CHAPTER III

THE STRATEGY OF AMOS

Wint had returned to the Weaver House in a numb revulsion of feeling. He was hurt and angry at the whole world; and he was wholly at sea as to what he should do. His instinct was to fight, to fight the thing out, to fight his father and to prove to Joan that she was mistaken in her condemnation. It was this instinct, with an unspoken thought that he would face the thing honestly, that sent him back to the hovel where he had spent the night before. That was where he belonged, he told himself. It was to such places that his father and Joan had consigned him. So be it. He found a grim sort of satisfaction in flaunting the stigma of his shame.

The greatest single force in Wint’s life had always been his resentment of dictation. A devil of contrariness possessed him; a devil of false pride that made him go counter to all warnings for the sheer joy of opposition. Thus his best friends became his enemies; for their good advice and counsel thrust him into evil paths; and by the same token, those who thought themselves his enemies were as often as not his best and truest friends. There was a stubborn streak in Wint that ruled him; it was rare that the gentler side of him had the ascendancy. One of those rare moments had come when he faced his father on this day. He had been humble, shamed, regretful, ready to make any amends. But the elder Chase, writhing under the ridicule to which the day had subjected him, had been in no mood for gentleness; and the result of the interview of father and son had been a parting which left them both sore and resentful.

The first faint anger in Wint’s heart grew swiftly. When he had seen Joan, and she had sent him away, he coupled her with his father in his thoughts. They were both against him; both thought him nothing better than a drunkard; both thought him a treacherous and ribald fool. And the consciousness of this lifted his head in anger, and stiffened his heart, so that he swore he would fight out the battle and prove to them they were wrong, and then throw his newly won victory in their faces. They thought him a drunken sot; very well, he would fight the fight on that basis. They thought the Weaver House was the place where he belonged; very well, he would fight his fight from that brothel. And it was in such fashion as this, wearing his own disgrace like a plume, that he returned to Mrs. Moody’s disreputable hostelry.

When he was alone in his room, he sat down on the edge of the bed and lighted a cigarette. He rested his elbows on his knees, the cigarette dangling from his clasped fingers, and considered. And as he thought, his face hardened, hardened with the effort to control his own pity for himself. He was immensely sorry for his own plight, immensely resentful of the misunderstandings of which he was a victim. And he was terribly lonely. He missed companionship--Jack Routt, Gergue, even Muldoon. Muldoon would have been the most welcome of them all, but he had left Muldoon at home. He regretted this; and his regret at last became so keen that he could not bear it. With a sudden resolution, he tossed the half-burned cigarette into the grate, and went down the stairs and crossed the railroad and bent his steps toward home. Muldoon, at least, would not condemn him. Muldoon was a faithful sort; a good pup....

He took alleyways and unfrequented streets, and avoided chance encounters. Thus he came near his home without meeting any one, and he went in through the alley and halted under a cherry tree that shaded Muldoon’s kennel, beside the coal house, and whistled softly. The dog might be in his kennel; he might be in the house; he might be roaming abroad in search of his master.

He whistled three times, and got no response. Muldoon was somewhere beyond hearing. He might be in the house; and if he were and heard Wint’s whistle, Wint knew he would bark a demand that he be allowed to come out.

So Wint whistled more shrilly; a long, familiar call.

For a time he got no answer to this. He tried again, and this time he heard the faint sound of a muffled bark from inside the house. This bark came nearer, became clamorous, located itself at the kitchen door, where Wint could hear Muldoon’s claws rattling on the panels.

He started toward the kitchen, then halted. For the windows were lighted; and at one of them Hetty Morfee appeared. She was wiping dishes, and when she came to the window she held a plate, gripped in a dishcloth, in her left hand, and shaded her eyes with her right as she tried to peer out into the night.

Muldoon’s close-cropped head appeared beside her at the window for an instant, and he barked again. Wint shrank back into the shadow. He did not wish to be discovered and he was unwilling to risk encountering his father or his mother by going to the house. He shrank back into the darkness; but he whistled again, and this time Hetty left the window and opened the door, and Muldoon came out like a projectile, and found Wint under the cherry tree, and slavered over him.

