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“Foster,” she said, “why don’t you sell this house and land? I know
you could get a good price for it. Eben Hopkins told me himself that
he wants to buy it. Since his house burned down he hasn’t got any
regular place to live. Why don’t you let him buy?”
He shook his head. “That’s my business,” he said.
“But it is mine, too, in a way. I keep feelin’ that you are holdin’ on to it
just because you don’t want to put me and Millard out. That is silly. I
could find another place to go as well as not. Abbie would take me to
board. Sometimes I think runnin’ a house, as well as ’tendin’ post
office and a hat shop, is more than I ought to do, anyhow. I am
gettin’ old and lazy, I guess.”
“Um—yes,” dryly. “You are about as lazy as a mosquito at camp
meeting. What would you do with that half-brother of yours, if you
boarded out?”
“I should board him out, too. I guess I could find a place where he
could work for his board and keep.”
“Humph! When he works I’ll buy a ticket to watch him.... There,
there! You stay where you belong.”
“But, Foster, you don’t make a cent rentin’ this house to me. You
could get a dozen tenants who would be glad to pay you twice as
much. I expect everybody is sayin’ that very thing.”
He pulled his beard. “I expect they are,” he agreed. “Well, my say
counts in a few things, even yet. That property is one of ’em. Talk
about the weather, Reliance.”
One afternoon in early July when Reliance called at the big house
she was refused admittance. Nabby said that the captain was not
feeling very well and did not want to see any one. It had happened
before and Reliance was neither offended nor worried. The next day,
however, when she again called and received the same answer she
began to think it strange. The following forenoon Millard, returning
from an errand to the store, told her a piece of news.
“Old man Townsend is sick, so they say,” he announced. “Don’t know
what’s the matter with him. So fur’s I’m concerned I don’t much care.
Cranky old blow-hard! I hope he’s got the rheumatics and his
shoulder gets to be sore as mine was after he chucked me over that
hassock. I’d ought to have sued him for assault and battery that time.
I would if it hadn’t been for you, Reliance Clark. I might have got
some of that money old Cook squeezed out of him.”
His half-sister looked at him. “I was talkin’ with Seth Francis
yesterday,” she said. “He says he might ship you for that Banks’
fishin’ trip if the rest of his crew would stand for it. He is afraid they
wouldn’t. He says they’re pretty fussy about what they have aboard
the schooner. If he could use you for bait, he says—but he can’t, the
codfish are particular, too.”
Millard Fillmore’s mouth was closed. His sister’s attitude toward him
was still anything but reassuring. A dozen times during the past
month she had hinted that he might have to go to work and earn his
own living. It was high time that sort of thing was forgotten.
Reliance made her third call at the mansion that afternoon and the
sight of Doctor Bailey’s horse and buggy standing by the gate
alarmed her. Nabby, however, would give no particulars.
“He’s got a cold or somethin’,” she said. “And he just won’t have me
let anybody in to see him. I sent for the doctor on my own hook and I
know he’ll give me the very Old Harry for doin’ it. Cranky! My good
Lord! Oh, dear! And I’m so all alone here, too. Varunas—I presume
likely you know it—is workin’ down to the livery stable four days a
week now. Cap’n Foster made him take the job. Said there wasn’t
enough to keep him busy around here, and there ain’t, of course.
He’s here nights and that helps a little, but I feel so dreadful
lonesome and—and responsible. If the cap’n should be sick—real
sick—I don’t know what I would do. No, no, Reliance, there ain’t any
use for you to keep runnin’ here. He won’t see you. I’ll let you know if
he gets real bad.”
So for three days and nights Reliance waited anxiously. Then, on the
morning of the fourth day, she found a note tucked under the door
leading to the millinery shop. Varunas had left it on his way to the
livery stable. It was from Nabby.
“Do come up here soon as ever you can,” Mrs. Gifford had written. “I
am about crazy. Please come.”
Reliance went, of course. Nabby—a white-faced, nervous Nabby—
admitted her to the kitchen and poured into her ears a tale which
drove the color from her own cheeks. Foster Townsend was ill,
seriously ill, threatened with pneumonia. The doctor was alarmed.
He had insisted upon a nurse, but his patient flatly refused to have
one in the house.
