CHAPTER TWENTY
Green River was getting ready for the rally in Odd Fellows' Hall. It wassix o'clock on the evening of the seventeenth of September, and "Grandrally, Odd Fellows' Hall, September Seventeenth at eight-thirty," hadbeen featured for weeks in the Green River _Record_, on the list thatwith a somewhat arrogant suggestion of prophetic powers possessed by the_Record_ was headed "Coming Events." It was always a scanty list,especially in the fall, when ten, twenty, thirty companies began to playlarger centres, and church lawn parties and circuses could no longerappear on it. Sometimes not more than six events were to come in a grayand workaday world. But six were enough to announce. Even a true prophetis not expected to see all the future, only to see clearly all that hesees, and the _Record_ did that.
This rally was important enough to be listed all by itself, and it didnot need the adjective grand. It was The Rally.
It was Green River's own--a local, almost a family, affair. Noout-of-town celebrities were to be imported this time, to be listenedto with awe and then wined and dined by the Colonel safe from thecurious eyes of the town. This time old Joe Grant was to preside, as hehad done as a matter of course on all such occasions when he was theacknowledged head of the town in political and financial matters, in theold days of high-sounding oratory and simpler politics that were goneforever, but were not very long ago. Judge Saxon, an old timer, too, andbetter loved than the Honourable Joe, had declined the honour ofpresiding, but had the authentic offer of it, his first distinction ofthe kind for years.
It was a local but very important occasion. It was Colonel Everard'sfirst official appearance as candidate for mayor. It was to be a verymodest appearance. No more time was allotted for his speech than forLuther Ward's. He was putting himself on a level with Luther and theJudge and the Honourable Joe and identifying himself at last with localpolitics. The evening emphasized the great man's condescension inaccepting this humble office and honouring Green River. Even with thescandal of Theodore Burr's suicide unexplained still and only two weeksold, interest centred on the rally. It was a triumph for the town.
Green River was almost ready. Dugan's orchestra was engaged for theevening, instead of a rival organization from Wells, which the Coloneloften imported upon private and public occasions. Jerry Dugan wasgetting old, too, like the Judge and the Honourable Joe. He had not lostthe peculiar wail and lilt from his fiddling, but he had made few recentadditions to his repertoire. Just now the band concert in front of OddFellows' Hall was winding up with his old favourite: "A Day on theBattlefield."
It had the old swing still, contagious as ever. Loafers in front of thehall shuffled their feet in time to it. Moon-struck young personshanging two by two over the railings of the bridge to gaze at the waterstraightened themselves and listened. An ambitious soloist loungingagainst the court-house fence across the square began to whistle it withelaborate variations, at the inspiring moment when "morning in theforest" had bird-called and syncopated itself into silence, and actualfighting, and the martial music of the charge began.
High and lilting and shrill, it hung in the still night air, alive forthe hour, challenging the echoes of dead tunes that lingered about thesquare, only to die away and be one with them at last; band music,old-fashioned band music, blatant and empty and splendid, clear throughthe still night air, attuned to the night and the town.
"Good old tune. Gets into your feet," Judge Saxon said, while his wifeadjusted his tie before the black walnut mirror in their bedroom, buthis unusual tribute to the tune was perfunctory to-night, and his wifeignored it, wisely taking this moment of helpfulness to plunge himsuddenly and briskly into a series of questions which she had beentrying in vain for some time to get the correct answers to.
"Hugh," she said, "why wouldn't you take the chair to-night?"
"You were the only thing I ever tried to take away from Joe Grant andgot away with it, Millie," the Judge explained gallantly.
"Don't you think this rally is like old times? Don't you want to see thetown stand on its own feet again, instead of being run from outside?"
"I do, Millie."
Mrs. Saxon made her next point triumphantly, connecting it with thepoint before by some obscure logic known only to ladies.
