Hal did not look back, but turned into the company-store. “North Valley Trading Company” read the sign over the door; within was a Serbian woman pointing out what she wanted to buy, and two little Lithuanian girls watching the weighing of a pound of sugar. Hal strolled up to the person who was doing the weighing, a middle-aged man with a yellow moustache stained with tobacco-juice. “Morning, Judge.” “Huh!” was the reply from Silas Adams, justice of the peace in the town of North Valley.
“Judge,” said Hal, “what do you think about the election?”
“I don't think about it,” said the other. “Busy weighin' sugar.”
“Anybody round here going to vote for MacDougall?”
“They better not tell me if they are!”
“What?” smiled Hal. “In this free American republic?”
“In this part of the free American republic a man is free to dig coal, but not to vote for a skunk like MacDougall.” Then, having tied up the sugar, the “J. P.” whittled off a fresh chew from his plug, and turned to Hal. “What'll you have?”
Hal purchased half a pound of dried peaches, so that he might have an excuse to loiter, and be able to keep time with the jaws of the Judge. While the order was being filled, he seated himself upon the counter. “You know,” said he, “I used to work in a grocery.”
“That so? Where at?”
“Peterson & Co., in American City.” Hal had told this so often that he had begun to believe it.
“Pay pretty good up there?”
“Yes, pretty fair.” Then, realising that he had no idea what would constitute good pay in a grocery, Hal added, quickly, “Got a bad wrist here!”
“That so?” said the other.
He did not show much sociability; but Hal persisted, refusing to believe that any one in a country store would miss an opening to discuss politics, even with a miner's helper. “Tell me,” said he, “just what is the matter with MacDougall?”
“The matter with him,” said the Judge, “is that the company's against him.” He looked hard at the young miner. “You meddlin' in politics?” he growled. But the young miner's gay brown eyes showed only appreciation of the earlier response; so the “J. P.” was tempted into specifying the would-be congressman's vices. Thus conversation started; and pretty soon the others in the store joined in—“Bob” Johnson, bookkeeper and post-master, and “Jake” Predovich, the Galician Jew who was a member of the local school-board, and knew the words for staple groceries in fifteen languages.
Hal listened to an exposition of the crimes of the political opposition in Pedro County. Their candidate, MacDougall, had come to the state as a “tin-horn gambler,” yet now he was going around making speeches in churches, and talking about the moral sentiment of the community. “And him with a district chairman keeping three families in Pedro!” declared Si Adams.
“Well,” ventured Hal, “if what I hear is true, the Republican chairman isn't a plaster saint. They say he was drunk at the convention—”
“Maybe so,” said the “J. P.” “But we ain't playin' for the prohibition vote; and we ain't playin' for the labour vote—tryin' to stir up the riff-raff in these coal-camps, promisin' 'em high wages an' short ............