AMOS CARETALL and his daughter had supper—dinner was at midday in the Caretall household—alone together. Old Maria Hale cooked the supper, and Agnes brought it to the table. It was a good supper. Fried chicken, for example; and mashed potatoes as creamy as—cream. And afterwards, apple tapioca pudding of a peculiar excellence. All garnished with little, round biscuits, each no more than a crisp mouthful. The Congressman smacked his lips over it with frank appreciation. “Maria,” he told the old colored woman, “you could make your fortune in Washington.”
Maria cackled delightedly. She was a shriveled little old crone, bent, wrinkled, and suspected of being as bald as an egg. No one ever saw her without a kerchief bound tightly around her head. She had looked a hundred years old for twenty years, and declared she was more than that. “I mus’ be a hundred an’ twenty, at the mos’,” she used to say, when questioned. Now she cackled with delight at the Congressman’s praise of her cookery.
“I don’t know ’bout Wash’n’t’n,” she declared. “But I ain’ makin’ no great pile in Hardiston, Miste’ Caretall.”
He laughed, head tilted back, mouth full of biscuit. “You old fraud, you could buy and sell Chase himself, twice over. You haven’t spent a cent for a hundred years, Maria.”
She giggled like a girl, and went out to the kitchen, wagging her head from side to side and mumbling to herself. Agnes looked after her, and when the door was closed said, with a toss of her head: “She’s getting awfully cranky, Dad.”
Amos chuckled. “Always was, Agnes. Just the same when I was your age. But she can make mighty un-cranky biscuits.”
“She gets cross as a bear if I don’t help her with the dishes.”
Amos looked at his daughter with a dry smile. “Then if I was you, Agnes, I’d help her.”
She started to reply, but thought better of it. A little restraint fell upon them, and this continued until Amos leaned back with a sigh of contentment and pulled a pipe from his coat pocket. It was a horny old pipe, black, odorous, rank as a skunk cabbage. Agnes hated it; but Amos stuck to it, year in, year out. When it caked so full that a pencil would not go down into its cavity, Amos always whittled out the cake, burned the pipe with alcohol, and started over again. The brier had been in regular and constant use for half a dozen years—and it was still, as Agnes used to say, “going strong.”
Amos cuddled this pipe lovingly in the palm of his hand. He polished the black bowl in his palm, and then by rubbing it across his cheek and against the side of his nose. Agnes fidgeted, and Amos watched her with a twinkle in his eye until she rose suddenly and cried:
“Dad—that’s horrid!”
He chuckled. “What was it you said about dishes?” he asked.
She went sulkily toward the kitchen.
Amos watched her with a certain amount of speculation in his eyes. Amos was always speculating, speculating about people, and about things. He stared at the door that closed behind her for a long minute before the clock on the mantel struck seven and broke the charm. Then he got up stiffly, favoring his big body, and went into the sitting room. Only half a dozen houses in Hardiston had living rooms in those days. Rooms with no other appointed use were, respectively, sitting rooms and parlors. The library and the living room were arriving together.
Amos went into the sitting room and pulled a creaky rockingchair up before the coal fire. His feet were in carpet slippers, and he kicked off the slippers and thrust his feet toward the blaze. He wore knitted wool socks, gray, with white heels and toes. Maria Hale had knitted Amos’ socks for ten years. He wriggled his toes comfortably, then searched from one pocket a black plug of tobacco, from another a crooked-bladepruning knife. He sliced three or four slices from the plug with grave care, restored plug and knife to his pockets, rolled the slices to a crumbling pile in his palm, and filled his pipe. When it was lighted—he “primed” it by cramming into the top of the pipe some half-burned tobacco from a previous smoking—he leaned back luxuriously in the chair, closed his eyes, puffed hard and thought gently.
He was still in this position when the telephone rang; and he rose, grumblingly, to answer it. Winthrop Chase, Senior, was at the other end of the wire; and when he discovered this, Amos winked gravely at the fire and his voice descended half an octave.
“Good evening, Congressman,” said Chase.
“Evening, Mr. Chase,” said Amos.
“Gergue told me you were coming home.”
“I guess he was right.”
“He thought you would want to see me.”
Amos’ eyes widened. “Did he say so?”
Chase laughed. “Well—you understand—Gergue has his methods.”
Amos nodded soberly. “Yes, yes. Well—you can come to-night if you want.”
“Er—what—”
“I said you could come to-night. I’ll be home all evenin’.”
Winthrop Chase, Senior, hesitated. He hesitated for so long that Amos asked blandly: “Er—anything else?”
“No, no-o,” Chase decided then. “No—I’ll come.”
“That’s good,” said Amos; and hung up, and came back to his chair with a pleasant smile upon his countenance.
Almost immediately, some one knocked on the door. From the sitting room, the door was open into the hall, so that Amos heard the knock easily. There was a bell, and most people rang the bell; but Peter Gergue always knocked, so Amos called out confidently:
“Come in, Pete.”
Listening, he heard the front door open. Then it closed, and Gergue came slowly along the hall and into the room. Amos looked up and nodded.
“Evening, Peter. Glad t’see you. Take a chair. Any chair.”
Peter put his hat on the table and dragged a morris chair before the fire. He sat down, still without speaking, and extended his feet toward the fire in imitation of Amos. Amos’ hands were clasped across his middle, and Gergue clasped his hands there too. Thus they remained for a little time silent.
But such a position put Gergue under too great a handicap. He had to get his fingers into his hair; and so presently he unclasped his hands and began to rummage through the tangle at the nape of his neck for his medulla, as though hunting for something. Apparently, he found it; for after a moment he said slowly:
“Well, Amos, we’re licked.”
Amos turned his head and studied Gergue. “Do tell!” he exclaimed at last.
Gergue nodded. “Hollow ain’t got any more chance of being Mayor than—than young Wint Chase has.”
This seemed to startle Amos. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, closed it again, then asked: “Young Wint! What makes you say that?”
“We-ell—no more chance than I got, then,” Gergue amended.
The Congressman seemed satisfied with the amendment. He wagged his head as though deploring the situation, then asked: “Why? What’s Jim done?”
Gergue looked at Amos reproachfully. “We-ell, you know Jim.”
“Always does the right thing, don’t he?”
“They ain’t no votes in that.”
