THE people of Hardiston are early risers, and their hours of labor are long and strenuous. The coal miners—what few still find tasks to do in the ravaged hills—are up and about before day in the fall and winter months; the furnace workmen change shifts at unearthly hours; and the glass factory and the pipe works both begin their day when most folks are still abed.
To accommodate these early risers, the polls at Hardiston open at six. They stay open until four or five or six in the afternoon. The hour is left somewhat to the discretion of the election officials. If a heavy vote is cast early, so that an extra hour would mean only half a dozen votes added to the totals, they close the polls and begin their counting in time to get home to supper.
But if there is prospect of a close contest, the polls remain open till the last voter has been given his opportunity.
On this election day, the polls opened at six; and the election officials, particularly those representing the supporters of the elder Chase, went about their duties with a careless confidence. In the second precinct, the polling place was an unoccupied store on the second floor of a two-story building at the corner of Pearl Street and Broadway. The lower floor of this building was occupied by a dealer in monuments; and throughout the day the chink and tap of his chisel and maul never ceased their song. These sounds came up in a muffled fashion through the floor of the room where the votes were being cast.
The early voting here was light. Jim Thomas and Ed Howe were the principal election officers; and they sat with their chairs tilted back and their feet on the railing around a red-hot little iron stove while the trickle of voters came and went. JimThomas chewed tobacco, and Ed smoked. He smoked a pipe; and he whittled his tobacco from a black plug, thus identifying himself with the Caretall factions. Aside from the stove and their two chairs, the room contained only the voting paraphernalia. Three booths against the wall, with cloth curtains to divide them; two flat tables, each containing a list of the registered voters; and the ballot box itself, on the floor near the door where each voter deposited his ballot as he departed.
At seven o’clock—the little stove, by this time, had raised the temperature of the room to a stifling mark—Jim Thomas spat in a box of sawdust and grinned at Ed Howe. “Slow, Ed,” he said.
Ed puffed hard. He had a weakness of one eye, a weakness which allowed the lid to droop so that he seemed to be perpetually winking. He turned this winking eye to Jim. “Yeah,” he said.
“I guess Caretall is due to get his.”
“You reckon?” Ed inquired listlessly.
“I reckon.”
Ed grunted and smoked harder than ever.
At half past seven, the elder Chase himself dropped in. “Good morning, boys,” he called from the door. “Splendid day, now isn’t it?”
“Fine,” said Jim Thomas.
Chase produced cigars; he dispensed them graciously. Only Ed Howe refused the proffered smoke.
“Oh, come, Ed,” Chase insisted. “Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings.”
“Never smoke ’em,” said Ed shortly.
“Want to vote once or twice?” Jim Thomas asked, grinning.
Chase chuckled. “I’ve cast my vote. Second ballot in my precinct, Jim.”
“Better chuck in a few more,” Jim advised. “Hollow’s running strong.” He said this seriously, but every one knew it was a joke. Even Ed Howe grinned.
Chase presently departed, still amiable and gracious. His visit had stimulated the imagination of Jim Thomas; and after a little while he rose and took his hat and went down to a groupof men in the street outside. Ed looked out of the window curiously. He saw Jim go among the group, hat in hand, obviously taking up a collection. The man seemed to take the matter as a joke. But Jim was grave.
He came back up presently, hat in hand, and approached Ed. “Give up, Ed,” he invited. “A penny, a nickel, any little thing.”
Ed looked in the hat. He saw a button, a burnt match, a pebble, and a slice of tobacco. He grunted and puffed at his pipe. “Set down, Jim,” he invited. “Heat’s touched your head.”
Jim explained, in a hurt tone: “No, Ed, not a bit. Only—some of the boys thought we’d take up a collection and send downstairs for a tombstone for Hollow.”
Ed swung his head slowly and looked at Jim; and a slow grin broke across his countenance. “I declare,” he commented, “you’re a real joker, Jim.” Then he laughed a cackling laugh, wagged his head, and fell into silence again.
The second precinct was the most important in Hardiston. Its voters numbered half as many again as its next rival. And so the candidates gave it more than its share of attention that day. Chase came early and often. Each time he disseminated cigars and amiability. This was his day of glory; and he ate it with a relish, visibly smacking his lips.
Caretall and Gergue came together about eight o’clock in the morning. Amos had very little to say. He glanced at the voting lists, nodded to Ed Howe, called a greeting to Jim Thomas and departed. Peter Gergue remained for a time, scratching the back of his head and talking with those who came to vote.
Amos came back at noon, and as it happened, he met V. R. Kite at the voting place. Kite voted in this precinct, and he had just deposited his ballot when Amos arrived. The two men greeted each other amiably. Amos said: “Morning, Mr. Kite.”
“Good morning, Congressman.”
“Just voting?”
“Yes. Overslept.”
Amos winked. “I trust you voted right, V. R.”
Kite nodded briskly. “Right as rain, Congressman. You too?”
“Sure.”
Jim Thomas listened with frank interest. Now he found an opening for his joke. “You’d better drop in a few votes here, Congressman. Chase is running strong.”
Amos looked at him with interest. “You don’t say, Jim?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well—how do you know, Jim?”
Thomas became faintly confused. “Oh, I can tell.”
“You ain’t been looking at the ballots, have you, Jim?”
Jim blustered. “Look-a-here—who you accusing?”
“You ain’t? Then you must be one of these mediums that can read a folded paper.”
“Oh, sugar! You go....”
Amos grinned. “Matter of fact, Jim, I wish I knowed you was right. I’m frank to say, Jim, that I got a bet on a horse named Chase to win.” Jim gasped, and Amos nodded soberly. “Yes, sir, Jim. You just hear me.”
Jim took a plug of tobacco from his pocket and tore at it with his teeth and stuffed it away again. The operation restored his composure. “Well, Congressman, you’d ought not to bet—and you a lawmaker.”
“It ain’t rightly a bet, Jim,” said Amos. “It’s a sure thing.” He turned toward the door. “Good aft’noon, Jim.”
The voting, beginning slow, had picked up during the noon hour. A steady stream of men came in throughout that period and when this stream subsided, four-fifths of the registered voters had cast their ballots. Ed Howe suggested: “Might as well close up shop at four, hadn’t we, Jim?”
“Sure,” said Jim. “They ain’t no real contest to-day anyway.”
“I reckon that’s right,” Ed agreed.
This was a quarter before two o’clock in the afternoon. At two o’clock, Caretall and Chase came face to face at the door of the voting room. They came in arm in arm; and Chase asked graciously: “Well, boys, how are things going?”
Jim Thomas reported briskly, “Fine, Mr. Chase. Most of the votes in. Ed and me’s figuring to close at four.”
