There were two strange men in the low-ceilinged, grimly-furnished
“settin’ room,” as Milton was ushered into the presence of the Boss, but
at a gesture from this magnate they went out; the Boss surveyed the new
comer without a word of greeting or comment.
Mr. Beekman was a tall, angular man, past the prime of life, as was
shown by the gray in his thick hair, curling at the ends, and in the
stiff, projecting ruff of beard under his chin. His face was thin,
hungry, with a plaintive effect of deep lines, and his great blue-black
eyes were often tearful, like a young robin’s, in their intent
watchfulness. He was almost wholly Dutch in parentage--of that silent,
persistent, quietly-masterful race which, despite all the odds, has
still held more than its own in Stuyvesant’s State--and the descent
showed itself in the dusky hue of his skin. He had never been a wealthy
man, though he came of a family decently supplied with substance, and
of long settlement in the county. He had climbed to his present eminence
after a long career in local politics, by that process of exhaustion
which we call the survival of the fittest. Having attained it, his rule
was that of a just despot, rewarding and binding still more closely
to him the faithful, remorselessly crushing all signs of rivalry, and
putting the recalcitrant without pity to fire and sword. He had an
almost supernatural faculty of organizing information, and getting at
the motives of men. He sniffed treachery as a deer in the breeze sniffs
the dog, and he had an oriental way of striking with cruel swiftness,
before anybody but the guilty victim suspected offence. Withal, he was
a kindly man to those who deserved well of him, an upright citizen
according to his lights, and a profound believer in his party.
He sat now chewing an unlighted cigar, with his feet on the hearth
of the stove, and contemplated Milton at his leisure. He did not like
Milton at all, and one of his chief reasons for doubting the real
ability of Albert Fairchild was his choice of such an agent and
confidant. At last he said, curtly:
“It’s you, is it? I’ve got no business with you! Where’s Fairchild?”
There was something in Beekman’s eager, searching way of looking at a
man with those big bright eyes of his which, coupled with the question,
embarrassed Milton, and he fumbled with his hat as he repeated the
explanation he had given to the messenger. He was annoyed with himself
for being thus disturbed.
The Boss looked his visitor out of countenance once more. Then he said:
“Sit daown! Well, what is it to be?”
‘Milton grinned, and leaned forward familiarly in his chair.
“I sh’d ruther think that was fur you to say.”
“Oh, you think so, do yeh? You imagine you’ve got me on the hip, ay?”
“Well, p’raps we’re no jedge, but it sorts o’ looks that way, now, don’t
it?” Milton tipped back his chair, satisfiedly, and put one of his big
feet up on the hearth, to dispute possession with the Boss.
Beekman reflected for a minute: then he began, after glancing at the
clock:
“There’s no time to waste. I might as well talk up ’n’ daown with yeh.
Your man Fairchild makes me tired. Ef he’d set his heart on goin’ to
Congress, why on airth didn’t he come to me in the first place, ’n’
say so? It could ’a’ been arranged, easy’s slidin’ off a log. But no,
instid of that, he must go ’n’ work up th’ thing his own way, ’n’
then come ’n’ buck agin me in my own caounty, ’n’ obleege me to
fight back. D’yeh call that sense? He’s smart enough in his way, I
grant yeh. He’s fixed up a putty fair sort o’ organisation in Dearborn,
although it can’t last long, simply because it’s all built up on money,
’n’ I don’t go a cent on that kind of organising. Still it’s good
enough in its way. _But_, he made his mistake in lettin’ the idea run
away with him that he could skeer me into a conniption fit with his
musharoon organisation. He didn’t knaow me. He never took the trouble
to find aout abaout me. He jest took it fur granted that I’d crawl daown
aout o’ my tree, like Davy Crockett’s coon, as soon’s he pinted his gun
at me. Well, I didn’t come worth a cent. Then, when he faound aout
that he’d struck a snag, ’n’ that Dearborn County wasn’t the hull
deestrick, he turns raoun’ ’n’ aouts with his wallet, ’n’ tries to
hire me to come daown. Fur that’s what you was here for last week, ’n’
you knaow it’s well’s I do.”
Milton tried to get in some words here, of dissent or explanation, but
the Boss would not hear them.
