The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Read online

  The summer had been very dry. By mid-July the Mamaputock River was three inches below its normal water level. Unable to navigate his Chris-Craft in the upper reaches of the river, Pat was forced to give up going to work in his speed boat. At seven thirty in the morning he would be waiting restlessly for Yale at the breakfast table, watching impatiently while Yale would cram in a hurried and inadequate breakfast. In Pat's Packard convertible, the top down, Yale would sleepily try to adjust himself to a new day while Pat drove at a furious speed the fifteen miles between home and factory.

  Despite his fast, concentrated driving, Pat managed to maintain an endless flow of conversation concerning business, politics, and general developments at the plant. Often his questions to Yale went unanswered, but it didn't deter him, and he kept right on discussing problems at length, and providing his own satisfactory answers.

  This morning Pat was in a particularly good mood. Yale was working in the advertising department with Bert Walsh, their new advertising manager. While Pat's plans were to have Yale work in the factory each summer through his junior year in college, the uneasy situation with the Union made this inadvisable. Pat had been pleased with the reports from Bert Walsh that Yale seemed to have a quick mind, together with an unusual grasp of public psychology in preparing advertising campaigns for Marratt products. Pat had hoped that the aggressiveness and drive of Bert Walsh would rub off on Yale. Though Pat would admit it to no one, he was quite impressed with his new advertising manager and Bert's degree of a Master in Business Administration. He intimated to Yale frequently that rounding off his education at Harvard Business School would be an excellent idea. Yale continued to be non-committal. Every time Pat thought he noticed a change in Yale's approach to business, he would discover, to his disgust, that Yale would take the opposite side of the fence and extol the merits of Roosevelt and the value of a planned economy.

  Pat discussed it with Doctor Tangle. The President of Midhaven College shrugged it off as growing pains. "Yale has a good mind. He's become an inspiration to the faculty. While some of his ideas are utter nonsense, they are keenly thought out. Don't you worry about him, Pat," Doctor Tangle had continued with his heh-heh chuckle. "He'll come a full circle and someday he'll take over the Marratt Corporation and run it better than you have."

  Perhaps Doctor Tangle was right, Pat thought. Yale was just a kid. He grinned to himself as he thought of a conversation with Liz a few nights before.

  Liz had rushed into the bathroom while he was showering. "Do you know what I just found out?" she demanded. "I'm so ashamed!" Pat poked his head out of the shower, looking at her with a helpless what-now expression.

  "Marie Middleton just told me. Beatrice confessed to her that she and that Cynthia Carnell girl and Yale and his roommate stayed overnight in a tourist cabin!" Pat continued to soap himself, wondering what was coming next. "It was terrible," Liz said. "Beatrice said they played strip poker." There were tears in Liz's eyes. "I don't know what you're going to do with that boy, Pat, but it's simply awful. If Doctor Tangle heard about it, they'd all be expelled from Midhaven."

  "Oh, hell, Liz, Yale's got to find out about girls sometime. Stop worrying about it."

  It was a part of growing up, he thought, as he turned on to Route 6. He wondered what kind of a cluck the Middleton girl was that she would tell her family. The only real trouble, he reflected, was that the situation with the Jewish girl had gone too damned far. Christ, the first thing he knew Yale would get her pregnant, or they would just suddenly get married. It seemed incredible to him that this puppy-dog love had survived nearly three years. Something definite would have to be done before things reached a real crisis. The trouble was that it was so difficult to talk to Yale. He just listens to me rave, Pat thought, and then does what he damn well feels like doing.

  "I hope you're not getting in too deep with that Cynthia Carnell," he said, glancing at Yale slumped down in the seat beside him. "I haven't got anything against Jews but you've got to face it, Yale. You can't mix these things up. Even the Jews realize it. I don't think her family would appreciate her going around with a Gentile."

  Yale didn't answer him.

  Pat continued, realizing as he spoke that he had said the same thing at least a dozen times to Yale in the past two years. "Besides, boy, you've got your future to think of. You've got responsibilities, you know. Someday, you and I will build the Marratt Corporation into a real giant. After all, what is it now compared with outfits like General Foods and Standard Brands? Once I know you're with me, boy, we'll do a little branching out. I've got some plans that in a few years, with the two of us pulling together, could move the Marratt Corporation right to the top of the heap."

