The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 29, 1903, Page 4

THE SUNDAY CALL. e e ————————eee e ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— e long anticipated first Monday, Emily cou not go to Washington with her husband, and, bruised by the wrench of their first parting. she was left in the house with her father and her boy to face a long winter alone. that winter she carefuily read the ac- counts in the pewspapers of the proceed- her eye each ings of Congress and cast morning down the wide columns of the Congressional Record seeking the masgic name of “Mr. Garwood." Tt was only once or twice that she had the joy of finding Jerome's name, and then what he said seemed formal and gis- ant ar not have a personal appeal to her ¢ instance, late in the session, she reed 3 Mr. Garwood addressed the Committee he Whole.” 2 And then in maddening parenthesis: (His remarks will appear later.) But when they r later, weeks ater, on the ve page of the Rec- ord, with the wo ech of the Hou- srable Jerome pes at the hea of statistics, not like the ficry he had m it of the paign. She mention of the speech in 1 and she had her fea not being appreciated de an effort at first to write t ily, but soon there engthy inter etween the letters es grew shorter, written late at night d sleepy. But th th admonitions fc ound joy in tran baby tongue the child < she could tell by nd the cooings of his as she was beginning a new trial came she had ever antici- of tfe bank heid and to the surprise her father was gtk Tt was a blow too proud to show see the change seemed to age sud- surprised him with hi leaves in the old yut at nothing He age 1e quaintness turesque sails Amstel, compar- e one sees or t alone with her child. She had to the adjourn- Jerome's retu found that He must plunge e came in late ds two or three laughed at the ate his dinner - dining-table, hicago papers. the floor and the divan in a and went to bed andf then to join her book in the mel- reading lamp. She en- ftly from the habit that in the hours when d, and she sank her hands with a slowly glanced at her not move his seemed e reading on, he said, still without movin but her head from the back which she had been rest- Wear yo out,” her taking his glasses from marking his place in his is old custom. ; mother said. “He's the father, e summer so.” original resentment said “pot that, father,” Emily re- 4 & so active and full of energy. her Garwood says Jerome was just so pl Mot over there ¥ ran over to-day to ask hefsome She knows all about g " “Well, you ought to have a nurse,” he B t afford it.” the mother replied. He gets enough! expensive living, hotel in Washington. h another campaign you Kno! bimself in he said, he might—’ afford it! how it, bu must his chair. hat with aught back some dull eves ess er, that Jerome does topped; and so did he. They had that note several times of late. was, that the presence of Gar- ) the house was aiready beginning effect on his father-in-law. in Washington Hark- but after he had his various char- another got on the til he could scarcely ie defested Garwood's his lying abed iw"the morn- though Hark- nd_he distrusted his long absences at night. More than all, he inwardly raged at Garwood's extrava- gance, though he dared not compiain of it, y had been firm in her insistence for their board, knowing, as father's punctiliousness in of money. a disposition likely to tivated by those who have money to gratify it. Harkness would have preferred that the Gar- woods keep house, as Jerome was always hrestenin do, but he could not bear the th t of the loneliness Emily's ab- the best he can- its sence would add to his idleness. Re- strained therefore. from complaining of Garwood, his discontent expressed itself n complaints of himself, and he shuffied zbout the house with a martyr's patient suffering written in his face, lowering himself carefully into his chair whenever e sat down. with a prolonged. senile Ab h” that heralded, as he meant it e encroachments of age. And then the baby worried him. They had given the boy his name, Ethan, but prefixed it with the other name of . which had belonged to Garwood's Tather. Garwood had mildly protested the name of Ethan because he care for biblical names, though hed Insisted that Ethan was not a iblical name. The argument had been cettled et least to Garwood's satisfaction, he claimed to have found the name in the Old Testament, but with a firmness for which Emily said the name itself #tood, she insisted that the mere mention of it in boly writ did not constitute it a biblical name. But though young John Bthan kept his grandfather’s name he never found & way to his grandfather's graces, at least he had not so vet, and thig only added another complication to the many in which Emily found her life enmeshed And so this evening Harkness took ref- uge in his senility and his troubles, “Well,” he ventured, with a sigh that he knew was pathetic, “if 1 could only af- ford it I'd take you and the bof away for the summer, but I'm poor now and old.” “I couldn’t leave Jerome just now, father, but this talk about your being poor and old s absurd, absurd—and I want you to quit it. Why don't you go away this summer? Go back to New Hampshire for a rest. It would do you a world of good, and you've always sald you were going as soon as you could get away from the bank.” Bhe checked herself, perceiving that she had bit on an unfortunate subject, but her father replied, with a return of his old dry humor: “Yes. the bank was the principal obsta- cle, and that's been removed now.” He set his lipe bitterly and picked up his book agein. There was silence in the library, and Emily rested. Now and then her father glanced at her, but she did not move. She lay back In her chair, relaxed in every fiber. He stood her inaction as Iodn‘ s any man could, and then demand- e 'Why don’t you do something? Ain't you going to read?” Sbe did rouse herself, obedient to his whims. but she made an excuse: “1 must go up see how the baby's ‘e%m‘ along.” “Coming down again?” “No; leave the door open when you come up, will you? And then he was left to the expectant silence that oppresses a household when it awaits the coming of one of its mem- bers before it can settle down for the night. It was after midnight when Gar- wood came. He threw the reeking end of his cigar into the yard and toiled up the stairs, breathing heavily. “Where have you been?’ Emily asked, when he entered their rooms. Ay “Downtown; where'd you suppose?”’ he answered. “ls there any news?"” News? What of? v, of politics.” “Weil, I've got a fight on my hands, that’s the news.” He spoke as if she were responsible for the fact, and she felt it “You know how interested the baby and I are, Jerome. We've been waiting here to ear. He softened at the mention of his child and bent over his cradle. “Don’t waken him,” the mother said, as he put forth his big hand. And then she resumed her questioning. ‘Did you see Mr. Rankin?" ex. “Well,” she said hopefully, with the faith they had aiways held in Rankin, “he can bring it around all right can't he? “He!” said Garwood. “He's a back number!” She drew tRe story out of him, and when had done so she said: Well, you don’t forget, Jerome, that you once said to me that we. must be good to Jim Rankin He made no reply for a long time, and she followed him with eyes that looked large in her thin face. After awhile he paused in trying to unbutton his collar and turned his head around, his chin thrust pointedly out over his hands. f 1 were out of debt,” he said, “I'd quit the whole business and open & law office in Chicago, and let politics alone It was & common threat with him when he was discouraged. And she had long since learned that the threat to leave poli- tics was common to all politicians, just as the threat to leave the sea is common to for Jerome all sailors, or the threat to leave news- paper work to all newspaper men. She felt herself the fascination of the life, and® erity of the threat. h_you always say that when you're Don’t worry any more to-night. so knew the insir The Freeman H. Pusey of his second campaign was after all the same Freeman H. Pusey Garwood had known in his first campaign. When Garwood entered the editorial room of the Citizen that after- noon he expected, as the result of Ran- kin's description, to see a regenerated Pusey, but he found instead the same old character. The little editor sat at a com- mon kitchen tabie worn brown and smooth by time and elbows and piled with papers that showed deep deposits of dust in_their folds and wrinkies. Those at the bottom of the pile were darkened and seared by age, the strata of later eras were in varying tones of yel- low. while those atop. the latest ex- changes, were fresh and white, though they shovred great gaps where they had been mangled by the long, shiny scissors that lay at the editor's elbow. The scis- sors were the only thing about the estab- lishment that shone, unless it were the cockroaches, which ran over everything, nd mounted the old paste pot, to scram- ble as nimbly as sailors up the unkempt brush which he!d a dirty handle aloft for instant use. The shining cockroaches swarmed so thickly about the brush, pausing now and then to wave thelr in- quisitive antennae, that Pusey, before he could prepare an editorial, had to put them to rout, and he did this with his scissors, thrusting at the merry insects with the point of them from time to time in 2 way that had become habitual. The desk had other articles of furniture, an old cigar box half-full of tobacco, with an old corncob pipe sticking in it—the only thing there that the cockroaehes avoided— and a copy hook, on which Pusey had just hung the sheets of a leaded editorial. to bhe set up as time copy. Before him lay a pile of copy paper, and with these imple- ments Freeman H. Pusey molded public opinion in Polk County. The room was dark, for the windows were thick with dirt. From the room be- yond came the slow. measured clank and jar of the old bed-press. then running off the afternoon edition, shaking the build- ing with each revolution of its cylinder. and over all hung the smell of printer's ink, with its eternal fascination for him who has ever breathed it long. The clothes that Pusey wore may or may not have once been new. Garwood would have been willing, out of court, and perhaps in court, had he been retained on that side of the case, to identify them as the ones Pusey had worn when last he saw him. Just now, however, the coat was off and hanging on the back of the chair with the same casual impermanent effect that characterized the old straw hat that sat back on Pusey’s head show- ing the scant hair that straggled over his dirty scalp. The editor was in his shirt sleeves, the frayed wristbands of which were edged with black, and his feet for ease were Incased in old carpet slippers. His face and his mouth with the small mustache dyed black in that strange van ity which did not extend to the rest of h person, still had its molst appearance of olden times, and he smoked his cigar, blowing_the clouds of smoke all about him. aving turned out as much time copy as the waning erergies of his mind could produce on such a hot afternoon he was now clipping paragraphs out of the exchanges to add to those which would keep the printers in work for the remain- ing hours of the day their union had de- creed. He did this with the Jeisurely air that settles on editors in the first few min- utes that ensue after the paper has gone to press, pausing now and then to stick at a cockroach with his scissors. As G wood entered Pusey lifted his eyebrow. and bending his gaze over the rims of his spectacles tried to identify his caller through the gloom of his sanctum. When he saw who It was, he merely said: “8it down,” and plunged the point of his scissors into another exchange. Garwood had been considering this visit for a number of days. The disappoint- ment of arriving home to find that his county had failed to indorse him had been sinking more and more into his soul. It had seemed to him that a renomination by acclamation was his by rights. Many of his colleagues had already recei such indorsements, or vindications as th mostly called them, before they left Washington, and Garwood had helped them to celebrate these triumphs in vari- ous barrooms. He had been irritated by the fact that he could not now spend his summer as be- fitted a Congressman and obtain the rest a Congressman certainly requires after his onerous duties at Washington; that is. by taking a dignified walk downtown in the morning and a dignified nap in the afternoon. In the evenings he had pi tured himself sitting on the veranda at home_ as he now considered the Harkness residence, with his legs crossed and a cane between them, smoking a cigar and en- lightening his wife and father-in-law. while Grand Prairie rode by and eai ““There’s our Congressman; he's home for the summer.” But instead he had come home to find his own balliwick invaded. his old friend Rankin defeated and his old enemy Pusey prospering beyond all expec- tation, with a respectable newspaper in which he printed articles slyly reflecting, upon Garwood, calling attention to the need of a new postoffice in Grand Prairi to the beauties of uninstructed delega- tions, whereby the people, for whom, in his renalssance, Pusey was more