L. Frank Baum

“ Mary Louise was nearer Will’s age than Annabel, being now fifteen and almost on the verge of young womanhood. And Annabel, although little more than a year her junior, had until now been considered merely a romping, careless girl, although it was true she was scarcely behind her sister in the high school classes. Big Will Carden, taller at sixteen than Mr. Williams himself, and strong and manly in build, seemed so much older and more matured than Annabel that it was really absurd for Reginald to couple their names, even in a joking way. ”

“ Jordan made no reply. But he stared at his employer with eyes so full of horror that his sincerity was very evident.
“I sell the secret to others!” he exclaimed, at last. “Why, it would ruin me. Do you accuse me of being a fool, sir, as well as a scoundrel?”
“All scoundrels are fools,” returned Mr. Williams, dryly. ”

“ By this time the other children had discovered Will’s presence and with a wild whoop of greeting they raced to his side and squatted around him on the lawn, curiously watching to see how he would mend the doll. Theodore was about Will’s own age, but much shorter and inclined to stoutness. His face habitually wore a serious expression and he was very quiet and stolid of demeanor. ”

“ After supper his custom was to take a long walk down the country lane, returning by a roundabout way to shut himself in his room, whence he only emerged in time for breakfast. After that meal, which he ate alone, he would take a little lunch basket and stalk solemnly away to the mills, there to direct the clerical work that came under his supervision.
Mr. Jordan was a man greatly respected, but little liked. He had no friends, no companions whatever, and seemed to enjoy the clock-like regularity and solitude in which he lived. ”

“ At once they all moved over to the center of the lawn, where a big kite lay with tangled cord and frazzled tail face downward upon the grass.
“It keeps ducking, and won’t go up,” explained Reginald, eagerly.
“The tail seems too long,” said Mary Louise.
“Or else the cord isn’t fastened in the right place,” added Theodore. “We’ve been working at it all morning; but it won’t fly.”
“Guess it’s a ground-kite,” remarked Annabel, demurely. “It slides on the grass all right.” ”

“ Will laughed.
“How’s Annabel?” he asked.
“As good as ever. Why did you pull her out so quick, you young rascal? Don’t you know Chester D. Williams is rich enough to pay a big doctor’s bill?”
“I was afraid, at first,” answered the boy, reflectively, “that I hadn’t pulled Nan out quick enough. It was a close call, and no mistake.”
“Well, your reward is at hand. The whole town is praising you, and calling you a hero. And the great man himself has sent for you.” ”

“ Jordan had always supplied, and that made me suspicious that something was wrong. When Jordan delivered the new lot I took a sample of it to the city, and had it examined by competent chemists. It wasn’t the stuff the written formula calls for, at all, so it is evident that Jordan had deceived me in this one important ingredient, which he called by a false name, and has given me a worthless document. It’s a criminal act, and leaves me at the man’s mercy. So long as I use the stuff he supplies me with, I turn out the finest steel in all the world ”

“ Jordan had not lived in Bingham; yet he had no relatives nor even intimate friends. While not reputed wealthy, he was considered “a man of means,” and everyone bowed respectfully but gravely to him as he passed by. At the mills he was called “the Automaton” by the younger clerks, because he performed all duties with absolute punctuality and unvarying deliberation.
No one knew why Chester D. Williams had given Mr. Jordan such full control of the steel works, but his word was law in the offices, and even the proprietor assumed a different air whenever he addressed his secretary. ”

“ That is why I suspect the story about his loaning John Carden money, and getting the secret of the process in payment of the debt.”
The doctor wrinkled his shaggy brows into a deep frown.
“It’s all a mystery,” he said. “I knew John Carden from his boyhood days up, and a more level-headed fellow never lived. He had plenty of money when first he began to figure on a new way to make steel, for the Cardens had been well-to-do for three generations. But while I knew the man well, I was never so close to him or so intimate with him as Jordan was. ”