“I can’t do a thing with him,” declared the housekeeper, “and Doctor
Bailey he can’t neither. He’s beginnin’ to be out of his head part of
the time, and when he ain’t he vows that if I fetch a hired nurse into
this house he’ll heave her out of the window. I don’t know but he
would, too. You know how he is when his mind’s sot. And who could
I get? The doctor says one of them hospital nurses from Boston,
same as took care of poor Mr. Covell; but how can I get one of
them? They are so dreadful expensive and I’d have to do it on my
own responsibility—and what would he say? And—and that ain’t it
either, Reliance. He doesn’t want anybody. Between you and me,”
she lowered her voice, “I do believe he don’t care two cents what
happens to him. Just as soon die as not, I guess. Oh, Reliance, he
ain’t the way he used to be. He makes out to folks that he is, but he
ain’t. This—this business about Esther and losin’ that law case have
—well, they’ve broke him all to pieces. What shall I do? I never was
so tired and—and discouraged in my life.”
It was some few minutes before Reliance answered. She bade
Nabby keep still while she did a little thinking. When, at last, she did
speak, her remarks were very much to the point.
For a fortnight Foster Townsend’s mind was little concerned with his
own affairs or those of any one else. The disease ran its course, of
pain and delirium, fever and weakness. When, at last, he turned the
corner and began faintly to realize where he was and what was
going on about him he noticed that Reliance Clark was sitting in the
chair by his bedroom window, sewing. He watched her for a time
without speaking. Then he whispered her name.
“Reliance,” he murmured, “that’s you, isn’t it?”
She put down the hat she was trimming and crossed to his bedside.
“Yes, Foster,” she said cheerfully, “it is me. My! I am glad to have you
enough better to know who it is. You are goin’ to be all right now; the
doctor says so.”
His condition did not interest him, apparently.
“What in the devil are you doing here?” he whispered.
“Oh, I just came up to see how you were gettin’ along. Don’t worry
about me. And don’t try to talk.”
He moved his head impatiently on the pillow.
“You were here yesterday, weren’t you?” he asked. “Seems as if I
remember seeing you.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I might have been. Now you lie still. Go to sleep, if
you can.”
He did, after a while. When he awoke it was Nabby who sat by the
window. He asked her questions, but the replies were unsatisfying.
The following day Reliance was again with him, but he did not
question her. She was glad of the omission, but she could not
understand it. He was gaining strength hourly and he was now
perfectly rational. Why he did not subject her to the cross-
examination she expected seemed queer. A week passed and still
he did not do so. Nabby reported that he had not tried to learn
anything from her.
“He’s thinkin’ it out himself,” she declared. “That would be his way.
Some of these days he’ll dump down on both of us like a tipcart load
of clamshells, see if he don’t.”
Which was precisely what he did. Reliance came into the room one
morning and found him propped in the rocker and awaiting her.
“What have you done to Nabby Gifford?” she asked. “She looks
scared to death. What have you been sayin’ to her?”
He did not reply. Instead he gave an order, in quite his old way.
“You sit down alongside here,” he commanded. “That’s right. Now
then, let’s hear what you have got to say? Nabby has told me her
end of the yarn and I dragged what I could out of the doctor. No, no!
I’ll do the bulk of the talking. You can say yes or no. Do you
understand?”
She smiled. “I shouldn’t wonder if I did, Foster,” she replied. “I’ll try
to, anyway.”
“Humph! All right. Now then; is it true that you have been living in this
house for three weeks or more? Taking care of me?”
“Helpin’ take care of you—yes. Nabby has done as much—or more.”
“What did you do that for?”
“Somebody had to. You told Nabby that you would throw a regular
nurse out of the window. I knew you couldn’t do that to me.”
“Humph! If I had had my senses I should have tried. Who is running
the post office?”
“I am. I go down there before the mails come in and when the
outgoin’ mail has to be got ready. Millard and Abbie are there other
times.”
“How about your bonnet making?”
“I do my share of that. I have finished two hats right here in this
room. They were pretty good-lookin’ hats, too, if I do say it.”
“Humph!... Pshaw!... Well, here’s the real thing I want to know: Is it
true that somebody else—Eben Hopkins’s family—are living in that
house I rent to you?”
