XVII
RANKIN returned to Grand Prairie, from the convention, in a state of mental numbness. The thing he had gone to Pekin to do had been done, and yet he did not know how it had been done. Every one greeted him as the author of Garwood’s fortunes; his latest with the rest, and he was forced to accept congratulations to which he did not feel himself entitled. As the days went by and he saw Garwood’s name at the head of Pusey’s editorial column, and read Pusey’s articles favoring Garwood’s election, he was more than ever at a loss to account for the anomalous situation in which he found himself. Sometimes he had his doubts, for he was old enough in political ways to have acquired the politician’s distrust, and what with the whisperings of friends and the articles he had read in other newspapers he suffered a torment of suspicions which were the more agonizing because of the wrong he subconsciously felt they did Garwood. At last he went to him.
With the small energy the morning could revive in him, Rankin mounted the stairs to Garwood’s office. Garwood was opening a congressman’s mail, always large, and he looked up from his pile of letters and greeted Rankin with a—
“Well, Jim?”
Rankin, as he sat down, was sensible of the change that had come over their relations, and he grieved for the old days when he had been able to enter this office with so much more assurance. But he was not the man to dally long in sentimentalities, and he said, when he had settled into the chair and mopped his brow:
“Jerry, I’ve come to have it out.”
Garwood unfolded the letter he had just taken from its envelope. His face reddened as he bent over to read it, and he did not turn around.
“Have what out, Jim?” he asked, quietly.
“Why,” Rankin went on, “this misunderstanding.”
“What misunderstanding? I don’t know what you mean. Explain yourself.” Garwood kept on tearing open his letters.
“Oh, well,” Rankin continued, “you know it hain’t all like it used to be, that’s all. I don’t know how to say it—I just feel it, but it’s there, an’, damn it, I don’t like it.”
Rankin paused, and then when Garwood did not reply, he went on:
“I reckon it’s ’cause o’ my fallin’ down in the county convention here ’t home, an’ that’s all right; I don’t blame you fer feelin’ sore. Course, it come out all right over at Pekin—I don’t know how it was done, an’ I don’t know as I want to know—I know I didn’t have nothin’ to do ’ith it, an’ I don’t claim none o’ the credit, ner want it. I ’as glad you won out, glad as you was. I’d ’a’ give my right arm clean up to the shoulder to’ve brought it ’bout fer you myself. I didn’t do nothin’, I know. I felt kind o’ paralyzed all the time over there, after losin’ the delegation here, an’ I seemed to myself jus’ to be standin’ roun’ like any other dub that ’as on the outside. I didn’t feel in it, somehow, an’ I don’t feel in it now, that’s what’s the matter. I’ve al’ays been with you, Jerry, an’ you know it, an’ I’m with you now, but they’re tellin’ strange stories ’roun’, an’ I don’t like ’em, an’—I jus’ want to know where I stand ’ith you, that’s all.”
Garwood wheeled about in his swivel chair. He looked at Rankin a moment and then he smiled. And when he had smiled, he leaned comfortably back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers together over his white waistcoat, and then he spoke at last, in his softest voice:
“What is it, Jim, that worries you—the post-office?”
Rankin looked him straight in the eyes.
“No, Jerry,” he said, “it ain’t so much that. I want it, o’ course, you know how I need it, an’ I want it more’n ever jus’ now, but I ain’t worried so much about that. I’ve got your word, an’ I know you never went back on it yet, to a friend, though you know, Jerry, that if it ’uld help you any, you could have your promise back, an’ give the post-office where it ’uld do the mos’ good. You know all you’d have to do ’uld be to say the word, don’t you?”
Garwood smiled again and leaned forward in his chair and laid one of his white hands on Rankin’s fat knee.
“Why, my boy,” he said, “you’ve been giving yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. You know me, don’t you?”
“Why, sure,” assented Rankin.
“Well, you ought to,” added Garwood, still smiling blandly, and a slight reproach was in his tone. “You should have known, Jim, that I realized you had done all in your power. I never for an instant blamed you; believe me when I say that. It only occurred to me that I could handle the little affair over at Pekin better than you could. I knew that you could never come at Pusey; I knew that you two never could agree in a thousand years, so I just took hold of it myself—not with very much hope, I confess, but I thought it worth trying. And luckily it came about all right in the end.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right, Jerry,” Rankin protested, waving his hand assuringly toward Garwood. “I only wanted to know that you felt all right about it, that’s all.” His great red face smiled on Garwood like a forgiven boy’s. But suddenly it hardened again into the face of a man.
“You were right—I couldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ ’ith Pusey, damn him. My way’s different from yourn. Maybe yourn’s right. You believe in conciliatin’ ’em; I believe in killin’ ’em off. An’ your way won, that’s all. What ’id you have to promise him?”
Garwood was leaning back again, and had pressed the tips of his fingers together.
“Jim,” he said, beginning slowly, “I’ve learned a good deal about politics. I learned a good deal from you, and I picked up a good deal down at Washington during the session, and the chief thing I’ve learned is to go slow on promises. I told him, of course, that I’d take care of him. I told him that there was no use in our being enemies, none whatever; that we could just as well work together for the party’s good, and accomplish more that way than by keeping up a bitter factional war here in the county, because the first thing we knew we’d wake up some cold morning in November to find that the other fellows were all in and we were all out.”
Rankin’s gaze was fixed afar. His brows had knitted themselves into a scowl.
“You had to tell him that, did you?”
“I did tell him that, yes. Why?”
“Well—I don’t jus’ like this thing o’ gettin’ thick ’ith him, so sudden, that’s all. Who’s goin’ to run the campaign fer you this time?”
“Why, who would run it but you?”
“Me?” said Rankin, smiling again all over. “You want me? An’ what’s Pusey goin’ to have to do?”
“Oh, we’ll let him print editorials,” laughed Garwood.
“That’s all right,” said Rankin, “jus’ so’s I don’t have to see him, that’s all.”
Garwood scrutinized Rankin closely an instant, and once more he leaned over in his persuasive way and laid his hand on Rankin’s knee.
“Look here, Jim,” he said, “I want you and Pusey to be friends.”
Rankin shrank from the thought.
“Yes, you must—now listen to me—I demand it. I want no mistakes made. I want you all to work harmoniously this fall, and a little ill-feeling right here in our camp may beat us. We’ve got a fight on our hands; I’m half afraid of those Sprague fellows. They’ll have their knives out, and we’ve got to hold together; above all we’ve got to keep Pusey in line, for the Sprague fellows here don’t feel any too good about his having come over to me, and Pusey has a following. More than that, he’s got a newspaper, and he can make it tell. We’ve got to keep in with him, and I want you to patch up a truce with him. You must, do you hear?” Garwood gave Rankin’s knee a shake. “Do you hear?”
“Well, if you say so, Jerry,” he consented presently, “it’ll have to be. Whatever you say goes, o’ course, but the truce’ll be a damned sight more out’ard than in’ard ’ith me, I tell you that.”
“No, you mustn’t feel that way, Jim; you mustn’t.”
“Well, my God, Jerry!” Rankin exclaimed, “it ’as fer your sake that I got to hatin’ him like I do, though I never did like the little whelp. Gosh! It did gall me to have to sit in a convention beside him an’ hear him announce the vote fer Polk County! I never thought I’d live to see the day when little Free Pusey could get on a Polk delegation, I didn’t!”
And he shook his head as one who bewails the evil times on which he has fallen.
“Well, for my sake, then, make up with him. I don’t cherish any ill-will towards him, Jim.” Garwood said this with a swelling air of magnanimity as if he had attained to heights of charity known only to the early Christian martyrs.
“You never was a good hater, Jerry,” said Rankin, as though it were a virtue to be as consistent and steadfast in hatreds as in friendships.