IT is not to be counted against Mrs. Robert Fleming Ward that at forty-five she had begun to look backward a little wistfully and forward a little disconsolately and apprehensively. She was a good woman, indeed one of the best of women, loyal, conscientious and self-sacrificing in the highest degree. But she was poignantly aware that certain ambitions dear to her heart had not been realized. Robert Fleming Ward had not attained that high place at the Sycamore County bar which had been his goal, and he seemed unable to pull himself to the level with Canby Taylor and Addison Swiggert who practiced in federal jurisdictions and were not unknown to the docket of the United States Supreme Court.
Even as Mrs. Ward was a good woman, so her husband Robert was a good man and a good lawyer. But just being good wasn’t getting the Wards anywhere. At least it wasn’t landing them within the golden portals of their early dreams. To find yourself marking time professionally and socially in a town of seventy-five thousand souls, that you’ve seen grow from twenty-five thousand, is a disagreeable experience if you are a sensitive person. And Mrs. Ward was sensitive. It grieved her to witness the prosperity flaunted by people like the Picketts, the Shepherds, the Kirbys and others comparatively new to the community, who had impudently availed themselves of Sycamore County’s clay to make brick, and of its water power to turn the wheels of industries for which the old-time Kernville pioneer stock had gloomily predicted failure.
The Picketts, the Shepherds, the Kirbys and the rest of the new element had builded themselves houses that were much more comfortable and pleasing to the eye than the houses of the children and grandchildren of the old families that had founded Kernville away back when Madison was president. The heads of the respective brick, box, match, bottle, canning, and strawboard industries might be deficient in culture but they did employ good architects. The Wards lived in a house of the Queen Anne period, which it had been necessary to mortgage to send John Marshall through college and give Helen a year at a Connecticut finishing school. The Wards’ home had deteriorated to the point of dinginess, and the dinginess, and the inability to keep a car, or to return social favors, or belong to the new country club weighed heavily upon Mrs. Ward.
Her husband, with all his industry and the fine talents she knew him to possess, was making no more money at forty-seven than he had made at thirty-five. She was a little bewildered to find that socially she had gradually lost contact with the old aristocracy without catching step with the flourishing makers of brick and other articles of commerce that were carrying the fame of Kernville into new territory. And as Mrs. Ward was possessed of a pardonable pride, this situation troubled her greatly. They had been unable to send John to the Harvard Law School, but he had made a fine record in the school of the state university, and his name now appeared beneath his father’s on the door of the law office on the second floor of the old Wheatley block, which had been pretty well deserted by tenants now that Kernville boasted a modern ten-story office building.
John Ward was a healthy, sanguine young fellow who had every intention of getting on. Some of the friends he had made in law school threw him some business, and it was remarked about the courthouse that John had more punch than his father, and was bound to succeed. Half way through the trial of a damage suit in which the firm of Ward & Ward represented a plaintiff who had been run down by an inter-urban car, the senior Ward was laid up with tonsilitis, and John carried the case through and won a verdict for twice what the plaintiff had been led to believe he could possibly get.
Helen Ward was quite as admirable and interesting as her brother. The finishing school had done her no harm and she returned to Kernville without airs, assumptions or affectations, understanding perfectly that her parents had done the best they could for her. She was nineteen, tall and straight, fair, with an abundance of brown hair and blue-gray mirthful eyes. The growing inability of her mother to maintain a maid-of-all work, now that Kernville’s eligibles for domestic service preferred the eight-hour day of the factories to house work, did not trouble Helen particularly. She could cook, wash, iron, cut out a dress and sew it together and if the furniture was wobbly and the upholstery faded she was an artist with the glue-pot and her linen covers on the chairs gave the parlor a fresh smart look. The humor that was denied their parents was Helen’s and John’s portion in large measure. They were of the Twentieth Century, spoke its language and knew all its signs and symbols. They were proud of each other, shared their pleasures and consoled each other in their disappointments, and resolutely determined to make the best of a world that wasn’t such a bad place after all.
John reached home from the office on a day early in January and found Helen preparing supper.
“Great scott, sis; has that last girl faded already!”
“Skipped, vamoosed, vanished!” Helen answered, looking up from the gas range on which she was broiling a steak. “The offer of a dollar more a week transferred her to the Kirby’s, where she’ll have nothing to do but cook. The joke’s on them. She’s the worst living cook, and not even a success in hiding her failures.”
“I hope,” said John, helping himself to a stalk of celery and biting it meditatively, “I hope the Kirbys suffer the most frightful tortures before they die of indigestion. Haven’t invited us to the party they’re giving, have they?”
“Not unless our invitations got lost in the mails. And I hear it’s going to be a snappy function with the refreshments and a jazz band imported from Chicago.”
“Look here, sis, that’s rubbing it in pretty hard! I don’t care for myself, but it’s nasty of ’em to cut you. But in a way it’s an act of reprisal. Mother didn’t ask Mrs. Kirby and Jeannette to the tea she threw for that national federation swell just before Christmas. But even at that——”
“Oh, don’t be so analytical! We’re an old family and mama refuses to see any merit in people whose grandparents didn’t settle here before the Indians left. And as we haven’t the money to train with the ancient aristocracy, we’ve got to huddle on the sidelines. Pardon me, dear, but that’s a pound of butter you’re about to sit on! You might cut a slice and place it neatly on yonder plate.”
“Snobbery!” said John, as he cut the butter with exaggerated deliberation;—“snobbery is a malady, a disease. You can’t kill it; you’ve got to feed it its own kind of pabulum. It’s as plain as daylight that we’ve got to do something to get out of the hole or we’re stuck for good.”
“We might bore for oil in the back yard,” said Helen, scrutinizing the steak. “If we struck a gusher we could break into the country club and buy a large purple limousine like the Kirbys.”
“My professional engagements don’t exhaust my brain power at present, and I’m giving considerable thought to ways and means of improving our state, condition or status as a family of exalted but unrecognized merit.”
“You’re doing nobly, John! Tom Reynolds told me they were talking of running you for prosecuting attorney. That would give you a grand boost. And there’s Alice Hovey,—I understand all about that, John. I think you’re mistaken about the Hoveys not liking you.”
“Ah, Alice!” he exclaimed mockingly. “Papa and mama Hovey have quite other ideas for Alice; no penniless barrister need apply! But I won’t deny to you that I’m pretty keen about Alice, only when I go to the house the fond parents create a low temperature that is distinctly chilly. Listen to me, Helen,” he went on with an abrupt change of tone. “You and Ned Shepherd were hitting it off grandly when something happened. He’s a fine chap and I rather got the idea that you two would make a match of it.”
“Oh no!” she protested, quickly but unconvincingly as she transferred the steak to the platter.
“His family’s trying to switch him to Sally Pickett. He hasn’t been here lately, but you do see him occasionally?”
