CHAPTER IV

WINT’S RALLY

It was well toward dinner time when Hetty and Sam O’Brien went away together and left Wint. He watched them to the corner, and thought Sam was a good fellow. And a lucky one, too. There was a fine strength and pride in Hetty. No doubt about it, Sam was lucky.

When they were out of sight, Wint went into the house. His father had not yet come downstairs; Mrs. Chase was still in the kitchen. Wint settled himself in the sitting room, and filled his pipe, and went over in his thoughts the scenes this room had witnessed in twenty-four hours past. He looked back at them as though he had been an observer. He could not believe he had been chief actor in them all. It is, perhaps, this trait of the human mind which permits mankind to rise to emergencies. The emergency does not seem like an emergency at the time. It seems rather like the ordinary run of life; it is only in retrospect that the actors realize, and wonder at themselves. There is, during these great moments, a vast simplicity about life. It had been so with Wint; it was only now, as he thought back over what had taken place, that the drama of it caught him. And he wondered at it all; and most of all he wondered at himself.

His father came downstairs, after a little while, and joined him. The older man made no reference to Hetty’s having been there; and Wint, at first minded to tell the whole story, to tell his father that Hetty was going to right the wrong she had done, decided on second thought to wait. It would be sweeter to anticipate their joy when they should hear the truth. So he held his tongue.

After a while, Mrs. Chase called them to dinner; and they went into the dining room together. Some impulse made Wint drop his hand lightly on his father’s shoulder; and the older man reached up and took Wint’s hand and held it, so that they crossed the hall with hands clasped, as though Wint were still a little boy. He was suddenly very proud of his father. And ever so fond of him....

At the dinner table, it was as though nothing had happened. Mrs. Chase was cheerful; she talked amiably of everything in the world except Hetty. Wint and Mr. Chase answered her--that is to say, they interrupted her with a remark now and then--while they ate. It was only when they both had finished that Chase looked at his son and said, a little awkwardly:

“You don’t want to forget you have a rally arranged for to-night, Wint.”

Wint exclaimed: “Good Lord; I had forgotten!”

“You’re not going to give it up?”

“Give it up? No. But I’d forgotten all about it. I’ll have to go uptown.”

“You had made some arrangements, hadn’t you?”

“Yes. Hired the Rink. B. B. is going to preside. That is, he said he would. And I asked Sam O’Brien to speak, and you promised that you would.”

“I think I’d rather not,” Chase said, flushing uncomfortably. Wint asked, smiling to take the sting out of his words:

“Not deserting me, are you?”

“No. I’ll be with you. Sitting on the stage. But--I wouldn’t know what to say, Wint.”

“And Davy Morgan is going to speak.” He pushed back his chair. “I’ll go right uptown and make sure things are all right.”

Chase said: “I’m glad you’re not giving it up. I’ll walk up with you, Wint.”

His mother kissed him good-by at the door; and that was unusual. It was the only sign she gave of what she must have been feeling. Wint had sometimes thought, impatiently, that she was a babbling old woman, never able to keep a thought to herself. He was learning a new respect for her. And something more. He had felt that he was justified in counting on his father and mother to stand by him; but he had expected and been prepared for questions and perhaps reproaches. There were no questions; there was never a reproach. It is often tactful to keep silent; and tact is sometimes a shade nobler than loyalty, than many another virtue.

He hugged her close and hard, kissed her again; then he and his father walked away toward town. Shoulder to shoulder, swinging like brothers. They met people. Wint could see a furtive curiosity in the eyes of those they met. But he could bear that. He had anticipated coven jeers, perhaps an open jibe; and his muscles had hardened at the thought.

They went into the Post Office together, and separated there. Wint met Dick Hoover; and Hoover gripped his hand and clapped his shoulder and told him he was all right. That heartened Wint. On his way from the Post Office, he encountered V. R. Kite, face to face, in front of the Bazaar. Kite dropped his eyes and scuttled to cover like a crab in seaweed. Wint chuckled with amusement. Hoover said:

“He can’t face you.”

Wint laughed good-naturedly. “Oh, Kite’s all right. He fights in the only way he knows....”

He left Hoover in front of the _Journal_ office and went in. B. B. was there, stoking the decrepit stove, breaking up the clotted coals with a bit of wood, and pouring on fresh fuel. He greeted Wint smilingly; said:

“Good afternoon!”

“Hello, B. B.!” Wint rejoined, and sat down. “Still fussing with that stove?”

B. B., amiably enough, said: “Yes. It’s a good stove. Perhaps it doesn’t look as well as it might; but it heats this office. That’s the way with a good many things that don’t look very well; they manage to do their work better than the fine-looking things. Did you ever stop to think of that?”

“In other words,” Wint agreed, “beauty is only skin deep, even in stoves.”

“Well, I’d rather have an ugly stove that would draw and give heat than a fine one that wouldn’t,” B. B. declared; and Wint said he did not blame him. B. B. sat down at his desk, working and talking at the same time. This was a way he had; a way he had to have, for there was nearly always some one in the office to talk to him. Wint said:

“I almost forgot about my meeting to-night. Are you still willing to preside?”

B. B. said: “Certainly.”

“I thought you might have changed your mind.”

“No indeed. At the Rink, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Who are your speakers?”

“I’m not having any fine talent,” Wint said, smiling. “Just a couple of good friends of mine, Sam O’Brien and Davy Morgan. And if you’d be willing to say something--”

“Oh, I always talk when I get a chance like that.”

“Sure.”

“Is your father going to speak?”

Wint shook his head. “No,” he said frankly. “Dad’s all right. He’s been absolutely fine. But--he says he wouldn’t know what to say. He’s no speaker, you know.”

“I’ve heard him do very well.”

Wint laughed. “You probably wrote those speeches for him yourself.” And B. B. good-naturedly acknowledged the corn.

“About half past seven?” Wint asked, as he got up to go; and B. B. agreed to the hour, and said he would be there.

When he had left B. B., Wint telephoned the furnace to make sure of Davy Morgan; and Morgan said energetically that he surely would be on hand. “I’ve some few things to say, also,” he declared. “I can talk when they get me mad, Wint. And I’m mad enough, to-day.”

Wint said: “All right; go as far as you like. This is a fight. It’s no pink tea.” And he dropped in on Sam O’Brien. But Sam was not in the restaurant. His underling told Wint the fat man had been out all day.

“He went looking for Jack Routt,” the man explained.

“He found him,” said Wint. “Well, tell Sam I’m counting on him to be at the Rink to-night.”

From the restaurant, he crossed the street to Dick Hoover’s office. Dick and his father were busy, so that Wint was alone for a time. Then he decided people might think he was hiding; so he came downstairs and out to the street again, and went to the barber shop for a haircut. Jim Radabaugh was there; and Jim shifted the bulge in his cheek and shook hands with Wint and said:

“You’re there, boss. I’d say you’re there.”

Marshall, the barber, violated all the traditions of his craft by being a silent man. He said nothing whatever while he trimmed Wint’s crisp hair; and Wint was glad of that. He would not hide. But he did not want to talk overmuch. When he came out of the barber shop, he saw Amos and Sam O’Brien and Peter Gergue on the other side of the street. They were walking purposefully, coming uptown from the direction of Amos’s home. They saw him, and Amos waved his hand in greeting; then Peter spoke to Amos, and left the others, and came across to Wint, scratching the back of his head. Wint said:

“Hello, Peter.”

Gergue grinned. “Well, Wint, you’ve started something.”

Wint nodded. “I suppose so.”

“You’ve made ’em talk, Wint. That never hurt a bit.”

“I think you told me that once before,” Wint agreed, laughing.

“Well, and it’s so,” Gergue insisted. He looked all around, took Wint’s arm. “Let’s walk along,” he suggested.

Amos and Sam had disappeared. Wint said: “I’ve been looking for Sam. I want to see him.”

“What about?”

“He’s going to speak at my meeting to-night. At least I want him to.”

Gergue chuckled; and he gripped Wint’s arm as though he knew a thing or two, which he might tell if he chose. “Oh, he’ll speak,” he said. “Sam’ll speak.”

“I’ve counted on him.”

“You going to speak, ain’t you?” Gergue asked.

“Why, yes. Naturally.”

“Fixed you up a speech, have you?”

“Not yet. I’ll--just say whatever comes up at the time. Anything.”

Gergue shook his head. “I tell you, Wint,” he said. “You better go on home and write you a speech. A good one, with flowers on it, and all.”

“Oh, I don’t need to.”

“I’ve seen more’n one man get up on his hind legs and go dumb. Good idea to have something on your mind before you get up.”

“We-ell, maybe.”

“I tell you,” Gergue said again. “You go on home and fix up something. Best thing to do.”

“I want to see Sam.”

“I’ll see him.”

Wint was more than half persuaded, before Peter spoke to him. He had thought of going home; he was tired. He wanted to sleep. He said: “We-ell, all right.”

“That’s the talk,” said Peter. “You go along.”

“So long, then.”

“Fix you up a good one,” Gergue advised him again. “Fix it up, and learn it, and all. You’ll maybe be interrupted, you know.”

