“ROUEN,September 2d.
“Dear Mr. Fisbee: Yours of the 1st to hand. I entirely approve all arrangements you have made. I think you understand that I wish you to regardeverythingas in your own hands. You are the editor of the 'Herald' and have the sole responsibility for everything, including policy, until, after proper warning, I relieve you in person. But until that time comes, you must look upon me as a mere spectator. I do not fear that you will make any mistakes; you have done very much better in all matters than I could have done myself. At present I have only one suggestion: I observe that your editorials concerning Halloway's renomination are something lukewarm.
“It is very important that he be renominated, not altogether on account of assuring his return to Washington (for he is no Madison, I fear), but the fellow McCune must be so beaten that his defeat will be remembered for twenty years. Halloway is honest and clean, at least, while McCune is corrupt to the bone. He has been bought and sold, and I am glad the proofs of it are in your hands, as you tell me Parker found them, as directed, in my trunk, and gave them to you.
“The papers you hold drove him out of politics once, by the mere threat of publication; you should have printed them last week, as I suggested. Do so at once; the time is short. You have been too gentle; it has the air of fearing to offend, and of catering, as if we were afraid of antagonizing people against us; as though we had a personal stake in the convention. Possibly you consider our subscription books as such; I do not. But if they are, go ahead twice as hard. What if it does give the enemy a weapon in case McCune is nominated; if he is (and I begin to see a danger of it) we will be with the enemy. I do not carry my partisanship so far as to help elect Mr. McCune to Congress. You have been as non-committal in your editorials as if this were a fit time for delicacy and the cheaper conception of party policy. My notion of party policy—no new one—is that the party which considers the public service before it considers itself will thrive best in the long run. The 'Herald' is a little paper (not so little nowadays, after all, thanks to you), but it is an honest one, and it isn't afraid of Rod McCune and his friends. He is to be beaten, understand, if we have to send him to the penitentiary on an old issue to do it. And if the people wish to believe us cruel or vengeful, let them. Please let me see as hearty a word as you can say for Halloway, also. You can write with ginger; please show some in this matter.
“My condition is improved.
“I am, very truly yours,“JOHN HARKLESS.”
When the letter was concluded, he handed it to Meredith. “Please address that, put a 'special' on it, and send it, Tom. It should go at once, so as to reach him by to-night.”
“H. Fisbee?”
“Yes; H. Fisbee.”
“I believe it does you good to write, boy,” said the other, as he bent over him. “You look more chirrupy than you have for several days.”
“It's that beast, McCune; young Fisbee is rather queer about it, and I felt stirred up as I went along.” But even before the sentence was finished the favor of age and utter weariness returned, and the dark lids closed over his eyes. They opened again, slowly, and he took the others hand and looked up at him mournfully, but as it were his soul shone forth in dumb and eloquent thanks.
“I—I'm giving you a jolly summer, Tom,” he said, with a quivering effort to smile. “Don't you think I am? I don't—I don't know what I should have—done——”
“You old Indian!” said Meredith, tenderly.
Three days later, Tom was rejoiced by symptoms of invigoration in his patient. A telegram came for Harkless, and Meredith, bringing it into the sick room, was surprised to find the occupant sitting straight up on his couch without the prop of pillows. He was reading the day's copy of the “Herald,” and his face was flushed and his brow stern.
“What's the matter, boy?”
“Mismanagement, I hope,” said the other, in a strong voice. “Worse, perhaps. It's this young Fisbee. I can't think what's come over the fellow. I thought he was a rescuing angel, and he's turning out bad. I'll swear it looks like they'd been—well, I won't say that yet. But he hasn't printed that McCune business I told you of, and he's had two days. There is less than a week before the convention, and—” He broke off, seeing the yellow envelope in Meredith's hand. “Is that a telegram for me?” His companion gave it to him. He tore it open and read the contents. They were brief and unhappy.
“Can't you do something? Can't you come down? It begins to look the other way.
“K. H.”
“It's from Halloway,” said John. “I have got to go. What did that doctor say?”
“He said two weeks at the earliest, or you'll run into typhoid and complications from your hurts, and even pleasanter things than that. I've got you here, and here you stay; so lie back and get easy, boy.”
“Then give me that pad and pencil.” He rapidly dashed off a note to H. Fisbee:
“September 5th.
“H. FISBEE,
“Editor 'Carlow Herald.'
“Dear Sir: You have not acknowledged my letter of the 2d September by a note (which should have reached me the following morning), or by the alteration in the tenor of my columns which I requested, or by the publication of the McCune papers which I directed. In this I hold you grossly at fault. If you have a conscientious reason for refusing to carry out my request it should have been communicated to me at once, as should the fact—if such be the case—that you are a personal (or impersonal, if you like) friend of Mr. Rodney McCune. Whatever the motive, ulterior or otherwise, which prevents you from operating my paper as I direct, I should have been informed of it. This is a matter vital to the interests of our community, and you have hitherto shown yourself too alert in accepting my slightest suggestion for me to construe this failure as negligence. Negligence I might esteem as at least honest and frank; your course has been neither the one nor the other.
“You will receive this letter by seven this evening by special delivery. You will print the facts concerning McCune in to-morrow morning's paper.