Chase nodded. “I guess that’s safe. Don’t you think so, Amos?”
“Whatever you say, Chase,” Amos agreed. “Looks to me like the fight’s all over.”
It was observed at that time, however, that Congressman Caretall was strangely buoyant for a beaten man.
Chase and Caretall separated at the door, and Jim Thomas called to Ed Howe: “I’m going uptown and get me some dinner. I ain’t ate yet.”
“Go along,” Ed agreed.
Jim went along, overtaking the elder Chase, and they walked together along Pearl Street and up Main to the restaurant. Chase was quietly contented and exceedingly courteous and gracious to those whom they encountered; and for the first half of the journey, Jim basked in the great man’s smile.
It was at the corner of Main Street that the first fly dropped into Jim’s ointment. As they turned the corner, they encountered three men. One was V. R. Kite; another was old Thompson, crippled with rheumatism but fat with wealth, and a lifelong enemy of Chase; and the third was Thompson’s son, the shoe man.
Chase said: “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” to these men. Kite responded: “Afternoon!” Old Thompson grunted; and young Thompson said: “How do you do, Mr. Chase?” with entirely too much sweet deference in his tones. They passed the group, but when they had gone twenty yards, something prompted Jim Thomas to look around, and he detected the elder Thompson in the act of smiting his knee in a paroxysm of silent and malignant mirth.
Right then, Jim Thomas smelled a rat. He looked up at Chase, but Chase was blind and deaf. Jim started to speak, then thought better of it; and at the next corner, he left his chieftain and turned aside to the restaurant.
It seemed to him that Sam O’Brien, the fat proprietor of the place, grinned at him when he entered. He ordered a vealsandwich, and when it was ready for him, he doused it with mustard and ate it with sips of cold water between each mouthful. It was delicious, but his stomach was uneasy under it.
Sam was frankly grinning at him; and so Jim asked at length, in some desperation: “What’s the joke, Sam?”
Sam shook his head. “How’s the election going, Jim?”
“All Chase.”
Sam threw back his head. He was a fat man, and the mirth billowed out of him. He rocked, he slapped his knee. “All Chase!” he gasped. “All Chase! Oh, Jim! Oh, Jimmy man! All Chase!” He wiped tears from his eyes. “Jim, you’ll kill me!”
Jim snorted. He was thoroughly disturbed. Sam was a man whose finger touched the public pulse. Obviously, he knew something. Jim leaned across the counter. “What’s the joke, Sam? Come on—let me laugh, too.”
Sam waved his fat hands at his customer. “You go away, Jim. You go ’way. You’ll kill me.”
His chortles pursued Jim to the street. There Thomas paused, irresolute. What was he going to do? Warn Chase? Warn Chase’s cohorts? But what should he warn them about? He remembered suddenly that his place was beside the ballot box, and he turned and fairly ran down the street to the voting rooms. And it seemed to him that, as he sped, mirth pursued him.
But he found everything as he left it. Ed Howe still sat by the stove, still smoked. He looked up as Jim entered, and shifted his pipe in his mouth.
“Why, Jim!” he exclaimed in pretended dismay. “You’re all het up! You’re all of a stew! Jim—have you gone and seen a ghost?”
Jim Thomas glared at him. He had gone away from this place confident and calm; he returned in a turmoil of fear; and the worst of this fear was that he did not know what it was he feared. He glared at Howe.
“What you been up to whilst I was gone, Ed Howe?” he demanded.
Ed looked at him in surprise. “We-ell—I’ve smoked two pipes.”
Jim strode to the ballot box, shook it, stared into its slot as though to read its secret.
Ned Bentley came in. He wished to cast his vote, and proceeded to do so. As he was about to go, he paused for a moment on the threshold.
“Has anybody here seen Wint?” he asked.
It was the stressing of his words that startled Jim. This stress, the emphasis of the verb, suggested that they had been discussing Wint, or that Wint must be in all their thoughts. And Jim had not thought of Wint Chase for days.
“Why should we have seen Wint?” he demanded, and looked at Ed Howe. Ed was grinning.
Of a sudden, light burst on Jim Thomas. It was not all the truth that he guessed. But it was enough of it to make his head swim. Without a word, he leaped for the street and ran across to the hotel—where there was a telephone.
Ed Howe watched him go—and grinned. “I declare—Jim acts right crazy,” he drawled.
Jim came back presently, a grim set about his jaw. He had no word for any of them. But he went to the voting list and copied the names of those citizens who had not yet voted, and went to the telephone again. When he returned this time, it was five minutes to four o’clock.
Ed lounged up from his chair. “Well—we’ve ’greed to close the polls now. Go to counting....” He started for the door, as though to bolt it.
Jim Thomas sprang in front of him. Jim was mad. “Git back there, Ed Howe.”
Ed looked puzzled. “Why—what—”
“Yo’re tricky; but you ain’t won yet. Set down. Legal hour for closing is six. We’ll have some law here.”
“But we ’greed on four....”
“Shut up!”
Ed lounged back in his chair. “Well—in that case—I got time for another smoke.” He filled his pipe and began it.
There followed a hectic two hours. Hardiston had never seen anything like it, anything even approaching it.
Every automobile that could be mustered by the Chaseforces was mustered. Every livery stable in town hitched up its most ramshackle team. Even the funeral hacks were pressed into service. Fenney’s motor truck brought two loads of men from the glass factory. Even Bob Dyer’s old tandem bicycle came into use.
And when the elder Chase met Congressman Caretall in front of the Post Office at half past five, he refused to speak to him.
It was open war, with no quarter asked or given. The joke was out, and the Congressman’s men were enjoying it in anticipation. They exulted openly; they gathered at the polling places to watch the voters whom the Chase workers dragged thither. They cheered these workers on, praised them, encouraged them, made bets on their success.
It was a hectic two hours, and it lived long in Hardiston annals. But it had to end.
When the town clock struck six, the polls closed. And at every precinct in town, the strain relaxed and took, forthwith, the form of hunger. Unanimously, the election officials sat down with the unopened ballot boxes on a table, in plain view of the world, and sent out for supper.
Around the ballot boxes, they ate their sandwiches. Jim Thomas ate in grim silence, iron-jawed and moody. Ed Howe had recovered his spirits. He was urbane, gracious. He even gave a fair imitation of the manner of the elder Chase, at which all but Jim Thomas managed to smile.
In the morning, Jim had been jubilant and Ed had been moody and still; but now the rôles were reversed. It was remarked afterward that no one had guessed Ed Howe had it in him; and his imitation of the elder Chase distributing cigars was destined to make him famous.
