As I states, I saveys nothin’ personal of politics. Thar’s mighty
little politics gets brooited about Wolfville, an’ I ain’t none shore
but it’s as well. The camp’s most likely a heap peacefuller as a
com-moonity. Shore, Colonel Sterett discusses politics in that Coyote
paper he conducts; but none of it’s nearer than Washin’ton, an’ it all
seems so plumb dreamy an’ far away that while it’s interestin’, it can’t
be regyarded as replete of the harrowin’ excitement that sedooces a
public from its nacheral rest an’ causes it to set up nights an’ howl.
Rummagin’ my mem’ry, I never does hear any politics talked local but
once, an’ that’s by Dan Boggs. It’s when the Colonel asks Dan to what
party he adheres in principle--for thar ain’t no real shore-enough
party lurkin’ about in Arizona much, it bein’ a territory that a-way
an’ mighty busy over enterprises more calc’lated to pay--an’ Dan retorts
that he’s hooked up with no outfit none as yet, but stands ready as far
as his sentiments is involved to go buttin’ into the first organization
that’ll cheapen nose-paint, ’liminate splits as a resk in faro-bank,
an’ raise the price of beef. Further than them tenets, Dan allows he
ain’t got no principles.
Man an’ boy I never witnesses any surplus of politics an’ party strife.
In Tennessee when I’m a child every decent gent has been brought up a
Andy Jackson man, an’ so continyoos long after that heroic captain is
petered. As you-all can imagine, politics onder sech conditions goes
all one way like the currents of the Cumberland. Thar’s no bicker, no
strife, simply a vast Andy Jackson yooniformity.
The few years I puts in about Arkansaw ain’t much different. Leastwise
we-all don’t have issues; an’ what contests does arise is gen’rally
personal an’ of the kind where two gents enjoys a j’int debate with
their bowies or shows each other how wrong they be with a gun. An’ while
politics of the variety I deescribes is thrillin’, your caution rather
than your intellects gets appealed to, while feuds is more apt to be
their frootes than any draw-in’ of reg’lar party lines. Wherefore I
may say it’s only doorin’ the one year I abides in Missouri when I
experiences troo politics played with issues, candidates, mass-meetin’s
an’ barbecues.
For myse’f, my part is not spectacyoolar, bein’ I’m new an’ raw an’
young; but I looks on with relish, an’ while I don’t cut no hercoolean
figger in the riot, I shore saveys as much about what’s goin’ on as the
best posted gent between the Ozarks an’ the Iowa line.
What you-all might consider as the better element is painted up to beat
Old Stewart who’s out sloshin’ about demandin’ re-election to Jeff City
for a second term. The better element says Old Stewart drinks. An’ this
accoosation is doubtless troo a whole lot, for I’m witness myse’f to the
following colloquy which takes place between Old Stewart an’ a jack-laig
doctor he crosses up with in St. Joe. Old Stewart’s jest come forth from
the tavern, an’ bein’ on a joobilee the evenin’ before, is lookin’ an’
mighty likely feelin’ some seedy.
“Doc,” says Old Stewart, openin’ his mouth as wide as a young raven, an’
then shettin’ it ag’in so’s to continyoo his remarks, “Doc, I wish you’d
peer into this funnel of mine.”
Then he opens his mouth ag’in in the same egree-gious way, while the
scientist addressed scouts about tharin with his eyes, plenty owley. At
last the Doc shows symptoms of bein’ ready to report.
“Which I don’t note nothin’ onusual, Gov’nor, about that mouth,” says
the Doc, “except it’s a heap voloominous.”
“Don’t you discern no signs or signal smokes of any foreign bodies?”
says Old Stewart, a bit pettish, same as if he can’t onderstand sech
blindness.
“None whatever!” observes the Doc.
“It’s shore strange,” retorts Old Stewart, still in his complainin’
tones; “thar’s two hundred niggers, a brick house an’ a thousand acres
of bottom land gone down that throat, an’ I sort o’ reckons some traces
of ’em would show.”
That’s the trouble with Old Stewart from the immacyoolate standpint of
the better classes; they says he overdrinks. But while it’s convincin’
to sooperior folks an’ ones who’s goin’ to church an’ makin’ a speshulty
of it, it don’t sep’rate Old Stewart from the warm affections of the
rooder masses--the catfish an’ quinine aristocracy that dwells along the
Missouri; they’re out for him to the last sport.
