The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
and allowed no one else to operate an ice-field. He had seen and sniffed
the unwholesome slime which a melted cake of Consolidated ice deposited.
When he found opportunity he accosted a man in corduroy. He was a
big chap, bronzed by the sun, and Farr singled him out as the manager
because he had been directing the other workers while he toiled himself.
“It's a little business of my own,” said the man. “I have started in
independent.”
“I had thought the Consolidated had control of everything.”
“They would control everything if they could. They wouldn't let me run
my carts through the city streets if they knew how to stop me. I worked
for them fifteen years, lugging their dirty ice on my back, up stairs
and down, and I know that crowd. I don't understand much of anything but
the ice business, mister, whoever you are. But I wouldn't lug any more
of that ice into homes. I put my savings in here, every cent, hired
these barns and a shore privilege, and I'm selling clean ice. But I'm
going to lose every blamed cent! It's no use. I can't buck 'em. Excuse
me! It's no interest to you. My mouth runs away with me when I get
talking about that gang.”
He went back to the barn to help his men shift a runway.
Farr waited patiently until he was able to speak to the busy man again.
“I don't mean to bother you, sir,” he said, humbly. “But I am interested
in this proposition of yours. I have worked for the Consolidated,
myself. I was discharged because I stood up and damned their water
before the mayor and aldermen.”
“Say, I heard something about that!” cried the iceman, displaying prompt
interest and admiration. “The boys said it was good work.”
“I mention it merely to put myself right with you.”
“Then say on ahead, my friend!”
“Do you tell me you can't make a go of this?”
“I'm afraid I can't. It's a half-mile haul for me to the nearest siding.
The railroad folks don't give me any better rate than they're obliged
to--and you know why that is! And I have to have another set of carts
for the city delivery. And no capital to work with! I'm up against a
crowd that has all the money, plenty of equipment, and has its supply
right at the back door of the city--and it belongs at the back door! But
you know what the buying public is! The only reason why I have lasted is
because my old customers gave me their business and are sticking pretty
well.”
“My friend,” declared Farr, putting his hand on the shoulder bent and
ridged by many years of ice-toting, “lots of men who are making money
as missionaries are not doing half the good in the world you're doing.
You're certainly showing some of the citizens of Marion the difference
between good ice and frozen gobs of pestilence.”
“A fellow needs grit, grace, gumption, and a lot of missionary spirit to
fight what I'm fighting, mister. I ain't going to say anything about
a lot of obstacles the syndicate has put in my way. Those were to be
expected in the way of regular business competition. But you can see I
have only got limited resources here, and I can't afford a big outfit
in the city. Sometimes I have run short, the best I could do--and it's
mighty little sleep I have. And the Consolidated drivers have refused
to sell ice to anybody who has been buying of me even when mothers have
pleaded so as to keep milk for sick babies from souring. That's orders
from headquarters! You wouldn't think that the same big chaps who boss
the governor of the state would get down to such nubbins as that, eh?
But they do--that's their system. They used to tell me that it's the
only way a big syndicate can keep its grip--never leave a bar down! Yes,
sir, they have blacklisted my customers until they'll be good and give
the Consolidated a yearly contract. More than that, they pass word along
that I'll be out of business by another season and that folks who have
bought of me this year will be given the go-by next! Can you beat it?”
“Are you going to sell out to them?”
“No,” said the iceman, grimly. “There are two good reasons: I won't sell
and they won't buy. They will kill me out so that nobody else will be
encouraged to try the scheme again.”
“I want a job,” stated Farr, curtly. “I want to work for you. Give me a
place on one of your carts in the city.”
“Say, look here,” blurted the other man, frankly astonished, “you look
more like a gent than an iceman!”
“No matter what I look like. The main question is, can I lug ice? Feel
of my muscle!”
“It may be a poor outlook for your pay--working for me,” warned the
proprietor. “And if you ever want another job in Marion you may be
blacklisted. I don't want to get you into a scrape.”
“I can't be in any worse scrape than the one I am in now. Haven't I just
told you who I am?”
“Oh, I know that! I reckon you're the same fellow. But, see here,
mister, I'm one of those simple kind of galoots--and the less a man
knows the more suspicious he is. You ain't wanting to work for me just
because you need a job!”
“I do need a job! I have spent the little money I had by me after I was
fired by the Consolidated. I had some special expenses--the funeral of
a--a friend,” he added, wistfulness in his tones. He drove his hand into
his pockets and exhibited a few small coins in his palm when he pulled
his hand out. “That's my cash--every cent of it!”
“Sure! I see it. But money's easy enough to come at by a fellow like you
when he needs it. You haven't come across all square with me yet!” It
was not mere inquisitiveness; it was the insistence of a plain man who
wanted a definite peg on which to hitch the first warp of association.
“You've got to handle money of mine,” he went on. “I'm in a tight place
and I have got to have the right men tied up with me. I wouldn't have to
ask one of those boys yonder why he wanted to lug ice. But you ain't no
ordinary slouch, mister. You don't do things--not many of 'em--unless
you've got a good reason for same.” It was the instinct of
ingenuousness. “Keep it all to yourself if you want to. But in that case
you'll have to excuse _me_!”
