|TECUMSEH STREET was the fourth street back from the river. Tradition
said that the father and Certain aunts of the man who laid out the
street had been scalped by Tecumseh, the Indian. It was the only
distinguished event in his family, and he wished to commemorate it.
The street was paved with undressed Medina. The newspaper offices were
all there, and the smash and scream of undressed Medina under traffic
was in the columns. It was satisfactory to Port Argent. The proper
paving of streets in front of newspaper offices was never petitioned
in the Council. Opposite the offices was a half block of vacant lots, a
high board fence of advertisements around it.
The space between was packed with a jostling crowd. A street lamp lit a
small section of it. Lights from the office windows fell in patches on
faces, hats, and shoulders. A round moon floated above the tower of
_The Chronicle_ Building with a look of mild speculation, like a
“Thrice Blessed Buddha,” leading in the sky his disciple stars, who
all endeavoured to look mildly speculative, and saying, “Yonder, oh,
mendicants! is a dense mass of foolish desires, which indeed squirm as
vermin in a pit, and are unpleasant to the eye of meditation. Because
the mind of each individual is there full of squirming desires, even
as the individual squirms in the mass.” No doubt it looks so when one
floats so far over it.
Opposite the windows of _The Chronicle_ (Independent-Reform) and _The
Press_ (Republican) the advertising boards were covered with white
cloth, and two blinding circles shone there of rival stereopticons.
There was no board fence opposite _The Western Advocate_ (Democratic),
and no stereopticon in the windows. This was deplored. It showed a lack
of public spirit--a want of understanding of the people's needs. If
there could be no stereopticon without a board fence, there should be a
brass band.
The proprietor of _The Advocate_ sent out for a bushel of Roman candles,
and discharged them from his windows by threes, of red, white, and blue.
This was poetic and sufficient.
The stereopticons flashed on the white circles the figures of returns,
when there were any, pictures and slurs when there were no figures,--a
picture of a cage full of riotous monkeys on _The Chronicle_ circle,
underwritten, “The Council,”--a picture of an elderly lady with a
poke bonnet and lifted hands of reprehension, on the _Press_ circle,
underwritten, “Independent Reform.”
“Auction of the City of Port Argent!” flashed _The Chronicle_. “Office
of M. Wood. Cash on Delivery of Goods.”
“All citizens must go to Sunday School or be fined,” from _The Press_.
“6th Ward. Rep. Plurality, 300.”
“1st Ward. Ind. Ref. Plurality, 28.”
Whish! a rocket from the windows of _The Western Advocate_. And the
crowd roared and shuffled.
The last of _The Press_ windows to the left belonged to a little room
off the press-room, containing a desk, a board table, and several
chairs. The desk seemed only to be used as an object at which to throw
articles, in order that, they might roll to the floor. There were crude
piles of newspapers on it and about it, hats, a section of a stove pipe,
and a backgammon board. The table looked as if it sometimes might be
used to write on.
The room was supposed to be the editor's, but no one in Port Argent
believed Charlie Carroll ever stayed in the same place long enough to
pre-empt it. He edited _The Press_ from all over the city, and wrote the
editorials wherever he stopped to catch breath. _The Press_ editorials
were sometimes single sentences, sometimes a paragraph. More than a
paragraph was supposed to mean that Carroll had ridden on a street car,
and relieved the tedium of his long imprisonment.
A number of men stood at the window or stood grouped back, and watched
the canvas across the street. The only light came through the door from
the press-room.
Carroll put his curly head through the door, shouted something and
vanished. _The Press_ stereopticon withdrew a view of Yosmite Valley and
threw on the canvas:
“Recount in the 1st Ward announced.”
_The Chronicle_ cleared its canvas promptly and flung across the street:
“Fraud!”
Only two men sat still by the window of the darkened room. The rest
rushed out.
The street was in an uproar, hats crushed over heads, fists shaken in
the air to the instructive comment of the moon.
