“I shall never know,” said the Reverend Bronson, with a half-laugh, “when to have you seriously. I cannot but wish, however, that the town had better luck about its City Hall.”
“Really, I don't know, don't y' know!” This deep observation Morton flourished off in a profound muse. “As I've said, the town will get what's coming to it, because it will always get what it wants. It always has—really! And speaking of 'reform' as we employ the term in politics: The town, in honesty, never desires it; and that's why somebody must forever attend on 'reform' to keep it from falling on its blundering nose and knees by holding it up by the tail. There are people who'll take anything you give them, even though it be a coat of tar and feathers, and thank you for it, too,—the grateful beggars! New York resembles these. Some chap comes along, and offers New York 'reform.' Being without 'reform' at the time, and made suddenly and sorrowfully mindful of its condition, it accepts the gift just as a drunkard takes a pledge. Like the drunkard, however, New York is apt to return to its old ways—it is, really!”
“One thing,” said the Reverend Bronson as he arose to go, and laying his hand on my shoulder, “since the Boss of Tammany, in a day of the machine, is the whole government and the source of it, I mean to come here often and work upon our friend in favor of a clean town.”
“And you will be welcome, Doctor, let me say!” I returned.
“Now I think,” said Morton meditatively, when the Reverend Bronson had departed, “precisely as I told our excellent friend. A rule should ever fit a people; and it ever does. A king is as naturally the blossom of the peasantry he grows on as is a sunflower natural to that coarse stem that supports its royal nod-dings, don't y' know. A tyranny, a despotism, a monarchy, or a republic is ever that flower of government natural to the public upon which it grows. Really!—Why not? Wherein lurks the injustice or the inconsistency of such a theory? What good is there to lie hidden in a misfit? Should Providence waste a man's government on a community of dogs? A dog public should have dog government:—a kick and a kennel, a chain to clank and a bone to gnaw!”
With this last fragment of wisdom, the cynical Morton went also his way, leaving me alone to chop up the town—as a hunter chops up the carcass of a deer among his hounds—into steak and collop to feed my hungry followers.
However much politics might engage me, I still possessed those hundred eyes of Argus wherewith to watch my girl. When again about me she had no word for what was past. And on my side, never once did I put to her the name of young Van Flange. He was as much unmentioned by us as though he had not been. I think that this was the wiser course. What might either Blossom or I have said to mend our shattered hopes?
Still, I went not without some favor of events. There came a support to my courage; the more welcome, since the latter was often at its ebb. It was a strangest thing at that! While Blossom moved with leaden step, and would have impressed herself upon one as weak and wanting sparkle, she none the less began to gather the color of health. Her cheeks, before of the pallor of snow, wore a flush like the promise of life. Her face gained rounder fullness, while her eyes opened upon one with a kind of wide brilliancy, that gave a look of gayety. It was like a blessing! Nor could I forbear, as I witnessed it, the dream of a better strength for my girl than it had been her luck to know; and that thought would set me to my task of money-getting with ever a quicker ardor.
Still, as I've said, there was the side to baffle. For all those roses and eyes like stars, Blossom's breath was broken and short, and a little trip upstairs or down exhausted her to the verge of pain. To mend her breathing after one of these small household expeditions, she must find a chair, or even lie on a couch. All this in its turn would have set my fears to a runaway if it had not been for that fine glow in her cheeks to each time restore me to my faith.
When I put the question born of my uneasiness, Blossom declared herself quite well, nor would she give me any sicklier word. In the end my fears would go back to their slumbers, and I again bend myself wholly to that task of gold.