"Hugh, a father could not do more for Lillian Burr than the Colonel hassince poor Theodore went. The house full of flowers, calling therehimself every day and twice a day, though she won't see him; but Lillianwon't see any one. The Colonel's been ailing himself, too, but hewouldn't put off the rally and disappoint the town. And the new librarywill open this fall, and there's talk that he's giving an organ to thechurch. Hugh, don't you think Theodore's death may have sobered him?Don't you think this may be the beginning of better things? Don't youthink----"
"I think you're making a butterfly bow. I don't like them," said theJudge, with the ingenuous smile that somehow closed a subject. Shesighed, but changed her attack.
"Turn round now. I want to brush you. Hugh, what has happened to NeilDonovan?"
"What do you mean, happened to him?" snapped the Judge, and then addedsoberly, "I don't know, Millie. I wish I did."
"An Irish boy can get just so far and no farther."
"How far, Millie?"
"Don't be flippant, Hugh. There's something strange about Neil lately.He didn't speak three times at the table last time he came to supperhere. He looks at me as if he didn't know who I was when I speak to himon the street sometimes. There's no life in him. He's like Charlie andall the rest of them--giving out just when things are going his way;that's an Irish boy every time."
"When things are going his way? When his best friend has just shothimself?"
"I didn't refer to that, Hugh," said Mrs. Saxon with dignity.
"No?"
"I referred to Neil's family affairs, and the fact that Colonel Everardhas taken him up."
"Maggie home and behaving herself and no questions asked, Charlieshipped to Wells, and Neil going shooting twice with the Colonel?"
"Three times, Hugh."
"And that's what you call things going his way."
"Hugh, why should those two spend any time together at all? They hateeach other, or I always thought so--that is, if a man like the Colonelcould hate a boy like Neil. What does he want of Neil now? What doesNeil want of him?"
"They don't tell me, Millie."
"But it's queer. It frightens me, Hugh. It's as queer as----"
"What?"
"Everything," Mrs. Saxon said, goaded into an exaggeration foreign toher placid type, "everything, lately. You refusing to preside to-night.Lillian Burr shutting herself up in this uncanny way. It is uncanny,even if she is in trouble. Minna Randall taking to church work, andsewing for hours at a time, and taking long drives with her husband.They haven't been inside the Colonel's doors for weeks. Their secondgirl told our Mary that they have refused five invitations there in thelast month. It's my idea that he gave that last stag dinner because hecouldn't get Minna or Edith there, or any woman. Why should his owncircle turn against him, just when he's doing real good to the town? Andit's not only his own circle that's against him. I was matching curtainsat Ward's when Sebastian came in to-day, and Luther Ward was barelycivil to him--the Colonel's own secretary. What's wrong with the town,Hugh? Can't it be grateful to the Colonel, now when he really deservesit?"
"Don't worry about what Everard deserves. He's not likely to get it,Millie."
Again the Judge was closing the subject, and this time his wife had nomore to say. She gave his threadbare, scrupulously pressed coat a finalpat and jerk of adjustment, and stood off and looked at him.
"You'll do," she said, "now go along. The music's stopping. It won'tlook well if you're late."
She turned off the flickering gas jet above the marble-topped bureauabruptly, but not before the Judge had caught the gleam of tears in hereyes.
"Why girl," he said, and came close to her and slipped an arm round herplump, comfortable waist. "You're really troubled."
"Yes."
"Yes."
He had drawn her toward a front window of the big, square room. TheJudge and his wife stood by it quietly, looking down through a triangleof white, starched curtains at the glimmering, sparsely lit length ofstreet below, and straightening out their difficulties in darkness andsilence, as all true lovers should, even lovers at fifty, as these twowere fortunate enough to be.
"Millie, I don't want to tease you," the Judge said. "I'll tell youanything you want to know."
"I've been so worried," she wept comfortably against his shoulder. "I'mso afraid."
"Why?"
"I feel as if something--anything might happen. I--oh, you'll onlylaugh. I can't just tell you, Hugh."
"I'll tell you," said the Judge.
He hesitated and then went on slowly, speaking more to himself than toher.
