After a while the subject of Mela's hoarse babble and of Christine's
high-pitched, thin, sharp forays of assertion and denial in the field
which her sister's voice seemed to cover, made its way into the old man's
consciousness, and he perceived that they were talking with Mrs. Mandel
about it, and that his wife was from time to time offering an irrelevant
and mistaken comment. He agreed with Christine, and silently took her
view of the affair some time before he made any sign of having listened.
There had been a time in his life when other things besides his money
seemed admirable to him. He had once respected himself for the
hard-headed, practical common sense which first gave him standing among
his country neighbors; which made him supervisor, school trustee, justice
of the peace, county commissioner, secretary of the Moffitt County
Agricultural Society. In those days he had served the public with
disinterested zeal and proud ability; he used to write to the Lake Shore
Farmer on agricultural topics; he took part in opposing, through the
Moffitt papers, the legislative waste of the people's money; on the
question of selling a local canal to the railroad company, which killed
that fine old State work, and let the dry ditch grow up to grass, he
might have gone to the Legislature, but he contented himself with
defeating the Moffitt member who had voted for the job.
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