CHAPTER XXIV.—THE CONVENTION: THE NEWS.
There were two strange men in the low-ceilinged, grimly-furnished “settin’ room,” as Milton was ushered into the presence of the Boss, but at a gesture from this magnate they went out; the Boss surveyed the new comer without a word of greeting or comment.
Mr. Beekman was a tall, angular man, past the prime of life, as was shown by the gray in his thick hair, curling at the ends, and in the stiff, projecting ruff of beard under his chin. His face was thin, hungry, with a plaintive effect of deep lines, and his great blue-black eyes were often tearful, like a young robin’s, in their intent watchfulness. He was almost wholly Dutch in parentage—of that silent, persistent, quietly-masterful race which, despite all the odds, has still held more than its own in Stuyvesant’s State—and the descent showed itself in the dusky hue of his skin. He had never been a wealthy man, though he came of a family decently supplied with substance, and of long settlement in the county. He had climbed to his present eminence after a long career in local politics, by that process of exhaustion which we call the survival of the fittest. Having attained it, his rule was that of a just despot, rewarding and binding still more closely to him the faithful, remorselessly crushing all signs of rivalry, and putting the recalcitrant without pity to fire and sword. He had an almost supernatural faculty of organizing information, and getting at the motives of men. He sniffed treachery as a deer in the breeze sniffs the dog, and he had an oriental way of striking with cruel swiftness, before anybody but the guilty victim suspected offence. Withal, he was a kindly man to those who deserved well of him, an upright citizen according to his lights, and a profound believer in his party.
He sat now chewing an unlighted cigar, with his feet on the hearth of the stove, and contemplated Milton at his leisure. He did not like Milton at all, and one of his chief reasons for doubting the real ability of Albert Fairchild was his choice of such an agent and confidant. At last he said, curtly:
“It’s you, is it? I’ve got no business with you! Where’s Fairchild?”
There was something in Beekman’s eager, searching way of looking at a man with those big bright eyes of his which, coupled with the question, embarrassed Milton, and he fumbled with his hat as he repeated the explanation he had given to the messenger. He was annoyed with himself for being thus disturbed.
The Boss looked his visitor out of countenance once more. Then he said: “Sit daown! Well, what is it to be?”
‘Milton grinned, and leaned forward familiarly in his chair.
“I sh’d ruther think that was fur you to say.”
“Oh, you think so, do yeh? You imagine you’ve got me on the hip, ay?”
“Well, p’raps we’re no jedge, but it sorts o’ looks that way, now, don’t it?” Milton tipped back his chair, satisfiedly, and put one of his big feet up on the hearth, to dispute possession with the Boss.
Beekman reflected for a minute: then he began, after glancing at the clock:
“There’s no time to waste. I might as well talk up ’n’ daown with yeh. Your man Fairchild makes me tired. Ef he’d set his heart on goin’ to Congress, why on airth didn’t he come to me in the first place, ’n’ say so? It could ’a’ been arranged, easy’s slidin’ off a log. But no, instid of that, he must go ’n’ work up th’ thing his own way, ’n’ then come ’n’ buck agin me in my own caounty, ’n’ obleege me to fight back. D’yeh call that sense? He’s smart enough in his way, I grant yeh. He’s fixed up a putty fair sort o’ organisation in Dearborn, although it can’t last long, simply because it’s all built up on money, ’n’ I don’t go a cent on that kind of organising. Still it’s good enough in its way. But, he made his mistake in lettin’ the idea run away with him that he could skeer me into a conniption fit with his musharoon organisation. He didn’t knaow me. He never took the trouble to find aout abaout me. He jest took it fur granted that I’d crawl daown aout o’ my tree, like Davy Crockett’s coon, as soon’s he pinted his gun at me. Well, I didn’t come worth a cent. Then, when he faound aout that he’d struck a snag, ’n’ that Dearborn County wasn’t the hull deestrick, he turns raoun’ ’n’ aouts with his wallet, ’n’ tries to hire me to come daown. Fur that’s what you was here for last week, ’n’ you knaow it’s well’s I do.”
Milton tried to get in some words here, of dissent or explanation, but the Boss would not hear them.
