To Him That Hath

or fifteen years he had followed the lumber from the raw wood through the various machines till he kn

lisation, with old Joe Barbeau and Joe's "chucker out." It was the "chucker out" that dragged him out of the "snake room" and, all unwitting, had given him

shouted over the tearing sa

errotte, looking up at him

the shoot." For these were still primitive days for labor-savi

of waste, the next board he slid into the shoot, and

tter with you?

tte, and, clutching at the d

ched his face. "Huh! When did

rrotte, fighting f

ad slouching by, "jump for that cook house

seated on a pile of slabs, drinking a cup of coffee; in five minutes more he st

im where to sleep. And, Perrotte, to-morrow m

dere. And you got one go

s he made for his family a home and for himself an assured place in the Blackwater Mills. His children fell into the hands of a teacher with a true vocation for his great work and a passion for young life. Under his hand the youth of the rapidly growing mill village were saved from the sordid and soul-debasing influences of their

he master's quiet but determined persistence. To the fat

t Tony be a master of men some d

feller. I mak him steeck on his book,

of tongue characteristic of her race was determined that her girl Annette should learn to be as stylish as "them that tho't

ng and taking on equal terms, sharing common privileges and advantages and growing into a community solidarity all their own, which

her vain and thriftless mother, who, socially ambitious for herself but more for her handsome, clever children, found herself increasingly embarrassed for funds. She lacked the means with which to suitably adorn herself and her children for the station in life to which she aspired and for which good clothes were t

o had outlined for her a University course. To Annette herself the ending of her school days was a bitter grief, the bitterness of which would have been greatly intensified

t from his father a capacity for the knowing and handling of machinery, which amounted almost to genius. Of the father's steadiness under the grind of daily work which had made him the head mechanic in the Mill, Tony possessed not a tittle. What he could get easily he got, and getting this fancied himself richly endowed, knowing not how slight and superficial is the equipment for life's stern fight that comes without sweat of brain and body. His cleverness deceived first himself and then his family, who united in believing him to be destined for high place and great things. Only two of those who had to do with him in his boyhood weighed him in the balance of truth. One was his Public School master, who labored with incessant and painful c

was ready to go back to his school. "You will make a mess of your life unless you can l

iday came round Tony would present himself for a job with Jack Maitland to plead for him. For to Tony Jack was as king, to whom he gave passionate loyalty

artly by his admiring devotion to his Captain but more by a wholesome dread of the inexorable disciplinary measures which slackness or trifling with the rules of the game woul

great game of duty as he played all games for all that was in him, Tony aglow at first with the movement and glitter and later mad with the lust for deadly daring that was native to his K

known, sickening, savage tightening of their courage and send them, laden like beasts of burden, up once more to that hell of blood and mud, of nerve-shattering shell, of blinding glare and ear-bursting roar of gun fire, and, worse than all, to the place where, crouching in the farcical deceptive shelter of the sandbagged trench, their fingers gripping into the steel of their rifle hands, they would wait for the zero hour. But as the weeks pa

eturned men found themselves with dazed, listless mind waiting for orders from someone, somewhere, or for the next movie show to open. But they were unwilling to take on the humdrum of making a living, and were in most cases incapable of initiating a congenial

y that they might live. Live! For these last terrible, great and glorious fifty months they had schooled themselves to the notion that the main business of life was not to live. There had been for them a thing to do infinitely more worth while than

at for his wares of heroic self-immolation, of dogged endurance done up in khaki, there was no demand in the bloodless but none the less strenuous conflict of living; and that other discovery, more disconcerting, that he was not the man he had been in pre-war days and thought himself still to be, but quite another, then he was ready for one of two alternatives, to surrender to the inev

rience they were now knit together in bonds that ran into life issues. Together they had faced war's ultimate horror, to

ion of a Junior Foreman in one of the planing m

ls. I feel that I owe you, that we both owe you more than we ca

and more than once, all he owed me. But," with a rueful smile, "don't

your best. I ask no m

ayonet and set some Huns before me, and I'

ave the brains and with your gift for machinery-Well, try it. You an

osed on the

, Jack?" said the

of us ma

ck, I know. Y

ll, we'll have a go at it, anyway. But, like To

but he knows nothing else. He doesn't know men nor markets. He is an office man pure and simple, and he's old, too old. The fact is, Jack, I have to be my own Manager inside and outside. My foremen are good, loyal, reliable fellows, but they only know

with Badgley in Toronto. I know something about

ke the money-how could I with my boy

ent and the Machine Gun Battery, and the Hospital. Do you know why Caramus took a job in the Permanent Force in England

ut his room with face w

et us get back. Every man wiped out, and Caramus carried back smashed to sm

l in the room

the father. "I pitied the poor wretch. He was alone in the

ee those men going about in the open and no one kicking them I get fairly sick. I don't wonder at some

ome newcomers from the old country whom I can't say I admire much. They grouch and they won't work. Our

ettle down. I have no more use for a sla

ork. But we have a big stock of spruce on hand-high-priced stuff, too-and a heavy, very heavy overhead. We shal

ome time at least. I know a little about hand

the office. Wickes will show you the ropes, and you will make good, I know. And I just want to say that you don't know how glad

ius for the business. I wish he

e we should have felt the same about you. God kno

r his father's chair, "as I said before, I'll m

swallowed the rising lump in his throat but could find no more words to go on with. But in his heart there

he result of long and painful discipline, and neither by nature nor by discipline had Jack come into the possession of this prime qualification for a successful office man. His ledger wellnigh brought tears to old Wickes' eyes and added a heav

gs. He had only pity for the plunger and for the loose liver contempt. Why should he tie himself to a desk, a well appointed desk it is true, but still a desk, in a four-walled room, a much finer room than his father had ever known, but a room which became to him a cage. Why? Of course, there was his father-and Jack wearily turned to his corresponden

ookkeeper set before him the week's pay sheet and production sheet,

"For themselves, surely. What would th

kes. They get a livi

the old man, "the

must

you see 'em sick, sir. My word! T

ut all the same, I don't wo

k, or let the machines work. That's the trouble, sir. Why, sir, when I came to

ng ago,

was to get the job, too. You see, sir, I had just come

u've worked at this desk for thirty-one

as you might say-but-well, there's my little home, and we've lived happy there, the

the old man's hand. "You have made a lot out of it-and you gave as fine a boy as ev

ir, which we don't forget, sir. Of course, it's hard on her

ing? Two of them, aren't there? Let'

s the eldest-fourteen, and quite clever at

must see to that. And lit

ut he is happy enough, if you give hi

de something out of it after all, Wi

fe and two lads to carry the name-was it worth while? Yes, by Jove, it was worth it all to be able to give a man like Stephen Wickes to his country. For Stephen Wicke

aw to it that his son was on all the big Provincial War Committees. Rupert had all the shrewd foresight and business ability of his father, which was saying a good deal. He began to assume the role of a promising young capitalist. The sources of his income no one knew-fortunate investments, people said. And his Hudson Six stood at the Rectory gate every day. Well, not even for Adrien would Jack have changed places with Rupert Stillwell. For Jack Maitland held the extreme and, in certain circles, unpopular creed that the citizen who came richer out of a war which had left his country submerged in debt, and which had drained away its best blood and left it poorer in its manhood by well-nigh seventy thousand of its noblest youth left upon the battlefields of the various war fronts and by the hundreds of thousands who would go through life a b