CHAPTER IV

CHASE CHANGES SIDES

Winthrop Chase, Senior, was thoughtful all that day; he went home in the evening still undecided as to what he should do. He was unhappy, hurt at Wint’s reticence, disturbed as to his own course of action, and fiercely resentful of Amos’s influence over his son.

His conscience was troubling him; and he was trying to quiet it with Kite’s more or less specious argument that this was politics, not morality. If Chase had been asked to come out, point-blank, and champion the nonenforcement of the liquor law, he would have refused; and he would have refused with indignation at the suggestion. But the issue was not so clear as that. It was clouded by his dislike for Amos. It was not merely a question of enforcing the law; it was a question of balking Amos Caretall. And Chase was prepared to go a long way to put a spoke in Amos’s wheel.

Wint had not yet come, when he reached his home; and he was glad of that. It gave him some leeway, gave him some further time to think. But his thoughts ran in an endless circle; his convictions countered his enmity toward Amos. It was only by small degrees that his attitude toward Amos crowded other considerations out of his mind. He was gradually coming to the point of decision when he heard Wint at the door. Mrs. Chase met Wint in the front hall, and told him hurriedly:

“Now, Wint, you’re late again. You run right upstairs and wash your face and hands. Supper’s all ready, and Hetty wants to go out, and I don’t want to keep her waiting any--”

Wint laughed, and kissed her, and told her he would hurry, and he was gone up the stairs, two steps at a time, while his mother still talked to him. When he came down, his father and mother had already gone into the dining room. He followed them, answered his father’s “Good evening, Wint,” in an abstracted way, and sat down hurriedly. He did not look toward his father; he was conscious he had not done the fair thing in failing to tell the older man of his orders to Radabaugh. He felt guilty.

Mrs. Chase never allowed any gaps in the conversation to go unplugged; and since Wint and his father were both normal men, with normal appetites, she did most of the talking during the early part of the meal, while they ate. It was only when Hetty brought on a thick rhubarb pie and Mrs. Chase began to cut it that Chase said casually to his son:

“Well, Wint, I hear you’ve set out to clean up Hardiston.”

Wint gulped what was in his mouth, and uneasily admitted that this was true. Mrs. Chase was talking to Hetty about the pie and did not hear what they said. Chase asked:

“What does Amos think of that?”

Wint looked for an instant at his father. “Thinks it’s all right,” he said.

Mrs. Chase came back into the conversation then. She had the aggravating habit of catching the tail end of a story or a remark and demanding that the whole be repeated for her benefit. “What’s all right?” she asked. “What’s all right, Wint? Who thinks it’s all right? It keeps me so busy looking after things here that it seems like I never hear what’s going on. What is it that--”

Chase told her quietly: “Wint has given Marshal Radabaugh orders not to allow any more selling of liquor in Hardiston.”

Mrs. Chase was astonished. She said so. “Well, I never,” she exclaimed. “You know, Wint, I never thought you’d do that. I think it’s time, though, something was done. I told Mrs. Hullis ... I was saying to Mrs. Hullis here only yesterday that it was a shame, the way men were getting drunk. That Ote Runns, that beats my carpets, came here yesterday to do some work for me, and I paid him; and Mrs. Hullis saw him coming home from town that afternoon, and he couldn’t even stay on the sidewalk, he was staggering so. I declare, it makes you feel like not paying a man like that for working for you, when he can go right off and spend his money on whisky, and his wife and children at home--”

Wint said, with a glance at his father: “Ote’s not married, mother. He hasn’t any wife; and as far as I know, he hasn’t any children.”

“Well, suppose he had,” she demanded, “wouldn’t it be just the same? I declare, Wint, you’re always contradicting me. But I said to Mrs. Hullis I thought it was a shame, and she said she thought so too, and it is. You’ve done just right, Wint. I didn’t think anybody could ever do that, or I’d have told you to do it before. I didn’t know the Mayor had the say of that, Wint. I thought the Mayor was the man you went to when your dogs got into the pound. I remember Mrs. Hullis’s dog got taken to the pound, three years ago, and she went to Mayor Johnson, he was then, and he got him out for her. And I told her--”

Wint had been watching his father. He had expected the older man to be proud of him, and had rather dreaded this pride. He had prepared himself to disclaim any praise that might come. But--Chase was not offering to praise him. There was no pride in his father’s face; there was rather an uneasy regret, and it fired the antagonism in Wint, and made him feel like defending himself. He asked, interrupting Mrs. Chase, whether the elder Chase thought the orders should be enforced.

“I suppose so,” Chase said, and Mrs. Chase lapsed into a momentary silence, pouring fresh tea into her cup.

“Don’t you think it’s a good thing?” Wint demanded challengingly. “Don’t you--aren’t you glad?”

Mrs. Chase said: “Of course it’s a good thing. It ought to have been done long ago. It’s a shame, the way things have been going on in this--”

Chase said to her: “Ordinarily, mother, I would think it a good thing. But in this case, it’s a part of Amos Caretall’s political game. A part of his--”

Wint looked at his father sharply, a word leaping to his lips. Mrs. Chase asked: “Congressman Caretall? Is he back here again, after the way he treated you? Wint, I should think you’d be ashamed to do anything to help him, after what he did to your father. I should think--”

Wint said quickly: “He has nothing to do with this. I decided to do it, and I gave the order, and I’m going through with it. Congressman Caretall isn’t in this at all.”

The elder Chase smiled and said: “You don’t understand, Wint. I’ve known him longer. He’s absolutely without principle or scruple. You know, for instance, that he’s a wet man; but he’s doing this for his own ends, using you--”

Wint protested: “He’s not doing this. I’m doing it.”

Mrs. Chase cried: “I should think you’d be ashamed, Wint, to do anything against your own father. He’s been a good father to you, Wint. You know he--”

Wint cut in, almost pleading: “But, mother, you said yourself this was a good thing. To clean up Hardiston. And father’s always been in favor of it.”

“That was before I understood that Congressman Caretall was doing it to hurt your father. I don’t think anything is good that hurts your father, Wint. You ought not to say that. You know I--”

“But he’s not doing it to hurt dad, mother. I told you that. I’m doing it myself; he’s not doing it at all.”

“Your father understands these things better than you, Wint. Didn’t he tell you Congressman Caretall was just using you? I shouldn’t think you’d be willing to--”

The elder Chase said uneasily: “I know him better than you, Wint.”

Wint pushed back his chair and looked steadily at the older man. “You talk like V. R. Kite, dad,” he said.

Chase confessed his guilt by the vehemence of his protestations. “That’s not so, Wint. And in any case, Kite is an honest man compared to Caretall. He plays square with his friends, at least. That’s more than Amos can say.”

Wint asked: “What makes you think Amos is playing crooked now? Not that he has anything to do with this....”

“I know him. He’s always crooked. A crooked, double-crossing politician.”

“I’m not defending Amos,” Wint said stubbornly. “He’s treated you badly. But he’s been decent to me. I’ll not turn against him. And anyway, this is my doing, my business. He’s not in it at all.”

“You said he was backing you.”

“I said he thought I was doing a good thing. I expected you to think that, too.”

Chase flushed uncomfortably. “Ordinarily, I would say so. If you’d done this without prompting from him, I would say so. But it’s significant that you didn’t; that you waited till he came home, and talked to you, and then gave your orders.”

“I’d been thinking about it for a long time.”

“But you didn’t act without word from him, Wint. That’s why I--regret it.”

Wint asked harshly: “Listen! Do I get this straight? You’d have me let them go on selling whisky in Hardiston just for fear I am helping Amos by stopping them?”

“I don’t like to see you letting Amos use you.”

“Aside from that, isn’t it a good thing to clean up the town, no matter what the motive?”

