The Turmoil Booth Tarkington (best reads .txt) đ
- Author: Booth Tarkington
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âYesâ âIâll try.â
âYou better, if itâs in you!â Sheridan was sheerly nonplussed. He had always been able to say whatever he wished to say, but his tongue seemed bewitched. He had come to tell Bibbs about Maryâs letter, and to his own angry astonishment he found it impossible to do anything except to scold like a drudge-driver. âYou better come down there with your mind made up to hustle harder than the hardest workinâ-man thatâs under you, or youâll not get on very good with me, I tell you! The way to get aheadâ âand you better set it down in your booksâ âthe way to get ahead is to do ten times the work of the hardest worker that works for you. But you donât know what work is, yet. All youâve ever done was just stand around and feed a machine a child could handle, and then come home and take a bath and go callinâ. I tell you youâre up against a mighty different proposition now, and if youâre worth your saltâ âand you never showed any signs of it yetâ ânot any signs that stuck out enough to bang somebody on the head and make âem sit up and take noticeâ âwell, I want to say, right here and nowâ âand you better listen, because I want to say just what I do say. I sayâ ââ
He meandered to a full stop. His mouth hung open, and his mind was a hopeless blank.
Bibbs looked up patientlyâ âan old, old look. âYes, father; Iâm listening.â
âThatâs all,â said Sheridan, frowning heavily. âThatâs all I came to say, and you better seeât you remember it!â
He shook his head warningly, and went out, closing the door behind him with a crash. However, no sound of footsteps indicated his departure. He stopped just outside the door, and stood there a minute or more. Then abruptly he turned the knob and exhibited to his son a forehead liberally covered with perspiration.
âLook here,â he said, crossly. âThat girl over yonder wrote Jim a letterâ ââ
âI know,â said Bibbs. âShe told me.â
âWell, I thought you neednât feel so much upset about itâ ââ The door closed on his voice as he withdrew, but the conclusion of the sentence was nevertheless audibleâ ââif you knew she wouldnât have Jim, either.â
And he stamped his way downstairs to tell his wife to quit her frettinâ and not bother him with any more foolâs errands. She was about to inquire what Bibbs said, but after a second thought she decided not to speak at all. She merely murmured a wordless assent, and verbal communication was given over between them for the rest of that afternoon.
Bibbs and his father were gone when Mrs. Sheridan woke, the next morning, and she had a dreary day. She missed Edith woefully, and she worried about what might be taking place in the Sheridan Building. She felt that everything depended on how Bibbs âtook hold,â and upon her husbandâs return in the evening she seized upon the first opportunity to ask him how things had gone. He was noncommittal. What could anybody tell by the first day? Heâd seen plenty go at things well enough right at the start and then blow up. Pretty near anybody could show up fair the first day or so. There was a big job ahead. This material, such as it wasâ âBibbs, in factâ âhad to be broken in to handling the work Roscoe had done; and then, at least as an overseer, he must take Jimâs position in the Realty Company as well. He told her to ask him again in a month.
But during the course of dinner she gathered from some disjointed remarks of his that he and Bibbs had lunched together at the small restaurant where it had been Sheridanâs custom to lunch with Jim, and she took this to be an encouraging sign. Bibbs went to his room as soon as they left the table, and her husband was not communicative after reading his paper.
She became an anxious spectator of Bibbsâs progress as a man of business, although it was a progress she could glimpse but dimly and only in the evening, through his remarks and his fatherâs at dinner. Usually Bibbs was silent, except when directly addressed, but on the first evening of the third week of his new career he offered an opinion which had apparently been the subject of previous argument.
âIâd like you to understand just what I meant about those storage-rooms, father,â he said, as Jackson placed his coffee before him. âAbercrombie agreed with me, but you wouldnât listen to him.â
âYou can talk, if you want to, and Iâll listen,â Sheridan returned, âbut you canât show me that Jim ever took up with a bad thing. The roof fell because it hadnât had time to settle and on account of weather conditions. I want that building put just the way Jim planned it.â
âYou canât have it,â said Bibbs. âYou canât, because Jim planned for the building to stand up, and it wonât do it. The other oneâ âthe one that didnât fallâ âis so shot with cracks we havenât dared use it for storage. It wonât stand weight. Thereâs only one thing to do: get both buildings down as quickly as we can, and build over. Brickâs the best and cheapest in
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