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.