“How foolish, oh, mendicants! How do men make for themselves troubles,
as though one should stir quiet waters with his hand, saying, 'It is a
storm. The gods have afflicted me.'”
“How foolish!” said one of the men at the darkened window. “Those boys
are terribly anxious to carry that Ward, and no point in it, Dick!”
“Suppose I'd been out canvassing for Reform, Wood? Think you'd have
lost?”
Wood peered curiously at Hennion in the half-lit dusk. “Like enough!
Well--want anything in particular? I admit the bill, if it ain't too
big.”
“I don't want anything.”
Wood tilted his chair and was silent a moment.
“Look what comes of making rows,” he went on. “I wouldn't have that
Ward now for a gift. _The Chronicle_'s red in the face with wrath and
happiness. Everybody's hair on end as it is. Disgusting, ain't it?
Well--down east, where the land's tilted up so you can turn a section
over bottom upwards by heaving one end with a rail, well--there was a
man there had a farm at the bottom of a long hill, and his neighbour's
punkins up above used to roll down on him. But he didn't make any row,
because his yard was littered with punkins, no. He ate the punkins.
Well, now, take the neighbour above, he might have gone down and called
somebody a thief for not returning strayed punkins, and two pillars of
the church might have disliked each other. But he didn't. He built a
board fence along the lower edge of his cornfield and caught his own
punkins. And there was mutual respect, mutual respect. Well--the
boys, they always want to fight. They go round saying, 'The old man's
level-headed,' but they ain't satisfied with building that fence to
catch those punkins without heaving a rock down an aggravating man's
chimney, or else it makes 'em mad to have punkins rolled at 'em, and
moreover they don't roll fast enough. Disgusting, ain't it?”
“Wood! Wood! Wherein----” Carroll rushed in and turned up the electric
light impatiently. “Wh-what you going to do about the First Ward?”
He had thin bright curly hair, the slimmest of bodies, and moved like a
restless insect.
“Tell'em to count it twenty-eight Reform plurality, no more and no less!
And turn off that light! And clear out! Well--now--that Charlie Carroll,
he's a living fidget. Well--when they used to race steamboats on the
Mississippi, they'd put a nigger on the safety valve, so it wouldn't
get nervous. I've heard so. I've seen 'em tie it up with a string.
Well--winning the race depended some on the size and serenity of the
nigger, that'd see it wasn't his place to worry, for he'd get blown off
all right in the natural course of things. For sitting on a safety valve
you want a nigger that won't wriggle. Well--Charlie's a good man. Keeps
people thinking about odds and ends of things. If one thing out of forty
is going to happen, his mind's going to be a sort of composite picture
of the whole forty. Sees eight or ten dimensions to a straight line.
Yes--folks are pretty liberal. They'll allow there's another side to
'most anything, and a straight line's got no business to be so gone
particular. It's the liberal-mindedness of the public that lets us win
out, of course. But--you've got to sit still sometimes, and wait for the
earth to turn round.”
“I suppose you have. It'll turn round.”
“Yes, it'll turn round.”
The tumult outside had subsided in a dull, unsettled rumble. The moon
went into retreat among silver-grey clouds. Tecumseh Street muttered in
the darkness of its pit. The stereopticons continued.
“_The Chronicle_ suspects the U. S. Census,” from _The Press_.
“Census O. K. Wood didn't make it,” from _The Chronicle_.
“Port Argent stands by the G. O. P.”
“Did Wood mention his Candidate's Name?”
The _Press_ threw defiantly the portrait of its candidate for mayor.
“Pull the String and See it Jump!” from _The Chronicle._
Behind _The Press_ stereopticon a telephone jingled, telegraph
instruments clicked, men wrote busily at a long table under a row of
pendent electric lights that swayed in the draught.
A large man came in, panting. His short coat swung back under his
arm-pits, away from the vast curve of his waistcoat. He had a falling
moustache and a round face.
“Vere iss Vood? So!” He peered curiously into the darker room. “Vere.”
