He had a mellow, rich kind of voice that melted into our ears. We found
ourselves listening and liking him from the first sentence. At first he
was as quiet as a summer breeze, but presently he began to warm up, and
the words flowed out like a stream of jewels. It was electrifying: it
was thrilling, sir; it took us off our feet before we knew it, and when
he came to the climax, those of us that weren’t yelling in the aisles
were jumping up and down on our chairs! I know I found myself prancing
up and down in my own hat on a chair, swinging somebody else’s hat and
screaming at the top of my voice, with the tears running down my cheeks.
God! sir, there were men there on their feet cheering their throats out
that had to vote against him afterwards--had to because they were there
instructed--no more free will than a checked trunk!” The light died out
of his face. “Yes, sir, a great speech; never a greater ever made at a
convention anywhere, never so great a speech, whoever made it: but it
did no good, he wasn’t nominated, and when we did nominate him we were
cheated out of our victory. Well, we ‘ll do better this day.”
“We will that,” said the other man, heartily; “McKinley--”
“You’ll excuse me--” the old man struck in with a deprecating air, yet
under the apology something fiercely eager and anxious that glued the
hearer’s eyes to his quivering old face--“you’ll excuse me. I--I am a
considerable of an invalid and I don’t keep the run of things as I used
to. You see I live with my daughter, and you know how women folks are,
fretting lest things should make you sick, and my girl she worries so,
me reading the papers. Fact is I got a shock once, an awful shock,” he
shivered involuntarily and his dim eyes clouded, “and it worried her
seeing me read. Hadn’t ought to; it don’t worry Jenny here, who often
gets me a paper, quiet like; but you know how it is with women--it’s
easier giving them their head a little--and so I don’t see many papers,
and I kinder dropped off. It seems queer, but I don’t exactly sense it
about this McKinley. Is he running against Blaine or jest for vice?”
The girl, under some feminine pretext of dropping and reaching for
her handkerchief, threw upward a glance of appeal at the interlocutor.
Hurriedly she stepped into the conversation. “My grandfather read a
false report about--about Mr. Blaine’s sickness, and he was not well at
the time and it brought on a bad attack.”
“I understand,” said the listener, with a grave nod of his head and
movement of his eyes in the girl’s direction.
“But about McKinley?” the old man persisted.
“He’s for vice-president,” the girl announced, her eyes fixed on the
hesitating man from Canton. I have often admired the intrepid fashion in
which a woman will put her conscience at a moral hedge, while a man
of no finer spiritual fibre will be straining his eyes to find a hole
through which he can crawl.
“McKinley is not opposed to Blaine, is he?” she asked the man.
“The Republican party has no name that is more loved than that of James
G. Blaine,” said the man, gravely.
“That’s so, that’s so!” the old partisan assented eagerly; “to my mind
he’s the logical candidate.”
The Canton man nodded, and asked if he had ever seen Blaine.
“Once, only once. I was on a delegation sent to wait on him and ask him
to our town to speak--he was in Cincinnati. I held out my hand when
my turn came, and the chairman nearly knocked the breath out of me by
saying, ‘Here’s the man gave more to our campaign fund and worked harder
than any man in the county, and we all worked hard for you, too.’ Well,
Mr. Blaine looked at me. You know the intent way he looks. He has the
most wonderful eyes; look right at you and seem to bore into you like a
gimlet. I felt as if he was looking right down into my soul, and I tell
you I was glad, for I choked up so I couldn’t find a word, not a word,
and I was ready and fluent enough in those days, too, I can tell you;
but I stood there filling up, and squeezed his hand and gulped and got
red, like a fool. But he understood. ‘I have heard of your loyalty to
Republican principles, Mr. Painter,’ says he, in that beautiful voice
of his that was like a violin; and I burst in--I could n’t help it--‘It
ain’t loyalty to Republican principles, it’s to you.’ I said that right
out. And he smiled, and said he, ‘Well, that’s wrong, but it isn’t for
me to quarrel with you there, Mr. Painter,’ and then they pushed me
along: but twice while the talk was going on I saw him look my way and
caught his eye, and he smiled, and when we were all shaking hands for
good-bye he shook hands with a good firm grip, and said he, ‘Good-bye,
Mr. Painter; I hope we shall meet again.’”
The old man drew a long sigh. “Those few moments paid for everything,”
he said. “I’ve never seen him since. I’ve been sick and lost money. I
ain’t the man I was. I never shall be put on any delegation again, or be
sent to any convention; but I thought if I could only go once more to a
Republican convention and hear them holler for Blaine, and holler once
more myself, I’d be willinger to die. And I told Tom Hale that, and he
and Jenny raised the money. Yes, Jenny, I’m going to tell--he and Jenny
put off being married a bit so ‘s I could go, and go on plenty of money.
Jenny, she worked a month longer to have plenty, and Tom, he slipped
ten dollars into my hand unbeknown to her, jest as we were going, so I’d
always have a dime to give the waiter or the porter. I was never one of
these hayseed farmers too stingy to give a colored boy a dime when
he’d done his best. I didn’t need no money for badges; I got my old
badges--see!”
