Part 27 (1/2)
”By jove! so would I!” exclaimed Frank Bowman, vigorously. ”It was pay night for my men last Sat.u.r.day night. One third of them have not shown up this morning, and half of those that have are not fit for work.
I've got a reputation to make here. If this drunkenness goes on I'll have a fat chance of making good with the Board of Directors of the railroad.”
”How about making good with that pretty daughter of Vice President Harrison's?” asked Janice, slily.
Bowman blushed and laughed. ”Oh! she's kind. She'll understand. But I can't take the same excuses for failure to a Board of Directors.”
”Of course not,” laughed Janice. ”A mere Board of Directors hasn't half the sense of a lovely girl--nor half the judgment.”
”You're right!” cried Bowman, seriously. ”However, to get back to my men. They've got to put the brake on this drinking stuff, or I'll never get the job done. As long as the drink is right here handy in Polktown, I'm afraid many of the poor fellows will go on a spree every pay day.”
”It is too bad,” ventured Janice, warmly.
”I guess it is! For them and me, too!” said Bowman, shaking his head.
”Do you know, these fellows don't want to drink? And they wouldn't drink if there was anything else for them to do when they have money in their pockets. Let me tell you, Janice,” he added earnestly, ”I believe that if these fellows had it to vote on right now, they'd vote 'no license' for Polktown--yes, ma'am!”
”Oh! I wish we could _all_ vote on it,” cried Janice. ”I am sure more people in Polktown would like to see the bar done away with, than desire to have it continued.”
”I guess you're right!” agreed Bowman.
”But, of course, we 'female women,' as Walky calls us, can't vote.”
”There are enough men to put it down,” said Bowman, quickly. ”And it can come to a vote in Town Meeting next September, if it's worked up right.”
”Oh, Frank! Can we do that?”
”Now you've said it!” crowed the engineer. ”That's what I meant when I wondered if you had begun your campaign.”
”_My_ campaign?” repeated Janice, much flurried.
”Why, yes. You intimated the other night that you wanted the bar closed, and Walky has told all over town that you're 'due to stir things up,' as he expresses it, about this dram selling.”
”Oh, dear!” groaned Janice, in no mock alarm. ”My fatal reputation!
If my friends really loved me they would not talk about me so.”
”I'm afraid there is some consternation under Walky's talk,” said Bowman, seriously. ”He likes a dram himself and would be sorry to see the bar chased out of Polktown. I hope you can do it, Janice.”
”Me--_me_, Frank Bowman! You are just as bad as any of them. Putting it all on my shoulders.”
”The time is ripe,” went on the engineer, seriously. ”You won't be alone in this. Lots of people in the town see the evil flowing from the bar. Mrs. Thread tells me her brother would never have lost his job with Ma.s.sey if it hadn't been for Lem Parraday's rum selling.”
”Do you mean Jack Besmith?” cried Janice, startled.
”That's the chap. Mrs. Thread is a decent little woman, and poor Benny is harmless enough. But she is worried to death about her brother.”
Janice, remembering the condition of the ex-drug clerk when he left Polktown for the woods, said heartily: ”I should think she would be worried.”
”She tells me he tried to get back his job with Ma.s.sey on Friday night--the evening before he went off with Trimmins and Narnay. But I expect he'd got Mr. Ma.s.sey pretty well disgusted. At any rate, the druggist turned him down, and turned him down hard.”