Rose came out of the waiting room with the aers held against her chest, exactly the way she had held them in the aisle 9 hours before. She stood next to her mother and looked up at her and did not ask anything. She had already asked it once that day. Anne Jane Newman turned to the clerk she had just cost his living and asked him one question in a clear voice on an open platform with the waiting room door standing wide. Mr.
Riley, what does the field's outfit pay this road for a car of steers awes? Marvin did not have to think. He had written it out 11 times that month. $14, he said. Jane picked up the carpet bag and went back inside. Roland Warner was buttoning his overcoat.
Pauline Fields was in the doorway with her gloves on. There were 20 odd people in that room and the stove was ticking and nobody had sat down. Before the train goes, Jane said, "There is something the men in this room ought to have." She did not raise her voice for it. She had been quiet all day and she was quiet now and that is why it carried. You have all been standing here being careful with Mrs.
Fields because somebody told you this road cannot live without her cattle. Her cattle are what is killing it. The printed tariff on this road is $31 a car. It costs the road 19 and some cents to move one. She pays 14.
She has paid 14 since the spring of 1885. Pauline Field said that rate was offered to me. I know it was, Jane said. She turned around. My husband never signed it.
You did, Mr. Warner. And you signed it the same spring you sat in his bedroom and got him to sign the paper in your pocket. Roman Warner said pleasantly that rates were an operating matter and that operating matters were his. Then operate, Jane said.
Stand there and tell these men what happens to a railroad that hauls its biggest shipper for $5 a car less than it costs to move him. Tell them what that does to a road over 2 years. Tell them what the property is worth in January when the books are read out and then tell them who means to be standing there with the money when it is sold. Roland Warner did not answer her. He was a careful man and he had been careful for a long time and he looked for the careful thing to say and the room watched him look for it and the looking was the whole story.