The Second Generation

The Second Generation

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Title: The Second Generation
Author: David Graham Phillips
Release Date: March 17, 2004 [EBook #11614]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE SECOND GENERATION
BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS
AUTHOR OF "THE COST," "THE PLUM TREE," "THE SOCIAL
SECRETARY," "THE DELUGE," ETC.
1906

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.--"PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER!" II.--OF SOMEBODIES AND
NOBODIES III.--MRS. WHITNEY INTERVENES IV.--THE
SHATTERED COLOSSUS V.--THE WILL VI.--MRS. WHITNEY
NEGOTIATES VII.--JILTED VIII.--A FRIEND IN NEED IX.--THE
LONG FAREWELL X.--"THROUGH LOVE FOR MY CHILDREN"
XI.--"SO SENSITIVE" XII.--ARTHUR FALLS AMONG LAWYERS
XIII.--BUT IS RESCUED XIV.--SIMEON XV.--EARLY
ADVENTURES OF A 'PRENTICE XVI.--A CAST-OFF SLIPPER
XVII.--POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE XVIII.--LOVE, THE
BLUNDERER XIX.--MADELENE XX.--LORRY'S ROMANCE
XXI.--HIRAM'S SON XXII.--VILLA D'ORSAY XXIII.--A STROLL
IN A BYPATH XXIV.--DR. MADELENE PRESCRIBES
XXV.--MAN AND GENTLEMAN XXVI.--CHARLES WHITNEY'S
HEIRS XXVII.--THE DOOR AJAR XXVIII.--THE DEAD THAT
LIVE

THE SECOND GENERATION

CHAPTER I
"PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER!"
In six minutes the noon whistle would blow. But the workmen--the
seven hundred in the Ranger-Whitney flour mills, the two hundred and
fifty in the Ranger-Whitney cooperage adjoining--were, every man and
boy of them, as hard at it as if the dinner rest were hours away. On the
threshold of the long room where several scores of filled barrels were
being headed and stamped there suddenly appeared a huge figure, tall
and broad and solid, clad in a working suit originally gray but now
white with the flour dust that saturated the air, and coated walls and
windows both within and without. At once each of the ninety-seven
men and boys was aware of that presence and unconsciously showed it
by putting on extra "steam." With swinging step the big figure crossed
the packing room. The gray-white face held straight ahead, but the keen
blue eyes paused upon each worker and each task. And every "hand" in
those two great factories knew how all-seeing that glance was--critical,

but just; exacting, but encouraging. All-seeing, in this instance, did not
mean merely fault-seeing.
Hiram Ranger, manufacturing partner and controlling owner of the
Ranger-Whitney Company of St. Christopher and Chicago, went on
into the cooperage, leaving energy behind him, rousing it before him.
Many times, each working day, between seven in the morning and six
at night, he made the tour of those two establishments. A miller by
inheritance and training, he had learned the cooper's trade like any
journeyman, when he decided that the company should manufacture its
own barrels. He was not a rich man who was a manufacturer; he was a
manufacturer who was incidentally rich--one who made of his business
a vocation. He had no theories on the dignity of labor; he simply
exemplified it, and would have been amazed, and amused or angered
according to his mood, had it been suggested to him that useful labor is
not as necessary and continuous a part of life as breathing. He did not
speculate and talk about ideals; he lived them, incessantly and
unconsciously. The talker of ideals and the liver of ideals get echo and
response, each after his kind--the talker, in the empty noise of applause;
the liver, in the silent spread of the area of achievement.
A moment after Hiram roused the packing room of the flour mill with
the master's eye, he was in the cooperage, the center of a group round
one of the hooping machines. It had got out of gear, and the workman
had bungled in shutting off power; the result was chaos that threatened
to stop the whole department for the rest of the day. Ranger brushed
away the wrangling tinkerers and examined the machine. After
grasping the problem in all its details, he threw himself flat upon his
face, crawled under the machine, and called for a light. A moment later
his voice issued again, in a call for a hammer. Several minutes of sharp
hammering; then the mass of iron began to heave. It rose at the upward
pressure of Ranger's powerful arms and legs, shoulders and back; it
crashed over on its side; he stood up and, without pause or outward
sign of his exertion of enormous strength, set about adjusting the
gearing to action, with the broken machinery cut out. "And he past
sixty!" muttered one workman to another, as a murmur of applause ran
round the admiring circle. Clearly Hiram Ranger was