"I worked a bunch of passes out of the agent for that Indian medicine
show," announced Bill, washing his hands. "Want to take her, Jap?" and
he jerked his head in the direction of the front door, where Isabel
Granger was passing.
"No; I'm going out to Flossy's a while. I want to talk some things
over with her."
There was no further discussion, for at that moment Rosy Raymond
floated by, and Bill started out in eager pursuit. Ever since the
election, Jap had been obsessed by a disquieting foreboding. One of
Mayor Bowers's first official acts was to authorize the opening of a
second saloon on Main street, and he was rapidly pushing the work of
erecting two new business houses which, rumor declared, were to house
other thirst palaces. Hitherto the natives and the surrounding
territory had been amply supplied by Holmes; but Bloomtown was growing
beyond the reach of one saloon.
Holmes had come across with a double-sized license, under promise of
the Mayor that he should continue to have a monopoly of the trade. And
when the good people of the various churches waited upon Judge Bowers
to protest against what they were disposed to call the "introduction of
Satan into their town," he called their attention to the need for
municipal revenue. If one saloon was a help, two saloons would double
that help. The town had already begun to show signs of genuine
progress. It had to build a calaboose to take care of the saloon's
patrons, and the regular fines for plain drunks almost paid the cost of
the court that collected them.
Once Jap thought he detected a sinister reason for Bill's flushed
cheeks and unsteady gait as he passed hastily through the office on his
way to the sleeping room above. The next morning Bill declared that he
had been a fool, and had paid for his folly with a severe headache, and
Jap, with the delicacy that was Jap's, let the subject drop. It was
becoming fashionable for the young fellows of the town to assume a
tough swagger. Those who had formerly resorted to barn lofts and musty
cellars paraded their sophistication on Main street, and Bill would
rather be dead than out of style. Jap wanted to talk it over with
Flossy, but he had never found the key to open such poignant
confidence. What right had he to burden Flossy with fresh anxiety? In
his loneliness, he yearned for Ellis as he had never yearned before.
He was sitting on the little front porch, tossing J. W. on the tough
old trotting horse afforded by his two ill-padded knees, and vaguely
wondering how he could introduce the subject of Bloomtown's swift
decay, without wounding Judge Bowers's sister and Bill's aunt, when
they heard a great tumult in the vicinity of the medicine show. After
a while Bill came up the walk with Rosy.
"What was the racket about?" Jap asked incuriously.
Rosy giggled.
"They wanted to nominate the ugliest man in town, and there was a
fight," she said.
"Shut up!" growled Bill. "Haven't you got any sense?"
"Sam Waldron nominated Jap," she sputtered, between giggles.
A hot flush swept over Jap. Always keenly sensitive, he had never
armored himself against the playful brutalities of his friends. The
shame of being made a subject of ridicule cut deeply.
"Rosy is a fool!" snapped Bill.
"What was the fuss about?" asked Flossy, prompted by a conviction that
further revelation would be good for Jap.
"Why, Isabel Granger slapped his face, and Bill jumped in and punched
him in the ribs, and the crowd wanted to take him down to the pond and
duck him."
Flossy's hand sought Jap's, and she laughed softly.
"That was worth while, boy. How Ellis would have written it up!"
Jap smiled, but the sting was still there. When it was evident that
Bill and Rosy expected to spend the evening, he arose with a tired,
"Well, I'll be going," and walked around the cottage to the alley gate.
He was afraid of meeting some one on Spring street, and he made excuse
to his own consciousness that the alley had always been the rational
highway between the cottage and the office. He put his hand in his
pocket for his key, as he emerged on Main street.
As he approached the door, he saw that some one was sitting on the
steps. She sprang up and laid trembling hands on his arm.
"Oh, Jap, you won't mind! You won't let it hurt you? Everybody knows
that you are the best-looking man in town. At least I--think so!"
Before he could grasp her arm, the girl was gone. That night Jap lay
awake long hours, thinking, thinking. With the morning, reason
returned. He had assumed responsibility for Flossy and the boy. He
must not think again.
And indeed the next few days gave him little time for thought. Wat
Harlow slipped into the office late one afternoon. He wore a furtive
look and an appearance of guilt. There was about him a suggestion of
gum shoes. Something must be amiss.
"I want to see you alone, Jap," he confessed.
Jap led the way to the little private office. Harlow was pulling
nervously at the stubby mustache that hid his short upper lip.
"In trouble, Wat?" asked Jap anxiously.
"No--not exactly. You see, it's this way----" He coughed
apologetically. "The wife had a dream, a funny dream, the other night.
She's had curious dreams ever since we took that long trip, to New York
and all over, last year, and there may be nothing to it, but----" He
lit a fresh cigar, and went at it again. "She says that she saw me
going into the Capitol at Washington just as if I belonged there. And
she got a notion---- Jap, you know how notionate women are. She
thinks--well, she thinks that I might be called to run for the House of
Representatives."
"Oh, I see," said Jap, illuminated. "It would sound good for the
_Herald_ to mention that you are in line?"
"Not rough-like, Jap! Just a little tickle in the ribs, to see what
they'd say."
"Oh, I'll fix that," declared Jap, laughing. And the _Herald_ flung
the hat in the ring for "Harlow, the one honest man."
Jap smiled sadly as he read his copy over. He had a habit of wondering
what Ellis would have said. He wondered, too, what attitude the editor
of the Barton _Standard_ would take. The _Standard_ had recently
changed hands, and since Bloomtown had pulled a saloon, a sunbonnet
factory and two business houses out of Barton, a rapid-fire editorial
war had been in progress. By some curious dispensation of Providence,
Jones of the _Standard_ and Herron of the _Herald_ had never met. Jap
was not hunting trouble, but the same spirit that prompted him to
thrash his tormentors, the day of his advent in Ellis Hinton's town,
caused him to wield a fire-tipped pen against the _Standard_.
That opposition to Wat's candidacy would develop, before the
nomination, was to be expected; but opposition on the part of the
Barton _Standard_ would be a purely personal matter, the _Standard_
having its own party fights to foster. But that was all Jap feared.
It was even worse than he could have imagined, for Jones dug up a
bloody ghost to walk at every political meeting. Not only were all Wat
Harlow's sins of omission and commission paraded in the _Standard_, but
he was proclaimed as the implacable foe of higher education. In vain
did his home paper print his record, of beneficent bills introduced, of
committee work on behalf of the district schools, and his great speech
setting forth the need of a new normal school building. Jones had one
trump card left in his hand, and the day before the convention he
played it. It was a handbill, yellow with age and ragged around the
edges, but still showing a badly spelled, abominably punctuated story
in vermilion ink, with a weeping angel at the top and a rooster and two
prancing stallions at the bottom. It proved Wat Harlow the undying foe
of the State University.
Despite all the _Herald's_ valiant work, that nightmare was Harlow's
undoing. The nomination went to a rising politician at the opposite
side of the congressional district. A great change had come over the
sentiment, of the state, since the day when the University had been the
favorite tool of the political grafters. Every village had its band of
rooters for the Alma Mater, and when the nominating convention came to
a close it was apparent that Wat Harlow was hardly an "also ran."
Defeat was galling enough; but the _Standard's_ expressions of glee
were unbearable. Jap's red hair stood on end, "like quills upon the
fretful porcupine," as he stood at his case and threw the type into the
stick, hot from the wrath in his soul. The paper was printed, as
usual, on Thursday; but Friday brought a change in the even tenor of
Bloomtown's way. Jones, of the _Standard_, was a passenger on the
eastbound train that left Barton a little after noon. His destination
was Bloomtown.
"I am looking for a cross-eyed, slit-eared pup by the name of Herron,"
was the greeting he flung into the _Herald's_ sanctum. The door to the
composing room was open. Jap looked up wearily.
"Would you mind sitting down and keeping quiet till I finish setting up
this address to the bag of wind that edits the Barton _Standard_?" he
said impersonally.
Jones, of the _Standard_, sat down and gaped at the long, lank figure
on the stool. A moment he went limp and terrified; then he rallied his
courage.
"Do you unwind all at once?" he asked, as Jap disentangled his legs
from the stool. "I take back what I said about a pup. You're a
full-grown dog, all right. I wasn't looking for a brick-top, either.
No wonder you have a weakness for vermilion."
"Better come outside of town," Jap interrupted. "I've been intending
to go over to Barton to have a look at you, but it's better thus. I
have been stealing space from my readers long enough. They pay for
more important things than my private opinion of you. I made up my
mind to stop the argument by giving you a hell of a licking, and I've
only waited because I didn't care to risk my reputation in a
neighboring town. Here it will be different. In the midst of my
friends, I hope to fix you so that you'll never try to throw filth on
any one again."
Jones arose hastily.
"I want no row," he said uneasily. "I just want an understanding."
"You have the right idea," cried Jap. "You are going to get lots of
understanding before you leave Bloomtown."
At that moment the town marshal strolled in, wearing his star pinned on
his blue flannel shirt.
"I demand protection," Jones shouted. "This man has threatened me."
"What's the row, Jap?" asked the monitor of peace tolerantly.
"This is Mr. Wilfred Jones, of the Barton _Standard_," was all that Jap
said. But the effect was electrical. The man of peace was transformed
into an engine of vengeance.
"Going to beat him up?" he yelled. "Go to it, and I'm here, if you
need help."
Jap took off his coat, deliberately. He unclasped his cuffs and was in
the act of unbuttoning his collar, when the local freight whistled for
the crossing below town. With a mighty leap the man from Barton
cleared the space between his chair and the door. The strolling
populace of Main street was scattered like leaves before a sudden gust
of wind. There was an abortive cry of "Stop, thief!" and a bewildered
pursuit by several tipsy bums who had been loafing in front of
Bingham's saloon, but the appearance of the marshal, wearing a broad
grin of satisfaction, dispelled apprehension.
"That was Jones, travelin' light," he explained.
The next issue of the _Standard_ failed to mention the editorial visit
to Bloomtown; but the scurrilous articles ceased and there was quiet
again.
"Did Ellis ever have a fight--that kind of a fight--with anybody?" Jap
asked Flossy, when Bill had finished his second-hand recital of the
show that "he wouldn't have missed for his farm in Texas." In Bill's
heart there arose a mighty resentment against Rosy Raymond, who had
enticed him from the office just before Jones arrived.
"Ellis did a good deal of fighting before he got me to fight his
battles for him," she said, a whimsical smile in her gentle eyes. "You
ought to know, Jap. I never would have had Ellis if he hadn't whipped
Brother William."
"But that wasn't a matter of personal grudge," Jap argued. It had
seemed to him that somehow he had degraded himself when he went down to
Jones's ethical level. "I wanted to use my fists because Jones
ridiculed me. When Ellis licked the Judge, it wasn't a personal
matter. He did it for me."
"And you did this for--for the honor of Bloomtown," cried Bill, with
enthusiasm.