Part 26 (2/2)
Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business, and HE set himself to balk on the first job! That's what he did, and the balk's lasted close on to three years. If he balks again I'm just done with him! Sometimes I feel like I was pretty near done with everything, anyhow!”
”I knew there was something else,” said Mrs. Sheridan, blinking over a yawn. ”You better let it go till to-morrow and get to bed now--'less you'll tell me?”
”Suppose something happened to Roscoe,” he said. ”THEN what'd I have to look forward to? THEN what could I depend on to hold things together? A lummix! A lummix that hasn't learned how to push a strip o' zinc along a groove!”
”Roscoe?” she yawned. ”You needn't worry about Roscoe, papa. He's the strongest child we had. I never did know anybody keep better health than he does. I don't believe he's even had a cold in five years. You better go up to bed, papa.”
”Suppose something DID happen to him, though. You don't know what it means, keepin' property together these days--just keepin' it ALIVE, let alone makin' it grow the way I do. I've seen too many estates hacked away in chunks, big and little. I tell you when a man dies the wolves come out o' the woods, pack after pack, to see what they can tear off for themselves; and if that dead man's chuldern ain't on the job, night and day, everything he built'll get carried off. Carried off? I've seen a big fortune behave like an ash-barrel in a cyclone--there wasn't even a dust-heap left to tell where it stood! I've seen it, time and again.
My Lord! when I think o' such things comin' to ME! It don't seem like I deserved it--no man ever tried harder to raise his boys right than I have. I planned and planned and planned how to bring 'em up to be guards to drive the wolves off, and how to be builders to build, and build bigger. I tell you this business life is no fool's job nowadays--a man's got to have eyes in the back of his head. You hear talk, sometimes, 'd make you think the millennium had come--but right the next breath you'll hear somebody hollerin' about 'the great unrest.' You BET there's a 'great unrest'! There ain't any man alive smart enough to see what it's goin' to do to us in the end, nor what day it's got set to bust loose, but it's frothin' and bubblin' in the boiler. This country's been fillin' up with it from all over the world for a good many years, and the old camp-meetin' days are dead and done with. Church ain't what it used to be. Nothin's what it used to be--everything's turned up from the bottom, and the growth is so big the roots stick out in the air. There's an awful ruction goin' on, and you got to keep hoppin' if you're goin'
to keep your balance on the top of it. And the schemers! They run like bugs on the bottom of a board--after any piece o' money they hear is loose. Fool schemes and crooked schemes; the fool ones are the most and the worst! You got to FIGHT to keep your money after you've made it. And the woods are full o' mighty industrious men that's got only one motto: 'Get the other fellow's money before he gets yours!' And when a man's built as I have, when he's built good and strong, and made good things grow and prosper--THOSE are the fellows that lay for the chance to slide in and sneak the benefit of it and put their names to it! And what's the use of my havin' ever been born, if such a thing as that is goin'
to happen? What's the use of my havin' worked my life and soul into my business, if it's all goin' to be dispersed and scattered soon as I'm in the ground?”
He strode up and down the long room, gesticulating--little regarding the troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside. His throat rumbled thunderously; the words came with stormy bitterness. ”You think this is a time for young men to be lyin' on beds of ease? I tell you there never was such a time before; there never was such opportunity. The sluggard is despoiled while he sleeps--yes, by George! if a man lays down they'll eat him before he wakes!--but the live man can build straight up till he touches the sky! This is the business man's day; it used to be the soldier's day and the statesman's day, but this is OURS! And it ain't a Sunday to go fis.h.i.+n'--it's turmoil! turmoil!--and you got to go out and live it and breathe it and MAKE it yourself, or you'll only be a dead man walkin' around dreamin' you're alive. And that's what my son Bibbs has been doin' all his life, and what he'd rather do now than go out and do his part by me. And if anything happens to Roscoe--”
”Oh, do stop worryin' over such nonsense,” Mrs. Sheridan interrupted, irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment. ”There isn't anything goin' to happen to Roscoe, and you're just tormentin' yourself about nothin'. Aren't you EVER goin' to bed?”
Sheridan halted. ”All right, mamma,” he said, with a vast sigh. ”Let's go up.” And he snapped off the electric light, leaving only the rosy glow of the fire.
”Did you speak to Roscoe?” she yawned, rising lopsidedly in her drowsiness. ”Did you mention about what I told you the other evening?”
”No. I will to-morrow.”
But Roscoe did not come down-town the next day, nor the next; nor did Sheridan see fit to enter his son's house. He waited. Then, on the fourth day of the month, Roscoe walked into his father's office at nine in the morning, when Sheridan happened to be alone.
”They told me down-stairs you'd left word you wanted to see me.”
”Sit down,” said Sheridan, rising.
Roscoe sat. His father walked close to him, sniffed suspiciously, and then walked away, smiling bitterly. ”Boh!” he exclaimed. ”Still at it!”
”Yes,” said Roscoe. ”I've had a couple of drinks this morning. What about it?”
”I reckon I better adopt some decent young man,” his father returned.
”I'd bring Bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit. I would!”
”Better do it,” Roscoe a.s.sented, sullenly.
”When'd you begin this thing?”
”I always did drink a little. Ever since I grew up, that is.”
”Leave that talk out! You know what I mean.”
”Well, I don't know as I ever had too much in office hours--until the other day.”
Sheridan began cutting. ”It's a lie. I've had Ray Wills up from your office. He didn't want to give you away, but I put the hooks into him, and he came through. You were drunk twice before and couldn't work. You been leavin' your office for drinks every few hours for the last three weeks. I been over your books. Your office is way behind. You haven't done any work, to count, in a month.”
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