than ever solicitous, could at last achieve their rights; to the fate that pursued arrogant bosses like Jim Rankin. and so on. But some of his old resolution had come back to Garwood even in his enervatio He determined to submit to defeat, if at &ll, only after a battle. He was sorry he had scolded Jim Rankin so. After all, though he was no longer chairman of the county committee and had been beaten in the county convention, Rankin was still chairman of the Congressional committee and still his friend. Rankin had only laughed at his reproaches, good-natured as ever, It would not do to break with Rankin. And so. he set out in the morn- ing to see Rankin. He had not found him at any of his usual haunts, nor at the real estate and loan office where Rankin made pretense of doing some sort of insurance business, and going at last to Rankin’s home he had been told by Mrs. Rankin that Jim had gone out of town, she_ did not know where. He would not be back for two or three days. Garwood's inten- tion had been to call a conference of his closest friends in Grand Prairie and out- line some plan of action, though none had occurred to him as yet. But he deter- mined to defer this until Rankin's return. The notion of calling on Pusey had been a sudden ingpiration, born of the necessity of Sotns eometiing ‘nl‘g‘ncehfor his 1nac- a8 becoming intolerable, especially with stories coming to him constantly of Sprague’s work in nther countles. t de t Pu e sa owny:hmn{lbldlluudm- “Hot, ain’t 1t?” said Pusey, still clipping out ;u .I!:tle p-n';rd-phl. & o “Yes,” sald Garwood distantly. It was . not the heat of the Weather that then dis- tressed him. Pusey kept his head tumned atisfaction that smiled fn it. Pusey was w““nf‘ to _keep all to himself the enjoyment of having Garwoeod humble himself by calling upon him—him, whem Garwood had once Hespised. Indeed, the satisfaction he felt was so lively that he was somewhat mollified in spirit, and, he known it, Garwood could hardly have done a wiser or more politic thing than to pay this visit to this same Pusey. “Yes, it's hot,” said Garwood, “though not so hot as it ‘'was in Washington. That's the nottest place in summer, you know, in the whole world.” “So I've heard,” said Pusey, stooping to paste one of his little paragraphs on a sheet of copy paper. He showed, how=- 2ver, no inclination to turn the conversa: tion from its perfunctory channel. In- deed, the conventionality of it rather suit- ed his mood and gratified his pride, so that he was content to keep Garwood un- der his embarrassment as long as possible, But Garwood launched into his subject. “'1 came over to see you, Mr. Pusey,” he began, “and to have a little talk with you about—politics.” ““Ah?" said Pusey, supercijjously. Garwoed could have crushéd him for his tone as Pusey would have crushed the cockroaches he could never hit, but he was better schooled to his part and he thought of the agonies of defeat. He need- ed every dollar of his salary now. So he went on: ou are on the delegation, I believe?” 1 believe T am; y Pusey replied. “Very well,” said Garwood, unable to resist the impulse to assume his Congres- sional manner, ‘‘very well. And I under- stand that you are opposed to my renomi- nation.” “I haven't sald so, have 17" said Pusey, turning his head for the first'time and squinting at Garwood over his spectacles. “I don’t know." The reply took Pusey by surprise, and he lost something of his position. “Well, I haven't,” he answered, ‘But you opposed me in the conven- 8 not quite that,” Pusey answered. “Well,” and Garwood smiled his old con- sequential smile once more and gathered his power to put others ill at ease, “it amounted to that.” “No, you are a bit mistaken, Mr. Gar- wood,” Pusey replied. “What I did was to oppose instructions. 1 belleved, you know, in sending a delegation to the convention that shall be abeolutely free and untram- meled, so that it might be, as I may say, instantly responsive to the will of the peo- ple. That 1 “‘Oh, T se sald Garwood; “I see. But let me ask this—you are opposed to my nominatjon. aren't you?” Pusey was silent and did not answer for a long time. He cut out another para- graph and cocked his little head to one side, tilting the old straw hat ridiculously as he trimmed the »dges of the slip with unusual and unnecessary care. “No,” he said at length, “I haven't sald that, either.” ““Well, then, to get at it in another way —you will pardon me, Mr. Pusey, for my persistent interrogation—let me ask you this: You are in favor of Mr. Sprague's nomination, are vou not?" either,” “I haven’t said that, promptly replied. “Then, if I understand your position, vou are free and untrammeled like the delegation. Is that right?" “Exactly,” said Pusey, laying down his scissors and his papers, folding his hands in his lap and screwing about in his chair until for the first time he squarely faced Garwood, at whom he looked pertly, as litle men can, through his spectacles, “exactly.” He snapped out the word as if he rel- ished it. . “Well, then,” said Garwood, hitching his chair closer ‘as if instantly to seize his advantage, “that warrants me in asking you whether or not you can give me your support?” Pusey lowered his eves and turned his face away. He began plucking at the few withered hairs on his chin. m"What do you say?” Garwood pressed m. “Well,” Pusey hemmed, “I am hardly able to determine so important a matter as that instantly, Mr. Garwood. Compli- cations might arise which would not ren- der it expedient for me to—" Garwood did not wait for Pusey to un- wind one of the long sentences io loved so well, but broke in: ‘‘See here, Pusey, let's be frank about this thing. You and I may not have been friends in the past, but— “T've always treated you fairly since I ran a party organ, haven't I?” Pusey in- terpolated. “Yes, I think you have, Pusey, and I thank you for it. I've appreciated it. I was, in a way, glad to see you get hold of the Citizen, for 1 knew you could make & newspaper out of it; you've got the abil- ity.” Pusey glowed, and Garwood con- tinued: “But I've come to see you in your ca- pacity of delegate to a conventlon before which T am a candidate. I don’t want to take up any more of your time than is nec- essary, but it has occurred to me that if we had a little confidential chat we might understand each other better, that's all. 1 haven’t come to beg any favors, or any- thing of that sort, but merely to see where we stand, what we could expect of each other.” “Well, I'm glad you called, Mr. Gar- wood. I am of course honored’’—the edi- tor gave an absurd nod of his head in Garwood's direction by way of a bow. “As 1 say,” Garwood continued, warm- ing. “I've come to see you as a citlzen and as a delegate, and to ask you if you can conscientiously support me for renomina- tion. There is no other candidate from this county, and it seems to me that as a matter of local pride you might prefer a man from your home to one from some other county.” “Well,” Pusey answered, “there is of Pusey course that aspect of the case, Mr. Garwood. I do not say that will not support you, neither do I say I will. T “will “say this, that if you are mnominated 1 shall support you for election earnestly and heartily; I may be permitted to add, perhaps, effectively. But for the present I prefer not to come mit myself. You understand my olll‘l’onrl\ both as a citizen and as an editor. OF ?