MRS. PROTHEROE
When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the
upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of
pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon
his countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all
which he meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena
where he was to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong
spirits with whom to construct a focus of power which should control
the senate. The young man had not long to look, for within a week
after the beginning of the session these others showed themselves to
his view, rising above the general level of mediocrity and timidity,
party-leaders and chiefs of faction, men who were on their feet
continually, speaking half-a-dozen times a day, freely and loudly. To
these, and that house at large, he felt it necessary to introduce
himself by a speech which must prove him one of the elect, and he
awaited impatiently an opening.
Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try
their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to
novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his
own gifts, and he had been “accustomed to speaking” ever since his
days in the Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression,
also, that his appearance alone would command attention from his
colleagues and the gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a
rich waviness, rippling over both brow and collar, and he had, by
years of endeavour, succeeded in moulding his features to present an
aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty whenever he “spoke.”
The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them
delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his
best clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation
of the “Sunday Baseball Bill,” then upon second reading. The classical
references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to
introduce, were received with acclamations which the gavel of the
Lieutenant-Governor had no power to still.
“What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?” he
exclaimed. “I await an answer from the advocates of this
_de_-generate measure! I _demand_ an answer from them! Let
me hear from them on _that_ subject! Why don't they speak up?
They can't give one. Not because they ain't familiar with history, no
sir! That's not the reason! It's because they _daren't,_ because
their answer would have to go on record _against_ 'em! Don't any
of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to the point,
for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any kind of
Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on the
downward path that beset Rome! _I'll_ tell you what ruined
it. The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth,
and they had a good start, too, just like the United States has got
to-day. _Then_ what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient
fellers got more interested in athletic games and gladiatorial combats
and racing and all kinds of out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than
they were in oratory, or literature, or charitable institutions and
good works of all kinds! At first they were moderate and the country
was prosperous. But six days in the week wouldn't content 'em, and
they went at it all the time, so that at last they gave up the seventh
day to their sports, the way this bill wants _us_ to do, and from
that time on the result was _de_-generacy and _de_-gredation!
You better remember _that_ lesson, my friends, and don't try to
sink this State to the level of Rome!”
When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his
chair, he was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of
his maiden effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not
fixed upon him and shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly
Lieutenant-Governor, his face very red, rapped for order. The young
senator across the aisle leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand
excitedly.
“That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!” he wispered. “I'm _for_ the
bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent.”
“I thank you, Senator Truslow,” Alonzo returned graciously. “I am
glad to have your good opinion, Senator.”
“You have it, Senator,” said Truslow enthusiastically. “I hope you
intend to speak often?”
“I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard,” the other answered
gravely, “upon all questions of moment.”
“You will fill a great place among us, Senator!”
Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour
across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small
account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was
Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor
attempted to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most
of his time frittering over some desk work, though now and then he
walked up and down the aisles talking in a low voice to various
senators. How such a man could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed
to understand. Also, Truslow was physically inconsequent, in his
colleague's estimation--“a little insignificant, dudish kind of a
man,” he had thought; one whom he would have darkly suspected of
cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold Truslow smoking an
old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole had looked
over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to
bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York
magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't
know which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently,
after receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious
of the keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be
something in him after all.
He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure
of one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting,
therefore, a few moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had
ceased to rest upon himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but
piercing scrutiny upon his neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping
across Truslow's shoulder toward the face, suddenly encountered
another pair of eyes beyond, so intently fixed upon himself that he
started. The clash was like two search-lights meeting--and the
glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not the eyes of
Truslow.
Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were
placed comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for
the use of members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by
their wives and daughters, or “lady-lobbyists,” or other women
spectators. Leaning back with extraordinary grace, in the chair
nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest woman Alonzo had ever seen in his
life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was unrecognizable to him in
connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; her broad flat hat of
the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath which her heavy
brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, not even in
a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so clear! And
to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into clear
water and turning to stare up at the light.
His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him
they seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy
getting back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's
platform. For the lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not
been friendly.
Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the
inclination toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own
emotion, at its strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment
ago his soul had been steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had
cut with his speech and the extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded
it--an extraordinarily pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and
in its place he found himself almost choking with a dazed sense of
having been scathed, and at the same time understood in a way in which
he did not understand himself. And yet--he and this most unusual lady
had been so mutually conscious of each other in their mysterious
interchange that he felt almost acquainted with her. Why, then, should
his head be hot with resentment? Nobody had _said_ anything to
him!
He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by
the State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with
abysmal abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow
was holding a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her
laugh came to him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which
irritated him into saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there
was just as much refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital
City, and just as many old families! The clerk calling his vote upon
the “Baseball Bill” at that moment, he roared “No!” in a tone which
was profane. It seemed to him that he was avenging himself upon
somebody for something and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction.
He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing
the intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon
before his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed
his lips, looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some
profound question beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost
immediately, and, setting his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital
letter “O” several hundred times on note-paper furnished by the
State. So oblivious was he, apparently, to everything but the question
of statecraft which occupied him, that he did not even look up when
the morning's session was adjourned and the lawmakers began to pass
noisily out, until Truslow stretched an arm across the aisle and
touched him upon the shoulder.
“In a moment, Senator!” answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He
made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking
suspicion of what was coming.
“I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator,” said Truslow, rising, as
Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in
his breast pocket.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am,” Alonzo said in a
loud, firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague
about him when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to
him across Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes.
“We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?” she asked, smiling
radiantly upon him. “You were at some important work, I'm afraid.”
