to them. + +The day began early indeed for Lieutenant Barton. He was up long before +reveille, for there was a line of motor-lorries stalled in the mud +just outside the village, that had been there half the night. Barton’s +company was called on for help. + +For several days there had been a thaw and each night a thick and +penetrating fog arose from the saturated earth, wiping out the stars +completely and hanging a thick pall over the countryside. + +Under the oversight of the non-commissioned officers, the men began +building miniature corduroy roads over the miry spots, and prying the +lorries’ wheels out of the mud so that they could get a start, one by +one, and go on through the village street. + +Barton strode along the line of stalled trucks and their trailers +to the very last one in the procession. Beyond, the forelights of a +smaller motor-car showed in the mist. In curiosity he drew near to this. + +“Any chance of getting by the jam, Lieutenant?” demanded an +unmistakably American voice. + +“Not, now,” Barton responded, drawing nearer. “You will have to wait +for those trucks to get through the town.” + +“And how long will that be?” + +“I cannot say. By the way, perhaps you had better let me see your +passes. Save time. I happen to be in command here.” + +“Oh, sure! Here you are, Lieutenant.” + +The driver of the car stepped out, pulling several papers from an inner +pocket as he did so. Barton flashed the spotlight of his torch on them. +At the same moment a clear and well remembered voice spoke from the +tonneau: + +“Why, it’s Frank Barton! How very odd!” + +“Miss Fuller! Helen!” ejaculated the officer in equal amazement. + +He turned his flashlight upon the occupants of the car. Two women in +nurse’s cloaks and an elderly French citizen were Helen’s companions. +She, too, was garbed as a Red Cross nurse. + +“Oh, we shall be all right now!” the American girl cried. + +She explained to her companions in French, but spoke so rapidly that +Barton could not follow her observations. The chauffeur, a keen-faced +American lad, evidently college-bred, chuckled and returned the papers +to his pocket. + +“You see, Mr. Barton,” she said to the lieutenant, “we are going to +the base hospital on ahead--these ladies and I. Monsieur Renau goes to +the village there on business. I engaged Johnny Gear and his machine +to take us around this way because the railroad accommodations for +civilians, as you know, are dreadful. And here you find us stuck in the +mud,” she concluded dramatically. + +“I fear you will be stuck in the mud more than once if you follow +this lorry train,” Barton said. “It has right of way and will leave an +almost impassable mire behind it.” + +“Now you’ve said something, Lieutenant,” agreed Johnny Gear. + +“But you can get us around it, of course, Frank,” said Helen +confidently, and in the tone of an American girl to whom nothing is +impossible if she has once made up her mind to get it. + +“Not by any near road, Miss Helen,” he responded. + +“Why! _there_ is a track,” the girl cried, for through a sudden rift in +the fog she could see a few yards. “Doesn’t that go around this village +you say is just ahead of us?” + +“It leads into our training encampment. Nobody is allowed there without +special permit.” + +“Oh, now, _Frank_----” + +“But there is a road,” he hastened to add. “You must turn back. Half a +mile back you will find a road that encircles the whole field, and on +which you will not be challenged. I’ll go with you if you can back and +turn your car.” + +“You bet I can,” agreed Gear. “Look out for the mud, Lieutenant.” + +“Come and sit beside me, Frank,” the American girl said, quickly +opening the tonneau door on her side. “How are you--and the other +Mailsburg heroes? I’ve just lots and _lots_ to tell you!” + +He slipped into the seat indicated and was introduced--after a +fashion--to the French girls and to Monsieur Renau. Gear got his car +turned about and they went lubbering on over the heavy road. + +It was daybreak now but still very dark, with the world completely +smothered in fog. Almost by chance Barton discovered the entrance to +the encircling track he had spoken of. It was a twenty-mile trip around +the training field; but if he continued with them he was sure the party +would make it all right. + +“And you _must_ see that we get through, Frank,” Helen Fuller urged. +“Really, you know, we’ve _got_ to get to our destination to-day.” + +Barton smiled at her reassuringly. Her eyes were as bright as ever, her +smile as alluring. He quite forgot how cavalierly she had treated him +at their last meeting in Mailsburg. + +“Drive right ahead, Mr. Gear,” he told the chauffeur. “There is almost +no heavy trucking over this road, and I think you will be able to get +ahead of the lorry train.” + +Then he gave his attention to the girl beside him. She chattered in +her usual magpie fashion; yet Barton loved to hear her. Naturally of a +serious trend himself, Helen Fuller’s inconsequential talk had always +amused him. And much that she told him now about her experience since +coming to France was interesting. + +That she was quite as sure as ever that her interests and her +activities were of more importance than anything else in the world, +a listener could not fail to understand. When she asked him of his +adventures she gave him no time for reply, but went on with her own +story. Nobody in the world mattered so much as Helen Fuller. It began +to irritate him after a while. It never had before. + +The car plowed on for some time; it was Barton himself who stopped it. + +“Wait!” he commanded. “What is that I hear? Shut off your engine, Mr. +Gear.” + +Then they all heard it--the unmistakable roaring of a powerful motor. +Moreover it was not on the road before or behind them. It was in the +air. + +“An aeroplane!” cried Helen. + +“A very heavy aero--_hein_?” queried one of her fellow nurses. + +“And that’s right!” exclaimed the driver. “Foggy as it is I suppose +there are plenty of flying men up yonder.” + +“I have never heard a machine just like that,” Barton said, in a +puzzled tone. “I thought I had identified the sound of all these French +machines--Great heavens!” + +A series of explosions interrupted his speech. Off to the left they +were, in the direction of the village and the cantonments. Through the +thick mist a flash or two was visible. + +“Shells!” yelled Gear. + +“An enemy plane dropping bombs!” ejaculated Barton. “Must have got past +the French escadrille in this fog.” + +A nearer explosion followed and the roar of the aeroplane’s engine +seemed almost over their heads. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE WRATH OF THE HUN + + +“Oh! Oh!” cried Helen, clinging tightly to Barton’s arm. “Let us turn +back!” + +“What good’ll that do!” growled Gear, who heard her. + +One of the French nurses crossed herself and murmured a prayer as +Barton could see by her whispering lips. He could not fail to note how +much better the French girls were taking it than Helen. She had quite +lost her self-control and was fairly hysterical. + +He could not afford to show any trepidation himself, even if he felt +it. He was in the uniform of an officer of the American forces and +there were French eyes upon him. In any case he must not show the white +feather, and it stabbed his pride that Helen, an American Red Cross +nurse, should do so. + +An aerial bomb fell nearer and almost deafened them with its explosion. +Barton sprang out of the motor-car and aided Helen to alight. + +“Into the ditch--everybody!” he shouted. “Lie down!” + +He saw Renau and Gear spring to the help of the other women, then in a +moment Barton was rushing toward the muddy sluiceway with Helen Fuller. + +“Oh, _don’t_ drag me around so, Frank! I’m wet to my _knees_. Isn’t +there some place--” + +The roaring of the powerful motor overhead drowned her further +complaint. It was then that another shell fell. + +Had Barton not dragged the girl down with him--both falling flat into +the bottom of the ditch--they must have suffered the fate of those +who had not yet got away from the motor-car--the two nurses, Monsieur +Renau, and poor smiling, reckless Johnny Gear, Johnny, who had run away +from home to “see what the blooming war was like.” + +Overhead the aero engine moaned into the distance. Barton got to his +knees and pulled the girl up beside him. It was light enough for them +to see each other. + +“Oh! Oh! Take me away! I must go somewhere. Oh, Frank! I--I’m all +_muddy_,” Helen, poor shallow, selfish Helen, wailed. + +“Oh!” gasped Barton, unheeding. “They’re dead--dead!” + +He stood up and tossed back the thick hair from his brow. He had not +his cap. He found his army pistol gripped in his right hand. His left +was holding up the girl whom he clutched by the shoulder as carelessly +as he might have held a half-filled sack of flour. + +“You’re not _listening_!” cried Helen. “Don’t you _hear_? Take me +somewhere--take me where it is _safe_.” + +He was listening, but not to her cries. That terrible thing in the air +was coming back. + +The moan of the powerful engine was increasing again. A few guns +in the distance began to pop. The Field Artillery was getting into +action--_and he was not there_. + +What carnage might not have already been accomplished! This terrible +thing in the air, swooping through the fog, might have brought havoc +and disaster to the American forces. + +“Take me away! Take me away!” the girl cried over and over again, +fairly clawing at his arm to attract his attention. + +“Where shall I take you? One place is as safe as another--until this +raid is over.” + +It was growing lighter all the time. The fog was rapidly thinning. +Suddenly Helen shrieked: + +“Where is our car?” + +There was nothing but a hole in the road where it had stood. Not a +shred of it remained within their straining vision. Wiped out--like +that! + +“Here it comes again!” shouted Barton. + +Through the dissipating mist the great sausage-like body of the German +air-raider appeared. It was one of the newest and largest airships yet +conceived and built. It drifted low--not two hundred yards from the +earth. + +“Down on the ground!” commanded Barton. “If they spy us----” + +[Illustration: He did fire--futilely, perhaps--as the great car circled +clumsily above the spot. + (_See page 201_)] + +The huge flying car swooped lower. It seemed to be heading directly for +the two Americans in the muddy road. The lieutenant flung the girl down +again, but stood erect himself, his legs astride, his head back, eyes +glaring through the shreds of fog at the airship. He had involuntarily +assumed an attitude of defiance and his pistol was raised at firing +angle. + +He did fire--futilely, perhaps--as the great car circled clumsily above +the spot. He emptied the weapon at the flying foe. + +Suddenly--whether a chance bullet had hit some vital spot or not--a red +flame leaped to life in the envelope of the huge bag. So low sailed the +machine that Barton could see a man run along a narrow platform and +shoot the spray of a chemical fire extinguisher up at the spreading +flame. + +Only for a moment was this attempt continued. Then a second man +appeared, and the usual high, staccato voice of a Prussian officer +uttering a command sounded sharply through the rumble of the dying +motor. + +The efforts of the man with the fire extinguisher ceased. Some +catastrophe had overtaken the huge war machine. Her engine had lost its +stroke. She was coming to earth--and that in enemy territory. The crew +would destroy the ship as they always do in such instances. + +A wild cheer burst from Barton’s lips. Swiftly he reloaded his +automatic pistol. The nose of the wabbly, creaking machine, so clumsy +looking that Barton half wondered how it was ever lifted from the +ground, plunged toward the earth. + +It passed directly over the road. The balloon envelope was afire in a +dozen places. Barton could see the flash of an axe in the officer’s +hands as he wrecked the mechanism of the still flying airship. + +There was a deafening crash when the car hit the ground. The American +saw one man, turning over and over in the air, dashed forty feet at +least by the force of the impact. Other figures climbed down from the +crushed car on to which the balloon collapsed slowly, all afire. + +“Come on!” shouted the excited lieutenant, waving his weapon. “Now +we’ve got ’em!” + +“Frank! Stop! Don’t you _dare_ leave me!” wailed Helen Fuller. + +“Wait for me here, Helen----” + +“I tell you I _won’t_!” cried the girl. She stamped her foot in rage. +“You take me right away from here!” + +“But I must round those fellows up. We’ve got ’em--don’t you see? Wait +here for me if you are afraid.” + +“I’ll _never_ forgive you, Frank Barton, if you leave me! And I _won’t_ +go over there! Those--those men will kill us. Oh, Frank! Come back!” + +He hesitated but a moment to answer her. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want +me to be a quitter, Helen,” he declared, and leaped the ditch to get +into the field upon which the wrecked German airship had fallen. + +With a scream she followed him. She ran faster than he, and caught +his right arm again just as he was rounding the rear of the wreckage. +Before them stood fourteen men in the gray olive of the German uniform. +The man thrown when the ship came down never moved. + +Barton saw instantly that the crew of the airship--even the commander +himself--were unarmed. Good reason for that. Deep in the enemy’s +country, without a possible chance of escape through the lines, a +peaceful demeanor and appearance spelled safety for them. + +Barton raised his pistol, Helen still clinging to his arm. The Germans, +or, at least, those in the front of the group, raised their hands in +token of surrender. Even the commander called out: “_Kamerad!_” + +“Frank Barton! Take me away! Save me!” shrieked the hysterical girl. + +She hung, a dead weight, upon his arm and pulled down the weapon. One +of the men in the back of the group had been stooping down, his hands +on the ground. Now he stood up, stepped clear of his companions, and +swung his right hand back. + +With the accuracy of a baseball player he flung the sharp stone he had +picked up. Barton tried to fire and dodge, but Helen’s interference +made both attempts impossible. The stone struck him just above the +right temple and glanced off, cutting such a gash that the blood poured +down his face, blinding him. + +With a shout the Germans started for Barton and the girl. The +lieutenant, feeling himself helpless, thrust his weapon into Helen’s +hand. + +“Defend yourself!” he gasped, and then slipped slowly to the ground, +crumpling in a senseless heap at her feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +UNCERTAINTIES + + +Had Ethel Clayton known how deep in wild adventure Barton was as she +rode down town in the surface car watching the little lawyer, she would +have been utterly disgruntled at the tameness of her quest. + +Yet it was with thought of Barton in her mind, as well as of her own +personal interest and that of her mother’s, that the girl forged on. +She believed that a conspiracy was on foot the intent of which was the +ruining of the business structure Frank Barton had labored so hard to +build and make secure. He had made the Hapwood-Diller Company a going +concern. Somebody was now determined to make abortive all the general +manger’s work and, as well, to ruin the smaller stockholders. + +Who that somebody was Ethel was not certain, although she had strong +suspicions. She believed A. Schuster to be the link connecting her +suspicions with the truth. She sat quietly in the car and did not even +glance his way after her first hasty appreciation of the man when he +had entered. + +In front of the Bellevue he left the car, but Ethel went on to the +next crossing before alighting. She hurried back. Under the bunch of +electric lights before the main door of the hotel she saw A. Schuster +pass in. + +She had expected this. Both Mr. Grandon Fuller and Jim Mayberry she +knew to be habitués of the hotel. There was a public dining-room at one +side of the front door and the lobby and office were on the other, with +the smoking-room and café back of the clerk’s desk. + +Ethel had already made up her mind what she would do in this emergency. +She mounted the broad steps briskly and crossed the lobby toward the +small ladies’ parlor behind the stairway. A glance to the right showed +her the black-haired lawyer approaching the desk. + +In one chair lounged the pursy Mr. Fuller. He vouchsafed Schuster no +more than a glance. But Jim Mayberry, coming from the smoking-room, +hailed the lawyer affably: + +“Hi, old man! going to have supper with me? Come on upstairs while I +get into my best bib and tucker for the evening.” + +He clapped Schuster heartily on the shoulder and led him away toward +the little elevator that wheezed upward asthmatically the next moment. +Neither had looked at Grandon Fuller nor he at them. + +This fact was sufficient to have made Ethel Clayton suspicious had +she not been so before. Jim Mayberry was always so very polite +and deferential to Mr. Fuller when the latter appeared at the +factory offices. It seemed now as though the superintendent of +the Hapwood-Diller Company had ignored the presence of the chief +stockholder too obviously. + +Ethel passed hastily on to the parlor; but nothing of this had escaped +her quick eye and understanding. In the parlor she found a girl in cap +and apron whom she knew. It was Eliza Boling, who presided over the +linen room of the hotel and acted as a sort of floor clerk on the third +floor. Ethel had gone to school with the girl. + +“Oh, Ethel! come up to my desk so we can talk,” cried Miss Boling, when +she caught sight of Miss Clayton. “I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.” + +Ethel was nothing loath under the circumstances, and ran upstairs with +her. The slowly moving elevator had scarcely more than deposited Jim +Mayberry and the lawyer on the third floor. Ethel saw them approaching +one of the doors. + +“Isn’t that Mr. Mayberry?” she asked her acquaintance. + +“Oh, I suppose it is,” replied the other girl without looking up. +“Don’t let him speak to you. He’s so awfully fresh!” + +“Is that his room?” Ethel asked. + +“Number Eighty? Yes. And I wish it was on another floor.” + +Eliza Boling was a somewhat attractive girl, and Ethel could understand +easily that the superintendent of the Hapwood-Diller Company would +have made himself objectionable to her. + +The two girls talked of mutual friends and affairs of mutual interest +for some time. Then the elevator door clanged again. Ethel looked +quickly. The heavy figure of Mr. Grandon Fuller stepped out into the +corridor. He did not glance toward the two girls. + +Mr. Fuller walked straight to the door of Number Eighty. He rapped once +and then entered the room. It was plain his coming was expected. + +Ethel had seen enough to assure her that Fuller, Jim Mayberry, and the +sly looking Schuster were engaged in something that they wished to keep +secret from people in general. + +She believed she had traced the conspirators. The reason for the +largest stockholder of the Hapwood-Diller Company seeking to wreck that +concern was, however, beyond Ethel Clayton’s powers of divination. + +For that was exactly the threat of circumstances as the girl saw it. +The forcing down of the price of Hapwood-Diller stock must in the end +ruin the credit of the corporation. She went home vastly puzzled by the +whole situation. + +Her mother was utterly unstrung. + +“Oh, Ethel, I feel terribly condemned!” she cried. “Where have you +been? I wish you had come in earlier so as to hear that Mr. Schuster +talk.” + +“I don’t want to hear him talk,” declared her daughter. + +“It seems to me, Ethel,” complained Mrs. Clayton, “that you are siding +against me--against your own interests. I suppose you call that loyalty +to your employer. But Frank Barton isn’t there at the offices any more. +He never ought to have gone away. I am convinced of that now. The +business is on its last legs. You know it is, but you won’t admit it.” + +“I know nothing of the kind, Mother!” cried Ethel with exasperation. +“Why, you talk about the Hapwood-Diller Company as these pro-Germans do +about the war! And just as unreasonably.” + +“What do you mean--calling your own mother a pro-German?” demanded Mrs. +Clayton. “I guess I’m just as good a patriot as the next one--and I +knit as many socks and sweaters, too! + +“But about our shares of stock--that’s different. Since you’ve been +away Amy Hopper’s been in and she’s sold her shares--she had ten--and +has bought a Ford car. At least, she’s got something for her money, +while we are likely to lose everything.” + +Ethel was just completing her warmed-over supper, and under a steady +dropping of her mother’s complaints, when the porch door banged open +and Benway Chase rushed in. + +“Goodness, Bennie, how you scared me!” Mrs. Clayton ejaculated. “Sit +down and have a piece of pie--do!” + +“No. But I’ll stand up and eat it--many thanks, Mrs. Clayton!” +responded the young fellow, whipping the piece of pie off the plate +she offered him and inserting it like a wedge into his mouth for the +first bite. Somehow he managed to utter: “Fire at the factory, Ethel. +Get on your hat and coat.” + +“No! Benway?” she gasped, starting up. + +“Surest thing you know! You can see the smoke from the street. I +telephoned. It’s confined to Shop Four. The firemen are there. But +let’s go down and see that nothing’s damaged around the offices.” + +She ran for her coat and hat and they sallied forth, Benway swallowing +the last of the pie as they cleared the gate. “Gee! but your mother +does make good pie crust, Ethel,” he said. + +His boyishness somehow troubled her more than it usually did just then. +Perhaps because her own thoughts were so serious. He would make a good +match for Mabel Skinner. He would never grow up enough for Ethel to +consider him for a moment as a partner in life. + +The fire was under control when the two young people reached the +factory. Nor had it done much damage. Moreover, it was well covered +with insurance; but the delay in work under way would be considerable. + +“By jove!” said Benway, “the old H-D Company is up against it for fair. +Everything is going wrong with it. You’d think the place was bewitched, +wouldn’t you?” + +“Hush! Let us not talk about such things. John says it was faulty +insulation. But how came there to be faulty insulation in that shop? +Somebody is guilty of criminal carelessness. Oh, I wish Frank Barton +were here!” + +This last wish she did not let Benway hear. And, indeed, what could +Barton have done had he been on the spot? The Board of Directors met +the next day and even Mr. Hammerly could find nobody to “jack up.” + +The grain dealer was in a fine rage, however. The meeting was as +acrimonious a session as had ever been held since the reorganization +of the corporation. Ethel was only called into the room once and then +Hammerly did not speak to her. And after the meeting he pulled his hat +down over his ears and stamped out of the offices without a word. + +She wondered what he had done with the paper she had given him--the +specification sheet of the Kimberly Binding Company order. It seemed +strange that he had never taken her into his confidence at all about +that matter. + +It leaked out in some way, however, after this meeting, that the old +grain merchant was beaten by Grandon Fuller and his friends and that +Jim Mayberry was likely to be made manager in Barton’s place at the +next quarterly meeting. She had noticed that the superintendent left +the Board meeting with a smile. He had given Ethel a hard look, and +she was well aware of what awaited her in the near future if Mayberry +had his way. + +There was a streak of fair weather for her in a day or two, however. +Another letter arrived from France, and this time it was not merely an +impersonal