The Turmoil Part 32

"Yes. There are some that break down all the other men that work with 'em. They either die, or go crazy, or have to quit, and are no use the rest of their lives. The last's my case, I guess--'complicated by domestic difficulties'!"

"You set there and tell me you give up?" Sheridan's voice shook, and so did the gesticulating hand which he extended appealingly toward the despondent figure. "Don't do it, Roscoe! Don't say it! Say you'll come down there again and be a man! This woman ain't goin' to trouble you any more. The work ain't goin' to hurt you if you haven't got her to worry you, and you can get shut o' this nasty whiskey-guzzlin'; it ain't fastened on you yet. Don't say--"

"It's no use on earth," Roscoe mumbled. "No use on earth."

"Look here! If you want another month's vacation--"

"I know Gurney told you, so what's the use talking about 'vacations'?"

"Gurney!" Sheridan vociferated the name savagely. "It's Gurney, Gurney, Gurney! Always Gurney! I don't know what the world's comin' to with everybody runnin' around squealin', 'The doctor says this,' and, 'The doctor says that'! It makes me sick! How's this country expect to get its Work done if Gurney and all the other old nanny-goats keep up this blattin'--'Oh, oh! Don't lift that stick o' wood; you'll ruin your NERVES!' So he says you got 'nervous exhaustion induced by overwork and emotional strain.' They always got to stick the Work in if they see a chance! I reckon you did have the 'emotional strain,' and that's all's the matter with you. You'll be over it soon's this woman's gone, and Work's the very thing to make you quit frettin' about her."

"Did Gurney tell you I was fit to work?"

"Shut up!" Sheridan bellowed. "I'm so sick o' that man's name I feel like shootin' anybody that says it to me!" He fumed and chafed, swearing indistinctly, then came and stood before his son. "Look here; do you think you're doin' the square thing by me? Do you? How much you worth?"

"I've got between seven and eight thousand a year clear, of my own, outside the salary. That much is mine whether I work or not."

"It is? You could'a pulled it out without me, I suppose you think, at your age?"

"No. But it's mine, and it's enough."

"My Lord! It's about what a Congressman gets, and you want to quit there! I suppose you think you'll get the rest when I kick the bucket, and all you have to do is lay back and wait! You let me tell you right here, you'll never see one cent of it. You go out o' business now, and what would you know about handlin' it five or ten or twenty years from now? Because I intend to STAY here a little while yet, my boy! They'd either get it away from you or you'd sell for a nickel and let it be split up and--" He whirled about, marched to the other end of the room, and stood silent a moment. Then he said, solemnly: "Listen. If you go out now, you leave me in the lurch, with nothin' on G.o.d's green earth to depend on but your brother--and you know what he is. I've depended on you for it ALL since Jim died. Now you've listened to that dam' doctor, and he says maybe you won't ever be as good a man as you were, and that certainly you won't be for a year or so--probably more. Now, that's all a lie. Men don't break down that way at your age. Look at ME! And I tell you, you can shake this thing off. All you need is a little GET-up and a little gumption. Men don't go away for YEARS and then come back into MOVING businesses like ours--they lose the strings. And if you could, I won't let you--if you lay down on me now, I won't--and that's because if you lay down you prove you ain't the man I thought you were." He cleared his throat and finished quietly: "Roscoe, will you take a month's vacation and come back and go to it?"

"No," said Roscoe, listlessly. "I'm through."

"All right," said Sheridan. He picked up the evening paper from a table, went to a chair by the fire and sat down, his back to his son.

"Good-by."

Roscoe rose, his head hanging, but there was a dull relief in his eyes.

"Best I can do," he muttered, seeming about to depart, yet lingering. "I figure it out a good deal like this," he said. "I didn't KNOW my job was any strain, and I managed all right, but from what Gur--from what I hear, I was just up to the limit of my nerves from overwork, and the--the trouble at home was the extra strain that's fixed me the way I am. I tried to brace, so I could stand the work and the trouble too, on whiskey--and that put the finish to me! I--I'm not hitting it as hard as I was for a while, and I reckon pretty soon, if I can get to feeling a little more energy, I better try to quit entirely--I don't know. I'm all in--and the doctor says so. I thought I was running along fine up to a few months ago, but all the time I was ready to bust, and didn't know it. Now, then, I don't want you to blame Sibyl, and if I were you I wouldn't speak of her as 'that woman,' because she's your daughter-in-law and going to stay that way. She didn't do anything wicked. It was a shock to me, and I don't deny it, to find what she had done--encouraging that fellow to hang around her after he began trying to flirt with her, and losing her head over him the way she did. I don't deny it was a shock and that it'll always be a hurt inside of me I'll never get over. But it was my fault; I didn't understand a woman's nature." Poor Roscoe spoke in the most profound and desolate earnest.

"A woman craves society, and gaiety, and meeting attractive people, and traveling. Well, I can't give her the other things, but I can give her the traveling--real traveling, not just going to Atlantic City or New Orleans, the way she has, two, three times. A woman has to have something in her life besides a business man. And that's ALL I was. I never understood till I heard her talking when she was so sick, and I believe if you'd heard her then you wouldn't speak so hard-heartedly about her; I believe you might have forgiven her like I have. That's all. I never cared anything for any girl but her in my life, but I was so busy with business I put it ahead of her. I never THOUGHT about her, I was so busy thinking business. Well, this is where it's brought us to--and now when you talk about 'business' to me I feel the way you do when anybody talks about Gurney to you. The word 'business' makes me dizzy--it makes me honestly sick at the stomach. I believe if I had to go down-town and step inside that office door I'd fall down on the floor, deathly sick. You talk about a 'month's vacation'--and I get just as sick. I'm rattled--I can't plan--I haven't got any plans--can't make any, except to take my girl and get just as far away from that office as I can--and stay. We're going to j.a.pan first, and if we--"

His father rustled the paper. "I said good-by, Roscoe."

"Good-by," said Roscoe, listlessly.

CHAPTER XXIV

Sheridan waited until he heard the sound of the outer door closing; then he rose and pushed a tiny disk set in the wall. Jackson appeared.

"Has Bibbs got home from work?"

"Mist' Bibbs? No, suh."

"Tell him I want to see him, soon as he comes."

"Yessuh."

Sheridan returned to his chair and fixed his attention fiercely upon the newspaper. He found it difficult to pursue the items beyond their explanatory rubrics--there was nothing unusual or startling to concentrate his attention:

"Motorman Puts Blame on Brakes. Three Killed when Car Slides."

"Burglars Make Big Haul."

"Board Works Approve Big Car-line Extension."

"Hold-up Men Injure Two. Man Found in Alley, Skull Fractured."

"Sickening Story Told in Divorce Court."

"Plan New Eighteen-story Structure."

"School-girl Meets Death under Automobile."

"Negro Cuts Three. One Dead."

"Life Crushed Out. Third Elevator Accident in Same Building Causes Action by Coroner."

"Declare Militia will be Menace. Polish Societies Protest to Governor in Church Rioting Case."

"Short $3,500 in Accounts, Trusted Man Kills Self with Drug."

"Found Frozen. Family Without Food or Fuel. Baby Dead when Parents Return Home from Seeking Work."

"Minister Returned from Trip Abroad Lectures on Big Future of Our City. Sees Big Improvement during Short Absence. Says No European City Holds Candle." (Sheridan nodded approvingly here.)

Bibbs came through the hall whistling, and entered the room briskly.

"Well, father, did you want me?"

"Yes. Sit down." Sheridan got up, and Bibbs took a seat by the fire, holding out his hands to the crackling blaze, for it was cold outdoors.

"I came within seven of the shop record to-day," he said. "I handled more strips than any other workman has any day this month. The nearest to me is sixteen behind."

"There!" exclaimed his father, greatly pleased. "What'd I tell you?

I'd like to hear Gurney hint again that I wasn't right in sending you there--I would just like to hear him! And you--ain't you ashamed of makin' such a fuss about it? Ain't you?"

