Part 8

“Why, we must have organization--that’s what wins in elections these days.” He shook his head, in a keen triumph, for the phrase pleased him, as phrases do please politicians. He began to conceive himself--gladly, as a great political leader, as an organizer of victory. “Organization, that’s the word,” he persisted, and then, growing bolder, he brought his fist down on his fat knee, and plunged on heedlessly into detail.

“You just give me that fund,” he said, “and I’ll--I’ll show you,” he brought up lamely.

“Well, tell us how you’d spend it,” insisted Bassett. “What’d you buy first? Remember, election’s only next Tuesday.”

“Why, why,” hesitated Williams, “I’d spend it gittin’ out the vote. I’d git kerriages, and have signs painted to hang on the horses, readin’,” and he lined the imaginary letters on the rough palm of his left hand with the gnarled forefinger of his right, “‘Republican City Committee--Vote for Goddard.’”

The old squire, tickled with the sound of the last legend, broke in with:

“You’ve got the idee, Billy.”

“Course,” said Williams, expanding more and more, “I seen ’em that way when I was in Columbus onct, on ’lection day. Get about five good two-horse kerriages--”

But the captious Bassett, remembering that old Bill’s son-in-law, Hi Wellman, kept the livery stable, interrupted him by saying:

“Oh, that wouldn’t cost more’n twenty dollars, and, anyway, we can use our own buggies, same as we’ve always done.”

Captain Bishop, who had been carefully combing his whiskers with his fingers, then advanced his scheme.

“Seems to me,” he said, “that we’d ought to have a campaign committee, with a treasur’ and a finance committee, and let the treasur’ pay out only on warrants drawed by the finance committee--then there’d be no question.”

“No, there’d be no question,” said Bassett cynically, “there’d be no question. And the finance committee could draw warrants for their own arrest, while they’re about it.”

The ring gasped, and though the captain tried to say something about business methods, they were all silent for a long time, chewing their tobacco gravely and thoughtfully, until the squire nervously ventured to ask:

“But what do you think we’d best spend it fer?”

“Votes,” said Bassett laconically.

“That’s surely what we want,” said Judge Ernest, speaking for the first time. The old men in the circle wheeled toward the probate judge. They had not been surprised at what Bassett said, for he never attended service, and was reputed to be a free-thinker, but Judge Ernest was a pillar in the church.

“Why, John,” said Major Turner, “you don’t mean to say you’d buy votes?”

“Didn’t say I would, did I?” snapped the old man, wriggling uneasily in his Delaware chair. “I meant that the money ought to be used so as to produce votes.”

“Exactly,” assented Bassett.

“And if it don’t do that,” the judge went on, “why we’d ought to give it back to them as contributed.” The judge offered this solution with a new hope dawning in his heart, for he had mourned over the ten dollars he had invested in the fund. A murmur of approval ran around the ring, and the old squire, fearing the dissolution of the fund, was the only one in the room whose face did not glow.

“I’ll tell you, boys,” said Joe Bogle, “we might whack her up among the crowd and everybody do the best they can with their share.”

“That’s what I call a grand su’gestion,” said Judge Ernest, shaking his head approvingly.

But Bassett shook his head the other way. “No,” he said, “that won’t do, we want some system in this thing. It ought to be changed into dollar bills and then given to the central committeemen to use in their wards election day. Of course we won’t need so much in the strong Republican wards--we’ll put it out in Lighttown and down in Gooseville among the niggers, and some of it across the tracks among the boys in the shops--that’s where it’ll tell.”

But the ring stubbornly opposed the idea of letting that pile of money go out of its hands. They put only young men on the city committee, and the honor and importance were enough for them. They would be wanting office next.

The old squire voiced the protest.

“’Pears to me,” he whined, “that as I’m runnin’, I’d ought to have a leetle of it fer my own expenses on ’lection day. I’ve been givin’ of my services to the party now fer nigh on to twenty year, not countin’ my term in the army, and it’s expensive, ’specially with that young Halliday carryin’ on the way he is--”

“No one never made up a fund for none of us, Hod Goddard,” chorused the old fellows.

“Yes, and there’s others on the ticket besides you,” interrupted Bassett. “Let each candidate spend his own money if he wants to. You hain’t paid your assessment yet, anyhow.”