“You’ll find in your law books somewhere the statement that the motive determines the deed,” Chase told him.

“Don’t you think it important to clean up Hardiston?”

“I think it important not to cement Amos Caretall’s hold on this county, and this town.”

Wint said angrily: “Forget Amos. Forget he exists. I’m asking a flat question. Why don’t you answer it?”

Mrs. Chase interposed: “Don’t you talk to your father so, Wint. Don’t you do it. He knows best what’s good for you, and for Hardiston, and for everybody. You know he--”

“Is whisky good for Ote Runns?” Wint demanded.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t do him any hurt. It’s not as if he had a wife and children, Wint, you know. You ought to do what your father says. He--”

Wint faced the older man. “Well,” he asked, “what is it you say I should do, dad? In plain language. Just what do you claim I ought to do?”

“Refuse to let Amos Caretall make you his tool,” Chase said steadily.

“Let Hardiston wallow in booze?”

“That’s beside the point. Amos is the point.”

Wint got up swiftly. “Amos is not the point,” he said. “Hardiston’s the point. Hardiston’s the point, and I’m the point, too. If whisky is good for Hardiston, the town ought to have it. If lawbreaking is good for Hardiston, the lawbreaking ought to be permitted to go on. But if it’s right and decent to keep the law, then I’m right. And if it’s right to leave booze alone, then I’m right. And if I think what I’m doing is right, I ought to go on with it; and if I think it’s wrong, I ought to drop it. Amos has nothing to do with it. Anyway, a bad man doing good things is a good man. If Amos were doing this, the fact that he’s a crook wouldn’t make it crooked. The whole thing works the other way. If Amos is doing this, and it’s a good thing to do, then so far as this is concerned, Amos is a good man.”

He flung up his hand. “I don’t mean to hurt you, dad. I think you’re wrong on this. I can’t believe you want me to back down.”

Chase had his share of stubbornness, of the pride which had been a pitfall before Wint’s feet. He was too stubborn to admit himself in the wrong. He said swiftly:

“I do want you to back down. Call off Radabaugh. Tell Amos he can’t make a monkey out of you. Can’t get you to pull his chestnuts out of the fire.... Stand on your own feet. That’s what I advise you to do, Wint.”

Wint looked his father in the eye for a moment; then he shook his head as though to brush away a veil. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean to fight it out on this line. Stick to it.”

Chase said nothing. Mrs. Chase, silenced by the tension in the atmosphere, looked from father to son with wide eyes, and she was trembling. After a little, Wint asked gently:

“Does this mean--a break, father? Does it mean for me to get out of here?”

Chase got to his feet in swift protest. “No, no, Wint, not that.” For a moment, he had an overpowering impulse to open his heart, promise Wint his support, offer the boy his hand. But he could not bring himself to do it. The stubborn, prideful streak was strong in him. He fought down the impulse, said simply: “We can disagree without fighting, I guess. That’s all.”

“You mean we’re on opposite sides of the fence in this, dad? You really mean that?”

“Yes.”

Wint’s voice was wistful. “I--counted on you.”

Chase flung toward the door. “I can’t help it, Wint,” he said harshly. “I can’t link up with Amos Caretall. Not for any man.”

When the door shut behind him, Wint stood still for a little, thinking hard. Then his mother touched his arm, and he looked down and saw that she was crying with fright.

“Wint,” she pleaded, “don’t you go quarreling with your father again. Don’t you, Wint. Please.... He couldn’t stand it. Not again, Wint. I told Mrs. Hullis when you were gone before--”

He put his arm around her affectionately; and he smiled. “There, mother, it’s all right,” he said. “Dad and I are all right. Don’t you worry. We understand each other.”

“I told Mrs. Hullis he couldn’t stand it to have you go away again--”

“I’m not going away,” Wint promised.

“Don’t you....” she begged. “Don’t you go, any more.”