“Come along, Freiburger,” said Wood. “Pull up a chair. Well--how's your
Ward? All quiet?”
Freiburger settled into a chair with the same caution.
“Oh, yes, quviet. Not shtill, but quviet.”
“What's the difference between 'still' and 'quiet'?” asked Hennion.
“Veil, it vass drunk, und someone vass punch Cahn der barber's nose, but
not me.”
“You call it quiet till somebody hits you?”
“Vy should he hit me?” cried Freiburger indignantly.
“He shouldn't,” said Hennion.
“No! Veil, it vass not shtill, but quviet. Ach!” sadly, “ven a man iss
drunk, vy don't he shleep?”
“He wants to stay awake and enjoy it.”
Freiburger shook his head slowly and felt of his nose, as if to be quite
sure before taking the responsibility of repeating the statement.
“It vass Cahn. It vass not me.”
Wood sat silently, looking through the window to where the stereopticons
flashed over the crowd's changing emotions, half listening to the
conversation near him. Freiburger peered anxiously at him in the dusk.
His mind was trembling with the thrill and tumult of the day, longing
that Wood might say something, utter some sentence that it might
cling to, clasp about with comprehension, and be safe from wandering,
unguaranteed ideas. Hennion seemed interested in examining Freiburger's
soul.
“Freiburger, you're as honest a man as I know.”
“Veil, yes, I'm honest. I don't know who you know.”
“You never owed a dollar you didn't pay.”
“Oh, no, I don' do it.”
“Business fair?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, what did you want to get on the Council for?”
“Oh! Veil! It vass goot for business.” He seemed pleased to talk about
this, but expression was a matter of labour and excitement. “Veil! You
see! Die boys sie come at Freiburger's saloon, und I know 'em all on
Maple Street und der Fourt Vard. Und nights at Freiburger's I hear von
der shobs und der Union und der prices. Und sie tell me vy der carriage
factory strike. Und sie tell me Hennion iss a shquvare man, und Vood
vill do as he say he vill do, und Shamieson in der freight yards iss a
hog, und Ranald Cam iss make money, und Fater Harra iss teach lil'
boys fight mit gloves in St. Catherine's parochial school und bleed
der badness out of der kleine noses. Und sie say, 'I loss my shob,
Freiburger!' 'My lil' boy sick, Freiburger.' Ach, so! All dings in der
Vard iss tell me. Veil now, aber, look here! I am a Councilman. Der iss
no man so big on Maple Street as Fater Harra und me, und Freiburger's
iss head-quaverters of der Vard, und das iss goot for business.”
“That's all right. I see your point. But the Council isn't supposed to
be an adjunct to the different councilmen's business, is it? I suppose
the Ward understood itself to be trusting its interests in your hands,
don't you? and you're a sort of guardian and trustee for the city,
aren't you? Seems as if that would take a good deal of time and worry,
because you'd want to be sure you were doing right by the city and the
Ward, and it's a complicated affair you have to look after, and a lot of
people's interests at stake.”
Wood stirred slightly in his chair, partly with pleasure at the humour
of it, partly with uneasiness. It was all right for Hennion to examine
the Freiburger soul, if he liked, but to cast on its smooth seas such
wide-stirring, windy ideas seemed unkind to Freiburger.
Freiburger puffed heavily in the darkness.
The excitement of expressing himself subsided, and Hennion's idea opened
before him, a black gulf into which he could for a while only stare
dubiously. His mind reached out vaguely for something familiar to cling
to.
“Veil--I don' know--die boys and Fater Harra und--Mein Gott! I ask
Vood!” He puffed heavily again after the struggle and triumph.
“Couldn't do better. It's what your boys expect of you anyhow.”
And Hennion returned to his silence. Freiburger's soul glowed peacefully
once more.
“It iss Vood's business, hein?”
He looked from one to the other of the impassive, self-controlled men.