“Lem me go on; ’s no use your lyin’. That was Fairchild’s second mistake. He thought politics was all money. Ef I was poorer than Job’s turkey, he couldn’t buy me to so much as wink an eye fur him. I’m not in politics fur what I kin make aout of it. I’m in because I like it; because it’s meat ’n’ drink to me; because I git solid, substantial comfort aout of it. Ther’s satisfaction in carryin’ yer eend; there’s pretty nigh as much in daownin’ them that’s agin yeh. Jest naow I’m a thinkin’ a good deal what fun it ’d be to let the floor aout from under your man altogether, ’n’ nominate this feller from Tecumsy.”
“But,” broke in Milton, “you’re a candidate yer-self, ’n’——”
“Wait till I’m threw, will yeh? I said, I’m leanin’ a good deal jest naow to’rd this man from Tecumsy. I c’d beat him easy ’nough at the polls, ef he turned cranky, but I daoubt ef it ’d be wuth while. I ain’t seen him yet, but I’m told he’s here, ’n’ ef I like his looks durn me ef I ain’t a mine to nominate him. He can’t do no harm, even ef he tries. These reform spurts don’t winter well. They never last till spring. The boys lose their breath for a few months. But then they git daown to work agin, and baounce the reformers to the back seats where they belong. But it ’d be one thing to elect a high-toned, kid-gloved, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-maouth kind o’ man like what’s-his-name, ’n’ a hoss o’ quite another color to ’lect Fairchild. He’d make me trouble from the word ‘go!’ Understan’, I ain’t afraid of his meddlin’ with me here in Jay caounty; not a bit of it. But he’d use his position to cripple me in the deestrick. The present Congressman tried that on— ’n’ you ain’t so much as heerd his name mentioned fur a re-nomination. But it was bother ’nough to squelch him. I ain’t goin’ to hev it to do all over agin.”
“Right you air, tew!” Milton responded.
The Boss held up his hand to forbid further interruption, while he looked curiously at his visitor, as if puzzled by his acquiescence. He went on:
“Ef you was a man of any readin’ you’d hev heerd of a custom among Europe-ian kentries, when one whips another, of makin’ the under dog in the fight pull aout his front teeth, like. The beaten kentry has to tear daown its forts, ’n’ blow up its men-o’-war, ’n’ so on, jest as a guarantee not to make any more trouble. Well, ef I’d concluded to hev any dealin’s at all with Fairchild, that’s what I’d hev done with him. I’d ’a’ made him turn over the appintment of all Dearborn’s men on the deestrick Committee; ’n’ I’d ’a had a written agreement that half the Postmasters in Adams ’n’ Dearborn, as well as all in Jay, should be o’ my namin’. My wife’s brother should hev hed the Thessaly post office, tew, right under Fairchild’s nose, so’s to keep an eye on him. It’s the duty of every man to purvide for his own fam’ly.”
“Nothin’ small about you! You only wanted the hull airth!” chuckled Milton, ingratiatingly.
“No, it was Fairchild who wanted the airth ’n’ thought he’d got it, ’n’ while he was deliberatin’ whether he’d have it braowned on both sides or not, lo ’n’ behold I went in ’n’ took it away from him slick ’n’ clean.”
The Boss rose as he was speaking, reached for his overcoat and put it on. “Time’s up!” he said, sententiously.
Milton had risen too, and placed himself between Beekman and the door. “There’s seven minutes yit,” he said eagerly, “I’ve got something yeh can’t afford to miss. Don’t you want th’ nomination yer-self?”
“No. What good’d Washington be to me? New York State’s big enough for me. If yeh don’t understand that I put my name before the Convention jest to hold my caounty together, ’n’ block Dearborn, yer a dummed sight bigger fool than even I took yeh to be.”
“But s’pose Dearborn’s votes cud be thrown to you! They’d nominate yeh! What’d thet be wuth to yeh?”
“What ’d it be wuth?” mused the Boss, looking intently at Milton.
“Yes! in ready money, here! naow!”
The Boss took up his hat, meditatively, and gazed at his companion again. “Did you knaow th’ man that brought yeh here?” he asked.
“Yes—’twas Jim Bunner, wa’nt it?”
