Mr. Munn followed him, the exaltation gone.

  Carrying his little valise, which was continually being jammed against his knees, he moved painfully with the drift of people that was now going away from the station apparently in the direction of the main street. In the middle of the street were people in wagons and buggies that scarcely seemed to progress at all, the crush was so great. They were like people marooned in the midst of rising flood waters. Here and there a horseman stood out above the crowd, surveying it arrogantly and detachedly like an officer. These people all seemed strangers to him here on the street of Bardsville.

  At the corner of the street near the hotel he heard someone calling his name, and stopped, letting the movement of the crowd divide around him. A big, chunky man wearing a black coat was standing up in a buggy and gesticulating toward him. ‘Come here!’ the man was shouting while he beckoned. Mr. Munn waved, and began to force his way into the street toward the buggy, which held a young woman and the chunky man.

  ‘Get up here,’ the chunky man ordered, still standing. ‘And you, Sukie, you move over,’ he said to the young woman, ‘and let Perse get up here.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say it looks like you’re going anywhere,’ Mr. Munn said, and took off his hat.

  The chunky man, still standing, swept his arm ferociously over the heads of the crowd. ‘Hell, no!’ he half-shouted, ‘not with all this mob. I been forty minutes getting from the fair ground to here. But you get up here like I say.’

  Mr. Munn looked inquiringly at the young woman, who, he discovered, was smiling at him. ‘Sukie,’ the chunky man announced, ‘this is Percy Munn, and this is my girl Sukie. She just got in last week from St. Louis.’

  ‘I’m very glad to know you, Mr. Munn,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad to know you, Miss Christian,’ Mr. Munn answered.

  ‘Call her Sukie,’ the man interposed, ‘and get on up here. Move on over some, Sukie, you’re hogging the seat.’

  Mr. Munn put his foot on the step and swung up to the seat. He held the valise on his lap. It made him feel awkward, and cramped.

  ‘You needn’t call me Sukie,’ the girl said. ‘My name is Lucille.’

  The man sat down heavily, crowding the girl’s body against Mr. Munn. ‘You call her Sukie like I said,’ he ordered.

  ‘Now, Mr. Munn,’ the girl asked, leaning back so that she could look up at him from under the brim of her large straw hat with its blue ribbons, ‘do you see how he can make Sukie out of a name like Lucille?’

  ‘I’ve made Sukie out of more kinds of names than you ever heard,’ the man declared grimly. ‘I can make Sukie out of any name once I set my mind on it.’

  ‘I remembered your name was Lucille,’ Mr. Munn said.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I did,’ he replied. He did remember that it was Lucille, though certainly he had never heard Mr. Christian ever refer by any other name than Sukie to his daughter, who had been away in St. Louis all the seven years since he himself had been back in Bardsville. Perhaps, he thought, he remembered it from the time before he went off to school and used to go out to the Christian place to see little Bill Christian. Bill had had a little sister, not much more than a baby then. He must remember the name from that time, somehow, having forgotten it all the fifteen years in between. He could not remember anything about the child, though, not even what she looked like. ‘And I remember you, too,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t remember you,’ she returned blandly, almost as though with pleasure in the fact.

  ‘We ain’t got ten feet,’ Mr. Christian said. He took off his black felt hat and mopped a handkerchief over his sunburned, heavy-jowled face and red mustaches, and over his bald, enormous skull, that shone in the light like a piece of some stone, like onyx veined with tiny red lines, carved to that shape and polished to a glitter. ‘God knows I’m glad these folks are here. I been working two months to get ’em here, but can’t they move just a little faster?’ he demanded, and glared at his daughter and Mr. Munn as though they were responsible for the confused and dilatory pack of people and the crowded vehicles. ‘All I want to do is get this nag in the livery stable and get to my meeting.’ Mr. Christian pushed the soaked wad of his handkerchief into the breast pocket of his black coat and pulled the black felt hat over the glittering, red-veined dome of his skull.

