The young school teacher from Bidwell,
who had come on several occasions to call on his daughter Clara, was on
that night abroad with another young woman. He sat in a buggy with his arm
around her waist and drove slowly through the hill country. Tom and Steve
drove past them and the farmer, seeing in the moonlight the woman in the
arms of the man, imagined his daughter in her place. The thought made him
furious. "I'm losing the chance to be a big man in the town here in order
to play safe and be sure of money to leave to Clara, and all she cares
about is to galavant around with some young squirt," he thought bitterly.
He began to see himself as a wronged and unappreciated father. When he
got out of the buggy, he stood for a moment by the wheel and looked hard
at Steve. "I'm as good a sport as you are," he said finally. "Bring
around your stock and I'll give you the note. That's all it will be, you
understand: just my note. I don't promise to back it up with any collateral
and I don't expect you to offer it for sale." Steve leaned out of the buggy
and took him by the hand. "I won't sell your note, Tom," he said. "I'll
put it away. I want a partner to help me. You and I are going to do things
together."
The young promoter drove off along the road, and Tom went into the house
and to bed. Like his daughter he did not sleep. For a time he thought of
her and in imagination saw her again in the buggy with the school teacher
who had her in his arms.
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