“That man ’d wade threw fire ’n’ water fer me. Yeh couldn’t tempt him with a hundred thaousan’ dollars to so much as say an evil word abaout me, let alone injure me. Yit he’s desprit poor, ’n’ th’ unly thing I ever did fer him in my life, excep’ givin’ him a day’s work naow ’n’ then, was to help him bury his child decently, ten years ago. But I know my men! Here Fairchild has took you off a dunghill, where all yer hull humly, sore-eyed, misrubble fam’ly belong, ’n’ made a man of yeh, trusted his affairs to yeh, clothed yeh, fed yeh, yes, ’n’ let yeh fatten yerself on the profits of his farm—and naow yeh turn ’raound ’n’ offer to sell him aout. By gum! I was right. Fairchild hain’t got no sense! ’N’ you, yeh skunk, git aout! Don’t yeh walk on the same side of the street with me, or I’ll swat the hull top of yer head off!”
“We’ll nominate Ansdell ’fore you git a chance!” snarled Milton.
The Convention met, depressed by the evident feeling of disappointment among the spectators, who swarmed on all the high, pewlike seats back of the bar railing, while the delegates sat in rows of chairs inside the space reserved in term time for the lawyers. There was ground enough for this disappointment. Fairchild had not come, and the prospects of a good speech, or even a bitter personal contest, were fading away. No one had an explanation for his absence. The Dearborn delegates were more in the dark than outsiders even, for they had been told to meet him in Tyre, before the Convention, and that he would breakfast at the Turnpike Tavern. Milton reassured them for a time by enlarging upon the bad condition of the roads, but even he ended as they took their seats, by professing some fear of an accident. “However, I’ll cast th’ solid vaote, th’ same as before, I suppose?” he said, and the bondsmen nodded assent.
The proceedings opened tamely. The Chairman was a professor from the Tecumseh Academy; the other counties each had a secretary. Two written announcements were handed up to be read, one that Milton Squires was authorized to cast seventeen votes for Dearborn County, the other naming a man to perform a similar function for the ten votes of Jay. There was to be no break yet awhile, apparently, in the two machine counties. But—what would Adams do?
As this question flashed through the minds of the assemblage, one of the Adams delegates rose, walked to the bench, gave a paper to the presiding officer, and then joined the little throng of spectators to one side. Did this mean that he left the Convention? What did it mean? Experienced observers began to feel that something startling was coming.
The paper being read, turned out to be an announcement that Abram K. Beekman had been substituted in the Adams County delegation for the delegate who had just vacated his seat, and as the words died away the Boss himself pushed his way down the aisle, threw his long leg over the bar-rail, and took his seat. The master of Jay County getting substituted for Adams County—here was a mystery! Did it portend that Adams had been won for Beekman’s candidature? Yes, it must mean that—and Tyre’s heart leapt for joy. Or no—it couldn’t mean that. The Boss would hardly thrust himself forward in that brash way if he were sure of winning—and Tyre’s heart sank again, sadly.
The Chairman announced that balloting would be resumed; that the counties would be called in alphabetical order, and that, in the case of Adams County, which did not signify a desire to vote as a unit, the names of the delegates would also be called in that order. Before the words were fairly out of his mouth a hundred shrewd brains had discovered that this meant Beekman’s being the first name called. But what was his game?
So perplexed were the men of Tyre with this problem that they almost forgot to cheer when their man rose to his feet, in response to his name. It was rarely that one saw Abe Beekman in Conventions; he preferred to run them from the outside; and no one in the hall had ever heard him make a speech. Imagine how they listened now!
He spoke with an almost boyish nervousness, resting his hands on the table before him, and clinging, as it were, with his eyes to the Chairman for support. What he said was brief, to the point, and worth repeating here:
“I got substituted, ez p’raps some of yeh hev guessed, because I wanted a word at the very start. I hev my reasons. I ain’t a’ goin’ to mention no names—” he darted a swift, significant glance over toward the Dearborn County men, singling out Milton for a second, then reverting his troubled gaze to the Chairman—“but I kin feel it in my bones that things ain’t on the square here. Ther’s a nigger in the fence. Mebbe it’s no business of mine to yank him aout, but it’s only fair to my caounty that we shouldn’t let anybody git ahead of us in doin’ what we want to dew. It’s trew that D. comes ahead o’ J. in the alph’bet, but”—and there was a momentary relaxation of his eager, sombre face as he enunciated this undoubted fact—“its jest as trew that A. comes in front o’ D. Ef any set o’ men—mind, I mention no names, but—ef any set o’ delegates come here with the idee o’ sellin’ their man aout, or o’ makin’ a combination which’ll put them solid with the next Congressman, and leave Jay aout in the cold, perhaps ’fore I’m threw they’ll see thet they bit off more’n their jaws could wag.
