"It's true," chuckled Filmer, "and I am calling a town meeting for
to-night. I haven't time to give you the details now, but be on hand
at eight o'clock. He's made a perfectly straight proposal and I don't
see how we can lose on it. I never met a man just like him."
"Did he come in on the train this afternoon?"
The mayor nodded. "Yes--said he was going on to Minneapolis, but
decided to stop over and make this offer."
"Then I saw him at the station," answered Bowers thoughtfully. "I
thought he was a buyer. Do you reckon we can rope him in?"
Filmer drew a long breath. "Looks to me as if he would rope himself in
the way he is going. He won't need any help from us."
"What did you make of him personally?"
"I didn't get very far," said Filmer deliberately, "except that he
struck me as the sort of man who gets things done. Look here, I've
seen Dibbott and Worden and Manson. Will you go and see the Bishop and
ask him to come to-night?"
"The Bishop went away this morning."
"Damn!" said the mayor explosively. "I wanted to get his opinion about
Clark, that's his name, Robert Fisher Clark. Well, so long."
He went on to his store where he was overtaken by Clark who had tramped
back from the rapids. The visitor was muddy and no longer immaculate
and there was a trace of fatigue on his face, but he looked as cheerful
and determined as ever. At that moment the village crier passed up the
street swinging a raucous bell and announcing in stentorian tones that
a meeting would be held in the town hall that night at eight o'clock to
consider matters of prime importance to the citizens at large. The
crier tramped on, and Filmer glanced up inquiringly.
"Won't you change your mind and come to the house with me? It is a
safe bet you'll be more comfortable."
Clark shook his head. "Thanks, but I've got to speak in two hours and
there's a good deal to think of."
Meantime rumors of many things had begun to spread through St. Marys.
The magistrate, as soon as the mayor left him, naturally told Mrs.
Worden all about it and Bowers would not have dreamt of keeping such a
thing from his wife, so had stuck a card on his office door saying he
would be back in ten minutes and went home for the afternoon, after
which Mrs. Worden and Mrs. Bowers strolled over to see Mrs. Dibbott and
were in close conversation amongst the perennials, appealing now and
then to Dibbott in order that there might be no mistake about it. Down
in Blood's barber shop, Jim Blood had, as might be expected, the most
detailed information, for Clark had gone in there on his way to the
hotel and, sitting down, remarked "shave please" and at the end,
without another word, gave Jim fifty cents and walked out. And if you
add to all this the sound of the crier's bell mellowing softly up the
long street, it will be understood that the excitement was considerably
intensified. Even Filmer, as he ate supper, did not say much, but kept
his gaze on the lid of the teapot as though it were a Pandora's box in
which bubbled marvelous things that might be vomited any moment. But
at heart Filmer was not anxious. It was not his habit. Of all men he
knew best the folk of St. Marys, so he doubted not at all, and as a
matter of fact St. Marys had for mayor a much bigger and wiser man than
it ever suspected.
There may be communities now such as St. Marys was twenty-five years
ago, but one goes far to find them. Electricity has altered their
distinctive character. The traffic of half a continent glided
majestically past these wooded shores, with the deep blast of whistles
as the great vessels edged gingerly into the Government lock across the
river to be lifted to Superior, and another farewell blast as they
pushed slowly out, and lastly a trail of vanishing black smoke as they
dwindled westward to the inland sea. For seven months this procession
passed the town but never halted, till the people of St. Marys felt
like the farmer who, in mid field, waves a friendly hand to a speeding
train.
As a result folk knew each other to a degree which some would call
insufferably well, and yet they did not weary. It was a curious
condition in which life had few secrets and yet an ample privacy.
There was, as it happened, little to secrete, and simultaneously there
was no straining of hospitality. In these close quarters each was
aware that the others knew what he or she could reasonably do, and, in
natural consequence, did it with grace and simple ease. For years
before the railway pushed up from Sudbury, the outer world was brought
into touch when the bows of the bi-weekly steamer bumped softly against
the big stringers of Filmer's dock, and papers and letters were thrown
on a buckboard and galloped to the post office where presently the
community gathered and talked.
There was no telephone to jangle, no electric light and no waterworks,
but in the soil of St. Marys were springs of sweet water, and through
the windows came the soft glow of lamplight as evening closed in, and
the shuffle of feet on the porch announced the visitor. It was from
the river and the close encircling forest that St. Marys took on its
atmosphere. The maple bush was full of game, and the beaver built
their curving dams in tamarac thickets within three miles of the
village. It was a common thing to kill Sunday's dinner in a two hours
stroll from Filmer's store, and, at the foot of the rapids where the
Indians pushed their long canoes up to the edge of the white water,
there were great, silver fish for the taking. The ducks halted for a
rest on their way north and within a stone's throw of the Bishop's big,
square house, the geese used to alight in a cornfield, sometimes on a
Sunday morning. On such occasions the Bishop experienced keen
embarrassment, for he was a good shot and a good sportsman. In
springtime the Indians would come up from the settlement with mink and
otter which they traded at Filmer's store for bags of brown sugar, and,
these, being silently transported to the bush, would shortly reappear
as quantities of genuine Indian maple sugar, which Filmer's clerks sold
to Filmer's friends with absolute gravity, the nature of the thing
being perfectly understood on both sides of the counter. As to local
excitement, there was twice a year the County Court and, while it might
be said that there was not in all this much for young people to do,
they had, nevertheless, camping trips and cruises in big Mackinaw boats
along the shores of Lake Huron, and snow shoeing expeditions in winter
that took them straight into a fairyland where they built roaring fires
of six foot logs and feasted royally in the ghostly recesses of the
snow burdened woods. All this and much more had the folk of the
village, and everything that went to make up a sweet, clean, uneventful
life. And then into this Arcadia dropped one day a stranger, with an
amazing experience of the outer world, a kaleidoscopic brain, an
extraordinary personal magnetism and a unique combination of driving
force and superlative ambition.
Is it surprising that even though ignorant of Clark's characteristics
the people of St. Marys filled the town hall that night?