China said, "Fist fighting is a dirty business. Respectable folks will have nothing to do with it, and a fighter gets marked so that there is no denying what he has been."
Smith pointed to his own battered features.
"If you fight enough, you will gather in all of the gashes and lumps you see on me. My hair covers dozens of scars, and look at my lips."
Matt looked closely, and he could see the healed over splits that thickened and twisted both upper and lower lips.
The old fighter pointed to young Matt's swollen and discolored split lip. "You've already collected your first marking, boy, and you will get them regularly if you follow the fight game. This time you were lucky, and the cut is inside your mouth, but others will come, and if you care about how you look you will do two things. First, you will not fight when you don't have to."
Smith stopped and almost glared at his student. "I don't care how good it feels, young Matt. I don't care how exciting it can be or how strong and powerful you feel if you put someone down. I know those feelings, and they are dangerous to play with. What I am saying is, don't fight if you don't have to. Is that clear?
"The second point is that you must listen very, very closely to what I am telling you and what I am going to teach you. You've got to go past understanding all that I say until you can actually feel the things I am talking about.
"Now, that will take time, but it will come if you work at it. If I had known what I am going to tell you during my early years I would not be wearing most of these scars. My jaw would not have been broken twice, my teeth would not be splintered and broken off, and I would not have busted one half as many ribs."
Big Matt said, "He's not been thinking about being a professional fighter, have you, Matt? I just want you to be able to handle yourself when fights do come."
China gave his student no time to respond. "It's all of one piece, Captain. Little Matt already has a fighting name and at least a small reputation for being willing. You do not have to be fighting for money. A man's face can get torn apart in a single bout. You know that, Skipper."
They sat for a while staring into the flames, each weighing his thoughts. Finally, China was ready to continue.
"Serious fist fighting, and that means anything more than boyhood squabbles like you've been doing up until now, demands as much thinking as it does punching. Having both fighters plant their boots and swing until one drops is exciting to watch, and that is exactly the way most men fight."
Big Matt snorted in disgust. "Most of those fights beat more air than faces, China, and most of the time both brawlers get exhausted and stand there panting and trying to get enough strength to throw another punch."
Smith chuckled. "True, and most of them are drunkards who won't remember what they were battling about come morning, but we've all seen the result of even those stumble-bum squabbles. Men get slashed-open eyebrows and split lips—like little Matt is wearing. If the men are big enough, noses get flattened almost every time, and it seems like big men fight a lot more than physically smaller men."
Smith chose to look across the fire at little Matt. "You've no doubt heard people say that a good big man can lick a good little man every time?"
The student nodded assent. The statement was often made in arguments about who would lick who.
"Well, take it to heart because it is true." Smith again studied his student. "My guess is that you may not be as tall as your father, young Matt. That means that you will be fighting men larger than yourself as often as you battle opponents your own size."
Smith smiled coldly. "There will also be a few feisty small men who simply cannot believe that their stature won't let them evenly compete in fist fights.
"Watch out for those kind. They have to be almost killed before they will quit, and just as likely they will be at it again with someone else as soon as they recover. Small people sometimes substitute attitude for size, and in fights they can be very hard and determined."
There was a pause while kindling was added to their fire.
Smith continued, "The point to remember is the word 'good.' Few fist fighters are good. Many are willing or even anxious, but good? Not many.
"What we will be trying to do is make you a good fighter, little Matt. That means being able to think while you fight and know what to do when you think about it.
"Then, of course, there is the matter of being able to accomplish what you have discovered."
China smiled as much to himself as to his audience. "I guess that is only gibberish at this point so here is an example. Suppose you pound at your man's head, and he covers up with his hands high along his face—sort of like he was peeking between his fists. Well, if you saw that and were clear-headed enough to think about it, you might decide to hit him in his belly because with his hands high his gut should be open."
Little Matt could see the sense of that.
China said, "On the other hand, might not your man be expecting that or maybe even hoping for it, and when you dropped a fist to come in low he might smash his knuckles straight into your face?"
Smith gave them a short moment to consider how that could go. "So, suppose instead of trying to punch in under or between his elbows you took a step to the right and drove a hard punch into his kidney, and when he turned and bent to cover, you came across the top with a whistling left hook smack into the side of his jaw?"
He watched little Matt's eyes judging his ability to follow the punches. "Some call that combination punching, young Matt. What they mean is a series of pre-planned punches that have been practiced and drilled at so long they are as automatic as breathing. When the fighter senses a hole, off goes a combination without hesitation, and if he has figured right, down will go his man. Maybe to stay, but at least stung and probably hurt."
The Boss's Boy liked what he was hearing, and he went to his blankets with his mind weighing combinations he could work up and have ready next time someone came at him.
Young Matt Miller knew that this was going to be the best summer ever. He loved summer as much as he despised the winter months when he huddled over his books with the professors ready and willing to lay their hickory switches across his shoulders.
