threatened to discharge any man seen in the place, its business languished. But prohibition brought the Weaver House a measure of prosperity. There was strategic merit in its situation. A rear room overhung the creek; and a section of the floor of this room was so arranged that when a bolt was pulled the floor would swing downward and drop whatever it bore into the concealing waters.

This was a simple and effective way of destroying evidence; and the owner of the place made good use of it.The office of this hostelry was a square room at one corner in front. At eleven o’clock on the night of election day, there were five creatures in this room. Four were human; one was a dog. The office was lighted by a single oil lamp. The chimney of this lamp had once been badly smoked, and subsequently cleaned by a masculine hand. It was, to put it gently, dingy. Also, its wick needed trimming. As a result of these defects, the light it gave was not blinding.

This lamp stood on a square table in one corner of the room. A wall bench ran along two sides of the table. At the corner, a checkerboard was set on the table, and over this board two old men leaned. They were engrossed in their game. Both were gray, both were unclean, both were ragged. Both were bearded, and the beards of both were stained, below the mouth, with tobacco. Nevertheless, they played keenly, and at the conclusion of each game broke into bitter, cackling arguments. These arguments lasted only so long as it took them to rearrange the men, when the one whose turn it was made the first move, and silence instantly descended on them again. These gusts of debate which broke from the old men now and then were the only sounds in the room.

Beside one of the men, and leaning forward over the table in a strained and awkward position, was the boy. He may have been fourteen years old. But it was strange and pitiful to see in his face, in his eyes, an air of age and grim experience almost equaling that of his two old companions. This boy was dressed in clothes too small for him, so that his wrists stuck out from his sleeves, his neck reared itself bare and gaunt above his coat collar, and his pale ankles and shins were exposed above the shoes he wore.

This boy was reading. He was reading a copy of the bulletin of the Ohio Brewers’ Association. He was spelling it out word by word, with the closest attention. When the old men burst into argument, the boy shook his head a little as though annoyed by their outcries. But for the rest, he read steadily, passing his fingers along the lines as he read.

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