Part 47 (1/2)
Jane fastened up her linen duster firmly. ”One thing is sure, you can't go round with me. One way, you can't blame 'em for looking at it so, drat 'em! I'll just have to carry on this campaign by myself. I wish Mr.
Manning could go with me. I don't think he has any idea that he has a way with women. He just sits around looking as if he had a deep-hidden sorrow and all us women fall for it. You and I aren't a bit more sensible than Mrs. Flynn. Here I got a Chinese cook in the house Oscar lugged home. I'd as soon have a rat in the house as one of the nasty yellow things, but Oscar says I got to have him or a dish was.h.i.+ng machine, so, after all, I've said I'm up against it. And here I am das.h.i.+ng round the country for Mr. Manning, when I know that c.h.i.n.k is making opium pills in my kitchen.”
But Pen was not to be distracted. ”What can I do, Jane? Must I just sit with folded hands while the rest of you work?”
”You do your share in supplying ideas, Penelope,” said Jane.
Pen answered with a little sob, ”I get tired of that job! I want to be on the firing line, just once!”
That night they consulted with Oscar. At first he was very hostile to the thought of either of them undertaking such work. Then in the midst of his tirade on woman's sphere, he stopped with a roar of laughter.
”And I'm a fine example of what a woman can do with a man when she gets busy! All right, Jane, go ahead. Hanged if I ain't proud of you! But Mrs. Pen is hurting the cause. The women folks won't stand for you, Mrs.
Pen; you are too pretty.”
So Pen withdrew from the campaign and Jane and Bill Evans went on alone.
When Oscar was not with Jim, he brought visitors to the dam. These visitors were farmers and business men from the entire Project. Ames was careful to time the visits, so that about the time he strolled up to the dam site with the callers, Jim would be on his tour of inspection. Oscar would then follow unostentatiously in Jim's wake, but close enough to get a good idea of the ground that Jim covered. Often he would make Jim stop and give an explanation of some point the visitors could not understand. Penelope, consumed with curiosity, joined the touring party one day.
”I wish you could see him in full action,” Oscar was saying. ”Like the day of the flood or the night Dad Robins was killed. He can handle fifteen hundred men better'n I handle my three. Now you watch him. Those there fellows he's jos.h.i.+ng have been with him seven years. You ought to hear their stories about driving the tunnel up on the Makon. Say, he'd go right in with 'em. Never asked 'em to go somewhere he wouldn't go himself. They all laugh at us farmers, those rough-necks. Say, we don't know a real man when we see one.”
The bronzed elderly man who was with Oscar listened intently. Oscar went on:
”The details on a place like this are enough to drive a man crazy. He da.s.sent let 'em pour concrete without him or his cement expert is round. If the rocks aren't just right or the surface of the section isn't just right or they slip up a little on the mixture, the whole thing will go to thunder some day. He's got to spend ten million dollars with eighty million people watching him and all us farmers kicking every minute. How'd you like his job?”
”He was over at my place the other day,” said the farmer. ”I see how he got his nickname. But he's awful easy to talk to. I got to telling him what a hard time I had the first year or two I was irrigating alfalfa and how I get five good cuttings a year now, regular. He wants me to show that new fellow Hunt how I did it. Guess I will. I always thought Manning hated the farmers. But I guess he was just busy with his own troubles.”
Pen fell back and climbed the trail to a point where she could look down on Jim. He was listening to his master mechanic, interjecting a word now and then at which his subordinate nodded eagerly. Pen wondered sadly, what Jim would do with his life when he could no longer work for the Projects. The thought of this sudden thwarting of all his plans haunted her and she longed almost unbearably to talk to him about it, but his silence on the subject she felt that she must respect. As she sauntered on along the trail to meet Bill Evans exploding into camp with the mail, she was thinking back over Jim's life and of how much of it had been spent in listening rather than in speaking. His silence, she thought, was a part of his great personal charm. From it his companions got a sense of a keen, sympathetic intelligence focused entirely on their own problems that was very attractive. Somehow, Pen had faith that his campaign of silence would defeat Fleckenstein.
Bill had a lone pa.s.senger in his tonneau. Pen's pulse quickened. As the machine reached her side, Bill stopped with his usual flourish, and Uncle Denny, without waiting to open the door which was fastened with binding wire, climbed out over the front seat.
”Pen! Pen! The door of me heart has hung sagging and open ever since you left!”
CHAPTER XXIV
UNCLE DENNY GETS BUSY
”Coyotes breed only with coyotes. Men talk much of pride of race, yet they will breed with any color.”
MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.
Pen clung to Uncle Denny with a breathless sob. She had not realized how heavy her burden was until Uncle Denny had come to share it.
”Uncle Denny! You didn't answer my telegram and I didn't dare hope you would get here.”
”Where is Jim, Penny, and how is me boy?”
”I'll take you to him now. He has no idea of your coming. Bill, we will walk. Take the trunk on up to Mr. Manning's house, will you?”