State senator from this distric'; in fac' he's enominated a'ready, an'
he's mighty proud like over it."
"Yes, well, what's he a sayin' 'bout it?"
"He says as he's got the reg'lar Whig enomination, an' as this is a
strong Whig distric', he's got the 'lection sure."
Judy sat silent for awhile. Then she asked:
"Is he a standin' on one leg while he's a waitin' fer it, Edgar? 'Case
ef he is he's a goin' to git mighty tired 'fore he gits the other foot
down. You tramp over to Marcellus McGrath's this evenin' an' tell him I
want to see him to-morrer mornin', sure. Tell him I've got a job fer
him, an' don't fergit to say he's to do it with his head. Ef he thought
'twas work, he would forgit to come. Git along now. Time's money you
know, though you can't never git nobody to give you silver change fer
it."
Marcellus McGrath was the mountain schoolmaster, who read everything
from quack medicine almanacs to patent office reports, remembered
everything he read to the last detail, and never in his life made the
smallest use of the information with which the lumber room he called
his mind was packed full. Facts were everything to him; the
significance of facts had never occurred to him as a thing worthy of
consideration.
He came promptly in response to Judy's summons, and he brought with him
his big, shaggy headful of unrelated facts and figures, more securely
lodged in his memory than in any book of reference or any table of
statistics.
Judy "tapped him," as she described the process, as soon as he had
lighted his pipe after a barbaric feast of fried chicken, jowl and
greens, pot cheese, green corn, batter bread, cold ham, tomatoes,
souse, roast venison from Westover's camp, cucumbers, onions, apple
butter, rice pudding, apple dumplings, and ice cream.
By way of explanation to Sapphira, while the meal was in process of
preparation, she had said:
"Mark McGrath don't git none too much to eat at home, I reckon, an' I'm
a goin' to pump enough facts an' figgers out'n him to leave room for
the other things."
But she did not begin the pumping process until McGrath's pipe was
comfortably lighted, and then she did so gently at first. She had
placed a slate and pencil on a table by his side, so that he might
"figger out" anything she wanted elucidated.
"How many voters is they in this here senate distric'?" she asked him
to begin with; and he gave the figures promptly.
"Set that down on the slate," she directed, and the order was obeyed.
"'Bout how many o' them is planters' votes--countin' in the overseers
an' the rest o' them as always votes the way the planters tells 'em to?"
McGrath thought for a brief while and then gave his estimate.
"How many of 'em is Democratic votes?"
"Oh, the district is almost solidly Whig. The Democratic vote is really
a negligible quantity," the schoolmaster, beginning to feel his
importance, replied.
"I ain't a fishin' fer big words, Mark. I's a huntin' fer facts. Don't
you make no mistake about that. Now, tell me, how many Democratic votes
was they in the last election?"
So she went on with her catechism, making her interlocutor set down on
the slate such figures as she wished to use in her calculations. With
these as factors she made the schoolmaster do a deal of abstruse
reckoning, the purport and purpose of which he could not at all
conjecture, but the results of which seemed to satisfy her, as she said
at the end of it all:
"It kin be did, an' by the Hokey Pokey Fenokey it's a goin' to be did.
That little worm-eaten, blossom-blasted chestnut of a Webb'll wish he
hadn't never let go of his hold on the tree when Judy Peters gits
through with him. Say, Mark, what does William Wilberforce mean?"
"It's a name," McGrath began.
"Yes, I know that. But what does it mean? Whose name was it fust off?
An' what was it he done? An' how'd that miserable little bob-tailed
rooster Webb git a hold onto it?"
Judy's antagonisms were implacable, and they were apt to find
expression in her epithets and her metaphors. She knew next to nothing
of Webb, and she had permitted her mountaineers to vote for him at the
last preceding election. But now that she recognized in him an enemy of
Boyd Westover, she hated him with an intensity and an unreason possible
only to a nature such as hers, in which the primal passions of humanity
had yielded themselves to no chastening of circumstance or civilization.
McGrath, to whom no hint of Judy's purposes had been given, answered
her questions as if reading from a cyclopædia:
"William Wilberforce was an Englishman, celebrated as a philanthropist
and especially distinguished by his work for the abolition of negro
slavery. He was known in England as 'the great abolitionist.'"
