VIII
THE curtains were drawn at the windows of Garwood’s law office that night, but the thin lip of light that outlined the casement told to belated men in Grand Prairie that a conference was going on within. The primaries were but two days off, and a vague uncertain quality in the rays that straggled into the gloom and lightened the rusty gilt letters of Garwood’s sign, creaking as it had done for so many years in the wind, might have hinted to the imaginative something of the straits in which the little council gathered within found itself.
Had such a one been acquainted with politics in that prairie district, and had seen Jim Rankin pass by at midnight under the trees that swayed the thick black shadows of their foliage dizzily to and fro on the wide stone sidewalk, and noted the curious smile that glimmered an instant on Rankin’s face, when from force of old habit he raised an upward glance, he would have concluded that serious obstacles beset the way of Jerome B. Garwood in that career to which as a man of destiny he had believed himself ordained, and from which the inconstant and ever-changing circle of his friends had expected so much.
Garwood had come home to find his political condition desperate. He himself, out of the anger that showed black in his face during those hot and trying days, described the situation as a revolt and, had he been possessed of the power, would gladly have punished the rebels by such stern repressive measures as autocratic governments employ in the terror their inherent weakness inspires.
Amid the spring delights of Washington public life he had become swollen with new ambitions. He not only wished to be renominated for Congress, but he wished also to be placed at the head of the Polk County delegation to the state convention called to meet in Springfield early in June; and beyond this, he had the higher wish to be sent as delegate to the national convention at Chicago. He would have preferred, of course, to be named as one of the Big Four delegates at large from Illinois, and when his imagination had been more warmly stimulated by Colonel Bird’s mint juleps, he had dramatized himself as electrifying the national convention by some fine extemporaneous flight of oratory, in which he should soar in an instant to the pinnacle of a national fame, and from that rare altitude behold new and illimitable possibilities of political future. It was, therefore, with a shock of disappointment to which he had not the power to reconcile himself that he had obeyed Pusey’s urgent telegram and had come home to find his very political existence at stake.
Sprague, reviled and reproached as a perennial candidate by those in the district who were themselves perennial candidates, was once more in the field seeking congressional honors. His county, Moultrie, had held its convention, and once more instructed its fifteen delegates for him. Over in Logan, General Barrett, having had a glimpse of the promised land at the Pekin convention, had so far departed from the reserve and dignity of his eminent respectability as to have himself declared a candidate, and he had been indorsed by his county. These candidatures did not seriously alarm Garwood, but a new complication had been suddenly added to the situation of such grave portent that he had summoned about him those who, having received government offices of varying degrees of importance, still felt themselves bound to his support.
This night, then, they were gathered in the office where Enright now spent his days in the midst of a law practice so immature and modest that it could not keep the dust off the books that were piled all about. Pusey was there and Hale had hurried over from Pekin on receipt of a telegram from Garwood. Beside these were Kellogg, whom Garwood had succeeded in placing in the office of the secretary of state at Springfield, and Crawford, his private secretary. They were ranged on chairs uniformly tilted against the wall of the little private office, and the air was streaked with the customary clouds of tobacco smoke that indicate a political fire.
Hale lowered his chair to the floor, and bent over with his elbows on his knees, his head hanging and his face hidden. The others in the room, except Pusey, who was as indifferent as ever, had transfixed him with accusing eyes, though any one could have told that their attitude was feigned in order to keep in sympathy with the threatening mood of Garwood, who sat at his desk, and glowered at the Pekin postmaster.
“Why don’t you speak?” demanded Garwood presently, as if Hale had been arraigned upon an indictment, and they were waiting for him to enter a plea.
Hale stirred uneasily, but he did not speak.
“My God!” said Garwood, petulantly, “I don’t see why you couldn’t have held Tazewell, anyhow!”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Garwood,” said Hale, at length, breaking under the pressure of all those accusing stares, “you see, it’s like this. The people over our way are sore on the president, they’re down on the administration——”
“Oh, hell!” cried Garwood, striking his desk in disgust, “I don’t give a damn for what the people think about the president, or the administration. I ain’t the president, nor the administration, either.”
“But they think you’re supportin’ the administration—course,”—Hale hastened to disclaim any individual responsibility for so serious a charge—“I’m only tellin’ you what they say.”
“Well, didn’t any of them read my speech the other day? Does that look as if I’m supporting the administration?”
Hale had no reply to make to this argument. He only heaved his heavy shoulders in something that approximated a shrug.
“When was Bailey over there?” Garwood demanded.