“Lem me go on; ’s no use your lyin’. That was Fairchild’s second
mistake. He thought politics was all money. Ef I was poorer than Job’s
turkey, he couldn’t buy me to so much as wink an eye fur him. I’m not
in politics fur what I kin make aout of it. I’m in because I like it;
because it’s meat ’n’ drink to me; because I git solid, substantial
comfort aout of it. Ther’s satisfaction in carryin’ yer eend; there’s
pretty nigh as much in daownin’ them that’s agin yeh. Jest naow I’m
a thinkin’ a good deal what fun it ’d be to let the floor aout from
under your man altogether, ’n’ nominate this feller from Tecumsy.”
“But,” broke in Milton, “you’re a candidate yer-self, ’n’----”
“Wait till I’m threw, will yeh? I _said_, I’m leanin’ a good deal jest
naow to’rd this man from Tecumsy. I c’d beat him easy ’nough at the
polls, ef he turned cranky, but I daoubt ef it ’d be wuth while. I
ain’t seen him yet, but I’m told he’s here, ’n’ ef I like his looks
durn me ef I ain’t a mine to nominate him. He can’t do no harm, even ef
he tries. These reform spurts don’t winter well. They never last till
spring. The boys lose their breath for a few months. But then they git
daown to work agin, and baounce the reformers to the back seats where
they belong. But it ’d be one thing to elect a high-toned, kid-gloved,
butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-maouth kind o’ man like what’s-his-name,
’n’ a hoss o’ quite another color to ’lect Fairchild. _He’d_ make me
trouble from the word ‘go!’ Understan’, I ain’t afraid of his meddlin’
with me here in Jay caounty; not a bit of it. But he’d use his position
to cripple me in the deestrick. The present Congressman tried that on--
’n’ you ain’t so much as heerd his name mentioned fur a re-nomination.
But it was bother ’nough to squelch him. I ain’t goin’ to hev it to do
all over agin.”
“Right you air, tew!” Milton responded.
The Boss held up his hand to forbid further interruption, while he
looked curiously at his visitor, as if puzzled by his acquiescence. He
went on:
“Ef you was a man of any readin’ you’d hev heerd of a custom among
Europe-ian kentries, when one whips another, of makin’ the under dog in
the fight pull aout his front teeth, like. The beaten kentry has to tear
daown its forts, ’n’ blow up its men-o’-war, ’n’ so on, jest as a
guarantee not to make any more trouble. Well, ef I’d concluded to hev
any dealin’s at all with Fairchild, that’s what I’d hev done with him.
I’d ’a’ made him turn over the appintment of all Dearborn’s men on the
deestrick Committee; ’n’ I’d ’a had a written agreement that half
the Postmasters in Adams ’n’ Dearborn, as well as all in Jay, should
be o’ my namin’. My wife’s brother should hev hed the Thessaly post
office, tew, right under Fairchild’s nose, so’s to keep an eye on him.
It’s the duty of every man to purvide for his own fam’ly.”
“Nothin’ small about _you!_ You only wanted the hull airth!” chuckled
Milton, ingratiatingly.
“No, it was Fairchild who wanted the airth ’n’ thought he’d got it,
’n’ while he was deliberatin’ whether he’d have it braowned on both
sides or not, lo ’n’ behold I went in ’n’ took it away from him
slick ’n’ clean.”
The Boss rose as he was speaking, reached for his overcoat and put it
on. “Time’s up!” he said, sententiously.
Milton had risen too, and placed himself between Beekman and the door.
“There’s seven minutes yit,” he said eagerly, “I’ve got something yeh
can’t afford to miss. Don’t you want th’ nomination yer-self?”
“No. What good’d Washington be to me? New York State’s big enough for
me. If yeh don’t understand that I put my name before the Convention
jest to hold my caounty together, ’n’ block Dearborn, yer a dummed
sight bigger fool than even I took yeh to be.”
“But s’pose Dearborn’s votes cud be thrown to you! They’d nominate yeh!
What’d thet be wuth to yeh?”
“What ’d it be wuth?” mused the Boss, looking intently at Milton.
“Yes! in ready money, here! naow!”
The Boss took up his hat, meditatively, and gazed at his companion
again. “Did you knaow th’ man that brought yeh here?” he asked.
“Yes--’twas Jim Bunner, wa’nt it?”
