“Good afternoon, Mr. Moriarty.”
It was Deacon Surface who spoke, a gentleman who owed such influence
as he possessed to the fact that he was an agent of the Baldwins,
collecting their rents, superintending in a general way some of their
enterprises, and administering their local charities.
He was a man of excellent intentions, but shallow. One of his best
friends thus described him:--“The Deacon has as many sides as a barrel.
He doesn’t want to make any enemies, but when he is cornered, he will
roll toward the money every time. If the Deacon were a judge, and a
man were brought before him charged with stealing one hundred dollars,
and the charge were proved, he would order the money divided equally
between the thief and his victim. That is just about his idea of
justice.”
The Deacon’s critics, if put in his place, would perhaps do no better
than he. Being the personal and confidential agent of the Baldwins, he
must accept their ideas of right and wrong, adopt their conscience, as
it were, or else surrender a fat job such as seldom comes to a man of
common ability.
“The top of the afternoon to you!” replied the Irishman addressed,
whose traits were quite different from the Deacon’s.
“Of course you are going to vote for Jacob Sharp for Selectman,”
remarked the Deacon.
“The divil a bit will I vote for Jake Sharp for any office, Deacon
Surface.”
“Indeed, Mr. Sharp is a fine Christian gentleman.”
“Do yez call the likes of old Jake Sharp, the slave-driver, a fine
Christian gentleman? A liar, a thief, and a murderer is what he is.”
Good Deacon Surface was shocked.
“Those are pretty hard names to apply to a neighbor, Mr. Moriarty. I
think you would find it very difficult to prove that Mr. Sharp is what
you call him.”
“Indade I would not,” replied the indignant son of Erin. “A liar? Did
he ever pay a man the wages he agreed to? Not if he could help it.
Didn’t young Mike Silk knock him down flat in his tracks before Old
Sharp could remember that he promised to pay him two dollars a day in
haying? He remembered it all right after Mike flattened him. Oh, it’s a
bad memory he has, all right.
“A thief? Sure it’s yourself he was after st’aling a shovel from. And
sure it’s your own memory needs bracing up, too. It’s your own shovel
he was st’aling, whittling off your name and branding on his own with
a red-hot iron. Forgot all about it, have yez? Do yez forget the time
when he stole his own daughter’s money, that he was guardian for, and
lost it, and the poor girl was nigh going crazy over it? It’s surely a
poor memory ye has, Deacon Surface.
“A murderer? I haven’t forgotten the day when he hurried young Pat
Flynn in the hay-field till the poor fellow dropped dead by the side
of me with sun-stroke. I niver shall forget it in this world. And
when David Baldwin, the Congressman, asked Sharp why did he hurry the
lad such a hot day, wasn’t the old villain after saying it was liquor
that killed him? And the poor lad never tasted liquor. If that wasn’t
murder, what would yez call it? An awful poor memory yez have, all at
once, Deacon Surface.
“And ye’ve forgot, too, how old Sharp sold the dis’ased meat in the
city, haven’t yez? Ye’ve forgot intirely how two children were killed
by that same meat, so the doctors said? And that is what yez call a
fine Christian gentleman in the First Church, is it?”
“But the meat charge was never proved,” protested Deacon Surface.
“And it’s yerself knows as well as anybody why it wasn’t
proved--because Zach Baldwin wanted it hushed up. It can be proved
to-day if John Wycliff and meself, and one other man I could name, were
called as witnesses.”
Deacon Surface realized that he was not gaining ground, and changed his
tactics.
“You had work on Congressman Baldwin’s new streets at Maple Heights,
last fall, did you not?”
“Indade I did, and I earned ivery cint I got, too, so I did, Deacon
Surface.”
“But there will be no work at Maple Heights this year unless Mr. Sharp
is elected Selectman.”
“Maple Heights may go to Perdition. I’ll not vote for old Jake Sharp if
I niver get another day’s work from the Baldwins. The likes of yerself
cannot drive Dave Moriarty one inch. Ye may stand there and threaten
till doomsday. I’ll not vote for that slave-driver, Sharp. He ought to
be behind the bars.”
Deacon Surface moved on, to appeal to workmen who would “hear to
reason,” as he expressed it.
As for David Moriarty, he hurried over to his neighbor, John Wycliff,
to tell him of this latest game of the Baldwins. He had barely left
Wycliff’s, to return, when Hugh Maxwell called to see John Wycliff.
This gentleman was fully as easy and gracious in his manner, fully as
well qualified to get through the world without provoking opposition,
as Deacon Surface; but, unlike the Deacon, he had to depend upon his
own resources, with no millionaires to back him. He had a good business
as a retail merchant, and in building up his trade had won many friends
and very little enmity. Mere formalities over, Mr. Maxwell asked:
“What would be my chances in a campaign against Jacob Sharp?”
“If it were a perfectly fair election, they ought to be the very best,”
replied Wycliff. “The workingmen, who form the large majority of the
voters of Papyrus, are favorable to you. But Mr. Sharp is the
candidate of the millionaire paper-makers, and they practically own the
town. You know the methods which the Baldwins will use as well as I
do. Coaxing and threatening, of the kind which Deacon Surface knows so
well how to use, will have their effect. Any employee of the Baldwins
who openly advocates your election will lose his job. The Baldwins are
already promising employment if you are defeated, and threatening to
take away employment if you are elected. Work on the new streets at
Maple Heights, will not be the only job held up to the unemployed as
a bribe and a threat in this election. The cry is already raised by
the Baldwin agents: ‘Elect Sharp, and the Baldwins will build a sewer
for Papyrus; defeat Sharp, and the Baldwins will defeat the sewer.’
This cowardly sort of bribery and threat is permitted by Massachusetts
Law, and the Baldwins know full well how to use it. Still, if you wish
to run against Sharp for Selectman, I will place your name before the
voters of Papyrus, through the columns of the Elmfield _Star_.”
Wycliff obtained from Hugh Maxwell a few facts which he needed, and
his caller departed; not, however, without leaving a ten-dollar note,
in appreciation of the service which Wycliff was to undertake for
him. Wycliff then attended to household duties, and performed little
services for the sick ones, who were improving very slowly.
Then he wrote a letter to the _Star_, advocating Hugh Maxwell’s
election as Selectman. The task was a pleasant one. He mentioned
Mr. Maxwell’s lifelong residence in Papyrus; his courtesy,--“He is
always and everywhere a gentleman;” his honesty,--“Who ever heard
Hugh Maxwell’s word questioned in the smallest particular?”--his
qualifications for office from a business point of view,--“The man
who has built up, from nothing, a good business of his own, has some
qualities needed in the public service;” his popularity,--“He has the
good will alike of the employer and the workingman.”
Experience had taught Wycliff the folly of exaggeration, and his
nomination of Hugh Maxwell for Selectman was recognized by readers of
the _Star_ as a correct description of the man, and not overdrawn.
Wycliff’s home duties were interrupted in the evening by another
aspirant for political honors--Herman Schuyler, an extensive farmer,
and also a dealer in a variety of goods. In one respect Schuyler was
the only honest man of means in Papyrus. He had broken all known
records by appearing at the office of the assessors of Papyrus, and
demanding that ten thousand dollars be added to his assessed valuation.
“I am worth fifty thousand dollars,” he had said to the Assessors.
“My property will sell for that, to-day. I am not so mean as to be
unwilling to pay a tax on every dollar God has given me.”
Herman Schuyler was the most liberal employer in the town of Papyrus.
It was not unusual for him to pay a higher wage to a workman than had
been agreed upon, if the workman earned it. But he was accustomed to
giving orders, and having them obeyed promptly. He wanted a
service from Wycliff, and he called for it very much as he would have
ordered a roast or steak at the butcher’s.
“I want to run for Assessor. I want you to write a letter to the _Star_
in my favor. I want you to write it, because there is nobody, not even
Congressman Baldwin himself, who can put words together as you can.
Understand, now, I am not asking you to vote for me. A man has got
pretty low down, in my own opinion, when he will ask another man to
vote for him. I want my name placed before the voters in the columns of
the _Star_, and I ask you to do it, very much as I would ask a lawyer
to make out a mortgage or a deed for me.”
The speaker was a heavy, square-built man, clad to-night, as he usually
was at this season, in a bearskin coat, which he did not remove. When
he made a point, in speaking, the square jaws closed like a trap, and
he brought a muscular fist down heavily upon the arm of the rocker in
which he was seated.
“Well, Mr. Schuyler,” Wycliff replied at length, “I will do my best for
you, and it will be a congenial task. Everything that I know of you is
in your favor; but I fear that your very honesty will be used against
you. Our leading citizens do not want a thoroughly honest man in the
office of Assessor. They want the property of the town assessed at only
a fraction of its true value, so that the town will not have to bear
its just share of state and county taxes. It is strange that men who
are leaders in the church and in society, will argue the longest for a
dishonest valuation.”
“If I am elected Assessor,” exclaimed Schuyler, and he brought his fist
down upon the rocker-arm so that everything about him shook, “I shall
be true to my oath. It is strange, as you say, that Christian men will
defend the violation of an oath. Every assessor swears that he will
‘neither overvalue nor undervalue’ property for taxation.”
Then Schuyler presented to Wycliff certain facts which he wished
embodied in the letter:--How he came to Papyrus forty years before,
with only a dollar in his pocket, and had built up his present fine
property by industry and fair dealing.
“I tell you what,” he said, as his hearer excused himself to perform
some service for the sick ones, “You write the letter to-morrow, when
you have leisure. I’ll drive over in the evening and get it. By the
way, how’s your coal-bin?”
“Pretty low,” replied Wycliff.
“Very well,” said Schuyler, “I’ll send a ton to-morrow and a receipt by
the driver. Good night.”
And out into the night went this last candidate for political honors.
“A pretty good day financially, my dears,” said Wycliff, as he kissed
his wife and son, and made everything secure for the night.