"I have endeavored to show you, my fellow citizens, that Democratic principles ought to triumph in this election; but neither you nor I can fail to see that there is no chance of that in this senatorial district. After consultation with my friends and political advisers, I have decided that the issue lies solely between the regular and the independent Whig candidates; and as between these two I think no Democrat can hesitate to choose Mr. Boyd Westover as the fittest man to represent us. I therefore resign my own candidacy in Mr. Westover's behalf, and I urge all my friends, all loyal Democrats in the district, to vote for him. I have been moved to this decision by impulses of patriotism and by a sense of duty to the district and to my fellow citizens."
This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and for a full minute the crowd stood paralyzed with astonishment. Then Butler's most active supporter—by prearrangement of course—leaped to the platform and cried out:
"Friends, Democrats, patriots! It occurs to me that our party in this county has named no candidate for the lower house of the Legislature. In order that the Democratic vote shall not be completely unrecorded, I move that we now name Samuel Butler, Esq., for that honorable place. His candidacy for that will in no way interfere with his self-sacrificing decision to take himself out of the senatorial campaign. I ask all Democrats here present to gather in the prize barn across the road, to consider this suggestion."
A "prize barn" was one in which there were appliances for pressing leaf tobacco into hogsheads.
Ten minutes later it was announced that the late Democratic candidate for Senator had been unanimously nominated for the House of Delegates.
"Now I know," said Carley Farnsworth to himself, "what Edgar Coffey's message from Judy to Butler meant. It's the shrewdest bit of play I ever heard of. By securing his withdrawal from the senatorial contest, the Queen of the Mountains has enormously swelled Boyd's planter vote. And by way of accomplishing that she has promised the mountain vote to Butler for the lower office, and it will elect him beyond a doubt. On the whole, I reckon I won't explain the matter to Westover. He's quixotic, and he knows nothing of politics. But, by Jove, it was a master stroke on Judy's part."
That night when Edgar Coffey made his report to Judy, telling her of the adroit and graceful way in which the program had been carried out by Butler, her comment was:
"Some folks has more sense'n you'd think."
When he had told her of the confidence with which Webb was reckoning upon the mountain vote to offset the loss, she added:
"An' some folks ain't got the sense the law allows 'em."