"Women hate change. That makes them dread it, even when it's not coming.You're dreading it, but it's not coming now, dear. There's feelingagainst Everard. You're right, but you exaggerate it. It's instinctiveand unformulated. It hasn't gone far and won't go any farther. He won'tlet it. The rally and the library and this new democracy stuff, stagdinners to Ward's crowd and all, are part of a campaign to stop it. Thecampaign will succeed. Everard's own crowd won't quarrel with him. Theycan't afford to. Everard has pulled through worse times than this. I'vehelped him myself, and I shall help him again.
"There'll be no change, Millie. Things will go on just the way they are.I've lived the best years of my life believing that it was best theyshould, and if I'm wrong, I'm too old to change my mind. I've saidsomebody had to own the town, and it might as well be Everard. I've saidthe Burrs and Kents and Randalls, and old Joe Grant's young wife withtheir parties and drinks and silly little love affairs, were playing toohard, but doing no real harm, planting their cheap, fake smart set herein Green River where it don't belong. Now poor Theodore Burr's dead.That don't look like play. Harry Randall's so deep in debt to the bankfor what Everard's let him borrow that he has to stay on there at threethousand a year, though he's been offered twice that in Wells. Everardwon't let him go. And the best I can say about myself in the years I'veworked for Everard is that I've kept my hands clean, if I have had tokeep my eyes shut, but I can say that to you, Millie."
"It does look like old times down there," he went on softly, after aminute. "The street and the lights are the same. And it sounds like oldtimes. It was from a rally in the hall that I first went home with you,Millie. Remember? I was just a boy then, but I wish I was half the man Iwas then, to-night." He heard a murmur of protest, and laughed. "But Ido, Millie. I--wouldn't be helping Everard."
"Oh, Hugh!"
"Don't worry. Everard will pull through all right. Look at the Randallsover there, starting for the hall. Leave your windows open, Millie, andyou'll soon hear them all cheering for Everard. The moon won't rise tilllate, but it will be full to-night. Listen, the band's going into thehall now."
The Judge rested his cheek for a moment against his wife's soft, smoothhair, the decorous, satisfying caress of a decorous generation, then heraised his head with a long, tired sigh.
"I wish I was young," he said. "I wish I was young to-night."
* * * * *
"I wish I was young," the Judge had said, with a thrill and hunger thatwas the soul of youth itself in his voice. At the moment when he saidit, a boy who had the privilege that the Judge coveted, and was notenjoying it just then, was leaning against the court-house railing, andwatching Green River crowd into Odd Fellows' Hall.
Another boy had pushed his way across the square to his side, and wasnot heartily welcomed there, but was calmly unconscious of it.
"Some night, Donovan," he remarked.
"Some night, Willard," Neil agreed gravely.
"Going in? Good for three hours of hot air?"
"I'm not going. No."
"Good boy. Say--" Mr. Willard Nash lowered his voice as he made thisdaring suggestion--"we'll go around to Halloran's, and get into a littlegame."
His invitation was not accepted.
"Jerry Dugan's not dead yet," observed Willard presently.
Strains of a deservedly popular waltz tune, heard from inside the hall,gave faint but unmistakable proof of this. Willard kept time with hisfeet as he listened, paying the tune the tribute of silence, a rare onefrom him. Standing so, the two were sharply contrasted figures, thoughthe flickering lamps in the square threw only faint light here, andshowed them darkly outlined against the railing, as they leaned thereside by side. Pose, carriage, every movement and turn of the head weredifferent, as different as a bulky and overgrown child is from a boyturning into a man.
"Some night," Willard repeated, unanswered, but unchilled by it, "andsome crowd."
The hall had been filling fast. Though the waltz still swung its faintchallenge into the night, so much of Green River had responded to italready that now it was arriving only by twos and threes. But the groupsstill followed each other fast under the big globe of light at theentrance door, gayly shaded with red for the occasion, and up the bare,clattering stairs to the floor above, and the hall.