narrative of the absent’s manager’s adventures in uniform. +There was an intimate note to the missive that warmed Ethel’s heart +to a glow. Yet she realized that not a phrase went beyond proper +friendliness. + +She read it all to the others in the office, although it was not just +the same as his first letter had been. She did not let the sheets go +out of her own hands, however. There was a personal atmosphere to it +which made her fold the letter finally and hide it in her blouse. This +betrayed a softness that would have angered Ethel had anybody accused +her of it. + +Other people heard about the letter, however, and she was stopped +for several days upon the street by friends of Barton asking after +him. Secretly she was proud that it was she whom he had selected as a +correspondent among all those who knew and were interested in him here +in Mailsburg. + +Then Mrs. Trevor came to the office to see her. The boarding-house +mistress who had housed and fed Frank Barton so long was a rather grim +woman in an old-fashioned Paisley shawl and arctics. Her hands were red +and gnarled and her back was as curveless as a ramrod. + +When she strode into the Hapwood-Diller offices she was as stern as +a grenadier. Her mere appearance quelled even Mabel Skinner. But when +she came close to Ethel Clayton’s desk the girl saw that her eyelids +were red-rimmed and that she had difficulty in keeping her lips from +trembling. + +“Miss Clayton--you’re Miss Clayton, ain’t you?” she began. “Ethel +Clayton?” + +“Yes,” agreed Ethel. “You are Mrs. Trevor?” + +The woman nodded. Then said: “What do you know about Frank Barton? I +hear you got a letter from him?” + +“Yes, Mrs. Trevor.” + +“When was it writ?” + +Ethel told her, understanding too well to consider Mrs. Trevor at all +impertinent. She told her most of what was in the letter, too, for it +was burned into her memory too clearly for her to forget what Frank +Barton had said. + +“Well,” said the woman, with a sigh, “I had to know. I expect I’m an +old fool. But that boy was with me long, Miss Clayton.” + +“I think I understand,” the girl said gently. + +“You see, I got to dreaming of him. Night afore last I had a terrible +dream. I saw him with his face all bloody, his empty hands in the +air--sort of clutching like--and him falling down just like he was +dead. And there was smoke and fire all about, just as though he was in +battle. It’s worried me a lot.” + +“I should think it would, Mrs. Trevor,” Ethel said. “But you know, +they say dreams go by contraries.” + +“So they say, but I don’t know as it is always true. I’ve had +dreams----” + +“Oh, you mustn’t let dreams get on your nerves,” broke in Ethel hastily. + +“Well, the dear boy meant so much to me. You can’t imagine what a good +boarder he was--no trouble at all--leas’wise not alongside o’ some of +’em. Lordy! what a lot of trouble some of ’em do make, to be sure. But +Frank Barton--he’s one boy out of a thousand, yes, he is;” and the old +boarding-house mistress bobbed her head vigorously. + +“You mustn’t worry. It will be all right, I’m sure,” answered the girl, +but rather weakly. + +“You feel sure, Miss Clayton?” + +“You must look on the bright side. It will be all right.” + +“Well, I hope so!” The woman then tramped out of the office. She was +plainly relieved and comforted. But Ethel was not. + +Of course she did not believe in dreams. But what Mrs. Trevor had said +remained in the girl’s mind--stuck to her memory like a burr. She was +constantly seeing Frank Barton falling down, his face masked in blood. +She almost accepted Mrs. Trevor’s vision as prophetic. + +Then came the day when the Mailsburg _Clarion_ printed an afternoon +extra edition. Those in the office heard the boys shouting it under the +windows and Benway Chase ran out to buy a paper. Across the sheet was +the headline: + + GERMAN AIR RAID ON AMERICAN CAMP! + METEOR DIVISION BOMBED! + +The Field Artillery with which Frank Barton served was a part of the +so-styled Meteor Division. + +Ethel Clayton realized this while the paper was still across the room +from her. She sat perfectly still at her desk, clutching the edge of it +to keep down the cry that rose to her lips. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +SO FAR AWAY! + + +Benway Chase was looking at her and Ethel realized that in the boy’s +eyes there was an expression of pain and despair that gave almost a +tragic cast to his countenance. He had suddenly become aware that his +old-time friend, the girl he had always worshiped, was given to the +very last fibre of her being to another. + +His lips moved stiffly as he came nearer to her desk. + +“Is it Mr. Barton’s division!” he questioned, brokenly. “Oh, Ethel!” + +“His Field Artillery is a part of the Meteor Division,” she said, and +was surprised that her voice was unshaken. + +“And you--” He did not finish the speech. His gaze dropped. The others +gathered around to read the startling news in the _Clarion_. + +Besides the headlines emblazoned across the page, there was not much +to read. The War Department merely announced that it was reported--a +report as yet unverified--that the Germans had raided the American +camp. No casualties were announced. As previously declared, the +Department would make all particulars public as soon as the undisputed +facts were received from the officer commanding the division. + +Mayberry must have heard the buzz of conversation from the private +office. He appeared, an ominous scowl on his brow. + +“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Is this all you people have to +do? I believe the Hapwood-Diller Company could get along just as well +with half the office force we have.” + +“Let you and me enlist, Mayberry,” suggested Sydney. “They could get +along without us, that’s sure.” + +Little Skinner giggled. The superintendent, who had some fear of +Sydney, strode forward without replying to the bookkeeper and took the +paper out of Josephine Durand’s hand. He held some papers in a sheaf +in his left hand and when he caught sight of the headlines he put his +papers on the desk the better to handle the smutted newspaper. + +Ethel had not risen. In flapping open the _Clarion_ Mayberry started a +circulation of air that scattered his sheaf of papers. Ethel gathered +them together and stacked them into a neat packet. But this time a +different paper was on top of the pile. She saw that the top sheet was +headed: “A. Schuster.” + +“What’s all this about?” Mayberry was saying. “Murder! Was Barton in +it?” + +“His battalion is attached to that division, Mr. Mayberry,” Benway +said. + +“Well, maybe he’s seen some real fighting, then,” the superintendent +said cheerfully. “That’s what he went over there for, I suppose.” + +He dropped the _Clarion_ upon Ethel’s desk and picked up his papers. +Seeing what lay on top he flashed the girl a sudden suspicious glance. +But Ethel seemed oblivious of it. + +Indeed, it seemed as though all save the phlegmatic superintendent were +too thoroughly disturbed to set their minds on office matters. Ethel +betrayed less emotion than most of them, perhaps; but then it was her +nature to hide her keener feelings. + +The few following days she found hard to live through. The strain upon +her patience was great. The papers were filled with frothings and +imaginations about the raid on the American camp. Then came the truth +with the list of casualties. + +The list was small. One enlisted man killed, seven wounded and one +missing. The huge German flying machine had been brought down, one +of its crew losing his life, the other fourteen being captured by +Second-Lieutenant Charles Bradley with a part of his company. + +With hungry eyes Ethel Clayton read the list of casualties. The last +line yielded the news which she had feared all along: + + “_Lieutenant F. Barton, Field Artillery, missing._” + +There was a full account in the papers of the raid and the bringing +down of the German raider. But the single statement, that Frank Barton +was missing, added a spice of mystery to the affair that created a good +deal of excitement in Mailsburg. + +It could not be possible, if all the German raiders were captured or +killed, that Frank Barton was himself captured and taken into the +German lines. That seemed improbable. Yet the sinister report stood. + +What had happened to him? Would Ethel ever hear from him again? Was his +fate to be one of those mysteries of war that are never satisfactorily +explained? Of the three lurid headings of the casualty list, killed, +wounded, missing, the last is always the most nerve-breaking. + +Just at this time, however, Ethel Clayton’s mind was scarified by other +and serious troubles. She had decided that at last the evidence of +conspiracy was sufficient to lay before Mr. Hammerly; and as the latter +seemed to make no move the girl went to him. + +“The quarterly meeting is near. I understand that Mr. Mayberry is to be +advanced to Mr. Barton’s position,” she said to the old grain dealer. +“To me it looks like ruin for us all. My mother has some interest +in it, Mr. Hammerly, so I am speaking for her, not for myself as an +employee.” + +“Humph! No! You’d best keep out of it, Ethel,” said the old man. “Leave +this to me. I’ve learned something about this Schuster, though I never +saw him. If I need your evidence I’ll call on you in the board meeting. +But I reckon I can link up A. Schuster with the proper parties without +your verbal testimony.” + +Meanwhile Jim Mayberry made himself as unpleasant around the offices as +he could. He felt, it seemed, that he would soon have all the force at +his mercy, unless it were Sydney. He would scarcely dare discharge the +bookkeeper, who had been so long with the corporation. + +“Mayberry hangs the sword of Damocles over our heads,” Benway growled +one evening to Ethel. “I can feel the breath of it on the back of my +neck, at least. I might as well be looking around for another job.” + +Ethel had no word of comfort for him. She did not see herself just how +it was coming out. It seemed probable that Frank Barton would never +come back now; so why should the stockholders keep his situation for +him? + +The day for the quarterly board meeting arrived, and the board room +buzzed like a hive of disturbed bees. Thoroughly in touch as she was +with the reports from all departments, Ethel knew very well that the +expected blow must fall. + +The usual dividend must be passed. The circumstances of the corporation +would not allow anything else to be done. The last two quarterly +reports showed a decline in profits, in production, and in value of +plant, which fairly staggered most of the board members. + +“It stands to reason,” Grandon Fuller stated in his decided way, “that +before he went away, Mr. Barton was covering up a good many things that +he would better have given us notice of. We can excuse the enthusiasm +and anxiety of the young, perhaps; he was very desirous of getting +out of it all and putting on the army khaki. But now we have suffered +enough--this corporation I mean--because of his mistakes. We must get +back on a stable foundation. Somebody must get a firm grip upon the +Hapwood-Diller Company.” + +“Suppose Brother Fuller tells us just wherein Frank Barton is to be +blamed for our present situation?” suggested Macon Hammerly, with +surprising gentleness for him. “We want facts, not allegations.” + +“You know very well how he bungled that Kimberly order.” + +“I have affidavits of a chemist and two handwriting experts here,” +interposed Hammerly, shuffling the papers before him, “which state +that two lines in the Kimberly Company’s schedule sheet were erased, +and in the two interpolated lines an attempt made by somebody to copy +the writing of the young woman who made the schedule. In other words +a deliberate and successful attempt to change the substance of the +Kimberly order was made after it passed out of Mr. Barton’s hands.” + +There was immediate uproar--denial by Fuller and angry talk by some +of the other members of the board. Hammerly grimly displayed his +affidavits and proved his case to the satisfaction of most of the board +of directors. + +“The fact remains,” cried Grandon Fuller, “that our shares are selling +in the open market as low as sixty. The news has got out that the +business is tottering for want of a strong hand to manage it.” + +“We’ll take that up, too,” interposed Hammerly. “I have here a list of +shares and whom they were bought from by a man named A. Schuster. These +shares have been thrown on the market by various brokers at ridiculous +prices. They were all bought up again by A. Schuster! And this same +tricky legal light has been the representative of a certain member of +this board in New York for the past three years.” + +This remarkable statement produced a profound sensation. For a brief +instant there was intense silence as the members of the board looked at +each other. Then-- + +“What are you saying?” + +“That’s a grave accusation!” + +“Can you prove your words?” + +“It’s a crime to do what you’re hinting at, Hammerly.” + +“He can’t prove a thing!” + +“He don’t know what he’s talking about!” + +“Shut him up!” + +“He ought to be put out of the meeting!” + +“That’s the talk. He is going too far. This is a meeting of gentlemen.” + +Thus came the chorus of objections, not alone from Grandon Fuller. But +Macon Hammerly’s scowl quelled the riot. + +“I know whereof I speak,” he said solemnly. “I have papers and +witnesses to prove it. And I have reason to suppose, in addition, that +Mr. Grandon Fuller has made some wash sales of his own shares of the +Hapwood-Diller Company that in the first place bore down the price. Let +him deny it if he dares!