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diff --git a/old/wc15v11.txt b/old/wc15v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4bef09 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wc15v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4783 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Coniston, by Winston Churchill, v2 +#15 in our series by this Winston Churchill + +This author is a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill the Prime Minister + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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The word +"silently" is used deliberately, because to Mr. Price appertained a +certain ghostlike quality of flitting, and to Mr. Price's horse and wagon +likewise. He drew up for a brief moment when he saw Wetherell. + +"Wouldn't hurry back if I was you, Will." + +"Why not?" + +Mr. Price leaned out of the wagon. + +"Bije has come over from Clovelly to spy around a little mite." + +It was evident from Mr. Price's manner that he regarded the storekeeper +as a member of the reform party. + +"What did he say, Daddy?" asked Cynthia, as Wetherell stood staring after +the flitting buggy in bewilderment. + +"I haven't the faintest idea, Cynthia," answered her father, and they +walked on. + +"Don't you know who 'Bije' is? + +"No," said her father, "and I don't care." + +It was almost criminal ignorance for a man who lived in that part of the +country not to know Bijah Bixby of Clovelly, who was paying a little +social visit to Coniston that day on his way home from the state +capital,--tending, as it were, Jethro's flock. Still, Wetherell must be +excused because he was an impractical literary man with troubles of his +own. But how shall we chronicle Bijah's rank and precedence in the +Jethro army, in which there are neither shoulder-straps nor annual +registers? To designate him as the Chamberlain of that hill Rajah, the +Honorable Heth Sutton, would not be far out of the way. The Honorable +Heth, whom we all know and whom we shall see presently, is the man of +substance and of broad acres in Clovelly: Bijah merely owns certain +mortgages in that town, but he had created the Honorable Heth +(politically) as surely as certain prime ministers we could name have +created their sovereigns. The Honorable Heth was Bijah's creation, and a +grand creation he was, as no one will doubt when they see him. + +Bijah--as he will not hesitate to tell you--took Heth down in his pocket +to the Legislature, and has more than once delivered him, in certain +blocks of five and ten, and four and twenty, for certain considerations. +The ancient Song of Sixpence applies to Bijah, but his pocket was +generally full of proxies instead of rye, and the Honorable Heth was +frequently one of the four and twenty blackbirds. In short, Bijah was +the working bee, and the Honorable Heth the ornamental drone. + +I do not know why I have dwelt so long on such a minor character as +Bijah, except that the man fascinates me. Of all the lieutenants in the +state, his manners bore the closest resemblance to those of Jethro Bass. +When he walked behind Jethro in the corridors of the Pelican, kicking up +his heels behind, he might have been taken for Jethro's shadow. He was +of a good height and size, smooth-shaven, with little eyes that kindled, +and his mouth moved not at all when he spoke: unlike Jethro, he "used" +tobacco. + +When Bijah had driven into Coniston village and hitched his wagon to the +rail, he went direct to the store. Chester Perkins and others were +watching him with various emotions from the stoop, and Bijah took a seat +in the midst of them, characteristically engaging in conversation without +the usual conventional forms of greeting, as if he had been there all +day. + +"H-how much did you git for your wool, Chester--h-how much?" + +"Guess you hain't here to talk about wool, Bije," said Chester, red with +anger. + +"Kind of neglectin' the farm lately, I hear," observed Bijah. + +"Jethro Bass sent you up to find out how much I was neglectin' it," +retorted Chester, throwing all caution to the winds. + +"Thinkin' of upsettin' Jethro, be you? Thinkin' of upsettin' Jethro?" +remarked Bije, in a genial tone. + +"Folks in Clovelly hain't got nothin' to do with it, if I am," said +Chester. + +"Leetle early for campaignin', Chester, leetle early." + +"We do our campaignin' when we're a mind to." + +Bijah looked around. + +"Well, that's funny. I could have took oath I seed Rias Richardson +here." + +There was a deep silence. + +"And Sam Price," continued Bijah, in pretended astonishment, "wahn't he +settin' on the edge of the stoop when I drove up?" + +Another silence, broken only by the enraged breathing of Chester, who was +unable to retort. Moses Hatch laughed. The discreet departure of these +gentlemen certainly had its comical side. + +"Rias as indoostrious as ever, Mose?" inquired Bijah. + +"He has his busy times," said Mose, grinning broadly. + +"See you've got the boys with their backs up, Chester," said Bijah. + +"Some of us are sick of tyranny," cried Chester; "you kin tell that to +Jethro Bass when you go back, if he's got time to listen to you buyin' +and sellin' out of railroads." + +"Hear Jethro's got the Grand Gulf Road in his pocket to do as he's a mind +to with," said Moses, with a view to drawing Bijah out. But the remark +had exactly the opposite effect, Bijah screwing up his face into an +expression of extraordinary secrecy and cunning. + +"How much did you git out of it, Bije?" demanded Chester. + +"Hain't looked through my clothes yet," said Bijah, his face screwed up +tighter than ever. "N-never look through my clothes till I git home, +Chester, it hain't safe." + +It has become painfully evident that Mr. Bixby is that rare type of man +who can sit down under the enemy's ramparts and smoke him out. It was a +rule of Jethro's code either to make an effective departure or else to +remain and compel the other man to make an ineffective departure. Lem +Hallowell might have coped with him; but the stage was late, and after +some scratching of heads and delving for effectual banter (through which +Mr. Bixby sat genial and unconcerned), Chester's followers took their +leave, each choosing his own pretext. + +In the meantime William Wetherell had entered the store by the back door +--unperceived, as he hoped. He had a vehement desire to be left in peace, +and to avoid politics and political discussions forever--vain desire for +the storekeeper of Coniston. Mr. Wetherell entered the store, and to +take his mind from his troubles, he picked up a copy of Byron: gradually +the conversation on the stoop died away, and just as he was beginning to +congratulate himself and enjoy the book, he had an unpleasant sensation +of some one approaching him measuredly. Wetherell did not move; indeed, +he felt that he could not--he was as though charmed to the spot. He +could have cried aloud, but the store was empty, and there was no one to +hear him. Mr. Bixby did not speak until he was within a foot of his +victim's ear. His voice was very nasal, too. + +"Wetherell, hain't it?" + +The victim nodded helplessly. + +"Want to see you a minute." + +"What is it?" + +"Where can we talk private?" asked Mr. Bixby, looking around. + +"There's no one here," Wetherell answered. "What do you wish to say?" + +"If the boys was to see me speakin' to you, they might git suspicious-- +you understand," he confided, his manner conveying a hint that they +shared some common policy. + +"I don't meddle with politics," said Wetherell, desperately. + +"Exactly!" answered Bijah, coming even closer. "I knowed you was a +level-headed man, moment I set eyes on you. Made up my mind I'd have a +little talk in private with you--you understand. The boys hain't got no +reason to suspicion you care anything about politics, have they?" + +"None whatever." + +"You don't pay no attention to what they say?" + +"None." + +You hear it?" + +"Sometimes I can't help it." + +"Ex'actly! You hear it." + +"I told you I couldn't help it." + +"Want you should vote right when the time comes," said Bijah. "D-don't +want to see such an intelligent man go wrong an' be sorry for it--you +understand. Chester Perkins is hare-brained. Jethro Bass runs things in +this state." + +"Mr. Bixby--" + +"You understand," said Bijah, screwing up his face. "Guess your watch is +a-comin' out." He tucked it back caressingly, and started for the door-- +the back door. Involuntarily Wetherell put his hand to his pocket, felt +something crackle under it, and drew the something out. To his amazement +it was a ten-dollar bill. + +"Here!" he cried so sharply in his fright that Mr. Bixby, turned around. +Wetherell ray after him. "Take this back!" + +"Guess you got me," said Bijah. "W-what is it?" + +"This money is yours," cried Wetherell, so loudly that Bijah started and +glanced at the front of the store. + +"Guess you made some mistake," he said, staring at the storekeeper with +such amazing innocence that he began to doubt his senses, and clutched +the bill to see if it was real. + +"But I had no money in my pocket," said Wetherell, perplexedly. And +then, gaining, indignation, "Take this to the man who sent you, and give +it back to him." + +But Bijah merely whispered caressingly in his ear, "Nobody sent me,--you +understand,--nobody sent me," and was gone. Wetherell stood for a +moment, dazed by the man's audacity, and then, hurrying to the front +stoop, the money still in his hand, he perceived Mr. Bixby in the sunlit +road walking, Jethro-fashion, toward Ephraim Prescott's harness shop. + +"Why, Daddy," said Cynthia, coming in from the garden, "where did you get +all that money? Your troubles must feel better." + +"It is not mine," said Wetherell, starting. And then, quivering with +anger and mortification, he sank down on the stoop to debate what he +should do. + +"Is it somebody else's?" asked the child, presently. + +"Yes." + +"Then why don't you give it back to them, Daddy?" + +How was Wetherell to know, in his fright, that Mr. Bixby had for once +indulged in an overabundance of zeal in Jethro's behalf? He went to the +door, laughter came to him across the green from the harness shop, and +his eye following the sound, fastened on Bijah seated comfortably in the +midst of the group there. Bitterly the storekeeper comprehended that, +had he possessed courage, he would have marched straight after Mr. Bixby +and confronted him before them all with the charge of bribery. The blood +throbbed in his temples, and yet he sat there, trembling, despising +himself, repeating that he might have had the courage if Jethro Bass had +not bought the mortgage. The fear of the man had entered the +storekeeper's soul. + +"Does it belong to that man over there?" asked Cynthia. + +"Yes." + +"I'll take it to him, Daddy," and she held out her hand. + +"Not now," Wetherell answered nervously, glancing at the group. He went +into the store, addressed an envelope to "Mr. Bijah Bixby of Clovelly," +and gave it to Cynthia. "When he comes back for his wagon, hand it to +him," he said, feeling that he would rather, at that moment, face the +devil himself than Mr. Bixby. + +Half an hour later, Cynthia gave Mr. Bixby the envelope as he unhitched +his horse; and so deftly did Bijah slip it into his pocket, that he must +certainly have misjudged its contents. None of the loungers at Ephraim's +remarked the transaction. + +If Jethro had indeed instructed Bijah to look after his flock at +Coniston, it was an ill-conditioned move, and some of the flock resented +it when they were quite sure that Bijah was climbing the notch road +toward Clovelly. The discussion (from which the storekeeper was +providentially omitted) was in full swing when the stage arrived, and Lem +Hallowell's voice silenced the uproar. It was Lem's boast that he never +had been and never would be a politician. + +"Why don't you folks quit railin' against Jethro and do somethin'?" he +said. "Bije turns up here, and you all scatter like a flock of crows. +I'm tired of makin' complaints about that Brampton road, and to-day the +hull side of it give way, and put me in the ditch. Sure as the sun rises +to-morrow, I'm goin' to make trouble for Jethro." + +"What be you a-goin' to do, Lem?" + +"Indict the town," replied Lem, vigorously. "Who is the town? Jethro, +hain't he? Who has charge of the highways? Jethro Bass, Chairman of the +Selectmen. I've spoke to him, time and agin, about that piece, and he +hain't done nothin'. To-night I go to Harwich and git the court to +app'int an agent to repair that road, and the town'll hev to pay the +bill." + +The boldness of Lem's intention for the moment took away their breaths, +and then the awe-stricken hush which followed his declaration was broken +by the sound of Chester's fist hammering on the counter. + +"That's the sperrit," he cried; "I'll go along with you, Lem." + +"No, you won't," said Lem, "you'll stay right whar you be." + +"Chester wants to git credit for the move," suggested Sam Price, slyly. + +"It's a lie, Sam Price," shouted Chester. "What made you sneak off when +Bije Bixby come?" + +"Didn't sneak off," retorted Sam, indignantly, through his nose; "forgot +them eggs I left to home." + +"Sam, said Lem, with a wink at Moses Hatch, "you hitch up your hoss and +fetch me over to Harwich to git that indictment. Might git a chance to +see that lady." + +"Wal, now, I wish I could, Lem, but my hoss is stun lame." + +There was a roar of laughter, during which Sam tried to look unconcerned. + +"Mebbe Rias'll take me over," said Lem, soberly. "You hitch up, Rias?" + +"He's gone," said Joe Northcutt, "slid out the door when you was speakin' +to Sam." + +"Hain't none of you folks got spunk enough to carry me over to see the +jedge?" demanded Lem; "my horses ain't fit to travel to-night." Another +silence followed, and Lem laughed contemptuously but good-naturedly, and +turned on his heel. "Guess I'll walk, then," he said. + +"You kin have my white hoss, Lem," said Moses Hatch. + +"All right," said Lem;" I'll come round and hitch up soon's I git my +supper." + +An hour later, when Cynthia and her father and Millicent Skinner--who +condescended to assist in the work and cooking of Mr. Wetherell's +household--were seated at supper in the little kitchen behind the store, +the head and shoulders of the stage-driver were thrust in at the window, +his face shining from its evening application of soap and water. He was +making eyes at Cynthia. + +"Want to go to Harwich, Will?" he asked. + +William set his cup down quickly. + +"You hain't afeard, be you?" he continued. "Most folks that hasn't went +West or died is afeard of Jethro Bass." + +"Daddy isn't afraid of him, and I'm not," said Cynthia. + +"That's right, Cynthy," said Lem, leaning over and giving a tug to the +pigtail that hung down her back; "there hain't nothin' to be afeard of." + +"I like him," said Cynthia; "he's very good to me." + +"You stick to him, Cynthy," said the stage driver. + +"Ready, Will?" + +It may readily be surmised that Mr. Wetherell did not particularly wish +to make this excursion, the avowed object of which was to get Mr. Bass +into trouble. But he went, and presently he found himself jogging along +on the mountain road to Harwich. From the crest of Town's End ridge they +looked upon the western peaks tossing beneath a golden sky. The spell of +the evening's beauty seemed to have fallen on them both, and for a long +time Lem spoke not a word, and nodded smilingly but absently to the +greetings that came from the farm doorways. + +"Will," he said at last, "you acted sensible. There's no mite of use of +your gettin' mixed up in politics. You're too good for 'em." + +"Too good!" exclaimed the storekeeper. + +"You're eddicated," Lem replied, with a tactful attempt to cover up a +deficiency; "you're a gentleman, ef you do keep store." + +Lemuel apparently thought that gentlemen and politics were +contradictions. He began to whistle, while Wetherell sat and wondered +that any one could be so care-free on such a mission. The day faded, and +went out, and the lights of Harwich twinkled in the valley. Wetherell +was almost tempted to mention his trouble to this man, as he had been to +Ephraim: the fear that each might think he wished to borrow money held +him back. + +"Jethro's all right," Lem remarked, "but if he neglects the road, he's +got to stand for it, same's any other. I writ him twice to the capital, +and give him fair warning afore he went. He knows I hain't doin' of it +for politics. I've often thought," Lem continued, "that ef some smart, +good woman could have got hold of him when he was young, it would have +made a big difference. What's the matter?" + +"Have you room enough?" + +"I guess I've got the hull seat," said Lem. "As I was sayin', if some +able woman had married Jethro and made him look at things a little mite +different, he would have b'en a big man. He has all the earmarks. Why, +when he comes back to Coniston, them fellers'll hunt their holes like +rabbits, mark my words." + +"You don't think--" + +"Don't think what?" + +"I understand he holds the mortgages of some of them," said Wetherell. + +"Shouldn't blame him a great deal ef he did git tired and sell Chester +out soon. This thing happens regular as leap year." + +"Jethro Bass doesn't seem to frighten you," said the storekeeper. + +"Well," said Lem, "I hain't afeard of him, that's so. For the life of +me, I can't help likin' him, though he does things that I wouldn't do for +all the power in Christendom. Here's Jedge Parkinson's house." + +Wetherell remained in the wagon while Lemuel went in to transact his +business. The judge's house, outlined in the starlight, was a modest +dwelling with a little porch and clambering vines, set back in its own +garden behind a picket fence. Presently, from the direction of the lines +of light in the shutters, came the sound of voices, Lem's deep and +insistent, and another, pitched in a high nasal key, deprecatory and +protesting. There was still another, a harsh one that growled something +unintelligible, and Wetherell guessed, from the fragments which he heard, +that the judge before sitting down to his duty was trying to dissuade the +stage driver from a step that was foolhardy. He guessed likewise that +Lem was not to be dissuaded. At length a silence followed, then the door +swung open, and three figures came down the illuminated path. + +"Like to make you acquainted with Jedge Abner Parkinson, Mr. Wetherell, +and Jim Irving. Jim's the sheriff of Truro County, and I guess the jedge +don't need any recommendation as a lawyer from me. You won't mind +stayin' awhile with the jedge while Jim and I go down town with the team? +You're both literary folks." + +Wetherell followed the judge into the house. He was sallow, tall and +spare and stooping, clean-shaven, with a hooked nose and bright eyes--the +face of an able and adroit man, and he wore the long black coat of the +politician-lawyer. The room was filled with books, and from these Judge +Parkinson immediately took his cue, probably through a fear that +Wetherell might begin on the subject of Lemuel's errand. However, it +instantly became plain that the judge was a true book lover, and despite +the fact that Lem's visit had disturbed him not a little, he soon grew +animated in a discussion on the merits of Sir Walter Scott, paced the +room, pitched his nasal voice higher and higher, covered his table with +volumes of that author to illustrate his meaning. Neither of them heard +a knock, and they both stared dumfounded at the man who filled the +doorway. + +It was Jethro Bass! + +He entered the room with characteristic unconcern, as if he had just left +it on a trivial errand, and without a "How do you do?" or a "Good +evening," parted his coat tails, and sat down in the judge's armchair. +The judge dropped the volume of Scott on the desk, and as for Wetherell, +he realized for once the full meaning of the biblical expression of a +man's tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth; the gleam of one of +Jethro's brass buttons caught his eye and held it fascinated. + +"Literary talk, Judge?" said Jethro. "D-don't mind me--go on." + +"Thought you were at the capital," said the judge, reclaiming some of his +self-possession. + +"Good many folks thought so," answered Jethro, "g-good many folks." + +There was no conceivable answer to this, so the judge sat down with an +affectation of ease. He was a man on whom dignity lay heavily, and was +not a little ruffled because Wetherell had been a witness of his +discomfiture. He leaned back in his chair, then leaned forward, +stretching his neck and clearing his throat, a position in which he bore +a ludicrous resemblance to a turkey gobbler. + +"Most through the Legislature?" inquired the judge. + +"'Bout as common," said Jethro. + +There was a long silence, and, forgetful for the moment of his own +predicament, Wetherell found a fearful fascination in watching the +contortions of the victim whose punishment was to precede his. It had +been one of the delights of Louis XI to contemplate the movements of a +certain churchman whom he had had put in a cage, and some inkling of the +pleasure to be derived from this pastime of tyrants dawned on Wetherell. +Perhaps the judge, too, thought of this as he looked at "Quentin Durward" +on the table. + +"I was just sayin' to Lem Hallowell," began the judge, at last, "that I +thought he was a little mite hasty--" + +"Er--indicted us, Judge?" said Jethro. + +The judge and Wetherell heard the question with different emotions. Mr. +Parkinson did not seem astonished at the miracle which had put Jethro in +possession of this information, but heaved a long sigh of relief, as a +man will when the worst has at length arrived. + +"I had to, Jethro--couldn't help it. I tried to get Hallowell to wait +till you come back and talk it over friendly, but he wouldn't listen; +said the road was dangerous, and that he'd spoken about it too often. He +said he hadn't anything against you." + +"Didn't come in to complain," said Jethro, "didn't come in to complain. +Road is out of repair. W-what's the next move?" + +"I'm sorry, Jethro--I swan I'm sorry." He cleared his throat. "Well," +he continued in his judicial manner, "the court has got to appoint an +agent to repair that road, the agent will present the bill, and the town +will have to pay the bill--whatever it is. It's too bad, Jethro, that +you have allowed this to be done." + +"You say you've got to app'int an agent?" + +"Yes--I'm sorry--" + +"Have you app'inted one?" + +"No." + +"G-got any candidates?" + +The judge scratched his head. + +"Well, I don't know as I have." + +"Well, have you?" + +"No," said the judge. + +"A-any legal objection to my bein' app'inted?" asked Jethro. + +The judge looked at him and gasped. But the look was an involuntary +tribute of admiration. + +"Well," he said hesitatingly, "I don't know as there is, Jethro. No, +there's no legal objection to it." + +"A-any other kind of objection?" said Jethro. + +The judge appeared to reflect. + +"Well, no," he said at last, "I don't know as there is." + +"Well, is there?" said Jethro, again. + +"No," said the judge, with the finality of a decision. A smile seemed to +be pulling at the corners of his mouth. + +"Well, I'm a candidate," said Jethro. + +"Do you tell me, Jethro, that you want me to appoint you agent to fix +that road?" + +"I-I'm a candidate." + +"Well," said the judge, rising, "I'll do it." + +"When?" said Jethro, sitting still. + +"I'll send the papers over to you within two or three days. + +"O-ought to be done right away, Judge. Road's in bad shape." + +"Well, I'll send the papers over to you to-morrow." + +"How long--would it take to make out that app'intment--how long?" + +"It wouldn't take but a little while." + +"I'll wait," said Jethro. + +"Do you want to take the appointment along with you to-night?" asked the +judge, in surprise. + +"G-guess that's about it." + +Without a word the judge went over to his table, and for a while the +silence was broken only by the scratching of his pen. + +"Er--interested in roads,--Will,--interested in roads?" + +The judge stopped writing to listen, since it was now the turn of the +other victim. + +"Not particularly," answered Mr. Wetherell, whose throat was dry. + +"C-come over for the drive--c-come over for the drive?" + +"Yes," replied the storekeeper, rather faintly. + +"H-how's Cynthy?" said Jethro. + +The storekeeper was too astonished to answer. At that moment there was a +heavy step in the doorway, and Lem Hallowell entered the room. He took +one long look at Jethro and bent over and slapped his hand on his knee, +and burst out laughing. + +"So here you be!" he cried. "By Godfrey! ef you don't beat all outdoors, +Jethro. Wal, I got ahead of ye for once, but you can't say I didn't warn +ye. Come purty nigh bustin' the stage on that road today, and now I'm a- +goin' to hev an agent app'inted." + +"W-who's the agent?" said Jethro. + +"We'll git one. Might app'int Will, there, only he don't seem to want to +get mixed up in it." + +"There's the agent," cried the judge, holding out the appointment to +Jethro. + +"Wh-what?" ejaculated Lem. + +Jethro took the appointment, and put it in his cowhide wallet. + +"Be you the agent?" demanded the amazed stage driver. + +"C-callate to be," said Jethro, and without a smile or another word to +any one he walked out into the night, and after various exclamations of +astonishment and admiration, the stage driver followed. + +No one, indeed, could have enjoyed this unexpected coup of Jethro's more +than Lem himself, and many times on their drive homeward he burst into +loud and unexpected fits of laughter at the sublime conception of the +Chairman of the Selectmen being himself appointed road agent. + +"Will," said he, "don't you tell this to a soul. We'll have some fun out +of some of the boys to-morrow." + +The storekeeper promised, but he had an unpleasant presentiment that he +himself might be one of the boys in question. + +"How do you suppose Jethro Bass knew you were going to indict the town?" +he asked of the stage driver. + +Lem burst into fresh peals of laughter; but this was something which he +did not attempt to answer. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +It so happened that there was a certain spinster whom Sam Price had been +trying to make up his mind to marry for ten years or more, and it was +that gentleman's habit to spend at least one day in the month in Harwich +for the purpose of paying his respects. In spite of the fact that his +horse had been "stun lame" the night before, Mr. Price was able to start +for Harwich, via Brampton, very early the next morning. He was driving +along through Northcutt's woods with one leg hanging over the wheel, +humming through his nose what we may suppose to have been a love-ditty, +and letting his imagination run riot about the lady in question, when he +nearly fell out of his wagon. The cause of this was the sight of fat Tom +coming around a corner, with Jethro Bass behind him. Lem Hallowell and +the storekeeper had kept their secret so well that Sam, if he was +thinking about Jethro at all, believed him at that moment to be seated in +the Throne Room at the Pelican House, in the capital. + +Mr. Price, however, was one of an adaptable nature, and by the time he +had pulled up beside Jethro he had recovered sufficiently to make a few +remarks on farming subjects, and finally to express a polite surprise at +Jethro's return. + +"But you come a little mite late, hain't you, Jethro?" he asked finally, +with all of the indifference he could assume. + +"H-how's that, Sam--how's that?" + +"It's too bad,--I swan it is,--but Lem Hallowell rode over to Harwich +last night and indicted the town for that piece of road by the Four +Corners. Took Will Wetherell along with him." + +"D-don't say so!" said Jethro. + +"I callate he done it," responded Sam, pulling a long face. "The +court'll hev to send an agent to do the job, and I guess you'll hev to +foot the bill, Jethro." + +"C-court'll hev to app'int an agent?" + +"I callate." + +"Er--you a candidate--Sam--you a candidate?" + +"Don't know but what I be," answered the usually wary Mr. Price. + +"G-goin' to Harwich--hain't you?" + +"Mebbe I be, and mebbe I hain't," said Sam, not able to repress a self- +conscious snicker. + +"M-might as well be you as anybody, Sam," said Jethro, as he drove on. + +It was not strange that the idea, thus planted, should grow in Mr. +Price's favor as he proceeded. He had been surprised at Jethro's +complaisance, and he wondered whether, after all, he had done well to +help Chester stir people up at this time. When he reached Harwich, +instead of presenting himself promptly at the spinster's house, he went +first to the office of Judge Parkinson, as became a prudent man of +affairs. + +Perhaps there is no need to go into the details of Mr. Price's +discomfiture on the occasion of this interview. The judge was by nature +of a sour disposition, but he haw-hawed so loudly as he explained to Mr. +Price the identity of the road agent that the judge of probate in the +next office thought his colleague had gone mad. Afterward Mr. Price +stood for some time in the entry, where no one could see him, scratching +his head and repeating his favorite exclamation, "I want to know!" It +has been ascertained that he omitted to pay his respects to the spinster +on that day. + +Cyamon Johnson carried the story back to Coniston, where it had the +effect of eliminating Mr. Price from local politics for some time to +come. + +That same morning Chester Perkins was seen by many driving wildly about +from farm to farm, supposedly haranguing his supporters to make a final +stand against the tyrant, but by noon it was observed by those +naturalists who were watching him that his activity had ceased. Chester +arrived at dinner time at Joe Northcutt's, whose land bordered on the +piece of road which had caused so much trouble, and Joe and half a dozen +others had been at work there all morning under the road agent whom Judge +Parkinson had appointed. Now Mrs. Northcutt was Chester's sister, a +woman who in addition to other qualities possessed the only sense of +humor in the family. She ushered the unsuspecting Chester into the +kitchen, and there, seated beside Joe and sipping a saucer of very hot +coffee, was Jethro Bass himself. Chester halted in the doorway, his face +brick-red, words utterly failing him, while Joe sat horror-stricken, +holding aloft on his fork a smoking potato. Jethro continued to sip his +coffee. + +"B-busy times, Chester," he said, "b-busy times." + +Chester choked. Where were the burning words of denunciation which came +so easily to his tongue on other occasions? It is difficult to denounce +a man who insists upon drinking coffee. + +"Set right down, Chester," said Mrs. Northcutt, behind him. + +Chester sat down, and to this day he cannot account for that action. +Once seated, habit asserted itself; and he attacked the boiled dinner +with a ferocity which should have been exercised against Jethro. + +"I suppose the stores down to the capital is finer than ever, Mr. Bass," +remarked Mrs. Northcutt. + +"So-so, Mis' Northcutt, so-so." + +"I was there ten years ago," remarked Mrs. Northcutt, with a sigh of +reminiscence, "and I never see such fine silks and bonnets in my life. +Now I've often wanted to ask you, did you buy that bonnet with the +trembly jet things for Mis' Bass?" + +"That bonnet come out full better'n I expected," answered Jethro, +modestly. + +"You have got taste in wimmin's fixin's, Mr. Bass. Strange? Now I +wouldn't let Joe choose my things for worlds." + +So the dinner progressed, Joe with his eyes on his plate, Chester silent, +but bursting with anger and resentment, until at last Jethro pushed back +his chair, and said good day to Mrs. Northcutt and walked out. Chester +got up instantly and went after him, and Joe, full of forebodings, +followed his brother-in-law! Jethro was standing calmly on the grass +plot, whittling a toothpick. Chester stared at him a moment, and then +strode off toward the barn, unhitched his horse and jumped in his wagon. +Something prompted him to take another look at Jethro, who was still +whittling. + +"C-carry me down to the road, Chester--c-carry me down to the road?" said +Jethro. + +Joe Northcutt's knees gave way under him, and he sat down on a sugar +kettle. Chester tightened up his reins so suddenly that his horse +reared, while Jethro calmly climbed into the seat beside him and they +drove off. It was some time before Joe had recovered sufficiently to +arise and repair to the scene of operations on the road. + +It was Joe who brought the astounding news to the store that evening. +Chester was Jethro's own candidate for senior Selectman! Jethro himself +had said so, that he would be happy to abdicate in Chester's favor, and +make it unanimous--Chester having been a candidate so many times, and +disappointed. + +"Whar's Chester?" said Lem Hallowell. + +Joe pulled a long face. + +"Just come from his house, and he hain't done a lick of work sence noon +time. Jest sets in a corner--won't talk, won't eat--jest sets thar." + +Lem sat down on the counter and laughed until he was forced to brush the +tears from his cheeks at the idea of Chester Perkins being Jethro's +candidate. Where was reform now? If Chester were elected, it would be +in the eyes of the world as Jethro's man. No wonder he sat in a corner +and refused to eat. + +"Guess you'll ketch it next, Will, for goin' over to Harwich with Lem," +Joe remarked playfully to the storekeeper, as he departed. + +These various occurrences certainly did not tend to allay the uneasiness +of Mr. Wetherell. The next afternoon, at a time when a slack trade was +slackest, he had taken his chair out under the apple tree and was sitting +with that same volume of Byron in his lap--but he was not reading. The +humorous aspects of the doings of Mr. Bass did not particularly appeal to +him now; and he was, in truth, beginning to hate this man whom the fates +had so persistently intruded into his life. William Wetherell was not, +it may have been gathered, what may be called vindictive. He was a +sensitive, conscientious person whose life should have been in the vale; +and yet at that moment he had a fierce desire to confront Jethro Bass +and--and destroy him. Yes, he felt equal to that. + +Shocks are not very beneficial to sensitive natures. William Wetherell +looked up, and there was Jethro Bass on the doorstep. + +"G-great resource--readin'--great resource," he remarked. + +In this manner Jethro snuffed out utterly that passion to destroy, and +another sensation took its place--a sensation which made it very +difficult for William Wetherell to speak, but he managed to reply that +reading had been a great resource to him. Jethro had a parcel in his +hand, and he laid it down on the step beside him; and he seemed, for once +in his life, to be in a mood for conversation. + +"It's hard for me to read a book," he observed. "I own to it--it's a +little mite hard. H-hev to kind of spell it out in places. Hain't had +much time for readin'. But it's kind of pleasant to l'arn what other +folks has done in the world by pickin' up a book. T-takes your mind off +things--don't it?" + +Wetherell felt like saying that his reading had not been able to do that +lately. Then he made the plunge, and shuddered as he made it. + +"Mr. Bass--I--I have been waiting to speak to you about that mortgage." + +"Er--yes," he answered, without moving his head, "er--about the +mortgage." + +"Mr. Worthington told me that you had bought it." + +"Yes, I did--yes, I did." + +"I'm afraid you will have to foreclose," said Wetherell; "I cannot +reasonably ask you to defer the payments any longer." + +"If I foreclose it, what will you do?" he demanded abruptly. + +There was but one answer--Wetherell would have to go back to the city and +face the consequences. He had not the strength to earn his bread on a +farm. + +"If I'd a b'en in any hurry for the money--g-guess I'd a notified you," +said Jethro. + +"I think you had better foreclose, Mr. Bass," Wetherell answered; "I +can't hold out any hopes to you that it will ever be possible for me to +pay it off. It's only fair to tell you that." + +"Well," he said, with what seemed a suspicion of a smile, "I don't know +but what that's about as honest an answer as I ever got." + +"Why did you do it?" Wetherell cried, suddenly goaded by another fear; +"why did you buy that mortgage?" + +But this did not shake his composure. + +"H-have a little habit of collectin' 'em," he answered, "same as you do +books. G-guess some of 'em hain't as valuable." + +William Wetherell was beginning to think that Jethro knew something also +of such refinements of cruelty as were practised by Caligula. He drew +forth his cowhide wallet and produced from it a folded piece of newspaper +which must, Wetherell felt sure, contain the mortgage in question. + +"There's one power I always wished I had," he observed, "the power to make +folks see some things as I see 'em. I was acrost the Water to-night, on +my hill farm, when the sun set, and the sky up thar above the mountain +was all golden bars, and the river all a-flamin' purple, just as if it +had been dyed by some of them Greek gods you're readin' about. Now if I +could put them things on paper, I wouldn't care a haycock to be +President. No, sir." + +The storekeeper's amazement as he listened to this speech may be +imagined. Was this Jethro Bass? If so, here was a side of him the +existence of which no one suspected. Wetherell forgot the matter in +hand. + +"Why don't you put that on paper?" he exclaimed. + +Jethro smiled, and made a deprecating motion with his thumb. + +"Sometimes when I hain't busy, I drop into the state library at the +capital and enjoy myself. It's like goin' to another world without any +folks to bother you. Er--er--there's books I'd like to talk to you +about--sometime." + +"But I thought you told me you didn't read much, Mr. Bass?" + +He made no direct reply, but unfolded the newspaper in his hand, and then +Wetherell saw that it was only a clipping. + +"H-happened to run across this in a newspaper--if this hain't this +county, I wahn't born and raised here. If it hain't Coniston Mountain +about seven o'clock of a June evening, I never saw Coniston Mountain. +Er--listen to this." + +Whereupon he read, with a feeling which Wetherell had not supposed he +possessed, an extract: and as the storekeeper listened his blood began to +run wildly. At length Jethro put down the paper without glancing at his +companion. + +"There's somethin' about that that fetches you spinnin' through the air," +he said slowly. "Sh-showed it to Jim Willard, editor of the Newcastle +Guardian. Er--what do you think he said?" + +"I don't know," said Wetherell, in a low voice. + +"Willard said, 'Bass, w-wish you'd find me that man. I'll give him five +dollars every week for a letter like that--er--five dollars a week.'" + +He paused, folded up the paper again and put it in his pocket, took out a +card and handed it to Wetherell. + + James G. Willard, Editor. + Newcastle Guardian. + +"That's his address," said Jethro. "Er--guess you'll know what to do +with it. Er--five dollars a week--five dollars a week." + +"How did you know I wrote this article?" said Wetherell, as the card +trembled between his fingers. + +"K-knowed the place was Coniston seen from the 'east, knowed there wahn't +any one is Brampton or Harwich could have done it--g-guessed the rest-- +guessed the rest." + +Wetherell could only stare at him like a man who, with the halter about +his neck, has been suddenly reprieved. But Jethro Bass did not appear to +be waiting for thanks. He cleared his throat, and had Wetherell not been +in such a condition himself, he would actually have suspected him of +embarrassment. + +"Er--Wetherell?" + +"Yes?" + +"W-won't say nothin' about the mortgage--p-pay it when you can." + +This roused the storekeeper to a burst of protest, but he stemmed it. + +"Hain't got the money, have you?" + +"No--but--" + +"If I needed money, d'ye suppose I'd bought the mortgage?" + +"No," answered the still bewildered Wetherell, "of course not." There he +stuck, that other suspicion of political coercion suddenly rising +uppermost. Could this be what the man meant? Wetherell put his hand to +his head, but he did not dare to ask the question. Then Jethro Bass +fixed his eyes upon him. + +"Hain't never mixed any in politics--hev you n-never mixed any?" + +Wetherell's heart sank. + +"No," he answered. + +"D-don't--take my advice--d-don't." + +"What!" cried the storekeeper, so loudly that he frightened himself. + +"D-don't," repeated Jethro, imperturbably. + +There was a short silence, the storekeeper being unable to speak. +Coniston Water, at the foot of the garden, sang the same song, but it +seemed to Wetherell to have changed its note from sorrow to joy. + +"H-hear things, don't you--hear things in the store?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't hear 'em. Keep out of politics, Will, s-stick to store-keepin' +and--and literature." + +Jethro got to his feet and turned his back on the storekeeper and picked +up the parcel be had brought. + +"C-Cynthy well?" he inquired. + +"I--I'll call her," said Wetherell, huskily. "She--she was down by the +brook when you came." + +But Jethro Bass did not wait. He took his parcel and strode down to +Coniston Water, and there he found Cynthia seated on a rock with her toes +in a pool. + +"How be you, Cynthy?" said he, looking down at her. + +"I'm well, Uncle Jethro," said Cynthia. + +"R-remembered what I told you to call me, hev you," said Jethro, plainly +pleased. "Th-that's right. Cynthy?" + +Cynthia looked up at him inquiringly. + +"S-said you liked books--didn't you? S-said you liked books?" + +"Yes, I do," she replied simply, "very much." + +He undid the wrapping of the parcel, and there lay disclosed a book with +a very gorgeous cover. He thrust it into the child's lap. + +"It's 'Robinson Crusoe'!" she exclaimed, and gave a little shiver of +delight that made ripples in the pool. Then she opened it--not without +awe, for William Wetherell's hooks were not clothed in this magnificent +manner. "It's full of pictures," cried Cynthia. "See, there he is +making a ship!" + +"Y-you read it, Cynthy?" asked Jethro, a little anxiously. + +No, Cynthia hadn't. + +"L-like it, Cynthy--l-like it?" said he, not quite so anxiously. + +Cynthia looked up at him with a puzzled expression. + +"F-fetched it up from the capital for you, Cynthy--for you." + +"For me!" + +A strange thrill ran through Jethro Bass as he gazed upon the wonder and +delight in the face of the child. + +"F-fetched it for you, Cynthy." + +For a moment Cynthia sat very still, and then she slowly closed the book +and stared at the cover again, Jethro looking down at her the while. To +tell the truth, she found it difficult to express the emotions which the +event had summoned up. + +"Thank you--Uncle Jethro," she said. + +Jethro, however, understood. He had, indeed, never failed to understand +her from the beginning. He parted his coat tails and sat down on the +rock beside her, and very gently opened the book again, to the first +chapter. + +"G-goin' to read it, Cynthy?" + +"Oh, yes," she said, and trembled again. + +"Er--read it to me?" + +So Cynthia read "Robinson Crusoe" to him while the summer afternoon wore +away, and the shadows across the pool grew longer and longer. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Thus William Wetherell became established in Coniston, and was started at +last--poor man--upon a life that was fairly tranquil. Lem Hallowell had +once covered him with blushes by unfolding a newspaper in the store and +reading an editorial beginning: "We publish today a new and attractive +feature of the Guardian, a weekly contribution from a correspondent whose +modesty is to be compared only with his genius as a writer. We are +confident that the readers of our Raper will appreciate the letter in +another column signed 'W. W.'" And from that day William was accorded +much of the deference due to a litterateur which the fates had hitherto +denied him. Indeed, during the six years which we are about to skip over +so lightly, he became a marked man in Coniston, and it was voted in towns +meeting that he be intrusted with that most important of literary labors, +the Town History of Coniston. + +During this period, too, there sprang up the strangest of intimacies +between him and Jethro Bass. Surely no more dissimilar men than these +have ever been friends, and that the friendship was sometimes misjudged +was one of the clouds on William Wetherell's horizon. As the years went +on he was still unable to pay off the mortgage; and sometimes, indeed, he +could not even meet the interest, in spite of the princely sum he +received from Mr. Willard of the Guardian. This was one of the clouds on +Jethro's horizon, too, if men had but known it, and he took such moneys +as Wetherell insisted upon giving him grudgingly enough. It is needless +to say that he refrained from making use of Mr. Wetherell politically, +although no poorer vessel for political purposes was ever constructed. +It is quite as needless to say, perhaps, that Chester Perkins never got +to be Chairman of the Board of Selectmen. + +After Aunt Listy died, Jethro was more than ever to be found, when in +Coniston, in the garden or the kitchen behind the store. Yes, Aunt Listy +is dead. She has flitted through these pages as she flitted through life +itself, arrayed by Jethro like the rainbow, and quite as shadowy and +unreal. There is no politician of a certain age in the state who does +not remember her walking, clad in dragon-fly colors, through the streets +of the capital on Jethro's arm, or descending the stairs of the Pelican +House to supper. None of Jethro's detractors may say that he ever failed +in kindness to her, and he loved her as much as was in his heart to love +any woman after Cynthia Ware. As for Aunt Listy, she never seemed to +feel any resentment against the child Jethro brought so frequently to +Thousand Acre Hill. Poor Aunt Listy! some people used to wonder whether +she ever felt any emotion at all. But I believe that she did, in her own +way. + +It is a well-known fact that Mr. Bijah Bixby came over from Clovelly, to +request the place of superintendent of the funeral, a position which had +already been filled. A special office, too, was created on this occasion +for an old supporter of Jethro's, Senator Peleg Hartington of Brampton. +He was made chairman of the bearers, of whom Ephraim Prescott was one. + +After this, as we have said, Jethro was more than ever at the store--or +rather in that domestic domain behind it which Wetherell and Cynthia +shared with Miss Millicent Skinner. Moses Hatch was wont to ask Cynthia +how her daddies were. It was he who used to clear out the road to the +little schoolhouse among the birches when the snow almost buried the +little village, and on sparkling mornings after the storms his oxen would +stop to breathe in front of the store, a cluster of laughing children +clinging to the snow-plough and tumbling over good-natured Moses in their +frolics. Cynthia became a country girl, and grew long and lithe of limb, +and weather-burnt, and acquired an endurance that spoke wonders for the +life-giving air of Coniston. But she was a serious child, and Wetherell +and Jethro sometimes wondered whether she was ever a child at all. When +Eben Hatch fell from the lumber pile on the ice, it was she who bound the +cut in his head; and when Tom Richardson unexpectedly embraced the +schoolhouse stove, Cynthia, not Miss Rebecca Northcutt, took charge of +the situation. + +It was perhaps inevitable, with such a helpless father, that the girl +should grow up with a sense of responsibility, being what she was. Did +William Wetherell go to Brampton, Cynthia examined his apparel, and he +was marched shamefacedly back to his room to change; did he read too late +at night, some unseen messenger summoned her out of her sleep, and he was +packed off to bed. Miss Millicent Skinner, too, was in a like mysterious +way compelled to abdicate her high place in favor of Cynthia, and +Wetherell was utterly unable to explain how this miracle was +accomplished. Not only did Millicent learn to cook, but Cynthia, at the +age of fourteen, had taught her. Some wit once suggested that the +national arms of the United States should contain the emblem of crossed +frying-pans, and Millicent was in this respect a true American. When +Wetherell began to suffer from her pies and doughnuts, the revolution +took place--without stampeding, or recriminations, or trouble of any +kind. One evening he discovered Cynthia, decked in an apron, bending +over the stove, and Millicent looking on with an expression that was (for +Millicent) benign. + +This was to some extent explained, a few days later, when Wetherell found +himself gazing across the counter at the motherly figure of Mrs. Moses +Hatch, who held the well-deserved honor of being the best cook in +Coniston. + +"Hain't had so much stomach trouble lately, Will?" she remarked. + +"No," he answered, surprised; "Cynthia is learning to cook." + +"Guess she is," said Mrs. Moses. "That gal is worth any seven grown-up +women in town. And she was four nights settin' in my kitchen before I +knowed what she was up to." + +"So you taught her, Amanda? + +"I taught her some. She callated that Milly was killin' you, and I guess +she was." + +During her school days, Jethro used frequently to find himself in front +of the schoolhouse when the children came trooping out--quite by +accident, of course. Winter or summer, when he went away on his +periodical trips, he never came back without a little remembrance in his +carpet bag, usually a book, on the subject of which he had spent hours in +conference with the librarian at the state library at the capital. But +in June of the year when Cynthia was fifteen, Jethro yielded to that +passion which was one of the man's strangest characteristics, and +appeared one evening in the garden behind the store with a bundle which +certainly did not contain a book. With all the gravity of a ceremony he +took off the paper, and held up in relief against the astonished Cynthia +a length of cardinal cloth. William Wetherell, who was looking out of +the window, drew his breath, and even Jethro drew back with an +exclamation at the change wrought in her. But Cynthia snatched the roll +from his hand and wound it up with a feminine deftness. + +"Wh-what's the matter, Cynthy?" + +"Oh, I can't wear that, Uncle Jethro," she said. + +"C-can't wear it! Why not?" + +Cynthia sat down on the grassy mound under the apple tree and clasped her +hands across her knees. She looked up at him and shook her head. + +"Don't you see that I couldn't wear it, Uncle Jethro?" + +"Why not?" he demanded. "Ch-change it if you've a mind to hev green." + +She shook her head, and smiled at him a little sadly. + +"T-took