The relations between Dan and Edith were not particularly cordial.  Willy Cameron found their bickering understandable enough, but he was puzzled, sometimes, to find that Dan was surreptitiously watching his sister.  Edith was conscious of it, too, and one evening she broke into irritated speech.

“I wish you’d quit staring at me, Dan Boyd.”

“I was wondering what has come over you,” said Dan, ungraciously.  “You used to be a nice kid.  Now you’re an angel one minute and a devil the next.”

Willy spoke to him that night when they were setting out rows of seedlings, under the supervision of Jinx.

“I wouldn’t worry her, Dan,” he said; “it is the spring, probably.  It gets into people, you know.  I’m that way myself.  I’d give a lot to be in the country just now.”

Dan glanced at him quickly, but whatever he may have had in his mind, he said nothing just then.  However, later on he volunteered: 

“She’s got something on her mind.  I know her.  But I won’t have her talking back to mother.”

A week or so after Willy Cameron had moved, Mr. Hendricks rang the bell of the Boyd house, and then, after his amiable custom, walked in.

“Oh, Cameron!” he bawled.

“Upstairs,” came Willy Cameron’s voice, somewhat thickened with carpet tacks.  So Mr. Hendricks climbed part of the way, when he found his head on a level with that of the young gentleman he sought, who was nailing a rent in the carpet.

“Don’t stop,” said Mr. Hendricks.  “Merely friendly call.  And for heaven’s sake don’t swallow a tack, son.  I’m going to need you.”

“Whaffor?” inquired Willy Cameron, through his nose.

“Don’t know yet.  Make speeches, probably.  If Howard Cardew, or any Cardew, thinks he’s going to be mayor of this town, he’s got to think again.”

“I don’t give a tinker’s dam who’s mayor of this town, so long as he gives it honest government.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Hendricks approvingly.  “Old Cardew’s been running it for years, and you could put all the honest government he’s given us in a hollow tooth.  If you’ll stop that hammering, I’d like to make a proposition to you.”

Willy Cameron took an admiring squint at his handiwork.

“Sorry to refuse you, Mr. Hendricks, but I don’t want to be mayor.”

Mr. Hendricks chuckled, as Willy Cameron led the way to his room.  He wandered around the room while Cameron opened a window and slid the dog off his second chair.

“Great snakes!” he said.  “Spargo’s Bolshevism!  Political Economy, History of—.  What are you planning to be?  President?”

“I haven’t decided yet.  It’s a hard job, and mighty thankless.  But I won’t be your mayor, even for you.”

Mr. Hendricks sat down.

“All right,” he said.  “Of course if you’d wanted it!” He took two large cigars from the row in his breast pocket and held one out, but Willy Cameron refused it and got his pipe.