"That's all right," said Judy with a grunt of satisfaction. "I ain't
got no way o' findin' out how that bow-legged hoppergrass, Webb, got a
holt'n the name, but he'll wish't he hadn't 'fore I git through with
him. Now, Mark, I want you to write down jes' what you's tole me--no
more an' no less--'bout that there abolitionist Wilberforce. Jest write
it down on paper an' leave it."
"What are you up to, Judy, anyhow?" McGrath ventured to ask.
"That's what the queen bee axed the b'ar when he clum' the bee tree,
an' the b'ar says: 'I'm up to the hole that's got the honey in it'."
And Judy vouchsafed no further explanation of her purposes.
Next day she sent for Edgar Coffey and questioned him.
"Who's this here Don Carlos Farnsworth that Westover's always a sendin'
game to? Do you know him?"
"Yes. He's a white man."
In the parlance of Virginia at that time there was no phrase that meant
so much as that. To say of one that he was "a white man" was to say
that he was honest, upright, true and loyal to the tips of his fingers.
Judy perfectly understood and so far was satisfied.
"Kin he talk?" she asked.
"Well I reckon. I ain't never seed him when he was a doin' anything
else. Words streams out'n him like water out'n a spoutin' spring, an'
they's the sort o' words that wallops you all up an' don't leave you no
chanst to argify."
"You go down thar to-morrow, Edgar, an' tell him please to come up here
jes' as quick as he kin, an' have dinner an' a night's lodgin' like.
Tell him I want to see him 'bout Boyd Westover, an' ef he backs an'
pulls on the halter like, you tell him I say Boyd's in a bad way in
certain respec's. Remember to say 'in certain respec's.' Ef you don't
you'll mislead him."
"Why not write him a letter, Judy, an' let me carry it? Then you'd be
sure."
"I ain't a writin' no letters. You see's long as you jes' send word
like, they ain't nothin' for anybody to git a hold on. Nobody kin be
sure you said jest them words, and nobody kin prove you didn't say 'em
jes' a little differenter. But ef you put yourself down in writin'
they's got you. No, I ain't a writin' nothin', partic'lar when I's got
a hen on the nest fer some feller. So you jes' go down there to-morrow
an' tell Don Carlos Farnsworth I'm a invitin' him up here on Boyd
Westover's account. Ef he says he'll come, you hain't got no need to
say no more. But ef he backs in the traces like, you jes' tell him what
I tole you about Boyd a bein' in a bad way in certain respec's.
Remember them words an' say 'em right--'_in certain respec's_.'"
XVIII
JUDY PLANS A CAMPAIGN
Judy's summons brought Carley Farnsworth up into the mountains within
the fewest possible hours after she gave it to her emissary to deliver.
For Carley Farnsworth was Westover's friend, and in Virginia at that
time friendship meant a readiness to serve at any cost or hazard.
It was nearing supper time when Farnsworth appeared at Judy's
hospitable door and introduced himself.
"This is Mrs. Peters, I suppose?" he said as she confronted him.
"Judy Peters is my name," she answered in that spirit of mountain
democracy which scorns titles and distinctions and shams of every other
sort.
Farnsworth was quick to catch the underlying significance of her
correction and both diplomacy and humor prompted him to play the game
as she wanted it played.
"That's what I hoped for," he responded quickly; "for Judy Peters is
the very person I most want to see in all the world just now. I am
Carley Farnsworth, Judy. Of course Boyd has written the name 'Don
Carlos' every time he has sent me game through you, and so you don't
know me as 'Carley,' but that's what I am to all my friends, and I
count you as one of the best of them because you're a friend of Boyd
Westover, just as I am."
"Now that's spoke up like a real, natural young feller, an' not like a
drasted stuck-up," responded Judy, shaking hands and bestowing him in a
porch chair where a minute later she pressed a toddy of apple brandy
upon his acceptance, as a sure cure for the weariness he must feel
after his trapes up the mountain.
As he sipped the seductive beverage he and she talked. But neither
alluded even in the most distant way to the occasion for his visit or
to Judy's summons, or to anything else relating to Boyd Westover. They
were both fencing for position. Each wanted to "size up" the other,
before approaching matters of confidence and consequence. But by the
time Judy's generous supper was at an end these two understood each
other and each trusted the other. Judy had told him how many "hawgs"
she sent down the mountain every year to be sold to planters, to be
corn fed for three weeks, and converted into hams, bacon, souse, and
all the rest of the good things in which Virginian appetites revelled.
