“Oh, you’ll be ’lected,” she insisted. “Your mother’s prayin’, my son, and she has faith in her prayers.”
Garwood laughed, with a touch of the harsh skepticism she was always combating in him.
“I’m afraid we need money just now, as much as prayers,” he said.
“Money?” she asked, pausing in her darning, and looking up at him inquiringly.
“Yes,” he said. “There are legitimate expenses in a campaign you know, that a candidate has to meet.” And then he told her what the legitimate expenses were.
“Some of the boys—Jim Rankin and some others—suggested that I ought to go to Mr. Harkness,” he said, when he had finished. He had adroitly calculated the effect this suggestion would have upon her, and he was certain of her reply.
“Go to Mr. Harkness, would they? Humph!” Her eyes blazed as she almost snorted this. “I’d have them know if we are poor we’re not goin’ to be beholden to the Harknesses in any such way as that!”
“That’s just what I told them,” said the son, quietly.
“An’ you told ’em just right!” she added. She returned to her darning, holding up the sock, stretched over her extended fingers, before the lamp.
“But I don’t know whom to go to,” Garwood said presently, “and I’ve got to go to somebody.”