“‘John Marshum was a very plesint vister at this office Thursdy.’”
“‘John Marshum was a very plesint vister at this office Thursdy.’”
Wint laughed good-naturedly. “The poor old clown. Wants his name in the paper. You ought to put it in, just to make him feel good.”
“I’m going to,” said B. B. “Old John’s one of my best friends in the county. He’s been a subscriber twelve years, and always paid up. You’d be surprised to know how many don’t pay up. And you’d be surprised how many people come in, just as he did, to get their names in the paper. I don’t suppose you ever thought of that.”
Wint passed the corrected proofs over to B. B. “One or two mistakes,” he said, and the editor sent the proofs up for correction. “What do you do with the darned fools?” Wint asked. “Tell them advertising space costs money?”
B. B. looked surprised. “No, I print their names. That’s what the paper’s for—to print people’s names. It makes them feel proud of themselves, and that’s good for them. It’s one way of helping them along, doing them good.”
Wint grinned. “Never did me any particular good to see my name in print,” he said. “Usually made me mad.”
“It wasn’t the fact that they printed your name that made you mad. It was what they printed about you.”
“Maybe so,” Wint admitted. “I didn’t see that it was any of their business.”
“That’s the way the city dailies are run,” B. B. agreed. “But a country weekly is a different proposition. I never print anything that will make any one mad. Not if I can help it. Not even a joke. A joke on a man’s no good unless he can appreciate it himself.”
Wint eyed B. B. and remarked thoughtfully: “I remember, when they stuck me in as Mayor, you didn’t print the fact that my father was a candidate.”
“No,” B. B. agreed.
“I supposed that was because you and my father are—allies in politics and such things.”
“No,” said B. B. “I try not to print things that will hurt people. Mr. Chase felt badly about that.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Wint slowly. “You know I had nothing to do with it.” He had never talked so freely to any one as he was accustomed to talk to B. B. There was some strain in the editor that invited confidences. He knew as many secrets as a doctor.
“Yes, I know,” he said.
“You know,” Wint went on, abruptly, “people are funny, B. B.”
“Yes.”
“I’m funny, myself.”
B. B. laughed in a friendly way. “Like the old Quaker who said to his wife: ‘All the world is a little queer save thee and me, my dear; and even thee are at times a little queer.’”
“No,” said Wint, smiling. “I include myself. I’m queer.”
B. B. said nothing. Wint started to go on, but the words were not in him. He had a curious, sudden impulse to ask B. B. about his father; this impulse was like homesickness. But he fought it back. His jaw set stubbornly. His father had thrown him out. That was enough; he didn’t ask to be kicked twice.
When B. B. saw that Wint was not going on, he spoke of something else. Then Ed Howe, one of Caretall’s men, dropped in and cut a slice from a plug and filled his pipe in the Caretall fashion: and Wint listened to Ed and B. B. talk for a while before he got up and took himself away. He had found some measure of reassurance in his talk with B. B., not because of anything that had been said, but simply because B. B. was a reassuring man. A strong man. A strong man, and a wise man, with open eyes—and an optimist. Not all men who seem to see clearly are optimists.
In front of the Post Office, Wint ran into Jack Routt. Routt had been out of town for a month or so on a business trip, and Wint had seen little of him since Amos went away. He was glad to see Jack, and said so. They shook hands, andWint bought Routt a cigar. Routt studied Wint curiously. He wondered if it were true that Wint was keeping straight and doing well. And to find out, he asked laughingly:
“Been over to see Mrs. Moody lately, old man?”
Mrs. Moody was that virago who managed the Weaver House, that woman of the hideously beautiful false teeth. Wint flushed uncomfortably at mention of her. “No-o,” he said hesitantly.
“That’s the boy,” said Routt. “You keep away from her. You let the stuff alone. You can’t monkey with it, the way some fellows can, old man.”
And he watched Wint. There had been a time when this word would have acted as a challenge, when Wint would have snapped at the bait. But—Wint hesitated, he considered, he shook himself a little and said quietly:
“I guess you’re right, Jack.”
“You bet I’m right,” said Routt.
Wint nodded. “Yes,” he agreed.
When they separated, Routt went to his office and sat down with his feet on his desk to consider. And—he scowled. Matters were not going well with him. It did not suit him for Wint to keep straight. It did not suit him to lie supine under Amos Caretall’s injunction to let Wint alone. The Congressman’s command had irked him more than once, and more than once he had thought of V. R. Kite in that connection, and thought of going to Kite. He had a fairly definite idea that Amos would never help him along politically, and Kite might be able to. And—he remembered the word Wint had fastened on Kite on the day of his inauguration. He had called Kite a buzzard, and others had taken it up. The name seemed to fit; it tickled the sense of humor of Hardiston folks. But it did not tickle V. R. Kite. Kite ought to be ready to take means to crush Wint. And—that would please Routt. He had held off thus long in the belief that Wint would be his own ruin. He began to doubt this, now. It might be necessary to do something.
Routt was of mean stuff, small and tawdry. He had been what Hardiston called a mean boy, a trouble-maker. Hehad an infinite capacity for hate, a curious shrewdness that enabled him to fasten on another’s weakest point. As boys, he and Wint had fought once. They fought over Joan, because Routt teased her till she cried. Wint had whipped him, though Routt was the taller and the heavier of the two. Routt had never forgotten that; but Wint forgot it as soon as the incident was over. Wint forgot, and Routt remembered. Circumstances threw them much together; they grew up as friends; Routt behaved himself; people decided that he had outgrown his meanness. Wint liked him, did not distrust him, accepted him for what he seemed—a friend.
But Jack Routt was nobody’s friend. Sometimes, when he was alone, you might have seen this in his face. It was so now, as he thought of Wint; his countenance was twisted and distorted and malignant. In later years, it was to bear the marks of these secret and rancorous moments for any eye to see. Indelible and unmistakable. But just now Routt knew how to smile, how to be a good fellow....
He brought his feet down from the desk with a bang. He got up and reached for his hat. He had made up his mind; he would go and see Kite.
Kite was in town. Routt knew he would find the man in the Bazaar, the town’s five and ten cent store. He went that way, but as he reached the place, Peter Gergue came along the street and Routt went past without entering. Just as well Gergue should not know that he was seeing Kite. Gergue would tell Amos. When Gergue had disappeared, Routt went back and turned into the Bazaar. Kite’s desk was in the back of the store, but Kite was not in sight. The little man might be hidden behind the desk. One of the girls who clerked in the store—her name was Mary Dale, and she was a pretty, simple little thing—asked Routt what he wanted, and he stopped to talk to her for a moment. Routt liked pretty girls. He asked her if Kite was in, and she said he was at his desk, so Routt went back that way. He drew up a chair to face the little man, and Kite cocked his head on his thin neck, and tugged at his side whiskers. “Howdo, Routt,” he said.
