Part 7

He glanced at the door with a lingering hope that Mr. Meredith would appear, but of course he did not come. Then Jamie slowly hitched down the speaker’s stairs, a step at a time, and, reaching the floor, slipped over by the reporters’ boxes--empty that afternoon, for the correspondents, like the legislators, never returned until Tuesday morning--and thence into the side aisle, under the gallery, and to the cloak-room. There he got his cap, looked longingly at Mr. Meredith’s hook, empty now, with no satin-lined overcoat for him to nestle lovingly against for a blissful second, and then he went out into the hall under the huge dome. No one, of course, observed a mere page boy, but Jamie felt, as he clicked his hurrying little heels across the marble floors, that something was about to poke him in his cold, unprotected back--the fear of a rear attack that boyhood inherits from its far-distant savage ancestry. Jamie didn’t take the elevator, or the grand staircase, but reached the main floor by leaping two steps at a time down a narrow side stairway, unused and dark.

Then he flew out of the east entrance, ran down the wide walk and on up Capitol Avenue for four long blocks--ran as fast as he could pump his little short legs to the hotel where he knew Mr. Meredith lived when he was at the capital. But Jamie had no hope of finding him there that afternoon. He went to the hotel simply because he did not know where else to go--that was all. Rushing into the hotel and up to the clerk’s desk, he put his chin over its edge and, as the clerk leaned down with his face almost in Jamie’s face, the boy panted:

“Is--now--Honorable Bronson Meredith in?”

The clerk smiled and Jamie blushed, fearing the clerk was making fun of him. And his heart sank--he might have known Mr. Meredith was not in.

“Whom did you say?” asked the clerk.

“Honorable Bronson Meredith--the gentleman from Cook--”

The clerk was knitting his brows, though the wrinkles about his lips were twitching as if he found it hard to keep them from rippling out into smiles. Jamie thought the clerk was wonderfully stupid not to know such a great man as Mr. Meredith, and he added, in order to jog the man’s memory a little:

“You know--the reformer.”

The clerk straightened up, placed his hands on his hips, threw back his head and laughed. Jamie stared at him with wide eyes--he saw nothing to laugh at, especially when senate bill 578 was coming up. Presently the clerk took one of his hands from his side and dropped it on the big bell beside the register, and as it clanged out in the empty lobby, he shouted in his laughing voice:

“Front!”

A bell-boy in buttons slid to the desk just as a page boy does in the house when a member claps his hands. The bell-boy and Jamie looked each other all over from head to toe in the instant they stood there facing each other, and the clerk began:

“Go see if Mr. Meredith--”

And just then a tall form appeared around the corner of a wall, and Jamie looked up.

It was Mr. Meredith himself, as smiling as the spring, with a bunch of violets in the lapel of his new light coat. Jamie sprang at him.

“Oh, Mr. Meredith,” he exclaimed, raising his clasped hands almost appealingly, “come--quick! Come quick!”

“Why, what’s the matter?” said Mr. Meredith, halting in surprise.

“They’ve got senate bill 578 up!”

Mr. Meredith’s eyes opened; his face lost its mild expression.

“What do you know about senate bill 578?”

Jamie took him by the coat--he dared at last to lay hands on his sacred person--and tugged as he said:

“Oh, honest--Mr. Meredith--honest--cross my heart they have--you’ll be too late!”

Mr. Meredith looked at the pleading lad closely, and then suddenly exclaimed:

“Oh, yes! You’re one of the page boys.” And then he ran as fast as he could through the lobby, down the steps and across the sidewalk, Jamie after him.

“Come on!” cried Mr. Meredith, as he stooped to plunge into a carriage at the curb, dragging Jamie in after him, and shouting to the driver:

“The state house--fast as you can drive!”

The driver whirled his carriage about in Sixth Street, and as Mr. Meredith drew in his head and slammed the heavy door he shouted:

“Faster there--I’ll double your fare!”

The carriage lurched around the corner, the lash of the driver’s whip writhed in the air, and the horses went galloping with the rattling old hack down Capitol Avenue. And as the carriage pitched and rocked Jamie was supremely happy--he had done what he could, and, better than all, he was sitting beside Mr. Meredith and actually riding in the same hack with him!

