THE BEES AND THE WOULD-BES
Men--a swarm of men--a hiveful of men. Lobbies, parlors, corridors,
stairways of the big hotel packed with men.
Men in knots, in groups, in throngs, pressing together, disintegrating
to form new groups, revolving in the slow mass of the herd, shaking
hands, crying greetings, mumbling confidential asides. An observer who
did not understand would find it all as aimless as the activity of an
ant-heap--as puzzling as the slow writhings of a swarm of bees. Clouds
of cigar smoke over all--voices blended into one continual diapason;
medley, and miasma of close human contact.
After supper, in the crowded hotel dining-room, Harlan Thornton
accompanied his grandfather through the press of jostling men.
The night before a State Convention was a new experience for him. He
walked behind the Duke, who made his slow, urbane way here and there,
drawling good-humored replies to salutations. He had quip ready for
jest, handclasp for his intimates, tactful word for the newer men who
were dragged forward to meet him. Even the Governor of the State, a
ponderous dignitary with a banner of beard, did not receive so hearty a
welcome, for the Governor was accorded only the perfunctory adulation
given to one whose reign was passing.
"Governors come and Governors go, Thornton, but you've got where you're
an institution!" cried one admirer. "I'll be sorry to miss you out of
the legislature this winter."
"But here's another Thornton--and you can see that he won't rattle
'round in the seat," returned the Duke, his arm affectionately about his
grandson's shoulders.
As he went about, in this unobtrusive way, varying his manner with
different men, he presented his political heir.
At that hour there was no surface hint of the factional spirit that
divided the gathering which had flocked from the ends of the State.
Jealousy, spite, apprehension, rivalry were hidden under the gayety of
men meeting after long separation. The political kinship of party men
dominated all else in those early hours. It was a reunion. Food nestled
comfortably under the waistbands. Tobacco--cigars exchanged, lights
borrowed from glowing tips--loaned its solace. Bickerings were in
abeyance. Men were sizing up. Men were trying out each other. Courtesy
invites confidences. The candidates had not "taken their corners." The
suites that they had selected for headquarters were now occupied only by
the lieutenants who were arranging the boxes of cigars and stacking the
literature ready for distribution.
The Hon. David Everett, serene in the consciousness of approval by his
party machine, held preliminary court in one corner of the spacious
office lobby. The State chairman was with him--his executioner skilfully
disguised.
Thelismer Thornton forged through the crowd in that direction. He paid
his respects publicly and heartily. In that hour when congratulations
sugared the surface of conditions, after he had pump-handled men until
his arm ached, Everett forgot that he ever had entertained doubts.
"There's nothing to this!" he had been assuring the State chairman over
and over, catching opportunity for asides. "They're all coming into
line. The sight of you and Thornton backing me has reminded them all
that they can't afford to rip the party open. There's nothing to it!"
Presson agreed amiably. But studying his men, searching for insincerity,
he saw what Everett closed his eyes to. He exchanged a significant
glance with the Duke as the latter turned to resume his promenade.
Above the continual, distracting babble one sonorous voice rose
insistently. Laughter and applause broke in upon it occasionally. There
was a din in that corner of the lobby that attracted many of the
curiosity-seekers in that direction.
"There's Fog-horn Spinney holding forth," Thornton informed Harlan,
ironically. "Come along. We mustn't slight any of the candidates."
They made way for him. Men grinned up into his face as he passed. They
scented possible entertainment when the big boss met the demagogue. Many
of the men wore badges--long strips of ribbon with this legend printed
thereon, running lengthwise of the ribbon:
HONEST ARBA
Candidate Spinney had a thick packet of ribbons in one of his
gesticulating hands. He was flushed, vociferous, and somewhat insolent.
Like Everett, he was not analyzing the acclamation that greeted
everything he said; applause had made him drunk. But under the hilarity
of his listeners there was considerable enthusiasm for the man himself.
The Duke perceived it, for he realized what times had come upon the
State. Spinney's bombast expressed the protest that was abroad.
Rebellion, thirsty, does not seek the cold spring of Reason. It fuddles
itself with hot speech, it riots--it dares not pause to ponder.
"The men that are running this State to-day are running it for
themselves," he declaimed, as Thornton and his grandson came into the
front rank of his listeners. "They want it all. I brand 'em for what
they are. I could take glue and a hair-brush and make hogs out of every
one of 'em!"