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE BURDEN + + +The game of “freeze out” fathered by the heaviest stockholder in +the Hapwood-Diller Company betrayed by Macon Hammerly’s confident +statements was but an incident of that stormy meeting of the board. The +latter was thoroughly reorganized before the end of the session. And +that spelled utter defeat for Mr. Fuller’s plans. + +He held some of his friends on the board; but Hammerly was a shrewd +politician. He voted more proxies than Fuller could assemble. The +latter found himself ousted from the chairmanship; the grain merchant +was voted into the vacant place by a satisfactory majority. The smoke +of battle cleared away, leaving Grandon Fuller slumped down in his +chair with a sour face and Jim Mayberry looking glum and at the same +time half-frightened and half-dazed. + +“Send for Ethel Clayton,” ordered the new chairman. “We want +stenographic notes of what goes on here. If any of our stockholders +question what we do we must be able to spread before them an exact +report of our actions. Under the old régime this was impossible. There +was too much secret diplomacy here,” and he grinned. + +Ethel realized the tenseness of the situation when she came into the +board room, book and pencil in hand. She was given a seat at Hammerly’s +right hand. + +“Now,” said the grim looking grain dealer, “you have something to say, +I presume, Jim?” and he looked at the superintendent. + +“I say what I said before, Mr. Hammerly,” grumbled Mayberry. “If I +can’t have a free hand I can’t undertake to manage the concern, and +that’s all there is to it.” + +“But you can continue as superintendent, I presume?” softly asked +Hammerly. “That job isn’t too big for you, is it?” + +The younger man’s face flamed and he answered angrily: “I don’t know +what you mean. Nobody ever complained of my work before.” + +“While Barton was on the job to overlook you--no,” admitted the old +man, his sarcasm biting. “True. But things have been going badly in the +various shops. That fire in Number Four the other day, for instance.” + +“By thunder!” exploded Mayberry, “you can’t blame me for that! I can’t +be in a dozen places at once.” + +“There have been quite unnecessary breakdowns, and work has been +retarded. How do you explain these things?” demanded Mr. Hammerly. + +“I--I----” + +“I don’t mean to say you are not a good man in your place, Jim,” said +the grain merchant. “But Barton’s job is too big for you. I did not +believe you could begin to fill his shoes at the start.” + +“Yet you agreed that Barton should go away?” questioned Grandon Fuller. + +“Yes. He wanted to go. For patriotic reasons I could not thwart his +desire. And in addition I knew that if Jim here fell down--as he +has--we would not be helpless.” + +“What do you mean by that?” asked Seville Baker, who owned a drug store +and had several thousand dollars invested in the Hapwood-Diller Company +stock. + +Jim Mayberry’s face was fiery again. Even Grandon Fuller sat up to +stare at Hammerly. The others seemed as much amazed. + +The old grain dealer grinned for a moment rather sheepishly. Then a new +expression came into his face, for he turned to look at the girl beside +him. His gnarled right hand crept over her white and well shaped left. +She glanced up from her book, startled. + +“I tell you what ’tis,” said Hammerly in his homely way; “if I was as +blind as you other fellers are this board would be about as much good +as an old women’s sewing bee! That’s what! + +“There’s been just one person that’s kept things going half smoothly +in the Hapwood-Diller Company since Frank Barton cleared out to be a +soldier. And that person had a good deal to do toward helping Frank +when he was on the job. + +“Don’t you fellers know that Miss Clayton here was Frank’s right hand +man? She knows all the ins and outs of things. It was her caught this +poor fish, Jim Mayberry, selling us out to the Bogata Company. She’s +been of much more importance lately, I can tell you. If we pull out of +this hole we are in and pay a dividend again, it will be because of +what she has done.” + +Grandon Fuller dragged himself to his feet. He had a power of +repression scarcely second to Hammerly himself. But this was too much. + +“You old fool!” he shouted at the grain dealer. “You don’t mean to try +to put a woman in charge of this business? It’s suicidal!” + +“I mean just that. I mean Miss Clayton’s able to fill the job, and Jim +Mayberry ain’t. She’s a better man when it comes to business sense than +any of us. I nominate her for the place of assistant manager, to hold +the job till Frank Barton comes back to us--if the poor feller ever +does come back.” + +“I won’t vote on such a fool proposition,” cried Fuller wrathfully, +starting for the door. + +“Don’t bother to, Grandon,” drawled Hammerly. “You’d be beat if you +did--and you know it. I’ve got more proxies than you have.” + +[Illustration: “I nominate her as assistant manager, to hold the job +till Frank Barton comes back.” + (_See page 227_)] + +The door of the board room banged. Ethel Clayton had turned to speak, +but Hammerly was scowling at Jim Mayberry, who had risen as though +to follow his fellow-conspirator. “Spit it out, Jim. Tell us what’s on +your chest.” + +“I--I----You old fool!” exclaimed the superintendent, “do you think I +am going to work here under a _girl_? To be set aside for her?” + +“No; I don’t guess you will,” responded Hammerly. “We’ll give you a +chance to resign if that’s what you want. And I guess your resignation +will be accepted pretty nigh unanimous.” + +“But Mr. Hammerly,” begged Seville Baker, feebly, “what will happen to +the works? Mr. Mayberry has been superintendent so long----” + +“There’s a good foreman in every shop who has been on his job longer +than Jim Mayberry has voted. They’ve only been hampered by Jim--that’s +the truth of the matter.” + +“I will be through at the end of the month, gentlemen,” said Mayberry, +recovering his dignity. “The high hand Mr. Hammerly takes in this +matter----” + +“Shoo!” exclaimed the grain merchant with grim pleasantry. “You’ll get +through right here and now. I for one wouldn’t trust you to go out into +the shops again. You go to Sydney and draw your salary to the end of +next month. You broke your contract when you accepted the assistant +managership and extra salary. Your dear friend, Fuller, or his legal +henchman, Schuster, didn’t point that out to you, did they? Sydney’s +got the money all in an envelope for you. Scat!” and he waved both +hands at the angry Mayberry. + +“Now,” the old man added, turning to his conferees, “maybe you fellows +think I’ve taken a high hand in these proceedings; but to tell you +honestly, we ought to have both Mayberry and Grandon Fuller arrested. +Only it would have created a scandal that the Hapwood-Diller Company +couldn’t afford at this time.” + +“We don’t want any scandal,” came from the corner of the room. + +“We’ve had enough trouble as it is,” came from the other side of the +place. + +“Let us get right down to a working basis--and let it go at that.” + +“What we want to do is to pull up and make some money.” + +At this last remark, Macon Hammerly turned to the speaker and smiled +grimly. Then he went on: + +“There ain’t no use in denying that we’re in a bad hole. We’ve run +behind for two quarters, and our credit’s hurt by those stock sales. +It’s going to be a heavy burden upon this girl’s shoulders--as it was +upon Frank Barton’s--to pull us out. But she’ll do it! Won’t you, +Ethel?” he demanded heartily. + +“Oh, Mr. Hammerly,” the girl murmured. + +“Louder! Tell them ‘Yes,’” cried the grain merchant. + +“I can only follow in Mr. Barton’s footsteps,” she stammered. + +“And good enough!” declared Mr. Baker. + +“If you can do half as well as Barton, Miss Clayton,” said another of +the revivified board, “we shall have no complaint.” + +“We’ll be behind you, girl,” said Macon Hammerly. “Keep the wheels +turning, speed up the output, and watch the outgoes as well as the +incomes. That’s the secret of success in this business. And the Lord +help you!” he added under his breath, but the excited girl herself did +not hear his less jubilant tone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE FIGHT + + +With a reunited board behind her and canny Macon Hammerly to advise +with, it might seem at the rising of the curtain on Ethel Clayton’s +régime as _de facto_ manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing +Company that her course would be along pleasant paths. + +Instead she very soon found that she was walking over burning +plowshares. + +That Grandon Fuller was beaten in his control of the board of directors +did not make him amenable to the new policies of the Hapwood-Diller +Company and the reign of a girl as manager of the business. + +He boldly stated that he considered the knell of the company had rung +because of the situation in the offices. If a full-grown man like Jim +Mayberry could not handle the business so as to make a profit, how +could a girl be expected to do so? + +That Mr. Fuller’s intention was still to discourage the small +stockholders so that he could buy up their holdings at a low price and +finally control the corporation, could not be overlooked. Yet he was +careful to do nothing now that would give Hammerly a legal hold on him. + +Mayberry was out of it, or so it seemed. He went to work for the +Mailsburg Addition Real Estate Company, of which Mr. Fuller was known +to be the backer. It was a good deal of a come-down for Jim Mayberry. + +On that wonderful day when Hammerly had carried his point and had given +the welfare of the business into Ethel’s hands, the foremen of the +shops had been called in before the board and the situation explained +to them. + +They were not asked to express their opinion of Jim Mayberry’s +oversight of the factory, nor to explain their own apparent +shortcomings and the failure of their several shops to keep up to the +standard of output established by Mr. Barton. + +Merely they were asked if they would be loyal to the corporation, and +if they were willing to work in harmony with Ethel Clayton until such +time as a general superintendent could be found to take Mayberry’s +place. These questions brought enthusiastic and unanimous affirmative +responses. + +But a willingness