Andrew the Glad

One day she had picked up his heavy gray gloves from the table and

tightened the buttons, listening all the while to an absorbing account of

a counter-move he was planning for the next day's editorial, and then had

been delightfully confused and distressed by his gratitude. The little

scene had sent him to the bare fields to fight for hours.

The major fairly gloried in her knowledge of the arrangement of his

library and delighted her with quick requests for his books during the

most absorbing moments of their discussions.

And again the observation that the spell was not being woven for him

alone went far to the undoing of Andrew Sevier. Her interest in the

affairs of David Kildare disturbed him not at all, but her sympathetic

and absorbed attention to a bad-luck tale with which Hobson Capers

reported to the major one morning when she sat with them, had sent him

home in a most depressed state of mind, and the picture of her troubled

eyes raised to Hobson's as he recounted the details of the wrenched

shoulder of his favorite horse, followed him through the day with

tormenting displeasure, though the offer of a cut-glass bottle full of a

delightfully scented lotion for the amelioration of the suffering animal

brought the semblance of a grin. And Hob, the brute, had gone away with

it in his pocket, accompanied by explicit directions as to its

application by means of a soft bit of flannel the size of a pocket

handkerchief, also provided. Andrew Sevier had a vision of the bottle

and the rag being installed in the most holy of holies in the apartments

of Hobson Capers and experienced a sweeping smashing rage thereat.

A day or two later a scene he had witnessed in the kitchen, in which

Caroline and Tempie hung anxiously over a simmering pan of lemon juice,

sugar, rye whisky and peppermint which, when it arrived at the proper

sirupy condition, was to be administered as a soothing potion to the

hoarse throat of Peyton Kendrick, who perched croaking on a chair close

by, drove him to seeking comfort from Phoebe much to her apparent

amusement but secret perturbation, for Phoebe both comprehended and

feared the situation.

And thus there is also much of the primitive left in the heart of the

modern man on which the elemental forces work.

Then the day for the election came nearer and nearer by what seemed

fleeting hours. The whole city was thoroughly aroused and fighting hard

under one banner or the other. As the last week drew to a close and left

only the few days of the following week for a round-up of the forces

before the Wednesday election, the men all became absorbed to the point

of oblivion to everything save the speculation as to how the race would

go. But it was not in the nature of David Kildare to be held against the

grindstone of serious endeavor too long at a time, and in the midst of

the turmoil he proceeded to plot for a brief and exciting relaxation for

himself and his strenuous friends, and he chose Saturday for the

accomplishment thereof.