Part 29 (1/2)

”How's that?” one of the men still girded at Gordon. ”Guess he's learned to respect his wife's throwing arm. He pipes up now from a more respectful distance.”

”That's easy,” Gordon let the caviller down gently. ”He's set her up in a little house farther along the line. Naturally that's where he would whistle now.”

For three weeks more we heard the faithful signal, at its new place. A little more faintly, but always punctual, always the same. And again the men began to whistle at their work.

By then the job was nearly finished. In two or three weeks more we should be leaving, and the whole crowd began to allege a touch of regret. They protested it was because the old place was so beautiful, but privately I think George Roberts and his tooting had something to do with the homesickness. To whatever new place we might go, however pleasant it might be, there was going to be a trifle that was lacking.

Then again a strange thing happened. Again the whistle stopped. For four days it was silent.

”Family jar already!” came the usual good-natured jeer.

”She's flung a plate and crippled his whistle arm.”

”Guess you'd better find out what's the matter, Gordon,” a third man recommended.

”I will,” said Gordon.

That evening he returned from the village without the smile.

Nevertheless, as he was still plodding up the long driveway, his head down, his step slow, we actually heard the whistle as we sat waiting for Gordon under the portico. There was no mistaking it. And yet its note seemed different; there was a new tone to it, something like Gordon's air. And it seemed to come from still farther away.

Gordon paused as he heard it, and stood still, with his hat in his hand, till it died away. Then he came up the steps and sat down. We all leaned toward him.

”She fell ill,” he said. ”They left her in the little cemetery down the line. She'd always been delicate. And I suppose that's where he's whistling now. To-to let her know he's safe.”

THE WILLOW WALK

_By_ SINCLAIR LEWIS From _The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_ _Copyright, 1918, by The Curtis Publis.h.i.+ng Company._ _Copyright, 1919, by Sinclair Lewis._

I

From the drawer of his table desk Jasper Holt took a pane of window gla.s.s. He laid a sheet of paper on the gla.s.s and wrote, ”Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.” He studied his round business-college script, and rewrote the sentence in a small finicky hand, that of a studious old man. Ten times he copied the words in that false pinched writing. He tore up the paper, burned the fragments in his large ash tray and washed the delicate ashes down his stationary washbowl. He replaced the pane of gla.s.s in the drawer, tapping it with satisfaction. A gla.s.s underlay does not retain an impression.

Jasper Holt was as nearly respectable as his room, which, with its frilled chairs and pansy-painted pincus.h.i.+on, was the best in the aristocratic boarding house of Mrs. Lyons. He was a wiry, slightly bald, black-haired man of thirty-eight, wearing an easy gray flannel suit and a white carnation. His hands were peculiarly compact and nimble. He gave the appearance of being a youngish lawyer or bond salesman. Actually he was senior paying teller in the Lumber National Bank in the city of Vernon.

He looked at a thin expensive gold watch. It was six-thirty, on Wednesday-toward dusk of a tranquil spring day. He picked up his hooked walking stick and his gray silk gloves and trudged downstairs. He met his landlady in the lower hall and inclined his head. She effusively commented on the weather.

”I shall not be here for dinner,” he said amiably.

”Very well, Mr. Holt. My, but aren't you always going out with your swell friends, though! I read in the _Herald_ that you were going to be star in another of those society plays at the Community Theater. I guess you'd be an actor if you wasn't a banker, Mr. Holt.”

”No, I'm afraid I haven't much temperament.” His voice was cordial, but his smile was a mere mechanical sidewise twist of the lip muscles.

”You're the one that's got the stage presence. Bet you'd be a regular Ethel Barrymore if you didn't have to look out for us.”

”My, but you're such a flatterer!”

He bowed his way out and walked sedately down the street to a public garage. Nodding to the night attendant, but saying nothing, he started his roadster and drove out of the garage, away from the center of Vernon, toward the suburb of Rosebank. He did not go directly to Rosebank. He went seven blocks out of his way, and halted on Fandall Avenue-one of those petty main thoroughfares which, with their motion-picture palaces, their groceries, laundries, undertakers'

establishments and lunch rooms, serve as local centers for districts of mean residences. He got out of the car and pretended to look at the tires, kicking them to see how much air they had. While he did so he covertly looked up and down the street. He saw no one whom he knew. He went into the Parthenon Confectionery Store.