“Morning,” Routt rejoined. “How’s tricks, Kite?”
“All right.” Kite looked suspicious. Routt offered him a cigar, which Kite declined. Jack lighted it himself, then said idly:
“Well, I just got back.”
“Been away?”
“Yes. Columbus.”
“Oh!”
“I see Wint hasn’t closed down on you yet,” Routt drawled.
Kite flushed angrily. “Of course not. Why should he? He’s no fool.”
“I said he hadn’t shut down on you—yet,” Routt repeated, and he emphasized the last word.
“He likes his drop now and then, same as another man.”
“Hasn’t been taking many drops lately, has he?”
“I’m not his guardian. How do I know? Long as he lets me alone.”
Routt grinned. “I heard he didn’t let you alone, day he was inaugurated. Called you a buzzard, didn’t he?”
“The man was drunk.”
“Name’s kind of stuck, though. A darned, rotten thing like that will stick.”
Kite was trying to keep calm, but he was an irascible little man. He snapped at Routt: “What do I care for names? They break no bones.”
“Well, that’s so,” Routt agreed good-naturedly.
“Long as he lets me alone, I’m satisfied,” Kite said again.
Routt nodded. “How long do you figure he’ll let you alone?” he asked.
Kite’s temper got away from him. “By God, he’d better let me alone!” He banged a clenched fist on the table. Routt drawled:
“Don’t get excited.”
“I’m n-not excited,” Kite stammered. “But he’ll let me alone. He don’t dare to bother me. Why, Routt, if he tries anything, I’ll—I’ll get out of town. I won’t live in the place. I’ll take my money out of the dirty little hole.”
“We-ell,” said Routt, “you could do that, of course. Thatwould suit him. He’d get his own way, then. You could get out. Or you might fight him.”
“Fight him?” Kite snapped. “I’ll fight him to the last dollar.” He controlled himself with an effort. “But he’s not going to start anything. I know him. He’s inoffensive. A boy.”
“Amos Caretall is no boy,” Routt reminded him. “And Amos is backing him.”
Kite remembered that Winthrop Chase, Senior, had told him this same thing; had warned him that Amos meant to use Wint to clean up the town. He and Chase had made an alliance on that basis. If Wint tried a crusade, they would go after Amos together, and hang his hide on the fence. They had sworn that together.... Now Routt was saying the same thing. He had been feeling fairly secure; he and Chase had made no move. Chase had wanted him to start a back fire against Amos, but Kite had been ready to let well enough alone.... Now Routt ... Routt was one of Caretall’s men. He would be likely to know what the Congressman planned. Kite demanded angrily:
“What makes you think Amos is planning anything? He and I understand each other.”
Routt laughed. “Amos would double cross his best friend and call it a joke,” he said amiably. “You know that. Didn’t he double cross Chase?”
“Sure. I helped him,” said Kite defiantly.
“Next thing,” Routt told him, “he’ll double cross you.”
Kite leaned across and gripped Routt by the arm. “What makes you say that? You and Amos are together.”
“We were,” said Routt, “but I told him a few things he didn’t like. I’m no particular friend of Amos.”
Kite said: “I’m not either. But as long as he plays fair with me, I’ll play fair with him.”
“What if he don’t?”
“I’ll smash him.”
“You can’t smash Amos,” said Routt, “but you can hurt him.”
“How?”
“Smash young Wint.”
Kite snorted. “Pshaw! Wint’s a boy.”
“He’s growing up. One of these days, he’s going to send for Jim Radabaugh and tell him to clean up the town....”
“By God, if he does,” Kite swore, “I’ll tear him all to pieces.”
Routt got up. “When you start in to do that,” he said, “send for me. I might be able to help.”
“I won’t need any help to rip Wint Chase wide open.”
“You send for me,” said Routt insistently.
“All right. I’ll send for you.”
“I’ll be here,” Routt promised. When he went out through the store, he stopped and told Mary Dale she was the prettiest girl in town. Mary was pleased. She knew he didn’t mean it; she was simple enough, if you like; but she knew there were probably other girls just as pretty as she was. Nevertheless, she was glad Jack had told her she was pretty. She thought it meant he was pleased with her.
As a matter of fact, it only meant that he was pleased with himself. But that was a thing Mary Dale could not be expected to understand.
WINT had lived very comfortably that winter, in Amos Caretall’s home, with old Maria Hale to take care of him. In the beginning, when Amos went away, he had protested at this arrangement. He told Amos he would go to a hotel, to a boarding house, hire a room somewhere.... He said he would not impose on Amos by living on his bounty.
Amos laughed at him and said Wint would not be living on any one’s bounty. “I aim to charge you board and keep,” he said. “And that’s velvet for me, because I’d keep the house going anyway. Got to, to keep old Maria. If I ever let go of her, somebody’d grab her in a minute.”
Wint knew it was Amos’s habit to keep the house open and Maria in it, even when he and Agnes were both away; so he accepted the proposition. The board which Amos required him to pay was nominal; and Wint wanted to pay more. Amos shook his head.
“First thing you want to learn, Wint, is never to pay a man more than he asks, for anything. He’ll think you’re a blamed fool.”
So Wint had been comfortable. Maria knew how to cook, she kept the house neat, she picked up after Wint’s disorderliness. And she mothered Wint as her kind know how to do.
He was comfortable, but he was lonely, desperately lonely. Wint was a convivial young man. He liked to be with people. He had never been much in his own exclusive company. Some one said that it is not good for man to be alone; but it is equally true that it is not good for a man never to be alone. Solitude is good for the soul. It gives an opportunity for a certain amount of thought, for taking stock of one’s self. If every one could be persuaded to an hour’s solitary self-consideration each day, the world would be bettered thereby.It is hard to deceive yourself. Wint found out the truth of this in his solitary evenings that winter. He found himself forced to face facts, and face them squarely; he found himself forced to recognize his own mistakes.
Thus his loneliness did him no harm; but it did make him uncomfortable. The fact that he was much alone resulted from two or three circumstances and causes. His father had cast him out; so he saw his father and mother not at all. And he had been accustomed to see them every day, all his life. It is true there had usually been little pleasure for him in these encounters. His father’s harshness, his mother’s garrulous tongue had irked and angered him. They had worked at cross-purposes, as families are apt to do. There had been little obvious sympathy and understanding between them. Nevertheless, Wint found that he missed them; that he missed his father’s overbearing accusations, and he missed his mother’s interminable talk. Once or twice, when he met her on the street, he stopped to talk with her; and he took a certain comfort from the flow of breathless reproaches which poured out upon him at these times. Mrs. Chase was as unhappy that winter as a mother must be when her son is set apart from her; but she was loyal to her husband, and reproached Wint for his disloyalty.