The two considered this truism for a time in thoughtful silence. In this interval, Gergue produced and filled and lighted a pipe in a manner painfully like that of Amos. Every detail—pipe, plug, knife, priming—was the same. Amos watched him with interest, and when Gergue had finished with the rites, Amos asked:
“How big a margin has Chase got?”
Gergue opened his hands as though baring every secret.
“Well,” he said, “Jim’ll get two votes. Yours and mine. He won’t vote for himself. Says it ain’t right. So I don’t know where we can count on anything else.” He hesitated, then: “You know, this Chase has got a holt on Hardiston.”
“How?”
“Every way. Four-five hundred men working for him, one way or another. The drys are all with him. The money is all with him. And the Democrats are all with him.”
Amos pondered. “I hadn’t no notion Chase was such a popular man,” he said.
Gergue shook his head. “He ain’t. They’d all like to see him licked, just to see his swelling go down some. But—a man can’t vote for Hollow.”
Amos puffed hard. “You know, Peter, I’ve a mind to vote for Chase myself.”
Gergue was startled; but after a minute he grinned. “Whatever you say goes for me, Amos.”
“Chase is a good man, a big man, a public-spirited man. You know, Peter, if he was elected Mayor, things being as they is, he’d stand right in line for Congress next fall. I don’t know as I’d even run against him, Pete.”
Gergue leaned forward and clapped his knee and chuckled. Something pleased him. Amos watched him with an expression of comical bewilderment, until Gergue caught his eye and sobered abruptly. Then Amos asked, most casually:
“How’s young Wint, Peter?”
Gergue looked sharply at the Congressman. “The boy? We-ell—he’s over twenty-one.”
“Er—is he?”
Amos squinted at the ceiling. “Seems to me he is. He was three years ahead of Agnes in school and high school, and she is twenty now. He must be twenty-two or three.”
Peter considered this, but made no comment. After a moment Amos asked again: “So—how is he, Peter?”
Gergue rummaged through his back hair. “We-ell—they kicked him out of State for over-study of booze.”
Amos nodded. “I know. But—how is he?”
“Still at it.”
“Still at—the booze?”
“He drinks when he has a mind to; and he’s got a large and active mind.”
“What does his father think of it?”
“Various sentiments.”
“Wint is looking badly.”
Gergue nodded. “I come along the street this morning,” he said. “He was standing in front of the Post Office. His back was to me; and when I says, ‘Hello’ to him, he jumped a foot. Nerves on edge.”
“That’s natural.”
Peter shook his head. “Not natural; booze.”
“Oh,” said Amos; and: “But he’ll straighten up. He’ll come out all right.”
Peter shook his head. “I’ve seen ’em go that way. By and by his face will begin to look old, just over night. And then his clothes will get shabby, and b’fore anybody knows different, he’ll be hanging around the hotel corner of nights with a cigarette in his mouth.” He hesitated. “He’s set in his way, Amos. Nothing but an accident’ll change him.”
Amos looked across at Peter curiously. “Accident?”
“Yeah.”
Gergue volunteered no explanation; but after a little time Amos said slowly: “Well, Peter—some accidents ain’t so accidental as others. Pete, you just make a study of Wint Chase for me.”
Gergue looked curious, and he threaded his hair for his medulla oblongata, but he asked no questions. Before a direct instruction or command from Amos, Peter was always silently obedient. He looked at Amos, and then he turned back at the fire; and for a long time the two men sat thus, staring into the coals above the smoking bowls of their pipes.
It is one of the merits of cut-plug for smoking that a well-filled pipe gives a long smoke. Amos Caretall’s pipe lasted three quarters of an hour before the last embers were drowned in the moisture at the bottom of the bowl. He knocked out the loose ashes into his palm, leaving the half-burned cake in the bottom of the pipe to serve as priming for a latersmoke, and then stuffed the pipe affectionately away into his pocket.
Peter was still puffing at his, and Amos watched him for a little, and then he chuckled softly to himself. Gergue looked across at him in faint surprise. Amos chuckled harder, began to laugh, laughed aloud—and instantly was as sober as a judge.
“Peter,” he said slowly, “what you reckon Winthrop Chase, Senior, would up and do if he was licked for Mayor?”
Gergue considered for a moment, then seriously judged: “He’d up and lay him an egg.”
Amos nodded. “And eggs will be worth fifty cents a dozen, right here in Hardiston, inside a month. It might pay to have him lay one, Pete.”
“You’ll need a political Lay-or-Bust for that, Amos.”
“I’ve got one, Peter.”
Gergue stared slowly at Amos, his eyes ponderously inquisitive. At length he asked: “What brand?”
Amos leaned toward him quickly. “Almost any good man could beat Chase, couldn’t he, Pete?”
“He might have—starting at the first go off. He couldn’t now.”
“Chase ain’t rightly popular.”
“No—he puts on too many airs.”
“Hardiston’d like to see a joke on him—now wouldn’t it?”
“Sure. A man always can laugh at a joke on the other fellow. Special if it’s on old Chase.”
“Pete—I kind of like Congress.”
Gergue nodded. “Don’t blame you a speck.”
“I want to keep a-going back there.”
“Fair enough.”
“But you say, yourself, that Chase don’t agree with me on that.”
“He says so too.”
Amos tapped Gergue’s knee. “Pete, wouldn’t a good, smashing joke on Chase put him out of the running for a spell?”
Gergue considered. “I’ll say this, Amos,” he announced at length. “A joke on a man is all right, if it don’t go too far. If you go too far, you’ll make ’em sorry for Chase, and then there’ll be no stopping ’em. Politics sure does love a martyr. But—short o’ that—a joke’s good medicine.”
Caretall sat up quickly. “That’s fine,” he said soberly. “That’s fine,” he repeated. And he fell silent, and after a little said, half aloud and for the third time, “Peter, that’s fine.”
Peter’s pipe smoked out, and he, too, emptied the ashes and preserved the last charred bits of tobacco as Amos had done. Then he rose, reached slowly for his hat. “I’ll go along, Amos,” he announced.
The Congressman lumbered up out of his chair, his broad countenance beaming. “Fair enough, Peter. But, Pete—I want to ask you something.”
Gergue shifted his hat to his left hand; his right went to the back of his neck. “What is it?”
“Take a man like young Wint, Peter. Suppose he was give a job—sudden—that was right up to him. Responsibility, power, something to do that had to be done. Nobody to boss him but himself. Him and his heart. What would that do to a man like Wint, Pete?”