Willard was right, more right than he knew. There was a crowd up there,a crowd as Willard did not understand the word; a crowd with a tone andtemper of its own and a personality of its own. It was subject to lawsof its own and could think and feel for itself, and its thoughts andfeelings were made up of the brain stuff of every person in it, butdifferent from them all. It was a newly created thing, a new factor inthe world, and like all crowds it was born for one evening, to live forthat evening only, and do its work and die.
Upstairs behind closed doors, such a crowd was forming; getting ready tothink its own thoughts and act and feel, and so many houses, little andbig, had emptied themselves to contribute to it, so many familydiscussions like the Saxons' had gone on as a prelude to it, that youmight fairly say the crowd up there was Green River.
Willard, watching the late arrivals and commenting upon them to Neil,still an uncommunicative audience, was vaguely stirred.
"This gets me," he conceded. "There's something about old Dugan's musicthat always gets me. For two cents, I'd go in. I sat through a patentmedicine show there last week, because I didn't have the sense to stayaway. It always gets me when there is anything doing in the hall.And--" he paused, heavily testing his powers of self-analysis, "it getsme," he brought out at length, "more to-night than it ever did before.It--gets me."
"Look, there's Joe Grant," Willard went on. "This is his night, allright. Look at the bulge to that manuscript case, and the shine to hishair. He mixes varnish with his hair dye, all right. I said, look athim."
"I'm looking."
"Well, you don't do much else. What's eating you to-night? Say, will yougo in if I will?"
An inarticulate murmur answered him.
"What's that?"
"No."
"All right. Well, what do you know about that? Look there."
"I'm looking."
The latest comers were crowding hurriedly into the entrance hall by thistime, and with them, a slender, heavily veiled figure had slippedquickly through the door and out of sight.
"Was that Lil?" Willard said. "Lil Burr?"
"Yes."
"She wouldn't come here; I don't believe it."
"I know it."
"How?"
"She told me."
"What was she doing, talking to you? Why, she won't talk to anybody.She----"
"You'll be late at Hallorans'."
"Aren't you coming?"
"No."
"But you said you would. I don't want to go if you don't. I don't halflike to leave you here, you act so queer to-night. What makes you actso? What's eating----"
"Nothing."
Willard detached himself from the railings and regarded his friend,suddenly breathless with surprise, and deeply grieved. Nothing. Theword, harmless in itself, had been spoken so that it hit him lik
e anactual blow, straight from the shoulder. Neil, shifting so that thelight showed his face, was returning his look with the sudden,unreasoning anger that we feel toward little sounds that beat their slowway into our consciousness at night, to irritate us unendurably at last.
"Go," he urged, "go along to Halloran's. Go anywhere."
"Well, what do you know about that?" began Willard, offended, and thenforgave him. There was a look in Neil's pale face that commandedforgiveness. It was pale and strained with a trouble that had nothing todo with Willard, and Willard was respectful and inarticulate before it.
"That's all right," Willard muttered, "that will be all right. I'll go."
Neil took no notice of this promise. Up in the hall the waltz hadswelled to a high, light-hearted climax, heady and strained, like thesudden excitements that sweep a crowd. It came clear through the openwindows, making one last appeal to the boy below to come up and be partof what was there. And just then a small closed car swept down throughthe empty square and stopped. Two men stepped out, and paused in thedoorway under the red-shaded light.
One was the Colonel's secretary, waiting on the step beyond range ofthe light, a tall, shadowy figure, and the other, who stood with thelight on his face, was Colonel Everard.
He was still pale from his week of illness, but his keen eyes andclear-cut profile were more effective for that. He stood listening tothe sounds from upstairs, and he smiled as he listened. He turned atlast and looked out across the square as if he could feel Neil's eyesupon him and were returning their look, and then turned away anddisappeared up the stairs.
"Neil," Willard was announcing uneasily, "I think a lot of you. I'd do alot for you. If you're in wrong, any way, if----"
Willard broke off, rebuffed. Neil did not even look at him. He stoodstaring at the lighted doorway where the Colonel had stood and smiled,as if he could still see him there. He was a creature beyond Willard'sworld, as he looked, but unaccountably fascinating to Willard. Willardregarded him in awed silence.
Now Dugan's music had stopped. Some one above shut a window with aclatter that echoed disproportionately loud. Then there was silence upthere, tense silence, and the call of the silence was harder to resistthan the music. The boy by the court-house railing could not resist it.He pushed away Willard's detaining hand, and without a word to him oranother glance at him, was across the square and through the red-lighteddoor, and running up the stairs.
"What do you know about that?" Willard demanded, in vain. "What do youknow----"
Willard, certainly, knew nothing, and gave up the attempt to understand,with a sigh.
A little later the vantage point of the court-house fence wasunoccupied. Of the two boys who had occupied it, one was making abelated and rather disconsolate way toward Halloran's--the one who wouldbe boasting to-morrow that he had spent the last fifteen minutes withNeil Donovan. The other boy stood listening outside the closed doors ofthe hall.
* * * * *
It was half an hour later and it had been an important half-hour in OddFellows' Hall, that uneventful but vital time when the newly madecreature that is the crowd is passive, gathering its forces slowly,getting ready to fling the weight of them into one side of a balanceirrevocably, if it has decisions to make; the most important half-hourof the evening if you were interested in the psychology of crowds. TheHonourable Joe Grant was not. He would have said that the first speechdragged and the half-hour had been dull. Dull or significant, thathalf-hour was over, and Green River was waking up. In the listeninghush of the hall the big moments of the evening, whatever they were tobe, were creeping nearer and nearer. Now they were almost here.
The Honourable Joe had just introduced Luther Ward and heavily resumedhis seat. He sat portly and erect and entirely happy behind thethin-legged, inadequate looking table that held a water pitcher, hisimportant looking papers, and his watch. The ornately chased gold watchthat had measured so many epoch-making hours for Green River was inpublic life again, like the Honourable Joe. He fingered itaffectionately, wiped his forehead delicately from time to time with apurple silk handkerchief, followed Mr. Ward's remarks with unwaveringbrown eyes, and smiled his benevolent, public-spirited smile. This washis night indeed.
Behind the Honourable Joe, on the stage in a semicircular row of chairswere the speakers of the evening, and before him was Green River.
The badly proportioned little hall was not at its best to-night. It wastoo brightly lit and the footlights threw an uncompromising glare uponthe tiny stage. Red, white, and blue cheesecloth in crude, sharpcolouring draped windows and stage, making gay little splashes of colourthat emphasized the dinginess of the room. Only the Grand Army flag,borrowed and draped elaborately above the stage, showed faded and thinagainst the brightness of the cheesecloth, but kept its dignity and keptup its claim to homage still. And the ugliness of the room was a thingto be discounted and forgotten, like some beautiful, full-bloodedwoman's tawdry, and ill-chosen clothes, because this room held GreenRiver.
Green River, filling the little room to over-flowing, standing in therear of the room, crowding every available inch of space on benches,window sills, and an emergency supply of camp chairs, impressive as thatmuch sheer bulk of humanity, crowded between four walls, becomesimpressive, and impressive in its own right, too; Green Riverrepresented as it was, with all the warring, unreconciled elements thatmade the town.
For they were all here, Paddy Lane, and the Everard circle, and theintermediate stages of society, the Gaynors and other prosperous farmersand unprosperous farmers and their wives, from the outskirts of thetown, and citizens a cut above them both, like the Wards, were allrepresented here. Mrs. Kent, hatless and evening coated, was elbowed bya lady from Paddy Lane, hatless because she had no presentable hat, andwearing a ragged shawl. These two were side by side, and they had thesame look on their faces. There was something of it now on every facein the room. It was a look of listening and waiting.
It was on every face, and it grew more intense every minute that LutherWard's speech droned on, though it was only a dry, illogical rehash ofpolitical issues that could not have called that look into any face. Itwas as if the audience listened eagerly through it because every word ofit was bringing them nearer to something that was to follow. What wasit? What did Green River want? What was it waiting for? Green Riveritself did not know, but it was very near.
Perhaps it was coming now. This might well be the climax of the evening.No more important event was scheduled. Luther Ward, looking discontentedwith his performance, but relieved to complete it, had sunk into hischair to a scattered echoing of applause, and the next speaker wasColonel Everard.
The Honourable Joe was rising to introduce him. The little introductoryspeech was a masterpiece, for, though the Colonel had edited every wordof it, it was still in the Honourable Joe's best style, flowery andsprinkled with quotations.
"I will not say more," it concluded magnificently, "of one whose lifeand work among you can best speak for itself, and who will speak forhimself now, in his own person. I present to you the Republicancandidate for mayor, Colonel Everard."
And now the Honourable Joe had bowed and smiled himself into his seat,and the great man was on his feet, and coming forward to the centre ofthe stage. The first real applause of the evening greeted him, not veryhearty or sustained, but prompt at least. He looked like a very greatman indeed, as he stood acknowledging it, his most effective self, astrong man, though so lightly built, erect and pliant of carriage, a manwith infinite reserves of power and dignity. He was smiling, and hissmile was the same that the boy by the court-house fence had seen, atantalizing smile of assurance and charm and power, as if he were masterof himself and the town.
This was his moment, planned for and led up to for weeks, but ColonelEverard was slow to take advantage of it. He stood still, with his eyestoward the rear of the hall. As he stood so, heads here and there turnedand looked where he was looking. Presently all Green River saw what theColonel saw. A boy w
as pushing his way toward the front of the hall--aboy who had slipped quietly inside the doors unnoticed fifteen minutesbefore, and came forward now just as quietly, but held their eyes as hecame. Now he had reached the stage, and he broke through the barrier ofgoldenrod that fenced the short flight of steps, crushing the flowersunder his feet, and now he was on the stage confronting Colonel Everard.It was Neil Donovan.
"Sit down," he said to the great man. "They're not going to listen toyou. They're going to listen to me."
After that he did not wait to see if the great man took his amazingadvice. He came forward alone, and spoke to Green River. He was not animposing figure as he stood there, only a lean, eager boy, with dark,flashing eyes, and a face that was very pale in the glare of thefootlights. He hardly raised his tense, low-pitched voice as he spoke,but Green River heard.
"You're going to listen to me."
And it was true. Green River was going to listen. In the middle of thehall, where the chief delegation from Paddy Lane was massed, a ripple ofexcitement promised the boy support. It was seconded by a muttering andshuffling of feet on the rear benches, devoted to the youth of the town.From here and there in the hall there were murmurs of protest, too,dying out one by one, and ceasing automatically, like the whisperedconsultation that went on behind him on the stage.
But the boy did not wait for support or regard interruptions. He did notneed to. The audience was his in spite of them, and he knew it and theyknew it. Whatever he had to say, important or not, it was what they hadbeen waiting for; that was what the evening had been leading to, and itwas here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked across the footlightsat Green River. The audience was his, but he had no pride in thetriumph. He began haltingly to speak.
"It will do no good to you or me, but you're going to listen. I've got aword to say about Everard.
"He's sucked your town dry for years and you know it. He's had the pickof your men and used their brains and their youth, and he's had the pickof your women. If there are any of you here that he's got no hold on,it's because you're worth nothing to him. He's got the town. Now he'sdriven one of your boys to his death.
"'I can't beat him.' That's what Theodore Burr said to me the night hedied. 'They won't blame him for this. I want to die because I don't wantto live in the world with him, but I'll do no harm to him by dying, onlyto Lily and me. They won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.'
"Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you where you don't blame him,whatever he does. You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You know allthis and you shut your eyes. Now I'll tell you some things you don'tknow. Everard's been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my mouth shut,like he bribed Charlie for years. He might have saved his breath and hismoney. I can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or not. You won'tblame him. You'll let him get away with this, too. But you're going toknow."