Wint missed Joan, too. He missed her enormously. There was never any doubt that Joan was half the world to him. He had longed for her desperately at times; he had wanted to go and abase himself before her. But he would not; he was strong enough to keep to his own path. And Joan kept to hers.
The fact that Wint and Joan were thus at odds made Wint an awkward figure in any group of young people, because Joan was almost sure to be there. He knew this as well as any one. So when Dick Hoover asked him to go to the dances, he refused because Joan would be there; and when Elsie Jenkins asked him to a card party, he refused again, and for the same reason. But he did not tell Dick and Elsie what this reason was. As a consequence, people stopped asking him to the festivities of Hardiston, and Wint was left solitary.
Solitary, and lonely. He was so lonely, that night of Elsie’s party, that he walked past her house for the sheer, hungry joy of looking in through her windows at the throng inside. He often walked about the town in the evenings, thus. Sometimes it was to pass Joan’s home.... And he did a deal of thinking, and of wondering; and he made a resolution or two....
When Joan spoke to him, asked him to come and see her, Wint experienced a strange revulsion of feeling. He was unhappy, and he told himself he would never go; and he went uptown and dropped in on B. B. Beecham and had that innocuous and idle talk with the editor, which never touched on his troubles at all. Nevertheless, Wint emerged from theJournaloffice in a more cheerful frame of mind. People were apt to be more cheerful, and more optimistic, and more resolved, after talking with B. B. This was one of the virtues of the man.
Wint decided, after leaving B. B., that he would go and see Joan. Some time.... He decided he would not be in any hurry about it. Next month, perhaps, or next week, or in a day or two....
As might have been expected, the end of it was that he went to see her that night. For Wint was still half boy, with a boy’s impatience; and he had been lonely for Joan for so long. After supper, with the long evening before him, and nothing to do, he thought of going to Joan. He swore he wouldn’t go; but he wanted to, so badly. Why shouldn’t he? She had asked him. He wouldn’t and he would, and he wouldn’t and he would....
In the end, he decided to walk out to her home and see if he could see her, through the window. There was snow on the ground, it was fairly cold. He bundled up in overcoat and cap and filled a pipe and lighted it, and set out. He would just walk past the house, come back another way, go to bed.... That would do no harm.
But even while he tried to tell himself this was what he meant to do, he knew that he would not come back without seeing Joan—if the thing were possible. And when he got tothe house, he saw that it was possible. The shades were up at the sitting-room window; he could see her, reading before the fire. She was alone.
So Wint went reluctantly up the walk from the street, and he hesitated at the steps, and then he went up the steps, stamping, and knocked at the door. He heard Joan stirring, inside. Then the door opened, and Joan was there before him. The light behind her shone through her hair; her eyes were dark and steady.
The light fell on his face, and she said quietly: “Hello, Wint. I’m—glad you came.”
Wint took off his cap, and held it in his hand. She thought he looked very like a boy. He said nothing; and Joan moved a little to one side and bade him come in. He went in, like a man walking in his sleep, and she shut the door behind him. Wint stood in the hall as though he did not know what to do. He wanted to run; but the door was shut.
She said: “Take off your coat.” So he did, and laid it on a chair in the hall, and put his cap on top of it. Joan told him to come into the sitting room; and he said huskily:
“All right.”
So they went in and sat down together before the fire. And Wint wished he had not come. He crossed his legs one way, then he crossed them the other. He folded his arms, he folded his hands in his lap, he cleared his throat, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He did not look at Joan; but Joan watched him, and by and by she smiled a little, and her smile seemed like a caress upon his bent head.
Wint said abruptly: “Your people all right?”
“Yes,” Joan told him.
He muttered angrily that that was good; and silence fell upon them again. He twisted in this silence, like a caterpillar on a pin. He was immensely relieved when Joan spoke at last.
“What shall we talk about, Wint?” she asked steadily. “Do you want to talk about your—fight? What are you doing?”
“No,” he said dourly, staring at the fire.
Joan watched him, not resenting his sullenness, because she had understanding. After a little, she said gently: “I saw your mother the other day.”
Wint shot a quick glance at her. He could not help it. “That so?” he asked.
Joan nodded, and she smiled a little wistfully. “Yes. She misses you. She and your father....”
“They haven’t told me so,” said Wint morosely.
“Have you talked with them?” she asked.
“No. My father—” For the life of him, he could not stifle the choke in his voice. “No, I haven’t,” he said.
“You couldn’t, of course,” she agreed, and she looked at him sidewise. “Of course, if you went to them, your father would think you were trying to make up. You couldn’t do that.” There was an anxiety in her eyes; the anxiety of the experimenter. Wint went by contraries. Joan knew quite clearly what she wanted; she wanted him to go to his father. Was this the way to lead him to make the first move?
She was frightened at what she had done when he looked at her angrily. “See here,” he said, “do you want me to go to him? Do you think I ought to?” She was so frightened that she could not speak; but she nodded. Wint barked at her:
“Then why don’t you say so? I’m sick of having people make me do things by telling me not to.”
“I wasn’t trying to—make you do it, Wint,” she said; and she was almost pleading.
“You were; and you know it,” he told her flatly. “Weren’t you, now? Secretly trying to make me....”
Joan could not lie to him. “Y-Yes,” she said.
“Then come out with it,” Wint demanded; and he got up and stamped about the room, and words burst from him. “Joan,” he exclaimed, “I’ve been a fool, and I know it. Am one still, I suppose. Hate to be preached to and told what I must do, and mustn’t. You know that. Result is, I’m always in trouble. Jack Routt, best friend I’ve got, does me more harm than my worst enemy—just trying to keep me straight.I’ve always known it, in a way. Knew I was a fool. But I’ve been just contrary enough to refuse to be preached to. That’s the way I’m made. Only, for God’s sake, don’t you start trying to manage me.” He hesitated, groping for words, and his voice was suddenly weary and lonely as he said: “You ought to be able to talk straight to me, Joan.”
She did not answer for a moment; then she said simply: “I’m sorry, Wint. I was wrong.”
That took the wind out of him. He had hoped she would argue with him. He wanted an argument, wanted a hot combat of words; he was full of things that he wanted to say. To show her.... Justify himself to her. But you can’t argue with a person who agrees with you. He sat down as abruptly as he had risen, and stared again at the fire.
Joan asked, after a time: “Are you sure Jack Routt is really your friend, Wint?”
“Of course,” he said, looking at her. “Why not? What do you mean?”
“I don’t like him.”
