Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

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CHAPTER ORGANIZATIONAL
6 STRUCTURE AND
DESIGN

LEARNING OUTCOMES
After reading this chapter students should be able to:
1. Describe 6 key elements in organizational design.
2. Identify the contingency factors that favor the mechanistic model or the organic model.
3. Compare and contrast traditional and contemporary organizational designs.
4. Discuss the design challenges faced by today’s organizations.

Opening Vignette – Volunteers Work

SUMMARY
As a business owner, it sounds like a dream come true – employees working for free! In this
introduction, the authors explore this novel concept from a manager’s perspective. Habitat for
Humanity has years of experience building homes with volunteers. The concept of free labor
is now being explored as volunteers who are passionate about a product or service, help
answer customer questions. While this sounds like a win-win (people who are knowledge
experts working for free), it has the potential to create a lot of problems for the organization.
Teaching Tips:
Have students explore the concept of management control and structure for this new type of
arrangement. Questions that might arise include:
How do you make sure people show up for ‘work?’

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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

What if these volunteers make a mistake that puts the company at risk for a lawsuit?
What if they are rude to customers?

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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

I. WHAT ARE THE SIX KEY ELEMENTS IN ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN?

A. Introduction
1. Organization design decisions are typically made by senior managers.
2. Organization design applies to any type of organization.
3. Formulated by management writers such as Henri Fayol and Max Weber in the
early 1900s.
4. These principles still provide valuable insights into designing effective and efficient
organizations.
B. What Is Work Specialization?
1. Work specialization is dividing work activities into separate jobs tasks.
a) Individuals specialize in doing part of an activity.
b) Work specialization makes efficient use of the diversity of skills that workers
hold.
2. Some tasks require highly developed skills; others lower skill levels.
3. Excessive work specialization or human diseconomies, can lead to boredom,
fatigue, stress, low productivity, poor quality, increased absenteeism, and high
turnover. (See Exhibit 6-1.)
4. Today's view is that specialization is an important organizing mechanism for
employee efficiency, but it is important to recognize the economies work
specialization can provide as well as its limitations.
C. What Is Departmentalization?
1. Departmentalization is when common work activities are grouped back together
so work gets done in a coordinated and integrated way.
2. There are five common forms of departmentalization (see Exhibit 6-2).
a) Functional Groups - employees based on work performed (e.g., engineering,
accounting, information systems, human resources)
b) Product Groups - employees based on major product areas in the corporation
(e.g., women’s footwear, men’s footwear, and apparel and accessories)

c) Customer Groups - employees based on customers’ problems and needs

(e.g., wholesale, retail, government)

d) Geographic Groups - employees based on location served (e.g., North,

South, Midwest, East)

e) Process Groups - employees based on the basis of work or customer flow

(e.g., testing, payment)
3. With today's focus on the customer, many companies are using cross-functional
teams, which are teams made up of individuals from various departments and that
cross traditional departmental lines.

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D. What are Authority and Responsibility?

1. The chain of command is the continuous line of authority that extends from upper
organizational levels to the lowest and clarifies who reports to whom.
2. An employee who has to report to two or more bosses might have to cope with
conflicting demands or priorities.
3. Authority refers to the rights inherent in a managerial position to give orders and
expect the orders to be obeyed.
4. Each management position has specific inherent rights that incumbents acquire
from the position’s rank or title.
a) Authority is related to one’s position and ignores personal characteristics.
5. When managers delegate authority, they must allocate commensurate
responsibility.
a) When employees are given rights, they assume a corresponding obligation to
perform and should be held accountable for that performance!
b) Allocating authority without responsibility creates opportunities for abuse.
c) No one should be held responsible for something over which he or she has no
authority.
6. What are the different types of authority relationships?
a) The early management writers distinguished between two forms of authority.
(1) Line authority entitles a manager to direct the work of an employee.
(a) It is the employer-employee authority relationship that extends from
top to bottom.
(b) See Exhibit 6-3.
(c) A line manager has the right to direct the work of employees and make
certain decisions without consulting anyone.
(d) Sometimes the term “line” is used to differentiate line managers from
staff managers.
(e) Line emphasizes managers whose organizational function contributes
directly to the achievement of organizational objectives (e.g.,
production and sales).
(2) Staff managers have staff authority (e.g., human resources and payroll).
(a) A manager’s function is classified as line or staff based on the
organization’s objectives.
(b) As organizations get larger and more complex, line managers find that
they do not have the time, expertise, or resources to get their jobs
done effectively.
(c) They create staff authority functions to support, assist, advise, and
generally reduce some of their informational burdens.
(d) Exhibit 6-4 illustrates line and staff authority.

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E. What is Unity of Command?