Wint was so absorbed in the dog that he did not see, until too late, that Hetty had followed Muldoon. She came on him, under the tree, laughing softly. “It’s you, is it?” she called.

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I came for Muldoon. He’s mine.”

She chuckled lightly. “You’re the original Mister Trouble, Wint. Your paw says he never wants to see you again, and your maw’s gone over to tell the neighbors all about it.”

“Where’s father?”

“He stomped off uptown after supper.”

Wint fumbled with the dog’s head. “Thanks for letting Muldoon out,” he said.

“That’s all right. Don’t you want some supper? Come on in.”

“No.”

“Where are you going to spend the night?

“The Weaver House.”

She gave an exclamation of disgust. “That dirty joint!”

“They say that’s where I belong. I can stand it if they can.”

“Oh, don’t be a nut!”

He turned away into the alley, Muldoon at his heels. She called after him: “What’s your hurry?”

“Good night.”

“Your paw’ll come around.”

Wint said nothing. He was moving away. She ran after him and caught his arm. “Wint! Don’t be a nut! Come on back! He’ll come around.”

He released his arm and shook his head. “That’s up to him,” he said. “I’ve eaten dirt. All I intend to.”

She lifted her shoulders, laughed. “Oh--all right. If there’s anything you want from here, let me know and I’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks. And--good night!”

“Good night,” she said; and moved back into the shadow of the coal shed and watched him disappear. Leaning there, one hand fumbling at her throat, she was a wistful and unhappy figure. But when Wint was gone, she laughed harshly, and turned back to her work in the kitchen.

* * * * *

If Hetty had wished to confirm Wint in his resolution to go his stubborn way, she could have taken no better means than to repeat her warning: “Don’t be a nut!” He took a certain delight in being thus unreasonable. What he did was his own affair; it concerned no one else. And he returned to the Weaver House in a surprisingly peaceful frame of mind and climbed to his room and went to bed with Muldoon curled on the floor beside him, and slept soundly and healthfully.

He woke in the morning to find Muldoon sitting by the bed, watching him and waiting for him to stir. When he opened his eyes, Muldoon wriggled and yawned and licked his hand, and Wint chuckled, and got up briskly, and dressed himself and went downstairs. The office was empty when he came down, for the hour was early; and he went out without seeing any one, and followed the railroad tracks to the station. There was a lunch cart near the station; and he crowded in among the toil-grimed crew of the night freight and ate a Hamburg steak sandwich garnished with a biting slice of onion, and drank a great mug of steaming coffee. Some of the men recognized him, and they talked to him with an unwilling respect in their manner. He liked this. They did not seem to be laughing at him, although they professed interest in the manner of his election, and asked him how he had worked it, and what he was going to do now. He told them, honestly enough, that he had known nothing about it beforehand; and he told them, with equal honesty, that he was asleep in the Weaver House when the word was brought to him. They seemed surprised that he should state these things without attempt at palliation; and they seemed to approve of him for doing so. Their attitude gave him renewed confidence, so that he went up toward town with his head high, ready to look men in the eye.

He began to meet people at once. They were for the most part men going to their work; and some of them eyed him angrily, and some seemed inclined to laugh at him; but most of them, like the railroad men, gave evidence of a certain new respect. They hailed him with effusive cordiality as “Mr. Mayor,” but they seemed a little afraid of the sound of their own words, a little afraid of what his attitude might be.

Wint had made his plans. He must get some clothes from his home, must cut himself off completely from his father. To this end he sought Jack Routt. Routt, like every one in town, went to the Post Office each morning for his mail; and Wint found him there.

Routt shook his hand heartily. “Wint, congratulations!” he said, under his breath. “This’ll be a great thing for you. It will steady you, Wint.”

Wint shook his head, some of the sullen anger of the night before returning. He had no wish to be steadied, and he said so. “I can take care of myself,” he told Routt.