He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness
of them fairly took his breath. “I am the chairman, ma'am,” he
replied, swallowing, “of the committee on drains and dikes.”
“I knew it was something of great moment,” she said gravely, “but I
was anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech.”
A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat
from the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly
through the marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors
with the lady and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the
weather, and of various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He
vaguely formed replies to her questions and he hardly realized what
the questions were; he was too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet
of her voice and of the caress of the grey fur of her cloak when the
back of his hand touched it--rather accidentally--now and then, as
they moved on together.
It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to
look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face,
the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses
seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black
motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur.
Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to
the lady. “Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me,” he
said. “Mrs. Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way.”
That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon
strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of
unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so
much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger.
“You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me,” he heard
the rich voice saying.
“Yes ma'am,” he summoned himself to answer. “I expect I will. Yes
ma'am.” He paused, and then repeated, “Yes ma'am.”
She looked at him for a moment. “But you will do some work, too, won't
you?” she asked slowly.
Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. “Yes ma'am,” he
answered. “The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains
and dikes.”
“I have heard,” she said, as if searching his opinion, “that almost as
much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor?
There--and in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?”
“I don't have much to do with that!” he returned quickly. “I guess
none of them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all
their railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!”
After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration,
she ventured, almost timidly: “Do you remember that it was said that
Napoleon once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one
quality?”
“I am an admirer of Napoleon,” returned the Senator from Stackpole. “I
admire all great men.”
“He said that he held men by his reserve.”
“It can be done,” observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was
more reserved to add nothing to the sentence.
“But I suppose that such a policy,” she smiled upon him inquiringly,
“wouldn't have helped him much with women?”
“No,” he agreed immediately. “My opinion is that a man ought to tell a
_good_ woman everything. What is more sacred than--”
The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic
squirm about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp,
as Alonzo, not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek
closely against hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped
violently, but not with fear. Could all the things of his life that
had seemed beautiful have been compressed into one instant, it would
not have brought him even the suggestion of the wild shock of joy of
that one, wherein he knew the glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's
brown hair and felt her cold cheek firm against his, with only the
grey veil between.
“I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day,” she said,
laughing and composedly straightening her hat. “Do you care for big
machines?”
“Yes ma'am,” he answered huskily. “I haven't been in many.”
“Then I'll take you again,” said Mrs. Protheroe. “If you like I'll
come down to the State house and take you out for a run in the
country.”
“When?” said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth
open. “When?”
“Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two.”
They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped
out. Mrs. Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance
significant of something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one
might have hazarded that there was something almost businesslike about
it. The confused Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly,
observed it not, nor could he have understood, even if he had seen,
that delicate signal which passed between his two companions.
When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without
speaking, but her lips formed the word, “Saturday.” Then she was
carried away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking
after her, born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon
his little finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side
of his face red, the other pale.
“To-day is Wednesday,” he said, half aloud.
“Come on, Senator.” Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the
club doors.
The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. “Why, I forgot to thank
her for the ride,” he exclaimed.
“You'll have other chances, Senator,” Truslow assured
him. “Mrs. Protheroe has a hobby for studying politics and she expects
to come down often. She has plenty of time--she's a widow, you know.”
“I hope you didn't think,” responded Alonzo indignantly, “that I
thought she was a married woman!”
After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow
regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs.
Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and
speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make
himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a
fine energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator
from Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no
equal. He spoke convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon
every bill that was before them, and he compelled their humblest
respect. He went earnestly at it, indeed, and sat very late that
night, in his room at a nearby boarding house, studying bills, trying
to keep his mind upon them and not to think of his strange morning and
of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next room, Senator Ezra
Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and groaned
slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for
Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The
partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice
of one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull
considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen
of a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt
that in Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his
prayers at the top of his voice and even then have small chance to
carry through the distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to
mention and he put it off from day to day.
Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in
debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the
chamber was in the lobbying that was being done upon the “Sunday
Baseball Bill” which had passed to its third reading and would come up
for final disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which
Alonzo had set his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill:
it provided, in substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by
professionals in the State capital, which was proud of its league
team. Naturally, it was denounced by clergymen, and deputations of
ministers and committees from women's religious societies were
constantly arriving at the State house to protest against its
passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of these with whom
he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and supporters. He
was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or even the
inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this
occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received
a shock.
A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the
corridor, and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and
led them forth to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the
bill. The committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into
little argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of
these, with one of the ladies who had unfortunately--but, in her
enthusiasm, without misgivings--begun a reproachful appeal to an
advocate of the bill whose name was Goldstein.
“Senator Goldstein,” she exclaimed, “I could not believe it when I
heard that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband
speak in the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what
_he_ thinks of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by
a low baseball game, could you dare go home and face that good old
man?”
“Yes, madam,” said Goldstein mildly; “we are _both_ Jews.”
A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost
violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a
broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her
face turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting
upon Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as
enraging, to Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to
see him, to be quite unconscious of him--and he believed it. Truslow
and five or six members of both houses were about her, and they all
seemed to be bending eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her.
Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept
round the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who,
immediately putting into practice a reserve which would have
astonished Napoleon, swung about and quitted the deputation without a
word of farewell or explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and
paced the floor for three minutes with a malevolence which awed the
coloured attendants into not brushing his coat; but, when he returned
to the corridor, cautious inquiries addressed to the tobacconist,
elicited the information that the handsome lady with Senator Truslow
had departed.
Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo
returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from
replying in kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a
dim suspicion (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called
him “Senator” in one sentence) that his first opinion of the young man
as a light-minded person might have been correct.
