IX
GARWOOD, with Rankin and his other more intimate supporters started for Pekin on Monday morning in order to be on the ground early. They found themselves none too soon, for the delegates had already begun to gather, and by night the old town was fully invested by politicians. They strolled in twos and threes under their serious hat brims, along the shaded streets where the wonted quiet of the town deepened to a repose in which they best could whisper their little schemes. They were to be found in noisy groups in the saloons and bar-rooms, but as the chiefs and leaders were at the hotel, there the interest centered. Many of the visitors, taking chairs from the office of the hotel, where the lights, burning under the low ceiling, made the heat unbearable, placed them along the curb, and then all through the summer evening, they tilted back and talked, their cigars glowing in the darkness, their laughter now and then breaking on the ears of the youths and maidens who strolled by. Upstairs in one of the rooms of the hotel, a poker game was in progress; in another, Garwood held a levee amid a thick cloud of cigar smoke, for which the open box of cigars on the table provided a constant fuel. Sprague also had his headquarters, and in another room the congressional committee was in session.
The room was strewn with paper and the ashes of cigars, and there was a holocaust of insects on the floor under the oil lamps, and though the morning was luminous and still when the meeting ended the tired and sleepy members were glad of the breath of its sweet air. The dawn had come long before. Now the sun was mounting in the east, flashing his heat in trembling rays down on the green corn fields. The sky was burnished clean of clouds, and glistened like metal. Far down in the west, where the mists had long since rolled away from the Illinois River, was a low lying hill of cloud, dazzling white and moveless, resting on the horizon. As the committee-men, spent with a night of wrangling, gazed up into that morning heaven they knew how hot the day would be, a day hot as no day other than a convention day ever is.
Rankin, as he stood on the hotel steps and gazed, removed his hat, and wiped his brow with a gesture of weariness unusual to him. The long strain of the battle would soon begin. Would it end as that other battle two years ago had ended? He had waited long for his reward, he must make one more winning fight to vindicate his right to it. It meant much to him—four years in the post-office at Grand Prairie—he could rest when he sat down in that envied chair. He would move the desk into the window on Main Street, and then all his friends, and, what was sweeter still, all his enemies could see him sitting there. With this dream his habitual cheerfulness came back to him, and he turned and went inside with a quicker step. There was still work for him to do. The committee was to meet again at half-past nine to complete the little details, and, besides, he must prepare a program to place in the hands of the temporary chairman; a program on which would be written just what motions were to be made, who was to move a committee on credentials and on permanent organization, and who were to be appointed on these committees, and then who was to nominate the permanent chairman, and so forth. Thus it is by such forethoughtful organization that one chases a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. Rankin went to his room and with a window open to lure any breeze that might come with the morning, he wrote out his schedule of the people’s wishes.
Garwood lay snoring in one of the two beds the room contained. He had remained in his headquarters until they had been emptied, then he had joined in a poker game; an hour before Rankin entered he had fallen heavily into bed.
There, in the morning, Rankin worked on while Garwood slept. He thought several times, scratching his head in dilemma, of awaking his leader, but he forbore and let him sleep. At last he finished, and then lay down himself, without undressing, to get what rest he could.
He slept lightly for a time, then awoke. The sun, already sickeningly hot, was pouring through the open window, he was bathed in perspiration, the heat was insufferable.
Garwood roused. While he was washing and shaving, he said:
“Will Bailey preside?”
“Yes—we put it through after a fight.”
“He’ll do.”
“Yes,” answered Rankin, spluttering in the water he lifted to his face in the bowl of his two palms, “he’s got nerve.”
He groped for a towel.
“Did you write the resolutions?” he asked Garwood.
“Not yet,” said the congressman; “I must do that.”