1. The chain of command is the continuous line of authority that extends from upper
organizational levels to the lowest and clarifies who reports to whom.
2. An employee who has to report to two or more bosses might have to cope with
conflicting demands or priorities.
3. Therefore, the early management writers argued that an employee should have
only one superior (Unity of command)
4. If the chain of command had to be violated, early management writers always
explicitly designated that there be a clear separation of activities and a supervisor
responsible for each.
5. The unity of command concept was logical when organizations were
comparatively simple.
6. There are instances today when strict adherence to the unity of command creates
a degree of inflexibility that hinders an organization’s performance.
7. How does the contemporary view of authority and responsibility differ from the
historical view?
a) The early management writers assumed that the rights inherent in one’s
formal position in an organization were the sole source of influence.
b) This might have been true 30 or 60 years ago.
c) It is now recognized that you do not have to be a manager to have power, and
that power is not perfectly correlated with one’s level in the organization.
d) Authority is but one element in the larger concept of power.
8. How do authority and power differ?
a) Authority and power are frequently confused.
b) Authority is a right, the legitimacy of which is based on the authority figure’s
position in the organization.
(1) Authority goes with the job.
c) Power refers to an individual’s capacity to influence decisions.
(1) Authority is part of the larger concept of power.
(2) Exhibit 6-5 visually depicts the difference.
d) Power is a three-dimensional concept.
(1) It includes not only the functional and hierarchical dimensions but also
centrality.
(2) While authority is defined by one’s vertical position in the hierarchy, power is
made up of both one’s vertical position and one’s distance from the
organization’s power core, or center.
e) Think of the cone in Exhibit 6-5 as an organization.
(1) The closer you are to the power core, the more influence you have on
decisions.
(2) The existence of a power core is the only difference between A and B in
Exhibit 6-5.
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f) The cone analogy explicitly acknowledges two facts:

(1) The higher one moves in an organization (an increase in authority), the closer
one moves to the power core.
(2) It is not necessary to have authority in order to wield power because one can
move horizontally inward toward the power core without moving up.
(a) Example, administrative assistants, “powerful” as gatekeepers with
little authority.
(3) Low-ranking employees with contacts in high places might be close to the
power core.
(4) So, too, are employees with scarce and important skills.
(a) The lowly production engineer with twenty years of experience might
be the only one in the firm who knows the inner workings of all the old
production machinery.
g) Power can come from different areas.
(1) John French and Bertram Raven have identified five sources, or bases, of
power.
(a) See Exhibit 6-6.
(b) Coercive power -based on fear; Reward power - based on the ability
to distribute something that others value; Legitimate power - based on
one’s position in the formal hierarchy; Expert power - based on one’s
expertise, special skill, or knowledge; Referent power -based on
identification with a person who has desirable resources.
F. What is Span of Control?
1. How many employees can a manager efficiently and effectively direct?
2. This question received a great deal of attention from early management writers.
3. There was no consensus on a specific number but early writers favored small
spans of less than six to maintain close control.
4. Level in the organization is a contingency variable.
a) Top managers need a smaller span than do middle managers, and middle
managers require a smaller span than do supervisors.
5. There is some change in theories about effective spans of control.
6. Many organizations are increasing their spans of control.
7. The span of control is increasingly being determined by contingency variables.
a) The more training and experience employees have, the less direct supervision
needed.
8. Other contingency variables should also be considered; similarity of employee
tasks, the task complexity, the physical proximity of employees, the degree of
standardization, the sophistication of the organization’s management information
system, the strength of the organization’s value system, the preferred managing
style of the manager, etc.

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Right or Wrong

You hear it in the news every week, a hacker (or hackers) has gained access to personal data
of thousands of customers or employees. In the dilemma described here, a security hole in an
AT&T website allowed Goatse Security, a group of computer security experts, to retrieve the
email addresses for thousands of new iPad users. The head of Goatse Security pointed out
they were doing AT&T a favor by identifying the problem. On the other hand, the information
released by Goatse could have helped hackers break into AT&T’s website.

Questions for students to consider:

 Is there such a thing as “ethical hacking?”
 What ethical issues they see in the case?
 What are the implications for various stakeholders in this situation?

G. How Do Centralization and Decentralization Differ?

1. Centralization is a function of how much decision-making authority is pushed
down to lower levels in the organization.
2. Centralization-decentralization is a degree phenomenon.
3. By that, we mean that no organization is completely centralized or completely
decentralized.
4. Early management writers felt that centralization in an organization depended on
the situation.
a) Their objective was the optimum and efficient use of employees.
b) Traditional organizations were structured in a pyramid, with power and
authority concentrated near the top of the organization.
c) Given this structure, historically, centralized decisions were the most
prominent.
5. Organizations today are more complex and are responding to dynamic changes.
a) Many managers believe that decisions need to be made by those closest to
the problem.
6. Today, managers often choose the amount of centralization or decentralization
that will allow them to best implement their decisions and achieve organizational
goals.
7. One of the central themes of empowering employees was to delegate to them the
authority to make decisions on those things that affect their work.
a) That’s the issue of decentralization at work.
b) It doesn’t imply that senior management no longer makes decisions!
H. What is Formalization?
1. Formalization refers to how standardized an organization’s jobs are and the extent
to which employee behavior is guided by rules and procedures.
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2. Early management writers expected organizations to be fairly formalized, as