There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the
street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the
splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to
the pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass
doors served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the
soft image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction
grew within him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day)
she would not come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at
heart than many who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round
their throats at the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was
heartily confirmed by the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced
the bookcase doors and struck his breast, his open hand falling across
the grey tie with tragic violence; after which, turning for the last
time to the windows, he uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands
upon an ulster and a grey felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran
hurriedly from the room. The black automobile was waiting.
“I thought it possible you might see me from a window,” said
Mrs. Protheroe as he opened the little door.
“I was just coming out,” he returned, gasping for breath. “I
thought--from yesterday--you'd probably forgotten.”
“Why 'from yesterday'?” she asked.
“I thought--I thought--” He faltered to a stop as the full, glorious
sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil.
“You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?”
“I thought you might have acted more--more--”
“More cordially?”
“Well,” he said, looking down at his hands, “more like you knew we'd
been introduced.”
At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick
glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face.
That was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was
anxious for the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way
to the country like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with
his foolish fury melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at
her--and looked at her--till he would have given an arm for another
quick corner and a street-car to send his cheek against that veiled,
cold cheek of hers again. It was not until they reached the alternate
vacant lots and bleak Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge
that she broke the silence.
“You were talking to some one else,” she said almost inaudibly.
“Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but--”
“Oh, no!” She turned toward him, lifting her hand. “You were quite the
lion among ladies.”
“I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe,” he said, truthfully.
“What were you talking to all those women about?”
“It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'”
“Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?”
“Yes ma'am.”
“I hear you haven't made any speeches since then,” she said
indifferently.
“No ma'am,” he answered gently. “I kind of got the idea that I'd
better lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work.”
“I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature.”
“With men,” said Alonzo, “I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I
think a good woman ought to be told--”
“But you are interested,” she interrupted, “in defeating that bill?”
“Yes ma'am,” he returned. “It is an iniquitous measure.”
“Why?”
“Mrs. Protheroe!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “I thought all the
ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that
she'd rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd
rather see myself there!”
“But are you sure that you understand it?”
“I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!”
She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly.
“No. You're wrong,” she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon
his sleeve.
“I don't understand why--why you say that,” he faltered. “It sounds
kind of--surprising to me--”
“Listen,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying
such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to
the world, even if it must be only in small ways.”
“I think that is a noble ambition!” he exclaimed. “I think all good
women ought--”
“Wait,” she interrupted gently. “Now, that bill is a worthy one,
though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't
understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of
recreation--and what recreation is he offered?”
“He ought to go to church,” said Alonzo promptly.
“But the fact is that he doesn't--not often--not at _all_ in the
afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of
employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and
it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor
on the grounds.”
“Yes, I know,” said Alonzo plaintively. “But it ain't _right_! I
was raised to respect the Sabbath and--”
“Ah, that's what you should do! You think _I_ could believe in
anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?”
“Oh, no, ma'am!” he cried reproachfully. “It's only that I don't
see--”
“I am telling you.” She lifted her veil and let him have the full
dazzle of her beauty. “Do you know that many thousands of labouring
people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low
country road-houses because the game is played at such places on
Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played
in the city. And don't you understand that there would be no Sunday
liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in
the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something
to see that would interest them?--something as wholesome and fine as
this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to
keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into
their dull lives!” Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little,
with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more
poignant. “Oh, my dear Senator,” she cried, “don't you _see_ how
wrong you are? Don't you want to _help_ these poor people?”
Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she
leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to
conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm
upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring
fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along
which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him,
and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine.
“I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking
practically of such common-place things,” she said at last, in a cold
voice, just loud enough to be heard.
“No ma'am,” he said huskily.
“Then what _do_ you think?” she cried, turning toward him again
with a quick imperious gesture.
“I think I'd better go back to Stackpole,” he answered very slowly,
“and resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the
Legislature.”
“I don't understand you.”
He shook his head mournfully. “It's a simple enough matter. I've
studied out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up
some influence and--”
“I know you have.” she interrupted eagerly. “Mr. Truslow says that
the members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on
every bill.”
“Yes ma'am,” said Alonzo Rawson meekly, “but I expect they oughtn't
to. I've had a lesson this afternoon.”
“You mean to say--”
“I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball
bill. I was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing
nothing about the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they
were. I would have done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me.”
“You mean,” she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and
delight; “you mean that you---that you--”
“I mean that I will vote for the bill!” He struck his clenched fist
upon his knee. “I come to the Legislature to do _right_!”
“You will, ah, you _will_ do right in this!” Mrs. Protheroe
thrust up her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with
triumph. “And you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?”
At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down
in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently
reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face.
“Well, not--not exactly,” he said weakly. “I expect our best plan
would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill
at all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call
I'll edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear
me. That's done every day--and I--well, I don't just exactly like to
come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done
against it.”
She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her
hand and said: “Let's shake hands _now_, on the vote. Think what
a triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right.”
“Yes ma'am,” he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking
her hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to
the driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the
city.
After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came
to the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator
Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the
“Sunday Baseball Bill,” and was explaining to him the intricacies of a
certain drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered,
plucked his sleeve and whispered:
“If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here,
look behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the
back of the room.”
Alonzo looked.
It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment
of the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A
number of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her
face was gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the
accent of her cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime
of tiny bells flitting through a strain of music.
“This is the third time she's been here,” said Battle, rubbing
his beard the wrong way. “She's lobbyin' for that infernal
Sabbath-Desecration bill, but we'll beat her, my son.”
“Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?” asked Alonzo stiffly.
“No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old
beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She
married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here,
but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down
and lobby for that bill I don't know _yet_--but I will! Truslow's
helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs
the baseball team, but what she's up to--well, I'll bet there's a
nigger in the woodpile _some_where!”
“I expect there's a lot of talk like that!” said Alonzo, red with
anger, and taking up his papers abruptly.
“Yes, _sir_!” said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding
the other's tone and manner. “Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill
that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead
that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some
others'll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those
eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too--and
I'll--”
He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone
to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the
wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo,
loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases
concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he
affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the
aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red
they were) as he approached the semicircle about her.
He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and
then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over
the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition
that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which
appeared between her handsome eyebrows.
It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for
anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for
she did not even pause in what she was saying.
Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not
grown up among the young people of Stackpole without similar
experiences, but it had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever
“stopped speaking” to him without reason, or “cut a dance” with him
and afterward found opportunity to repeat the indignity.
“What have I _done_ to _her?_” was perhaps the hottest cry
of his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it.
It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the
outer steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his
colleagues who had been called the “best-dressed man in the
Legislature.” She swept by him without a sign, laughing that same
laugh at some sally of her escort, and they got into the black
automobile together and were whirled away and out of sight by the
impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel.
For the rest of that afternoon and the whole of that night no man,
woman, or child heard the voice of Alonzo Rawson, for he spoke to
none. He came not to the evening meal, nor was he seen by any who had
his acquaintance. He entered his room at about midnight, and Trumbull
was awakened by his neighbour's overturning a chair. No match was
struck, however, and Trumbull was relieved to think that the Senator
from Stackpole intended going directly to bed without troubling to
light the gas, and that his prayers would soon be over. Such was not
the case, for no other sound came from the room, nor were Alonzo's
prayers uttered that night, though the unhappy statesman in the next
apartment could not get to sleep for several hours on account of his
nervous expectancy of them.
After this, as the day approached upon which hung the fate of the bill
which Mr. Josephus Battle was fighting, Mrs. Protheroe came to the
Senate Chamber nearly every morning and afternoon. Not once did she
appear to be conscious of Alonzo Rawson's presence, nor once did he
allow his eyes to delay upon her, though it cannot be truthfully said
that he did not always know when she came, when she left, and with
whom she stood or sat or talked. He evaded all mention or discussion
of the bill or of Mrs. Protheroe; avoided Truslow (who, strangely
enough, was avoiding _him_) and, spending upon drains and dikes
all the energy that he could manage to concentrate, burned the
midnight oil and rubbed salt into his wounds to such marked effect
that by the evening of the Governor's Reception--upon the morning
following which the mooted bill was to come up--he offered an
impression so haggard and worn that an actor might have studied him
for a makeup as a young statesman going into a decline.
Nevertheless, he dressed with great care and bitterness, and placed
the fragrant blossom of a geranium--taken from a plant belonging to
his landlady--in the lapel of his long coat before he set out.
And yet, when he came down the Governor's broad stairs, and wandered
through the big rooms, with the glare of lights above him and the
shouting of the guests ringing in his ears, a sense of emptiness beset
him; the crowded place seemed vacant and without meaning. Even the
noise sounded hollow and remote--and why had he bothered about the
geranium? He hated her and would never look at her again--but why was
she not there?
By-and-by, he found himself standing against a wall, where he had been
pushed by the press of people. He was wondering drearily what he was
to do with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had
handed him, half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his
sleeve. It was Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who
now, standing on tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to his
ear.
“Senator, be quick,” he said sharply, at the same time alert to see
that they were unobserved. “Mrs. Protheroe wants to speak to you at
once. You'll find her near the big palms under the stairway in the
hall.”
He was gone--he had wormed his way half across the room--before the
other, in his simple amazement could answer. When Alonzo at last found
a word, it was only a monosyllable, which, with his accompanying
action, left a matron of years, who was at that moment being pressed
fondly to his side, in a state of mind almost as dumbfounded as his
own. “_Here!_” was all he said as he pressed the plate and napkin
into her hand and departed forcibly for the hall, leaving a
spectacular wreckage of trains behind him.
The upward flight of the stairway left a space underneath, upon which,
as it was screened (save for a narrow entrance) by a thicket of palms,
the crowd had not encroached. Here were placed a divan and a couple of
chairs; there was shade from the glare of gas, and the light was dim
and cool. Mrs. Protheroe had risen from the divan when Alonzo entered
this grotto, and stood waiting for him.
He stopped in the green entrance-way with a quick exclamation.
She did not seem the same woman who had put such slights upon him,
this tall, white vision of silk, with the summery scarf falling from
her shoulders. His great wrath melted at the sight of her; the pain of
his racked pride, which had been so hot in his breast, gave way to a
species of fear. She seemed not a human being, but a bright spirit of
beauty and goodness who stood before him, extending two fine arms to
him in long, white gloves.
She left him to his trance for a moment, then seized both his hands in
hers and cried to him in her rapturous, low voice: “Ah, Senator, you
have come! I _knew_ you understood!”
“Yes ma'am,” he whispered chokily.
She drew him to one of the chairs and sank gracefully down upon the
divan near him.