She had told him how many "bar'ls" of apple brandy she made "in a
average year," how much cider, how much vinegar, and where her market
was for all these things. Incidentally she had given him her
picturesque opinions upon many questions of human character, life and
conduct, and he in his turn had told her everything he could think of,
concerning himself.
"Now you an' me's acquainted," Judy said when she thought the time ripe
for the revelation of her plans. "You's the sort o' feller to git
acquainted with, easy an' natural like, 'case you ain't got nothin' to
keep up your sleeve, an' you ain't got up in a lot o' shams an' frills.
You is straight goods, Carley, all wool, a yard wide an' dyed in the
hanks. May be it's 'cause you's a real 'ristocrat what don't need to
keep on tellin' 'bout it."
"Thank you for the compliment, Judy," said Farnsworth, interrupting.
"They ain't no compliment to thank anybody for," she replied. "They
ain't never no compliments a flyin' about when Judy Peters is mixed up
in the talk; or ef they is they's purty apt to git holes punched in
'em. Ef I thought you was a palaverin' liar, Carley, I'd tell you so
straight out. Ef I thought you was a feller what would say one thing
an' do another, you'd hear that opinion from Judy Peters's lips, an'
what's more you wouldn't hear none o' the things I axed you to come up
here to hear about. Now le's git down to business, as the feller said
when the sheriff was slow about a hangin' of him. You see, Carley, Boyd
Westover's had a shakin' up, an' he ain't right in his sperits. He's
got a notion into his head that folks is down on him an' all that.
S'long as he's up there a huntin' an' fishin' an' listenin' to
Theonidas's yarns an' sleepin' tight he's all right. But that notion
'bout folks a bein' down on him is still a stickin' in his mind, like
mutton gravy sticks in the roof of your mouth, an' you an' me's got to
cure him of it. I's already laid out plans, an' ef you're game to help
me, we'll rub that thing off'n his slate."
"I'm game to help you, Judy, in any way you like. You may bet all the
apple brandy you've got on that."
"Is that a hint, like? Does you want another nip? 'Cause ef you do,
it'll be here quicker'n lightnin'."
"No, Judy. I don't want another dram, and I never indulge in hints,
especially with a straightforward person like you. If I wanted a drink
I'd tell you so, but in fact I hardly ever taste liquor of any sort,
and that toddy you gave me was the first I've sipped in a year or more."
"Yes, it's curious, but they's a good many young men nowadays as don't
take to their drams natural like. I s'pose it's all right, but I don't
understand it. Anyhow, that's no matter. As I was a sayin', Boyd
Westover's got that notion in his head 'bout folks a bein' down on him,
an' it'll come back to him when the snow drives him down out'n the
mountings. Now the way to cure him of it's to git him 'lected to
somethin', an' I's got the somethin' picked out. When he fin's as folks
has voted for him agin t'other feller, he jes' naturally can't go on a
thinkin' folks is down on him. See?"
"Yes, I see that, and your idea is a good one, Judy, if we can get him
to run for some office."
"Git him to run? We won't ax him. We'll jes' run him ourselves, an'
we'll 'lect him too, ef the big figgers tops the little ones as I's
always seed 'em do in a 'lection count."
Judy was apt to be confident in her predictions, chiefly for the reason
that she never made a prediction till she knew all the facts that might
bear in any way upon its fulfilment.
"That's what I wanted to see you about, Carley. This is the way of it.
You kin help, an' I'm a bettin' my fingers agin fishhooks you'll do it."
"It's a good bet, Judy," he interrupted. "I'd do anything imaginable
for Westover, and, now that I know you, I'd do even more than that for
you. Go on. What's your plan?"
"Well, you see that measly little soap-locked sap-head, William
Wilberforce Webb--they's more name to the man than man to the name--has
gone an' got hisself enominated fer the Senate. That suits me down to
the ground. You an' me is a goin' to beat him out'n his boots, an'
'lect Westover in his stid. That's the game an' the way the wind blows,
an' the lay o' the land."
"But, Judy, can we do it? You see Webb has secured the regular Whig
nomination, and this is a strong Whig district."
"That's all right," answered Judy, confident of the "figgerin'" she had
made Marcellus McGrath do on her slate. "You see it's this a'way. The
Democrats ain't got no chanst to 'lect a man o' their own, but they're
a layin' low to rip the righteousness out'n the reg'lar Whig candidate
ef they git the chanst, an' you an' me's a goin' to give 'em the
chanst. We'll enominate Westover as a 'Independent Whig candidate' an'
every Democrat in the distric' 'll vote for him. They won't be no
Democrat candidate."