formalization went hand-in-hand with bureaucratic-style organizations.
3. Today, organizations rely less on strict rules and standardization to guide and
regulate employee behavior.
Teaching Notes
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II. WHAT CONTINGENCY VARIABLES AFFECT STRUCTURAL CHOICE?
A. Introduction
1. The most appropriate structure to use will depend on contingency factors.
2. The more popular contingency variables are strategy, size, technology, and
environment.
B. How Is a Mechanistic Organization Different from an Organic Organization?
1. Exhibit 6-7 describes two organizational forms.
2. The mechanistic organization (or bureaucracy) was the natural result of combining
the six elements of structure.
a) The chain-of-command principle ensured the existence of a formal hierarchy
of authority.
b) Keeping the span of control small created tall, impersonal structures.
(1) Top management increasingly imposed rules and regulations.
c) The high degree of work specialization created simple, routine, and
standardized jobs.
d) Departmentalization increased impersonality and the need for multiple layers
of management.
3. The organic form is a highly adaptive form that is a direct contrast to the
mechanistic one.
a) The organic organization’s loose structure allows it to change rapidly as needs
require.
(1) Employees tend to be professionals who are technically proficient and trained
to handle diverse problems.
(2) They need very few formal rules and little direct supervision.
b) The organic organization is low in centralization.
4. When each of these two models is appropriate depends on several contingency
variables.
C. How Does Strategy Affect Structure?
1. An organization’s structure should facilitate goal achievement.
a) Strategy and structure should be closely linked.
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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

b) Example, if the organization focuses on providing certain services—police

protection in a community—its structure will be one that promotes
standardized and efficient services.
c) Example, if an organization is attempting to employ a growth strategy by
entering into global markets, it will need a structure that is flexible, fluid, and
readily adaptable to the environment.
2. Accordingly, organizational structure should follow strategy. If management
makes a significant change in strategy, it needs to modify its structure as well.
3. The first important research on the strategy-structure relationship was Alfred
Chandler’s study of close to 100 large U.S. companies.
4. After tracing the development of these organizations over fifty years and compiling
extensive case histories, Chandler concluded that changes in corporate strategy
precede and lead to changes in an organization’s structure.
a) Organizations usually begin with a single product or line.
b) The simplicity of the strategy requires only a simple form of structure to
execute it.
c) Decisions can be centralized and complexity and formalization will be low.
d) As organizations grow, their strategies become more ambitious and elaborate.
5. Research has generally confirmed the strategy-structure relationship.
a) Organizations pursuing a differentiation strategy must innovate to survive.
(1) An organic organization matches best with this strategy because it is flexible
and maximizes adaptability.
b) A cost-leadership strategy seeks stability and efficiency.
(1) Stability and efficiency help to produce low-cost goods and services and can
best be achieved with a mechanistic organization.
D. How Does Size Affect Structure?
1. There is historical evidence that an organization’s size significantly affects its
structure.
2. Large organizations—employing 2,000 or more employees—tend to have more
work specialization, horizontal and vertical differentiation, and rules and
regulations than do small organizations.
3. The relationship is not linear; the impact of size becomes less important as an
organization expands.
a) Example, once an organization has around 2,000 employees, it is already
fairly mechanistic—an additional 500 employees will not have much effect.
b) Adding 500 employees to an organization that has only 300 members is likely
to result in a shift toward a more mechanistic structure.
E. How Does Technology Affect Structure?
1. Every organization uses some form of technology to convert its inputs into
outputs.

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2. To attain its objectives, the organization uses equipment, materials, knowledge,

and experienced individuals and puts them together into certain types and
patterns of activities.
a) Example, workers at Whirlpool build washers, dryers, and other home
appliances on a standardized assembly line.
b) Example, employees at Kinko’s produce custom jobs for individual customers.
c) Example, employees at Bayer AG in Pakistan work on a continuous flow
production line for manufacturing its pharmaceuticals.
From the Past to the Present
Joan Woodward (British scholar) found that distinct relationships exist between size of
production runs and the structure of the firm. The effectiveness of organizations was related
to “fit” between technology and structure. Most studies focused on the processes or methods
that transform inputs into outputs and how they differ by their degree of routine.
Three categories, representing three distinct technologies, had increasing levels of complexity
and sophistication. Unit production described the production of items in units or small
batches. Mass production described large batch manufacturing. The most technically
complex group, process production, included continuous-process production. The more
routine the technology, the more standardized and mechanistic the structure can be.
Organizations with more non-routine technology are more likely to have organic structures.
See Exhibit 6-8.

