The moderator of the Smyrna town meeting held his breath for just
a moment so as to accentuate the hush in which the voters listened
for his words, and then announced the result of the vote for first
selectman of Smyrna:
"Whole number cast, one hundred thutty-two; necessary for a choice,
sixty-seven; of which Colonel Gideon Ward has thutty-one."
A series of barking, derisive yells cut in upon his solemn
announcement, and he rapped his cane on the marred table of the town
hall and glared over his spectacles at the voters.
"And Cap'n Aaron Sproul has one hundred and--"
The howl that followed clipped his last words. Men hopped upon the
knife-nicked settees of the town house and waved their hats while
they hooted. A group of voters, off at one side, sat and glowered
at this hilarity. Out of the group rose Colonel Gideon, his long frame
unfolding with the angularity of a carpenter's two-foot rule. There
were little dabs of purple on his knobby cheek-bones. His hair and
his beard bristled. He put up his two fists as far as his arms would
reach and vibrated them, like a furious Jeremiah calling down curses.
Such ferocious mien had its effect on the spectators after a time.
Smyrna quailed before her ancient tyrant, even though he was
dethroned.
"Almighty God has always wanted an excuse to destroy this town like
Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed," he shouted, his voice breaking
into a squeal of rage; "now He's got it."
He drove his pointed cap onto his head, gave a parting shake of his
fists that embraced moderator, voters, walls, floor, roof, and all
appurtenances of the town house, and stalked down the aisle and out.
The silence in town meeting was so profound that the voters heard
him welting his horse as he drove away.
After a time the moderator drew a long breath, and stated that he
did not see Cap'n Aaron Sproul in the meeting, and had been informed
that he was not present.
"I come past his place this mornin'," whispered Old Man Jordan to
his neighbor on the settee, "and he was out shovelin' snow off'm the
front walk, and when I asked him if he wa'n't comin' to town meetin',
he said that a run of the seven years' itch and the scurvy was pretty
bad, but he reckoned that politics was wuss. I should hate to be the
one that has to break this news to him."
"And seein' how it's necessary to have the first selectman here to
be sworn in before the meetin' closes this afternoon," went on the
moderator, "I'll appoint a committee of three to wait on Cap'n Aaron
Sproul and notify him of the distinguished honor that has been done
him this day by his feller townsmen."
He settled his spectacles more firmly upon his nose, and ran his gaze
calculatingly over the assembled voters. No one of those patriotic
citizens seemed to desire to be obtrusive at that moment.
"I'll appoint as chairman of that notifying committee," proceeded
the moderator, "Entwistle Harvey, and as--"
"I shall have to decline the honor," interrupted Mr. Entwistle Harvey,
rising promptly. The voters grinned. They thoroughly understood the
reason for Mr. Harvey's reluctance.
"It ain't that I'm any less a reformer than the others that has to-day
redeemed this town from ring rule and bossism," declared Mr. Harvey,
amid applause; "it ain't that I don't admire the able man that has
been selected to lead us up out of the vale of political sorrow--and
I should be proud to stand before him and offer this distinguished
honor from the voters of this town, but I decline because I--I--well,
there ain't any need of goin' into personal reasons. I ain't the man
for the place, that's all." He sat down.
"I don't blame him none for duckin'," murmured Old Man Jordan to his
seat companion. "Any man that was in the crowd that coaxed Cap'n
Sproul into takin' the foremanship of Heckly Fire Comp'ny has got
a good excuse. I b'lieve the law says that ye can't put a man twice
in peril of his life."
Cap'n Sproul's stormy relinquishment of the hateful honor that had
been foisted upon him by the Smyrna fire-fighters was history recent
enough to give piquant relish to the present situation. He had not
withheld nor modified his threats as to what would happen to any other
committee that came to him proffering public office.
The more prudent among Smyrna's voters had hesitated about making
the irascible ex-mariner a candidate for selectman's berth.
But Smyrna, in its placid New England eddy, had felt its own little
thrill from the great tidal wave of municipal reform sweeping the
country. It immediately gazed askance at Colonel Gideon Ward, for
twenty years first selectman of Smyrna, and growled under its breath
about "bossism." But when the search was made for a candidate to run
against him, Smyrna men were wary. Colonel Ward held too many
mortgages and had advanced too many call loans not to be well
fortified against rivals.