The boy came closer still to the footlights and leaned across them,pausing and deliberately choosing his words. The pause, and the look inhis dark, intent eyes as he stood there challenged Green River and daredit to interrupt him. But it was too late to interrupt, too late to stophim now. And behind him in the place of honour in the centre of the rowof chairs on the stage, one man at least was powerless to stop him:Colonel Everard, who listened with a set smile on his lips, and a setstare in his eyes.
"He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to pieces," Neil's lowvoice went on. "Everard's the man. He got her away from town. He filledher head with him and set her wild and she had to go. When he was tiredof her, he left her in a place he thought she'd be too proud to comeback from. She was proud, but he's broken her pride, and she crawledback to us. The prettiest girl in the town, she was, and you all knewthat, and my sister and more to me----" he broke off abruptly, andlaughed a dry little laugh that echoed strangely in the silent room. Hisvoice sounded dry and hard as he went on.
"He broke Maggie's life, but what's that to you, that give him a chanceat your women, knowing well what he is, and leave them to take care ofthemselves with him, your own women that are yours to take care of,daughters and wives? It's nothing to you, but you're going to know it,and you're going to know this. I had it straight from Theodore Burr thenight he died.
"Everard's going to sell you out at the next election, the whole ofyou--his own crowd, too. He's been planning it for months. He's workedprohibition for all it's worth to him; worked for it till the state wentdry, and then he's made money for you that are in it with him, and morefor himself, protecting places like Halloran's that sell liquor on thequiet, and the smuggling of liquor into the state. Well, he's made moneyenough that way, and it's getting risky, and now he sees a way to makemore and let nobody in on it. He's going to sell out to the liquorinterests and work against prohibition, and the big card he'll use willbe exposing Halloran's and the secret traffic in liquor, and all thecrowd that's been buying protection from him. There's a big campaignstarted already, and big money being spent. There'll be big money in itfor him. There'll be arrests made here and a public scandal. He's goingto sell the town.
"Maybe that interests you some. Maybe it gets you. It won't for long.He'll crawl out of it and lie out of it and talk you and buy you back tohim. Well, I know one thing more, and he can't lie or crawl out of it.My father could have put him behind bars any time in twenty years. He'sa common thief.
"It was when he was seventeen, and studying law first, back in a town upstate that's not on the map or likely to get there, and he was called bya name there that wasn't Everard. He was seventeen, but he was the samethen as now; he had the same will to get on and the power to, no matterwho he trampled on to get there, and the same charm that got men andwomen both, though they didn't trust him--got them even when he wastrampling on them and they knew it. It got him into trouble there withtwo girls at once. One was the girl that gave him his start, the chanceto go into her uncle's office. He was the biggest man in the town. Olderthan Everard, this girl was, and teaching in the school he went to, whenshe fell in love with him and brought him home to her town and gave himhis chance. He was tired of her, and she was where it was bound to comeout soon how things were with them, and so was the other girl, a girlthat he wasn't tired of, the daughter of the woman where he boarded. Hetried to get her to go away with him. She wouldn't go and she wouldn'tforgive him, but the town was getting too hot for him, and he had to go.
"He had to go quick and make a clean getaway and he wanted a real startthis time. He had to have money. That was a dead little town. There wasonly one place he could get money enough, in the little hotel there. Itwas the only bank they had. The keeper of it used to cash checks andmake loans. Everard was lucky, the same then as now. There was almostfive thousand dollars in the safe in the hotel office the night he brokeinto it, and that was enough for him. He had a fight with the hotelclerk, but he got away with the money, and he got away from the town.
"The clerk was his best friend in town--never trusted him, but fell forhim the same as the girls and lent him money and listened to histroubles--and fell for him again when he ran across him again, yearslater, here in Green River. Everard told him he'd sent the money back,and he kept the secret. He never took hush money for it like Charlie. Hesaid Everard ought to have his chance, and was straight now. But he fellfor Everard again, that's what happened. Everard had him, the same asthe rest of you.
"The clerk was my father."
The boy's voice broke off. There was dead silence in the hall. GreenRiver had been listening almost in silence, and did not break it now.Presently the boy sighed, shrugged his thin shoulders as if they werethrowing off an actual weight, and spoke again, this time in a lifelessvoice, with all the colour and drama wiped out of it, a voice that wasvery tired.
