family had to be drunk for the last week, and I'd rather it was Mike
than you or any of the children. Mike's geniality has shed a radiance
about me among the hired men of this town that fills me with pride."
"I don't see, to go back to what I said in the very beginning, why we
can't have the lamps in-doors," returned Mrs. Perkins.
"I told you why not, my dear," said Perkins. "They are the perquisite of
the Mayor, but for the benefit of the public, because the public pays
for them."
"And hasn't the public, as you call it, taken possession of the inside
of your house?" demanded the mother-in-law. "I found seven gentlemen
sitting in the white and gold parlor only last night, and they hadn't
wiped their feet either."
"You don't understand," faltered the standard-bearer. "That business
isn't permanent. To-morrow I'll tell them to go round to the back door
and ask the cook."
"Humph!" said the mother-in-law. "I'm surprised at you. For a few paltry
votes you--" Just here the front door bell rang, and the business of
the day beginning stopped the conversation, which bade fair to become
unpleasant.
* * * * *
Night came. The votes were being counted, and at six o'clock Perkins was
informed that everything was going his way.
"Get your place ready for a brass band and a serenade," his manager
telephoned.
"I sha'n't!" ejaculated the candidate to himself, his old--time
independence asserting itself now that the polls were closed--and he was
right. He didn't have to. The band did not play in his front yard, for
at eight o'clock the tide that had set in strong for Perkins turned. At
ten, according to votes that had been counted, things were about even,
and the ladies retired. At twelve Perkins turned out the gas.
"That settles the lamp question, anyhow," he whispered to himself as he
went up-stairs, and then he went into Mrs. Perkins's room.
"Well, Bess," he said, "it's all over, and I've made up my mind as to
where the lamps are to go."
"Good!" said the little woman. "On the gate-posts?"
"No, dear. In the parlor--the cloisonné lamps from Tiffany's."
"Why, I thought you said we couldn't--"
"Well, we can. Our lamps can go in there whether the public likes it or
not. We are emancipated."
"But I don't understand," began Mrs. Perkins.
"Oh, it's simple," said Thaddeus, with a sigh of mingled relief and
chagrin. "It's simple enough. The other lamps are to be put--er--on
Captain Haskins's place."
THE BALANCE OF POWER
It was a pleasant night in the spring of 189-.
The residents of Dumfries Corners were enjoying an early spring, and
suffering from the demoralizing influences of a municipal election.
Incidentally Mr. Thaddeus Perkins, candidate, was beginning to feel very
much like Moses when he saw the promised land afar. The promised land
was now in plain sight; but whether or not the name of Perkins should be
inscribed in one of its high places depended upon the voters who on the
morrow were to let their ballots express their choice as to who should
preside over the interests of the city and hold in check the fiery,
untamed aldermen of Dumfries Corners.
The candidate was tired, very tired, and was trying to gain a few hours'
rest before plunging again and for the last time into the whirlpool of
vote-getting; and as he sat enjoying a few moments of blissful ease
behind the close-drawn portieres of his library there came the
much-dreaded sound of heavy feet upon the porch without, and the
door-bell rang.
"Norah!" cried the candidate, in an agonized stage-whisper, as the maid
approached in answer to the summons, "tell them I'm out, unless it's
some one of my personal friends."
"Yis, sorr," was the answer. "Oi will."
And the door was opened.
"Is Misther Perkins in?" came a deep, unmistakably "voting" voice from
without.
"Oi dun'no'. Are yees a personal friend of Misther Perkins?" was the
response, and the heart of the listening Perkins sought his boots.
"Oi am not, but--" said the deep voice.
"Thin he isn't in," said Norah, positively.
"When 'll he be back?" asked the visitor, huskily.
"Ye say ye niver met him?" demanded Norah.
"Oi told ye oi hadn't," said the visitor, a trifle irritably. "But--"
"Thin he'll niver be back," put in the glorious Norah, and she shut the
door with considerable force and retired.
For a moment the candidate was overcome; first he paled, but then
catching Mrs. Perkins's eye and noting a twinkle of amusement therein,
he yielded to his emotions and roared with laughter. What if Norah's
manner was unconventional? Had she not carried out instructions?
"My dear," said the candidate to Mrs. Perkins, as the shuffling feet on
the porch shuffled off into the night, "what wages do you pay Norah?"
"Sixteen dollars, Thaddeus," was the answer. "Why?"