Jack nodded. “So you can. But you need something to hold you down. And this’ll do it.” He nudged Wint in the ribs, smiling slyly. “Y’ know, you’ve been hitting it too strong lately. You don’t know when to stop, Wint. This will put the brakes on. Make you tend to business.”

Wint brushed his hand across Routt’s face abruptly. “Cut it,” he said. “Say, Jack, I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything in the world.”

“My father is sore. He thinks I was in on this. So he kicked me out last night.”

“Kicked you out?” Routt was startled and indignant. “Why, say, that’s--Where did you go? Why didn’t you come over to my place?”

Wint said consciously: “No--I went to the Weaver House. They know me there.”

Routt looked quickly around to see if any one had heard. “Sh-h-h!” he warned. “Say, that was a fool thing to do. Don’t let any one find it out. You want to walk straight now--”

Wint cut in. “I want you to go out home and get my steamer trunk and pack it with some things. There’s a blue suit in my closet. And shirts, and so on. Get my overcoat, too. Mother will show you--or Hetty.”

Routt looked at him quickly. “Hetty who?”

“Hetty Morfee.”

Routt looked at Wint and laughed softly. “Oh--she’s working for you?”

“Yes.”

“Nice kid, isn’t she?”

“Yes. And--as I said--she’ll help you if mother won’t.”

Routt nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll go out this morning. Where’ll I send the trunk? Weaver House?”

“I’ll send for it. You just pack it.”

Routt touched Wint’s arm. “I’ll do it,” he said again. “But Wint,--for the love of Mike, don’t make a fool of yourself! Thing for you to do is to take hold, run the town right, and make a name for yourself. It’s a great chance, Wint. Make everybody see what you’ve got in you. And it’ll be the making of you, Wint.”

The distribution of the morning’s mail to the boxes was ended just then, and the windows opened. Routt broke off and went to get his mail, and Wint, still resentful at Routt’s insistence on the moral advantages of his situation, went to the window. Dave Howells, one of the postal clerks, was there; and before Wint could speak, he had offered his congratulations. These continual good wishes were beginning to irk Wint. He nodded impatiently. “Dave,” he said, “I want you to hold my mail hereafter. Don’t send it to the house.”

“Oh, we always put it in your father’s box,” Howells told him.

“Well, don’t do that. Hold it. I’ll call for it.”

The clerk wanted to ask questions, but decided not to do so. He took out a card and wrote something on it. “I think there’s a letter for you in the box now,” he said. “I’ll give it to you.”

Wint nodded; and a moment later the man handed him an envelope, and Wint turned away from the window. He met his father, face to face, at the door of the Post Office. Neither of them spoke.

Wint had dropped the letter into his pocket without looking at it. When he reached the hotel on the corner, he turned in, and sat down on one of the deep, leather chairs in the lobby, and drew out the envelope. The address, he saw, was typewritten. The letter had been mailed in town. The envelope was plain; and when he opened it he saw that the paper it contained bore no distinguishing mark.

The letter, like the address, was typewritten, and Wint read it once, and read it again with slowly kindling resentment. It said:

“_Dear Wint_:--

“You have made ducks and drakes of your life. And you have made yourself the butt of the town’s jokes. And you have made those who loved you the objects of derision.

“But your election as Mayor gives you the finest chance a man ever had to retrieve those old mistakes, to make a man of yourself, and to make a fine town of Hardiston.

“Take hold. Work hard. Live straight. And be sure that there are some true friends who will watch you lovingly and sympathetically, and hope and pray for your success.”

This letter was unsigned. Wint read it a second time, and then with tense, stiff fingers he tore it into little bits and dropped these bits into a wide, brass cuspidor beside his chair. As the scraps of paper fluttered from his hand, he clenched his fists; and he looked about to see if any one had been watching.

He hated this preaching, this morality, this harping on the hope of his redemption. He was all right; no harm in him. But they would not leave him alone. They nagged at him; nagged.... He hated it.