“I am well aware of the obligations under which your extreme efficiency and your thoughtfulness in many matters have placed me. It is to you I owe my unearned profits from the transaction in oil, and it is to you I owe the 'Herald's' extraordinary present circulation, growth of power and influence. That power is still under my direction, and is an added responsibility which shall not be misapplied.
“You must forgive me if I write too sharply. You see I have failed to understand your silence; and if I wrong you I heartily ask your pardon in advance of your explanation. Is it that you are sorry for McCune? It would be a weak pity that could keep you to silence. I warned him long ago that the papers you hold would be published if he ever tried to return to political life, and he is deliberately counting on my physical weakness and absence. Let him rely upon it; I am not so weak as he thinks. Personally, I cannot say that I dislike Mr. McCune. I have found him a very entertaining fellow; it is said he is the best of husbands, and a friend to some of his friends, and, believe me, I am sorry for him from the bottom of my heart. But the 'Herald' is not.
“You need not reply by letter. To-morrow's issue answers for you. Until I have received a copy, I withhold my judgment.
“JOHN HARKLESS.”
The morrow's issue—that fateful print on which depended John Harkless's opinion of H. Fisbee's integrity—contained an editorial addressed to the delegates of the convention, warning them to act for the vital interest of the community, and declaring that the opportunity to be given them in the present convention was a rare one, a singular piece of good fortune indeed; they were to have the chance to vote for a man who had won the love and respect of every person in the district—one who had suffered for his championship of righteousness—one whom even his few political enemies confessed they held in personal affection and esteem—one who had been the inspiration of a new era—one whose life had been helpfulness, whose hand had reached out to every struggler and unfortunate—a man who had met and faced danger for the sake of others—one who lived under a threat for years, and who had been almost overborne in the fulfilment of that threat, but who would live to see the sun shine on his triumph, the tribute the convention would bring him as a gift from a community that loved him. His name needed not to be told; it was on every lip that morning, and in every heart.
Tom was eagerly watching his companion as he read. Harkless fell back on the pillows with a drawn face, and for a moment he laid his thin hand over his eyes in a gesture of intense pain.
“What is it?” Meredith said quickly.
“Give me the pad, please.”
“What is it, boy?”
The other's teeth snapped together.
“What is it?” he cried. “What is it? It's treachery, and the worst I ever knew. Not a word of the accusation I demanded—lyingpraisesinstead! Read that editorial—there,there!” He struck the page with the back of his hand, and threw the paper to Meredith. “Read that miserable lie! 'One who has won the love and respect of every person in the district!'—'One who has suffered for his championship of righteousness!'Righteousness!Save the mark!”
“What does it mean?”
“Mean! It means McCune—Rod McCune, 'who has lived under a threat for years'—mythreat! I swore I would print him out of Indiana if he ever raised his head again, and he knew I could. 'Almost overborne in the fulfilment of that threat!'Almost! It's a black scheme, and I see it now. This man came to Plattville and went on the 'Herald' for nothing in the world but this. It's McCune's hand all along. He daren't name him even now, the coward! The trick lies between McCune and young Fisbee—the old man is innocent. Give me the pad. Notalmostoverborne. There are three good days to work in, and, by the gods of Perdition, if Rod McCune sees Congress it will be in his next incarnation!”
He rapidly scribbled a few lines on the pad, and threw the sheets to Meredith. “Get those telegrams to the Western Union office in a rush, please. Read them first.”
With a very red face Tom read them. One was addressed to H. Fisbee:
“You are relieved from the cares of editorship. You will turn over the management of the 'Herald' to Warren Smith. You will give him the McCune papers. If you do not, or if you destroy them, you cannot hide where I shall not find you.
“JOHN HARKLESS.”
The second was to Warren Smith: “Take possession 'Herald.' Dismiss H. Fisbee. This your authority. Publish McCune papers so labelled which H. Fisbee will hand you. Letter follows. Beat McCune.
“JOHN HARKLESS.”
The author of the curt epistles tossed restlessly on his couch, but the reader of them stared, incredulous and dumfounded, uncertain of his command of gravity. His jaw fell, and his open mouth might have betokened a being smit to imbecility; and, haply, he might be, for Helen had written him from Plattville, pledging his honor to secrecy with the first words, and it was by her command that he had found excuses for not supplying his patient with all the papers which happened to contain references to the change of date for the Plattville convention. And Meredith had known for some time where James Fisbee had found a “young relative” to be the savior of the “Herald” for his benefactor's sake.
“You mean—you—intend to—you discharge young Fisbee?” he stammered at last.
“Yes! Let me have the answers the instant they come, will you, Tom?” Then Harkless turned his face from the wall and spoke through his teeth: “I mean to see H. Fisbee before many days; I want to talk to him!”
But, though he tossed and fretted himself into what the doctor pronounced a decidedly improved state, no answer came to either telegram that day or night. The next morning a messenger boy stumbled up the front steps and handed the colored man, Jim, four yellow envelopes, night messages. Three of them were for Harkless, one was for Meredith. Jim carried them upstairs, left the three with his master's guest, then knocked on his master's door.
“What is it?” answered a thick voice. Meredith had not yet risen.
“A telegraph. Mist' Tawm.”
There was a terrific yawn. “O-o-oh! Slide it—oh—under the—door.”
