“Oh, ’tain’t that,” came his voice, “but I thought he was my friend, I thought he was my friend. I made that boy, an’ I was so proud of him. An’ now—an’ now—he’s thrown me down, he’s thrown me down!”
He ceased his sobbing and was still. His wife stood by him, patting him now on the back, now running her fingers through his curls. At last he raised himself, rubbed the tears from his eyes, and, pulling out his handkerchief, blew his nose with a mighty blast.
“Your supper’ll get cold. The old man’s a fool, hain’t he, Fannie?” He looked at his little daughter, and then in turn at them all, saw their tear-stained faces, and then he said:
“Well, I’m makin’ a pleasant home an’ fireside campaign fer ye here, hain’t I? But I don’t b’lieve it, that’s all, I don’t b’lieve Jerry Garwood ’uld throw me down, without some good reason. I won’t believe it yet. There’s some explanation.”
“Jim,” his wife smiled proudly at him, “they say you’re a hardened old politician, but you’ve got too soft a heart. Didn’t I tell you that somethin’ ’as up last summer when you got back from Pekin? Didn’t I tell you somethin’ ’as up when you told me Pusey had gone down to Washington? Didn’t I tell you you’ll better go or you’d get left?”
“Well, now, Mollie,” he began apologetically, “you know I didn’t have the price in the first place, an’ secon’ly, Jerry told me, told me, with his own lips, right down there in that old office o’ his’n, that it was—all—right, that I needn’t worry, that he’d promised it, an’ I’d get it. An’ what ’uld I want to run down to Washin’ton botherin’ him ’bout it any more fer? You know congressmen don’t want the’r constits trailin’ ’round after ’em down there.” He leaned back in his chair and spread his hands wide, as if to exculpate himself entirely.
“Well, you’ve been in politics long enough to know—” began his wife with a faint little sneer.
“Oh, course,” Rankin interrupted her, “if it ’ad been anybody else, I mightn’t ’a’ been so easy. I’d a camped on his trail till he done it, but Jerry—Jerry—I never thought it o’ him.” He shook his head sadly.
“Now, Jim, just look here a minute,” his wife returned. “You told me yourself that you noticed a change in him when he come home from Washington las’ summer. Now, didn’t you?”
“Well, maybe there was a little, but that ’as all right. I expected that, I expected that as he growed bigger an’ greater, an’ got in ’ith all them heavy timbers down to Washin’ton he’d naturally grow away from us some. I knowed he couldn’t al’ays have a big dub like me trailin’ along, but I thought he’d al’ays be my friend. I thought he’d keep his word.” His eyes widened as he lapsed into abstraction.