There were tears in her eyes as she swung round from the range.
“I’ve got to stop that, John! I’m ashamed of myself for meeting him as I’ve been doing—walking with him in the back streets and letting him talk to me over the telephone when mama isn’t round. I didn’t know——”
“Well, I just happened to spot you Monday evening, and I meant to speak to you about it. Not exactly nice, sis. I’m sorry about the whole business. Ned’s really a manly chap, and I don’t believe he’ll be bullied into giving you up.”
“All over now, John,” she answered with badly-feigned indifference.
“Well, the course of true love never did run smooth. Father and mother have done their almighty best for us, but changes have come so fast in this burg they haven’t been able to keep up with the procession. Father misses chances now and then, as in refusing the Pickett case when the State went after him for polluting the river with refuse from his strawboard mill. Dad thought the prosecution was justified and foolishly volunteered to assist the State as a public duty. Pickett lost and had to spend a lot of money changing his plant; so he’s knocked us whenever he got a chance.”
“That’s just like papa. I only wish we could do something really splendid for him and mama.”
“We’re going to, sis,” said John confidently. “Take it from me we’re going to do that identical thing. Now give me the potatoes and the coffee-pot. Precede me with the bread and butter. There’s mother at the front door now. Step high as to the strains of a march of triumph. We’ll give a fine exhibition of a happy family, one for all and all for one!”
Mrs. Ward, detained by a club committee meeting, began to apologize for not getting home in time to assist with the supper.
“Oh, John did all the heavy work! And we had a fine talk into the bargain,” Helen replied cheerfully.
As her father was tired and didn’t know the latest domestic had departed hence, she went on with an ironic description of the frailties and incapacity of that person and pictured the gloom of the Kirbys as they ate her initial meal. Mrs. Ward had brought the afternoon mail to the table. She was the corresponding secretary of a state federation which used the mails freely. She ate in silence, absorbed in her letters, while her husband praised Helen’s cooking.
Ward found a real joy in his children. It was not lost upon him that they were making the best of circumstances for which in a somewhat bewildered fashion he felt himself responsible. Their very kindness, their disposition to make the best of things, hurt him and deepened his growing sense of defeat. John began talking of a case they were to try shortly. He had found some decisions that supported the contention of their client. They were explaining it to Helen, who teased them by perversely taking the opposite view, when they were silenced by an exclamation from Mrs. Ward.
“Here’s news indeed! This is a note from Mrs. Campbell, the Ruth Sanders who was my best friend at school,—Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell,” she added impressively, looking round at them over her glasses. “It’s short; I’ll just read it:
“DEAREST IPHIGENIA:—
(“You know the girls at Miss Woodburn’s school always called me Iphigenia—due to a stupid answer I once gave in the literature class.)
“It’s so sweet of you to remember me year after year with a Christmas card. The very thought of you always brings up all the jolly times we had at Miss Woodburn’s. We parted with a promise to meet every year; and I have never set eyes on you since we sat side by side at the closing exercises! The class letter doesn’t come around any more, but your children must be grown up. Mine are very much so and getting married and leaving Walter and me quite forlorn.
(“Her daughter Angela married into that Thornton family of Rhode Island—or maybe it was the Connecticut branch—who are so terribly rich; made it in copper; no, I believe it was rubber.)
“Don’t be startled, but Mr. Campbell and I are planning to go to California next month, and as we have to pass right across your state, it seems absurd not to stop and see you. I’ve looked up the timetables and we can easily leave the Limited at Cleveland and run down to Kernville. Now don’t go to any trouble for us, but treat us just as old friends and if it isn’t convenient to stay with you for a night—we just must have a night to gossip about the old days—we can put up at the hotel. We shan’t leave here until February 17, but wishing to acknowledge your card—I never can remember to send Christmas cards—I thought I’d give you fair warning of our approach. Always, dear Iphigenia, your affectionate,
RUTH.”
“That’s a charming letter!” Helen volunteered, as her mother’s gaze invited approval of Mrs. Campbell’s graciousness in promising a visit. “She must be lovely!”
“Ruth was the dearest of all my girlhood friends! When she had typhoid and her family were in Europe I was able to do little things for her;—nothing really of importance—but she has never forgotten. She was so appreciative and generous and always wanted her friends to share her good times!”
All their lives John and Helen had heard their mother sing the praises of Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell, née Sanders, until that lady had assumed something of the splendor of a mythical figure in their imaginations. She had been the richest girl in the Hudson River school Mrs. Ward had attended, and she had married wealth. The particular Campbell of her choice had inherited a fortune which he had vastly augmented. When occasionally a New York newspaper drifted into the house Mrs. Ward scanned the financial advertisements for the name of Walter Scott Campbell set out in bold type as the director of the most august institutions.
“I suppose——” Mrs. Ward’s tone expressed awe in all its connotations;—“I suppose Mr. Campbell is worth fifty million at the lowest calculation. I met him years ago at one of the school dances. He was quite wild about Ruth then, and they were married, John, just a year before we were. I still have the invitation, and Ruth sent me a piece of the wedding cake. And from the photograph she sent me at Christmas two years ago, I judge that time has dealt lightly with her.”
“Campbell’s one of the most important men in Wall Street,” Ward assented. “One of his institutions, The Sutphen Loan & Trust, financed the Kernville Water Power Company, a small item of course for so big a concern. Campbell probably never heard of it.”
“Well, men of his calibre usually know where the dollars go,” said John, whose wits were functioning rapidly.
“Of course we simply can’t let them go to the hotel,” continued Mrs. Ward; “the Kipperly House is a disgrace. And if Ruth hasn’t changed a lot in twenty-six years she’ll accept us as she finds us. Our guest-room needs redecorating, and we can hardly keep the jackets on the parlor furniture right in the middle of winter; and the bathroom fixtures ought to be replaced——”
She paused, seeing the look of dejection on her husband’s face. He was well aware that all these things were old needs which the coming of important guests now made imperative. Mrs. Ward carefully thrust the note back into its envelope. John exchanged telegraphic glances with Helen. His eyes brightened with the stress of his thoughts but he buttered a bit of bread before he spoke.
“Well, mother,” he began briskly, “I’m sure we’re all tickled that your old friend’s coming. I can just see you sitting up all night talking of the midnight spreads you had, and how you fooled the teachers. Now don’t worry about the house—you or father, either; I’m going to manage that.”
“But, John, we mustn’t add to your father’s worries. I realize perfectly that we’re in debt and can’t spend money we haven’t got. Ruth was always a dear—so considerate of every one—and we’ll hope it’s me and my family and not the house she’s coming to see.”
“That’s all right, mother, but this strikes me as something more than a casual visit. I see in it the hand of Providence!” he cried eagerly.
“If they carry a maid and valet as part of their scenery we’re lost—hopelessly lost!” Helen suggested.