“Yessuh.”
Meredith lay quite without motion for several minutes, sleepily watching the yellow rhomboid in the crevice. It was a hateful looking thing to come mixing in with pleasant dreams and insist upon being read. After a while he climbed groaningly out of bed, and read the message with heavy eyes, still half asleep. He read it twice before it penetrated:
“Suppress all newspapers to-day. Convention meets at eleven. If we succeed a delegation will come to Rouen this afternoon. They will come.
“HELEN.”
Tom rubbed his sticky eyelids, and shook his head violently in a Spartan effort to rouse himself; but what more effectively performed the task for him were certain sounds issuing from Harkless's room, across the hall. For some minutes, Meredith had been dully conscious of a rustle and stir in the invalid's chamber, and he began to realize that no mere tossing about a bed would account for a noise that reached him across a wide hall and through two closed doors of thick walnut. Suddenly he heard a quick, heavy tread, shod, in Harkless's room, and a resounding bang, as some heavy object struck the floor. The doctor was not to come till evening; Jim had gone down-stairs. Who wore shoes in the sick man's room? He rushed across the hall in his pyjamas and threw open the unlocked door.
The bed was disarranged and vacant. Harkless, fully dressed, was standing in the middle of the floor, hurling garments at a big travelling bag.
The horrified Meredith stood for a second, bleached and speechless, then he rushed upon his friend and seized him with both hands.
“Mad, by heaven! Mad!”
“Let go of me, Tom!”
“Lunatic! Lunatic!”
“Don't stop me one instant!”
Meredith tried to force him toward the bed. “For mercy's sake, get back to bed. You're delirious, boy!”
“Delirious nothing. I'm a well man.”
“Go to bed—go to bed.”
Harkless set him out of the way with one arm. “Bed be hanged!” he cried. “I'm going to Plattville!”
Meredith wrung his hands. “The doctor——“!
“Doctor be damned!”
“Will you tell me what has happened, John?”
His companion slung a light overcoat, unfolded, on the overflowing, misshapen bundle of clothes that lay in the bag; then he jumped on the lid with both feet and kicked the hasp into the lock; a very elegantly laundered cuff and white sleeve dangling out from between the fastened lids. “I haven't one second to talk, Tom; I have seventeen minutes to catch the express, and it's a mile and a half to the station; the train leaves here at eight fifty, I get to Plattville at ten forty-seven. Telephone for a cab for me, please, or tell me the number; I don't want to stop to hunt it up.”
Meredith looked him in the eyes. In the pupils of Harkless flared a fierce light. His cheeks were reddened with an angry, healthy glow, and his teeth were clenched till the line of his jaw stood out like that of an embattled athlete in sculpture; his brow was dark; his chest was thrown out, and he took deep, quick breaths; his shoulders were squared, and in spite of his thinness they looked massy. Lethargy, or malaria, or both, whatever were his ailments, they were gone. He was six feet of hot wrath and cold resolution.
Tom said: “You are going?”
“Yes,” he answered, “I am going.”
“Then I will go with you.”
“Thank you, Tom,” said the other quietly.
Meredith ran into his own room, pressed an electric button, sprang out of his pyjamas like Aphrodite from the white sea-foam, and began to dive into his clothes with a panting rapidity astonishingly foreign to his desire. Jim appeared in the doorway.
“The cart, Jim,” shouted his master. “We want it like lightning. Tell the cook to give Mr. Harkless his breakfast in a hurry. Set a cup of coffee on the table by the front door for me. Run like the deuce! We've got to catch a train.—That will be quicker than any cab,” he explained to Harkless. “We'll break the ordinance against fast driving, getting down there.”
Ten minutes later the cart swept away from the house at a gait which pained the respectable neighborhood. The big horse plunged through the air, his ears laid flat toward his tail; the cart careened sickeningly; the face of the servant clutching at the rail in the rear was smeared with pallor as they pirouetted around curves on one wheel—to him it seemed they skirted the corners and Death simultaneously—and the speed of their going made a strong wind in their faces.
Harkless leaned forward.
“Can you make it a little faster, Tom?” he said.
They dashed up to the station amid the cries of people flying to the walls for safety; the two gentlemen leaped from the cart, bore down upon the ticket-office, stormed at the agent, and ran madly at the gates, flourishing their passports. The official on duty eyed them wearily, and barred the way.
“Been gone two minutes,” he remarked, with a peaceable yawn.
Harkless stamped his foot on the cement flags; then he stood stock still, gazing at the empty tracks; but Meredith turned to him, smiling.
“Won't it keep?” he asked.
“Yes, it will keep,” John answered. “Part of it may have to keep till election day, but some of it I will settle before night. And that,” he cried, between his teeth, “and that is the part of it in regard to young Mr. Fisbee!”
“Oh, it's about H. Fisbee, is it?”
“Yes, it's H. Fisbee.”
“Well, we might as well go up and see what the doctor thinks of you; there's no train.”
“I don't want to see a doctor again, ever—as long as I live. I'm as well as anybody.”
Tom burst out laughing, and clapped his companion lightly on the shoulder, his eyes dancing with pleasure.
“Upon my soul,” he cried, “I believe you are! It's against all my tradition, and I see I am the gull of poetry; for I've always believed it to be beyond question that this sort of miracle was wrought, not by rage, but by the tenderer senti—” Tom checked himself. “Well, let's take a drive.”
“Meredith,” said the other, turning to him gravely, “you may think me a fool, if you will, and it's likely I am; but I don't leave this station except by train. I've only two days to work in, and every minute lessens our chances to beat McCune, and I have to begin by wasting time on a tussle with a traitor. There's another train at eleven fifty-five; I don't take any chances on missing that one.”
“Well, well,” laughed his friend, pushing him good-humoredly toward a door by a red and white striped pillar, “we'll wait here, if you like; but at least go in there and get a shave; it's a clean shop. You want to look your best if you are going down to fight H. Fisbee.”
“Take these, then, and you will understand,” said Harkless; and he thrust his three telegrams of the morning into Tom's hand and disappeared into the barber-shop. When he was gone, Meredith went to the telegraph office in the station, and sent a line over the wire to Helen:
“Keep your delegation at home. He's coming on the 11.55.”
Then he read the three telegrams Harkless had given him. They were all from Plattville:
“Sorry cannot oblige. Present incumbent tenacious. Unconditionally refuses surrender. Delicate matter. No hope for K. H. But don't worry. Everything all right.
“WARREN SMITH.”
“Harkless, if you have the strength to walk, come down before the convention. Get here by 10.47. Looks bad. Come if it kills you.
“K. H.”
“You entrusted me with sole responsibility for all matters pertaining to 'Herald.' Declared yourself mere spectator. Does this permit your interfering with my policy for the paper? Decline to consider any proposition to relieve me of my duties without proper warning and allowance of time.
“H. FISBEE.”
The accommodation train wandered languidly through the early afternoon sunshine, stopping at every village and almost every country post-office on the line; the engine toot-tooting at the road crossings; and, now and again, at such junctures, a farmer, struggling with a team of prancing horses, would be seen, or, it might be, a group of school children, homeward bound from seats of learning. At each station, when the train came to a stand-still, some passenger, hanging head and elbows out of his window, like a quilt draped over a chair, would address a citizen on the platform:
“Hey, Sam, how's Miz Bushkirk?”
“She's wal.”
“Where's Milt, this afternoon?”
“Warshing the buggy.” Then at the cry, “All 'board”—“See you Sunday over at Amo.”
“You make Milt come. I'll be there, shore. So long.”
There was an impatient passenger in the smoker, who found the stoppages at these wayside hamlets interminable, both in frequency and in the delay at each of them; and while the dawdling train remained inert, and the moments passed inactive, his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till the nails bit his palm; then, when the trucks groaned and the wheels crooned against the rails once more, he sank back in his seat with sighs of relief. Sometimes he would get up and pace the aisle until his companion reminded him that this was not certain to hasten the hour of their arrival at their destination.
“I know that,” answered the other, “but I've got to beat McCune.”
“By the way,” observed Meredith, “you left your stick behind.”
“You don't think I need a club to face——”
Tom choked. “Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of your giving H. Fisbee a thrashing. I meant to lean on.”
“I don't want it. I've got to walk lame all my life, but I'm not going to hobble on a stick.” Tom looked at him sadly; for it was true, and the Cross-Roaders might hug themselves in their cells over the thought. For the rest of his life John Harkless was to walk with just the limp they themselves would have had, if, as in former days, their sentence had been to the ball and chain.
The window was open beside the two young men, and the breeze swept in, fresh from the wide fields, There was a tang in the air; it soothed like a balm, but there was a spur to energy and heartiness in its crispness, the wholesome touch of fall. John looked out over the boundless aisles of corn that stood higher than a tall man could reach; long waves rippled across them. Here, where the cry of the brave had rung in forest glades, where the painted tribes had hastened, were marshalled the tasselled armies of peace. And beyond these, where the train ran between shadowy groves, delicate landscape vistas, framed in branches, opened, closed, and succeeded each other, and then the travellers were carried out into the level open again, and the intensely blue September skies ran down to the low horizon, meeting the tossing plumes of corn.
It takes a long time for the full beauty of the flat lands to reach a man's soul; once there, nor hills, nor sea, nor growing fan leaves of palm shall suffice him. It is like the beauty in the word “Indiana.” It may be that there are people who do not consider “Indiana” a beautiful word; but once it rings true in your ears it has a richer sound than “Vallombrosa.”
There was a newness in the atmosphere that day, a bright invigoration, that set the blood tingling. The hot months were done with, languor was routed. Autumn spoke to industry, told of the sowing of another harvest, of the tawny shock, of the purple grape, of the red apple, and called upon muscle and laughter; breathed gaiety into men's hearts. The little stations hummed with bustle and noise; big farm wagons rattled away and raced with cut-under or omnibus; people walked with quick steps; the baggage-masters called cheerily to the trainmen, and the brakemen laughed good-bys to rollicking girls.
As they left Gainesville three children, clad in calico, barefoot and bareheaded, came romping out of a log cabin on the outskirts of the town, and waved their hands to the passengers. They climbed on the sagging gate in front of their humble domain, and laughed for joy to see the monstrous caravan come clattering out of the unknown, bearing the faces by. The smallest child, a little cherubic tow-head, whose cheeks were smeared with clean earth and the tracks of forgotten tears, stood upright on a fence-post, and blew the most impudent of kisses to the strangers on a journey.
