“They are not plenty, even now,� said Wycliff, interrupting him.
“Perhaps not; but in those days I looked at such things in a different light from what I do now. Since then I have learned the gospel of forbearance, and to-day I almost despise mere brute force; but in those days I did not allow anyone to call me a vile name, and Mack Baldwin had scarcely spoken the word when he lay on the floor at my feet. The two sons interfered, but they followed their father in double-quick time. I had the three wolves in a heap, in their own den, in much less time than I am telling you of it. Then the book-keepers interfered and followed their employer.�
“But I was terribly frightened when I heard of it,� said his wife. “I thought Phillips would have to go to jail. We were only engaged then.�
“Of course I was arrested,� continued Mr. Porter, “and taken before the district court at Elmfield. Judge Tuttle, who presided over that court, had been a colonel in the Union army, and lost a leg at Gettysburg. He despised Mack Baldwin, who made a million out of the government’s distress, by gambling in stocks in Wall Street. The Judge listened patiently while all the evidence was given, although there seemed to me to be a far-away look in his eyes, as if he were thinking of the days when he and Captain Wesson were fighting for the Union, while Mack Baldwin was making a fortune out of the war at home.
“‘Mack Baldwin,’ said the Judge, ‘you discharged the accused because he did not vote as you ordered him to, did you not?’ Baldwin could not deny it. ‘And you called him a vile name, to boot?’ continued the Judge. Baldwin admitted it.
“‘Discharged,’ thundered Judge Tuttle, as if he were again giving orders on the battle-field, and picking up his hat and cane, he stumped out of the courthouse to dinner, while there were roars of applause in the room which he had left.
“Captain Wesson was in the courtroom, so as to go bail for me if necessary, and I never saw a man more pleased than he was. He offered me work, if I wanted, but the girl I had left behind me, here in the country, didn’t want to live in Papyrus, so I bought this farm, and I have never been sorry I did so. We are comfortably off here, and I do not have to ask how I shall vote. Many of the mill-hands in Papyrus are little better than slaves when it comes to voting. Under the Australian ballot, they may vote for the men they prefer for town-officers, but not for town-appropriations and other measures, without making themselves liable to the wrath of their employers. The Baldwins never ceased their ancient policy of discharging and driving out of town, if possible, any of their workmen who opposed their policy in town-affairs by voice or vote.�
In the afternoon the entire party of Porters and Wycliffs drove to Twin Mountain, near by, there being a wood-road, almost to the summit, nearly as good as the average mountain highway.
Sixty miles eastward was Mount Wachusett, seen to-day very dimly, and only visible at all in the clearest weather. Nearer, guarding the Connecticut Valley, were Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke.
“Say, pop, what mountain is that? It looks like a pyramid from here.