“But I’m the head o’ the ticket,” stammered the squire, his red face deepening to purple.

The booming of the town clock in the court-house tower startled the ring, and the county officials glanced at their big silver watches. They were already half an hour late for their dinners.

“And my wife told me to fetch home some meat,” said Bassett, forgetting all else as he seized his hat.

And so the conference broke up. Saturday night came, they had no solution, and, like those that do business in great waters, were at their wits’ end.

Sunday morning a report spread through the town that caused the ring to take heart of grace. It was a report of serious defections in Halliday’s ranks. Jerry Sullivan, Scotty Gordon, old man Garwood, Rice Murrell and even Hank Defrees had been going about town all Saturday afternoon and evening, and everywhere they went they told people it was no use--Halliday couldn’t be elected. He might have been two weeks ago, if he had acted differently, but now--they shook their heads. They couldn’t stand for him any more--he needn’t look to them for support--he hadn’t treated them right--they had been fools to expect anything from such a dude. Five hundred dollars, they said, judiciously used, would settle his hash. They wished they had the management of it, they would revenge themselves for his slights and insults. And these were representative men, even if their portraits had not been made in half-tone for the _History of Gordon County_.

Jerry Sullivan lived on the hill behind the priest’s house, and was the “darlint” of all the old women in Lighttown. He was a lad of power in the Fifth Ward. Scotty Gordon lived across the tracks in the Second Ward and worked in the shops. Old man Garwood lived just at the edge of town, on the Blue Jacket road, in the Fourth Ward, and Rice Murrell, the Reverend Rice Murrell, the pastor of the A. M. E. church--who had turned Democrat when they took the janitorship of the court-house away from him--could do more with the colored voters down in Gooseville than any man, save Judge Halliday, and he was out of politics. Hank Defrees, of course, who still shivered under the fringe of a ragged garment of respectability by clinging to a heavily mortgaged home far out on Scioto Street, where the better element of the town began to thin out into social mediocrity, stood for the aristocratic Third Ward, with its normal Republican majority of two hundred and eleven. The Democrats had never been able to make up a ward delegation in the Third, and Defrees for years and years had sat in all city and county conventions very much at large.

Such a defection, on the eve of election, was serious, as every one recognized. Just after dinner, on Sunday, Judge Halliday, who had disclaimed all interest in the campaign, beckoned his son into the parlor, darkened for secrets, and said to him in a whisper that Mrs. Halliday plainly heard over the banister of the staircase in the hall:

“Did you know that Hank Defrees and that Sullivan boy and Gordon and old man Garwood, and even Rice Murrell, are around working against you?”

George gasped with surprise.

“And did you know,” the father whispered on, “that the Republicans have raised a corruption fund--five hundred dollars, I understand?”

“Yes, I heard that,” said George, “must be getting desperate, you fellows, eh?”

“Now, my son,” said the judge, with brows lowered, “you know I would have absolutely nothing to do with such a business as that. You know my opinions on such things too well.”

“Oh, of course, father,” said the boy, “that’s all right. I know you wouldn’t countenance it--”

“And I was just going to say,” the elder man continued, “that while I do not agree with you, and while I would not vote for you--at least, I do not think I would--I was just going to say that if you need any money yourself, to meet any of the--ah--legitimate expenses of your campaign, why, just call on me.”

The boy grasped his father’s hand, and when he could speak, he said:

“Thank you, father, thank you, but not now--it isn’t worth it--but I’ll see what’s the matter with these Indians, anyway.”

George went to his offices, over the People’s National Bank and waited an hour in the rear room, a dark and dingy room, with the dust of a country law office deep on everything, and one ray of sunlight scrambling in through the heavy shutters from the alley. Then one after another, up the worn and splintered stairs with tin signs of insurance agents and notaries public on every step, five men clambered. They were grinning when they entered the room, grinning and standing about awkwardly, all save Hank Defrees, who was solemn and imponderable, chewing his tobacco as gravely as if he were making an appearance in court.

“Well,” said George, standing in the middle of the floor, “anything happened?”

The men all looked at one another, hesitating to speak, but finally Scotty Gordon said:

“Happened! Well, I guess yes.”

