Part 7

“The point we want to hammer in is that we--the Ward family--are the only people in Sycamore county who are in touch with the Campbell power, social and financial,” John elucidated to his friend Townley. “Modest, retiring to the point of utter self-effacement as we, the Wards, are, no other family in the community has ever been honored by a visit from so big a bunch of assets. And when it comes to social prominence their coming will link Kernville right on to Newport where old Walter Scott Campbell owns one of the lordliest villas. Here’s a picture of it I found in ‘Summer Homes of Great Americans.’ We’ll feed in the pictorial stuff from time to time, using this photograph of Mrs. Campbell mother keeps on the upright at home, and that cut of Walter Scott I dug out of your office graveyard. Your record shows you ran it the time the old money-devil was indicted under the Sherman law for conspiracy against the peace and dignity of the United States in a fiendish attempt to boost the price of bathtubs. The indictment was quashed as to the said Walter because he was laid up with whooping cough when the wicked attack on the free ablutions of the American people was planned or concocted, and he denied all responsibility for the acts of his proxy.”

“You’ve got to hand it to that lad,” said Townley ruminatively. “Anything you can do to put me in the way of a soft snap as private secretary for his majesty would be appreciated. I’ve had considerable experience in keeping my friends out of jail and I might be of use to him.”

John rose early on Sunday morning to inspect his handiwork in the section of the _Journal_ devoted to the goings and comings, the entertainments past and prospective and the club activities of Kernville. Townley had eliminated the usual group of portraits of the brides of the week that Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell’s handsome countenance might be spread across three columns in the center of the page. The photograph of Mrs. Campbell had been admirably reproduced, and any one informed in such matters would know instantly that she was the sort of woman who looks well in evening gowns and that her pearl necklace was of unquestionable authenticity.

The usual double column “lead” was devoted wholly to the announcement of the visit of the Walter Scott Campbells of New York and Newport to the Robert Fleming Wards of Kernville, with all biographical data necessary to establish the Campbells in the minds of intelligent readers as persons of indubitable eminence entitled to the most distinguished consideration in every part of the world. Mrs. Campbell, John had learned from “Distinguished American Women,” was a Mayflower descendant, a Colonial Dame and a Daughter of the Revolution, besides being a trustee of eighteen separate and distinct philanthropies, and all these matters were impressively set forth. Mr. Campbell’s clubs in town and country required ten lines for their recital. Any jubilation over the coming of so much magnificence was neatly concealed under the generalization that the horizon of Kernville was rapidly widening and that there was bound to be more and more communication between New York and Kernville. Mrs. Ward, the article concluded, had not yet decided in just what manner she would entertain for the Campbells, but the representative people of the city would undoubtedly have an opportunity to meet her guests.

“The first gun is fired!” John whispered, thrusting the paper through Helen’s bed-room door. “Read and ponder well!”

Mrs. Ward read the announcement aloud at the breakfast table as soberly as though it were a new constitution for her favorite club.

“That Miss Givens who does the society news for the _Journal_ has more sense than I gave her credit for,” she said. “There isn’t a word in that piece that isn’t true. But that portrait of Ruth is a trifle too large; you ought to have warned them about that! When Tetrazzini sang here they didn’t print her picture half as big as that.”

“Well, mother, the _Journal_ simply begged for a photograph. People of note don’t mind publicity. They simply eat it up!”

“Well, the article is really very nice,” said Mrs. Ward, “but I hope they won’t say anything more until the Campbells arrive.”

John, aware that several columns more bearing upon the Campbell visit were already in type in the _Journal_ office, was grateful to Helen for changing the subject to a pertinent discussion of the proper shade of wall paper for the guest-room.

On Tuesday the _Journal’s_ first page contained a news-article on the crying need of enlarged railway facilities, adroitly written to embody the hope of the transportation committee of the Chamber of Commerce, that when Mr. Walter Scott Campbell of the board of directors of the Transcontinental paid his expected visit to the city he would take steps to change the reactionary policy of the road’s operating department. The same article stated with apparent authority that Robert Fleming Ward, the well-known attorney, whose guest Mr. Campbell would be, had pledged himself to assist the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce to the utmost in urging Kernville’s needs upon the great capitalist.