But this had to end, too. There came a time when the ballot boxes had to be opened. The tally sheets were prepared, pencils were sharpened, the boxes were unlocked; and at a quarter past eight o’clock, Jim Thomas lifted the first ballot from the box and unfolded it.
He looked at it; and a red flood poured over his face, and his jaw stiffened. But it was his duty to call the vote, and he called it:
“For Mayor—Chase!”
He was still staring at the ballot, and it did not need Ed Howe’s mild question to confirm his guess at Congressman Caretall’s coup.
What Ed asked was simply: “Which Chase, Jim?”
WHERE was Wint? Others beside Bentley were asking that question, as the afternoon of election wore along. Where was Wint?
No one had seen him. Every one was asking the question. No one was answering. But the inquirers, casting back and forth along the trail, at length hit upon one fact. Wint, for days past, had been consistently in the company of Jack Routt.
Where, then, was Routt?
On the morning after Amos Caretall’s announcement at the Rink that he would vote for a Chase for Mayor, Jack Routt had gone to the Congressman with questions on his lips. He had come away with instructions, instructions to keep much in Wint’s company and to keep the young man out of harm’s way till election day.
He had done this zealously. Until Monday evening, he and Wint were almost constantly together. That evening, Wint went to Joan’s house, and bluntly rebuffed Jack’s offer to accompany him. But when Wint came out—and he came out in a sulky and defiant manner—Jack was waiting for him at the gate.
Jack did not appear to be waiting. He seemed to be merely passing, on his way downtown; and Wint hailed him.
“Hello—you!”
“Hello, Wint! Just going home?”
“Home? It’s early yet. Going uptown?”
“Yes.” Routt hesitated, as though confused. “I—we—I’m going up to get a prescription filled.”
Wint laughed. “For snake bite?”
“Oh, no. A real prescription.”
“You don’t say!”
Jack protested. “Sure. So—good night.”
Wint thrust his arm through the other’s. “What do you want to get rid of me for? I’ll walk up with you.”
Jack balked. “Oh, now, Wint—you—your father will be down on you. You ought to cut it out, Wint. There’s nothing in it for you. You never know when to stop!”
Wint stiffened sulkily, but his voice was gentle. “That’s tough! Too bad about me! And it’s a shame what dad will do to me, now isn’t it?” He took a step forward. “Coming, Jack?”
So they departed together.
At daylight, the elder Chase, arising early to go to the polls, met Routt. Jack was homeward bound; and he was a weary young man. Wint was not with him. They exchanged greetings, but no more.
Routt did not again appear in public until something after noon, election day. When he came downtown then, he was as spruce as ever, his eyes clear, and his cheeks pink with health. He showed no signs of the—fatigue that the elder Chase had remarked in him.
Forthwith, men began to ask him: “Where is Wint?”
The first man that put the question was Peter Gergue. This was a big day for Peter. He had been busy, whispering and advising and suggesting and laughing a little behind the back of the elder Chase. He had been too busy getting out the votes and directing the voters to think much about Wint until Jack appeared; but the sight of Jack reminded him of Wint; and so he asked:
“Where is Wint, anyway?”
Jack looked to right and left. “I don’t know,” he said.
Gergue drawled: “It’s your job to know.”
“I know it is. But—he got away from me.”
“Got away from you?”
“Yes. Last night. I couldn’t stop him.”
Gergue frowned and ran his fingers through his back hair.
“It was your job to stop him.”
Jack threw out his hands. “You never saw him when he’s going good.”
Peter nodded and spat. “No,” he said slowly. “No—that’s right. Where d’you say you left him?”
Routt shook his head. “I wish I knew. He dodged me....”
Gergue shook his head. “Go along. Don’t let ’em see you talking—too much.”
As the afternoon passed and especially after that final two hours of scurry and effort began, the inquiries for Wint increased in volume. But at six o’clock Wint was still listed as missing, and he was still missing at eight, and he was still missing when the count of the ballots was completed.
But fifteen minutes later, Skinny Marsh, a man without visible means of support, met V. R. Kite on the street and drew him into the dark mouth of an alleyway.
“Kite,” he said huskily, “I got something to tell you.”
“What is it?” V. R. asked crisply.
“You know where Wint is?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes.”
Kite was interested enough now. “Where?”
Marsh told him; and ten seconds later, Kite was walking briskly up the street, gathering his clans.
In the valley on the northeast side of Hardiston, there is a network of railway tracks, the freight and coal yards of the D. T. & I. Acres of ground are covered with slack, deposited through many years, and sprinkled over with the cinders from a thousand puffing engines.
This is low land. At one spot, a stagnant pool forms every year, and furnishes some ragged skating for the children of the locality. The ice factory is on a hill above this pool. At the other end of the yards, there is a gaunt and ruined brick structure that was once a nail mill; and this mill gives its name to the section.
Across the tracks, there are half a dozen streets, lined for the most part with well-kept little cottages of workingmen. But in one street there is a larger structure that was once a hotel.
This hotel is called the Weaver House. It fronts on the street, is flanked on one side by a railway track, and is backed by the creek whose muddy waters lap its sills at flood time. This was, in its days of glory, a railroad hotel, catering to the train crews in the days before the roads frowned on drink among the men. When the road threatened to discharge any man seen in the place, its business languished. But prohibition brought the Weaver House a measure of prosperity. There was strategic merit in its situation. A rear room overhung the creek; and a section of the floor of this room was so arranged that when a bolt was pulled the floor would swing downward and drop whatever it bore into the concealing waters.
This was a simple and effective way of destroying evidence; and the owner of the place made good use of it.
The office of this hostelry was a square room at one corner in front. At eleven o’clock on the night of election day, there were five creatures in this room.
Four were human; one was a dog.
The office was lighted by a single oil lamp. The chimney of this lamp had once been badly smoked, and subsequently cleaned by a masculine hand. It was, to put it gently, dingy. Also, its wick needed trimming. As a result of these defects, the light it gave was not blinding.
This lamp stood on a square table in one corner of the room. A wall bench ran along two sides of the table. At the corner, a checkerboard was set on the table, and over this board two old men leaned. They were engrossed in their game. Both were gray, both were unclean, both were ragged. Both were bearded, and the beards of both were stained, below the mouth, with tobacco. Nevertheless, they played keenly, and at the conclusion of each game broke into bitter, cackling arguments. These arguments lasted only so long as it took them to rearrange the men, when the one whose turn it was made the first move, and silence instantly descended on them again.
These gusts of debate which broke from the old men now and then were the only sounds in the room.