F. How Does Environment Affect Structure?

1. Mechanistic organizations are most effective in stable environments.
2. Organic organizations are best matched with dynamic and uncertain
environments.
3. The environment-structure relationship is why so many managers have
restructured their organizations to be lean, fast, and flexible.
4. Global competition, accelerated product innovation, knowledge management, and
increased demands from customers for higher quality and faster deliveries are
examples of dynamic environmental forces.
5. Mechanistic organizations tend to be ill-equipped to respond to rapid
environmental change.
Teaching Notes
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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

III. WHAT ARE SOME COMMON ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGNS?

A. The main designs are simple, functional and divisional.
1. See Exhibit 6-9.
B. What Is a Simple Structure?
1. Most organizations start as an entrepreneurial venture with a simple structure.
2. There is low departmentalization, wide spans of control, authority centralized in a
single person, and little formalization.
3. The simple structure is most widely used in smaller businesses.
4. The strengths of the simple structure are that it is fast, flexible, and inexpensive to
maintain, and accountability is clear.
5. Major weaknesses.
a) It is effective only in small organizations.
b) It becomes increasingly inadequate as an organization grows; its few policies
or rules to guide operations and its high centralization result in information
overload at the top.
c) As size increases, decision making becomes slower and can eventually stop.
d) It is risky since everything depends on one person.
C. What is the functional structure?
1. Many organizations do not remain simple structures because structural
contingency factors dictate it.
2. As the number of employees rises, informal work rules of the simple structure give
way to more formal rules.
3. Rules and regulations are implemented; departments are created, and levels of
management are added to coordinate the activities of departmental people.
4. At this point, a bureaucracy is formed.
5. Two of the most popular bureaucratic design options are called the functional and
divisional structures.
6. Why do companies implement functional structures?
a) The functional structure merely expands the functional orientation.
b) The strength of the functional structure lies in work specialization.
(1) Economies of scale, minimizes duplication of personnel and equipment,
makes employees comfortable and satisfied.
c) The weakness of the functional structure is that the organization frequently
loses sight of its best interests in the pursuit of functional goals.
D. What is the divisional structure?
1. An organization design made up of self-contained units or divisions.
2. Health care giant Johnson & Johnson, for example, has three divisions:
pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics, and consumer products.
3. The chief advantage of the divisional structure is that it focuses on results.
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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

a) Division managers have full responsibility for a product or service.

b) It also frees the headquarters from concern with day-to-day operating details.
4. The major disadvantage is duplication of activities and resources.
a) The duplication of functions increases the organization’s costs and reduces
efficiency.
E. What Contemporary Organizational Designs Can Managers Use?
1. See Exhibit 6-10 for the three contemporary organization designs.
a) Team structure is when the entire organization consists of work groups or
teams.
b) Team members have the authority to make decisions that affect them,
because there is no rigid chain of command.
c) Companies such as Amazon, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, Louis Vuitton,
Motorola, and Xerox extensively use employee teams to improve productivity.
d) In these teams, Employees must be trained to work on teams, receive cross-
functional skills training, and be compensated accordingly.
2. The matrix structure assigns specialists from different functional departments to
work on projects led by a project manager.
a) Exhibit 6-11 illustrates the matrix structure of a firm.
b) The unique characteristic of the matrix is that employees in this structure have
at least two bosses, a dual chain of command: their functional departmental
manager and their product or project managers.
c) Project managers have authority over the functional members who are part of
that manager’s team.
d) Authority is shared between the two managers.
(1) Typically, the project manager is given authority over project employees
relative to the project’s goals.
(2) Decisions such as promotions, salary recommendations, and annual reviews
remain the functional manager’s responsibility.
e) To work effectively, project and functional managers must communicate and
coordinate.
f) The primary strength of the matrix is that it can facilitate coordination of a
multiple set of complex and interdependent projects while still retaining the
economies that result from keeping functional specialists grouped together.
g) The major disadvantages of the matrix are in the confusion it creates and its
propensity to foster power struggles.
3. Project structure - is when employees continuously work on projects.
a) Tends to be more flexible
b) The major advantage of that is that employees can be deployed rapidly to
respond to environmental changes.