upon the part of all the hands was not all that was +needed. When a manufacturing plant, either in its mechanical part or in +its working force, has been allowed to deteriorate, it is uphill work +to get it back on a firm foundation. + +Ethel felt that with the good teamwork of the office force which she +could depend upon, her burden at that end would be light. In the +factory administration lay her difficult problem. + +She depended on Benway Chase in no inconsiderable degree, as she knew +he had gained a working knowledge of the factory affairs. Benway had +continued to make himself acquainted with practical things and much +shoplore. The foremen liked him, too, and would discuss things with the +young fellow that they might have been chary of talking over with “the +lady boss,” as they began to call her. + +There was not an ounce of business jealousy in Ethel Clayton’s makeup. +She gave Benway all the encouragement possible, and after the first two +weeks she reported to the board that she could not possibly carry on +the work at all were it not for Benway, or somebody equally efficient +and willing in his stead. + +Since the news of the air raid on the American camp in France, Benway +had been even gentler and more considerate of Ethel than before; but +there was, too, a certain aloofness in his manner which the girl quite +understood. + +He had captured Ethel’s secret. His own love for her had given him an +immediate key to her emotion when she first saw the headlines spread +over the news sheet. Frank Barton’s peril had caused her to betray her +feeling for him to the love-sharpened vision of Benway. + +Since that time no news save that he was still missing had come of +Frank Barton. It was well Ethel’s mind was so filled with business +matters and that her every waking hour was occupied by the affairs +of the Hapwood-Diller Company. She had no opportunity of dwelling +in thought upon that line in the casualty list that had not been +explained: “_Lieut. F. Barton, Field Artillery, missing_.” + +When the clergyman prayed on Sunday for those who had gone “over there” +to fight in their country’s cause, Ethel thought of but one person. +It seemed to her as though the whole war--the fate of a worldwide +democracy--was as nothing compared to the mystery of what had happened +to Frank Barton. + +She was not alone in this desire to know the fate of the general +manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Mrs. Trevor came more than once +to discuss the mystery with her. She began to learn how many friends +Frank Barton really had in Mailsburg. His cheerful, kindly spirit had +won him a following of which any man might feel proud. + +Mr. Macon Hammerly had used his influence to make inquiry. But the War +Department, like most large bodies, moves slowly. The questions from +Lieutenant Barton’s friends were not the only fear-fraught queries that +must be answered. + +Nobody in Mailsburg, it seemed, had heard from any of the town’s sons +who had gone to France when Barton went. The boys drafted from the town +were still in the training camps on this side of the water. As far as +Ethel could learn no one had heard directly from Morrison Copley or +Charles Bradley since that tragic happening. + +Ethel’s pillow was often wet at night because of Frank Barton’s fate; +but by day the business difficulties that faced her held her mind in +thrall. She began to appreciate more than ever before what Barton +himself had gone through when he had first taken hold of the job of +putting the Hapwood-Diller Company on a paying basis. + +And she had problems to solve that Barton had not been obliged to +consider. In two years and a half circumstances had greatly changed. +The labor situation was one of the hardest of Ethel’s enigmas. + +Besides the hundred or more men who had been drafted from the shops, +and others who had enlisted, many of the best mechanics had gone away +to work in munition plants where the wages were vastly higher than the +Hapwood-Diller Company could afford to pay. + +This had brought into the shops a class of workmen who were not, to +say the least, high grade. There was unrest among them, too. Having no +feeling of loyalty for the corporation, these new workmen were really a +menace to the peaceful conduct of the business. + +Little troubles rose almost daily, many of which could not be settled +by the shop foremen. After all, the absence of a strong hand over the +factory as a whole, began to be felt. And Ethel realized this lack +quite as soon as anybody. + +With the old hands she would have had some personal influence. With the +new workmen--many of them foreigners--she could do little. + +Jim Mayberry was a burly man, and not afraid to “bawl a man out” if +occasion arose. If he threatened to knock a man down he looked as +though he could do it. That may not be the most approved way of keeping +a lot of unruly workmen in order; but it is often efficacious. + +Benway Chase could merely be Ethel’s errand boy. Benway felt his +limitations keenly. “If I only had a good right arm!” he groaned more +than once. + +“No use worrying about that, Bennie,” she said. “We must find some way +to manage besides knocking their heads together. There are only a few +who make trouble. Don’t you think we can get rid of them?” + +But labor was so scarce and the factory was so crowded with orders that +she shrank from such a drastic course. She had an intuitive feeling, +too, that the discharge of certain trouble-makers would bring other +trouble-makers to the surface. + +More than once she was stopped in front of the office or on her way +home by some worker grown bold by the changed condition of affairs. + +“What about more wages, Miss?” one burly man asked her, quite +abruptly. “If wages don’t go up soon, I quit.” + +“Everything is so high, my wife says I’ve got to earn more,” was what +a tall, thin workman told her right in front of her own home. And two +days later both of these men demanded their time and left. + +“It sure is getting worse every day,” was the way Benway Chase put it. +“I don’t see how it’s going to end.” + +“Maybe we’ll have to shut down,” Ethel answered. + +“Oh, you don’t mean that!” + +“No, I don’t. But there is no telling what will happen,” said the girl, +soberly. + +She felt that poison was seeping into the working force from without. +Nothing she could say or do would stop it. The foremen admitted that +the tone of the shops had entirely changed. If they were able to get a +fair day’s work turned out they were doing well. And many of the men +did their stint grudgingly. + +The wages of all the hands had been advanced twice since Frank Barton +had first taken hold of the corporation. Had business remained good and +profits increased, it had been his intention, Ethel knew, to ask the +board of directors for another advance at the end of the third year. + +But with affairs in the mess they were--a quarterly dividend passed and +the output decreased--there would be no hope of following out this +intention of the absent general manager. + +Many factories in neighboring towns had turned to war work of one kind +or another. But the machinery of the Hapwood-Diller Company, built for +special need, could not be used on any war work that Ethel had ever yet +heard of. + +The factory of the defunct Bogata Company was being used for munition +work. People from Mailsburg were flocking to Norville, attracted by the +high wages. One by one the Hapwood-Diller Company’s best workmen left +and went to work at the Norville plant. + +Ethel’s report to the board was sure to be a report of failure. She +realized that she did not measure up to the demands of her position. To +claim she was helpless would not absolve her from the fact she was a +failure. That could not be cloaked. + +This was her job. She had accepted it. If she could not make good she +should give it up. She began to feel that Ethel Clayton might be a good +enough hack; but she lacked the ability necessary to carry her to the +front in the business race. She was away back in the ruck. + +These were her feelings and meditations one evening when, after the +others had gone, she still remained in the office, as she often did. + +Her work for the day was done. Hours of consideration, it seemed, would +not aid her in making the figures on the credit side of the ledger add +up to a larger sum than the figures on the debit side. + +She stood with her back to her desk, hands gripping its edge, her eyes +emptily staring at the wall. Her mental vision was alert, not her +physical. + +If Frank Barton could only return! If he would only walk in at that +door--just to advise with her, to hearten her, to suggest to her +agitated mind some scheme by which she might put life into this +business. + +Would she ever see him again now that he had marched away? Her mind +pictured the marching past of that host of high-hearted men and boys, +bound for a foreign shore from which many necessarily would never +return. And it seemed Frank Barton was one of the very first to be lost +to the knowledge of his friends--lost to those who loved him! + +The outer door banged open heavily. She knew John Murphy had not yet +gone home, and she looked up expecting to see his grizzled visage. + +Instead it was the sharp and eager features of Mabel Skinner. The +younger girl came in like a whirlwind. + +“Oh, Ethel! Miss Clayton!” she gasped. “Guess!” + +“Guess what?” + +“Guess what I just heard down at Rhyncamp’s store! That Marble girl was +there! You know--the Marbles who live right next to the Fuller house.” + +“I know. What of it?” asked Ethel, excited, though she did not know why +she should be. + +“She’s chums with that Fuller girl. You know--Grandon Fuller’s daughter +Helen. She went to France to join the Red Cross.” + +Ethel’s clasped hands showed her interest. She could not speak. Her +eyes searched the vivid face of Little Skinner pleadingly. + +“The Marble girl’s just got a letter from Helen Fuller. I heard her +tell Mr. Rhyncamp. Miss Fuller is nursing in a hospital over there +somewhere. She says her very first patient was Mr. Barton. He ain’t +dead, then, Miss Clayton! He ain’t dead! He’s only wounded! Oh, Miss +Clayton!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +COMPARISONS + + +Mabel Skinner’s news was true. The letter Miss Marble had received told +the story from Helen Fuller’s standpoint. But let the heroics in it be +the nine days’ wonder of Mailsburg. Here are the facts: + +Frank Barton came to his senses slowly and found himself upon a cot, +one of a long line, in a ward of the base hospital at Lovin, as the +place may be called, without the first idea of how he got there. His +last memory was of facing the crew of the German air-raider with Helen +Fuller clinging to his arm and making it impossible to defend her or +himself or to deal effectively with the enemy before them. + +“Where--where am I?” he stammered. “What happened?” + +“Oh, Frank!” squealed a voice, and some one in correct nurse’s garb +stood beside him. “You’re not going to die, are you? Isn’t that just +_dear_!” + +“Oh, heavens!” groaned Lieutenant Barton, in something like despair. +“_You_ here?” + +Were Frank Barton’s eyes at last seeing truly? It was, perhaps, the +most impolite speech he had ever made. But he was very weak and still a +little lightheaded. + +Had the quiet-faced French matron of the ward understood much English, +she surely would have removed Miss Fuller from attendance on the +lieutenant almost at once. As it was he had to listen to the girl’s +fulsome praises and silly ejaculations. + +It was not until some time later that Barton learned just what had +happened after he had been hit with the sharp stone and had handed his +weapon to the distracted Helen. + +“Why, that Heinie used to pitch in one of the bush leagues,” Morrison +Copley told Barton, when he came to see his lieutenant. “Lived ten +years in America and then went back to fight for Kultur. Something’s +going to happen to him, for the lieutenant