PATRIOTISM had waxed and politics waned with the ebbing of the year 1917, in Centralia. Through the murk and fume of alien treachery, enemy propaganda, and the reckless self-seeking of petty partisanship had burst a clear, high, consuming flame of Americanism. Lesser matters were forgotten in the maintenance of that beacon-fire. Men of all types of political belief, of all classes, of all economic and social creeds, had abandoned their private feuds and bitternesses in the fervor against the common enemy. To them had rallied the finer and more courageous element of the German-Americans, some impulsively from emotion and sentiment like Stock-muller and Blasius, others, in the pain and travail of old ties broken and from the profound conviction of loyalty and right, like Professor Brender. Centralia, thirty years before marked by Deutschtum to be the Little Germany of the New World, was slowly, doggedly establishing its birthright of Americanism.

Poison still lurked in its system. There were whisperings in dark corners. The German-language press still gave heart-service to the Kaiser’s cause in hint and suggestion and innuendo, while giving lip-service to the cause of the United States in artificial and machine-made editorials. The German pulpit, preaching an ineradicable Germanism by the very use of the German tongue, was lack-loyal where it dared not be disloyal. Over many a Verein and Bund and Gesellschaft the Stars and Stripes waved above seething revolt of spirit. Workers in all patriotic causes felt the dead-weight of a sullen, unworded, untraceable opposition clogging their efforts. But all this was negative. Deutschtum, a few short months before so arrogant and confident of its power over Centralia, was on its defense. More; it was in hiding. No other one force had done so much to drive it thither as that once yellow mongrel of journalism, The Fenchester Guardian.

The Guardian’s den was brightly lighted on this December evening of 1917. It was brightly lighted on most evenings. Yet Doc Summerfield, aforetime of a pessimistic view regarding the effect of night-labor upon Jeremy Robson, was obliged to admit that he showed a steady improvement in spite of apparent overwork. Perhaps this was because he had provided himself with a highly valued assistant. The assistant was seated opposite the chief, reading proof on an editorial, when the door opened, and in stalked Andrew Galpin, traveling-bag in hand.

“Hello, Bosses!” he said.

“Hello, Andy,” said his chief; and “Welcome back, Andy,” said the assistant getting up to perch upon the arm of the chief editorial chair, thus leaving a seat for the general manager, who took it with a nod.

“I saw Cassius Kimball,” he stated. “He’s just back from Washington.”

“Any new’s?” asked Jeremy.

“We’ve located Emil Bausch. But not for publication.”

“Where is he?”

“Behind two row’s of barbed wire, one of ’em charged with electricity, in a pleasant Southern camp. He’s a member of the Millionaires’ Club, there. They caught him on that chemical deal. Supposed to be wholesale drugs; really high explosives.”

“Any other of our extinguished local lights heard from?”

“Muller, the saloon-keeper, is down there, too. But not in the Millionaires’ Club. He’s gardening. One dollar per diem. Martin Dolge is in Mexico.”

“What about Gunst and Klink and the church outfit?”

“They’ve promised to be good. Three of their religious weeklies are scheduled to quit. Gordon Fliess has dropped his financial support of the German-American dailies. We’re going to go stale for lack of opposition’ if this keeps on,” prophesied Andy sadly.

“Cassius did n’t run across Mart Embree down there, did he?” queried Jeremy.

“Ay-ah. He did. Says ‘Smiling Mart’ was running around like a little, worried dog, wagging his tail anxiously and trying to make his peace.”

“Peace is still Governor Embree’s specialty, then?” put in the assistant, from her perch.

“Why, I guess it always will be, so long as there’s a German vote in Centralia,” returned the general manager. “But what does ‘Smiling Mart’ amount to, now? We’ve got the whole bunch licked to a frazzle, and licked for keeps.”

“Do you think so. So easily?”

Andy Galpin looked intently at Mrs. Jeremy Robson. “Maybe I’m wrong,” he said meekly. “You think it is n’t over?”

The little, tawny head was shaken emphatically.

“I think that we shall have it all to fight again,” she said, in her unchanged, precise, and subtly caressing manner of speech.

“When?” The chief and the general manager challenged her with one voice.

“When Germany’s peace offer is made. Then you will see Governor Embree and all that is left of Germany here making their fight for a peace which will be worse than war. That is why I will not listen to Jem’s giving up the paper.”

“What do you think of that, Andy?” asked Jem.

The general manager smiled his slow, homely, friendly smile at Marcia Robson. “I think what I’ve thought since the first minute I set eyes on her,” he said: “that she’s a wise guy. Boss, we haven’t won this war over here until we’ve won this war over there, and don’t you forget it! By the way, there’s quite a little talk in Washington, Kimball tells me, about the new Senator-elect from Centralia.”

“I blush, modestly and prettily,” retorted Jem. “Or—Marcia, you do it for me. I’d rather stay here and run the old Guardian.”

“I’d rather have you,” returned Andy, with rueful emphasis.

“We shall be back for the fight that is coming,” promised Marcia.

Galpin’s eyes wandered slowly about the room and returned upon Marcia. “It gives me the shivers,” he said, “to think how near we were to losing out on the whole fight when Buddy Higman went and got you. I’d like to have heard Buddy’s argument.”

“It was effective,” laughed Marcia. “Buddy was honestly convinced that without The Guardian to guide it, the Nation would go to immediate destruction.”

“Buddy’s little plan turned out well for him,” observed Jem. “Marcia is sending him to Old Central in the fall. Sort of a fairy godmother, aren’t you?” he added, looking up at his wife. “Pull the paper through with one hand, save us all, and make a man of Buddy with the other.”

“Do not give me too much credit,” said Marcia, more gravely. “It was Andy who really held you here when you wished to go into the army.”

“Oh, well, I had my stake in the paper, too,” disclaimed the general manager, picking up his valise and hat. “Good-night, Bosses,” he added. “Don’t overwork and spoil your beauty, you two.”

“Marcia,” said Jem, after their aide had gone. “That night when you came back—don’t go away while I’m talking seriously, please!—would you really have married me, right away, then and there?”

“Certainly, I would. I meant to. You were very cruel. You spoiled my plans.”

He regarded her with suspicion. Was there a note of raillery in the sweet, even voice?

“What plans?”

“Why, to marry you then.”

“And then what?”

“To put my money into the paper and keep you from selling it, of course.’

“But if I would n’t have taken it? And I would n’t, you know.”

“That would not have made the slightest difference,” she said calmly. “You could not have sold the paper, in any case, if you had married me when—when I proposed to you.”

“Could n’t I! I’d have had to, if matters had gone on as they were going.”

“No. For you could not have sold the paper without the plant, and the plant being real estate, could not be transferred without the wife’s consent.”

“So it couldn’t! You wretched little plotter! Who put you up to that?”

“I consulted a lawyer,” she replied demurely. “On a hypothetical case.”

“I’m jealous,” declared Jem. “You were trying to marry me for my property and not for my winning self. Was that the only reason?”

Her face changed adorably as she bent over him. “What do you think?” she said.

“But I wanted to have—what is it Andy called it?—a stake in the paper, too,” she continued, after a moment. “You have never let me. Do you think that is fair?”

“It’s the only fair way. We’re not out of the woods yet, with The Guardian. Newspaper property is going to be mighty uncertain before this war is over, and I don’t want you involved in it. The Guardian has taken you in, little wife, but it won’t take your money.”

“Not even if you should need it? To save the paper?”

“Not even then.”

“Jem, I—I want a—a stake in the paper.”

“Why, Marcia! What is it, dearest? You’re not crying, are you?”

“No, I think not. If I am, it is for happiness, Jem. I—I have a—a special stake now in the paper. I want to keep The Guardian to hand it down to—to—”

“Marcia!” He turned in the circle of her arms, but for once the frank eyes were hidden from him.

“—to our son,” said the soft voice with a little catch in it. “I am sure it will be a son, Jem. If we name him Jeremy Andrew Robson”—the voice was muffled now against Jem’s cheek—“he will be almost The Guardian’s child—next to being ours, Jem.”

Jem drew a long, deep breath of happiness. “There’ll always be a good fight for a hundred per cent American paper like The Guardian to get into. That’s the real best of the business, I guess.” He bent over the little, proud, bowed head. “I hope he’ll be as good an American as his mother,” he said.

THE END