"The school buildings will be investigated and conditions noted. Doc Philipps says that if the heating plant and ventilation and light was tended to we wouldn't have so much sickness among the children or so many needing glasses.
"As soon as spring really comes the Woman's Civic League is going to start up a clean-up campaign. Of course, Green Valley never was a dirty town. Everybody likes to have their yard nice but there's considerable old faded newspaper and rusty tin cans lying along the roads farther out and in unnoticed corners that nobody's felt responsible for. That will all be attended to. We'll have no filth, no germs, no ugliness anywhere, Mrs. Brownlee says.
"And I've been appointed a committee of one to wait on Seth Curtis and call his attention to the careless way he leaves his horses standing about the town. Those horses are dangerous and getting uglier in temper every day. And Seth is just as bad."
This was only too true. Seth had grown bitter and even reckless of late. Ever since his quarrel with Ruth about Jim Tumley Seth had been boiling with temper. Old poisons that had spoiled his life in many ways and that he thought he had conquered crept back to tyrannize over him. Poor Seth had had so much discipline in his youth that the least hint of pressure threw him into a state of vicious rebellion. Seth had a fine mind, could think quicker and straighter to the point than a good many Green Valley men. But when that mind was clouded with anger and stubbornness Seth was a hopeless proposition. Ruth was his one star and even she, Seth felt, had set herself against him.
So Seth, who seldom had frequented the hotel, was there almost every day now when he should have been working. He even drank more than before. Not that he cared more for it but it was his way of showing independence.
So Seth was very ugly these days and his horses suffered as they had never suffered before. They too were growing ugly and vicious and so nervous that the least noise, the least stir, sent them into a quivering frenzy of fright.
Every one in Green Valley knew this and not a few men and women were worrying. Several men were making up their minds to speak sharply to Seth about it. But everybody smiled and even felt relieved when they heard that Fanny had offered her services to the Civic League in this capacity. Green Valley knew Seth and knew Fanny Foster. Fanny would most certainly tell Seth about it. And everybody knew just how mad Seth would get. Fanny would not of course accomplish much. But she would open up the subject, suffer the first violence of Seth's anger and so make it easier for some more competent person to take Seth to task and force him to be reasonable.
The minister had spoken to Seth long ago but though Seth listened quietly to the quiet words of the one man he had come to love in his queer fashion, he had set his jaw grimly at the end and said, "No, sir! I've made up my mind not to stand this interference with my personal liberty and God Himself can't budge me!"
"Yes, He can, Seth. But don't let it go that far," Cynthia's son had begged.
Now all Green Valley was waiting to see Fanny tackle Seth in the name of the Civic League. It would be funny, everybody said.