A shout of laughter! There was more zest for the mob in the point of Mr.
Spinney's remarks, with the Duke of Fort Canibas, lord of the north
country, present to listen.
"I'm not ashamed of my platform. I'm willing to promulgate it. For I'm
going to stand behind it. It ain't a platform fixed up in a back room of
this hotel the night before convention, sprung at the last minute, and
worded so that it reads the same backward and forward, and doesn't mean
any more than whistling a tune! What kind of a system is it that taxes
the poor man's family dog, the friend of his children, a dollar, and
lets the rich man's wild lands off with two mills on a valuation screwed
down to pinhead size?"
Applause that indicated that the bystanders owned dogs!
"If you're hunting for something to tax, pick out bachelors instead of
dogs. Dogs can't earn money. Bachelors can. There are forty thousand old
maids and widows in this State who can't find husbands. Tax the
bachelors. Give the single women a pension. Hunt out the tax-dodgers.
There are things enough to tax instead of the farms and cottages of the
poor men."
He now fixed the Duke with his gaze.
"You don't dare to deny, do you, that the system in this State is
screwing the last cent out of the exposed property and letting the
dodgers go free? Tax the necessities of the poor, say you! I say, tax
the luxuries of the rich!"
"In some countries, I believe, they get quite a revenue by taxing
mustaches," stated the Duke, thus appealed to.
Spinney indignantly broke in on the laughter.
"You've carried off oppression so far as a joke, but you can't do it any
longer, Squire Thornton. The people are awake this time. They've got
done electing lawyers and dudes and land-grabbers for Governors. They're
going to have a Governor that will make State officials work for fair
day's wages, as the farmers and artisans work. No more high-salaried
loafers in public office! No more dynasties, Sir Duke of Fort Canibas!
You'll be having a coat of arms next!"
This last was said in rude jest--the public horseplay of a man anxious
to win his laugh at any cost.
"I've got a coat of arms, Arba; I won the decoration when I retired from
hard work at the age of fifty. That was about the time you were starting
in life by selling fake mining stock around this State. My coat of arms
is two patches on a homespun background, surrounded by looped galluses.
And I can show you the mile of stone walls I built before you were
born."
Spinney did not relish the merriment which followed that sally.
"You've outgrown that coat of arms, then, in these days," he retorted.
"They all know you by a different stripe since you set the other chap at
work, Squire Thornton. And the pendulum of power is swinging the other
way! The people are behind _me_. You'd better get aboard." His style of
humor depended most on its effrontery. He held out one of his badges.
"Better put it on," he advised. "Get aboard with the rush! They're all
for 'Honest Arba.'"
The Duke stepped forward and presented his breast.
"Pin it on, Arba. When a man shifts his business and is introducing a
brand-new line of goods, different from what he ever carried before, he
needs all the advertising he can get. Pin it on!"
But Mr. Spinney did not pin it on. He had been sure that the old man
would indignantly refuse, and his discomfiture was evident.
"You're showing your regular disposition, I see," he growled. "Grabbing
everything you can get hold of. But a joke is a joke--let this one rest
right here! Thornton, I say it here to your face, where all the boys can
hear me: the people want a change in this State. I am not going behind a
door to talk with you--that's been done too much! I stand in the open
and say it! Open fighting after this--that's my code. I fight for the
people. The people shall be put wise and kept wise to all that's going
on."
"It's a good plan," counselled the Duke, unperturbed. "I see I can't
tell you anything about advertising." He tapped a badge on the breast of
a man near him.
"I'm for the people!" shouted Spinney. "The old wagon needs a new
wheel-horse. I don't insist I'm the right one--or the only one. I merely
say I'm willing to take hold and haul, if the people want me to. I offer
myself, if no better one is found."
The crowd applauded that sentiment generously.
Thornton did not lose his amiability--his tolerant yet irritating
good-humor.
"Speaking of wheel-horses, Arba--a man up my way started out to buy a
horse the other day. He found a black one that suited--but the man who
owned that horse was mighty honest, as most of my constituents are. 'You
don't want him,' he told the man. 'He's too blamed slow.' 'That doesn't
hurt him a bit for me,' said the buyer. 'I want him to mate another
black horse to haul my hearse. I'm an undertaker!' 'Then you certainly
don't want him,' insisted the fellow. 'The _living_ can _wait_, but the
_dead_ have got to be _buried_.'"