Mr. Meredith was silent until the carriage whirled into the state house grounds and the horses, breathing heavily, were plunging up the driveway toward the north portico. Then he turned and said:

“How’d they know I was in town?”

Jamie looked up in surprise.

“Who?” he said.

“Why,” replied Mr. Meredith, “whoever sent you.”

Jamie felt hurt.

“But no one sent me, Mr. Meredith,” he said; “I just came.”

“And how did you know I was here?”

“I guessed.”

Mr. Meredith was thoughtful for an instant and then said:

“But why did you come?”

Jamie blushed.

“I--I--I--now--” he stammered. “I don’t like to tell.” And he hid his face against Mr. Meredith’s sleeve.

The carriage stopped, the driver leaped from his box and flung open the door. Mr. Meredith sprang out, leaped up the stone steps, ran down the corridors, dashed into the elevator and was shot up to the third floor. Jamie had been compelled to run faster than he ever did in his life to keep up with him. He was nearly pinched by the iron door of the elevator as the man slid it shut.

But he was close at Mr. Meredith’s heels when he ran into the house. The few senators, having just concluded a perfunctory Monday afternoon session over in their more or less solemn chamber, were bustling into the hall of the house, evidently expecting something of interest to occur. They pressed by the doorkeeper, and as they entered Jamie heard the speaker cry:

“The gentleman from Cook asks unanimous consent to have senate bill 578 taken up out of the regular order, read at large a third time, and put upon its passage. Are there any objections?”

The speaker raised his gavel, waited an instant, and said:

“The chair hears--”

But suddenly a voice beside Jamie rang out like a bugle:

“Object!”

The speaker looked up in amazement. The members of the gang turned about in their seats with startled, guilty faces; the rich gentlemen on the speaker’s red lounge leaned forward with pained expressions. Mr. Meredith was striding down the center aisle, his hat in his hand, his face red, his eyes on fire.

Half-way down the aisle he halted, and once more shouted in that fearless note:

“I object! A million people in Chicago to-night are waiting to hear from this house on this franchise bill--I dare you to take it up in this star-chamber session!”

Mr. Meredith’s hand swept a wide arc that included the whole house as he flung his defiance, and then he stood glaring at them all. The eyes that met Mr. Meredith’s eyes quailed; the house was still. No one rose, no one replied to him.

Then after a long minute of this painful silence the speaker, lowering his head until Jamie could not see his face, said in a low voice:

“Objections are heard.”

And so the franchise grab bill was not taken up that day after all.

The session was very short after that, and when the house adjourned Mr. Meredith went down to the speaker’s dais. The speaker looked up as if he thought Mr. Meredith was coming to speak to him, but Mr. Meredith stopped at the steps, and taking Jamie’s little hand he pressed it in his own big palm and said:

“Come with me.”

It was the proudest moment of Jamie’s life as he walked out of the noisy chamber, through the crowd of angry, baffled members, past the staring pages, by the wondering doorkeepers, and so on out into the rotunda. They walked down the great white staircase, and as they were passing around the polished brass railing of the balcony on the second floor Mr. Meredith said, as if suddenly reminded of something:

“Beg your pardon, but what’s your name?”

“James Horn,” replied Jamie.

They kept on and Jamie wondered where they were going, until they turned into the governor’s offices. Jamie’s heart leaped suddenly. Surely this was a day of big surprises, thought he.

“Is the governor in?” Mr. Meredith asked of the governor’s private secretary.

“Yes--just go right in, Mr. Meredith,” and in another instant Jamie was standing beside Mr. Meredith in the presence of the governor.

The governor rose as they entered, and looked first at Mr. Meredith, then lowered his kind blue eyes and fixed them on Jamie.

“Governor,” said Mr. Meredith, “I wish to present my little friend, Master James Horn.”

The governor bowed, took Jamie’s hand in his own and said in his soft voice:

“I’m very glad to meet you, Master Horn, I’m sure.”