““,’5‘" conditions may arise under which would give you my vote - 1 y and my sup- “May 1 ask what those conditi {7 Garwood leaned over to ask, it 1 do not say, mark me,” Pusey re- plied in a corrective tone, “that the con- gluum‘s exist now, but that they may ‘ould you indicate them?” I would prefer, Mr. Garwood, to let events take their own course and shape themselves. The convention has not been called vet and is some weeks off; th will be’ ample time. I wish for the pri ent to feel that I am free to pursue the course that seems wise to me—as a citis zen and as an editor, you understand.’” Very well,” sald Garwood, “I am at least Jlnd to know that you are uncom- mitted; T am also glad I called, and”"—he arose—"1 shall perha 4 honor to call again.” He bowed aud lS‘t’, and when he had gone and the mockery was all over Pusey took the pipe from the tobacco box. filled it and lighted it from a gas jet he kept burning for that very purpose. He smoked in a way that evinced no enjoyment in tobacco what- ever: he smoked in a dry, habitual way, 2s he talked and ate and wrote, but now he enjoyed his refiections, for Garwood, who once spurned him, had called and humbled himself. Suddenly, however, an jdea struck him, and hastily leaning over and hooking his toes in their carpet slip- ¥erl behind the legs of his chair, wrof everishly for an instant. When he had done he Tead the item over, drew a line down through it, marked it “must’ and 'hglph( l:ton his wp{dho%k, & e item appeared the followl: - ing in the Clt"un. 1t was this: e “Hon. Jerome B. Garwood called upon us yesterday afternoon. The Congress- man is looking extremely well, despite his long and arduous duties ir. the capital and the uv.}-ethhut thutt ‘n;nrlfi the recent season of the year at Was on, a}iln. Con n-;na"n."l o B el e evening following the Advertise the. organ of the oppesition, which, i Polk County, at least, never been called into responsibility, copled Pusey's personal item and made this comment: ““When the Congressman calls n he will be wise to take the postoffice with hln:h:tr ld;.l’n%th':n esq‘wlar Ihl substantial as which he is Over at Bpringfield in the long agor o o VI It was summer, the full-flushed sum- mer of Central Illinois, and the corn stood tall on the Sangamon bottoms, flashing its heavy blades in the sun. Miles and miles lu‘.pr:[.a s Logan -:d Polk and on nto Moultrie County, where the Kaskas- Kia flows, widening down to oih the Mis sissippi at a place where the Sucker found the picturesque beginnings of history. There were long, im_days scorch! heat, and other hen clouds closed over the n‘dnl ‘n: the mid aif was too heavy to breathe. still the corn flourished, rustling in warm winds that blow forever across B4 EEEEE rolling prairies, and ripened fast against the time when it should be hauled to the distilieries along the placid lllinois or stored in long cribs to await the ever-ex- pected rise in the gran arket at Chi- cago. Viewed from some impossible alti- tude, the great, green cornfieids were broken here ana there by smaller fields of wheat, in which some venturesome far- mer reaped a little erop hardiy indigenous to that black sofl, and to the eastward, over the broad pastures of virgin prairie, blocky cattle browsed and fattened at their leisure. The mud roads lay deep in powdered dust, the whole land droned in the full tide of warm summer life, and men everywhere were glad, like the in- sects thai made the throbbing air vocal ith their endless shrilling, like the cat- le that huddled through the long after- noons in the shade of some windbreak of slender young trees, like the corn itself forever glistening in the sun.. Of all the thousands of people, happy as the summer in their toil, there was none who would have ascribed his happi- ness to the government under which he lived. Few of them, indeed, at that busy season took any interest in their govern- ment. Later on in the fall, when the sum- mer was over and the fields but bare ground, spiked with short-pointed stalks, when the corn and the cattle had been _shipped to Chicago, In the days when the darkness and rain would come, they would think of government, perhaps become ex- cited over it. But now all over the Thir- teenth Congressional District a few men in each county, were gratuitously attend- lng to government for them, plotting and scheming to place certain names on the ballot, confident in the knowledge that in November the people would divide them- selves arbitrarily into parties and zo through the empty formality of ratifying the selections that would result from ail their maneuvers and machinations. Thus the buginess of the people’s government is _carried on. , In Grand Prairie, Garwood, troubled sand afraid, knew that in each of the seven countles that comprised his dis- trict there were little cliques of men to whom this business of carrying on the people's government was some- how, though no one could tell just how, entrusted. If he could get enough of these men to think. or at least to say that he should go back to Congress, they would choose certain of thelr followers as delegates, and these would name him. In all that great fertile land, in those seven counties, out of 200,000 people it was not even necessary that he securs the eighty-three who would make a majority of the delegates to the Congressional con- vention; it was only necessary that he se- cure half a dozen men, for these half dozen would name the delegates who would express the wishes of those 200,000 geople. And not only this, but this hand- ul of men would thus choose the other officers all those 200,000 individuals. They wePe ‘men who did not especially have at heart the interests of the people, even of that portion of the people known as the ‘“party” they represented. They had only their own interests at heart, and they conducted the people's government for what they might themselves get out of it in money and in power. Behind them, it is trye, were oftentimes men who were either too respectable or too unpopu- lar to engage in politics; men who con- trolled large affairs, but these also were interested in nothing Rut their own busi ness and the makin; money. The hap- piness of the people was not for them to consider; fortunately, that was left to the winds; to the rolling prairies; to the sight of the broad fields and the cattle huddling at noon time in the shade; to the songs of birds, and beasts, and children; 10 the sun and the glint of the sunlight on the corn. When the selection of can- didates had been made, and the choice was between two men, Garwood knew that there were enough of those 200,000 ready to fight for the word by which his arty was called to place the name of ts candidate on the pay roll of Congress- men, The few men who would thus tell the people whom to choose were subject to influences. The question was what in- fluence to employ in each particular in- stance. There was but one other consid- eration; these men were likely at times to lose their occult power, and to be'super- 8edé® by other men; so that it was neces- sary to know just who was the man in each county then in control. For instance, in Polk County, Rankin had been this man, for so long a time in fact that his power had extended to other counties. .But Rankin’s power had been in part de- stroyed; there were now two men in Polk County to be considered—Rankin and Pusey. Unless one could get both, it was necessary to make & choice between them. But it was impossible to get both, and it was a delicate matter selecting one or the other. Had Garwood been a man with a genius for details and organization, or even pos- sessed of an untiring patience, he would have known just what men in each coun- ty were at any given time doing the gov- erning for the people of that county. That would have required tact and perse- verance; it would have entafled an end- less amount of letter-writing and consult- .ing, and this, amid all the fascinations of his'new life at Washington, was irksome to him. He knew now too late, .the right man in his own county. As to the other ti he must still lean on Rankin and trust him. 8o the choice as between fPfll?"‘ and Rankin seemed to be decided or him. Rankin came back to Grand Prairie at the end of the week, and an announce- ment he then made was sufficlent to_ex- cite all the men in the Thirteenth Dis- trict. who at that time were interested in government. VIL Rankin's announcement was a simple one, and was made without flourish. It was merely that at a meeting of the Con- gressional Committee held the day before at Lincoln, a Congressional convention had been called to assemble at Pekin on Tues- day of the following week. The announce- ment was a surprise to none more than to Garwood himself. It reached him in the mysterious way that news spreads, on his way down town Monday morning, and when it was mentioned to him he smiled blandly with his old cunning as if he had known it all along. He hastened to his office, and waited there half an hour before Rankin appeared, perspiring, florid and expanding with s>If-satistaction, “Well,” he said, standing an instant in the doorway and fanning his streaming face with his hat, “think you'd lost me?” Garwood, hot having had time to esti- mate the political effect of the move R kin. had made, and somewhat annoyed with Rankin for not having told him ot his intentions before executing them, took refuge in the congressional demeanor he had studied from numerous impressive models in the District of Columbia. “I have been awalting a conference with you,” he sald. He had ajso learned at ‘Washington to call meetings where there was to be political scheming, “confer- ences.' “Well,” said Rankin, drogplnl his wide hat te the floor, T thought 1'd see if it could be done first, and tell you after- wards.” “So I assumed.” Rankin glanced at Garwood somewhat uneasily. e did not like the new mood of Garwood. ““Oh, it's all fll‘hti" he assured him, “wait till I tell you, I knew that Sprague and Pusey were at work, but they need- ed time. Our play was to force their hand at once. at we want is a speedy convention so—what?" “1 safd 1 "v s not so sure of that,” Gar- wood repeated. “Well, I say yes,” sald Rankin. “Man alive! ’fhg"‘u n us; give ‘em time. dfi night I wired Sam Mc- Kimmon and Jim O'Malley and Joe Hale to meet me Saturday at Lincoln. I went over and there they were, I told 'em where we was at, an’ what Sprague 's doin’, They agreed 'ith me that we'd oufht to get a move on, an’ we decided quick—convention fer a week from to- morrow at Pekin—Joe insisted on tha wil effron an’ Schmidt an’ n It's fixed now. What do you 4 ‘Well, I don't know; if h! had had—" “Well, you'll say it's the thing when 1 show you this. k’'e here.”” He drew a crumpled telegram from h pocket, struck it open with the back of his fingers, and handed it to Garwood. “Look at_that!” Garwood read it. It was a telegram Georfe Schmidt, the committee man from Moultrie County, voicing an indig- nant protest. “It's all right, I reckon. Heh?” Rankin smiled triumphantly. “Maybe ol' Con hain’t mad!” For the first time Garwood was reas- sured. If Sprague was mad, it must be all right, proceeding on the 'cos as- sumption that anything which harasses ut*oure right” he said, relentingly. 3 A - “Ain't 17" said Rankin, smiling complacently and - triumphantly ever, they won't ketch End. James “""mou‘n onct, even And as if he had just reminded him- nuqumuuinpmocmm ————. Bt hung it over the back.of his chair and pulled his shirt sleeves far up his hairy arms for greater comfort. Pekin?” Garwood "Why id you select asked presently. “’Cause it's fartherest from Sullivan, fer one thing, an' then, Joe Hale wanted to get it fer his .home town. He was a little skeery at first. I had to fix him —promised him you'd have him appoint- ed Postmaster. You'll have to do it.” Garwood scowled the scowl that comes when the vexed question of patronage is mooted, but said: “I'll take care of him.” ““Yes,”, Rankin went on, “;ou'll have to. He says he can land a delegation from Tazewell all right. Their county convention's Thursday. There's thirty votes to start on. O'Malley says Lo- -gan's all right, too. They'll have a mass convention called fer Saturday. That'll be twenty-four more—fifty-four.’ Rankin leaned over to Garwood's desk and began to make figures on an old en- velope. “Fifty-four,” he repeated. ‘“Mac thinks he can fetch up his county; that's eighteen more—seventy-two in ail. With our twenty-two here that'll make—le's see, two'n’ two's four—seven an’ two's nine— l'r:::(x-fuur. An’ you're nominated, ol’ And Rankin, dropping his pencil, slapped Garwood on the knee, though an instant later he regretted having taken what once would not have been a liberty, for he had a sudden intulton that a new divinity now hedged his Conarulw. But he speedily covered his slight confusion by proceeding: “'An’ now we've only got a week to get ready in, but a week's as good as a month. We nsust cinch the thing in Taze- well an' Logan an’ Mason. hat end o' the district’s ours naturally. FWe'll give ‘em Piatt an’ DeWitt; an’ Moultrie— :.-uml-se"they've got that cooperéd up al- ready. Garwood l?lnced. the tips of his fingers together and knitted his brows in thought. Rankin dutifully awaited the result of his thinking. “Don’t you think,” the Congressman said presently, “that we could gl.ln a few aps, with more votes here in Polk? Per] certaln concessions, Pusey might Rankin did not, however, dutitully awalt the full expression of the thought. “‘Concessions hell!” he cried. opces- slons to that little whelp? Well, I should say not! We'll lick him, an’ then ram it down his throat!” Rankin breathed heavily as he exploded this imperfect figure. “We want to clean that Hfiht now, onct an’ fer e added, when he could get his breath again. He was puffing in a fat, angry way. “No, sir; you'n I'll take a run down to Havana, find Zeph Bailey, an’ see if we can't sew up them eighteen vofes from Mason. Then we'll hike up to Pekin an’ attend Joe Hale's convention. Then- on Saturday we'll drop into_Lincoln, an' you'll make ‘em a speech. I'll also make a few well- chosen remarks myself—at the other end o the hall. We'll concentrate on them counties. Course, it won't do no harm to make a try in DeWitt an’ Piatt, but I don’t look fer much there. We only need eighty-three votes: we've got ninet. four in sight—ef none of 'em gets away Rankin Ead a faculty of reassuring him- self, and the faculty was somehow stimu- lated after the first pangs of defeat had been soothed. “How sure Is Tazewell?” Garwood in- guired, still with his fingertips together, his eyes half closed in cogitation. “Well, now, Joe Hale hain’'t a goin’ to let that postoffice get away from him. You can count on them thirty sure. Jim thinks Logan's all right—they_like you over there, you know, an’ Mac sa; Mason'll be solid. But we have to watch that. We may lose out there, but little mess up 11,” h don't think so—aw, hell no!" refused to credit his own fears. “We'll get 'em. Damn it, we ~:ust get 'em!” He struck his own knee this time, and with his fist. This hasty calling of the convention was like a bombshell in the camp of the Sprague following. to use one o the warlike expressions that are trite in our sanguinary partisan _politics. Pusey admitted as much when he wrot daily editorials denouncing the commi: tee and what he called the snap judg- ment it had taken. The announcément, too, was not received with much favor in the other counties, for-the time in which to call their county conventions was short, and the politicians were put to much trouble to form the combifia- tions on which their own interests de- pended. But the four men who had met at Lincoln were a majority of the com- mittee, and their action was conclusive. The other members, those from DeWitt, Piatt and Moultrie counties, had, like the rest, been notified by telegraph, and even by mall, but Rankin had taken care to send their telegrams at a late hour, knowing that the telegraph of- fices in the little towns were not open at night. Their letters of course reached them the next day—too late for them to get to the meeting. And so over the district the prepara- tions for the county ‘conventions went forward. Rankin and Garwood made their trip. and made their speeches, and when they came home Rankin claimed solid delegations from Logan, Mason and Tazewell. The delegation from Tazewell was instructed for Garwood; those from Logan and Mason were not. Rankin also claimed votes in the De- Witt and Piatt delegations, and formu- lated such an elaborate equation that he was able to demonstrate to any one that Garwoeod would be nominated on the first oallot, and with votes to spare. Pusey made no claims in his news- paper. He was ever shrewd enough and shifty enough not to do anything openly that could stultify him in the future, but Ranwxin said that telegrams were constantly passing between him and Sprague. Garwood did not have his in- terview with the little editor. He had thought of it, and had even broached the subject to Rankin again, but Rank- in was implacable in his hatred and vig- orously opposed any such movement' In the streminus fight that was coming on, and even then begun, he displayed again all of his old commanding resolution, and Garwood fell under the spell of his strong will. 5 “They’ll find Jim Rankin a pretty ac- tive corpse!” he was continually saying to Garwood. So the week passcd, the county con- ventions were all held, and then silence brooded over the political camps in the district as the delegations, like the mo- bilized detachments of an army. waited for the time to come when they should {vl\ova on Pekin and begin the great bat- e. VIIL, Emily’s baby had had his morning bath, and after a long wrestle had at last fallen asleep, his little lips sucking automatically in his dreams, while her father, after a struggle almost as wear- ing, had been induced to go for a morn- ing walk before the heat of what prom- ised to be a suitry day should rise with the mounting sun. She had .carried a tray with Jerome's breakfast up to him, and when he had eaten it he had rolled over and resumed his snoring, made more gross by the dissipations of h! campaigning the night before; and now she drew a long sigh as she sank into her chair on the veranda to think that a few moments of rest might be hers at last. She rocked vigorously, as though the mere physical exercise might rest her fatigued limbs; the slow mo- tion with which she lifted a stray lock from her brow and fastened it back in her hair told how weary she was. In her lap lay a letter which the postman had Ju? handed her. It was a large, square envelope, of gray paper, the tex- ture and tone of which would have told that it was foreign, even if the German stamp had ot already put that fact in evidence. mily h: rec ized the anglicized writing in wnich it was a dressed as that of Dade; and the post- mark told that the travels of the Em- ersons had 1ad them once more to Weis- baden. Emily allowed the letter to lle a moment unopened in her lap, D;fuv from inertia, more, perhaps, fro; a love of lntldpl.thl[h the Tglmnre its reading would give her. e breaks in the vast monotony of her life were so few that she disliked to have them too quickly over. Apd then, she found a charm in the roméntic_spell anything that comes out of the Old World still weaves for us of the new. She loved to picture Dade,* in some smart Parisian gown—the very thought of which hroufl t vack to her Dade’s way of calling things, especially her own dresses, “chic”—escaping from her hypochondriacal mother, now with petulant disrespect, now with gushes v affection, to wander with some young man down wide avenues, shadea witn lindens. Sometimes she pictured the youl man in civilian dress, t this morning he wore the uniform of the Ge: She could see Dade, German fer to French. S , t:? light and transient affairs end seriously for Dade, so seriousl she would find herself ent! Rankiu - —_—_- the stately household of some old Ger- man castle with a titled military hus- band. How many years would then elapse before Dade would be back in Grand Prairie, with the air of the grande dame, lifting her lorgnette in the foreign way that would come £0 naturally to her? Would, she grow matronly and have some vellow-haired, outlandish son with her? Would— She heard a noise upstairs, and turned her head slightly, growing rlfld as she listened for the warning cry of the baby. She walted, but no further sound came, and she lay back to resume her dream. but it had been broken, the thought of the baby had brought her back across all the intervening seas, back to Grand Prairie and her daily duties there. She sighed, and languidly tore open the letter. When Emily had read the first of many pages that made up the letter laid it down in her lap to grasp to the uttermost the striking import of its tid- ings and there spread over her tired fact a new smile, born of the pleasure wcmen find in that clairvoyance with which they like to think themselves gifted in affairs of the heart—Dade was engaged' Her morning dream of the mement before had been prophetic; it was coming true! Dade wrote of him in her highest vein of ecstasy. He was not an officer, though he had been, but he was noble, and Emily, thered that he was in politics, though ade did not put it that way. Prus- sian he was, with the sounding name of Baron Wolf von Waldenburg. He was not rich, though he had some means, but what he lacked in the aristocracy of his money he made up by tlie aristocracy of his lineage—an old family, with a seat near Spandau, and a house in Berlin, where Dade and he would live. They would have to economize, Dade wrote, and try to get along somehow with few servants, not more than six. Thelr “men- age” would be humble, but Berlin was the dearest place to live. The Baron was in the government there, and of course they would have entree to tHe court cir- cle. Dear mamma would live with them. Dade appealed to Emily to know if it was not altogether too lovely, and as for the Baron she was sure that Emily could not help loving him, he was the dearest Iit- tle man that ever lived; so proud, so haughty, but with such distinguished manners. ‘“And isn't it funny,” Dade raged on, “to think that we both should marry public men? I know Mr. Garwoed would like him—they would admire each other’s brains anyway. Amd you must come and visit us when we are at Home in Berlin doesn’t it sound fine? Just think! While you are enjoying the gay life of your capital I shall be enjoying the gay life of mine! Don't you remember how we always used to say—" ¥ The words somehow stuck Emily's heart cold. “While you are enjoying the gay life of your capital—" It was not the expatriation which Dade so frankly con- fessed that struck her at first, though a sepse of that came after her own per- sonal pang had been absorbed in the habitual resignation with which she ac- cepted the life that was so far from all her girlish dream: The letter became somewhat more co- herent as it progressed. Dade explained that they had come to Wiesbaden, not this time for her mother’s health so much as for her own. Her physicians had ad vised it; she was run down, and as she was to married in the fall, the Baron wished her to be in gocd health. They mi; run over to America before the wedding; she ‘wasn't sure; it would all de. pend. And they had not decided yet where they would be married, certainly, however, not in Grand Prairie—there wtould be no place there tor the Baron to stay. Emily finished the letter, and laid it in her lap with another sigh. She was all sighs this summer morning. And yet she could not, and woudd not, formulate to herself the reason why she sighea. She might with impunity have com- pared her own life with Dade’ for it was not the life that Dade was leading for which she sighed i.at summer. Once, perhaps, in looking from afar upon the society life of the cities as it reflected in the newspapers, ft had seemed to her that she might be happy there. She recalled having expressea something of this to a man frém Chi- cago who had spent a day with her father. He was a lawyer, with a large practice, but one who nevertheless gave much of his fine talents to the poor, the forgotten and the desplsed. For this he was called eccentric, sometime: crazy, often a Socialist. She remem- bered him always as he sat in her fath- er's library that evening after dinner— he had come down on some business re- lating to the bank, and had dined witn her father. She remembered his strong face; a face wondrous in its sympathy, wondrous in its kindness, wondrous in its sadness. It seemed to reflect not only all the sorrow he had seen, but ail the sorrow he had perceived in his deep, penetrating knowledge of life. She lf- ways pictured him as ne »ar In the li- brary that evening. She had expressed, in her girlish way, something of her wish for a larger life, by which she then meant life in a larger place, and never could she forget the lift of his gentle eyes, or the smile that came to his weary visage as he said: “Grand Frairie is as big a and a country either.” She had pondered a long time on those words and it was long before she had won an inkling of their meaning. And then she had met Garwood, and ft had seemed that at last she had found the way to life. She had felt that Jerome was designed for a big work in the world, and the hand of destiny had been plainly apparent when he was sent to Congress. She had dreamed of being by his side in Washington, a help and an inspiration in the mighty things he was to do. Now he had been one term in Congress, and all that his life held seemed to be an endless heming and striving to remain there; fio great work he was to do for others altogether lost sight of in the great struggle for mere existence in the place he had won. And for her there was the same old life at home, changed only by the addi- tion of new cares, of new responsibili- ties, the conditions ever growing