Jarrod forced himself to cultivate Easton’s society in order to study the man, for the elder partner’s mild blue eyes and innocent expression puzzled him at first. Easton, for his part, considered Jarrod an impertinent meddler, but resolved to use him as an instrument to carry out a pet scheme he had for dispossessing Wilder.
“With Wilder s interest out of the way,” he would observe, “everything would be well at lovely Tamawaca. If I were the sole proprietor here the cottagers would soon find out how dearly I love them. Wilder obstructs all my generous plans to improve conditions, and I’d like to buy him out.”
“Why don’t you?” enquired Jarrod.
“He won’t sell to me,” was the reply. “But perhaps we can fool him.”
“How?”
“I’ll explain — in confidence. You buy out his interest. Tell him you’ll make it very uncomfortable for him if he refuses to sell. See? I’ll furnish the money, and afterward you can turn the whole thing over to me.” “Would that be fair and honorable?” asked Jarrod, gravely.
“Would I propose it, otherwise?” returned Easton, as if surprised at the question. “Mr. Jarrod, my feet are in the straight and narrow way, and I will not diverge from the path of rectitude. But if in that path appears a snake, I am surely justified in scotching it. You buy out Wilder, as I said, and then I’ll buy you out. Nothing dishonest in that — eh?”
“I’ll think it over,” said the lawyer. “I may decide to buy you both out.”
“Of course. As a blind. But only as a blind, you understand.”
“I don’t understand everything just now, Mr. Easton. I must give the matter some careful thought.”
During several similar conversations, however, Jarrod came to know his man intimately, and as his knowledge grew his respect for the “Father of Tamawaca” decreased. Neither Easton nor Wilder believed the cottagers would ever assert their rights, and therefore each was scheming desperately to oust his partner and get the control in his own hands.
Finally Jarrod decided the time had arrived to act. He got together his committee of five, explained to them his plans, and received the assurance of their loyal support. Then, a meeting being arranged, they called in a body upon Easton at his office and frankly stated that the partners must sell out to the cottagers all their interests at Tamawaca or prepare to stand a law suit for the recovery of the public lands illegally sold and occupied by them.
Perhaps Easton imagined that Jarrod had taken his cue and was acting upon it. He tried to restrain a smile of triumph in order to listen gravely to the proposition.
Wilder sat in a corner and hugged himself gleefully. The old man was “up against it” at last, and Wilder was responsible for forcing him to “face the music” — at least that was Wilder’s belief.
Jarrod, in behalf of the cottagers, began the interview by calmly stating their case. They had been robbed of certain public lands that belong to them in legal equity, and the partners had not only sold these lands to themselves, individually, and built cottages and public buildings upon them, but had conveyed many of these lands to others, giving them warranty deeds in lieu of clear titles. If the matter was brought to the attention of the courts Easton and Wilder would be obliged to make these warrants good; in which case, so extensive had been the fraudulent sales, such an order from the court would involve the partners in financial ruin.
However, it was not the desire of the cottagers to ruin their oppressors. They much preferred to buy out their holdings at Tamawaca, and be rid of them forever. Therefore they offered thirty thousand dollars for the property, assuming in addition to the purchase price some six or eight thousands of standing indebtenness.
Jarrod might be carying out “the blind,” but something in his manner as he made this clear and uncontrovertible statement disturbed Easton’s equanimity and rendered him suspicious that the lawyer had not properly swallowed the bait that had been dangled before him. But in this juncture he could think of no way to escape. Whichever way he looked he encountered the cold eyes of the determined and resentful committee of five, and to delay his answer until he could sound Jarrod was impossible. Moreover, Wilder, who acted his part admirably, seemed to Easton to have tumbled blindly into his trap. The junior partner declared that he was willing to dispose of his one-third interest for ten thousand dollars, and the fear that he might retract this offer led Easton to close with the proposition made him by the cottagers.
At the worst he could wiggle out of it in some way, he believed; so the one thing to do was to nail Wilder on the spot.
