Jap Herron Part 22

"Throw them away, Bill," he choked. "They are the tawdry tokens of mourning. I am trying to forget that mourning."

Bill gathered the dry bundles and carried them away. Coming back, he stood looking mournfully upon the muddy sod. j.a.p raised his eyes suddenly, and they gazed for a long minute into each other's hearts.

Bill threw his hands over his eyes and cried aloud.

"Don't, Bill!" j.a.p's hand clutched him tightly. "For G.o.d's sake, help me to be a man!"

And forgetting the sodden gra.s.s, they knelt beside the grave and sobbed together in an abandon of grief. Boys they were, despite their years, and Flossy had been more to them than the mother whom youth is p.r.o.ne to take for granted. When the tempest of sorrow and desolation had spent itself they arose.

"It is done," said j.a.p, looking up into the sky where the stars were beginning to twinkle palely. "It had to be done. Now I can realize that they laid Flossy beneath the earth. But, please G.o.d, I can forget it. Now I know that she has left the beautiful sh.e.l.l behind. But, Bill," he touched the mound with his fingers, "Flossy has never been here, never for an instant."

"She is in heaven," said Bill reverently.

j.a.p laid his arm around Bill's shoulders.

"You don't believe that, Bill. You know better. Flossy is right with us, as Ellis has always been. Just as he has inspired us to develop his paper and his town, so she will stay with us, to create good and optimism and faith in ourselves. Bill, when those two wonderful people came into our lives, they came to stay. Do you think Ellis and Flossy would get any joy out of strumming on a harp and taking their own selfish ease? No, Bill, that's all a mistake. They're working right with us, and it's up to you and me to so wholly reflect them that we will be to this town what they have been to us. In any crisis in our lives, let us not forget that Ellis and Flossy Hinton are not dead. We may have need to remember it, Bill."

The next morning he climbed on his stool and took the stick in his hand. Bill stopped at the door of the composing room, something in j.a.p's att.i.tude arresting him.

"What are you going to do, j.a.p?"

"Get busy," declared j.a.p. "We have given out enough plate. The _Herald_ is going back on the job."

Bill felt a lump rise in his throat as he paused to finger the copy on his hook.

"We have to get the drums beating," said j.a.p. "We have to elect Wat Harlow governor, and, believe the Barton _Standard_, we have some rough road to travel."

And the battle was on! Alone, the Bloomtown _Herald_ tackled the job of making a governor. Watson Harlow had been a familiar figure in state politics for more than twenty years, but as gubernatorial timber no one had ever regarded him seriously. His opponent, on the other hand, was a fresh figure in the state, with all the novelty of the unknown quant.i.ty about him. It was an off year for the dominant party, both locally and nationally, and the fight promised to be a complicated one.

Week by week the battle raged between the types. Little by little the country press began to get in the fight. Not content with the picturesque drumming of his own machine, j.a.p interested the city press in the history of Wat Harlow, the "Lone Pine, of Integrity Absolute."

This descriptive t.i.tle was proclaimed in and out of season during the months of battle, both before and after the nomination of Harlow and Jones. j.a.p invented a stinger for Bronson Jones. In his past history, it was alleged, he had much that were better concealed than revealed.

Not the least of his offenses was that he had a.s.sisted his father, a certain P. D. Jones, in stealing red-hot cook-stoves from the ruins of the Chicago fire. j.a.p so declared, and he offered to prove that Jones had sold these same stoves to their former owners, when they became cold. In one instance, the victim was a widow who had lost everything, even her former mate, in the fire. And Jones carried the t.i.tle, "The Widow's Friend," for years. All this was fun for the city dailies, and cartoons of the "Lone Pine" being fed to the "Cook-Stove" alternated with those of the pine falling upon the "Widow's Friend" as he was about to sell a stove to the above-mentioned widow.

The color came back to j.a.p's cheeks, and the battle light flamed in his gray eyes. His one relaxation was the tranquil hour with Isabel.

Harlow, like an uneasy ghost, haunted the _Herald_ office when he was not out storming the hustings. The Barton _Standard_ continued to pry into Wat's past, while the _Herald_ continued to lift the lid from the chest of Bronson's secret garments. Unfortunately, the _Standard_ had played its big trump card in the congressional campaign. The vermilion handbill was once more dragged to light, but it worked like a boomerang, for several of Wat's own party workers had been caught red-handed in the act of attempting to operate a shameless graft game, in the name of the university. And j.a.p utilized the story to show that Wat was a man above party, a man in whose mind integrity was indeed absolute.

Argument grew red hot, every place but Bloomtown. There, there was no one to argue with. Bloomtown was one man for Harlow. Jones undertook to deliver one speech there, and that bright hour nearly became his last. After the good-natured raillery of the opening address, Jones plunged into the vitriolic explosion he had delivered at the various places he had spoken. For exactly ten minutes it lasted. By that time, Kelly Jones had reached Hollins's grocery store and gathered enough eggs to start a protest against the defamation of Wat Harlow's character. And the protest was proclaimed unanimous!

It was stated that there were no eggs on Bloomtown's breakfast table next morning, and no Sunday cakes.

"But," said the _Herald_, "if Bronson Jones wants any more hen-fruit, the housewives of Bloomtown will cheerfully sacrifice themselves in his behalf."

And so the months sped away until the gra.s.s had mossed the graves in the cemetery with lush beauty, and the three mounds were merged into one by the riotous growth of sweet alyssum, Flossy's best loved blossom. The summer waned. The autumn hasted, and chill winds whispered around the Lone Pine as the last sortie was made. Then Bloomtown pressed her hands to her throbbing breast and got ready for--Victory?

