The Boss's Boy

by Roy F. Chandler

  "I guess they told you that I knocked his jab downward with my left forearm and kept going with a straight right to his chin. His whole body was moving forward behind his jab, and he walked right into it."

  Matt shook his head grimly and fingered a pair of swollen knuckles. "If the Baron has a left hand punch, I never saw it."

  Then with a grin, "I'd hate to meet Von Haas with a saber in his fist. My guess is that wherever he came from he was known as a ferocious sword fighter."

  China stayed sober. "I asked around—as you should have before you jumped into the square. Fist fighting a man you never saw before and know nothing about is a sucker's game."

  Matt said, "I got a good look at him while he was knocking out our Irishmen."

  Smith sighed and explained what he had learned. "Deiter Von Haas has a town named after his family. They are richer than Midas, but Deiter, who is now the family head, has a wandering streak. For the moment, he lives and works with the other Dutchmen living along the creek, but he will move on to see what he can see.

  "Did you notice the scars along his hairline? Haas attended a university in Heidelberg, Germany. The German I talked with does not know the details, but Von Haas dueled in some ancient clubs they have. Those sword fighters get scars like Haas has."

  Matt interrupted, "Here comes Pa up the path, China. I've got to get ready for him. All I've got to add about the Baron is that I hope I won't be fighting him again." Matt considered for a minute.

  "The fact is, I sort of like Von Haas. He has a personal dignity that makes a bout more of a contest and less of a fight to the finish. I like that attitude."

  Smith leaned out the office door to judge the Boss's progress up the hill. "When your father gets here, you be quiet and humble. I've softened him up by explaining how you almost had to jump in to defend the Irish Miller Men who were getting whipped one after another. I made it sound like an honorable team sort of thing, Matt. Don't mess up my story."

  If China Smith had softened the Boss, young Matt would not have wished to sit through his father's stronger commentary. Matt Miller senior laid his tongue powerfully on his wayward son.

  Low class, stupid, trashy, and a complete embarrassment to Miller Enterprises were included before big Matt really got down to it.

  Young Matt had fought his last bare knuckle mill, and young Matt had better damned well turn in some serious profit from his lackadaisical, half-baked poking around with coal and plank-making or he would find himself bent over a pick and shovel until hell turned cold. Furthermore . . . the Boss's Boy got the idea.

  Lukey Bates did not appear after church, and the two Millers and China had the office to themselves. It was mid-afternoon before young Matt believed the office temperament was right to draw his father and China Smith into conversation about a new idea or two that he wanted them to consider.

  Matt said, "I was out at the work camp early this morning, Pa."

  He was interrupted. "Basking in glory from having punched another man's face?"

  "No Pa." Matt thought it best not to pursue that direction.

  "I was studying on how they are living out there because I have an idea that could make a profit as well as improve some other things harder to measure."

  Profit always interested big Matt. The Boss's Boy felt able to continue.

  "Most of those people are living poor and winter is closing in. Their tents and shanties are shabby protection against the cold, and none of them could afford better lodging, even if there was any around here."

  China interrupted. "Most of them will leave when the freeze comes, Matt. There won't be any work here and little anywhere else. They go down to the cities and pile in with relatives or friends. If many of them have been able to put away money to hold them over, I will be surprised."

  "I know that, China. When I was helping Uncle Brascomb, I watched poor people flood into the city every winter, and that was the beginning of my idea."

  Big Matt's eyebrows rose, before his eyes squinted at the "helping" part, but he said nothing.

  Little Matt decided to back up a little and develop his explanation about as he had been working at it.

  "I've been stacking every log I could get from the river. You've no doubt noticed."

  Of course they had. Lukey Bates complained about money going out to men dragging river logs behind Halderman's Island and nothing coming in from it. It was clear to everybody else that little Matt would run the sawmill most of the winter, and their profit would come in the spring. So?

  Matt continued in a rush. "My plan is to talk the Irishmen into building themselves hotels where they can live for very little money all of the time."

  The boss began to bristle, and Matt guessed he had better hurry on.

  "My idea is that I—we, that is—would make the mill available to them to saw the lumber they will need for their lodgings. They will mill and carpenter without pay, but when they get shelter built, they will be able to live inside for almost nothing—maybe a nickel or a dime a day.

  "For Miller Men, we could hold off on the rent money until they are working for us again in the spring. Other people, if the Irish build enough places for others, would have to pay as they go—by the week maybe."

  No one said anything, but Matt could tell that his father was churning the numbers in his mind.

  "Pa, you own that land just upriver. It's flat and there are already two wells dug there, so we know water will be handy. That is the perfect place to put in a row of workers' hotels.

  "We will make some profit from the workmen paying for their lodging all winter, and if we opened a little Miller Company store where they could buy flour and meal, maybe bread, bacon, and other necessities—all to be paid in the spring when they are at work again, we might find some real profit."

  Still no one said anything, and his father was quick to shut down ideas he did not like. Matt thought the silence to be a positive sign.

  He quickly added, "Remember that we will own the hotels and that we got them almost for free." Big Matt should like that part.

  Matt added more. "Keeping our Miller Men close will be valuable when the cold leaves, Pa. If we don't hold them here, some of the best will find other work—like they do every year, and the rest will straggle back in no order at all. That could delay starting early when the best deals can be made—like before-filling canal work, and . . ."

  Big Matt said, "Go on," but the son had almost run out. He sought clinchers, but he had proposed the heart of his plan. If that didn't sell? Well, he did have a few more points.

  "I was talking to Mrs. Black off and on." China moved as if uncomfortable, and Matt wondered about that, but he continued.

  "I suggested that if—just in case you understand—we built hotels like I have been describing, we might hire her to do some cooking out there. Men come up with a dime or two for decent meals now and then, and providing a hot supper might do best.

  "If it didn't work out, no one would be out anything, but I suspect the restaurant business could work along with our store and make a profit. If the store had a warm stove that men could come in and sit around during the cold months, we might stock plug tobacco for them and crackers and cheeses, and maybe . . ."

  Big Matt raised a hand, and Matt stopped in mid-sentence. The father dragged out his watch. "How long is this explanation, Matt? Your mention of Mrs. Black's cooking awakened my appetite."

  "Only a little more, Pa." Matt hurried on. "The rivers will not be frozen most of the time, and that means logs will keep coming down. If I can have my men on the river, we will get all of the logs because everybody else will be gone to the city or holed up keeping warm. If we can‘t get them, the high water will take the logs over the dam, and they will be gone.

  "If other people do collect logs, I could even refuse to buy them, and they haven't anyone else to sell to—so, I will at least get their logs really cheap. If some of our men are paid this winter for gathering logs, they will spend most of their money in our new ho
tels or in our new store, and we will get a lot of it back.

  "And Pa, as long as I can keep the mill stream flowing, we can cut and store boards for spring shipping, and . . ."

  This time it was China who held up a restraining palm. "The Captain can work out the rest of it, Matt. Let's go down to Mrs. Black's and eat. That will give us all time to think about your scheming, and we can talk about it later."

  Matt had about run down anyway, but he, also, would think while eating, and when the other men were ready, he would be again armed with powerful arguments.

  His plan was sound, and, except for pure stubbornness (and maybe a little exasperation at his box fighting), his father would have no counter-arguments. Instead of wasted months, the winter began to sound interesting.

  Chapter 10

  Before the hotels proposition could be further discussed, the Captain's immense safe arrived. The vault was a monster of a steel box; rivets lined every joint, and the entire mass was banded with a dozen thick, wrought iron straps, each of which was forged into an endless box pattern re-enforcing the safe on all sides except the door.

  Both Millers were impressed. The safe lay on its back, but they judged the massive recessed door to stand nearly seven feet high. Because of its weight, the door's thickness could not be examined until the safe was upright, but a brass-faced combination lock and an inch-thick steel opening handle promised that the door would also be nearly impregnable.

  The safe had been shipped via canal boat, but John McFee's crew levered the immense weight onto a flat-decked barge and maneuvered the awkward load down the Susquehanna River until it was beached below the Miller Headquarters.

  Boat anchors were planted uphill from the boat, and China Smith oversaw the rigging of ropes and pulleys to be drawn tight by a number of oxen. Planks were laid to guide the great safe ashore. When the oxen leaned into their yokes, the iron mass slid easily onto the bank and, assisted by multiple log rollers, began plowing its way across Water Street and almost to the buried anchors.

  The remainder was routine. The anchors were repositioned further uphill, the oxen pulled, and the safe moved ever closer to the headquarters building. Once on site, the laborers worried the safe into its final rest using iron wedges to tip the safe before heaving mightily against long steel wrecking bars until the vault edged ahead.

  Limestone foundation stones had been long in place waiting for the safe's arrival, and workmen heaved the massive box erect and carefully leveled while a removed wall of the building was being replaced. Only then, did the Captain twirl the brass knob and apply the secret combination.

  The Millers and China Smith were privy to the opening, and only the three would know the combination. Lukey Bates was trusted, but big Matt saw no reason for the clerk to be involved. Bandits had been known to kidnap officials and force them to open their vaults. The fewer who knew the combination of the Millers' safe, the more secure the contents would be.

  Big Matt allowed everyone interested to examine the inside of the vault. The three-inch thick door with steel rods that turned into the adjoining steel walls would be noted and spoken about. Casual attack by some fool with a keg of blasting powder might be deterred.

  It had been an exciting day with many visitations and shared admiration for the strongest safe any had ever seen. Before they closed for the night, a number of Petersburg residents had asked to have their money and important papers stored in the new vault.

  The Captain agreed in principle but required that they wait a few days until he had determined the proper—if small—charge he would levy for the protection of people's valuables.

  Little Matt realized that by most measures, they had just become bankers. His father had a knack for making money, and the son wondered if he could perform similarly. He supposed that with his river logs, his mill, and his coal, he, to some small degree, already had.

  Maybe some of big Matt's entrepreneurial traits had been passed to him. That awareness felt good, and the Boss's Boy went to sleep comforted that the future held possibilities yet undiscovered.

  Then it all went bad.

  John McFee died in his sleep. There was no understandable explanation. Mother McFee had turned to her husband, and the family head was simply dead. In an instant, the McFee family had moved from comfortable living to the edge of poverty. Young Mickey McFee could not yet earn the wage of his father, and he was now the family's only provider. The mother and sister's sewing and patching pittances suddenly loomed important.

  Winter was coming, and work would be scarce. Some of the best workers would be kept on, of course. Young Matt Miller hoped his father would count Mickey McFee among them.

  There was Mickey's income from bare-fist fighting, but unless a fighter was a champion in a large city, there was little money to be made. The Boss's Boy doubted that Mickey, the courageous slugger, could rise to those heights.

  There was nothing more to add.

  Most came to see John McFee properly interred in the local cemetery, and someone was chipping at a stone to be placed at the gravesite.

  Life was difficult for laborers. All lived close to the bone with few resources to fall back on. Young Matt wondered if the McFees could now afford their comfortable two-room lodging near the hotel.

  He resolved to purchase new pants and a winter coat from Mother McFee. His father gave him little money because he had not needed or cared much about having cash in his pocket. Maybe he should carry a few dollars, so that he could pitch in where it might really be needed.

  As work was already slowing, big Matt brought Alex Donovan in to boss the suddenly leaderless headquarters gang. Donovan was known as a driver, but the Miller Men would work extra or harder to stay on over the frozen months.

  There was no greener grass just over the horizon for laborers. Men usually moved on during the summers when work could sometimes be plentiful, and a workman had opportunities to find a job and adjust to a new situation.

  Irish workers were notorious for always moving west. Men who had seemed settled in and part of the Miller team too often shouldered their few belongings and headed for the farthest frontier—where opportunity might be better.

  Big Matt said it never was better, but many had to learn that for themselves. The Captain claimed that a man could make it just about as well and as often in one place as another. The man who worked hardest, smartest, and longest got ahead, he stated.

  Watching who worked as his father described, young Matt came to accept the idea, but misfortunes, like John McFee's unexpected death, showed that fate also had a hand, and Matt could only hope that good luck would keep coming their way.

  When he was ready to talk about hotel building, the Captain included Alex Donovan and Lukey Bates. Big Matt called them together, and simply said, "Matt has a proposal that interests me. He can explain it, and you can all comment. If you approve, we will begin with the first freeze." Then he sat back, and Matt had the floor.

  Where to begin? Matt had not expected his father to just drop the load on him. He had visualized hours of mutual planning and discussion—even then, he had supposed big Matt would have handled details. Well, he always wanted to be in charge, and this was his idea. Matt began.

  "Except for a few older men with families and a few foremen who are better paid, our workers are living poor." Matt could sense a ‘So what is new about that' feeling, and he hurried on.

  "My plan is to have our best men begin sawing boards preparing to put up a number of worker lodgings. We can call them hotels for lack of a better description. There will be no direct payment involved. The idea is that we will let the men who are going to live in the buildings use the mill for free. They will use logs we have stored, and they will have to plan and construct the buildings they believe will best serve them. The hotels will be raised on the Miller land just beyond town.

  "Those who build will be allowed to live in the buildings without cost through this winter. All others, and we must have room for about two dozen others, will pa
y ten cents a day for their lodging. If they are Miller Men, their payment can be deferred until they are again at work. Otherwise, rent will be collected once each week. No rent, no shelter. That will be the deal.

  "After this winter, everyone will pay the same—whatever we decide is right.

  "Now, understand that the Miller Company will own the hotels. The builders and occupants are only renters. I believe that everyone will gain through this venture. The first gain will be by Miller Men who choose to help in construction. They will have free housing through the freeze up."

  Matt tried to judge the effect of his words on Bates and Donovan, who had not heard them before. Neither gave any discernible clues. So, Matt went on.

  "I also plan to have the hotel builders establish a small store, perhaps within one of the hotels. The store will offer staples and probably a common room where hotel occupants can sit to eat and converse. A large stove will be provided, but if they wish to enjoy the stove, the hotel occupiers will have to collect the wood and feed the flames.

  "Miller Men will have store credit payable in the spring when they return to work. Others will pay cash or barter.

  "Finally, I intend to provide a one-meal-a-day food service where men can purchase an evening meal. Payment for meals will be handled the same as shelter. Whether meals will continue once warm weather returns will be determined by the demand."

  Matt hesitated before adding, "It might turn out that lunches might be packed for men to carry to work. We might even . . ." He decided to halt his dreaming.

  Lukey Bates asked, "How do we know that most of the men who pay nothing all winter will not depart for other jobs when the weather breaks?"

  Matt was ready for that question because the answer had plagued him since first imagining the hotels.

  Matt said, "We will improve our chances of getting our money in two ways. First, those men who winter with us will be assured by us of work as soon as our spring hiring begins.

  "Second, I will depend on Alex Donovan to choose men who are honest and dependable. I assume those men will have a record of work with us and provide indications that they will remain with the company for some time to come.