ssed relief to
his troubled older self, for he slipped back into the more tranquil
life of his boyhood.
At supper he sat at the table with the men, whose wet shirts showed how
fierce the work of pitching the hay had been.
"Be ye out f'r play or work, Brad?" asked Councill.
"Work. Need a hand?"
"They's plenty to do--but I'm afraid you can't take a hand's place, for
a while."
"Try me and see."
They were all curious to hear of Washington, but he was more inclined
to talk of the crops and the cattle.
He went to sleep that night in the bare garret with the men, and woke
the next morning at sun-rise at sound of Councill's voice calling him,
just as he used to do when he was a hired man.
"_Hello_, Brad! Roll out!"
He went down to breakfast, sloshed his face at the cistern pump and was
ready to eat when the men came in.
"We live jest the same as ever, Brad," said Mrs. Councill, "you'll haf
to put up with it jest as if y' wa'n't a Congressman."
"I guess he can stand a few days what we stand all the while," Councill
interjected.
There was a good deal of banter during the meal about "downing" the
Congressman.
Bradley's physical pride was roused and he took his place in the field
determined to show them their mistake. Night came bringing weariness
that was exhaustion, and next morning he was too lame to lift a fork.
It emphasized the unnatural inactivity into which he had fallen.
He improved physically and by the end of the week was able to pitch hay
with the rest. The Judge drove up for him on Saturday afternoon, and
found him pitching hay upon the stack behind the wind-break, wet with
sweat and covered with timothy bloom. Councill was stacking.
"Hello, Congressman," called the Judge.
"Get off, 'n take right hold, Judge," said Councill. "A Judge aint no
better'n a Congressman, not a darn bit."
"I'll take a hand at the table," the Judge replied.
"I've had about enough of it," Bradley said to him privately while
Councill was putting his team in the barn. "I'm better, but it begins
to seem like a waste of time."
They drove home that night through the still, warm, star-lit air, like
father and son in slow talk of the future.
The Judge told of the plan for the fall campaign, to which Bradley
listened silently.
"We'll win yet if you only keep your grit."
He planned also a broadening out of their law business. A new block had
just been built and they were to take two adjoining rooms.
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