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Updated: June 13, 2025
There was applause following this profound announcement, and Skert turned on his companion. "Well?" he demanded, in a tone of biting triumph. They had reached the window at the psychological moment. Nothing could have suited his purpose better. Bat turned away abruptly. It was as if some fierce emotion made it impossible for him to remain another second.
They'll play the game to the finish. It don't signify a curse if you close down the recreation shanty or not. We've got to meet it as a competition, and fight it the way we'd fight any other." Bat's eyes snapped. "That's the kind of dope Skert Lawton's handed me," he protested. "And Skert's a wise guy," came the prompt retort. Quite suddenly Bat flung out his gnarled hands.
It had only been possible to a man of his amazing faculties, combined with the fact that Bat Harker and the mournful Skert Lawton had left him free from the clogging detail of the mill organisation and routine. In twelve months he had crystallised the dreams and projects of his predecessor in the chair he was now occupying.
He turned to Skert who stood by, watching the light of battle in his chief's eyes. "Here, shut down the dynamos. Set them clean out of action. Do you get me? Leave the machines for the time being so they're just so much scrap. Then, if you got the bunch you can rely on, leave 'em guard. We'll get on down, an' sign that damned document for 'em." The recreation room was crowded to suffocation.
Again it was signed "Leo Murko." How he hated that name. He had been alone in the office when the letter came, and had seized the 'phone and called up the engineer at the power house, and read the message to him. Skert Lawton's reply was as instant as it was characteristic. "That's all right," he said. "We're fixed for the scrap. Just come right over."
There was something of deadly earnest in his regard, something anxious. But that was always his way. Bat had once said of him: "Skert Lawton's one hell of a good boy. But I won't get no comfort in the grave if I ain't ever see him grin." There was not the smallest sign of a smile in him now. "It's one big notion," Bat said, at last. Then he added doubtfully. "It comes mighty nigh being too big."
His gaze was on the Cove below, where the snow-laden ice was discoloured by the moist slush of thaw, and the open waters, far down towards the distant headlands, had so deeply encroached upon the claims of winter. A great, premature thaw had set in. It was the real spring thaw a month or more early. Skert Lawton, who controlled the water power of the mill, had warned him of its coming.
Then he turned as the door opened and a small man hurried in. The fellow snatched his cap from his head and his eyes settled on Skert Lawton, the man he knew best. "It ees a document," he cried, in the broken English of a French Canadian. "They sign him, oh, yes. You no more are the boss. They say the mill it ees for the 'worker. All dis big mill, all dis big money. Oh, yes. Dey sign him."
But not the way you figgered when you got that fool notion of handing 'em a playhouse," he said roughly. "If you pass a hog a feather bed, it's a sure thing he'll work out the best way to muss it quick." "How? I don't get you?" There was no humour in Bat's eyes now. "They call it a 'Chapel'," Skert said dryly. "They've surely got preachers, but they don't talk religion.
But that boy, Skert Lawton, showed me a play I hadn't a notion about. It's that darn play shanty I set up for the boys. I feel that mad about it I got a notion closing it right down. It worried me startin' it. It worries me more now. You see, I guess it's come of me lappin' up the ha'f-baked notions you find wrote in the news-sheets.
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