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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

c) The two major disadvantages of the project structure are the complexity of
assigning people to projects and the inevitable task and personality conflicts
that arise.
F. What is a Boundaryless Organization?
1. A boundaryless organization, coined by former GE CEO, Jack Welch, is not
defined or limited by boundaries or categories imposed by traditional structures.
2. It blurs the historical boundaries surrounding an organization by increasing its
interdependence with its environment.
3. There are two types of boundaries:
a) Internal—the horizontal ones imposed by work specialization and
departmentalization and the vertical ones that separate employees into
organizational levels and hierarchies.
b) External—the boundaries that separate the organization from its customers,
suppliers, and other stakeholders.
4. A virtual organization consists of a small core of full-time employees and outside
specialists temporarily hired as needed to work on projects.
5. A network organization - is one that uses its own employees to do some work
activities and networks of outside suppliers to provide other needed product
components or work processes. Also called a modular organization by
manufacturing firms.
Technology and the Manager’s Job - The Changing World of Work
It is almost cliché to say that technology has had a dramatic impact on how people work.
Mobile communication and technology has allowed organizations to stay connected. Hand-
held devices, cellular phones, webcams, etc. allow employees to work virtually. Information
technology continues to grow and become an integral part of the way business is conducted.
However, one challenges caused by some the high level of integrated technology is security.
Software and other disabling devices have helped in this arena and many companies are
developing creative applications for their workforce.
Questions for students to consider:
 What technology has changed in your lifetime?
 In what ways has technology made your life better?
 In what ways has technology had a negative impact?
 What do students see as the next big challenge in integrating technology and work? In our
personal lives?

IV. WHAT ARE TODAY'S ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN CHALLENGES?

A. How Do You Keep Employees Connected?

1. Choosing a design that will best support and facilitate employees doing their work
efficiently and effectively, creates challenges.
2. A major structural design challenge for managers is finding a way to keep widely
dispersed and mobile employees connected to the organization.
B. How Do Global Differences Affect Organizational Structure?

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1. Researchers have concluded that the structures and strategies of organizations

worldwide are similar, “while the behavior within them is maintaining its cultural
uniqueness.”
2. When designing or changing structure, managers may need to think about the
cultural implications of certain design elements, such as rules and bureaucratic
mechanisms.

C. How Do You Build a Learning Organization?

1. Building a learning organization is a mindset in which the learning organization
has developed the capacity to continuously adapt and change because all
members take an active role in identifying and resolving work-related issues.
2. Employees are practicing knowledge management.
a) Continually acquiring and sharing new knowledge.
b) Willing to apply that knowledge in making decisions or performing their work.
3. According to some organizational design theorists, an organization’s ability to
learn and to apply that learning may be the only sustainable source of competitive
advantage.
See Exhibit 6-12 for characteristics of a learning organization.
a) Members share information and collaborate on work activities throughout the
entire organization.
b) Minimize or eliminate existing structural and physical boundaries.
(1) Employees are free to work together and to collaborate.
(2) Teams tend to be an important feature of the structural design.
(3) Managers serve as facilitators, supporters, and advocates.
c) For a learning organization to "learn" information is shared openly, in a timely
manner, and as accurately as possible.
d) Leadership creates a shared vision for the organization’s future and keeps
organizational members working toward that vision.
(1) Leaders should support and encourage the collaborative environment.
e) A learning organization’s culture is one in which everyone agrees on a shared
vision and everyone recognizes the inherent interrelationships among the
organization’s processes, activities, functions, and external environment.
f) There is a strong sense of community, caring for each other, and trust.
(1) Employees feel free to openly communicate, share, experiment, and learn
without fear of criticism or punishment.
g) Organizational culture is an important aspect of being a learning organization.
A learning organization’s culture is one in which everyone agrees on a shared
vision and everyone recognizes the inherent interrelationships among the
organization’s processes, activities, f functions, and external environment.
D. How Can Managers Design Efficient and Effective Flexible Work Arrangements?

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 Chapter 6 – Organizational Structure and Design

1. As organizations adapt their structural designs to fit a diverse workforce, growing

competition, customer demands and new technology, we see more of them
adopting flexible working arrangements.

2. Such arrangements not only exploit the power of technology, but give organizations
the flexibility to deploy employees when and where needed.

3. Telecommuting is a work arrangement in which employees work at home and are

linked to the workplace by computer.

a) Telecommute provides the company a way to grow without having to incur any
additional fixed costs such as office buildings, equipment, or parking lots.

b) Some companies view the arrangement as a way to combat high gas prices
and to attract talented employees who want more freedom and control.

c) Some managers are reluctant to have their employees become “laptop hobos”
wasting time surfing the Internet or playing online games instead of working.

d) Employees often express a concerns about being isolated.

e) Managing the telecommuters then becomes a matter of keeping employees

feeling like they’re connected and engaged, a topic we delve into at the end of
the chapter as we look at today’s organizational design challenges.

4. Compressed workweek, which is a workweek where employees work longer hours

per day but fewer days per week.

a) Flextime (also known as flexible work hours), which is a scheduling system in

which employees are required to work a specific number of hours a week but
are free to vary those hours within certain limits.

b) Job sharing—the practice of having two or more people split a full-time job.

