to run for alderman, but he had been defeated by the saloon interests and the ring. He was, it may seem unnecessary to add, a Republican and an Episcopalian. Nobody of any social standing in Maple Valley was a Democrat or a Roman Catholic. That fact, however, did not prevent the Catholic Democrats from occasionally gaining control of the local government. There were so few Jews in Maple Valley that the Jewish question had never become a problem. Sam Adler, who ran a clothing emporium, belonged to the Methodist Church and the Elks just like anybody else, while Isaac Goldberg was considered one of the brightest lawyers in the state, and was the life of any party where men played poker around a table spread with bottles of Budweiser and plates of American cheese and crackers.
Henry Johns was a tall, pompous man. He weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds and wore side-whiskers. He was growing bald around the top of his head. A gold watch chain, hung with a walrus-tooth and a Masonic emblem, was always stretched across his expansive belly, while the head of an elk, set with diamonds and rubies, invariably embellished the button-hole of his coat-lapel. When he walked to church on Sunday morning he carried a gold-headed stick and wore a high silk hat and a Prince Albert coat.
Henry Johns had never understood his son. It