The Duke had made his way out of the crowd before the laughter ceased.
"Apply it to suit, Arba!" he called over his shoulder.
Arm in arm with his grandson, the Duke traversed the lobby and went up
the broad stairs to the State Committee headquarters--double parlors on
the floor above. The men who were sitting in the main parlor saluted the
old man in the offhand manner of intimates. He drew his grandson into
the privacy of the rear room.
"Now, my boy, get your hat, take a carriage and meet General Waymouth at
the nine o'clock train. I've had him on the telephone. He's coming here
to-night. Between us, he's grown lukewarm on our proposition. I want you
to talk with him after you meet him. Take your time on the way from the
station."
"I'm a pretty poor agent to send on such a job as that," said Harlan,
deprecatingly.
"You're just the one," insisted the old man. "Don't you suppose I knew
what I was doing when I took you with me that night? Talk for the young
men of this State! He's tired of politics and politicians. I am, myself,
sometimes. He's got to dwelling on the political side. Get it out of his
mind. Thank God, you don't know enough politics to talk it to him! You
can talk from your heart, boy. The younger generation in this State does
want a change. I realize it. But that change has got to be tempered with
political wisdom. It must be managed through politics. I'll attend to
that part. It's your task to make Vard Waymouth see that he ought to
stand. You can do it. Begin with him where you left off."
Harlan hesitated.
"Well?" inquired the Duke, a bit petulantly.
"I've been used to talking straight out to you, grandfather. I'm willing
to help as far as it's in my poor power. But I want you to tell me that
I'm not being used as a decoy-duck in this thing."
"I reckon you'd better explain that, son," said the Duke, stiffly.
"It's your own fault that I'm saying a word about it. But you did some
talking after we came away from General Waymouth's house. It wasn't so
much what you said; it was what you intimated. I believe in General
Waymouth. But if I'm any judge of what has been framed up, he isn't
going to be allowed to do what he wants to do."
"Did I say so?"
"No. But you did say that he would play the game with the chips that are
on the table, not with sugar-plums."
"And you construe that to mean that I'm pulling him into this thing so
as to be able to work him in the interests of the machine, eh?" inquired
the Duke, putting into brutal speech even more than his grandson's vague
suspicions suggested. "Now, look here! You remember Pod McClintock and
his epileptic fits? You know he fell into a barbed-wire fence in a fit,
and told around afterward how he had been to heaven, and the devil met
him on his way back and clawed him for spite? Well, now don't you go to
imitating Pod. There's more or less barbed wire in politics--any man
gets afoul of it. But don't lay it to the devil. That will be elevating
accidents onto too high a plane. If Vard Waymouth is the next Governor
of this State there'll be some wire fences that he won't be able to sit
on. There'll be too many barbs. We'll put top rails onto all the fences
we can. But you can't make any fence safe for those that are bound to
butt head-first into barbed wire. Waymouth isn't the kind to do any
butting. I'll tell you this, Harlan, and it's straight: if I help to
make Waymouth our next Governor, I'll help to make him a good
one--provided he needs any of my help in that line. Now go and attend
to your business."
There were few at the railroad station, and those few paid little heed
to General Waymouth when he stepped down from the train. The young man
greeted him with eager respect, and explained why he was there.
The General took his arm and walked to the carriage. "This is restful.
I'm glad to see you here," he said. "But to-morrow," he added, bitterly,
"if I am fool enough to be dragged back into politics, I'll be met
wherever I go by men that fawn and men that seek--by that crowd I
thought and hoped I had escaped forever. I was very hasty, Mr. Thornton,
when I gave my word to your grandfather. I fear I must hold you
responsible just because you were present." He smiled as the young man
took his seat opposite. "But you constituted a new element in politics.
I had been having my dreams in the peace of my home--and one of those
dreams was to see the young men of this State breaking away from the
political bondage of the fathers. But I'm afraid I am older than I
thought. I have an old man's fears. I have had enough--too much--of the
contact of men. Now this next idea is fanciful--another proof that I'm
old--in my dotage, perhaps." His tone was gently playful. "I told you
the other day that you seemed to typify the young strength of the State.
So I'm going to appeal to you, young man--I cannot very well appeal to
the rest, for they are not in the secret--I'm going to beg of you, Mr.
Second Generation, to release me from my promise. What say you?--and
remember that I'm an old man who has fought the good fight and is very
weary."
"I've got to confess there isn't much wit and humor in me--there doesn't
seem to be just now," stammered Harlan, after groping some moments for
suitable reply to what he accepted as badinage.
"Oh, I don't want jest in answer to that, sir," protested the General.
"I am in earnest." But his tone was still a bit whimsical. "You know,
even so great a man as Caesar consulted the oracle and the omens and the
soothsayers. Why should not I practice a little divination? Now answer
me, young man--or I'll say, young _men_ of the State?"
"Yet I can't think you really mean that, General," protested Harlan,
wholly confused by this persistent banter.
"Call it in fun, call it in earnest, still I demand my answer." General
Waymouth was serious now. "I came here resolved to tell Thelismer, face
to face, that I could not sacrifice the last strength of my life in the
way he has asked. But when you met me at the station all my ambitions
for this newer generation, as I have dreamed them, came up in me. My
boy, this State of ours is in a bad way. In one respect it is especially
bad. We have one solemn law in our constitution that is made our own
political football and the laughing-stock of the nation. We forbid the
sale of liquor. Look at that saloon we are passing at this moment! It is
a law that affects nearly every person in our State--comes near to every
one, directly or indirectly. The manner of its breaking, publicly and
protected by politics, has bred disrespect for all law in the boys who
are growing up. And they are the ones who will run our State when we
oldsters are gone. I'll not say anything about the other reforms that
conditions are calling for. There's _one_--the big one that flaunts
itself in our faces. I'm of the old school, Mr. Thornton. I don't
believe in the prohibitory principle as applied to the liquor question.
It hasn't the right spirit behind it--it is invoked by bigots and
fanatics who refuse helpful compromise. But it's a law--our law! Every
day that passes under present conditions adds its little to the
damnation of the moral principle in our boys and girls, growing up with
eyes and ears open. God, I wish I were twenty years younger! But I'm old
enough to have fantastic notions; old enough to insist on an answer to
my question, in spite of what you may think of my mental condition. Will
you release me from that promise? I made it to the young men of this
State--in my disgust at conditions, in my passion to do something to
clean out this nest!"
The lights from the brilliant shop-windows shone into the carriage.
Harlan leaned forward. The General's face was serious.
"Still, I can't understand it!" he cried. "I'm only--"
"I tell you, you typify for me at this moment the young men of my State!
I choose to decide in this fashion. Do you feel that an honest Governor
would help your self-respect?"
"I can answer that question, sir. I believe in you. Ever since you
promised my grandfather that you would accept the nomination I have
depended on that promise. I know what you can do for our State. If you
are not to be our next Governor the heart has gone out of me, and the
young men of this State have lost their best hope."
The carriage wheels had grated to a standstill against the curb in front
of the big hotel. The buzz of the crowded hive came out to them through
the open windows. General Waymouth glanced that way and frowned. But
when he turned and looked into the glowing face of the young man
opposite, his countenance cleared slowly. His smile returned. There was
a hint of pathos in that smile, but his eyes shone. He put out his hand
and took Harlan's in a firm clasp.
"That sounds like my call to duty, Mr. Thornton," he declared. "I
listen. I obey!" Then he dropped his earnestness. "Let this little talk
remain a secret between us. These practical politicians wouldn't
understand. A bit of an old man's weakness; perhaps that was it. A
little eccentric, eh?"
The driver had opened the carriage door.
"I believe I understand, sir. I do now. And I'm sorry."
The remark was a bit cryptic, but the General understood.
"And you'll appreciate better what this means to me when you are as old
as I. But that's the last of talk like this, my boy. There's one more
fight still in me. We'll just go ahead and find out how much honesty is
left in this State--and you shall help me hunt for it, for old eyes need
the help of young ones, and I'm going outside the politicians to find
honesty."
He led the way across the pavement to a side door of the hotel.
"We'll go in this way, quietly," he said. "I haven't any appetite for
that kind of a stew just yet."