“Don’t be a preacher, Jack.”
“Please, Wint—leave it alone. Come on back. I won’t go either.”
Wint said nothing, but he went steadily ahead; and Routt yielded. They left the hotel, went half a block, entered an alley, climbed a stair....
County option had closed the saloons; but Hardiston was still far from being a dry town. When they returned to the pool room half an hour later, Wint’s cheeks were unnaturally flushed, and he laughed more easily than before.
CHAPTER V
COUNCIL OF WAR
AMOS CARETALL and his daughter had supper—dinner was at midday in the Caretall household—alone together. Old Maria Hale cooked the supper, and Agnes brought it to the table. It was a good supper. Fried chicken, for example; and mashed potatoes as creamy as—cream. And afterwards, apple tapioca pudding of a peculiar excellence. All garnished with little, round biscuits, each no more than a crisp mouthful. The Congressman smacked his lips over it with frank appreciation. “Maria,” he told the old colored woman, “you could make your fortune in Washington.”
Maria cackled delightedly. She was a shriveled little old crone, bent, wrinkled, and suspected of being as bald as an egg. No one ever saw her without a kerchief bound tightly around her head. She had looked a hundred years old for twenty years, and declared she was more than that. “I mus’ be a hundred an’ twenty, at the mos’,” she used to say, when questioned. Now she cackled with delight at the Congressman’s praise of her cookery.
“I don’t know ’bout Wash’n’t’n,” she declared. “But I ain’ makin’ no great pile in Hardiston, Miste’ Caretall.”
He laughed, head tilted back, mouth full of biscuit. “You old fraud, you could buy and sell Chase himself, twice over. You haven’t spent a cent for a hundred years, Maria.”
She giggled like a girl, and went out to the kitchen, wagging her head from side to side and mumbling to herself. Agnes looked after her, and when the door was closed said, with a toss of her head: “She’s getting awfully cranky, Dad.”