“Mr. Truslow was so afraid you wouldn't,” she went on rapidly, “but I
was sure. You see I didn't want anybody to suspect that I had any
influence with you. I didn't want them to know, even, that I'd talked
to you. It all came to me after the first day that we met. You see
I've believed in you, in your power and in your reserve, from the
first. I want all that you do to seem to come from yourself and not
from me or any one else. Oh, I _believe_ in great, strong men who
stand upon their own feet and conquer the world for themselves! That's
_your_ way, Senator Rawson. So, you see, as they think I'm
lobbying for the bill, I wanted them to believe that your speech for
it to-morrow comes from your own great, strong mind and heart and your
sense of right, and not from any suggestion of mine.”
“My speech!” he stammered.
“Oh, I know,” she cried; “I know you think I don't believe much in
speeches, and I don't ordinarily, but a few, simple, straightforward
and vigorous words from you, to-morrow, may carry the bill through.
You've made such _progress_, you've been so _reserved_, that you'll
carry great weight--and there are three votes of the drains and dikes
that are against us now, but will follow yours absolutely. Do you
think I would have 'cut' _you_ if it hadn't been _best_?”
“But I--”
“Oh, I know you didn't actually promise me to speak, that day. But I
knew you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes
over _all_ obstacles, once his sense of _right_ is aroused!
I _knew_--I never doubted it, that once _you_ felt a thing
to be right you would strike for it, with all your great strength--at
all costs--at all--”
“I can't--I--I--can't!” he whispered nervously. “Don't you see--don't
you see--I--”
She leaned toward him, lifting her face close to his. She was so near
him that the faint odour of her hair came to him again, and once more
the unfortunate Senator from Stackpole risked a meeting of his eyes
with hers, and saw the light shining far down in their depths.
At this moment the shadow of a portly man who was stroking his beard
the wrong way projected itself upon them from the narrow, green
entrance to the grotto. Neither of them perceived it.
Senator Josephus Battle passed on, but when Alonzo Rawson emerged, a
few moments later, he was pledged to utter a few simple,
straightforward and vigorous words in favour of the bill. And--let the
shame fall upon the head of the scribe who tells it--he had kissed
Mrs. Protheroe!
The fight upon the “Sunday Baseball Bill,” the next morning, was the
warmest of that part of the session, though for a while the reporters
were disappointed. They were waiting for Senator Battle, who was
famous among them for the vituperative vigour of his attacks and for
the kind of personalities which made valuable copy. And yet, until the
debate was almost over, he contented himself with going quietly up and
down the aisles, whispering to the occupants of the desks, and writing
and sending a multitude of notes to his colleagues. Meanwhile, the
orators upon both sides harangued their fellows, the lobby, the
unpolitical audience, and the patient presiding officer to no effect,
so far as votes went. The general impression was that the bill would
pass.
Alonzo Rawson sat, bent over his desk, his eyes fixed with gentle
steadiness upon Mrs. Protheroe, who occupied the chair wherein he had
first seen her. A senator of the opposition was finishing his
denunciation, when she turned and nodded almost imperceptibly to the
young man.
He gave her one last look of pathetic tenderness and rose.
“The Senator from Stackpole!”
“I want,” Alonzo began, in his big voice: “I want to say a few simple,
straightforward but vigorous words about this bill. You may remember I
spoke against it on its second reading--”
“You did _that_!” shouted Senator Battle suddenly.
“I want to say now,” the Senator from Stackpole continued, “that at
that time I hadn't studied the subject sufficiently. I didn't know the
conditions of the case, nor the facts, but since then a great light
has broke in upon me--”
“I should say it had! I saw it break!” was Senator Battle's second
violent interruption.
When order was restored, Alonzo, who had become very pale, summoned
his voice again. “I think we'd ought to take into consideration that
Sunday is the working-man's only day of recreation and not drive him
into low groggeries, but give him a chance in the open air to indulge
his love of wholesome sport--”
“Such as the ancient Romans enjoyed!” interposed Battle vindictively.
“No, sir!” Alonzo wheeled upon him, stung to the quick. “Such a sport
as free-born Americans and _only_ free-born Americans can play in
this, wide world--the American game of baseball, in which no other
nation of the _Earth_ is our equal!”
This was a point scored and the cheering lasted two minutes. Then the
orator resumed:
“I say: 'Give the working-man a chance!' Is his life a happy one? You
know it ain't! Give him his one day. _Don't_ spoil it for him with
your laws--he's only got one! I'm not goin' to take up any more of
your time, but if there's anybody here who thinks my well-considered
opinion worth following I say: '_Vote for this bill_.' It is right and
virtuous and ennobling, and it ought to be passed! I say: '_Vote for
it_.'”
The reporters decided that the Senator from Stackpole had “wakened
things up.” The gavel rapped a long time before the chamber quieted
down, and when it did, Josephus Battle was on his feet and had
obtained the recognition of the chair.
“I wish to say, right here,” he began, with a rasping leisureliness,
“that I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as
personal or unparliamentary--_but_”--he raised a big forefinger and
shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time
suddenly lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek--“I say to _you_,
sir, that the song of the siren has been _heard_ in the land, and the
call of Delilah has been answered! When the Senator from Stackpole
rose in this chamber, less than three weeks ago, and denounced this
iniquitous measure, I heard him with pleasure--we _all_ heard him with
pleasure--_and_ respect! In spite of his youth and the poor quality of
his expression, _we_ listened to him. _We_ knew he was sencere! What
has caused the change in him? What _has_, I ask? I shall not tell you,
upon this floor, but I've taken mighty good care to let most of you
know, during the morning, either by word of mouth or by _note_ of
hand! Especially those of you of the drains and dikes and others who
might follow this young Samson, whose locks have been shore! _I've_
told you all about that, and more--_I've_ told you the _inside_
history of some _facts_ about the bill that I will not make public,
because I am too confident of our strength to defeat this devilish
measure, and prefer to let our vote speak our opinion of it! Let me
not detain you longer. _I_ thank you!”