  ‘Mr. Bill,’ Mr. Munn said, ‘I can get a boy from the hotel stable to take the buggy. He can put the horse in my stall. I got a stall there now, and I rode out home the other day and came back on the train this morning.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Mr. Christian replied.

  Mr. Munn stepped to the ground, took off his hat to the girl, and began to force his way toward the hotel. The wide doorway was almost blocked by loiterers who took advantage of the shade there and of the height to peer out over the heads of the crowd. Mr. Munn got past them. After the brightness of the sun in the street, the interior of the hotel was, for the moment, like a great dark cavern full of shadowy moving forms and the insistent rise and hum of voices, a sound like an autumn flock of roosting grackles disturbed and quarreling in the branches of a darkened tree.

  He found a negro boy at last and took him out to get Mr. Christian’s buggy. The buggy by now was another twenty-five yards down the street. ‘Mr. Munn,’ the girl said, as he reached to take her hand and help her down, ‘since you left, the pace has been breath-taking. The mare’s in a lather.’

  ‘So I see,’ Mr. Munn answered shortly.

  ‘Like hell,’ Mr. Christian said, and heaved his bulk into the street. ‘Don’t pay her no mind, Perse,’ he added, and shook himself like a dog and beat the dust out of his black coat with his red, hairy hands, ‘she just talks that way. Besides, I didn’t tell her you’re married.’ He seized the girl’s arm and shook her playfully, as one shakes a child. ‘I fooled you, huh, Sukie; I just told you he was a coming young lawyer, but I didn’t tell you he was married.’ He laughed, short, hearty bursts from under the red mustaches, and beat more dust out of the black coat. ‘I fooled you, huh, Sukie?’

  As they pushed through the crowd, the girl turned to Mr. Munn and inquired in a tone in which he detected, he thought, a mincing parody of politeness, ‘And how long have you been married, Mr. Munn?’

  ‘Over a year.’

  ‘How nice!’ she exclaimed.

  He did not like her, he suddenly decided, and did not answer, pretending, for the moment, to be absorbed in the difficulty of clearing a way toward the hotel through the mob. She talked to him like a grown person talking to a child, asking a child his age, for instance, or what grade he was in.

  ‘And what is your wife’s name, Mr. Munn?’ she was asking.

  He’d be damned if he’d tell her, not when she asked the question that way, but he knew he’d have to for the sake of politeness. But Mr. Christian was saying in his big voice: ‘Oh, her name’s May, May Cox before she married Perse here — which was a mistake, God knows — and she’s pretty as a picture, even if she is a little on the skinny side. Say, Perse, why don’t you fatten her up a little, huh?’

  Mr. Munn did not answer, but made a way for them through the loiterers in the hotel doorway.

  ‘Mr. Bill,’ Mr. Munn told him, ‘I’ve got a room here, been having it for the last month, I have to stay over so much lately. I wish you all would use it today if you want. I thought you might want to wash up before your meeting and all. And maybe you’ — he turned to the girl — ‘might want to wait there for your father and —— ’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Mr. Christian declared.

  Mr. Munn got his key from the sick-looking old man at the desk, who said to him that there was a big crowd in town, wasn’t there, and led the way up the staircase from the lobby. At the top he turned, and said that he was sorry but Miss Christian would have to climb up another flight, because the room was on the top floor. They followed him up again, and down the dim hall, along which a narrow strip of red carpet was laid on the painted floor.

  The room itself was almost dark, with the curtains drawn together and the shade down so that only a narrow pencil line of sunlight lay across the rug. The air was motionless and cool. The window being closed, the clamor and excitement of the packed street seemed suddenly far away, filtering in only dimly and irrelevantly. Mr. Munn set his valise on the floor, and turned to them: ‘I’ll leave the key with you, Mr. Bill. I can get it at the desk when I come in tonight.’ He proffered the key.

  ‘Hell, no,’ said Mr. Christian. ‘You wait here while I go wash the big road off the back of my neck. I want to talk to you soon as we get shet of her,’ and he pointed at his daughter.

  ‘All right,’ Mr. Munn responded somewhat grudgingly. He did not want to do it, but he usually found that he, like other people, did what Mr. Christian said. Mr. Christian would bellow at you, standing in front of you with his short, heavy, always booted legs spread wide apart, waving his thick arms in the air, or grabbing your shoulder with his great red, hairy hand. Mr. Bill was all right, it wasn’t that. He just wanted — why, he didn’t know — to be by himself.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Mr. Christian had said.

  Mr. Munn went to the window, parted the curtains, raised the shade, letting the sun blaze directly in, and raised the sash. The noise of the street was on them at the instant, full and immediate, and Mr. Christian, as though at a signal, took three quick, heavy steps to the window to peer out over the heads of the people. Dispassionately, Mr. Munn looked out too. There they were, as far as you could see from the window, the slow streams of bodies milling and dividing on the pavements and in the street, and the retarded movement of the wagons and buggies and carriages between. On Mr. Christian’s face grew a rapt and distant expression, that vanished suddenly into an excitement as he straightened up and slapped Mr. Munn on the back and exclaimed: ‘By God, boy, we gonna do it, we gonna do it! They’re here for it, and they’ll do it. We’ll show those bastards now, by God!’

  ‘I hope so,’ Mr. Munn rejoined.

  ‘Hope!’ Mr. Christian exclaimed, waving his arms. ‘Hope, hell! It ain’t hope, it’s here and now, by God!’

  He turned again to the window, and again that rapt and impersonal expression touched his features fleetingly so that, for the instant before it faded, the face almost lost the resemblance to itself, like the face of someone sleeping or praying. He pulled himself, as though by an effort, from the sight, and asked in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘You got any towels, Perse?’

  Mr. Munn got a towel from the bureau, and remarked, ‘The washroom is just down to your right.’

  ‘You wait,’ Mr. Christian ordered, and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Mr. Munn returned to the window. The girl, he had observed, was standing the whole time in the middle of the room, perfectly still, the blue ribbons of her hat, her blue linen skirt, and her white waist creating a focus of brightness that made the room seem small and worn. He had not guessed that she was the kind of person who could be still like that. Then, while he looked out the window, he was aware of her steps coming toward him. When he heard no other sound, he knew that she had stopped behind him. He continued to gaze into the street, taking some pleasure in the fact that he had not turned.

  ‘Mr. Munn,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Miss Christian,’ he answered, and did turn, with a pretense of being startled to recollect himself and his obligations. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You see how it is with papa,’ she began, and fixed him directly with her glance.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  ‘You see how it is with him. He’s absolutely wrapped up in it. It’s not just that he wants to get more money for his crop, you can see that. It’s something else, Mr. Munn.’

  ‘I reckon he just wants his rights,’ Mr. Munn said. ‘People do.’

  ‘That,’ she admitted, ‘and something else.’

  He made a sweeping gesture toward the street, where the clamor was unceasing. ‘There’s a lot more folks with your father,’ he remarked.

  She took a step toward the window and looked down at the moving mass. Then she shook her head, very slightly, as though meditating, and said, ‘No, they’re different.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he replied, and shrugged a little. He disengaged his glance from hers, and gave his attention again to the street. He did not want to be rude, but he couldn’t help it; and because he was rude he was irritated with himself, and with her. It was their bringing May into it, he supposed; that, and the way she had talked to him. My God, just because she had lived in St. Louis, she didn’t have to behave like that. He had been in Philadelphia four years studying law, and he hadn’t forgotten how people acted.

  ‘Mr. Munn,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How is it going to come out?’