“Oh, he’s been over off an’ on for a month.”
“Then why in hell didn’t you write me!” said Garwood, turning angrily in his chair. His eyes blazed at Hale a moment, and then he tossed his head and looked away in utter disgust.
Hale had thrown him a glance that in its turn had some of the anger that was beginning to show in his reddening face, and he replied:
“Well, I didn’t know it, that’s why. You can’t get on to Zeph Bailey; he wades in the water, he does.”
Hale breathed hard, and no one had an answer ready. They all knew Bailey’s mysterious habits, and Hale’s explanation was sufficient to acquit him in the forum of their minds. Hale sensed instantly a new and defensive quality in the atmosphere; a current of sympathy seemed to set in toward him, and he kept on, feeling his advantage.
“Why didn’t any of the rest of you wise guys get on to him when he come over and started to fix things right here in Polk County?”
And they had no answer for that. Garwood, sweeping the circle with a glance, and fearing a division in his own ranks, forced a smile of conciliation, and said:
“Oh, well, if Bailey’s a candidate, we’ll have to fight him, that’s all. It’s only one more, anyway, and——”
But the menace of Bailey’s candidacy had cast upon his spirits a shadow too dense to be lightened by mere words, and his sentence died with the confident air he had been able for a moment to command. Hale, however, had been mollified, and took Garwood’s manner from him, as he straightened up to say:
“Course, we’ll make a fight for it. You’ve got some friends left in Tazewell, and so have I, and if we’re licked, we’ll die with our boots on, that’s all there is to that.”
“He has his own county, of course. And you say he has men at work up in DeWitt. Now, if he gets Tazewell and Polk—well——” Garwood flung out his hands hopelessly, as if to surrender. “Great guns, what’s the use?”
“And Sprague’ll throw Moultrie to him—that’s fixed. Sprague knows he can’t get it; he’s just been acting as a stalking horse for Bailey,” said Kellogg, anxious to bear his part in this conference, even if he could bring nothing cheerful to it.
“How did he ever get on the blind side of Sprague?” queried Garwood, peevishly.
“Oh, legislature,” said Kellogg, proud to be able to show his knowledge of affairs in the state house at Springfield; “he put some of Sprague’s fellows—Simp Lewis and some more of ’em—on the pay roll, and took care of brother-in-law Wilson when he made up the committees.”
“H-m-m-m,” Garwood mused, “Mason and Moultrie, and DeWitt—if he gets Tazewell or Polk now—I don’t know what you gentlemen think about it, but it looks to me as if he had us pretty nearly skinned.”
What they thought of it was not apparent, for none of them spoke, and silence settled over the little room, where Garwood’s ambitions were trembling in the fateful balance. At last Pusey spoke:
“He hasn’t got Polk yet.”
Something of the determination which the little man had put into his tone affected the others, and they looked up with new smiles. A reaction set in and Garwood glanced at Pusey gratefully.
“Yes,” he said, trying to resume his congressional dignity, with a smile that was intended to take from it its suggestion of distance, “you remember what the devil said:
“‘—let us
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity;
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair.’”
They stared at him in amazement, wondering how it was possible for him to know what the devil had said, all except Pusey, who nodded appreciatively, to show his own relation to the world of letters. And then Hale drew a long breath and threw back his shoulders.
“Of course,” he said, “if we can carry the primaries here in Polk, that will help us to win out over in my county. Can you do it?”
“How about Jim Rankin?” blurted out the tactless, maladroit Kellogg. The name cast a chill over the little gathering just as the new cheer was warming it, and they were all vicariously embarrassed by what, just at that time, amounted to a contretemps. If Rankin himself, passing by outside at that very moment, could have seen the expressive glances that were secretly exchanged before they all yielded to the impulse to fix unitedly on Garwood’s face, he would have had a sensation to gladden him during all his homeward way. But Garwood met the situation with real dignity.
“Well, Jim will be against me, of course.”
They might have demurred out of mere politeness, but Garwood added:
“And I can assure you, gentlemen, he is an antagonist not to be despised.”
The mention of Rankin’s name, however, had the final effect of forcing them to seek some positive means of dealing with the situation, and after the preliminary waste of time common to most conferences, they began at last to plan for the coming primaries. They were at it a long while, and when in the chill, ghastly hours of the early morning they separated, Garwood voiced what was doubtless in the hearts of all of them, when he said to Pusey:
“Remember, we have Jim Rankin to fight, Pusey.”
Pusey switched his little eyes toward Garwood, but Garwood did not see them. He was thinking of other days.