Beside one of the men, and leaning forward over the tablein a strained and awkward position, was the boy. He may have been fourteen years old. But it was strange and pitiful to see in his face, in his eyes, an air of age and grim experience almost equaling that of his two old companions. This boy was dressed in clothes too small for him, so that his wrists stuck out from his sleeves, his neck reared itself bare and gaunt above his coat collar, and his pale ankles and shins were exposed above the shoes he wore.
This boy was reading. He was reading a copy of the bulletin of the Ohio Brewers’ Association. He was spelling it out word by word, with the closest attention. When the old men burst into argument, the boy shook his head a little as though annoyed by their outcries. But for the rest, he read steadily, passing his fingers along the lines as he read.
The dog slept on the floor at his feet. The dog was just a dog.
The other person in the room was the manager of the Weaver House. The manager was a woman. The manager was also the owner. She sat in a chair beside what had been the bar, at one side of the room. Her hands were folded in her lap, her head lolled on one shoulder, her mouth was open, and she was asleep.
This woman was a virago. In the old days, she once hit a brakeman with a rubber bung starter, and he died. She was acquitted because the brakeman was drunk and she pleaded self-defense. She was feared and respected by the men among whom she lived. In Paris, in ’93, she would have been a commanding figure. In the Nail Mill Addition of Hardiston she was a plague. But as she sat here now, asleep, her old hands folded in her lap, she invited not fear nor disgust but just compassion.
She was merely a tired old woman, asleep.
She was still asleep when the street door opened and four men came in.
The floor of the office was a foot below the level of the street. The first of the four men tripped and stumbled over this descent; and this slight sound woke the woman. She got to her feet with scrambling quickness, and from behind thebreastwork of the dusty bar, surveyed her visitors. Her eyes were failing, and she thrust her head forward and twisted it on one side that she might see the better.
When she saw who the leader of the four men was, she straightened up with relief and said, her voice openly contemptuous:
“Oh, it’s you, Kite?”
It was. V. R. Kite, Jack Routt, and two of Kite’s satellites. Kite glanced at the men over the checkerboard, and at the boy. The old men, at their entrance, had looked up in fretful hostility, surrendered to the inevitable, and returned to their game. The boy continued to read.
“Hello, Mrs. Moody!” said Kite to the woman; and he stepped toward her and lowered his voice. “Is there a man—Wint Chase—staying here?”
Mrs. Moody grinned. The grin revealed a startlingly perfect set of false teeth, as beautiful as those of a girl of twenty. Their very beauty made them hideous in Mrs. Moody’s mouth. She nodded.
“I want to see him.”
“He’s upstairs. I’ll show you.”
She turned around and took a lamp from a shelf behind her and lighted it. Then, with this in her right hand, and her petticoats gathered up in her left, she emerged from behind the bar and led the way to the stairs.
The four men followed in silence. Kite led, and Routt was on his heels.
The stairs were uncertain; but they made the ascent without disaster. Mrs. Moody led the way along a narrow hall to an open door, and stood aside here so that the others might enter. She was enjoying herself.
The four men went into the dark room, and the woman followed and set the lamp on the mantel. This lamp illumined the place.
The room contained a bed, a chair, and a wardrobe. On the chair were set two shoes. On the floor lay a hat and a coat and one sock. In the bed, sprawling on his back upon the dirty coverlet, was Wint.
The woman crossed and shook him by the shoulder. She screamed at him:
“Wake up, deary! Here’s gentlemen to see you!”
Routt crossed quickly to her side, his face working. “Here. Let me!”
She pushed him scornfully. “And don’t I know the ways of a drunk, at my age? Get back with you. It’s me that has a right to bring him out of it.”
She shook Wint again; and this time he came slowly back to consciousness. He gasped, flung out his arms, stirred. His mouth twisted as though at a bad taste on his tongue. They waited for his eyes to open, but after a moment he settled back into sleep again.
The woman looked up over her shoulder. “He’s had a full dose. Since noon he’s been so.” She shook Wint again, yelled into his ear, cuffed him.
Thus presently he woke.
His eyes opened, though he still lay on his back. His eyes opened, and they wandered idly about the room, fixing a dull gaze now on this face and now on that. Wint was usually amiable when he was drunk, and so when he discovered Routt, he grinned and tried to sit up.
“Good ol’ Jack,” he said thickly. “Tried be a guardian t’ me. I fooled ’m. No hard feelin’s, Jack. Shake, ol’ man.”
He leaned on one elbow and thrust out an unsteady hand. V. R. Kite grinned wickedly, and Routt stepped forward and sat down on the bed and put his arms about Wint’s shoulders.
“Wint,” he begged. “Stiffen up! We’ve got to get you out of here.”
Wint shook his head. “I’m comf’ble here. My hostess—” He waved a hand toward Mrs. Moody. “She’s a lady. I’ll stay right here. I’m always go’n’ stay here, Jack.”
Routt shook him gently, cuffed his cheeks smartly. “Wint! Wint! Come out of it! Come on. Let’s go to my house. Let’s go home.”
Wint recognized the others. “H’lo, V. R.,” he said amiably. “V. R., why this sudd’n s’lic’tude?”
V. R. Kite was not a bashful man. He was enjoying himself. “I came to take you home—take you to some respectable house,” he declared. “This is no place for you.”
Mrs. Moody broke into objurgations. But one of Kite’s companions deftly hustled her into the hall, and silenced her there. Wint persisted:
“Why don’ this place suit me all right? I wanna know, V. R.”
Routt looked at Kite, and Kite said oracularly: “Because, my friend, the voters of Hardiston have elected you their next Mayor.”
Wint was swaying a little in Routt’s arms; and for a time his face remained blank. Then it assumed a puzzled look. In the end he asked, his voice less unsteady: “What’s—that?”
“You’re elected Mayor, Wint,” Routt told him. “Brace up.”
Wint sat up slowly, pushing Routt’s arms aside. “You mean—my father, don’t you?”
Routt shook his head; and Kite said pompously: “No, not your father. Yourself. The voters wrote in your name on the ballots....”
They saw a slow sweep of red flood Wint’s face; and for an instant his eyes closed as though he were fainting. The flush passed and left him pale. He got up, stood erect, unsteady, then firm. He shed drunkenness as though it were a cloak, throwing it off with a backward movement of his shoulders.
They watched him, waiting; and V. R. Kite suddenly moved a little toward the door, half afraid.
Then Wint burst out on them. He waved his hands furiously. “Routt!” he shouted. “This is a poor joke. It’s a damn poor joke. You Kite, you old whited sepulchre. You panderer, you worse than a prostitute—get out of here! Jack—I counted you my friend. You’re all dogs, cowards, rascals! Get out! If I choose to lie drunk in this shack—I’ll lie here. None of you shall stop me. It’s not your affair. It’s mine. Mine! Get out! The last one of you! Get out!”