  ‘I can’t say’ — and he pointed to the crowd below — ‘but if they get the Association and they sign up even half the people for the counties round here, tobacco’ll go up three hundred per cent in two seasons. Right here, in this section of Tennessee and Kentucky, is the center of the world market. They’ll sew up the market.’ He noticed the excitement beginning to appear in her face and how a glitter came into her dark blue, too large eyes. ‘But’ — and he shook his head — ‘that’s the catch. Germany and France and Italy and the big tobacco companies here aren’t going to take it lying down, you can bet.’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ she replied. The momentary excitement and pleasure had left her face. Which was fine, he thought, for she was the kind of woman who was too easy in the world, thinking the world would bow down to her or something. She had been pleased just because the price going up would give her more money to spend on herself, up in St. Louis or some place. Well — and it gave him a moment of righteous satisfaction — the German and French and English buyers and the big companies wouldn’t bow down to her. Or to God Almighty, for that matter.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on, now looking out the window, ‘I’ll be here to see it all happen. I’m going to stay now and run the house for papa.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  Mr. Christian came in, shoving the door shut behind him with the heel of his boot. He carried his coat, tie, and collar in one hand, and in the other the dirty towel. ‘Well,’ he remarked, ‘I’ll be with you soon as I get my collar on.’ He flung the coat and towel to the bed, and went to the bureau, where, with legs wide apart, as though for a strenuous endeavor, he braced himself before the mirror. Between grunts, as he tightened the collar around the big shaft of his neck, he demanded, ‘What she been telling you?’

  Mr. Munn thought that he detected in the daughter’s eyes a warning. Perhaps, even, she shook her head ever so slightly. ‘That she’s come home to keep house for you,’ he replied.

  ‘And that’s a fact!’ Mr. Christian exclaimed, wheeling from the mirror, the ends of his collar popping up, his big face glowing with sudden pleasure at the thought. ‘Ain’t it a fact, Sukie?’

  She nodded at him.

  He’s certainly crazy about her, Mr. Munn remarked to himself, making the discovery with surprise. But, then, she was all human he had, his wife dead all these years and little Bill shot with a shotgun out hunting. Not that he had ever thought of Mr. Bill as needing anything human, not with his six hundred acres of land and his horses and tobacco and the eternal bird dogs and coon dogs.

  Struggling before the mirror, Mr. Christian kept repeating, as though to himself, but loudly, ‘And that’s a fact.’ He got the collar and tie adjusted at last, and swung around, saying, ‘Ain’t it, Sukie, huh?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He tugged the coat, its seams apparently ready to burst with the bulk it contained, and picked up his hat. ‘We better get on now,’ he announced. ‘I’ll come get you, Sukie, when it’s time to eat.’ And to Mr. Munn, ‘Come on, Perse.’

  Mr. Munn turned to the girl, telling her: ‘My wife keeps a few things here. You might find a comb and brush in the top drawer.’ Then he laid the key to the room on the bureau, said good-bye quite formally, and followed Mr. Christian down the hall. In the lobby, at the foot of the stairs, he told Mr. Christian that he hoped it would all turn out all right and he would see him later. But Mr. Christian laid his heavy, compelling hand on his shoulder, and brought his red face, from which stared the flat, china-blue eyes, closer to Mr. Munn’s face, and said, ‘No, boy, you come with me.’

  ‘I better not.’

  ‘You come on with me, now,’ and Mr. Christian’s hand bore down on his shoulder. ‘I want you to go with me.’

  ‘I better not,’ Mr. Munn answered. At the moment the words passed his lips, he knew that he would go, regretting the fact that he had ever come to town, and almost hating this man, who was a good friend. And all the while he felt, as though he were a culprit, the bearing-down weight of the hand. ‘I’m not in on it, Mr. Bill, I don’t belong at the meeting with you all.’

  ‘Hell, it’s not official or anything,’ Mr. Christian said. He had the other man by the arm now, leading him across the lobby while he spoke in a strident, rasping undertone. ‘We’re just gonna talk over things a little, Mr. Peacham and Jim Sills and some of us. And I want you in on it; you’re a smart man, Perse, and I want you to hear what they say, and I want to hear you say what you think about things.’

  ‘I’d be intruding,’ Mr. Munn remonstrated. But he was already in the street, moving, with Mr. Christian’s hand gripping his arm, through the crowd toward the bank building, where he knew the meeting was to be.

  ‘And it won’t do you no harm, Perse. You’re a smart man, and a man like you is bound to be getting into politics some of these days, and — well, this thing won’t do you no harm.’