“That man ’d wade threw fire ’n’ water fer me. Yeh couldn’t tempt
him with a hundred thaousan’ dollars to so much as say an evil word
abaout me, let alone injure me. Yit he’s desprit poor, ’n’ th’ unly
thing I ever did fer him in my life, excep’ givin’ him a day’s work naow
’n’ then, was to help him bury his child decently, ten years ago. But
_I_ know my _men!_ Here Fairchild has took you off a dunghill, where all
yer hull humly, sore-eyed, misrubble fam’ly belong, ’n’ made a man of
yeh, trusted his affairs to yeh, clothed yeh, fed yeh, yes, ’n’
let yeh fatten yerself on the profits of his farm--and naow yeh turn
’raound ’n’ offer to sell him aout. By gum! I was right. Fairchild
hain’t got no sense! ’N’ you, yeh skunk, git aout! Don’t yeh walk on
the same side of the street with me, or I’ll swat the hull top of yer
head off!”
“We’ll nominate Ansdell ’fore you git a chance!” snarled Milton.
*****
The Convention met, depressed by the evident feeling of disappointment
among the spectators, who swarmed on all the high, pewlike seats back
of the bar railing, while the delegates sat in rows of chairs inside the
space reserved in term time for the lawyers. There was ground enough for
this disappointment. Fairchild had not come, and the prospects of a good
speech, or even a bitter personal contest, were fading away. No one had
an explanation for his absence. The Dearborn delegates were more in the
dark than outsiders even, for they had been told to meet him in Tyre,
before the Convention, and that he would breakfast at the Turnpike
Tavern. Milton reassured them for a time by enlarging upon the bad
condition of the roads, but even he ended as they took their seats,
by professing some fear of an accident. “However, I’ll cast th’ solid
vaote, th’ same as before, I suppose?” he said, and the bondsmen nodded
assent.
The proceedings opened tamely. The Chairman was a professor from the
Tecumseh Academy; the other counties each had a secretary. Two written
announcements were handed up to be read, one that Milton Squires was
authorized to cast seventeen votes for Dearborn County, the other naming
a man to perform a similar function for the ten votes of Jay. There
was to be no break yet awhile, apparently, in the two machine counties.
But--what would Adams do?
As this question flashed through the minds of the assemblage, one of the
Adams delegates rose, walked to the bench, gave a paper to the presiding
officer, and then joined the little throng of spectators to one
side. Did this mean that he left the Convention? What _did_ it mean?
Experienced observers began to feel that something startling was coming.
The paper being read, turned out to be an announcement that Abram K.
Beekman had been substituted in the Adams County delegation for the
delegate who had just vacated his seat, and as the words died away the
Boss himself pushed his way down the aisle, threw his long leg over
the bar-rail, and took his seat. The master of Jay County getting
substituted for Adams County--here _was_ a mystery! Did it portend
that Adams had been won for Beekman’s candidature? Yes, it must mean
that--and Tyre’s heart leapt for joy. Or no--it couldn’t mean that. The
Boss would hardly thrust himself forward in that brash way if he were
sure of winning--and Tyre’s heart sank again, sadly.
The Chairman announced that balloting would be resumed; that the
counties would be called in alphabetical order, and that, in the case
of Adams County, which did not signify a desire to vote as a unit, the
names of the delegates would also be called in that order. Before
the words were fairly out of his mouth a hundred shrewd brains had
discovered that this meant Beekman’s being the first name called. But
what was his game?
So perplexed were the men of Tyre with this problem that they almost
forgot to cheer when their man rose to his feet, in response to
his name. It was rarely that one saw Abe Beekman in Conventions; he
preferred to run them from the outside; and no one in the hall had ever
heard him make a speech. Imagine how they listened now!
He spoke with an almost boyish nervousness, resting his hands on
the table before him, and clinging, as it were, with his eyes to the
Chairman for support. What he said was brief, to the point, and worth
repeating here:
“I got substituted, ez p’raps some of yeh hev guessed, because I wanted
a word at the very start. I hev my reasons. I ain’t a’ goin’ to mention
no names--” he darted a swift, significant glance over toward the
Dearborn County men, singling out Milton for a second, then reverting
his troubled gaze to the Chairman--“but I kin feel it in my bones that
things ain’t on the square here. Ther’s a nigger in the fence. Mebbe
it’s no business of mine to yank him aout, but it’s only fair to my
caounty that we shouldn’t let anybody git ahead of us in doin’ what
we want to dew. It’s trew that D. comes ahead o’ J. in the alph’bet,
but”--and there was a momentary relaxation of his eager, sombre face as
he enunciated this undoubted fact--“its jest as trew that A. comes in
front o’ D. Ef any set o’ men--mind, I mention no names, but--ef any set
o’ delegates come here with the idee o’ sellin’ their man aout, or o’
makin’ a combination which’ll put them solid with the next Congressman,
and leave Jay aout in the cold, perhaps ’fore I’m threw they’ll see
thet they bit off more’n their jaws could wag.