harder, her perplexities ever deepening. But she put Dade’s letter back in its square envelope and went in. It was growing warm outdoors. Her father had come home tired from his walk: the baby had awakened cross with the heat; Jerome had got up and was calling her to serve him in his dressing and to pack his valise for his trip to thé Pekin convenuon. the she Chicago, crossroads as big as IX. Garwood, with Rankin and his other JOE ROSENBER ¥ail Orders Solieited. more intimate supporters started for Pekin on Monday morning in order to be on the ground early. They found themselves none too soon, for the dele gates had alfeady begun to gather. and by night the old town was fully invested by politicians. They, strolled in twos and threes under eir serious hat brims, along the shad.. streets where the wonted quiet of the town deepened to a repose in which they best could whisper their littie schemes. ‘They were, to be found in noisy groups in the saloons and barrooms, but as the chiefs and leaders were at the Lotel, there the interest centered. Many of the visitors, taking chairs from the oifice of the hotel, where the lights, burning under the low ceiling, made the heat unbearable, placed theém along the curb, and then all through the summer evening they tilted back and talked, their cigars glowing in the darkness, their laughter now and then breaking on the ears of the youths and maidens who strolled by. Upstairs in *one of the rooms of the hotel. a poker game was in progress; in another, Gar- wood held a ievee amid a thick cloud of cigar smoke, for whicn the wpen box of cigars on the table provided a constant fuel. Sprague also had his headquar- ters, and In another room the Congres- sional committee was in session. The room was strewn with paper and the ashes of cigars. and there was a hol ocaust of insects on the floor under the oil lamps, and though the morning was luminous and still when the meeting ended the tired and sleepy members were glad of the breath of its sweet air The dawn had come long before. Now the sun was mounting in the east, flash- ing his heat in trembling rays down on the green cornfields. The sky was bur- nished clean of clouds, and glistened like metal. Far down in the west, wiipre the mists had long since rolled aw: from the Illinois River, was a low lying hill of cloud, dazzing white and moveless, restnig on the horizon. As the commit- teemen, spent witn a night of wrangling, gazed up .. .0 that morning heaven they knew how hot the day would be, a day hot as no day other than a convention day ever is. nkin, as he stood on the hotes steps and gazed, removed his hat, and wiped his brow with a gesture of weari- ness unusual to him. The long strain of the battle would soon begin. Would it end as that other battle two years ago had ended? He had waited long for his reward, he must make one more win- ning fight to vindicate his right to it. It meant much to him—four years in the Postoffice at Grand Prairie—he could rest when he @own in that envied chair. He would move the desk into the window on Main streét, and then all his friends, and, what was sweetér still. all his enemies could ses him sitting there. With this dream his habitual cheerfuiness came back to him, and he turned and went inside with a quicker step. There was still work for him to do. The committee was to meet again at half-past 9 to complete the lit- tle details, and, besides, he must prepars a programme to place in the hands ot the temporary chairman; a programmse on which would be written just what motions were to be made, who was to move a committes on credentials and on permanent organization, and who weras to be appointed on these committees. and then who was to nominate the per- manent chairman, and so forth. us it is by such forsthoughtful organiza- tion that one chases a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. Rankin went to his room and with a window open to lure any breeze that might come with the morning, he wrote out his schedule of the people’'s wishes. Garwood lay snoring in one of the two beds the room contained. He. had re mained in his headquarters until they had been emptied. then he had joined in a poker game; an hour before Rankin entered he had fallen heavily into bed. There, in the morning, Rankin worked on while Garwood slept. He thought several times, scratching ms head in di lemma, of awakening his leader, but he forbore and let him sleep. At last he finished and then lay down himself, with- out undressing to get what rest he could He slept lightly for a time, then awoke. The sun, already sickeningly hot. was pouring through the open wi dow, he was bathed in perspirationm, t! heat was insufferable. Garwood roused. While he was wash- ng and shaving he said: “Will Bailey preside?” 'hYe'!—we put it through after a “He'll do.” “Yes,” answered Rankin, spluttering in the water he lifted to his face in the bowl of his two palms, ®he’s got nerve.” He groped for a towes “Did_you write the resolutions? asked Garwood. :Not yet~ sald the Congressman; “I must do tha ® x The convention was to meet at 10 o'clock, but at that hour, while the hotel was left desolate. the Circuit Court room in the old brick Courthouse where the convention was to sit, was still empty. and scarcely divested of any o its solemnity by the chairs that had been set in order for the accommoda- tion of the representatives of the peo- ple who were to deliberate thers. For half an hour the delegates had been gathering at the somber building, and now clustered in groups in the toric portico that had witnessed, so many years before, one of the it debates between Lincoln and The delegates found the shade grateful. and leaned against the gray columns smoking the cigars which tife candi- dates had -uppllod with such prodigal generosity. With them were many spectators and the curiosity of these was hardly larger than the curiosity of delegates, who, though they had all th ower in their hands, could onty specu ate, not as to what they would do wita the power, but what would be done with it for them, and they awaited the com- ing of their leaders with a calm, almost amusing submission to their desires and designs. The morning advanced, and with it the heat increased, until at length . of the delegates, on whom o deputed dignity of the people sat with such weight that they wished to feel some of its importanc seats, entered they resumed their curious speculations as to whether Garw or Spragu would be nominated, awaiting the advent of some hand strong enou to gather them all together and mold them to its own purposes. (Continued next Sunday.) he -7 816 MARKET STREET, Running through to 11 0'Farrell. PHELAN BUILDING.