Kindred of the Dust

  V

  Hector McKaye had always leaned toward the notion that he could runPort Agnew better than a mayor and a town council, in addition toderiving some fun out of it; consequently, Port Agnew had never beenincorporated. And this was an issue it was not deemed wise to press,for The Tyee Lumber Company owned every house and lot in town, andHector McKaye owned every share of stock in the Tyee Lumber Company.

  If he was a sort of feudal baron, he was a gentle and kindly one;large building-plots, pretty little bungalows, cheap rentals, and notaxation constituted a social condition that few desired to change. Asthese few developed and The Laird discovered them, their positions inhis employ, were forfeited, their rents raised, or their leasescanceled, and presently Port Agnew knew them no more. He paid fairwages, worked his men nine hours, and employed none but naturalizedAmericans, with a noticeable predilection for those of Scotch nativityor ancestry.

  Strikes or lockouts were unknown in Port Agnew--likewise saloons.Unlike most sawmill towns of that period, Port Agnew had no street inwhich children were forbidden to play or which mothers taught theirdaughters to avoid. Once an I.W.W. organizer came to town, and uponbeing ordered out and refusing to go, The Laird, then past fifty, hadducked him in the Skookum until he changed his mind.

  The Tyee Lumber Company owned and operated the local telephone company,the butcher shop, the general store, the hotel, a motion-picturetheater, a town hall, the bank, and the electric-light-and-power plant,and with the profits from these enterprises, Port Agnew had pavedstreets, sidewalks lined with handsome electroliers, and a sewersystem. It was an admirable little sawmill town, and if the expensesof maintaining it exceeded the income, The Laird met the deficit andassumed all the worry, for he wanted his people to be happy andprosperous beyond all others.

  It pleased Hector McKaye to make an occasion of his abdication andDonald's accession to the presidency of the Tyee Lumber Company. TheDreamerie was not sufficiently large for his purpose, however, for heplanned to entertain all of his subjects at a dinner and make formalannouncement of the change. So he gave a barbecue in a grove of mapleson the edge of the town. His people received in silence the littlespeech he made them, for they were loath to lose The Laird. They knewhim, while Donald they had not known for five years, and there weremany who feared that the East might have changed him. Consequently,when his father called him up to the little platform from which hespoke, they received the young laird in silence also.

  "Folks--my own home folks," Donald began, "to-day I formally take upthe task that was ordained for me at birth. I am going to be veryhappy doing for you and for myself. I shall never be the man my fatheris; but if you will take me to your hearts and trust me as you havetrusted him, I'll never go back on you, for I expect to live and todie in Port Agnew, and, while I live, I want to be happy with you. Iwould have you say of me, when I am gone, that I was the worthy sonof a worthy sire." He paused and looked out over the eager, upturnedfaces of the men, women, and children whose destinies he held in thehollow of his hand. "My dear friends, there aren't going to be anychanges," he finished, and stepped down off the platform.

  From the heart of the crowd a lumberjack cried, "Ya-hoo-o-o-o-o!" asonly a lusty lumberjack can cry it. "He's a chip of the old block!"cried another, and there were cheers and some tears and a general rushforward to greet the new master, to shake his hand, and pledgeallegiance to him.

  When the reception was over, old Hector took charge of the homelygames and athletic contests, and the day's delights culminated in alog-burling contest in the Skookum, in which the young lairdparticipated. When, eventually, he fell in the river and was countedout, old Hector donned his son's calked boots and, with a whoop suchas he had not emitted in forty years, entered the lists against theyoung fellows. In the old days in the Michigan woods, when burling wasconsidered a magnificent art of the lumberjack, he had been achampion, and for five minutes he spun his log until the water foamed,crossing and recrossing the river and winning the contest unanimously.From the bank, Mrs. McKaye and his daughters watched him withwell-bred amusement and secret disapproval. They could never forget,as he could, that he was The Laird of Tyee; they preferred moredignity in the head of the house.

  The McKaye family drove home along the cliff road at sunset. YoungDonald paused on the terrace before entering the house, and, stirredby some half-forgotten memory, he glanced across the bight to thelittle white house far below on the Sawdust Pile. The flag wasfloating from the cupola, but even as he looked, it came flutteringdown.

  Donald turned toward the McKaye flag. It was still floating. "The oldorder changeth," he soliloquized, and hauled it down, at the same timeshouting to his father within the house:

  "Hey, dad; fire the sunset gun!"

  The Laird pressed the button and the cannon boomed.

  "We've neglected that little ceremony since you've been away," heremarked, as Donald entered the room. "'Other times, other customs,' Idare say."

  He hurried up-stairs to dress for dinner (a formality which hedisliked, but which appeared to please his wife and daughters), andDonald took his father's binoculars and went out on the terrace. Ithad occurred to him that he had not seen old Caleb Brent and Nan atthe barbecue, and he wondered why. Through the glasses, he could makeout the figure of a woman in the cupola window, and she was watchinghim through a long marine telescope.

  "There's my old friend Nan, grown to womanhood," Donald soliloquized,and waved his arm at her. Through the glasses, he saw her wave back athim.