"Make it twenty hereafter," replied the candidate. "She is an emerald
beyond price. If I had only let her meet the nominating committee when
they entered our little Eden three weeks ago, I should not now be
involved in this wretched game of politics."
"Well, I sincerely wish you had," Mrs. Perkins observed, heartily. "This
affair has made a very different man of you, and as for your family,
they hardly see you any more. You are neglecting every single household
duty for your horrid old politics."
"Well, now, my dear--" began the candidate.
"The pipes in the laundry have been leaking for four days now, and yet
you won't send for a plumber, or even let me send for one," continued
Mrs. Perkins.
"Well, Bessie dear, how can I? The race is awfully close. It wouldn't
surprise me if the majority either way was less than a hundred."
"There you go again, Thaddeus. What on earth has the leak in the laundry
pipes to do with the political situation?" asked the puzzled woman.
The candidate showed that in spite of his recent affiliations he still
retained some remnant of his former self-respect, for he blushed as he
thought of the explanation; but he tried nevertheless to shuffle out of
it.
"Of course you can't understand," he said, with a cowardly resolve to
shirk the issue. "That's because you are a woman, Bess. Women don't
understand great political questions. And what I have particularly
liked about you is that you never pretended that you did."
"Well, I'd like to know," persisted Mrs. Perkins. "I want to be of as
much assistance to my husband in his work as I can, and if public
questions are hereafter to be the problems of your life, they must
become my problems too. Besides, my curiosity is really aroused in this
especial case, and I'd love to know what bearing our calling a plumber
has upon the tariff, or the money question, or any other thing in
politics."
The candidate hesitated. He was cornered, and he did not exactly like
the prospect.
"Well--" he began. "You see, I'm standing as the representative of a
great party, and we--we naturally wish to win. If I am defeated, every
one will say that it is a rebuke to the administration at Washington;
and so, you see, we'd better let those leaks leak until day after
to-morrow, when the voting will all be over."
Mrs. Perkins looked at her husband narrowly.
"I think I'll have to call the doctor," was her comment. "Either for you
or for myself, Teddy. One of us is gone--wholly gone, mentally. There's
no question about it, either you are rambling in your speech, or I have
entirely lost all comprehension of the English language."
"I don't see--" began Perkins.
"Neither do I," interrupted Mrs. Perkins; "and I hardly hope to. You've
explained and explained, but how a plumber's calling here to fix a
laundry leak is to rebuke the administration at Washington is still far
beyond me."
"But the plumbers are said to hold the balance of power!" cried the
candidate. "There are a hundred of them here in Dumfries Corners, and
each one controls at least five assistants, which makes six hundred
voters in all. If I call in one, he and his five workers will vote for
me, but the other five hundred and ninety-four will vote for Haskins;
and if they do, the administration might as well go out of business.
Can't you see? It's the same with the dandelions. These spring elections
are perfect--ah--Gehenna for a candidate if it happens to be an early
spring like this."
Perkins's voice had the suggestion of a wail in it as he spoke of the
dandelions, and his wife's alarm grew upon her. She understood now
about the plumber, but his interjection of the dandelions had brought a
fearful doubt into her heart. Surely he was losing his mind.
"Dandelions, Thaddeus?" she echoed, aghast.
"Yes, dandelions," retorted the candidate, forcibly. "They've queered me
as much as anything. The neighbors say I'm not a good neighbor because I
don't have them pulled. Mike's been so thoroughly alcoholic all through
the fight, looking after my interests, that he can't pull them; and if I
hire two men to come and do the work, seven hundred other men will want
to know why they didn't get a chance."
"But why not employ boys?" demanded Mrs. Perkins.
"And be set down as an advocate of cheap child labor? Not I!" cried
Perkins.
"Then the dandelion-pullers are another balance of power, are they?"
asked Mrs. Perkins, beginning to grow somewhat easier in her mind as to
her husband's sanity.
"Precisely; you have a very remarkable gift of insight, Bess," answered
the candidate.
"And how many balances of power are there?" demanded the lady.
"The Lord only knows," sighed Perkins. "I've made about eighty of 'em
solid already, but as soon as one balance is fixed a thousand others
rise up like Banquo's ghost, and will not down. I haven't a doubt that
it was a balance of power that Norah just turned away from the front
door. They strike you everywhere. Why, even Bobbie ruined me with one of
them in the Eighth Ward the other day--one solidified balance wiped out
in a moment by my interesting son."
