“Well,” said Parker, after a pause, “the town will be upside down over this; and folks will be mighty glad to have it explained about your being out there so much, and at the deepo, and all this and that. Everybody in the place has been wondering what in—that is—” he finished in some confusion—“that is—what I started to say was that it won't be so bad as it might be, having a lady in the office here. I don't cuss to speak of, and Ross can lay off on his till the boss comes back. Besides, it's our only chance. If she can't make the 'Herald' hum, we go to the wall.”
The old man did not seem to hear him. “I forbade the renunciation she wished to make for my sake,” he said, gently, “but I accept it now for the sake of our stricken friend—for Mr. Harkless.”
“And for the Carlow 'Herald,'” completed the foreman.
The morning following that upon which this conversation took place, the two gentlemen stood together on the station platform, awaiting the arrival of the express from Rouen. It was a wet gray day; the wide country lay dripping under formless wraps of thin mist, and a warm, drizzling rain blackened the weather-beaten shingles of the station; made clear-reflecting puddles of the unevenly worn planks of the platform, and dampened the packing-cases that never went anywhere too thoroughly for occupation by the station-lounger, and ran in a little crystal stream off Fisbee's brown cotton umbrella and down Mr. Parker's back. The 'bus driver, Mr. Bennett, the proprietor of two attendant “cut-unders,” and three or four other worthies whom business, or the lack of it, called to that locality, availed themselves of the shelter of the waiting-room, but the gentlemen of the “Herald” were too agitated to be confined, save by the limits of the horizon. They had reached the station half an hour before train time, and consumed the interval in pacing the platform under the cotton umbrella, addressing each other only in monosyllables. Those in the waiting-room gossiped eagerly, and for the thousandth time, about the late events, and the tremendous news concerning Fisbee. Judd Bennett looked out through the rainy doorway at the latter with reverence and a fine pride of townsmanship, declaring it to be his belief that Fisbee and Parker were waiting for her at the present moment. It was a lady, and a bird of a lady, too, else why should Cale Parker be wearing a coat, and be otherwise dooded and fixed up beyond any wedding? Judd and his friends were somewhat excited over Parker.
Fisbee was clad in his best shabby black, which lent an air of state to the occasion, but Mr. Parker—Caleb Parker, whose heart, during his five years of residence in Plattville, had been steel-proof against all the feminine blandishments of the town, whose long, lank face had shown beneath as long, and lanker, locks of proverbially uncombed hair, he who had for weeks conspicuously affected a single, string-patched suspender, who never, even upon the Sabbath day, wore a collar or blacked his shoes—what aesthetic leaven had entered his soul that he donned not a coat alone but also a waistcoat with checks?—and, more than that, a gleaming celluloid collar?—and, more than that, a brilliant blue tie? What had this iron youth to do with a rising excitement at train time and brilliant blue ties?
Also, it might have been inquired if this parade of fashion had no connection with the simultaneous action of Mr. Ross Schofield; for Ross was at this hour engaged in decorating the battered chairs in the “Herald” editorial room with blue satin ribbon, the purchase of which at the Dry Goods Emporium had been directed by a sudden inspiration of his superior of the composing force. It was Ross's intention to garnish each chair with an elaborately tied bow, but, as he was no sailor and understood only the intricacies of a hard-knot, he confined himself to that species of ornamentation, leaving, however, very long ends of ribbon hanging down after the manner of the pendants of rosettes.
It scarcely needs the statement that his labors were in honor of the new editor-in-chief of the Carlow “Herald.” The advent and the purposes of this personage were, as yet, known certainly to only those of the “Herald” and to the Briscoes. It had been arranged, however, that Minnie and her father were not to come to the station, for the journalistic crisis was immoderately pressing; the “Herald” was to appear on the morrow, and the new editor wished to plunge directly, and without the briefest distraction, into the paper's difficulties, now accumulated into a veritable sea of troubles. The editor was to be delivered to the Briscoes at eventide and returned by them again at dewy morn; and this was to be the daily programme. It had been further—and most earnestly—stipulated that when the wounded proprietor of the ailing journal should be informed of the addition to his forces, he was not to know, or to have the slenderest hint of, the sex or identity of the person in charge during his absence. It was inevitable that Plattville (already gaping to the uttermost) would buzz voluminously over it before night, but Judge Briscoe volunteered to prevent the buzz from reaching Rouen. He undertook to interview whatever citizens should visit Harkless, or write to him—when his illness permitted visits and letters—and forewarn them of the incumbent's desires. To-day, the judge stayed at home with his daughter, who trilled about the house for happiness, and, in their place, the “Herald” deputation of two had repaired to the station to act as a reception committee.
Far away the whistle of the express was heard, muffled to sweetness in the damp, and the drivers, whip in hand, came out upon the platform, and the loafers issued, also, to stand under the eaves and lean their backs against the drier boards, preparing to eye the travellers with languid raillery.
Mr. Parker, very nervous himself, felt the old man's elbow trembling against his own as the great engine, reeking in the mist, and sending great clouds of white vapor up to the sky, rushed by them, and came to a standstill beyond the platform.
Fisbee and the foreman made haste to the nearest vestibule, and were gazing blankly at its barred approaches when they heard a tremulous laugh behind them and an exclamation.