Quill's Window. George Barr McCutcheon
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Courtney Thane's fame had preceded him to Windomville. By this time, the entire district had heard of the man who was gassed, and who had actually won two or three medals for bravery in the Great War. The young men from that section of the state who had seen fighting in France were still in New York City, looking for jobs. Most of them had "joined up" at the first call for volunteers. Some of them had been killed, many of them wounded, but not one of them had received a medal for bravery. The men who had been called by the draft into the great National Army were all home again, having got no nearer to the battle front than an embarkation camp in New Jersey—and so this tall, slender young fellow from the East was an object not only of curiosity but of envy.
The Misses Dowd laid themselves out to make him comfortable—as well as prominent. They gave him a corner room on the upper floor of Dowd's Tavern, dispossessing a tenant of twelve years' standing—a photographer named Hatch, whose ability to keep from living too far in arrears depended on his luck in inveigling certain sentimental customers into taking "crayon portraits" of deceased loved ones, satisfaction guaranteed, frames extra. Two windows, looking out over the roof of the long front porch, gave him an unobstructed view of Main Street, including such edifices as the postoffice, the log-hut library, the ancient watering trough, the drug store, and the steeple of the Presbyterian Church rising proudly above the roofs of the houses in between.
Main Street ran almost parallel with the river. With commendable forethought, the first settlers had built their houses and stores some little distance back from the stream along the summit of a wooded ridge perhaps forty feet above the river at its midsummer low-water level. The tremendous, devastating floods that came annually with the breaking up of winter failed to reach the houses—although in 1883—according to the records—the water came up to within a foot of Joe Roush's blacksmith shop, situated at that time halfway down the slope, compelling the smith to think seriously of "moving up a couple of hops," a precaution that was rendered unnecessary by a subsequent midsummer bolt of lightning that destroyed not only the forge but shocked Joe so severely that he "saw green" for a matter of six weeks and finally resulted in his falling off the dock into deep water in the middle of what was intended to be a protracted spree brought on by the discovery that his insurance policy did not cover "loss by lightning." To this day, the older inhabitants of Windomville will tell you about the way his widow "took on" until she couldn't stand it any longer—and then married George Hooper, the butcher, four months after the shocking demise of Joseph.
Dowd's Tavern had few transient guests. "Drummers" from the city hard-by dropped in occasionally for a midday meal, but they never stayed the night. The guests were what the Misses Dowd called "regulars." They included Hatch, the photographer; an old and indigent couple, parents of a farmer whose wife objected so vehemently to their well-meant efforts to "run" her house for her that he was obliged to "board 'em" with the Dowd girls, an arrangement that seemed to satisfy every one concerned except the farmer himself, who never missed an opportunity to praise the food and the comforts to be enjoyed at the county "poorhouse" when he paid his semi-annual visit to the venerable dependents; Mr. Charlie Webster, the rotund manager of the grain elevator, who spent every Saturday night and Sunday in the city and showed up for duty on Monday with pinkish eyes and a rather tremulous whistle that was supposed to be reminiscent of ecclesiastical associations; Miss Flora Grady, the dress-maker; Doctor Simpson, the dentist, a pale young man with extremely bad teeth and a habit of smiling, even at funerals; Miss Miller, the principal of the school, who was content with a small room over the kitchen at ten dollars a week, thereby permitting her to save something out of her salary, which was fifty dollars a month; A. Lincoln Pollock, the editor, owner and printer of the Weekly Sun, and his wife, Maude Baggs Pollock, who besides contributing a poem to each and every issue of the paper, (over her own signature), collected news and society items, ran the postoffice for her husband, (he being the postmaster), and taught the Bible Class in the Presbyterian Sunday-school, as well as officiating as president and secretary of the Literary Society, secretary to the town board, secretary of the W. C. T. U., secretary of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, secretary of the American Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Fund, secretary of the Windomville Improvement Association, secretary of the Lady Maccabees, and, last but far from least, secretary of the local branch of the Society for the Preservation of the Redwood Forests of California. She was a born secretary.
A. Lincoln Pollock, being a good democrat and holding office under a democratic administration, had deemed it wise to abbreviate his first name, thereby removing all taint of republicanism. He reduced Abraham to an initial, but, despite his supreme struggle for dignity, was forced by public indolence to submit to a sharp curtailment of his middle name. He was known as Link.
The Weekly Sun duly reported the advent of Colonel Courtney Thane, of New York and London, and gave him quite a "send-off," at the same time getting in a good word for the "excellent hostelry conducted by the Misses Dowd," as well as a paragraph congratulating the readers of the Sun on the "scoop" that paper had obtained over the "alleged" newspapers up at the county seat. "If you want the news, read the Sun," was the slogan at the top of the editorial column on the second page, followed by a line in parenthesis: ("If you want the Sun, don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Price Three Dollars a Year in Advance.")
All of the boarders sat at the same table in the dining-room. Punctuality at meals was obligatory. Miss Jennie Dowd was the cook. She was assisted by Miss Margaret Slattery, daughter of Martin Slattery, the grocer. Miss Mary Dowd had charge of the dining-room. She was likewise assisted by Miss Slattery. Between meals Miss Slattery did the dish-washing, chamber-work, light cleaning and "straightening," and still found room for her daily exercise, which consisted of half a dozen turns up and down Main Street in her best frock. Old Jim House did the outside chores about the place. He had worked at Dowd's Tavern for thirty-seven years, and it was his proud boast that he had never missed a day's work—drunk or sober.
The new guest was given the seat of honour at table. He was placed between Mrs. Pollock and Miss Flora Grady, supplanting Doctor Simpson, who had held the honour ever since Charlie Webster's unfortunate miscalculation as to the durability of an unfamiliar brand of bourbon to which he had been introduced late one Sunday evening. It was a brand that wore extremely well—so well, in fact, that when he appeared for dinner at noon on Monday he was still in a lachrymose condition