5. Contingent Workers are temporary, freelance, or contract workers whose

employment is contingent upon demand for their services.

a) As organizations eliminate full-time jobs through downsizing and other

organizational restructurings, they often rely on a contingent workforce to fill in
as needed.

b) One of the main issues businesses face with their contingent workers,
especially those who are independent contractors or freelancers, is classifying
who actually qualifies as one.

c) Another issue with contingent workers is the process for recruiting, screening,
and placing these contingent workers where their work skills and efforts are
needed.

d) As with full-time employees, it’s important that managers have a method of

establishing goals, schedules, and deadlines with the contingent employees

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Title: A journey in search of Christmas

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Original publication: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Charlene Taylor, and the Online

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOURNEY

IN SEARCH OF CHRISTMAS ***
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain.

Lin McLean
 A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF CHRISTMAS

BY

OWEN WISTER
AUTHOR OF “LIN MCLEAN” “RED MEN AND WHITE” “THE JIMMYJOHN
BOSS” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
FREDERIC REMINGTON

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS MCMV
Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

Published October, 1904.

 CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. Lin’s Money Talks Joy 1
II. Lin’s Money is Dumb 13
III. A Transaction in Boot-Blacking 37
IV. Turkey and Responsibility 50
V. Santa Claus Lin 75
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Lin McLean Frontispiece

“Lin walked in their charge, they Facing 52
leading the way” p.
“‘This is Mister Billy Lusk’” „ 90
 A JOURNEY IN SEARCH
OF CHRISTMAS

