THE STREET CARNIVAL
Joan’s warning as to Jack Routt, her word as to Hetty, and Wint’s
rejection of both warning and advice did not lead to a break between
them. They met next day, and Wint had the grace to say to her:
“I’m sorry I talked as I did yesterday, last night. I was tired,
and--all that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Joan told him. “It’s natural for you to stick by your
friends.”
“I needn’t have talked so to you, though.”
She laughed, and said he had been all right. “I guess you’ve been
imagining you were worse than you really were,” she told him. “It’s
quite all right, really.”
“But I’m sorry you--dislike Jack,” he said. “He’s an awfully decent
sort.”
“Is he?” she asked. “Then I’m glad you and he are friends.”
“That’s the stuff,” Wint told her. “That’s the way to talk.”
Thereafter, for a week or so, life in Hardiston went quietly. V. R. Kite
still bided his time; there was no liquor being sold; Ote Runns went
home sober, day after day, with a look of desperate longing in his eyes.
That sodden man who had embraced Wint in the Weaver House so long, whom
Wint had jailed more than once for his drinking, suffered as much as
Ote, or more. He came to Wint and unbraided him for what he had done.
“It ain’t the way to treat a fellow,” he told Wint, pleading huskily.
“You know how it is. I just gotta have a drink, Mister Mayor. I just
gotta. I told Mrs. Moody she’s gotta give me a drink, and she told me
you wouldn’t let her. You ain’t got a thing against me, now, have you?”
The miserable man’s fingers were twitching, his lips twisted and
writhed. “If I don’t get a drink, I’m a-going to kill some-buddy, I am.”
Wint did not know what to do. He could see at a glance that the man was
suffering a very real torment. He had himself never become so soaked
with alcohol that his system cried out for it when he abstained; but he
knew what torture this might be. He had an idea that candy would
alleviate the man’s distress; but the idea seemed to him ridiculous, and
he put it aside. Yet there was an obligation upon him to do something.
He did, in the end, a characteristic thing, an impulsive thing; and yet
it was sensible, too. There was no saving this man. Highest mercy to him
was to let him drink himself to death. Wint told him to come to the
house that night; and he gave the poor fellow a quart bottle from his
father’s store. The derelict wandered away, calling Wint blessed. They
found him under a tree in the yard next door, in the morning, blissfully
sleeping.
The story got around, as it was sure to do. The man told it himself; he
boasted that Wint was a good fellow. V. R. Kite heard of it, and waved
his clenched fists and swore at Wint by every saint in the calendar.
Also, he sent for Jack Routt. “We’ve got him,” he cried. “He can’t put
over a thing like this on me, Routt. I’ll not stand for it. I’ll run him
out of town. Or get out myself. Damn it, Routt, he’s a hypocrite! He’s a
whited sepulcher. I’ll--”
Routt laughed good-naturedly, and held up a quieting hand. “Hold on,” he
said. “We’ll have better than this on Wint before long. Good enough so
that I--I’ll tell you a secret, Kite.”
Kite looked suspicious, and asked what the secret was; but Routt decided
not to tell. Not just yet. “Wait till the time comes,” he told Kite. “A
little later on.”
So Kite waited.
Toward the end of June, the street carnival came to town for a week’s
stay. These carnivals are indigenous to such towns as Hardiston. They
resemble nothing so much as an aggregation of the added attractions
which usually go with a circus, broken loose from the circus and
wandering about the country alone. A merry-go-round reared its tent and
set up it clanking organ at Main and Pearl streets. Down the hill below
the tent, the snake-eating wild man had his lair; and below him, again,
there was an “Ocean Wave.” Along Pearl Street in the other direction the
Museum of Freaks and the Galaxy of Beauty were located. Main Street
itself was given over to venders of popcorn, candy, hot dogs, ice-cream
sandwiches, lemonade, ginger pop, and every other indigestible on the
calendar. There also, you might, for the matter of a nickel, have three
tries at ringing a cane worth six cents, or a knife worth three. Or you
might take a chance in the great lottery, where every entrant drew some
prize, even if it were only a packet of hairpins. The arts and crafts
were represented by a man who would twist a bit of gilded wire into
likeness of your signature for half a dollar.
The first tents of the carnival began to rise one Saturday morning; and
all that day and the next, the boys of the town and the grown-ups, too,
watched the show take shape. It was almost as good as a circus. At noon
on Monday, the carnival opened for business, with the ballyhoo men in
full voice before every tent. The moderate afternoon crowd grew into a
throng in the evening, when the kerosene torches flared and smoked on
every pole, and the normal things of daylight took on a dusky glamour in
the jerky illumination of the flares.
Every one went uptown to the carnival that first evening. Wint was
there, and Jack Routt, Agnes, Joan, V. R. Kite--every one. In
mid-evening, the quieter folk drifted home, but Wint stayed to watch
what passed. A little after eleven, he bumped into a drunken man.
In spite of his warning to the advance agent of this carnival, Wint had
been expecting to see drunken men. It was the nature of the carnival
breed. He wandered back and forth till he came upon Jim Radabaugh, and
called the marshal aside.
“Jim,” he said, “they’re selling booze.”
Radabaugh shifted that lump in his cheek, and spat. “So?” he asked
mildly.
“I want it stopped,” said Wint. “If you pin it on the carnival bunch,
I’ll shut them up.”
“I’ll see,” Radabaugh promised.
“Come along, first, and let’s talk to the boss,” Wint suggested; and
they sought out that man. He was running the merry-go-round; a hard
little fellow with a cold blue eye. Wint introduced himself; and the man
shook hands effusively.
“My name’s Rand,” he said. “Mike Rand. Glad t’ meet you, Mister Mayor.”
Wint said: “That’s all right,” and he asked: “Did your advance man give
you my orders?”
“What orders?”
“I told him I didn’t want any booze peddling.”
“Sure, he told me.”
Wint jerked his head backward toward Main Street. “I ran into a drunk up
there,” he said.
Rand grinned. “Can’t help that. We’re not selling any.”
“I’m holding you responsible,” said Wint. “If there’s any sold, I’ll
cancel your permits.”
The little man stared at him bleakly. “You’ve got a nerve. You can’t pin
anything on us.”
“I can’t help that,” Wint told him. “In fact, I don’t care. If there’s
booze sold, you get out. If I pin in on any man, he goes to jail. Is
that clear?”
“What is this town, anyway--a damned Sunday school?”
“If you like,” said Wint sweetly; and he and Radabaugh turned away.
Rand’s engine man left his throttle to approach his chief and ask:
“What’s up? Who was that?”
“Mayor of this burg and the marshal. Say we’ve got to shut down on the
booze.”
“Like hell!”
Rand grinned. “Sure. He can’t run a whoozer on me.”
When he left Radabaugh, Wint ran into Jack Routt, and they strolled
about together through the crowd. Once they saw Hetty, and Wint thought
she was unnaturally cheerful and gay. He wondered if it were possible
she had been drinking again; and he stared after her so long that Routt
asked:
“Takes your eye, does she?’
“I was wondering,” said Wint.
Routt touched his arm. “You take it from me, Wint, you want to keep
clear of her. I’d get her out of the house, if I were you. They’re
beginning to talk.”
Wint asked angrily: “Who’s beginning to talk? What about?”
“Everybody. About Hetty--and you, naturally.”
“I wish they--I wish people in this town would mind their own business.”
Routt grinned and said: “You act as though there was something in it.”
“Don’t be a darned fool.”
“Well, I’m telling you what people say. If I were you--you’re a public
official, you know, in the public eye--I’d be careful. Tell your mother
to get rid of her. Safest thing to do.”
“I’m not looking for safe things to do.” Wint liked the defiant sound of
that.
Routt nodded. “I’d be worried, if it was me. That’s all.”
“I’m not worried,” said Wint. “Hetty’s all right. And if she weren’t--I
don’t propose to be scared.”
“We-ell, it’s your funeral,” Routt told him.
Wint laughed. “I guess it’s not as bad as that. It’s almost twelve. I’m
going home.”