Excitement built in Chester Martin as winter gave way to spring. Before long, spring would give way to summer. When summer came to Toledo, so would the Socialist Party national convention.

"Not Debs again!" he said to Albert Bauer. "He's run twice, and he's lost twice. We've got to pick somebody new this time, a fresh face. It's not like it was in 1916, or in 1912, either. We've got a real chance to win this year."

"In 1912 and 1916, you were a damn Democrat," Bauer returned, stuffing an envelope. "What gives you the right to tell the Party what to do now?"

Martin's wave took in the local headquarters. "That I am here now and wouldn't have been caught dead here then. Proves my point, doesn't it?"

His friend grunted. "Maybe you've got something," Bauer said grudgingly. After a moment, though, he brightened. "This must be how the real old-time Socialists felt when Lincoln brought so many Republicans into the Party after the Second Mexican War. It was nice having more than half a dozen people come to meetings and vote for you, but a lot of the new folks didn't know a hell of a lot about what Socialism was supposed to mean."

"Are you saying I don't know much?" Martin asked, amusement in his voice.

"Tell me about the means of production," Albert Bauer said. "Explain why they don't belong in the hands of the capitalist class."

"I don't have to sit still for examinations: I'm not in school any more, thank God," Martin said. "I don't know much about the means of production, and I don't give a damn, either. What I do know is, the Democrats have jumped into bed with the fat cats. I want a party to jump into bed with me."

"You're voting your class interest," Bauer said. "Well, that's a start. At least you know you have a class interest, which is a devil of a lot more than too many people do. You wouldn't believe how much trouble we've had educating the proletariat to fulfill its proper social role."

"Yeah, and one of the reasons why is that you keep talking so fancy, nobody wants to pay any attention to you," Martin said. "You keep on doing that, the Socialists are going to lose this election, same as they've lost all the others. And God only knows when we'll ever have a better chance."

By the way Bauer winced and grimaced, he knew he'd struck a nerve, maybe even struck it harder than he'd intended. "What do you think?" Bauer asked, shifting the subject a little. "Will TR run for a third term?"

"Nobody ever has before," Martin answered, but that wasn't the question Bauer had asked. At length, he said, "Yeah, I think he will. What's he going to do, dust off his hands and walk away? Go hunt lions and elephants in Africa? You ask me, he likes doing what he's doing. He'll try and keep doing it." He held up a forefinger. "Here's one for you, Al: if Teddy does run again, will that make things easier or harder for us?"

"I'm damned if I know," Bauer replied, his voice troubled. "Nobody knows. Maybe people will remember he fought the war and won it. If they do, they'll vote for him. Or maybe they'll remember how many men died and all the trouble we've had since. If they do that, they won't touch him with a ten-foot pole."

"The war will have been over for almost three and a half years by the time the election rolls around," Martin said.

"That's a fact." Albert Bauer sounded glad it was a fact, too. "People don't remember things very long. Of course"-he didn't seem to want to be glad about anything-"the Great War is a big thing to forget."

"Losing two elections in a row is a big thing to forget, too, and that's what Debs has done," Martin said. "If we do run him again, what'll our slogan be? 'Third time's the charm'? I don't think that'll work."

"He walks in and he knows all the answers." Bauer might have been talking to the ceiling; since he spoke of Martin in the third person, he wasn't-quite-talking to him. But then he was once more: "All right, all right, maybe not Debs. But if we don't run him, who do we run? He's the one fellow we've got who has a following across the whole damn country."

"You pick somebody," Chester Martin said. "You're always going on about how you're the old-time Red, so you have to know all these people. I'm nothing but a damn recruit. That's what you keep telling me, anyway."

"Go peddle your papers," Bauer said. A little less gruffly, he continued, "Go on, take the rest of the day off. It's Sunday, for Christ's sake. Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"

"Probably." Martin got up from the table where he and his friend had been preparing fliers for mailing. "But if too many people find better things to do with their time than work for the Party, the work won't get done. Where will we be then?"

"Up the same old creek," Bauer admitted. "But the Rebs won't capture Philadelphia if you have yourself a couple of beers or something."

"Twist my arm," Martin said, and Bauer did, not very hard. Martin groaned anyway. "Aii! There-you made me do it. See you later."

When he stepped outside, spring was in the air. While he'd fought in the Roanoke Valley, it had arrived sooner and more emphatically than it did here by the shore of Lake Erie. That was the one good thing he could say about Virginia. Against it, he set filth and stench and horror and fear and pain and mud and lice. They sent the scales crashing down against the place.

How many veterans would weigh what they'd been through in the same fashion? Was what they'd done worth it? Could anything have been worth three years of hell on earth? He didn't think so, especially not when he reckoned in the trouble he'd had after the war was over. Would the rest of the millions who'd worn green-gray-those of them left alive, anyhow-feel as he did? If so, Teddy Roosevelt faced more trouble than he guessed.

Red flags flew above the Socialists' building. Toledo cops still prowled past. Martin no longer carried a pistol in his pocket. Something like peace had returned to the labor scene. He wondered how long it would last. The answer supplied itself: till the day after the election.

One of the policemen in brass-buttoned dark blue flashed Martin a thumbs-up. Martin was so surprised to get it, he tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fell. During the great wave of strikes, that cop had undoubtedly broken workers' heads along with his goonish chums. Did he think he could turn into a good Socialist with one simple gesture? If he did, he was an even bigger fool than the usual run of cop.

Or maybe he was a straw, blowing in the wind of change. If a cop found it a good idea to show somebody coming out of the Socialist hall that he wasn't hostile, who held the power? Who was liable to hold it after March 4, 1921? Maybe the policeman was hedging his bets.

"Won't do you any good," Martin muttered under his breath. "We'll still remember you bastards. Hell, yes, we will."

He listened to himself. That was when he began to think the party that had wandered so long in the wilderness might have a chance to come home at last. The Democrats had ruled the roost for a long time. They wouldn't be happy about clearing out, not after all these years they wouldn't.

"Too damn bad," Martin said.

Red Socialist posters were plastered on every wall and fence and telegraph pole. They shouted for freedom and justice in big black letters. For once, more of them were up than their red-white-and-blue Democratic counterparts. Those showed the U.S. eagle flying high over a burning Confederate flag, and bore a one-word message: VICTORY!

As poster art went, the Democrats' handbills were pretty good. The only drawback Chester Martin found in them was that they bragged about old news. As Bauer had said, people forgot things in a hurry.

Martin walked over to the trolley stop and rode back to the apartment building where he and his parents and sister lived. They were playing hearts three-handed. "About time you got home," his father said. "This is a better game when the cards come out even when you deal 'em."