Beyond this they came into a great plain, acres and acres of green rag-weed where the wheat had grown, all so flat one thought of an enormous billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed the country roads, they saw the staunch brown thistle, sometimes the sumach, and always the graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing a purple-turbaned head, or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood too close to the train. The fields, like great, flat emeralds set in new metal, were bordered with golden-rod, and at sight of this the heart leaped; for the golden-rod is a symbol of stored granaries, of ripe sheaves, of the kindness of the season generously given and abundantly received; more, it is the token of a land of promise and of bounteous fulfilment; and the plant stains its blossom with yellow so that when it falls it pays tribute to the ground which has nourished it.
From the plain they passed again into a thick wood, where ruddy arrows of the sun glinted among the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a courtly maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson and pale brown, gallants of the forest preparing early for the October masquerade, when they should hold wanton carnival, before they stripped them of their finery for pious gray.
And when the coughing engine drew them to the borders of this wood, they rolled out into another rich plain of green and rust-colored corn; and far to the south John Harkless marked a winding procession of sycamores, which, he knew, followed the course of a slender stream; and the waters of the stream flowed by a bank where wild thyme might have grown, and where, beyond an orchard and a rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in the shade of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hibbard's Creek. Here the land lay flatter than elsewhere; the sky came closer, with a gentler benediction; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices; there was the flavor of apples and the smell of the walnut and a hint of coming frost; the immeasurable earth lay more patiently to await the husbandman; and the whole world seemed to extend flat in line with the eye—for this was Carlow County.
All at once the anger ran out of John Harkless; he was a hard man for anger to tarry with. And in place of it a strong sense of home-coming began to take possession of him. He was going home. “Back to Plattville, where I belong,” he had said; and he said it again without bitterness, for it was the truth. “Every man cometh to his own place in the end.”
Yes, as one leaves a gay acquaintance of the playhouse lobby for some hard-handed, tried old friend, so he would wave the outer world God-speed and come back to the old ways of Carlow. What though the years were dusty, he had his friends and his memories and his old black brier pipe. He had a girl's picture that he should carry in his heart till his last day; and if his life was sadder, it was infinitely richer for it. His winter fireside should be not so lonely for her sake; and losing her, he lost not everything, for he had the rare blessing of having known her. And what man could wish to be healed of such a hurt? Far better to have had it than to trot a smug pace unscathed.
He had been a dullard; he had lain prostrate in the wretchedness of his loss. “A girl you could put in your hat—and there you have a strong man prone.” He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, unfit to fight, a failure in life and a failure in love. That was ended; he was tired of failing, and it was time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it instead of despair, that is success; and it was the success that he would have. He would take Fate by the neck. But had it done him unkindness? He looked out over the beautiful, “monotonous” landscape, and he answered heartily, “No!” There was ignorance in man, but no unkindness; were man utterly wise he were utterly kind. The Cross-Roaders had not known better; that was all.
The unfolding aisles of corn swam pleasantly before John's eyes. The earth hearkened to man's wants and answered; the clement sun and summer rains hastened the fruition. Yonder stood the brown haystack, garnered to feed the industrious horse who had earned his meed; there was the straw-thatched shelter for the cattle. How the orchard boughs bent with their burdens! The big red barns stood stored with the harvested wheat; and, beyond the pasture-lands, tall trees rose against the benign sky to feed the glance of a dreamer; the fertile soil lay lavender and glossy in the furrow. The farmhouses were warmly built and hale and strong; no winter blast should rage so bitterly as to shake them, or scatter the hospitable embers on the hearth. For this was Carlow County, and he was coming home.
They crossed a by-road. An old man with a streaky gray chin-beard was sitting on a sack of oats in a seatless wagon, waiting for the train to pass. Harkless seized his companion excitedly by the elbow.
“Tommy!” he cried. “It's Kim Fentriss—look! Did you see that old fellow?”
“I saw a particularly uninterested and uninteresting gentleman sitting on a bag,” replied his friend.
“Why, that's old Kimball Fentriss. He's going to town; he lives on the edge of the county.”
“Can this be true?” said Meredith gravely.
“I wonder,” said Harkless thoughtfully, a few moments later, “I wonder why he had them changed around.”
“Who changed around?”
“The team. He always used to drive the bay on the near side, and the sorrel on the off.”
“And at present,” rejoined Meredith, “I am to understand that he is driving the sorrel on the near side, and bay on the off?”
“That's it,” returned the other. “He must have worked them like that for some time, because they didn't look uneasy. They're all right about the train, those two. I've seen them stand with their heads almost against a fast freight. See there!” He pointed to a white frame farmhouse with green blinds. “That's Win Hibbard's. We're just outside of Beaver.”
“Beaver? Elucidate Beaver, boy!”
“Beaver? Meredith, your information ends at home. What do you know of your own State if you are ignorant of Beaver. Beaver is that city of Carlow County next in importance and population to Plattville.”
Tom put his head out of the window. “I fancy you are right,” he said. “I already see five people there.”
Meredith had observed the change in his companion's mood. He had watched him closely all day, looking for a return of his malady; but he came to the conclusion that in truth a miracle had been wrought, for the lethargy was gone, and vigor seemed to increase in Harkless with every turn of the wheels that brought them nearer Plattville; and the nearer they drew to Plattville the higher the spirits of both the young men rose. Meredith knew what was happening there, and he began to be a little excited. As he had said, there were five people visible at Beaver; and he wondered where they lived, as the only building in sight was the station, and to satisfy his curiosity he walked out to the vestibule. The little station stood in deep woods, and brown leaves whirled along the platform. One of the five people was an old lady, and she entered a rear car. The other four were men. One of them handed the conductor a telegram.
Meredith heard the official say, “All right. Decorate ahead. I'll hold it five minutes.”
The man sprang up the steps of the smoker and looked in. He turned to Meredith: “Do you know if that gentleman in the gray coat is Mr. Harkless? He's got his back this way, and I don't want to go inside. The—the air in a smoker always gives me a spell.”
“Yes, that's Mr. Harkless.”
The man jumped to the platform. “All right, boys,” he said. “Rip her out.”
The doors of the freight-room were thrown open, and a big bundle of colored stuffs was dragged out and hastily unfolded. One of the men ran to the further end of the car with a strip of red, white and blue bunting, and tacked it securely, while another fastened the other extremity to the railing of the steps by Meredith. The two companions of this pair performed the same operation with another strip on the other side of the car. They ran similar strips of bunting along the roof from end to end, so that, except for the windows, the car was completely covered by the national colors. Then they draped the vestibules with flags. It was all done in a trice.
Meredith's heart was beating fast. “What's it all about?” he asked.
“Picnic down the line,” answered the man in charge, removing a tack from his mouth. He motioned to the conductor, “Go ahead.”
The wheels began to move; the decorators remained on the platform, letting the train pass them; but Meredith, craning his neck from the steps, saw that they jumped on the last car.
“What's the celebration?” asked Harkless, when Meredith returned.
“Picnic down the line,” said Meredith.
“Nipping weather for a picnic; a little cool, don't you think? One of those fellows looked like a friend of mine. Homer Tibbs, or as Homer might look if he were in disgrace. He had his hat hung on his eyes, and he slouched like a thief in melodrama, as he tacked up the bunting on this side of the car.” He continued to point out various familiar places, finally breaking out enthusiastically, as they drew nearer the town, “Hello! Look there—beyond the grove yonder! See that house?”
“Yes, John.”
“That's the Bowlders'. You've got to know the Bowlders.”
“I'd like to.”
“The kindest people in the world. The Briscoe house we can't see, because it's so shut in by trees; and, besides, it's a mile or so ahead of us. We'll go out there for supper to-night. Don't you like Briscoe? He's the best they make. We'll go up town with Judd Bennett in the omnibus, and you'll know how a rapid-fire machine gun sounds. I want to go straight to the 'Herald' office,” he finished, with a suddenly darkening brow.
“After all, there may be some explanation,” Meredith suggested, with a little hesitancy. “H. Fisbee might turn out more honest than you think.”
Harkless threw his head back and laughed; it was the first time Meredith had heard him laugh since the night of the dance in the country. “Honest! A man in the pay of Rodney McCune! Well, we can let it wait till we get there. Listen! There's the whistle that means we're getting near home. By heaven, there's an oil-well!”
“So it is.”
“And another—three—five—seven—seven in sight at once! They tried it three miles south and failed; but you can't fool Eph Watts, bless him! I want you to know Watts.”
They were running by the outlying houses of the town, amidst a thousand descriptive exclamations from Harkless, who wished Meredith to meet every one in Carlow. But he came to a pause in the middle of a word.
“Do you hear music?” he asked abruptly. “Or is it only the rhythm of the ties?”
“It seems to me there's music in the air,” answered his companion. “I've been fancying I heard it for a minute or so. There! No—yes. It's a band, isn't it?”
“No; what would a band——”
The train slowed up, and stopped at a watertank, two hundred yards east of the station, and their uncertainty was at an end.
From somewhere down the track came the detonating boom of a cannon. There was a dash of brass, and the travellers became aware of a band playing “Marching through Georgia.” Meredith laid his hand on his companion's shoulder. “John,” he said, “John——” The cannon fired again, and there came a cheer from three thousand throats, the shouters all unseen.
The engine coughed and panted, the train rolled on, and in another minute it had stopped alongside the station in the midst of a riotous jam of happy people, who were waving flags and banners and handkerchiefs, and tossing their hats high in the air, and shouting themselves hoarse. The band played in dumb show; it could not hear itself play. The people came at the smoker like a long wave, and Warren Smith, Briscoe, Keating, and Mr. Bence of Gaines were swept ahead of it. Before the train stopped they had rushed eagerly up the steps and entered the car.
Harkless was on his feet and started to meet them. He stopped.
“What does it mean?” he said, and began to grow pale. “Is Halloway—did McCune—have you——”
Warren Smith seized one of his hands and Briscoe the other. “What does it mean?” cried Warren; “it means that you were nominated for Congress at five minutes after one-o'clock this afternoon.”
“On the second ballot,” shouted the Judge, “just as young Fisbee planned it, weeks ago.”