“See here, John, you’ve got to be careful about this Campbell business!” Mr. Ward’s tone was severe. “I know without your telling me you inspired that piece in this morning’s paper. Campbell never saw me in his life and that article gives the impression that he and I are old cronies. It’s going to cause us all a lot of embarrassment. It won’t do!”

“Sorry if it bothers you, father; but there’s nothing untrue in that article. You’ll be the only man in town who can get Campbell’s ear. If he refuses to interest himself in a new freight house and that sort of thing, that’s his affair.”

The stenographer knocked to announce Mr. Pickett.

“Say to him,” replied John, indifferently, “that we are in conference but he can see us in just a moment.”

“Pickett!” exclaimed Ward, senior, as the door closed. “What on earth brings him here!”

“The Campbells are coming,” replied John with a grin. “Pickett’s president of the Water Power Company, and he wants to line us up to get Campbell interested in making a new bond deal.”

“Humph! If that’s what he wants I like his nerve. We don’t even speak when we meet.”

“You’ll be speaking now! Let’s go out and give him the glad hand of brotherly greeting.”

A little diffident at first, Wesley T. Pickett warmed under the spell of the Wards’ magnanimity.

“I’ve regretted very much our little differences----” he began.

“There’s no feeling on our side at all, Mr. Pickett,” John declared and his father, a little dazed, murmured his acquiescence in this view of the matter, and eyed with interest a formidable bundle of documents in Pickett’s hands.

“Fact is,” remarked Pickett, with a sheepish grin as he re-crossed his legs, “you were dead right on that matter of the pollution of the river. Swiggert probably did the best he could with our defense but you were right when you told me I’d save money and avoid arousing hostile feeling in the community by pleading guilty.”

“It’s always disagreeable to be obliged to tell a man he hasn’t a good case,” Ward announced.

“Well, I want you to know I respect you for your honesty. Swiggert encouraged me to think he might get us off on some technical defect in the statute, and it cost me a two thousand dollar fee to find he was wrong.”

“The point he raised was an interesting one,” Ward remarked mildly, “and he might have made it stick.”

“But he didn’t!” Pickett retorted a little savagely. “Now I got a matter I want the God’s truth about, absolutely. It’s a row I’ve got into with a few of my stockholders in the glass company. The fools got the idea of freezing me out! It’s all in these papers, and I want you to give it all the time it needs, but I want an opinion,--no more than you can get on a letter sheet. Swiggert uses too many words and I’ve got to have a yes or no.”

The thought of being frozen out caused Mr. Pickett to swell with indignation. He turned from father to son in an unvoiced but eloquent appeal to be saved from so monstrous and impious an assault upon his dignity.

“Certainly, Mr. Pickett,” said the senior Ward, accepting the papers. “We’ll be glad to take up the matter. It’s possible I may have to ask some questions----”

“That will be all right, Ward! I don’t mind telling you I’m a good deal worried about this thing. I’m at the Elks Club most every noon, and if you’ll just ’phone when you’re ready to see me we can have lunch together. Now, I guess a retainer’s the usual thing. What do you say to a thousand or two?”

John with difficulty refrained from screaming that two would be much more to the taste of the firm, but his father’s gentle and slightly tremulous murmur that one thousand would be satisfactory stilled him. The check written with a flourish, lay on the edge of Ward senior’s desk while Pickett abused the enemies who were trying to wrest from him the control of the glass company.

“I’m familiar with the general question you indicate,” said Ward, senior; “I went into it a while back in a similar case for a client in Newton county; we shall give it our best attention.”

“I got confidence in you!” blurted Pickett. “That’s why I brought the job here.” He thrust a big cigar into his mouth and began feeling in his pocket for a match which John instantly supplied.

