“I see nothing odd in a telegram for you.”
“I mean in the telegram itself.”
“I could not answer that unless I saw it.”
“Of course,” said Harvey with a laugh, wheeling about in his chair and picking up one of the yellow slips of paper which the Western Union furnishes its patrons gratis.
“There, read that,” he added, passing it to Hugh O’Hara, who looked at it with no little curiosity.
It was dated in the city of New York and signed by Johnson W. Bradley, father of Harvey, and President of the Rollo Mills Company. This was the body of the telegram:
“Don’t lose sight of the interests of your men. Before hiring other hands try arbitration.”
“That is rather odd,” said Hugh; leaning forward, so as to hand the telegram back to his employer, “but it is sound wisdom all the same.”
“Undoubtedly; but are you convinced that I agree to your terms not because of gratitude, but because I believe them right?”
“I am satisfied,” said Hugh; “have you sent the notice to the hands?”
“Yes. I wonder that you did not hear of it on the way here.”
Hugh smiled.
“Of course I heard of it. I knew it long ago, but I did not know why you had decided to restore our time to what it was and to pay the same wages; that I have learned from yourself. And now that you have done your part so well,” added Hugh, rising to leave, “I assure you that we shall do ours; we shall give you the best service we can. No one shall misinterpret your action or try to take advantage of it.”
The superintendent was wise enough to avoid a mistake to which persons, placed as was he, are liable—that is, he did not overdo his part. He was so happy over the return of his little sister that he was willing not only to give the old wages and time asked for by his employes, but he felt like adding to them. He meant to make the pay of O’Hara greater than before, but changed his purpose at the last moment.
Had he added to the pay of his chief foreman it would have changed the ratio between that and the wages of the others, unless theirs, too, was increased. In that event, a reproof was likely to come from the directors, and he would find it hard to retrace his steps.
Justice called for him to do just what he had done; it would be weak to do more. “Hugh,” said he, also rising to his feet, “I am not quite through with you; I am now going to ask you to do me a favor.”
“I guess it’s safe to promise in advance that I will do it—that is, of course, if it be in my power to do it.”
“It is in your power. Last night, when I was in the woods near your cabin, I noticed a strange odor in the air; I could not imagine its cause, but I know now what it was.”
“What was it?” asked O’Hara, turning crimson.
“You and some of your friends have been illicitly making whiskey. You have a distillery somewhere in the mountains, and, while working in the mills during the day, you have taken turns in running the still at night. I will not ask you to tell me how long you have been doing this, but you know as well as I that it is a crime.”
The two men were silent a moment and then Hugh, without any appearance of agitation, said:
“You have spoken the truth; the still was not more than a hundred feet from the cabin, and caused the smell you noticed.”
“How could you three attend to it when you were in the cabin?”
“Some one was generally close by. The pipe that carried off the fumes ran into the chimney of our cabin and mixed with the smoke. We took turns in looking after it. Tom and I had been there earlier in the evening, and Jack was to look in now and then against our coming back. But,” added Hugh, “you said you had a favor to ask of me.”
“So I have; I ask you to destroy that still, root and branch, and never take a hand in anything of the kind again.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Why not? You are engaged in breaking the laws of your country, for which there is a severe penalty. Now that you will have steady work, you cannot make the plea that would have been yours if the strike continued. Why can’t you do as I ask you to do?”
“Because it has already been done. After I got back to the cabin last night, Tom and Jack and I went out and wound up the business. The worm has been thrown down the rocks, where it can never be found, the mash has been scattered to the four winds, and everything smashed to general flinders. It took us nearly to daylight to finish it, but we stuck to it till the job was done.”
“I am delighted to hear that, what was the cause of all this?”
“I guess it must have been the little arbitrator,” said O’Hara, with a smile; “they say that when a man does a bad act he feels like doing others. That may or may not be true, but I know that when a man does a good deed, the impulse to do more is awakened, and whatever good there is in him is strengthened. I have been a bad man; I grew desperate after the death of Jennie; but when I held your Dollie in my arms it seemed that some of her goodness found its way into my heart. I resolved with the help of heaven to be a better man. The first step toward becoming so was to stop the unlawful work in which I had been engaged only a short time.
“I thought that Tom and Jack would make trouble, but I didn’t care, for I could manage them. To my surprise, however, they seemed to feel just as I did. So they fell to work with a will, and the job couldn’t have been done more thoroughly. Now, if you will allow me to kiss Dollie, who has come back, I will bid you both good day.”
Harvey Bradley shook hands with his visitor, during which he handed him a liberal sum of money for Tom Hansell, who had taken part in the search for Dollie. He sent naught to Jack, for he deserved none. Then he went with Hugh to the outer door, giving him a number of encouraging words on the way.
The whistle of the Rollo Mills never screeched more cheerily than it did the next morning, and there was never a happier band of employes than the 300, young and old, who took their places again in the works.