Gergue scratched his head—hard. He thought—hard. Amos said softly: “Don’t hurry, Pete. Think it over.” Gergue nodded; and presently he said:
“Man just like Wint—that’s what you mean?”
“Say—Wint himself.”
“It’d depend on the man.”
“Say it’s Wint.”
“Depend on whether he had any backbone—any stuff in him.”
“Has Wint got it?”
Gergue shook his head. “Ain’t sure.”
“Say he has.”
“Then—this job you mentioned would straighten him out—likely.”
“Say he hadn’t.”
“’Twouldn’t hurt him none.”
Amos nodded. “That’s what I thought, Pete.” He laid his hand on the other’s shoulder and propelled him gently toward the door. There he paused, added: “You do what I asked, will you, Pete? Make a study of Wint.”
“All right.”
“And—Pete.”
Gergue turned.
“Tell V. R. Kite I wish he’d come and see me.”
Peter’s eyes lighted slowly—and after a moment, he grinned. “All right, Amos,” he said quietly, and went down the walk to the gate.
WINTHROP CHASE, SENIOR, took himself seriously.
When he walked the streets of Hardiston, bowing most affably, smiling most genially, he was inwardly conscious of the gaze of all who passed that way. He felt their eyes upon him; and this gave him a sense of responsibility, a sense of duty. His duty, as he saw it, was to set an example to the town; an example of erectness and respectability and high ideals. And it must be said for Chase that he did his utmost along these lines.
He was not an educated man. He had been born in Hardiston, and had attended the Hardiston schools; but in those days the Hardiston schools were not remarkable. Chase could read, he could write, and he could arrange and classify more figures in his head than most men could manage on paper. But beyond that, he did not go. There was a native honesty in the man; and this led him to recognize his own shortcomings. For example, when he was called upon to address his fellow citizens, he always summoned a collaborator and arranged his speech in advance. He made no secret of this. In the same way, the printed word was a continual surprise and delight to him; every book he opened was a succession of amazing revelations. And this characteristic gave him a profound admiration for such folk as the editors of the Hardiston papers. As business men, he had for them only a benignant contempt; as politicians, they were pawns and nothing more; but for their ability to say what they wished with pen and paper, Chase accorded them all honors.
The elder Chase’s sense of responsibility to the town had made him an unsympathetic father to Wint. He expected Wint, too, to live up to the position in which he found himself. It was not hypocrisy that made him gloss over private errorsand denounce more public aberrations; it was a feeling that Wint owed a good example to the town. Thus he had never objected to Wint’s drinking at home—the Chases always had liquor in the house—but when Wint was expelled from the state university for drinking, his father was furious; and when Wint once or twice was brought home from town in an uncertain state of mind and body, his father raged.
The elder Chase made many errors, most of them wellintentioned, and he accomplished much good, most of it by accident. He was a curious compound of harmless faults and dangerous virtues. And no one regretted his mistakes more than Chase himself.
Five minutes after telephoning Amos Caretall, Winthrop Chase saw that was a strategic mistake, and began regretting it. Until Amos’s home-coming the mayoralty campaign had been going smoothly and satisfactorily. Hollow was not a dangerous opponent, and Chase seemed reasonably sure of election by default.
Nevertheless, the coming of Amos had disturbed him. Amos was rightly feared by his political enemies. He had the habit of success; and no matter how secure Chase might feel, the thought of Amos made him secretly tremble.
He was not a man to avoid conflict; therefore he had sought to confront the enemy forthwith, and had telephoned Amos with that end in view. He wished to bolster his own courage by seeing Amos cower; and Amos had disappointed him. Instead of cowering, Amos had told him carelessly that if he, Chase, wished to do so, he might call on Amos that night. And Chase had promised to come.
Now he was torn with regrets. He was sorry he had telephoned; and he was sorry he had promised to come. At first he thought he would stay at home, let Amos wait in vain; and he tried to bolster this decision with arguments. But they were unconvincing. Sure as he was of the election, Amos made him nervous; and eventually, with a desperate feeling that he must know the worst, and quickly, he set out for the Caretall home.
Agnes came to admit him when he rang the bell. He likedthe girl. She was pretty and gay, and she was always flutteringly deferential in his presence. She opened the door, and saw him, and cried delightedly:
“Why, Mr. Chase! Come in!”
He obeyed, drawing off his gloves. He was one of the four men in Hardiston who wore kid gloves. “Good evening, Agnes,” he said, in his tone of condescending graciousness. “Is your father at home?”
“Oh, yes—he’s in by the fire.”
Amos called from the sitting room: “Toasting my toes, Winthrop. Come in.”
“Let me take your coat,” Agnes was begging; and he allowed her to help him off with the garment, and then handed her his hat and gloves and watched her bestow them on the rack. She was graceful in everything she did, and she looked up at him in a humble little fashion, as though to solicit his approval. He gave it.
“Thank you, Agnes,” he said gravely.
“Now!” she said, and turned toward the sitting-room door. In the doorway she paused. “Dad, here’s Mr. Chase.”
“Come in, Chase,” Amos called again. “Take a chair. Any chair. Turning cold, ain’t it?”
Amos did not get up; but Chase went toward him and held out his hand so that the Congressman was forced to rise. He was in the act of filling his pipe again, knife in one hand, slices of tobacco in the other; and he had trouble clearing one hand for the greeting, but he managed. “Now sit down, Chase,” he urged again, when the handshake was over. “Glad you came in. Is it turning cold or ain’t it?”
“Yes,” said Chase seriously. “Yes, there’s a touch of cold in the air.”
“Sky looked that way to me this afternoon. Early, too.”
“I think it will pass, though,” Chase declared. “We’ll have some Indian summer yet.”
“Had some snow, haven’t you?”
“Two or three inches, early this month. But it melted in an hour when the sun touched it.”
Amos nodded slowly. He was lighting his pipe. Agnes had come in with the visitor, but after a moment took herself upstairs and the two men were left alone. This made Chase uncomfortable. Even Agnes would have been a support in this encounter. He looked sidewise at Amos, but Amos was studying the fire; and after a minute the Congressman got up and poked out the ashes and put on half a bucket of fresh coal. Then he jabbed the coals again, and so resumed his seat.
“Ain’t been over to Washington lately, Chase,” he said presently.
Chase aroused himself. “No. No. Been very busy, Amos. Affairs here, you know....”
“I know, I know. Now, me—Washington is my business. But you have to stick to your coal and your iron.” He paused. “I sh’d think you’d get tired of it, Chase.”
“How are things in the Capitol?” Chase asked importantly. Amos looked at him sidewise.
“Why—I ain’t noticed anything wrong.”
“Who will the Republicans nominate?”
Amos chuckled. “Gawd, Chase, I wish I knew.”
“They’ll need a strong man, Amos. The country’s swinging again.”
The Congressman looked at Chase, and he grinned. “Chase,” he said, “you’re a funny Democrat.”
“Why? I—”
“I guess you’re one of these waiting Democrats—eh?”
Chase looked confused. “I.... What’s that?”
“Figuring there’s bound to be a swing some day—and when it comes, you’ll be there and waiting,” Amos nodded. “You’re right, too. Bound to be a swing some day.”
“I’m a Democrat from conviction, Amos. The Democratic party....”
“Fiddlesticks! Tariff has made you—iron and steel. Fiddlesticks!”
Chase fidgeted; Amos fell silent, and for a time neither man spoke. Once Amos reached into a table drawer and produced a cigar and offered it to the other. Chase lighted it. When it was half smoked, Amos asked carelessly:
“Well, Chase, what was it you wanted to see me about?”
Chase put himself on the defensive. “I—why you asked me to come. I supposed....”
Amos grinned. “Have it so, Chase. Have it so.” He puffed hard at his pipe, looked at the other. “Well—does it look like the swing was coming in Hardiston?”
Chase stiffened self-consciously. “The town has demanded that I run for Mayor—and—I consented.”
“That was a public-spirited thing to do, Chase. With all your business to hinder you—take your time....”
“I was glad to do it. A man owes it.... If there is a demand for him, he must respond.”
“Sure! Sure thing! And you’ve responded noble, Chase.”
“I’ve made a straightforward campaign.”
“First-class campaign. You figure you’ve got a chance?”
Chase’s confidence returned. “I’m going to win, Amos. Nothing can stop me. I’ll be the next Mayor of Hardiston—sure.”
Amos looked thoughtful. “I ain’t in touch—myself.” He puffed at his pipe. “Gergue says you’ll win—barring an accident.”
“There will be no accident.”
“Eh?”
“I intend to see to it that there is no accident.”
Amos nodded. “Well,” he commented, “that’s your privilege.”
Chase leaned forward. “Congressman,” he said seriously, “it’s a bad plan to stay away from home so long. You get out of touch with affairs here. You ought to—you need some ally here to watch over your interests.”
Amos looked up quickly. “Now, I never thought of that,” he declared.
Chase clapped his hand on his knee. “It’s right. You can’t tell what the people are thinking unless you live among them—as I do, sir.”
Amos considered this statement, and then he remarked: “Take this wet and dry business, for instance. Now, me—I’m so far away I don’t rightly know what the folks here arethinking. But you—” He hesitated. “How does it strike you, Chase?”
“It’s the big issue here.”
“How? County’s dry.”
“But the town isn’t. The law is not enforced here.”
“Why not?”
Chase laughed shortly. “The present Mayor—”
Amos interrupted. “I’m a wet man, Chase. You know that. I guess you are, too, ain’t you?”
Chase shook his head sternly. “No, indeed. Prohibition is the greatest good for the greatest number. I want to see it sweep the country—state-wide—nation-wide.”
Amos looked startled. “I’m surprised.”
“There’s no question about it, Congressman. Prohibition is coming. And I’m for it.”
“You have—you ain’t a dry man, are you?”
“I believe in moderation.”
“Now that’s funny, too,” Amos commented, his head on one side in the familiar posture that suggested he was suffering from stiff neck.
“Funny? Why?”
“You and me. Me—I’m a wet man; I believe in license. But I’m a teetotaller. You’re a dry man—but you like moderation. I’m for a wet state and a dry cellar—and you’re for a dry state and a wet cellar. Ain’t that always the way?”
Chase flushed stiffly. “Many great men have held public views differing from their private practice.”
“Who, f’r instance?”
“Why—many of them.”
Amos nodded. “Well, you’ve studied the thing. Maybe you’re right.”
“I am right.”
The Congressman looked at the other with a cold, quizzical light in his eyes. “How ’bout Wint? He hold your views?”
Chase turned red as fire. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“I heard he was a wet man, personally. But I wondered if he was dry like you in theory.”
The other said stiffly: “My son has disgraced me. I havebeen very angry with him. But it may have been as much my fault as his. I have tried to be patient. He understands, now, that if he continues—if he does not mend his ways—I—” He stopped uncertainly.
“Reck’n you’d disown him.”
An unexpected and very human weakness showed in the countenance of the elder Chase. His features worked; he said huskily, “Well—the boy—he’s my only child, Amos.”
Amos had never liked Winthrop Chase till that moment. He was surprised at the burst of sympathy that moved him. He nodded. “You’re right, Chase. And—Wint’s a good boy, I figure.”
His tone encouraged the other. Chase leaned toward the Congressman. “Amos,” he said, “there’s a new day coming in Ohio politics.”
Amos looked puzzled. “To-morrow’s always likely to be a new day.”
“Things are changing, Amos.”
“How?”
“Men are dissatisfied with the present—administration of affairs.”
“Men are always dissatisfied.”
“They’re looking around for a new—hired man—Amos.”
Amos chuckled; then he said slowly: “Well—there’s lots of folks looking for the job.”
Chase hesitated, considering his next word; and in the end he cast diplomacy to the winds and came out flatly: “Amos—it’s a good time to look around for friends. To make new alliances.”
Amos looked at the other thoughtfully. “Meaning—just what?”
Chase said simply: “You and I ought to get together, Amos.”
“We’re—here together.”
“I mean—a permanent alliance—offensive and defensive. For mutual good.”
Amos’ pipe had smoked itself to the end. He emptied it with his accustomed care before answering. Then he said slowly: “Specify, Chase. Specify.”
Chase proceeded to specify. “I’m going to be the next Mayor of Hardiston, Amos.”
“Barring that accident.”
Chase brushed that suggestion aside. “My victory—in a strong Republican town—will make me an important figure in the district.”
“Meaning—my district.”
“Meaning the Congressional district.”
Amos looked at the other. “You figuring to run against me next year.”
Chase shook his head. “I don’t want to. There’s no sense in our cutting each other’s throats.”
“That’s against the law, anyhow.”
Chase leaned forward more earnestly. “Amos—here’s my proposition. We ought to get together. I’m willing. I’ve got Hardiston. Sentiment in the district is swinging. I can make a good fight against you next year—I think I can win. But I don’t want to fight you. So—Let’s get together. Party politics are out of date. We’re the two biggest men in the county, Amos. You step aside and let me go to Congress—I can beat any one else easily. And I’ll back you for—the Senate, Amos.”
For a moment Amos remained very quietly in his chair; then he coughed, such a loud, harsh cough that Chase jumped. And then he said slowly: “Chase—you startled me.”
Chase said condescendingly, grandly: “No reason for that, Amos.”
“But my land, man—the Senate! Me in the Senate!”
“Why not? Worse men than you are there.”
“Chase—you’re the man for the Senate—not me.”
Chase bridled like a girl. “No, no, Amos. You’ve the experience, the wide view—”
Amos seemed to recall something. “That’s so, Chase. And you—you ain’t Mayor yet. Something might happen.”
“It won’t.”
Amos rose. “Chase,” he said, “I’ve got to know you better to-night than in twenty years.”
Chase grasped the Congressman’s hand firmly. This was a habit of his, this firm clasp. “It’s high time, then, Amos.”
“Yes, yes,” Amos considered. “Tell you what, Chase,” he said at last, “I’ll think it over.”
“It’s the thing to do, Amos.”
“I’ll think it over, Chase,” the Congressman repeated. He was ushering the other toward the door, helping him into his coat, opening the door. “Wait till after election, Chase,” he said then deferentially. “If you’re elected Mayor of Hardiston—I don’t see but what we’ll have to team up together.”
Chase grasped the Congressman’s hand again. “That’s a bargain, Amos.”
“A bargain,” Amos echoed. Then: “Good night, Chase.”
The door closed; and Amos, after a minute, began to chuckle slowly under his breath.
VICTOR RUTHERFORD KITE was a man about half the size of his name. Specifically, he was five feet and two inches tall with his shoes on and his pompadour ruffed up. A saving sense of the fitness of things had led him to abandon the long roll of names bestowed upon him by his parents in favor of the shorter and more fitting initials. As V. R. Kite, he had lived in Hardiston for twenty odd years; and most Hardiston people had forgotten what his given names actually were.
He was about sixty years old; and he looked it. His eyes were small, and they were washy blue. The eyelids fell about them in thousands of tiny folds and wrinkles, so that the eyes themselves were almost hidden. His eyebrows and his hair and his hints of side whiskers were gray. These side whiskers were really not whiskers at all; they were merely a faint downward growth of the hair before his ears; and they lay on his dry cheeks like the stroke of a brush. His skin was parched dry; it was so dry that it had a powdery look. He walked with a dignified little swing of his short legs, and held his head poised upon his thin neck in a self-contained way that indefinably suggested a turkey.
This man was a member of the session of his church; he was the proprietor and manager of a store that would have been a five-and-ten cent emporium in a larger town than Hardiston; and he was the acknowledged leader of the “wet” forces in Hardiston. He himself had come to the town in the beginning to run a saloon; but after a few years, he submerged his own personality in this venture and opened the little store, leaving a lieutenant to manage the saloon which he still owned. Thereafter, he acquired other establishments of a like nature,until he attained the dignity of a vested interest. When county option came, he suffered in proportion.
But though town and county voted “dry,” there were any number of Hardiston folk who still liked a drink now and then; and the city—for the town of Hardiston was legally a city—took judicial cognizance of the will of its citizens to this extent: the prohibition law was not strictly enforced. The official interpretation of it was: “It’s against the law to sell liquor if you get caught.”
V. R. Kite thought this was reasonable enough, and took care not to get caught.
On the evening of Amos Caretall’s home-coming, Kite was not in his store, so Peter Gergue had some difficulty in locating him. As a last resort, he tried the little man’s home, and was frankly surprised to find Kite there. He delivered Amos’s message, and Kite, who was at times a fiery little man, and a sulker between whiles, agreed in a surly fashion that he would go and see Amos that night. Gergue was satisfied.
Kite’s house was near that of Amos; but he did not set forth at once. When he did, it was just in time to encounter Winthrop Chase, Senior, at Amos’s gate. Kite bridled and slid past Chase as warily as a cat. The two men did not speak. If they had spoken, they would have fought; for each of them felt that he had borne the last bearable insult from the other. They passed, and Kite hurried up to Amos’s door while Winthrop Chase, looking back, watched with a calmly complacent smile. He felt that he and Amos had come to an understanding; and he rejoiced at the thought that this understanding meant the downfall of Kite as a political power in Hardiston.
Kite knocked at the door while Amos was still chuckling in the hall; and Amos let him in. Kite, once the door was open, slid inside, shoved the door shut behind him, and exclaimed in a low, furious voice: “That Chase met me outside. He was here. Don’t deny it, Amos! Did you aim for me to meet him here?”
Amos chuckled and patted Kite’s shoulder. “Now, now, Kite,” he said soothingly. “You didn’t run onto him here. You didn’t have to talk to him. So what you mad about?”
“I hate the sight of the man. He makes me sick.”
“Come in and set down,” said Amos, still chuckling.
They went into the sitting-room, Kite still grumbling at the nearness of his escape. When they were once settled, Amos broke in on this monologue without hesitation: “Chase says he’s going to be the next Mayor—whe’er or no,” he remarked.
Kite’s dry little countenance twisted with pain. Amos saw, and asked sympathetically: “That gripe ye, does it?”
“I’ll never live in the town with him Mayor,” Kite exploded. “I won’t live here. I’ll sell out and move away. I’ll shoot myself! Or him! I’ll....”
He petered out, and Amos grinned. “I gather you and Chase don’t jibe. What’s he ever done to you?”
“Grinned at me. He’s always grinning at me like a—like a—like....”
Amos smoothed the grin from his own countenance with a great hand, and tilted his head on one side. “You and him disagree some on the liquor issue, I take it.”
“We disagree on every issue. He’s....”
“Hardiston’s a little bit wet, ain’t it?”
“Of course! And no one objects! But this Chase wants to get in and make it dry. He’s a....”
“This county option law’s popular, though.”
“Popular—with fools and hypocrites like Chase.”