"Are you sure of that, Judy? With two Whigs running they might think
they had a chance to slip a Democrat in."
"They mout, of course, but they won't," answered Judy, confidently.
"I's seen to that. You don't s'pose Judy Peters was borned day before
yesterday, do you, Carley?" Then, without waiting for him to protest a
greater respect for her age and experience, she continued:
"Shouldn't wonder ef the Democrats got some local offices this year.
You see the mounting vote is uncertain. Anyhow, they won't enominate
anybody for the Senate; or, yes they will. They's a makin' the
enomination to-day. But after you an' me has got Westover a goin' their
candidate will withdraw hisself an' urge all Democrats to vote fer
Westover an' 'lect him. You see the Democrat vote is a leetle more'n
twenty-five per cent. in this Senate distric'. I got Marcellus McGrath
to figger that out. An' twenty-five per cent. is a quarter, Mark says,
an' he knows. Now the vote up here in the mountings is more'n half o'
the whole, 'cause us folks up here raises more children than the
planter people does. They ain't no profit in boastin', but I kin tell
you jes' confidential like, that ef Judy Peters lets her tongue git too
loose an' the secret slips out that she wants Boyd Westover 'lected,
you could count on your fingers an' toes the votes the other feller'd
git up here in the mountings. Seems to me like a sure thing, Carley."
With that Judy chuckled in satisfaction.
"But you've hearn talk o' 'moral effec',' haven't you, Carley?"
Farnsworth intimated that he had some small perception of the meaning
of the terms, and Judy went on:
"Well, what you an' me's a playin' for is moral effec' on Boyd
Westover. As fer 'lectin' him, they won't be no trouble 'bout that. But
ef the moral effec' is to be strong, we mus' git the biggest vote we
kin for him down among the plantation people. Fust off, then, he's got
to be enominated by that sort o' folks, without no hint o' Judy Peters
or the mountings in it. That's your fust job. You go down there, sayin
nothin' 'bout Judy Peters or the mountings, an' git a lot o' the
stuck-ups to jine you in enominatin' him."
In those days the "Reformers" who plead for independence in politics
had not yet invented their ingenious devices for compelling the voter
to make a choice of evils in deciding for whom he would vote. There
were no such things as "official ballots" limiting the choice of the
voter to men formally nominated. Every man was free, as every man
everywhere ought to be, to vote for whomsoever he pleased without
consulting an "Australian" ballot sheet to find out what men he was
permitted to vote for. And any man who aspired to office was at liberty
to announce his candidacy in person or through friends as an appeal to
his fellow citizens for their free suffrages, without asking permission
of any caucus or boss or primary or convention, and without the
necessity of spending money corruptly in order to secure the privilege
of being voted for if his fellow citizens wished to vote for him.
Judy continued:
"When you git all the big-bug signatures you kin, jest send a nigger
round to post up the enomination papers everywhere. Have 'em printed,
Carley, 'cause print sort o' carries weight, an' printin' don't cost
much, an' even ef it did, 'twouldn't make no difference, 'cause I'd pay
the bill."
"You can't do that, Judy. Westover's friends down there'll attend to
that. I'll have twenty or twenty-five signatures to the paper, and I'll
have five or six hundred printed, so as to post one on every gate post
and every tree that anybody's likely to look at. How many do you want,
for use in the mountains?"
"None at all! Not one!" answered Judy, emphatically. "They won't be
needed up here, 'cause I'm a takin' care o' the mounting vote, an' I
ain't a sayin' nothin'. Let 'em keep a guessin' 'bout how the mountings
is a goin' till they hears the answer to the riddle when the polls is
closed. You see ef they find out the mountings is agin 'em they'll try
to do somethin' up here, an' ef they's uncertain they won't care to
stir up things. But besides all that, there's the drymatic climax to
think of. Tom Hardaway tole me all about that wunst, so I know what a
drymatic climax is, an' I mean to have one this time, jest for the sake
o' that banty rooster, William Wilberforce Webb, who'll find all his
tail feathers pulled out by the roots when the 'lection's over."
