“Why should she?” was the response. “She is so used to his honors that she thinks nothing at all about them.”
“Isn’t it strange,” said Elizabeth, having slowly awakened to the condition of affairs in the little world about her, “that it seems to be the people who have the least and do the least that make the most fuss?”
“One thing Exeter has taught you?” said Miss Cresswell with a smile. “The little tugs must make a noise or they may be run down, but the big liners are confident of their own power and so is everyone.”
But Elizabeth had not heard this last remark. She was leaning eagerly forward listening to the conversation among the others. Judge Wilson was explaining to those who were interested what Big Bill Kyler had done to justify a year and a half in jail.
“You see,” the Judge said, “all the land at Italee and Gleasonton belong to Mrs. Gleason. She won’t sell, and leases and rents only under certain conditions. All renters are her husband’s workmen. I suppose there’s seven or eight hundred in the tannery and brickyard. She won’t permit a licensed hotel on her land. Big Bill drives across the country, loads his wagon with contraband goods and retails them from his house. This is all on the quiet. I reckon he’s carried this on for six months. But some time in August, Mrs. Gleason had his wagon stopped with the result,” with a wave of his hand, “Bill is living at the expense of the State.”
“A pretty smart woman, Mrs. Gleason.” This remark came from the little old man in the corner.
“Very, but she would never have discovered this if someone had not given her a pointer; for Big Bill outwardly was an advocate of temperance.”
“I am out of patience with the way in which justice errs,” cried Mrs. Wilson, in the same spirited, sprightly way her daughter might have done. “We all know that Big Bill is not accountable. He has always been the tool of anyone who would make use of him. I doubt if he made any money by this work. There was a shrewder man back of him who planned this and took the money. And that man is the one who should be punished.”
“Undoubtedly,” responded the Judge. “But that man is shrewd enough to keep himself out of the toils. He has a wholesale license to sell at Westport. He does not obligate himself to question his buyers. He may ask Big Bill a trifle more than anyone else, but that is no infringement of the law. I think there was no doubt in anyone’s mind who was the instigator of this ‘speak-easy’ business at Italee; but he was shrewd enough to keep within the letter of the law. We could not touch him, and he knew it.”
“The whole business is nefarious! It is the curse of our country.”