It was signed; and we had won! (At least we thought so.) And I walked out of the crowded glare of the session's close, into an April midnight that was as wide as all eternity and as quiet. It seemed to me that the stars, even in Colorado, had never been brighter; they sparkled in the clear blackness of the sky with a joyful brilliancy. A cool breeze drew down from the mountains as peacefully as the breath in sleep. It was a night to make a man take on his hat and breathe out his last vexation in a sigh.
We had won. What did it matter that the Boss, the Speaker, the Clerk and so many more of these miserable creatures were bought and sold in selfishness? That spring night seemed to answer for it that the truth and beauty of the world were as big above them as the heavens that arched so high above the puny dome-light, of the Capitol. Had not even we, two "boys"—as they called us—put a just law before them and made them take up the pen and sign it? If we had done so much without even a whisper from the people and scarcely a line from the public press to aid and back us, what would the future not do when we found the help that an aroused community would surely give us? Hope? The whole night was hushed and peaceful with hope. The very houses that I passed—walking home up the tree-lined streets—seemed to me in some way so quiet because they were so sure. All was right with the world. We had won.
[1] A New England family, to which the poet Whittier was related.
[2] This is one of the few fictitious names used in the story. Judge Lindsey wishes it disguised "for old sake's sake."
[3] Many of the conversations reported in this volume are given from memory, and they are liable to errors of memory in the use of a word or a turn of expression. But they are not liable to error in substance. They are the unadorned truth, clearly recollected.—B. B. L.
[4] Wilbur F. Cannon is now Pure Food Commissioner in Colorado.
[5] Smith is now tax agent in the tramway offices.