me a full hour to choose that, Cynthy," said he. "H-had to go to +Boston so I got it there." + +He was, indeed, grievously disappointed at this reception of his gift, +and he stood eying the cardinal cloth very mournfully as it lay on the +paper. Cynthia, remorseful, reached up and seized his hand. + +"Sit down here, Uncle Jethro." He sat down on the mound beside her, very +much perplexed. She still held his hand in hers. "Uncle Jethro," she +said slowly, "you mustn't think I'm not grateful." + +"N-no," he answered; "I don't think that, Cynthy. I know you be." + +"I am grateful--I'm very grateful for everything you give me, although I +should love you just as much if you didn't give me anything." + +She was striving very hard not to offend him, for in some ways he was as +sensitive as Wetherell himself. Even Coniston folk had laughed at the +idiosyncrasy which Jethro had of dressing his wife in brilliant colors, +and the girl knew this. + +"G-got it for you to wear to Brampton on the Fourth of July, Cynthy," he +said. + +"Uncle Jethro, I couldn't wear that to Brampton!" + +"You'd look like a queen," said he. + +"But I'm not a queen," objected Cynthia. + +"Rather hev somethin' else?" + +"Yes," she said, looking at him suddenly with the gleam of laughter in +her eyes, although she was on the verge of tears. + +"Wh-what?" Jethro demanded. + +"Well," said Cynthia, demurely gazing down at her ankles, "shoes and +stockings." The barefooted days had long gone by. + +Jethro laughed. Perhaps some inkling of her reasons came to him, for he +had a strange and intuitive understanding of her. At any rate, he +accepted her decision with a meekness which would have astonished many +people who knew only that side of him which he showed to the world. +Gently she released her hand, and folded up the bundle again and gave it +to him. + +"B-better keep it--hadn't you?" + +"No, you keep it. And I will wear it for you when I am rich, Uncle +Jethro." + +Jethro did keep it, and in due time the cardinal cloth had its uses. But +Cynthia did not wear it on the Fourth of July. + +That was a great day for Brampton, being not only the nation's birthday, +but the hundredth year since the adventurous little band of settlers from +Connecticut had first gazed upon Coniston Water at that place. Early in +the morning wagon loads began to pour into Brampton Street from Harwich, +from Coniston, from Tarleton Four Corners, and even from distant +Clovelly, and Brampton was banner-hung for the occasion--flags across the +stores, across the dwellings, and draped along the whole breadth of the +meeting-house; but for sheer splendor the newly built mansion of Isaac D. +Worthington outshone them all. Although its owner was a professed +believer in republican simplicity, no such edifice ornamented any town to +the west of the state capital. Small wonder that the way in front of it +was blocked by a crowd lost in admiration of its Gothic proportions! It +stands to-day one of many monuments to its builder, with its windows of +one pane (unheard-of magnificence), its tower of stone, its porch with +pointed arches and scroll-work. No fence divides its grounds from the +public walk, and on the smooth-shaven lawn between the ornamental flower +beds and the walk stand two stern mastiffs of iron, emblematic of the +solidity and power of their owner. It was as much to see this house as +to hear the oratory that the countryside flocked to Brampton that day. + +All the day before Cynthia and Milly, and many another housewife, had +been making wonderful things for the dinners they were to bring, and +stowing them in the great basket ready for the early morning start. At +six o'clock Jethro's three-seated farm wagon was in front of the store. +Cousin Ephraim Prescott, in a blue suit and an army felt hat with a cord, +got up behind, a little stiffly by reason of that Wilderness bullet; and +there were also William Wetherell and Lem Hallowell, his honest face +shining, and Sue, his wife, and young Sue and Jock and Lilian, all a- +quiver with excitement in their Sunday best. + +And as they drove away there trotted up behind them Moses and Amandy +Hatch, with their farm team, and all the little Hatches,--Eben and George +and Judy and Liza. As they jogged along they drank in the fragrance of +the dew-washed meadows and the pines, and a great blue heron stood knee- +deep on the far side of Deacon Lysander's old mill-pond, watching them +philosophically as they passed. + +It was eight o'clock when they got into the press of Brampton Street, and +there was a hush as they made their way slowly through the throng, and +many a stare at the curious figure in the old-fashioned blue swallowtail +and brass buttons and tall hat, driving the farm wagon. Husbands pointed +him out to their wives, young men to sisters and sweethearts, some +openly, some discreetly. "There goes Jethro Bass," and some were bold +enough to say, "Howdy, Jethro?" Jake Wheeler was to be observed in the +crowd ahead of them, hurried for once out of his Jethro step, actually +running toward the tavern, lest such a one arrive unheralded. Commotion +is perceived on the tavern porch,--Mr. Sherman, the proprietor, bustling +out, Jake Wheeler beside him; a chorus of "How be you, Jethros?" from the +more courageous there,--but the farm team jogs on, leaving a discomfited +gathering, into the side street, up an alley, and into the cool, ammonia- +reeking sheds of lank Jim Sanborn's livery stable. No obsequiousness +from lank Jim, who has the traces slipped and the reins festooned from +the bits almost before Jethro has lifted Cynthia to the floor. Jethro, +walking between Cynthia and her father, led the way, Ephraim, Lem, and +Sue Hallowell following, the children, in unwonted shoes and stockings, +bringing up the rear. The people parted, and presently they found +themselves opposite the new-scrolled band stand among the trees, where +the Harwich band in glittering gold and red had just been installed. The +leader; catching sight of Jethro's party, and of Ephraim's corded army +hat, made a bow, waved his baton, and they struck up "Marching through +Georgia." It was, of course, not dignified to cheer, but I think that +the blood of every man and woman and child ran faster with the music, and +so many of them looked at Cousin Ephraim that he slipped away behind the +line of wagons. So the day began. + +"Jest to think of bein' that rich, Will!" exclaimed Amanda Hatch to the +storekeeper, as they stood in the little group which had gathered in +front of the first citizen's new mansion. "I own it scares me. Think +how much that house must hev cost, and even them dogs," said Amanda, +staring at the mastiffs with awe. "They tell me he has a grand piano +from New York, and guests from Boston railroad presidents. I call Isaac +Worthington to mind when he wahn't but a slip of a boy with a cough, +runnin' after Cynthy Ware." She glanced down at Cynthia with something +of compassion. "Just to think, child, he might have be'n your father!" + +"I'm glad he isn't," said Cynthia, hotly. + +"Of course, of course," replied the good-natured and well-intentioned +Amanda, "I'd sooner have your father than Isaac Worthington. But I was +only thinkin' how nice it would be to be rich." + +Just then one of the glass-panelled doors of this house opened, and a +good-looking lad of seventeen came out. + +"That's Bob Worthington," said Amanda, determined that they should miss +nothing. "My! it wahn't but the other day when he put on long pants. It +won't be a great while before he'll go into the mills and git all that +money. Guess he'll marry some city person. He'd ought to take you, +Cynthy." + +"I don't want him," said Cynthia, the color flaming into her cheeks. And +she went off across the green in search of Jethro. + +There was a laugh from the honest country folk who had listened. Bob +Worthington came to the edge of the porch and stood there, frankly +scanning the crowd, with an entire lack of self-consciousness. Some of +them shifted nervously, with the New Englander's dislike of being caught +in the act of sight-seeing. + +"What in the world is he starin' at me for?" said Amanda, backing behind +the bulkier form of her husband. "As I live, I believe he's comin' +here." + +Young Mr. Worthington was, indeed, descending the steps and walking +across the lawn toward them, nodding and smiling to acquaintances as he +passed. To Wetherell's astonishment he made directly for the place where +he was standing and held out his hand. + +"How do you do, Mr. Wetherell?" he said. "Perhaps you don't remember +me,--Bob Worthington." + +I can't say that I should have known you," answered the storekeeper. +They were all absurdly silent, thinking of nothing to say and admiring +the boy because he was at ease. + +"I hope you have a good seat at the exercises," he said, pressing +Wetherell's hand again, and before he could thank him, Bob was off in the +direction of the band stand. + +"One thing," remarked Amanda, "he ain't much like his dad. You'd never +catch Isaac Worthington bein' that common." + +Just then there came another interruption for William Wetherell, who was +startled by the sound of a voice in his ear--a nasal voice that awoke +unpleasant recollections. He turned to confront, within the distance of +eight inches, the face of Mr. Bijah Bixby of Clovelly screwed up into a +greeting. The storekeeper had met Mr. Bixby several times since that +first memorable meeting, and on each occasion, as now, his hand had made +an involuntary movement to his watch pocket. + +"Hain't seed you for some time, Will," remarked Mr. Bixby; "goin' over to +the exercises? We'll move along that way," and he thrust his hand under +Mr. Wetherell's elbow. "Whar's Jethro?" + +"He's here somewhere," answered the storekeeper, helplessly, moving along +in spite of himself. + +"Keepin' out of sight, you understand," said Bijah, with a knowing wink, +as much as to say that Mr. Wetherell was by this time a past master in +Jethro tactics. Mr. Bixby could never disabuse his mind of a certain +interpretation which he put on the storekeeper's intimacy with Jethro. +"You done well to git in with him, Will. Didn't think you had it in you +when I first looked you over." + +Mr. Wetherell wished to make an indignant denial, but he didn't know +exactly how to begin. + +"Smartest man in the United States of America--guess you know that," Mr. +Bixby continued amiably. "They can't git at him unless he wants 'em to. +There's a railroad president at Isaac Worthington's who'd like to git at +him to-day,--guess you know that,--Steve Merrill." + +Mr. Wetherell didn't know, but he was given no time to say so. + +"Steve Merrill, of the Grand Gulf and Northern. He hain't here to see +Worthington; he's here to see Jethro, when Jethro's a mind to. Guess you +understand." + +"I know nothing about it," answered Wetherell, shortly. Mr. Bixby gave +him a look of infinite admiration, as though he could not have pursued +any more admirable line. + +"I know Steve Merrill better'n I know you," said Mr. Bixby, "and he knows +me. Whenever he sees me at the state capital he says, 'How be you, +Bije?' just as natural as if I was a railroad president, and slaps me on +the back. When be you goin' to the capital, Will? You'd ought to come +down and be thar with the boys on this Truro Bill. You could reach some +on 'em the rest of us couldn't git at." + +William Wetherell avoided a reply to this very pointed inquiry by +escaping into the meeting-house, where he found Jethro and Cynthia and +Ephraim already seated halfway up the aisle. + +On the platform, behind a bank of flowers, are the velvet covered chairs +which contain the dignitaries of the occasion. The chief of these is, of +course, Mr. Isaac Worthington, the one with the hawk-like look, sitting +next to the Rev. Mr. Sweet, who is rather pudgy by contrast. On the +other side of Mr. Sweet, next to the parlor organ and the quartette, is +the genial little railroad president Mr. Merrill, batting the flies which +assail the unprotected crown of his head, and smiling benignly on the +audience. + +Suddenly his eye becomes fixed, and he waves a fat hand vigorously at +Jethro, who answers the salute with a nod of unwonted cordiality for him. +Then comes a hush, and the exercises begin. + +There is a prayer, of course, by the Rev. Mr. Sweet, and a rendering of +"My Country" and "I would not Change my Lot," and other choice selections +by the quartette; and an original poem recited with much feeling by a +lady admirer of Miss Lucretia Penniman, and the "Hymn to Coniston" +declaimed by Mr. Gamaliel Ives, president of the Brampton Literary Club. +But the crowning event is, of course, the oration by Mr. Isaac D. +Worthington, the first citizen, who is introduced under that title by the +chairman of the day; and as the benefactor of Brampton, who has bestowed +upon the town the magnificent gift which was dedicated such a short time +ago, the Worthington Free Library. + +Mr. Isaac D. Worthington stood erect beside the table, his hand thrust +into the opening of his coat, and spoke at the rate of one hundred and +eight words a minute, for exactly one hour. He sketched with much skill +the creed of the men who had fought their way through the forests to +build their homes by Coniston Water, who had left their clearings to risk +their lives behind Stark and Ethan Allen for that creed; he paid a +graceful tribute to the veterans of the Civil War, scattered among his +hearers--a tribute, by the way, which for some reason made Ephraim very +indignant. Mr. Worthington went on to outline the duty of citizens of +the present day, as he conceived it, and in this connection referred, +with becoming modesty, to the Worthington Free Library. He had made his +money in Brampton, and it was but right that he should spend it for the +benefit of the people of Brampton. The library, continued Mr. +Worthington when the applause was over, had been the dream of a certain +delicate youth who had come, many years ago, to Brampton for his health. +(It is a curious fact, by the way, that Mr. Worthington seldom recalled +the delicate youth now, except upon public occasions.) + +Yes, the dream of that youth had been to benefit in some way that +community in which circumstances had decreed that he should live, and in +this connection it might not be out of place to mention a bill then +before the Legislature of the state, now in session. If the bill became +a law, the greatest modern factor of prosperity, the railroad, would come +to Brampton. The speaker was interrupted here by more applause. Mr. +Worthington did not deem it dignified or necessary to state that the +railroad to which he referred was the Truro Railroad; and that he, as the +largest stockholder, might indirectly share that prosperity with +Brampton. That would be wandering too far, from his subject, which, it +will be recalled, was civic duties. He took a glass of water, and went +on to declare that he feared--sadly feared--that the ballot was not held +as sacred as it had once been. He asked the people of Brampton, and of +the state, to stop and consider who in these days made the laws and +granted the franchises. Whereupon he shook his head very slowly and +sadly, as much as to imply that, if the Truro Bill did not pass, the +corruption of the ballot was to blame. No, Mr. Worthington could think +of no better subject on this Birthday of Independence than a +recapitulation of the creed of our forefathers, from which we had so far +wandered. + +In short, the first citizen, as became him, had delivered the first +reform speech ever heard in Brampton, and the sensation which it created +was quite commensurate to the occasion. The presence in the audience of +Jethro Bass, at whom many believed the remarks to have been aimed, added +no little poignancy to that sensation, although Jethro gave no outward +signs of the terror and remorse by which he must have been struck while +listening to Mr. Worthington's ruminations of the corruption of the +ballot. Apparently unconscious of the eyes upon him, he walked out of +the meeting-house with Cynthia by his side, and they stood waiting for +Wetherell and Ephraim under the maple tree there. + +The be-ribboned members of the Independence Day committee were now on the +steps, and behind them came Isaac Worthington and Mr. Merrill. The +people, scenting a dramatic situation, lingered. Would the mill owner +speak to the boss? The mill owner, with a glance at the boss, did +nothing of the kind, but immediately began to talk rapidly to Mr. +Merrill. That gentleman, however, would not be talked to, but came +running over to Jethro and seized his hand, leaving Mr. Worthington to +walk on by himself. + +"Jethro," cried the little railroad president, "upon my word. Well, +well. And Miss Jethro," he took off his hat to Cynthia, "well, well. +Didn't know you had a girl, Jethro." + +"W-wish she was mine, Steve," said Jethro. "She's a good deal to me as +it is. Hain't you, Cynthy?" + +"Yes," said Cynthia. + +"Well, well," said Mr. Merrill, staring at her, "you'll have to look out +for her some day--keep the boys away from her--eh? Upon my word! Well, +Jethro," said he, with a twinkle in his eye, "are you goin' to reform? +I'll bet you've got an annual over my road in your pocket right now." + +"Enjoy the speech-makin', Steve?" inquired Mr. Bass, solemnly. + +Mr. Merrill winked at Jethro, and laughed heartily. + +"Keep the boys away from her, Jethro," he repeated, laying his hand on +the shoulder of the lad who stood beside him. "It's a good thing Bob's +going off to Harvard this fall. Seems to me I heard about some cutting +up at Andover--eh, Bob?" + +Bob grinned, showing a line of very white teeth. + +Mr. Merrill took Jethro by the arm and led him off a little distance, +having a message of some importance to give him, the purport of which +will appear later. And Cynthia and Bob were left face to face. Of +course Bob could have gone on, if he had wished it. + +"Don't remember me, do you?" he said. + +"I do now," said Cynthia, looking at him rather timidly through her +lashes. Her face was hot, and she had been, very uncomfortable during +Mr. Merrill's remarks. Furthermore, Bob had not taken his eyes off her. + +"I remembered you right away," he said reproachfully; "I saw you in front +of the house this morning, and you ran away." + +"I didn't runaway," replied Cynthia, indignantly. + +"It looked like it, to me," said Bob.. "I suppose you were afraid I was +going to give you anther whistle." + +Cynthia bit her lip, and then she laughed. Then she looked around to see +where Jethro was, and discovered that they were alone in front of the +meeting-house. Ephraim and her father had passed on while Mr. Merrill +was talking. + +"What's the matter?" asked Bob. + +"I'm afraid they've gone," said Cynthia. "I ought to be going after +them. They'll miss me." + +"Oh, no, they won't," said Bob, easily, "let's sit down under the tree. +They'll come back." + +Whereupon he sat down under the maple. But Cynthia remained standing, +ready to fly. She had an idea that it was wrong to stay--which made it +all the more delightful. + +"Sit down--Cynthia," said he. + +She glanced down at him, startled. He was sitting, with his legs +crossed, looking up at her intently. + +"I like that name," he observed. "I like it better than any girl's name +I know. Do be good-natured and sit down." And he patted the ground +close beside him. + +Shy laughed again. The laugh had in it an exquisite note of shyness, +which he liked. + +"Why do you want me to sit down?" she asked suddenly. + +"Because I want to talk to you." + +"Can't you talk to me standing up?" + +"I suppose I could," said Bob, "but--I shouldn't be able to say such nice +things to you." + +The corners of her mouth trembled a little. + +"And whose loss would that be?" she asked. + +Bob Worthington was surprised at this retort, and correspondingly +delighted. He had not expected it in a country storekeeper's daughter, +and he stared at Cynthia so frankly that she blushed again, and turned +away. He was a young man who, it may be surmised, had had some +experience with the other sex at Andover and elsewhere. He had not spent +all of his life in Brampton. + +"I've often thought of you since that day when you wouldn't take the +whistle," he declared. "What are you laughing at?" + +"I'm laughing at you," said Cynthia, leaning against the tree, with her +hands behind her. + +"You've been laughing at me ever since you've stood there," he said, +aggrieved that his declarations should not betaken more seriously. + +"What have you thought about me?" she demanded. She was really beginning +to enjoy this episode. + +"Well--" he began, and hesitated--and broke down and laughed--Cynthia +laughed with him. + +"I can tell you what I didn't think," said Bob. + +"What?" asked Cynthia, falling into the trap. + +"I didn't think you'd be so--so good-looking," said he, quite boldly. + +"And I didn't think you'd be so rude," responded Cynthia. But though she +blushed again, she was not exactly displeased. + +"What are you going to do this afternoon?" he asked. "Let's go for a +walk." + +"I'm going back to Coniston." + +"Let's go for a walk now," said he, springing to his feet. "Come on." + +Cynthia looked at him and shook her head smilingly. + +"Here's Uncle Jethro--" + +"Uncle Jethro!" exclaimed Bob, "is he your uncle?" + +"Oh, no, not really. But he's just the same. He's very good to me." + +"I wonder whether he'd mind if I called him Uncle Jethro, too," said Bob, +and Cynthia laughed at the notion. This young man was certainly very +comical, and very frank. "Good-by," he said; "I'll come to see you some +day in Coniston." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +That evening, after Cynthia had gone to bed, William Wetherell sat down +at Jonah Winch's desk in the rear of the store to gaze at a blank sheet +of paper until the Muses chose to send him subject matter for his weekly +letter to the Guardian. The window was open, and the cool airs from the +mountain spruces mingled with the odors of corn meal and kerosene and +calico print. Jethro Bass, who had supped with the storekeeper, sat in +the wooden armchair silent, with his head bent. Sometimes he would sit +there by the hour while Wetherell wrote or read, and take his departure +when he was so moved without saying good night. Presently Jethro lifted +his chin, and dropped it again; there was a sound of wheels without, and, +after an interval, a knock at the door. + +William Wetherell dropped his pen with a start of surprise, as it was +late for a visitor in Coniston. He glanced at Jethro, who did not move, +and then he went to the door and shot back the great forged bolt of it, +and stared out. On the edge of the porch stood a tallish man in a +double-breasted frock coat. + +"Mr. Worthington!" exclaimed the storekeeper. + +Mr. Worthington coughed and pulled at one of his mutton-chop whiskers, +and seemed about to step off the porch again. It was, indeed, the first +citizen and reformer of Brampton. No wonder William Wetherell was +mystified. + +"Can I do anything for you?" he asked. "Have you missed your way?" + +Wetherell thought he heard him muttering, "No, no," and then he was +startled by another voice in his ear. It was Jethro who was standing +beside him. + +"G-guess he hain't missed his way a great deal. Er--come in--come in." + +Mr. Worthington took a couple of steps forward. + +"I understood that you were to be alone," he remarked, addressing Jethro +with an attempted severity of manner. + +"Didn't say so--d-didn't say so, did I?" answered Jethro. + +"Very well," said Mr. Worthington, "any other time will do for this +little matter." + +"Er--good night," said Jethro, shortly, and there was the suspicion of a +gleam in his eye as Mr. Worthington turned away. The mill-owner, in +fact, did not get any farther than the edge of the porch before he +wheeled again. + +"The affair which I have to discuss with you is of a private nature, Mr. +Bass," he said. + +"So I callated," said Jethro. + +"You may have the place to yourselves, gentlemen," Wetherell put in +uneasily, and then Mr. Worthington came as far as the door, where he +stood looking at the storekeeper with scant friendliness. Jethro turned +to Wetherell. + +"You a politician, Will?" he demanded. + +"No," said Wetherell. + +"You a business man?" + +"No," he said again. + +"You ever tell folks what you hear other people say?" + +"Certainly not," the storekeeper answered; "I'm not interested in other +people's business." + +"Exactly," said Jethro. "Guess you'd better stay." + +"But I don't care to stay," Wetherell objected. + +"Stay to oblige me--stay to oblige me?" he asked. + +"Well, yes, if you put it that way," Wetherell said, beginning to get +some amusement out of the situation. + +He did not know what Jethro's object was in this matter; perhaps others +may guess. + +Mr. Worthington, who had stood by with ill-disguised impatience during +this colloquy, note broke in. + +"It is most unusual, Mr. Bass, to have a third person present at a +conference in which he has no manner of concern. I think on the whole, +since you have insisted upon my coming to you--" + +"H-hain't insisted that I know of," said Jethro. + +"Well," said Mr. Worthington, "never mind that. + +"Perhaps it would be better for me to come to you some other time, when +you are alone." + +In the meantime Wetherell had shut the door, and they had gradually +walked to the rear of the store. Jethro parted his coat tails, and