He laughed. “A girl never likes a man’s friends. Jack’s all right. He’s a prince.”
“Is he?”
“Sure he is.”
Joan said no more about Routt. She spoke of other things, trivial things; and for an hour she and Wint managed to talk easily enough without touching on forbidden ground. It was not till he got up to go that they spoke seriously again. She had helped him on with his coat. At the door, he faced her; and he asked:
“Joan, d’you really think I ought to—patch things up at home?”
She answered him straightforwardly: “Yes, Wint.”
He looked past her, eyes thoughtful; and at last he held out his hand. “Well, good night,” he said. “Maybe I will.”
They shook hands, and he went out and tramped swiftly back to Amos’s house. There was a bounding elation in him; his head was among the stars.
WINT had thought of going to his father before he talked with Joan. He had tried advances now and then. Once he met the elder Chase on the street and stopped to talk with him, but his father passed by with a curt word of greeting. Another time, he saw Chase in theJournaloffice and went in. Chase and B. B. Beecham were talking together; but when Wint came in, his father got up and departed. Wint had said:
“Don’t let me drive you away. I just happened in.”
But the senior Chase said: “I was going, anyway,” and he went.
These incidents had roused the old resentment in Wint, but they had hurt him more than they had angered him. And the hurt persisted, while the resentment died. He found excuses for his father. He blamed himself; and he thought of ways of approaching the older man with some hope of success, and discarded them one by one.
Seeing Joan gave him new confidence in himself. She had let him come to see her; his father could do no less. Wint had no illusions as to Joan. He understood that she wanted to help him, wanted to be proud of him; but he understood also that he was on probation. He had not proved himself, in her eyes. That must come with time. They had talked frankly enough together; but—they had merely shaken hands at parting. That was all; that was all he had any right to expect. He could wait—and work—for the rest.
It was much that she had asked him to come to her. It meant that he was no longer outcast in her eyes; and the realization of this gave him new self-respect. It was this very self-respect that enabled him to humble himself to his father. A man can be servile without being self-respecting;but self-respect and true humility are synonyms. Each implies a true self-appraisal. Wint was a man, doing his work among men. He was also his father’s son; and it was as a son that he went to his father at last.
He found the elder Chase at home one evening. He had made sure that his father would be at home; but he was glad, when he got there, to find that his mother had gone next door. His mother could not understand; and no one else could talk much when she was about. Wint smiled when he thought of her; then his lips steadied. There was need for talk between his father and himself.
His father came to the door; and when he saw Wint, he stared at him coldly, and did not invite him to come in. Wint, with a sudden twinge of sorrow, saw that his father had changed and grown older in these last months. It seemed to Wint that his hair was thinner; there were new lines in his face; and his old benevolent condescension toward the world at large was gone. Wint said quietly:
“I want to come in and talk with you if I may.”
Chase hesitated, even then; but—he had been lonely as Wint had been lonely. He stepped to one side and said: “Very well.” Wint went in, and his father shut the door, and bade Wint come into the room off the hall that served him as library, and office, and den. He did not tell Wint to take off his coat, so Wint kept it on. Chase sat down at his desk, Wint took a chair facing him. He did not know how to begin.
Chase said: “Well, what is it you want?”
Wint hesitated, then he smiled a little wistfully; and he said: “I want to be—friends with you again.”
His father abruptly looked away from him. Without looking at Wint, he asked:
“Why?”
Wint’s right hand moved in a curious, appealing way. “Isn’t it natural for a son to—want to be friends with his father, sir?” he suggested.
Chase said harshly: “I told you, once, that I no longer counted you my son.”
“Those things don’t go by what we want, sir,” Wint urged. “I—am your son. And you’re my father.”
“Have you acted as a son should?” Chase asked coldly.
“No,” said Wint, without palliation of the finality of the word, and Chase looked—and was surprised.
“You’ve realized it, have you?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was one thing Chase wanted to do; and it made him feel ridiculous and ashamed of himself to want to do it. What he wanted to do was to take Wint in his arms. And both of them grown men! He shook his head, as though to brush this sentimental desire away. Foolishness! The young rip had made a laughingstock out of him. Yet here he was, ready to give in at a word.
He said: “I suppose Amos sent you.”
Wint bit his lips, and his face set faintly; but his voice was quiet enough when he answered. “No, sir,” he said.
“You tell Amos,” Chase exclaimed, “that you can’t pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him. And he’ll be more anxious to get around me later on than he is now. Tell him that for me.”
Wint shook his head slowly. “Amos didn’t send me,” he said again.
“Thought Amos told you everything to do?” his father asked. “Haven’t got a mind of your own, have you?”
“Yes,” Wint told him. “Yes, I think I have.”
Chase considered, not looking at his son. He could not look at Wint and still hold himself together. After a while he asked:
“Well, what do you want? You haven’t told me what you want.”
“I want to be friends.”
Chase flung that aside with a swift gesture. “I mean, what do you want to get out of me?”
“Nothing.”
His father got up, glared down at Wint angrily. “Don’t think I’m a fool, Wint,” he said, in a rush of words. “You made me look like one, but I’m not. You linked up withCaretall to make a jackass out of me; you went out of your way to shame me by your own shamelessness. I kicked you out with your tail between your legs, as I should have done long before. Now you come whining home again. Don’t try to tell me you’re not after something. I know you are. If you don’t want to say what it is, don’t. That’s your business. But don’t try to make me a fool.”
Wint had sworn to keep his temper; and he did. But he got to his feet with a swift, silent movement that startled his father. And when Chase broke off, Wint said steadily:
“I’ve told you the truth. It’s true I misbehaved—badly. You have a right to be angry with me. It’s true I did not know Caretall planned to stick me in over your head. You know that’s true. As far as the rest of it goes ... I came here to-night just to tell you that I’m sorry for—the things I did. And I want you to know I’m sorry. You’re my father. I’d like to have the right to come to you for advice; and I’d like to come to you for friendship, if nothing more. That’s all. I’ve come.” He turned toward the door. “I’ve come, and I’ll go.”
When Wint turned toward the door, his father’s heart leaped as though it would choke him. He wanted to cry out to Wint not to go; he did cry out:
“Wait!”
Wint stopped and looked at him.
“Haven’t you given me a right to think—to mistrust you?” the older man challenged.
“Yes,” said Wint.
“You’ve shamed me; and you’ve come near breaking your mother’s heart.”
Wint found it hard to speak; and when he did speak, he said more than he had meant to say. “I want to make amends, sir,” he told his father.
“There are some hurts that can’t be mended,” said Chase inexorably.
Wint nodded; his shoulders slumped a little, and he would have turned again to the door. “I’ve said all I can say,” he explained, “so I guess I’d better go.”