The final result of this serio-comic interview was that Wilder and Easton both signed an option in favor of Jarrod as trustee for the cottagers, agreeing to sell the entire real and personal property in which they were jointly interested for thirty thousand dollars, at any time within thirty days following that date.
When the option was signed and in his pocket Jarrod felt that his purpose was accomplished. His committee had redeemed this beautiful summer resort from all speculative evils, ensuring its future control to the cottagers themselves, whose best interests would now be conserved.
It was indeed a great triumph, and the Committee of Five, solemnly shook hands with one another and went home to tell their wives and neighbors of their success.
Wilder, in the seclusion of his own home, danced a jig of jubilation.
“They’ve got the option,” he said to Nora, “but they’ve got no money. I’ll furnish the money to take up the option — and the deed is done!”
“Will they give you the option?” asked Nora.
“Why not? Somebody’s got to make the bluff good, and I’m the only one that can afford to. What do these folks want of a summer resort? They couldn’t run it properly for five minutes. And Easton’s the man they hate, because he’s always stood in the way of public improvements. Wilder’s their friend — eh? — and they’ll all be glad when he’s the whole thing.”
Easton was a bit less sanguine. “The situation,” he told his better half, “is not as clear as I wish it was. But I’ve never yet failed to get my way with the cottagers, and a little diplomacy ought to enable me to win this time. My only fear is that Jarrod may not be honest.”
CHAPTER X.
JIM GETS A RAISE.
Jim opened the fatal telegram in the post-office, and his face must have been a study; for Jarrod, who was observing it from a distance, became interested and at once approached his young friend.
“No bad news, I hope, Jim?’
The boy laughed and held out the telegram.
“Just a kick in the dark, Mr. Jarrod, and it only hurts because it was so unexpected. I’ve been a model clerk, you know, and now that I’ve just spent my surplus capital on a vacation, I’m granted another and longer one, without pay. Well,” with an involuntary sigh, “there are other clerkships, of course, and I’ll probably get one. But you’ve no idea, sir, how much labor it takes to find a job at twelve a week — especially in the summer season.”
“Jim,” said Jarrod, thoughtfully, “this is a bit of good luck, if judged from my own selfish viewpoint. I need some one very badly, to help me clear up a lot of accumulated work. Would you mind being my clerk for a few weeks?”
Jim’s face was beaming.
“Do you really mean it, Mr. Jarrod? Can I be of use to you?”
“Indeed you can, my boy. You’ll have to stay at Tamawaca, but as a worker instead of a drone. Can you run a typewriter?”
“Yes; I used one at college for a couple of years, and got to be fairly expert. But I know nothing of shorthand.”
“That isn’t necessary. I shall require your services every forenoon, but you may have the afternoons to yourself. I’ll give you twenty dollars a week and pay your board at the hotel.”
“Isn’t that too much, Mr. Jarrod?”
“Not for the work you must do. Any intelligent man would cost me that much, and I will need you but a couple of months — until I go home.”
“Very good, sir.
I’ll do my best to please you.”
“Then you’re my secretary. Come around to my cottage at nine o’clock Monday morning.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jarrod.”
That evening Jim told Susie he would not have to bid her good-bye, as they had expected, for he had been discharged as a dry-goods clerk and employed as a private secretary, which was a distinct advance in his fortunes.
Susie listened gravely, but was evidently much pleased.
“The girls told me yesterday,” she said, “that Katie had written her father and asked him to discharge you, because you had been impudent enough to become acquainted with the exclusive young ladies of Tamawaca under false pretenses.”
“But I didn’t, Susie! I met them through your accident, and they never asked me how I earned a living.”
“I know; but they forget that. They say you imposed upon them by assuming that you are a gentleman.”
Jim laughed merrily.
“Where do you draw the line, Susie, between a gentleman and — and — what’s the other thing? — an undesirable acquaintance?”
