All-Wool Morrison. Holman Day
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Holman Day
All-Wool Morrison
Time -- Today, Place -- the United States, Period of Action -- Twenty-four Hours
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066197742
Table of Contents
I. HOW "THE MORRISON" BROKE ST. RONAN'S RULE II. THE THREAT OF WHAT THE NIGHT MAY BRING III. THE MORRISON ASSUMES SOME CONTRACTS IV. ANSWERING THE FIRST ALARM V. THE MEN WHO WERE WAITING TO BE SHOWN VI. THE MAN'S WORD OF THE MAYOR OF MARION VII. THE THIN CRUST OVER BOILING LAVA VIII. A ROD IN PICKLE IX. MAKING IT A SQUARE BREAK X. A SENATOR SIZES UP A FOE XI. FLAREBACKS IN THE CASE OF LOVE AND A MOB XII. RIFLES RULE IN THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE XIII. THE LINE-UP FORMS IN THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE XIV. THE IMPENDING SHAME OF A STATE XV. THE BOSS OF THE JOB XVI. THE CITY OF MARION SEEKS ITS MAYOR XVII. THE CAPITOL IN SHADOW XVIII. THE CAPITOL ALIGHT XIX. LANA CORSON HAS HER DOUBTS XX. IN THE COLD AND CANDID DAYLIGHT XXI. A WOMAN CHOOSES HER MATE
All-Wool Morrison
I
HOW "THE MORRISON" BROKE ST. RONAN'S RULE
On this crowded twenty-four-hour cross-section of contemporary American life the curtain goes up at nine-thirty o'clock of a January forenoon.
Locality, the city of Marion—the capital of a state.
Time, that politically throbbing, project-crowded, anxious, and expectant season of plot and counterplot—the birth of a legislative session.
Disclosed, the office of St. Ronan's Mill of the city of Marion.
From the days of old Angus, who came over from Scotland and established a woolen mill and handed it down to David, who placed it confidently in the possession of his son Stewart, the unalterable rule was that "The Morrison" entered the factory at seven o'clock in the morning and could not be called from the mill to the office on any pretext whatsoever till he came of his own accord at ten o'clock in the forenoon.
In the reign of David the old John Robinson wagon circus paraded the streets of Marion early on a forenoon and the elephant made a break in a panic and ran into the mill office of the Morrisons through the big door, and Paymaster Andrew Mac Tavish rapped the elephant on the trunk with a penstock and, only partially awakened from abstraction in figures, stated that "Master Morrison willna see callers till he cooms frae the mill at ten."
To go into details about the Morrison manners and methods and doggedness in attending to the matter in hand, whatever it might be, would not limn Stewart Morrison in any clearer light than to state that old Andrew, at seventy-two, was obeying Stewart's orders as to the ten-o'clock rule and was just as consistently a Cerberus as he had been in the case of Angus and David. He was a bit more set in his impassivity—at least to all appearances—because chronic arthritis had made his neck permanently stiff.
It may be added that Stewart Morrison was thirty-odd, a bachelor, dwelt with his widowed mother in the Morrison mansion, was mayor of the city of Marion, though he did not want to be mayor, and was chairman of the State Water Storage Commission because he particularly wanted to be the chairman; he was, by reason of that office, in a position where he could rap the knuckles of those who should attempt to grab and selfishly exploit "The People's White Coal," as he called water-power. These latter appertaining qualifications were interesting enough, but his undeviating observance of the mill rule of the Morrisons of St. Ronan's served more effectively to point the matter of his character. Stewart Morrison when he was in the mill was in it from top to bottom, from carder to spinner and weaver, from wool-sorter to cloth-hall inspector, to make sure that the manufacturing principles for which All-Wool Morrison stood were carried out to the last detail.
On that January morning, as usual, he was in the mill with his sleeves rolled up.
On his high stool in the office was Andrew Mac Tavish, his head framed in the wicket of his desk, and the style of his beard gave him the look of a Scotch terrier in the door of a kennel.
The office was near the street, a low building of brick, having one big room; a narrow, covered passage connected the room with the mill. A rail divided the office into two small parts.
According to his custom in the past few months, Mac Tavish, when he dipped his pen, stabbed pointed glances beyond the rail and curled his lips and made his whiskers bristle and continually looked as if he were going to bark; he kept his mouth shut, however.
But his silence was more baleful than any sounds he could have uttered; it was a sort of ominous, canine silence, covering a hankering to get in a good bite if the opportunity was ever offered.
It was the rabble o' the morning—the crowd waiting to see His Honor the Mayor—on the other side of the rail. It was the sacrilegious invasion of a business office in the hours sacred to business. It was like that every morning. It was just as well that the taciturn Mac Tavish considered that his general principle of cautious