His father had promised that he would have to endure school only until he was sixteen, so he had one more winter to go. He wondered idly if he might not later return to the school to use his soon to be acquired fighting skills on the unfeeling teachers who hardly let him even look up from his studying.
This summer he would learn to be a fighter. Maybe not as great as China Smith, but he should be able to give that Mickey McFee the drubbing he deserved.
Little Matt sometimes wished he and McFee could be more friendly. They had worked side by side on occasion when big Matt had his son in the clay pits or behind a team learning how it was to labor with your back instead of your head.
McFee was interesting to be around. He smoked, like most Irish boys did, but he swore that after this summer he was giving up hard liquor forever because he acted foolish when he had been drinking. Matt asked him why he was waiting until after the summer, and McFee had claimed that he didn't want grown men thinking he believed himself better than they were, but once he was about through his sixteenth year he would be looked on as a man by everybody, and he could do whatever he wanted.
McFee had nudged Matt suggestively and hinted that in pretty girls' minds he already was as much of a man as anyone around. That impressed little Matt more than anything else Mickey McFee had said. Girls were of increasing interest, and he knew next to nothing about what they thought or expected.
Then, just two days past, up the towpath had come McFee all huffed and puffed looking for a fight. Everybody knew the Irish liked to fight, and once in a while, little Matt admitted that he didn't mind it too much either. Thunder! He wished he had licked McFee properly once and for all and could forget it.
Now, here they were off to the west, and he would not get another crack at McFee until the fall, and maybe not then
if they didn't happen to come across each other. Matt mused that if they clashed he would have to watch McFee closely because of Klubber Cole's training. He planned to keep that in mind, and it would make him work harder at whatever China Smith had for him.
Big Matt Miller was going west to examine new business possibilities. The Pennsylvania Canal Commission might (or might not) be planning to extend the canal system west even over the Allegheny Mountains to Pittsburgh.
The venture seemed barely possible. If completed, it would be a tremendous engineering feat and vast sums of money would change hands during and following the effort.
If a canal system could be opened from Pittsburgh in the west all the way to Philadelphia in the east, much of the trade now flowing down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans could be diverted to Pennsylvania ports and the Commonwealth would be tied together—almost as if the mountains did not exist.
Big Matt had explained that the Millers' interest would not necessarily be in digging canals but more in the opportunities opened by construction.
Big Matt claimed that logging and milling lumber would be extensive. Clay for lining the canals would be in demand. If large deposits could be found and purchased, that trade would prosper.
Land for the rights of way would be bought and sold, and water rights might offer interesting accommodations as threats to dams or diverting streams and rivulets along the canal routes appeared.
Herds of horses, mules, and oxen would be needed. Forage, harness, and blacksmithing would be required. Buildings would go up, boats would be built, and wagons would truck odd tonnage everywhere.
Those smaller less spectacular businesses had been the meat and potatoes of the Millers' successes. Matt Miller moved ahead, found the opportunities and started things moving. On occasion, Brascomb Miller came out, set up his desks, and kept the ventures profitable, but mostly he stayed in Philadelphia overseeing city contracts.
At Matt Miller's insistence, the Millers tried to hire the same crews as they moved along. As a canal or turnpike section was completed, Miller operations closed shop, and some of those already employed were moved on to big Matt's latest ventures.
Brascomb Miller did not approve because new men could be hired at cheaper rates, and common laborers were available everywhere. Brascomb claimed that, with minor exceptions, all men could be made to work hard, and there was nothing to choose between Matt's favored workers and cheaper labor anxious and waiting to be employed.
Big Matt's answer was that loyal men deserved reward by re-employment and that he grew to understand his men. They, in turn, learned his likes and dislikes and therefore produced more and better work.
Brascomb snorted and pointed to bottom lines. Cheap labor saved money, he argued, but Matt held the reins, and the Miller labor force moved as big Matt led. Little Matt was very likely to again see Mickey McFee.
Vast canal surveys were being undertaken, and Commonwealth money was being acquired for mighty engineering attempts. Still, no one knew for sure which canal routes would be approved or when more construction might begin.
Big Matt Miller had studied his maps and concluded that unless the canals swung down into Virginia to avoid some higher mountains—which was ludicrous to even consider, as that would open Baltimore or even Washington as competing ports, the canals would have to pass the joining of the mighty Susquehanna and the lesser Juniata Rivers.
That was Perry County—the sparkling new Perry County, barely six years old and, the Skipper suspected, flowing with unrecognized opportunity.
The key spots would lie near the rivers' junction. Matt Miller decided to arrive early and see what could be seen. He expected he would find business or investment. Some ventures might be highly speculative with profits far down the road, but he came, cash in hand. In a land constantly money short, that would be hard to ignore.
Big Matt thought a little about his son—the Boss's Boy. What a nickname. Leave it to the Scot Presbyterians (or maybe the Irish Catholics) to hang something like that around a youth's neck. It would stick. China was right about that, and Matt would have to live with it until he grew and became his own man.
