Mr. Simpson was taken aback. His face flushed and he angrily turned toward the interrupter.

"That's you, Joe Dimick!" he shouted, pointing an agitated forefinger.

"You needn't scooch down. I know your tongue. The idea of you findin'

fault because a big man like Congressman Atkins don't jump when you holler 'Git up!' What do YOU know about doin's at Washington? That harbor appropriation 'll go through if anybody on earth can get it through. There's other places besides Bayport to be provided for and--"

"And their congressmen provide for 'em," called another voice. Tad whirled to face his new tormentor.

"Huh!" he grunted with sarcasm. "That's Lem Myrick, _I_ know. Lem, the great painter, who votes where he paints and gets paid accordin'."

"Order!" cried several.

"Oh, all right, Mr. Moderator! I'll keep order all right. But I say to you, Lem, and you, Joe Dimick, that I know who put these smart notions into your heads. We all know, unless we're born fools. Who is it that's been sayin' the Honorable Heman Atkins was shirkin' that appropriation?

Who was it said if HE was representative the thing would have gone through afore this? Who's been makin' his brags that he could get it through if he had the chance? You know who! So do I! I wish he was here.

I only wish he was here! I'd say it to his face."

"Well, he is. Heave ahead and say it."

Everyone turned toward the door. Captain Cy had entered the hall. He was standing in the aisle, and with him was Bailey Bangs. The captain looked very tired, almost worn out, but he nodded coolly to Mr. Simpson, who had retired to his seat with surprising quickness and apparent discomfiture.

"Here I am, Tad," continued the captain. "Say your piece."

But Tad, it appeared, was not anxious to "say his piece." He was whispering earnestly with a group of his followers. Captain Cy held up his hand.

"Mr. Moderator," he asked, "can I have the floor a minute? All I want to say is that I cal'late I'm the feller the last speaker had reference to.

I HAVE said that I didn't see why that appropriation was so hard to get.

I say it again. Other appropriations are got, and why not ours? I DID say if I was a congressman I'd get it. Yes, and I'll say more," he added, raising his voice, "I'll say that if I was sent to Washin'ton by this town, congressman or not, I'd move heaven and earth, and all creation from the President down till I did get it. That's all. So would any live man, I should think."

He sat down. There was some applause. Before it had subsided Abel Leonard, one of the quickest-witted of Mr. Simpson's workers, was on his feet, gesticulating for attention.

"Mr. Moderator," he shouted, "I want to make a motion. We've all heard the big talk that's been made. All right, then! I move you, sir, that Captain Cyrus Whittaker be appointed a committee of one to GO to Washin'ton, if he wants to, or anywheres else, and see that we get the appropriation. And if we don't get it the blame's his! There, now!"

There was a roar of laughter. This was exactly the sort of "t.i.t-for-tat"

humor that appeals to a Yankee crowd. The motion was seconded half a dozen times. Moderator Knowles grinned and shook his head.

"A joke's a joke," he said, "and we all like a good one. However, this meetin' is supposed to be for business, not fun, so--"

"Question! Question! It's been seconded! We've got to vote on it!"

shouted a chorus.

"Don't you think--seems to me that ain't in order," began the moderator, but Captain Cy rose to his feet. The grim smile had returned to his face and he looked at the joyous a.s.semblage with almost his old expression of appreciative alertness.

"Never mind the vote," he said. "I realize that Brother Leonard has rather got one on me, so to speak. All right, I won't dodge. I'll BE a committee of one on the harbor grab, and if nothin' comes of it I'll take my share of kicks. Gentlemen, I appreciate your trustfulness in my ability."

This brief speech was a huge success. If, for a moment, the pendulum of public favor had swung toward Simpson, this trumping of the latter's leading card pushed it back again. The moderator had some difficulty in restoring order to the hilarious meeting.

Then Mr. Myrick was accorded the privilege of the floor, in spite of Tad's protests, and proceeded to nominate Cyrus Whittaker for the school committee. Lem had devoted hours of toil and wearisome mental struggle to the preparation of his address, and it was lengthy and florid.