sat +down again in the armchair. Wetherell, not wishing to be intrusive, went +to his desk again, leaving the first citizen standing among the barrels. + +"W-what other time?" Jethro asked. + +"Any other time," said Mr. Worthington. + +"What other time?" + +"To-morrow night?" suggested Mr. Worthington, striving to hide his +annoyance. + +"B-busy to-morrow night," said Jethro. + +"You know that what I have to talk to you about is of the utmost +importance," said Worthington. "Let us say Saturday night." + +"B-busy Saturday night," said Jethro. "Meet you to-morrow." + +"What time?" + +"Noon," said Jethro, "noon." + +"Where?" asked Mr. Worthington, dubiously. + +"Band stand in Brampton Street," said Jethro, and the storekeeper was +fain to bend over his desk to conceal his laughter, busying himself with +his books. Mr. Worthington sat down with as much dignity as he could +muster on one of Jonah's old chairs, and Jonah Winch's clock ticked and +ticked, and Wetherell's pen scratched and scratched on his weekly letter +to Mr. Willard, although he knew that he was writing the sheerest +nonsense. As a matter of fact, he tore up the sheets the next morning +without reading them. Mr. Worthington unbuttoned his coat, fumbled in +his pocket, and pulled out two cigars, one of which he pushed toward +Jethro, who shook his head. Mr. Worthington lighted his cigar and +cleared his throat. + +"Perhaps you have observed, Mr. Bass," he said, "that this is a rapidly +growing section of the state--that the people hereabouts are every day +demanding modern and efficient means of communication with the outside +world." + +"Struck you as a mill owner, has it?" said Jethro. + +"I do not care to emphasize my private interests," answered Mr. +Worthington, at last appearing to get into his stride again. "I wish to +put the matter on broader grounds. Men like you and me ought not to be +so much concerned with our own affairs as with those of the population +amongst whom we live. And I think I am justified in putting it to you on +these grounds." + +"H-have to be justified, do you--have to be justified?" Jethro inquired. +"Er--why?" + +This was a poser, and for a moment he stared at Jethro, blankly, until he +decided how to take it. Then he crossed his legs and blew smoke toward +the ceiling. + +"It is certainly fairer to everybody to take the broadest view of a +situation," he remarked; "I am trying to regard this from the aspect of a +citizen, and I am quite sure that it will appeal to you in the same +light. If the spirit which imbued the founders of this nation means +anything, Mr. Bass, it means that the able men who are given a chance to +rise by their own efforts must still retain the duties and +responsibilities of the humblest citizens. That, I take it, is our +position, Mr. Bass,--yours and mine." + +Mr. Worthington had uncrossed his legs, and was now by the inspiration of +his words impelled to an upright position. Suddenly he glanced at +Jethro, and started for Jethro had sunk down on the small of his back, +his chin on his chest, in an attitude of lassitude if not of oblivion. +There was a silence perhaps a little disconcerting for Mr. Worthington, +who chose the opportunity to relight his cigar. + +"G-got through?" said Jethro, without moving, "g-got through?" + +"Through?" echoed Mr. Worthington, "through what?" + +"T-through Sunday-school," said Jethro. + +Worthington dropped his match and stamped on it, and Wetherell began to +wonder how much the man would stand. It suddenly came over the +storekeeper that the predicament in which Mr. Worthington found himself +whatever it was--must be a very desperate one. He half rose in his +chair, sat down again, and lighted another match. + +"Er--director in the Truro Road, hain't you, Mr. Worthington?" asked +Jethro, without looking at him. + +"Yes." + +"Er--principal stockholder--ain't you?" + +"Yes--but that is neither here nor there, sir." + +"Road don't pay--r-road don't pay, does it?" + +"It certainly does not." + +"W-would pay if it went to Brampton and Harwich?" + +"Mr. Bass, the company consider that they are pledged to the people of +this section to get the road through. I am not prepared to say whether +the road would pay, but it is quite likely that it would not." + +"Ch-charitable organization?" said Jethro, from the depths of his chair. + +"The pioneers in such matters take enormous risks for the benefit of the +community, sir. We believe that we are entitled to a franchise, and in +my opinion the General Court are behaving disgracefully in refusing us +one. I will not say all I think about that affair, Mr. Bass. I am +convinced that influences are at work--" He broke off with a catch in his +throat. + +"T-tried to get a franchise, did you?" + +"I am not here to quibble with you, Mr. Bass. We tried to get it by +every legitimate means, and failed, and you know it as well as I do." + +"Er--Heth Sutton didn't sign his receipt--er--did he?" + +The storekeeper, not being a politician, was not aware that the somewhat +obscure reference of Jethro's to the Speaker of the House concerned an +application which Mr. Worthington was supposed to have made to that +gentleman, who had at length acknowledged his inability to oblige, and +had advised Mr. Worthington to go to headquarters. And Mr. Stephen +Merrill, who had come to Brampton out of the kindness of his heart, had +only arranged this meeting in a conversation with Jethro that day, after +the reform speech. + +Mr. Worthington sprang to his feet, and flung out a hand toward Jethro. + +"Prove your insinuations, air," he cried; "I defy you to prove your +insinuations." + +But Jethro still sat unmoved. + +"H-Heth in the charitable organization, too?" he asked. + +"People told me I was a fool to believe in honesty, but I thought better +of the lawmakers of my state. I'll tell you plainly what they said to +me, sir. They said, 'Go to Jethro Bass.'" + +"Well, so you have, hain't you? So you have." + +"Yes, I have. I've come to appeal to you in behalf of the people of your +section to allow that franchise to go through the present Legislature." + +"Er--come to appeal, have you--come to appeal?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Worthington, sitting down again; "I have come to-night to +appeal to you in the name of the farmers and merchants of this region-- +your neighbors,--to use your influence to get that franchise. I have +come to you with the conviction that I shall not have appealed in vain." + +"Er--appealed to Heth in the name of the farmers and merchants?" + +"Mr. Sutton is Speaker of the House." + +"F-farmers and merchants elected him," remarked Jethro, as though stating +a fact. + +Worthington coughed. + +"It is probable that I made a mistake in going to Sutton," he admitted. + +"If I w-wanted to catch a pike, w-wouldn't use a pin-hook." + +"I might have known," remarked Worthington, after a pause, "that Sutton +could not have been elected Speaker without your influence." + +Jethro did not answer that, but still remained sunk in his chair. To all +appearances he might have been asleep. + +"W-worth somethin' to the farmers and merchants to get that road through- +-w-worth somethin', ain't it?" + +Wetherell held his breath. For a moment Mr. Worthington sat very still, +his face drawn, and then he wet his lips and rose slowly. + +"We may as well end this conversation, Mr. Bass," he said, and though he +tried to speak firmly his voice shook, "it seems to be useless. Good +night." + +He picked up his hat and walked slowly toward the door, but Jethro did +not move or speak. Mr. Worthington reached the door opened it, and the +night breeze started the lamp to smoking. Wetherell got up and turned it +down, and the first citizen was still standing in the doorway. His back +was toward them, but the fingers of his left hand--working convulsively +caught Wetherell's eye and held it; save for the ticking of the clock and +the chirping of the crickets in the grass, there was silence. Then Mr. +Worthington closed the door softly, hesitated, turned, and came back and +stood before Jethro. + +"Mr. Bass," he said," we've got to have that franchise." + +William Wetherell glanced at the countryman who, without moving in his +chair, without raising his voice, had brought the first citizen of +Brampton to his knees. The thing frightened the storekeeper, revolted +him, and yet its drama held him fascinated. By some subtle process which +he had actually beheld, but could not fathom, this cold Mr. Worthington, +this bank president who had given him sage advice, this preacher of +political purity, had been reduced to a frenzied supplicant. He stood +bending over Jethro. + +"What's your price? Name it, for God's sake." + +"B-better wait till you get the bill--hadn't you? b-better wait till you +get the bill." + +"Will you put the franchise through?" + +"Goin' down to the capital soon?" Jethro inquired. + +"I'm going down on Thursday." + +"B-better come in and see me," said Jethro. + +"Very well," answered Mr. Worthington; "I'll be in at two o'clock on +Thursday." And then, without another word to either of them, he swung on +his heel and strode quickly out of the store. Jethro did not move. + +William Wetherell's hand was trembling so that he could not write, and he +could not trust his voice to speak. Although Jethro had never mentioned +Isaac Worthington's name to him, Wetherell knew that Jethro hated the +first citizen of Brampton. + +At length, when the sound of the wheels had died away, Jethro broke the +silence. + +"Er--didn't laugh--did he, Will? Didn't laugh once--did he?" + +"Laugh!" echoed the storekeeper, who himself had never been further from +laughter in his life. + +"M-might have let him off easier if he'd laughed," said Jethro, "if he'd +laughed just once, m-might have let him off easier." + +And with this remark he went out of the store and left Wetherell alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The weekly letter to the Newcastle Guardian was not finished that night, +but Coniston slept, peacefully, unaware of Mr. Worthington's visit; and +never, indeed, discovered it, since the historian for various reasons of +his own did not see fit to insert the event in his plan of the Town +History. Before another sun had set Jethro Bass had departed for the +state capital, not choosing to remain to superintend the haying of the +many farms which had fallen into his hand,--a most unusual omission for +him. + +Presently rumors of a mighty issue about the Truro Railroad began to be +discussed by the politicians at the Coniston store, and Jake Wheeler held +himself in instant readiness to answer a summons to the capital--which +never came. + +Delegations from Brampton and Harwich went to petition the Legislature +for the franchise, and the Brampton Clarion and Harwich Sentinel declared +that the people of Truro County recognized in Isaac Worthington a great +and public-spirited man, who ought by all means to be the next governor-- +if the franchise went through. + +One evening Lem Hallowell, after depositing a box of trimmings at Ephraim +Prescott's harness shop, drove up to the platform of the store with the +remark that "things were gittin' pretty hot down to the capital in that +franchise fight." + +"Hain't you b'en sent for yet, Jake?" he cried, throwing his reins over +the backs of his sweating Morgans; "well, that's strange. Guess the +fight hain't as hot as we hear about. Jethro hain't had to call out his +best men." + +"I'm a-goin' down if there's trouble," declared Jake, who consistently +ignored banter. + +"Better git up and git," said Lem; "there's three out of the five +railroads against Truro, and Steve Merrill layin' low. Bije Bixby's down +there, and Heth Sutton, and Abner Parkinson, and all the big bugs. +Better get aboard, Jake." + +At this moment the discussion was interrupted by the sight of Cynthia +Wetherell coming across the green with an open letter in her hand. + +"It's a message from Uncle Jethro," she said. + +The announcement was sufficient to warrant the sensation it produced on +all sides. + +"'Tain't a letter from Jethro, is it?" exclaimed Sam Price, overcome by a +pardonable curiosity. For it was well known that one of Jethro's fixed +principles in life was embodied in his own motto, "Don't write--send." + +"It's very funny," answered Cynthia, looking down at the paper with a +puzzled expression. "'Dear Cynthia: Judge Bass wished me to say to you +that he would be pleased if you and Will would come to the capital and +spend a week with him at the Pelican House, and see the sights. The +judge says Rias Richardson will tend store. Yours truly, P. Hartington.' +That's all," said Cynthia, looking up. + +For a moment you could have heard a pine needle drop on the stoop. Then +Rias thrust his hands in his pockets and voiced the general sentiment. + +"Well, I'll be--goldurned!" said he. + +"Didn't say nothin' about Jake?" queried Lem. + +"No," answered Cynthia, "that's all--except two pieces of cardboard with +something about the Truro Railroad and our names. I don't know what they +are." And she took them from the envelope. + +"Guess I could tell you if I was pressed," said Lem, amid a shout of +merriment from the group. + +"Air you goin', Will?" said Sam Price, pausing with his foot on the step +of his buggy, that he might have the complete news before he left. + +"Godfrey, Will," exclaimed Rigs, breathlessly, "you hain't a-goin' to +throw up a chance to stay a hull week at the Pelican, be you?" The mere +possibility of refusal overpowered Rias. + +Those who are familiar with that delightful French song which treats of +the leave-taking of one Monsieur Dumollet will appreciate, perhaps, the +attentions which were showered upon William Wetherell and Cynthia upon +their departure for the capital next morning. Although Mr. Wetherell had +at one time been actually a resident of Boston, he received quite as many +cautions from his neighbors as Monsieur Dumollet. Billets doux and +pistols were, of course, not mentioned, but it certainly behooved him, +when he should have arrived at that place of intrigues, to be on the +lookout for cabals. + +They took the stage-coach from Brampton over the pass: picturesque stage- +coach with its apple-green body and leather springs, soon to be laid away +forever if the coveted Truro Franchise Bill becomes a law; stage-coach +which pulls up defiantly beside its own rival at Truro station, where our +passengers take the train down the pleasant waterways and past the little +white villages among the fruit trees to the capital. The thrill of +anticipation was in Cynthia's blood, and the flush of pleasure on her +cheeks, when they stopped at last under the sheds. The conductor snapped +his fingers and cried, "This way, Judge," and there was Jethro in his +swallow-tailed coat and stove-pipe hat awaiting them. He seized +Wetherell's carpet-bag with one hand and Cynthia's arm with the other, +and shouldered his way through the people, who parted when they saw who +it was. + +"Uncle Jethro," cried Cynthia, breathlessly, "I didn't know you were a +judge. What are you judge of?" + +"J-judge of clothes, Cynthy. D-don't you wish you had the red cloth to +wear here?" + +"No, I don't," said Cynthia. "I'm glad enough to be here without it." + +"G-glad to hev you in any fixin's, Cynthy," he said, giving her arm a +little squeeze, and by that time they were up the hill and William +Wetherell quite winded. For Jethro was strong as an ox, and Cynthia's +muscles were like an Indian's. + +They were among the glories of Main Street now. The capital was then, +and still remains, a typically beautiful New England city, with wide +streets shaded by shapely maples and elms, with substantial homes set +back amidst lawns and gardens. Here on Main Street were neat brick +business buildings and banks and shops, with the park-like grounds of the +Capitol farther on, and everywhere, from curb to doorway, were knots of +men talking politics; broad-faced, sunburned farmers in store clothes, +with beards that hid their shirt fronts; keen-featured, sallow, country +lawyers in long black coats crumpled from much sitting on the small of +the back; country storekeepers with shrewd eyes, and local proprietors +and manufacturers. + +"Uncle Jethro, I didn't know you were such a great man," she said. + +"H-how did ye find out, Cynthy?" + +"The way people treat you here. I knew you were great, of course," she +hastened to add. + +"H-how do they treat me?" he asked, looking down at her. + +"You know," she answered. "They all stop talking when you come along and +stare at you. But why don't you speak to them?" + +Jethro smiled and squeezed her arm again, and then they were in the +corridor of the famous Pelican Hotel, hazy with cigar smoke and filled +with politicians. Some were standing, hanging on to pillars, +gesticulating, some were ranged in benches along the wall, and a chosen +few were in chairs grouped around the spittoons. Upon the appearance of +Jethro's party, the talk was hushed, the groups gave way, and they +accomplished a kind of triumphal march to the desk. The clerk, descrying +them, desisted abruptly from a conversation across the cigar counter, and +with all the form of a ceremony dipped the pen with a flourish into the +ink and handed it to Jethro. + +"Your rooms are ready, Judge," he said. + +As they started for the stairs, Jethro and Cynthia leading the way, +Wetherell felt a touch on his elbow and turned to confront Mr. Bijah +Bixby--at very close range, as usual. + +"C-come down at last, Will?" he said. "Thought ye would. Need everybody +this time--you understand." + +"I came on pleasure," retorted Mr. Wetherell, somewhat angrily. + +Mr. Bixby appeared hugely to enjoy the joke. + +"So I callated," he cried, still holding Wetherell's hand in a mild, but +persuasive grip. "So I callated. Guess I done you an injustice, Will." + +"How's that?" + +"You're a leetle mite smarter than I thought you was. So long. Got a +leetle business now--you understand a leetle business." + +Was it possible, indeed, for the simple-minded to come to the capital and +not become involved in cabals? With some misgivings William Wetherell +watched Mr. Bixby disappear among the throng, kicking up his heels +behind, and then went upstairs. On the first floor Cynthia was standing +by an open door. + +"Dad," she cried, "come and see the rooms Uncle Jethro's got for us!" +She took Wetherell's hand and led him in. "See the lace curtains, and +the chandelier, and the big bureau with the marble top." + +Jethro had parted his coat tails and seated himself enjoyably on the bed. + +"D-don't come often," he said, "m-might as well have the best." + +"Jethro," said Wetherell, coughing nervously and fumbling in the pocket +of his coat, "you've been very kind to us, and we hardly know how to +thank you. I--I didn't have any use for these." + +He held out the pieces of cardboard which had come in Cynthia's letter. +He dared not look at Jethro, and his eye was fixed instead upon the +somewhat grandiose signature of Isaac D. Worthington, which they bore. +Jethro took them and tore them up, and slowly tossed the pieces into a +cuspidor conveniently situated near the foot of the bed. He rose and +thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"Er--when you get freshened up, come into Number 7," he said. + +Number 7! But we shall come to that later. Supper first, in a great +pillared dining room filled with notables, if we only had the key. +Jethro sits silent at the head of the table eating his crackers and milk, +with Cynthia on his left and William Wetherell on his right. Poor +William, greatly embarrassed by his sudden projection into the limelight, +is helpless in the clutches of a lady-waitress who is demanding somewhat +fiercely that he make an immediate choice from a list of dishes which she +is shooting at him with astonishing rapidity. But who is this, sitting +beside him, who comes to William's rescue, and demands that the lady +repeat the bill of fare? Surely a notable, for he has a generous +presence, and jet-black whiskers which catch the light, which give the +gentleman, as Mr. Bixby remarked, "quite a settin'." Yes, we have met +him at last. It is none other than the Honorable Heth Sutton, Rajah of +Clovelly, Speaker of the House, who has condescended to help Mr. +Wetherell. + +His chamberlain, Mr. Bijah Bixby, sits on the other side of the Honorable +Heth, and performs the presentation of Mr. Wetherell. But Mr. Sutton, as +becomes a man of high position, says little after he has rebuked the +waitress, and presently departs with a carefully chosen toothpick; +whereupon Mr. Bixby moves into the vacant seat--not to Mr. Wetherell's +unqualified delight. + +"I've knowed him ever sense we was boys," said Mr. Bixby; "you saw how +intimate we was. When he wants a thing done, he says, 'Bije, you go out +and get 'em.' Never counts the cost. He was nice to you--wahn't he, +Will?" And then Mr. Bixby leaned over and whispered in Mr. Wetherell's +ear; "He knows--you understand--he knows." + +"Knows what?" demanded Mr. Wetherell. + +Mr. Bixby gave him another admiring look. + +"Knows you didn't come down here with Jethro jest to see the sights." + +At this instant the talk in the dining room fell flat, and looking up +William Wetherell perceived a portly, rubicund man of middle age being +shown to his seat by the headwaiter. The gentleman wore a great, +glittering diamond in his shirt, and a watch chain that contained much +fine gold. But the real cause of the silence was plainly in the young +woman who walked beside him, and whose effective entrance argued no +little practice and experience. She was of a type that catches the eye +involuntarily and holds it,--tall, well-rounded, fresh-complexioned, with +heavy coils of shimmering gold hair. Her pawn, which was far from +unbecoming, was in keeping with those gifts with which nature had endowed +her. She carried her head high, and bestowed swift and evidently fatal +glances to right and left during her progress through the room. Mr. +Bixby's voice roused the storekeeper from this contemplation of the +beauty. + +"That's Alvy Hopkins of Gosport and his daughter. Fine gal, hain't she? +Ever sense she come down here t'other day she's stirred up more turmoil +than any railroad bill I ever seed. She was most suffocated at the +governor's ball with fellers tryin' to get dances--some of 'em old +fellers, too. And you understand about Alvy?" + +"What about him?" + +"Alvy says he's a-goin' to be the next governor, or fail up." Mr. +Bixby's voice sank to a whisper, and he spoke into Mr. Wetherell's ear. +"Alvy says he has twenty-five thousand dollars to put in if necessary. +I'll introduce you to him, Will," he added meaningly. "Guess you can +help him some--you understand?" + +"Mr. Bixby!" cried Mr. Wetherell, putting down his knife and fork. + +"There!" said Mr. Bixby, reassuringly; "'twon't be no bother. I know him +as well as I do you--call each other by our given names. Guess I was the +first man he sent for last spring. He knows I go through all them river +towns. He says, 'Bije, you get 'em.' I understood." + +William Wetherell began to realize the futility of trying to convince Mr. +Bixby of his innocence in political matters, and glanced at Jethro. + +"You wouldn't think he was listenin', would you, Will?" Mr. Bixby +remarked. + +"Listening?" + +"Ears are sharp as a dog's. Callate he kin hear as far as the governor's +table, and he don't look as if he knows anything. One way he built up +his power--listenin' when they're talkin' sly out there in the rotunda. +They're almighty surprised when they l'arn he knows what they're up to. +Guess you understand how to go along by quiet and listen when they're +talkin' sly." + +"I never did such a thing in my life," cried William Wetherell, +indignantly aghast. + +But Mr. Bixby winked. + +"So long, Will," he said, "see you in Number 7." + +Never, since the days of Pompadour and Du Barry, until modern American +politics were invented, has a state been ruled from such a place as +Number 7 in the Pelican House--familiarly known as the Throne Room. In +this historic cabinet there were five chairs, a marble-topped table, a +pitcher of iced water, a bureau, a box of cigars and a Bible, a +chandelier with all the gas jets burning, and a bed, whereon sat such +dignitaries as obtained an audience,--railroad presidents, governors and +ex-governors and prospective governors, the Speaker, the President of the +Senate, Bijah Bixby, Peleg Hartington, mighty chiefs from the North +Country, and lieutenants from other parts of the state. These sat on the +bed by preference. Jethro sat in a chair by the window, and never took +any part in the discussions that raged, but listened. Generally there +was some one seated beside him who talked persistently in his ear; as at +present, for instance, Mr. Chauncey Weed, Chairman of the Committee on +Corporations of the House, who took the additional precaution of putting +his hand to his mouth when he spoke. + +Mr. Stephen Merrill was in the Throne Room that evening, and +confidentially explained to the bewildered William Wetherell the exact +situation in the Truro Franchise fight. Inasmuch as it has become our +duty to describe this celebrated conflict,--in a popular and engaging +manner, if possible,--we shall have to do so through Mr. Wetherell's +eyes, and on his responsibility. The biographies of some of the +gentlemen concerned have since been published, and for some unaccountable +reason contain no mention of the Truro franchise. + +"All Gaul," said Mr. Merrill--he was speaking to a literary man--"all +Gaul is divided into five railroads. I am one, the Grand Gulf and +Northern, the impecunious one. That is the reason I'm so nice to +everybody, Mr. Wetherell. The other day a conductor on my road had a +shock of paralysis when a man paid his fare. Then there's Batch, +president of the 'Down East' road, as we call it. Batch and I are out of +this fight,--we don't care whether Isaac D. Worthington gets his +franchise or not, or I wouldn't be telling you this. The two railroads +which don't want him to get it, because the Truro would eventually become +a competitor with them, are the Central and the Northwestern. Alexander +Duncan is president of the Central." + +"Alexander Duncan!" exclaimed Wetherell. "He's the richest man in the +state, isn't he?