“You belong to the union! You stand by it, no matter what happens! If they fire you, you take it on to the next place! You teach it to the new men, you never let it die in your hearts! In union there is strength, in union there is hope! Never forget it, men—Union!”
The voice of the camp-marshal rang out. “If you’re coming, young woman, come now!”
Hal dropped a shy curtsey. “Oh, Mr. Cotton! This is so sudden!” The crowd howled; and Hal descended from his platform. With coquettish gesturing he replaced the widow’s veils about his face, and tripped mincingly across the dining-room. When he reached the camp-marshal, he daintily took that worthy’s arm, and with the “breaker of teeth” on the other side, and Bud Adams bringing up the rear, he toddled out of the dining-room and down the street.
Hungry men gave up their suppers to behold that sight. They poured out of the building, they followed, laughing, shouting, jeering. Others came from every direction—by the time the party had reached the depot, a good part of the population of the village was on hand; and everywhere went the word, “It’s Joe Smith! Come back with a message from the union!” Big, coal-grimed miners laughed till the tears made streaks on their faces; they fell on one another’s necks for delight at this trick which had been played upon their oppressors.
Even Jeff Cotton could not withhold his tribute. “By God, you’re the limit!” he muttered. He accepted the “tea-party” aspect of the affair, as the easiest way to get rid of his recurrent guest, and avert the possibilities of danger. He escorted the widow to the train and helped her up the steps, posting escorts at the doors of her car; nor did the attentions of these gallants cease until the train had moved down the canyon and passed the limits of the North Valley stockade!
XXV
Hal took off his widow’s weeds; and with them he shed the merriment he had worn for the benefit of the men. There came a sudden reaction; he realised that he was tired.
For ten days he had lived in a whirl of excitement, scarcely stopping to sleep. Now he lay back in the car-seat, pale, exhausted; his head ached, and he realised that the sum-total of his North Valley experience was failure. There was left in him no trace of that spirit of adventure with which he had set out upon his “summer course in practical sociology.” He had studied his lessons, tried to recite them, and been “flunked.” He smiled a bitter smile, recollecting the careless jesting that had been on his lips as he came up that same canyon:
“He keeps them a-roll, that merry old soul—
The wheels of industree;
A-roll and a-roll, for his pipe and his bowl
And his college facultee!”
The train arrived in Pedro, and Hal took a hack at the station and drove to the hotel. He still carried the widow’s weeds rolled into a bundle. He might have left them in the train, but the impulse to economy which he had acquired during the last ten weeks had become a habit. He would return them to Mrs. Zamboni. The money he had promised her might better be used to feed her young ones. The two pillows he would leave in the car; the hotel might endure the loss!
Entering the lobby, the first person Hal saw was his brother, and the sight of that patrician face made human by disgust relieved Hal’s headache in part. Life was harsh, life was cruel; but here was weary, waiting Edward, that boon of comic relief!
Edward demanded to know where the devil he had been; and Hal answered, “I’ve been visiting the widows and orphans.”
“Oh!” said Edward. “And while I sit in this hole and stew! What’s that you’ve got under your arm?”
Hal looked at the bundle. “It’s a souvenir of one of the widows,” he said, and unrolled the garments and spread them out before his brother’s puzzled eyes. “A lady named Mrs. Swajka gave them to me. They belonged to another lady, Mrs. Zamboni, but she doesn’t need them any more.”
“What have you got to do with them?”
“It seems that Mrs. Zamboni is going to get married again.” Hal lowered his voice, confidentially. “It’s a romance, Edward—it may interest you as an illustration of the manners of these foreign races. She met a man on the street, a fine, fine man, she says—and he gave her a lot of money. So she went and bought herself some new clothes, and she wants to give these widow’s weeds to the new man. That’s the custom in her country, it seems—her sign that she accepts him as a suitor.”
Seeing the look of wonderment growing on his brother’s face, Hal had to stop for a moment to keep his own face straight. “If that man wasn’t serious in his intention, Edward, he’ll have trouble, for I know Mrs. Zamboni’s emotional nature. She’ll follow him about everywhere—”
“Hal, that creature is insane!” And Edward looked about him nervously, as if he thought the Slavish widow might appear suddenly in the hotel lobby to demonstrate her emotional nature.
“No,” replied Hal, “it’s just one of those differences in national customs.” And suddenly Hal’s face gave way. He began to laugh; he laughed, perhaps more loudly than good form permitted.
Edward was much annoyed. There were people in the lobby, and they were staring at him. “Cut it out, Hal!” he exclaimed. “Your fool jokes bore me!” But nevertheless, Hal could see uncertainty in his brother’s face. Edward recognised those widow’s weeds. And how could he be sure about the “national customs” of that grotesque creature who had pinched him in the ribs on the street?
“Cut it out!” he cried again.
Hal, changing his voice suddenly to the Zamboni key, exclaimed: “Mister, I got eight children I got to feed, and I don’t got no more man, and