“Oh, not necessarily!” John replied. “We’ll stow ’em away somewhere. In a pinch, you and I can move to the attic. Anyhow, we’ve got a month to work in. When we begin to get publicity for the coming of the rich and distinguished Campbells, I miss my guess if things don’t begin to look a lot easier.”
“But, John,” his mother began, shaking her head with disapproval, “you wouldn’t do anything that would look—vulgar?”
“Certainly not, but the Sunday Journal’s always keen for news of impending visitors in our midst, and no people of the Campbells’ social and financial standing have ever honored our city with their presence. The president of the Transcontinental did park his private car in the yards last summer, but before the Chamber of Commerce could tackle him about building a new freight house he faded away.”
“Walter Scott Campbell is a director in the Transcontinental,” remarked Mrs. Ward. “I happened to see his name in the list when I looked up the name of the company’s secretary to send on the resolutions of the Women’s Municipal Union complaining of the vile condition of the depot.”
“Such matters are never passed on in the New York offices,” Ward suggested mildly. “Our business organizations have worked on the General Manager for years without getting anywhere.”
“Just a word, from a man of Mr. Campbell’s power will be enough,” replied John spaciously. “For another thing the train schedule ought to be changed to give us a local sleeper to Chicago. We’ll stir up the whole service of the Transcontinental when we get Walter here!”
“Walter!” exclaimed Mrs. Ward, aghast at this familiarity.
“Better call him Walt, John, to make him feel at home,” suggested Helen.
“The directors of the Water Power Company want to refund their bonds. I suppose Mr. Campbell could help about that,” Ward remarked, interested in spite of himself in the potentialities of the impending visit.
“But it would be a betrayal of hospitality,” Mrs. Ward protested, “and we mustn’t do anything to spoil their visit.”
“Oh, that visit’s going to be a great thing for Kernville! It grows on me the more I think of it,” said John loftily. “It’s our big chance to do something for the town. And the Campbells can’t object. They will pass on, never knowing the vast benefits they have conferred upon mankind.”
“Your imagination’s running away with you, John,” said his father. “With only one day here to renew their acquaintance with your mother they’ll hardly care to be dragged through the factories and over the railway yards.”
“While mother and Helen are entertaining Mrs. Campbell, we’ll borrow the largest car in town and show Walter the sights. And it will be up to us to prove to him that Kernville’s the best little town of the seventy-five thousand class in the whole rich valley of the Mississippi. All Walter will have to do will be to send a few wires in a casual manner to the right parties and everything the town needs will be forthcoming.”
“But why should we worry about the town when it isn’t worrying particularly about us?” asked Helen as she began to clear the table.
“I don’t quite follow you either,” said his mother. “You can’t, you really mustn’t——”
“Such matters are for the male of the species to grapple with. You and Helen arrange a tea or dinner or whatever you please, making something small and select of the function, and I’ll do all the rest.”
“In some way John and I will manage the money,” said Mr. Ward, slowly, and then catching a meaningful look in John’s eyes, he added with unwonted confidence: “Where there’s a will there’s a way. I want the Campbells’ visit to be a happy occasion. You are entitled to it, Margaret—you and Helen must get all the pleasure possible from meeting a woman of Mrs. Campbell’s large experience of life.”
“Mama will need a new frock,” said Helen, a remark which precipitated at once a lively debate with her mother as to which—if any item of her existing wardrobe would lend itself to the process of reconstruction. This question seemed susceptible of endless discussion, and was only ended by John’s firm declaration that there should be new raiment for both his mother and Helen.
“Father, we’ll show these upstarts from New York what real American women are like!”
“We shall be ruined!” cried Helen tragically, as she disappeared through the swing door with a pile of plates.
“Please, John, don’t do anything foolish,” his mother pleaded, but she smiled happily under the compulsion of his enthusiasm.
“Trust me for that!” he replied, laying his hands on her shoulders. “We’re all too humble; that’s what’s the matter with the Ward family. And for once I want you to step right out!”
He waved her into the sitting room and darted into the kitchen, where he threw off his coat and donned an apron.
“Crazy! You’ve gone plumb stark crazy!” said Helen, as she thrust her arms into the dishwater. “It’s cruel to raise mother’s hopes that way. You know well enough that as things are going we’re just about getting by, with the grocery bill two months behind and that eternal interest on the mortgage hanging over us like the well-known sword of Damocles.”
“The sword is in my hands!” declared John, balancing a plate on the tip of his finger. “How does that old tune go?
The Campbells are coming, tra la, tra la,
The Campbells are coming, tra la!
There’s a bit of Scotch in us, and I feel my blood tingle to those blithe martial strains! What’s the rule for drying dishes, sis? Do you make ’em shine like a collar from a Chinese laundry, or is the dull domestic finish in better form?”
“If you break that plate I’ll poison your breakfast coffee! If I didn’t know you for a sober boy I’d think you’d been keeping tryst with a bootlegger! You don’t seem to understand that you sat there at the table spending money like Midas on a spree. You couldn’t borrow a cent if you tried!”
“Borrow!” he mocked. “I’m going to pull this thing off according to specifications, and I’m not going to borrow a cent. I expect to be refusing offers of money gently but firmly within a week. Observe my smoke, dearest one! Watch my fleet sail right up to the big dam in Sycamore River laden like the ships of Tarshish that brought gifts of silver and gold and ivory, apes and peacocks for Solomon’s delight!”
“You’re not calling the Campbells apes and peacocks!”
“Not on your life! All those rich treasures will be yours and mine, O Helen of Kernville! The Campbells are rich enough. We’re not going to embarrass them by piling any more wealth on ’em. But the magic of the name of Walter Scott Campbell, if properly invoked, manipulated and flaunted will put us all on the high road to fame and fortune.”
“You’ll break mama’s heart if you begin bragging about her acquaintance with this woman she hasn’t seen for a quarter of a century! She’s already warned you against vulgar boasting.”
“Keep mother busy planning for the care and entertainment of our guests! I’ll hold father steady. This being Thursday I’ve got time enough to plan the campaign before Sunday. I’ll lay down a barrage and throw myself upon the enemy. To the cheering strains of ‘The Campbells are Coming!’ we’ll cross the valley of death and plant our flag on the battlements without a scratch or the loss of a man.”
By the time the kitchen was in order he had her laughing and quite won to his idea that it was perfectly legitimate to avail themselves fully of the great opportunity offered by the Campbells’ visit.
“Nothing undignified at all! The Campbells will never be conscious of my proceedings as they don’t read the Kernville papers and will linger only a day. By the way, it happens that Billy Townley, a fraternity brother of mine, has just been made city editor of the Journal and Billy and I used to pull some good stunts when we were together at the ’varsity. When I hiss the password in his ear and tell him I’ll need a little space daily for a few weeks he’ll go right down the line for me. And the boys on the Evening Sun are friends of mine, too. They have less space but they make up for it with bigger headlines.”
