A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE
March came in like neither a lion nor a lamb, but was scarcely a week old
before the wild ducks had begun to score the sky above Bronson's Slew
looking for open water and badly-harvested corn-fields. Wild geese, too,
honked from on high as if in wonder that these great prairies on which
their forefathers had been wont fearlessly to alight had been changed into
a disgusting expanse of farms. If geese are favored with the long lives in
which fable bids us believe, some of these venerable honkers must have
seen every vernal and autumnal phase of the transformation from boundless
prairie to boundless corn-land. I sometimes seem to hear in the
bewildering trumpetings of wild geese a cry of surprise and protest at the
ruin of their former paradise. Colonel Woodruff's hired man, Pete, had no
such foolish notions, however. He stopped Newton Bronson and Raymond Simms
as they tramped across the colonel's pasture, gun in hand, trying to make
themselves believe that the shooting was good.
"This ain't no country to hunt in," said he. "Did either of you fellows
ever have any real duck-shooting?"
"The mountings," said Raymond, "air poor places for ducks."
"Not big enough water," suggested Pete. "Some wood-ducks, I suppose?"
"Along the creeks and rivers, yes seh," said Raymond, "and sometimes a
flock of wild geese would get lost, and some bewildered, and a man would
shoot one or two--from the tops of the ridges--but nothing to depend on."
"I've never been nowhere," said Newton, "except once to
Minnesota--and--and that wasn't in the shooting season."
A year ago Newton would have boasted of having "bummed" his way to
Faribault. His hesitant speech was a proof of the embarrassment his new
respectability sometimes inflicted upon him.
"I used to shoot ducks for the market at Spirit Lake," said Pete. "I know
Fred Gilbert just as well as I know you. If I'd 'a' kep' on shooting I
could have made my millions as champion wing shot as easy as he has. He
didn't have nothing on me when we was both shooting for a livin'. But
that's all over, now. You've got to go so fur now to get decent shooting
where the farmers won't drive you off, that it costs nine dollars to send
a postcard home."
"I think we'll have fine shooting on the slew in a few days," said
Newton.
"Humph!" scoffed Pete. "I give you my word, if I hadn't promised the
colonel I'd stay with him another year, I'd take a side-door Pullman for
the Sand Hills of Nebraska or the Devil's Lake country to-morrow--if I had
a gun."
"If it wasn't for a passel of things that keep me hyeh," said Raymond,
"I'd like to go too."
"The colonel," said Pete, "needs me. He needs me in the election
to-morrow. What's the matter of your ol' man, Newt? What for does he vote
for that Bonner, and throw down an old neighbor?"
"I can't do anything with him!" exclaimed Newton irritably. "He's all
tangled up with Peterson and Bonner."
"Well," said Pete, "if he'd just stay at home, it would help some. If he
votes for Bonner, it'll be just about a stand-off."
"He never misses a vote!" said Newton despairingly.
"Can't you cripple him someway?" asked Pete jocularly. "Darned funny when
a boy o' your age can't control his father's vote! So long!"
"I wish I _could_ vote!" grumbled Newton. "I wish I _could_! We know a lot
more about the school, and Jim Irwin bein' a good teacher than dad
does--and we can't vote. Why can't folks vote when they are interested in
an election, and know about the issues. It's tyranny that you and I can't
vote."
"I reckon," said Raymond, the conservative, "that the old-time people that
fixed it thataway knowed best."
"Rats!" sneered Newton, the iconoclast. "Why, Calista knows more about the
election of school director than dad knows."
"That don't seem reasonable," protested Raymond. "She's prejudyced, I
reckon, in favor of Mr. Jim Irwin."
"Well, dad's prejudiced against him,--er, no, he hain't either. He likes
Jim. He's just prejudiced against giving up his old notions. No, he hain't
neither--I guess he's only prejudiced against seeming to give up some old
notions he seemed to have once! And the kids in school would be prejudiced
right, anyhow!"
"Paw says he'll be on hand prompt," said Raymond. "But he had to be
p'swaded right much. Paw's proud--and he cain't read."
"Sometimes I think the more people read the less sense they've got," said
Newton. "I wish I could tie dad up! I wish I could get snakebit, and make
him go for the doctor!"
The boys crossed the ridge to the wooded valley in which nestled the Simms
cabin. They found Mrs. Simms greatly exercised in her mind because young
McGeehee had been found playing with some blue vitriol used by Raymond in
his school work on the treatment of seed potatoes for scab.
"His hands was all blue with it," said she. "Do you reckon, Mr. Newton,
that it'll pizen him?"
