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.