Jap Herron Part 17

"I want to speak to j.a.p," she said, as he barred the pa.s.sage.

"What do you want with him?" Bill demanded truculently. "Because he is packing all the load now that he can stand, and you ain't going to add another chip to it. Give me your old engagement ring, and I'll pitch it in the h.e.l.l-box. I reckon that's what you came for."

She pushed him aside, her eyes blazing with wrath.

"Get out of my way, Bill Bowers. You never did have any sense. Let me by!"

She flung herself past him and ran into the composing room. At sight of Flossy, she paused. Flossy raised her head from j.a.p's shoulder and looked defiantly at the girl, but only for a second. She knew, in that glance. Softly she crept out as Isabel, with a heart-shaking cry, ran to j.a.p and threw herself against him.

"Take me in your arms, j.a.p," she cried stormily, "for I love you."

j.a.p stared up, dully, for an instant. Then, forgetting all but love, he opened his arms and clasped her to his heart. Bill rushed outside after Flossy.

"I never knew that she was the real goods," he said remorsefully, wiping his eyes.

"Get a wagon from the grocer," Flossy said, decisive again. "I am going to take her home with me."

"Meaning that?" Bill flipped his thumb toward j.a.p's mother.

"Send her up to the house, and I will have a doctor, and some one to bathe her and clean her up. Maybe after she is clean and sober, she won't be so dreadful."

When j.a.p came out of his stupor enough to try to put Isabel away, he discovered what Flossy had done. With Isabel clinging to him, he walked with downcast head through the streets that lay between the _Herald_ office and Flossy's cottage.

His mother was in bed, clean and yet disgusting in her drunken sleep.

He forgot Isabel, silent by his side, as he stood looking down upon the blotched and sunken face, thinking what thoughts G.o.d only knew. He seemed years older as he walked out again, after the doctor had told him that nothing could be determined until she had slept the liquor off. Slowly and silently he and Isabel walked past the row of neat cottages until they reached Main street. On the corner j.a.p paused.

"You must go home, Isabel," he said brokenly. "Sweetheart, I understand, and I know that you are the bravest girl in the world. But you must leave me now."

"I will not," she declared. "I want you to take me right down to the office and send for a license. I am going to marry you, and show this town what I think of you!"

"But I cannot let you," j.a.p said simply. "I know--you don't."

"Then," said Isabel defiantly, "I will go back to Flossy's and take care of your mother until you are ready to talk sense."

j.a.p looked at her helplessly. They were in front of Blanke's drug store. Jim Blanke stepped outside and grasped j.a.p's hand. Isabel looked proudly up at him, her arm drawn tightly through j.a.p's. As they pa.s.sed down the street, citizens sprang up, apparently from nowhere, and clasped j.a.p's hand in a fraternal grip. Isabel peered into his silent face. The tears were streaming unheeded down his cheeks. Her father frowned as they appeared at the door of the bank.

"Papa," she called resolutely, "you coming with us?"

He stood gnawing at his lips, his face overcast. An instant he battled with his pride and his love for the boy. Then, with his old heartiness, he clapped j.a.p on the shoulder.

"Straighten your shoulders, lad. We're all your friends!" And the storm cloud lightened.

All that night j.a.p paced the floor of the office, while Bill, too sympathetic for sleep, tossed in the room above and swore at fate. It was noon the next day when little J. W. came in to say that Mrs. Herron was awake and wanted to see her son.

She was half sitting among the pillows when j.a.p entered. Flossy had drawn the muslin curtains, to soften the garish light as it fell on her seamed and shame-scarred face. She peered up at him from blood-shot, sunken eyes.

"You look like your pappy's folks, Jasper," she croaked. "And they tell me you air a fine, likely boy, and follerin' in the trade of your gran'pap. I wisht that I had a known where you was, long ago. I have had a hard life, Jasper. Your step-pa beat me, and that's more'n your pappy ever done. He died of the trimmins, three year ago, and I have been wanderin' every since, huntin' my childurn. But Aggie's a bigbug now, and she drove me off. And f.a.n.n.y's goin' to a fine music school, and sent me word that she'd have me put in a sanitary if I bothered her. She saw a piece about you in the paper, and sent it to me. So I tramped thirty mile to come."

Her face was pathetic in its misery. She sank back in the pillows and closed her eyes. j.a.p leaned down and drew the covers tenderly over her arms. She opened her eyes, at the touch, and looked up at him sadly.

"Thanky, Jasper," she mumbled, "You be-ant mad?"