“You’re a dear boy, John, if you are crazy! I believe you can do most anything you tackle, and I’ll stand by you whether you land us in jail or in the poorhouse.”
“Bully for you, sis!” And then lowering his voice, “This chance may never come again! I’m going to wring every possible drop out of it even as you wring out that dish rag. By-the-way, if it isn’t impertinent, when did you see Ned last?”
“Not since the day you saw me walking with him—for the last time. But he telephoned this afternoon. He wanted to come up this evening.”
“Well, he’s of age and the curfew law can’t touch him. What was the answer?”
“I told him I wouldn’t be at home. I’m not going to have him calling here when his mother barely speaks to me! Ned didn’t say so, but I suspect she gave him a good scolding for taking me instead of Sally to the Seebrings’ dance.”
“How do you get that? If he didn’t tell you——!”
“Of course not! But Sally had to go with her mother and there were more girls than men; so Sally only had about half the dances and the rest of the time sat on the sidelines with her mother and Mrs. Kirby. I caught a look now and then that was quite suggestive of murder in the first degree.”
“Helen,” said John, lifting his eyes dreamily to the ceiling, “I’ll wager a diamond tiara against one of your delicious buckwheat cakes that you and I will get an invitation to the Kirby party.”
“Taken! The cards went out yesterday. I met some of the girls downtown this morning, and they were buzzing about it.”
“Let ’em buzz! Ours will probably come special delivery with a note of explanation that in copying the list or something of the kind we were regrettably omitted. And let me see,” he went on, rubbing his chin reflectively, “I rather think Ned will ask you to go to the party with him. It occurs to me that old man Shepherd owns some land he’s trying to sell to the Transcontinental, and the railway people are shy of it because it’s below the flood line on our perverse river. Yes; I think we may jar the Shepherds a little too.”
“Why, John!” she laughed as she hung up her apron, “you almost persuade me that you’ve already got free swing at the Campbell boodle!”
“I look at it this way, Helen. We can all spend our own money; it’s getting the benefit of other people’s money that requires genius. I must now step down to the public library and to the Journal office to get some dope on the Campbells. Also I’ll have to sneak mother’s photograph of Mrs. Campbell out of the house. A few illustrations will give tone to our publicity stuff.”
“Be bold, John, but not too bold!”
“‘The Campbells are coming, tra la!’” he sang mockingly, and spiking her hands, hummed the air and danced back and forth across the kitchen. “By jing, that tune’s wonderful for the toddle!” he cried exultantly. “We’ll make all Kernville step to it.”
“The point we want to hammer in is that we—the Ward family—are the only people in Sycamore county who are in touch with the Campbell power, social and financial,” John elucidated to his friend Townley. “Modest, retiring to the point of utter self-effacement as we, the Wards, are, no other family in the community has ever been honored by a visit from so big a bunch of assets. And when it comes to social prominence their coming will link Kernville right on to Newport where old Walter Scott Campbell owns one of the lordliest villas. Here’s a picture of it I found in ‘Summer Homes of Great Americans.’ We’ll feed in the pictorial stuff from time to time, using this photograph of Mrs. Campbell mother keeps on the upright at home, and that cut of Walter Scott I dug out of your office graveyard. Your record shows you ran it the time the old money-devil was indicted under the Sherman law for conspiracy against the peace and dignity of the United States in a fiendish attempt to boost the price of bathtubs. The indictment was quashed as to the said Walter because he was laid up with whooping cough when the wicked attack on the free ablutions of the American people was planned or concocted, and he denied all responsibility for the acts of his proxy.”
“You’ve got to hand it to that lad,” said Townley ruminatively. “Anything you can do to put me in the way of a soft snap as private secretary for his majesty would be appreciated. I’ve had considerable experience in keeping my friends out of jail and I might be of use to him.”
John rose early on Sunday morning to inspect his handiwork in the section of the Journal devoted to the goings and comings, the entertainments past and prospective and the club activities of Kernville. Townley had eliminated the usual group of portraits of the brides of the week that Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell’s handsome countenance might be spread across three columns in the center of the page. The photograph of Mrs. Campbell had been admirably reproduced, and any one informed in such matters would know instantly that she was the sort of woman who looks well in evening gowns and that her pearl necklace was of unquestionable authenticity.
The usual double column “lead” was devoted wholly to the announcement of the visit of the Walter Scott Campbells of New York and Newport to the Robert Fleming Wards of Kernville, with all biographical data necessary to establish the Campbells in the minds of intelligent readers as persons of indubitable eminence entitled to the most distinguished consideration in every part of the world. Mrs. Campbell, John had learned from “Distinguished American Women,” was a Mayflower descendant, a Colonial Dame and a Daughter of the Revolution, besides being a trustee of eighteen separate and distinct philanthropies, and all these matters were impressively set forth. Mr. Campbell’s clubs in town and country required ten lines for their recital. Any jubilation over the coming of so much magnificence was neatly concealed under the generalization that the horizon of Kernville was rapidly widening and that there was bound to be more and more communication between New York and Kernville. Mrs. Ward, the article concluded, had not yet decided in just what manner she would entertain for the Campbells, but the representative people of the city would undoubtedly have an opportunity to meet her guests.
“The first gun is fired!” John whispered, thrusting the paper through Helen’s bed-room door. “Read and ponder well!”
Mrs. Ward read the announcement aloud at the breakfast table as soberly as though it were a new constitution for her favorite club.
“That Miss Givens who does the society news for the Journal has more sense than I gave her credit for,” she said. “There isn’t a word in that piece that isn’t true. But that portrait of Ruth is a trifle too large; you ought to have warned them about that! When Tetrazzini sang here they didn’t print her picture half as big as that.”
“Well, mother, the Journal simply begged for a photograph. People of note don’t mind publicity. They simply eat it up!”
“Well, the article is really very nice,” said Mrs. Ward, “but I hope they won’t say anything more until the Campbells arrive.”
John, aware that several columns more bearing upon the Campbell visit were already in type in the Journal office, was grateful to Helen for changing the subject to a pertinent discussion of the proper shade of wall paper for the guest-room.
On Tuesday the Journal’s first page contained a news-article on the crying need of enlarged railway facilities, adroitly written to embody the hope of the transportation committee of the Chamber of Commerce, that when Mr. Walter Scott Campbell of the board of directors of the Transcontinental paid his expected visit to the city he would take steps to change the reactionary policy of the road’s operating department. The same article stated with apparent authority that Robert Fleming Ward, the well-known attorney, whose guest Mr. Campbell would be, had pledged himself to assist the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce to the utmost in urging Kernville’s needs upon the great capitalist.
