It was said by the enemies of Smoky Pete that he had not taken a bath for years. He lived alone in a small frame house at the edge of town. Behind his house was a large field. The house itself was unspeakably dirty. When the factories came to town, Tom Butterworth and Steve Hunter bought the field intending to cut it into building lots. They wanted to buy the blacksmith's house and finally did secure it by paying a high price. He agreed to move out within a year but after the money was paid repented and wished he had not sold. A rumor began to run about town connecting the name of Tom Butterworth with that of Fanny Twist, the town milliner. It was said the rich farmer had been seen coming out of her shop late at night. The blacksmith also heard another story whispered in the streets. Louise Trucker, the farmer's daughter who had at one time been seen creeping through a side street in the company of young Steve Hunter, had gone to Cleveland and it was said she had become the proprietor of a prosperous house of ill fame. Steve's money, it was declared, had been used to set her up in business. The two stories offered unlimited opportunity for expansion in the blacksmith's mind, but while he was preparing himself to do what he called bringing the two men down in the sight and hearing of the whole town, a thing happened that upset his plans. His son Fizzy Fry left his place as clerk in the hotel and went to work in the corn-cutting machine factory. One day his father saw him coming from the factory at noon with a dozen other workmen. The young man had on overalls and smoked a pipe. When he saw his father he stopped, and when the other men had gone on, explained his sudden transformation. “I'm in the shop now, but I won't be there long,” he said proudly. “You know Tom Butterworth stays at the hotel? Well, he's given me a chance. I got to stay in the shop for a while to learn about things. After that I'm to have a chance as shipping clerk. Then I'll be a traveler on the road.” He looked at his father and his voice broke. “You haven't thought very much of me, but I'm not so bad,” he said. “I don't want to be a sissy, but I'm not very strong. I worked at the hotel because there wasn't anything else I thought I could do.”
Peter Fry went home to his house but could not eat the food he had cooked for himself on the tiny stove in the kitchen. He went outdoors and stood for a long time, looking out across the cow-pasture Tom Butterworth and Steve Hunter had bought and that they proposed should become a part of the rapidly growing city. He had himself taken no part in the new impulses that had come upon the town, except that he had taken advantage of the failure of the town's first industrial effort to roar insults at those of his townsmen who had lost their money. One evening he and Ed Hall had got into a fight about the matter on Main Street, and the blacksmith had been compelled to pay another fine. Now he wondered what was the matter with him. He had evidently made a mistake about his son. Had he made a mistake about Tom Butterworth and Steve Hunter?
The perplexed man went back to his shop and all the afternoon worked in silence. His heart had been set on the creation of a dramatic scene on Main Street, when he openly attacked the two most prominent men of the town, and he even pictured himself as likely to be put in the town jail where he would have an opportunity to roar things through the iron bars at the citizens gathered in the street. In anticipation of such an event, he had prepared himself to attack the reputation of other people. He had never attacked women but, if he were locked up, he intended to do so. John May had once told him that Tom Butterworth's daughter, who had been away to college for a year, had been sent away because she was in the family way. John May had claimed he was responsible for her condition. Several of Tom's farm hands he said had been on intimate terms with the girl. The blacksmith had told himself that if he got into trouble for publicly attacking the father he would be justified in telling what he knew about the daughter.
The blacksmith did not come into Main Street that evening. As he went home from work he saw Tom Butterworth standing with Steve Hunter before the post-office. For several weeks Tom had been spending most of his time away from town, had only appeared in town for a few hours at a time, and had not been seen on the streets in the evening. The blacksmith had been waiting to catch both men on the street at one time. Now that this opportunity had come, he began to be afraid he would not dare take it. “What right have I to spoil my boy's chances?” he asked himself, as he went rather heavily along the street toward his own house.
It rained on that evening and for the first time in years Smoky Pete did not go into Main Street. He told himself that the rain kept him at home, but the thought did not satisfy him. All evening he moved restlessly about the house and at half past eight went to bed. He did not, however, sleep, but lay with his trousers on and with his pipe in his mouth, trying to think. Every few minutes he took the pipe from his mouth, blew out a cloud of smoke and swore viciously. At ten o'clock the farmer, who had owned the cow-pasture back of his house and who still kept his cows there, saw his neighbor tramping about in the rain in the field and saying things he had planned to say on Main Street in the hearing of the entire town.
The farmer also had gone to bed early, but at ten o'clock he decided that, as the rain continued to fall and as it was growing somewhat cold, he had better get up and let his cows into the barn. He did not dress, but threw a blanket about his shoulders and went out without a light. He let down the bars separating the field from the barnyard and then saw and heard Smoky Pete in the field. The blacksmith walked back and forth in the darkness, and as the farmer stood by the fence, began to talk in a loud voice. “Well, Tom Butterworth, you're fooling around with Fanny Twist,” he cried into the silence and emptiness of the night. “You're sneaking into her shop late at night, eh? Steve Hunter has set Louise Trucker up in business in a house in Cleveland. Are you and Fanny Twist going to open a house here? Is that the next industrial enterprise we're to have here in this town?”
The amazed farmer stood in the rain in the darkness, listening to the words of his neighbor. The cows came through the gate and went into the barn. His bare legs were cold and he drew them alternately up under the blanket. For ten minutes Peter Fry tramped up and down in the field. Once he came quite near the farmer, who drew himself down beside the fence and listened, filled with amazement and fright. He could dimly see the tall, old man striding along and waving his arms about. When he had said many bitter, hateful things regarding the two most prominent men of Bidwell, he began to abuse Tom Butterworth's daughter, calling her a bitch and the daughter of a dog. The farmer waited until Smoky Pete had gone back to his house and, when he saw a light in the kitchen, and fancied he could also see his neighbor cooking food at a stove, he went again into his own house. He had himself never quarreled with Smoky Pete and was glad. He was glad also that the field at the back of his house had been sold. He intended to sell the rest of his farm and move west to Illinois. “The man's crazy,” he told himself. “Who but a crazy man would talk that way in the darkness? I suppose I ought to report him and get him locked up, but I guess I'll forget what I heard. A man who would talk like that about nice respectable people would do anything. He might set fire to my house some night or something like that. I guess I'll just forget what I heard.”