I
Lin’s Money Talks Joy

The Governor
descended the steps of
the Capitol slowly and
with pauses, lifting a
list frequently to his
eye. He had
intermittently pencilled
it between stages of the
forenoon’s public
business, and his gait
grew absent as he
recurred now to his jottings in their
accumulation, with a slight pain at their number, and the definite
fear that they would be more in seasons to come. They were the
names of his friends’ children to whom his excellent heart moved
him to give Christmas presents. He had put off this regenerating evil
until the latest day, as was his custom, and now he was setting forth
to do the whole thing at a blow, entirely planless among the guns and
rocking-horses that would presently surround him. As he reached
the highway he heard himself familiarly addressed from a distance,
and, turning, saw four sons of the alkali jogging into town from the
plain. One who had shouted to him galloped out from the others,
rounded the Capitol’s enclosure, and, approaching with radiant
countenance, leaned to reach the hand of the Governor, and once
again greeted him with a hilarious “Hello, Doc!”
Governor Barker, M.D., seeing Mr. McLean
unexpectedly after several years, hailed the
horseman with frank and lively pleasure, and,
inquiring who might be the other riders
behind, was told that they were Shorty,
Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, come for Christmas.
“And dandies to hit town with,” Mr. McLean
added. “Redhot.”
“I am acquainted with them,” assented his
Excellency.
“We’ve been ridin’ trail for twelve weeks,”
the cow-puncher continued, “and the money
in our pants is talkin’ joy to us right out loud.”
Then Mr. McLean overflowed with talk and pungent confidences,
for the holidays already rioted in his spirit, and his tongue was loosed
over their coming rites.
“We’ve soured on scenery,” he finished, in
his drastic idiom. “We’re heeled for a big
time.”
“Call on me,” remarked the Governor,
cheerily, “when you’re ready for bromides and
sulphates.”
“I ain’t box-headed no more,” protested Mr.
McLean; “I’ve got maturity, Doc, since I seen
yu’ at the rain-making, and I’m a heap older
than them hospital days when I bust my leg on
yu’. Three or four glasses and quit. That’s my
rule.”
“That your rule, too?” inquired the Governor of Shorty, Chalkeye,
and Dollar Bill. These gentlemen of the saddle were sitting quite
expressionless upon their horses.
 “We ain’t talkin’, we’re waitin’,” observed Chalkeye; and the three
cynics smiled amiably.
“Well, Doc, see yu’ again,” said Mr. McLean.
He turned to accompany his brother cow-
punchers, but in that particular moment Fate
descended, or came up, from whatever place
she dwells in, and entered the body of the
unsuspecting Governor.
“What’s your hurry?” said Fate, speaking in
the official’s hearty manner. “Come along with
me.”
“Can’t do it. Where’re yu’ goin’?”
“Christmasing,” replied Fate.
“Well, I’ve got to feed my horse.
Christmasing, yu’ say?”
“Yes; I’m buying toys.”
“Toys! You? What for?”
“Oh, some kids.”
“Yourn?” screeched Lin, precipitately.
His Excellency the jovial Governor opened
his teeth in pleasure at this, for he was a
bachelor, and there were fifteen upon his list,
which he held up for the edification of the
hasty McLean. “Not mine, I’m happy to say.
My friends keep marrying and settling, and
their kids call me uncle, and climb around and
bother, and I forget their names, and think it’s
a girl, and the mother gets mad. Why, if I
didn’t remember these little folks at Christmas
they’d be wondering—not the kids, they just
break your toys and don’t notice; but the
mother would wonder—‘What’s the matter with Dr. Barker? Has
Governor Barker gone back on us?’—that’s where the strain comes!”
he broke off, facing Mr. McLean with another spacious laugh.
But the cow-puncher had ceased to smile, and now, while Barker
ran on exuberantly McLean’s wide-open eyes rested upon him,
singular and intent, and in their hazel depths
the last gleam of jocularity went out.
“That’s where the strain comes, you see.
Two sets of acquaintances—grateful patients
and loyal voters—and I’ve got to keep solid
with both outfits, especially the wives and
mothers. They’re the people. So it’s drums,
and dolls, and sheep on wheels, and games,
and monkeys on a stick, and the saleslady
shows you a mechanical bear, and it costs too
much, and you forget whether the Judge’s
second girl is Nellie or Susie, and—well, I’m
just in for my annual circus this afternoon! You’re in luck. Christmas
don’t trouble a chap fixed like you.”
Lin McLean prolonged the sentence like a distant echo.
“A chap fixed like you!” The cow-puncher
said it slowly to himself. “No, sure.” He
seemed to be watching Shorty, and Chalkeye,
and Dollar Bill going down the road. “That’s a
new idea—Christmas,” he murmured, for it
was one of his oldest, and he was recalling the
Christmas when he wore his first long
trousers.
“Comes once a year pretty regular,”
remarked the prosperous Governor. “Seems
often when you pay the bill.”
“I haven’t made a Christmas gift,” pursued
the cow-puncher, dreamily, “not for—for—Lord! it’s a hundred years,
I guess. I don’t know anybody that has any right to look for such a
thing from me.” This was indeed a new idea, and it did not stop the
chill that was spreading in his heart.
“Gee whiz!” said Barker, briskly, “there goes twelve o’clock. I’ve got
to make a start. Sorry you can’t come and help me. Good-bye!”
His Excellency left the rider sitting motionless, and forgot him at
once in his own preoccupation. He hastened upon his journey to the
shops with the list, not in his pocket, but held firmly, like a plank in
the imminence of shipwreck. The Nellies and Susies pervaded his
mind, and he struggled with the presentiment
that in a day or two he would recall some
omitted and wretchedly important child.
Quick hoof-beats made him look up, and Mr.
McLean passed like a wind. The Governor
absently watched him go, and saw the pony
hunch and stiffen in the check of his speed
when Lin overtook his companions. Down
there in the distance they took a side street,
and Barker rejoicingly remembered one more
name and wrote it as he walked. In a few
minutes he had come to the shops, and met
face to face with Mr. McLean.
“The boys are seein’ after my horse,” Lin
rapidly began, “and I’ve got to meet ’em sharp
at one. We’re twelve weeks shy on a square
meal, yu’ see, and this first has been a date
from ’way back. I’d like to—” Here Mr.
McLean cleared his throat, and his speech
went less smoothly. “Doc, I’d like just for a
while to watch yu’ gettin’—them monkeys, yu’
know.”
The Governor
expressed his agreeable
surprise at this change
of mind, and was glad of McLean’s company
and judgment during the impending
selections. A picture of a cow-puncher and
himself discussing a couple of dolls rose
nimbly in Barker’s mental eye, and it was with
an imperfect honesty that he said, “You’ll help
me a heap.”
And Lin, quite sincere, replied, “Thank yu’.”
So together these two went Christmasing in
the throng. Wyoming’s Chief Executive knocked elbows with the
spurred and jingling waif, one man as good as another in that raw,
hopeful, full-blooded cattle era which now the sobered West
remembers as the days of its fond youth. For one man has been as
good as another in three places—Paradise
before the Fall; the Rocky Mountains before
the wire fence; and the Declaration of
Independence. And then this Governor,
besides being young, almost as young as Lin
McLean or the Chief-Justice (who lately had
celebrated his thirty-second birthday), had in
his doctoring days at Drybone known the cow-
puncher with that familiarity which lasts a
lifetime without breeding contempt;
accordingly, he now laid a hand on Lin’s tall
shoulder and drew him among the petticoats
and toys.
 II
Lin’s Money is Dumb

