CHAPTER XV
Bill looked up as a long, lank form glided surreptitiously into the office.
"Been a long time since you drifted our way," he commented, as the form resolved itself into the six-foot length of Kelly Jones.
"Might' nigh three month," averred Kelly grimly. "I've been tradin' over at Barton. Couldn't stand for Jap's damfoolishness. Had to buy my licker there, and just traded there. It's twelve mile from my farm to Barton, and four mile to Bloomtown. Spring's comin' on, and work to do. I hate to take that trip every time the wife needs a spool o' thread. Did you get my letter, sayin' to stop the paper?"
"Stopped it, didn't we?" queried Bill crisply, scattering the type from the financial report of Bloomtown into the case.
"Yes," assented Kelly, "you did. What'd you do it for?"
"Not forcing the Herald on anybody," announced Bill glibly. "Got past that. We used to hold 'em up and feed the Herald to them, but we don't have to do it now."
"I hear tell that Jap made Tim Simpson night marshal. Why, he run a blind tiger beyond the water tank," exclaimed Kelly. "I reckon Jap didn't know that."
"Just because he did know it, he made Tim night marshal," declared Bill, flinging the last type into the box and descending from the stool. "Just you stroll down the tracks in either direction, and see if you can find a whisker or a tawny hair from the tip of any tiger's tail lying loose along the way. Jap knows several things, Kelly, my boy, and he is fighting fire with fire. Tim Simpson understands the operations of the kind of menagerie that usually flourishes in a dry town, and Jap put him on his honor. He's so conscientious that he goes over to Barton to get full. He won't drink it here. He's got pride in making Bloomtown the whitest town in the state. But explain the return of the prodigal. How come your feet in our dust again?"
"Well," said Kelly shamefacedly, "the wife said that I was a durn fool. I stopped the Herald and subscribed for the Standard—and a pretty standard it is! While Jap Herron was cleanin' up, it was slingin' muck at him. The wife read it, and one day she goes up to Barton and starts an argument with Jones. I reckon she had the last word. If she didn't, it was the fu'st time. She come home so rip-snortin' mad that she threatened to lick me if I didn't tackle Jones. Well, to keep peace in the family, I run in to see him the next time I went to Barton. Well, Jones put it up to me, if Jap was doin' much for Bloomtown in havin' unlicensed drug stores, instid of regular saloons."
"Sure sign that you don't know the news," said Bill, unfolding a copy of the Herald. "Since last Saturday night there has been only one drug store in Bloomtown. That's Blanke's, and Jim Blanke wouldn't sell liquor on anybody's prescription but Doc Hall's, and Doc Hall would let you die of snake-bite, if nothing but whiskey would cure you. Any other drug stores that may open up in this town 'll have to pattern after Blanke's or out they go."
Kelly took the paper up and scanned its columns. He snorted.
"Well, I do declare! I see that might' nigh all the doctors have packed up and are threatenin' to leave town. Well, there wa'n't enough doctorin' to keep twenty of 'em in cash nohow."
"You ought to have heard Jap's speech when they were putting a plea for local option," said Bill. "My pap has carried a sore ear against Jap's reign ever since he was elected to fill out that unexpired term, and he stirred up a lot of bellyaches among the guzzlers. It was a sickening mess, because the whole town knows that my daddy can't stand even the smell of liquor. It wouldn't be so bad—so hypocritical, if he really liked it and was used to it. As I was telling you, he and the old booze gang had been burning the midnight dip to plan a crimp for Mayor Herron, when that local option idea struck him. Well, Jap got up and made a speech, calling their attention to the bonds we voted, and the sound financial condition back of those bonds; the granitoid pavement on Main street, the electric light plant that's going up, and the water works, and sewers that are under way—all managed since the town went dry. Then he nominated Tom Granger for mayor, and what do you reckon they did?"
"Seein' as how he ain't mayor," said Kelly, with a twinkle, "I allow they done nothin'."
"Why," said Bill, his brown eyes kindling, "they arose as one man and yelled, 'We want Jap Herron!' and that settled it."
The farmer stood in the middle of the office, his arms gesticulating and his head bobbing with animation, as Jap hurried in. He gazed at the back of Kelly's familiar slicker incredulously.
"What!" he hailed joyously, "our old friend of the sorghum barrel! Where have you been hibernating? Surely a cure for sore eyes," and Jap seized his shoulder and whirled him around so that he could grasp his hand.
"Chipmunking in Barton," prompted Bill. "This sadly misguided farmer has been lost but now is found."
"The Missus sent a package to Miss Flossy. You and Bill 'll eat it, I reckon," and he produced a parcel from his pocket. "She said if Ellis was here, he'd appreciate it. It's sausage that she made herself. And—and she sent a dollar for the paper. She wants the Herald."
"And what about Kelly?" Jap asked, a wave of memory sweeping over him.
"Just you write it down that Kelly Jones is a yaller pup," said Kelly morosely.
"Never!" declared Jap heartily. "Misled, perhaps, but with a heart of gold."
Kelly groped for his handkerchief.
"I've got on the water wagon, Jap," he sniffled. "I reckon I kin get along without the stuff. Sary hid my jug, and I done 'thout it for a week, and I felt fine. I am goin' to make a stagger at it, if I do fall down."
Jap pushed him into a chair.
"Why, you old rascal," he cried, "you have backbone enough to do anything you will to do. Move into town and help us turn the wheels."
Kelly wiped his nose on the tail of his slicker as he started for the door.
"Don't happen to need any basses, do you?" he grinned.
Jap flung an empty ink bottle after him. When quiet had returned to the office, he said, as he hung his hat on the nail:
"Isabel wants to learn to stick type."
"Funny," said Bill shortly, "so does Rosy, and they hate each other like Pap hates beer. Pretty mix-up we'll have on our hands."
"That's all nonsense, Bill. Rosy can't help liking Isabel."
Bill scanned the copy on his hook, his eyes narrowing.
"Appears like she can," he muttered.
"Now, Bill, this won't do," argued Jap earnestly. "We can't afford to have dissension in such a vital matter. You must talk to Rosy."
"You can have the job," waived Bill, picking up a type. "Isabel said that Rosy was shallow and only skin-deep, and Rosy heard about it. Isabel Granger is not so much——"
He stopped abruptly as Jap's hand went up in pained alarm.
"Look here, Bill, are we going to let the chatter of women come between us? There is something deeper holding us together than the friendship of a day. Give me your hand, Bill, and tell me that it is Ellis's work and not these trifles that you care for. We have a work to do, you and I."
Bill threw the stick upon the case and grasped Jap's outstretched hand. Tears glistened in his eyes.
"Better than all the loves in the world, I love you, Jap," he stormed. Jerking his hat from the nail, he strode out to walk off the emotionalism he decried.
That afternoon he strove manfully to show Isabel how to put type in the stick upside down, and to save her feelings he stealthily corrected her faulty work, suppressing a grin at Jap's pride in her first attempt. Bill shook his head sadly as they strolled out together, Jap's eyes drinking in the girl's slender beauty.
"Petticoat government 'll get old Jap tripped up," he complained to the office cat. "And then where'll I be? When Jap marries I'll play second fiddle. Come seven, come 'leven!" and he snapped his fingers in the air.