“Suppose the old Gov’nor does drink,” says one, “what difference does
that make? Now, if he’s goin’ to try sootes in co’t, or assoome the
pressure as a preacher, thar’d be something in the bluff. But it don’t
cut no figger whether a gov’nor is sober or no. All he has to do is
pardon convicts an’ make notaries public, an’ no gent can absorb licker
s’fficient to incapac’tate him for sech trivial dooties.”
One of the argyments they uses ag’in Old Stewart is about a hawg-thief
he pardons. Old Stewart is headin’ up for the state house one mornin’,
when he caroms on a passel of felons in striped clothes who’s pesterin’
about the grounds, tittivatin’ up the scenery. Old Stewart pauses in
front of one of ’em.
“What be you-all in the pen’tentiary for?” says Old Stewart, an’ he’s
profoundly solemn.
Tharupon the felon trails out on a yarn about how he’s a innocent an’
oppressed person. He’s that honest an’ upright--hear him relate the
tale--that you’d feel like apol’gizin’. Old Stewart listens to this
victim of intrigues an’ outrages ontil he’s through; then he goes
romancin’ along to the next. Thar’s five wronged gents in that striped
outfit, five who’s as free from moral taint or stain of crime as Dave
Tutt’s infant son, Enright Peets Tutt.
But the sixth is different. He admits he’s a miscreant an’ has done
stole a hawg.
“However did you steal it, you scoundrel?” demands Old Stewart.
“I’m outer meat,” says the crim’nal, “an’ a band of pigs comes pi
rootin’ about, an’ I nacherally takes my rifle an’ downs one.”
“Was it a valyooable hawg?”
“You-all can gamble it ain’t no runt,” retorts the crim’nal. “I shore
ain’t pickin’ out the worst, an’ I’m as good a jedge of hawgs as ever
eats corn pone an’ cracklin’.”
At this Old Stewart falls into a foamin’ rage an’ turns on the two
gyards who’s soopervisin’ the captives.
“Whatever do you-all mean,” he roars, “bringin’ this common an’
confessed hawg-thief out yere with these five honest men? Don’t you know
he’ll corrupt ’em?”
Tharupon Old Stewart reepairs to his rooms in the state house an’
pardons the hawg convict with the utmost fury.
“An’ now, pull your freight,” says Old Stewart, to the crim’nal. “If
you’re in Jeff City twenty-four hours from now I’ll have you shot at
sunrise. The idee of compellin’ five spotless gents to con-tinyoo in
daily companionship with a low hawg-thief! I pardons you, not because
you merits mercy, but to preserve the morals of our prison.”
The better element concloods they’ll take advantage of Old Stewart’s
willin’ness for rum an’ make a example of him before the multitoode.
They decides they’ll construct the example at a monstrous meetin’ that’s
schedyooled for Hannibal, where Old Stewart an’ his opponent--who stands
for the better element mighty excellent, seein’ he’s worth about a
million dollars with a home-camp in St. Looey, an’ never a idee above
dollars an’ cents--is programmed for one of these yere j’int debates,
frequent in the politics of that era. The conspiracy is the more
necessary as Old Stewart, mental, is so much swifter than the better
element’s candidate, that he goes by him like a antelope. Only two
days prior at the town of Fulton, Old Stewart comes after the better
element’s candidate an’ gets enough of his hide, oratorical, to make a
saddle-cover. The better element, alarmed for their gent, resolves
on measures in Hannibal that’s calc’lated to redooce Old Stewart to
a shorething. They don’t aim to allow him to wallop their gent at the
Hannibal meetin’ like he does in old Callaway. With that, they confides
to a trio of Hannibal’s sturdiest sots--all of ’em acquaintances an’
pards of Old Stewart--the sacred task of gettin’ that statesman too
drunk to orate.
This yere Hannibal barbecue, whereat Old Stewart’s goin’ to hold a
open-air discussion with his aristocratic opponent, is set down for
one in the afternoon. The three who’s to throw Old Stewart with copious
libations of strong drink, hunts that earnest person out as early as
sun-up at the tavern. They invites him into the bar-room an’ bids the
bar-keep set forth his nourishment.
Gents, it works like a charm! All the mornin’, Old Stewart swings an’
rattles with the plotters an’ goes drink for drink with ’em, holdin’
nothin’ back.
For all that the plot falls down. When it’s come the hour for Old
Stewart to resort to the barbecue an’ assoome his share in the
exercises, two of the Hannibal delegation is spread out cold an’
he’pless in a r’ar room, while Old Stewart is he’pin’ the third--a gent
of whom he’s partic’lar fond--upstairs to Old Stewart’s room, where he
lays him safe an’ serene on the blankets. Then Old Stewart takes another
drink by himse’f, an’ j’ins his brave adherents at the picnic grounds.
