“Da’s right, Miste’ Wint. Yore mammy ’nd pappy shore got to be proud o’ you, boy.”
“I hope so, Maria,” he told her, and she patted his shoulder.
“’Deed and dey will.”
When he left the house, she came to the door and told him he must come, now and then, and let her cook him a good supper; and he must come and see her. She would be lonely, in that big house, without no white folks around, she said. Wint promised to come; and she waved her blue gingham apron after him as he went down the street.
Muldoon was with him, scampering around him and about; and old Maria, watching Wint and the dog, said to herself as they disappeared:
“Shore will miss dat boy; but ol’ M’ria ain’t going to pester herself about not seeing dat dog.”
She objected to Muldoon because he shed hairs on the rugs. But she had tolerated him for Wint’s sake. Muldoon thoroughly understood her feelings; he used to sit with his head on one side and bark at her while she brushed up those tawny hairs and scolded at him. She declared he was laughing at her. More than once, Wint had been forced to make peace between them.
Muldoon did not seem surprised that they were going home; he took it quite as a matter of course. In fact, it is doubtful whether he noticed the change at all. Home, to Muldoon, was where Wint was. For that is the way of the dog.
So Wint went home, and Hardiston talked it over. V. R. Kite was glad to hear it. It meant, he decided, that Wint had shifted allegiance from Amos to his father; and while Kite had always mistrusted the elder Chase, he felt they had a common bond in their mutual antagonism toward Amos. Kite, in the last few months, had conceived a new respect for Winthrop Chase, Senior. “Chase,” he was accustomed to say, “is a man of sense. Yes, sir; a man of sense.”
Joan was glad; she found occasion to tell Wint so, simply and without elaboration. Wint said awkwardly: “Yes, I’m glad too. I guess it’s better.” And they never mentioned the change again. James T. Hollow, the little man whom Caretall had put up for Mayor against Chase, resented Wint’s move. “It’s desertion,” he told Peter Gergue. “He is deserting Congressman Caretall; and after all the Congressman has done for him. It’s not the right thing to do, Peter.”