“Why, yes, it is. I couldn’t live in it. I had enough to keep me busy up
here. Eben is dreadfully anxious to buy that house; you know that. I
couldn’t sell it to him, for it isn’t mine to sell.”
“No,” emphatically, “you are right, it isn’t.”
“But I could rent it to him for six months; sublet it at a bigger rent
than I pay you, and make a little extra money. So that is what I did.
He’s taken it furnished, with my things in it. By the time his six
months are up he’ll want to buy it more than ever, or I miss my
guess. If you take my advice you’ll sell it to him.”
He tried to lean forward in the chair, gave it up and sank back again.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he demanded, angrily, “that you have let
another tenant into my house without asking me whether you could
or not?”
“I couldn’t ask you. You were too sick to be asked anything.”
“Is there a clause in your lease that gives you the right to sublet?”
She laughed. “You’re jokin’, Foster,” she said. “You know as well as I
do that I never had any lease in all the years I have rented from you.
The Hopkinses are in and I am out. It’s all settled. You are gettin’ as
much money as you got from me and I am gettin’ a little on my own
account. Everybody is satisfied, or ought to be. Stop fussin’ and
behave yourself.”
He groaned. “If only I had my strength!” he muttered. “You’ve got me
down and you know it. Tut, tut, tut! What have you done with
Millard?”
“He has got a room with Hulda Makepeace, Abbie’s sister-in-law. He
is supposed to do work enough around the place to pay for his room
and meals. I only hope he does it. And between times he is with me
at the post office same as always.”
“Humph! And you are living up here.”
“I am for the present. By and by, when you are well enough so that
Nabby can get along alone, I am goin’ to have a room with Abbie.
She and I will do light housekeepin’ together. It’s a real sensible
arrangement. Don’t you think so?”
He did not answer. It was some time before he spoke again. When
he did, he said:
“Humph! You’re a smart woman, Reliance, but don’t you get the idea
that I’m such a fool as not to understand what brought you up here. I
don’t quite understand why you sublet your house. I rather guess
there’s something behind that you haven’t told me. But, according to
the doctor, the care you have been taking of me, night and day, is
the principal reason why I’m not in the cemetery this minute. What
did you do it for? Blamed if I think it was worth while.”
“I do. And Doctor Bailey ought to know better than to tell you any
such silly stuff.... Well, there! I guess you are well enough to be left a
few minutes and I must run and help Nabby.... Oh, there is a letter on
the table for you. It’s got a French stamp on it. Here it is. Now you
behave yourself till I come back.”
 CHAPTER XXV
IT was late in August before he was well enough to be about and to
take short walks out of doors. Reliance still remained at the big
house. He insisted that she do so.
“You stay here,” he ordered, “till I tell you to clear out. Nabby needs
somebody to help her, I guess. Anyhow she says she does. And I
haven’t by any means decided what I shall do with that house of
yours. You are as comfortable as you will be likely to be with that
rattle-head Makepeace woman. You stay right here.”
So she stayed on, although she had no intention of prolonging the
stay beyond the first of September. He was still far from strong, and
was, as Mrs. Gifford called it, “awful cranky,” so Reliance thought it
best not to upset his equilibrium by mentioning leaving until the time
for leaving came.
She and he had many long talks together. Esther’s letters to her
came regularly and she gave them to him to read, or such parts of
them as she thought it best for him to see. And every two weeks
there was a letter for him. He invariably put these letters in his
pocket and she never saw them again, nor did he refer to them. That
he read them when alone she felt certain. So far, Esther wrote, he
had not replied. “Why doesn’t he write me?” the girl demanded of her
aunt. “You say you know he is glad to get my letters. Why doesn’t he
answer them? I am afraid you are mistaken and that his feeling
toward me has not really changed at all. Oh, I wish it would! Just
now especially I should like to know that it had.”
Reliance tried hard to be reassuring.
“It is all right, my dear,” she wrote again and again. “He is coming
around, but you must be patient and give him time. I have known him
a great many more years than you have and I tell you for Foster
Townsend to own up that he is wrong is no easy job. Most of his life
he did what he wanted to do and it turned out right, and, what is
more, about everybody he knew took pains to tell him it was right. He
lost that lawsuit, I know, but there are a good many people even yet
who think he was right in that and that the courts made a mistake.