He was so furious that they obeyed him. Routt tried to protest, but Wint gripped him by the shoulders and whirled him and thrust him toward the door.
They tumbled over each other into the hall. Even V. R. Kite lost his dignity. Wint pursued them, cursing them. He drove them to the stairs, down, stood above them with brandished fists. And when they had gone he still stood there for a space, trembling and alone.
Then he turned and went haltingly back into the room. He was no longer drunk. He was as sober as hell. He went into the room, stood at the door, frozen, ghastly white.
The lamp still stood on the mantel, and he crossed to it without knowing what he did. He stood before it.
There was a cracked mirror behind the lamp, above the mantel. Wint saw himself in it.
He looked into his own eyes for a long instant; and then his face twitched into a terrible, shamed, disgusted grimace. He lifted the lamp in both hands and sent it crashing into the grate in the fireplace. It splintered and shivered into fragments. The flame of the wick still burned, however, and the oil that had spilled caught fire, so that for a time the hearth and the grate were wreathed in blue flame.
Then the oil burned itself out. The room was left in darkness.
Wint went slowly across to the miserable bed and sat down on it. He gripped his head in his hands. After a little he lay down on his back on the bed.
Presently his misery and shame became so poignant that tears filled his eyes and welled over and flowed down his cheeks to the pillow. He ignored them.
Eventually, the silence in the room was torn by a single, racking sob.
END OF BOOK ONE
THE sun woke Wint in the morning; and the awakening was cruel. Level, white-hot rays burned through his eyelids as though they would char to cinders his aching eyes. He threw his arm fretfully across his face to keep off the glare and lay quietly on the shabby bed, groping back into the night and into the hours of the preceding day in a terrible effort to remember.
There was no more drunkenness in him. The shock of what they had told him had banished that. He was sober. Too sober, in all conscience, for any peace of mind. It was his loneliness that was most torturing. If there had been some one near, some one else in the room, for whose benefit it was necessary to play a part, Wint would have stiffened his resolution and laughed at the situation. But he could not play a part that would deceive himself. Alone in the dingy bedroom in that disreputable place, he burned with shame and tortured pride.
He began to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. He never doubted that it was true the voters had elected him. There had been truth in Jack Routt’s eyes the night before, truth and a sort of triumph. Routt was a good fellow and a true friend; and he rejoiced, no doubt, that Wint had been so honored. Wint, thinking this, grimaced. He knew, without explanations, that his election was a joke; a colossal joke in the first place upon his father, and a grim jest at his own expense. He could imagine the cackling mirth of those who had engineered the thing; and this laughter that he seemed to hear lashed his ears.
He flung himself over on his face and buried his head in his arms and tried to think. He was full of rebellion. He would go away, leave this place, never return....
After a time, he lifted his head and moved his body andsat up on the bed, his feet on the floor. He sat up and looked about him and shuddered in a sick way.
The light of day made this room more hideous than it had been by lamplight. The shattered lamp lay in the grate, and there was a charred place on the floor near the hearth, where the oil had burned itself out, when Wint threw down the lamp the night before. Above the mantel hung the cracked mirror. In it from where he sat, Wint could see a distorted reflection of the ceiling of the room, and an angle of the wall. There had once been paper on this wall, and it had been cracked by the shrinking of the plaster, and picked away by casual fingers, and here and there it hung in short, ragged strips. The bare floor was unclean; the chair near the bed where Wint’s two shoes now reposed was decrepit and lacked paint. One door of the big wardrobe hung awkwardly from weakened hinges. It was a little ajar, and Wint could see a disorder of rubbish inside. On the floor near the chair lay his hat and coat and one sock, where he had dropped them when he had come here and stumbled drunkenly to bed.
He held his head in his hands, and his fingers clenched in his crisp hair.
For some time, his senses had been catching hints of life in the building below him. The smell of burning grease had come up the stairs from the kitchen; and the grumble of voices now and then upraised in protest or abuse had reached his ears. Once he heard, from a distance and muffled by intervening doors and walls, the clamor of quarreling dogs. But these things did not penetrate his consciousness until a new and louder disturbance broke out somewhere below.
A dog barked, snarling and angry; another yelped. The two joined their voices in an angry tumult of sound. Then a woman’s voice, the voice of Mrs. Moody, shouted abuse, and a door opened and cries and barks and snarls redoubled.
Wint lifted his head, in sudden recognition. He heard the thud of some missile that had missed its mark and clattered against the floor; and then he heard the scramble of hard-toed feet racing up the stairs, and the snuffing of eager nostrils. His eyes lighted softly; and he called: “Muldoon!”
There was a yelp of delight and a new scuffle of feet, and Muldoon plunged in through the open door and was all over Wint in a delirious joy at this reunion. The dog leaped up on Wint’s knees; it tried to climb on his shoulders; its tongue sought to caress his cheeks; it nipped his hands lovingly; and all the time it whined a low whine of happiness. Wint, cuffing the hard and eager head, smiled in spite of himself at the dog’s caresses; he smiled, and caught Muldoon by the ears and held him away and shook him affectionately.
“You, dog!” he scolded. “How did you come here? Eh, you?”
Muldoon wriggled in a desperate effort to explain; and then he stiffened in Wint’s arms, and turned toward the door with hackles rising. Wint looked that way and saw Mrs. Moody, panting with the zeal of her pursuit. The virago came in; she bore a stick of firewood in one harsh hand; she made for Muldoon, and her old lips dripped blistering abuse.
Wint drew Muldoon close in his arms and held up a protesting hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he warned her. “What’s the matter?”
She smiled mirthlessly, brandishing her billet and reaching for Muldoon’s scruff. “I’m a-goin’ to whale that pup, deary,” she told Wint. “He’s been around here all morning.”
Wint hugged Muldoon closer. “Of course,” he said, “he knew I was here.”
She looked puzzled. “He ain’t your’n, is he?”
“Sure,” Wint told her. “He’s some dog, too.”
The woman’s anger vanished. “Well, say now, if I’d a knowed that....” She laughed, her desolately beautiful false teeth glistening between her wrinkled lips. “He’s drove my dog crazy. He come around here before day, and Jim heard him and tried to get out. Woke me up. I drove this one away; but he came back. Jim got out once, and they had it till I broke ’em up. And then a minute ago, Jim got out again, and when I went after ’em with this stove wood, that’n of your’n slipped by me and in and up th’ stairs.”
Wint rubbed Muldoon’s head proudly. “He must havetracked me, found me out somehow,” he explained. “I left him locked up. Hope he didn’t hurt your....”
