Adventure, November 1915 — page 199: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

One Sort of Man shrunk from this audible reminder of the fact of her insufficiency. For weeks she had more than filled a true woman’s réle, and now a man was needed. To be battling for Alex Norton’s life was trying enough, no matter how willing the warfare. But now this other crisis had come on. The house of Norton, manu- facturers solely for years of calico wrappers, the ninety-nine-cent type, set forth the best in the market. But—the mistresses of the land had shed them, to be followed by the maids, and the maids by the women of the mill barracks, that last resort of ousted styles. Calico wrappers were van- ‘ishing, and the Nortons of Nortonville ran crash up against disaster. Two years of frantic and futile adver- tising had pushed the ancient house to the brink of bankruptcy and then Alex, in rank desperation, had plunged with his wife’s young brother, a designer of women’s gar- ments, into making of cheap suits. Like the wrappers, they were to be the best article for the smallest price offered to the market. But the trade failed to snatch them up. In the hour of his last fighting chance, Alex Norton had staked the whole pot on the order of one Lapinsky for ten thousand of their cheap suits. He put everything into it, from a final mortgage on the mill to his big limousine, and flung the cards to. win. The season had started badly; a cold Spring delayed all sales, trade went to smash, factories shut down from one end of the country to the other. Lapinsky began to wiggle under his bargain. But the order held fast legally; and the suits, six weeks before time, had been on the verge of accomplishment. Then came troubles. First the boiler burst, next an epidemic of scarlet fever shut up sixty men; and the command to rush went forth. The whole shop had rushed ' until a week before the date set to complete the order; then Norton himself had come down with pneumonia and MacKinnon, the assistant superintendent, stepped into charge. . ; This was the night of the eleventh of April. The contract expired at twelve on the twelfth, and the last batch of the gar- ments was not quite finished though the mill was running night and day. “Tf I had one man I could trust, one man; 197 but Mac——” Again her husband’s ap- peal quavered through the dusk. She flung herself erect and, after a moment of suspense, tiptoed from the antechamber to the door of his bedroom. Tossing fit- fully, Alex still slumbered. She turned to the window behind her, rushed it up with strong young arms and stood in the half- light, a tall, finely-molded woman, built on large, athletic lines. Her hand, gripping the ledge, was taut with muscles. As she thrust her bronze curls out into the night the rain smote her cheeks, the drizzle swept in a wide splash across the rug beneath her feet, the roar of the storm bellowed past. The hills on either side rose like grim parapets across the dim horizon, the mill at the foot of the street glowed fantastically out of the smother, the electric lights spotted the town until it resembled a leopard’s back. The church clock spoke the hour of seven solemnly from the drench. As she closed the window, she could not quite shut out the diapason of another note, which underlay the swish of the rain and the clangor of the wind—the menace of a swollen river tearing through the town. Incessant, deep-throated, with its hoarse shout of frenzy it dominated the night. She clicked down the last inches of the win- dow tremblingly. What was it that MacKinnon would do or would not do because he wasn’t ‘a man’’? What The whirr of the telephone squealed like an answer to her question. It was the as- sistant superintendent himself. She drew the door behind her shut before she replied— “Ves, Mr. MacKinnon?” “We've got to quit, Mis’ Norton,” bleat- ed his frightened voice. _ ‘“Th’ river’s gainin’ every second. ‘There’s an inch of swash in the furnace-room this minute, and old Mike is on the kick somethin’ awful. The whole ramshackle thing shakes every time the water swats the dam. It’s useless stickin’ another minute. I’m dead sorry, but— but—it’s just quit for us. The good Lord knows that “Cut the piety out,”’ she demanded, “and tell me what you want.” She smiled grimly to herself as she heard him jump till the receiver clattered in his hand. He’d never known the elegant mistress of Nortonville to speak like that before. comichbook Ce ge iy Nereis ee ee ‘ gestae . ah, (F@ Po