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Merrill, "and he lives in a big square house right here +in the capital. He ain't a bad fellow, Duncan. You'd like him. He +loves books. I wish you could see his library." + +"I'm afraid there's not much chance of that," answered Wetherell. + +"Well, as I say, there's Duncan, of the Central, and the other is +Lovejoy, of the Northwestern. Lovejoy's a bachelor and a skinflint. +Those two, Duncan and Lovejoy, are using every means in their power to +prevent Worthington from getting that franchise. Have I made myself +clear?" + +"Do you think Mr. Worthington will get it?" asked Wetherell, who had in +mind a certain nocturnal visit at his store. + +Mr. Merrill almost leaped out of his chair at the question. Then he +mopped his face, and winked very deliberately at the storekeeper. Then +Mr. Merrill laughed. + +"Well, well," he said, "for a man who comes down here to stay with Jethro +Bass to ask me that!" Whereupon Mr. Wetherell flushed, and began to +perspire himself. "Didn't you hear Isaac D. Worthington's virtuous +appeal to the people at Brampton?" said Mr. Merrill. + +"Yes," replied Wetherell, getting redder. + +"I like you, Will," said Mr. Merrill, unexpectedly, "darned if I don't. +I'll tell you what I know about it, and you can have a little fun while +you're here, lookin' on, only it won't do to write about it to the +Newcastle Guardian. Guess Willard wouldn't publish it, anyhow. I +suppose you know that Jethro pulls the strings, end we little railroad +presidents dance. We're the puppets now, but after a while, when I'm +crowded out, all these little railroads will get together and there'll be +a row worth looking at, or I'm mistaken. But to go back to Worthington," +continued Mr. Merrill, "he made a little mistake with his bill in the +beginning. Instead of going to Jethro, he went to Heth Sutton, and Heth +got the bill as far as the Committee on Corporations, and there she's +been ever since, with our friend Chauncey Weed, who's whispering over +there." + +"Mr. Sutton couldn't even get it out of the Committee!" exclaimed +Wetherell. + +"Not an inch. Jethro saw this thing coming about a year ago, and he took +the precaution to have Chauncey Weed and the rest of the Committee in his +pocket--and of course Heth Sutton's always been there." + +William Wetherell thought of that imposing and manly personage, the +Honorable Heth Sutton, being in Jethro's pocket, and marvelled. Mr. +Chauncey Weed seemed of a species better able to thrive in the atmosphere +of pockets. + +"Well, as I say, there was the Truro Franchise Bill sound asleep in the +Committee, and when Isaac D. Worthington saw that his little arrangement +with Heth Sutton wasn't any good, and that the people of the state didn't +have anything more to say about it than the Crow Indians, and that the +end of the session was getting nearer and nearer, he got desperate and +went to Jethro, I suppose. You know as well as I do that Jethro has +agreed to put the bill through." + +"Then why doesn't he get the Committee to report it and put it through?" +asked Wetherell. + +"Bless your simple literary nature," exclaimed Mr Merrill, "Jethro's got +more power than any man in the state, but that isn't saying that he +doesn't have to fight occasionally. He has to fight now. He has seven +of the twelve senators hitched, and the governor. But Duncan and Lovejoy +have bought up all the loose blocks of representatives, and it is +supposed that the franchise forces only control a quorum. The end of the +session is a week off, and never in all my experience have I seen a more +praiseworthy attendance on the part of members." + +"Do you mean that they are being paid to remain in their seats?" cried +the amazed Mr. Wetherell. + +"Well," answered Mr. Merrill, with a twinkle in his eye, "that is a +little bald and--and unparliamentary, perhaps, but fairly accurate. Our +friend Jethro is confronted with a problem to tax even his faculties, and +to look at him, a man wouldn't suspect he had a care in the world." + +Jethro was apparently quite as free from anxiety the next morning when he +offered, after breakfast, to show Wetherell and Cynthia the sights of the +town, though Wetherell could not but think that the Throne Room and the +Truro Franchise Bill were left at a very crucial moment to take care of +themselves. Jethro talked to Cynthia--or rather, Cynthia talked to +Jethro upon innumerable subject's; they looked upon the statue of a great +statesman in the park, and Cynthia read aloud the quotation graven on the +rock of the pedestal, "The People's Government, made for the People, made +by the People, and answerable to the People." After that they went into +the state library, where Wetherell was introduced to the librarian, Mr. +Storrow. They did not go into the State House because, as everybody +knows, Jethro Bass never went there. Mr. Bijah Bixby and other +lieutenants might be seen in the lobbies, and the governor might sign +bills in his own apartment there, but the real seat of government was +that Throne Room into which we have been permitted to enter. + +They walked out beyond the outskirts of the town, where there was a grove +or picnic ground which was also used as a park by some of the +inhabitants. Jethro liked the spot, and was in the habit sometimes of +taking refuge there when the atmosphere of the Pelican House became too +thick. The three of them had sat down on one of the board benches to +rest, when presently two people were seen at a little distance walking +among the trees, and the sight of them, for some reason, seemed to give +Jethro infinite pleasure. + +"Why," exclaimed Cynthia," one of them is that horrid girl everybody was +looking at in the dining room last night." + +"D-don't like her, Cynthy?" said Jethro. + +"No," said Cynthia, "I don't." + +"Pretty--hain't she--pretty?" + +"She's brazen," declared Cynthia. + +It was, indeed, Miss Cassandra Hopkins, daughter of that Honorable Alva +who--according to Mr. Bixby was all ready with a certain sum of money to +be the next governor. Miss Cassandra was arrayed fluffily in cool, pink +lawn, and she carried a fringed parasol, and she was gazing upward with +telling effect into the face of the gentleman by her side. This would +have all been very romantic if the gentleman had been young and handsome, +but he was certainly not a man to sweep a young girl off her feet. He +was tall, angular, though broad-shouldered, with a long, scrawny neck +that rose out of a very low collar, and a large head, scantily covered +with hair--a head that gave a physical as well as a mental effect of +hardness. His smooth-shaven face seemed to bear witness that its owner +was one who had pushed frugality to the borders of a vice. It was not a +pleasant face, but now it wore an almost benign expression under the +influence of Miss Cassandra's eyes. So intent, apparently, were both of +them upon each other that they did not notice the group on the bench at +the other side of the grove. William Wetherell ventured to ask Jethro +who the man was. + +"N-name's Lovejoy," said Jethro. + +"Lovejoy!" ejaculated the storekeeper, thinking of what Mr. Merrill had +told him of the opponents of the Truro Franchise Bill. "President of the +'Northwestern' Railroad?" + +Jethro gave his friend a shrewd look. + +"G-gettin' posted--hain't you, Will?" he said. + +"Is she going to marry that old man?" asked Cynthia. + +Jethro smiled a little. "G-guess not," said he, "g-guess not, if the old +man can help it. Nobody's married him yet, and hain't likely to." + +Jethro was unusually silent on the way back to the hotel, but he did not +seem to be worried or displeased. He only broke his silence once, in +fact, when Cynthia called his attention to a large poster of some +bloodhounds on a fence, announcing the fact in red letters that "Uncle +Tom's Cabin" would be given by a certain travelling company at the Opera +House the next evening. + +"L-like to go, Cynthy?" + +"Oh, Uncle Jethro, do you think we can go?" + +"Never b'en to a show--hev you--never b'en to a show?" + +"Never in my life," said Cynthia. + +"We'll all go," said Jethro, and he repeated it once or twice as they +came to Main Street, seemingly greatly tickled at the prospect. And +there was the Truro Franchise Bill hanging over him, with only a week +left of the session, and Lovejoy's and Duncan's men sitting so tight in +their seats! William Wetherell could not understand it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Half an hour later, when Mr. Wetherell knocked timidly at Number 7,-- +drawn thither by an irresistible curiosity,--the door was opened by a +portly person who wore a shining silk hat and ample gold watch chain. +The gentleman had, in fact, just arrived; but he seemed perfectly at home +as he laid down his hat on the marble-topped bureau, mopped his face, +took a glass of iced water at a gulp, chose a cigar, and sank down +gradually on the bed. Mr. Wetherell recognized him instantly as the +father of the celebrated Cassandra. + +"Well, Jethro," said the gentleman, "I've got to come into the Throne +Room once a day anyhow, just to make sure you don't forget me--eh?" + +"A-Alvy," said Jethro, "I want you to shake hands with a particular +friend of mine, Mr. Will Wetherell of Coniston. Er--Will, the Honorable +Alvy Hopkins of Gosport." + +Mr. Hopkins rose from the bed as gradually as he had sunk down upon it, +and seized Mr. Wetherell's hand impressively. His own was very moist. + +"Heard you was in town, Mr. Wetherell," he said heartily. "If Jethro +calls you a particular friend, it means something, I guess. It means +something to me, anyhow." + +"Will hain't a politician," said Jethro. "Er--Alvy?" + +"Hello!" said Mr. Hopkins. + +"Er--Will don't talk." + +"If Jethro had been real tactful," said the Honorable Alvy, sinking down +again, "he'd have introduced me as the next governor of the state. +Everybody knows I want to be governor, everybody knows I've got twenty +thousand dollars in the bank to pay for that privilege. Everybody knows +I'm going to be governor if Jethro says so." + +William Wetherell was a little taken aback at this ingenuous statement of +the gentleman from Gosport. He looked out of the window through the +foliage of the park, and his eye was caught by the monument there in +front of the State House, and he thought of the inscription on the base +of it, "The People's Government." The Honorable Alva had not mentioned +the people--undoubtedly. + +"Yes, Mr. Wetherell, twenty thousand dollars." He sighed. "Time was +when a man could be governor for ten. Those were the good old days--eh, +Jethro?" + +"A-Alvy, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin's' comin' to town tomorrow--to-morrow." + +"You don't tell me," said the Honorable Alva, acquiescing cheerfully in +the change of subject. "We'll go. Pleased to have you, too, Mr. +Wetherell." + +"Alvy," said Jethro, again, "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' comes to town to- +morrow." + +Mr. Hopkins stopped fanning himself, and glanced at Jethro questioningly. + +"A-Alvy, that give you an idea?" said Jethro, mildly. + +Mr. Wetherell looked blank: it gave him no idea whatsoever, except of +little Eva and the bloodhounds. For a few moments the Honorable Alva +appeared to be groping, too, and then his face began to crease into a +smile of comprehension. + +"By Godfrey, Jethro, but you are smart." he exclaimed, with involuntary +tribute; "you mean buy up the theatre?" + +"C-callate you'll find it's bought up." + +"You mean pay for it?" said Mr. Hopkins. + +"You've guessed it, Alvy, you've guessed it." + +Mr. Hopkins gazed at him in admiration, leaned out of the perpendicular, +and promptly drew from his trousers' pocket a roll of stupendous +proportions. Wetting his thumb, he began to push aside the top bills. + +"How much is it?" he demanded. + +But Jethro put up his hand. + +"No hurry, Alvy--n-no hurry. H-Honorable Alvy Hopkins of Gosport--p- +patron of the theatre. Hain't the first time you've b'en a patron, +Alvy." + +"Jethro," said Mr. Hopkins, solemnly, putting up his money, "I'm much +obliged to you. I'm free to say I'd never have thought of it. If you +ain't the all-firedest smartest man in America to-day,--I don't except +any, even General Grant,--then I ain't the next governor of this state." + +Whereupon he lapsed into an even more expressive silence, his face still +glowing. + +"Er--Alvy," said Jethro presently, "what's the name of your gal?" + +"Well," said Mr. Hopkins, "I guess you've got me. We did christen her +Lily, but she didn't turn out exactly Lily. She ain't the type," said +Mr. Hopkins, slowly, not without a note of regret, and lapsed into +silence. + +"W-what did you say her name was, Alvy?" + +"I guess her name's Cassandra," said the Honorable Alva. + +"C-Cassandry?" + +"Well, you see," he explained a trifle apologetically, "she's kind of +taken some matters in her own hands, my gal. Didn't like Lily, and it +didn't seem to fit her anyway, so she called herself Cassandra. Read it +in a book. It means, 'inspirer of love,' or some such poetry, but I +don't deny that it goes with her better than Lily would." + +"Sh-she's a good deal of a gal, Alvy--fine-appearin' gal, Alvy." + +"Upon my word, Jethro, I didn't know you ever looked at a woman. But I +suppose you couldn't help lookin' at my gal--she does seem to draw men's +eyes as if she was magnetized some way." Mr. Hopkins did not speak as +though this quality of his daughter gave him unmixed delight. "But she's +a good-hearted gal, Cassy is, high-spirited, and I won't deny she's +handsome and smart." + +She'll kind of grace my position when I'm governor. But to tell you the +truth, Jethro, one old friend to another, durned if I don't wish she was +married. It's a terrible thing for a father to say, I know, but I'd feel +easier about her if she was married to some good man who could hold her. +There's young Joe Turner in Gosport, he'd give his soul to have her, and +he'd do. Cassy says she's after bigger game than Joe. She's young-- +that's her only excuse. Funny thing happened night before last," +continued Mr. Hopkins, laughing. "Lovejoy saw her, and he's b'en out of +his head ever since. Al must be pretty near my age, ain't he? Well, +there's no fool like an old fool." + +"A-Alvy introduce me to Cassandry sometime will you?" + +"Why, certainly," answered Mr. Hopkins, heartily, "I'll bring her in +here. And now how about gettin' an adjournment to-morrow night for +'Uncle Tom's Cabin'? These night sessions kind of interfere." + +Half an hour later, when the representatives were pouring into the +rotunda for dinner, a crowd was pressing thickly around the desk to read +a placard pinned on the wall above it. The placard announced the coming +of Mr. Glover's Company for the following night, and that the Honorable +Alva Hopkins of Gosport, ex-Speaker of the House, had bought three +hundred and twelve seats for the benefit of the members. And the +Honorable Alva himself, very red in the face and almost smothered, could +be dimly discerned at the foot of the stairs trying to fight his way out +of a group of overenthusiastic friends and admirers. Alva--so it was +said on all sides--was doing the right thing. + +So it was that one sensation followed another at the capital, and the +politicians for the moment stopped buzzing over the Truro Franchise Bill +to discuss Mr. Hopkins and his master-stroke. The afternoon Chronicle +waxed enthusiastic on the subject of Mr. Hopkins's generosity, and +predicted that, when Senator Hartington made the motion in the upper +house and Mr. Jameson in the lower, the General Court would unanimously +agree that there would be no evening session on the following day. The +Honorable Alva was the hero of the hour. + +That afternoon Cynthia and her father walked through the green park to +make their first visit to the State House. They stood hand in hand on +the cool, marble-paved floor of the corridor, gazing silently at the +stained and battered battle-flags behind the glass, and Wetherell seemed +to be listening again to the appeal of a great President to a great +Country in the time of her dire need--the soul calling on the body to +fight for itself. Wetherell seemed to feel again the thrill he felt when +he saw the blue-clad men of this state crowded in the train at Boston: +and to hear again the cheers, and the sobs, and the prayers as he looked +upon the blood that stained stars and stripes alike with a holy stain. +With that blood the country had been consecrated, and the state--yes, and +the building where they stood. So they went on up the stairs, +reverently, nor heeded the noise of those in groups about them, and +through a door into the great hall of the representatives of the state. + +Life is a mixture of emotions, a jumble of joy and sorrow and reverence +and mirth and flippancy, of right feeling and heresy. In the morning +William Wetherell had laughed at Mr. Hopkins and the twenty thousand +dollars he had put in the bank to defraud the people; but now he could +have wept over it, and as he looked down upon the three hundred members +of that House, he wondered how many of them represented their neighbors +who supposedly had sent them here--and how many Mr. Lovejoy's railroad, +Mr. Worthington's railroad, or another man's railroad. + +But gradually he forgot the battle-flags, and his mood changed. Perhaps +the sight of Mr. Speaker Sutton towering above the House, the very +essence and bulk of authority, brought this about. He aroused in +Wetherell unwilling admiration and envy when he arose to put a question +in his deep voice, or rapped sternly with his gavel to silence the tumult +of voices that arose from time to time; or while some member was +speaking, or the clerk was reading a bill at breathless speed, he turned +with wonderful nonchalance to listen to the conversation of the gentlemen +on the bench beside him, smiled, nodded, pulled his whiskers, at once +conscious and unconscious of his high position. And, most remarkable of +all to the storekeeper, not a man of the three hundred, however obscure, +could rise that the Speaker did not instantly call him by name. + +William Wetherell was occupied by such reflections as these when suddenly +there fell a hush through the House. The clerk had stopped reading, the +Speaker had stopped conversing, and, seizing his gavel, looked +expectantly over the heads of the members and nodded. A sleek, +comfortably dressed mail arose smilingly in the middle of the House, and +subdued laughter rippled from seat to seat as he addressed the chair. + +"Mr. Jameson of Wantage." + +Mr. Jameson cleared his throat impressively and looked smilingly about +him. + +"Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House," he said, "if I desired to +arouse the enthusiasm--the just enthusiasm--of any gathering in this +House, or in this city, or in this state, I should mention the name of +the Honorable Alva Hopkins of Gosport. I think I am right." + +Mr. Jameson was interrupted, as he no doubt expected, by applause from +floor and gallery. He stood rubbing his hands together, and it seemed to +William Wetherell that the Speaker did not rap as sharply with his gavel +as he had upon other occasions. + +"Gentlemen of the House," continued Mr. Jameson, presently, "the +Honorable Alva Hopkins, whom we all know and love, has with unparalleled +generosity--unparalleled, I say--bought up three hundred and twelve seats +in Fosters Opera House for to-morrow night" (renewed applause), "in order +that every member of this august body may have the opportunity to witness +that most classic of histrionic productions, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'." (Loud +applause, causing the Speaker to rap sharply.) "That we may show a +proper appreciation of this compliment--I move you, Mr. Speaker, that the +House adjourn not later than six o'clock to-morrow, Wednesday evening, +not to meet again until Thursday morning." + +Mr. Jameson of Wantage handed the resolution to a page and sat down +amidst renewed applause. Mr. Wetherell noticed that many members turned +in their seats as they clapped, and glancing along the gallery he caught +a flash of red and perceived the radiant Miss Cassandra herself leaning +over the rail, her hands clasped in ecstasy. Mr. Lovejoy was not with +her--he evidently preferred to pay his attentions in private. + +"There she is again," whispered Cynthia, who had taken an instinctive and +extraordinary dislike to Miss Cassandra. Then Mr. Sutton rose +majestically to put the question. + +"Gentlemen, are you ready for the question?" he cried. "All those in +favor of the resolution of the gentleman from Wantage, Mr. Jameson--" the +Speaker stopped abruptly. The legislators in the front seats swung +around, and people in the gallery craned forward to see a member standing +at his seat in the extreme rear of the hall. He was a little man in an +ill-fitting coat, his wizened face clean-shaven save for the broom-shaped +beard under his chin, which he now held in his hand. His thin, nasal +voice was somehow absurdly penetrating as he addressed the chair. Mr. +Sutton was apparently, for once, taken by surprise, and stared a moment, +as though racking his brain for the name. + +"The gentleman from Suffolk, Mr. Heath," he said, and smiling a little, +sat down. + +The gentleman from Suffolk, still holding on to his beard, pitched in +without preamble. + +"We farmers on the back seats don't often get a chance to be heard, Mr. +Speaker," said he, amidst a general tittering from the front seats. "We +come down here without any l'arnin' of parli'ment'ry law, and before we +know what's happened the session's over, and we hain't said nothin'." +(More laughter.) "There's b'en a good many times when I wanted to say +somethin', and this time I made up my mind I was a-goin' to--law or no +law." + +(Applause, and a general show of interest in the gentleman from Suffolk.) +"Naow, Mr. Speaker, I hain't ag'in' 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' It's a good +play, and it's done an almighty lot of good. And I hain't sayin' nothin' +ag'in' Alvy Hopkins nor his munificence. But I do know there's a sight +of little bills on that desk that won't be passed if we don't set to- +morrow night--little bills that are big bills for us farmers. That thar +woodchuck bill, for one." (Laughter.) "My constituents want I should +have that bill passed. We don't need a quorum for them bills, but we +need time. Naow, Mr. Speaker, I say let all them that wants to go and +see 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' go and see it, but let a few of us fellers that +has woodchuck bills and other things that we've got to get through come +down here and pass 'em. You kin put 'em on the docket, and I guess if +anything comes along that hain't jest right for everybody, somebody can +challenge a quorum and bust up the session. That's all." + +The gentleman from Suffolk sat down amidst thunderous applause, and +before it died away Mr. Jameson was on his feet, smiling and rubbing his +hands together, and was recognized. + +"Mr. Speaker," he said, as soon as he could be heard, "if the gentleman +from Suffolk desires to pass woodchuck bills" (renewed laughter), "he can +do so as far as I'm concerned. I guess I know where most of the members +of this House will be to-morrow night-" (Cries of 'You're right', and +sharp rapping of the gavel.) "Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my resolution." + +"The gentleman from Wantage," said the Speaker, smiling broadly now, +"withdraws his resolution." + +As William Wetherell was returning to the Pelican House, pondering over +this incident, he almost ran into a distinguished-looking man walking +briskly across Main Street. + +"It was Mr. Worthington!" said Cynthia, looking after him. + +But Mr. Worthington had a worried look on his face, and was probably too +much engrossed in his own thoughts to notice his acquaintances. He had, +in fact, just come from the Throne Room, where he had been to remind +Jethro that the session was almost over, and to ask him what he meant to +do about the Truro Bill. Jethro had given him no satisfaction. + +"Duncan and Lovejoy have their people paid to sit there night and day," +Mr. Worthington had said. "We've got a bare majority on a full House; +but you don't seem to dare to risk it. What are you going to do about +it, Mr. Bass?" + +"W-want the bill to pass--don't you?" + +"Certainly," Mr. Worthington had cried, on the edge of losing his temper. + +"L-left it to me--didn't you? + +"Yes, but I'm entitled to know what's being done. I'm paying for it." + +"H-hain't paid for it yet--hev