"I didn't go at it in the right spirit the other time," Bibbs said, smiling brightly, his face ruddy in the cheerful firelight. "I didn't know the difference it meant to like a thing."

"Well, I guess I've pretty thoroughly vindicated my judgement. I guess I HAVE! I said the shop'd be good for you, and it was. I said it wouldn't hurt you, and it hasn't. It's been just exactly what I said it would be.

Ain't that so?"

"Looks like it!" Bibbs agreed, gaily.

"Well, I'd like to know any place I been wrong, first and last! Instead o' hurting you, it's been the makin' of you--physically. You're a good inch taller'n what I am, and you'd be a bigger man than what I am if you'd get some flesh on your bones; and you ARE gettin' a little.

Physically, it's started you out to be the huskiest one o' the whole family. Now, then, mentally--that's different. I don't say it unkindly, Bibbs, but you got to do something for yourself mentally, just like what's begun physically. And I'm goin' to help you."

Sheridan decided to sit down again. He brought his chair close to his son's, and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs's knee confidentially. "I got plans for you, Bibbs," he said.

Bibbs instantly looked thoroughly alarmed. He drew back. "I--I'm all right now, father."

"Listen." Sheridan settled himself in his chair, and spoke in the tone of a reasonable man reasoning. "Listen here, Bibbs. I had another blow to-day, and it was a hard one and right in the face, though I HAVE been expectin' it some little time back. Well, it's got to be met. Now I'll be frank with you. As I said a minute ago, mentally I couldn't ever called you exactly strong. You been a little weak both ways, most of your life. Not but what I think you GOT a mentality, if you'd learn to use it. You got will-power, I'll say that for you. I never knew boy or man that could be stubborner--never one in my life! Now, then, you've showed you could learn to run that machine best of any man in the shop, in no time at all. That looks to me like you could learn to do other things. I don't deny but what it's an encouragin' sign. I don't deny that, at all. Well, that helps me to think the case ain't so hopeless as it looks. You're all I got to meet this blow with, but maybe you ain't as poor material as I thought. Your tellin' me about comin' within seven strips of the shop's record to-day looks to me like encouragin'

information brought in at just about the right time. Now, then, I'm goin' to give you a raise. I wanted to send you straight on up through the shops--a year or two, maybe--but I can't do it. I lost Jim, and now I've lost Roscoe. He's quit. He's laid down on me. If he ever comes back at all, he'll be a long time pickin' up the strings, and, anyway, he ain't the man I thought he was. I can't count on him. I got to have SOMEBODY I KNOW I can count on. And I'm down to this: you're my last chance. Bibbs, I got to learn you to use what brains you got and see if we can't develop 'em a little. Who knows? And I'm goin' to put my time in on it. I'm goin' to take you right down-town with ME, and I won't be hard on you if you're a little slow at first. And I'm goin' to do the big thing for you. I'm goin' to make you feel you got to do the big thing for me, in return. I've vindicated my policy with you about the shop, and now I'm goin' to turn right around and swing you 'way over ahead of where the other boys started, and I'm goin' to make an appeal to your ambition that'll make you dizzy!" He tapped his son on the knee again. "Bibbs, I'm goin' to start you off this way: I'm goin' to make you a director in the Pump Works Company; I'm goin' to make you vice-president of the Realty Company and a vice-president of the Trust Company!"

Bibbs jumped to his feet, blanched. "Oh no!" he cried.

Sheridan took his dismay to be the excitement of sudden joy. "Yes, sir! And there's some pretty fat little salaries goes with those vice-presidencies, and a pinch o' stock in the Pump Company with the directors.h.i.+p. You thought I was pretty mean about the shop--oh, I know you did!--but you see the old man can play it both ways. And so right now, the minute you've begun to make good the way I wanted you to, I deal from the new deck. And I'll keep on handin' it out bigger and bigger every time you show me you're big enough to play the hand I deal you. I'm startin' you with a pretty big one, my boy!"

"But I don't--I don't--I don't want it!" Bibbs stammered.