Green Valley Part 26

David shook his head.

"Jocelyn," he sighed, "it'll take this whole town and G.o.d Almighty too to save Jim Tumley now."

"Well, mother will do her share. And, Dav--id, I'd like another kiss--if you don't mind."

David didn't mind in the least.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MORNING AFTER

The very best part of every Green Valley doing is talking it over the morning after.

n.o.body even pretended to work the morning after the minister's party.

Dell Parsons never even brushed out her lovely hair that morning; just wound it round her head in two big braids and went through the little gate in the hedge to talk it over with Nan Turner.

She found Nan standing over a steaming dishpan, stirring the dishes about absent-mindedly with the pancake spoon. At the sight of Dell she turned her back on the cluttered sink.

"Dell, I'm only just beginning to take in the meaning of what that little neighbor girl of ours said last night. Why, Dell Parsons, we've both been born in this here town; we're only twenty-two miles out from the heart of one of the world's greatest cities and we've never sensed the true meaning of this thing they call woman suffrage and prohibition. Why, we've poked fun at it and jogged along our ignorant hayseed way and watched and watched little sweet-hearted men like Jim Tumley just stumble miserably into their graves, or a man like Sears drive his children from their home and curse his wife, or perhaps we've shuddered at the sight of Hank Lolly lying drunk in the road among the wild flowers.

"When one of our drunkards dies we cut our choicest flowers and go to the funeral and maybe cry with the wife and children and then go home and wait for the next one to do it. Of course, we talk to the children and try to scare the boys into letting it alone. But that doesn't do much good because, Dell, we don't bury enough drunkards at one time to make a strong impression and convince the boys that we are right. Our boys see big, respectable men like George Hoskins and Seth Curtis and even good Billy Evans taking their drinks regularly and living and prospering. So they make up their minds that mothers are all a little bit crazy on the drink question. And the first thing we know we find that our boys have been washing down their cigarettes with a drink.

And in those first sick five minutes we know, Dell, that the thing has beaten us to the boy."

"Yes," mused Dell aloud, "but we aren't the only ones who feel beaten.

The men aren't all against us, Nan. Lots of them right here in this town are on our side. And I tell you it's no joke for a natural man who loves to hang around and pal with his neighbors to put himself in the position of a spoilsport or an odd goody-goody. There's Uncle Tony's brother William. He's been against war and drink and smoking all his life, and look at the dog's life he's led. Nan, I believe the men are as helpless as we. The Thing has grown so huge that we can't fight it. It's got us all. And we're so helpless because we're ignorant and won't think this thing out. Look at Frank Burton, who'd give his soul to save Jim Tumley's. Yet it's only last year that he gave up having drink in the house. He never realized until so late that just by having it around he was hurting the man he'd die to save.

And there's Billy Evans. Why, Nan, Billy has sat up nights pulling Hank Lolly through a jag. Yet Billy lets Hank see him take a drink every day. And, Nan, it must be plain h.e.l.l for Hank to see that. Why, Billy wouldn't tempt Hank or make him suffer torment knowingly for a million dollars. And yet he does it every day of his life because he's ignorant, doesn't know any bigger, finer, more unselfish way of helping Hank. No, Nan, you can't make me believe our Green Valley men are a mean lot, meaner than others. They just don't know and when once they realize, why, they'll put an end to it themselves fast enough."

"That's all right, but, Dell Parsons, you know that the world over men have to be nagged and coaxed into seeing the right by their women folks. And I tell you I'm going to begin right now to do a little of both. And as for that vote--I've laughed about that long enough. Now I'm going after it. It's just struck me that we women need a vote about as much as we need a pair of scissors, a bread board or a wash boiler, cook stove and bank book. We need it along with the other things to keep our children properly clothed, fed, housed and educated."

The blacksmith shop was closed. George Hoskins' wife was pretty sick.

So the crowd that was usually seated about the forge was crowded into Billy Evans' office.

It was a big crowd but it wasn't feeling any jollier because of its size. Each man there had had a word or two with his wife that morning.

Not a few wives had begun to discuss the Jim Tumley incident seriously the minute they got home and got the children to bed the night before.

Every man in Billy's office felt more or less uncomfortable and talked in nervous, disconnected s.n.a.t.c.hes.

Said one:

"Well--I drove in to town this morning so's not to have words with Rose--and just to escape the whole dumbed subject--but if--I'd known that everybody I met and talked to and set down with--was a-going to talk about the same dumbed thing I'd a-stayed to home."

"The whole trouble," argued another, "is just women's imagination, that's all. I never saw a woman that had a living father, brother, beau, husband, brother-in-law, father-in-law, cousin or boy baby in arms that she wasn't worrying all the time night and day that drink'd get him. It's just their way of being foolish, that's all. And as for all this talk about the terrible danger and it being a menace to the future generation, that's all slop and slush."

Billy was irritable this morning for the first time in months. It must be remembered that Billy's wife was red-headed and a highly efficient soul. She had very frankly and plainly told Billy what she thought of a town that was run in so slack a fashion that it couldn't protect one of its own lovable citizens. She had never spoken so sharply in all their days together and Billy felt that he had lost his bride forever.

And he had.

