"Why," grumbled another member of this caucus, "anybody'd think that this whole town had ought to turn in and just die of thirst on account of a man that ain't much bigger than a pint of cider and never did have no proper stomach. Why, who ever heard of sech a thing as a whole town being run for one man?"
"A town that ain't run fair and square for one man isn't run fair and square for any man," insisted Jake. "And as for hearing strange things, I've heerd tell of a man once, a poor kind of low-style Jew he was, lived over in a little two by four town called Nazareth, who not only believed in going dry and hungry for other people but actually died so's to show them a finer way of living and a braver way of dying. I've heerd tell that they called that man the Greatest Fool that ever lived and that they killed Him fur His foolishness. So, if this whole town should turn in an' help Jim Tumley there'd be nothing new in that."
The pause that followed would have been uncomfortable if Seth Curtis hadn't opened the door just then and squeezed in.
Seth was mad. For the first time since their marriage he had quarrelled with his wife. Docile, sweet-tempered Ruth Curtis was aflame with mother wrath. She, like a great many Green Valley women, thought of Jim Tumley not as a man but as a voice, the voice of a lark on a summer morning. That other men's selfish strength should still that voice made her sweet eyes flame and her soft voice shake with anger. That Seth, who so hated waste of any kind, could stand calmly by while a lovable human soul was being thrown away puzzled her at first. She tried to argue with him. If Jim Tumley were trying to save his burning barn or mend his fence Seth would have helped him gladly. But Jim was trying to save his body and soul and Green Valley men, even though they knew he was not equal to the struggle, could not see that it was their business to help.
Seth resented this passionate fight for little Jim that the women were making. In his anger Seth could not see that beyond the figure of the gentle singing man stood the children of Green Valley. In this harmless little man who could not save himself every mother saw her boy, her girl; one a drunkard-to-be perhaps, the other mayhap a drunkard's wife and the mother of more drunkards.
Seth's eyes blazed around Billy's crowded office and he waited for the question that he knew he would be asked:
"Well—Seth—you voting the town dry this morning?"
And then Seth let loose. He said fool things to ease his ugly temper but he wound up his argument with the telling reminder that Green Valley couldn't afford to lose the fifteen-hundred-dollar yearly license tax.
"Not only would we men lose our freedom and be a thirsty lot of wife-driven idiots but our taxes would rise."
And that argument told. It had been overlooked somehow. But at the mention of it every man's face but Jake's brightened. Why, sure—Seth was right. That fifteen hundred dollars kept the taxes down and was an argument that ought to appeal to every Green Valley woman whose life was an eternal struggle to save.