He holds his head just as high as he ever did. It is as much as the
average person’s life is worth to hint they are sorry for him, or
anything like that. Let them say that to him just once and they don’t
get the chance to say much of anything to him again. It is stubborn
and foolish, perhaps, but I declare it makes me proud of him. I am a
little that way myself, I guess. He has never yet told me out and out
that I did right in insisting on you and Bob getting married before you
left Harniss that night. But I have said it two or three times and he
hasn’t contradicted me, and that is a lot—for him. Give him time,
Esther, dear. He will write you some day, I am sure. And that he
loves you more than all the rest of the world put together, I know. Be
patient, and keep on writing him. Only don’t mention the most
important thing. Keep that for a surprise.”
She did her best to seem cheerful while in his presence, but there
were matters which troubled her—one on the other side of the
ocean, although that, in the natural course of events, should end
happily—and one, at home in Harniss, which now seemed certain to
end disastrously for her. His keen eyes soon noticed, in spite of her
pretense, that there was something wrong, and he tried to learn what
it was.
“What have you got on your mind, Reliance?” he demanded. “Oh,
now, now! don’t say you haven’t got anything because I know better.
What is worrying you?”
She laughingly insisted that she was not worried at all. When he
persisted she made an excuse to leave the room. He called after her.
“You are as stubborn as Balaam’s jackass,” he vowed. “All right. I
have got a little of that animal in me. If you won’t tell me I shall have
to find out for myself.”
It was Captain Benjamin Snow who disclosed the secret. Captain
Ben, still the loyal friend and as regular a caller at the big house as
its owner would permit, took the opportunity when Townsend and he
were alone in the library—Nabby having gone to prayer-meeting and
Reliance to the post office—to speak of what had troubled him for
more than a month.
“I should have told you sooner, Foster,” he said, “but the doctor
wouldn’t hear of it. Said you just simply mustn’t be bothered, that’s
all. I wonder somebody hasn’t told you when you were down street.
The whole town is talkin’ about it. It is too late to do anything, I
guess; yes, I know it is. But—”
Townsend interrupted. “For heaven’s sake!” he exclaimed, testily.
“Stop running around the mainmast and get some sail on her. Come
to the point, Ben. What are you trying to say?”
Captain Ben said it then. Reliance Clark was to lose her place as
postmistress. The time for her reappointment was at hand and that
reappointment would not be made. Congressman Mooney had taken
the matter into his own hands and he had picked Simeon Thacher
for the office. Thacher was the Honorable Mooney’s friend and
henchman. He had earned reward and now he was to have it. Rival
petitions had been circulated; Reliance’s friends had rallied and her
petition was much the longer of the two. But Thacher had the inside
pull at Washington and his was the winning side.
“We are all of us, all the best folks in town, as sorry as we can be,
Foster,” declared Captain Ben. “We all like Reliance and she has
made a first-rate postmistress, but what can you do against politics?
They’ve trumped up charges, of course, said Millard was no good as
assistant, and that is true enough, but those charges don’t cut any
figure. It’s Mooney’s drag with the Washin’ton folks that has done the
trick. He is smart and a coming man in the party, everybody says so.
He is getting to be the county boss, that is what he is getting to be.”
Foster Townsend had listened with, for him, surprising patience. Now
he broke in.
“What!” he cried. “He is, eh? County boss already! I want to know!...
Ben Snow, how long has this been going on? What do you mean by
keeping it from me?”
Snow shook his head. “First I heard of it was just before you were
taken sick, Foster,” he said. “That’s when it came out, but I guess it
was going on, underneath, a long, long while before that. And then,
after you was sick, I couldn’t see you, of course. And, even now, if
the doctor knew—”
“Blast the doctor!... Sshh! Let me think. Does Reliance know about
it?”
“Sartin. Of course she does. She—”
“Yes, yes. Of course she does. That is what she’s had on her mind.
Humph! I knew there was something. Thacher hasn’t got his papers
yet, has he?”
“No. But I guess he has just as good as got ’em. He is expecting
them any time.”
“Humph! Expecting is one thing and getting is another. There, there!
Don’t talk any longer. Clear out. I’ve got to think—yes, and do.”