"The only one who has ever dared to twist his tail is his
brother-in-law, the Cap'n," said Odbar Broadway, oracularly, to the
leaders who had met in his store to canvass the political situation.
"The Cap'n won't be as supple as some in town office, but he ain't
no more hell 'n' repeat than what we've been used to for the last
twenty years. He's wuth thutty thousand dollars, and Gid Ward can't
foreclose no mo'gidge on him nor club him with no bill o' sale. He's
the only prominunt man in town that can afford to take the office
away from the Colonel. What ye've got to do is to go ahead and elect
him, and then trust to the Lord to make him take it."
So that was what Smyrna had done on that slushy winter's day.
It did it with secret joy and with ballots hidden in its palms, where
the snapping eyes of Colonel Ward could not spy.
And now, instead of invoking the higher power mentioned as a resource
by Broadway, the moderator of the town meeting was struggling with
human tools, and very rickety human tools they seemed to be.
Five different chairmen did he nominate, and with great alacrity the
five refused to serve.
The moderator took off his glasses, and testily rapped the dented
table.
"Feller citizens," he snapped, "this is gittin' to be boys' play.
I realize puffickly that Cap'n Aaron Sproul, our first
selectman-elect, has not been a seeker after public office since he
retired as foreman of the Hecla Fire Company. I realize puffickly
that he entertained some feelin' at the time that--that--he wasn't
exactly cal'lated to be foreman of an engine company. But that ain't
sayin' that he won't receive like gentlemen the committee that comes
to tell him that he has been elected to the highest office in this
town. I ain't got any more time to waste on cowards. There's one man
here that ain't afraid of his own shadder. I call on Constable Zeburee
Nute to head the committee, and take along with him Constables Wade
and Swanton. And I want to say to the voters here that it's a nice
report to go abroad from this town that we have to pick from the police
force to get men with enough courage to tell a citizen that he's been
elected first selectman. But the call has gone out for Cincinnatus,
and he must be brought here."
The moderator's tone was decisive and his mien was stern. Otherwise,
even the doughty Constable Nute might have refused to take orders,
though they were given in the face and eyes of his admiring neighbors.
He gnawed at his grizzled beard and fingered doubtfully the badge
that, as chief constable of the town, he wore on the outside of his
coat.
"Gents of the committee, please 'tend promptly to the duties
assigned," commanded the moderator, "and we will pass on to the next
article in the town warrant."
Mr. Nute rose slowly and marched out of the hall, the other two
victims following without any especial signs of enthusiasm.
In the yard of the town house Mr. Nute faced them, and remarked:
"I have some ideas of my own as to a genteel way of gittin' him
interested in this honor that we are about to bestow. Has any one
else ideas?"
The other two constables shook their heads gloomily.
"Then I'll take the brunt of the talk on me and foller my ideas,"
announced Mr. Nute. "I've been studyin' reform, and, furthermore,
I know who Cincinnatus was!"
The three men unhitched each his own team, and drove slowly, in single
file, along the mushy highway.
It was one of Cap'n Aaron Sproul's mentally mild, mellow, and benign
days, when his heart seemed to expand like a flower in the comforts
of his latter-life domestic bliss. Never had home seemed so
good--never the little flush on Louada Murilla's cheeks so
attractive in his eyes as they dwelt fondly on her.
In the night he had heard the sleet clattering against the pane and
the snow slishing across the clapboards, and he had turned on his
pillow with a little grunt of thankfulness.
"There's things about dry land and the people on it that ain't so
full of plums as a sailor's duff ought to be," he mused, "but--" And
then he dozed off, listening to the wind.
In the morning, just for a taste of rough weather, he had put on his
slicker and sea-boots and shovelled the slush off the front walk.
Then he sat down with stockinged feet held in the radiance of an open
Franklin stove, and mused over some old log-books that he liked to
thumb occasionally for the sake of adding new comfort to a fit of
shore contentment.
This day he was taking especial interest in the log-books, for he
was again collaborating with Louada Murilla in that spasmodic
literary effort that she had termed: