And by and by they wake up to the fact
that they hain't got nowhere. They've just stayed still, 'way behind.
"Mary says she don't believe Betty would mind even that, if her husband
only seemed to care--to--to understand, you know, how it had been with
her and how--Crickey! I guess they've come," broke off the old man
suddenly, craning his neck for a better view of the door.
From outside had sounded the honk of an automobile horn and the wild
cheering of men and boys. A few minutes later the long-delayed programme
began.
It was the usual thing. Before the Speaker of the Day came other
speakers, and each of them, no matter what his subject, failed not to
refer to "our illustrious fellow townsman" in terms of highest eulogy.
One told of his humble birth, his poverty-driven boyhood, his strenuous
youth. Another drew a vivid picture of his rise to fame. A third dilated
upon the extraordinary qualities of brain and body which had made such
achievement possible and which would one day land him in the White House
itself.
Meanwhile, close to the speaker's stand sat the Honorable Jonas
Whitermore himself, for the most part grim and motionless, though I
thought I detected once or twice a repetition of the half-troubled,
half-questioning glances directed toward his wife that I had seen
before.
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