“But, Foster, what can you do? What can anybody do? And you
aren’t fit to—”
“Sshh! You haven’t been to my funeral yet, have you? No. Well,
neither has Mooney. Run along, Ben, run along! And say, don’t you
tell a soul that I know anything about this. Reliance especially; don’t
you tell her.”
Captain Snow left his friend’s house in a peculiar state of mind. His
conscience troubled him a little. Foster Townsend was still far from
strong. If, under the spur of this disclosure, he should attempt
exertions which brought about a relapse, he—Snow—would be to
blame. And, after all, what had been gained by telling? Nothing could
be done. As he had just said, what could any one do? Nevertheless,
amid Captain Ben’s perturbations there was a faint trace of
unreasonable hope. For many years he, like so many other Harniss
citizens, had depended upon Foster Townsend to steer their ship
through the shoals of politics. And the trust had never been
misplaced. Of course, now, everything was different. Yet the captain
could not help hoping—a little.
That evening, just before he went up to his room, Townsend
astonished his housekeeper by announcing that he desired an early
breakfast. “Have it ready at six,” he ordered. “And tell Varunas to
have the horse and buggy at the door as soon as I’ve finished. I want
to make the quarter to seven train.”
Nabby stared at him, horror-stricken.
“My soul and body!” she exclaimed. “Cap’n Foster, be you crazy?
You ain’t much more than just up off a sick bed. Where are you
goin’—in a train? What’ll I tell Doctor Bailey? Yes, and Reliance?”
Her employer grinned. “Tell Bailey I have gone to China for my
health,” he announced. “According to you I should have to go as far
as that to find it. And don’t you tell Reliance that I have gone at all,
until after you have heard the engine whistle. Then you can tell ’em
all you know—which won’t be much.”
He caught the train, and Varunas, having seen him and his valise
safely aboard, returned home baffled and pessimistic.
“No, no,” he told his wife, “he wouldn’t tell me nothin’. Asked him!
Course I asked him; but all he would say was ‘Shut up.’ When he
said it the third time I could see he meant it.... Ah hum! I don’t never
expect to see him again, alive. If he ain’t crazy then everybody will
say we are for lettin’ him go.”
Three days—four—and five passed without a message of any sort
from the traveler. Acting under Miss Clark’s orders, and her
instructions were insistent, the occupants of the big house told no
one, save the doctor, of Townsend’s mysterious and alarming
absence. But few had seen him take the train at the station, and, as
he bought no ticket, they took it for granted that he had gone but a
little way, probably to Ostable, and that Varunas was to drive to that
town later in the day and bring him home. Foster Townsend’s daily
doings were no longer a matter of overwhelming importance to
Harniss in general. His losing the lawsuit was an old story. The big
mogul was shorn of most of his bigness. It did not now matter greatly
what he did.
In his own home, however, there was increasing worry and a
growing fear. Nabby declared that she was so nervous she couldn’t
keep her mind on her work. “I’ll p’ison us all some of these meals,”
she said. “I give the cat mashed turnip yesterday and ’twan’t till the
critter turned up his nose at it that I found I was puttin’ raw liver on
the dinner table.” Varunas was quite as distraught. Reliance Clark
was more composed, but she was very anxious.
On the morning of the sixth day came a telegram. It was addressed
to Mr. Gifford. “Meet me with the team at the South Denboro station
seven ten to-night,” it read. Why he should have chosen to alight at
South Denboro instead of keeping on to Harniss no one of the three
could understand, but the fact that he was still alive was reassuring.
Varunas and the horse and buggy were on hand a half hour ahead of
the time set. At a little before nine Foster Townsend reëntered his
own dining room.
Nabby had expected to meet a physical wreck, a pale and haggard
shadow whose one desire would be to be helped to bed as soon as
possible. Her eyes and mouth opened in astonishment.
“Well, I declare, Cap’n Foster!” she gasped. “I do declare! I snum if
you ain’t—I do believe you look better than you done when you went
out of this house.”
Townsend smiled. “I am better,” he said. “Nothing like travel, Nabby.”
In spite of her questions and Reliance’s when, later on, the latter
came back from the post office, he would not disclose one atom of
information as to where he had been so long or why.
“Never you mind,” he insisted, and with surprising good nature.
“That’s my business. I am not married to either one of you. I am free
and independent. I guess likely I can go off on a spree if I want to
without doing my catechism afterwards. I have had a good time and
maybe I’ll have a better one by and by. You be satisfied with that.”
They had to be. Neither then, nor the following day, nor the day after
that, would he say more. It was tantalizing to the Giffords, but
Reliance did not mind so much. She was grave and preoccupied
nowadays and Nabby and her husband thought they understood the
reason. Captain Townsend, apparently, did not notice her gravity or
long intervals of silence.
His trips to the post office were very regular. One noon he came
home to dinner with, so Nabby thought, a more than usually satisfied
expression. In fact he seemed, for him, almost excited.
“I don’t know what has changed him so lately, Varunas,” she
confided. “Must have been that ‘spree’ he went on, whatever it was.
He is more like himself—his old smart, lively self, I mean—than I’ve
seen him since Esther ran off and married that Griffin thing.”
Varunas had something to say. “You know what that letter was he
give me to mail just now?” he asked. “The one he wrote right after
dinner? No? Well, I don’t neither, but I know who ’twas to. ’Twas to
the Honorable Alpheus Mooney, Trumet, Mass. That’s who ’twas to;
and he was mighty anxious I should stop in and mail it on my way to
the livery stable. What in time is he writtin’ to Congressman Mooney
for? Don’t cal’late he’s goin’ to get some political job, or somethin’,
do you—now that he’s lost his money?”
One evening soon afterward, when Reliance Clark came home after
locking the post office door, she found Foster Townsend in the
library. He was seated in the easy-chair and the Item was in his
hand. He looked up and spoke.
“Tired to-night, are you, Reliance?” he asked. “In a special hurry to
go aloft and turn in?”
“No, Foster. Why?”
“Because, if you had just as soon, I’d like to have you wait up a
while. I am sort of expecting somebody here to see me to-night and
I’d rather like to have you around where I can call you if I want you.”
She did not understand, of course, nor, just then, was she
particularly curious. There were other matters on her mind, one
matter so transcendently important that she could think of nothing
else.
“I can wait as well as not,” she told him. “In fact, I was goin’ to sit up
anyway. I’ve got somethin’ to tell you, Foster. Somethin’ wonderful. I
had a letter come in to-night’s mail. You had one, too. I’ve got them
both here.”
She had the letters in her hand. He looked at them, then at her face.
“From—from the other side?” he asked, quickly.
“Yes.”
“From—her?”
“Yes. One of them.”
“Humph! What makes you look so queer? Say, there’s nothing—
nothing wrong, is there?”
She shook her head.
“No. No, Foster,” she said, “there is nothin’ wrong. Everything is all
right. Thank God for it.”
He leaned forward. “What are you thanking God for?” he demanded.
“And—here— Are you crying? I believe you are. What—”
Just then Nabby Gifford bustled into the library. She had not
announced her coming; she was too excited for that.
“Who do you suppose is out here, waitin’ to see you, Cap’n Foster?”
she whispered. “The Honorable Mooney, that’s who.”
Townsend’s reception of this announcement was disappointing, to
say the least.
“Humph!” he grunted. “I thought it must be Saint Peter, judging by
your face. Tell him to come in. Yes, yes. Go and tell him.”
He turned to Reliance. “Reliance,” he said, “I want you to hear this.
You go in the parlor and leave the door open a crack. Don’t mind
sitting in the dark a few minutes, do you?”
She started toward the parlor. Then she turned and looked at him
fixedly and with growing suspicion.
“Foster,” she said, sharply, “what is all this? Have you— What have
you been doin’?”
He waved her away. “Keep your ears open and maybe you’ll find
out,” he suggested. “Hurry up! I don’t want him to see you—yet.”
Congressman Alpheus Mooney had not honored that room with his
presence for almost a year. That he now considered himself as
honoring it was quite apparent. Bowed in by the reverential Mrs.
Gifford he entered briskly and with importance. When he last
crossed the threshold of the Townsend house he had been an
anxious candidate for office, humbly seeking aid and advice from the
most influential man in his district. Then he came hat in hand. His hat
was in his hand now, but he tossed it lightly upon the table without
waiting for an invitation.