"Did he swallow any of it?" asked Newton.
"Nah!" said McGeehee scornfully.
Newton reassured Mrs. Simms, and went away pensive. He was in rebellion
against the strange ways grown men have of discharging their duties as
citizens--a rather remarkable thing, and perhaps a proof that Jim Irwin's
methods had already accomplished much in preparing Newton and Raymond for
citizenship. He had shown them the fact that voting really has some
relation to life. At present, however, the new wine in the old bottles was
causing Newton to forget his filial duty, and his respect for his father.
He wished he could lock him up in the barn so he couldn't go to the school
election. He wished he could become ill--or poisoned with blue vitriol or
something--so his father would be obliged to go for a doctor. He
wished----well, why couldn't he get sick. Mrs. Simms had been about to
send for the doctor for Buddy when he had explained away the apparent
necessity. People got dreadfully scared about poison---- Newton mended his
pace, and looked happier. He looked very much as he had done on the day he
adjusted the needle-pointed muzzle to his dog's nose. He looked, in fact,
more like a person filled with deviltry, than one yearning for the right
to vote.
"I'll fix him!" said he to himself.
"What time's the election, Ez?" asked Mrs. Bronson at breakfast.
"I'm goin' at four o'clock," said Ezra. "And I don't want to hear any more
from any one"--looking at Newton--"about the election. It's none of the
business of the women an' boys."
Newton took this reproof in an unexpectedly submissive spirit. In fact, he
exhibited his very best side to the family that morning, like one going on
a long journey, or about to be married off, or engaged in some deep dark
plot.
"I s'pose you're off trampin' the slews at the sight of a flock of ducks
four miles off as usual?" stated Mr. Bronson challengingly.
"I thought," said Newton, "that I'd get a lot of raisin bait ready for the
pocket-gophers in the lower meadow. They'll be throwing up their mounds by
the first of April."
"Not them," said Mr. Bronson, somewhat mollified, "not before May. Where'd
you get the raisin idee?"
"We learned it in school," answered Newton. "Jim had me study a bulletin
on the control and eradication of pocket-gophers. You use raisins with
strychnine in 'em--and it tells how."
"Some fool notion, I s'pose," said Mr. Bronson, rising. "But go ahead if
you're careful about handlin' the strychnine."
Newton spent the time from twelve-thirty to half after two in watching the
clock; and twenty minutes to three found him seated in the woodshed with a
pen-knife in his hand, a small vial of strychnine crystals on a stand
before him, a saucer of raisins at his right hand, and one exactly like
it, partially filled with gopher bait--by which is meant raisins under the
skin of each of which a minute crystal of strychnine had been inserted on
the point of the knife. Newton was apparently happy and was whistling _The
Glow-Worm_. It was a lovely scene if one can forget the gopher's point of
view.
At three-thirty, Newton went into the house and lay down on the horsehair
sofa, saying to his mother that he felt kind o' funny and thought he'd lie
down a while. At three-forty he heard his father's voice in the kitchen
and knew that his sire was preparing to start for the scene of battle
between Colonel Woodruff and Con Bonner, on the result of which hinged the
future of Jim Irwin and the Woodruff school.
A groan issued from Newton's lips--a gruesome groan as of the painful
death of a person very sensitive to physical suffering. But his father's
voice from the kitchen door betrayed no agitation. He was scolding the
horses as they stood tied to the hitching-post, in tones that showed no
knowledge of his son's distressed moans.
"What's the matter?"
It was Newton's little sister who asked the question, her facial
expression evincing appreciation of Newton's efforts in the line of
groans, somewhat touched with awe. Even though regarded as a pure matter
of make-believe, such sounds were terrible.
"Oh, sister, sister!" howled Newton, "run and tell 'em that brother's
dying!"
Fanny disappeared in a manner which expressed her balanced feelings--she
felt that her brother was making believe, but she believed for all that,
that something awful was the matter. So she went rather slowly to the
kitchen door, and casually remarked that Newton was dying on the sofa in
the sitting-room.
"You little fraud!" said her father.
"Why, Fanny!" said her mother--and ran into the sitting-room--whence in a
moment, with a cry that was almost a scream, she summoned her husband, who
responded at the top of his speed.
Newton was groaning and in convulsions. Horrible grimaces contorted his
face, his jaws were set, his arms and legs drawn up, and his muscles
tense.
"What's the matter?" His father's voice was stern as well as full of
anxiety. "What's the matter, boy?"