“Mr. Cheerman, I don’t want to go to Congress. I never ’v’ hed the
least hankerin’ after it. This State of aours is good enough for me. I
wouldn’t feel like myself ef I had to stan’ ’raoun’ ’n’ see chaps
from Rhode Island or Floridy puttin’ on airs, and pretendin’ to cut as
big a swath as New York did. I’m too much of a State man fer thet.
I’d be itchin’ to jump on ’em all the while. So I want to say that I
withdraw my name----”
The Hon. Elhanan Pratt rose here, his weazen little figure coming up
with a spring like a jack-in-the-box, and squeaked out sharply: “I rise
to a point of order. The Abram K. Beekman whose name is before this
Convention is a Jay County man, nominated by Jay County, and voted
for alone by Jay County. No Adams County man”--there was an elaborate
sarcasm in the tone--“has any right to withdraw that name.”
“The point of order is well taken,” said the Chair.
“Well, in thet case I won’t ask to withdraw my name,” responded Beekman.
“But I don’t think it’ll make much differ’nce. A wink is as good as a
nod to a bline man. P’raps you kin git an idee by this time haow the Jay
caounty cat’s goin’ to jump; p’raps you can’t. I’m-goin’ to vaote fer
Mr. Richard Ansdell, ’n’ I wan’ to say----”
He was interrupted here by a stout, sharp burst of hand-clapping from
the Adams delegates, and the few Adams men in the audience. The Tyre
crowd were taken aback for an instant, and sat bewildered; then the fact
that their man had played his game, and was acting as if he had won,
inspired them to join tumultuously in the applause, though they were in
total darkness as to the nature of the stakes played for.
The Boss went on: “I wan’ to say that I’ve never laid eyes on him but
once, ’n’ never spoke a word with him in my life. But I ain’t lived
all this while ’thaout learnin’ to read somethin’ of a man’s natur’
in his face. I believe he’s honest and straight-aout; I don’t believe
there’s a crookid hair in his head. P’raps he’s got some naotions that
we’d look on as finnickin’ up here in Jay, but I ain’t afeard o’ them.
It’s better to hev a man standin’ so upright thet he bends back’rd, then
to hev---- to hev---- the fact is, Mr. Cheerman, _I_ think I’ve said
’baout enough. Th’ other candidate hain’t showed up today! P’raps it’s
jest as well fur him that he hain’t. I guess he’ll consider that he’s
got abaout threw with deestrick politics--but I don’t want to appear to
be rubbin’ it in. The lawyers hev a Latin sayin’ abaout speakin’ nothin’
but good o’ the dead----”
Beekman stopped short. The Chairman had risen to his feet. Half the
delegates had followed his example, and were gazing intently at one of
the tall, small-paned windows on the right side of the room. The three
reporters who were sitting in the clerk’s desk had begun climbing over
the rails and weaving their way between the chairs toward this same
window. A hum of rising murmurs was running through the audience.
Beekman, finding suddenly that he had no auditors, and disconcerted at
the interruption, looked about the room for a moment, in search of an
explanation. Then he followed the direction of the faces, and saw his
retainer, Jim Bunner, clambering in under the lifted sash, and making
strenuous, almost frantic, efforts meanwhile to attract his attention.
The man was breathless with excitement. He had climbed to the window
from the roof of a low adjoining shed, and he could be heard now, as he
found a footing on the back of a bench, in panting explanation of his
conduct: “I _hed_ to come this way! It’d ’a taken me tew long to’ve
got threw the crowd at th’ door. I’ve got news for th’ Boss that won’t
keep a second!”
He had pushed his way roughly through the throng now, brushing the
reporters aside with especial impatience, and stood whispering, gasping
his tidings in Beekman’s ear. The assemblage, silent now as the midnight
watch, read in the deepening shadows and shocked severity of the Boss’s
face that something far out of the ordinary had happened. Beekman
appeared to be asking some questions, and pondering the whispered
answers with increasing emotion.
The waiting hundreds, all on their feet now, watched him in a tremor of
expectation.
At last he spoke, in a low, changed, yet extremely distinct voice:
“Mr. Cheerman, when I spoke abaout sayin’ nothin’ but good o’ th’ dead,
I spoke unbeknaown to myself like a prophet. My friend here brings some
awful news. Mr. Fairchild o’ Dearborn has jest been faound, stark
’n’ cold, crunched under his hosses ’n’ carriage, at the bottom of
Tallman’s ravine!”