Old Stewart is never more loocid, an’ ag’in he peels the pelt from the
better element’s candidate, an’ does it with graceful ease.
Old Stewart, however, is regyarded as in peril of defeat. He’s mighty
weak in the big towns where the better element is entrenched, an’
churches grow as thick as blackberries. Even throughout the rooral
regions, wherever a meetin’ house pokes up its spire, it’s onderstood
that Old Stewart’s in a heap of danger.
It ain’t that Old Stewart is sech a apostle of nose-paint neither; it
ain’t whiskey that’s goin’ to kill him off at the ballot box. It’s the
fact that the better element’s candidate--besides bein’ rich, which is
allers a mark of virchoo to a troo believer--is a church member, an’
belongs to a congregation where he passes the plate, an’ stands high up
in the papers. This makes the better element’s gent a heap pop’lar with
church folk, while pore Old Stewart, who’s a hopeless sinner, don’t
stand no show.
This grows so manifest that even Old Stewart’s most locoed supporters
concedes that he’s gone; an’ money is offered at three to one that the
better element’s entry will go over Old Stewart like a Joone rise over a
tow-head. Old Stewart hears these yere misgivin’s an’ bids his folks be
of good cheer.
“I’ll fix that,” says Old Stewart. “By election day, my learned opponent
will be in sech disrepoote with every church in Missouri he won’t be
able to get dost enough to one of ’em to give it a ripe peach.” Old
Stewart onpouches a roll which musters fifteen hundred dollars. “That’s
mighty little; but it’ll do the trick.”
Old Stewart’s folks is mystified; they can’t make out how he’s goin’ to
round up the congregations with so slim a workin’ cap’tal. But they has
faith in their chief; an’ his word goes for all they’ve got. When he
lets on he’ll have the churches arrayed ag’inst the foe, his warriors
takes heart of grace an’ jumps into the collar an’ pulls like lions
refreshed.
It’s the fourth Sunday before election when Old Stewart, by speshul an’
trusted friends presents five hundred dollars each to a church in St.
Looey, an’ another in St. Joe, an’ still another in Hannibal; said gifts
bein’ in the name an’ with the compliments of his opponent an’ that
gent’s best wishes for the Christian cause.
Thar’s not a doubt raised; each church believes it-se’f favored
five hundred dollars’ worth from the kindly hand of the millionaire
candidate, an’ the three pastors sits pleasantly down an’ writes
that amazed sport a letter of thanks for his moonificence. He don’t
onderstand it none; but he decides it’s wise to accept this accidental
pop’larity, an’ he waxes guileful an’ writes back an’ says that while he
don’t clearly onderstand, an’ no thanks is his doo, he’s tickled to hear
he’s well bethought of by the good Christians of St. Looey, St. Joe an’
Hannibal, as expressed in them missives. The better element’s candidate
congratulates himse’f on his good luck, stands pat, an’ accepts his
onexpected wreaths. That’s jest what Old Stewart, who is as cunnin’ as a
fox, is aimin’ at.
In two days the renown of them five-hundred-dollar gifts goes over the
state like a cat over a back roof. In four days every church in the
state hears of these largesses. An’ bein’ plumb alert financial, as
churches ever is, each sacred outfit writes on to the better element’s
candidate an’ desires five hundred dollars of that onfortunate
publicist. He gets sixty thousand letters in one week an’ each calls for
five hundred.
Gents, thar’s no more to be said; the better element’s candidate is up
ag’inst it. He can’t yield to the fiscal demands, an’ it’s too late to
deny the gifts. Whereupon the other churches resents the favoritism
he’s displayed about the three in St. Looey, St. Joe an’ Hannibal.
They regyards him as a hoss-thief for not rememberin’ them while his
weaselskin is in his hand, an’ on election day they comes down on him
like a pan of milk from a top shelf! You hear me, they shorely blots
that onhap-py candidate off the face of the earth, an’ Old Stewart is
Gov’nor ag’in.
On the fourth evening of our companionship about the tavern fire, it was
the Red Nosed Gentleman who took the lead with a story.
“You spoke,” said the Red Nosed Gentleman, addressing the Jolly Doctor,
“of having been told by a friend a story you gave us. Not long ago I was
in the audience while an old actor recounted how he once went to the aid
of an individual named Connelly. It was not a bad story, I thought; and
if you like, I’ll tell it to-night. The gray Thespian called his
adventure The Rescue of Connelly, and these were his words as he related
it. We were about a table in Browne’s chop house when he told it.”