HOME LIFE OF HOOSIER STATESMEN
In no other place can a young man so quickly attain wisdom as in a
newspaper office. There the names of the good and great are playthings,
and the bubble reputation is blown lightly, and as readily extinguished,
as part of the day's business. No other employment offers so many
excitements; in nothing else does the laborer live so truly behind the
scenes. The stage is wide, the action varied and constant. The youngest
tyro, watching from the wings, observes great incidents and becomes
their hasty historian. The reporter's status is unique. Youth on the
threshold of no other profession commands the same respect, gains
audience so readily to the same august personages. Doors slammed in his
face only flatter his self-importance. He becomes cynical as he sees how
easily the spot light is made to flash upon the unworthiest figures by
the flimsiest mechanism. He drops his plummet into shoal and deep water
and from his contemplation of the wreck-littered shore grows skeptical
of the wisdom of all pilots.
Harwood's connection with the "Courier" brought him in touch with
politics, which interested him greatly. The "Courier" was the organ of
the Democratic Party in the state, and though his father and brothers
in the country were Republicans, Dan found himself more in sympathy with
the views represented by the Democratic Party, even after it abandoned
its ancient conservatism and became aggressively radical. About the time
of Harwood's return to his native state the newspaper had changed hands.
At least the corporation which had owned it for a number of years had
apparently disposed of it, though the transaction had been effected so
quietly that the public received no outward hint beyond the deletion of
"Published by the Courier Newspaper Company" from the head of the
editorial page. The "policy" of the paper continued unchanged; the
editorial staff had not been disturbed; and in the counting-room there
had been no revolution, though an utterly unknown man had appeared
bearing the title of General Manager, which carried with it authority in
all departments.
This person was supposed to represent the unknown proprietor, about whom
there had been the liveliest speculation. The "Courier's" rivals gave
much space to rumors, real and imaginary, as to the new ownership,
attributing the purchase to a number of prominent politicians in rapid
succession, and to syndicates that had never existed. It was an odd
effect of the change in the "Courier's" ownership that almost
immediately mystery seemed to envelop the editorial rooms. The managing
editor, whose humors and moods fixed the tone of the office, may have
been responsible, but whatever the cause a stricter discipline was
manifest, and editors, reporters and copy-readers moved and labored with
a consciousness that an unknown being walked among the desks, and hung
over the forms to the very last moment before they were hurled to the
stereotypers. The editorial writers--those astute counselors of the
public who are half-revered and half-despised by their associates on the
news side of every American newspaper--wrote uneasily under a
mysterious, hidden censorship. It was possible that even the young woman
who gleaned society news might, by some unfortunate slip, offend the
invisible proprietor. But as time passed nothing happened. The
imaginable opaque pane that separated the owner from the desks of the
"Courier's" reporters and philosophers had disclosed no faintest shadow.
Occasionally the managing editor was summoned below by the general
manager, but the subordinates in the news department were unable, even
by much careful study of their subsequent instructions, to grasp the
slightest thread that might lead them to the concealed hand which swayed
the "Courier's" destiny. It must be confessed that under this ghostly
administration the paper improved. Every man did his best, and the
circulation statements as published monthly indicated a widening
constituency. Even the Sunday edition, long a forbidding and depressing
hodge-podge of ill-chosen and ill-digested rubbish, began to show order
and intelligence.
In October following his visit to Professor Kelton, Harwood was sent to
Fraserville, the seat of Fraser County, to write a sketch of the
Honorable Morton Bassett, in a series then adorning the Sunday
supplement under the title, "Home Life of Hoosier Statesmen." The
object of the series was frankly to aid the circulation manager's
efforts to build up subscription lists in the rural districts, and
personal sketches of local celebrities had proved potent in this
endeavor. Most of the subjects that had fallen to Harwood's lot had been
of a familiar type--country lawyers who sat in the legislature, or
county chairmen, or judges of county courts. As the "Sunday Courier"
eschewed politics, the series was not restricted to Democrats but
included men of all faiths. It was Harwood's habit to spend a day in the
towns he visited, gathering local color and collecting anecdotal matter.
While this employment cut deeply into his hours at the law office, he
reasoned that there was a compensating advantage in the knowledge he
gained on these excursions of the men of both political faiths.
