Rand said ruefully: “I’m not making any harvest now. And they tell me you helped elect this guy.” “He was a common drunk, then. How could I know?” Rand fingered his swollen face gingerly. “I’ll say he’s got a punch.” “He won’t have any punch left when we’re done with him,” Kite promised. “Wait and see.” “I’m waiting,” said Rand. And a little later, he and his cohorts went their way. CHAPTER XII POOR HETTY In mid-July, Wint at last found out the truth about Hetty. That is to say, he found out a part of the truth; enough to make him heartsick and sorry. His eventual enlightenment was inevitable as to-morrow morning’s sunrise. A more sophisticated young man--Jack Routt, for example--would not have remained in the dark so long. But Wint, aside from noticing that Hetty looked badly, and aside from some casual consideration of Routt’s repeated warnings, gave very little thought to his mother’s handmaiden. There were too many other and more important things to occupy him. His work as Mayor, his studies, his Joan. Joan was bulking very large in his life in those days. He found understanding, and sympathy, in her. They were better than sweethearts; they were friends. The other--this thought must have been lying, unspoken, in the mind of each--the other could wait and must wait till Wint had proved himself for good and all. Then.... Once in a while, Wint allowed himself to look forward, and to dream. But not often. The present was too engrossing to give much time for dreaming of the future. So, though he saw Hetty daily, when she served the meals at home, or when he went into the kitchen, or when he encountered her at her cleaning in the front part of the house, Wint gave her very little consideration. His mother protested, once in a while, that Hetty was growing lazy. “She slacks things,” the voluble little woman said. “She leaves dust about; and she’s not so neat as she used to be. I declare, you just can’t get a girl that will keep up her work. They all get so lazy after a while, but I did think that Hetty was going to be--” Wint’s father said, tolerantly, that Hetty was all right; that she was a good cook, and did her work well enough, so far as he could see. The elder Chase had always been a good-natured man; but a new generosity in his appraisal of others was developing in the man now. He had been in some trouble of mind since that day in May when Amos Caretall came home. Chase was oppressed by the conviction that he had acted unworthily in that matter; yet he could not admit as much. His hostility toward Amos would not let him. The result was that he felt at odds with his son; that they avoided discussions of the town’s affairs; that they lived together in a polite neutrality. It was working changes in Chase. He was becoming, in some fashion, a sympathetic, rather likable figure. You felt he was unhappy, needed comforting.