John Telfer, the town's one man of leisure, had for weeks
been going from place to place discussing the details with prominent men.
Now a mass meeting was to be held in the hall over Geiger's drug store and
to a man the citizens of Caxton had turned out for the meeting. The
housepainter had come down off his ladder, the clerks were locking the
doors of the stores, men went along the streets in groups bound for the
hall. As they went they shouted to each other. "The old town has woke up,"
they called.
On a corner by Hunter's jewelry store Windy McPherson leaned against a
building and harangued the passing crowd.
"Let the old flag wave," he shouted excitedly, "let the men of Caxton show
the true blue and rally to the old standards."
"That's right, Windy, expostulate with them," shouted a wit, and a roar of
laughter drowned Windy's reply.
Sam McPherson also went to the meeting in the hall. He came out of the
grocery store with Wildman and went along the street looking at the
sidewalk and trying not to see the drunken man talking in front of the
jewelry store. At the hall other boys stood in the stairway or ran up and
down the sidewalk talking excitedly, but Sam was a figure in the town's
life and his right to push in among the men was not questioned.
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