Before the train stopped at Fraserville he saw from the car window the
name "Bassett" written large on a towering elevator,--a fact which he
noted carefully as offering a suggestion for the introductory line of
his sketch. As he left the station and struck off toward the heart of
the town, he was aware that Bassett was a name that appealed to the eye
frequently. The Bassett Block and Bassett's Bank spoke not merely for a
material prosperity, rare among the local statesmen he had described in
the "Courier," but, judging from the prominence of the name in
Fraserville nomenclature, he assumed that it had long been established
in the community. Harwood had not previously faced a second generation
in his pursuit of Hoosier celebrities, and he breathed a sigh of relief
at the prospect of a variation on the threadbare scenario of early
hardship, the little red schoolhouse, patient industry, and the
laborious attainment of meagre political honors--which had begun to bore
him.
Harwood sought first the editor of the "Fraser County Democrat," who was
also the "Courier's" Fraserville correspondent. Fraserville boasted two
other newspapers, the "Republican," which offset the "Democrat"
politically, and the "News," an independent afternoon daily whose
function was to encourage strife between its weekly contemporaries and
boom the commercial interests of the town. The editor of the "Democrat"
was an extremely stout person, who sprawled at ease in a battered swivel
chair, with his slippered feet thrown across a desk littered with
newspapers, clippings, letters, and manuscript. A file hook was
suspended on the wall over his shoulder, and on this it was his habit to
impale, by a remarkable twist of body and arm, gems for his hebdomadal
journal. He wrote on a pad held in his ample lap, the paste brush was
within easy reach, and once planted on his throne the editor was
established for the day. Bound volumes of the "Congressional Record" in
their original wrappers were piled in a corner. A consular report,
folded in half, was thrust under the editor's right thigh, easly
accessible in ferocious moments when he indulged himself in the felicity
of slaughtering the roaches with which the place swarmed. He gave Dan a
limp fat hand, and cleared a chair of exchanges with one foot, which he
thereupon laboriously restored to its accustomed place on the desk.
"So you're from the 'Courier'? Well, sir, you may tell your managing
editor for me that if he doesn't print more of my stuff he can get
somebody else on the job here."
Dan soothed Mr. Pettit's feelings as best he could; he confessed that
his own best work was mercilessly cut; and that, after all, the editors
of city newspapers were poor judges of the essential character of news.
When Pettit's good humor had been restored, Dan broached the nature of
his errand. As he mentioned Morton Bassett's name the huge editor's face
grew blank for a moment; then he was shaken with mirth that passed from
faint quivers until his whole frame was convulsed. His rickety chair
trembled and rattled ominously. It was noiseless laughter so far as any
vocal manifestations were concerned; but it shook the gigantic editor as
though he were a mould of jelly. He closed his eyes, but otherwise his
fat face was expressionless.
"Goin' to write Mort up, are you? Well, by gum! I've been readin' those
pieces in the 'Courier.' Your work? Good writin'; mighty interestin'
readin', as old Uncle Horace Greeley used to say. I guess you carry the
whitewash brush along with you in your pilgrimages. You certainly did
give Bill Ragsdale a clean bill o' health. That must have tickled the
folks in Tecumseh County. Know Ragsdale? I've set with Bill in the lower
house three sessions, and I come pretty near knowin' him. I don't say
that Bill is crooked; but I suspect that if Bill's moral nature could
be dug out and exposed to view it would be spiral like a bedspring; just
about. It's an awful load on the Republican Party in this state, having
to carry Bill Ragsdale. O Lord!"
He pursed his fat lips, and his eyes took on a far-away expression, as
though some profound utterance had diverted his thoughts to remote
realms of reverie. "So you're goin' to write Mort up; well, my God!"
The exact relevance of this was not apparent. Harwood had assumed on
general principles that the Honorable Isaac Pettit, of the "Fraser
County Democrat," was an humble and obedient servant of the Honorable
Morton Bassett, and would cringe at the mention of his name. To be sure,
Mr. Pettit had said nothing to disturb this belief; but neither had the
editor manifested that meek submission for which the reporter had been
prepared. The editor's Gargantuan girth trembled again. The spectacle he
presented as he shook thus with inexplicable mirth was so funny that
Harwood grinned; whereupon Pettit rubbed one of his great hands across
his three-days' growth of beard, evoking a harsh rasping sound in which
he seemed to find relief and satisfaction.
"You don't know Mort? Well, he's all right; he will he mighty nice to
you. Mort's one of the best fellows on earth; you won't find anybody out
here in Fraser County to say anything against Mort Bassett. No, sir; by
God!"
