Autumn trailed the last leaves behind her flying brown robes one night;
we woke to a skurry of snow next morning; and it was winter. Down-town,
along the sidewalks, the merchants set lines of poles, covered them with
evergreen, and ran streamers of green overhead to encourage the festal
shopping. Salvation Army Santa Clauses stamped their feet and rang bells
on the corners, and pink-faced children fixed their noses immovably to
display-windows. For them, the season of seasons, the time of times, was
at hand.
To a certain new reporter on the “Despatch” the stir and gayety of the
streets meant little more than that the days had come when it was night
in the afternoon, and that he was given fewer political assignments.
This was annoying, because Beasley's candidacy for the governorship had
given me a personal interest in the political situation. The nominating
convention of his party would meet in the spring; the nomination was
certain to carry the election also, and thus far Beasley showed more
strength than any other man in the field. “Things are looking his way,”
said Dowden. “He's always worked hard for the party; not on the stump,
of course,” he laughed; “but the boys understand there are more
important things than speech-making. His record in Congress gave him the
confidence of everybody in the state, and, besides that, people always
trust a quiet man. I tell you if nothing happens he'll get it.”
“I'm FER Beasley,” another politician explained, in an interview,
“because he's Dave Beasley! Yes, sir, I'm FER him. You know the boys say
if a man is only FOR you, in this state, there isn't much in it and he
may go back on it; but if he's FER you, he means it. Well, I'm FER
Beasley!”
There were other candidates, of course; none of them formidable; but I
was surprised to learn of the existence of a small but energetic faction
opposing our friend in Wainwright, his own town. (“What are you
surprised about?” inquired Dowden. “Don't you know what our folks are
like, YET? If St. Paul lived in Wainwright, do you suppose he could run
for constable without some of his near neighbors getting out to try and
down him?”)
The head and front (and backbone, too) of the opposition to Beasley was
a close-fisted, hard-knuckled, risen-from-the-soil sort of man, one
named Simeon Peck. He possessed no inconsiderable influence, I heard;
was a hard worker, and vigorously seconded by an energetic lieutenant, a
young man named Grist. These, and others they had been able to draw to
their faction, were bitterly and eagerly opposed to Beasley's
nomination, and worked without ceasing to prevent it.
I quote the invaluable Mr. Dowden again: “Grist's against us because he
had a quarrel with a clerk in Beasley's office, and wanted Beasley to
discharge him, and Beasley wouldn't; Sim Peck's against us out of just
plain wrong-headedness, and because he never was for ANYTHING nor FER
anybody in his life. I had a talk with the old mutton-head the other
day; he said our candidate ought to be a farmer, a 'man of the common
people,' and when I asked him where he'd find anybody more a 'man of the
common people' than Beasley, he said Beasley was 'too much of a society
man' to suit him! The idea of Dave as a 'society man' was too much for
me, and I laughed in Sim Peck's face, but that didn't stop Sim Peck!
'Jest look at the style he lives in,' he yelped. 'Ain't he fairly LAPPED
in luxury? Look at that big house he lives in! Look at the way he goes
around in that phaeton of his--and a nigger to drive him half the time!'
I had to holler again, and, of course, that made Sim twice as mad as he
started out to be; and he went off swearing he'd show ME, before the
campaign was over. The only trouble he and Grist and that crowd could
give us would be by finding out something against Dave, and they can't
do that because there isn't anything to find out.”
I shared his confidence on this latter score, but was somewhat less
sanguine on some others. There were only two newspapers of any political
influence in Wainwright, the “Despatch” and the “Journal,” both operated
in the interest of Beasley's party, and neither had “come out” for him.
The gossip I heard about our office led me to think that each was
waiting to see what headway Sim Peck and his faction would make; the
“Journal” especially, I knew, had some inclination to coquette with
Peck, Grist, and Company. Altogether, their faction was not entirely to
be despised.
Thus, my thoughts were a great deal more occupied with Beasley's chances
than with the holiday spirit that now, with furs and bells and wreathing
mists of snow, breathed good cheer over the town. So little, indeed, had
this spirit touched me that, one evening when one of my colleagues,
standing before the grate-fire in the reporters' room, yawned and said
he'd be glad when to-morrow was over, I asked him what was the
particular trouble with to-morrow.
“Christmas,” he explained, languidly. “Always so tedious. Like Sunday.”
“It makes me homesick,” said another, a melancholy little man who was
forever bragging of his native Duluth.
“Christmas,” I repeated--“to-morrow!”
It was Christmas Eve, and I had not known it! I leaned back in my chair
in sudden loneliness, what pictures coming before me of long-ago
Christmas Eves at home!--old Christmas Eves when there was a Tree....
My name was called; the night City Editor had an assignment for me. “Go
up to Sim Peck's, on Madison Street,” he said. “He thinks he's got
something on David Beasley, but won't say any more over the telephone.
See what there is in it.”
I picked up my hat and coat, and left the office at a speed which must
have given my superior the highest conception of my journalistic zeal.
At a telephone station on the next corner I called up Mrs.
Apperthwaite's house and asked for Dowden.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, when his voice had responded.
“Playing bridge,” he answered.
“Are you going out anywhere?”
“No. What's the trouble?”
“I'll tell you later. I may want to see you before I go back to the
office.”
“All right. I'll be here all evening.”