Chase shook his head. “See here, Wint,” he said. “Listen.” There was not yet friendliness in his voice; but there was a neutral quality that held Wint. “Listen,” said Chase. “I’ve learned some things, too, Wint. It’s only fair to say that I can see, now, I was a—bumptious father. And I’ve not changed. I’m too old to change. Probably there were ways where I wronged you. I don’t doubt it.”
“No,” said Wint. “You were always decent to me.”
“A father can be—decent to his son, without playing fair with him,” said his father. “A father can—give things to his son, and at the same time rob him of better things by the giving.”
“You did your part, sir.”
Chase hesitated, eyes on the floor. “I did my best for you, Wint,” he said. “I think I always meant to do what was—best for you. Did you always try to do what was best for me?”
“No,” said Wint.
“I don’t like our being at outs any better than you do,” Chase went on. “It looks bad; and it’s hard on your mother—and on me. Perhaps on you, too.”
Wint said nothing. He was thinking that his father’s thinning hair and lined face proved that the older man had—found it hard to be at outs with his son. He was ready to go a long ways to make it up to Winthrop Chase, Senior.
His father said abruptly, as though summarizing what had gone before:
“If you want to come home, Wint, I’ve no objection.”
Wint had not thought of this possibility, and he said so. “I did not come for that,” he told the older man. “I—just came to tell you, what I have told you.”
“I’m willing to accept what you say at face value,” said his father. “I understand you’ve—kept sober. I understand you’re studying. I’m ready to let you prove yourself.”
Wint smiled with quick satisfaction. “That’s a good deal for you to offer me, sir,” he said frankly.
“If you want to come home, you can.”
“I hadn’t thought of that till you spoke. I don’t know what to—”
“Your mother would like to have you here,” said Chase huskily, “if you care to come.” It was as near a plea as he could bring himself.
Wint nodded with quick decision. “All right, sir,” he said. “I’d like to come. I’ll bring my stuff to-morrow.”
They shook hands abruptly, with a curt word that hid their feelings. “Good night,” said Chase, and Wint said good night, and his father closed the door behind him.
Wint felt, while he walked back to Amos Caretall’s house, as though he had been stripped of a load, had been cleansed, had been made whole. The world had never looked so clean and bright to him before.
A few minutes after he left his home, Mrs. Chase came back from the neighbor’s. She saw at once that something had happened; there was a change in her husband. He was flushed, and his eyes were shining. She asked:
“Why, what’s the matter with you? Has anything happened? Is there anything wrong? You know, I said to-night, I told Mrs. Hullis, that I just had a feeling something was going to happen. I told Mrs. Hullis I just knew things were going to go wrong. Oh, it does look like we have more trouble all the time.”
“Wint is coming home, Margaret,” said her husband.
Poor, garrulous mother! For once she was shocked dumb. Her eyes widened, and she dabbed at them with her hand, as though a cobweb had stuck across them. She turned white, and she seemed to shrink and grow old. And she sat down slowly in the straight, uncomfortable chair she always used, and put her worried old head down in her arms and cried.
Chase touched her shoulder, awkwardly comforting her.
“It’s all right, mother,” he said. “He’s coming home.”
But Mrs. Chase didn’t say anything. She just sat there, quietly crying. The tears wet through her sleeve till she felt them damp upon her arm.
PETER GERGUE wrote to Amos that Wint had gone home; and Amos got a letter from Wint with the same news, the same day. Wint’s letter was straightforward, a little embarrassed. “I want you to know,” he wrote, “that my father and I have fixed things up. I am living at home again. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your kindness. But I thought I ought to go home if they were willing to have me, and they were.”
Peter wrote more at length. Gergue, uncouth to look upon and rude of speech, was nevertheless an educated man, and a well-read man. There was nothing bizarre about his letters. He wrote that Wint and his father had come together. “From what I hear, Wint went home and told Chase he was sorry, and so on,” Gergue continued. “I guess Chase took on some, at that; but he came around. He’s wrapped up in Wint, you know, and always was. This has been a good thing for him. He’s human now. He’s not such a darned fool. Chase, I mean. If you don’t look out, Chase will give you a run for your money yet.
“Wint’s all right, too. Hasn’t touched a drop, far as I can find out, since you left. He’s studying law with old Hoover, and working at the job of being Mayor. Not setting the world on fire, either. Just the routine. Town’s as wet as ever, and looks like it will go on being. I guess Wint is worried for fear folks will laugh at him if he starts a clean-up. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. Or maybe he hasn’t thought about it.
“He and Routt don’t run around together much. Jack’s been away. I wrote you about that. He’s back now. Acts same as ever. Mary Dale told me he was in to see old Kiteone day, and Kite went up in the air. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. She thinks Jack is made and handed down. Maybe he is. I wonder what he wanted to go and see old V. R. Kite for?
“Kite was sore at you, right after election. Some one told him you was going to have Wint clean up the town. He made talk that he’d hang your hide if you did. But he got over that. He’s lying quiet. Doing a good business, too, I should say. There were seven drunks in Wint’s court last week.
“I asked Chase if he figured to run against you next fall. He said he was out of active politics. Active, he said.
“Guess you’ve seen about the new city government law. Means we’ll have to vote for Mayor again, this fall, instead of a year from now. You figure to run Wint? I guess he’d take it. I guess he’s just getting rightly interested in the job.
“See the session’s likely to end along in May. You figure to come home then?”
Amos read these letters, read Wint’s twice, and smiled at it; then re-read Peter Gergue’s. That night at their hotel he told Agnes that Wint had gone to his own home. “Guess you’d better go back and keep Maria company,” he said.
He half expected her to protest. Agnes seemed to be having a good time in Washington; she was very gay and much abroad. Jack Routt had stopped off for three or four days, during his absence from Hardiston, and she and Jack had been constantly together while he was in town. Also, there had been other amiable young men, before and after Jack. So Amos thought Agnes was enjoying herself, and hesitated to suggest her going home. But he made up his mind, before he spoke, that she should go. Amos never got into an argument unless he intended to win. This habit had established for him a certain reputation for infallibility.
But—Agnes did not protest. “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m sick of this stupid old place.”
Amos, head on one side, squinted at her humorously. “Well, there are some stupid things done here, anyways,” he agreed. “When’ll you put out for Hardiston?”
She planned to get some clothes. “I’ll be along in May,” Amos told her. “Guess you and Maria can go it alone till then.”
Agnes was sure they could.
