“Now, Jim,” said the committee-man, “remember to make a cross against the name of every Democrat. Take your time, and look for the letter D. Wherever you see D, put down your cross.” Then a sample ballot was displayed to Jim, and that worthy child of Quebec proved the truth of his assertion that he could “read D in English evvy time, sir.”
Just before ten, the three stores gave up their crowds in favor of the growing swarm in front of the town-house. It was a strange commingling of men. The bone and sinew of rural New England were there, and so were the gristle, the fat, and the lean. Men well past ninety tottered feebly to the benches which flanked the broad open floor of the hall. Young fellows, just of age, stepped briskly in and went to the platform to see that their names had been duly added to the printed check-list of voters. Gaunt, loose-jointed, thin-faced men, in worn shoddy, the modern successor of honest homespun, dragged themselves through the crowd, answering salutations with grim indifference. Big, burly men with broad, gray felt hats and scarlet flannel leggings strode in more confidently, fresh from the spruce woods. Well-dressed, clean-shaven men with city hats and big watch-chains shook hands with everybody, and with a hand on John’s shoulder or Edson’s elbow whispered a word in the young voter’s ear. The New England farmer or lumberman does not ride horseback. He probably knows how well enough, but his roads have no clay mud, his wagon runs easily, so he drives instead of riding. Not one man in fifty owns a saddle. Who is it, then, that comes up the long street at a breakneck pace, with flapping hat, trailing whip, and rattling spurs? He rides well, and has a dashing air about him strangely in contrast to the slouch of the man who always drives, with shoulders hunched and back curved. He proves to be a city man who has had enough of a ranch and is now extracting occupation from a farm and summer boarders.
Now a silk hat and a satin necktie loom up in the throng. They grace a sleek son of the town who has a store “down country,” but who comes home to vote. The silk hat looks strangely out of place among the well-worn felts and woolen caps which cover most of the heads in the crowd.
The bell in the meeting-house tower moves, and then its clang strikes harshly on the ear. Half a mile away it would be sweet-toned; here it is merely discordant. The men straggle into the town-house in large groups, and soon the room is crowded. Good air goes out by the chimney when the smokers come in by the door. The supervisors are in their seats, and an excited discussion is taking place in which they and many in the crowd join. An oldish man and a foreigner who served in the late civil war has just produced his naturalization papers and demanded to have his name placed upon the check-list. The officers object, and point to the book of statutes open before them, where a section states that no name shall be added to the list at this late hour except by way of restoring a name wrongfully dropped from an earlier list. The claimant declares that his name was or ought to have been on an earlier list; a candidate for office springs upon a chair and shouts to the supervisors that he will “make it hot” for them if they refuse the veteran his suffrage; the crowd cheers, and the officers yield. Then the warrant for the meeting is read, and immediately after an elder offers prayer, the hats and caps being doffed in obedience to a loud call of “hats off.” The prayer is simple and earnest, asking for help in a freeman’s highest duty. A moderator is chosen, and he delivers a brief and clear lecture upon the machinery of the new ballot law. Then a resolution is passed with a shout, allowing the old men to vote first, and the graybeards are pushed gently forward to the inclosed space in which the five little voting booths are built.
The voters are kept waiting half an hour, because at first no one can open the patent ballot box, but at last it gives way to some persuasive touch and the day’s work is fairly begun. By noon about fifty men have passed the guard, taken their folded ballots, entered the little booths, and spent from two to ten minutes each in marking or trying to mark for their favorite candidates.
“This is a great thing for the fools,” said an old farmer; “they can look just as wise as the wisest of us, but they nor nobody else will ever know just who they voted for.”
One man, after entering the booth, came out and said he wanted some one to mark for him. “Step this way,” shouted the moderator, “and take your solemn oath that you cannot read your ballot and must have help in marking it.” “I won’t swear to anything of the kind,” said the man indignantly, and he went back to his booth. The crowd became impatient at the delay, and began to push hard for the narrow entrance. Strong men cried out in pain or anger; the stove tottered and part of the pipe fell, scattering soot on the nearest heads; the moderator thundered rebukes, and several men went home disgusted with the new-fangled system, only to be dragged back later by the committees of their respective parties.
Back of the town-house, Paugus River, well filled by the night’s rain and the melted snow from the mountains, rushed noisily through its rock-choked bed. I escaped from the hustling crowd, in the hot hall, and watched the eager current till my eyes and ears were cleared of smoke and empty laughter, and a taste of something sweeter than politics was left on my tongue. The river, with its bright water, was following its course towards the Bearcamp and the sea, because for time out of mind it had flowed that way and knew no other. Most of the men inside the hall were acting their parts with much the same intelligence, and marking wherever they saw the letter R, or the letter D, not because they knew what those two great letters were struggling for this day in all the length and breadth of the Union, but because for years they had worshiped the one and hated the other with the fetich-maker’s fervor.
A bright-faced, blue-eyed committee-man, just old enough to cast his first vote for his party’s hero, came to call me to the dinner set for those who had come from a distance to vote. After dinner I took my share of the bone-crushing process inside the hall, marked my long ballot, and started at once for the city. First my friend’s wagon rolled along the pleasant Bearcamp valley to the pine plains. Turning a little aside, we drove past White Pond, a shallow, mirror-like lake in the heart of the plain, framed in snowy sand and gaunt pines. The view of the Sandwich range across this lake is exquisite at all times, but to-day, with the dark blue water dancing towards us in thousands of foam-capped waves, and the mountains standing out sharply against the pale blue sky, it was more than usually charming. Half a dozen wood-ducks were floating in the midst of the restless waves, not far from the shore. They paid no heed to our wagon as it crept through the sand on the beach.
When we reached the West Ossipee stage road I bade my friend good-by, and strolled towards the station alone. The south-bound train was not due till five, and it was now only half past two. The railway track was not more than half a mile distant across the pine plains, so, leaving the muddy road, I passed into the pines, following an obscure wood-path.