“ Jordan, in return for the money he owed him; and Jordan turned the secret over to Williams, who has established that great factory to produce the wonderful quality of steel your father invented. It is said that Mr. Jordan gets a royalty on all the steel the Williams mills turn out, and if that is so, and I have no reason to doubt it, he is a wealthy man by this time, and is profiting a hundred-fold for the money he loaned John Carden. So the debt is cleared, and your family owes no man a penny. As for Jordan, I don’t like the man, myself; he’s too silent and stealthy to suit me ”

“ She’s getting more tired and pale looking every day; and Egbert can’t do much with his bad arm. So it’s a case of force, Doctor. I’ve just got to dig in and do something.”
“That’s true,” replied the big doctor. “But you’re going to be more than a mere laboring man when you grow up, Will Carden, and I don’t mean to let you get into those beastly mills. They’d sap your young strength in no time, and make you an old man before your years would warrant it. ”

“ When Will and his father neared the cottage the boy went on ahead to prepare his mother for the great surprise, and after she had clasped him in her arms and hugged the boy to her heart’s content, (with Flo dancing merrily around and Egbert smiling his pleasure at his brother’s return,) he said to her earnestly:
“Mother, Mr. Jordan has been discovered to be a very wicked man.” ”

“ Man’s justice is helpless to punish adequately such crimes as Ezra Jordan had been guilty of, and John Carden was so grateful for the final restoration of his beloved wife and children that he was not disposed to prosecute legally the false friend who had been responsible for his years of anguish. ”

“ She wore a handsome evening dress of black net trimmed with jet, and many brilliant gems sparkled upon her neck and hands. After the first enquiring glance at her escort she smiled approvingly, for Will looked very proper and handsome in her critical worldly eyes and it was an agreeable experience to have a nice looking young man at her side.
They found a small table awaiting them in the restaurant, where the scene was so brilliant that it filled our youth with surprise. ”

“ He might appear a trifle “green” to experienced travellers, he admitted; but at his age any well balanced youth has ample self-command and judgment, so that he anticipated nothing but pleasure during the next busy month or two.
Only one thing grieved him. He would be away during Annabel’s vacation, and the young folks had laid many plans to be together during this time. But he left with Mr. Williams a note for the girl, telling her this was a business matter of her father’s that could not be delayed, and begging her not to forget him during his absence. ”

“ You run along and have a good time.”
Will did a lot of work in the garden that day, and all the time he was thinking deeply of what he had heard from Doctor Meigs. It never occurred to him to doubt a word of the story of his father’s misfortunes and death.
At supper that night he cast many stealthy looks at Mr. Jordan, who sat wholly unconscious of the scrutiny and as silent as ever. Indeed, this peculiar gentleman was well worthy of examination, aside from the fact that he had been a friend to John Carden in the old days. ”

“ The gray sky warned the boy that a storm was likely to set in, and as he needed more firewood for the heater he resolved to go into the grove and pick up all the dead branches which the wind had blown from the trees, and to put them in piles so that Nick Wells, the carter, could come for them on Monday morning. So he put some luncheon in his basket and, telling his mother he would not be home for supper, hastened away to the grove, leaving Egbert to care for the fire in the “office”. ”

“ One of the chief pleasures of the young folks of Bingham in winter was to skate upon Marshall’s pond, a broad stretch of deep water lying just west of the town, and not far from the Williams homestead. This pond was fed by a small brook that wound for miles through the country, and here the Bingham ice man harvested his supply each winter, often cutting holes in the ice which, when lightly frozen over, made dangerous places for the skaters, who did well to avoid them. ”

“ Williams, sternly. “We are confronted, for the first time, with competition, and by a firm active enough to oppose us in foreign markets. What will be the end of it? What will happen when they attempt to compete with us in our home markets?”
“They must pay duty, and we can always meet their price,” said Mr. Jordan, his voice sounding a bit defiant.
“The royalties I am obliged to pay you, on my product, more than offset the duties,” retorted the manufacturer. “Indeed, your demands force me to exact so high a price that our customers are already complaining. ”