Again the ponderous frame shook; again the mysterious look came into the
man's curious small eyes, and Harwood witnessed another seismic
disturbance in the bulk before him; then the Honorable Isaac Pettit grew
serious.
"You want some facts for a starter. Well, I guess a few facts don't hurt
in this business, providin' you don't push in too many of 'em."
He pondered for a moment, then went on, as though summarizing from a
biography:--
"Only child of the late Jeremiah Bassett, founder of Bassett's Bank. Old
Jerry was pure boiler plate; he could squeeze ten per cent interest out
of a frozen parsnip. He and Blackford Singleton sort o' divided things
up in this section. Jerry Bassett corralled the coin; Blackford rolled
up a couple of hundred thousand and capped it with a United States
senatorship. Mort's not forty yet; married only child of Blackford F.
Singleton--Jerry made the match, I guess; it was the only way he could
get Blackford's money. Mort prepared for college, but didn't go. Took
his degree in law at Columbia, but never practiced. Always interested in
politics; been in the state senate twelve years; two children, boy and
girl. I guess Mort Bassett can do most anything he wants to--you can't
tell where he'll land."
"But the next steps are obvious," suggested Harwood, encouragingly--"the
governorship, the United States Senate--ever onward and upward."
"Well, yes; but you never know anything from _him_. _We_ don't know, and
you might think we'd understand him pretty well up here. He declined to
go to Congress from this district--could have had it without turning a
hand; but he put in his man and stayed in the state senate. I reckon he
cuts some ice there, but he's mighty quiet. Bassett doesn't beat the
tom-tom to call attention to himself. I guess no man swings more
influence in a state convention--but he's peculiar. You'll find him
different from these yahoos you've been writin' up. I know 'em all."
"A man of influence and power--leading citizen in every sense--" Dan
murmured as he scribbled a few notes.
"Yep. Mort's considered rich. You may have noticed his name printed on
most everything but the undertaker's and the jail as you came up from
the station. The elevator and the bank he inherited from his pap. Mort's
got a finger in most everything 'round here."
"Owns everything," said Harwood, with an attempt at facetiousness,
"except the brewery."
Mr. Pettit's eyes opened wide, and then closed; again he was
mirth-shaken; it seemed that the idea of linking Morton Bassett's name
with the manufacture of malt liquor was the most stupendous joke
possible. The editor's face did not change expression; the internal
disturbances were not more violent this time, but they continued longer;
when the strange spasm had passed he dug a fat fist into a tearful right
eye and was calm.
"Oh, my God," he blurted huskily. "Breweries? Let us say that he neither
makes nor consumes malt, vinous nor spirituous liquor, within the
meaning of the statutes in such cases made and provided. He and Ed
Thatcher make a strong team. Ed started out as a brewer, but there's
nothing wrong about that, I reckon. Over in England they make lords and
dukes of brewers."
"A man of rectitude--enshrined in the hearts of his fellow-citizens,
popular and all that?" suggested Harwood.
Yes. Mort rather _retains_ his heat, I guess. Some say he's cold as ice.
His ice is the kind that freezes to what he likes. Mort's a gentleman if
we have one in Fraser County. If you think you're chasin' one of these
blue jeans politicians you read about in comic papers you're hitting the
wrong trail, son. Mort can eat with a fork without appearin'
self-conscious. Good Lord, boy, if you can say these other fellows in
Indiana politics have brains, you got to say that Mort Bassett has
_intellect_. Which is different, son; a dern sight different."
"I shall be glad to use the word in my sketch of Mr. Bassett," remarked
Dan dryly. "It will lend variety to the series."
Harwood thanked the editor for his courtesy and walked to the door.
Strange creakings from the editorial chair caused him to turn. The
Honorable Isaac Pettit was in the throes of another convulsion. The
attack seemed more severe than its predecessors. Dan waited for him to
invoke deity with the asthmatic wheeziness to which mirth reduced his
vocal apparatus.
"It's nothin', son; it's nothin'. It's my temperament: I can't help it.
Did you say you were from the 'Courier'? Well, you better give Mort a
good send-off. He appreciates a good job; he's a sort o' literary cuss
himself."