Christmas filled the

windows and
Christmas stirred in
mankind. Cheyenne,
not over-zealous in
doctrine or litanies, and
with the opinion that a
world in the hand is
worth two in the bush,
nevertheless was
flocking together,
neighbor to think of neighbor, and every one
to remember the children; a sacred assembly, after all, gathered to
rehearse unwittingly the articles of its belief, the Creed and Doctrine
of the Child. Lin saw them hurry and smile among the paper fairies;
they questioned and hesitated, crowded and made decisions, failed
utterly to find the right thing, forgot and hastened back, suffered all
the various desperations of the eleventh hour, and turned homeward,
dropping their parcels with that undimmed good-will that once a
year makes gracious the universal human face. This brotherhood
swam and beamed before the cow-puncher’s brooding eyes, and in
his ears the greeting of the season sang. Children escaped from their
mothers and ran chirping behind the counters to touch and meddle
in places forbidden. Friends dashed against each other with rabbits
and magic lanterns, greeted in haste, and were gone, amid the sound
of musical boxes.
Through this tinkle and bleating of little machinery the murmur of
the human heart drifted in and out of McLean’s hearing; fragments
of home talk, tendernesses, economies,
intimate first names, and dinner hours; and
whether it was joy or sadness, it was in
common; the world seemed knit in a single
skein of home ties. Two or three came by
whose purses must have been slender, and
whose purchases were humble and chosen
after much nice adjustment; and when one
plain man dropped a word about both ends
meeting, and the woman with him laid a hand
on his arm, saying that his children must not
feel this year was different, Lin made a step
towards them. There were hours and spots where he could readily
have descended upon them at that, played the rôle of clinking
affluence, waved thanks aside with competent blasphemy, and,
tossing off some infamous whiskey, cantered away in the full, self-
conscious strut of the frontier. But here was not the moment; the
abashed cow-puncher could make no such parade in this place. The
people brushed by him back and forth, busy upon their errands, and
aware of him scarcely more than if he had been a spirit looking on
from the helpless dead; and so, while these weaving needs and
kindnesses of man were within arm’s touch of him, he was locked
outside with his impulses. Barker had, in the natural press of
customers, long parted from him, to become immersed in choosing
and rejecting; and now, with a fair part of his mission accomplished,
he was ready to go on to the next place, and turned to beckon
McLean. He found him obliterated in a corner beside a life-sized
image of Santa Claus, standing as still as the frosty saint.
“He looks livelier than you do,” said the hearty Governor. “’Fraid
it’s been slow waiting.”
“No,” replied the cow-puncher, thoughtfully. “No, I guess not.”
This uncertainty was expressed with such gentleness that Barker
roared. “You never did lie to me,” he said, “long as I’ve known you.
Well, never mind. I’ve got some real advice to ask you now.”
At this Mr. McLean’s face grew more alert. “Say, Doc,” said he,
“what do yu’ want for Christmas that nobody’s likely to give yu’?”
“A big practice—big enough to interfere with my politics.”
 “What else? Things
and truck, I mean.”
“Oh—nothing I’ll get.
People don’t give things
much to fellows like
me.”
“Don’t they? Don’t
they?”
“Why, you and Santa
Claus weren’t putting
up any scheme on my
stocking?”
“Well—”
“I believe you’re in earnest!” cried his
Excellency. “That’s simply rich!” Here was a
thing to relish! The Frontier comes to town
“heeled for a big time,” finds that presents are
all the rage, and must immediately give
somebody something. Oh, childlike,
miscellaneous Frontier! So thought the good-
hearted Governor; and it seems a venial
misconception. “My dear fellow,” he added,
meaning as well as possible, “I don’t want you
to spend your money on me.”
“I’ve got plenty all right,” said Lin, shortly.
“Plenty’s not the point. I’ll take as many
drinks as you please with you. You didn’t
expect anything from me?”
“That ain’t—that don’t—”
“There! Of course you didn’t. Then, what
are you getting proud about? Here’s our
shop.” They stepped in from the street to new
crowds and counters. “Now,” pursued the
Governor, “this is for a very particular friend
of mine. Here they are. Now, which of those
do you like best?”
 They were sets of Tennyson in cases holding
little volumes equal in number, but the
binding various, and Mr. McLean reached his
decision after one look. “That,” said he, and
laid a large, muscular hand upon the
Laureate. The young lady behind the counter
spoke out acidly, and Lin pulled the abject
hand away. His taste, however, happened to
be sound, or, at least, it was at one with the
Governor’s; but now they learned that there
was a distressing variance in the matter of
price.
The Governor stared at the delicate article
of his choice. “I know that Tennyson is what she—is what’s wanted,”
he muttered; and, feeling himself nudged, looked around and saw
Lin’s extended fist. This gesture he took for a facetious sympathy,
and, dolorously grasping the hand, found himself holding a lump of
bills. Sheer amazement relaxed him, and the cow-puncher’s matted
wealth tumbled on the floor in sight of all people. Barker picked it up
and gave it back. “No, no, no!” he said, mirthful over his own
inclination to be annoyed; “you can’t do that. I’m just as much
obliged, Lin,” he added.
“Just as a loan. Doc—some of it. I’m grass-
bellied with spot-cash.”
A giggle behind the counter disturbed them
both, but the sharp young lady was only
dusting. The Governor at once paid haughtily
for Tennyson’s expensive works, and the cow-
puncher pushed his discountenanced savings
back into his clothes. Making haste to leave
the book department of this shop, they
regained a mutual ease, and the Governor
became waggish over Lin’s concern at being
too rich. He suggested to him the list of
delinquent taxpayers and the latest census
from which to select indigent persons. He had patients, too, whose
inveterate pennilessness he could swear cheerfully to—“since you
want to bolt from your own money,” he remarked.