Jamie felt himself tingle all through at the governor’s words.

“Master Horn, Governor,” continued Mr. Meredith, “is a page boy in the house, and to-day, when we were all caught napping, he saved the franchise bill from becoming a law.”

The governor, looking a question at Mr. Meredith, said:

“Ah?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Meredith, and then, when the governor had motioned them to take seats, and Jamie had worked and wiggled himself away back into a deep leather chair, with his legs and feet sticking straight out in front of him, Mr. Meredith told the governor the whole story. When he had done, the governor rose and went over to where Jamie sat in the big chair, his arms stretched along the chair’s arms.

Jamie would have wriggled out of the chair, but he had not time to do so. And then, as he looked up into the grave, kind face, His Excellency, speaking very seriously, said:

“My boy, you have done the people of Chicago and the people of Illinois a great service--a service you will understand some day--and now, on their behalf, I wish to thank you for it.”

MACOCHEE’S FIRST CAMPAIGN FUND

Squire Goddard had been renominated as mayor of Macochee for the fifth time, and for three weeks had played his customary checker games with the firemen in the town hall, serene in the conviction that he could not fail of reëlection. Then suddenly he awakened to the fact that he had been the victim of a gum-shoe campaign. Election was but a week off, and something had to be done. So they raised a campaign fund. Now, Macochee, in that day, had never had a campaign fund. The state committee never put any money into Gordon County, even in a presidential year. The Republicans didn’t have to, and the Democrats knew better. The local candidates, of course, had little expenses of their own--for cigars, for carriages when there were township meetings out in the little red school-house, for printing the tickets (in the days before we had the Australian ballot), and for Ganson’s hack to use at the polls on election day, but they were stingy in these things. Macochee and Gordon County always went right, anyhow. Joe Boyle, Captain Bishop, Major Turner, old Bill Williams and John Ernest had been parceling the fat offices in the court-house among themselves ever since the war, and all a county convention ever had to do was to renominate the old ticket, and it went through in November without a scratch. Sometimes, because of curious constitutional prejudices against a county treasurer succeeding himself, they had to run Captain Bishop for county clerk, and let old Bill Williams have the treasury, but it only meant, after all, changing the combination a little, and beyond the trouble of moving some favorite old desk chairs, which had molded themselves to rheumatic backs, from one side of the court-house to the other, the ring remained undisturbed in that ancient, life-giving pile. Of course they had to find a new candidate for prosecuting attorney every six years, but, fortunately, the crop of young lawyers is one that never fails, whatever party is in power down in Washington.

And so, among a virgin electorate, the advent of a campaign fund was an impressive event. The people felt that they had entered upon a new era in their political life, just as they did when the council bought the new fire apparatus and began to agitate the question of bonding the town for water-works--a proposition, by the way, upon which the leading citizens sat down quickly enough, because it meant taxes--while the line of loafers leaning against the court-house fence increased, waiting for the distribution. They had vague notions about a campaign fund in Macochee. The amount was reputed to be five hundred dollars, and, technically, it was in the custody of the court-house ring, but as they had never had a campaign fund to disburse before, and could not decide how to proceed, it was temporarily locked in the county treasurer’s vault, where, not being interest on the public moneys, it was comparatively safe. Meanwhile they were sticking closer than brothers. They would not allow one of their number out of their sight. They went to their meals in relays, and held night sessions in the treasury, losing sleep and rest, so that all their latent diseases, rheumatics, phthisis, lumbago, gravel, and so on, were aggravated. They became cross, jealous and suspicious, full of envy, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, back-biters, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things. They swore as they had not sworn since the battle of Port Republic. They cursed each other, they cursed Horace Goddard, and when these subjects failed, they cursed young Halliday.

Young Halliday was at the bottom of all the deviltry in Macochee. He had not been out of Harvard a month before all the good people in the town were wagging their heads sadly and saying: “Tsck! Tsck! Tsck!” He parted his hair in the middle. He brought home a habit of dropping his r’s, and of pronouncing his a’s with a broad accent, as, for instance, when he said “rawther;” he smoked cigarettes, puffed a heavy brier pipe, wore red neckties and knickerbockers, and he drank beer. And he did something else, something that struck the moral fiber of the town on the raw. He changed his politics and became a Democrat!

Being a Democrat in Macochee is like being a Republican in Alabama. There are hardly enough Democrats in Macochee--outside of the fifth ward, which is Irish--to hold primaries, and they always have mass conventions to hide their political nakedness. Hank Defrees, the only Democratic lawyer in Macochee, insisted that conventions were necessary in order to keep up the party organization. He liked to go over to Columbus every two years as delegate to the state convention. It afforded him an outing and a chance at the whisky in the Neil House. Besides, it is something to go to the state convention with the solid vote of any county, even Gordon, in your vest pocket. The local Democrats humored Hank. He had been their only available timber for Common Pleas judge and prosecuting attorney, and he had been sacrificed on the altar of his party times enough, surely, to entitle him to whatever there was in sight.

But George Halliday had been reared a Republican. His father had been an Abolitionist, the friend of Salmon P. Chase, and his home had been known in its time as one of the stations of the underground railway. He had voted for John C. Fremont, and he had voted a straight Republican ticket ever since. George had responded to these home influences sympathetically, and had given early promise of that vital interest in politics for which Ohio mothers ardently look in their sons. His first experience in politics was in 1876, when he took an active part in the Hayes-Tilden campaign, crying after the little Catholic boys from the parochial school, on his homeward way at evening:

“Fried rats and pickled cats, Are good enough for Democrats.”

And once he marched with a party of his playmates in a torchlight procession, under a transparency which announced exultantly:

“Hurrah for Hayes! He’s the man! If we can’t vote, our daddies can!”

That was a fine campaign, extending far beyond autumn, and during the long winter evenings he had been allowed to sit up, sometimes until after nine o’clock, to hear his father read in the Cincinnati _Gazette_, of the bloody deeds of the Ku-Klux Klan. The strange, cabalistic words froze the very blood in his veins. At night he would hear the drumming of horses’ hoofs, and see white-sheeted forms galloping by in the gloom. Sometimes they halted and looked at him through big black eyeholes.

These were the Ku-Klux, and he was afraid, until the evening his father came home radiant, sat down to the supper table with a smile that gave a fine cheer to the room and said:

“Well, we got Hayes in.”

Later, when he was in the high school, he became a member of the Blaine and Logan marching club, wore a red oilcloth cape and carried a torch. As he trudged along Macochee’s streets, strangely unfamiliar in the darkness, breathing the smoke of the flaring torches, intoxicated by the tired throbbing of the bass drum, he would shout in unison with the hoarse voices of excited men:

“Blaine--Blaine, James--G.--Blaine!”

Then the procession, debouching into the Square, was swallowed up by the crowd; nothing remained of it but extinguished reeking torches scattered here and there among the thousands of restless heads. George wriggled his way up to the festooned band stand, he saw the pale speakers and the countless vice-presidents--his father was one of the vice-presidents--and he listened to the inspiring song of the Glee Club:

“Dinna ye hear the slogan, Jimmy Blaine and Johnny Logan? The plumed knight and warrior bold Are bound to gain the day. The golden gates are creaking While the Yankee boys are speaking, And the Johnnies are retreating, For we’re bound to gain the day.”

His eyes had been blurred by the tears, his heart had ached with the secret pain of patriotism. He had registered sweet vows; he never could forget--and yet, now, just as his education was complete and he was ready to enter upon his career, just as the new sign of the new firm of Halliday and Halliday, attorneys-at-law, was swinging at the foot of the stairs in the People’s National Bank block, he had turned Democrat. It was a sore subject at home. He and his father no longer discussed the tariff question. Mrs. Halliday said it made her nervous, as it might anybody.