"Bobbie?" cried Mrs. Perkins. "A six-year-old boy?"
"Exactly--Bobbie, the six-year-old boy. I wish you'd keep the children
in the house until this infernal business is over. The Eighth Ward would
have elected me; but Bobbie ruined that," said Perkins, ruefully.
"But how?" cried Mrs. Perkins. "Have our children been out making
campaign speeches for the other side?"
"They have," assented Perkins. "They have indeed. You remember that man
Jorrigan?"
"The striker?" queried Mrs. Perkins, calling to mind a burly combination
of red hair and bad manners who had made himself very conspicuous of
late.
"Precisely. That's just the point," retorted Perkins. "The striker.
That's what he is, and it's what you call him."
"But you said he was a striker at breakfast last Wednesday," said Mrs.
Perkins. "We simply take your word for it."
"I know I did. He's also a balance of power, my dear. Jorrigan controls
the Eighth Ward. That's the only reason I've let him in the house," said
Thaddeus.
"You've been very chummy with him, I must say," sniffed Mrs. Perkins.
"Well, I've had to be," said the candidate. "That man is a power, and he
knows it."
"What's his business?" asked Mrs. Perkins.
"Interference between capital and labor," replied Perkins. "So I've
cultivated him."
"He never struck me as being a very cultivated person," smiled Mrs.
Perkins. "He has a suggestion of alcohol about him that is very
oppressive."
"I know--he has a very intoxicating presence," said the candidate,
joining in the smile. "But we are rid of his presence now and forever,
thanks to Bobbie. I got the news last night. He and his followers have
declared for Haskins, in spite of all his promises to me, and we can
attribute our personal good fortune and our political loss to Bobbie.
Bobbie met him on the street the other day."
"I know he did," said Mrs. Perkins. "He told me so, and he said that the
horrid man wanted to kiss him."
"It's true," said Perkins. "He did, and Bobbie wouldn't let him."
"Well, a man isn't going back on you because he can't kiss your whole
family, is he?" asked Mrs. Perkins, apprehensively. "If that's the
situation, I shall go to New York to-morrow."
Perkins laughed heartily. "No, my dear," he said. "You are safe enough
from that. But Jorrigan, when Bobbie refused, said, 'Well, young feller,
I guess you don't know who I am?' 'Yes, I do,' said Bobbie. 'You are
Mr. Jorrigan,' and Jorrigan was overjoyed; but Bobbie destroyed his good
work by adding, 'Jorrigan the striker,' and the striker's joy vanished.
'Who told you that?' said he. 'Pop--and he knows,' said Bobbie. That
night," continued Perkins, with a droll expression of mingled mirth and
annoyance, "the amalgamated mortar-mixers of the Eighth Ward decided
that consideration for the country's welfare should rise above partisan
politics, and that when it came to real statesmanship Haskins could give
me points. A ward wiped out in a night, and another highly interesting,
very thirsty balance of power gone over to the other side."
"I should think you'd give up, then," said Mrs. Perkins, despairfully.
She wanted her husband to win--not because she had any ambition to shine
as "Lady-Mayor," but because she did not wish Thaddeus to incur
disappointment or undergo the chagrin of a public rebuke. "You seem to
be losing balances of power right and left."
"Why should I give it up?" queried Perkins. "You don't suppose I am
having any better luck than Mr. Haskins, do you?"
"Is he losing them too?" asked Mrs. Perkins, hopefully.
"I judge so from what he tells me," said Perkins. "We took dinner
together at the Centurion in New York the other night, and he's a prince
of good fellows, Bess. He has just as much trouble as I have, and when I
met him on the train the other day he was as blue as I about the
future."
"You and the captain dining together?" ejaculated Mrs. Perkins.
"Certainly," said Perkins. "Why not? Our hatred is merely political, and
we can meet on a level of good-fellowship anywhere outside of Dumfries
Corners."
Mrs. Perkins laughed outright. "Isn't it funny!" she said.
"Why, Haskins is one of my best friends, generally," continued Perkins.
"I don't see anything funny about it. Just because we both happen to be
dragged into politics on opposite sides at the same moment is no reason
why we should begin cutting each other's throats, my dear. In fact, with
balances of power springing up all over town like mushrooms, we have
become companions in misery."
"Well, I don't see why you can't get together, then, and tell these
balances to go to--to grass," suggested Mrs. Perkins.
"Grass is too mild, my love," remarked the candidate, smiling quietly.
