"Mr. Bowers wants to talk to you," Isabel said, smoothing Jap's limp
hair from his haggard face. "He has been here every day for a week,
and Mamma wouldn't hear to his bothering you, especially as you had
concluded that you must talk to Bill about the office."
"Let him come," said Jap wearily.
The Judge tramped heavily into the bedroom.
"I want to talk to you about Flossy's affairs," he declared, dropping
into a chair and blowing his nose.
Jap's face flushed, then paled. He lifted one thin hand to his eyes
and leaned back in the pillows.
"I sent for Bill to meet me here and have Brent Roberts read Flossy's
will."
"Why?" Jap's voice rasped with pain.
"You have been sick nigh a month," said the Judge, "and there's a power
o' things that oughter be seen to, and Brent refused to read Flossy's
will till you could hear it. I want to settle the bills."
Isabel slipped her arm around Jap's shoulder and glared at the Judge.
"You ought to be ashamed," she cried. "Jap is not strong enough to be
bothered with business."
Jap put her aside gently and sat up.
"The Judge is right, sweetheart," he said. "I will not be tired with
doing anything for--for her."
He covered his face with his hands. Bill entered softly. His brows
lowered at sight of his father.
"What did you want with me and Roberts?" he queried shortly.
"It is all right, Bill," Jap said brokenly. "It will hurt whenever it
comes, so let's get it done."
After the will was read Jap lay silent, the tears slipping down his
cheeks, for Flossy's will gave all that she possessed to her son, Jap
Herron. It was made the day after she knew that her own child was
doomed to an early death.
They filed slowly from the room, even the Judge awed by the face of the
boy.
The New Year had turned the corner when Jap was moved to the office.
Little by little he grew back into harness. They did not talk of
Flossy in those early days. It was not possible. One chill spring
day, when the grass was greening, and the first blossoms were opening
among the hyacinths on Ellis's grave, Jap walked with Bill to the
cemetery. He bent above the dried wreaths with their faded ribbons,
sodden and dinged by the winter's snows.
"Throw them away, Bill," he choked. "They are the tawdry tokens of
mourning. I am trying to forget that mourning."
Bill gathered the dry bundles and carried them away. Coming back, he
stood looking mournfully upon the muddy sod. Jap raised his eyes
suddenly, and they gazed for a long minute into each other's hearts.
Bill threw his hands over his eyes and cried aloud.
"Don't, Bill!" Jap's hand clutched him tightly. "For God's sake, help
me to be a man!"
And forgetting the sodden grass, they knelt beside the grave and sobbed
together in an abandon of grief. Boys they were, despite their years,
and Flossy had been more to them than the mother whom youth is prone to
take for granted. When the tempest of sorrow and desolation had spent
itself they arose.
"It is done," said Jap, looking up into the sky where the stars were
beginning to twinkle palely. "It had to be done. Now I can realize
that they laid Flossy beneath the earth. But, please God, I can forget
it. Now I know that she has left the beautiful shell behind. But,
Bill," he touched the mound with his fingers, "Flossy has never been
here, never for an instant."
"She is in heaven," said Bill reverently.
Jap laid his arm around Bill's shoulders.
"You don't believe that, Bill. You know better. Flossy is right with
us, as Ellis has always been. Just as he has inspired us to develop
his paper and his town, so she will stay with us, to create good and
optimism and faith in ourselves. Bill, when those two wonderful people
came into our lives, they came to stay. Do you think Ellis and Flossy
would get any joy out of strumming on a harp and taking their own
selfish ease? No, Bill, that's all a mistake. They're working right
with us, and it's up to you and me to so wholly reflect them that we
will be to this town what they have been to us. In any crisis in our
lives, let us not forget that Ellis and Flossy Hinton are not dead. We
may have need to remember it, Bill."
The next morning he climbed on his stool and took the stick in his
hand. Bill stopped at the door of the composing room, something in
Jap's attitude arresting him.
"What are you going to do, Jap?"
"Get busy," declared Jap. "We have given out enough plate. The
_Herald_ is going back on the job."
Bill felt a lump rise in his throat as he paused to finger the copy on
his hook.
"We have to get the drums beating," said Jap. "We have to elect Wat
Harlow governor, and, believe the Barton _Standard_, we have some rough
road to travel."
And the battle was on! Alone, the Bloomtown _Herald_ tackled the job
of making a governor. Watson Harlow had been a familiar figure in
state politics for more than twenty years, but as gubernatorial timber
no one had ever regarded him seriously. His opponent, on the other
hand, was a fresh figure in the state, with all the novelty of the
unknown quantity about him. It was an off year for the dominant party,
both locally and nationally, and the fight promised to be a complicated
one.
Week by week the battle raged between the types. Little by little the
country press began to get in the fight. Not content with the
picturesque drumming of his own machine, Jap interested the city press
in the history of Wat Harlow, the "Lone Pine, of Integrity Absolute."
This descriptive title was proclaimed in and out of season during the
months of battle, both before and after the nomination of Harlow and
Jones. Jap invented a stinger for Bronson Jones. In his past history,
it was alleged, he had much that were better concealed than revealed.
Not the least of his offenses was that he had assisted his father, a
certain P. D. Jones, in stealing red-hot cook-stoves from the ruins of
the Chicago fire. Jap so declared, and he offered to prove that Jones
had sold these same stoves to their former owners, when they became
cold. In one instance, the victim was a widow who had lost everything,
even her former mate, in the fire. And Jones carried the title, "The
Widow's Friend," for years. All this was fun for the city dailies, and
cartoons of the "Lone Pine" being fed to the "Cook-Stove" alternated
with those of the pine falling upon the "Widow's Friend" as he was
about to sell a stove to the above-mentioned widow.
The color came back to Jap's cheeks, and the battle light flamed in his
gray eyes. His one relaxation was the tranquil hour with Isabel.
Harlow, like an uneasy ghost, haunted the _Herald_ office when he was
not out storming the hustings. The Barton _Standard_ continued to pry
into Wat's past, while the _Herald_ continued to lift the lid from the
chest of Bronson's secret garments. Unfortunately, the _Standard_ had
played its big trump card in the congressional campaign. The vermilion
handbill was once more dragged to light, but it worked like a
boomerang, for several of Wat's own party workers had been caught
red-handed in the act of attempting to operate a shameless graft game,
in the name of the university. And Jap utilized the story to show that
Wat was a man above party, a man in whose mind integrity was indeed
absolute.
Argument grew red hot, every place but Bloomtown. There, there was no
one to argue with. Bloomtown was one man for Harlow. Jones undertook
to deliver one speech there, and that bright hour nearly became his
last. After the good-natured raillery of the opening address, Jones
plunged into the vitriolic explosion he had delivered at the various
places he had spoken. For exactly ten minutes it lasted. By that
time, Kelly Jones had reached Hollins's grocery store and gathered
enough eggs to start a protest against the defamation of Wat Harlow's
character. And the protest was proclaimed unanimous!
It was stated that there were no eggs on Bloomtown's breakfast table
next morning, and no Sunday cakes.
"But," said the _Herald_, "if Bronson Jones wants any more hen-fruit,
the housewives of Bloomtown will cheerfully sacrifice themselves in his
behalf."
And so the months sped away until the grass had mossed the graves in
the cemetery with lush beauty, and the three mounds were merged into
one by the riotous growth of sweet alyssum, Flossy's best loved
blossom. The summer waned. The autumn hasted, and chill winds
whispered around the Lone Pine as the last sortie was made. Then
Bloomtown pressed her hands to her throbbing breast and got ready
for--Victory?