As another mirthful spasm seemed imminent Dan retired, wondering just
what in himself or in his errand had so moved the fat editor's
risibilities. He learned at the Bassett Bank that Mr. Bassett was
spending the day in a neighboring town, but would be home at six
o'clock, so he surveyed Fraserville and killed time until evening,
eating luncheon and supper with sundry commercial travelers at the Grand
Hotel.
Harwood's instructions were in every case to take the subjects of his
sketches at their own valuation and to set them forth sympathetically.
The ambitions of most of the gentlemen he had interviewed had been
obvious--obvious and futile. Nearly every man who reached the
legislature felt a higher call to Congress or the governor's chair.
Harwood had already described in the "Courier" the attainments of
several statesmen who were willing to sacrifice their private interests
for the high seat at the state capitol. The pettiness and sordidness of
most of the politicians he met struck him humorously, but the tone of
his articles was uniformly laudatory.
When the iron gate clicked behind him at the Bassett residence, his
notebook was still barren of such anecdotes of his subject as he had
usually gathered in like cases in an afternoon spent at the court-house.
Stories of generosity, of the kindly care of widows and orphans, gifts
to indigent pastors, boys helped through college, and similar
benefactions had proved altogether elusive. Either Harwood had sought
in the wrong places or Morton Bassett was of tougher fibre than the
other gentlemen on whom his pencil had conferred immortality. In
response to his ring a boy opened the door and admitted him without
parley. He had a card ready to offer, but the lad ran to announce him
without waiting for his name and reappeared promptly.
"Papa says to come right in, sir," the boy reported.
Dan caught a glimpse of a girl at the piano in the parlor who turned to
glance at him and continued her playing. The lad indicated an open door
midway of the long hall and waited for Harwood to enter. A lady,
carrying a small workbasket in her hand, bade the reporter good-evening
as she passed out. On a table in the middle of the room a checkerboard's
white and black belligerents stood at truce, and from the interrupted
game rose a thick-set man of medium height, with dark hair and a
close-trimmed mustache, who came toward him inquiringly.
"Good-evening. I am Mr. Bassett. Have a chair."
Harwood felt the guilt of his intrusion upon a scene so sheltered and
domestic. The father had evidently been playing checkers with his son;
the mother's chair still rocked by another table on which stood a
reading lamp.
Harwood stated his errand, and Bassett merely nodded, offering none of
those protestations of surprise and humility, those pleas of
unworthiness that his predecessors on Dan's list had usually insisted
upon. Dan made mental note at once of the figure before him. Bassett's
jaw was square and firm--power was manifest there, unmistakably, and
his bristling mustache suggested combativeness. His dark eyes met
Harwood's gaze steadily--hardness might be there, though their gaze was
friendly enough. His voice was deep and its tone was pleasant. He opened
a drawer and produced a box of cigars.
"Won't you smoke? I don't smoke myself, but you mustn't mind that." And
Harwood accepted a cigar, which he found excellent. A moment later a
maid placed on the table beside the checkerboard a tray, with a decanter
and glasses, and a pitcher of water.
"That's for us," remarked Bassett, nodding toward the glasses. "Help
yourself."
"The cigar is all I need; thank you."
The reporter was prepared to ask questions, following a routine he had
employed with other subjects, but Bassett began to talk on his own
initiative--of the town, the county, the district. He expressed himself
well, in terse words and phrases. Harwood did not attempt to direct or
lead: Bassett had taken the interview into his own hands, and was
imparting information that might have been derived from a local history
at the town library. Dan ceased, after a time, to follow the narrative
in his absorption in the man himself. Harwood took his politics
seriously and the petty politicians with whom he had thus far become
acquainted in his newspaper work had impressed him chiefly by their
bigotry or venality. It was not for nothing that he had worshiped at
Sumner's feet at Yale and he held views that were not readily
reconcilable with parochial boss-ships and the meek swallowing of
machine-made platforms. Bassett was not the vulgar, intimate good-fellow
who slapped every man on the back--the teller of good stories over a
glass of whiskey and a cigar. He was, as Pettit had said, a new type,
not of the familiar _cliché_. The decanter was a "property" placed in
the scene at the dictates of hospitality; the checkerboard canceled any
suggestion of conviviality that might have been conveyed by the decanter
of whiskey.
Bassett's right hand lay on the table and Dan found himself watching it.
It was broad but not heavy; the fingers that opened and shut quietly on
a small paperweight were supple. It was a hand that would deal few
blows, but hard ones. Harwood was aware, at a moment when he began to be
bored by the bald facts of local history, that Bassett had abruptly
switched the subject.