“What?” queried George.

“Well,” he began, “now I done it, and last night old Bill Williams hunted me up in Jake Fogarty’s saloon, and, well, he offered me fifty dollars to use if I wanted it.”

“Say,” Jerry Sullivan broke in--“Captain Bishop offered me seventy-five.”

“And didn’t you take it?”

“Why, no,” said Jerry.

“What did you tell him?”

The lad’s eyes twinkled.

“I told him,” he answered slowly, “that it wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket.”

“Good for you,” said George. “And now, Mr. Garwood?”

“Well,” said the old man, “don’t know as I got much to say. Major Turner, though, ’as ’round to my house this morning, an’--Well, he offered me fifty dollars if I felt the way I had been reported, and thought I could use it.”

“Judge,” said George, turning to Defrees, “it’s up to you.”

The old lawyer took his tobacco in his fist and chucked it away. “Joe Bogle,” he said, “told me he knew where there’s a hundred for me if I could do any good with it.”

“And, doctor,” said Halliday, facing around to the Reverend Mr. Murrell, who stood solemn in his black garments and white tie, “what happened to you?”

The old negro glanced all around him cautiously and even craned his neck to peer into the room beyond.

“Well, suh,” he began, “Judge Ernest ’as out this mornin’ to hyah me preach, an’ aftah service was ovah, he drawed me to one side, and ’gin to talk politics. He ast me how I felt towa’ds you all, Mistuh Halliday, an’--Ah didn’ like to say it--but you done tol’ me, ’membah.”

“That’s right,” said George, urging the parson out of his hesitation, “you made it strong, I hope.”

“Wellum, Ah tol’ the judge that Ah wasn’ pow’ful strong on you any moah, sense, Ah said, you all hadn’t felt ’sposed to help us ’ith the subscription fo’ the new roof on ouah chu’ch.”

“That was clever,” said George, “damned clever--I beg your pardon.” The old negro’s eyes had widened till their whites showed, and he had raised his hands, holding up his yellow palms before George. “But go on.”

“Well, suh, the jedge ’as al’ays had an interest in ouah spiritual welfare, an’ so he ’lowed we’d ought to be holpen out some.” The old man paused and swallowed ceremoniously. “An’ so, gen’lemen, he offered me a hundred an’ fifty dollahs.”

The dark eyes of the old man shone with a strange new luster.

“What did you say?”

“Well, suh,” the preacher hesitated, “Ah took it.”

George brought his hand down on the parson’s shoulder with a heavy slap and he laughed. “Good, Bishop, good.”

They counted the money out on the table--exactly four hundred and ninety dollars, the first campaign fund Macochee had ever known. Then they laughed and laughed and laughed.

When Halliday had laid his plans for the morrow’s battle before his companions, he leaned back in his chair and said, turning to the Reverend Rice Murrell:

“I don’t suppose, Bishop, that you approve of the use of money in politics, do you?”

“No, _suh_,” the old preacher replied, with a smart gravity, “an’ somepin’ done tol’ me, yist’day, when the jedge come to see me, that it ’as jus’ providential that this much o’ that filthy lucah ’as removed from corruptin’ ouah ’lections by bein’ placed in mah han’s.” His rolling eyes bulged and he dribbled at the mouth as he fingered the pile of bills.

“Well,” said George, “don’t put too big a roof on the church, and remember--Gooseville’s going to vote to-morrow.”

“Oh, nevah you feah ’bout Gooseville, mah brothah--she’ll be votin’ early an’ of’en to-morrah, an’ she’ll vote right.”

George Halliday was mayor of Macochee but one term. That is a trick that has been played once in every town in this free republic--but it can never be played twice.

A SECRET OF STATE

Over at the executive mansion, Governor Chatham and his private secretary were at dinner when the telegram came. The governor took the yellow envelope from the butler’s tray and tore it open. When he had read the message he passed it over without a word to Gilman. The private secretary’s eyes widened as he read it, and he exclaimed:

“Jim Lockhart dead!”

William, the black butler, stirred uneasily. The governor bent forward, and lifted his coffee to his lips. Gilman laid the despatch beside his plate, and, still looking at it, began to pinch the golden tip of a cigarette. William slid noiselessly to his side with a match. When Gilman had lighted his cigarette he said:

“Poor Jim!”