"Well--boys, I'll tell you," sighed Billy. "The old woman gave me h.e.l.l, I tell you--as if--great gosh, it was all my fault. The women are partly right and we all know it. That's why they talk up so and why we have to take it. I've about come to the conclusion that as long as the women are partly right and we are partly wrong I'm going to quit it, as far as I myself am concerned. But don't think for one minute that I fancy that I have a right to vote this town dry for any other man. Live and let live's my way of thinking and doing."

"Well, Billy," spoke up Jake Tuttle who had come out strongly for a dry town, a dry state and a dry country, "you're fair and square and a-doing all you honestly can. Maybe the time will come when you'll feel that voting it out is the only thing."

"Why," grumbled another member of this caucus, "anybody'd think that this whole town had ought to turn in and just die of thirst on account of a man that ain't much bigger than a pint of cider and never did have no proper stomach. Why, who ever heard of sech a thing as a whole town being run for one man?"

"A town that ain't run fair and square for one man isn't run fair and square for any man," insisted Jake. "And as for hearing strange things, I've heerd tell of a man once, a poor kind of low-style Jew he was, lived over in a little two by four town called Nazareth, who not only believed in going dry and hungry for other people but actually died so's to show them a finer way of living and a braver way of dying.

I've heerd tell that they called that man the Greatest Fool that ever lived and that they killed Him fur His foolishness. So, if this whole town should turn in an' help Jim Tumley there'd be nothing new in that."

The pause that followed would have been uncomfortable if Seth Curtis hadn't opened the door just then and squeezed in.

Seth was mad. For the first time since their marriage he had quarrelled with his wife. Docile, sweet-tempered Ruth Curtis was aflame with mother wrath. She, like a great many Green Valley women, thought of Jim Tumley not as a man but as a voice, the voice of a lark on a summer morning. That other men's selfish strength should still that voice made her sweet eyes flame and her soft voice shake with anger. That Seth, who so hated waste of any kind, could stand calmly by while a lovable human soul was being thrown away puzzled her at first. She tried to argue with him. If Jim Tumley were trying to save his burning barn or mend his fence Seth would have helped him gladly.

But Jim was trying to save his body and soul and Green Valley men, even though they knew he was not equal to the struggle, could not see that it was their business to help.

Seth resented this pa.s.sionate fight for little Jim that the women were making. In his anger Seth could not see that beyond the figure of the gentle singing man stood the children of Green Valley. In this harmless little man who could not save himself every mother saw her boy, her girl; one a drunkard-to-be perhaps, the other mayhap a drunkard's wife and the mother of more drunkards.

Seth's eyes blazed around Billy's crowded office and he waited for the question that he knew he would be asked:

"Well--Seth--you voting the town dry this morning?"

And then Seth let loose. He said fool things to ease his ugly temper but he wound up his argument with the telling reminder that Green Valley couldn't afford to lose the fifteen-hundred-dollar yearly license tax.

"Not only would we men lose our freedom and be a thirsty lot of wife-driven idiots but our taxes would rise."

And that argument told. It had been overlooked somehow. But at the mention of it every man's face but Jake's brightened. Why, sure--Seth was right. That fifteen hundred dollars kept the taxes down and was an argument that ought to appeal to every Green Valley woman whose life was an eternal struggle to save.

"Why, yes, that's so," agreed Jake. "It seems as if the women ought to see that, but like as not they'll talk back and say that if there was no hotel bar to attract us men there'd be less time wasted and more than fifteen hundred dollars' worth of extra work turned out. And for all they talk so everlastingly about saving, there's some kind of money that no nice woman will touch with a ten-foot pole. And just put it up to them as to which they want, Jim Tumley or fifteen hundred a year, and see what they say."

Jake was the richest man of all the men packed in Billy Evans' office.

He could afford to talk bravely for he had no need to curry any man's favor. And he could demand respectful attention for his opinions.

There were those present who resented this independence.

"These farmers nowadays are getting danged smart and officious,"

muttered Sears to Sam Bobbins.

But Sam wasn't listening. He too had an argument and he wanted to voice it.

"Mightn't the closing of the bar lose us a lot of outside trade, ruin our business life?"

At that Billy's eyes twinkled.

"By gosh--Sam--I hadn't thought of that. I sure would miss the poor drunks that crawl in here to sleep it off. And like as not I'd not get to drive old man Hathaway home every time he hits town and tries to paint it red. Never have dared to leave that old fool in town when he was drunk. Never can tell what that poor miserable mind of his mightn't prompt him to do. Might set fire to something or hang himself on somebody's front door."

As town marshal Billy had a pretty accurate idea of the kind of trade that the hotel bar attracted. There was a levity in Billy's voice and a dancing light in Billy's eye. He could never take anything seriously for any great length of time. However, old man Sears didn't like this att.i.tude of Billy's.

"It isn't only losing that fifteen-hundred-dollar license and losing outside trade but we'd be robbing an honest and respectable man of his livelihood," said Sears with his most ponderous air.

An unwilling, sheepish grin ruffled every man's face and Seth said with a rasp:

"Well, Sears, I wouldn't lose any sleep worrying about that honest, respectable man's livelihood if I were you. He owns a fine seven-pa.s.senger car, some fancy driving horses, and that diamond pin he wears week days in his tie would keep my meat bill paid for many and many a day. No, I can't say that I'd let that make my conscience ache."