“If there’s any one there to interrupt,” Wint said, in a tone of doubt; and Gergue cackled.

“Lord, there’ll be some folks there. Don’t you worry about that. You go home and fix you up a speech. You’ll have a crowd.”

So Wint went home, in mid-afternoon. He found the house empty. His mother, he thought, was probably next door, with Mrs. Hullis. He felt sleepy; and he went to his room and lay down. His father woke him, at last. Told him it was supper time.

At supper, Chase asked Wint’s mother if she were going to Wint’s rally. She said: “I don’t know. I said to Mrs. Hullis this afternoon that I wanted to go, but I didn’t know whether women went. And she said she didn’t know either. But I told her I--”

“You’ll have plenty of company,” her husband told her. “From what I hear, the whole town is going to be there. Every one was talking about it this afternoon.”

“Then I’m going,” she said. “Mrs. Hullis wanted me to go with her; and I--”

“You go with her,” Chase advised. “I’ll be on the stage, with Wint.”

She said: “I’ll have to leave the dishes. There won’t be--”

“I’ll do them, mother, while you’re dressing,” Wint told her cheerfully. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Well, I don’t know!”

In the end, Wint and his father did them together. Wint broke a plate, and Mrs. Chase called down the stairs to know what had happened, and protested that she ought to come down and do them. But they would not let her. Afterwards, they all started downtown together, Wint and his father, Mrs. Chase and Mrs. Hullis. Two by two.

It was dark; the early dark of a winter evening. They met people, or overtook them, or were overtaken by them; and Wint thought there were more people than usual abroad. The moon was bright again this night, bright as it had been the night before when Wint took his way to the Weaver House. That seemed more like weeks than hours ago. As they came nearer the Rink, they saw more people; and Chase said:

“You’re certainly going to have a crowd.”

Wint nodded. He was beginning to be nervous. He realized that this was going to be hard.

But it was only when they turned the last corner and started down the hill toward the Rink that he realized just how hard it was going to be. It seemed to him all Hardiston was there ahead of him. The crowd clustered in front of the Rink and extended out into the street; and more were coming from each direction. Mrs. Hullis and Mrs. Chase, ahead, were lost in the throng. Wint stopped; he turned to his father.

“We’ll cut through the back way,” he said.

Chase agreed; and they turned down an alley, and came circuitously to the stage door and went in. The minute he came inside the door, he heard the hum and buzz of voices. He could see out on the stage, with its stock set of a farmyard scene. There were chairs, and a table.

Amos, and Sam O’Brien, and B. B. and two or three others were waiting just inside the stage door; and Sam gripped Wint’s shoulders and exclaimed: “Lord, but you give us a scare, Wint. Thought you wasn’t coming. I was all set to go fetch you.”

“Oh, I was coming, all right,” Wint said nervously, one ear attuned to the murmur of the crowd. “Sounds as though there were a lot of people here.”

“Every seat, and standing room in the aisles, and half of ’em can’t get in.”

Wint grinned weakly. “And I suppose they’ve got every rotten egg in town.”

Sam stared; then he howled. “Rotten egg! Oh, Lord, Wint, you’ll be the death of me. I’ll die a-laughing. Rotten egg!” He turned to Amos. “Wint says rotten egg!” he cried.

Amos looked at Wint in a curious fashion; and he smiled. “It’s half past seven,” he said. “No need to make them wait.”

Wint gulped. “All right. I’m ready as I will be.”

Amos nodded. “Then it’s your move, B. B.”

B. B. cleared his throat. “Very well.” He turned and started toward the stage. Sam shepherded Wint that way. Amos and Wint’s father came side by side, the others following. Wint found himself out on the stage.

The glare of the footlights blinded him for a moment; but he heard the sudden, brief clatter of handclapping that greeted them. The stir was quickly hushed. His eyes, accustomed to the footlights, discovered that the house was banked full of people. Floor and gallery were jammed. Small boys clung to the great beams and steel rods that crisscrossed to support the roof. Some of them seemed right overhead. And everywhere Wint looked, people were staring at him. He felt the actual, physical weight of all those eyes, overwhelming him. He felt crushed, helpless; he had a curious obsession that he could not move hands or feet. He worked the fingers of his right hand cautiously, and was relieved to find that they answered to his will. He was dazed.

He became conscious that B. B. was on his feet, his hands clasped in front of him in a characteristic way; there was a little smile upon his face, and he was speaking in a low, pleasant voice. Wint could not catch the words; his ears were not functioning. His senses were numbed by that overpowering sea of faces in front of him.