“See here, John, you’ve got to be careful about this Campbell business!” Mr. Ward’s tone was severe. “I know without your telling me you inspired that piece in this morning’s paper. Campbell never saw me in his life and that article gives the impression that he and I are old cronies. It’s going to cause us all a lot of embarrassment. It won’t do!”
“Sorry if it bothers you, father; but there’s nothing untrue in that article. You’ll be the only man in town who can get Campbell’s ear. If he refuses to interest himself in a new freight house and that sort of thing, that’s his affair.”
The stenographer knocked to announce Mr. Pickett.
“Say to him,” replied John, indifferently, “that we are in conference but he can see us in just a moment.”
“Pickett!” exclaimed Ward, senior, as the door closed. “What on earth brings him here!”
“The Campbells are coming,” replied John with a grin. “Pickett’s president of the Water Power Company, and he wants to line us up to get Campbell interested in making a new bond deal.”
“Humph! If that’s what he wants I like his nerve. We don’t even speak when we meet.”
“You’ll be speaking now! Let’s go out and give him the glad hand of brotherly greeting.”
A little diffident at first, Wesley T. Pickett warmed under the spell of the Wards’ magnanimity.
“I’ve regretted very much our little differences——” he began.
“There’s no feeling on our side at all, Mr. Pickett,” John declared and his father, a little dazed, murmured his acquiescence in this view of the matter, and eyed with interest a formidable bundle of documents in Pickett’s hands.
“Fact is,” remarked Pickett, with a sheepish grin as he re-crossed his legs, “you were dead right on that matter of the pollution of the river. Swiggert probably did the best he could with our defense but you were right when you told me I’d save money and avoid arousing hostile feeling in the community by pleading guilty.”
“It’s always disagreeable to be obliged to tell a man he hasn’t a good case,” Ward announced.
“Well, I want you to know I respect you for your honesty. Swiggert encouraged me to think he might get us off on some technical defect in the statute, and it cost me a two thousand dollar fee to find he was wrong.”
“The point he raised was an interesting one,” Ward remarked mildly, “and he might have made it stick.”
“But he didn’t!” Pickett retorted a little savagely. “Now I got a matter I want the God’s truth about, absolutely. It’s a row I’ve got into with a few of my stockholders in the glass company. The fools got the idea of freezing me out! It’s all in these papers, and I want you to give it all the time it needs, but I want an opinion,—no more than you can get on a letter sheet. Swiggert uses too many words and I’ve got to have a yes or no.”
The thought of being frozen out caused Mr. Pickett to swell with indignation. He turned from father to son in an unvoiced but eloquent appeal to be saved from so monstrous and impious an assault upon his dignity.
“Certainly, Mr. Pickett,” said the senior Ward, accepting the papers. “We’ll be glad to take up the matter. It’s possible I may have to ask some questions——”
“That will be all right, Ward! I don’t mind telling you I’m a good deal worried about this thing. I’m at the Elks Club most every noon, and if you’ll just ’phone when you’re ready to see me we can have lunch together. Now, I guess a retainer’s the usual thing. What do you say to a thousand or two?”
John with difficulty refrained from screaming that two would be much more to the taste of the firm, but his father’s gentle and slightly tremulous murmur that one thousand would be satisfactory stilled him. The check written with a flourish, lay on the edge of Ward senior’s desk while Pickett abused the enemies who were trying to wrest from him the control of the glass company.
“I’m familiar with the general question you indicate,” said Ward, senior; “I went into it a while back in a similar case for a client in Newton county; we shall give it our best attention.”
“I got confidence in you!” blurted Pickett. “That’s why I brought the job here.” He thrust a big cigar into his mouth and began feeling in his pocket for a match which John instantly supplied.
“Notice by the paper,” remarked Pickett, “that Campbell of the Transcontinental’s comin’ out. If you could arrange it, I’d like a chance to talk to him about the Water Power bonds the Sutphen Trust’s handled for us. I went to New York a couple of weeks ago to see about refunding and I couldn’t get near anybody but the fourth vice president. Wouldn’t want to bother you, but if I could just get a chance at Campbell and show him the plant——”
“I’m sure that can be arranged very easily,” John answered quickly, noting a look of apprehension on his father’s face. “It will be a pleasure to arrange a meeting for you.”
“I’d particularly appreciate it,” said Pickett, shaking hands with both of them; and John accompanied him to the head of the stairway, where they shook hands again.
“You don’t think,” asked Ward, senior, looking up from Pickett’s papers, which he had already spread out on his desk,—“you don’t really think the Campbells had anything to do with this——”
“Not a thing, dad!” John replied gayly. “I’ll just call up Helen and tell her to go ahead with the redecorating and other things necessary to put our house in order for royalty!”
John had deposited Pickett’s check and was crossing the lobby of the Kernville National when he met Jason V. Kirby leaving the officers’ corner.
“Hello, John!” exclaimed the brick manufacturer affably. “Haven’t seen you round much of late. Funny I ran into you; just going up to see you. You know Taylor’s my lawyer, but he’s in Chicago trying a long case, and I got an abstract of title I’m in a hurry to have examined. Glad if you or your father would pass on it. Farm I’m buying out in Decatur township.”
“Certainly, Mr. Kirby; we can give it immediate attention,” John replied as though it were a common occurrence for him to pick up business in this fashion.
To Kirby’s suggestion that if he didn’t mind he might walk over to the brick company’s office and get the abstract, John answered that he didn’t mind in the least. The abstract was bulky, and John roughly estimated that a report on it would be worth at least a hundred dollars. Kirby explained that the land was needed for the extension of the brick business and that he had taken a ten-day option to keep a rival company from picking it up.
“Look here, John,” remarked Kirby carelessly, as John started off with the abstract in his pocket, “I see that the Campbells are coming out to visit your folks. Don’t let ’em overlook Kirby brick. We’re reachin’ right out for New York business.”
“Certainly, Mr. Kirby. Father has it in mind to take Mr. Campbell for an inspection of all our industries, and I’ll give you the tip so you can be all set to show off your plant.”
“Occurs to me Campbell might make a short speech to our workmen; just a nice friendly jolly, you understand.”
“That will be perfectly simple, Mr. Kirby. Trust me to arrange it.”
When John and his father reached home, Helen fell upon her brother’s neck.
“I’ve lost that wager! We’re invited!”
“Ah! The poison is at work, is it? Did it come special post, or did their dusky Senegambian bear the cards hither upon a golden plate?”
“Neither! Mrs. Kirby and Jeannette called and left them personally. I was making bread when they arrived but I had the presence of mind to shed my apron on my way to the door to let them in. Mother was darning socks but she came down and they stayed so long the bread burned to a cinder.”
“A few loaves of bread are nothing—nothing!”
“But, John, dear, I think maybe——” began Mrs. Ward, uncertainly and paused, noting that her husband was emptying a satchel of important looking papers as though he expected to spend the evening at work. He appeared more cheerful than she had seen him in years.