It will perhaps be inferred from Judy's utterances that her hatreds
were implacable as her likings were limitless. For explanation it is
only necessary to remember that Judy Peters was an entirely natural
person, unaffected by any of the agencies of civilization. To her, in
sentiment and emotion, compromises were as impossible as concessions;
qualifications as unthinkable as cowardice itself--and there was no
cowardice in Judy. Toward those whose conduct had aroused neither
animosity nor affection in her soul, she was always fair with a
frankness that had no hypocrisy and no reserve in it; toward those whom
she cherished as friends her loyalty was of a sort that knew no bounds
and asked no questions; toward those whom she recognized as her
enemies, and still more toward those who were the enemies of her
friends, she cherished a malevolence that knew no mercy and that
stopped at nothing in the accomplishment of its malignant purposes.
Such was Judy--a typical representative of the human animal in his
untamed and natural state.
"Then they's another thing, Carley, an' it's fust an' foremost in my
thinkin'."
"What is it, Judy?"
"Well, it's this aways. You see you an' me's a workin' an' a plannin'
to bring Westover round all right again. Now the 'lection '11 do a
mighty sight that way, but 'twon't do it all. What Boyd needs is a
good, hard fight, an' that's what you an' me's got to give him. He
ain't to know nothin' 'bout the way the 'lection's a goin' when he
hears of his enomination. He ain't to know as how Judy Peters had
anything to do with it. He's jest to be told as how a lot o' you
stuck-ups has enominated him, and how nobody knows where he's a been,
an' how they's a sayin' an' a insinuatin' all sorts o' things, an'
specially that he's afeard to face his constituents. That'll stir up
all the fightin' blood they is in him, an' they's apt to be a lot o'
that sort o' blood in a Westover. It'll set him hot when he gits down
your way, an' from then tell the 'lection's over he'll fight like a
catamount when a dozen hounds gits him cornered. That's what he needs,
an' when the thing's over, an' he fin's himself 'lected by a large
majority, an' sees that water-soaked piece o' cheap soap that calls
hisself William Wilberforce Webb a slinkin' off into his hole like a
drownded rat, he won't git to thinkin' agin' that folks is down on him."
Judy's metaphors were a trifle mixed perhaps, but her rhetoric had
behind it an intensity and a sincerity of purpose that left her auditor
in no doubt as to her meaning.
"Judy, you're a brick!" exclaimed Carley Farnsworth rising and grasping
her hand. "You've got blood in your veins, and sand in your gizzard,
and a headpiece on your shoulders. I'm with you, all over and clear
through. I'm going back down the mountain to-morrow morning. I'll get
the nomination papers out, and I'll speak three times a day for
Westover. I never made a speech in my life, but I can do it now, and
all between the speeches I'll talk. The words'll flow out of me like
water through a mill-tail. And one thing more, Judy; I'm a little
fellow, as you know. I don't weigh a hundred and ten pounds, I'm only
five feet three in my shoes, but I can pull a trigger. I'll see to it
that nobody says anything shameful about Boyd Westover without being
called to an interview with me at ten paces."
So was the compact made. Judy went inside and brewed a bowl of hot
apple toddy which she insisted that Carley should share with her "jes'
to bind the bargain," she said, and Carley, unused as he was to such
indulgence, took the risk of a next morning's headache by drinking fair
with her.
XIX
THE BEGINNING OF A CAMPAIGN
Carley Farnsworth never did anything by halves. His methods were those
of one engaged in killing snakes. When he undertook the accomplishment
of a purpose he tirelessly left nothing undone that might in the
smallest degree assist in that accomplishment.
In this case he appealed personally and quietly to all the planters in
the district to aid in the choice of a man of their own class to
represent them in the upper house of the Legislature, instead of a
shifty lawyer of "insecure antecedents, unripened position, and as yet
unproved character." That was the careful phrase he had framed for use
while trudging down the mountain, and he used it so effectively that he
soon had a score of the most influential names in all that region
appended to his announcement of Boyd Westover's candidacy.
But he was not satisfied with that. He reminded the two store keepers
at the Court House that Westover's constituency represented in a large
degree the purchasing capacity of the region, and the two store
keepers, alert to conserve their own interests, not only signed the
nomination announcement, but secured a number of other and humbler
signatures, and made of their stores a species of campaigning centres
in Westover's interest, thus giving a needed flavor of democracy to the
aristocratic appeal to the planters to "choose for their senator a man
whose character, attainments and social position render him fitly
representative of the district and its people."