"That's all," he said. "That's back of him, with his fine airs and hisfar-reaching schemes and his big name in the state. You've stood for acrook. Will you stand for a common criminal, a common thief? Now youknow and it's up to you. That's all."
* * * *
*
An hour later a boy was hurrying through the dark along the road to theFalls.
He was almost home. Green River lay far behind with its scattered,sparsely strewn lights. The flat fields around him and the unshaded roadbefore him, so bleak by day, were beautiful to-night, far reaching andmysterious. Above them, flat looking and unreal, remote in a coldlyclouded sky, hung the yellow September moon.
"I've done for myself," the boy was saying half out loud, as if thefaraway moon could hear. "I've lost everything now. I've done formyself."
The boy was sure of this, but could have told little more about theevents of the evening. He remembered listening outside the hall doorsuntil he was drawn inside in spite of himself, and listening there untilsomething snapped in his brain, and suddenly the long days ofrepression, of vainly wondering what to do with his hard-won knowledge,were over, and he was pouring it all out in one jumbled burst of speech.He had no plan and no hope of doing harm to his enemy by speaking. Hehad to speak.
After he had spoken he remembered getting down from the stage and out ofthe hall somehow. He remembered the crushed goldenrod, slippery underhis feet. Against a background of blurred, unrecognizable faces, heremembered a tall, black-garbed figure that rose to its feet swaying andthen steadying itself. It was Lilian Burr. Less clearly he remembered awave of sound from the hall that followed him as he hurried away acrossthe square. It was not like applause. He did not know or care what itmeant. After that, he remembered only the cool dark of the Septembernight as he walked through it aimlessly at first, and then turned towardhome.
"I've lost everything," he had said, and it must be true. How could heface the Judge again? How could he go on living in Green River? Thiswas what all his long-cherished dreams had come to; a scene that Charliemight have made, and disgrace in the eyes of the town. He had losteverything.
Yet strangely, as he said it, he knew that it was not true. Whatever hehad lost, he had better things left. He had those free and splendidminutes of speaking out his heart. They could not be taken from him. Thefreedom and relief of them was with him still. And he had the road firmunder his feet, and the clean air blowing the fever out of his brain,and the strength of his own young body, clean strength, good to feel ashe walked through the night. And along the dark road before him,familiar as it was, and worn so many times by discouraged feet, thewhite track of moonlight beckoned him, clean and new. It was a way thatmight lead anywhere--to fairy-land, to success, to the end of the world.
Now the boy made the turn in the road that brought him within sight ofhome. Faint lights twinkling from it, intimate and warm, invited him asnever before. Was his mother waiting up for him? Home itself, lightedand intimate and safe, was enough to find waiting. His heart gave astrange little leap that hurt, but was keen pleasure, too. Almostrunning, he covered the last bit of road, crossed the grassy front yardand then climbed the creaking front steps, and stood for a minute thatwas unendurably long, fumbling with the door.
The door was unlocked and gave suddenly, opening wide, and he stood onthe threshold of the kitchen. The lights he had seen were in thesitting-room beyond. In this room there was only moonlight. It camethrough the window that looked out on the marshy field, the fairies'field. Surely there must be fairies there to-night, out in the emptygreen spaces, flooded with moonlight. But the fairies were not all inthe field, there was one in the room. Neil could see it.
The old rocking chair stood in the moonlit window. It was holding two,his mother, and some one else--the fairy, golden haired and white robedand slender, and close in his mother's arms. As he stood and wonderedand looked, a board creaked under his feet. It was the faintest ofsounds, but a fairy's ears are keen, and the fairy heard, and stirred,and turned in his mother's arms.
Now Neil could see her face. It was flushed and human and warm, and inher eyes, opening grave and deep, was a look that was the shyest butsurest of welcomes. The welcome was all for Neil, and the fairy wasJudith.
The Wishing Moon Page 20