Farr did not hesitate. He smiled.
“You're a down-on-the-ground fellow who may be able to understand the
thing better than I do myself,” he declared. Again he put his hand on
the bent shoulder.
“You didn't break loose from a good job and start this ice business here
simply to make more money, did you?”
“Well, I've got a family to support and I wanted to make some money,
of course, but I thought it was about time to have less relics, germs,
curiosities, microbes, and general knickknacks left in ice-boxes
after the ice had melted. So I went out of the frozen museum business,
mister.” His voice softened suddenly. “We lost a little girl a year ago
last summer. Typhoid!”
“I lost a little girl--a friend,” said Farr, patting the shoulder. “It's
this way with me--What is your name?”
“Freeland Nowell.”
“Mr. Nowell, I have poked more or less fun in my life at men who claimed
to have missions. Perhaps that was because those men drew my attention
by advertising their missions loudly--and, therefore, I concluded that
all men with licenses to cure this and fix that and regulate the other
were fooling themselves or else were bluffs. But all of a sudden I have
waked up to something. I believe that any human being who isn't doing
a little something on the side to help somebody else in this life is
mighty miserable. I believe that the average sort of folks are doing
it--keeping it quiet, in most cases, perhaps. I thought I had a mission
and I stood up in your city government and advertised it and made
considerable of an ass of myself.”
“Well, it was all right one way you look at it,” said Nowell, with the
caution of the honest citizen. “But, of course, you got the stigmy put
onto you of being a crank and a disturber and you don't get nowhere!
It ain't gab and holler that does it! If talk sets folks to
thinking--that's all right, so far as it goes. But a lot of these chaps
set their mouths to going and let their hands lay crossed in their laps
and then wonder why the world doesn't get better because they have asked
it to be good.”
It was sagacity from the humble observer.
“Mr. Nowell, I don't want to be quite as lonesome in this world as I
have been,” said Farr, with earnestness. “It's an awful feeling, that!
A man can be lonely for a time and crowd down the hankering to be in the
march of honest men where he can touch elbows and be a part of things.
I see you look at me! That's right--it's queer stuff to be talking to
you.” He pondered for a moment and went on. “Queer thing, eh, for a
fellow to wake up all of a sudden--a fellow of my stamp--and want to
do some real good in the world? Well, it surprises _me_, and it would
surprise you a whole lot more if you knew me better. We won't try to
analyze the feeling. I've given up trying to do it.” He paused and his
brown eyes surveyed the blinking iceman with a quizzical appeal in them.
“That's a pretty long preface, Mr. Nowell. It ought to lead up to some
very important request. But it doesn't. I simply want a job on your
ice-cart. It will give me the best opportunity I know of to go into
homes and tell mothers to boil the water which comes out of those dirty
taps; after I unscrew the faucets I won't have to argue much. I told
Colonel Dodd in his office to look out for me! That may have been
bluster. I am a nobody. But I'm on his trail, and there is one thing
I can do to start with! I can help save the lives of a few children.
That's all! I'll be following my new motto. Will you give me the job?”
“I sure will,” declared Nowell, heartily. “If I don't know when a man is
talking rock-bottom to me, then it's my own fault. When do you want to
go to work?”
“Now.”
Nowell gave the new man's garments a disparaging side glance.
“You look more as if you was going out to preach instead of deliver ice.
But I can fix that if you're busted, my friend. You slip off that
coat and help here till we're loaded. Then ride into the city on the
freight-car and tell any one of my men to give you the overalls and
jumper I left hanging in my stable office.”
In this fashion it came about that Farr that day was riding on an
ice-wagon in Marion, learning his route. A red-headed youth who was
nursing an ice-pick wound in a bundled-up foot served as guide and
driver and spotted the “Crystal Pure” cards propped here and there in
windows, mutely signaling the household needs. With zestful complacency,
and with secret enjoyment in being allowed to “team” this chap who
looked and talked like a “nob,” the youth allowed Farr to do all the
work.
The route took in many apartment-houses of the city.
The labor was muscle-racking. In most cases there were stairs to climb.
He stood, sagging under his burden, till chests were cleared by
the housewives or sluggish maids. He discovered that the iceman was
considered a fair and logical butt for all the forenoon grouches of the
kitchen. Women complained querulously that the ice dripped on the clean
floor, or that the piece was not up to the twenty-cent piece delivered
by the other company, or that he was late, or he had not had his eyes
about him the day before or else he would have seen the card.
On numerous occasions he was obliged to carry a piece of ice back
down-stairs to his cart and exchange it for a piece of another size and
price. He received no apology in such cases; he was tartly informed that
he ought to have common sense enough to know what was wanted in that
house. In other cases, the mistress of the apartments turned him from
the door and explained with entire lack of interest in his long climb
that the card had been left up by oversight--the chest had been filled
the day before.
And at two places sharp-tongued women would not allow him to enter,