It was one of the great crowds of Carlow's history. They had known since morning that he was coming home, and the gentlemen of the Reception Committee had some busy hours; but long before the train arrived, everything was ready. Homer Tibbs had done his work well at Beaver, and the gray-haired veterans of a battery Carlow had sent out in '61 had placed their worn old gun in position to fire salutes. At one-o'clock, immediately after the nomination had been made unanimous, the Harkless Clubs of Carlow, Amo, and Gaines, secretly organized during the quiet agitation preceding the convention, formed on parade in the court-house yard, and, with the Plattville Band at their head, paraded the streets to the station, to make sure of being on hand when the train arrived—it was due in a couple of hours. There they were joined by an increasing number of glad enthusiasts, all noisy, exhilarated, red-faced with shouting, and patriotically happy. As Mr. Bence, himself the spoiled child of another county, generously said, in a speech, which (with no outrageous pressure) he was induced to make during the long wait: “The favorite son of Carlow is returning to his Lares and Penates like another Cincinnatus accepting the call of the people; and, for the first time in sixteen years, Carlow shall have a representative to bear the banner of this district and the flaming torch of Progress sweeping on to Washington and triumph like a speedy galleon of old. And his friends are here to take his hand and do him homage, and the number of his friends is as the number given in the last census of the population of the counties of this district!”
And, indeed, in this estimate the speaker seemed guilty of no great exaggeration. A never intermittent procession of pedestrians and vehicles made its way to the station; and every wagon, buckboard, buggy, and cut-under had its flags or bunting, or streamer of ribbons tied to the whip. The excitement increased as the time grew shorter; those on foot struggled for better positions, and the people in wagons and carriages stood upon seats, while the pedestrians besieged them, climbing on the wheels, or balancing recklessly, with feet on the hubs of opposite wagons. Everybody was bound to seehim. When the whistle announced the coming of the train, the band began to play, the cannon fired, horns blew, and the cheering echoed and reechoed till heaven's vault resounded with the noise the people of Carlow were making.
There was one heart which almost stopped beating. Helen was standing on the front seat of the Briscoe buckboard, with Minnie beside her, and, at the commotion, the horses pranced and backed so that Lige Willetts ran to hold them; but she did not notice the frightened roans, nor did she know that Minnie clutched her round the waist to keep her from falling. Her eyes were fixed intently on the smoke of the far-away engine, and her hand, lifted to her face in an uncertain, tremulous fashion, as it was one day in a circus tent, pressed against the deepest blush that ever mantled a girl's cheek. When the train reached the platform, she saw Briscoe and the others rush into the car, and there ensued what was to her an almost intolerable pause of expectation, while the crowd besieged the windows of the smoker, leaning up and climbing on each other's shoulders to catch the first glimpse ofhim. Briscoe and a red-faced young man, a stranger to Plattville, came down the steps, laughing like boys, and then Keating and Bence, and then Warren Smith. As the lawyer reached the platform, he turned toward the door of the car and waved his hand as in welcome.
“Here he is, boys!” he shouted, “Welcome Home!” At that it was as if all the noise that had gone before had been mere leakage of pent-up enthusiasm. A thousand horns blared deafeningly, the whistles of the engine and of Hibbard's mill were added to the din, the court-house bell was pealing out a welcome, and the church bells were ringing, the cannon thundered, and then cheer on cheer shook the air, as John Harkless came out under the flags, and passed down the steps of the car.
When Helen saw him, over the heads of the people and through a flying tumult of flags and hats and handkerchiefs, she gave one frightened glance about her, and jumped down from her high perch, and sank into the back seat of the buckboard with her burning face turned from the station and her eyes fixed on the ground. She wanted to run away, as she had run from him the first time she had ever seen him. Then, as now, he came in triumph, hailed by the plaudits of his fellows; and now, as on that long-departed day of her young girlhood, he was borne high over the heads of the people, for Minnie cried to her to look; they were carrying him on their shoulders to his carriage. She had had only that brief glimpse of him, before he was lost in the crowd that was so glad to get him back again and so proud of him; but she had seen that he looked very white and solemn.
Briscoe and Tom Meredith made their way through the crowd, and climbed into the buckboard. “All right, Lige,” called the judge to Willetts, who was at the horses' heads. “You go get into line with the boys; they want you. We'll go down on Main Street to see the parade,” he explained to the ladies, gathering the reins in his hand.
He clucked to the roans, and by dint of backing and twisting and turning and a hundred intricate manoeuvres, accompanied by entreaties and remonstrances and objurgations, addressed to the occupants of surrounding vehicles, he managed to extricate the buckboard from the press; and once free, the team went down the road toward Main Street at a lively gait. The judge's call to the colts rang out cheerily; his handsome face was one broad smile. “This is a big day for Carlow,” he said; “I don't remember a better day's work in twenty years.”
“Did you tell him about Mr. Halloway?” asked Helen, leaning forward anxiously.
“Warren told him before we left the car,” answered Briscoe. “He'd have declined on the spot, I expect, if we hadn't made him sure it was all right with Kedge.”
“If I understood what Mr. Smith was saying, Halloway must have behaved very well,” said Meredith.
The judge laughed. “He saw it was the only way to beat McCune, and he'd have given his life and Harkless's, too, rather than let McCune have it.”
“Why didn't you stay with him, Tom?” asked Helen.
“With Halloway? I don't know him.”
“One forgives a generous hilarity anything, even such quips as that,” she retorted. “Why did you not stay with Mr. Harkless?”
“That's very hospitable of you,” laughed the young man. “You forget that I have the felicity to sit at your side. Judge Briscoe has been kind enough to ask me to review the procession from his buckboard and to sup at his house with other distinguished visitors, and I have accepted.”
“But didn't he wish you to remain with him?”
“But this second I had the honor to inform you that I am here distinctly by his invitation.”
“His?”
“Precisely, his. Judge Briscoe, Miss Sherwood will not believe that you desire my presence. If I intrude, pray let me—” He made as if to spring from the buckboard, and the girl seized his arm impatiently.
“You are a pitiful nonsense-monger!” she cried; and for some reason this speech made him turn his glasses upon her gravely. Her lashes fell before his gaze, and at that he took her hand and kissed it quickly.
“No, no,” she faltered. “You must not think it. It isn't—you see, I—there is nothing!”
“You shall not dull the edge of my hilarity,” he answered, “especially since so much may be forgiven it.”
“Why did you leave Mr. Harkless?” she asked, without raising her eyes.
“My dear girl,” he replied, “because, for some inexplicable reason, my lady cousin has not nominated me for Congress, but instead has chosen to bestow that distinction upon another, and, I may say, an unworthier and unfitter man than I. And, oddly enough, the non-discriminating multitude were not cheering for me; the artillery was not in action to celebrate me; the band was not playing to do me honor; therefore why should I ride in the midst of a procession that knows me not? Why should I enthrone me in an open barouche—a little faded and possibly not quite secure as to its springs, but still a barouche—with four white horses to draw it, and draped with silken flags, both barouche and steeds? Since these things were not for me, I flew to your side to dissemble my spleen under the licensed prattle of a cousin.”
“Then whoiswith him?”
“The population of this portion of our State, I take it.”
“Oh, it's all right,” said the judge, leaning back to speak to Helen. “Keating and Smith and your father are to ride in the carriage with him. You needn't be afraid of any of them letting him know that H. Fisbee is a lady. Everybody understands about that; of course they know it's to be left to you to break it to him how well a girl has run his paper.” The old gentleman chuckled, and looked out of the corner of his eye at his daughter, whose expression was inscrutable.
“I!” cried Helen. “Itell him! No one must tell him. He need never know it.”
Briscoe reached back and patted her cheek. “How long do you suppose he will be here in Plattville without it's leaking out?”
“But they kept guard over him for months and nobody told him.”
“Ah,” said Briscoe, “but this is different.”
“No, no, no!” she exclaimed. “Itmustbe kept from him somehow!”
“He'll know it by to-morrow, so you'd better tell him this evening.”
“This evening?”
“Yes. You'll have a good chance.”
“I will?”
“He's coming to supper with us. He and your father, of course, and Keating and Bence and Boswell and Smith and Tom Martin and Lige. We're going to have a big time, with you and Minnie to do the honors; and we're all coming into town afterwards for the fireworks; I'll let him drive you in the phaeton. You'll have plenty of time to talk it over with him and tell him all about it.”
Helen gave a little gasp. “Never!” she cried. “Never!”
The buckboard stopped on the “Herald” corner, and here, and along Main Street, the line of vehicles which had followed it from the station took their places. The Square was almost a solid mass of bunting, and the north entrance of the court-house had been decorated with streamers and flags, so as to make it a sort of stand. Hither the crowd was already streaming, and hither the procession made its way. At intervals the cannon boomed, and Schofields' Henry was winnowing the air with his bell; nobody had a better time that day than Schofields' Henry, except old Wilkerson, who was with the procession.
In advance, came the boys, whooping and somersaulting, and behind them, rode a band of mounted men, sitting their horses like cavalrymen, led by the sheriff and his deputy and Jim Bardlock; then followed the Harkless Club of Amo, led by Boswell, with the magnanimous Halloway himself marching in the ranks; and at sight of this the people shouted like madmen. But when Helen's eye fell upon his fat, rather unhappy face, she felt a pang of pity and unreasoning remorse, which warned her that he who looks upon politics when it is red must steel his eyes to see many a man with the heart-burn. After the men of Amo, came the Harkless Club of Gainesville, Mr. Bence in the van with the step of a grenadier. There followed next, Mr. Ephraim Watts, bearing a light wand in his hand and leading a detachment of workers from the oil-fields in their stained blue overalls and blouses; and, after them, came Mr. Martin and Mr. Landis at the head of an organization recognized in the “Order of Procession,” printed in the “Herald,” as the Business Men of Plattville. They played in such magnificent time that every high-stepping foot in all the line came down with the same jubilant plunk, and lifted again with a unanimity as complete as that of the last vote the convention had taken that day. The leaders of the procession set a brisk pace, and who could have set any other kind of a pace when on parade to the strains of such a band, playing such a tune as “A New Coon in Town,” with all its might and main?
But as the line swung into the Square, there came a moment when the tune was ended, the musicians paused for breath, and there fell comparative quiet. Amongst the ranks of Business Men ambled Mr. Wilkerson, singing at the top of his voice, and now he could be heard distinctly enough for those near to him to distinguish the melody with which it was his intention to favor the public: