CHAPTER VSEEING JOAN HOME

“I’ve counted on him.”

“You going to speak, ain’t you?” Gergue asked.

“Why, yes. Naturally.”

“Fixed you up a speech, have you?”

“Not yet. I’ll—just say whatever comes up at the time. Anything.”

Gergue shook his head. “I tell you, Wint,” he said. “You better go on home and write you a speech. A good one, with flowers on it, and all.”

“Oh, I don’t need to.”

“I’ve seen more’n one man get up on his hind legs and go dumb. Good idea to have something on your mind before you get up.”

“We-ell, maybe.”

“I tell you,” Gergue said again. “You go on home and fix up something. Best thing to do.”

“I want to see Sam.”

“I’ll see him.”

Wint was more than half persuaded, before Peter spoke to him. He had thought of going home; he was tired. He wanted to sleep. He said: “We-ell, all right.”

“That’s the talk,” said Peter. “You go along.”

“So long, then.”

“Fix you up a good one,” Gergue advised him again. “Fix it up, and learn it, and all. You’ll maybe be interrupted, you know.”

“If there’s any one there to interrupt,” Wint said, in a tone of doubt; and Gergue cackled.

“Lord, there’ll be some folks there. Don’t you worry about that. You go home and fix you up a speech. You’ll have a crowd.”

So Wint went home, in mid-afternoon. He found the house empty. His mother, he thought, was probably next door, with Mrs. Hullis. He felt sleepy; and he went to his room and lay down. His father woke him, at last. Told him it was supper time.

At supper, Chase asked Wint’s mother if she were going to Wint’s rally. She said: “I don’t know. I said to Mrs. Hullis this afternoon that I wanted to go, but I didn’t know whether women went. And she said she didn’t know either. But I told her I—”

“You’ll have plenty of company,” her husband told her. “From what I hear, the whole town is going to be there. Every one was talking about it this afternoon.”

“Then I’m going,” she said. “Mrs. Hullis wanted me to go with her; and I—”

“You go with her,” Chase advised. “I’ll be on the stage, with Wint.”

She said: “I’ll have to leave the dishes. There won’t be—”

“I’ll do them, mother, while you’re dressing,” Wint told her cheerfully. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Well, I don’t know!”

In the end, Wint and his father did them together. Wint broke a plate, and Mrs. Chase called down the stairs to know what had happened, and protested that she ought to come down and do them. But they would not let her. Afterwards, they all started downtown together, Wint and his father, Mrs. Chase and Mrs. Hullis. Two by two.

It was dark; the early dark of a winter evening. They met people, or overtook them, or were overtaken by them; and Wint thought there were more people than usual abroad. The moon was bright again this night, bright as it had been the night before when Wint took his way to the Weaver House. That seemed more like weeks than hours ago. As they came nearer the Rink, they saw more people; and Chase said:

“You’re certainly going to have a crowd.”

Wint nodded. He was beginning to be nervous. He realized that this was going to be hard.

But it was only when they turned the last corner and started down the hill toward the Rink that he realized just how hard it was going to be. It seemed to him all Hardiston was there ahead of him. The crowd clustered in front of the Rink and extended out into the street; and more were coming from each direction. Mrs. Hullis and Mrs. Chase, ahead, were lost in the throng. Wint stopped; he turned to his father.

“We’ll cut through the back way,” he said.

Chase agreed; and they turned down an alley, and came circuitously to the stage door and went in. The minute he came inside the door, he heard the hum and buzz of voices. He could see out on the stage, with its stock set of a farmyard scene. There were chairs, and a table.

Amos, and Sam O’Brien, and B. B. and two or three others were waiting just inside the stage door; and Sam gripped Wint’s shoulders and exclaimed: “Lord, but you give us a scare, Wint. Thought you wasn’t coming. I was all set to go fetch you.”

“Oh, I was coming, all right,” Wint said nervously, one ear attuned to the murmur of the crowd. “Sounds as though there were a lot of people here.”

“Every seat, and standing room in the aisles, and half of ’em can’t get in.”

Wint grinned weakly. “And I suppose they’ve got every rotten egg in town.”

Sam stared; then he howled. “Rotten egg! Oh, Lord, Wint, you’ll be the death of me. I’ll die a-laughing. Rotten egg!” He turned to Amos. “Wint says rotten egg!” he cried.

Amos looked at Wint in a curious fashion; and he smiled. “It’s half past seven,” he said. “No need to make them wait.”

Wint gulped. “All right. I’m ready as I will be.”

Amos nodded. “Then it’s your move, B. B.”

B. B. cleared his throat. “Very well.” He turned and started toward the stage. Sam shepherded Wint that way. Amos and Wint’s father came side by side, the others following. Wint found himself out on the stage.

The glare of the footlights blinded him for a moment; but he heard the sudden, brief clatter of handclapping that greeted them. The stir was quickly hushed. His eyes, accustomed to the footlights, discovered that the house was banked full of people. Floor and gallery were jammed. Small boys clung to the great beams and steel rods that crisscrossed to support the roof. Some of them seemed right overhead. And everywhere Wint looked, people were staring at him. He felt the actual, physical weight of all those eyes, overwhelming him. He felt crushed, helpless; he had a curious obsession that he could not move hands or feet. He worked the fingers of his right hand cautiously, and was relieved to find that they answered to his will. He was dazed.

He became conscious that B. B. was on his feet, his hands clasped in front of him in a characteristic way; there was a little smile upon his face, and he was speaking in a low, pleasant voice. Wint could not catch the words; his ears were not functioning. His senses were numbed by that overpowering sea of faces in front of him.

He caught, presently, a word or two that appalled him. “...violate the usual order,” B. B. was saying. “The principal speaker usually last.... Keep you waiting.... Lengthy introduction.... I believe you know him, now....”

He turned to look at Wint; and Wint, appalled and panic-stricken, saw the invitation in B. B.’s eyes. B. B. wanted him to speak first; but he was still tongue-tied and muscle-fast in the face of all those eyes. He shook his head weakly. Some one tugged at his elbow. Sam O’Brien. Sam whispered hoarsely:

“Get up on your feet, boy!”

Wint shook his head again, trying to find words to explain. Then a man yelled, out beyond those footlights. Other men yelled. Wint flushed angrily, his courage came back. They thought him afraid. Baying him like dogs.... He’d show them all....

He stood up and strode forward to the very lip of the stage. There was a moment’s hush. He flung out one hand. “People....” he began.

But it was as well that Wint had not wasted time in following Gergue’s advice to fix up a good speech; because on that one word of his, an overwhelming blast of sound struck him full in the face. A roar, a bellowing, a whistling, a shrilling.... Shouts and screams and cries.... He stiffened, furious. They were trying to yell him down. He flung up both hands, shouted at them....

Every one in the house was up on his or her feet. Some one threw his hat in the air. Order came out of chaos. A terrible, rhythmic order. The blare of sound dissolved into beats; they pounded on Wint’s ears; he shuddered under the blow of them. His anger gave way to bewilderment. He could notunderstand. He bent lower to see more clearly the faces of those in the front row, just beyond the footlights. Dick Hoover was there. And Dick was yelling in a fashion fit to split his throat, flinging his fists up toward Wint, shrieking. Beside Dick, Joan. Her face stood out suddenly before Wint’s eyes. She was crying; that is to say, tears were streaming down her cheeks. Yet was she happy, too. Smiling, laughing, calling to him.... She was clapping her hands, he saw. Then he discovered that others were clapping their hands, while they yelled at him. Everybody was clapping their hands....

Utterly bewildered, Wint whirled around to look at the men behind him. And there was Amos, both hands upraised, beating time to that appalling roar that swept up from the house before them. Beating time, leading them....

Sam O’Brien and Davy Morgan—they were both yelling like fools—came swiftly across the stage to where Wint stood. They caught his arms. He struggled with them, not understanding. They swept him off his feet, up in the air, to their shoulders.... Swung him to face the house.

The noise doubled; then it seemed as though an army of men swarmed upon the stage. So, at last, Wint understood. They were not trying to yell him down.

It is one of the most hopeful facts of life that all mankind is so ready to recognize, and to applaud, an action which is fine. Wint was in the hands of his friends. He thought, for a little while, that they would kill him.

When it was all over—and this took time, and left Wint sore and stiff from hand-shaking and back-slapping—the people began to drift away. And Wint escaped, off the stage, into one of the compartments that served as greenroom for theatrical folk. His father was there, and his mother. And Peter, and Amos, and Sam.

Every one seemed to be wild with exultation; they continued the celebration, there among themselves. And Wint heard how it had been done. Hetty had gone to Amos with the story. To Joan first, Sam told Wint. “I was with her,” the fat man said. “You understand. I was with her.”