"Oh!" cried Newton. "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"Newtie, Newtie!" cried his mother, "where are you in pain? Tell mother,
Newtie!"
"Oh," groaned Newtie, relaxing, "I feel awful!"
"What you been eating?" interrogated his father.
"Nothing," replied Newton.
"I saw you eatin' dinner," said his father.
Again Newton was convulsed by strong spasms, and again his groans filled
the hearts of his parents with terror.
"That's all I've eaten," said he, when his spasms had passed, "except a
few raisins. I was putting strychnine in 'em----"
"Oh, heavens!" cried his mother. "He's poisoned! Drive for the doctor,
Ezra! Drive!"
Mr. Bronson forgot all about the election--forgot everything save
antidotes and speed. He leaped toward the door. As he passed out, he
shouted "Give him an emetic!" He tore the hitching straps from the posts,
jumped into the buggy and headed for the road. Skilfully avoiding an
overturn as he rounded into the highway, he gave the spirited horses their
heads, and fled toward town, carefully computing the speed the horses
could make and still be able to return. Mile after mile he covered,
passing teams, keeping ahead of automobiles and advertising panic. Just at
the town limits, he met the doctor in Sheriff Dilly's automobile, the
sheriff himself at the steering wheel. Mr. Bronson signaled them to stop,
ignoring the fact that they were making similar signs to him.
"We're just starting for your place," said the doctor. "Your wife got me
on the phone."
"Thank God!" replied Bronson. "Don't fool any time away on me. Drive!"
"Get in here, Ez," said the sheriff. "Doc knows how to drive, and I'll
come on with your team. They need a slow drive to cool 'em off."
"Why didn't you phone me?" asked the doctor.
"Never thought of it," replied Bronson. "I hain't had the phone only a few
years. Drive faster!"
"I want to get there, or I would," answered the doctor. "Don't worry. From
what your wife told me over the phone I don't believe the boy's eaten any
more strychnine than I have--and probably not so much."
"He was alive, then?"
"Alive and making an argument against taking the emetic," replied the
doctor. "But I guess she got it down him."
"I'd hate to lose that boy, Doc!"
"I don't believe there's any danger. It doesn't sound like a genuine
poisoning case to me."
Thus reassured, Mr. Bronson was calm, even if somewhat tragic in calmness,
when he entered the death chamber with the doctor. Newton was sitting up,
his eyes wet, and his face pale. His mother had won the argument, and
Newton had lost his dinner. Haakon Peterson occupied an armchair.
"What's all this?" asked the doctor. "How you feeling, Newt? Any pain?"
"I'm all right," said Newton. "Don't give me any more o' that nasty
stuff!"
"No," said the doctor, "but if you don't tell me just what you've been
eating, and doing, and pulling off on us, I'll use this"--and the doctor
exhibited a huge stomach pump.
"What'll you do with that?" asked Newton faintly.
"I'll put this down into your hold, and unload you, that's what I'll do."
"Is the election over, Mr. Peterson?" asked Newton.
"Yes," answered Mr. Peterson, "and the votes counted."
"Who's elected?" asked Newton.
"Colonel Woodruff," answered Mr. Peterson. "The vote was twelve to
eleven."
"Well, dad," said Newton, "I s'pose you'll be sore, but the only way I
could see to get in half a vote for Colonel Woodruff was to get poisoned
and send you after the doctor. If you'd gone, it would 'a' been a tie,
anyhow, and probably you'd 'a' persuaded somebody to change to Bonner.
That's what's the matter with me. I killed your vote. Now, you can do
whatever you like to me--but I'm sorry I scared mother."
Ezra Bronson seized Newton by the throat, but his fingers failed to close.
"Don't pinch, dad," said Newton. "I've been using that neck an' it's
tired." Mr. Bronson dropped his hands to his sides, glared at his son for
a moment and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Why, you darned infernal little fool," said he. "I've a notion to take a
hamestrap to you! If I'd been there the vote would have been eleven to
thirteen!"
"There was plenty wotes there for the colonel, if he needed 'em," said
Haakon, whose politician's mind was already fully adjusted to the changed
conditions. "Ay tank the Woodruff District will have a junanimous school
board from dis time on once more. Colonel Woodruff is yust the man we have
needed."
"I'm with you there," said Bronson. "And as for you, young man, if one or
both of them horses is hurt by the run I give them, I'll lick you within
an inch of your life---- Here comes Dilly driving 'em in now---- I guess
they're all right. I wouldn't want to drive a good team to death for any
young hoodlum like him---- All right, how much do I owe you. Doc?"