"You bet we do!" roared the crowd. "What d'ye think we've done?"
"You've nominated a man for your legislature who hasn't got a dollar in the world."
"So much the better! The campaign 'll be honest!" shouted young Mason.
Bradley's throat was too full to speak, and his head whirled. "I can't make a speech now, gentlemen; I am all out o' breath. All I can say is, I'm very thankful to have such friends, and I'll try to do my duty in the campaign, and in the legislature, if I'm elected."
The delegates swarmed about him to shake his hand and promise him their support. Bradley, dazed by the suddenness of it, could only smile and grip each man's hand. The Judge was jubilant. Had Bradley been his son, he couldn't have felt more sincerely pleased.
"We'll see such a campaign this fall as this county never had," he said to everybody; "a campaign with a principle; a campaign that will be educational."
Bradley had now a greater work before him than he had ever undertaken before. He had now to go to his old friends and neighbors in a new light, practically as a Democrat. He had to face audiences mainly hostile to his ideas, and defend opinions which he knew not only cut athwart the judgment of the farmers of the county, but squarely across their prejudices.
But he had something irresistible on his side; he was debating a principle. He was widening the discussion, and he made men feel that. He rose above local factions and local questions to the discussion of the principles of justice and freedom. He voiced this in his speech of acceptance in the Opera House the next day. The house was packed to its anteroom with people from every part of the county. A curious feeling of expectancy was abroad. Men seemed to feel instinctively that this was the beginning of a change in the thought of Rock River. Everybody remarked on the change in Bradley, and his beard made him look so much older.
Judge Brown and Dr. Carver sat on the stage with the speakers, young Mason and Bradley. The Judge was very dignified, but there was an exultant strut in his walk and a special deliberation in his voice which proclaimed his pride in his junior partner. He alluded, in his dry, nasal way, to the pleasure it gave him to inaugurate the new era in politics in Rock River. "The liquor question I regard as settled in this State," he said. "And now the discussion of the tariff has free sailing. But you don't want to hear us old fellows, with our prejudices; you want to hear our young leaders, with their principles."
He introduced young Mason, who made one of his audacious speeches. "Death is a great friend of youth and progress," he said. "The old men die, off, thank God! and give young men and new principles a chance. I tell you, friends and neighbors, the Democratic party is being born again—it must be born again, in order to be worth saving."