He pushed out the lapel of his coat, covered with those old-fashioned
frayed bits of tinsel and ribbon, smiling confidently. The girl had
flushed crimson to the rim of her white collar; but there was not a
trace of petulance in her air; and, all at once looking at him, her eyes
filled with tears.
“Tom’s an awful good fellow,” he said, “an awful good fellow.”
“I’m sure of that,” said the Canton man, with the frank American
friendliness, making a little bow in Miss Jenny’s direction; “but see
here, Mr. Painter, do you come from Izard? Are you the man that saved
the county for the Republicans, by mortgaging his farm and then going on
a house to house canvass?”
“That’s me,” the old man acquiesced, blushing with pleasure; “I didn’t
think, though, that it was known outside----”
“Things go further than you guess. I’m a newspaper man, and I can tell
you that I shall speak of it again in my paper. Well, I guess they’ve
got through with their mail, and the platform’s coming in.”
Thus he brushed aside the old man’s agitated thanks.
“One moment,” said the old man, “who--who’s going to nominate him?”
For the space of an eyeblink the kindly Canton man looked embarrassed,
then he said, briskly: “Foraker, Foraker of Ohio--he’s the principal
one. That’s he now, chairman of the committee on resolutions. He’s
there, the tall man with the mustache--”
“Isn’t that elderly man, with the stoop shoulders and the chin beard and
caved-in face, Teller?” It was a man near me, on the seat behind,
who spoke, tapping the Canton man with his fan, to attract attention;
already the pitiful concerns of the old man who was “a little off” (as I
had heard some one on the seat whisper) were sucked out of notice in the
whirlpool of the approaching political storm.
“Yes, that’s Teller,” answered the Canton man, his mouth straightening
and growing thin.
“Is it to be a bolt?”
The Canton man nodded, at which the other whistled and communicated the
information to his neighbors, one of whom remarked, “Let ‘em bolt and
be d------!” A subtle excitement seemed to communicate its vibrations to
all the gallery. Perhaps I should except the old partisan; he questioned
the girl in a whisper, and then, seeming to be satisfied, watched the
strange scene that ensued with an expression of patient weariness. The
girl explained parts of the platform to him and he assented; it was good
Republican doctrine, he said, but what did they mean with all this
talk against the money; were they having trouble with the mining States
again? The Canton man stopped to explain--he certainly was good-humored.
During the next twenty minutes, filled as they were with savage emotion,
while the galleries, like the floor, were on their chairs yelling,
cheering, brandishing flags and fists and fans and pampas plumes of red,
white, and blue at the little band of silver men who marched through the
ranks of their former comrades, he stood, he waved his fan in his feeble
old hand, but he did not shout. “You must excuse me,” said he, “I’m
all right on the money question, but I’m saving my voice to shout for
_him!_”
“That’s right,” said the Canton man; but he took occasion to cast a
backward glance which I met, and it said as plainly as a glance can
speak, “I wish I were out of this!”
Meanwhile, with an absent but happy smile, the old Blaine man was
beating time to the vast waves of sound that rose and swelled above
the band, above the cheering, above the cries of anger and scorn, the
tremendous chorus that had stiffened men’s hearts as they marched to
death and rung through streets filled with armies and thrilled the
waiting hearts at home:
“Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!
Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!
The army and navy forever, three cheers for the
red, white, and blue!”
But when the chairman had stilled the tumult and made his grim comment,
“There appear to be enough delegates left to transact business,” the old
partisan cast his eyes down to the floor with a chuckle. “I can’t see
the hole they made, it’s so small. Say, ain’t he a magnificent chairman;
you can hear every word he says!”
“Bully chairman,” said a cheerful “rooter” in the rear, who had enjoyed
the episode more than words can say, and had cheered the passing of
Silver with such choice quotations from popular songs as “Good-bye, my
lover, good-bye,” and “Just tell them that you saw me,” and plainly
felt that he, too, had adorned the moment. “I nearly missed coming this
morning, and I would n’t have missed it for a tenner; they’re going to
nominate now.”
The old man caught his breath; then he smiled. “I’ll help you shout
pretty soon,” said he, while he sat down very carefully.
The “rooter,” a good-looking young fellow with a Reed button and three
or four gaudy badges decking his crash coat, nodded and tapped his
temple furtively, still retaining his expression of radiant good-nature.
The Canton man nodded and frowned.
I felt that the Canton man need not be afraid. Somehow we were all
tacitly taking care that this poor, bewildered soul should not have its
little dream of loyal, unselfish satisfaction dispelled.
“Ah, my countrymen,” I thought, “you do a hundred crazy things, you
crush _les convenances_ under foot, you can be fooled by frantic
visionaries--but how I love you!”
It was Baldwin of Iowa that made the first speech. He was one of the
very few men--I had almost said of the two men--that we in the galleries
had the pleasure of hearing; and we could hear every word.
