The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) Read Online Free Page A

left.
    “Was that what you were looking for?” the mill owner asked.
    “Exactly. Thank you.”
    “Well, let’s go back and watch my clerk pay the second shift.
And while we’re waiting for that, show me what you have in mind to keep this
short change from happening again.”
    So I showed him—a flat plank of wood with very shallow
holes, one for each coin. The worker could quickly see if he was getting all
the money coming to him.
    We went to his machinist and he ordered up several different
ones to pay different wages. He had the amount burned into each plank, and made
sure the planks didn’t look alike.
    “That ought to make it harder to cheat my workers,” he said.
    He carried the planks with us, signaled two heavyset men to
follow along, and we went back to where we could watch the payments being made.
My two girls were in line. When they were paid, they put their fingers on the
coins and told the clerk he hadn’t given them enough.
    “That’s what you always get,” he snapped. “Now move on, so the
rest can get their wages.” He shoved them aside with one arm, and the men behind
jostled them, so they looked bewildered.
    “You aint givin us the right amount,” the older one said.
“You’re cheatin us.”
    “Take it up with management,” the man said, and looked past
them, then blanched white when he saw the mill owner standing there.
    “What seems to be the problem?” the owner asked, and I would’ve
hated to be that cheatin man at that moment.
    “These girls, sir, they can’t count so they—”
    “Don’t know when you’re cheating them?” the owner put in. He
stepped up to the counter, grabbed the man by the back of his collar and shook
him. “Where’s their money?”
    The man glanced down and the mill owner reached down to where
he’d looked and pulled up a sack of coins that the man had been filling with
money he’d taken from the wages.
    “You men see what he’s been doing?” The other workers nodded,
angry at him.
    “Now he’s only been doing it to those of you who can’t count.
That’s not many, but enough so that he’s filled this bag today. See these
planks? If you can’t count, you ask for your money to be laid out on these
planks so you can see what you’re getting. This is for the weavers, like these
gals. This one’s for the general mill workers. And this is for the boys who
sweep and run errands.
    “Now Mr. Marteen is going to pay you folks while I get as much
of your wages back as I can from this cheat, who will no longer be working
here. I thank you for your labor. I did not know this was happening. It took
this young lady here, who does not know the meaning of fear, to step up and
tell me what was going on. From now on, I want to hear from you if anything
like this happens again.”
    He set the bag of money on the counter. “How long have you been
working here?” he asked my two girls.
    “Three months, sir.”
    “And have you always been paid by this man?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “At four cents a day, how much did he take from them?” he asked
me.
    “Do they work every day?”
    “Yes.”
    “Three dollars and sixty eight cents. A dollar eighty four
each.”
    “Here’s two dollars each, and my apologies.”  He counted it
out to them, looked over the room. “If you can count, he probably didn’t try to
steal from you. If you can’t, come to the office tomorrow before your shift.
We’ll work out what is comin to you.”
    He said goodbye to me and thanked me again. It made me feel real
proud to think I could help someone like that. If’n I hadn’t spoke up, that
cheat would still be a’stealin.
    The girls were waiting for me outside, all excited.
    “You did it,” the youngest said.
    “Yes, you caught the crook.”
    “And it warn’t the mill owner who was cheatin’ us.”
    “That’s right,” I told them. “He didn’t like it none, that he
was paying the wages and you folks warn’t getting all of it. Gave him a bad
name.”
    “What’s