Part 44

“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, frankly stating that icemen were too dirty creatures to allow inside the door of a respectable house; the women received their ten-cent cubes in pans and slammed the door in his face.

And through all this Farr preserved his smile.

In this slavery, tongue-lashed by fretful women, sweating under his burden, he was happy; he could not account for it and did not attempt to, but he knew it. He accepted the situation.

He received rewards enough to fortify his resolution.