Wint nodded, gripping Sam’s shoulder. “She’s fine,” he said. “You’re lucky. I understand.”

Joan, Sam said, sent them to Amos, and Amos had arranged the rest; sent Wint home—Gergue was his agent in this—and spread the word through Hardiston. To-night had attested the thoroughness of his work.

Wint found a chance at last to thank Amos. They were a little apart from the others; and they talked it over briefly. Amos, Wint thought, was curiously subdued, curiously sad. He wondered at this. But he understood, at the end.

He had said: “Wonder what Routt will say to this, anyway? And Kite?”

“You don’t have to—worry about Routt,” said Amos.

Wint asked quickly: “Why not? Is he ... Is there something?”

“He took the noon train,” said Amos. “And—Agnes went with him. She telephoned to-night. She says they’re married.”

Wint was so stunned that for a moment he could not speak; he could not move. He managed to grip Amos’s hand; tried to say something.

“I’ve said to myself, more than once,” Amos told him huskily, “that I wished her mother hadn’t ’ve died.” He began, slowly, to fill his pipe. Wint thought there was something heroic, splendid about the man. Facing life, driving ahead. And this to think upon.... He was sick with sorrow.

Amos was facing the stage; he said slowly, smiling a little, “but forget that. Here’s some one coming for you to see her home.”

When Wint turned, he saw Joan.

THEY walked home slowly, Wint and Joan. The moon was bright upon them; the streets were still filled with the dispersing throng. People spoke to them, then went discreetly on their way, and smiled back at the two. Wint and Joan said little; and what they said was of no importance. He told her he had seen her crying.

“I had to,” she said. “I was so happy.”

“I wasn’t happy,” Wint declared. “I was scared.”

She said she didn’t blame him. “It must have been hard to face them all.”

He nodded. “I’ll tell you; all that noise.... It—made me seasick. Something like that.”

“I know,” she said.

When they were halfway home, she told him that Hetty had come to her, that morning. Wint looked at her quickly.

“Hetty’s all right,” he said. “She’ll be all right. She’s found herself.”

Joan nodded. “It’s going to be a fight, for her.”

“She’ll win. Sam will help.”

“I know. I saw that, this morning.”

A little later, she said: “You—did the right thing. Foolish, maybe. But—it was fine, too. Foolish things often are.”

Wint shook his head. “But I’d like to pound Routt.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Agnes loves him.”

Wint told her then what Amos had told him; and she uttered a low, pitiful exclamation. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “But—they may be happy. Agnes is good.... Loyal.... In her way.”

“You knew she loved him?”

“Yes. I’ve always known. Agnes had talked to me.”

“I hope Routt does—settle down.”

Joan said thoughtfully: “There is something strong in him. Misdirected.”

“I liked him,” Wint said. “I can’t help it, even now. He was my friend.”

“I believe they will come out all right. I feel it.”

Wint laughed at her gently. “Intuition?”

“Yes. You men call it a hunch.”

Silence again, for a while. They came to her house. Wint thought the simple place was beautiful in the moonlight; he wanted, desperately, to go in. But there was a curious diffidence upon him, and he stopped at the gate till she said:

“Come. It’s not cold, to-night. We can sit on the porch.”

“You want me?”

“Yes, Wint.” Her eyes said more than her words. He opened the gate, and they went up the walk to the house sedately enough, side by side. Any one might have seen.

The moonlight did not fall upon the porch. There was a shadowed place there. When they came into this shadow, Joan stopped, and looked at Wint. Her eyes were very dark. Something was pounding in his throat, so that he could not speak. He put out one hand, in an uncertain, fumbling way. Joan looked down at his hand, and smiled a little, and put her hand in his.

They stood thus for a little, hand in hand, facing each other. Wint said huskily, at last:

“I’ve—tried, Joan.”

Her voice was clear and sweet as a bell when she answered. “You’ve done more than try, Wint,” she told him. “You’ve—won.”

So, without either of them knowing, or caring, how it happened, she was in his arms. And he kissed her; and her lips answered his. No cool kiss of a child, this. Months of longing and of yearning spoke through his lips, and through hers. Infinite promise of the years to come....

While they sat together on her shadowed porch thereafter, they could hear for a long time the murmuring voices of people passing on their homeward way. Some looked toward Joan’s house; but they could not see Wint and Joan.

It was as well; for it is the way of Hardiston to talk. The way of a little town....

THE ENDPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Back to IndexNext