the divinity that made the pattern of john’s life is infinitely mysterious. some call it luck. others call it chance. both are begging names. mathematicians call it probability—the theory of, and devote a branch of their science to it. definition is impossible. it is whatever it is that causes, permits or brings one thing to happen in place of all the other things that might just as well have happened. its commonest manifestations are profoundly obscure. on the first toss of a coin the chances are even between head and tail. on the second toss they change. why they change nobody can tell; but everyone knows that the odds against the heads coming twice in succession are two to one. if you think of it, how preposterous! rationally, how can the result of one throw create any probability as to the result of the next? yet it does. here evidently is some principle or rhythmic variation that we do not understand.
we speak of the law of chance. there is no such thing, for if chance could be reduced to law it would cease to be chance. it is outside any law we know. the mathematical odds are two to one against double heads, yet the head may happen to come ten times in succession, so that the actual predestined odds against[201] the tail showing once in ten throws were ten to one. if the head may come ten times in succession, could it come a thousand times? no one will say it could not. but since it has never happened as a matter of record you can’t imagine it, and the odds against it are what you will.
the fact of oneself is an amazing unlikelihood. the biological chances against one’s getting born as one is, plus the chances against any particular organism getting born at all, must have been billions to one. yet here one is, thinking it had been precisely inevitable since all eternity. perhaps it was. there may be no such thing as chance. it may be only that we never know all the factors. it may be. yet does not everyone believe from experience that survival is a continuous chance?
there are innumerable chances for and against one’s living another day, another hour. these chances are estimated statistically and great companies are formed to bet on them. that is life insurance. the insurance company bets not on the life of an individual, for that would be gambling; it bets that the aggregate life of ten thousand people will correspond to the average duration of human life, and that works out, because those who fall short of the average are balanced by those who exceed it, and there is an average. but any single life is the sport of pure chance. and we know nothing about this fickle arbiter. therefore we become superstitious. belief in luck is the only universal religion. luck is the happy chance. the right thing happens when it is needed. it strains a point[202] to happen. why it happens, in streaks, why it happens more to some than to others, why to a darling few it happens importunately,—these are questions one asks in a rhetorical sense. there is no answer. luck and genius may be two aspects of the same thing. luck happens and genius happens, and there is no accounting for it.
it came to be a notorious saying about john breakspeare that he was lucky. but people at the same time said he was dangerous, which would mean that he sometimes failed. that was true. he often failed. when that happened he did not curse his luck. it only occurred to him that he had played the wrong chance, and he went on from there. probably in a case like his there is a highly developed intuition of the winning chance corresponding to a musical composer’s intuition of harmony. the principles of harmony have been partially discovered. but the rhythms of chance are still a mystery.
certainly it was chance, not luck, that brought john this day to the edge of a small crowd in front of the county court house just as the auctioneer was saying:
“three thousand—three thousand—three thousand—t-h-r-e-e thous-a-n-d! three thousand dollars for a first class nail mill. why, gentlemen, it would fetch more than that by the pound for junk. three thousand do i hear one? three thousand do i hear one? going, at three—one! thank you, sir.”
he bowed ironically to john.
“thirty-one—thirty-one—thirty-one hund-r-e-d! do-i-hear-two? do-i-hear-two? do-i-hear-two? two[203] over there! now do i hear three? do-i-hear-three? two-do-i-hear-three?”
he was looking at john.
“going at thirty-two. are you all done? t-h-i-r-t-y-two, once. t-h-i-r-t-y-two, t w i c e. t-h-i-r-t-y-two for the third and—”
john nodded his head.
“three! three-i-have, three-i-have, three-i-have. thirty-three-hundred dollars for an up-to-date iron mill in the great city of pittsburgh. thirty-three-hundred. do i hear four? four do i hear? thirty-three, thirty-three, thirty-three. going at thirty-three hundred. going, once. going, twice. going for the third and last time—sold! to that young man over there. now, gentlemen, the next property to be sold by the decree of the court is a nail mill as is a mill. it has a capacity of—”
john, thrusting his way through the crowd, interrupted.
“where shall i go to settle for this?”
the auctioneer eyed him suspiciously and relighted his cigar before speaking.
“if i were you,” he squinted, “i’d try the clerk of the court.”
“where is he?”
“haven’t you seen him?”
“no.”
“why not?”
“there was no occasion.”
the auctioneer could not stand anything so opaque. it made him sarcastic.
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“if you have been playing booby horse with me and the court,—if you h-a-v-e! does anybody around here know your figger to look at it?”
“this is a public auction, isn’t it?” john asked.
“yes-sir-ee.”
“a certain property was put up here for sale?”
“yes-sir-ee.”
“well, i bought it,” said john. “now i want to pay for it. is that clear? i want to pay for it in cash. does that make it any clearer? whom shall i pay? that’s all i want to know.”
the auctioneer saved his ego with a gesture of being exceedingly bored. he turned to the bailiff at his side and wearily tore from his hands a large legal document. “i’ll read this,” he said. “take him in to the clerk.” then he resumed—“a nail mill as is a mill, gentlemen, particularly described, if we may read without further interruption, in terms as follows:—”
half an hour later john walked out of the courthouse with title to a mill he had never seen, guaranteed by the bankruptcy court to exist in twenty-ninth street and to contain tools, machines, devices, etc., pertaining to the manufacture of cut iron nails. it was one of four nail mills sold that day on the court house steps.
“can’t be much of a mill,” mused john. “still, it doesn’t take much of a mill to be worth thirty-three hundred dollars.”
not until long afterward, and then not very hard, did the incongruity of this transaction strike his sense of humor. and in fact it was not as irrational as it[205] might seem. he had to have a mill of some sort in which to place thane. nail mills were very cheap because they had increased too fast and were falling into bankruptcy. the other bidders undoubtedly were men who not only had examined the mill but who knew the state of the nail industry. it was not likely that they would over-value the property; and he paid only one hundred dollars more than they had been willing to give for it.
the next thing he did was to visit a lawyer whom he favorably remembered from slight acquaintance. that was jubal awns,—two small black eyes in a big round head and a pleasant way of saying yes.
john drew a slip of paper from his pocket. he wished to incorporate a company, to be styled the north american manufacturing company, ltd., with an authorized capital of a quarter of a million dollars and three incorporators,—himself, the lawyer awns and a man named thane.
“what is the business?” awns asked.
“manufacturing,” said john.
“yes,” said awns, “but what do we manufacture? what is the property to be incorporated?”
“a nail mill to begin with,” said john.
“where is it?”
“here in pittsburgh. thirty-ninth street.”
“that’s got me,” said awns. “i can’t think of any nail mill in thirty-ninth street.”
john looked at the bill of sale and improved the address without the slightest change of expression.
“twenty-ninth,” he said.
[206]
the lawyer took the bill of sale, glanced at it, and gave john a curious look.
“have you seen it?”
“no.”
“bought it sight unseen?”
“yes.”
“how much stock of this new company do you mean to issue?”
“founders’ shares, or whatever they are, and then stock to myself for what i put in,—the mill, the money to start with, and so on.”
“then why an authorized capital of a quarter of a million?”
“because i’m going into the iron and steel business,” said john.
awns studied him in silence.
“you have quit with gib at new damascus?”
“i’m out for myself,” said john.
“all right,” said awns. “here’s for the north american manufacturing company, limited.”
they drew up papers. at the end of the business john asked: “will you take your fee in cash or stock?”
jubal awns was amazed, and somehow challenged, too. he was ten years older than john, successful and shrewd, with a delusion that he was romantic. he loved to dramatize a matter and make unexpected decisions. putting down the papers he got up and walked three times across the floor with an air of meditation.
“i’ll take it in stock,” he said, “provided i may incorporate[207] all of your companies and take my fees that way each time.”
they shook hands on it.
it was late that afternoon when john and thane together set out in a buggy from the hotel to inspect the mill. thane was eager and communicative. he had not been taking it easy. he evidently had visited all the big mills in and around pittsburgh. he had seen some new practice and much that was bad, and had got a lot of ideas. he had informed himself as to the conditions of labor. here and there he had found a man he meant to pick up.
and all the time john’s heart was sinking.
as they turned into twenty-ninth street the eight stacks of the keystone iron works rose in their eyes. no other iron working plant was visible in the vicinity, and as john, looking for his nail mill, began to slow up, thane leaped to the notion that the keystone was their goal.
“she’s a whale,” he said, enthusiastically, but with no sound of awe. john gave him a squinting glance.
“would you tackle that?” he asked.
“oh,” said thane, “then that ain’t it.” in his tone was a sense of disappointment that answered john’s question. of course he would tackle it.
they drove slowly past the keystone, past dump heaps, sand lots, a row of unpainted, upside down boxes called houses, and came at length to a group of rude sheds, one large one and four small ones. one of the small ones, open in front like a wood-shed, was filled with empty nail kegs in tiers.
[208]
the front door of the big central shed was propped shut with an iron bar. john kicked it away, pulled the door open, and they went in. a figure rose out of the dimness, asking, “what’d ye want?”
“are you coleman’s caretaker?” john asked. coleman was the name of the bankrupt.
“yep,” said the man.
so this was the mill.
“we’ve bought him out,” said john. “want to have a look at the plant.”
“help yourself.”
they walked about silently on the earthen, scrap littered floor. a nail mill, as nail mills were at that time, was not much to look at, and a cold iron working plant of any kind has a bygone, extinct appearance. thane had never seen a cold mill. he was horribly depressed. gradually their eyes grew used to the dimness. the equipment consisted of an overloaded driving engine, one small furnace for heating iron bars, a train of rolls for reducing the bars to sheets the thickness of nails and five automatic machines for cutting nails from the sheet like cookies,—all in bad to fair condition.
“won’t look so sad when you get her hot and begin to turn her over,” said john.
thane said nothing. having examined the machinery and the furnace thoughtfully he stood for a long time surveying the mill as a whole. there was no inventory to speak of. the raw material, which was bar iron bought outside, had been worked up clean. they looked into the small sheds and then it began to[209] be dark. as they drove away thane spoke. it was the first word he had uttered.
“when do we start up?”
“right away,” said john. “i’ll contract some iron tomorrow.”
“give me a couple of weeks,” said thane. “there’s a lot to be done to that place.”
“what?”
“she’s all upside down,” he said. “the stuff ain’t moving right. no wonder they had to shut up.”
that night at supper agnes questioned her puddler.
“what is your mill like?”
“a one horse thing.”
his manner was preoccupied and she let him alone. after supper he went to his room, removed his coat, waistcoat, collar and shoes and sat with his feet in the window, thinking.
they had three rooms,—two bed chambers and a living room between. she sat in the middle room sewing, with a view of him through the door, which he left ajar. he did not move, except to refill and light his pipe. he was still there, slowly receding beyond a veil of smoke, when she retired.
before he went to bed the little nail mill was all made over and the stuff was moving right.
thane at this time was twenty-five. he had lived nearly all his life in the iron mill at new damascus. he could not remember a time when its uproar and smells were not familiar to his senses. his mother died when he was three. he was the only child. then his father, who was a puddler and loved him fiercely,[210] began to take him to the mill. it was a wonderful nursery. when the shift was daytime he was the puddlers’ mascot and playmate. at night he slept on a pallet in some gloom hidden niche from which he could see his father, satanically transfigured in the glare of the furnace. then he went to school, but spent all his playtime in the mill. the thrill of it never failed him. when he was old enough to carry water he got a job. at nineteen he became his father’s helper and delighted to vie with him in the weight of pig iron he could lift and heave into the maw of the furnace. the normal carry was one pig. he began to carry two at a time and his father matched him. but one day his father stumbled. as they stooped again side by side at the iron pile he picked up one pig. the old man gave him a queer, startled look and did the same. after that it was always one pig, and they never spoke of it. when his father died alexander took his place, and as he drew his first heat, enoch watching, the fact stood granted. he was the best puddler in the mill.
he had it in his hands. of iron, for coaxing, shaping and compelling it, he had that kind of tactile understanding an artist has for paint or clay, or any plastic stuff. he seemed to think with his hands. it is a mysterious gift, and leaves it open to wonder whether the brain has made the hand or the hand the brain. besides this intuitive knowledge that belongs to the hand thane possessed a natural sense of mechanics and a na?ve way of taking nothing for granted because it happens so to be. all of this was to be revealed. it was john’s luck.