In Hardiston, Wint’s home-going was a nine days’ wonder. People made comments according to their own hearts. Some were glad, some were amused, some were caustic. The only one to whom Wint offered any explanation was old Maria Hale. The old negress loved him like a son; she was sorry to see him go. There were tears in her eyes when she told him so; they ran down her black cheeks, like drops of ink upon that blackness. It is easy to speak openly of simple, human emotions to such folks as old Maria. Wint said to her: “I want to go home to my father and mother. And they want me. I’m going to make it up to them for some of the things I’ve done.” He would not have said as much as that to any other person in the world. But there was no sense of strangeness in saying it to the old colored woman.
She bobbed her withered head, and smiled through her tears, and cried:
“Da’s right, Miste’ Wint. Yore mammy ’nd pappy shore got to be proud o’ you, boy.”
“I hope so, Maria,” he told her, and she patted his shoulder.
“’Deed and dey will.”
When he left the house, she came to the door and told him he must come, now and then, and let her cook him a good supper; and he must come and see her. She would be lonely, in that big house, without no white folks around, she said. Wint promised to come; and she waved her blue gingham apron after him as he went down the street.
Muldoon was with him, scampering around him and about; and old Maria, watching Wint and the dog, said to herself as they disappeared:
“Shore will miss dat boy; but ol’ M’ria ain’t going to pester herself about not seeing dat dog.”
She objected to Muldoon because he shed hairs on the rugs. But she had tolerated him for Wint’s sake. Muldoon thoroughly understood her feelings; he used to sit with his headon one side and bark at her while she brushed up those tawny hairs and scolded at him. She declared he was laughing at her. More than once, Wint had been forced to make peace between them.
Muldoon did not seem surprised that they were going home; he took it quite as a matter of course. In fact, it is doubtful whether he noticed the change at all. Home, to Muldoon, was where Wint was. For that is the way of the dog.
So Wint went home, and Hardiston talked it over. V. R. Kite was glad to hear it. It meant, he decided, that Wint had shifted allegiance from Amos to his father; and while Kite had always mistrusted the elder Chase, he felt they had a common bond in their mutual antagonism toward Amos. Kite, in the last few months, had conceived a new respect for Winthrop Chase, Senior. “Chase,” he was accustomed to say, “is a man of sense. Yes, sir; a man of sense.”
Joan was glad; she found occasion to tell Wint so, simply and without elaboration. Wint said awkwardly: “Yes, I’m glad too. I guess it’s better.” And they never mentioned the change again. James T. Hollow, the little man whom Caretall had put up for Mayor against Chase, resented Wint’s move. “It’s desertion,” he told Peter Gergue. “He is deserting Congressman Caretall; and after all the Congressman has done for him. It’s not the right thing to do, Peter.”
Gergue spat, and rummaged through his hair. “Can’t always do what’s right,” he said.
“I’m afraid Amos will resent this,” Hollow went on. Peter said he shouldn’t wonder.
“If he does object, guess he’ll know how to show it,” he remarked. And Hollow agreed, and added admiringly that Amos always seemed to know just the right thing to do.
TheHardiston Sunand theJournalwere both friendly to Winthrop Chase, Senior; so Skinner and B. B. Beecham made no comment on Wint’s change of residence. But the semi-weeklyHerald, which was an outcast with its hand against every man, politically speaking, said, under a headline: “The Prodigal Returns,” that Wint, “whose break with the elder Chase dates from the election, when Senior was made a laughingstock before the state, has returned to the parental rooftree. Please omit fatted calves.”
Sam O’Brien, the fat restaurant man, told Ned Bentley it was a good thing. “Young Wint’s a fine lad,” he said. “And he’s on the right track. Does no good, never, to break with your blood and kin.”
Thus each took his own point of view. It was a poor citizen of Hardiston who had nothing to say about the matter, except that those most concerned had nothing to say at all.
The actual home-coming was simple and undramatic. Wint sent his trunk out during the day after his talk with his father. In the late afternoon of that day, he happened to drop in at the Post Office for the late mail, and met his father there. They greeted each other casually; and Wint asked:
“On your way home?”
“I have to stop at the bakery.”
“I’ll go along,” said Wint. And he did, while people stared with all their eyes. Old Mrs. Mueller, the comfortable little woman who owned the bakery, and who was always associated in Wint’s mind with the delicious fragrance of newly baked bread, lifted both hands at sight of them together, then dropped her hands abruptly and wiped them on her apron and served them without a word. Before the door closed behind them, they heard her, behind the screen in the rear of the shop, volubly telling some one the news.
Wint and his father walked home without speaking once upon the way. They were both acutely embarrassed and uncomfortable. It was a relief to them both when they got to the house and Mrs. Chase met them in the hall. Chase dropped his hand on his son’s shoulder—the involuntary touch, like a caress, brought the tears to Wint’s eyes—and he said:
“Here’s Wint, mother.”
So Wint took his mother in his arms, and she hugged him, hard. “I knew you’d c-c-c-come home, Wint,” she told him, through her sobs. “I was telling Mrs. Hullis, only the other day, that I’d—that I was just sure you’d come home some—”
“I’ve come, mother,” said Wint.
“I knew you’d come, too. I told father there wasn’t anything in you that would—I told him you’d be sorry, that you’d come and tell him so. Your father’s a good man, Wint. He’s tried to—”
Chase broke in. People who wished to say anything to her always had to break in on Mrs. Chase. He said: “Is supper ready, mother? Wint’s hungry, and so am I.”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “It’s all ready. Hetty’s made two big pies, Wint. Apples, with cinnamon in them. Thick, the way you like them. Some of our apples, from the big Sheep’s Nose tree in the back yard. They’ve kept wonderful this winter. We haven’t lost hardly any; and they’re as juicy—”
“Lead me to ’em,” said Wint cheerfully. “Is Hetty a good cook?”
“She’s fine,” his mother assured him. “Hetty’s a fine girl. I never had a harder worker. She don’t seem right happy, sometimes; but she does her work, and that’s all a body has a right to ask. She—”
Hetty herself came to the dining-room door, then, and told them that supper was ready. Wint said: “Hello, Hetty,” and shook hands with her. She said:
“Hello, Wint.” The old note of reckless courage and good nature was gone from her voice; and when he saw her more clearly, in the lighted dining room, he saw his mother was right. Hetty did not look happy. Her eyes were tired; and there were shadows beneath them. Her face was thinner, too. He thought she did not look well. During supper, while she waited upon them, he told her so. “You’ve been working too hard, Hetty. You don’t look like yourself.”
She said, with a twisted smile, that she was all right. There was a harsh note in her voice. It disturbed Wint; but he said no more. During the succeeding days and weeks, he grew accustomed to her changed appearance. He no longer thought of it.