Not for the first time, big Matt thought about that time, now only a handful of years away. Young Matt would grow, and he would be worked into the businesses. At first, he would lead small crews. From them, he would gain experience and hopefully wisdom. His leadership, if he had any, would be tested, and big Matt and China Smith would watch and judge his progress. Somewhere, far down the line, when both he and China grew ancient, young Matt would take control.
Big Matt smiled openly at that distant imagining. He hoped his brother had retired before then because Brascomb Miller lacked the necessary humility or sense of place to make that transition. Brascomb would be unable to take orders from the Boss's Boy.
These days, Brascomb was often in Matt Miller's thoughts. The brother managed the accounts and did them well. Money was there when needed, men got paid on the dot, and the books balanced as far as Matt could tell. No one else got a look at them, of course, because how well the Miller companies did or did not do was no one else's business.
Still, Brascomb had stealthy ways about him. He had always been secretive with schemes brewing and unannounced sidelines that he hoped would turn personally profitable.
Brascomb's envy of his older brother had been clear since they were boys working for their father, but everyone, except Brascomb, had recognized that Matt had the ingenuity and the intuitive business insights that made money and moved the Millers ahead. Brascomb would be a company man, and he would be well rewarded because he was family, but he would never lead. Not in Matt's lifetime and never during young Matt's tenure.
Big Matt sensed Brascomb's hunger to be boss, but he was used to it. China's seldom mentioned but detectable distrust of Brascomb's intentions encouraged big Matt's closer consideration of his brother.
Despite his willingness to accept calculated business risks, Matt Miller kept his personal house in order. His paperwork was up to date, and he looked ahead—even to the time when he would no longer be in charge. Unexpected things happened. Accidents occurred. Men got kicked silly by horses or knocked off canal boats. Matt kept China Smith, his strong right arm, informed of how he wanted things to be—just in case. A man could never know what the future held, but he could prepare.
Little Matt had made his expectation known. He ached to finish at the academy and hungered to get into the field to do real work and to earn big money, like the Irish workers got.
His father knew better. Once little Matt's fists gripped a shovel or a pick for six days a week and when he was paid the seventy cents a day workmen received, the Boss's Boy would quickly lose marvelous expectations. Big Matt would let him discover those hard facts of life. Only then would he begin moving his son into small bossing jobs.
Leading his workmen would teach the boy more in a month than he would learn in a year elsewhere. The Irishmen were always up to something. They tested a foreman's determination, they challenged his knowledge, and they always questioned his abilities to stand man to man beside them in their rough and ready lives both on the job and within their social circles.
The prickly Scotch-Irish and the real Irish (Big Matt had given up deciding who was what and thought of them all as Irishmen) demanded loyalty before they gave their own, and the Boss's Boy would have to prove himself to gain the trust and respect he would need.
The more stolid German workers that comprised some recently hired work crews followed orders more comfortably, but they, too, responded to a foreman's recognition of their worth.
Most businessmen ignored all of that. To them, their workers were almost faceless and certainly nameless drudges who heaved and tugged and sweat and sometimes bled for the reluctantly paid pittances that kept them alive and able to labor on.
Brascomb Miller was that type, but big Matt knew his workers, and he believed they knew him. He trusted them where others did not, and he believed that, in
return, they gave him more honest work and more willing efforts.
Lately, some of the Miller workers were being called Miller Men because they had worked for the same boss on many jobs. Big Matt liked that, and he suspected his Irishmen enjoyed the distinction. It was obvious that they appreciated the security of being rehired for Miller jobs rather than again being thrown into the overcrowded labor pool and simply hoping that some foreman would pick them out for some kind of work somewhere—for whatever wage was being offered.
Studying his fifteen-year-old son, big Matt often wondered how little Matt would measure up. China believed that, in time, he would stand tall. So did the father, but not yet. Not until the professors finished with him and maybe another year with Brascomb on the bookkeeping.
The Skipper's smile turned grim. If the Boss's Boy survived Brascomb's winter of misery, he should make easy work of running a work crew on any job.
Chapter 4
On this, his third summer trip to the western office, young Matt Miller liked what he saw. It seemed as if all of the Millers' planning and constructions were coming together.
Big Matt Miller was putting down roots. The boss saw opportunity all around him. He believed that the canal developments would lift rural towns into special affluences from which he could prosper.
Canal building was well underway, and the older Miller had been right in believing their routes would pass and perhaps meet at the Juniata River and Susquehanna's blending. The planning was completed and the Miller companies already had men employed.
Because of the new canals, the world of young Matt Miller was changing at an astonishing rate. Returning from Philadelphia, he had been transported by a horse-drawn railway to Columbia on the Susquehanna. There he had transferred to a boat, and via a combination of canals and the river, he had floated past the growing city of Harrisburg, on up the river, and then across the Susquehanna at Clark's Ferry to the Juniata joining at the tip of Duncan's Island.
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