About this time the labor element in the village and vicinity was startled by an advertisement in the Rockville "Daily News," signed by the clerk of the Board of Village Trustees, notifying contractors that thirty days thereafter, closing at nine P.M. precisely, separate sealed proposals would be received at the meeting-room of the board, over the post-office, for the hauling of twenty thousand cubic yards of fine crushed stone for use on the public highways; bidders would be obliged to give suitable bonds, etc.; certified check for five hundred dollars to accompany each bid as guaranty, etc.
The news was a grateful surprise to the workingmen. The hauling and placing of so large an amount of material as soon as spring opened meant plenty of work for many shovelers and pickers. The local politicians, of course, had known all about it for weeks; especially those who owned property fronting on the streets to be improved: they had helped the appropriation through the finance committee. McGaw, too, had known about it from the first day of its discussion before the board. Those who were inside the ring had decided then that he would be the best man to haul the stone.
The "steal," they knew, could best be arranged in the tally of the carts--the final check on the scow measurement. They knew that McGaw's accounts could be controlled, and the total result easily "fixed." The stone itself had been purchased of the manufacturers the year before, but there were not funds enough to put it on the roads at that time.
Here, then, was McGaw's chance. His triumph at obtaining the brewery contract was but short-lived. Schwartz had given him the work, but at Tom's price, not at his own. McGaw had accepted it, hoping for profits that would help him with his chattel mortgage.
After he had been at work for a month, however, he found that he ran behind. He began to see that, in spite of its boastings, the Union had really done nothing for him, except indirectly with its threatened strike. The Union, on the other hand, insisted that it had been McGaw's business to arrange his own terms with Schwartz.
What it had done was to kill Grogan as a competitor, and knock her non-union men out of the job. This ended its duty.
While they said this much to McGaw; so far as outsiders could know, the Union claimed that they had scored a brilliant victory.
The Brooklyn and New York branches duly paraded it as another triumph over capital, and their bank accounts were accordingly increased with new dues and collections.
With this new contract in his possession, McGaw felt certain he could cancel his debt with Crane and get even with the world. He began his arrangements at once. Police-Justice Rowan, the prospective candidate for the Assembly, who had acquired some landed property by the purchase of expired tax titles, agreed to furnish the certified check for five hundred dollars and to sign McGaw's bond for a consideration to be subsequently agreed upon.
A brother of Rowan's, a contractor, who was finishing some grading at Quarantine Landing, had also consented, for a consideration, to loan McGaw what extra teams he required.
The size of the contract was so great, and the deposit check and bond were so large, that McGaw concluded at once that the competition would be narrowed down between himself and Rowan's brother, with Justice Rowan as backer, and perhaps one other firm from across the island, near New Brighton. His own advantage over other bidders was in his living on the spot, with his stables and teams near at hand.
Tom, he felt assured, was out of the way. Not only was the contract very much too large for her, requiring twice as many carts as she possessed, but now that the spring work was about to begin, and Babcock's sea-wall work to be resumed, she had all the stevedoring she could do for her own customers, without going outside for additional business.
Moreover, she had apparently given up the fight, for she had bid on no work of any kind since the morning she had called upon Schwartz and told him, in her blunt, frank way, "Give the work to McGaw at me price. It's enough and fair."
Tom, meanwhile, made frequent visits to New York, returning late at night. One day she brought home a circular with cuts of several improved kinds of hoisting-engines with automatic dumping-buckets. She showed them to Pop under the kerosene lamp at night, explaining to him their advantages in handling small material like coal or broken stone. Once she so far relaxed her rules in regard to Jennie's lover as to send for Carl to come to the house after supper, questioning him closely about the upper rigging of a new derrick she had seen. Carl's experience as a sailor was especially valuable in matters of this kind. He could not only splice a broken "fall," and repair the sheaves and friction-rollers in a hoisting-block, but whenever the rigging got tangled aloft he could spring up the derrick like a cat and unreeve the rope in an instant. She also wrote to Babcock, asking him to stop at her house some morning on his way to the Quarantine Landing, where he was building a retaining-wall; and when he arrived, she took him out to the shed where she kept her heavy derricks. That more experienced contractor at once became deeply interested, and made a series of sketches for her, on the back of an envelope, of an improved pintle and revolving-cap which he claimed would greatly improve the working of her derricks. These sketches she took to the village blacksmith next day, and by that night had an estimate of their cost. She was also seen one morning, when the new trolley company got rid of its old stock, at a sale of car-horses, watching the prices closely, and examining the condition of the animals sold. She asked the superintendent to drop her a postal when the next sale occurred. To her neighbors, however, and even to her own men, she said nothing.