you?" + +"No, I most assuredly haven't." + +"B-better wait till you do." + +There was very little satisfaction in this, and Mr. Worthington had at +length been compelled to depart, fuming, to the house of his friend the +enemy, Mr. Duncan, there to attempt for the twentieth time to persuade +Mr. Duncan to call off his dogs who were sitting with such praiseworthy +pertinacity in their seats. As the two friends walked on the lawn, Mr. +Worthington tried to explain, likewise for the twentieth time, that the +extension of the Truro Railroad could in no way lessen the Canadian +traffic of the Central, Mr. Duncan's road. But Mr. Duncan could not see +it that way, and stuck to his present ally, Mr. Lovejoy, and refused +point-blank to call off his dogs. Business was business. + +It is an apparently inexplicable fact, however, that Mr. Worthington and +his son Bob were guests at the Duncan mansion at the capital. Two +countries may not be allies, but their sovereigns may be friends. In the +present instance, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Worthington's railroads were +opposed, diplomatically, but another year might see the Truro Railroad +and the Central acting as one. And Mr. Worthington had no intention +whatever of sacrificing Mr. Duncan's friendship. The first citizen of +Brampton possessed one quality so essential to greatness--that of looking +into the future, and he believed that the time would come when an event +of some importance might create a perpetual alliance between himself and +Mr. Duncan. In short, Mr. Duncan had a daughter, Janet, and Mr. +Worthington, as we know, had a son. And Mr. Duncan, in addition to his +own fortune, had married one of the richest heiresses in New England. +Prudens futuri, that was Mr. Worthington's motto. + +The next morning Cynthia, who was walking about the town alone, found +herself gazing over a picket fence at a great square house with a very +wide cornice that stood by itself in the centre of a shade-flecked lawn. +There were masses of shrubbery here and there, and a greenhouse, and a +latticed summer-house: and Cynthia was wondering what it would be like to +live in a great place like that, when a barouche with two shining horses +in silver harness drove past her and stopped before the gate. Four or +five girls and boys came laughing out on the porch, and one of them, who +held a fishing-rod in his hand, Cynthia recognized. Startled and +ashamed, she began to walk on as fast as she could in the opposite +direction, when she heard the sound of footsteps on the lawn behind her, +and her own name called in a familiar voice. At that she hurried the +faster; but she could not run, and the picket fence was half a block +long, and Bob Worthington had an advantage over her. Of course it was +Bob, and he did not scruple to run, and in a few seconds he was leaning +over the fence in front of her. Now Cynthia was as red as a peony by +this time, and she almost hated him. + +"Well, of all people, Cynthia Wetherell!" he cried; "didn't you hear me +calling after you?" + +"Yes," said Cynthia. + +"Why didn't you stop?" + +"I didn't want to," said Cynthia, glancing at the distant group on the +porch, who were watching them. Suddenly she turned to him defiantly. "I +didn't know you were in that house, or in the capital," she said. + +"And I didn't know you were," said Bob, upon whose masculine intelligence +the meaning of her words was entirely lost. "If I had known it, you can +bet I would have looked you up. Where are you staying?" + +"At the Pelican House." + +"What!" said Bob, "with all the politicians? How did you happen to go +there?" + +"Mr. Bass asked my father and me to come down for a few days," answered +Cynthia, her color heightening again. Life is full of contrasts, and +Cynthia was becoming aware +of some of them. + +"Uncle Jethro?" said Bob. + +"Yes, Uncle Jethro," said Cynthia, smiling in spite of herself. He +always made her smile. + +"Uncle Jethro owns the Pelican House," said Bob. + +"Does he? I knew he was a great man, but I didn't know how great he was +until I came down here." + +Cynthia said this so innocently that Bob repented his flippancy on the +spot. He had heard occasional remarks of his elders about Jethro. + +"I didn't mean quite that," he said, growing red in his turn. "Uncle +Jethro--Mr. Bass--is a great man of course. That's what I meant." + +"And he's a very good man," said Cynthia, who understood now that he had +spoken a little lightly of Jethro, and resented it. + +"I'm sure of it," said Bob, eagerly. Then Cynthia began to walk on, +slowly, and he followed her on the other side of the fence. "Hold on," +he cried, "I haven't said half the things I want to say--yet." + +"What do you want to say?" asked Cynthia, still walking. "I have to go." + +"Oh, no, you don't! Wait just a minute--won't you?" + +Cynthia halted, with apparent unwillingness, and put out her toe between +the pickets. Then she saw that there was a little patch on that toe, and +drew it in again. + +"What do you want to say?" she repeated. "I don't believe you have +anything to say at all." And suddenly she flashed a look at him that +made his heart thump. + +"I do--I swear I do!" he protested. "I'm coming down to the Pelican to- +morrow morning to get you to go for a walk." + +Cynthia could not but think that the remoteness of the time he set was +scarce in keeping with his ardent tone. + +"I have something else to do to-morrow morning," she answered. + +"Then I'll come to-morrow afternoon," said Bob, instantly. + +"Who lives here?" she asked irrelevantly. + +"Mr. Duncan. I'm visiting the Duncans." + +At this moment a carryall joined the carriage at the gate. Cynthia +glanced at the porch again. The group there had gown larger, and they +were still staring. She began to feel uncomfortable again, and moved on +slowly. + +"Mayn't I come?" asked Bob, going after her; and scraping the butt of the +rod along the palings. + +"Aren't there enough girls here to satisfy you?" asked Cynthia. + +"They're enough--yes," he said, "but none of 'em could hold a candle to +you." + +Cynthia laughed outright. + +"I believe you tell them all something like that," she said. + +"I don't do any such thing," he retorted, and then he laughed himself, +and Cynthia laughed again. + +"I like you because you don't swallow everything whole," said Bob, "and-- +well, for a good many other reams." And he looked into her face with +such frank admiration that Cynthia blushed and turned away. + +"I don't believe a word you say," she answered, and started to walk off, +this time in earnest. + +"Hold on," cried Bob. They were almost at the end of the fence by this, +and the pickets were sharp and rather high, or he would have climbed +them. + +Cynthia paused hesitatingly. + +"I'll come at two o'clock to-morrow," said he; "We're going on a picnic +to-day, to Dalton's Bend, on the river. I wish I could get out of it." + +Just then there came a voice from the gateway. + +"Bob! Bob Worthington!" + +They both turned involuntarily. A slender girl with light brown hair was +standing there, waving at him. + +"Who's that?" asked Cynthia. + +"That?" said Bob, in some confusion, "oh, that's Janet Duncan." + +"Good-by," said Cynthia. + +"I'm coming to-morrow," he called after her, but she did not turn. In a +little while she heard the carryall behind her clattering down the +street, its passengers laughing and joking merrily. Her face burned, for +she thought that they were laughing at her; she wished with all her heart +that she had not stopped to talk with him at the palings. The girls, +indeed, were giggling as the carryall passed, and she heard somebody call +out his name, but nevertheless he leaned out of the seat and waved his +hat at her, amid a shout of laughter. Poor Cynthia! She did not look at +him. Tears of vexation were in her eyes, and the light of her joy at +this visit to the capital flickered, and she wished she were back in +Coniston. She thought it would be very nice to be rich, and to live in a +great house in a city, and to go on picnics. + +The light flickered, but it did not wholly go out. If it has not been +shown that Cynthia was endowed with a fair amount of sense, many of these +pages have been written in vain. She sat down for a while in the park +and thought of the many things she had to be thankful for--not the least +of which was Jethro's kindness. And she remembered that she was to see +"Uncle Tom's Cabin" that evening. + +Such are the joys and sorrows of fifteen! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Mr. Amos Cuthbert named it so--our old friend Amos who lives high up in +the ether of Town's End ridge, and who now represents Coniston in the +Legislature. He is the same silent, sallow person as when Jethro first +took a mortgage on his farm, only his skin is beginning to resemble dried +parchment, and he is a trifle more cantankerous. On the morning of that +memorable day when, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came to the capital, Amos had +entered the Throne Room and given vent to his feelings in regard to the +gentleman in the back seat who had demanded an evening sitting on behalf +of the farmers. + +"Don't that beat all?" cried Amos. "Let them have their darned woodchuck +session; there won't nobody go to it. For cussed, crisscross +contrariness, give me a moss-back Democrat from a one-boss, one-man town +like Suffolk. I'm a-goin' to see the show." + +"G-goin' to the show, be you, Amos?" said Jethro. + +"Yes, I be," answered Amos, bitterly. "I hain't agoin' nigh the house +to-night." And with this declaration he departed. + +"I wonder if he really is going?" queried Mr. Merrill looking at the +ceiling. And then he laughed. + +"Why shouldn't he go?" asked William Wetherell. + +Mr. Merrill's answer to this question was a wink, whereupon he, too, +departed. And while Wetherell was pondering over the possible meaning of +these words the Honorable Alva Hopkins entered, wreathed in smiles, and +closed the door behind him. + +"It's all fixed," he said, taking a seat near Jethro in the window. + +"S-seen your gal--Alvy--seen your gal?" + +Mr. Hopkins gave a glance at Wetherell. + +"Will don't talk," said Jethro, and resumed his inspection through the +lace curtains of what was going on in the street. + +"Cassandry's, got him to go," said Mr. Hopkins. "It's all fixed, as sure +as Sunday. If it misses fire, then I'll never mention the governorship +again. But if it don't miss fire," and the Honorable Alva leaned over +and put his hand on Jethro's knee, "if it don't miss fire, I get the +nomination. Is that right?" + +"Y-you've guessed it, Alvy." + +"That's all I want to know," declared the Honorable Alva; "when you say +that much, you never go back on it. And, you can go ahead and give the +orders, Jethro. I have to see that the boys get the tickets. +Cassandry's got a head on her shoulders, and she kind of wants to be +governor, too." He got as far as the door, when he turned and bestowed +upon Jethro a glance of undoubted tribute. "You've done a good many +smart things," said he, "but I guess you never beat this, and never +will." + +"H-hain't done it yet, Alvy," answered Jethro, still looking out through +the window curtains at the ever ganging groups of gentlemen in the +street. These groups had a never ceasing interest for Jethro Bass. + +Mr. Wetherell didn't talk, but had he been the most incurable of gossips +he felt that he could have done no damage to this mysterious affair, +whatever it was. In a certain event, Mr. Hopkins was promised the +governorship: so much was plain. And it was also evident that Miss +Cassandra Hopkins was in some way to be instrumental. William Wetherell +did not like to ask Jethro, but he thought a little of sounding Mr. +Merrill, and then he came to the conclusion that it would be wiser for +him not to know. + +"Er--Will," said Jethro, presently, "you know Heth Sutton--Speaker Heth +Sutton?" + +"Yes." + +"Er--wouldn't mind askin' him to step in and see me before the session-- +if he was comin' by--would you?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Er--if he was comin' by," said Jethro. + +Mr. Wetherell found Mr. Speaker Sutton glued to a pillar in the rotunda +below. He had some difficulty in breaking through the throng that +pressed around him, and still more in attracting his attention, as Mr. +Sutton took no manner of notice of the customary form of placing one's +hand under his elbow and pressing gently up. Summoning up his courage, +Mr. Wetherell tried the second method of seizing him by the buttonhole. +He paused in his harangue, one hand uplifted, and turned and glanced at +the storekeeper abstractedly. + +"Mr. Bass asked me to tell you to drop into Number 7," said Wetherell, +and added, remembering express instructions, "if you were going by." + +Wetherell had not anticipated the magical effect this usual message would +have on Mr. Sutton, nor had he thought that so large and dignified a body +would move so rapidly. Before the astonished gentlemen who had penned +him could draw a breath, Mr. Sutton had reached the stairway and, was +mounting it with an agility that did him credit. Five minutes later +Wetherell saw the Speaker descending again, the usually impressive +quality of his face slightly modified by the twitching of a smile. + +Thus the day passed, and the gentlemen of the Lovejoy and Duncan factions +sat, as tight as ever in their seats, and the Truro Franchise bill still +slumbered undisturbed in Mr. Chauncey Weed's committee. + +At supper there was a decided festal air about the dining room of the +Pelican House, the little band of agricultural gentlemen who wished to +have a session not being patrons of that exclusive hotel. Many of the +Solons had sent home for their wives; that they might do the utmost +justice to the Honorable Alva's hospitality. Even Jethro, as he ate his +crackers and milk, had a new coat with bright brass buttons, and Cynthia, +who wore a fresh gingham which Miss Sukey Kittredge of Coniston had +helped to design, so far relented in deference to Jethro's taste as to +tie a red bow at her throat. + +The middle table under the chandelier was the immediate firmament of Miss +Cassandra Hopkins. And there, beside the future governor, sat the +president of the "Northwestern" Railroad, Mr. Lovejoy, as the chief of +the revolving satellites. People began to say that Mr. Lovejoy was +hooked at last, now that he had lost his head in such an unaccountable +fashion as to pay his court in public; and it was very generally known +that he was to make one of the Honorable Alva's immediate party at the +performance of "Uncle Tam's Cabin." + +Mr. Speaker Sutton, of course, would have to forego the pleasure of the +theatre as a penalty of his high position. Mr. Merrill, who sat at +Jethro's table next to Cynthia that evening, did a great deal of joking +with the Honorable Heth about having to preside aver a woodchuck session, +which the Speaker, so Mr. Wetherell thought, took in astonishingly good +part, and seemed very willing to make the great sacrifice which his duty +required of him. + +After supper Mr. Wetherell took a seat in the rotunda. As an observer of +human nature, he had begun to find a fascination in watching the group of +politicians there. First of all he encountered Mr. Amos Cuthbert, his +little coal-black eyes burning brightly, and he was looking very +irritable indeed. + +"So you're going to the show, Amos?" remarked the storekeeper, with an +attempt at cordiality. + +To his bewilderment, Amos turned upon him fiercely. + +"Who said I was going to the show?" he snapped. + +"You yourself told me." + +"You'd ought to know whether I'm a-goin' or not," said Amos, and walked +away. + +While Mr. Wetherell sat meditating, upon this inexplicable retort, a +retired, scholarly looking gentleman with a white beard, who wore +spectacles, came out of the door leading from the barber shop and quietly +took a seat beside him. The storekeeper's attention was next distracted +by the sight of one who wandered slowly but ceaselessly from group to +group, kicking up his heels behind, and halting always in the rear of the +speakers. Needless to say that this was our friend Mr. Bijah Bixby, who +was following out his celebrated tactics of "going along by when they +were talkin' sly." Suddenly Mr. Bixby's eye alighted on Mr. Wetherell, +who by a stretch of imagination conceived that it expressed both +astonishment and approval, although he was wholly at a loss to understand +these sentiments. Mr. Bixby winked--Mr. Wetherell was sure of that. But +to his surprise, Bijah did not pause in his rounds to greet him. + +Mr. Wetherell was beginning to be decidedly uneasy, and was about to go +upstairs, when Mr. Merrill came down the rotunda whistling, with his +hands in his pockets. He stopped whistling when he spied the +storekeeper, and approached him in his usual hearty manner. + +"Well, well, this is fortunate," said Mr. Merrill; "how are you, Duncan? +I want you to know Mr. Wetherell. Wetherell writes that weekly letter +for the Guardian you were speaking to me about last year. Will, this is +Mr. Alexander Duncan, president of the 'Central.'" + +"How do you do, Mr. Wetherell?" said the scholarly gentleman with the +spectacles, putting out his hand. "I'm glad to meet you, very glad, +indeed. I read your letters with the greatest pleasure." + +Mr. Wetherell, as he took Mr. Duncan's hand, had a variety of emotions +which may be imagined, and need not be set down in particular. + +"Funny thing," Mr. Merrill continued, "I was looking for you, Duncan. It +occurred to me that you would like to meet Mr. Wetherell. I was afraid +you were in Boston." + +"I have just got back," said Mr. Duncan. + +"I wanted Wetherell to see your library. I was telling him about it." + +"I should be delighted to show it to him," answered Mr. Duncan. That +library, as is well known, was a special weakness of Mr. Duncan's. + +Poor William Wetherell, who was quite overwhelmed by the fact that the +great Mr. Duncan had actually read his letters and liked them, could +scarcely utter a sensible word. Almost before he realized what had +happened he was following Mr. Duncan out of the Pelican House, when the +storekeeper was mystified once more by a nudge and another wink from Mr. +Bixby, conveying unbounded admiration. + +"Why don't you write a book, Mr. Wetherell?" inquired the railroad +president, when they were crossing the park. + +"I don't think I could do it," said Mr. Wetherell, modestly. Such +incense was overpowering, and he immediately forgot Mr. Bixby. + +"Yes, you can," said Mr. Duncan, "only you don't know it. Take your +letters for a beginning. You can draw people well enough, when you try. +There was your description of the lonely hill-farm on the spur--I shall +always remember that: the gaunt farmer, toiling every minute between sun +and sun; the thin, patient woman bending to a task that never charged or +lightened; the children growing up and leaving one by one, some to the +cities, some to the West, until the old people are left alone in the +evening of life--to the sunsets and the storms. Of course you must write +a book." + +Mr. Duncan quoted other letters, and William Wetherell thrilled. Poor +man! he had had little enough incense in his time, and none at all from +the great. They came to the big square house with the cornice which +Cynthia had seen the day before, and walked across the lawn through the +open door. William Wetherell had a glimpse of a great drawing-room with +high windows, out of which was wafted the sound of a piano and of +youthful voice and laughter, and then he was in the library. The thought +of one man owning all those books overpowered him. There they were, in +stately rows, from the floor to the high ceiling, and a portable ladder +with which to reach them. + +Mr. Duncan, understanding perhaps something of the storekeeper's +embarrassment, proceeded to take down his treasures: first editions from +the shelves, and folios and mistrals from drawers in a great iron safe in +one corner and laid them on the mahogany desk. It was the railroad +president's hobby, and could he find an appreciative guest, he was happy. +It need scarcely be said that he found William Wetherell appreciative, +and possessed of knowledge of Shaksperiana and other matters that +astonished his host as well as pleased him. For Wetherell had found his +tongue at last. + +After a while Mr. Duncan drew out his watch and gave a start. + +"By George!" he exclaimed, "it's after eight o'clock. I'll have to ask +you to excuse me to-night, Mr. Wetherell. I'd like to show you the rest +of them--can't you come around to-morrow afternoon?" + +Mr. Wetherell, who had forgotten his own engagement and "Uncle Tom's +Cabin," said he would be happy to come. And they went out together and +began to walk toward the State House. + +"It isn't often I find a man who knows anything at all about these +things," continued Mr. Duncan, whose heart was quite won. "Why do you +bury yourself in Coniston?" + +"I went there from Briton for my health," said the storekeeper. + +"Jethro Bass lives there, doesn't he" said Mr. Duncan, with a laugh. But +I suppose you don't know anything about politics." + +"I know nothing at all," said Mr. Wetherell, which was quite true. He +had been in dreamland, but now the fact struck him again, with something +of a shock, that this mild-mannered gentleman was one of those who had +been paying certain legislators to remain in their seats. Wetherell +thought of speaking to Mr. Duncan of his friendship with Jethro Bass, but +the occasion passed. + +"I wish to heaven I didn't have to know anything about politics," Mr. +Duncan was saying; "they disgust me. There's a little matter on now, +about an extension of the Truro Railroad to Harwich, which wouldn't +interest you, but you can't conceive what a nuisance it has been to watch +that House day and night, as I've had to. It's no joke to have that +townsman of yours; Jethro Bass, opposed to you. I won't say anything +against him, for he many be a friend of yours, and I have to use him +sometimes myself." Mr. Duncan sighed. "It's all very sordid and +annoying. Now this evening, for instance, when we might have enjoyed +ourselves with those books, I've' got to go to the House, just because +some backwoods farmers want to talk about woodchucks. I suppose it's +foolish," said Mr. Duncan; "but Bass has tricked us so often that I've +got into the habit of being watchful. I should have been here twenty +minutes ago." + +By this time they had come to the entrance of the State House, and +Wetherell followed Mr. Duncan in, to have a look at the woodchuck session +himself. Several members hurried by and up the stairs, some of them in +their Sunday black; and the lobby above seemed, even to the storekeeper's +unpractised eye, a trifle active for a woodchuck session. Mr. Duncan +muttered something, and quickened his gait a little on the steps that led +to the gallery. This place was almost empty. They went down to the +rail, and the railroad president cast his eye over the House. + +"Good God!" he said sharply, "there's almost a quorum here." He ran his +eye over the members. "There is a quorum here." + +Mr. Duncan stood drumming nervously with his fingers on the rail, +scanning the heads below. The members were scattered far and wide +through the seats, like an army in open order, listening in silence to +the droning voice of the clerk. Moths burned in the gas flames, and June +bugs hummed in at the high windows and tilted against the walls. Then +Mr. Duncan's finger nails whitened as his thin hands clutched the rail, +and a sense of a pending event was upon Wetherell. Slowly he realized +that he was listening to the Speaker's deep voice. + +"'The Committee on Corporations, to whom was referred House Bill Number +109, entitled, 'An Act to extend the Truro Railroad to Harwich, having +considered the same, report the same with the following resolution: +Resolved, that the bill ought to pass. Chauncey Weed, for the +Committee.'" + +The Truro Franchise! The lights danced, and even a sudden weakness came +upon the storekeeper. Jethro's trick! The Duncan and Lovejoy +representatives in the theatre, the adherents of the bill here! +Wetherell saw Mr. Duncan beside him, a tense figure leaning on the rail, +calling to some one below. A man darted up the centre, another up the +side aisle. Then Mr. Duncan flashed at William Wetherell from his blue +eye such a look of anger as the storekeeper never forgot, and he, too, +was gone. Tingling and perspiring, Wetherell leaned out over the railing +as the Speaker rapped calmly for order. Hysteric laughter, mingled with +hoarse cries, ran over the House, but the Honorable Heth Sutton did not +even smile. + +A dozen members were on their feet shouting to the chair. One was +recognized, and that man Wetherell perceived with amazement to be Mr. +Jameson of Wantage, adherent of Jethro's--he who had moved to adjourn for +"Uncle Tom's Cabin"! A score of members crowded into the aisles, but the +Speaker's voice again rose above the tumult. + +"The doorkeepers will close the doors! Mr. Jameson of Wantage moves that +the report of the Committee be accepted, and on this motion a roll-call +is ordered." + +The doorkeepers, who must have been inspired, had already slammed the +doors in the faces of those seeking wildly to escape. The clerk already +had the little, short-legged desk before him and was calling the roll +with incredible rapidity. Bewildered and excited as