"Parties are necessary to democratic government. I don't believe merely
in my own party; I want the opposition to be strong enough to make a
fight. The people are better satisfied if there's a contest for the
offices. I'm not sorry when we lose occasionally; defeat disciplines and
strengthens a party. I have made a point in our little local affairs of
not fighting independents when they break with us for any reason.
Believing as I do that parties are essential, and that schismatic
movements are futile, I make a point of not attacking them. Their
failures strengthen the party--and incidentally kill the men who have
kicked out of the traces. You never have to bother with them a second
time."
"But they help clear the air--they serve a purpose?" suggested Harwood.
He had acquired a taste for the "Nation" and the New York "Evening Post"
at college, and Bassett's frank statement of his political opinions
struck Dan as mediæval. He was, however, instinctively a reporter, and
he refrained from interposing himself further than was necessary to
stimulate the talk of the man before him.
"You are quite right, Mr. Harwood. They serve an excellent purpose. They
provide an outlet; they serve as a safety valve. Now and then they will
win a fight, and that's a good thing too, for they will prove, on
experiment, that they are just as human and weak in practical
application of their ideas as the rest of us. I'd even go as far as to
say that in certain circumstances I'd let them win. They help drive home
my idea that the old parties, like old, established business houses,
have got to maintain a standard or they will lose the business to which
they are rightfully entitled. When you see your customers passing your
front door to try a new shop farther up the street, you want to sit down
and consider what's the matter, and devise means of regaining your lost
ground. It doesn't pay merely to ridicule the new man or cry that his
goods are inferior. Yours have got to be superior--or"--and the gray
eyes twinkled for the first time--"they must be dressed up to look
better in your show window."
Bassett rose and walked the length of the room, with his hands thrust
into his trousers pockets, and before he sat down he poured himself a
glass of water from the pitcher and drank it slowly, with an air of
preoccupation. He moved easily, with a quicker step than might have been
expected in one of his figure. The strength of his hand was also in the
firm line of his vigorous, well-knit frame. And his rather large head,
Dan observed, rested solidly on broad shoulders.
Harwood's thoughts were, however, given another turn at once. Morton
Bassett had said all he cared to say about politics and he now asked Dan
whether he was a college man, to which prompting the reporter recited
succinctly the annals of his life.
"You're a Harrison County boy, are you? So you didn't like the farm, and
found a way out? That's good. You may be interested in some of my
books."
Dan was immediately on guard against being bored; the library of even an
intelligent local statesman like Morton Bassett was hardly likely to
prove interesting. One of his earlier subjects had asked him
particularly to mention his library, which consisted mainly of
government reports.
"I've been a collector of Americana," Bassett remarked, throwing open
several cases. "I've gone in for colonial history, particularly, and
some of these things are pretty rare."
The shelves rose to the ceiling and Bassett produced a ladder that he
might hand down a few of the more interesting volumes for Dan's closer
inspection.
"Here's Wainwright's 'Brief Description of the Ohio River, With some
Account of the Savages Living Thereon'--published in London in 1732,
and there are only three copies in existence. This is Atterbury's
'Chronicle of the Chesapeake Settlements'--the best thing I have. The
author was an English sailor who joined the colonists in the Revolution
and published a little memoir of his adventures in America. The only
other copy of that known to exist is in the British Museum. I fished
mine out of a pile of junk in Baltimore about ten years ago. When I get
old and have time on my hands I'm going to reprint some of these--wide
margins, and footnotes, and that sort of thing. But there's fun enough
now in just having them and knowing the other fellow hasn't!"
He flung open a panel of the wainscoting at a point still free of
shelves and disclosed a door of a small iron safe which he opened with a
key. "This isn't the family silver, but a few little things that are
more valuable. These are first editions of American authors. Here's
Lowell's 'Fable for Critics,' first edition; and this is Emerson's
'Nature,' 1836--a first. These are bound by Orpcutt; had them done
myself. They feel good to the hand, don't they!"
Harwood's pleasure in the beautiful specimens of the binder's art was
unfeigned and to his questioning Bassett dilated upon the craftsmanship.
"The red morocco of the Emerson takes the gold tooling beautifully, and
the oak-leaf border design couldn't be finer. I believe this olive-green
shade is the best of all. This Whittier--a first edition of 'In War
Time'--is by Durand, a French artist, and one of the best specimens of
his work."
