XII
THE sun poured its rays now on a dead level through the unwashed glass of the western windows; the dust beaten out of the old floor by the stamping feet of Garwood’s successful cohorts quivered in its beams. The storm, promised early in the afternoon, had inconsequently vanished after some unvindicated mutterings of its prophetic thunder, and left the town hotter than ever. The air was oppressed with heavy humidity, and the farmer delegates, dreaming vaguely of their corn, beheld it drying in the heat, rattling its yellow leaves. In the crowded court room the delegates languished in their shirt sleeves, the collars of those who still wore collars, wilted into moist and shapeless masses at their throats. The fight had beaten the life out of them, even those who were radiant in victory. Some one, a Sprague man, moved an adjournment. But Rankin frowned and shouted, “No, no,” to his followers. He had just then an advantage he did not care to lose. And so, when the motion was put, the Singed Cat, glancing at the solemn judicial clock and seeing that two hours of the afternoon yet remained, declared it defeated, and then he drawled:
“Nominations—of candidates—for representative—in Congress—aire now—in order.”
When he had said this, he seemed glad to sit down, though he alone of all the others was unperturbed by that awful heat, and wore his ill-fitting coat as though he would preserve the decorum of the occasion, as Napoleon, for example to his men, wore his uniform buttoned to the chin while he led them across the hot sands of Egypt.
The tired and exhausted delegates settled down gloomily to hear the nominating speeches. Some of them showed an intention of slipping out of the court room, lured by thought of the cooling drafts of beer in the saloons that presented their fronts eagerly to the very face of the temple of Tazewell County justice, but the bosses of either side, fearing some advantage might be taken of their absence, held them to their posts. And so they listened to the impassioned speech into which Randolph was able to work himself in placing in nomination the name of “that profound jurist, that able statesman, that honest man, Conrad Sprague!”
Then followed Dorsey, whom Rankin had chosen for the honor of naming his candidate. Every one knew of course whom Dorsey was presenting, and yet he treasured his name as a hidden surprise for his closing sentence; in which he epitomized him as “the tall Sycamore of the Sangamon, whose eloquence still reverberates in the halls of national legislation, whose fame is growing brighter and fairer as the days go by, in honoring whom the people of the Thirteenth District, representing as it does the pride and glory of central Illinois, are but honoring themselves—that champion of popular rights, that man of the common people, our present representative, the Honorable Jerome B. Garwood!”
There were speeches seconding these nominations, and applause following them, carefully apportioned by the supporters of each, and then when all had done, when every one thought the last word had been spoken, when the Singed Cat had arisen, leaned over the desk and inquired:
“Aire there—any other—or further—nominations?”
Grant Knowlton of Lincoln arose and said:
“Mr. Chairman.”
Because it was unexpected, the common phrase fell upon their ears with a dramatic force. The delegates scraped about to face the new speaker.
“The gentleman—from Logan,” said the Singed Cat.
“Mr. Chairman,” Knowlton began, “and gentlemen of the convention: Old Logan brings you from her ripening corn fields, from her sun-kissed prairies, from her populous towns, the name of her favorite son. She comes, Mr. Chairman, bringing you a man who ranks foremost in the affections of the citizens of the thriving city which the great Emancipator himself laid off with his own chain and compass, that now repose as honored relics in his hallowed tomb in Springfield, the town to which he gave his own name, who has never sought the consideration of his neighbors but has always had it; who stands to-day among her leading men, who, in the great hour of national peril when the skies were dark, went forth to help strike the shackles from the bleeding limbs of four millions of human beings, who has since served his country equally as well if in an humbler capacity.“
Knowlton poured forth his sentences so rapidly that the delegates scarce could follow them, and filled with curiosity as they were, they could not determine from his mixed relatives whether he was about to nominate Abraham Lincoln himself, or some man of a later, and if not an abler, at least a livelier generation. The young lawyer felt that he had at last his opportunity, and he was seizing it. He had cleared a space among the chairs about him, and in this he strode back and forth, waving his arms, and shaking his head so fiercely that his black locks flapped, and his face became a mere red blur. The young man had a deep resonant voice, and its tones vibrating to his own passion thrilled at last the hearts of the men who listened, a physical manifestation in which is to be found doubtless the success of much oratory. So he was kept on fire by cheers. But at last, the curiosity to know who was this new Richmond in the field, as Charlie Cowley called him in his despatches the next morning, this new Richmond who took them by such surprise and so thoroughly destroyed their calculations, grew beyond mastery, and the youth’s periods were marred by cries of:
“Name him! Name him!”