In mid-April, Jack Routt came out to the house one night to see Wint. The visit seemed casual enough. He said he had thought he would drop in for a smoke and a talk. He cameearly, only a few minutes after supper, and Hetty was clearing away the supper dishes. When she heard his voice in the hall, she stood very still for a moment, looking that way. Wint did not see her. Routt laid aside his hat, and then he saw Hetty, and he called to her:
“Hello, Hetty.”
She said evenly: “Hello, Jack.”
Then Routt and Wint went up to Wint’s room, and Hetty stood very still where she was for a little time, before she went on with her work.
Upstairs, Routt was saying: “I’d forgotten Hetty was working for you.”
“Yes,” said Wint.
Routt lighted a cigarette. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Wint nodded. “Not as pretty as she was in school. Remember what a picture she used to be, hair in a braid, and those cream-red cheeks of hers?”
“Guess I do,” Routt agreed warmly. He looked at Wint and grinned. “Don’t know that I’d want her living in the same house with me,” he said.
“Why not?” Wint asked.
“Damned bad for my peace of mind.”
Wint flushed. He was a curiously clean, innocent chap in some ways. He felt a little ashamed by the mere existence of the thought which had prompted Routt’s covert suggestion. “I’m glad you dropped in, Jack,” he said. “Good to see you here again. Like old times.”
If he had been less busy with the work of his office, and with his study, Wint might have thought more about Hetty during the next few weeks. But—he didn’t. They saw each other daily, and once or twice he realized that she was not as good-natured as she had been. There were times when she was sullen.... For the most part, however, he did not think of her at all.
Now and then he had short letters from Amos. Dry, friendly letters, with some impersonal advice sprinkled through them. In the third week in May, Amos wrote that he would come home, arriving the Thursday following. Wint was glad he was goingto see Amos again. He had gone to Amos’s house once or twice for the suppers Maria loved to cook for him, but when Agnes came home, he gave that up. Agnes bored him. She was too vivacious. Joan was quieter, calmer, infinitely strengthening and strong.... Jack Routt was seeing a good deal of Agnes, he knew. Routt seemed no longer bent on the wooing of Joan, though he had told Wint, months ago, that he meant to go in and win. Wint joked him, one day, about this, and Routt said frankly:
“You and she have made up. I’m not the sort of a chap that trespasses. When I see I’ve no chance, I know how to make the best of things.”
Wint thought that was straightforward and decent in Routt.
Amos was to come home on the afternoon train, Thursday. Wednesday evening, Wint spent at home. Chase and Wint’s mother went upstairs early to bed, but Wint was busy with a case book from Hoover’s office, and remained downstairs, the book open on the table, the lamp beside him.
He did not realize that time was passing. Wint had a certain faculty for concentration; and the dead quiet of the sleeping house allowed him to enclose himself in the world of his thoughts. He heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing but the matter he was reading. He did not hear the clock strike midnight, and one o’clock.
But in the end he did hear some one come up on the back porch. That would be Hetty, coming home. He knew she had gone out for the evening. Listening to her step, he wondered what time it was, and looked at the clock and saw that it was within twenty minutes of two in the morning.
“Great Scott!” he said, half aloud. “As late as that?” And then, curiously, “What’s Hetty doing out this time of night?” He listened; and he could hear no more footsteps, but he did catch the murmur of a man’s voice. Indistinguishable.... Then Hetty’s in a harsh, mirthless laugh. He got up abruptly and went out toward the kitchen. He could not have told what impulse sent him.
When he opened the door, Hetty was standing on the porch, facing him. There was no one with her. Wint said:“Alone, Hetty? Time you were getting in.” He was good-natured.
She looked at him, and he saw that she was flushed, and her eyes were reddened, and her mouth was open. Her hair was a little dishevelled. She looked at him, and laughed, and said loosely:
“Oh, you Wint. Wint’s caught me. Joke on me.”
He saw that she had been drinking, and he was inexpressibly sorry and disturbed. Not that he was a stranger to drink; not that he frowned upon it from high, moral grounds. But—Hetty had been so beautiful, and so youthful, and so gay. She was so hideously soiled now. He was not disgusted; he was infinitely sorry for her.
Hetty laughed crackingly. “Poor ol’ Wint. ’Member when you came home so? Hetty put Wint t’ bed. Now Wint’ll have to put Hetty to bed. Mus’n’t let Chase know, Wint. He’s a moral man.”
Wint said gently: “Of course not, Hetty.” He took her arm. “Come in.”
She was unsteady on her feet; and it seemed hard for her to keep her eyes open. He was afraid she would drop in a sodden slumber before he could get her upstairs. This fear haunted him during the moments that followed; it marked them in his memory. He was never going to be able to forget this business of helping Hetty slowly up the back stairs, and up to her third-floor room. It was only a matter of minutes; but they were fearfully long. And he was afraid she would go to sleep; and he was afraid she would laugh. Once he heard the laughter coming, in her throat, in time to press his hand over her mouth; and he could never forget the feeling of her loose, working lips beneath his hand. He was sweating and sick.
He got her to her room without turning on the lights. He got her to the bed and she lay down and seemed instantly asleep. He started for the door; and she called him back.
“Shame, Wint,” she said mournfully. “Ain’t going to take off my shoes? I took off your shoes, Wint. I took off your shoes.”
She wore low shoes, little more than pumps. He thanked his fates for that, while his fingers fumbled for the laces. A tug loosed the knots, the slippers came off easily. Hetty was snoring before he was done, and he left her so.
He could hear her snoring, after he got out into the hall. It seemed to him his father, asleep in the front of the house on the second floor, must hear. He went down from the third floor to the second on tiptoe with excruciating care. And on down the back stairs to put out the lights, and put away his book, and come back up to his own bed.
He could not sleep for a long time. He was obsessed by a strange and persistent feeling of responsibility for Hetty. It was as though he felt himself to blame for this thing that had come to her.
Jack Routt would have laughed at such a state of mind; but it was very real to Wint.
WINT had a talk with his father next morning; that is to say, the morning of the day Amos was to come home. He told the elder Chase that Amos was coming.
Chase nodded. “I heard so,” he agreed.
“I want you to understand my relations with him,” said Wint.
There was a time when the older man would have said that a son of his could have no relations with Amos Caretall. But Winthrop Chase, Senior, had been learning wisdom, and a certain tolerance. Also, he had no wish to lose Wint again. He told himself this was because Wint’s mother was growing old, would miss him.
“Well,” he said, “what are they?”
Wint had been dreading what his father would say; he had been afraid of anger, of abuse. He was immensely relieved at the older man’s tone.
“Simply this,” he said. “He put me where I am. That was tough on you; but I think it has been good for me. It’s a strange thing to have the feeling that you can give men orders which they must obey; and that you have a—a sort of control over them. Dad, do you realize that I have to send men to jail every little while? It’s a pretty serious thing to send a man to jail, when you know you ought to be in jail yourself, in a way. I’ve done some thinking about it; so you see, it’s been good for me. It never hurts a man to think.