He began with a glowing tribute to Blaine. At the first sentence, our
old man flung his gray head in the air with the gesture of the war horse
when he catches the first, far-off scream of the trumpet. He leaned
forward, his features twitching, his eyes burning; the fan dropped out
of his limp hand; his fingers, rapping his palm, clenched and loosened
themselves unconsciously in an overpowering agitation. His face was
white as marble, with ominous blue shadows; but every muscle was
astrain; his chest expanded; his shoulders drew back; his mouth was as
strong and firm as a young man. For a second we could see what he had
been at his prime.
Then the orator’s climax came, and the name--the magic name that was its
own campaign cry in itself.
The old partisan leaped to his feet; he waved his hands above his head;
wild, strange, in his white flame of excitement. He shouted; and we
all shouted with him, the McKinley man and the Reed man vying with each
other (I here offer my testimony to the scope and quality of that young
Reed man’s voice), and the air rang about us: “Blaine! Blaine! James G.
Blaine!” He shrieked the name again and again, goading into life the
waning applause. Then in an instant his will snapped under the strain;
his gray beard tilted in the air; his gray head went back on his neck.
The Canton man and I caught him in time to ease the fall. We were helped
to pull him into the aisle. There were four of us by this time, his
granddaughter and the Reed “rooter,” besides the Canton man and myself.
We carried him into the wide passageway that led to the seats. The Reed
young man ran for water, and, finding none, quickly returned with a
glass of lemonade (he was a young fellow ready in shifts), and with it
we bathed the old man’s face.
Presently he came back, by degrees, to the world; he was not conscious,
but we could see that he was not going to die.
“He’ll be all right in no time,” declared the Reed man. “You had better
go back and get your seats, and keep mine!”
I assured both men that I could not return for more than a short time,
having an engagement for luncheon.
“That’s all right,” said the Reed man, turning to the Canton man, “I
ain’t shouting when Foraker comes; you are. You go back and keep my
seat; I’ll come in later on Hobart.”
So the kindly Canton man returned to the convention for which he was
longing, and we remained in our little corner by the window, the young
girl fanning the old man, and the young man on the watch for a boy with
water. He darted after one; and then the girl turned to me.
No one disturbed us. Below, the traffic of a great city roared up to us
and a brass band clanged merrily. The crowd hurried past, drawn by the
tidings that “the light was on,” it choked the outlets and suffocated
the galleries.
“He’s been that way ever since he read, suddenly, that Blaine was dead,”
she said, lowering her voice to keep it safe from his failing ears; “he
had a kind of a stroke, and ever since he ‘s had the notion that Blaine
was alive and was going to be nominated, and his heart was set on going
here. Mother was afraid; but when--when he cried to go, I could not help
taking him--I did n’t know but maybe it might help him; he was such a
smart man and such a good man; and he has had trouble about mortgaging
the farm; and he worked so hard to get the money back, so mother would
feel right. All through the hot weather he worked, and I guess that’s
how it happened. You don’t think it’s hurt him? The doctor said he might
go. He told T----, a gentleman friend of mine who asked him.”
“Oh, dear, no,” said I; “it has been good for him.”
I asked for her address, which fortunately was near, and I offered
her the cab that was waiting for me. I had some ado to persuade her to
accept it; but when I pointed to her grandfather’s pale face she did
accept it, thanking me in a simple but touching way, and, of course,
begging me to visit her at Izard, Ohio.
All this while we had been sedulously fanning the old man, who would
occasionally open his eyes for a second, but gave no other sign of
returning consciousness.
The young Reed man came back with the water. He was bathing the old
man’s forehead in a very skilful and careful way, using my handkerchief,
when an uproar of cheering shook the very floor under us and the rafters
overhead.
“Who is it?” the old man inquired, feebly.
“Foraker! Foraker!” bellowed the crowd.
“He’s nominated him!” muttered the old man; but this time he did not
attempt to rise. With a smile of great content he leaned against his
granddaughter’s strong young frame and listened, while the cheers
swelled into a deafening din, an immeasurable tumult of sound, out
of which a few strong voices shaped the chorus of the Battle Cry of
Freedom, to be caught up by fifteen thousand throats and pealed through
the walls far down the city streets to the vast crowd without.
The young Reed “boomer,” carried away by the moment, flung his free
hand above his head and yelled defiantly: “Three cheers for the man from
Maine!” Instantly he caught at his wits, his color turned, and he lifted
an abashed face to the young girl.
“But, really, you know, that ain’t giving nothing away,” he apologized,
plucking up heart. “May I do it again?”
The old partisan’s eye lighted. “Now they’re shouting! That’s like old
times! Yes, do it again, boy! Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine!”
He let us lead him to the carriage, the rapturous smile still on his
lips. The “rooter” and I wormed our way through the crowd back to the
seats which the kind Canton man had kept for us.
We were quite like old acquaintances now; and he turned to me at once,
“Was there ever a politician or a statesman, since Henry Clay, loved so
well as James G. Blaine?”