“Notice by the paper,” remarked Pickett, “that Campbell of the Transcontinental’s comin’ out. If you could arrange it, I’d like a chance to talk to him about the Water Power bonds the Sutphen Trust’s handled for us. I went to New York a couple of weeks ago to see about refunding and I couldn’t get near anybody but the fourth vice president. Wouldn’t want to bother you, but if I could just get a chance at Campbell and show him the plant----”

“I’m sure that can be arranged very easily,” John answered quickly, noting a look of apprehension on his father’s face. “It will be a pleasure to arrange a meeting for you.”

“I’d particularly appreciate it,” said Pickett, shaking hands with both of them; and John accompanied him to the head of the stairway, where they shook hands again.

“You don’t think,” asked Ward, senior, looking up from Pickett’s papers, which he had already spread out on his desk,--“you don’t really think the Campbells had anything to do with this----”

“Not a thing, dad!” John replied gayly. “I’ll just call up Helen and tell her to go ahead with the redecorating and other things necessary to put our house in order for royalty!”

John had deposited Pickett’s check and was crossing the lobby of the Kernville National when he met Jason V. Kirby leaving the officers’ corner.

“Hello, John!” exclaimed the brick manufacturer affably. “Haven’t seen you round much of late. Funny I ran into you; just going up to see you. You know Taylor’s my lawyer, but he’s in Chicago trying a long case, and I got an abstract of title I’m in a hurry to have examined. Glad if you or your father would pass on it. Farm I’m buying out in Decatur township.”

“Certainly, Mr. Kirby; we can give it immediate attention,” John replied as though it were a common occurrence for him to pick up business in this fashion.

To Kirby’s suggestion that if he didn’t mind he might walk over to the brick company’s office and get the abstract, John answered that he didn’t mind in the least. The abstract was bulky, and John roughly estimated that a report on it would be worth at least a hundred dollars. Kirby explained that the land was needed for the extension of the brick business and that he had taken a ten-day option to keep a rival company from picking it up.

“Look here, John,” remarked Kirby carelessly, as John started off with the abstract in his pocket, “I see that the Campbells are coming out to visit your folks. Don’t let ’em overlook Kirby brick. We’re reachin’ right out for New York business.”

“Certainly, Mr. Kirby. Father has it in mind to take Mr. Campbell for an inspection of all our industries, and I’ll give you the tip so you can be all set to show off your plant.”

“Occurs to me Campbell might make a short speech to our workmen; just a nice friendly jolly, you understand.”

“That will be perfectly simple, Mr. Kirby. Trust me to arrange it.”

V

When John and his father reached home, Helen fell upon her brother’s neck.

“I’ve lost that wager! We’re invited!”

“Ah! The poison is at work, is it? Did it come special post, or did their dusky Senegambian bear the cards hither upon a golden plate?”

“Neither! Mrs. Kirby and Jeannette called and left them personally. I was making bread when they arrived but I had the presence of mind to shed my apron on my way to the door to let them in. Mother was darning socks but she came down and they stayed so long the bread burned to a cinder.”

“A few loaves of bread are nothing--nothing!”

“But, John, dear, I think maybe----” began Mrs. Ward, uncertainly and paused, noting that her husband was emptying a satchel of important looking papers as though he expected to spend the evening at work. He appeared more cheerful than she had seen him in years.

“Better let John have his way,” said Ward, senior. “The Campbells are driving business into the office and we’re not going to turn it away.”

“It’s your ability that’s bringing the business; you’ve always been a bigger man than Taylor or Swiggert!” declared Mrs. Ward, when the day’s events had been explained to her.

“We’ll pretend that’s it anyhow,” Ward assented. “There’s a mighty interesting question in that case of Pickett’s. You may be sure I’m going to give it my best care.”

“I’m so proud of you, Robert!”

“Be proud of John,” he laughed; “the boy’s bound to make or ruin us in these next few weeks.”