“Better let John have his way,” said Ward, senior. “The Campbells are driving business into the office and we’re not going to turn it away.”
“It’s your ability that’s bringing the business; you’ve always been a bigger man than Taylor or Swiggert!” declared Mrs. Ward, when the day’s events had been explained to her.
“We’ll pretend that’s it anyhow,” Ward assented. “There’s a mighty interesting question in that case of Pickett’s. You may be sure I’m going to give it my best care.”
“I’m so proud of you, Robert!”
“Be proud of John,” he laughed; “the boy’s bound to make or ruin us in these next few weeks.”
It was astonishing the number of ways in which the prospective visit of the Campbells became a matter of deep concern to Kernville. Billy Townley had entered with zest into John’s campaign, and Martin Cowdery, the owner of the Journal and the congressman from the district, wired instructions from Washington to cut things loose on the Campbell visit. Under the same potent inspiration the Journal’s venerable editorial writer took a vacation from his regular business of explaining and defending the proprietor’s failure to land a fish hatchery for the old Sycamore district and celebrated the approach of the Campbells under such captions as “The Dawn of a New Era,” and “Stand up, Kernville.” He called loudly upon the mayor, who was not of the Journal’s politics, to clean the streets that their shameful condition might not offend the eyes and the nostrils of the man of millions who was soon to honor the city with his presence.
The Sun, not to be outdone, boldly declared that Campbell was coming to Kernville as the representative of interests that were seeking an eligible site for a monster steel casting plant, an imaginative flight that precipitated a sudden call for a meeting of the Bigger Kernville Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and the expenditure of fifteen dollars with war tax to wire a set of resolutions to Walter Scott Campbell. A five-line dispatch in the press report announcing that Walter Scott Campbell had given half a million toward the endowment of a hospital in Honolulu was handled as a local item, quite as though Kernville alone vibrated to Campbell’s generous philanthropies.
“Helen, we’ve got ’em going!” John chortled at the beginning of the second week. “Three automobile agents have offered me the biggest cars in their show rooms to carry the Campbells hither and yon. I’m encouraging competition for the honor. The Chamber of Commerce wants to give a banquet with speeches and everything for our old friend Walter. Old man Shepherd climbed our stairs today, risking apoplexy at every step, to ask as a special favor that the Chamber be granted this high privilege.”
“Ned’s asked me to go to the Kirby party with him,” confessed Helen. “The embargo seems to be off.”
“Ha!” cried John dramatically. “Mrs. Hovey called me up to request my presence at dinner Wednesday night. Alice has a friend visiting her. Alice with the hair so soft and so brown, as stated in the ballad, is the dearest girl in the world next to you, sis; no snobbery about her; but her mama! Ah, mama has seen a great light in the heavens!”
The population of Kernville was now divided into two classes, those who would in all likelihood be permitted to meet the Campbells, and those who could hardly hope for this coveted privilege. The Journal followed a picture of the Campbells’ Newport villa, fortified with a glowing description of its magnificence, with a counterfeit presentment of the White Gull, which had almost the effect of anchoring the Campbells’ seagoing yacht in the muddy Sycamore at the foot of Harrison street.
“The yacht’s the biggest thing we’ve pulled yet,” John announced to Helen, a few days after the craft’s outlines had been made familiar to the Journal’s constituency. “Since we sprung it our office has drawn four good cases, not including the collection business of the Tilford Casket Company, which ought to be good for a thousand bucks a year if the death rate in the rich valley of the Sycamore doesn’t go down on us.”
“It’s wonderful, John!” said Helen, in an awed tone. “Mrs. Montgomery spent an hour with mother this afternoon talking of the good old times, and how all us old families must stand together, and she insisted on throwing a tea for Mrs. Campbell—just for our old friends—you know how she talks! She’d no sooner rolled away than Mrs. Everett Crawford invaded our home and interfered terribly with the paper hangers while she begged to be allowed to give a dinner for the Campbells in the new home they’ve built with boodle they’ve made canning our native fruits.”
“Splendid! There may be some business there before we get through with it! Young Freddie Crawford is the gayest of our joy riders, and it would be worth a big retainer to keep him out of the penal farm.”
A second stenographer had been established in the office of Ward & Ward to care for the increased business when Cowdery left the halls of Congress for a look at his fences, held conferences with John in an upper room of the Kipperly House, sacred to political conspiracy, and caused the Journal forthwith to launch a boom for John Ward for prosecuting attorney subject to the decision of the April primaries.
“Look here, little brother,” said Helen, coming in from a dance to which Ned Shepherd had taken her, and finding John in the sitting room at work on one of the new cases that had been bestowed upon Ward & Ward, “we’ve got to put on brakes.”
“What’s troubling you, sis? Isn’t everybody treating you all right?”
“A queen couldn’t receive more consideration! But what’s worrying me is how we’re ever going to satisfy these silly people. If all the plutocrats in New York should come to visit us we couldn’t spread them around in a way to please all our fellow townsmen. We’re certainly in the lime light! People were buzzing me tonight about the prosecutorship—say you’ll win in a walk. But tell me what you think Cowdery’s going to expect from you in return. Does he want to shake the Campbell cherry tree?”
John eyed her with philosophical resignation.
“Now that you’ve been enfranchised by the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of this more or less free republic, you must learn to view matters with a mind of understanding. Cowdery hankers for a promotion to the senate. If the accursed money interests of the nation are persuaded that he is not a menace to the angels of Wall street they can sow some seed over the rich soil of this noble commonwealth that will be sure to bear fruit. There’s a lot of Eastern capital invested in the state and a word carelessly spoken by the right persons, parties or groups in tall buildings in New York and a substantial corruption fund sent out from the same quarter will do much to help Cowdery through the primary. In me, sweet child, Cowdery sees a young man of great promise, who can hitch the powerful Campbell to his wagon.”
“And if you can’t do the hitching——?”
“Been giving thought to that, sis. Those resolutions the enterprising Bigger Kernville Committee sent Campbell annoy me a great deal. We can only hope that Walter has a sense of humor. The Journal’s got a new untouched photograph of him from somewhere and the boy looks cheerful. He has a triple chin and there are lines around his eyes and mouth that argue for a mirthful nature. The rest, dearest, is on the knees of the gods!”
It was in the third week of Mr. John Marshall Ward’s vigorous campaign of education that Walter Scott Campbell, in his office in New York, tossed the last of the letters he had been answering to his stenographer and rang for his secretary.
A pale young man entered and waited respectfully for the magnate to look up from the newspaper clippings he was scanning.
“Parker, where the deuce did you get this stuff?” Campbell asked.
“They came in our usual press clipping service. Your order covers the better papers in the larger towns where you have interests. It’s not often I find anything worth showing you.”
“Well, don’t let me miss anything like this!” replied Campbell with a chuckle.
He unfolded a page that had been sent complete, being indeed the society page of the Kernville Morning Journal of the previous Sunday. Campbell chuckled again, much to the relief of the pale secretary, who feared he might have brought to his employer’s attention some news of evil omen. Campbell continued to read, chuckling as he rapidly turned over the cuttings.
“You look a little run down, Parker,” he remarked affably. “A change of air would do you good. Give Miss Calderwood my calendar of appointments and any data I may need in the next few days, and take the first train for Kernville. Study this stuff carefully and find out what it’s all about. There are some resolutions from the Kernville Chamber of Commerce about a site for a steel casting plant. Curious about that! Must have been a leak somewhere. We discussed possible locations in that secret conference at Pittsburgh last week, but Kernville wasn’t mentioned. But that town, with its water power, might possibly be just right. Give it a looking over, but be very guarded in all your inquiries. And learn all you can about these Wards, father and son.”
“Yes, Mr. Campbell,” and Parker glanced at his watch.
“Mrs. Ward is an old friend of Mrs. Campbell—you understand. There’s an old attachment and an obligation, as I remember. Mrs. Ward was exceedingly kind to Mrs. Campbell back in their school-days when my wife was ill. She has never forgotten it.”
“My inquiries as to the Wards are to be made in a sympathetic spirit? I understand, sir!”
“We are scheduled to stop at Kernville for a day on our way to California—is that right?”
“Yes, Mr. Campbell. Your car is ordered attached to the Transcontinental Limited leaving at five twenty-one on Tuesday, February seventeen.”
“Take several days to this investigation. Learn what you can of these people, the town itself and so on. All this whoop and hurrah out there is unusual. Most amusing thing that’s turned up since they wanted me to go out to some town in that neighborhood and preside at a barbecue. What place was that?”
“Scottsburg, Indiana, during the campaign of 1916,” replied the invaluable Parker.
“A great people, those of the Middle West,” remarked Mr. Campbell reflectively. “As the phrase goes, you’ve got to hand it to them. That’s all, Parker.”
Mr. Elwell Parker had frequently played the role of confidential investigator for Walter Scott Campbell, and established the following evening at the Kipperly House he began his labors with his usual intelligence, thoroughness and discretion. Within twenty-four hours there was little pertaining to the Wards, the social or business conditions of Kernville that he did not know. Twenty-four hours more sufficed for his complete enlightenment as to the thriving city’s advantages as a manufacturing point, the value and possibilities of its water power, and the financial and moral status of its leading citizens. He thereupon wrote a report, condensed it with faculties that had been trained in the ways of Walter Scott Campbell, and then imparted it by telephone to the magnate.
The famous Campbell chuckle rewarded the secretary several times. The idea that the son of his wife’s quondam schoolmate was shaking the foundations of Kernville to bring the inhabitants to a realization of the high condescension of the Walter Scott Campbells in visiting their city with resulting benefits to the firm of Ward & Ward, tickled Walter Scott enormously.
“Very good, Parker! Come back at your convenience. Subscribe for the local papers in your name. We don’t want to overlook anything!”
The Campbells’ visit was still ten days distant when John, rising in the Sycamore Circuit Court to ask for an injunction against certain persons who were removing gravel from the pits of a company that had lately carried its business to Ward & Ward, was interrupted by the bailiff who handed him a telegram.
“If your honor please——?” said John, bowing deferentially toward the person of the court.
The judge nodded, not a little impressed as the young attorney tore open the envelope and scanned the message, which read:
Have recommended your firm to certain corporations in which I am interested to counsel them in legal and business matters affecting your city. Please feel no compulsion to accept their commissions if not wholly agreeable to you.
W. S. CAMPBELL.
John thrust the message carelessly into his trousers’ pocket, straightened his shoulders and proceeded with a terse explanation of the injury inflicted upon his client and the grounds upon which he sought the immediate relief of a restraining order.
The order was granted and in the midst of a parley over the amount of bond to be given by the petitioner the bailiff delivered into John’s hands three more telegrams, one from the Sutphen Loan & Trust Company, another from The Ironsides Steel Casting Company, another from the general manager of the Transcontinental Lines west of Buffalo.
The message of the Sutphen Loan & Trust Company stated that it was sending an engineer to examine the plant of the Sycamore Water Power Company and would appreciate such confidential assistance as Ward & Ward might give him as to the personnel of the corporation. One of the vice-presidents of the steel casting company wished to make an appointment with Ward & Ward at the earliest date possible, letter of explanation to follow; matter strictly confidential. The Transcontinental official would reach Kernville shortly to take up the matter of certain improvements, and wished a conservative estimate of the local needs uninfluenced by the Chamber of Commerce or owners of property that might be needed in extensions. Matter confidential; letter to follow; please wire answer.
Ward, senior, with law books overflowing upon the floor from his desk, heard John’s report of his success in protecting the gravel pits, read the telegrams, and asked hoarsely:
“Are we crazy, John, or has the whole world gone mad?”
“Nothing of the kind! We’ve been discovered; that’s all! Campbell’s a man of discernment, and he’s spotted us as the solidest and most trustworthy citizens and lawyers of the Sycamore valley. Though all these messages are addressed to me, it’s the brains of the firm he’s recommending and that’s you. I’m only the field man and business getter.”
“You certainly get the business, son! Not counting anything we may get out of those people Campbell’s sending us, we’ve got at least twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of business on the books right now!”
“Don’t look so scared, dad! We’re handling it all right. Within a week I’ve turned down four divorce cases and a breach of promise suit with love letters I’d rejoice to read to a farmer jury! Pick and choose; that’s our motto! Where are the papers in Shipton versus Hovey. I’m getting a settlement there that will save Hovey about ten thousand bucks, and I want to tell him about it when I go up to see Alice tonight. I’ll now wire our thanks to Campbell and date up these people he’s sending to see us. Those wise guys that run the Chamber of Commerce are going to be frantic when they find the hope of a bigger Kernville lies right here in our office.”
“I never expected a simple tea would cause so much trouble!” exclaimed Mrs. Ward at the dinner table five days before the day set for the Campbell visit. “I’ve simply got to send out the cards tomorrow!”
“Let me see that list again,” said John. “It’s first rate as it stands. You’ve put in all our new clients and that’s the main thing. But if Mrs. Shepherd is to pour chocolate, you’ll have to affix Mrs. Hovey to the tea pot to prevent hard feeling. I’ve got everything all set with Townley to make a big spread of Helen’s engagement to Ned and mine to Alice next Sunday.”
“Please don’t be too noisy about it,” pleaded Helen. “Since you began boosting the family I’m ashamed to look at the papers.”