He patted her cheek softly, and the sunken eyes lighted with a smile of weary contentment. Then the lids fluttered, like the last effort of a spent candle, and she slept. Like one in the maze of a vague, uncertain dream, j.a.p went back to the office. Unconsciously he took the familiar way, through the alley. Automatically he climbed to his stool and began setting up the editorial that had been interrupted by his mother's coming the previous day.

At sunset Bill touched his shoulder softly. j.a.p raised his head from his hands.

"Your--your mother never woke up after you left her, j.a.p," he said huskily.

CHAPTER XV

Bill looked up as a long, lank form glided surrept.i.tiously into the office.

"Been a long time since you drifted our way," he commented, as the form resolved itself into the six-foot length of Kelly Jones.

"Might' nigh three month," averred Kelly grimly. "I've been tradin'

over at Barton. Couldn't stand for j.a.p's damfoolishness. Had to buy my licker there, and just traded there. It's twelve mile from my farm to Barton, and four mile to Bloomtown. Spring's comin' on, and work to do. I hate to take that trip every time the wife needs a spool o'

thread. Did you get my letter, sayin' to stop the paper?"

"Stopped it, didn't we?" queried Bill crisply, scattering the type from the financial report of Bloomtown into the case.

"Yes," a.s.sented Kelly, "you did. What'd you do it for?"

"Not forcing the _Herald_ on anybody," announced Bill glibly. "Got past that. We used to hold 'em up and feed the _Herald_ to them, but we don't have to do it now."

"I hear tell that j.a.p made Tim Simpson night marshal. Why, he run a blind tiger beyond the water tank," exclaimed Kelly. "I reckon j.a.p didn't know that."

"Just because he did know it, he made Tim night marshal," declared Bill, flinging the last type into the box and descending from the stool. "Just you stroll down the tracks in either direction, and see if you can find a whisker or a tawny hair from the tip of any tiger's tail lying loose along the way. j.a.p knows several things, Kelly, my boy, and he is fighting fire with fire. Tim Simpson understands the operations of the kind of menagerie that usually flourishes in a dry town, and j.a.p put him on his honor. He's so conscientious that he goes over to Barton to get full. He won't drink it here. He's got pride in making Bloomtown the whitest town in the state. But explain the return of the prodigal. How come your feet in our dust again?"

"Well," said Kelly shamefacedly, "the wife said that I was a durn fool.

I stopped the _Herald_ and subscribed for the _Standard_--and a pretty standard it is! While j.a.p Herron was cleanin' up, it was slingin' muck at him. The wife read it, and one day she goes up to Barton and starts an argument with Jones. I reckon she had the last word. If she didn't, it was the fu'st time. She come home so rip-snortin' mad that she threatened to lick me if I didn't tackle Jones. Well, to keep peace in the family, I run in to see him the next time I went to Barton. Well, Jones put it up to me, if j.a.p was doin' much for Bloomtown in havin' unlicensed drug stores, instid of regular saloons."

"Sure sign that you don't know the news," said Bill, unfolding a copy of the _Herald_. "Since last Sat.u.r.day night there has been only one drug store in Bloomtown. That's Blanke's, and Jim Blanke wouldn't sell liquor on anybody's prescription but Doc Hall's, and Doc Hall would let you die of snake-bite, if nothing but whiskey would cure you. Any other drug stores that may open up in this town 'll have to pattern after Blanke's or out they go."

Kelly took the paper up and scanned its columns. He snorted.

"Well, I do declare! I see that might' nigh all the doctors have packed up and are threatenin' to leave town. Well, there wa'n't enough doctorin' to keep twenty of 'em in cash nohow."

"You ought to have heard j.a.p's speech when they were putting a plea for local option," said Bill. "My pap has carried a sore ear against j.a.p's reign ever since he was elected to fill out that unexpired term, and he stirred up a lot of bellyaches among the guzzlers. It was a sickening mess, because the whole town knows that my daddy can't stand even the smell of liquor. It wouldn't be so bad--so hypocritical, if he really liked it and was used to it. As I was telling you, he and the old booze gang had been burning the midnight dip to plan a crimp for Mayor Herron, when that local option idea struck him. Well, j.a.p got up and made a speech, calling their attention to the bonds we voted, and the sound financial condition back of those bonds; the granitoid pavement on Main street, the electric light plant that's going up, and the water works, and sewers that are under way--all managed since the town went dry. Then he nominated Tom Granger for mayor, and what do you reckon they did?"

"Seein' as how he ain't mayor," said Kelly, with a twinkle, "I allow they done nothin'."

"Why," said Bill, his brown eyes kindling, "they arose as one man and yelled, 'We want j.a.p Herron!' and that settled it."

The farmer stood in the middle of the office, his arms gesticulating and his head bobbing with animation, as j.a.p hurried in. He gazed at the back of Kelly's familiar slicker incredulously.