It was astonishing the number of ways in which the prospective visit of the Campbells became a matter of deep concern to Kernville. Billy Townley had entered with zest into John’s campaign, and Martin Cowdery, the owner of the _Journal_ and the congressman from the district, wired instructions from Washington to cut things loose on the Campbell visit. Under the same potent inspiration the _Journal’s_ venerable editorial writer took a vacation from his regular business of explaining and defending the proprietor’s failure to land a fish hatchery for the old Sycamore district and celebrated the approach of the Campbells under such captions as “The Dawn of a New Era,” and “Stand up, Kernville.” He called loudly upon the mayor, who was not of the _Journal’s_ politics, to clean the streets that their shameful condition might not offend the eyes and the nostrils of the man of millions who was soon to honor the city with his presence.

The _Sun_, not to be outdone, boldly declared that Campbell was coming to Kernville as the representative of interests that were seeking an eligible site for a monster steel casting plant, an imaginative flight that precipitated a sudden call for a meeting of the Bigger Kernville Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and the expenditure of fifteen dollars with war tax to wire a set of resolutions to Walter Scott Campbell. A five-line dispatch in the press report announcing that Walter Scott Campbell had given half a million toward the endowment of a hospital in Honolulu was handled as a local item, quite as though Kernville alone vibrated to Campbell’s generous philanthropies.

“Helen, we’ve got ’em going!” John chortled at the beginning of the second week. “Three automobile agents have offered me the biggest cars in their show rooms to carry the Campbells hither and yon. I’m encouraging competition for the honor. The Chamber of Commerce wants to give a banquet with speeches and everything for our old friend Walter. Old man Shepherd climbed our stairs today, risking apoplexy at every step, to ask as a special favor that the Chamber be granted this high privilege.”

“Ned’s asked me to go to the Kirby party with him,” confessed Helen. “The embargo seems to be off.”

“Ha!” cried John dramatically. “Mrs. Hovey called me up to request my presence at dinner Wednesday night. Alice has a friend visiting her. Alice with the hair so soft and so brown, as stated in the ballad, is the dearest girl in the world next to you, sis; no snobbery about her; but her mama! Ah, mama has seen a great light in the heavens!”

The population of Kernville was now divided into two classes, those who would in all likelihood be permitted to meet the Campbells, and those who could hardly hope for this coveted privilege. The _Journal_ followed a picture of the Campbells’ Newport villa, fortified with a glowing description of its magnificence, with a counterfeit presentment of the _White Gull_, which had almost the effect of anchoring the Campbells’ seagoing yacht in the muddy Sycamore at the foot of Harrison street.

“The yacht’s the biggest thing we’ve pulled yet,” John announced to Helen, a few days after the craft’s outlines had been made familiar to the _Journal’s_ constituency. “Since we sprung it our office has drawn four good cases, not including the collection business of the Tilford Casket Company, which ought to be good for a thousand bucks a year if the death rate in the rich valley of the Sycamore doesn’t go down on us.”

“It’s wonderful, John!” said Helen, in an awed tone. “Mrs. Montgomery spent an hour with mother this afternoon talking of the good old times, and how all us old families must stand together, and she insisted on throwing a tea for Mrs. Campbell--just for our old friends--you know how she talks! She’d no sooner rolled away than Mrs. Everett Crawford invaded our home and interfered terribly with the paper hangers while she begged to be allowed to give a dinner for the Campbells in the new home they’ve built with boodle they’ve made canning our native fruits.”

“Splendid! There may be some business there before we get through with it! Young Freddie Crawford is the gayest of our joy riders, and it would be worth a big retainer to keep him out of the penal farm.”

A second stenographer had been established in the office of Ward & Ward to care for the increased business when Cowdery left the halls of Congress for a look at his fences, held conferences with John in an upper room of the Kipperly House, sacred to political conspiracy, and caused the _Journal_ forthwith to launch a boom for John Ward for prosecuting attorney subject to the decision of the April primaries.

“Look here, little brother,” said Helen, coming in from a dance to which Ned Shepherd had taken her, and finding John in the sitting room at work on one of the new cases that had been bestowed upon Ward & Ward, “we’ve got to put on brakes.”

“What’s troubling you, sis? Isn’t everybody treating you all right?”

“A queen couldn’t receive more consideration! But what’s worrying me is how we’re ever going to satisfy these silly people. If all the plutocrats in New York should come to visit us we couldn’t spread them around in a way to please all our fellow townsmen. We’re certainly in the lime light! People were buzzing me tonight about the prosecutorship--say you’ll win in a walk. But tell me what you think Cowdery’s going to expect from you in return. Does he want to shake the Campbell cherry tree?”

John eyed her with philosophical resignation.

“Now that you’ve been enfranchised by the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of this more or less free republic, you must learn to view matters with a mind of understanding. Cowdery hankers for a promotion to the senate. If the accursed money interests of the nation are persuaded that he is not a menace to the angels of Wall street they can sow some seed over the rich soil of this noble commonwealth that will be sure to bear fruit. There’s a lot of Eastern capital invested in the state and a word carelessly spoken by the right persons, parties or groups in tall buildings in New York and a substantial corruption fund sent out from the same quarter will do much to help Cowdery through the primary. In me, sweet child, Cowdery sees a young man of great promise, who can hitch the powerful Campbell to his wagon.”

“And if you can’t do the hitching----?”

“Been giving thought to that, sis. Those resolutions the enterprising Bigger Kernville Committee sent Campbell annoy me a great deal. We can only hope that Walter has a sense of humor. The _Journal’s_ got a new untouched photograph of him from somewhere and the boy looks cheerful. He has a triple chin and there are lines around his eyes and mouth that argue for a mirthful nature. The rest, dearest, is on the knees of the gods!”

VI

It was in the third week of Mr. John Marshall Ward’s vigorous campaign of education that Walter Scott Campbell, in his office in New York, tossed the last of the letters he had been answering to his stenographer and rang for his secretary.

A pale young man entered and waited respectfully for the magnate to look up from the newspaper clippings he was scanning.

“Parker, where the deuce did you get this stuff?” Campbell asked.

“They came in our usual press clipping service. Your order covers the better papers in the larger towns where you have interests. It’s not often I find anything worth showing you.”

“Well, don’t let me miss anything like this!” replied Campbell with a chuckle.

He unfolded a page that had been sent complete, being indeed the society page of the Kernville _Morning Journal_ of the previous Sunday. Campbell chuckled again, much to the relief of the pale secretary, who feared he might have brought to his employer’s attention some news of evil omen. Campbell continued to read, chuckling as he rapidly turned over the cuttings.

“You look a little run down, Parker,” he remarked affably. “A change of air would do you good. Give Miss Calderwood my calendar of appointments and any data I may need in the next few days, and take the first train for Kernville. Study this stuff carefully and find out what it’s all about. There are some resolutions from the Kernville Chamber of Commerce about a site for a steel casting plant. Curious about that! Must have been a leak somewhere. We discussed possible locations in that secret conference at Pittsburgh last week, but Kernville wasn’t mentioned. But that town, with its water power, might possibly be just right. Give it a looking over, but be very guarded in all your inquiries. And learn all you can about these Wards, father and son.”

“Yes, Mr. Campbell,” and Parker glanced at his watch.

“Mrs. Ward is an old friend of Mrs. Campbell--you understand. There’s an old attachment and an obligation, as I remember. Mrs. Ward was exceedingly kind to Mrs. Campbell back in their school-days when my wife was ill. She has never forgotten it.”

“My inquiries as to the Wards are to be made in a sympathetic spirit? I understand, sir!”

“We are scheduled to stop at Kernville for a day on our way to California--is that right?”

“Yes, Mr. Campbell. Your car is ordered attached to the Transcontinental Limited leaving at five twenty-one on Tuesday, February seventeen.”

“Take several days to this investigation. Learn what you can of these people, the town itself and so on. All this whoop and hurrah out there is unusual. Most amusing thing that’s turned up since they wanted me to go out to some town in that neighborhood and preside at a barbecue. What place was that?”

“Scottsburg, Indiana, during the campaign of 1916,” replied the invaluable Parker.

“A great people, those of the Middle West,” remarked Mr. Campbell reflectively. “As the phrase goes, you’ve got to hand it to them. That’s all, Parker.”