The Tight White Collar Read Free

to pay, but his father and grandfather fixed it so that very few people found out, and the few who did were made to keep their mouths shut. The girl’s name was Laura Ford and she was the daughter of the Cooper Station high-school principal, Edward Ford, who did not relish a scandal any more than did the Coopers. Laura and Benjamin were married in the Congregational Church and then shipped off to England where Benjamin would supposedly study British manufacturing methods. Later, Benjamin looked back fondly on the months he had spent in London. He had become involved almost immediately in a love affair with an Algerian dancer who performed in a Soho nightclub, and he had drunk a river of champagne and had lost a considerable amount of money at cards. Since there were no Algerian dancers in Cooper Station and champagne was served only at big weddings and cards were played for small stakes on Saturday nights in the back of somebody’s garage, Old Nate and Ferguson paid gladly for Benjamin’s English diversions. Their only prayer was that Laura would produce a child who would be born dead or, failing that, one who would be as small and sickly as herself so that both Cooper and Ford faces could be saved in the two towns. Laura came through with flying colors. Anthony had weighed less than five pounds at birth and for a time it was doubted that he would live at all. Ferguson sent a distraught Isabel to London to accompany the frail mother and “premature” baby home.
    When Benjamin returned to Cooper Station and stepped into the mills beside his father, Nathaniel was allowed the delicious delusion that perhaps he would never have to go into the mills at all.
    â€œYou see, Nate dear, things always work out for the best,” said Isabel. “Benjamin and your father will run the mills with Grandpa and in a little while I’ll talk to your father about building that greenhouse you’ve always wanted. And then, when Anthony is grown, he’ll be able to step in with Benjamin. Everything is going to work out for the best.”
    Benjamin was everything that Old Nate and Ferguson had been in their younger days. After Old Nate died, Nathaniel kept more quiet than ever and tried to make himself blend into a background of obscurity. He was enrolled at Harvard, where, because his father insisted, he majored in business administration, but he carried a minor in botany and he was happy. Benjamin, on the other hand, had never even bothered with high school. He hated books, loved the mills and was encouraged in both emotions by Ferguson.
    To Isabel, making sure that Nathaniel heard, Ferguson said, “Nobody needs a college education to count money. You can either count to a million or you can’t, and there’s nothing a tight white collar will do for you but choke you and leave a red mark around your neck.”
    A year later Laura died and six months later Isabel followed. Benjamin closed his house and with Anthony moved across the street with Nathaniel and Ferguson.
    â€œBad things come in three’s,” said Ferguson. “Grandpa and Laura and Isabel. Now it’ll stop for a while.”
    But less than a year later, while standing in front of a knitting machine at the mills, Benjamin fell forward.
    â€œNathaniel!” he screamed, just before he died.
    Everyone in both towns said that Benjamin had died calling for his brother and that it was an omen telling that Nathaniel would come to stand in his brother’s place. But forever after, Nathaniel wondered if perhaps Benjamin had not called to his absent grandfather, screaming for the old man to get him out of another scrape.
    Ferguson did not mince words with his one remaining son.
    â€œIt’s up to you, Nathaniel,” he said. “I’m not getting any younger and somebody has got to look after things. You’ll have to go into the mills as soon as you’re through school, and it’s going to fall to you to see to