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The blank check shook its blandishments before their eyes. "We take him," they said, and Richard Wade was the new Superintendent unanimously. "He shall be at Dunderbunk to take hold to-morrow morning," said Churm, and went off to notify him. Upon this, Consternation sailed out of the hearts of Brummage and associates.
In short, they behaved as Directors do when all is serene. Churm and Wade had a hearty laugh over the absurdities of the Board and all their vague propositions. "Dunderbunk," said Churm, "was a company started on a sentimental basis, as many others are." "Mr. Brummage fell in love with pig-iron?" "Precisely. He had been a dry-goods jobber, risen from a retailer somewhere in the country.
They wanted disorder out and order in. The new man looked like a man, talked fair, hit hard. Why not all hands give in with a good grace and go to work like honest fellows? The line broke up. The hands went off to their duty. And there was never any more insubordination at Dunderbunk. This was June. Skates in the next chapter. Love in good time afterward shall glide upon the scene.
Each was of the first Wall-Street fashion, invited to lend his name and take stock in every new enterprise. Any one of them might have walked down town in a long patchwork toga made of the newspaper advertisements of boards in which his name proudly figured. If Dunderbunk failed, the toga was torn, and might presently go to rags beyond repair. The first rent would inaugurate universal rupture.
They lunched with good appetites over the green table, and the President confidently remarked, "I don't believe there is going much of a crisis, after all." Wade packed his kit, and took the Hudson-River train for Dunderbunk the same afternoon.
"Now, men," he closed, "I want to get away on the river and see if my skates will go as they look; so I'll end by proposing three cheers for Smith Wheelwright, our Chairman, three for our Orator, Tarbox, three for Old Dunderbunk, Works, Men, Women, and Children; and one big cheer for Old Father Iron, as rousing a cheer as ever was roared."
Dunderbunk, therefore, Head and Hands, must despatch. So it was a busy afternoon at the industrious Foundry. The men bestirred themselves. The furnaces rumbled. The engine thumped. The drums in the finishing-shop hummed merrily their lively song of labor.
One person out of every Dunderbunk family was of course at home, roasting Christmas turkey. The rest were already at high jinks on Zero's Christmas present, when Wade and the men came down, from the meeting. Wade buckled on his new skates in a jiffy.
The pioneer sunbeam of next Christmas morning rattled over the Dunderbunk hills, flashed into Richard Wade's eyes, waked him, and was off, ricochetting across the black ice of the river. Wade jumped up, electrified and jubilant. He had gone to bed, feeling quite too despondent for so healthy a fellow. Christmas Eve, the time of family-meetings, reminded him how lonely he was.
The train in a moment dropped him at Dunderbunk. He hurried to the Foundry and wrote a note to Mrs. Damer. "Mr. Wade presents his compliments to Mrs. Damer, and has the honor to inform her that Mr. Skerrett has nominated him carver to the ladies to-day in their host's place. "Mr. Wade hopes that Miss Damer will excuse him from his engagement to skate with her this afternoon.
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