The governor responded:

“Yes, poor Jim.”

A strange quality in the governor’s tone gave expression to something more than sadness. His face was somber, immobile, inscrutable. He dropped his napkin, and, without lighting his cigar, though William stood by, shading the little flame of the ready match with his pale palm, he rose and went slowly into the library. About the walls were his beloved books. On the broad, heavy table of Flemish oak a shaded lamp rose over the magazines, the pamphlets, the scattered books and the Chicago newspapers, which reach Springfield at noon. In the wide chimney--over which is carved those words from the _Benedicte_, “Oh, ye Fire and Heat, Bless ye the Lord”--a brazier of Sangamon County coal was blazing. Outside a cold November rain was driving against the tall windows of the mansion. The governor sank into a deep leather chair. He supported his head in his hand and gazed into the fire.

Gilman followed, and seating himself, likewise fell into a melancholy reverie. The silence within, and the wind sweeping the rain back and forth like a broom without, oppressed him. He was a young man. Once or twice he looked at the governor, and then the silence, the wind and the rain forced him to speak.

“He seemed to be in perfect health when he went away Wednesday,” he said.

The silence deepened. The wind threshed the trees and the rain drenched the windows anew. Gilman spoke again. He said:

“The party’s lost a good man.”

“And I have lost another friend,” said the governor. He was growing old.

Without moving, still gazing deeply into the coals, after a little minute, he added:

“He was the most generous man I ever knew.”

“Yes; and I believe, after all, when the time came, he would have been with you for the renomination.” The governor stretched out his hand to stay Gilman’s speech.

“I was not thinking of that, Leonard.”

The governor did this gently, as he did all things. Gilman’s face reddened--for the fire was growing hot--and silence fell again between them. Gilman felt the silence. He flung his cigarette into the fire. Then he rose.

“Guess I’ll go over to the Leland,” he said. “Some of the boys may have particulars.”

The governor nodded acquiescence, but as Gilman reached the door that leads into the northwest drawing-room, he spoke:

“Before you go hand me the statutes, if you please. I suppose I have some duty to perform in an event like this.”

Gilman who longed only for action, bore with alacrity the three big calf-skin volumes to the library table, and turned to the index.

“I’ll find the section for you.” Gilman examined the second volume for an instant, and then said: “Here it is.”

“Read it, please,” said the governor.

And Gilman read: “‘Section sixteen. In case of the death of the treasurer, it shall be the duty of the governor to take possession of the office of such treasurer, and cause the vaults thereof to be closed and securely locked, and so remain until a successor is appointed and qualified; and at the time such successor takes possession of the office, he, together with the auditor of public accounts and any of the bondmen of the deceased treasurer who shall be present, shall proceed to take an account of all moneys, papers, books, records and other property coming into his possession; and the auditor shall take of such succeeding treasurer his receipt therefor and keep the same on file in his office.’ There,” concluded Gilman, closing the book, and then immediately reopening it, “that’s it--it’s chapter one hundred and thirty, section sixteen of the act of eighteen seventy-three, page twenty-three twenty-seven.”

“Now turn,” said the governor, “to the chapter on elections, chapter forty-six, I think it is, and see what it says about the appointment of a successor.”

Gilman tilted up the first volume, and inspected the red and black labels on its back; then he turned to chapter forty-six, and, running his finger down the pages until he found the section, read hurriedly, mumbling his words until he came to the vital sentence:

“‘When a vacancy shall occur in the office of secretary of state, auditor of public accounts,’ yes, here it is” (he accentuated the word) “‘_treasurer_, attorney-general, superintendent of public instruction’” (he was reading rapidly now and running words together) “‘or member of the state board of equalization, the governor’” (and now he raised his voice and read more slowly and distinctly) “‘the governor shall fill the same by appointment, and the appointee shall hold his office during the remainder of the term, and until his successor is elected and qualified.’ That’s section hundred and twenty-eight.”

“Well,” said the governor, “I’ll name Hillman to fill the vacancy.” Hillman was the treasurer-elect, chosen by the people in November to succeed Lockhart. He was not of the party, however, to which the governor belonged. In Illinois, it will be remembered, treasurers are elected not quadrennially, as are the other state officials, but biennially, and a treasurer can not succeed himself. So that in the middle of an administration there is always an off year, and a reaction, and as the papers say, a stinging rebuke at the polls.

“M-m-yes,” said Gilman, “the boys won’t like it--but it’s only for a couple of months.”

“And as to sealing the treasury,” continued the governor, “I presume that the morning will be time enough for that.”

“Yes, it’s a bad night outside, anyway,” responded Gilman. The governor was lost again in thought. Gilman went on and out.

The governor, alone in the library, continued to gaze into the fire. Once he took from the table at his elbow a worn book, which he handled tenderly. He read in it for a while. It was _The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius_. But he did not read long. Presently he was sitting with the forefinger of one hand between the leaves of the book, which lay in his lap, musing on the fire again. Outside the rain drenched the tall windows of the mansion.

The clock in the hall tolled eleven. The governor rose, and went slowly up the staircase that winds gracefully from the great hall to the floor above, and thence to his chamber and his bed.

* * * * *

In a room on the parlor floor of the Leland, the windows of which looked down on Sixth street, a short, fat man was pacing the floor. His unbuttoned waistcoat showed a white shirt stretched over a large paunch. His hair was greased with perspiration, big drops of which stood out on his forehead, and slid down his pendulous, dewlapt cheeks. He had a bristling mustache, at which he gnawed when he removed his cigar from his lips, and a short goatee at which he plucked incessantly with his fingers. When his cigar was in his mouth, he rolled it about and ground it between his teeth. At times he spat pieces of the tobacco leaves fiercely into the grate. The cigar was burning unevenly, and fuming so that the little man winked his little eyes. On a table in the room, littered with the inevitable Chicago papers, and strewn with poker chips, stood an empty whisky glass. The rumpled counterpane of the bed showed that the little man had been tossing upon it. As he paced up and down he talked to himself, and at times swore.

“Hell,” he would say, “why the devil doesn’t he come!”

Occasionally he would draw out his watch, and scowl at its face. Then he would look at the old-fashioned brass crank on the wall, beside the door, which sometimes pulled a call-bell in the office below, and sometimes did not, but he did not ring it. He ran his fingers through his tumbled hair, and paced up and down.

The little man was William Grigsby, and he was the attorney-general of the state of Illinois. He had come down from the Jo Daviess hills, to serve a term in the house, and been nominated for the office he now held by the governor, John Chatham. John Chatham was his political creator, and the two men had once been friends. The administration had begun harmoniously enough, but before two of the four years of its political life had expired there was a split, and factions had formed. There had been a fierce fight for the control of the state central committee that year, and the struggle had been carried into the state convention, which nominated a state treasurer, a superintendent of public instruction, and trustees of the university of Illinois. In one faction were the governor, the auditor of public accounts, and, of course, his appointees, the adjutant-general, the railroad and warehouse commissioners and the trustees of the state institutions. In the other were the attorney-general and the secretary of state, Jennings. Lockhart, the state treasurer, had been neutral. He was everybody’s friend. The lieutenant-governor did not count. The superintendent of public instruction was not a politician, save in teachers’ institutes, where he was cheered and indorsed in classic resolutions.

And now Grigsby was an avowed candidate for governor, in opposition to his old friend, John Chatham, the man who had made him. Two years bring about great changes in politics. Grigsby, in that time, had grown corpulent, had hardened his liver and his heart, and was threatened with Bright’s disease.

The attorney-general continued to smoke and pace the floor, and swear. After a while he consulted his watch again, and then gave the old-fashioned brass bell-pull a vigorous jerk. Presently a negro boy came bearing a presumptive pitcher of water, the tinkling of the ice heralding his approach. The attorney-general would have welcomed iced water in the morning, but now he seized it from the black boy’s hand, set it down with a splash on his wash-stand, and shouted:

“Go and tell Jim to mix me a commodore.”

Just as the boy reached the door, it opened, and a tall man entered. The tall man seeing the boy, looked at Grigsby.

“What’ll you have, Hank?” said the attorney-general.

“A little whisky.”