"Why ain't I?" sharply demanded the tavern-keeper's wife. "I've been
Lem's partner for endurin' all that time, too—thutty-seven years.
I've been hopin' all the time we'd git ahead an' have suthin' beside a
livin' here in Polktown. I've been hungry for money!
"Like enough if I hadn't been so sharp after it, an' complained so 'cause we didn't git ahead, Lem an' Cross Moore wouldn't never got their heads together an' 'greed ter try rum-selling to make the old Inn pay a profit.
"Oh, yes! I see my fault now. Oh, Lord! I see it," groaned Marm Parraday, clasping her trembling hands. "But, believe me, Janice Day, I never seen this that's come to us. We hev brought the curse of rum inter this taown after it had been free from it for years. An' we shell hafter suffer in the end—an' suffer more'n anybody else is sufferin' through our fault."
She broke off suddenly and, without looking again at Janice, mounted the steps with her broom and disappeared inside the house.
Janice, heartsick and almost in tears, was turning away when a figure appeared from around the corner of the tavern—from the direction of the bar-room, in fact. But Frank Bowman's smiling, ruddy face displayed no sign of his having sampled Lem Parraday's bar goods.
"Hullo, Janice," he said cheerfully. "I've just been having a set-to with Lem—and I don't know but he's got the best of me."
"In what way?" asked the girl, brushing her eyes quickly that the young man might not see her tears.
"Why, this is pay day again, you know. My men take most of the afternoon off on pay day. They are cleaning up now, in the camp house, and will be over by and by to sample some of Lem's goods," and the engineer sighed.
"No, I can't keep them away from the place. I've tried. Some of them won't come; but the majority will be in that pleasing condition known as 'howling drunk' before morning."
"Oh, Frank! I wish Lem would stop selling the stuff," cried Janice.'