That winter Halliday did nothing more serious than to attend a Catholic fair in Father Hennessey’s church, and make a speech awarding the prize some one had won in the raffle. But in the spring, Hank Defrees, loafing around among the boys, told them the thing to do was to nominate George for mayor on the Democratic ticket, and it was done. When old Horace Goddard heard of the nomination, he chuckled until his great belly shook, and actually invited Captain Bishop and the rest of the boys, who had gathered at the post-office to wait for the seven o’clock mail, around to Cramer’s drug store to have a drink. The cronies all laughed as they drank--though they said, with soberness, that they felt sorry for old Judge Halliday himself.

It was a cruel thing to do, and it was young Halliday’s idea alone. He was a youth with aspirations, and he saw in the nomination something more than the mere compliment Hank Defrees had intended. Therefore Squire Goddard’s checker game was interrupted by a black-coated delegation of Protestant clergymen. It was a Monday morning, and they must have come straight from preachers’ meeting with their impudent questions. They wanted to know whether or not it was true that the liquor laws had not been enforced, and how he stood on the saloon question generally. The old squire puffed profusely and made promises. The next day a committee of saloon-keepers was called. The old man blew out his varicose cheeks and sputtered:

“I’ve ran for mayor o’ this ’ere town now goin’ on five times, and I’m dog _damned_ if I ever heerd such a lot o’ fool questions before!”

The next day it was rumored that Father Hennessey had told his parishioners that Squire Goddard could not be trusted. Then the storm broke. The W. C. T. U. held a mass meeting and issued an appeal to save the boys. That night husbands were put on the rack of domestic inquisition. They had it pointed out to them that there was a drunkard in every fifth family--statistics proved it--and parents didn’t want their boys exposed any longer to such temptations. No one knew where the statistical lightning was going to strike.

“Suppose you want to intrust the regulation of the rum power to the Democrats, do you?” sneered the husbands, with ironical grunts, thereby moving the previous question and closing the debate. Nevertheless, after that the mayor was kept busy explaining, which is the direst necessity that can befall a candidate. He encountered Halliday in the Square one day, and blazed forth:

“You’re gittin’ too smart ’round this town all to onct, young feller. You know more’n your pap a’ready, an’ if he can’t l’arn ye no respec’ fer yer elders, I will.” He shook a palsied fist at the youth, as he added, in a tone almost pitiable: “An’ I’ll tell him jest what you done, too.”

Defeat might have killed the old man, and the campaign was beginning to tell on him. But when they raised the fund, it was as a hot and sweetened toddy to warm the cockles of his heart. While he had no adequate concept of it, and while the manner of its working was a mystery to him, he did not doubt its efficacy. He felt safe. Also, as the subject of the only campaign fund Gordon County had ever known, he felt a supreme importance, which swelled out his chest and filled him with a ripe content. He even found himself taking the opposition with some zest, now that it was certain to be non-effective. Three days more, thought the squire, and it would be all over. He imagined some sort of civic triumph for himself. He dreamed of a serenade by the Macochee Silver Cornet Band, in the evening, under the shade of the pine trees about his home. He dramatized himself as bowing and smiling on the front porch. He would go out just as he was, in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, his silver-bowed spectacles on his nose, and the Cincinnati paper in his hand. It would be thus more spontaneous, more democratic. Mandy would stand behind him, holding the lamp high. The front picket fence would be black with people. He wondered if there would be enough of the campaign fund left to provide the cake she must offer the band boys, and whether a part of its office was to meet such contingencies. So the old squire sat in his old chair, the split bottom of which had been worn shiny years ago, and smoked his old pipe, with sharp, dry puffs of contentment.

The squire looked forward to disbursing the fund himself, but the court-house ring still clung to it in indecision. Friday morning, when they met, election was but three days off, and the ring agreed that they must get down to business. Major Turner said, with profound wisdom, that money could be used to best advantage in the saloons. Charley Bassett--he was prosecuting attorney then--asked, with a lawyer’s passion for fine distinctions, in what sense the major employed the word “used.” Before the major could reply--he had knit his brows and was whittling a fresh chew from his plug, to irrigate his thought--old Bill Williams said:

“No, that won’t do; we must use it to get out the vote.”

“Well,” said Bassett, who always annoyed the old fellows with his young haggling, “how’ll you get out the vote?”

The auditor, with an effort at something definite, said: