Sincerely, Willis Wayde by John P. Marquand

“I’ll walk around for a while, but come back for us at lunchtime, Patrick.”
    He stepped out of the Locomobile lightly and quickly and nodded to the gateman.
    â€œStay close behind me, Willis, or you may get lost,” he said, and he hurried past the trucks by the loading platform. No one seemed to notice Mr. Harcourt and Willis as they walked by. Mr. Harcourt always prided himself on never interrupting anything, and everyone there accepted his presence as a piece of everyday routine. Mr. Harcourt never stopped, he never gave Willis an explanation, no matter how strange the sights were they encountered, but still a picture of the Harcourt process unrolled scroll-like for Willis as he followed Mr. Harcourt.
    The Harcourt process was an accumulation of skills that had begun when the Harcourt Mill itself had started spinning yarn back in 1850. The durability and strength of Harcourt belting had given it a reputation in the trade of which the mill was proud. Though the process was largely mechanical, it was one that demanded care and precision. You talked about workmanship in sales conferences, but the morale of workmanship was something different. Later Willis learned subconsciously to estimate this morale, and he felt its presence on that first walk past the noisily accurate machinery. The labor in the Harcourt Mill was good skilled Yankee labor. Everyone in the Harcourt Mill was as good as everyone else, in his own way. The elderly foremen did not bother to look up as Mr. Harcourt moved past them, and every motion that the men made was lazily casual but at the same time beautifully precise. Mr. Harcourt walked through Sheds 1, 2, and 4 and through the pump shed and through Warehouse No. 1 to the shipping shed and then to the newer brick building, Unit No. 3, where they were installing new machinery. Except for sounds of hammering and the clicking of chain hoists, Unit 3 was quiet. A section of a boiler was being lowered to its foundation, and Willis saw his father in his shirt sleeves standing among the workmen, and for the first time in their walk Mr. Harcourt paused to watch.
    â€œEasy, Joe,” Willis heard his father saying. “Hold it.” Alfred Wayde raised his voice to a shout. “Did you ever see an elephant set his foot on a man’s head in the circus? Well, he’s got to put his foot down easy. Good morning, Mr. Harcourt.”
    â€œIs it coming down all right?” Mr. Harcourt asked.
    â€œThe boys are doing fine,” Alfred Wayde said.
    â€œThen don’t stop on my account,” Mr. Harcourt said. “I brought Willis along with me this morning.”
    â€œOh,” Mr. Wayde said, “hello, Willis. Let her down, Joe.… Easy, easy.”
    His father had no time for anything except for the problem in front of him. He was always at his best when he was facing mechanical fact.
    â€œWe’d better go to the office now. I don’t think we’ll be able to help them, Willis,” Mr. Harcourt said.
    The mill office building had been designed by the Boston architectural firm of Wentworth and Hynde, early in 1916. Representatives from a number of industrial plants had begun to visit the mill at that time, and Mr. Harcourt had been the first to see the sales value of an impressive place in which to receive customers. Though the general spirit of the building was in keeping with the older mill construction, a considerable sum had been spent on nothing but appearance. Its large arched doorway and its small-paned windows with green shutters gave the mill office the appearance of a Federalist dwelling, as it stood by itself at the northwest corner of the plant on a carefully tended plot of lawn. It looked, as Mrs. Blood had once said—because she and some other family stockholders had been opposed to the extravagance—like a headmaster’s overgrown house in a boys’ school, but at the same time it indicated without words the solidity and