Jewel Weed

"How can you be interested in running for alderman?" she asked. "It is

such a mean little ambition. I wish you would try for something big. It

would be grand to have you a senator, so that we could go to Washington.

I should love to be in all the gaieties and meet all the distinguished

people."

"Why, sweetheart, you don't suppose I care for the great name of city

father, do you?" Dick answered laughing. "That's only the end of a

lever. I do care immensely to be one of those who will clean up this

city and keep it clean. Perhaps, if we do these near-by things, the big

ones will come, by and by."

"A sort of public housemaid," said Lena scornfully.

"Exactly!" Dick laughed and nodded.

But Lena shrugged her shoulders and pouted as the door shut and she idly

watched her husband's final hand-wave.

He walked down town and the fresh northern air set his pulses

quickening. He noted how few gray heads there were, how full everything

seemed of the vitality of youth. On the piazzas were groups of happy

well-kept children, bundled up for winter play and bubbling over with

exuberance. To any passer-by they told that these were the homes of

young married people. Everywhere life looked sweet and normal and

vigorous. And he knew that for miles in every direction there were more

such homes of more such people.

But when he reached the part of town whither his steps were bent, all

this was reversed. Here was dirt, if not of body, then of spirit. Here

were a thousand evil influences at work. Here was public plundering for

private greed; here were wire-pullings and bargainings and selfishness

reigning supreme. And these forces were the nominal rulers of a city,

the greater part of whose life was good.

However, he was getting the ropes in his hands. These things were no

longer vague generalities floating in his mind, as rosy clouds might be

backed by thunder-heads on the horizon. They were growing definite. He

began to know who were the evil-workers and how they did it. He had the

art of making friends, and he made friends among publicans and sinners

as well as--well, there weren't any saints in St. Etienne to make

friends with. At any rate some of the powers that were began to say that

Dick Percival knew entirely too much. And some of the powers that ought

to be, but still slept, namely the good citizens of St. Etienne, found

their slumbers disturbed by his straight and convincing words.

But to-day all his labors seemed not worth while. There was a sour taste

in his mouth. To do the little thing with a big heart was after all

nothing but a sham. His ideals, he thought, had simmered down to petty

things. He was spending his time in nosing out small evil-smelling

scandals and in running for a mean inferior office. He felt nauseated

with himself. Worse, he felt a horrible new doubt of his wife. Mrs.

Appleton had been to him the type of woman he disliked, worldly,

shallow, busy with the sticks and straws; yet now there would creep in a

suspicion that some of the things he had forgiven to Lena's beauty and

lack of sophistication were close of kin to the older woman's more

blatant materialism. Materialism was the thing Dick had not learned to

associate with his own women.