“The whole thing is, Amos has done me a good turn, sir. I can’t help feeling grateful to him. Can’t help feeling he’s been a good friend to me. And—I want to be friends with him. And I want you to know there’s no disloyalty to you in this friendship.”
Chase considered for a little; then he said quietly: “Youknow, Amos played false with me. Deceived me—deliberately. And tricked me.”
“I know it,” said Wint. “It was politics; and in a way, it was dirty politics. But—he’s been square with me.”
“I’m not sure,” said Chase, “that the whole business has not turned out pretty well, for you. For your sake, I’m not sorry.” His voice stirred and quickened. “But by Heaven, Wint, Amos is no friend of mine! And some day I mean to break him.”
Wint said: “That’s all right. It’s a fair game between you. But I don’t want you to think I’m taking sides with him.”
“What are you going to do?” Chase asked.
“I thought of meeting his train,” Wint told him. “And—he asked me to have supper with them to-night, to talk things over. I thought I would.”
“Suppose I tell you not to?”
Wint said wistfully: “I hope you won’t, sir, because—I’m going to.”
Chase nodded. “I suppose so,” he agreed. “Well, Wint—you’re a grown man. I shall not try to treat you—like a boy. Not again. I’m leaving it to you, Wint.”
Wint said quickly: “I’m glad.” He got up and, without either’s suggestion, they shook hands, and looked into each other’s eyes for a moment.
“All right,” said Chase. “I’ll tell your mother not to expect you for supper.”
“Try to make her understand, will you?”
His father smiled. “Your mother doesn’t always understand,” he said. “But—she loves you, Wint.”
“I know....”
He hesitated, wondering whether he should tell his father about Hetty. She had been sullen, avoiding his eyes, when she served breakfast. His father, or his mother, had a right to know.
Yet Wint could not bring himself to tell them. There would be no charity in them for the girl. And Wint had an infinite deal of tolerance for her. Give her a chance. He would not tell them. Not yet, at least. It could wait for a while.
He was conscious of a need to tell some one. Not for the sake of betraying Hetty, but to find some balm for his own soul. That sense of responsibility persisted; he could not analyze it, but he could not shake it off. A strangely haunting feeling, this.... It troubled him acutely. His thoughts dwelt on it all that day.
There was a drunken man in the Mayor’s court that morning. An old man. Wint knew him. He was that man who had embraced Wint in the office of the Weaver House, on the morning after the election. The incident seemed to have happened infinitely long ago; yet it was horribly vivid in Wint’s memory still. The man had treated him like a boon companion, a good, understanding comrade. He had assumed a fellowship between them; the fellowship of drink. The shame of it was that his assumption had been justified....
The man reminded Wint of the incident, this day in court. He was miserably sober when they brought him in, miserably sober, and trembling to be drunk again. “Don’t be hard on a fellow, your Honor,” he pleaded with Wint. “You know how it is. You remember. That day; day after you was elected. You’re a good pal, Mayor, your Honor. Don’t go to be too hard on a man.”
He had been in court before; Wint had fined him, had sent him to jail. The futility of these measures came home crushingly to Wint just now. The man was not helped by them; he was as bad as ever. Worse, perhaps. A revolt against this whole system of punishment boiled up in Wint. He said, without considering:
“All right. Try to let it alone. Get out.”
Young Foster, the city solicitor, looked surprised and pained as though Wint had insulted him. Marshal Jim Radabaugh grinned good-naturedly. The man himself crowded up to Wint’s desk with his thanks, and poured them out, and at last whispered humbly:
“You haven’t got a dime to give a man, have you, Mayor, your Honor? I’m shaking for a drink. You know how that is. Just a dime, your Honor.”
Wint gave him a quarter, and Foster said: “Well, I’ll bedamned!” The man went out, calling blessings on Wint’s head. Foster demanded: “What’s the idea, anyway, Wint? He’s a common souse.”
“I’m sick of sending him to jail,” said Wint hotly. “I’m not going to do it any more. What good does it do?”
“Keeps him sober, anyway. You as good as told him to go and get drunk again.”
“Well, let him,” said Wint. “What else is there for him to do?”
“Go to work.”
“He looks fit for work, doesn’t he?”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Yes,” said Wint, “whose fault is it? Whose fault that he is what he is? Whose fault that he can buy a drink in a dry town? Whose fault is it, Foster, anyway?”
Foster laughed. “Well, what’s the answer?”
Wint leaned back in his chair, eyes down, considering. He was thinking of Hetty; he could not help it. And the end of his thinking was this. He looked at Marshal Jim Radabaugh, and said evenly:
“Mister marshal, don’t arrest any more men in Hardiston for being drunk unless they—commit other crimes.” There was a bite in the last word.
But Jim Radabaugh only grinned and said: “All right, you’re boss.”
Foster started to protest. Wint asked: “Any more cases?”
“No. But damn it all, Wint! Listen—”
“I don’t want to listen,” Wint told him. “I’m through. Court’s adjourned. Don’t—”
“You’re turning the town over to the bums,” Foster protested.
“They can’t run it any worse,” said Wint, and took his hat and departed. Foster swore. Marshal Jim Radabaugh strolled up to the Bazaar to tell V. R. Kite this interesting news.
Wint met Amos at the train, and Amos shook him by the hand and looked him in the eye and nodded with good-natured approval. “Coming home for supper?” he asked.
“Surely. I wouldn’t miss Maria’s supper.”
“You might say you wouldn’t miss us, too,” Agnes reminded him, clinging to her father’s arm. “Mightn’t he, dad?”
“Say it, Wint,” Amos suggested. “Only way to have peace in the family.”
So they let Agnes have her way, and she made the most of it. Peter Gergue came for supper, too; and Agnes sat at one end of the table, presiding over the coffee urn with a pretty assumption of the rôle of matron. She did most of the talking. The men were too busy with Maria’s fried chicken. But afterward, when they were done, Amos and Peter and Wint went into the sitting room, and Agnes said she wasn’t going to sit and listen to them talk politics. She was going to the moving-picture show. Amos told her to run along. He and Peter shaved their plugs of tobacco, and crumbled the slices, and filled their pipes; and Wint grinned at the exactness with which Peter copied Amos’s procedure. He had filled his own pipe in more conventional fashion, from his pouch, and was smoking while they were still rubbing the sliced tobacco between their palms.
When the pipes were all going, Amos, as was his custom, sat in silence, waiting for some one else to speak first. Wint imitated him. And Gergue, who did not like silences, said at last: