The Gay Cockade
her as lovely in his long car and a fur coat. And he hoped to make his
dreams come true.
Tommy had set aside all selfish hopes. He had a feeling that Jane liked
O-liver. He loved them both. If he could not have Jane he wanted O-liver
to have her. He kept a wary eye therefore on Henry and Atwood.
It was Tommy who found out first about Fluffy Hair. She had never cared
to have the world know of her marriage. She had felt that those who
loved her on the screen would prefer her fancy free. But it was known at
the studio, and some one drifting up to Tinkersfield recognized O-liver
and told Tommy.
Tommy for once in his life was stern. "He oughta of told Jane.
Somebody's got to tell her."
So the next day he took it on himself--feeling a traitor to his friend.
"Jane," he said, sitting on a high stool in her little sandwich
shop--"Jane, O-liver's married."
Jane on the other side of the spotless counter gave him her earnest
glance. "Yes," she said; "he told me."
"He did? Well, I'm glad. It wasn't a thing to keep, was it?"
"No," said Jane; "it wasn't. But you mustn't blame him, Tommy, and now
that we both know, everything is all right, isn't it?"
"Yes," Tommy agreed; "if Tillotson doesn't get hold of it."
For it had been decided that O-liver was to run against Tillotson in the
next election, and beat him if he could.
O-liver had told Jane about his marriage on the night before Tommy came
to her. He had asked her to ride with him. "If you'll go this afternoon
at four you shall have Mary Pick, and I'll take Tommy's horse."
They had carried their lunch with them and had eaten it at sunset in a
lovely spot where the canon opened out to show a shining yellow stretch
of sea, with the hills like black serpents running into it.
Yet it was dark, with the stars above them and the sea a faint gray
below, before O-liver said to her what he had brought her there to say.
He told her of his father and mother. Of Fluffy Hair.
"I waked up at last to the fact that I was letting two women support me.
So I came here and began to work at fifteen dollars a week. And for the
first time in my life I respected myself--and was content. And then I
met you and saw things ahead. You made me see them."
He turned toward her in the dark. "Jane, I'm finding that I love
you--mightily." He tried to speak lightly. "And I'm not free. And
because I love you I've got to keep away. But I want you to understand
that my friendship is the same--that it will always be the same. But
I've got to keep away."
She was very honest about it. "I didn't dream that you felt like
that--about me."
"No, you wouldn't. That's a part of your splendidness. Never taking
anything to yourself. Jane, will you believe this--that what I may be
hereafter will be because of you? If I ever do a big thing or a fine
thing it will be because I came upon you that night with your head high
and that rabble round you. You were light shining into the darkness of
Tinkersfield. Jove, I wish I were a painter to put you on canvas as you
were that night!"
They had ridden down later under the stars, and as they had stood for a
moment overlooking the lights of the little town O-liver had said: "I
make my big speech to-morrow night to beat Tillotson. I want you to be
there. Will you? If I know you are there somewhere in the dark I shall
pour out my soul--to you."
Was it any wonder that Jane, talking to Tommy the next morning about
O-liver, felt her pulses pounding, her cheeks burning? She had lain
awake all night thinking of the things he had said to her. It seemed a
very big and wonderful thing that a man could love her like that. As
toward morning the moonlight streamed in and she still lay awake she
permitted herself to let her mind dwell for a moment on what her future
might mean if he were in it. She was too busy and healthy to indulge in
useless regrets. But she knew in that moment in the moonlight if he was
not to be in her future no other man would ever be.
VIII
O-liver's speech was made in the open. There was a baseball park in
Tinkersfield, bounded at the west end by a grove of eucalyptus. With
this grove as a background a platform had been erected. From the
platform the rival candidates would speak. At this time of the year it
would be daylight when the meeting opened. Tillotson was not to speak
for himself. He had brought a man down from San Francisco, a big
politician with an oily tongue. O-liver would of course present his own
case. The thing, as Atwood told Henry, promised to be exciting.
Jane came with Tommy. There was a sort of rude grand stand opposite the
platform, and she had a seat well up toward the top. She wore a white
skirt, a gray sweater and a white hat. She had a friendly smile for the
people about her. And they smiled back. They liked Jane.
O-liver spoke first. Bare-headed, slender, with his air of eternal
youth, he was silhouetted against the rose red of the afterglow.
When he began he led them lightly along paths of easy thought. He got
their attention as he had so often got it in front of the post-office.
He made them smile, he made them laugh, he led them indeed finally into
roaring laughter. And when he had brought them thus into sympathy he
began with earnestness to speak of Tinkersfield.
Jane, leaning forward, not missing a word, felt his magnetism. He spoke
of the future of Tinkersfield. Of what must be done if it was to fulfill
its destiny as a decent town. He did not mince his words.
"It will be just what you make up your minds now to have it--good and
honest and clean, a place that the right kind of people will want to
live in, or the place that will attract loungers and loafers."
He laid upon them the burden of individual responsibility. If a town was
honest, he said, it was because the men in it were honest; if it was
clean it was because its men were clean. It was for each man to decide
at this election whether Tinkersfield should have a future of darkness
or of light. There were men in that crowd who squared their shoulders to
meet the blows of his eloquence, who kept them squared as they made
their decision to do their part in the upbuilding of Tinkersfield.
Yet it was not perhaps so much the things that O-liver said as the way
he said them. He had the qualities of leadership--a sincerity of the
kind that sways men level with their leaders--the sincerity of a
Lincoln, a Roosevelt. For him a democracy meant all the people. Not
merely plain people, not indeed selected classes. Rich man, poor man,
one, working together for the common good.
Back of his sincerity there was fire--and gradually his audience was
lighted by his flame. They listened in a tense silence, which broke now
and then into cheers. To Jane sitting high up on the benches he was a
prophet--the John the Baptist of Tinkersfield.
"And he's mine, he's mine!" she exulted. This fineness of spirit, the
fire and flame were hers. "If I know you are there somewhere in the dark
I shall pour out my soul--to you--"
The darkness had not yet fallen, but the dusk had come. The platform was
illumined by little lights like stars. Back of the platform the
eucalyptus trees were now pale spectres, their leaves hanging nerveless
in the still air.
O-liver sitting down amid thunders of applause let his eyes go for the
moment to Jane. A lamp hung almost directly over her head. She had taken
off her wide hat and her hair was glorious. She was leaning forward a
little, her lips parted, her hands clasped, as if he still spoke to her.
As Tillotson's sponsor rose Jane straightened up, smiled at Tommy, and
again set herself to listen.
The unctuous voice of the speaker was a contrast to O-liver's crisp
tones. There were other contrasts not so apparent. This man was in the
game for what he could get out of it. He wanted Tillotson to win because
Tillotson's winning would strengthen his own position politically. He
meant indeed that Tillotson should win. He was not particular as to
methods.
He said the usual things: Tinkersfield was no Sunday school; and they
weren't slaves to have their liberty taken from them by a lot of
impractical reformers. And Lee was that kind. What had he ever done to
prove that he'd make good? They knew Tillotson. They didn't know Lee.
Who was Lee anyhow?
He flung the interrogation at them. "What do you know about Lee?"
The pebble that he threw had widening circles. People began to ask
themselves what, after all, they knew of O-liver. From somewhere in the
darkness went up the words of an evil chant:
What's the matter with O-liver, O-liver,
White-livered O-liver?
Ask Jane, Sandwich Jane,
O-liver, white liver,
Jane, Jane, Jane.
Jane felt her heart stand still. Back of her she heard Tommy swearing:
"It's all their damned wickedness!" She saw O-liver start from his chair
and sink back, helpless against the insidiousness of this attack.
The speaker went on. It would seem, he said, from what he could learn,
that Tillotson's honorable opponent was sailing under false colors. He
was a married man. He had deserted his wife. He sat among them as a
saint, when he was really a sinner.
"A sinner, gentlemen." The speaker paused for the effect, then proceeded
with his argument. Of course they were all sinners, but they weren't
hypocrites. Tillotson wasn't a hypocrite. He was a good fellow. He
didn't want Tinkersfield to be a Sunday school. He wanted it to be a
town. You know--a town that every fellow would want to hit on
Saturday night.
There were those in the crowd who began to feel that a weak spot had
been found in O-liver's armor. Secrecy! They didn't like it. There were
signs of wavering among some who had squared their shoulders. After all,
they didn't want to make a Sunday school of Tinkersfield. They wondered,
too, if there wasn't some truth in the things that were being hinted by
that low chant in the darkness:
Ask Jane, Sandwich Jane,
O-liver, white liver,
Jane, Jane, Jane.
O-liver was restless, his hands clenched at his sides. Atwood and Henry
were restless. Tommy was restless. They couldn't let such insults go
unnoticed. Somebody had to fight for Jane!
Tillotson's supporters kept the thing stirring. If the meeting could end
in a brawl the odds would be in favor of Tillotson. The effect of
O-liver's uplift would be lost. Even his friends couldn't sway a
fighting crowd back to him.
But they had forgotten to reckon with Jane!
She had seen in a sudden crystal flash the thing which might happen. A
fight would end it all for O-liver. She had seen his efforts at
self-control. She knew his agony of soul. She knew that at any moment he
might knock somebody down--Tillotson or Tillotson's sponsor. And it
would all be in the morning papers. There would be innuendo--the hint of
scandalous things. And O-liver's reputation would pay the price. It was
characteristic that she did not at the moment think of her own
reputation. It was O-liver who must be saved!
And so when Tillotson's backer sat down Jane stood up.
"Please, listen!" she said; and the crowd turned toward her. "Please,
listen, and stop singing that silly song. I never heard anything so
silly as that song in my life!"
Before her scorn the chant died away in a gasp!
"The thing you've got to think about," she went on, "isn't Tillotson or
O-liver Lee. It's Tinkersfield. You want an honest man. And O-liver
Lee's honest. He doesn't want your money. He's got enough of his own.
His father's the richest man in his part of the state and his wife's a
movie actress and makes as much as the President. It sounds like a fairy
tale, but it isn't. If O-liver Lee wanted to live on his father or his
wife he could hold out his hand and let things drop into it. But he'd