  They passed the empty building of the old American Piano Company. Yale could remember helping a gang of boys throw stones at the narrow windows which shattered so perfectly on a direct hit. Radio had come to New England, and in true American fashion, the natives found it easier to listen to someone else who had sweated more perseveringly over the intricacies of flats and sharps than try to learn the piano themselves. The building had been empty for as long as Yale could remember.

  "I could pick that building up for a song," Pat said as they passed it. "Being so close to the plant it might come in handy someday. I think I'll talk it over with Frank Middleton."

  They pulled into the large parking space that flanked one entire side of the Marratt Corporation factory. Pat was proud of his plant, which had been designed by a New York architectural firm for a substantial fee. Surrounded by green lawns on three sides with the Mamaputock River in back, the quarter-mile-long plant had an air of efficiency and cleanliness in keeping with the quality tradition of the Marratt products. When the plant had been completed Pat had insisted that a reproduction of it be incorporated on the letterhead of the firm.

  "We've got something to be proud of, now," he told his executive staff. "The Marratt products are no longer being made in an old pre-Civil War building. Every time the public eats my jam I want them to know it came out of a factory like this."

  Over the entrance to the factory, a huge American flag, and below it a flag that carried the Marratt crest, fluttered in the early morning July breeze.

  "What do you say to a cup of coffee and a couple of doughnuts?" Pat asked as they walked in the front door. He edged Yale toward the cafeteria.

  Yale looked at him surprised. "You just ate breakfast." It wasn't that Yale objected. He actually was in no hurry to put himself behind the desk in the office next to Bert Walsh. It would be a day spent working on inane advertising ideas which Bert hoped that Yale would attempt to develop into complete advertisements.

  The unexpected humanness of his father caught Yale off guard. "To tell you the truth, Yale, the coffee this morning was very much on the down side. I've been telling Liz to get a new cook but Amy seems to be all she wants. Since we don't eat home too much, I guess it doesn't matter."

  The cafeteria was deserted except for the manager who fawningly placed coffee and doughnuts in front of them. "There's a dance tonight at the Club, Yale," Pat said. "Your mother and I would like to see you there. I'm going to break away about three o'clock and play a few holes of golf with Bert Walsh and Doctor Tangle. Why don't you come along and make it a foursome?"

  Yale was about to refuse. Although Yale had once been able to play golf in the middle eighties, the sport held little allure for him. The sharply competitive hole-by-hole betting that Pat engaged in, coupled with endless commentaries about the various courses that Pat had played throughout the country, seemed shallow and purposeless. If he had been left to his own devices, Yale probably never would have learned to play. He would have preferred to spend the time in idle, introspective walks along the Mamaputock River. He decided now, however, in view of his father's good humor, to accept the invitation. He was pleased with Pat's happy reaction as they strolled through the corridor leading to the administrative offices.

  Bert Walsh had left several layouts on Yale's desk th
at were evidently preliminary roughs for a fall advertising campaign on the Marratt line of preserves. Yale looked them over indolently, wondering what Bert expected him to do with them. Trying to pass the slowly dragging time until college started, knowing that he was only a temporary part of the Marratt productive scheme, and feeling that both Bert and Pat were trying desperately to find something for him to do, made each day seem endless. He shoved aside the layouts and shuffled in his desk, locating the first act of a play he had started. He read it over. It wasn't bad, he thought. It seemed incredible that he had started this play nearly two years ago. He remembered reading it to Cindar. He decided that today he would see if he couldn't write the second act. He was scribbling away industriously when Bert Walsh walked in.

  Standing beside Yale's desk, Bert looked very polished and crisp. He wore a Palm Beach suit which was perfectly creased and a white shirt with an expertly knotted tie. Yale was wearing a sport shirt, with the collar open at the neck. Compared with Bert, Yale felt a little awkward and then he realized that while he could dress as casually as his father, probably in the last analysis Bert Walsh was afraid to drop the more conventional dress. Either that or he was just the type who would remain always dignified and unruffled; in a way a carbon copy of Frank Middleton, the handsome executive-type whose pictures Yale had examined with dismay in the Fortune magazines that were left in the reception office of the Marratt Corporation. Magazines that never seemed to be read by anyone else except the salesmen who called to sell Marratt.

  "Glad to see you getting your teeth into those layouts, Yale. I worked on them until about ten thirty last night. What do you think of that copy? Your father is a great one for a lot of white space. Plenty of prestige. No fill. Just plain facts."

  Yale fingered the layouts, trying to conceal his embarrassment. "I haven't read them. If you want to know, I'm writing a play." Yale picked up the rough copy Bert put on his desk and read aloud: "Marratt Jams on your table bring you the incomparable taste thrill of fresh, whole fruits chosen with care and processed in the sunlit Marratt factories. Whenever you serve Marratt Jams -- for breakfast -- for lunch -- for late evening snacks -- you serve the ultimate in fine quality."

  Yale shrugged. "And if you can't afford Marratt Jams you can buy the same thing for five cents less with an A &P label. Ye Gods, it would seem to me that if we cared so much for Marratt Jams we wouldn't pack the same jams using private brand labels."

  "You may be right," Bert said, "but remember, if we don't pack private brands, some other manufacturer will." Bert gathered up his layouts. "Well, I've got work to do," he said ironically. His yoice implied that Yale being a rich man's son could do what he wished. "What's your play about anyway?" he asked before he left, trying to show a little interest.

  Yale grinned. "About the unions and birds like you and my father. By the way, how are we doing with the union? I haven't asked Pat for several days." Bert told him that there was talk of a sit-down strike unless Pat granted a general ten cents an hour increase. "Your father has got them buffaloed. Some of the supervisors had a meeting at Harry Cohen's home in Helltown last night, I understand. Cohen has kept them in an uproar for two years. What have the poor suckers got out of it? A few cents an hour that they would have got anyway without benefit of union dues."

  On the way out to the Midhaven Country Club that afternoon Bert sat in front with Pat. Yale, sitting on the back seat, listened to them discuss the union problem further. "I may be wrong," Pat said, "but I think they're getting fed up with this Harry Cohen. After all, what does he know about our situation. He's been here two years now with this damned union. I'm just waiting for one false move. When he makes it I'll can him. Then we'll start a drive on the members and get these union rabble rousers out of the plant." Bert agreed with him. It was a temporary condition, aggravated by Roosevelt who would play footsies with any political group in order to get elected.

  In the Club, Pat and Yale went to Pat's private room. Bert took off to the general locker room. Pat had made Bert a temporary member, giving him locker room rights. Pat Marratt and Alfred Latham were the original founders of the Midhaven Country Club. Having purchased the largest portion of the original bond issue, they were instrumental in designing the club so that there were ten private rooms available for the original charter members. Each of these rooms was in reality a miniature apartment with a large sitting room, a kitchenette and a good sized tiled bathroom. The sitting room made a convenient retreat at the various social functions and frequently Pat or Liz used it for private cocktail parties.

  "It's nice to have you with me again," Pat said as he changed into his golf clothes. "You ought to do more of this. There's a good gang of fellows out here. Lot of the younger set are your age. You used to play with Jim Latham. He's on the golf team at Harvard. Wait until you see the drive he has developed. Straight as a die. Puts him on the green eight times out of ten. You need to get away from books -- and have more male company."

  Yale recognized the veiled reference to the time he spent with Cindar. What was it about Pat, he thought, that kept him so eternally in pursuit of his objective? Even though he might have occasionally enjoyed playing golf, Yale had stayed away from the club purposely, refusing to yield to Pat's insistent desire to recreate him in his own image.

  "Golf's all right," Yale said, tying his shoes, "but I've got other fish to fry. . . ."

  They walked together downstairs toward the pro shop where their clubs were kept. As they walked along the veranda of the club Pat said, "Speaking of other fish -- I hope you are keeping in mind that there are a great many other fish in the ocean beside gefilte fish. From what I hear . . . you and that Carnell girl got pretty chummy a few weeks ago."

  Yale blushed. Before going home for summer vacation, Sonny Thompson discovered that Beatrice had spilled the beans about the tourist cabin to her mother. Evidently the story had gone full circle.

  "I'm not prying into your sex life at the moment," Pat said carefully, "but you keep a couple of fundamental things in mind. One: I am going to take up with Doctor Tangle the possibility of your applying for Harvard Business School when you graduate. Two: and perhaps more important, don't get yourself tangled up with any kikes. Believe me, Liz and I are one on the subject. This affair with you and that Jewish girl has nowhere to go . . . the sooner you realize that the better off you'll be."

  Yale could feel the anger surging in him. He was about to tell Pat to hell with it; Pat could find someone else for the foursome. But before Yale could reply, Dick Cannon, the Midhaven pro golfer, greeted them.

  "Doctor Tangle and Mr. Walsh said for you to join them for a quick one at the bar. I'll have your clubs ready when you come out."

  "Good idea," Pat said. They walked into the cool, shadowed interior of the club. Doctor Tangle, dressed in 1920 style knickers, was sitting at the bar with Bert Walsh who wore an immaculate T shirt and pressed white flannel pants. Yale wondered if Doctor Tangle realized how outdated he looked. A baseball cap covered his almost cleanly bald head; a light knitted sweater hugged his paunch.

  "We're only having a lime rickey," Doctor Tangle explained. "Got to keep my wits about me playing against you, Pat. How will we match up?" Pat ordered two more lime rickeys.

  "Yale and I will take on you and Bert. No handicap. Yale hasn't played for a year and Bert is pretty good. Want to make it a dollar a hole, Yale? I'm paying him thirty a week this summer," Pat explained to Doctor Tangle, proudly. "He's not worth it but I've got to encourage him." He pounded Yale on the back, ignoring Yale's rising color. "What do you think, son, can we take them?"

  "So what if we lose?" Yale asked sullenly. "You can give me an increase or I'll work overtime on a play I'm writing." He hoped the remark about the play would stir some interest from Doctor Tangle.

  Doctor Tangle showed no interest, however. He turned to Pat. "I've been meaning to come down and talk with you. Been so busy with graduations and cleaning up odds and ends I haven't been able to get to it." He looked up and
noticed the bartender was following their conversation. He motioned them toward a table near the window. "You never know who is listening. This will only take a minute, Pat, but I have found some interesting interrelationships in your employee problem. Has anything new developed at the plant?"

  Pat shook his head. "You know everything I know. The rumors of a sit-down strike are kicking around. Believe me, they can't afford a strike. Not the way employment is. Cohen was re-appointed Union Steward. We begin another series of bargaining conferences next week. It's a damned waste of time. I've told them not a cent more in wages. Under the Wagner Law I've got to meet with them. They can go to hell. This damned Cohen with his soft, sweet-talking manner. . . . He can shit in his hat."

  Doctor Tangle's jaw tightened. He wished that Pat would learn to use better language. "You remember, I wondered about Jack Leonard . . . our professor of sociology."

  "You wondered about him, hell," Pat sneered. "I told you he was a pinko. Yale spouts his stuff to me every time I try to teach him sound economics."

  "He's not a communist," Yale said, remembering Leonard and his vibrant enthusiasm in discussing economic theory. "He's just a liberal thinker."

  "Bull shit," Pat said.

  "Your father is right," Doctor Tangle agreed. "Last January when we were talking about him at your house I decided to do a little deeper research into his background. His record seemed clear enough, University of Chicago in nineteen twenty-five. Masters degree in nineteen twenty-seven. Then teaching at a small Maine College nineteen thirty to nineteen thirty-six. Then Midhaven College until this year. Nothing in the book against him anywhere except the missing years nineteen twenty-eight and nineteen twenty-nine. I won't tell you all the details or how we checked that back, but our friend Leonard was a correspondent for the Daily Worker during those two years and is a member of the Communist Party. Now here is something interesting!" Doctor Tangle accented the words. "He and our friend Cohen spend at least one night a week together at Cohen's house in Helltown. My guess is that Leonard is the brains behind your union problem. I also find that Leonard and one of our senior students at Midhaven who is coming back to do graduate work for his Divinity Degree, a chap named Mat Chilling, are close friends. I don't know whether there is any connection, but Chilling has been working summers at Latham Shipyards to pay his tuition. He seems very popular at the yards. Maybe, too popular! It would be a shame if he is mixed up in it. I've more or less considered him a protege -- an ideal man, temperamentally suited for missionary work."