A short time afterward Harvey Bradley opened and furnished a room where the best of reading was given free to all who chose to accept the privilege. Still later in the season a night school was started, and the skilled teacher who took charge was liberally paid by the board of directors, who never made a better investment of money.
The interest shown by the superintendent in the welfare of his employes proved to be seed sowed in good ground. All wrought faithfully and well, and when on the 1st of January the balance sheet was made up, lo! the net profits of the Rollo Mills were greater than ever before.
IN THE NICK OF TIME.
It may sound like slander for me to say that the elephant, which is admittedly one of the most intelligent members of the animal creation, is also one of the most vicious and treacherous. But it is a fact all the same. I have seen one of those beasts, that had been fed and treated with the greatest kindness for years by his keeper, turn upon him like a tiger, and, seizing him with that wonderful trunk of his, dash him to death before he could do more than utter a cry of protest and terror.
I have seen another, after waiting weeks for the opportunity, suddenly grasp an innocent person, and, kneeling upon him with his beam-like legs, knead him out of all semblance of humanity.
Columbus, who was the main attraction of Barnum’s establishment some forty years ago, killed several keepers, and was likely to start on one of his terrible rampages at any moment. The giving away of a bridge in New England so injured him that he died, long before any of my young readers were born.
An elephant, fully as bad as Columbus, was Vladdok, who was brought to this country when quite young. A glimpse at his enormous ears told his African nativity at once, those from Asia and Ceylon having much smaller ears. He belonged to the old traveling circus of Blarcom & Burton, and made several journeys through our country in the days when those establishments found no use for the railways, but patiently plodded from town to town, delighting the hearts and eyes of our grandfathers and grandmothers when they were children just as we are now.<
br />
Vladdok had killed two keepers, besides badly wounding a couple of spectators in Memphis, when he yielded to one of his vicious moods. He had been fired upon and wounded more times than any one could remember, and Mr. Blarcom, who always traveled with his show, had been on the point more than once of ordering his destruction; but he was of such large size and possessed such extraordinary intelligence, that he constituted the main attraction of the exhibition and he hesitated, well aware that sooner or later, the wicked fellow would die “with his boots on.”
It was after an afternoon performance in one of the Western States that Vladdok indulged in his last rampage. His sagacious keeper had come to understand the animal so well, that he knew the outbreak was coming. While Vladdok was unusually tractable and obedient, there was a dangerous glitter in his small eyes, and an occasional nervous movement of his head, which proved that he was only biding his time and waiting for the grand chance to present itself.
Fortunately, he did not rebel until after the exhibition was over, and the crowds had departed. Then, with a fierce trumpeting and one vast shiver of his enormous bulk, he made a dash which snapped his chains like so much whip-cord and went through the side of the tent as though it were cardboard.
On his wild charge, which set all the rest of the animals in a panic, he reached for his keeper, who with prodding spear and shouts, interposed himself in his path and tried to check him. But the man’s inimitable dexterity and good fortune enabled him to dodge the beast and escape by a hair’s breadth. The next minute, the elephant reached the public highway, down which he swung awkwardly but swiftly, on an excursion that was destined to be the most tragic in his whole career.
The first object on which he vented his wrath was a team of horses, driven by a farmer, whose wife was sitting beside him on the front seat. Neither they nor the team knew their danger until the avalanche of fury was upon them. The animals screamed in an agony of fright, and were rearing and plunging, when Vladdok grasped one with his trunk, lifted him in the air and dashed him to death. The other broke loose and plunged off at such headlong speed, that the elephant followed him only a few paces, when he turned to attack the man and woman.
But they were nowhere in sight, and, with a trumpet of disgust, he wheeled about, and turning from the highway, took to the woods.
The couple were saved by a singular occurrence. The violent rearing and backing of the horses overturned the wagon body, and the farmer and his better half were caught beneath it, before they could escape. They had sense enough to remain quiet, until the brute left, when they crept out, none the worse for their mishap.
“Consarn his pictur!” exclaimed the husband; “if that don’t beat all creation! I allers said that circuses and shows was a burnin’ shame, and now I know it; I’ll make the owner of that elephant pay ten thousand dollars for the damage he done us, for he scart you and me so bad Betsy, that we’ll never grow another inch.”
Meanwhile, the runaway kept things moving. He knew his keeper and attendants were hot on his trail, and his sudden change of course was undoubtedly with a view of misleading them. It is hardly to be supposed that he expected to find any “game” in the woods, but nevertheless he did.
It so happened that Jack Norton and Billy Wiggins, a couple of boys not more than fourteen years of age, were engaged on a little hunt that same afternoon. The teachers had sent such bad reports home about them that their parents inflicted the most awful kind of punishment; they did not permit them to attend the circus, to which they had been looking forward for weeks. The father of Billy was specially stern, and forbade his hopeful to take his gun, when he joined Jack on a little hunting ramble in the woods. Mr. Norton felt some slight compunctions, when he noted how patiently his boy accepted his fate, and relented to that degree that he permitted him to take his rifle, though he knew there was little chance of his securing any game.