He wanted Wood to say something that he could carry away for law and
wisdom and conviction, something to which other ideas might be fitted
and referred. He had the invertebrate instinct of a mollusk to cling to
something not itself, something rooted and undriven, in the sea.
“You've done well, Freiburger,” said Wood, rousing himself. “Tell the
boys they've done well. Stay by your beer and don't worry till the keg's
dry.”
Freiburger rolled away, murmuring his message loyally. “Stay by
mein--a--mein keg's dry.”
“Freiburger won't cost you much,” Hen-nion murmured after a while. Wood
swung softly in his chair.
“Got something on your mind, ain't you, Dick?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. But I don't know what it is. I've fished for it
till I'm tired. I've analysed Freiburger, and didn't get much. Now I'd
like to examine your soul in a strong chemical solution. Maybe I'm a bit
embarrassed.”
Wood chuckled. “Go ahead. Most men 'll lie, if you give 'em time to
rearrange their ideas. Well--it won't take me so long.” His manner
became genial. “You've got a good head, Dick. Well--I'll tell what I'm
thinking. It's this. The old man 'll have to drop his job one of these
days, and--if you're feeling for pointers--I don't say you are, but
supposing you are--I don't mind saying I shall back you to head the
organization. Maybe--well,--in fact, I don't suppose there's much money
in it you'd care to touch--maybe there ain't any--but there's a place
for the right man. I like you. I liked your father. He was built
something your way. The boys want somebody over 'em that won't wriggle
off the safety valve, and knows how to pick up punkins peacefully as
they come. This First Ward business--well, you've got a pretty good grip
through the crowd to begin with.”
“Now there!” broke in Hennion.
“You and Aidee are both trying to do the same thing. You want to get me
into politics. I don't care for your primaries and committees. I don't
see ten cents' difference to the city which party runs it. I dare say
whoever runs it expects to make a living out of it. Why do you both come
to me?”
“I guess we've both got an idea you're useful.”
Hennion thought a moment and then spoke more quietly.
“Henry Champney used to boss this section. He did it from the platform
instead of the committee room. And my father handled bigger contracts
than I've touched yet. But Champney didn't ask him to run his canal into
the next caucus, or furnish stray batches of constituents with jobs.
Understand, I'm not grumbling about the last. Champney stayed on his
platform, and my father stayed in his big ditch and dug. The proper
thing now seems to be for everybody to get into the street and row
around together. Here's Aidee too thinks he's got to jump into it now,
and take with him--take with him everything he can' reach.”
“That's straight,” murmured Wood. “So they do.”
“Yes, and I call off, myself.”
“All right. I was only guessing what you had in your mind. Well--it's
business sets the pace nowadays. 'Most everything else has to catch its
gait or be left. I remember Champney forty years gone. He was a fine
picture, when he got up and spread himself. He didn't do anything
that's here now, unless it's a volume of his speeches, congressional
and occasional. Not much. He kept us all whooping for Harry Clay.
Well--Clay's dead, Whig Party and Compromises and all burnt up. Your
father built sixty miles of canal. Canal stock's pretty dead now, but
that's not his fault. He laid a few thousand miles of railroad, went
around this place and that, cleaning up the country. Several million
people travel his railroads and walk his bridges. Anybody ever call him
a great man like Henry Champney? Gone little he cared if they did or
didn't. He and his like were a sight more important. Well--no; Champney
didn't ask favours of anybody in those days. And he didn't ask votes.
They shovelled 'em at him, and he went on telling 'em the Constitution
was the foundation of America, and Harry Clay the steeple. They weren't.
Rick Hennion and his like were the foundation, and there wasn't any
steeple. If you ask what they're all rowing round in the street for now,
why, I don't know. I guess they've all found out the point's got to be
fought out there or nowhere. Well--better think over what I was
telling you, Dick. You're Rick Hennion's son. Well--it's none of my
business--but--I'd gone like to see you old Champney's son-in-law--if
that's it. I believed in Champney once, and shouted for Clay, and
thought there was something in it. I did, that's a fact. I'd lock horns
with any other bull then, and swear my name was Righteouashess and his
was Sin.”
“Well, but Champney----”
“Yes--Champney!”
“When he turned a vote, it meant he'd persuaded a man, didn't it?”
“Yes--Champney! His best argument was a particular chest tone. If I tell
a man, 'Hullo, Jimmy!' and give him a cigar, it's as reasonable as a
chest tone.”
“It's not in my line, Wood,” said Hen-nion after a silence. “What makes
you so down? You're not old.”
“Going on seventy, Dick.” Wood's mood seemed more than usually frank
and talkative. He seemed to be smoothing out the creases in his mind,
hunting into corners that he hardly knew himself, showing a certain
wistfulness to explain his conception of things, complex and crumpled
by the wear and pressures of a long life, possibly taking Hennion to
represent some remembrance that he would like to be friends with after
long estrangement, and in that way pleading with his own youth to think
kindly of him. Or it might have been he was thinking of “Rick” Hennion,
who helped him forty years before, and stayed with him longest of
worn-out ideals.
There was a rush of feet and clamour of voices in the press-room.
“Wood! Wood!”
“First Ward.”
“Thrown out forty votes.”
“Wouldn't do what you told 'em.”
The little room was jammed with men, thinned out, and jammed again. The
electric light flashed up.
“What's to pay now?”
_The Chronicle_ flung its bold cone of light and glaring challenge
across the street. It seemed to strike the canvas with a slap.
“Forty Reform votes thrown out in 1st Ward. Fraud!”
A hush fell on Tecumseh Street. Then a roar went up that seemed to shake
the buildings. Tecumseh Street thundered below, monstrous and elemental,
and trembled above like a resonant drum. The mob rolled against the
brick front of the block like a surf that might be expected to splash
any moment up the flat perpendicular. Grey helmets of policemen tossed
on the surface. Faces were yellow and greenish-white in the mingled
electric-light and moonlight. Fists and spread hands were shaken at _The
Press_ windows. Five or six heads were in the window of the little room.
Wood's face was plain to make out by his grey shovel-beard. They shouted
comments in each other's ears.
“It's a riot.”
“No!”
“Looks like the bottom of hell, don't it?” Then a little spit of smoke
and flame darted like a snake's tongue between the advertising boards,
seven feet above the sidewalk. There was a sharp crack that only the
nearest heard.
Wood flung up his hand, pitched forward, and hung half over the window
sill.
Someone directly beneath, looking up, saw a head hanging, felt a drop
splash on his face, and drew back wincing.
The thrill and hush spread from the centre. It ran whisperingly over
the mass. The roar died away in the distance to right and left. Tecumseh
Street was still, except for the crash where a policeman tore a board
from the advertisements with a heave of burly shoulders, and plunged
through into the darkness of empty lots.
The little room above was now crowded and silent, like the street.
They laid Wood on the table with a coat under his head. He coughed and
blinked his eyes at the familiar faces, leaning over him, strained and
staring.
“You boys are foolish. Charlie Carroll--I want--take Hennion--Ranald
Cam, you hear me! Becket--Tuttle.”
It was like a Roman emperor dispensing the succession, some worn
Augustus leaving historic counsel out of his experience of good and evil
and the cross-breeds of expediency--meaning by good, good for something,
and by evil, good for nothing.
“Seems queer to be plugged at my time of life. Take Hennion. You ain't
got any heads. Dick!”
Hennion stood over him. Wood looked up wistfully, as if there were
something he would like to explain.
“The game's up to you, Dick. I played it the only way I knew how.”
The moon floated clear above the street, and mild and speculative. Ten
minutes passed, twenty, thirty. The mass began to sway and murmur, then
caught sight of Carroll in the window, lifting his hand, and was quiet.
“Gentlemen, Mr. Wood is dead.”
For a moment there was hardly a motion. Then the crowd melted away,
shuffling and murmuring, into half a score of dim streets.