Captain Cy was described as possessing all the virtues. Bailey, listening with a hand behind his ear, was moved to applause at frequent intervals, and even Asaph forgot the dignity of his exalted position on the platform and pounded the official desk in ecstasy. The only person to appear uninterested was the nominee himself. He sat listlessly in his seat, his eyes cast down, and his thoughts apparently far away.

Josiah Dimick seconded the captain's nomination. Then Mr. Simpson stepped to the front and, after a wistful glance at the door, began to speak.

"Feller citizens," he said, "it is my privilege to put in nomination for school committee a man whose name stands for all that's good and clean and progressive in this township. But afore I do it I'm goin' to ask you to let me say a word or two concernin' somethin' that bears right on this matter, and which, I believe, everyone of you ought to know. It's somethin' that most of you don't know, and it'll be a surprise, a big surprise. I'll be as quick as I can, and I cal'late you'll thank me when I'm done."

He paused. The meeting looked at each other in astonishment. There was whispering along the settees. Moderator Knowles was plainly puzzled. He looked inquiringly at the town clerk, but Asaph was evidently quite as much in the dark as he concerning the threatened disclosure.

"Feller Bayporters," went on Tad, "there's one thing we've all agreed on, no matter who we've meant to vote for. That is, that a member of our school committee should be an upright, honest man, one fit morally to look out for our dear children. Ain't that so? Well, then, I ask you this: Would you consider a man fit for that job who deliberately came between a father and his child, who pizened the mind of that child against his own parent, and when that parent come to claim that child, first tried to buy him off and then turned him out of the house? Yes, and offered violence to him. And done it--mark what I say--for reasons which--which--well, we can only guess 'em, but the guess may not be so awful bad. Is THAT the kind of man we want to honor or to look out for our own children's schoolin'?"

Mr. Simpson undoubtedly meant to cause a sensation by his opening remarks. He certainly did so. The stir and whispering redoubled. Asaph, his mouth open, stared wildly down at Captain Cy. The captain rose to his feet, then sank back again. His listlessness was gone and, paying no attention to those about him, he gazed fixedly at Tad.

"Gentlemen," continued the speaker, "last night I had an experience that I shan't forget as long as I live. I met a poor man, a poor, lame man who'd been away out West and got hurt bad. Folks thought he was dead.

His wife thought so and died grievin' for him. She left a little baby girl, only seven or eight year old. When this man come back, well again but poor, to look up his family, he found his wife had pa.s.sed away and the child had been sent off, just to get rid of her, to a stranger in another town. That stranger fully meant to send her off, too; he said so dozens of times. A good many of you folks right here heard him say it.

But he never sent her--he kept her. Why? Well, that's the question. _I_ shan't answer it. _I_ ain't accusin' n.o.body. All I say is, what's easy enough for any of you to prove, and that is that it come to light the child had property belongin' to her. Property! land, wuth money!"

He paused once more and drew his sleeve across his forehead. Most of his hearers were silent now, on tiptoe of expectation. Dimick looked searchingly at Captain Cy. Then he sprang to his feet.

"Order!" he shouted. "What's all this got to do with nominatin' for school committee? Ain't he out of order, Alvin?"

The moderator hesitated. His habitual indecision was now complicated by the fact that he was as curious as the majority of those before him.

There were shouts of, "Go ahead, Tad!" "Tell us the rest!" "Let him go on, Mr. Moderator!"

Cy Whittaker slowly rose.

"Alvin," he said earnestly, "don't stop him yet. As a favor to me, let him spin his yarn."

Simpson was ready and evidently eager to spin it.

"This man," he proclaimed, "this father, mournin' for his dead wife and longin' for his child, comes to the town where he was to find and take her. And when he meets the man that's got her, when he comes, poor and down on his luck, what does this man--this rich man--do? Why; fust of all, he's sweeter'n sirup to him, takes him in, keeps him overnight, and the next day he says to him: 'You just be quiet and say nothin' to n.o.body that she's your little girl. I'll make it wuth your while.

Keep quiet till I'm ready for you to say it.' And he gives the father money--not much, but some. All right so fur, maybe; but wait! Then it turns out that the father knows about this land--this property. And THEN the kind, charitable man--this rich man with lots of money of his own--turns the poor father out, tellin' him to get the girl and the land if he can, knowin'--KNOWIN', mind you--that the father ain't got a cent to hire lawyers nor even to pay for his next meal. And when the father says he won't go, but wants his dear one that belongs to him, the rich feller abuses him, knocks him down with his fist! Knocks down a poor, weak, lame invalid, just off a sick bed! Is THAT the kind of a man we want on our school committee?"

He asked the question with both hands outspread and the perspiration running down his cheeks. The meeting was in an uproar.

"No need for me to tell you who I mean," shouted Tad, waving his arms.

"You know who, as well as I do. You've just heard him praised as bein'

all that's good and great. But _I_ say--"

"You've said enough! Now let me say a word!"

It was Captain Cy who interrupted. He had pushed his way through the crowd, down the aisle, and now stood before the gesticulating Mr.

Simpson, who shrank back as if he feared that the treatment accorded the "poor weak invalid" might be continued with him.

"Knowles," said Captain Cy, turning to the moderator, "let me speak, will you? I won't be but a minute. Friends," he continued, facing the excited gathering--"for some of you are my friends, or I've come to think you are--a part of what this man says is so. The girl at my house is Emily Thomas; her mother was Mary Thomas, who some of you know, and her father's name is Henry Thomas. She came to me unexpected, bein' sent by a Mrs. Oliver up to Concord, because 'twas either me or an orphan asylum. I took her in meanin' to keep her a little while, and then send her away. But as time went on I kept puttin' off and puttin' off, and at last I realized I couldn't do it; I'd come to think too much of her.

"Fellers," he went on, slowly, "I--I hardly know how to tell you what that little girl's come to be to me. When I first struck Bayport, after forty years away from it, all I thought of was makin' over the old place and livin' in it. I cal'lated it would be a sort of Paradise, and HOW I was goin' to live or whether or not I'd be lonesome with everyone of my folks dead and gone, never crossed my mind. But the longer I lived there alone the less like Paradise it got to be; I realized more and more that it ain't furniture and fixin's that make a home; it's them you love that's in it. And just as I'd about reached the conclusion that 'twas a failure, the whole business, why, then, Bos'n--Emily, that is--dropped in, and inside of a week I knew I'd got what was missin' in my life.

"I never married and children never meant much to me till I got her.

She's the best little--little . . . There! I mustn't talk this way. I bluffed a lot about not keepin' her permanent, bein' kind of ashamed, I guess, but down inside me I'd made up my mind to bring her up like a daughter. She and me was to live together till she grew up and got married and I . . . Well, what's the use? A few days ago come a letter from the Oliver woman in Concord sayin' that this Henry Thomas, Bos'n's father, wan't dead at all, but had turned up there, havin' learned somehow or 'nother that his wife was gone and that his child had been willed a little bit of land which belonged to her mother. He had found out that Emmie was with me, and the letter said he would likely come after her--and the land.

"That letter was like a flash of lightnin' to me. I was dismasted and on my beam ends. I didn't know what to do. I'd learned enough about this Henry Thomas to know that he was no use, a drunken, good-for-nothin'

scamp who had cruelized his wife and then run off and left her and the baby. But when he come, the very night I got the letter, I gave him a chance. I took him in; I was willin' to give him a job on the place; I was willin' to pay for his keep, and more. I DID ask him to keep his mouth shut and even to use another name. 'Twas weak of me, maybe, but you want to remember this had come on me sudden. And last night--the very second night, mind you--he went out somewhere, perhaps we can guess where, bought liquor with the money I gave him, got drunk, and then insulted one of the best women in this town. Yes, sir! I say it right here, one of the best, pluckiest little women anywhere, although she and I ain't always agreed on certain matters. I DID tell him to clear out, and I DID knock him down. Yes, and by the big dipper, I'd do it again under the same circ.u.mstances!