The boys had walked about a mile, and, coming to a fallen tree, sat down to rest awhile, for the day was warm and the gun which they had taken turns in carrying, was heavy.
“I guess this hunt ain’t agoin’ to amount to much,” sighed Jack, as he leaned the rifle against the prostrate trunk, on which they were seated.
“Why not?” asked Billy.
“’Cause there ain’t nothin’ to hunt; I heerd Budge Jones say that when he was a boy, these woods used to be full of bears and deers and tigers and lions and giraffes and that sort of thing.”
“Yes, and the folks were so mean they killed ’em all, but I’ve the idea, Jack, that maybe some of the lions or tigers has hid somewhere in the woods and we might find ’em.”
“Golly! I don’t know whether I’d want to find ’em or not,” replied
Jack, looking about him, with a scared expression.
“Why not? Hain’t you got a gun?”
“Yes, but while I was killin’ one the others might chaw me all to pieces; but if there was only one, I wouldn’t care, if he was an elephant as big as a barn—”
“My gracious! there he comes!”
A terrific crashing of the undergrowth caused both lads to glance affrightedly behind them, and there, sure enough, was Vladdok, the fearful elephant, almost upon them. They started to run, their courses so diverging that the beast was forced to select one and let the other alone for the moment. He fixed upon Billy Wiggins, who had taken barely twenty steps, when the trunk of the beast inclosed his waist and he was lifted, as if he was a feather from the ground, and the next instant he felt himself whizzing through space.
A marvelous providence saved him. Instead of dashing him against a tree, or upon the ground, the elephant, in one of his mad freaks, flung him from him as though he was a ball. He spun through the air, the leaves and limbs whizzing against his face and body, and instinctively clutching with both hands, succeeded in grasping enough branches to support the weight of his body and check his descent.
Then, when he collected his senses and stared around, he found that he was a dozen yards above the ground, with the elephant beneath, looking up, and apparently waiting for him to fall within his reach, that he might finish him.
“Not much,” muttered Billy; “I’m going to stay here and I don’t believe you know how to climb a tree. Helloa! how do you like that?”
Jack Norton had dashed only a few yards, when the terrified look he cast over his shoulder told him the elephant was giving his whole attention to Billy, and seemed to have forgotten all about him. Instantly he was filled with alarm for his young friend, and started back to the log to get his rifle, that neither had thought of in the panic.
As he knelt behind the fallen tree, to make his aim sure, he descried a queer object going through the limbs of a large oak, and did not identify it, until it lodged fast, as his friend Billy Wiggins.
Jack had no more idea of the fatal point at which to aim his weapon than you have, but knowing that he must do something, and, with a dread that the elephant after all, might succeed in climbing the oak and getting at his friend, he let fly.
Gordon Cumming himself could not have done better. The tiny bullet bored its way into the vast bulk, just back of the fore leg and went directly through the heart. The huge brute, as if conscious that he was mortally hurt, swung part way round, so as to face the point whence the shot had come. Catching sight of the kneeling youngster, with the muzzle of his rifle still smoking, he plunged toward him. He took a couple of steps, swayed to one side, moved uncertainly forward again, then stopped, tried to steady himself, and finally went over sideways, like a mountain, crashing the saplings and undergrowth near him, and snapping one of his magnificent tusks into splinters. He was dead.
When the boys fully comprehended what had taken place, they were not a little alarmed and puzzled, and started home, wondering whether their game was a descendant of the creatures that used to inhabit that section, or whether he was a visitor to these parts. They had not gone far, however, when they met the attaches of the menagerie and circus to whom they related what had occurred.
The proprietors were relieved on learning the whole truth, for there could be little doubt that the sudden ending of the career of Vladdok was the means of saving more than one person from death.
As for Jack Norton and Billy Wiggins, it was generally conceded that they spoke the truth, when they declared:
“Our fathers wouldn’t let us go to the circus that afternoon, but I guess we had a bigger circus than any of you all to ourselves.”
LOST IN THE SOUTH SEA.
Captain William Gooding was commander of the Tewksbury Sweet, of Portland, Maine, and was lost in the South Pacific in the spring of 1889. This fine American bark sailed from New Castle, New South Wales, on the 17th of March, bound for Hong Kong. Everything went well until the 9th of the following month, when she encountered a severe gale. Despite all that skillful seamanship could do, and in the face of the most strenuous exertions, she struck the dangerous Susanne Reef, near Poseat Island, one of the Caroline group of the South Sea.
The wreck was a total one. The vessel broke up rapidly, and seeing that nothing could be done, the captain and crew, numbering ten men in all, took to one of the boats, carrying with them only a single chronometer belonging to the ship. Even after entering the small boat they were still in great danger, and only succeeded after the utmost difficulty in reaching a small islet some miles to the southward. The storm was still raging so violently that the shelter was a most welcome one, though as there were no animals or vegetation, or even water upon the island, their stay of necessity could be only temporary. They had saved nothing to eat or drink, and to remain where they were meant a lingering death.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 12