Long before he had finished, the Senator from Stackpole was being held
down in his chair by Truslow and several senators whose seats were
adjacent; and the vote was taken amid an uproar of shouting and
confusion. When the clerk managed to proclaim the result over all
other noises, the bill was shown to be defeated and “killed,” by a
majority of five votes.
A few minutes later, Alonzo Rawson, his neckwear disordered and his
face white with rage, stumbled out of the great doors upon the trail
of Battle, who had quietly hurried away to his hotel for lunch as soon
as he had voted.
The black automobile was vanishing round a corner. Truslow stood upon
the edge of the pavement staring after it ruefully:
“Where is Mrs. Protheroe?” gasped the Senator from Stackpole.
“She's gone,” said the other.
“Gone where?”
“Gone back to Paris. She sails day after tomorrow. She just had time
enough to catch her train for New York after waiting to hear how the
vote went. She told me to tell you good-bye, and that she was
sorry. Don't stare at me Rawson! I guess we're in the same
boat!--Where are you going?” he finished abruptly.
Alonzo swung by him and started across the street. “To find Battle!”
the hoarse answer came back.
The conquering Josephus was leaning meditatively upon the counter of
the cigar-stand of his hotel when Alonzo found him. He took one look
at the latter's face and backed to the wall, tightening his grasp upon
the heavy-headed ebony cane it was his habit to carry, a habit upon
which he now congratulated himself.
But his precautions were needless. Alonzo stopped out of reaching
distance.
“You tell me,” he said in a breaking voice; “you tell me what you
meant about Delilah and sirens and Samsons and inside facts! You tell
me!”
“You wild ass of the prairies,” said Battle, “I saw you last night
behind them pa'ms! But don't you think I told it--or ever will! I just
passed the word around that she'd argued you into her way of thinkin',
same as she had a good many others. And as for the rest of it, I
found out where the mgger in the woodpile was, and I handed that out,
too. Don't you take it hard, my son, but I told you her husband left
her a good deal of land around here. She owns the ground that they use
for the baseball park, and her lease would be worth considerable more
if they could have got the right to play on Sundays!”
Senator Trumbull sat up straight, in bed, that night, and, for the
first time during his martyrdom, listened with no impatience to the
prayer which fell upon his ears.
“O, Lord Almighty,” through the flimsy partition came the voice of
Alonzo Rawson, quaveringly, but with growing strength: “Aid Thou me to
see my way more clear! I find it hard to tell right from wrong, and I
find myself beset with tangled wires. O God, I feel that I am
ignorant, and fall into many devices. These are strange paths wherein
Thou hast set my feet, but I feel that through Thy help, and through
great anguish, I am learning!”
GREAT MEN'S SONS
Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin were playing “L'Aiglon.” Toward the end
of the second act people began to slide down in their seats, shift
their elbows, or casually rub their eyes; by the close of the third,
most of the taller gentlemen were sitting on the small of their backs
with their knees as high as decorum permitted, and many were openly
coughing; but when the fourth came to an end, active resistance
ceased, hopelessness prevailed, the attitudes were those of the
stricken field, and the over-crowded house was like a college chapel
during an interminable compulsory lecture. Here and there--but most
rarely--one saw an eager woman with bright eyes, head bent forward and
body spellbound, still enchantedly following the course of the play.
Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime and inanities from the
new comic operas, while the audience in general took some heart. When
the play was over, we were all enthusiastic; though our admiration,
however vehement in the words employed to express it, was somewhat
subdued as to the accompanying manner, which consisted, mainly, of
sighs and resigned murmurs. In the lobby a thin old man with a
grizzled chin-beard dropped his hand lightly on my shoulder, and
greeted me in a tone of plaintive inquiry:
“Well, son?”
Turning, I recognized a patron of my early youth, in whose woodshed I
had smoked my first cigar, an old friend whom I had not seen for
years; and to find him there, with his long, dust-coloured coat, his
black string tie and rusty hat brushed on every side by opera cloaks
and feathers, was a rich surprise, warming the cockles of my
heart. His name is Tom Martin; he lives in a small country town, where
he commands the trade in Dry Goods and Men's Clothing; his speech is
pitched in a high key, is very slow, sometimes whines faintly; and he
always calls me “Son.”
“What in the world!” I exclaimed, as we shook hands.
“Well,” he drawled, “I dunno why I shouldn't be as meetropolitan as
anybody. I come over on the afternoon accommodation for the show.
Let's you and me make a night of it. What say, son?”
“What did you think of the play?” I asked, as we turned up the street
toward the club.
“I think they done it about as well as they could.”
“That all?”
“Well,” he rejoined with solemnity, “there was a heap _of_ it,
wasn't there!”
We talked of other things, then, until such time as we found ourselves
seated by a small table at the club, old Tom somewhat uneasily
regarding a twisted cigar he was smoking and plainly confounded by the
“carbonated” syphon, for which, indeed, he had no use in the world.
We had been joined by little Fiderson, the youngest member of the
club, whose whole nervous person jerkily sparkled “L'Aiglon”
enthusiasm.
“Such an evening!” he cried, in his little spiky voice. “Mr. Martin,
it does one good to realize that our country towns are sending
representatives to us when we have such things; that they wish to get
in touch with what is greatest in Art. They should do it often. To
think that a journey of only seventy miles brings into your life the
magnificence of Rostand's point of view made living fire by the genius
of a Bernhardt and a Coquelin!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Martin, with a curious helplessness, after an ensuing
pause, which I refused to break, “yes, sir, they seemed to be doing it
about as well as they could.”
