Chase touched her shoulder, awkwardly comforting her.
“It’s all right, mother,” he said. “He’s coming home.”
But Mrs. Chase didn’t say anything. She just sat there, quietly crying. The tears wet through her sleeve till she felt them damp upon her arm.
CHAPTER VI
A WORD AS TO HETTY
PETER GERGUE wrote to Amos that Wint had gone home; and Amos got a letter from Wint with the same news, the same day. Wint’s letter was straightforward, a little embarrassed. “I want you to know,” he wrote, “that my father and I have fixed things up. I am living at home again. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your kindness. But I thought I ought to go home if they were willing to have me, and they were.”
Peter wrote more at length. Gergue, uncouth to look upon and rude of speech, was nevertheless an educated man, and a well-read man. There was nothing bizarre about his letters. He wrote that Wint and his father had come together. “From what I hear, Wint went home and told Chase he was sorry, and so on,” Gergue continued. “I guess Chase took on some, at that; but he came around. He’s wrapped up in Wint, you know, and always was. This has been a good thing for him. He’s human now. He’s not such a darned fool. Chase, I mean. If you don’t look out, Chase will give you a run for your money yet.
“Wint’s all right, too. Hasn’t touched a drop, far as I can find out, since you left. He’s studying law with old Hoover, and working at the job of being Mayor. Not setting the world on fire, either. Just the routine. Town’s as wet as ever, and looks like it will go on being. I guess Wint is worried for fear folks will laugh at him if he starts a clean-up. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. Or maybe he hasn’t thought about it.
“He and Routt don’t run around together much. Jack’s been away. I wrote you about that. He’s back now. Acts same as ever. Mary Dale told me he was in to see old Kite one day, and Kite went up in the air. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. She thinks Jack is made and handed down. Maybe he is. I wonder what he wanted to go and see old V. R. Kite for?
“Kite was sore at you, right after election. Some one told him you was going to have Wint clean up the town. He made talk that he’d hang your hide if you did. But he got over that. He’s lying quiet. Doing a good business, too, I should say. There were seven drunks in Wint’s court last week.
“I asked Chase if he figured to run against you next fall. He said he was out of active politics. Active, he said.