"Nothing," said Phil indifferently; "it's only an item."
"Amzi's always going to concerts," remarked the editor inconsequently.
"I thought maybe he wasn't going to this one, for the excellent reason that he declined to take me along."
Barker ran his hand through his hair, looked at Phil with dawning intelligence, and his brow cleared.
"I haven't said anything," remarked Phil discreetly, "because I don't know anything."
Barker put on his coat and hat.
"Guess I'll go out and sniff the local feeling on this proposition. It's about time I blew the lid off and said a few things about Bill Holton. If Bernstein brings in copy for his Christmas 'ad,' whistle for the boy and tell 'em to hustle it. Hang your stuff on the hook and I'll write the heads later. Don't let your playful humor get away with you, and if any farmers come in with the biggest pumpkin ever raised on Sugar Creek, note the name and weight carefully, call the boy and send the precious fruit right home to our wife. Our annual biggest pumpkin is long overdue and undelivered. You might just head that item 'When the Frost is on the Punkin.' We have captious subscribers who check up on favorite quotations and our aim is to please one and all."
A desk stood by the window from which the editorial eye in its frenzied rollings enjoyed a fine sweep of Main Street. To Phil Main Street ran round the world. Its variety was infinite. No one knew the ways, the interests, the joys and sorrows of Montgomery better than she. Every one was, in a sense, a character. More or less unconsciously she fitted them all into little dramas, or sketched them with swift, telling strokes. The fact that this Main Street summarized American life; that there were hundreds of Main Streets presenting much the same types, the same mild encounters and incidents, appealed to her sense of humor. Her longest journey in the world had been a summer excursion to New England with her father, and she had been struck by the similarity of the phenomena observable in Williamstown, Pittsfield, Northampton—and Montgomery! In every town, no matter what its name, there was always the same sleepy team in front of the Farmers' Bank, the same boy chasing his hat, the same hack-driver in front of the hotel, the same pretty girl bowing to the same delighted young man near the same town pump or the soldiers' monument in the square.
Phil wrote busily. It was easy for her to write, and when, looking up casually, items were suggested to her by the passers-by, she returned to her work with a smile on her face. Judge Walters passed carrying a satchel; this meant that he had returned from holding court in Boone County; Captain Wilson stumped by with a strange young man who Phil reasoned immediately must be the nephew he had expected to visit him during the holidays. The new auto-truck of the express company, which had long been forecast in Main Street rumor, rumbled by, and she heralded its arrival in a crisp paragraph. "Spress," the venerable dog that for ages had followed the company's old horse and wagon, was at last out of commission, Phil's "brevity" recited. The foreman came in from the composing-room, told her gravely that the paper was overset, and departed with her copy.
She took up the article relating to Sycamore Traction and read it through to the end. Many of the terms meant nothing to her; but the guarded intimations of improper conduct on the part of the promoters and directors were sufficiently clear. What interested her most of all was the accusation, cautiously attributed "to one in a position to know," that the estate of Samuel Holton had been so manipulated as to conceal part of the assets, and that a movement was on foot to reopen the estate with a view to challenging the inventory. The names of Charles Holton and his Uncle William, president of the First National Bank of Montgomery, appeared frequently in the article, which closed with a statement signed by both men that the stories afloat were baseless fabrications; that the company was earning its charges and that the rumors abroad through the state were the result of a conspiracy by a number of stockholders to seize control of the company.