In his room to which Ed,
meeting him at the top of the stairs, led him, still chewing at the
unlighted cigar, he turned out the light and sat on the edge of the bed.
He was as homesick as a boy.
"Truth," he muttered, looking through the window to the dimly-lighted
street. "Do these men seek truth?"
The next day he went to work, wearing a suit of clothes bought from Ed. He
worked with Ed's father, carrying timbers and driving nails as directed by
him. In the gang with him were four men, boarders at Ed's hotel, and four
other men who lived in the town with their families. At the noon hour he
asked the old carpenter how the men from the hotel, who did not live in
the town, could vote on the question of the power bonds. The old man
grinned and rubbed his hands together.
"I don't know," he said. "I suppose Ed tends to that. He's a slick one, Ed
is."
At work, the men who had been so silent in the office of the hotel were
alert and wonderfully busy, hurrying here and there at a word from the old
man and sawing and nailing furiously. They seemed bent upon outdoing each
other and when one fell behind they laughed and shouted at him, asking him
if he had decided to quit for the day.
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