“Oh, Jim c’n take care of hisself. If he can’t, he’ll have t’ look out.” She looked around the room curiously. “You had callers last night. D’ye remember?”
Wint nodded, bending over the dog. “Yes—I remember.”
The woman studied him. “Thought mebbe you was too far gone to know anythin’....” She waited for Wint to speak; but Wint volunteered nothing, so she remarked: “I see th’ lamp got broke.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Wint told her. She nodded.
“That’s all right. All in the bill. You must’ve been tickled to hear about bein’ elected.”
Wint said nothing. The woman laughed harshly. “Never had a Mayor of Hardiston in my hotel before. Had some sheriffs, and a marshal now ’nd then. But no Mayor!” She shook with mirth at the thought. “I d’clare, I’ll have t’ raise my rates.”
Wint looked at her steadily, with expressionless eyes. He was fighting to hide the humiliation which was stinging him; and he succeeded. His silence at last frightened the woman; she backed toward the door, babbling broken sentences. Only when she was in the hall, with an avenue of flight open to her, did she recover herself. “But I s’pose you’ll forgit old friends, now that you’re Mayor, deary,” she told him.
Wint smiled bleakly. “Don’t count on it,” he said.
She seemed uncertain whether to take this as a threat or reassurance. “I was always a good friend to you,” she reminded him.
He nodded. “Yes—you’ve been consistent, at least.”
She wagged her old head, comforted and grinning. “I guess you won’t forgit,” she told herself. And after a moment: “Will you be wanting some breakfast?”
Wint stroked the ears of Muldoon. “No,” he said. “No.” And he added thoughtfully: “Thank you very much.”
“That’s all right, deary,” she assured him, and so turned at last and went haltingly down the stairs.
When the woman was gone, Wint sat very still for a space, staring at the empty doorway, thinking. Muldoon was on his lap, and Wint forgot the dog, although his hand still played automatically with Muldoon’s ears. The dog was for a time content with this, moving its head now and then under Wint’s hand to get full value from his caresses; but by and by it became conscious of his abstraction, and looked up into his face, and wriggled, and at last muzzled a cold nose under his chin and nudged upward against Wint’s jaw until Wint emerged from his absorption and laughed and caught Muldoon’s head in his hands and shook it. “There, boy,” he whispered. “D’you think I’d forgotten you? No fear, Muldoon.”
Having aroused his master, Muldoon in his turn decided to feign abstraction. He lay down, ostentatiously, across Wint’s knees, and he pillowed his muzzle on his forepaws and lay there with eyes rolling up in spite of himself to watch Wint’s face. Wint cupped the dog’s lower jaw in his right hand and shook it gently. “What are they saying about me uptown, Muldoon?” he asked.
The dog moved its head, then fell into a motionless pose again. Wint bent over it, whispering, half to Muldoon and half to himself. “Laughing, of course,” he said softly. “Laughing! The joke of years!” He smiled grimly. “Tough on dad. He’d set his heart on this Mayor business.”
He looked across to the window, and his eyes hardened. “They meant it as much as a joke on me as on father,” he reminded himself, and his eyes burned. He wondered how the plan had been carried through. Caretall and Gergue must have had their hand in it; they had probably united with V. R. Kite. It would be reasonably easy, he knew. His father had had no real popularity. Winthrop Chase, Senior, was not a likable man. He was not a vote getter. There was a self-conscious condescension about his good-fellowship.
Wint had never paid any great attention to local politics. He wondered idly what a Mayor had to do. He tried to remember some of the things Mayors had done in the past; andhe found his only knowledge of the subject concerned with a Hallowe’en prank as a result of which he and two others had been haled before the Mayor’s court and badly frightened.
“He must do something besides that,” he assured himself. “But Lord—I couldn’t even do that.”
What was he to do? That was the thing he had to decide, and he must decide at once. What could he do? Was there any way by which he could nullify the election; resign; abdicate; get himself impeached? He thought of these projects wistfully. They took no concrete form in his mind. He knew nothing of the machinery of local government, knew nothing of the avenues of escape which might be open to him.
He only knew that he would not be made thus the butt of the town’s mirth. His face flushed at the thought; and he got up abruptly and walked to the window, Muldoon pacing at his side and looking up wistfully at his master. He would not do it. They should have their trouble for their pains. They were fools. Impudent fools....
One thing he could do; one thing at least. He could go away. Hide. If he were not here, they could not force him to serve. So much was sure. He would go away....
This decision, Wint told himself, had cleared the air. He tried to believe that it solved all his perplexities; and he bent over Muldoon and cuffed the dog and romped with it across the room, to Muldoon’s delirious delight. Then he began to whistle to himself, and so looked about and sat down on the bed, and drew on the sock which still lay on the floor. He had difficulty in fastening the sock supporter about his leg. The leg of the trousers obstructed him. He fussed over the thing until he was fuming again, and his face flushed with stooping. But at last the trick was done, and he took his shoes from the chair and put them on. He found that one of the laces was broken, no doubt by his drunken fingers when he had unlaced the shoes before removing them. This discovery whetted his resentment and disgust. He knotted the lace and hid the knot under an eyelet of the shoe, where it pressed on his instep and irked him. He kicked the shoe on the floor until it gave him some measure of comfort.
His hat and coat were on the floor. He put them on, brushing the dust from the coat with his hands, and afterwards with a flicker of his handkerchief. Then he crossed reluctantly to the speckled mirror and looked into it.
He saw that his face was dirty, and his collar soiled and crushed. He took the collar off and turned it inside out and replaced it, and it gave him some faint satisfaction to see the improvement thus effected in his appearance. But he was still ghastly. There was no water in the room; and he knew that the bathroom at the end of this upper hall was not made for cleanliness, so he wet his handkerchief with his tongue and scrubbed his face clean with that. The result had a forced and unnatural look, but he was constrained to be content.
He started slowly for the door, but his feet lagged. It was hard for him to make up his mind to face the world again. He thought, uneasily, of remaining here through the day and catching a night freight out of town; and he turned irresolutely back toward the bed, but Muldoon, at his knee, barked softly in remonstrance, and Wint bent and patted the dog’s head and said softly: “Right you are, pup. We’re not afraid of them. But Heaven help the man that laughs, Muldoon!”
The dog wagged its whole body, and barked again, as though in approval; and Wint smiled faintly and went again toward the door. He looked down and saw that his trousers were wrinkled, and he smoothed and tugged at them in an effort to give them some appearance of respectability. When he had done his best for them, he went toward the door again, and this time he did not stop. He went out into the hall, and to the stair head, and so down into the office of the hotel.
Like the bedroom, the office of the Weaver House suffered by daylight. Even the dingy and unwashed window panes could not keep out the pitiless sun; and the room’s ugliness was exposed in hideous nakedness.
The room, save for the fact that the sun instead of a lamp lighted it, was as it had been the night before. The smoky lamp, still standing on the table, gave forth a smell of dirty oil which filled the place and fought with the reek of bad tobacco and the pungent smell of alcohol. Doors and windowswere tight shut. At their corner of the table, above their checkerboard, still leaned the two old men. It was as though they had not stirred, the long night through. As Wint came down the stairs, a game ended, and their cackling voices broke into the familiar argument, while their stained old fingers swiftly rearranged the pieces for a new beginning. Then one moved a piece, and both fell silent, and the new game began.
Mrs. Moody sat at her place behind what had been the bar. The only change in the room since the night before was that instead of the reading boy, a man sat by the table. This man was unshaven, trembling, shrunken within his rumpled and baggy garments. His eyes were open, and his head wagged from side to side as he sat, and his lips moved in an interminable, mumbling argument with some one invisible.
Jim, the dog that was just a dog, was not to be seen.
Wint, with Muldoon at his heels, came down the stairs and stopped in front of the bar and nodded to Mrs. Moody. He reached into his pocket, and the old woman got up briskly and grinned at him, the enamel of her teeth a blinding white flash in her wrinkled old face. Her eyes puckered when she grinned; and she laid her hands, palms down, upon the bar.
“Going away, deary?” she asked.
Wint nodded. “What do I owe you?”
“Sorry I ain’t got a bite to offer ye,” she apologized. Then, with a sly glance at the men across the room. “Less’n you wanted to come out by the kitchen in back. A little drop....”
Wint shook his head. “Not to-day. How much?”
She told him and he selected a bill and gave it to her. She took it, and tucked up her apron and delved into the pocket of her loose skirt and produced a dirty, cloth bag. This bag was tied with a string at the top; and she untied the string, and rummaged inside, and found his change, and gave it to him. He took it from her; and as he did so, he turned at a shuffling step and saw the drunken man at his elbow.
This man peered at him; and Wint moved a little away from him. The man followed a lurching step, and grinned placatingly, and mumbled: “Wint Chase, ain’t it?”
Wint nodded. “Yes.” He tried to pass the man and get to the door; but the man thrust out a shaking hand.
“Shake!” he invited thickly. “Wanna shake hands with new Mayor. Voted f’r you, voted f’r you three times.”
Mrs. Moody was leaning across the bar and watching and grinning. Wint hesitated, and then he took the man’s hand and shook it, and tried to release it; but the man clung to it, and lunged closer, and put his other hand on Wint’s shoulder. His weight fell against Wint’s chest.
“New Mayor,” he repeated uncertainly. “Good, nice new Mayor.” He chuckled loosely and wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand and gripped Wint’s shoulder again, and regarded Wint seriously, studying him. “Good little man,” he applauded. “Make dam’ good Mayor f’r this little town.”
He rocked on his feet, and Wint tried to put the man away without offending him, but the man staggered and clasped his arms around Wint’s neck and giggled weakly on Wint’s breast.
“This’ll be a nice, wet li’l town now, eh, boy!” he exulted. “Eh, boy? Nice, wet li’l town....”
Wint, with a sudden revulsion that sickened him and stiffened his angry pride, thrust the man away and stepped quickly out into the street. He felt Muldoon brush against his legs, and he looked down at the dog and set his jaw.
“You, dog,” he whispered. “They’ve tried one joke too many. Eh, pup? We’ll stay and turn the joke on them, Muldoon. What say?”
Muldoon whined approvingly, fidgeting on eager feet; and Wint bent and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, you,” he said softly. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
WINT left the Weaver House at a little before noon, Muldoon trotting sedately at his heels. The street outside the hotel was empty; and Wint was glad of this. He followed it to the railroad tracks, intending to cross the yards and take a back street toward his home. But at the end of the street, he encountered Peter Gergue.
Gergue saw him coming, and stopped, and fumbled in the tangle of hair at the back of his head until Wint came near. Wint would have avoided him, but there was no way to do this, and so he said coldly:
“Good morning, Pete.”
Gergue grinned slowly. “Why—right fair,” he agreed. “Yes’r, it’s a right fair morning—if you look at it that way.”
Wint nodded. He would have passed by, but Gergue stopped him. “I was coming down after you,” he said.
“Why?” Wint asked.
“Oh—I thought you might want company. Heard you was here.”
“Want anything special?”
“We-ell—I did think of congratulating you.”
Wint smiled coldly. “Thanks. That all?”
Gergue rummaged through his hair. “Thought you might have things to inquire about.”
Wint started to say “No” to this, then changed his mind and looked steadily. “You—you mix in politics, don’t you, Pete?”
Gergue looked startled. “Why—some,” he admitted. “Why, yes, I might say—some.”
“Friend of Congressman Caretall’s, aren’t you?”
Gergue spat, and nodded slowly. “I like to help him out—when I c’n manage,” he agreed.
Wint smiled again. “Then you know how this thing happened.”
“Some,” said Peter.
“Explain it to me,” Wint invited. “How was it worked? And—why?”
Gergue grinned slyly. Then he laughed, a shrill burst of merriment of a sort unusual in this man. When this mirth passed, he touched Wint’s lapel. “Cleanest piece of work I ever see,” he declared.
“How was it done?”
“Word o’ mouth! Word o’ mouth! Cong’essman knew folks was expecting something f’om him. He kept ’em expecting. Told everybody he was going to vote for a man named Chase. Got ’em worked up, sittin’ on needles and pins and cockle burrs to know where the trick come in. Everybody knowed they was some trick. Then—last minute—he passed the word to V. R. Kite, and him and Kite passed the word around. Everybody figured it would be a joke on your paw. Whole town took it laughing, and went and done what Cong’essman told ’em t’ do. Writ in your name....”
Wint smiled frostily. “Great joke, wasn’t it?”
Gergue chuckled. “Fine. Take V. R. Kite. Tickled him half t’ death. Like t’ killed Kite.”
“Caretall and my father are against each other, of course.”
“Sure. Your paw comes to the Cong’essman, high and mighty, offering him this ’nd that. That wa’n’t no way to go at the Cong’essman. Amos ain’t used to it.”
Wint nodded. “But why me?” he asked. “Why pick on me?”
Gergue waved his hand. “That made it more like a joke on your paw. Everybuddy knowed what your paw thinks of you. Figured it’d pupplex him. It did, too, Wint. It certainly did pupplex your paw.”
“It would,” Wint agreed. “But—I should think Caretall would as soon see my father elected as me.”
“Yo’r paw had a little too much wind in his sails. Needed a little coolin’ off. Amos gave it to him.”
“But how about Kite?” Wint asked. “Why was he so ready to fall in with it?”
Gergue looked at Wint sidewise. “Why, he don’t like yo’r paw so very much,” he explained, with an appearance of frankness, “and besides that, Kite’s wet, and your paw’s dry. That stands t’ reason.”
“He figured I would be wet, of course.”
Gergue nodded emphatically. “Natural,” he said. “Natural, he figured that way.”
“Did Caretall have that idea, too?”
Gergue wagged his head. “We-ell, now,” he parried, “Amos don’t lay so much on that end of it. He’s a wet man, in politics; but he don’t touch it hisself. I guess he just wanted t’ give you a leg up—see what you’d do. Amos keeps his eye on the young fellows, that way.”
They had crossed the tracks while they were talking, and now they met two men. Wint knew these men casually; they knew him. They were workmen; and they saw Wint and Gergue together, and grinned, and one of them called: “Morning, Mr. Mayor.”
Wint smiled at them amiably. “Good morning.”
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks.” Wint’s cheeks were burning. The men passed by, and he and Gergue started up the hill by a back street that led toward his home. Neither of them spoke. Presently they began to meet other men. One or two men scowled at Gergue, stared angrily at Wint; but for the most part they smiled covertly, and voiced congratulations. Their words seemed to Wint to mark covert jibes.
After a time the two came to a cross street that led toward town; and here Gergue halted and looked at Wint curiously. “Was there anything else?” he asked.
Wint shook his head.
“You wasn’t thinking, maybe, of walking uptown?”
“Not now.”
“Going on home, I guess.”
“Yes.”
Gergue nodded. “All right. When you come uptown, you might stop in and see me.”
“I’ll see,” Wint told him.
“Amos aims to do right by you,” said Gergue.
“Much obliged.”
“You don’t want to hold this against him.”
Wint smiled slowly. “Good-by,” he said.
Gergue nodded. “By-by,” he responded. “I’ll see you again.”
He turned toward town, and Wint watched him for a moment, and then went on toward his home. Muldoon trotted sedately before him, ranging now and then across the street or into a yard to investigate some affair of his own. Wint walked swiftly, for he had an uneasy feeling of nakedness in the light of open day, as though every one he encountered must see the shame that was torturing him. He came to his home through a short cut that brought him by way of an alley to the kitchen door; and when he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, he saw Hetty Morfee there. Hetty was rolling biscuits on a board, her sleeves rolled to the elbows on her creamy arms; and she turned at the sound of his entrance and stood with the rolling pin in one hand, brushing back the hair from her eyes with the other, and laughing at him softly.
“Oh, you Wint!” she said.
Wint closed the kitchen door behind him and faced the girl. “Is mother here?” he asked.
“She’s in next door.” She nodded her head reproachfully. “You certainly have started something, Wint.”
“Where’s father?”
“Uptown. He telephoned just now to know if you had come home. He ain’t coming home for dinner.”
Wint dropped his eyes for a moment, then lifted his head. “All right,” he said. “I—I suppose he’s mad as a hatter.”
Hetty chuckled softly. “Mad as two of ’em,” she declared. “You certainly have started something this time, Wint.”
He looked toward the biscuit board. “Are those for lunch?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How soon will they be ready?”
“Half an hour. You hungry?” She studied him, solicitude lurking in her eyes.
“Yes. I didn’t have any breakfast.”
The girl moved toward him with the quick instinct of woman. “You poor kid! I’ll get you something now.”
He lifted his hand impatiently. “Never mind. Or—just a glass of milk.”
She laughed, crossing the room toward the pantry. “You just sit down and see.” And while he still stood irresolutely in the middle of the floor, she was back with bread and butter and a glass of jelly and a bowl of milk. She spread these things upon the table, and cut the bread for him, and made him sit down and eat while she hovered over him, her eyes never leaving the brown head as he bent above his plate. Now and then she laughed softly, and more than once she repeated: “You surely have started something this time.”
He ate ravenously. He had not realized his own hunger. But after the second slice, she stopped him. “Now that’s enough,” she declared. “You’ll spoil your dinner.”
He laughed, the first time he had laughed that day. “I guess not,” he declared. “I could eat a house.”
She smiled, carrying the viands back to their places. “Where was you last night?” she asked curiously.
He looked up at her, half resentful, half glad of her friendship and understanding. “Weaver House,” he said.
She made a little grimace. “Golly! You must’ve been pie-eyed for fair.”
He flushed, but he nodded. “Yes.”
“And look what they’ve done to you. It don’t pay, does it, Wint?”
He laughed. “I suppose not.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your paw’s awful mad.”
He got up stiffly. “I suppose so. Well—he’s been mad before.”
“And your maw’s upset.”
“I’ll be up in my room,” he said. “Call me when dinner’s ready.”
She was back at her biscuits, laying them delicately in thepan. “Sure. Go ahead.” The door closed behind him. When she heard the click of a latch, the girl stopped her work for an instant, and looked over her shoulder at the closed door. She remained thus for a space; then brushed her arm across her forehead as though a lock of hair distressed her, and went on with her task.
Wint went to his room, and threw aside his soiled garments, and bathed and was half dressed when Hetty called up the stairs that dinner was ready. He came down into the hall as his mother entered the front door. When she saw him, she lifted her hands, and ran at him, and poured out upon him a torrent of querulous complaint. “Wint, where have you been all this time? Your father is so mad. He’s terrible mad at you. I never saw your father so worked up, Wint. I don’t see what you had to go and do a thing like that for anyhow, Wint. I told Mrs. Hullis this morning I just couldn’t see how you could do it. Your father was so set on getting elected, and everything; and he’d made so many plans, and when he came home last night I said to him—”
Hetty called from the dining-room door: “Dinner’s ready, ma’am.”
“All right, Hetty, I’m a-coming,” Mrs. Chase assured her. “Wint, you come along. I want to talk to you. I don’t see what you’re going to do about it. I don’t see—I said to your father last night that I just couldn’t see how you could—”
Wint broke in: “Mother—please! It wasn’t my doing. I had nothing to do with it.”
“I said to your father last night, when he came home,” she insisted. “He came home so mad, and everything. He was in a terrible state, Wint. He ramped and tore around here like he was a crazy man; and I said to him that I didn’t see how a son could do a thing like that to him. He was tramping up and down, and he kept talking about you, and I said to him that I—”
“I tell you I had nothing to do with it, mother.”
“I think Congressman Caretall ought to have something better to do than to come home here and stir up a son against his father. I told your father so; and I said—”