“ Will seemed bewildered.
“You don’t appear to understand me, Doctor,” he said, reproachfully. “It will be a splendid thing for me, a regular holiday, to make a trip like that. Why should I ask my friend to pay me a lot of money in addition?”
“The laborer is worthy of his hire,” quoted Doctor Meigs, bluntly. “Can’t you see that by accepting the salary—which is little enough, in all conscience—you give Mr. Williams the right to use your services in any way he may direct?”
161 “Come, come, Will!” cried Mr. Williams, springing up to lay a kindly hand upon the youth’s shoulder. ”

“ But it’s nothing against Will Carden to be a vegetable boy, you know. How old is he?”
86 “About sixteen, I think,” said Mary Louise.
“Well, when I was his age,” continued Mr. Williams, “I was shovelling coal in a smelting furnace.”
“That isn’t as respectable as being a vegetable boy, is it?” asked Theodore, gravely.
“Both callings are respectable, if they enable one to earn an honest livelihood,” returned his father, with a smile. “There is no disgrace at all in poverty. The only thing that hopelessly condemns a person is laziness or idle inaction.”
“But mother——” began Reginald. ”

“ I’ve got a notion in my head that Jordan has defrauded the Cardens, as well as me,140 and you must stand as the friend of the Cardens, in case we get the man to admit anything. It can’t be possible, sir, that Jordan ever loaned John Carden money, for in those days he was poor. In that case why should we suppose that Carden, who was shrewd enough to become a successful inventor, would turn over all rights to his process to another man, leaving his family in utter poverty? ”

“ The bustle and confusion of landing filled Will with eager joy. It is truly an experience of moment to any one, so it is not wonderful that our youth, fresh from a country town, should thrill with excitement at this first glimpse of a foreign land. ”

“ It is here,” touching a bundle of papers with a gesture almost tender. “But Jordan—Jordan the fiend, the worse than murderer—only chuckled gleefully at the success of his plot. John Carden would never return to America now, and Mrs. Carden would never be able to tell her husband of the new steel mills that had been started in Bingham. Jordan was triumphant, and began to accumulate the fortune which he had so cleverly arranged to steal from his friend. ”

“ After several months the opportunity came, for the devil seems to favor his servants at times. The Italian steamer Victor Chalfante went down in mid-ocean, in a terrible storm, and Jordan, on receipt of the news, cabled John Carden that his family was on board.
“We may well imagine the agony of the unhappy husband and father when he learned that his wife and children had been so suddenly swept into eternity. Indeed, he wrote one pitiful letter to his old friend that would surely bring tears to the eyes of any honest man. ”

“ Being extremely fond of music, and of a naturally artistic and appreciative mind, the inexperienced boy found in the opera a veritable fairyland, and his dreams that night were filled with fantastic creations called up by the gorgeous spectacle he had beheld and the ravishing strains of music he had listened to. ”

“ He had intended meeting his friends at the train, but the girls arrived earlier than they had been expected, so that Will was busily working in the yard when he chanced to look up and see a pony-cart being driven at reckless speed down the road. It was a pleasant winter day, for a clear sun shone overhead and there had been no snowfall as yet, so the pony’s hoofs pattered merrily over the hard road and soon brought his driver within hailing distance. ”

“ Will had by this time mastered the secret of mushroom growing so thoroughly that both partners felt justified in expecting a regular net profit of a thousand dollars a year from it, which meant an income of five hundred dollars each.
“It relieves my mind wonderfully,” remarked the doctor; “for now I’m quite sure my poor grandchildren will not go hungry. But, Will, the earning will never be any bigger. That’s the extent of the possibilities in mushroom growing. ”

“ He found a nearby restaurant, at which he dined most luxuriously, but grieved at sight of his bill. Dr. Meigs had impressed upon him the fact that Mr. Williams had millions at his disposal, and therefore his confidential agent’s expenses need not be in any way curtailed. Mr. Williams had himself informed the young man that so long as Will acted as his representative he must live in a style befitting his employer’s position in the world. ”