VI
THOUGH it was still early in May, though the business of the nation was pressing for attention, though the reforms promised by the party in power had not been brought to pass, and though two months must elapse before the candidates for the presidency could be nominated, six before a president could be elected, and nearly a year before he could be inducted into office, the coming national conventions already wrought a curious effect in the nation.
In the first place, that strange artificial thing which men call business felt a peculiar numbing influence stealing over it. Men began to move cautiously, to speak guardedly, to control their opinions. They grew crafty and secretive, as if the trend of events depended on what, in the next few months, they said or did. The great question, of course, was not what should be done to make the people better and happier, though there was abundant pretense that this was so, but who should get hold of the offices, for only so far as the holding of offices and the drawing of salaries could make men and those dependent upon them happier, did this question of the joy of humanity enter into the calculations of men.
Those already in office sighed as they thought of the rapidity with which their terms had rolled around and wondered how they might stay in. The greater army of those who had been out of office, and for whom the time had dragged so slowly by, were wondering how to get in. To succeed in either case it was not necessary that men should have programs of reform and progress, or to have any real understanding of the theories of government, it was only necessary for them to say that they belonged to one or the other of two great parties into which the people had arbitrarily divided themselves, and to be able to control, somehow, other men in the casting of their votes.
There were, of course, two or three other parties, small and without hope of success, so that the men who belonged to them could honestly say what they thought, but it was not considered respectable or dignified to belong to any of these smaller parties, and the men who adhered to them were ridiculed and ostracized and made to feel ashamed.
Everywhere in Washington, where all depend in some way upon the Government, in the cloak rooms of the two houses of Congress, in the rotundas and lobbies of hotels, in the clubs and bar-rooms, in drawing rooms and parlors, and in the secret chambers of the White House itself, men talked of nothing but these national conventions. In Congress business was dragging. The usual daily sessions were held, and perfervid speeches were delivered, but there was no legislation, which was perhaps just as well. Both parties feared just then the possible effect legislation might have on the voters, and each sought to put the other in an unpopular attitude before the people. In a word, as the correspondents wrote in the lengthened specials they wired to their newspapers each night, the politicians at Washington were playing politics.
To Garwood, however, this life was full and satisfying. To saunter over to the House at noon, to saunter back, to lean at the corner of the little bar in the Arlington, one foot cocked over the other, his broad hat on the back of his head, and the Havana cigar between his teeth tilted at an angle parallel with the line of his hat brim, thus preserving to the eye the symmetry of the whole striking picture he knew he made—this was existence for him.
“You’ll be on yoah state delegation to the national convention, I take it, suh?” Colonel Bird would say to him.
“Well,” Garwood would reply, “I don’t know yet whether I’ll go on at large or not. It’ll all depend on the situation when we get down to Springfield. Unless the boys feel that I could do more good somewhere else, I’ll go on. Anyway, I’ll go from the district.”
“Well, you’ll be theah, I’m suah, suh. Boy—make us anothah of those mint juleps. And, boy!—if you will allow me, suh——” the colonel bowed in his courtly old-school way to Garwood—“don’t mash the mint this time, just pinch the sprigs, oah twis’ them, so as to avoid the bittah flavah you othahwise impaht to yoah concoction. I find it ve’y difficult, Colonel,” the old gentleman continued, turning to Garwood, “to get a julep made prope’ly out of Kentucky.”
It pleased Garwood to be addressed as colonel, as it pleases any man, and he was conscious of a momentary regret that he had not induced Colonel Warfield to ask the governor of Illinois to appoint him as an aide-de-camp on his staff, so that the title might be his. He resolved to have that done if—but his mind darkened at the prospect of all he must suffer and endure before his political fortunes could again be considered secure. Another campaign with all its uncertainty lay before him, and there was no Rankin any more to lean on. He preferred to close his eyes to the future, and to live to the full the happy moments that flew by so swiftly.
The colonel had insisted on their seating themselves at one of the two or three small tables in the little bar-room, so that he might sip his julep in the lazy deliberation so dear to his Southern nature, and as they sat there, other members dropped in, and were invited by the colonel with a hospitable wave of his white hand to join them.
They were all glad to do so, for Colonel Bird represented one of those Kentucky districts dear to the congressional heart, which not only afforded a romantic background for his own picturesque figure, but possessed a higher attribute in this, that it always returned the colonel to Washington without contest or question. He was never troubled about renomination or reëlection. He had been speaking of that district for years—ever since he had accepted the benefits of the amnesty proclamation, which he affected to despise—with a calm proprietary air that filled the souls of the men gathered about him in the afternoon of this warm spring day, with a longing far above all the other longings of spring.
The colonel had laid off his planter’s hat, and with his paunch pressed against the table, sat and tinkled the ice in his tall glass as if he loved its cool music, and awaited the serving of the others whom he had invited to become of his party. He sat erectly, as his paunch forced him to do, and now and then, in a way that added to his dignity, stroked the mustaches and imperial that were white as cotton against his red face. But his relief was apparent when at last the bartender brought the fragrant glasses with their cool crystal reflecting the green of the little sprigs of mint, and then he bowed, as well as he could, and formally awaited the pleasure of his guests.
“How!” said Ladd, of Colorado, in the big western voice that so heartily expressed the amenity that all felt due the occasion.
“Suhs,” replied the colonel, “yoah ve’y good health.”
The colonel took a long pull at the straw, and then straightening himself, sat, warm and red and pompous, the glossy bosom of his shirt arching itself to meet his imperial as though it would do its best to replace the starched frills that his antebellum personality lacked.
“Well, Colonel, whom are you Democrats going to nominate?” asked Van Beek, of New York.
“Well, suh,” the colonel began, speaking gravely and with much consideration, as if he were indeed to deliver the judgment of his party’s convention. “Pehsonally, I’d like to see a Southe’n gentleman, of cou’se. But that reminds me of an old friend of mine, who came down to see me ’long in the spring of seventy-six to ask that same question, suh. You all remembah that the’ was a good deal of discussion goin’ on in ouah pahty that yeah about ouah p’ospective candidate. The friend to whom I refeh was an old fellah who lived neah mah place, and he always came ovah to see me whenevah I got home f’om Washington, in o’deh to discuss the political issues of the day. I received him, and we sat down on the po’ch, and aftah I’d called mah house niggah to make us some juleps—I wish, suhs, we had those juleps heah to-day, though I do not wish to dispa’age the liquah ouah landlo’d se’ves heah, not at all, suhs.” He inclined his head apologetically toward the bar. “I had known this old man fo’ a long pe’iod of tahm. He was a po’ fahmah, but—he rode in mah troop.”
The colonel paused again, that the company might have time to appreciate the paternal relation of officer and man who had ridden with Morgan’s Raiders, and then went on:
“I rehea’sed the names of seve’al of the distinguished gentlemen whose names had been brought fo’wahd by theah friends fo’ the high office. The’ was Tilden, and Seymoah, and Bayahd, and Thu’man, and othahs you’ll remembuh, but none of them seemed somehow to impress the ol’ fellah favo’ably. No, suh, none of the names seemed to impress the ol’ fellah favo’ably, till at las’, I added: ‘And then, theah’s some mention of Davis,’ meaning the distinguished ju’ist of yoah state, suh,” the colonel explained, bowing to Garwood, who, as if expressly deputed thereto by the governor of Illinois, bowed the acknowledgment that seemed to be due the honor thus conferred upon that commonwealth.
“At the magic name of Davis, the po’ ol’ man’s eyes lit up with Promethean fiah,” the colonel continued, his own little eyes sparkling, “and, leaning fo’wahd, trembling like an aspen leaf, with the delight he was almost afraid to indulge, he looked cahfully all about him, and took his long seegah from his lips, and then he whispehed: ‘But, Colonel, ain’t yo’ all afeahed it’s a leetle airly?’
“And so, suhs,” the colonel resumed, having bent his purple face to sip his julep and to give his companions opportunity to pay his story the tribute of the laugh he demanded, “I feah in this instance, suhs, it’s a leetle airly fo’ a Southron.
“But, se’iously, suhs,” the colonel went on, after a proper pause, “I’m goin’ back to Kentucky the end of this month. I’ll go ovah to Frankfo’t, and I’ll go to the Capitol Hotel, and theah I’ll meet the friends of mah own state, and aftah that, I’ll have some idea of whom I shall suppoht when we all get up to Chicago.”
“Like to get over to Frankfort, don’t you, Colonel?” asked Conley of Ohio, in the bald way that men had of inducing the colonel to talk about Kentucky.
“Well, suh, yes, suh, in a ce’tain sense I dew. It’s ve’y pleasant to’ a gentleman to meet all his old friends and comrades in ahms, as I do theah, but I will say this, suhs, that theah is at Frankfo’t an aggregation of men who seemingly fo’ ages have been hanging onto the public teat theah, suhs, and who, if the good Lawd would see fit to snatch them to his bosom, would be the subjects of a special dispensation of divahn Providence in which I could acquiesce, suhs, with an enthusiasm that would be tuhbulent and even riotous.”
After this the colonel, feeling that politeness demanded the elimination of himself from his conversation, temporarily at least, turned to Garwood and said:
“Have you got a contes’ on in yoah district this yeah, Colonel?”
“I always have had,” said Garwood, and a sudden rueful expression overspread his countenance, “and I know no reason to expect any change in the ordinary routine this year.”
“Well, suh. I wish I weh at liberty to go into yoah district this fall and make some speeches fo’ you,” said the colonel, with that naïve conceit of his which led him to feel that his presence would save the day for Garwood.
“If you could go out there now, with your gun, and in approved Kentucky style, kill off a few men I could name, I would like it almost as well,” Garwood replied.
The colonel made no answer to this. But he looked a stern rebuke at Garwood, as at one who trifled with grave and serious matters.
They sat there and drank and listened to the colonel’s stories until the evening came, until the night itself had fallen. And then Garwood received Pusey’s telegram, and it smote him dumb in the middle of a laugh. He had only time to ask Colonel Bird to request a leave of absence for him, before he hurried away to pack his bag. The colonel was delighted, of course, to have the opportunity to act for a friend in any matter. In fact, nothing could please him more than to be enabled to rise in his place in the House in all that morning dignity which no dissipation of the previous night could impair, and address the Speaker. And it may have been merely to show his appreciation of the confidence thus reposed in him, that he went with Garwood to see him safely aboard his train, on which he was to speed westward, with troubled mind, through the mountains and over the plains, out to Illinois.