Dangerous Days Part 6

In his office in the mill administration building, he found the general manager waiting. Through the door into the conference room beyond he could see the superintendents of the various departments, with Graham rather aloof and detached, and a sprinkling of the most important foremen. On his desk, neatly machined, was the first tentative sh.e.l.l-case made in the mill machine-shop, an experiment rather than a realization.

Hutchinson, the general manager, was not alone. Opposite him, very neatly dressed in his best clothes, his hat in his hand and a set expression on his face, was one of the boss rollers of the steel mill, Herman Klein. At Clayton's entrance he made a motion to depart, but Hutchinson stopped him.

"Tell Mr. Spencer what you've been telling me, Klein," he said curtly.

Klein fingered his hat, but his face remained set.

"I've just been saying, Mr. Spencer," he said, in good English, but with the guttural accent which thirty years in America had not eliminated, "that I'll be leaving you now."

"Leaving! Why?"

"Because of that!" He pointed, without intentional drama, at the sh.e.l.l-case. "I can't make those sh.e.l.ls for you, Mr. Spencer, and me a German."

"You're an American, aren't you?"

"I am, sir. It is not that. It iss that I--" His face worked. He had dropped back to the old idiom, after years of painful struggle to abandon it. "It iss that I am a German, also. I have people there, in the war. To make sh.e.l.ls to kill them--no."

"He is determined, Mr. Spencer," said Hutchinson. "I have been arguing with him, but--you can't argue with a German."

Clayton was uneasily aware of something like sympathy for the man.

"I understand how you feel, Klein," he observed. "But of course you know, whether you go or stay, the sh.e.l.ls will be made, anyhow."

"I know that."

"You are throwing up a good position."

"I'll try to get another."

The prospective loss of Klein was a rather serious one. Clayton, seated behind his great desk, eyed him keenly, and then stooped to bribery. He mentioned a change in the wage scale, with bonuses to all foremen and rollers. He knew Klein's pride in the mill, and he outlined briefly the growth that was about to be developed. But the boss roller remained obdurate. He understood that such things were to be, but it was not necessary that he a.s.sist Germany's enemies against her. Against the determination in his heavy square figure Clayton argued in vain. When, ten minutes later, he went into the conference room, followed by a secretary with a sheaf of papers, the mill was minus a boss roller, and there was rankling in his mind Klein's last words.

"I haf no objection, Mr. Spencer, to your making money out of this war, but I will not."

There had been no insolence in his tone. He had gone out, with his heavy German stolidity of mien unchanged, and had closed the door behind him with quiet finality.

CHAPTER IV

Graham left the conference that morning in a rather exalted mood. The old mill was coming into its own at last. He had a sense of boyish triumph in the new developments, a feeling of being a part of big activities that would bring rich rewards. And he felt a new pride in his father. He had sat, a little way from the long table, and had watched the faces of the men gathered about it as clearly and forcibly the outlines of the new departure were given out. Hitherto "Spencer's" had made steel only. Now, they were not only to make the steel, but they were to forge the ingots into rough casts; these casts were then to be carried to the new munition works, there to be machined, drilled, polished, provided with fuses, which "Spencer's" were also to make, and s.h.i.+pped abroad.

The question of speeding production had been faced and met. The various problems had been discussed and the bonus system tentatively taken up.

Then the men had dispersed, each infected with the drive of his father's contagious force. "Pretty fine old boy," Graham had considered. And he wondered vaguely if, when his time came, he would be able to take hold.

For a few minutes Natalie's closetings lost their effect. He saw his father, not as one from whom to hide extravagance and unpaid bills, but as the head of a great concern that was now to be a part of the war itself. He wandered into his father's office, and picked up the sh.e.l.l.

Clayton was already at his letters, but looked up.

"Think we rather had them, eh, Graham?"

"Think you did, sir. Carried them off their feet. Pretty, isn't it?" He held up the sh.e.l.l-case. "If a fellow could only forget what the d.a.m.ned things are for!"

"They are to help to end the war," said Clayton, crisply. "Don't forget that, boy." And went back to his steady dictation.

Graham went out of the building into the mill yard. The noise always irritated him. He had none of Clayton's joy and understanding of it.

To Clayton each sound had its corresponding activity. To Graham it was merely din, an annoyance to his ears, as the mill yard outraged his fastidiousness. But that morning he found it rather more bearable. He stooped where, in front of the store, the storekeeper had planted a tiny garden. Some small late-blossoming chrysanthemums were still there and he picked one and put it in his b.u.t.tonhole.

His own office was across the yard. He dodged in front of a yard locomotive, picked his way about ma.s.ses of lumber and the general litter of all mill yards, and opened the door of his own building. Just inside his office a girl was sitting on a straight chair, her hat a trifle crooked, and her eyes red from crying. He paused in amazement.

"Why, Miss Klein!" he said. "What's the matter?"

She was rather a pretty girl, even now. She stood up at his voice and made an effort to straighten her hat.

"Haven't you heard?" she asked.

"I haven't heard anything that ought to make Miss Anna Klein weep of a nice, frosty morning in October. Unless--" he sobered, for her grief was evident. "Tell me about it."

"Father has given up his job."

"No!"!

"I'm telling you, Mr. Spencer. He won't help to make those sh.e.l.ls. He's been acting queer for three or four days and this morning he told your father."

Graham whistled.

"As if it made any difference," she went on irritably. "Some one else will get his job. That's all. What does he care about the Germans? He left them and came to America as soon as he could walk."

Graham sat down.

"Now let's get this," he said. "He won't make sh.e.l.ls for the Allies and so he's given up his position. All right. That's bad, but he's a good workman. He'll not have any trouble getting another job. Now, why are you crying?"

"I didn't think you'd want me to stay on."

Putting her fear into words brought back her long hours of terror. She collapsed into the chair again and fell to unquiet sobbing. Graham was disturbed.

"You're a queer girl," he said. "Why should that lose me my most valued a.s.sistant?"

When she made no reply he got up and going over to her put a hand on her shoulder. "Tell me that," he said.

He looked down at her. The hair grew very soft and blonde at the nape of her neck, and he ran a finger lightly across it. "Tell me that."

"I was afraid it would."

"And, even if it had, which you are a goose for thinking, you're just as good in your line as your father is in his. I've been expecting any time to hear of your leaving me for a handsomer man!"

He had been what he would have termed jollying her back to normality again. But to his intense surprise she suddenly leaned back and looked up into his face. There was no doubting what he saw there. Just for a moment the situation threatened to get out of hand. Then he patted her shoulders and put the safety of his desk between them.

"Run away and bathe your eyes," he said, "and then come back here looking like the best secretary in the state, and not like a winter thaw. We have the deuce of a lot of work to do."

But after she had gone he sat for some little time idly rapping a pencil on the top of his desk. By Jove! Anna Klein! Of all girls in the world!