“Perhaps so. I don’t draw the line, myself, so you must ask the girls to explain. Perhaps, now that you’ve become the private secretary of a famous lawyer, you will be cultivated instead of being snubbed. But I’m not sure of that.”
Jim started work Monday morning and found his task no sinecure. Jarrod had a lot of correspondence to answer and a good many papers to be copied. Also there was an inventory to be made of the property covered by the option given by Easton and Wilder, and their books to be gone over. But Jim was both industrious and intelligent, and seemed to “fit the job” very well indeed.
Katie Glaston’s triumph was brief. She had actually boosted Jim several pegs on the road to fortune, and when the girl discovered this she was so provoked that she left Tamawaca and went to visit friends at Spring Lake.
The other girls began to be properly ashamed of themselves, although the heiress refused to alter her opinion that “a poor young man had no business at a summer resort.”
Gladys and Betty began nodding to Jim as he passed by, and although he returned the salutations with graceful politeness he never stopped or attempted to resume the old friendly relations. He had grown wonderfully fond of plain little Susie, who had remained his faithful adherent, and her society seemed just now fully sufficient to satisfy all his needs. He even took her to some of the dances, and found her a much more satisfactory partner than on that first evening when he met her and tested her accomplishments as a Terpsichore. She was still a bit awkward, but the little speeches they whispered to each other made them forget they were dancing until the music stopped and reminded them of the fact. The heiress had a new beau — a bulky blond named Neddie Roper — who was reputed a social lion and a railway magnate, although it afterward transpired he worked in the Pullman shops. Therefore Clara positively ignored “that Smith girl and her dry-goods clerk,” who ought to have felt properly humiliated, but didn’t.
Wilder came to Jarrod in a day or so and said:
“Well, dear boy, I’ve got the cold cash in hand to take up that option; so if you’ll turn it over to me I’ll settle the matter in a jiffy.”
“In what way?” asked Jarrod.
“Why, I’ll pay Easton his twenty thousand and let him go. And then I’ll begin an era of public improvements, and try to induce the cottagers to fix things up a bit.”
“I can’t let you have the option,” replied Jarrod. “It was given to me as trustee for the cottagers, and belongs to them.”
“Have they got thirty thousand dollars to take it up?”
“No; not yet.”
“And they never will have it,” declared Wilder. “Your cottagers are a lot of corn-cobs, and you couldn’t squeeze any juice out of them with a cider-press.”
“I’m not sure of that,” returned Jarrod, smiling. “Anyhow, the option is theirs to accept or reject, and I’ve called a meeting for Saturday night to find out what they wish to do.”
That worried Wilder a little until he reflected that the cottagers5 meetings were all “hot air and soap-bubbles.” They couldn’t raise thirty thousand dollars for Tamawaca in thirty years, and sooner or later the option would be turned over to him as a matter of course.
Meantime old man Easton had been quietly observant of the situation, and after the meeting of the cottagers was announced his suspicions that Jarrod was “not honest” took definite form and threw him into a condition bordering upon nervous prostration. He made a bee-line for the lawyer’s cottage, and found Jarrod sunning himself on the front porch.
“Good morning, Mr. Jarrod,” he began, cordially.
Jarrod nodded, but did not ask his visitor to be seated. He had just been going through the books of the partners and had discovered things that to his mind rendered social intercourse with a man like Easton impossible.
“I’ve called around to get that option,” remarked the old man, seating himself upon the porch railing.
“What option?”
“The one I gave you so as to fool Wilder. You know what I mean,” with an attempt at a jocose laugh which ended in an hysterical gurgle.
“Do you refer to the option you granted to me, as trustee for the cottagers of Tamawaca?” asked the lawyer, coldly.
“Why — why — that was only a bluff, you know. I gave you the option so as to buy out Wilder. You know that well enough.”
Jarrod shook his head.
“The option belongs to the cottagers,” he said. “You can’t have it, Mr. Easton.”
“What! Can’t have the option!” His voice expressed both astonishment and reproach.
“By no means.”
“I — I’m — afraid I’m going to — to faint!” gasped Easton in a wailing voice, as he fanned himself with his hat.
“I wouldn’t,” remarked the lawyer.
“But I — Oh, this is terrible — terrible!” gasped the old man, piteously. “If I don’t get that option, Mr. Jarrod, I shall be ruined — utterly ruined!”
His frail body swayed from side to side, and with eyes half shut he watched the effect of his misery upon the stern faced man seated before him.
“Quite likely,” said Jarrod, yawning.
“Ruined — ruined! At my age to face the poor-house! Oh, my poor family — oh, — oh, — oh!”
He leaned backward, threw up his arms and fell over the rail of the porch to lie motionless on the soft sand beneath.
Jarrod laughed. After a minute or so of silence he said calmly:
“There’s a red spider crawling up your left pant-leg.”
Easton sat up and with a nervous motion shook the bottoms of his trousers. Then he glanced at his persecutor, who was just now gazing reflectively over the smooth waters of the lake, which showed between the foliage of the trees.
“Sir,” said the old man, in a voice trembling with emotion, as he dusted the sand from his clothes and once more mounted the steps of the porch, “you are a cold-blooded brute!”
“I know,” acknowledged Jarrod. “But I’m not as bad as I used to be. Ask my wife. She’ll tell you I haven’t knocked her down and stamped on her in over a month.”
Easton sighed. He must change his tactics, evidently.
“I take it,” he remarked, in a mournful voice, “that this is a business matter.”
“You should have taken it that way before,” said Jarrod.
Easton brightened.
“Of course,” he rejoined. “How careless of me! But now, I trust, we understand each other. How much, Mr. Jarrod?”
“Eh?”
Easton glanced furtively around to assure himself there were no listeners.
“How much will you take to deliver to me that paper — the option Ï gave you the other day?”
“Sir!”
“That’s all right. Get as indignant as you like, Mr. Jarrod. I admire you for it. But just state your figure and I’ll write you a check.” He took out a check-book, and bega
n to unscrew his fountain-pen. “Every man has his price, of course; but I know you won’t rob me, Mr. Jarrod. You’ll be reasonable, because I’m an old man and can’t afford to — ”
A door slammed and he looked up startled. The porch was empty save for his own astonished person, and after waiting five or ten minutes for the lawyer to return Easton slowly slid his check-book into his pocket and tottered home with feeble, uncertain steps.
After that interview Jarrod seemed different, even to his friends. His jaw was set and his eyes had a steely gleam in them that boded no good to any who might interfere with his purposes. Never before, even in those wild days when he strove to control the Crosbys, had he felt so humiliated and humbled in his own estimation, and his one desire was to have done with this miserable business as soon as possible.
The cottagers’ meeting was a surprise not only to Wilder, who took pains to be present and had pains because of it, but to the participants themselves. Jarrod’s report of what had been accomplished set them wild with enthusiasm, and when they realized that their committee had faithfully served their interests and found a way to release them from the bondage of Easton and Wilder, they promptly awoke from their customary lethargy and voted to take up the option. Every person present agreed to subscribe for stock in a new company composed exclusively of cottagers, which would thereafter own and control Tamawaca and operate the public utilities without profit and for the benefit of the community as a whole.
“But,” said Wilder to Jarrod, next day, “you can’t issue stock until you have the property, and you have no way to raise the thirty thousand to get the property. Why not turn the option over to me without any more fooling?”
“Wait,” replied the lawyer, smiling. He did not resent Wilder’s eagerness to get the option, because he was frank and straightforward in his methods. But his one word was so far from encouraging that Wilder looked at him and shuddered involuntarily. Never in his experience had he encountered a man like this, who didn’t know when he was beaten and couldn’t be cajoled or bulldozed. From that moment his fears grew, until he was forced to realize that in carrying out his clever scheme to oust his partner he had also ousted himself from a peculiarly profitable business enterprise.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 765