Those strong hands of his touched the beautiful books fondly. Harwood
took advantage of a moment when Bassett carried to the lamp Lowell's
"Under the Willows" in gold and brown, the better to display the deft
workmanship, to look more closely at the owner of these lovely baubles.
The iron hand could be very gentle! Bassett touched the volume
caressingly as he called attention to its perfection. His face, in the
lamp's full light, softened, but there was in it no hint of sensuousness
to prepare one for this indulgence in luxurious bibliomania. There was a
childlike simplicity in Bassett's delight. A man who enjoyed such
playthings could not be hard, and Dan's heart warmed with liking.
"Are you a reader of poetry?" asked Dan, as Bassett carefully collected
the books and returned them to the safe.
"No. That is something we leave behind us with our youth," he said; and
looking down at the bent head and sturdy shoulders, and watching the
strong fingers turning the key, Dan wondered what the man's youth had
been and what elements were mixed in him that soft textures of leather
and delicate tracings of gold on brown and scarlet and olive could so
delight him. His rather jaunty attitude toward the "Home Life of Hoosier
Statesmen" experienced a change. Morton Bassett was not a man who could
be hit off in a few hundred words, but a complex character he did not
pretend to understand. Threads of various hues had passed before him,
but how to intertwine them was a question that already puzzled the
reporter. Bassett had rested his hand on Dan's shoulder for a moment as
the younger man bent over one of the prized volumes, and Dan was not
insensible to the friendliness of the act.
Mrs. Bassett and the two children appeared at the door a little later.
"Come in, Hallie," said the politician; "all of you come in."
He introduced the reporter to his wife and to Marian, the daughter, and
Blackford, the son.
"The children were just going up," said Mrs. Bassett. "As it's Saturday
they have an hour added to their evening. I think I heard Mr. Bassett
talking of books a moment ago. It's not often he brings out his first
editions for a visitor."
They talked of books for a moment, while the children listened. Then
Bassett recurred to the fact, already elicited, that Harwood was a Yale
man, whereupon colleges were discussed.
"Many of our small fresh-water colleges do excellent work," remarked
Bassett. "Some educator has explained the difference between large and
small colleges by saying that in the large one the boy goes through more
college, but in the small one more college goes through the boy. Of
course I'm not implying, Mr. Harwood, that that was true in your case."
"Oh, I'm not sensitive about that, Mr. Bassett. And I beg not to be
taken as an example of what Yale does for her students. Some of the
smaller colleges stand for the best things; there's Madison College,
here in our own state--its standards are severely high, and the place
itself has quality, atmosphere--you feel, even as a casual visitor,
that it's the real thing."
"So I've always heard," remarked Mrs. Bassett. "My father always admired
Madison. Strange to say, I have never been there. Are you acquainted in
Montgomery?"
Bassett bent forward slightly at the question.
"I was there for an hour or so last spring; but I was in a hurry. I
didn't even take time to run into my fraternity house, though I saw its
banner on the outer wall."
"Your newspaper work must give you many interesting adventures,"
suggested the politician.
"Not always as pleasant as this, I assure you. But I'm a person of two
occupations--I'm studying law, and my visit to Montgomery was on an
errand for the office where I'm allowed to use the books in return for
slight services of one kind and another. As a newspaper man I'm
something of an impostor; I hope I'm only a passing pilgrim in the
business."
Dan faced Mrs. Bassett as he made this explanation, and he was
conscious, as he turned toward the master of the house, that Bassett was
observing him intently. His gaze was so direct and searching that
Harwood was disconcerted for a moment; then Bassett remarked
carelessly,--
"I should think newspaper work a good training for the law. It drills
faculties that a lawyer exercises constantly."
Mrs. Bassett now made it possible for Marian and young Blackford to
contribute to the conversation.
"I'm going to Annapolis," announced the boy.
"You've had a change of heart," said his father, with a smile. "It was
West Point last week."
"Well, it will be Annapolis next week," the lad declared; and then, as
if to explain his abandonment of a military career, "In the Navy you get
to see the world, and in the Army you're likely to be stuck away at some
awful place on the Plains where you never see anything. The Indians are
nearly all killed anyhow."
"We hear a good deal nowadays about the higher education of woman," Mrs.
Bassett remarked, "and I suppose girls should be prepared to earn their
own living. Mothers of daughters have that to think about."
