"Yes. No, it's not, either. You've marked off Joe Percell at Harrison. He used to brake for the Huckleberry until he lost an arm. His is a pension job."
"Put his name back, then. How do you think it's going to work?"
"Oh, it will work all right, because it has to, but they'll all be cussing you," with great good humor. "What's the matter, anyhow? Did the old man throw a fit at the size of the pay-roll?"
"Not exactly, but he came down here with his mind made up to sell the road to the M. & W."
"I talked him out of that, but we must make a showing, for he's good and tired, and may dump the whole business any day."
"Well, if he does that there'll be no marrying or giving in marriage for me this summer. It will be just like a Shaker settlement where I am concerned."
Dan laughed. "Oh, you'd be all right, Holt. You'd get something else, or the M. & W. would keep you on."
"I don't know about that. A new management generally means a clean sweep all round, and my berth's a pretty good one."
In some manner a rumor of the changes Oakley proposed making did get abroad, and he was promptly made aware that his popularity in Antioch was a thing of the past. He was regarded as an oppressor from whom some elaborate and wanton tyranny might be expected. While General Cornish suffered their inefficiency, his easy-going predecessors had been content to draw their salaries and let it go at that, a line of conduct which Antioch held to be entirely proper. This new man, however, was clearly an upstart, cursed with an insane and destructive ambition to earn money from the road.
Suppose it did not pay. Cornish could go down into his pocket for the difference, just as he had always done.
What the town did not know, and what it would not have believed even if it had been told, was that the general had been on the point of selling--a change that would have brought hardship to every one. The majority of the men in the shops owned their own homes, and these homes represented the savings of years. The sudden exodus of two or three hundred families meant of necessity widespread ruin. Those who were forced to go away would have to sacrifice everything they possessed to get away, while those who remained would be scarcely better off. But Antioch never considered such a radical move as even remotely possible. It counted the shops a fixture; they had always been there, and for this sufficient reason they would always remain.