He wondered, as an undercurrent to this rage, who had written the letter. It might have been his father, or his mother, or Routt. Routt was a sanctimonious ass about some things. Or it might have been.... He thought it was probably the minister of his father’s church; and he grinned with dry relish at the thought. The old man must have been sadly shocked at Wint more than once; and this letter sounded just like him. Blithering, self-righteous....

He lunged up from his chair, boiling furiously. All his determination to stick it out was gone. He would not do it, would not make a righteous spectacle of himself for the edification of these old women. He went out and turned up the street past the Court House, walking blindly, storming inwardly. He would get out of town, shake the dust of the place off his feet. Let them find a new Mayor.

He was still fuming thus when, in front of the Court House, he met Peter Gergue. Peter rummaged through his back hair and grinned at Wint. “Saw you coming,” he explained. “Thought you might be looking f’r me. So I came down.”

“I’m not looking for you,” said Wint.

Gergue nodded. “All right,” he assented. “Mind if I walk along with you? Going on this way?”

Wint halted in his tracks. “What’s up?” he asked sharply. “What do you want?”

“Me?” Peter ejaculated. “Why--me? I don’t want nothing.”

“What are you so anxious to keep an eye on me for, then? I don’t want you.”

Gergue hesitated, and he looked across the street toward his office; and at last he leaned toward Wint and said slyly: “Tell you th’ truth, it ain’t me. Amos is over at my place. He see you coming, and he was worried f’r fear you’d come up and find him there. He knows you’re mad at him. Don’t want to see you. Don’t want to listen to you. Knows you got a fair kick, and he don’t like to listen to kicks.”

Wint looked across the way, and then at Peter; and then, without a word, he started across the street. Peter went hurriedly after him. “Say,” he begged, “you ain’t going--”

“I’m going to tell that old scamp what I think of him.”

Peter pleaded. “Oh, now, Wint--he’ll be mad at me.” He laid a restraining hand on Wint’s arm. Wint shook it off.

“What do I care what he thinks of you?” he demanded. “Let go.”

“You don’t want t’ see him, Wint.”

Wint went stubbornly ahead. He turned into the stairs that led up to Peter’s office; and Gergue sighed.

“Glory! Well--all right, then. I’ll trail along,” he said; and then he smiled at Wint’s ascending back with amiable satisfaction and followed Wint up the stairs.

Wint had never been in Peter’s office before. He halted in the doorway, struck by the slack disorder of the place. There were spider webs in every corner; there was dust everywhere. The soft floor had been worn by many feet till every knot stood up like a rounded knob, and every nail upreared a shining head. The door of the wardrobe hung open, revealing some battered books inside. The old, oilcloth-covered table at the window was littered with papers and rusty pens, and sagged weakly under the weight of the books upon it. At this table, when Wint came in, sat Congressman Amos Caretall. The Congressman saw Wint, and got up hurriedly, eyes squinting, head on one side. He looked distinctly apologetic; and when he saw Peter behind Wint, he eyed his satellite reproachfully.

Wint stormed across the room to face the Congressman; but even while he approached the older man, some of his anger died in him. Amos was so frankly unhappy, he was so apologetic, the tilt of his head was so plaintive. Nevertheless Wint cried: “What right had you to use my name in this way, Congressman?”

Caretall shook his head humbly. “Not a right in the world, Wint.”

“It was a dirty trick. Underhand.”

The Congressman nodded. “I know it, Wint,” he assented. “I c’n see that now. All the trouble it’s made and everything. If I’d knowed.... But you see, a man gets to playing the game, and he don’t stop to think like he oughter.”

“You hadn’t any right to do it,” Wint insisted; but he was weakening. Nothing is so disarming as acquiescence; and when a man condemns himself, it is human nature to wish to defend him.

“I know it,” Amos repeated. “I ain’t got a word to say, Wint. Except that I’ll help to straighten things out so you won’t have to serve.”

Wint looked puzzled for a moment. “I--what’s that?”

“I say, I’ll help you fix things so you won’t have to take it.”

“What makes you think I don’t want to take it?”

Amos spread out his hands like a man who has nothing to conceal. “Why, that’s common sense. I’d ought to have knowed. It’s a hard job. Prob’ly you couldn’t swing it. Anyway, it means work, and stickin’ to the grindstone; and you’re a young fellow. You like your good times. You wouldn’t want to be tied down to anything this way.”

Wint laughed derisively. “You think you know a whole lot about me, don’t you?”

Amos smiled. “Well, Wint,” he returned. “I’ve seen some of life. I know a lively young fellow like you don’t want to take on a job that means work. And you’re right, o’ course. It ain’t the job f’r you. You ain’t fitted for it. You couldn’t manage it. You’re right. I hadn’t ought to have got you into this. But I’ll help get you out. That’s th’ least I can do.”

Wint looked at the Congressman with level eyes for a moment; and then he turned and looked out of window, saying nothing. Amos caught Peter Gergue’s eye, and Peter winked at him. Amos said humbly: “I sure am sorry about this, Wint. It’s made it hard for you. You can’t stay here now. You might go over to Washin’ton, Wint. I c’d get you somethin’ easy, there.”

Wint turned back to him abruptly; and there was a catch in his voice. “Congressman,” he said, half laughing, “you owe me something.”

Caretall nodded. “That’s right, Wint. ’Nd I’m ready to pay.”

“All right. Here’s what I want you to do.” He hesitated, extended his hand. “I know I’m not fit for this job, sir,” he said reluctantly. “But--if you’ll give me a hand and help along--I’d like to tackle it.”

Amos looked doubtful. “Now, Wint--don’t you get wrong notions. No sense you’re sticking in this mess. I’ll get you out without any--”

Wint interrupted him angrily: “You can’t get me out. Nor any one else. I’m in and I’ll stay in. But--I’d like to have your advice and help when I need it.”

And the Congressman yielded. He took Wint’s hand. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll back you. I don’t know as you’re right, and I don’t know as you’re wrong. If you can get away with it.”

“I intend to.”

Amos nodded. “Sure you intend to. But can you? Well--we’ve got to see.” He hesitated, seemed to be thinking. “I hear your father and you’ve broke,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That’s too bad. Where are you living?”

“The Weaver House,” said Wint defiantly. But his defiance was misplaced. Congressman Caretall nodded approvingly.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Old Mother Moody sets a right good table, when she’s a mind to. I wish I c’d live down there myself. It’s a good plan.” He looked at Wint and winked slyly. “Always a good plan to play to the workingman,” he explained. “Good idea of yours, Wint. Living down there. Get the workingmen and the railroad men and all to sympathizing with you. They’ll play you for a martyr, and back you strong. You’ll make a good politician, Wint. I c’n see that.”

Wint shook his head. “It’s not politics,” he said. “I--don’t intend to stay there. Just till I get settled uptown. Somewhere.”

Amos studied him. “Pshaw, now! That’s too bad. It’d been a good play, Wint.”

Wint laughed. “I’ll play the game some other way.”

The Congressman nodded. He remained silent for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “I was thinking.... You and me has got to do a lot of talking, planning. I wish you could come and stay with me till your paw comes ’round.”

Wint shook his head. “Thanks,” he said, smiling. “That’s good of you. But I’ll--” He hesitated; for through the window he had seen, across the street, Jack Routt and Joan together. They were talking briskly; and Joan was laughing at something Routt had said. Wint stared at them, with slowly burning eyes; and before he could continue Gergue nudged him in the side and told the Congressman smilingly:

“That ’uz a bad break, Amos. He can’t come live with you.”

Wint looked at him. “Why not?” he asked; and Amos said to Gergue:

“That’s right, Peter. I’d forgot.”

“Why not?” Wint repeated impatiently; he glanced again toward the two across the street.

“Why, he means Miss Joan wouldn’t like it,” the Congressman explained.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

Gergue pointed across the street. “She’d soon teach you manners,” he chuckled. “The Congressman here’s got a nice-looking daughter of his own, you know.”

Wint’s hand clenched at his side. “You’re all wrong there,” he said curtly; and then to Amos: “I think I’ll accept your invitation, after all,” he said.