CHAPTER XX

Bill jumped from bed as the rattle of the latch announced the arrival of a visitor. Without waiting for the formality of more than a bathrobe, Rosy Raymond's last birthday gift to him, he bolted down the stairs and across the office. He flung the door open and disclosed the hazy features of Kelly Jones, peering at him through the November fog.

"What, ho! Kelly, what brings you to our door in the glooming?"

Kelly shook the rain from his slicker and came inside.

"Wife called me at three o'clock," he announced. "Had my breakfast and rid like h.e.l.l to git to town early. I want to cast the fu'st vote for Wat for governor."

Bill yawned.

"You could have ridden more leisurely, and saved us a couple of hours'

sleep," he complained. "There are at least a thousand voters of Bloomtown with that same laudable intention. Tom Granger has been missing since seven o'clock last night. It is believed that he is locked in the booth so that his vote will skin the rest."

Kelly looked ruefully back into the rain.

"I reckon that I will come in and set a while, that bein' the report."

"Any man found voting for Jones is to be lynched at sunset," declared Bill, pushing a chair forward.

"Reckon this'll be a big day for the Democrats," commented Kelly, stretching his feet across the table comfortably. "'Tain't nothin' to keep 'em home, so they'll kill time, votin'. That's why I allus cussed my daddy for raisin' me a Democrat. Bein' as I am one, I've got to stick by and see the durn fools shuckin' corn while the Republicans are haulin' their grand-daddies in town to vote the Republicans in."

Bill retired to don a few garments and j.a.p tumbled from bed, for this was a big day in Bloomtown. Before six o'clock the roads were lined with vehicles, as for an Independence holiday. The county was coming in to help the town vote for her favorite son.

About noon Harlow came creeping up the alley and slipped in at the back door. He wore a slicker that he had borrowed from some const.i.tuent who was short. It hung sorrowfully about his knees. Bill remembered that in spike-tail coat and white necktie Wat Harlow looked enough like a governor to pa.s.s for one, but just now he resembled nothing so much as a draggled rooster. The stove in the little private office hissed and sputtered as he shook the rain from the coat.

"I thought that the only place that victory would be complete would be the _Herald_ office," he said, relaxing into a chair. "And if we are beat, I could meet it better here." He took a paper in his shaking hands and tried to read.

The rain poured in torrents, but Bloomtown cast her record vote--and not one scurrilous vote against him dropped into the ballot box. At sunset a wild yell proclaimed that Bloomtown had done her duty. It was now up to the rest of the state whether Wat Harlow, proclaimed from border to border as an honest man, would be its next governor. On his record as opposed to State University graft, he had once been elected to the legislature when the running was close. On that same record, as opposed to higher education, he was defeated for United States Congressman, and on that same record he was running for governor of his state.

The _Herald_ office lighted up. All the big men of Bloomtown smoked the air blue, waiting for the returns. First good, then crushingly bad, they varied. By the tone of the operator's yell, the waiters guessed each bulletin. If he came silent, they all coughed and waited for some one to take the fatal slip of paper. The dawn was graying when they dispersed, with the issue still in doubt. It was late afternoon before they knew that Harlow was elected. Bill grinned joyously, for the first time since Rosy Raymond carried her heart to Barton and left it there.

"How many roosters have we?" he asked impishly, as he walked over to the telephone.

"Why?" queried j.a.p.

"I am going to 'phone Jones that we want to borrow all that he don't need," said Bill, taking the receiver from the hook.

"We done it!" yelled Kelly Jones, slapping his slouch hat against the door. "And I'm goin' over to Barton and git on the h.e.l.l-firedest drunk that that jay town ever seen. Whoopee!" And off he set at a run to catch the local freight.

About half of Bloomtown seemed inspired with the same spirit, and the freight pulled out amid wild yells of joy. Several of the most agile among the jubilant ones draped the box cars with strips of faded, soggy bunting, and Harlow's picture adorned the cow-catcher. The yelling, that had been discontinued for economic reasons, was resumed in raucous chorus as the train rolled into Barton to celebrate Harlow's victory in Jones's town.

The Bloomtown _Herald_ did itself proud that week. A mammoth picture of the Lone Pine stood forth on the front page. Around it fluttered one hundred flags. Every page sported roosters and flags in each available s.p.a.ce, between local readers and editorial paragraphs. It was a thing of beauty and a joy forever--at least to Wat Harlow. One other cut found place at the bottom of the editorial page. Bill did not forget to boomerang Wilfred Jones by reprinting the weeping angel.

For a week there were bonfires every night, and a number of Bloomtown's citizens sought to lighten Barton's woes by buying fire-water there.

Wat swelled until he looked more like a corpulent oak than a lone pine.

"My house is yours," he cried, alternately wringing j.a.p and Bill by their weary hands. He had come across once more from his headquarters in the Court House to make sure his appreciation was understood. j.a.p smiled wanly as the village band followed him with its intermittent serenade.

Bloomtown had long since outgrown the village cla.s.s; but not a drum nor a horn had encroached upon the old traditions of that band. Mike Hawkins was far too conservative to permit innovation, and as there was no provision for retiring the bandmaster on half pay, the problem of dividing nothing in half having as yet been unsolved, Mike continued to hold the job. All day the band had been vibrating between the Court House and the _Herald_ office, having delivered ten serenades at each side of Main street, for it was understood that the _Herald_ shared the victory with Harlow. As the Governor-elect retreated to the other side of the street, the band at his heels, Bill groaned aloud.

"I wish that that bunch of musicians had had more confidence that Wat was going to get it," he sighed, "so that they could have learned one tune good."