"They wouldn't go there, even if we told them to, so it would be simply
a waste of breath. We've got to grin and bear them until the polls
close, and then we can pitch in and tell 'em what we think of them."
"Just the same," continued Mrs. Perkins, "an agreement between Mr.
Haskins and you to ignore these people utterly, instead of taking them
into your family, would stop the whole abuse."
"That's a woman's idea," said Perkins, bravely, though in the innermost
recesses of his heart he wished he had thought of it before. "It isn't
practical politics, my love. You might as well say that two opposing
generals in a war could save thousands of lives by avoiding each other's
armies and keeping out of a fight."
"Well, I do say that," replied Mrs. Perkins, positively. "That's
exactly my view of what generals ought to do."
"And what would become of the war?" queried the candidate.
"There wouldn't be any," said the good little woman.
"Precisely," retorted Perkins. "Precisely. And if Haskins and I did what
you want us to do, there would be no more politics."
"Well, what of it?" demanded Mrs. Perkins. "Are politics the salvation
of the country? It's as bad as war."
"Humph!" grunted Perkins. "It is difficult to please women. You hate war
because, to settle a question of right, people go out into the field of
battle and mow each other down with guns; you cry for arbitration. Let
all questions, all differences of opinion, be settled by a resort to
reason, say you--which is beautiful, and undoubtedly proper. But when we
try to settle our differences by a bloodless warfare, in which the
ballot is one's ammunition, you cry down with politics. A political
contest is nothing but a bit of supreme arbitration, for which you peace
people are always clamoring, by the court of last resort, the people."
Mrs. Perkins smiled sweetly, and taking her husband's hand in hers,
stroked it softly.
"Teddy dear, you mustn't be so politic with me," she said; "I'm not a
campaign club. I know that sentiment you have just expressed is lofty
and noble, and ought to be true, and I know we used to think it was
true--three weeks ago I believed it when you said it; but this is now,
dear. This is to-night, not three weeks ago, and I have changed my
mind."
"Well," began the candidate, hesitatingly, "I don't know but that I am
weakening a trifle myself."
"I know," interposed Mrs. Perkins, "you are weakening. You know as well
as I do that the hard work you are doing is not in appealing to the
reason of the supreme court of arbitration, the people. You are
appealing, as you have said, yourself, to a large and interesting
variety of balances of power, that do not want your views or your
opinions or your arguments, but they do want your money to buy cigars
and beer with. They want you to buy their good-will; and even if you
bought it, I doubt if they would concede to you a controlling interest
in it if Mr. Haskins should happen to want some of it, and I don't doubt
he does."
"You don't know anything--" the candidate ventured.
"Yes I do, too," returned Mrs. Perkins, with the self-satisfied nod
which the average new woman gives when she thinks she is right, though
Mrs. Perkins had no pretensions in that direction, happily for her
family. "I know all that you have told me. I know that when you were to
dine at Colonel Buckley's on Wednesday night you wore your evening
dress, and that when leaving there early to go to the city and address
the Mohawk Independent Club you asked your manager if you could go
dressed as you were, and his answer was, 'Not on your life,' and you
went home and put on your business suit. You told me that yourself, and
yet you talk about the supreme court of arbitration, the people!"
"But, Bess, the Mohawks are a powerful organization," pleaded Perkins.
"I couldn't afford to offend them."
"No. It was the first balance of power that turned up. I remember it
well. It was to be convinced by arguments. You were going down there to
discuss principles, but you couldn't appeal to their judicial minds or
reach their reason unless you changed your clothes; and when you got
there as their guest, and ventured to ask for a glass of Vichy before
you spoke, do you remember what they brought you?" demanded Mrs.
Perkins, warming up to her subject.
The candidate smiled faintly. "Yes," he answered. "Beer."
"Exactly; and when he gave you the beer, that MacHenty man whispered in
your ear, 'Drink that; it'll go better wid the byes.'"
"He did," said Thaddeus, meekly.
"And yet you talk about this appeal to a reasonable balance of power!
Really, Teddy, you are becoming demoralized. Politics, as I see it, is
an appeal to thirst, and nothing else."
"'You never miss the voter till the keg runs dry,'" sang the candidate,
with a more or less successful attempt at gayety. "But never mind, Bess.
I've had enough, and if I'm beaten this time I'll never do it again. So
don't worry; and, after all, this is only a municipal election. The
difference between a grand inspiring massive war for principle and a
street riot. The supreme court of arbitration, the people, can be relied
on to do the right thing in the end. They are sane. They are honest.
