The Green Jacket (Mystery Classics Series). Jennette Lee
this morning he had suddenly come to his decision to join forces with her. He would offer her a partnership. It was the one thing he had balked at. It had not been mentioned; but he had a conviction that if he had said to Milly the morning she left, "See here, Milly—we'll go shares. I'll make you my partner," he had a feeling that if he had said this—Milly would have done it. . . . Well, he had offered it now. The word partner had not been mentioned—but they both knew that was what it would come to. Tom blew a placid cloud of smoke. It floated from the window.
He had been long enough about it. He could not understand now why he had waited so long. This morning as soon as the idea had come to him, he had not waited a second. He had clapped on his hat and gone straight to Milly's office—the down-town one. . . . They were surely doing the business there! His mind dwelt happily on the down-town office, and the smoke from his pipe drifted from the window and built castles in the air.
Chapter III
And in the down-town office, Milly, sitting in a large chair drawn up before a table, was confronting a thick-set, clumsily built man—a Dane, it might be, from his speech.
"I got-to go, Miss Newberry!" he was saying stolidly. "My woman she say, all time, 'You take job.' . . . She don't know I can't go new place." He stared at her almost resentfully, yet with a kind of deference in the slouching shoulders.
"Where is it, Mr. Bergman?" asked Milly quietly.
"Milwaukee," said the man. "Good work—big pay! My wife's brother, he say, 'Come quick—you lose big job!' He don't know I can't go Milwaukee. . . . I got-to go, Miss Newberry!" The big hands that had been shifting his old hat through nervous fingers gripped it suddenly, and his eyes lifted themselves to her face with a dumb look of insistence.
She returned the look thoughtfully. "How long has it been?" she asked.
"Ten months," said the man quickly.
"And you have been reporting to me every two weeks for ten months?"
He nodded with a hopeless gesture.
"And if you went to Milwaukee——"
He started. A gleam came into his blue eyes. "I be good man," he said. "I keep straight. I work hard! Big pay. I strong man." He stretched out his great arm.
"Yes, I know you're strong. If you hadn't been strong, you wouldn't have laid out Sergeant McKay with one blow."
"I didn't know he police," interpolated the man eagerly. "I just hit—anybody—all round!" He waved his great arm dramatically. It swung past Milly's head and the hand descended with a thud on the table between them.
"You know I good man," he said impressively.
Milly nodded. "But you struck down the sergeant."
"Ye-s-s." The blue eyes dropped an instant. Then they raised themselves trustfully to her. "When you drunk, you hit—all round!" he explained simply.
"So I understand," returned Milly with a smile. "Now suppose you get drunk in Milwaukee—and hit all round—and are arrested again?"
The man started a little.
"Yes," said Milly quietly, "and then—when you break jail and escape, and they catch you again—in Milwaukee—it means prison, six months, a year perhaps. . . . Isn't it better to stay here, and report to me every other week—better than being in prison in Milwaukee, and no one to earn money for the children? How is Karl?" she asked abruptly.
The man's face was suffused with a quick glow of pride. "He do grand!" he said. "He bring home praise-card. They say Karl make fine boy!"
"He hasn't had to stay out of school for nearly a year now," commented Milly. "But when his father gets drunk and goes to jail, or prison, and Karl has to stay out to earn money, he can't be the fine boy you want him to be. . . . Wasn't that what you came to America for, Mr. Bergman—for the sake of the children?" She asked it slowly, watching his face.
The blue eyes were studying the floor. He was like a great overgrown boy, his sturdy figure standing erect before her. But when he raised the blue eyes shrewdly and looked at her with straight glance, they suggested Viking days and the strength of battle; and the Danish forebears whose blood raced in his veins seemed trying to speak in the broken words that crowded to the clumsy lips.
"I stop drink, Miss Newberry. I begin new man, Milwaukee. When they say, 'Have a drink,' I shake head. I go 'way off. My boy he stay school. My wife she have nice shawl!" He leaned forward with eager gaze. "I try hard!" he said simply.
Milly's gaze was non-committal.
"Why do you want to drink, Mr. Bergman?" she asked. "Why is it so hard for you to stop? Is it the taste of it you want?"
His eyes sought the corners of the room for answer, and his hand turned the old felt hat. His neck raised itself a little from the blue shirt-band.
"I don't like it—that stuff!" he announced.
"No?"
"Bad stuff!" he went on slowly. "Bad—in here!" He placed an appropriate hand.
"You drink it because you're bored, I believe," said Milly, looking at him shrewdly.
He turned a grateful glance.
"Yes—" He heaved a sigh. "I get up. I go work. I work hard. I mean be good man. But all time I feel bad—in here! I want laugh. I want sing. I want something happen. I say: 'Go take drink’"
"And then things happen," said Milly dryly. "Listen, Mr. Bergman. I am going to put you on a long parole—for six months. You are to go to Milwaukee and take this job." He started eagerly. She held up a hand. "At the end of six months, if you have been drunk—even once—you are to come back and report to me here."
The man's gaze was thoughtful. "That take big money!" he said.
"It will take bigger money to get drunk, won't it?" said Milly curtly. "I may have to be in Milwaukee. If I am, you can report to me there. If not, you will come to me here."
The man looked at it a long minute. He sighed heavily. "Thank you, miss." Then, after another minute, "I don't get drunk!" he said.
"I don't believe you will," replied Milly. "If I thought you would, I shouldn't let you go. . . . You have kept straight nearly a year now—with no excitement except coming to see me once in two weeks." Her eye twinkled a little. "You won't have that excitement now. And I am going to tell you what to do."
He looked at her trustingly.
"You are to plan every day something different—to do."
"Something different?" said the man vaguely. He looked helplessly about the room.
"What I plan?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Don't ask me. You must think. That will help you forget the drinking. Listen—" She leaned forward a little. "You are going to have more money in Milwaukee’"
"Big pay!" said the man expansively.
"Yes— Well, you must spend some of the money for good times."
"Good times?" He scratched his head. Then he shook it—without enthusiasm.
"For all of you," said Milly. "Things for the children—and for your wife. Every day be planning something to do when you get home—or for Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Make a garden for them, or take them on a picnic. Think of things!" she said energetically.
He gazed at her humbly. "You think that good way?" he asked doubtfully.
"I know it is," said Milly. "You keep thinking about the children. Make them happy and well, and you won't want to drink!"
She rose and held out her hand. "Good-by," she said quietly. "I don't think you will come to see me again."
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