“Circulation of both sheets has gone up, sis. Everybody in the Sycamore valley’s on tip-toe for news of the Wards and Campbells. Tomorrow the Journal will print exclusive information from our office that the mighty Ironsides corporation is to build a plant here. The happy word that the railroad yards are to be doubled and the shops enlarged will come from headquarters, but father will be interviewed to make sure we get the credit.”
“I think I understand everything,” said Helen gazing musingly at the engagement ring of which she had been the happy possessor for just twenty-four hours, “except how Mr. Campbell began sending those important people to you and father. You might almost think it was a joke of some kind.”
“The joke certainly isn’t on us! I’ve decided to turn down the nomination for prosecutor. As things are going I’d be a fool to sacrifice my private practice for a public job. The general counsel of the Transcontinental’s feeling us out as to whether we’ll take the local attorneyship of that rascally corporation. Canby Taylor’s had it for twenty years, and it would be some triumph to add it to our string of scalps.”
The invitation list, rigidly revised and cut to one hundred, was finally acceptable to all the members of the family, and Helen and John had begun to address the envelopes when this task was interrupted by the delivery of a telegram.
“It’s for you, mother,” said Helen, taking the envelope from the capped and aproned housemaid who had been installed in the household against the coming of the Campbells.
Mrs. Ward adjusted her glasses and settled herself to read with the resigned air of one inured to the idea that telegrams are solely a medium for communicating bad news.
“What is it, mother? Somebody dead?” asked John without looking up from the envelope he was addressing to The Hon. and Mrs. Addison Swiggert.
“Worse!” murmured Mrs. Ward, staring vacantly.
“Nothing can be worse!” ejaculated Helen, catching the bit of paper as it fell fluttering to the floor. “The Campbells are not coming!” she gasped.
“Not coming!” faltered Robert Fleming Ward, throwing down a brief he was studying.
“Read it, for heaven’s sake!” commanded John.
Helen, with difficulty bringing her eyes to meet the dark tidings, began to read:
So sorry we are obliged to change our plans and cannot pay you the visit to which we had looked forward with so much pleasure——
“It’s horrible! It’s positively tragic,” sobbed Mrs. Ward, groping for her handkerchief.
“Hurry on, Helen!” ordered John. “There’s a lot more of it.”
Walter feels that he ought to attend a conference of Southern bankers unexpectedly called for February eighteen at Baltimore, and we are obliged to defer the California trip indefinitely. However, we are going down in the yacht and Walter has happily solved the whole problem by insisting that you all come to New York and make the cruise with us.
“Glory! glory hallelujah!” John shouted.
The yacht is big enough to be comfortable for even a poor sailor like me, so we can have a cosy time together. We want your husband, son and daughter to come of course, and you will be our guests throughout the journey. The Manager of the Transcontinental will put his private car at your disposal. Do wire at once that you will come. With much love.
RUTH CAMPBELL.
“Can you beat it! Can you beat it!” cried John.
“After all this talk—and the publicity and everything——” his mother began plaintively.
“And all these people who’ve brought us business in the hope of meeting the Campbells and getting favors from him!” his father added hopelessly.
“My dear parents!” cried John pleadingly, flinging up his arm with a dramatic gesture he had found effective in commanding the attention of juries,—“my dear parents, nothing could be more fortunate! If the Campbells had come we’d have been hard put to please all these people who want the joy of shaking big money by the hand. The old boy very shrewdly switched all these business matters to father and me to handle so we’ve already got about everything Kernville needs, and we’ve done it in a way that makes us the best advertised law firm in the state.”
“But the humiliation——” his mother began in a hoarse whisper.
“Humiliation nothing!” John caught her up. “Don’t you realize that an announcement that the Campbells are sending a private car to haul us down to their yacht will make the biggest hit of all! And you’re going, mother—and you, Helen; and father’s got to go, too! You all deserve it, and I’ll stay right here and bask in the warm radiance of your grandeur while the White Gull rides the waves.”
“You think, then, the change won’t ruin everything?” his mother asked with a gulp.
“John’s perfectly right!” declared Helen. “The Campbell name has already worked magic in our lives and through us done wonders for Kernville. It will be glorious to sail in a yacht! They didn’t need to ask us, and nothing could be friendlier or more cordial than that telegram.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Ward assented. “But I can’t possibly leave right now. There’s that Lindley coal case coming up for trial next week, and John’s not familiar with it.”
“Yes, my dear father, but when you ask for a postponement on the perfectly legitimate ground that Walter Scott Campbell wants you to go yachting with him, that case will be set forward and you will acquire much merit in the eyes of the court! You’ll need a couple of white flannel suits and some rubber-soled shoes, but you can pick them up in New York. Really this change of plans is the biggest thing of all. Take this pad, mother, and write your acceptance, carefully expressing my deep regret that owing to pressure of professional duties I am unable to leave.”
The announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell had been obliged to postpone their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fleming Ward until spring, but that Mr. and Mrs. Ward and Miss Helen were to cruise with them in the White Gull did not fail of the impression which John had predicted such a revelation would make upon his fellow citizens. A yacht that would sail the winter seas was a challenge to the imagination of home-keeping folk whose most daring adventure upon the deep was an occasional cruise in an excursion steamer on the Great Lakes.
Kernville was proud of the Wards, and so many citizens of both genders expressed their affection with flowers that the car in which the trio set out for New York looked like a bridal bower.
Ned Shepherd and Alice Hovey were at the station with John to see them off and several hundred other citizens looked on with mingled emotions of admiration and envy. The Journal’s photographer caught an excellent picture of Mrs. Ward and Helen, their arms full of roses, standing on the rear platform as the train pulled out.
“That boy of yours,” remarked Walter Scott Campbell, as he sat with Robert Fleming Ward in the smoking room of the White Gull as the yacht felt her way cautiously up Chesapeake Bay,—“That boy must be a good deal of a lad. Even at long range you can feel his energy and enterprise.”
“He’s a good boy,” Ward agreed diffidently, “and full of ginger. I get out of breath trying to keep up with him.”
Campbell chuckled. “Knows a chance when he sees it.” Another Campbell chuckle. “I like youngsters of that type. He’s profited of course by your own long experience in the law?”
“He’s as good a lawyer as I am now—more resourceful, and a better hand in dealing with people.”
“That boy knows more than the law,” declared Campbell with another chuckle. “He knows human nature!”
As their eyes met Ward’s face broke into a smile as he realized that Campbell understood everything, and was not at all displeased at the outrageous fashion in which John had used his name.
“You know of Gaspard & Collins, in New York?” asked the magnate. “They do a good deal of my legal work. They’re looking for a young man, westerner preferred, to go into the firm, and it just occurs to me that your John would just suit them. I can understand how you would feel about losing him, but it’s a good opportunity to get in touch with important affairs. Talk it over with your wife, and if you think well of the idea you can wire him tomorrow. It’s a fair night; let’s go on deck and watch the lights.”