The Co-Citizens Part 7

"Shearing you, too?"

"No, you can't shear a sheep that's been plucked as clean as your hand.

Prim keeps me mighty cool."

"What's he want with so much money, do you know?"

The Colonel limped forward very painfully, placed one hand upon Acres's shoulder, ogled Prim's door, and whispered:

"There are only two things in this world more expensive than women and wine, Mabel: politics and piety."

"You ought to be able to economize on piety," Acres retorted.

"When you do that, you get in deeper with politics--comes to the same thing--and I've never held an office in my life!" he concluded with a groan, as he placed his good foot on the second step of the stairs and drew the other tenderly after it. When he had descended three in this manner, he beckoned to Acres.

"Say, Mabel, if Mike asks about me, tell him I'm standing on the courthouse steps, with both feet bandaged and my trousers rolled up showing my barked shins. Tell him I'm begging for the cause, and as soon as I've got fifty dollars I'll be up to see him!"

The next minute Acres was facing Prim, who sat with his hands spread upon the desk in front of him, his elbows sticking out, his hair bristling, his mouth sucked in, and his eyes spitting venom. He looked like a reptile about to spring, and Acres had much the expression of a rabbit facing the reptile, slowly being drawn to his fate.

"But a hundred dollars, Mike! I can't spare that much now. Besides, what's the hurry?" he was protesting despairingly.

"Look here, Acres, who's kept this town wide open for five years? Mike Prim! Who's profited by that? Every business man in it! Who's given Jordantown an easy reputation that draws workingmen and all kinds of men who spend liberally what they make for what they want? Mike Prim! Who's profited by the jug business in the back of Bill Saddler's livery stable? Not Prim! I get my liquor cheap, that's all. Who's borne the reputation for the dirty work in your elections while you fellows played the part of law-abiding citizens and deacons and elders in the church?

Prim! But who hired me for this job? You fellows with the ornamental virtues of society. I was to provide all the profits of vice to support your position. By G.o.d! do you think I haven't kept your letters of instruction about the Wimply campaign--that suggestion you made about counting the election returns? I've got it! And Coleman's order for liquor and funds to be used in the Dry Valley district, I've got that, too. And I have the agreement Wimply signed to keep the town open that year you fellows were masquerading on that Law and Order Committee: You all voted for Wimply! I've enough signatures here to put half of you in stripes!" he exclaimed, striking the desk with his clenched fist.

"That's all right, Mike. I just wanted to know what----"

"What I'm up to? Well, I'll tell you I aim to be the representative from this county. It'll take a d.a.m.n sight of money to elect me, and I'm going to be elected."

"Of course, we understand that. But what's the hurry? Campaign doesn't begin now."

"That's all you know about it. But _I_ know we are facing a crisis in this county _now_. Everything I've worked for, everything you fellows have stood for secretly and made _me do_--all of it may be swept from under our feet in sixty days. That's why I want money, and----"

"All right," Acres interrupted, taking out his check book, "here's mine.

And it's more than I can spare."

"Not if I need more!" growled Prim, listing the check with a dozen others.

If an outlaw, armed to the teeth, had pa.s.sed up and down the streets and robbed every man in Jordantown, they could not have appeared more dejected and, at the same time, alarmed. Conversation languished beneath the awnings. Men sat in their shirt sleeves, side by side, perfectly silent. You do not discuss the thorn in your side--and they all had two thorns. They were not only outraged by Prim's demands, they were suffering from the neuralgia of suspense in regard to the Mosely Estate.

"It's about time for the _Signal_ to be out," said Coleman, looking at his watch.

"Never is anything in it when it does come----My G.o.d! What was that?"

The air was rent, torn to mere tatters of air, by a long blood-curdling yell, a yell which seemed to catch its breath with battle fierceness, and then come again.

The two men rushed to the door of the bank. They beheld a scene of the wildest confusion. The square, which a moment before had been sunken in apathy, was now filled with terrific excitement. Men were running from every direction toward the post office, stumbling over yelping dogs, shouting, waving their arms as they ran.

In front of the post office, in the yellow flare of the setting sun, Acres and Coleman beheld a scene which contained all the elements of dignity, rage, pathos, and comedy.