“Mr. Cheerman, I don’t want to go to Congress. I never ’v’ hed the least hankerin’ after it. This State of aours is good enough for me. I wouldn’t feel like myself ef I had to stan’ ’raoun’ ’n’ see chaps from Rhode Island or Floridy puttin’ on airs, and pretendin’ to cut as big a swath as New York did. I’m too much of a State man fer thet. I’d be itchin’ to jump on ’em all the while. So I want to say that I withdraw my name——”
The Hon. Elhanan Pratt rose here, his weazen little figure coming up with a spring like a jack-in-the-box, and squeaked out sharply: “I rise to a point of order. The Abram K. Beekman whose name is before this Convention is a Jay County man, nominated by Jay County, and voted for alone by Jay County. No Adams County man”—there was an elaborate sarcasm in the tone—“has any right to withdraw that name.”
“The point of order is well taken,” said the Chair.
“Well, in thet case I won’t ask to withdraw my name,” responded Beekman. “But I don’t think it’ll make much differ’nce. A wink is as good as a nod to a bline man. P’raps you kin git an idee by this time haow the Jay caounty cat’s goin’ to jump; p’raps you can’t. I’m-goin’ to vaote fer Mr. Richard Ansdell, ’n’ I wan’ to say——”
He was interrupted here by a stout, sharp burst of hand-clapping from the Adams delegates, and the few Adams men in the audience. The Tyre crowd were taken aback for an instant, and sat bewildered; then the fact that their man had played his game, and was acting as if he had won, inspired them to join tumultuously in the applause, though they were in total darkness as to the nature of the stakes played for.
The Boss went on: “I wan’ to say that I’ve never laid eyes on him but once, ’n’ never spoke a word with him in my life. But I ain’t lived all this while ’thaout learnin’ to read somethin’ of a man’s natur’ in his face. I believe he’s honest and straight-aout; I don’t believe there’s a crookid hair in his head. P’raps he’s got some naotions that we’d look on as finnickin’ up here in Jay, but I ain’t afeard o’ them. It’s better to hev a man standin’ so upright thet he bends back’rd, then to hev—— to hev—— the fact is, Mr. Cheerman, I think I’ve said ’baout enough. Th’ other candidate hain’t showed up today! P’raps it’s jest as well fur him that he hain’t. I guess he’ll consider that he’s got abaout threw with deestrick politics—but I don’t want to appear to be rubbin’ it in. The lawyers hev a Latin sayin’ abaout speakin’ nothin’ but good o’ the dead——”
Beekman stopped short. The Chairman had risen to his feet. Half the delegates had followed his example, and were gazing intently at one of the tall, small-paned windows on the right side of the room. The three reporters who were sitting in the clerk’s desk had begun climbing over the rails and weaving their way between the chairs toward this same window. A hum of rising murmurs was running through the audience. Beekman, finding suddenly that he had no auditors, and disconcerted at the interruption, looked about the room for a moment, in search of an explanation. Then he followed the direction of the faces, and saw his retainer, Jim Bunner, clambering in under the lifted sash, and making strenuous, almost frantic, efforts meanwhile to attract his attention.
The man was breathless with excitement. He had climbed to the window from the roof of a low adjoining shed, and he could be heard now, as he found a footing on the back of a bench, in panting explanation of his conduct: “I hed to come this way! It’d ’a taken me tew long to’ve got threw the crowd at th’ door. I’ve got news for th’ Boss that won’t keep a second!”
He had pushed his way roughly through the throng now, brushing the reporters aside with especial impatience, and stood whispering, gasping his tidings in Beekman’s ear. The assemblage, silent now as the midnight watch, read in the deepening shadows and shocked severity of the Boss’s face that something far out of the ordinary had happened. Beekman appeared to be asking some questions, and pondering the whispered answers with increasing emotion.
The waiting hundreds, all on their feet now, watched him in a tremor of expectation.
At last he spoke, in a low, changed, yet extremely distinct voice:
“Mr. Cheerman, when I spoke abaout sayin’ nothin’ but good o’ th’ dead, I spoke unbeknaown to myself like a prophet. My friend here brings some awful news. Mr. Fairchild o’ Dearborn has jest been faound, stark ’n’ cold, crunched under his hosses ’n’ carriage, at the bottom of Tallman’s ravine!”