He rose and lifted her to her feet, but that did not cover the slow flush that stained his face––the old, vaguely embarrassed flush that she knew so well. He groped awkwardly for words while he stared again at the bit of silk in his hand, before his searching fingers found the thick, crisp packet that had lain with it in his pocket.
“The Pilgrim’s share of the receipts amounted to $12,000,” had been the tale of Morehouse’s succinct last paragraph.
Then, “It––took me almost two months to save fifteen dollars,” Young Denny explained in painful self-consciousness.
She understood. She remembered the scarlet blouse and shimmering skirt with its dots of tinsel, and the stockings and slim-heeled slippers. Her 309 fingers touched his chin––the barest ghost of a caressing contact.
“Denny––Denny,” she murmured, “I told you that night that you didn’t understand. And yet––and yet I’m glad that you couldn’t. It was for me––you went. Don’t you––didn’t you know it was––just because of you––that I wanted them––at––all?”
The circle in the Boltonwood tavern convened early that night, and long after hope had all but died a death of stagnation the regulars stuck stubbornly to their places about the cheerlessly cold, fat-bellied stove.
It was a session extraordinary, for even Dave Shepard, the patriarch of the circle itself, could not recall an occasion when they had foregathered there in such fashion so long after the last spring snow had surrendered to summer. Yet it was largely mild-voiced Dave’s doing––this silent, sober gathering.
For he alone of all of them had heeded Old Jerry’s parting admonition that night, weeks before, when the servant of the Gov’mint had turned from his shrill defiance of the Judge to whip their whole ranks with scorn. Since then Dave had been following the papers with faithful and painstaking care––not merely the political news of the day which invariably furnished the key for each night’s debate––but searching every inch of type, down to the last inconsequential 310 advertisement. And he had been rewarded; he had penetrated, with the aid of that small picture inset at the column-head, the disguise of the colorful sobriquet which Morehouse had fastened upon Young Denny Bolton. More than that, he had been reading for weeks each step in that campaign of publicity which had so harrowed Old Jerry’s peace of mind––and somehow he had kept it religiously to himself.
Not until two days before, when Old Jerry’s desertion from duty had become a town-wide sensation had he opened his mouth. The route back in the hills went mailless that day, and for that reason there were more than enough papers to go around when he finally gave the old guard which was waiting in vain for Old Jerry’s appearance upon the top step of the post-office, the benefits of his wider reading.