The interruption did not fluster the young orator. Men all about him were straining to catch the first accents of the name of this dark horse from Logan County, farther away old men placed their hands behind their ears to aid their hearing, still farther off delegates leaned anxiously forward, with brows knit in a painful intensity. Young Knowlton took it all as a tribute to his oratory, and his really fine voice, a voice that would carry any man far in public speaking, rolled to the ceiling of the old court room. The Singed Cat alone remained impassive and cold. Rankin and Randolph stood and hung on his words, trouble written in their faces. But Knowlton was exhausting himself. His deep voice grew husky, the perspiration streamed from his face, his breath came in a vapor from his mouth, hot as the atmosphere was. At last it was plain that he had worn himself out.
“Shall I name him?” he gasped. “Shall I name this peerless son of old Logan, who in every hour of public need has been ready to answer the call of public duty? He is known to you all, he is known to every one in the seven counties that comprise this agricultural empire of the Thirteenth District. Aye, his fame has spread beyond her confines, it is written on the pages where are enrolled the glorious names of those who fought the nation’s battles, it is emblazoned in the fair temple of civic triumph. We bring you a leader, Mr. Chairman, to harmonize all your differences, to cement the grand old party for another mighty onward march to victory, who will plant your flag as he has planted that proud emblem of a free people, the glorious stars and stripes, on the ramparts of the routed and flying enemy. Nominate him, gentlemen, and in the Ides of November, when the ballots come
“‘down as still
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod;
But execute a freeman’s will
As lightning does the will of God,’
he will be found to have been elected.”
And Knowlton sank into his chair, gasping for breath, his chest heaving with the violence of his exertion. The delegates looked at him and at one another a moment in surprise, and then they began to cry all at once:
“What’s his name?”
“You didn’t name him!”
“Give us his name!”
“Name him!”
Knowlton sprang to his feet; for an instant he stood and looked helplessly around. His face flamed a deeper crimson and he said in a hoarse, tired voice:
“Our candidate, gentlemen—his name is General William M. Barrett.”
The anti-climax produced a laugh which relieved the tensity of the situation.
Knowlton sank into his chair again and was mopping his neck with his handkerchief. The members of his own delegation pressed about him in congratulation. Moist hands were thrust at him from all sides. Rankin himself strode back and offered his felicitations. Knowlton smiled, and shook his head in depreciation of his own effort. Some one thought to second the nomination of Barrett, and the Singed Cat arose.
“Aire there—any other—or further—nominations?” he asked. “If not—the nominations—aire now—closed. The delegates will prepare their ballots—and the secretary—will call—the roll—of the counties.”
The interest tightened. Delegations assembled close to their leaders, and hats were passed for the ballots. The supreme moment had come.
Knowlton thought to create a sensation by his speech; he created a greater by his nomination. The Logan County delegation had been promised to Rankin by Jim O’Malley, but when at the county convention in Lincoln O’Malley had been unable to secure a Garwood indorsement, Rankin had feared the result there, and his fears had been confirmed when he could not induce the full delegation to cast its solid vote for his plan to make the temporary organization permanent. Their action in dividing on that question had placed their twenty-four votes in the doubtful column, and now that they had seen fit to spring a candidate at the last moment, they had injected an uncertain element into the calculations of both sides that perplexed the leaders. Rankin had hoped to hold his eighty-three votes together that afternoon and nominate Garwood on the first ballot. Now he saw that this would be impossible. A long, stubborn fight was before him, and he had a candidate, as he recognized himself, though by no means would he admit it, who would not gain in strength as the hours passed by. At that moment he felt that he was stronger than he ever would be again. That was why he had refused to let the convention adjourn.
General Barrett, whom the Logan County delegation had thus brought out, was, while not all perhaps that Knowlton had described him, nevertheless Lincoln’s leading man. He was popular in his own community, he had amassed, if not strictly in his practice of the law, yet in the opportunities that practice opened to him, a comfortable competency. He had gone to Lincoln in an early day; he had led a regiment to the Civil War, and had come out of the army with a clean if not a brilliant record, and in the general distribution of brevets immediately following the close of the mighty conflict he had shared to the extent of an honorary brigadier-generalship. He had then gone home to resume his quiet life, and by carefully pursuing a middle course in all things, and avoiding the making of enemies, he had gradually built up a reputation for honesty and integrity that made him an ideal figure of the colorless, eminently respectable, safe and conservative citizen. He had been a strict, though not an aggressive party man, and whenever Logan County wished a name to juggle with in conventions, they chose the name of General William M. Barrett, knowing that he would not object, and so long as he was not nominated, that no one else could object. He had never been elected to an office of profit, and he had never been an avowed candidate for any, though he had served on the school board and on all the public committees, in addition to being invited to deliver orations on Decoration Day, yet he was ever in a calm and receptive mood, and while Logan County delegations had never gone so far as to nominate him for anything, he seemed never to doubt the sincerity of their support. But there comes a time in the career of the men whose names are continually before conventions when the lightning strikes them, and both Rankin and Randolph saw that the present hour was charged with just such a possibility.
The delegates had voted and now sat awaiting the delivery of the first ballot. Hale began to call the roll of the counties.
“DeWitt?” Hale called.
“Eighteen votes for Conrad Sprague.”
“Logan?”
O’Malley was up.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “on behalf of the solid delegation from Logan County I cast twenty-four votes for General William M. Barrett.” O’Malley winked at Rankin as he sat down.
“Mason?”
“Mr. Chairman,” cried McKimmon, emulative of O’Malley, “on behalf of the solid delegation from Mason County I have the honor to cast her eighteen votes for our present able congressman, Honorable Jerome B. Garwood!”
And Rankin started a cheer.
“Moultrie?”
Randolph was standing prominently in the middle aisle, or what had been an aisle early in the day.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said, in heavy tones, “Moultrie County gives her fifteen votes to our next congressman, Honorable Conrad Sprague.”
And then the Sprague delegations cheered.
“Piatt?” the roll-call proceeded.
“Sprague fifteen votes!”
“Polk?”
Rankin had taken a seat, and sat with his fat elbows on his fat knees. He had been keeping the count in his mind, as Randolph had been keeping it on a scrap of paper. He knew what he had, and he knew that when Sprague received the twenty-three votes Pusey would deliver to him, Sprague would be in the lead. Pusey had passed his old straw hat for the ballots, and it had ground Rankin to have to drop his own vote in it, held as it was by the man who now usurped the place in the Polk County delegation he had held for so many years. Pusey arose, and his thin voice piped:
“Mr. Chairman, Polk County casts twenty-two votes for Garwood, and twenty-three for Barrett.” Rankin looked up. Randolph, who had been preparing to order a volley of cheers for his candidate, stood stricken dumb. The vote came as a surprise to everybody, but more than all to the Logan County men. They were nonplussed. They had nominated Barrett with a little more, perhaps, than their usual sincerity, but they had merely gone to him temporarily in order to put themselves in a controlling position between the other two candidates. Pusey, who had been counted for Sprague by all, now held the balance of power. Hale looked up as if there had been some mistake. At last Rankin, smiling sardonically, and, as it were, to himself, arose and lumbered into the aisle near Randolph. As he steered past the Sprague leader, still dumbfounded, he said, with no attempt to conceal his words:
“I told you, Hal, you couldn’t depend on the little cuss.”
The Singed Cat smote his gavel down.
“The convention—will be—in order. Let—the roll-call—proceed.”
“Tazewell?”
“Thirty votes for Garwood.”
And then while Hale was footing his three little columns, conversation hummed again among the delegates.
Pusey sat quietly tracing his mysterious figures on the floor with the point of his little stick.
Rankin had paused by Hale’s table where Cowley sat. Rankin smiled down on the correspondent.
“Case o’ buy, heh?” he said. “What?”
Cowley shrugged his shoulders expressively, like a foreigner.
“What?” Rankin repeated, his teeth showing in a broad significant grin.
Hale had written the result on a slip of paper and passed it up to Bailey. The Singed Cat took it, and studied it.
“On this ballot,” he began presently, “there have—been cast—one hundred and sixty-five votes; necessary—to a choice, eighty-three. Of these Mr. Garwood—has—received—seventy, Mr. Sprague—forty-eight, and General Barrett forty-seven. No candidate—having received—the necessary number—of votes, there has been—no nomination—and you will, therefore—prepare your votes—for another ballot.”
“Mr. Chairman,” Rankin said, with a promptness that recognized the change in the situation.
“The gentleman—from Polk.”
“Mr. Chairman, I move that the convention do now adjourn until to-morrow morning at nine o’clock.”
The motion prevailed. The sun was a red ball, hanging low beyond the river. It seemed that the hour was the hottest of the afternoon. Pusey was sitting there moving his wrinkled jaws and puckered lips over his tobacco, as inscrutably as the Singed Cat himself might have done, had he chewed tobacco. It would take a night to find the bearings that had been lost that afternoon.