“In earnest?”
“Absolutely. I want the town cleaned up. I want it bone dry. Will you take the job? Or quit?”
“Why,” said Radabaugh, “I’ll just naturally take the job. I’ve been a-wishing I had something to do.”
Wint spoke a word or two more, hung up, and came back to Amos. He sat down without speaking. After a little, Amos asked, looking at Wint sidewise:
“Going through with it?”
“Yes,” said Wint. There was more resolution in the simple word than there would have been in lengthier protestations.
“We-ell, all I can say,” Amos drawled, “is that this here is going to make an awful difference to V. R. Kite.”
It did: a difference to Kite, and to Wint’s father, and to Jack Routt; and a difference to Wint himself. A difference to Hardiston, too.
When Wint went home, at ten o’clock, the word was already humming around the town.