“Good evening, Cap’n Townsend,” he said. “Well, here I am, you
see.”
“Glad to see you, Mooney,” declared the captain. “It was good of you
to come. You are pretty busy these days, I expect. Have a chair.”
Mooney took the chair which was offered him. He crossed his knees.
“Why, yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I am pretty busy just now, that’s a fact.
Never too busy to oblige an old friend though. I happened to be in
Trumet when your letter came and I was very glad to drive up and
see you. I was sorry to hear of your sickness. You look quite like
yourself again. As well as you ever did, I should say.”
If there was a very slight hint of patronage in the Congressman’s
manner it was no more than should be expected of a Congressman.
And in this case it was unintentional. The Honorable Mooney was
not wholly at ease concerning the purpose of this interview to which
he had been summoned. The letter he had received was brief and
polite. If Mr. Mooney could make it convenient to drop in at the
Harniss house some evening soon, Foster Townsend would consider
his doing so a favor. There was a little matter, of interest to both, to
be talked over. He—Townsend—had not been well or he should
come to Trumet. Mooney had replied by telegraph naming this
Wednesday evening at nine. And in the interval between the receipt
of the letter and that moment he had been wondering what the little
matter of interest might be. There was but one which offered itself as
a probability, and that little matter was all right, settled beyond
change. Nevertheless—well, the Honorable Alpheus was not entirely
free from curiosity, perhaps even from anxiety.
Foster Townsend received the gratifying assurance concerning his
robust appearance with a rather dubious shake of the head.
“I don’t know, Mooney,” he observed. “When a man of my age has
been as sick as I was he doesn’t get up again in a minute. However,
I’m not dead, and that is something. No, I’m not even as dead as—
well, as some folks think I am. Have a cigar?”
Mooney accepted the cigar. Townsend also took one and they lit and
smoked. The captain mentioned the fine weather they had for the
past few days, also the promise of a good cranberry crop that fall.
“You will be glad of that, Mooney,” he observed. “Everybody knows
you are the father of that cranberry bill that has done so much for us
in this section.”
The Congressman glanced at him. The Townsend face was grave,
there was not even the faintest twinkle in the Townsend eye.
Nevertheless Mr. Mooney’s slight uneasiness became a shade less
slight. Was this man making fun of him? It was time he found out.
“Yes—yes, of course,” he said. “Well, Cap’n Townsend,” leaning
easily back in his chair and knocking the ashes from his cigar, “what
was it you wanted to talk over with me? A little politics, eh?”
Townsend nodded. “You’ve guessed it,” he said. “It was a little matter
of politics. I never should have dared bother as busy a man as you
are with anything but business.”
This was overdoing it a trifle. Mooney was not an absolute fool and
his suspicion that he was being made fun of became more of a
certainty. He cleared his throat, and frowned slightly.
“I see,” he said, more brusquely. “Yes, I see.... Well, Cap’n
Townsend, for old times’ sake I should like to oblige you if I can.
What do you want? What can I do for you?”
Townsend blew a cloud of smoke and fanned it from before his face
with his hand.
“You can’t do anything for me, Mooney,” he answered. “You’ve done
all you can do for me by coming here to-night. As far as that is
concerned I could have managed to get along if you hadn’t come....
So,” with an ominous change in his tone, “I wouldn’t put it just that
way if I were you. Mooney, when you started to pitch Reliance Clark
out of our post office and squeeze Sim Thacher into it why did you
do it behind my back? Why did you hide it from me?”
So it was the post office matter, after all. In a way Mooney was
relieved. That battle was won. His countenance assumed an
expression of pained resentment.
“Nonsense, Cap’n Townsend,” he said, with lofty indignation.
“Nonsense! Whoever told you I have been hiding anything—lied,
that’s all. You were sick—”
“Here, here! I may have been sick along the last of it, but not at first
when you and Thacher were laying your plans. I know as much
about those plans as you do, I guess. I have made it my business to
find out. You started planning away last December, a month after
you were elected to Washington. Before that election you were
crawling around here on your hands and knees, begging me to
please do this and that to help you get votes. Why, confound you,
you couldn’t have been nominated if it hadn’t been for me. And away
back in the beginning, when that cranberry bill had you licked so that
you couldn’t have been elected poundkeeper, I gave you the chance
to square yourself. I was the fool there, of course; but I thought you
were so scared you would behave yourself for the rest of your life.
Bah! Don’t you say ‘nonsense’ to me again.... Here! You aren’t going
yet. This little talk of ours has only begun.”
The Honorable Alpheus was on his feet, his round face crimson. He
snatched his hat from the table.
“I don’t want to hear any more from you, Townsend,” he declared.
“You are a sick man—and an old man. If you weren’t—”
“Here! here! I’m not sick. And I’m not so darned old that I can’t see
through a jellyfish. I saw through you the first time you came into this
room. And I saw through what you were up to with this post-office
business the minute I heard of it. You probably as good as promised
Sim Thacher the post office away back when you were hunting the
nomination. You would have come to me about it months ago if you
hadn’t figured I was down and out and not worth considering any
more. Elisha Cook and the Supreme Court had licked me, and so
you thought you could do it. Pshaw!” in huge disgust; “Elisha Cook is
a man, whatever else he is.”
The Honorable Mooney drew himself erect. His chest expanded.
“Townsend,” he declaimed, with all the dignity of his platform
manner, “I make allowances for you. I realize you are not well. And I
suppose it is natural you should be disappointed because your friend
—your housekeeper I am told she is now—has lost the post office
here. I am sorry for her myself, in a way. But I have the interests of
the folks I represent in Congress to consider. It is my duty to think of
them and act for their good. Miss Clark has not—no, sir, she has not
run that office as it ought to be run. She has neglected it. More than
that, she has been spending the public money to hire that worthless
brother of—”
“Sshh!” Foster Townsend brought his palm down upon his knee with
a crack which startled the representative of an outraged people to
silence. “Be still!” ordered the captain. He slowly shook his head.
“Well, there!” he went on, in a calmer tone. “That was a real pretty
speech of yours, but you needn’t finish it; I can guess the end. I have
said more than I meant to say, myself. No use wasting time.
Although,” with another momentary outburst, “when I think of how
you and your gang worked and schemed to put a lone woman out of
her job, I— Humph!... Mooney, she isn’t going to be put out of it. She
is going to stay right where she is.”
The Honorable Alpheus stared. Then he smiled, a smile of dignified
pity.
“Townsend,” he proclaimed, loftily, “I don’t see what you hope to gain
by this sort of thing. Simeon Thacher will be the Harniss postmaster.
The appointment is made—or as good as made. That is my final
word to you.”
Townsend lifted his hand. “Better wait until you hear mine, Mooney,”
he said, warningly. “I was fussing with politics when you were
running to school and I have learned enough to know that nothing
political is done until it has been done.... I went up to see Senator
Gore last week. He and I are old friends.”
A change came over Mr. Mooney’s face. It lost something of its
confidence, its high disdain.
“Well—well, I am very glad you did,” he asserted, after an instant’s
pause. “Yes, indeed. The Senator is a friend of mine, too, I am proud
to say. He knows all about this post office matter. I advised with him
before I made up my own mind.”
And now it was Townsend who smiled. He seemed amused.
“Oh, so you ‘advised’ with him, did you?” he chuckled. “Well, your
advice must have been worth listening to.... There, there! Wait a
minute more. I ‘advised’ with the Senator myself. And he seemed to
be interested. He ought to be. I knew him before he was Senator.
I’ve done him a good many favors down here in this district. He
hadn’t forgotten them. A good memory is a mighty valuable item of
cargo to have aboard, if you are cruising in politics. That’s a piece of
advice I’ll hand over to you, Mooney, and I won’t charge for it.
Senator Gore remembers favors. He is a big man.”
The Congressman would have spoken, but the captain did not give
him the opportunity.
“Just a minute now,” he said. “I’m almost through. I told the Senator
the straight truth about our post office here. He was surprised. I
judged it was different from what he had heard from you. He said he
could not understand, considering the story you told him. I said that,
according to my experience, you were subject to changes of mind at
times. By the way of proof I showed him some letters you wrote me
two or three years ago. His name was in those letters. Perhaps you
remember—you were a little peeved because he hadn’t used his
influence in a matter you were interested in and you spoke out pretty
plain. I wouldn’t say the names you called him were compliments,
exactly. So—”