He caught, presently, a word or two that appalled him. “...violate the usual order,” B. B. was saying. “The principal speaker usually last.... Keep you waiting.... Lengthy introduction.... I believe you know him, now....”

He turned to look at Wint; and Wint, appalled and panic-stricken, saw the invitation in B. B.’s eyes. B. B. wanted him to speak first; but he was still tongue-tied and muscle-fast in the face of all those eyes. He shook his head weakly. Some one tugged at his elbow. Sam O’Brien. Sam whispered hoarsely:

“Get up on your feet, boy!”

Wint shook his head again, trying to find words to explain. Then a man yelled, out beyond those footlights. Other men yelled. Wint flushed angrily, his courage came back. They thought him afraid. Baying him like dogs.... He’d show them all....

He stood up and strode forward to the very lip of the stage. There was a moment’s hush. He flung out one hand. “People....” he began.

But it was as well that Wint had not wasted time in following Gergue’s advice to fix up a good speech; because on that one word of his, an overwhelming blast of sound struck him full in the face. A roar, a bellowing, a whistling, a shrilling.... Shouts and screams and cries.... He stiffened, furious. They were trying to yell him down. He flung up both hands, shouted at them....

Every one in the house was up on his or her feet. Some one threw his hat in the air. Order came out of chaos. A terrible, rhythmic order. The blare of sound dissolved into beats; they pounded on Wint’s ears; he shuddered under the blow of them. His anger gave way to bewilderment. He could not understand. He bent lower to see more clearly the faces of those in the front row, just beyond the footlights. Dick Hoover was there. And Dick was yelling in a fashion fit to split his throat, flinging his fists up toward Wint, shrieking. Beside Dick, Joan. Her face stood out suddenly before Wint’s eyes. She was crying; that is to say, tears were streaming down her cheeks. Yet was she happy, too. Smiling, laughing, calling to him.... She was clapping her hands, he saw. Then he discovered that others were clapping their hands, while they yelled at him. Everybody was clapping their hands....

Utterly bewildered, Wint whirled around to look at the men behind him. And there was Amos, both hands upraised, beating time to that appalling roar that swept up from the house before them. Beating time, leading them....

Sam O’Brien and Davy Morgan--they were both yelling like fools--came swiftly across the stage to where Wint stood. They caught his arms. He struggled with them, not understanding. They swept him off his feet, up in the air, to their shoulders.... Swung him to face the house.

The noise doubled; then it seemed as though an army of men swarmed upon the stage. So, at last, Wint understood. They were not trying to yell him down.

It is one of the most hopeful facts of life that all mankind is so ready to recognize, and to applaud, an action which is fine. Wint was in the hands of his friends. He thought, for a little while, that they would kill him.

* * * * *

When it was all over--and this took time, and left Wint sore and stiff from hand-shaking and back-slapping--the people began to drift away. And Wint escaped, off the stage, into one of the compartments that served as greenroom for theatrical folk. His father was there, and his mother. And Peter, and Amos, and Sam.

Every one seemed to be wild with exultation; they continued the celebration, there among themselves. And Wint heard how it had been done. Hetty had gone to Amos with the story. To Joan first, Sam told Wint. “I was with her,” the fat man said. “You understand. I was with her.”

Wint nodded, gripping Sam’s shoulder. “She’s fine,” he said. “You’re lucky. I understand.”

Joan, Sam said, sent them to Amos, and Amos had arranged the rest; sent Wint home--Gergue was his agent in this--and spread the word through Hardiston. To-night had attested the thoroughness of his work.

Wint found a chance at last to thank Amos. They were a little apart from the others; and they talked it over briefly. Amos, Wint thought, was curiously subdued, curiously sad. He wondered at this. But he understood, at the end.

He had said: “Wonder what Routt will say to this, anyway? And Kite?”

“You don’t have to--worry about Routt,” said Amos.

Wint asked quickly: “Why not? Is he ... Is there something?”

“He took the noon train,” said Amos. “And--Agnes went with him. She telephoned to-night. She says they’re married.”

Wint was so stunned that for a moment he could not speak; he could not move. He managed to grip Amos’s hand; tried to say something.

“I’ve said to myself, more than once,” Amos told him huskily, “that I wished her mother hadn’t ’ve died.” He began, slowly, to fill his pipe. Wint thought there was something heroic, splendid about the man. Facing life, driving ahead. And this to think upon.... He was sick with sorrow.

Amos was facing the stage; he said slowly, smiling a little, “but forget that. Here’s some one coming for you to see her home.”

When Wint turned, he saw Joan.