Wetherell was, and +knowing as little of parliamentary law as the gentleman who had proposed +the woodchuck session, he began to form some sort of a notion of Jethro's +generalship, and he saw that the innocent rural members who belonged to +Duncan and Lovejoy's faction had tried to get away before the roll-call, +destroy the quorum, and so adjourn the House. These, needless to say, +were not parliamentarians, either. They had lacked a leader, they were +stunned by the suddenness of the onslaught, and had not moved quickly +enough. Like trapped animals, they wandered blindly about for a few +moments, and then sank down anywhere. Each answered the roll-call +sullenly, out of necessity, for every one of them was a marked man. Then +Wetherell remembered the two members who had escaped, and Mr. Duncan, and +fell to calculating how long it would take these to reach Fosters Opera +House, break into the middle of an act, and get out enough partisans to +come back and kill the bill. Mr. Wetherell began to wish he could +witness the scene there, too, but something held him here, shaking with +excitement, listening to each name that the clerk called. + +Would the people at the theatre get back in time? + +Despite William Wetherell's principles, whatever these may have been, he +was so carried away that he found himself with his watch in his hand, +counting off the minutes as the roll-call went on. Fosters Opera House +was some six squares distant, and by a liberal estimate Mr. Duncan and +his advance guard ought to get back within twenty minutes of the time he +left. Wetherell was not aware that people were coming into the gallery +behind him; he was not aware that one sat at his elbow until a familiar +voice spoke, directly into his ear. + +"Er--Will--held Duncan pretty tight--didn't you? He's a hard one to +fool, too. Never suspected a mite, did he? Look out for your watch!" + +Mr. Bixby seized it or it would have fallen. If his life had depended on +it, William Wetherell could not have spoken a word to Mr. Bixby then. + +"You done well, Will, sure enough," that gentleman continued to whisper. +"And Alvy's gal done well, too--you understand. I guess she's the only +one that ever snarled up Al Lovejoy so that he didn't know where he was +at. But it took a fine, delicate touch for her job and yours, Will. +Godfrey, this is the quickest roll-call I ever seed! They've got halfway +through Truro County. That fellow can talk faster than a side-show, +ticket-seller at a circus." + +The clerk was, indeed, performing prodigies of pronunciation. When he +reached Wells County, the last, Mr. Bixby so far lost his habitual sang +froid as to hammer on the rail with his fist. + +"If there hain't a quorum, we're done for," he said. "How much time has +gone away? Twenty minutes! Godfrey, some of 'em may break loose and git +here is five minutes!" + +"Break loose?" Wetherell exclaimed involuntarily. + +Mr. Bixby screwed up his face. + +"You understand. Accidents is liable to happen." + +Mr. Wetherell didn't understand in the least, but just then the clerk +reached the last name on the roll; an instant of absolute silence, save +for the June-bugs, followed, while the assistant clerk ran over his +figures deftly and handed them to Mr. Sutton, who leaned forward to +receive them. + +"One hundred and twelve gentlemen have voted in the affirmative and +forty-eight in the negative, and the report of the Committee is +accepted." + +"Ten more'n a quorum!" ejaculated Mr. Bixby, in a voice of thanksgiving, +as the turmoil below began again. It seemed as though every man in the +opposition was on his feet and yelling at the chair: some to adjourn; +some to indefinitely postpone; some demanding roll-calls; others swearing +at these--for a division vote would have opened the doors. Others tried +to get out, and then ran down the aisles and called fiercely on the +Speaker to open the doors, and threatened him. But the Honorable Heth +Sutton did not lose his head, and it may be doubted whether he ever +appeared to better advantage than at that moment. He had a voice like +one of the Clovelly bulls that fed in his own pastures in the valley, and +by sheer bellowing he got silence, or something approaching it,--the +protests dying down to a hum; had recognised another friend of the bill, +and was putting another question. + +"Mr. Gibbs of Wareham moves that the rules of the House be so far +suspended that this bill be read a second and third time by its title, +and be put upon its final passage at this time. And on this motion," +thundered Mr. Sutton, above the tide of rising voices, "the yeas and nays +are called for. The doorkeepers will keep the doors shut." + +"Abbey of Ashburton." + +The nimble clerk had begun on the roll almost before the Speaker was +through, and checked off the name. Bijah Bixby mopped his brow with a +blue pocket-handkerchief. + +"My God," he said, "what a risk Jethro's took! they can't git through +another roll-call. Jest look at Heth! Ain't he carryin' it magnificent? +Hain't as ruffled as I be. I've knowed him ever sence he wahn't no +higher'n that desk. Never would have b'en in politics if it hadn't b'en +for me. Funny thing, Will--you and I was so excited we never thought to +look at the clock. Put up your watch. Godfrey, what's this?" + +The noise of many feet was heard behind them. Men and women were +crowding breathlessly into the gallery. + +"Didn't take it long to git noised araound," said Mr. Bixby. "Say, Will, +they're bound to have got at 'em in the thea'tre. Don't see how they +held 'em off, c-cussed if I do." + +The seconds ticked into minutes, the air became stifling, for now the +front of the gallery was packed. Now, if ever, the fate of the Truro +Franchise hung in the balance, and, perhaps, the rule of Jethro Bass. +And now, as in the distance, came a faint, indefinable stir, not yet to +be identified by Wetherell's ears as a sound, but registered somewhere in +his brain as a warning note. Bijah Bixby, as sensitive as he, +straightened up to listen, and then the whispering was hushed. The +members below raised their heads, and some clutched the seats in front of +them and looked up at the high windows. Only the Speaker sat like a wax +statue of himself, and glanced neither to the right nor to the left. + +"Harkness of Truro," said the clerk. + +"He's almost to Wells County again," whispered Bijah, excitedly. "I +didn't callate he could do it. Will?" + +"Yes?" + +"Will--you hear somethin'?" + +A distant shout floated with the night breeze in at the windows; a man on +the floor got to his feet and stood straining: a commotion was going on +at the back of the gallery, and a voice was heard crying out:-- + +"For the love of God, let me through!" + +Then Wetherell turned to see the crowd at the back parting a little, to +see a desperate man in a gorgeous white necktie fighting his way toward +the rail. He wore no hat, his collar was wilted, and his normally ashen +face had turned white. And, strangest of all, clutched tightly in his +hand was a pink ribbon. + +"It's A1 Lovejoy," said Bijah, laconically. + +Unmindful of the awe-stricken stares he got from those about him when his +identity became known, Mr. Lovejoy gained the rail and shoved aside a man +who was actually making way for him. Leaning far out, he scanned the +house with inarticulate rage while the roll-call went monotonously on. +Some of the members looked up at him and laughed; others began to make +frantic signs, indicative of helplessness; still others telegraphed him +obvious advice about reenforcements which, if anything, increased his +fury. Mr. Bixby was now fanning himself with the blue handkerchief. + +"I hear 'em!" he said, "I hear 'em, Will!" + +And he did. The unmistakable hum of the voices of many men and the sound +of feet on stone flagging shook the silent night without. The clerk read +off the last name on the roll. + +"Tompkins of Ulster." + +His assistant lost no time now. A mistake would have been fatal, but he +was an old hand. Unmindful of the rumble on the wooden stairs below, Mr. +Sutton took the list with an admirable deliberation. + +"One hundred and twelve gentlemen have voted in the affirmative, forty- +eight in the negative, the rules of the House are suspended, and" (the +clerk having twice mumbled the title of the bill) "the question is: Shall +the bill pass? As many as are of opinion that the bill pass will say +Aye, contrary minded No." + +Feet were in the House corridor now, and voices rising there, and noises +that must have been scuffling--yes, and beating of door panels. Almost +every member was standing, and it seemed as if they were all shouting,-- +"personal privilege," "fraud," "trickery," "open the doors." Bijah was +slowly squeezing the blood out of William Wetherell's arm. + +"The doorkeepers has the keys in their pockets!" Mr. Bixby had to shout, +for once. + +Even then the Speaker did not flinch. By a seeming miracle he got a +semblance of order, recognized his man, and his great voice rang through +the hall and drowned all other sounds. + +"And on this question a roll-call is ordered. The doorkeepers will close +the doors!" + +Then, as in reaction, the gallery trembled with a roar of laughter. But +Mr. Sutton did not smile. The clerk scratched off the names with +lightning rapidity, scarce waiting for the answers. Every man's color +was known, and it was against the rules to be present and fail to vote. +The noise in the corridors grew louder, some one dealt a smashing kick on +a panel, and Wetherell ventured to ask Mr. Bixby if he thought the doors +would hold. + +"They can break in all they've a mind to now," he chuckled; "the Truro +Franchise is safe." + +"What do you mean?" Wetherell demanded excitedly. + +"If a member hain't present when a question is put, he can't git into a +roll-call," said Bijah. + +The fact that the day was lost was evidently brought home to those below, +for the strife subsided gradually, and finally ceased altogether. The +whispers in the gallery died down, the spectators relayed a little. +Lovejoy alone remained tense, though he had seated himself on a bench, +and the hot anger in which he had come was now cooled into a +vindictiveness that set the hard lines of his face even harder. He still +clutched the ribbon. The last part of that famous roll-call was +conducted so quietly that a stranger entering the House would have +suspected nothing unusual. It was finished in absolute silence. + +"One hundred and twelve gentlemen have voted in the affirmative, forty- +eight in the negative, and the bill passes. The House will attend to the +title of the bill." + +"An act to extend the Truro Railroad to Harwich," said the clerk, glibly. + +"Such will be the title of the bill unless otherwise ordered by the +House," said Mr. Speaker Sutton. "The doorkeepers will open the doors." + +Somebody moved to adjourn, the motion was carried, and thus ended what +has gone down to history as the Woodchuck Session. Pandemonium reigned. +One hundred and forty belated members fought their way in at the four +entrances, and mingled with them were lobbyists of all sorts and +conditions, residents and visitors to the capital, men and women to whom +the drama of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was as nothing to that of the Truro +Franchise Bill. It was a sight to look down upon. Fierce wrangles began +in a score of places, isolated personal remarks rose above the din, but +your New Englander rarely comes to blows; in other spots men with broad +smiles seized others by the hands and shook them violently, while Mr. +Speaker Sutton seemed in danger of suffocation by his friends. His +enemies, for the moment, could get nowhere near him. On this scene Mr. +Bijah Bixby gazed with pardonable pleasure. + +"Guess there wahn't a mite of trouble about the river towns," he said, "I +had 'em in my pocket. Will, let's amble round to the theatre. We ought +to git in two acts." + +William Wetherell went. There is no need to go into the psychology of +the matter. It may have been numbness; it may have been temporary +insanity caused by the excitement of the battle he had witnessed, for his +brain was in a whirl; or Mr. Bixby may have hypnotized him. As they +walked through the silent streets toward the Opera House, he listened +perforce to Mr. Bixby's comments upon some of the innumerable details +which Jethro had planned and quietly carried out while sitting, in the +window of the Throne Room. A great light dawned on William Wetherell, +but too late. + +Jethro's trusted lieutenants (of whom, needless to say, Mr. Bixby was +one) had been commanded to notify such of their supporters whose fidelity +and secrecy could be absolutely depended upon to attend the Woodchuck +Session; and, further to guard against surprise, this order had not gone +out until the last minute (hence Mr. Amos Cuthbert's conduct). The seats +of these members at the theatre had been filled by accommodating +townspeople and visitors. Forestalling a possible vote on the morrow to +recall and reconsider, there remained some sixty members whose loyalty +was unquestioned, but whose reputation for discretion was not of the +best. So much for the parliamentary side of the affair, which was a +revelation of generalship and organization to William Wetherell. By the +time he had grasped it they were come in view of the lights of Fosters +Opera House, and they perceived, among a sprinkling of idlers, a +conspicuous and meditative gentleman leaning against a pillar. He was +ludicrously tall and ludicrously thin, his hands were in his trousers +pockets, and the skirts of his Sunday broadcloth coat hung down behind +him awry. One long foot was crossed over the other and rested on the +point of the toe, and his head was tilted to one side. He had, on the +whole, the appearance of a rather mournful stork. Mr. Bixby approached +him gravely, seized him by the lower shoulder, and tilted him down until +it was possible to speak into his ear. The gentleman apparently did not +resent this, although he seemed in imminent danger of being upset. + +"How be you, Peleg? Er--you know Will?" + +"No," said the gentleman. + +Mr. Bixby seized Mr. Wetherell under the elbow, and addressed himself to +the storekeeper's ear. + +"Will, I want you to shake hands with Senator Peleg Hartington, of +Brampton. This is Will Wetherell, Peleg,--from Coniston--you +understand." + +The senator took one hand from his pocket. + +"How be you?" he said. Mr. Bixby was once more pulling down on his +shoulder. + +"H-haow was it here?" he demanded. + +"Almighty funny," answered Senator Hartington, sadly, and waved at the +lobby. "There wahn't standin' room in the place." + +"Jethro Bass Republican Club come and packed the entrance," explained Mr. +Bixby with a wink. "You understand, Will? Go on, Peleg." + +"Sidewalk and street, too," continued Mr. Hartington, slowly. "First come +along Ball of Towles, hollerin' like blazes. They crumpled him all up +and lost him. Next come old man Duncan himself." + +"Will kep' Duncan," Mr. Bixby interjected. + +"That was wholly an accident," exclaimed Mr. Wetherell, angrily. + +"Will wahn't born in the country," said Mr. Bixby. + +Mr. Hartington bestowed on the storekeeper a mournful look, and +continued:-- + +"Never seed Duncan sweatin' before. He didn't seem to grasp why the boys +was there." + +"Didn't seem to understand," put in Mr. Bixby, sympathetically. + +"'For God's sake, gentlemen,' says he, 'let me in! The Truro Bill!' +'The Truro Bill hain't in the theatre, Mr. Duncan,' says Dan Everett. +Cussed if I didn't come near laughin'. 'That's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Mr. +Duncan,' says Dan. 'You're a dam fool,' says Duncan. I didn't know he +was profane. 'Make room for Mr. Duncan,' says Dan, 'he wants to see the +show.' 'I'm a-goin' to see you in jail for this, Everett,' says Duncan. +They let him push in about half a rod, and they swallowed him. He was +makin' such a noise that they had to close the doors of the theatre--so's +not to disturb the play-actors." + +"You understand," said Mr. Bixby to Wetherell. Whereupon he gave another +shake to Mr. Hartington, who had relapsed into a sort of funereal +meditation. + +"Well," resumed that personage, "there was some more come, hollerin' +about the Truro Bill. Not many. Guess they'll all have to git their +wimmen-folks to press their clothes to-morrow. Then Duncan wanted to git +out again, but 'twan't exactly convenient. Callated he was suffocatin'-- +seemed to need air. Little mite limp when he broke loose, Duncan was." + +The Honorable Peleg stopped again, as if he were overcome by the +recollection of Mr. Duncan's plight. + +"Er--er--Peleg!" + +Mr. Hartington started. + +"What'd they do?--what'd they do?" + +"Do?" + +"How'd they git notice to 'em?" + +"Oh," said Mr. Hartington, "cussed if that wuhn't funny. Let's see, +where was I? After awhile they went over t'other side of the street, +talkin' sly, waitin' for the act to end. But goldarned if it ever did +end." + +For once Mr. Bixby didn't seem to understand. + +"D-didn't end?" + +"No," explained Mr. Hartington; "seems they hitched a kind of nigger +minstrel show right on to it--banjos and thingumajigs in front of the +curtain while they was changin' scenes, and they hitched the second act +right on to that. Nobody come out of the theatre at all. Funny notion, +wahn't it?" + +Mr. Bixby's face took on a look of extreme cunning. He smiled broadly +and poked Mr. Wetherell in an extremely sensitive portion of his ribs. +On such occasions the nasal quality of Bijah's voice seemed to grow. + +"You see?" he said. + +"Know that little man, Gibbs, don't ye?" inquired Mr. Hartington. + +"Airley Gibbs, hain't it? Runs a livery business daown to Rutgers, on +Lovejoy's railroad," replied Mr. Bixby, promptly. "I know him. Knew old +man Gibbs well's I do you. Mean cuss." + +"This Airley's smart--wahn't quite smart enough, though. His bright idea +come a little mite late. Hunted up old Christy, got the key to his law +office right here in the Duncan Block, went up through the skylight, +clumb down to the roof of Randall's store next door, shinned up the +lightnin' rod on t'other side, and stuck his head plump into the Opery +House window." + +"I want to know!" ejaculated Mr. Bixby. + +"Somethin' terrible pathetic was goin' on on the stage," resumed Mr. +Hartington, "the folks didn't see him at first,--they was all cryin' and +everythin' was still, but Airley wahn't affected. As quick as he got his +breath he hollered right out loud's he could: 'The Truro Bill's up in the +House, boys. We're skun if you don't git thar quick.' Then they tell +me' the lightnin' rod give way; anyhow, he came down on Randall's gravel +roof considerable hard, I take it." + +Mr. Hartington, apparently, had an aggravating way of falling into +mournful revery and of forgetting his subject. Mr. Bixby was forced to +jog him again. + +"Yes, they did," he said, "they did. They come out like the theatre was +afire. There was some delay in gettin' to the street, but not much--not +much. All the Republican Clubs in the state couldn't have held 'em then, +and the profanity they used wahn't especially edifyin'." + +"Peleg's a deacon--you understand," said Mr. Bixby. "Say, Peleg, where +was Al Lovejoy?" + +"Lovejoy come along with the first of 'em. Must have hurried some--they +tell me he was settin' way down in front alongside of Alvy Hopkins's gal, +and when Airley hollered out she screeched and clutched on to Al, and Al +said somethin' he hadn't ought to and tore off one of them pink gew-gaws +she was covered with. He was the maddest man I ever see. Some of the +club was crowded inside, behind the seats, standin' up to see the show. +Al was so anxious to git through he hit Si Dudley in the mouth--injured +him some, I guess. Pity, wahn't it?" + +"Si hain't in politics, you understand," said Mr. Bixby. "Callate Si +paid to git in there, didn't he, Peleg?" + +"Callate he did," assented Senator Hartington. + +A long and painful pause followed. There seemed, indeed, nothing more +to be said. The sound of applause floated out of the Opera House doors, +around which the remaining loiterers were clustered. + +"Goin' in, be you, Peleg?" inquired Mr. Bixby. + +Mr. Hartington shook his head. + +"Will and me had a notion to see somethin' of the show," said Mr. Bixby, +almost apologetically. "I kep' my ticket." + +"Well," said Mr. Hartington, reflectively, "I guess you'll find some of +the show left. That hain't b'en hurt much, so far as I can ascertain." + +The next afternoon, when Mr. Isaac D. Worthington happened to be sitting +alone in the office of the Truro Railroad at the capital, there came a +knock at the door, and Mr. Bijah Bixby entered. Now, incredible as it +may seem, Mr. Worthington did not know Mr. Bixby--or rather, did not +remember him. Mr. Worthington had not had at that time much of an +experience in politics, and he did not possess a very good memory for +faces. + +Mr. Bixby, who had, as we know, a confidential and winning manner, seated +himself in a chair very close to Mr. Worthington--somewhat to that +gentleman's alarm. "How be you?" said Bijah, "I-I've got a little bill +here--you understand." + +Mr. Worthington didn't understand, and he drew his chair away from Mr. +Bixby's. + +"I don't know anything about it, sir," answered the president of the +Truro Railroad, indignantly; "this is neither the manner nor the place to +present a bill. I don't want to see it." + +Mr. Bixby moved his chair up again. "Callate you will want to see this +bill, Mr. Worthington," he insisted, not at all abashed. "Jethro Bass +sent it--you understand--it's engrossed." + +Whereupon Mr. Bixby drew from his capacious pocket a roll, tied with +white ribbon, and pressed it into Mr. Worthington's hands. It was the +Truro Franchise Bill. + +It is safe to say that Mr. Worthington understood. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +There are certain instruments used by scientists so delicate that they +have to be wrapped in cotton wool and kept in ductless places, and so +sensitive that the slightest shock will derange them. And there are +certain souls which cannot stand the jars of life--souls created to +register thoughts and sentiments too fine for those of coarser +construction. Such was the soul of the storekeeper of Coniston. Whether +or not he was one of those immortalized in the famous Elegy, it is not +for us to say. A celebrated poet who read the letters to the Guardian-- +at Miss Lucretia Penniman's request--has declared Mr. Wetherell to have +been a genius. He wrote those letters, as we know, after he had piled +his boxes and rolled his barrels into place; after he had added up the +columns in his ledger and recorded, each week, the small but ever +increasing deficit which he owed to Jethro Bass. Could he have been +removed from the barrels and the ledgers, and the debts and the cares and +the implications, what might we have had from his pen? That will never +be known. + +We left him in the lobby of the Opera House, but he did not go in to see +the final act of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." He made his way, alone, back to +the hotel, slipped in by a side entrance, and went directly to his room, +where Cynthia found him, half an hour later, seated by the open window in +the dark. + +"Aren't you well, Dad?" she asked anxiously. "Why didn't you come to see +the play?" + +"I--I was detained Cynthia," he said. "Yes--I am well." + +She sat down beside him and felt his forehead and his hands, and the +events of the evening which were on her lips to tell him remained +unspoken. + +"You ought not to have left Coniston," she said; "the excitement is too +much for you. We will go back tomorrow." + +"Yes, Cynthia, we will go back to-morrow." + +"In the morning?" + +"On the early train," said Wetherell, "and now you must go to sleep." + +"I am glad," said Cynthia, as she kissed him good night. "I have enjoyed +it here, and I am grateful to Uncle Jethro for bringing us, but--but I +like Coniston best." + +William Wetherell could have slept but a few hours. When he awoke the +sparrows were twittering outside, the fresh cool smells of the morning +were coming in at his windows, and the sunlight was just striking across +the roofs through the green trees of the Capitol Park. The remembrance +of a certain incident of the night before crept into his mind, and he got +up, and drew on his clothes and thrust his few belongings into the +carpet-bag, and knocked on Cynthia's door. She was already dressed, and +her eyes rested searchingly on his face. + +"Dad, you aren't well. I know it," she said. + +But he denied that he was not. + +Her belongings were in a neat little bundle under her arm. But when she +went to put them in the bag she gave an exclamation, knelt down, took +everything out that he had packed, and folded each article over again +with amazing quickness. Then she made a rapid survey of the room lest +she had forgotten anything, closed the bag, and they went out and along +the corridor. But when Wetherell turned to go down the stairs, she +stopped him. + +"Aren't you going to say goodby to Uncle Jethro?" + +"I--I would rather go on and get in the train, Cynthia," he said. +"Jethro will understand." + +Cynthia was worried, but she did not care to leave him; and she led him, +protesting, into the dining room. He had a sinking fear that they might +meet Jethro there, but only a few big-boned countrymen were scattered +about, attended by sleepy waitresses. Lest Cynthia might suspect how his +head was throbbing, Wetherell tried bravely to eat his breakfast. He did +not know that she had gone out, while they were waiting, and written a +note to Jethro, explaining that her father was ill, and that they were +going back to Coniston. After breakfast, when they went to the desk, the +clerk stared at them in astonishment. + +"Going, Mr. Wetherell?" he exclaimed. + +"I find that I have to get back," stammered the storekeeper. "Will you +tell me the amount of my bill?" + +"Judge Bass gave me instructions that he would settle that." + +"It is very kind of Mr. Bass," said Wetherell, "but I prefer to pay it +myself." + +The man hesitated. + +"The judge will be very angry, Mr. Wetherell." + +"Kindly give me the bill." + +The clerk made it out and handed it over in silence. Wetherell had in +his pocket the money from several contributions to the Guardian, and he +paid him. Then they set out for the station, bought their tickets and +hurried past the sprinkling of people there. The little train for Truro +was standing under the sheds, the hissing steam from the locomotive +rising perpendicular in the still air of the morning, and soon they were +settled in one of the straight-backed seats. The car was almost empty, +for few people were going up that day, and at length, after what, seemed +an eternity of waiting, they started, and soon were in the country once +more in that wonderful Truro valley with its fruit trees and its clover +scents; with its sparkling stream that tumbled through the passes and +mirrored between green meadow-banks the blue and white of the sky. How +hungrily they drank in the freshness of it. + +They reached Truro village at eleven. Outside the little tavern there, +after dinner, the green stage was drawn up; and Tom the driver cracked +his long whip over the Morgan leaders and they started, swaying in the +sand ruts and jolting over the great stones that cropped out of the road. +Up they climbed, through narrow ways in the forest--ways hedged with +alder and fern and sumach and wild grape, adorned with oxeye daisies and +tiger lilies, and the big purple flowers which they knew and loved so +well. They passed, too, wild lakes overhung with primeval trees, where +the iris and the waterlily grew among the fallen trunks and the water- +fowl called to each other across the blue stretches. And at length, when +the sun was beginning visibly to fall, they came out into an open cut on +the western side and saw again the long line of Coniston once more +against the sky. + +"Dad," said Cynthia, as she gazed, "don't you love it better than any +other place in the world?" + +He did. But he could not answer her. + +An hour later, from the hilltops above Isaac Worthington's mills, they +saw the terraced steeple of Brampton church, and soon the horses were +standing with drooping heads and wet sides in front of Mr. Sherman's +tavern in Brampton Street; and Lem Hallowell, his honest face aglow with +joy, was lifting Cynthia out of the coach as if she were a bundle of +feathers. + +"Upon my word," he cried, "this is a little might sudden! What's the +matter with the capital, Will? Too wicked and sophisticated down thar to +suit ye?" By this time, Wetherell, too, had reached the ground, and as +Lem Hallowell gazed into his face the laughter in his own died away and +gave place to a look of concern. "Don't wonder ye come back," he said, +"you're as white as Moses's hoss." + +"He isn't feeling very well, Lem;" said Cynthia. + +"Jest tuckered, that's all," answered Lem; "you git him right into the +stage, Cynthy, I won't be long. Hurry them things off, Tom," he called, +and himself seized a huge crate from the back of the coach and flung it +on his shoulder. He had his cargo on in a jiffy, clucked to his horses, +and they turned into the familiar road to Coniston just as the sun was +dipping behind the south end of the mountain. + +"They'll be surprised some, and disappointed some," said Lem, cheerily; +"they was kind of plannin' a little celebration when you come back, Will- +-you and Cynthy. Amandy Hatch was a-goin' to bake a cake, and the +minister was callatin' to say some word of welcome. Wahn't goin' to be +anything grand--jest homelike. But you was right to come if you was +tuckered. I guess Cynthy fetched you. Rias he kep' store and done it +well,--brisker'n I ever see him, Rias was. Wait till I put some of them +things back, and make you more comfortable, Will." + +He moved a few parcels and packages from Wetherell's feet and glanced at +Cynthia as he did so. The mountain cast its vast blue shadow over forest +and pasture, and above the pines the white mist was rising from Coniston +Water--rising in strange shapes. Lem's voice seemed to William Wetherell +to have given way to a world-wide silence, in the midst of which he +sought vainly for Cynthia and the stage driver. Most extraordinary of +all, out of the silence and the void came the checker-paned windows of +the store at Coniston, then the store itself, with the great oaks bending +over it, then the dear familiar faces,--Moses and Amandy, Eph Prescott +limping toward them, and little Rias Richardson in an apron with a scoop +shovel in his hand, and many others. They were not smiling at the +storekeeper's return--they looked very grave. Then somebody lifted him +tenderly from the stage and said:-- + +"Don't you worry a mite, Cynthy. Jest tuckered, that's all." + +William Wetherell was "just tuckered." The great Dr. Coles, authority on +pulmonary troubles, who came all the way from Boston, could give no +better verdict than that. It was Jethro Bass who had induced Dr. Coles +to come to Coniston--much against the great man's inclination, and to the +detriment of his patients: Jethro who, on receiving Cynthia's note, had +left the capital on the next train and had come to Coniston, and had at +once gone to Boston for the specialist. + +"I do not know why I came," said the famous physician to Dr. Abraham +Rowell of Tarleton, "I never shall know. There is something about that +man Jethro Bass which compels you to do his will. He has a most +extraordinary personality. Is this storekeeper a great friend of his?" + +"The only intimate friend he had in the world," answered Dr. Rowell; +"none of us could ever understand it. And as for the girl, Jethro Bass +worships her." + +"If nursing could cure him, I'd trust her to do it. She's a natural-born +nurse." + +The two physicians were talking in low tones in the little garden behind +the store when Jethro came out of the doorway. + +"He looks as if he were suffering too," said the Boston physician, and he +walked toward Jethro and laid a hand upon his shoulders. "I give him +until winter, my friend," said Dr. Coles. + +Jethro Bass sat down on the doorstep--on that same millstone where he had +talked with Cynthia many years before--and was silent for a long while. +The doctor was used to scenes of sorrow, but the sight of this man's +suffering unnerved him, and he turned from it. + +"D-doctor?" said Jethro, at last. + +The doctor turned again: "Yes?" he said. + +"D-doctor--if Wetherell hadn't b'en to the capital would he have lived-- +if he hadn't been to the capital?" + +"My friend," said Dr. Coles, "if Mr. Wetherell had always lived in a warm +house, and had always been well fed, and helped over the rough places and +shielded from the storms, he might have lived longer. It is a marvel to +me that he has lived so long." + +And then the doctor went way, back to Boston. Many times in his long +professional life had the veil been lifted for him--a little. But as he +sat in the train he said to himself that in this visit to the hamlet of +Coniston he had had the strangest glimpse of all. William Wetherell +rallied, as Dr. Coles had predicted, from that first sharp attack, and +one morning they brought up a reclining chair which belonged to Mr. +Satterlee, the minister, and set it in the window. There, in the still +days of the early autumn, Wetherell looked down upon the garden he had +grown to love, and listened to the song of Coniston Water. There +Cynthia, who had scarcely left his side, read to him from Keats and +Shelley and Tennyson--yet the thought grew on her that he did not seem to +hear. Even that wonderful passage of Milton's, beginning "So sinks the +day-star in the ocean bed," which he always used to beg her to repeat, +did not seem to move him now. + +The neighbors came and sat with him, but he would not often speak. +Cheery Lem Hallowell and his wife, and Cousin Ephraim, to talk about the +war, hobbling slowly up the stairs--for rheumatism had been added to that +trouble of the Wilderness bullet now, and Ephraim was getting along in +years; and Rias Richardson stole up in his carpet slippers; and Moses, +after his chores were done, and Amandy with her cakes and delicacies, +which he left untouched--though Amandy never knew it. Yes, and Jethro +came. Day by day he would come silently into the room, and sit silently +for a space, and go as silently out of it. The farms were neglected now +on Thousand Acre Hill. William Wetherell would take his hand, and speak +to him, but do no more than that. + +There were times when Cynthia leaned over him, listening as he breathed +to know whether he slept or were awake. If he were not sleeping, he +would speak her name: he repeated it often in those days, as though the +sound of it gave him comfort; and he would fall asleep with it on his +lips, holding her hand, and thinking, perhaps, of that other Cynthia who +had tended and nursed and shielded him in other days. Then she would +steal down the stairs to Jethro on the doorstep: to Jethro who would sit +there for hours at a time, to the wonder and awe of his neighbors. +Although they knew that he loved the storekeeper as he loved no other +man, his was a grief that they could not understand. + +Cynthia used to go to Jethro in the garden. Sorrow had brought them very +near together; and though she had loved him before, now he had become her +reliance and her refuge. The first time Cynthia saw him; when the worst +of the illness had passed and the strange and terrifying apathy had come, +she had hidden her head on his shoulder and wept there. Jethro kept that +coat, with the tear stains on it, to his dying day, and never wore it +again. + +"Sometimes--sometimes I think if he hadn't gone to the capital, Cynthy, +this mightn't hev come," he said to her once. + +"But the doctor said that didn't matter, Uncle Jethro," she answered, +trying to comfort him. She, too, believed that something had happened at +the capital. + +"N-never spoke to you about anything there--n-never spoke to you, +Cynthia?" + +"No, never," she said. "He--he hardly speaks at all, Uncle Jethro." + +One bright morning after the sun had driven away the frost, when the +sumacs and maples beside Coniston Water were aflame with red, Bias +Richardson came stealing up the stairs and whispered something to +Cynthia. + +"Dad," she said, laying down her book, "it's Mr. Merrill. Will you see +him?" + +William Wetherell gave her a great fright. He started up from his +pillows, and seized her wrist with a strength which she had not thought +remained in his fingers. + +"Mr. Merrill!" he cried--"Mr. Merrill here!" + +"Yes," answered Cynthia, agitatedly, "he's downstairs--in the store." + +"Ask him to come up," said Wetherell, sinking back again, "ask him to +come up." + +Cynthia, as she stood in the passage, was of two minds about it. She was +thoroughly frightened, and went first to the garden to ask Jethro's +advice. But Jethro, so Milly Skinner said, had gone off half an hour +before, and did not know that Mr. Merrill had arrived. Cynthia went back +again to her father. + +"Where's Mr. Merrill?" asked Wetherell. + +"Dad, do you think you ought to see him? He--he might excite you." + +"I insist upon seeing him, Cynthia." + +William Wetherell had never said anything like that before. But Cynthia +obeyed him, and presently led Mr. Merrill into the room. The kindly +little railroad president was very serious now. The wasted face of the +storekeeper, enhanced as it was by the beard, gave Mr. Merrill such a +shock that he could not speak for a few moments--he who rarely lacked for +cheering words on any occasion. A lump rose in his throat as he went +over and stood by the chair and took the sick man's hand. + +"I am glad you came, Mr. Merrill," said Wetherell, simply, "I wanted to +speak to you. Cynthia, will you leave us alone for a few minutes?" + +Cynthia went, troubled and perplexed, wondering at the change in him. He +had had something on his mind--now she was sure of it--something which +Mr. Merrill might be able to relieve. + +It was Mr. Merrill who spoke first when she was gone. + +"I was coming up to Brampton," he said, "and Tom Collins, who drives the +Truro coach, told me you were sick. I had not heard of it." + +Mr. Merrill, too, had something on his mind, and did not quite know how +to go on. There was in William Wetherell, as he sat in the chair with +his eyes fixed on his visitor's face, a dignity which Mr. Merrill had not +seen before--had not thought the man might possess. + +"I was coming to see you, anyway," Mr. Merrill said. + +"I did you a wrong--though as God judges me, I did not think of it at the +time. It was not until Alexander Duncan spoke to me last week that I +thought of it at all." + +"Yes," said Wetherell. + +"You see," continued Mr. Merrill wiping his brow, for he found the matter +even more difficult than he had imagined, "it was not until Duncan told +me how you had acted in his library that I guessed the truth--that I +remembered myself how you had acted. I knew that you were not mixed up +in politics, but I also knew that you were an intimate friend of +Jethro's, and I thought that you had been let into the secret of the +woodchuck session. I don't defend the game of politics as it is played, +Mr. Wetherell, but all of us who are friends of Jethro's are generally +willing to lend a hand in any little manoeuvre that is going on, and have +a practical joke when we can. It was not until I saw you sitting there +beside Duncan that the idea occurred to me. It didn't make a great deal +of difference whether Duncan or Lovejoy got to the House or not, provided +they didn't learn of the matter too early, because some of their men had +been bought off that day. It suited Jethro's sense of humor to play the +game that way--and it was very effective. When I saw you there beside +Duncan I remembered that he had spoken about the Guardian letters, and +the notion occurred to me to get him to show you his library. I have +explained to him that you were innocent. I--I hope you haven't been +worrying." + +William Wetherell sat very still for a while, gazing out of the window, +but a new look had come into his eyes. + +"Jethro Bass did not know that you--that you had used me?" he asked at +length. + +"No," replied Mr. Merrill thickly, "no. He didn't know a thing about it +--he doesn't know it now, I believe." + +A smile came upon Wetherell's face, but Mr. Merrill could not look at it. + +"You have made me very happy," said the storekeeper, tremulously. "I--I +have no right to be proud--I have taken his money--he has supported my +daughter and myself all these years. But he had never asked me to--to do +anything, and I liked to think that he never would." + +Mr. Merrill could not speak. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. + +"I want you to promise me, Mr. Merril!" he went on presently, "I want you +to promise me that you will never speak to Jethro, of this, or to my +daughter, Cynthia." + +Mr. Merrill merely nodded his head in assent. Still he could not speak. + +"They might think it was this that caused my death. It was not. I know +very well that I am worn out, and that I should have gone soon in any +case. And I must leave Cynthia to him. He loves her as his own child." + +William Wetherell, his faith in Jethro restored, was facing death as he +had never faced life. Mr. Merrill was greatly affected. + +"You must not speak of dying, Wetherell," said he, brokenly. "Will you +forgive me?" + +"There is nothing to forgive, now that you have explained matters, Mr. +Merrill" said the storekeeper, and he smiled again. "If my fibre had +been a little tougher, this thing would never have happened. There is +only one more request I have to make. And that is, to assure Mr. Duncan, +from me, that I did not detain him purposely." + +"I will see him on my way to Boston," answered Mr. Merrill. + +Then Cynthia was called. She was waiting anxiously in the passage for +the interview to be ended, and when she came in one glance at her +father's face told her that he was happier. She, too, was happier. + +"I wish you would come every day, Mr. Merrill" she said, when they +descended into the garden after the three had talked awhile. "It is the +first time since he fell ill that he seems himself." + +Mr. Merrill's answer was to take her hand and pat it. He sat down on the +millstone and drew a deep breath of that sparkling air and sighed, for +his memory ran back to his own innocent boyhood in the New England +country. He talked to Cynthia until Jethro came. + +"I have taken a fancy to this girl, Jethro," said the little railroad +president, "I believe I'll steal her; a fellow can't have too many of +'em, you know. I'll tell you one thing,--you won't keep her always shut +up here in Coniston. She's much too good to waste on the desert air." +Perhaps Mr. Merrill, too, had been thinking of the Elegy that morning. +"I don't mean to run down Coniston it's one of the most beautiful places +I ever saw. But seriously, Jethro, you and Wetherell ought to send her +to school in Boston after a while. She's about the age of my girls, and +she can live in my house: Ain't I right?" + +"D-don't know but what you be, Steve," Jethro answered slowly. + +"I am right," declared Mr. Merrill "you'll back me in this, I know it. +Why, she's like your own daughter. You remember what I say. I mean it. +--"What are you thinking about, Cynthia?" + +"I couldn't leave Dad and Uncle Jethro," she said. + +"Why, bless your soul," said Mr. Merrill "bring Dad along. We'll find +room for him. And I guess Uncle Jethro will get to Boston twice a month +if you're there." + +And Mr. Merrill got into the buggy with Mr. Sherman and drove away to +Brampton, thinking of many things. + +"S-Steve's a good man," said Jethro. "C-come up here from Brampton to +see your father--did he?" + +"Yes," answered Cynthia, "he is very kind." She was about to tell Jethro +what a strange difference this visit had made in her father's spirits, +but some instinct kept her silent. She knew that Jethro had never ceased +to reproach himself for inviting Wetherell to the capital, and she was +sure that something had happened there which had disturbed her father and +brought on that fearful apathy. But the apathy was dispelled now, and +she shrank from giving Jethro pain by mentioning the fact. + +He never knew, indeed, until many years afterward, what had brought +Stephen Merrill to Coniston. When Jethro went up the stairs that +afternoon, he found William Wetherell alone, looking out over the garden +with a new peace and contentment in his eyes. Jethro drew breath when he +saw that look, as if a great load had been lifted from his heart. + +"F-feelin' some better to-day, Will?" he said. + +"I am well again, Jethro," replied the storekeeper, pressing Jethro's +hand for the first time in months. + +"S-soon be, Will," said Jethro, "s-soon be." + +Wetherell, who was not speaking of the welfare of the body, did not +answer. + +"Jethro," he said presently, "there is a little box lying in the top of +my trunk over there in the corner. Will you get it for me." + +Jethro rose and opened the rawhide trunk and handed the little rosewood +box to his friend. Wetherell took it and lifted the lid reverently, with +that same smile on his face and far-off look in his eyes, and drew out a +small daguerreotype in a faded velvet frame. He gazed at the picture a +long time, and then he held it out to Jethro; and Jethro looked at it, +and his hand trembled. + +It was a picture of Cynthia Ware. And who can say what emotions it awoke +in Jethro's heart? She was older than the Cynthia he had known, and yet +she did not seem so. There was the same sweet, virginal look in the gray +eyes, and the same exquisite purity in the features. He saw her again-- +as if it were yesterday--walking in the golden green light under the +village maples, and himself standing in the tannery door; he saw the face +under the poke bonnet on the road to Brampton, and heard the thrush +singing in the woods. And--if he could only blot out that scene from his +life!--remembered her, a transformed Cynthia,--remembered that face in +the lantern-light when he had flung back the hood that shaded it; and +that hair which he had kissed, wet, then, from the sleet. Ah, God, for +that briefest of moments she had been his! + +So he stared at the picture as it lay in the palm of his hand, and forgot +him who had been her husband. But at length he started, as from a dream, +and gave it back to Wetherell, who was watching him. Her name had never +been mentioned between the two men, and yet she had been the one woman in +the world to both. + +"It is strange," said William Wetherell, "it is strange that I should +have had but two friends in my life, and that she should have been one +and you the other. She found me destitute and brought me back to life +and married me, and cared for me until she died. And after that--you +cared for me." + +"You--you mustn't think of that, Will, 'twahn't much what I did--no more +than any one else would hev done!" + +"It was everything," answered the storekeeper, simply; "each of you came +between me and destruction. There is something that I have always meant +to tell you, Jethro,--something that it may be a comfort for you to know. +Cynthia loved you." + +Jethro Bass did not answer. He got up and stood in the window, looking +out. + +"When she married me," Wetherell continued steadily, "she told me that +there was one whom she had never been able to drive from her heart. And +one summer evening, how well I recall it!--we were walking under the +trees on the Mall and we met my old employer, Mr. Judson, the jeweller. +He put me in mind of the young countryman who had come in to buy a +locket, and I asked her if she knew you. Strange that I should have +remembered your name, wasn't it? It was then that she led me to a bench +and confessed that you were the man whom she could not forget. I used to +hate you then--as much as was in me to hate. I hated and feared you when +I first came to Coniston. But now I can tell you--I can even be happy in +telling you." + +Jethro Bass groaned. He put his hand to his throat as though he were +stifling. Many, many years ago he had worn the locket there. And now? +Now an impulse seized him, and he yielded to it. He thrust his hand in +his coat and drew out a cowhide wallet, and from the wallet the oval +locket itself. There it was, tarnished with age, but with that memorable +inscription still legible,--"Cynthy, from Jethro"; not Cynthia, but +Cynthy. How the years fell away as he read it! He handed it in silence +to the storekeeper, and in silence went to the window again. Jethro Bass +was a man who could find no outlet for his agony in speech or tears. + +"Yes," said Wetherell, "I thought you would have kept it. Dear, dear, +how well I remember it! And I remember how I patronized you when you +came into the shop. I believed I should live to be something in the +world, then. Yes, she loved you, Jethro. I can die more easily now that +I have told you--it has been on my mind all these years." + +The locket fell open in William Wetherell's hand, for the clasp had +become worn with time, and there was a picture of little Cynthia within: +of little Cynthia,--not so little now,--a photograph taken in Brampton +the year before. Wetherell laid it beside the daguerreotype. + +"She looks like her," he said aloud; "but the child is more vigorous, +more human--less like a spirit. I have always thought of Cynthia Ware as +a spirit." + +Jethro turned at the words, and came and stood looking over Wetherell's +shoulder at the pictures of mother and daughter. In the rosewood box was +a brooch and a gold ring--Cynthia Ware's wedding ring--and two small +slips of yellow paper. William Wetherell opened one of these, disclosing +a little braid of brown hair. He folded the paper again and laid it in +the locket, and handed that to Jethro. + +"It is all I have to give you," he said, "but I know that you will +cherish it, and cherish her, when I am gone. She--she has been a +daughter to both of us." + +"Yes," said Jethro, "I will." + +William Wetherell lived but a few days longer. They laid him to rest at +last in the little ground which Captain Timothy Prescott had hewn out of +the forest with his axe, where Captain Timothy himself lies under his +slate headstone with the quaint lettering of bygone days.--That same +autumn Jethro Bass made a pilgrimage to Boston, and now Cynthia Ware +sleeps there, too, beside her husband, amid the scenes she loved so well. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Certain souls which cannot stand the jars of life +It is all I have to give you +It was almost criminal ignorance +Sit down under the enemy's ramparts and smoke him out +Thought that gentlemen and politics were contradictions + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Coniston, V2 +by Winston Churchill + |