They are not all thirsty, and in this as in all contests the blatant
attract the most attention. The barker at the door of the side show to
the circus makes more noise than the eight-headed boy that makes the
mare go."
"You're a trifle mixed in your metaphors, Teddy," said Mrs. Perkins.
"Well who wouldn't be, after a three weeks' appeal to an arid waste of
voters?"
"A waste of arid voters," amended Mrs. Perkins.
"The amendment is accepted," laughed Thaddeus. And at that moment a
telephone call from headquarters summoned him abroad.
"Good-night, Bess," he said, kissing his wife affectionately. "This is
the last night."
"Good-night, Teddy; I hope it is. And next time when they ask you to
run--"
"You shall be the balance of power, and decide the question for me,"
said the candidate, as, with sorrow in his heart, he left his home to
seek out what he called "the branch office of Hades," political
headquarters, where were gathered some fifty persons, most of whom began
life in other countries, under different skies, and to whom the national
anthem "America" meant less and aroused fewer sentiments worth having
than that attractive two-step "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," and
who were yet sufficiently powerful with the various "balances" of the
town to hold its political destinies in their itching palms.
* * * * *
Two months after this discussion the late Honorable Thaddeus Perkins,
ex-candidate, and Mayor of Dumfries Corners only by courtesy of those
who honor defeated candidates with titles for which they have striven
unsuccessfully, was strolling through the country along the line of the
Croton Aqueduct, trying to disentangle, with the aid of the fresh sweet
air of an early summer afternoon, an idea for a sonnet from the mazes of
his brain. Stopping for a moment to look down upon the glorious Hudson
stretching its shimmering length like a bimetallic serpent to the north
and south, he suddenly became conscious of a pair of very sharp eyes
resting upon him, which a closer inspection showed belonged to a laborer
of seemingly diminutive stature, who was engaged in carrying earth in a
wheelbarrow from one dirt-pile to another. As Thaddeus caught his eye
the laborer assumed towering proportions. He rose up quite two feet
higher in the air and bowed.
"How do you do?" said Perkins, returning the salutation courteously,
wondering the while as to what might be the cause of this sudden change
of height.
"Oi'm well--which is nothin' new to me," replied the other. "Ut sheems
to me," he continued, "thot youse resimbles thot smart young felly
Perkins, the Mayor of Dumfries Corners--not!"
Perkins laughed. The sting of defeat had lost its power to annoy, and
his experience had become merely one of a thousand other nightmares of
the past.
"Do I?" he replied, resolving not to confess his identity, for the
moment at least.
"Only thinner," chuckled the laborer, shrinking up again; and Perkins
now saw that the legs of his new acquaintance were of an abnormally
unequal length, which forced him every time he shifted his weight from
one foot to the other to change his apparent height to a startling
degree. "An' a gude dale thinner," he repeated. "There's nothin' loike
polithical exersoize to take off th' flesh, parthicularly when ye miss
ut."
"I fancy you are right," said Perkins. "I never met Mr. Perkins--that
is, face to face--myself. Do you know him?"
The Irishman threw his head back and laughed.
"Well," he said, "oi'm not wan uv his pershonal fri'nds. But oi know um
when oi see um," and he looked Thaddeus straight in the eye as he grew
tall again.
"I'm sure it is Perkins's loss," returned Thaddeus, "that you are not a
personal friend of his."
"It was," said the Irishman. "My name is Finn," he added, with an air
which seemed to assume that Perkins would begin to tremble at the
dreaded word; but Perkins did not tremble. He merely replied,
"A very good name, Mr. Finn."
"Oi t'ink so," assented Mr. Finn. "Ut's better nor Dinnis, me young
fri'nd."
Perkins assented to this proposition as though it was merely general,
and had no particular application to the affairs of the moment. "I
suppose, Mr. Finn," he observed, shortly, "that you were one of the
earnest workers in the late campaign for Mr. Perkins?"
"Was he elicted?" asked Finn, scornfully.
"I believe not," began Thaddeus. "But--"
"Thot's me answer to your quistion, sorr," said Finn, with dignity.
"He'd 'a' had lamps befoor his house now, sorr, if he hadn't been gay
wid his front dure."
"Oh--he was gay with his front door, was he?" asked Perkins.
"He was thot, an' not ony too careful uv his windy-shades," replied
Finn.
Perkins looked at him inquiringly.