Judge Regis stood with his silk hat perfectly level upon his head, his cane tucked under his arm, and he was looking over the spread sheet of the Jordantown _Signal_ very much as if he stared at an enemy over the top of an impregnable fortification.

In front of him Colonel Marshall Adams pranced like an old bird kicking his wings. His hat and coat lay upon the pavement. His face was a red map of rage. He held a copy of the _Signal_ between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and at arm's length, as if closer contact with it meant unbearable pollution. And as he trod his measure, his right fist shot out at regular intervals, each time nearer and nearer the Judge's nose, and with each motion the Colonel sent forth that ear-splitting yell which had not been heard in Jordantown since a Confederate regiment charged a Federal division there in 1864.

Bob Sasnett was the first to reach the scene. He seized the Colonel around the waist from behind, dragging him back so that his red slippers turned up on the heels and showed the soles.

"Look at him, gentlemen! That man has committed a crime!" the Colonel shouted to the gathering crowd as he shook an accusing finger at Regis.

"A crime?" came an incredulous voice.

Regis, calmly folding his paper, looked over the head of his accuser and addressed Sasnett.

"Thank you, Sasnett, for saving his dignity. He was a brave soldier. We must never forget that," he said, lifting his hat impersonally to courage as he made his way out of the ring of staring faces.

"Let me go, Bob!" screamed the Colonel, struggling. "Did you hear him?

_Was_ a brave soldier. By Gad, what am I now? And this from a man who would destroy the sanct.i.ty of fair womanhood, and then barricades himself behind a newspaper when I demand shatisfaction."

"What's the old boy talking about?" demanded Briggs, stretching his neck to get a view of the Colonel.

"If you don't believe what I shay, though I dare any man to doubt my word, read that!" he cried, flinging the paper from him.

The _Signal_ fell flat and smooth upon the pavement; there was the sc.r.a.ping of many feet as the crowd pushed forward, a mere instant of silence as they read:

"_The Last Will and Testament of Sarah Hayden Mosely_";

then a furious rush for the post office, where every subscriber to the _Signal_ hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed his copy.

The Colonel, bereft of Sasnett's support, slid gently to a sitting posture against the lamp post, his legs wide apart, his red slippers half off. Tears filled his eyes. He wagged his head and sobbed:

"Selah! Selah! Sharper than a sherpent's tooth----" He could not recall the rest, he merely felt it. He was a poor old man, alone, forsaken, he knew that.

No one noticed him. One after another the men filed out, each with the _Signal_ wide open, and with his eyes fastened upon a certain column.

They scattered beneath the various awnings, singly or in groups. Not one addressed his neighbour. Each remained concealed behind the wide enveloping sheets which literally t.i.ttered in their trembling hands.

CHAPTER II

Silence is the luxury of wise men and the necessity of fools--which indicates how few men are wise. It is usually the man who does not know what to say, or who has nothing worth saying to impart, that does the talking. It is a form of verbal hysteria, a kind of babbling dust which he stirs by way of concealing his incapacities. And the discourse is more characteristic of women than of the opposite s.e.x, because the lives they live tend to the innocuous, if they do not tend to neuralgia and despair. Silence in a woman is always supernatural. But there are emergencies in life so dumbfounding and sinister in their aspect that they bind the tongue and inform even the foolish with the momentary wisdom of silence and prudence.

Magnis Carter as editor of the _Signal_ was naturally loquacious, especially in print. He published the news with all the fluency which liquefied language permits. It was only in this manner that he was able to fill the few inside columns of the _Signal_. The outside pages were "patented," of course, and contained matter taken from other papers and magazines. News was so scarce in Jordantown that if a stray dog trotted across the square, it was almost a sensation. Not to know whose dog a dog was afforded an opportunity for speculation and for a change in the topic of conversation.

The singular brevity therefore with which Carter published the most important information ever needed and yearned for in Jordantown, was significant. Even the weekly local column was exceedingly reserved, as if some prescience of the future had rendered every man and woman cautious of performing a single act worthy of interest. Nothing was said of the last meeting of the Ladies' Civic League and Cemetery a.s.sociation. There was no flamboyant boasting concerning the various enterprises.

But at the top of the first column on the editorial page, between two wide black lines, appeared this notice:

"_Death of an Estimable Christian Woman._"