Miss Marian, catching Dan's eye, smiled as though to express her full
appreciation of the humor of her mother's remark.
"Mama learned that from my Aunt Sally," she ventured; and Dan saw that
she was an independent spirit, given to daring sayings, and indulged in
them by her parents.
"Well, Aunt Sally is the wisest woman in the world," replied Mrs.
Bassett, with emphasis. "It would be to your credit if you followed her,
my dear."
Marian ignored her mother's rebuke and addressed herself to the visitor.
"Aunt Sally lives in Indianapolis and I go there to Miss Waring's
School. I'm just home for Sunday."
"Mrs. Owen is my aunt; you may have heard of her, Mr. Harwood; she was
my father's only sister."
"Oh, _the_ Mrs. Owen! Of course every one has heard of her; and I knew
that she was Senator Singleton's sister. I am sorry to say I don't know
her."
Unconsciously the sense of Morton Bassett's importance deepened. In
marrying Mrs. Jackson Owen's niece Bassett had linked himself to the
richest woman at the state capital. He had not encumbered himself with a
crude wife from the countryside, but had married a woman with important
connections. Blackford Singleton had been one of the leading men of the
state, and Mrs. Owen, his sister, was not a negligible figure in the
background against which the reporter saw he must sketch the
Fraserville senator. Harwood had met the wives of other Hoosier
statesmen--uninteresting creatures in the main, and palpably of little
assistance to ambitious husbands.
It appeared that the Bassetts spent their summers at their cottage on
Lake Waupegan and that Mrs. Owen had a farm near them. It was clear that
Bassett enjoyed his family. He fell into a chaffing way with his
children and laughed heartily at Marian's forwardness. He met his son on
the lad's own note of self-importance and connived with him to provoke
her amusing impertinences.
Bassett imposed no restrictions upon Harwood's pencil, and this, too,
was a novel experience. His predecessors on the list of leaders in
Hoosier politics had not been backward about making suggestions, but
Bassett did not refer to Harwood's errand at all. When Dan asked for
photographs of Mrs. Bassett and the children with which to embellish
his article, Bassett declined to give them with a firmness that ended
the matter; but he promised to provide photographs of the house and
grounds and of the Waupegan cottage and send them to Harwood in a day or
two.
* * * * *
Harwood gave to his sketch of Morton Bassett a care which he had not
bestowed upon any of his previous contributions to the "Courier's"
series of Hoosier statesmen. He remained away from the law office two
days the better to concentrate himself upon his task, and the result was
a careful, straightforward article, into which he threw shadings of
analysis and flashes of color that reflected very faithfully the
impression made upon his mind by the senator from Fraser. The managing
editor complained of its sobriety and lack of anecdote.
"It's good, Harwood, but it's too damned solemn. Can't you shoot a
little ginger into it?"
"I've tried to paint the real Bassett. He isn't one of these raw
hayseeds who hands you chestnuts out of patent medicine almanacs. I've
tried to make a document that would tell the truth and at the same time
please him."
"Why?" snapped the editor, pulling the green shade away from his eyes
and glaring at the reporter.
"Because he's the sort of man you feel you'd like to please! He's the
only one of these fellows I've tackled who didn't tell me a lot of
highfalutin rot they wanted put into the article. Bassett didn't seem to
care about it one way or another. I rewrote most of that stuff half a
dozen times to be sure to get the punk out of it, because I knew he
hated punk."
"You did, did you! Well, McNaughton of Tippecanoe County is the next
standard-bearer you're to tackle, and you needn't be afraid to pin
ribbons on him. You college fellows are all alike. Try to remember,
Harwood, that this paper ain't the 'North American Review'; it's a
newspaper for the plain people."
Dan, at some personal risk, saw to it that the illustrations were so
minimized that it became unnecessary to sacrifice his text to
accommodate it to the page set apart for it. He read his screed in type
with considerable satisfaction, feeling that it was an honest piece of
work and that it limned a portrait of Bassett that was vivid and
truthful. The editor-in-chief inquired who had written it, and took
occasion to commend Harwood for his good workmanship. A little later a
clerk in the counting-room told him that Bassett had ordered a hundred
copies of the issue containing the sketch, and this was consoling.
Several other subjects had written their thanks, and Dan had rather
hoped that Bassett would send him a line of approval; but on reflection
he concluded that it was not like Bassett to do so, and that this
failure to make any sign corroborated all that he knew or imagined of
the senator from Fraser.