in command of the airship +declares all bets off. He had warned his men not to fight.” + +“I wonder what they had in their mind when they started for me. Going +to kiss me, I suppose,” Barton suggested weakly. + +“Bah jove! that’s a good one,” said Morry. “I must tell that to Brad. +Say, that lad got ‘mention’ in general orders for capturing the gang. +But he walks right up to the colonel, and says: ‘Colonel, it wasn’t +much to capture fourteen men that were not armed. How about Lieutenant +Barton who tackled them single handed and perhaps helped bring the old +Zep down anyway?’” + +“That’s all right,” commented Barton. “Good of Bradley. But, really, I +did no more than another man would have done. Those poor people in the +car that were blown to bits----” + +“And it was a car that followed on behind that one that picked you and +Mam’zelle Hélène up,” grinned Morry, “and brought you cross country to +Lovin. That’s how you were lost trace of. Guess the folks at home must +think you evaporated into thin air, Lieutenant. But they’ll know the +truth very soon now. I’ve written home about you.” + +But that was not entirely satisfactory to Frank Barton. He wanted to +write himself. He had a strong and particular reason for writing, and +to a particular girl. + +Aside from the wound in his head--a wound which would always leave a +scar--his right arm was strapped tightly to his side. He had a fracture +of the shoulder that made a cast necessary and would entail a long +convalescence. Frank Barton’s active military career was halted before +it was much more than begun. + +The delayed report of his wounds did not officially reach Mailsburg +until after both Helen’s letter to Miss Marble and Morrison Copley’s +“open letter” to the Mailsburg _Clarion_ were received. Barton was the +first of the town’s boys reported under fire and the first to suffer +injury in the war. + +A delayed letter from Ethel had reached Barton soon after he found +himself established in the hospital ward with Helen Fuller hovering +about him a good part of every day. + +“Business, I suppose, Frank?” she observed when she saw the name and +address on the back of the envelope. “_Can’t_ those factory people let +you alone, you poor dear boy, even when you are _wounded_ so?” + +Barton felt like speaking impolitely again. But he had command of +himself now. Nevertheless Helen continued to rasp his nerves on more +than one subject. Had he been blessed with another nurse he would +have dictated an answer to Ethel’s letter. There was a tone to it--a +wistfulness which the girl had been unable to hide--that deeply moved +the wounded lieutenant. + +The missive was written before Ethel had been made assistant manager of +the Hapwood-Diller Company; yet even then she felt the burden of her +position and would have been glad of any bit of kindly advice he might +have sent her. But for three weeks, at least, he must remain silent. He +had never learned to write with his left hand like Benway Chase. + +He proved to be a patient _blessé_, and both the physicians and +nurses praised him. That he had come to a French hospital was rather +unfortunate, for Barton’s knowledge of French was slight. He had to +make most of his desires known through Helen and therefore was at a +disadvantage. + +She frankly encouraged the appearance of a closer association between +them than was the case. A few months before Frank Barton would have +been delighted at such intimacy with Helen Fuller. But he was quite +aware now of her shortcomings. + +Even her association with the Red Cross was a play. It was a part of +her unquenchable desire to show off all the time. Had Barton been +really left to her small mercies he realized that it would have gone +hard with him. She kept her interest in him as a patient only because +of the romance of their adventure together at the time of the air raid. + +He could not forget how small and light a part she had played at that +time. He hoped that no other American girl in France would prove +herself so great a coward as Helen Fuller had on that momentous +occasion. + +He began to feel a distaste for her glowing beauty--a beauty of +coloring and feature and texture of skin and hair only, without +character or intelligence looking out of the eyes or showing in the +face. + +In the warmth of the first few days of their sojourn at the hospital +even so modest a man as Frank Barton saw plainly that he was being +given the opportunity to declare himself. Helen was waiting for him to +respond to her advances. + +When he did not respond she began finally to be piqued, then angry. She +had herself transferred to another ward. Her absence did not increase +Barton’s temperature, the chart at the head of his cot remained normal. + +This rift between them was noted and remarked on by some of the other +nurses. At last Helen took offence, had her mother telegraph her from +Paris, and obtained a furlough and departed from Lovin without bidding +Frank good-bye. + +He did not miss her, save in a relieved way. He had compared her with +another girl--another of whom he had never thought before as other than +a business associate--and found that Helen Fuller was dwarfed in the +comparison. + +Thinking of Ethel as he lay in his hospital cot, he was amazed to +discover how much that was really worth while he knew about her. +Important things, too--individualities and phases of character that now +revealed Ethel Clayton as a girl eminently worthy of consideration. + +The girl he had left behind was all that Helen Fuller proved not to +be. He was confident that Ethel would not have shown the white feather +as Helen had at the time of the German air raid. No girl who had so +courageously taken up the additional burden of responsibility in the +Hapwood-Diller Company offices could be a coward in any particular. + +The vision of Ethel Clayton grew in his mind. His thoughts centered +about her. He began to wonder what her attitude would be toward him if +he should go back home and see her again. + +It was not interest in the Hapwood-Diller Company that was drawing +his heart to Mailsburg during these days. He did not give a fig for +business. His heartstrings were attuned to a much tenderer emotion. He +was gradually beginning to see things in their proper light. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +OPENING THE WAY + + +Ethel heard of Barton in several ways during the next few weeks, but +never by personal letter. She understood the reason for that, however, +for Morrison Copley had quite freely explained the lieutenant’s wounds +and his helpless condition in the _Clarion_. + +“Thank the good Lord ’tain’t his legs nor his eyes,” Mrs. Trevor said. +“When a man can’t see to read and he can’t get about on his own pins he +ain’t no use to himself, nor to nobody else.” + +Ethel did not fail to write to the wounded man, and that frequently. +When these letters should reach Barton he would learn the particulars +of the important changes in the Hapwood-Diller offices, and something, +too, of Ethel’s troubles and perplexities. + +But she had no idea that it was something entirely different from +office news that the hungry-hearted absentee wished for. + +The explanation of the mystery touching Frank Barton’s wounds and his +confinement in the hospital relieved Ethel’s anxiety to a certain +degree. But there was one thing that seriously pricked her thought at +all times. Helen Fuller was with the wounded man! + +Miss Marble had made Helen’s letter broadly public. Other people in +Mailsburg noted the fact that Helen’s first patient was the general +manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company. It is the easiest thing in the +world for gossip to put such a two and two together and make four. + +It was remarked that before Barton had gone to the officers’ training +camp at Quehasset he had been seen much with Helen Fuller. His interest +in her had been noted. + +Now the gossips declared their association on the other side could +lead to but one conclusion. Somebody offered a bet in Ethel’s hearing, +two to one, that there would be a wedding at the American Embassy in +Paris just as soon as Lieutenant Barton was allowed to leave the base +hospital at Lovin. + +However, relieved by her knowledge of Barton’s safety, Ethel Clayton +tried to give all her attention to the task she had accepted when she +was practically hoisted into Barton’s place. + +Hammerly and a few of the other directors cheered her; Grandon Fuller +sneered and continued to acclaim openly that a girl at the head of the +business spelled ruin for the Hapwood-Diller Company. + +“Don’t mind that grouch, Ethel,” Macon Hammerly said. “We’ve put a ring +in his nose, and like any other hog he squeals over the operation. But +such squealing never yet did any hurt.” + +“It gets on one’s nerves most awfully, just the same, Mr. Hammerly,” +the girl said with a sigh. + +She had not, however, come to the old man with any empty complaint. The +labor situation at the factory was in a critical condition. The spoiled +work being turned back by the inspectors and foremen had increased +twenty per cent. Still the malcontents complained of low wages. + +“To protect the corporation and to answer the low wage complaint,” +Ethel told Hammerly, “I have certain drastic changes to suggest. I +admit they are diametrically opposed to the system inaugurated by Mr. +Barton; but Mr. Barton did not have the same difficulties to deal with +that we have now.” + +“Ain’t it so?” agreed the old man. “In those times, Grandon Fuller was +trying to rope Frank, just as he afterward noosed Mayberry. Go on, +Ethel. You’ve got good sense, I know.” + +“Thank you. At least, I have the interests of the corporation at heart. +If I fail as manager I lose more than your good opinion, Mr. Hammerly.” + +“By Henry! you ain’t goin’ to fail, girl,” cried the man. + +“But I am desperate. Desperate enough to change the entire system of +the factory if the board of directors will back me. Look at this, Mr. +Hammerly.” + +She displayed her carefully drawn up plans. The important change +was the shifting from a flat payment of labor at so much per hour, +graduated according to the skill of the workmen, to a piecework scale +of wages which she had scheduled with the assistance of Benway Chase. + +“I believe it will answer the complaint of low pay. Our best men will +be encouraged to remain with us instead of going to the munition +factories. The dissatisfied workmen will be those less skilled and we +can the more easily replace them if they leave,” Ethel explained. + +Macon Hammerly’s approval was instant, and with his backing Ethel’s +scheme was sure to be agreed to by the board. But to put it into force +without opposition was more than could be expected. + +The better class of workmen in the factory when consulted quietly +before the posting of the notices, were eager to give the plan a trial. +Many of them owned their own homes in Mailsburg and had hesitated +to leave their employment at the Hapwood-Diller factory despite +the temptation of higher wages elsewhere. The chance to increase +voluntarily their incomes by speeding up found favor. + +There were incendiary fellows, however, ready instantly to decry the +change. They could see no good in it. It was a trick on the part of the +corporation to underpay the bulk of the laboring force employed in the +factory. + +This cauldron of trouble continued to bubble and steam up to the +very Saturday before the installation of the new system of payment. +At closing time that afternoon it was already dark; but many of the +workmen left the factory gate only to remain in the side street where +they milled like cattle on the verge of a stampede. They talked in +noisy groups. There was something on foot and whether or not they knew +just what it was to be, both the satisfied workmen and the dissatisfied +remained. + +An automobile with two sputtering gasoline torches in it appeared at +last and drove slowly through the noisy crowd to the corner, where it +stopped in view of both the door of the factory offices and of the +workmen’s entrance gate. A burly figure in a greatcoat and goggles was +behind the steering wheel of the car. In the tonneau was a little, +black-haired, foreign looking man who stood on the seat to speak to the +crowd that at once surged near. + +“That is Mr. Schuster!” Ethel Clayton ejaculated, looking from the +office window that best overlooked the corner. She had remained after +the bulk of the office force had gone; but Mabel Skinner was with her. + +“I don’t know who that one may be,” said the younger girl, “but it’s +Jim Mayberry’s car and that’s Jim himself all camouflaged up with +goggles and a long coat. Let’s go down there, Miss Clayton, and listen +to what that crazy man’s saying. He waves his arms around like they +was unhinged--just the same as his brain is.” + +The girls were about to leave the offices in John’s care when the +street-corner forum convened. Ethel was worried. + +“Is the side gate locked, John?” she asked the porter. + +“I don’t s’pose it is yet, ma’am,” he replied. + +“Go out and bar it and warn the night watchmen to be on their guard. +Nobody must be allowed to enter the gate to-night--not even a foreman +if one should return. And be sure the main door is locked after us.” + +“Yes, ma’am,” grinned John. “And will you call out the military?” + +Ethel feared, however, that it might be no laughing matter. Mabel +Skinner was eager to go to the corner and hear what the man had to say; +Ethel accompanied her, fearing the sharp tongue of the younger girl +would get her into trouble in the rough crowd. + +Schuster was Mr. Grandon Fuller’s personal representative, Ethel was +sure. And Jim Mayberry’s presence made certain the identity of the +influence which was seeking to stir up trouble for the Hapwood-Diller +Company and its girl manager. + +Jim Mayberry caught sight of Ethel almost as soon as the two girls +reached the corner. He turned and called Schuster’s attention to Ethel. +The fox-featured little lawyer instantly seized the opportunity for +making a point in his speech. + +“Here you are, men! You fellows under petticoat government! Here’s your +lady boss come out to laugh at you. You big, brawny, husky fellows +ought to be proud of yourselves--bossed by a girl! Tied to her apron +strings!” + +He added something more vulgar that drew a laugh from a certain portion +of the throng. Jim Mayberry turned and pushed up his dust goggles, +leering into Ethel’s white and disgusted face. Mabel Skinner quite lost +her self-control. + +“You’re in nice work now, ain’t you, Jim Mayberry?” she scoffed at the +former superintendent of the factory. Then she screamed at the crowding +men: “You big galoots! You goin’ to let that little fice up there +insult a lady like Miss Clayton? And don’t you see who’s egging him +on--and egging _you_ on to riot and trouble? He’s asking you to pull +his chestnuts out of the fire. It’s Jim Mayberry--Mayberry, the man +that’s sore because the board kicked him out as superintendent and put +Miss Clayton into his place. Aw, say! You all know Jim Mayberry!” + +This raised a laugh which drowned out the lawyer’s vitriolic words. +Mayberry reached for Little Skinner, his face inflamed and ugly. + +“You brat!” he growled. “I’ll teach you----” + +He did not finish the remark. As his clutching hand descended upon +the girl’s shoulder a figure jumped upon the running board of the +automobile on the other side. + +“Beating up a girl would be about your size, Jim Mayberry!” exclaimed +Benway Chase, and with all the force of his good left arm he struck the +former superintendent of the factory in the face. + +Mayberry uttered an oath and swung around. Benway met him with a second +blow--this time landing on the nose. In a moment the victim’s face was +covered with blood. + +“Go it, Bennie! Hit him again!” shrieked Mabel, jumping up and down in +her excitement. + +Ethel was horrified; but Little Skinner became the primitive woman +cheering on her particular hero. + +Mayberry got up from behind the steering wheel and cast himself blindly +upon the striking Benway. The latter gave ground, leaping back off the +car. Mayberry plunged after him. In a moment they had clinched and were +down in the street, striking at each other, Benway silent but Mayberry +swearing and threatening. + +It was at this moment that Macon Hammerly appeared with a policeman. +The latter refused to observe the incipient riot around the two men on +the ground, but stepped up and tapped Schuster on the arm. + +“Hey, you!” he said to the little lawyer, “where’s your permit?” + +“‘Permit?’” + +“Permit to speak on the street ’cordin’ to the city ord’nance made an’ +pervided. Ain’t got none?” went on the officer. “Come along with me, +then,” and he jerked Schuster off the automobile seat as though he were +a child and started at once down town with him. + +“I reckon,” Hammerly said to Ethel with a grin, “that Grandon forgot +that small point. There almost always is some vital point, Ethel, that +a villain overlooks. + +“Now, you come on with me, girl. There’s something I want you to be in +on. I was coming up after you when I saw this gang here and sicked the +policeman on to that little Schuster. Come on.” + +The whirl of events had quite taken Ethel’s mind off of Benway Chase +and his fight with Mayberry. But Mabel Skinner had darted around the +car, vitally determined to lend her hero aid if he needed it. + +Benway needed no help. Had it been so, there seemed to be quite a +number in the crowd disposed to be his friends. + +“Let the young boss alone,” one said. “It ain’t beef that counts. The +young boss has got the spirit to lick his weight in wildcats.” + +“Oh, Bennie! Oh, Bennie!” burst forth Mabel Skinner. “Don’t you let +that big loafer hurt you!” + +“I won’t,” promised Benway, rising quite self-possessed and scarcely +marred by the scrimmage. “He doesn’t want to fight.” + +This seemed quite true. At least, Jim Mayberry had very quickly got +enough. He stood up painfully, climbed into his car awkwardly, and +drove away, amid the jeers of the onlookers, without even an additional +threat. + +The bubble of his reputation as a fighter was pricked. Some of +the older workmen lingering near mentioned the fact that the +ex-superintendent of the factory had been but a bag of wind after all. +“The young boss,” as they had come to call Benway Chase, had “licked +him with one hand.” + +The latter slipped out of the crowd as quickly as possible. Mabel +Skinner was clinging to his good arm and it was not until they were +a full dark block away from the scene of the disturbance that he +discovered the girl was crying. + +“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Benway, utterly aghast at the +idea of self-possessed Little Skinner giving way to tears. “Are you +hurt?” + +“No--no, sir, Mr. Chase. I ain’t hurt.” + +“Then why are you crying?” he demanded, snuggling the girl closer to +his side. + +“I--I was afraid you might be,” she confessed. + +“But, I’m not! That big chump never hurt me a mite!” + +“Then I--I guess I’m crying for joy,” sobbed Mabel. “If he’d hurt you, +Mr. Chase, I guess I’d have _died_!” + +“Huh! Why the ‘Mr. Chase?’ Wasn’t I ‘Bennie’ a while back when you were +rooting for me? Why, Mabel, I couldn’t have lost out with you yelling +your head off that way on the side lines!” + +“Oh, Bennie!” she gasped. + +It was a very dark corner. When they strolled out into the next circle +of lamp light, Benway’s arm was around the girl’s shoulders and she was +looking up into his face with such an ecstatic expression on her own +that had Boots Skinner seen it he certainly would have been held fast +in his tracks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +COMPENSATION + + +Macon Hammerly offered no explanation at all as he led Ethel in the +direction of High Street, quite in the opposite way from her usual walk +at this hour of the evening. But he was pleasantly chatty just the same. + +In spite of his gruffness and homely speech, if he liked the grain +dealer could show a less prickly side to his character, and he always +showed that glossed side to Ethel Clayton. + +“Don’t you make no mistake, girl,” he now observed. “Your plan is going +to have a fair trial, and we’ll have no such riot scene staged again as +that to-night. Maybe I ain’t got all the political influence Grandon +Fuller blows about; but I’ve got him about sewed up in a bag and he +ain’t going to trouble you--he nor his hirelings--much more. + +“He was trying to pull the wool over Barton’s eyes when Barton went +away, I believe. I trusted to Frank’s natural horse sense to keep him +out of any scrape with Grandon. But they do say he’s gone and fallen +for that flibbertigibbet daughter of the Fullers. I expect those nurses +have a great advantage over a man. Like enough every one of ’em’ll be +married to some poor sinner before this war’s over,” and he grinned. + +“Oh, Mr. Hammerly!” Ethel gasped. “Maybe I’d better go as a nurse,” she +added, smiling. + +“_You?_ Shucks! There ain’t no need for you to fish. The fellers will +all be after you. I’m going to live ten years longer and dandle two or +three of your babies on my knee. Come on! Here’s where we turn in.” + +He led her into the law office of Alfred Gainor. The attorney had a +visitor who rose hastily to go when Hammerly, with Ethel behind him, +entered the private office. + +“No, don’t run away, Grandon,” said the grain merchant in his very +harshest tone. “I told Gainor to get you here for just this purpose.” + +“What do you mean, Hammerly?” growled the other. “I have nothing to say +to you at present.” + +“No, I don’t expect you have. But I’ve got something to say to you, and +you’d best listen.” + +“If you’ve come to me to plead for my favor on this girl’s behalf----” + +“Nothing of the kind! Nothing of the kind!” reiterated Hammerly. “There +won’t be no pleading on our side, I assure you, Grandon. And Ethel’s +here because she’s got a vital interest in what’s going to be done.” + +“I don’t understand you.” + +“You will,” observed Hammerly grimly. + +“What do you expect to interest me in, man?” demanded Grandon Fuller +with a less ruffled demeanor. + +“I’m going to interest you in two or three things, Grandon,” said +the old man composedly, while the lawyer looked on as though he +quite understood. “I’m going to interest you first of all in the +specification sheet of the Kimberly Binding Company order. And then I’m +going to link that up with a much more important paper that you ain’t +seen for ten years, but that’s been on file here all that time since it +was probated and recorded. I mean Israel Diller’s will.” + +At this statement Grandon Fuller leaped to his feet and advanced upon +the old grain merchant with inflamed countenance. + +“What do you mean, you hoary-headed old scoundrel?” he shouted. “Do you +mean to tell me----” + +He halted, licked his thick lips, and his flabby pomposity began to +shrink. Hammerly nodded. + +“That’s it. Give a calf rope enough and it’ll hang itself. I could sit +here and bandy words with you long enough to make you give yourself +clean away. For you ain’t a very brainy villain. Otherwise you wouldn’t +have used a trick the second time that served you once--and that you +had got away with, it seemed, without raising suspicion.” + +“I don’t understand you,” snarled Fuller. “What are you talking about +anyway?” + +“I’m talking about forgery, Grandon--forgery and substitution. The +chemists and handwriting experts are not alone able to swear to changes +made on that Kimberly schedule; they will swear to changes made in the +same way--and by the same hand--in Israel Diller’s will! + +“Sit down, Grandon! Don’t fall down,” advised Hammerly. “Mr. Mestinger, +who drew Israel’s will, being dead, you substitute your wife’s name for +that of Lorreta Clayton’s all through that instrument and made Niece +Mehitable instead of Niece Lorreta, the principal legatee under the +will. + +“I always had suspicions, but no proof. Not till Ethel, here, showed me +that Kimberly company schedule and pointed out what that boy, Benway +Chase, first saw in it. + +“You’re caught, Grandon! You’re caught just as hard and fast as I +caught Boots Skinner the other night setting hooks in the creek +against the law. I’m going to let Boots go this time, for he ain’t +an all around bad boy. Boots’ testimony is all I needed to link up +your principal henchman with your blackguarding of the Hapwood-Diller +Company. Jim Mayberry’s a proved scoundrel as far back as that Bogata +Company matter, and I’m going to run him out of town. + +“What I do with you, Grandon, depends entirely on how much restitution +you are willing to make to the Widow Clayton and her daughter here. +If we go to law about this it will cost a lot of money--and a lot of +scandal. You’ve made a heap of money one way and another since you got +those shares of the Hapwood-Diller Company that was meant for Mrs. +Clayton. I’ll give you a chance. + +“You’ll give those shares your wife got from the Israel Diller estate +to Mrs. Clayton, with dividends and accrued interest to date. You’ll +sell all your other holdings of the corporation’s shares to me, _and at +the low price which you’ve hammered them down to_!” + +“W--What! Never!” groaned Grandon Fuller. + +“That will automatically put you out of the Hapwood-Diller Company’s +affairs,” went on Macon Hammerly, not heeding the interruption. “And +I guess that will help some; eh, Ethel?” he continued, turning to the +much interested girl. + +“Oh, is it true? Did he tamper with that will?” cried the girl. + +“He did.” + +“It’s false! I never----” + +“Don’t try to deny it, Grandon. It’s true.” The old grain merchant +strode forward and towered sternly over the other man. “Come, what is +it to be, a peaceful settlement or war?” + +“Gi--give me time to--to think.” + +“Time to play another trick, you mean. No, you’ve got to decide now, at +once, right here.” + +“You--you are hard. I can explain----” + +“No explanation is necessary. I’ve got you just where I want you. Will +you settle or not?” + +Grandon Fuller arose to his feet. He was panting hard. + +“I won’t do it!” he began and then he shrank back before the steady +gaze of Hammerly and Ethel. “I--I--” He suddenly dropped into his +seat, his face a stricken gray. “Well, have your own way,” he mumbled. +“You’ve got me cornered.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +HIS AWAKENING + + +One evening, some weeks later, Ethel found herself alone in the office. +It was after working hours and the others had gone home. She had still +to work late at times; but her plan of wage payment was already proving +successful. + +There was a new spirit in the shops. Some of the old help were coming +back for safety, and the possibility of an increased income with the +Hapwood-Diller Company looked better to the married men, at least, than +a bulky pay envelope and the danger of sudden death. + +In fact, for several weeks, since Grandon Fuller had been eliminated +from the affairs of the corporation, Ethel had been able to prove her +worth to the board of directors. The business was running smoothly. The +girl had proved that sex was not an insuperable barrier in the conduct +of such a complicated business as this of which she had charge. + +With the help of Benway Chase, who had been advanced to a minor +governing position in the factory, Ethel was making good. She thought +of this cheerfully on this evening as she turned to snap out the +electric light above her desk, the last thing before going out. + +Her hand was stayed by the quiet opening of the office door. In the +half-shadow of the entrance stood a tall figure, the face of which she +could not see. Nor did she see but one hand when the visitor advanced +into the room and closed the door. Was it a man with only one arm? + +Then she saw that the right arm was bandaged to his side by a black +silk scarf. He was in uniform. + +“Mr. Barton!” + +“Ethel!” + +She was half way to him on flying feet when she realized what he had +called her and how he had spoken. She halted. + +“Mr. Barton! How you startled me! How glad I am to see you!” she +declared. “When did you arrive?” + +“Just now. You are the first person I have seen to speak to in +Mailsburg,” he said, and strode forward to greet her. + +“Your poor arm!” she murmured when she took his offered left hand. Then +she looked up and saw the grim scar on his brow. It gave an entirely +different expression to his countenance. Indeed he seemed to be an +entirely different man from the Frank Barton of old. He clung to her +hand. + +“You--are you back for good? We have needed you so! Now I can give the +Hapwood-Diller Company back into your hands,” she said. + +“I am afraid not yet,” Frank Barton replied gently. “I have only a +short furlough--till my shoulder completely heals. I came across hoping +to be of some small help in recruiting or in Red Cross work while I am +debarred from more active service.” + +“Oh, Mr. Barton! you will not really go back again?” she cried, looking +down at her hand still crushed within his own. + +“Unless the war ends very soon,” he laughed. “I know that you have +been more than successful in my job. Mr. Hammerly wrote me all about +Jim Mayberry and Grandon Fuller. I would not have believed it of Jim. +You have had a hard fight here, Ethel; but you have overcome, you have +succeeded.” + +She did not seek to draw away her hand, but still looked down, refusing +to meet his gaze. + +“How did you leave the other Mailsburg boys? Mr. Copley, for instance?” + +“Fine!” he declared heartily. + +“And Miss Fuller?” + +“She and her mother returned on the _Lorraine_ with me. They were +called home, it seems, by Mr. Fuller’s business troubles. They have +lost money, they tell me, and will have to give up their big house on +the Hill.” + +“But that makes no difference to _you_, of course, Mr. Barton?” + +“Not the least,” he returned composedly. “I am afraid I shall never +become a favorite of Miss Fuller’s. I could not stand petting while I +was in the hospital at Lovin, and it rather piqued my nurse.” + +Ethel looked up at him quickly. There was that in his eyes she had +never seen before. It held her gaze captive. + +His single good hand released her hand. But gently he drew her toward +him, his hand behind her shoulder. Her form yielded hesitatingly to his +urging. + +“I cannot claim that patriotism brought me back for these few weeks +that I may remain, Ethel,” he went on in a voice that suddenly became +strangely husky. “I wanted to see you--face to face.” + +There was an awkward pause. She felt his hand on her shoulder tremble. + +“I can’t understand why it is that I never saw you in just the same +light that I have since I’ve been away. But you have been in my +thoughts continually--the girl I left behind!” + +“Oh, of course--the business--” she began flutteringly. + +“No, it wasn’t the business, Ethel. It was you!” he cried. + +“Me?” Her breast began to heave and her face glowed. He bent low that +he might catch her eyes. + +[Illustration: “You have been in my thoughts continually--the girl I +left behind.” + (_See page 268_)] + +“Yes, you! I guess I was asleep, but I’m awake now. We were so close +day after day--and I was so wrapped up in business--that I didn’t +realize how much you really meant to me.” + +“Oh!” It was the faintest kind of an exclamation. She wanted to speak, +but for once the “perfectly capable person” could not say a word. Her +heart was pounding. + +“But it came to me all of a sudden, while I was in the hospital and +while that very fluttery Helen Fuller was trying to wait on me. Then I +realized what a big difference there was in girls--and I realized that +you were the only girl in the world for me--the only one!” + +Again there was a silence. But now she raised her eyes to meet his and +they were full of glorious tenderness. He clutched her close to him +with his one good arm. + +“I love you--oh, how I love you!” he murmured. “How I love you!” + +“Oh, Mr. Bar----” + +“Ethel!” + +“Frank, then.” + +She spoke his name with such sweetness that it almost overpowered him. +It was as if she had suddenly lifted the veil and was letting him look +into her very soul. He still held her close. Now he suddenly kissed +her, once, twice and again. + +“Thank God!” he said reverently. “Thank God!” + +In her soul she also thanked God for His goodness in bringing this +man to her. But she could not speak. She could only cling tightly to +him--and for a long while he felt her heart beating close to his own. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Trevor sat in a front seat in her shabby little hat and Paisley +shawl and frankly cried outright during the ceremony. + +“But they’ll make a grand couple,” she sobbed. “A grand couple--both of +’em so smart!” + +Macon Hammerly occupied a seat further back. He sat with an expression +of grim pride on his face, as though he considered himself in some way +the father of this little romance. + +“My young folks--both of ’em,” he whispered to a neighbor. “Sweetest +gal in the world, barrin’ none--an’ a fine fellow, too, believe me!” + +Mrs. Clayton was there, of course, dressed in the best she had ever +possessed. She felt like weeping, but she did not, for was she not a +Diller, and had she not a family pride to maintain? Especially now, +when their financial affairs were so greatly changed? + +“Not that I do not consider Mr. Barton a very fine man,” she confessed. +“But I feel that Ethel might do so much better in a social way if she +would only try. And really a soldier under orders has no right to +marry--especially when he has to go away so soon. Worst of all, Ethel +insists upon retaining her position as manager of the Hapwood-Diller +Company. Well, now that we have such a large amount in the business +perhaps that is as well. The shares are already at par again.” + +Benway Chase was there too and sat close beside Mabel Skinner--a new +Mabel, full of ambition and who no longer chewed gum. + +“Some day we’ll do it too, Mabel,” he whispered. + +“Oh, you go on!” she answered, but looked immensely pleased +nevertheless. + +The organ pealed forth and slowly the procession moved down the aisle +of the church, the bride leaning lightly on the groom’s good arm. They +came out into the sunshine of the late winter day and both Ethel in her +veil and Barton in his khaki were glorified by it. The automobile that +was to take them to the Clayton home was in readiness and they entered +it. + +“Mine--mine at last!” he breathed, when they were safe from the eyes of +the curious crowd. + +“It’s like a dream--it doesn’t seem real!” she murmured, with eyes that +spoke volumes as she beamed on him. + +“Only a week before I have to go to the front again!” he groaned. + +“Let’s not think about that, Frank--let’s think only about how happy we +are.” + +“Just as you say, Ethel.” He drew her closer, glanced hastily around +to make sure they were not observed, and kissed her. “Wonderful, this +getting married, isn’t it? Beats business all hollow!” And he smiled. + +She looked at him fondly, and suddenly a mischievous dimple showed in +each cheek. “Well, I don’t know. If you have a perfectly capable person +for an assis----” + +“Ethel! You’ve sprung that on me twice since we became engaged! Now as +my wife you’ve got to cut it out.” + +“What? Cut out being capable? And yet remain manager while you are +away?” And then, as she saw he was really hurt she added swiftly and +tenderly: “Forgive me, Frank, that’s a dear! I’m so happy--so furiously +happy--I don’t know what I am saying or doing!” + +He held her as close as he dared in such a public place. “Mine! mine! +mine!” he murmured over and over again. + +Very softly she patted the free hand of the wounded arm. Then she +suddenly pressed it to her lips and kissed it. + + +THE END + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Perceived typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75475 *** |