"Oh, my dear girl!" cried 'Rill, with streaming eyes, "Hopewell won't ever sell it again. I won't let him. And we've got the joyfulest news, Janice! You have doubled our joy to-day. But already we have had a letter from Boston which says that our little Lottie is in better health than ever and that the peril of blindness is quite dissipated. She is coming home to us again in a short time."
"Joyful things," as Janice said, were happening in quick rotation nowadays. With the permanent closing of the Lake View Inn bar, several of the habitués of the barroom began to straighten up. Jim Narnay had really been fighting his besetting sin since the baby's death. He had found work in town and was taking his wages home to his wife.
Trimmins was working steadily for Elder Concannon. And being so far away from any place where liquor was dispensed, he was doing very well.
Really, with the abrupt closing of the bar, the cause of the "wets" in Polktown rather broke down. They had no rallying point, and, as Walky said, "munitions of war was mighty scurce."
"A feller can't re'lly have the heart ter vote for whiskey 'nless ther's whiskey in him," said Walky, at the close of the voting on Town Meeting Day. "How about that, Cross Moore? We dry fellers have walked over ye in great shape—ain't that so?"
"I admit you have carried' the day, Walky," said the selectman, grimly.
"He! he! I sh'd say we had! Purty near two ter one. Wal! I thought ye said once that no man in Polktown could best ye—if ye put yer mind to it?"
Cross Moore chewed his straw reflectively. "I don't consider I have been beaten by a man," he said.
"No? Jefers-pelters! what d'ye call it?" blustered Walky.
"I reckon I've been beaten by a girl—and an idea," said Mr. Cross
Moore.