Fiderson gasped slightly. “It was magnificent! Those two great
artists! But over all the play--the play! Romance new-born; poesy
marching with victorious banners; a great spirit breathing! Like
'Cyrano'--the birth-mark of immortality on this work!”
There was another pause, after which old Tom turned slowly to me, and
said: “Homer Tibbs's opened up a cigar-stand at the deepo. Carries a
line of candy, magazines, and fruit, too. Home's a hustler.”
Fiderson passed his hand through his hair.
“That death scene!” he exclaimed at me, giving Martin up as a log
accidentally rolled in from the woods. “I thought that after 'Wagram'
I could feel nothing more; emotion was exhausted; but then came that
magnificent death! It was tragedy made ecstatic; pathos made into
music; the grandeur of a gentle spirit, conquered physically but
morally unconquerable! Goethe's 'More Light' outshone!”
Old Tom's eyes followed the smoke of his perplexing cigar along its
heavy strata in the still air of the room, as he inquired if I
remembered Orlando T. Bickner's boy, Mel. I had never heard of him,
and said so.
“No, I expect not,” rejoined Martin. “Prob'ly you wouldn't; Bickner
was Governor along in _my_ early days, and I reckon he ain't
hardly more than jest a name to you two. But _we_ kind of thought
he was the biggest man this country had ever seen, or was goin' to
see, and he _was_ a big man. He made one president, and could
have been it himself, instead, if he'd be'n willing to do a kind of
underhand trick, but I expect without it he was about as big a man as
anybody'd care to be; Governor, Senator, Secretary of State--and just
owned his party! And, my law!--the whole earth bowin' down to him;
torchlight processions and sky-rockets when he come home in the night;
bands and cannon if his train got in, daytime; home-folks so proud of
him they couldn't see; everybody's hat off; and all the most important
men in the country following at his heels--a country, too, that'd put
up consider'ble of a comparison with everything Napoleon had when he'd
licked 'em all, over there.
“Of course he had enemies, and, of course, year by year, they got to
be more of 'em, and they finally downed him for good; and like other
public men so fixed, he didn't live long after that. He had a son,
Melville, mighty likable young fellow, studyin' law when his paw
died. I was livin' in their town then, and I knowed Mel Bickner pretty
well; he was consider'ble of a man.
“I don't know as I ever heard him speak of that's bein' the reason,
but I expect it may've be'n partly in the hope of carryin' out some of
his paw's notions, Mel tried hard to git into politics; but the old
man's local enemies jumped on every move he made, and his friends
wouldn't help any; you can't tell why, except that it generally
_is_ thataway. Folks always like to laugh at a great man's son
and say _he_ can't amount to anything. Of course that comes
partly from fellows like that ornery little cuss we saw to-night,
thinkin' they're a good deal because somebody else done something, and
the somebody else happened to be their paw; and the women run after
'em, and they git low-down like he was, and so on.”
“Mr. Martin,” interrupted Fiderson, with indignation, “will you kindly
inform me in what way 'L'Aiglon' was 'low-down'?”
“Well, sir, didn't that huntin'-lodge appointment kind of put you in
mind of a camp-meetin' scandal?” returned old Tom quietly. “It did
me.”
“But--”
“Well, sir, I can't say as I understood the French of it, but I read
the book in English before I come up, and it seemed to me he was
pretty much of a low-down boy; yet I wanted to see how they'd make him
out; hearin' it was, thought, the country over, to be such a great
_play_; though to tell the truth all I could tell about
_that_ was that every line seemed to end in 'awze'; and 't they
all talked in rhyme, and it did strike me as kind of enervatin' to be
expected to believe that people could keep it up that long; and that
it wasn't only the boy that never quit on the subject of himself and
his folks, but pretty near any of 'em, if he'd git the chanst, did the
same thing, so't almost I sort of wondered if Rostand wasn't that
kind.”
“Go on with Melville Bickner,” said I.
“What do you expect,” retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in
his eye, “when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase
cigars? Old Peter himself couldn't keep straight along one subject if
he tackled a cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a
mighty mean time of it. He had to take care of his mother and two
sisters, his little brother and an aunt that lived with them; and
there was mighty little to do it on; big men don't usually leave much
but debts, and in this country, of course, a man can't eat and spend
long on his paw's reputation, like that little Dook of Reishtod--”
“I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin--” Fiderson began hotly.
Martin waved his bony hand soothingly.
“Oh, I know; they was money in his mother's family, and they give him
his vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. _His_ paw didn't leave
much either--though he'd stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose--and,
just lookin' at things from the point of what they'd _earned_,
his maw's folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they
were a kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn,
bein' the only one in the whole possetucky of 'em that really
_did_ anything to deserve his salary--” Mr. Martin broke off
suddenly, observing that I was about to speak, and continued:
“Mel didn't git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house
goin' and pay taxes. He kept workin' for the party jest the same and
jest as cheerfully as if it didn't turn him down hard every time he
tried to git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town;
and he sold the horses to keep the little brother in school, one
winter, and used to walk in to his office and out again, twice a day,
over the worst roads in the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or
wind, without any overcoat; and he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look
to him that lasted clean through summer. He worked like a mule, that
boy did, jest barely makin' ends meet. He had to quit runnin' with the
girls and goin' to parties and everything like that; and I expect it
may have been some hard to do; for if they ever _was_ a boy loved
to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line of fun and
junketin' round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear
yet--made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin'
the next man you met and shakin' hands and havin' a joke with him.
“Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to
go and tell her to take somebody else--it was the only thing to do. He
couldn't give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn't used to
it. They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn't hear
of it, and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn't
grow into an old maid, lonely, and still waitin' for the lightning to
strike him--that is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to
take 'Gene Callender, who'd be'n pressin' pretty close to Mel for her
before the engagement. The boy didn't talk to her this way with tears
in his eyes and mourning and groaning. No, sir! It was done
_cheerful_; and so much so that Jane never _was_ quite sure
afterwerds whether Mel wasn't kind of glad to git rid of her or
not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin' to him. Mel _knowed_; a
state of puzzlement or even a good _mad's_ a mighty sight better
than bein' all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give
her--nor any one else--a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the
only one heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she
could hear him he walked in his socks.
“Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you'd
think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn't
anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn't believe in it. And at
home he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something
'd happened during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his
maw into a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy
didn't believe in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the
morning, hoein' up their old garden; raised garden-truck for their
table, sparrow-grass and sweet corn--yes, and roses, too; always had
the house full of roses in June-time; never _was_ a house
sweeter-smellin' to go into.
“Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I
don't recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his
father but once--for _that_, I reckon, he jest couldn't; and for
himself; I don't believe it ever occurred to him.
“And he was a _smart_ boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy
can't be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not
_git_ somewhere--in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth
year, things took a sudden change for him; his father's enemies and
his own friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd
that had been running the conventions and keepin' their own men in all
the offices, had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to
see that they'd have to branch out and connect up with some mighty
good men, jest to keep the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to
be about the most popular and respected man in the county. Then one
day I met him on the street; he was on his way to buy an overcoat, and
he was lookin' skimpier and more froze-up and genialer than ever. It
was March, and up to jest that time things had be'n hardest of all for
Mel. I walked around to the store with him, and he was mighty happy;
goin' to send his mother north in the summer, and the girls were goin'
to have a party, and Bob, his little brother, could go to the best
school in the country in the fall. Things had come his way at last,
and that very morning the crowd had called him in and told him they
were goin' to run him for county clerk.
“Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein' him only the
day before on the street, out and well, I didn't think anything of
it--thought prob'ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning
I heard the doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn't
hardly believe it; thing like that never _does_ seem possible,
but they all said it was true, and there wasn't anybody on the street
that day that didn't look blue or talked about anything else. Nobody
seemed to know what was the matter with him exactly, and I reckon the
doctor did jest the wrong thing for it. Near as I can make out, it was
what they call appendicitis nowadays, and had come on him in the
night.
“Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything
I could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes
Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs
together outside Mel's room. We could hear his voice, clear and
strong and hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with
the full flush of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not
_wantin'_ to go, through the waste and wear of a long sickness,
but with all the ties of life clinchin' him here, and success jest
comin.' We heard him speak of us, amongst others, old Fes and me;
wanted 'em to be sure not forget to tell me to remember to vote for
Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow election year, which was an
old joke I always had with him. He was awful worried about his mother,
though he tried not to show it, and when the minister wanted to pray
fer him, we heard him say, 'No, sir, you pray fer my mamma!' That was
the only thing that was different from his usual way of speakin'; he
called his mother 'mamma, and he wouldn't let 'em pray for him
neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin' was
put in for her.
“He called in old Fes to tell him all about his life insurance. He'd
carried a heavy load of it, and it was all paid up; and the sweat it
must have took to do it you'd hardly like to think about. He give
directions about everything as careful and painstaking as any day of
his life. He asked to speak to Fes alone a minute, and later I helped
Fes do what he told him. 'Cousin Fes,' he says, 'it's bad weather, but
I expect mother'll want all the flowers taken out to the cemetery and
you better let her have her way. But there wouldn't be any good of
their stayin' there; snowed on, like as not. I wish you'd wait till
after she's come away, and git a wagon and take 'em in to the
hospital. You can fix up the anchors and so forth so they won't look
like funeral flowers.'
“About an hour later his mother broke out with a scream, sobbin' and
cryin', and he tried to quiet her by tellin' over one of their
old-time family funny stories; it made her worse, so he quit. 'Oh,
Mel,' she says, 'you'll be with your father--'
“I don't know as Mel had much of a belief in a hereafter; certainly he
wasn't a great churchgoer. 'Well,' he says, mighty slow, but hearty
and smiling, too, 'if I see father, I--guess--I'll--be--pretty--
well--fixed!' Then he jest lay still, tryin' to quiet her and pettin'
her head. And so--that's the way he went.”
Fiderson made one of his impatient little gestures, but Mr. Martin
drowned his first words with a loud fit of coughing.
“Well, sir,” he observed, “I read that 'Leg-long' book down home; and
I heard two or three countries, and especially ourn, had gone middling
crazy over it; it seemed kind of funny that _we_ should, too, so I
thought I better come up and see it for myself, how it _was_, on the
stage, where you could _look_ at it; and--I expect they done it as
well as they could. But when that little boy, that'd always had his
board and clothes and education free, saw that he'd jest about talked
himself to death, and called for the press notices about his
christening to be read to him to soothe his last spasms--why, I wasn't
overly put in mind of Melville Bickner.”
Mr. Martin's train left for Plattsville at two in the morning. Little
Fiderson and I escorted him to the station. As the old fellow waved us
good-bye from within the gates, Fiderson turned and said:
“Just the type of sodden-headed old pioneer that you couldn't hope to
make understand a beautiful thing like 'L'Aiglon' in a thousand
years. I thought it better not to try, didn't you?”