The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tom Grogan, by F. Hopkinson Smith

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Title: Tom Grogan

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith

Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #850]
Release Date: March, 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TOM GROGAN

by F. Hopkinson Smith

I. BABCOCK'S DISCOVERY

Something worried Babcock. One could see that from the impatient gesture
with which he turned away from the ferry window on learning he had half
an hour to wait. He paced the slip with hands deep in his pockets, his
head on his chest. Every now and then he stopped, snapped open his watch
and shut it again quickly, as if to hurry the lagging minutes.

For the first time in years Tom Grogan, who had always unloaded his
boats, had failed him. A scow loaded with stone for the sea-wall that
Babcock was building for the Lighthouse Department had lain three days
at the government dock without a bucket having been swung across her
decks. His foreman had just reported that there was not enough material
to last the concrete-mixers two hours. If Grogan did not begin work at
once, the divers must come up.

Heretofore to turn over to Grogan the unloading of material for any
submarine work had been like feeding grist to a mill--so many tons of
concrete stone loaded on the scows by the stone crushing company
had meant that exact amount delivered by Grogan on Babcock's
mixing-platforms twenty-four hours after arrival, ready for the divers
below. This was the way Grogan had worked, and he had required no
watching.

Babcock's impatience did not cease even when he took his seat on the
upper deck of the ferry-boat and caught the welcome sound of the paddles
sweeping back to the landing at St. George. He thought of his men
standing idle, and of the heavy penalties which would be inflicted by
the Government if the winter caught him before the section of wall was
complete. It was no way to serve a man, he kept repeating to himself,
leaving his gangs idle, now when the good weather might soon be over
and a full day's work could never be counted upon. Earlier in the season
Grogan'