“Chase’ll make a good Mayor,” Amos suggested. “He’s a fine, public-spirited man. Always sacrificing himself for the town—sacrificing his own interests—an’ all that. So he says, anyhow. Said so to me, to-night.”
Kite waved his clenched fists above his head. He fought for words. Amos seemed not to notice this.
“He’s a good man, a churchly man,” he mused.
Kite exploded. “Damn hypocrite!”
Amos looked across at the other in surprise. “Hypocrite? How’s that?”
Kite became fluent. “Take the liquor question. He preaches dry—talks dry—and drinks like a fish. And his son is a common toper.”
Amos shook his head. “We-ell, a man’s private life ain’t nothing to do with his political principles. Lots of cases like that. If a man thinks right, and performs his office, I reckon that’s all you can ask. Out of office hours—he’s allowed to do what he wants.”
“He’ll ruin Hardiston,” Kite declared. “Ruin it.” He whirled toward the other. “Your fault, too, Amos. If you’d put up a man against him, instead of a fish like Jim Hollow....”
“I figured Jim would do. He always tried to do the right thing,” Amos protested; and Kite dismissed the protest with a grunt.
“The town don’t want Chase,” he declared vehemently, “but they can’t take Hollow.”
“We-ell,” said Amos thoughtfully, “what’s going to be done about it?”
Kite threw up his hands. “Nothing. Too late. But I....”
The Congressman interrupted drawlingly: “Now if it was young Wint that was going to be Mayor—you wouldn’t have to worry.”
Kite laughed shortly. “I guess not. But—he’s not.”
“He wouldn’t be likely to make the town so awful dry.”
“Not unless he drank it dry.”
“We-ell, he couldn’t do that.”
Kite grinned. “I’d chance it.”
They were silent for a moment; then Amos said slowly: “Funny—what a difference one letter makes. ‘Jr.’ instead of ‘Sr.’ Eh?”
Kite nodded slowly; and Amos was silent again, and so for a time the two men sat, thinking. Kite stared at the fire, his face working. Amos watched the fire, but most of all he watched Kite. He studied the little man, his head tilted on one side, his eyes narrowed. And Kite remained oblivious of this scrutiny. In the end, Amos spoke:
“Kite—how many votes you figure will be cast at this election?”
Kite looked up, considered. “A thousand or twelve hundred, I suppose.”
Amos bestirred his great bulk and drew from a pocket a handful of letters. He chose one, replaced the others. From another pocket he routed a stubby pencil, moistened the lead, and set down Kite’s figures on the envelope. “I think that’s too many,” he commented.
“Maybe,” Kite agreed. “What does it matter?”
“How many wet votes can you swing against Chase as it stands?”
Kite frowned. “I can’t do much with Hollow to work with. Maybe four hundred.”
“Suppose you had a good man to work with?”
“He ought to get close to five hundred out of twelve.”
“Everybody so much in love with Chase as that?”
Kite shook his head. “They don’t like him. Nobody does. He thinks he owns the town.”
“Does he own it?”
“A good part. Three or four hundred votes, anyhow.”
Amos tapped his envelope with his pencil, figuring thoughtfully. “I was thinking some of playing a little joke on Chase,” he said at last. “Think they’d enjoy a joke on him?”
Kite looked across at the Congressman with hope in his eye for the first time that evening. “Any joke on Chase will find lots to laugh at it,” he declared.
Amos nodded. “That’s what Gergue said.”
“He’s right.” Kite’s face fell. “But shucks! What chance is there?”
“There’s a chance,” said Amos.
“What is it?”
“Listen, Kite,” said the Congressman soberly. “Listen and I’ll tell you.”
He began to speak; he talked for a long time, and as he explained, Kite’s countenance passed from doubt to hope and then to exultant confidence.
THE home-coming of Congressman Caretall created a momentary stir in Hardiston; but that was all. Every one knew he had come home to take a hand in the mayoralty election; but every one also knew that the elder Chase was going to be elected Mayor in spite of all Caretall could do, and so the first stir of interest soon lagged. There was no sport to be had in an election that was a foregone conclusion.
Caretall did not seem to be worrying about the situation. He walked uptown every morning, waited at the Post Office while the morning mail was distributed, talked with the men that gathered there, went to the barber shop for his shave, to the Smoke House for his plug of black tobacco, to the hotel, or to theJournaloffice, or some other rallying spot for men otherwise unattached.
Now and then he was seen to drop in at Peter Gergue’s office; but the best proof that he was doing nothing to change the election lay in the fact that Gergue was idle. That lank gentleman seldom emerged from his office, and when he did so, the fact that his mind was free of care was attested by the circumstance that he left his back hair severely alone. Gergue was a Caretall barometer; and all the signs pointed to “fair, followed by a probable depression!”
A lull settled over Hardiston. Chase carried on his campaign regularly but without heat. He talked with individuals on street corners and with groups wherever he found them; he spoke most graciously to all who met him on the street; and as the last week before election dawned, he announced two meetings, to which all voters were invited. They would be held in the Rink; otherwise the Crescent OperaHouse—and at these meetings, numerous speakers would expound the justice of the Chase cause. Chase himself, of course, would be the principal speaker.
The first of these meetings was held on Tuesday night, a week before the election; the second was set for the following Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon, Amos Caretall and Chase came face to face in the Post Office; and half a dozen people saw them greet each other pleasantly and without heat. Chase spoke as though he could afford to be generous, Amos like a man willing to accept generosity.
“I hope you’ll come to my meeting to-night, Amos,” Chase invited with grave condescension; and he laughed and added: “You might learn something that would be of value—about municipal affairs—”
“I was figuring on coming,” said Amos, surprisingly enough. It was surprising even to Chase; but he hid this feeling.
“Fine, fine!” he declared. “Amos, I’m glad to hear it. Partisanship has no place in city affairs.”
“That’s right,” Amos agreed.
Chase laughed. “If you don’t look out, I’ll call on you to speak to-night,” he threatened.
Amos grinned at that. “I reckon I wouldn’t be scared,” he declared. “I’ve spoke before.”
They parted with no further word save laughing jests; but when Chase turned toward his office, his eyes were thoughtful, and Amos watched his departing figure with a faint smile. While Chase was still in sight, Gergue came along; and he spoke to Amos in his habitual low drawl, and received a word from Amos in reply.
Gergue nodded. “The bee’ll keep a buzzing till he does it,” he promised; and Amos chuckled. He chuckled all that day; but his countenance was sober enough when he presented himself at the entrance to the Rink that night. He was alone; and he walked boldly down the aisle, responding to greetings on every hand, and took a conspicuous seat near the front.
The curtain had been raised; and the stage was set with a stock scene representing a farmyard, or something of the kind. There was an impracticable well at the right, in the rear;and at the left, the kitchen door of the farmhouse stood open beneath an arborway of cardboard grapevines. In the center of the stage, a table had been set; upon it a white pitcher of water and a glass; and in the semicircle about the table, half a dozen chairs. The stage setting was not strikingly appropriate, but no one save Amos gave it so much as a chuckle.
When he had studied the stage, Amos turned to look about at the audience. The Rink was half filled; but half of the people in it were either women or boys too young to vote. The women in Hardiston were all immensely interested in politics; and as for the boys—well, a boy loves a meeting.
While Amos was still studying the audience, Ed Skinner, editor of the weeklySun, appeared on the stage, walked to the table, rapped on it with a wooden mallet which had obviously been designed for the uses of carpentry, and called the house to order. Amos settled in his seat and the meeting began.
There were four speakers. Skinner talked first; he was followed by Davy Morgan, a foreman in Chase’s furnace; and he in turn gave way to Will Murchie, from up the creek, who had been elected Attorney General the year before, and so won the honor of breaking the air-tight Republican grip on state offices. The testimony of these men was unanimously to the effect that Winthrop Chase, Senior, had the makings of the best Mayor any city in the state ever saw.
After which, Chase himself appeared, to prove the case indisputably.
Chase read his speech. He always read his speeches. Murchie had written this one for him; and it was well done, flowery, measured, resounding. It was real oratory, even as Chase rendered it. And Amos, in a front seat, was the loudest of all the audience in his applause. He was so loud that at times he interrupted the speaker; but Chase forgave him, beaming on Amos over the footlights.
Abruptly, Chase finished his speech. He finished it and folded it and put it in his pocket; and every one applauded, either from appreciation or relief. They applauded until they saw—by the fact that Chase still held the stage without startingto withdraw—that he had something further to say. Then they fell sulkily silent.
“My friends,” said Chase then, beaming on them. “My friends—I thank you. I thank you all; and particularly I wish to thank Congressman Caretall, down in front here, who has been loud in his applause.
“That’s a good sign. I’m glad he appreciates the fact that it is no use to fight longer. He told me this morning that he was coming here to-night; and in effect he dared me to invite him to speak to you to-night.
“My friends, I have nothing to hide. He cannot frighten me. Congressman Caretall—you have the floor!”
The listeners had been apathetic, bored; but they were so no longer. More of them rose, some climbed on seats and craned their necks the better to see the discomfiture of the Congressman. They yelled at him: “Speech! Sp-e-e-ech!” They jeered at him, confident he would accept their jeers in silence; and so they were the more delighted when he rose lumberingly in his place.
Every one yelled at everybody else to sit down and be quiet. Chase invited Amos up on the stage. Amos shook his head. “I can talk from here,” he roared, “if these gentlemen will be seated so I can look at them.” He spread his hands like one invoking a blessing. “Sit down! Sit down!”
They sat, rustling in their seats, grinning, whispering, gazing; and Amos waited benevolently, head on one side, until they were quiet. Then he spoke.
“My frien-n-d-s!” he drawled. “I am honored. It is an honor to any man to be asked to address a Hardiston audience. And especially on such an occasion—and in such a cause.
“My friends, the name of Chase is an old one in Hardiston. A Chase was one of the first to settle at the salt licks here; a Chase fought the Indians during those first hot years; a Chase dug salt wells when the riffles no longer proved profitable. And when the salt industry died, a Chase was the first to dig coal in this county, and a Chase was the first to establish an iron-smelting furnace here in Hardiston.
“The Chases have deserved well of Hardiston. They have been honored in the past; they will be honored in the future. But they should also be honored in the present.
“My friends, I came here to cast my vote in the city election. I came home in some doubt as to how I should cast that vote. But I am in doubt no longer, my friends.
“I shall go to the polls next Tuesday, and I shall ask for a ballot, and I shall go into a booth; and there, my friends, I shall cast my vote for Mayor.
“And the man I vote for, my friends, I tell you frankly; the man I vote for will be—a Chase!”
The storm broke; and Amos bowed to it and sat down. But that would not do. Chase climbed down from the stage to shake him by the hand and thank him; and others crowded around to do the same thing; and still others came crowding to storm at him for a traitor. And to them all Amos presented a smiling and agreeable countenance.
But this small tumult ended, as such things will. The crowd dispersed; the Rink emptied; and in the end, Chase and Amos walked up the street as far as the hotel together, separating there to go to their respective homes.
Next morning, Hardiston buzzed with the news. Strangely enough, Amos did not show himself in town. He hid at home, said his enemies—those who had been his friends. He hid at home to escape the storm. That was what they said; but it was observed, in the course of the day, that those who went to Amos’s home to accuse him, came away apparently reconciled to the Congressman’s course of action. They made no more complaint.
One of these was Jack Routt. Routt was an attorney, picking up the beginnings of a practice. He had ambitions. Other men had been prosecuting attorney, and there was no reason why a man named Routt should not hold that office. To this end, he had hitched his wagon to Amos’s star; and he was one of the Congressman’s first lieutenants.
Routt had not attended the meeting at the Rink. He and Wint Chase spent the evening together. But when he heard what had happened, he uttered one red-hot ejaculation, thenclamped tight his lips and marched off to find Amos and demand an explanation.
He got it. It silenced him. It was observed that he came away from the Caretall home with a puzzled frown twisting his brow above the smile on his lips. But he spoke not, neither could word be enticed from him. Instead, he seemed to put politics off his shoulders, and attached himself, like a guardian angel, to Wint.
That was Wednesday. Wednesday evening, Wint and Routt and Agnes Caretall spent at Joan Arnold’s home, playing cards. Thursday, the four were again together, but this time at the Caretall home. Friday evening, Routt and Wint played pool at the hotel. Saturday evening they went together to the Chase rally at the Rink. It was a jubilant gathering; the speakers were exultant; and the elder Chase, again the speaker of the evening, was calm and paternally promising.
Sunday, the four went picnicking in Agnes Caretall’s car. And it was not until Monday evening that Wint broke away from Routt’s chaperonage. He spent that evening—it was the eve of election day—with Joan.
They were very happy together.
IN the meanwhile, a single incident. An incident concerning itself with Hetty Morfee, Mrs. Chase’s newly acquired handmaiden.
Hetty was a girl Wint’s own age. She had been born in Hardiston, had lived in Hardiston all her life. She and Wint had gone to school together; they had played together; they had been friends all their lives.
Such things happen in a small town. Wint was the son of Hardiston’s big man; Hetty was the daughter of a man whom nobody remembered. He had come to town, married Hetty’s mother, and gone away. Thereafter, Hetty had been born.
Hetty’s mother was the fifth daughter of a coal miner. She was an honest woman, a woman of sense and sensibility; and Hetty received from her a worthy heritage. But most of Hetty was not mother but father; and all Hardiston knew about Hetty’s father was that he had come and had gone. It was assumed, fairly enough, that he had a roving, rascally, and irresponsible disposition. Hetty, it had been predicted, would not turn out well.
This prediction had not wholly justified itself. Hetty, in the first place, was unnaturally acute of mind. In school, she had mastered the lessons given her with careless ease. The effect was to give her an unwholesome amount of leisure. She occupied this leisure in bedeviling her teachers and inciting to riot the hardier spirits in the school—among whom number Wint.
She was, in those days, a wiry little thing, as hard as nails, as active as a boy, and fully as daring. She had whipped one or two boys in fair, stand-up fight, for Hetty had a temper that went with her hair. Her hair, as has been said, was a pleasant and interesting red.
As a child, she had been freckled. When she approachedwomanhood, these freckles disappeared and left her with a skin creamy and delicious. Her eyes were large, and warm, and merry. They were probably brown; it was hard to be sure. All in all, she was—give her a chance—a beauty.
Some men of science assert that all healthy children start life with an equal heritage. They attribute to environment the developing differences between men and between women. Hetty might have served them as an illuminating example. In school, she had mastered her lessons quickly, had led her classes as of right; while her schoolmates—including Wint, who was not good at books—lagged woefully behind.
This ascendancy persisted through the first half dozen years of schooling; and then it began, gradually, to disappear. In high school, it was not so marked; and at graduation, she and Wint—for example—were fairly on a par.
Then Wint went to college while Hetty went to work. She worked first in a store and lost that place for swearing at her employer. Then she took up housework, and so gravitated to the Chase household. There Wint encountered her; and within a day or so he discovered that the years since high school had borne him far ahead of Hetty. She now was beginning to recede; her wave had reached its height and was subsiding. He still bore on.
These things may be observed more intimately in a small town; for there, social differences do not so strictly herd the sheep apart from the goats. Thus, while Hetty was his mother’s handmaid, neither Wint nor any one else outspokenly considered her his inferior. She called him Wint, he called her Hetty, and his mother likewise.
Wint found her presence vaguely disturbing. That first night at supper, she had winked at him behind his father’s back. The wink somewhat chilled him. It savored of hardness—And there were other incidents. Wint perceived that Hetty was no longer a schoolgirl; she was, vaguely, sophisticated. Her old recklessness and daring remained; but they were inspired now not by ebullient spirits but by indifference, by bravado.
He remembered ugly rumors....
Wint and Hetty had been, to some extent, comrades in their school days. Once or twice he had defended her against aggression; once he had fought a boy who had told tales on her to the teacher. Hetty had never thanked him; she had even scolded and abused him for this knight-errantry, declaring her ability to take care of herself. Nevertheless, there was gratitude in her. She brought him apples, hiding them secretly in his desk.
On the Friday evening before election, as has been said, Wint and Jack Routt played pool together at the hotel. Afterwards, in spite of Routt’s protests, they went together to the stairway in the alley; and when eventually Wint reached home, he was unsteady on his feet.
His father and mother were abed. The door was never locked, so that he entered the hall without difficulty; but the only light was an electric bulb in the rear of the hall, near the kitchen door, and when he went back to extinguish this, he tripped over a rug and barely saved a fall.
While he was still tottering, the kitchen door opened and Hetty looked out at him. She had on her hat, so that he saw she, too, had just come in. He smiled at her amiably, holding on to the wall for support; and she laughed softly and came and caught his arm.
“Oh, you Wint!” she chided.
He tried to be dignified. “Wha’s matter?” he asked. “I’m all right.”
She winked. “But if father could only see you now!”
He became amiable again. “Thass all right,” he declared, “I’m going to bed. He’s sleeping th’ sleep of th’ just. Thass dad. Sleep of the just!”
“Sure,” she agreed. “But you know what he’d do to you.”
A door opened, in the hall above. A step sounded. Hetty, quick as light, led Wint under the stair where he was invisible from above, and signed him to be quiet. The elder Chase called down the stairs: “Who’s that?”
“Me, Mr. Chase,” said Hetty. “I tripped. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”
She heard Chase say something under his breath; but when he answered, his tone was affable. “All right. Time you were abed, Hetty.”
“Uh-huh! I went to see my mother.”
“That’s all right. Good night!”
“Good night!”
They heard him go back to his room, heard the door close behind him. Hetty crossed to Wint. She was trembling a little, and she spoke very gently. “Come up the back stairs, Wint. He won’t hear you. I’ll help you....”
Wint took her arm. “You’re a good girl, Hetty,” he told her.
“You come along.”
They went through the kitchen to the back stairs, and up, Hetty steadying him and encouraging him in a whisper. Wint’s room was at the back of the house, on the second floor; his father’s at the front. Hetty’s was on the third floor. She helped him to the door of his room, and in, and turned on the light. He sat down and grinned amiably at her. She started to go, hesitated, came back and knelt before him. While he watched, not fully understanding, she loosened his shoes. Then she rose.
“Now you go to bed, Wint—and be quiet,” she warned him in a whisper. “Good night!”
He waved his hand. “Thass all right now. G’night!”
She closed the door behind her and went swiftly along the hall to the stair that led upward to her room. But there, with her foot on the lower step, her hand on the rail, she paused.
She paused, and looked back at Wint’s door, and pressed one hand against her mouth, thinking. And slowly her eyes misted with a wistful light. She turned a little, as though to go back....
Then, eyes still misty, she went up the stairs to her own room; and in her own room, with no one to see, Hetty lay down on her face on the bed and cried.