“Yes—’twas Jim Bunner, wa’nt it?”
“That man ’d wade threw fire ’n’ water fer me. Yeh couldn’t tempt him with a hundred thaousan’ dollars to so much as say an evil word abaout me, let alone injure me. Yit he’s desprit poor, ’n’ th’ unly thing I ever did fer him in my life, excep’ givin’ him a day’s work naow ’n’ then, was to help him bury his child decently, ten years ago. But I know my men! Here Fairchild has took you off a dunghill, where all yer hull humly, sore-eyed, misrubble fam’ly belong, ’n’ made a man of yeh, trusted his affairs to yeh, clothed yeh, fed yeh, yes, ’n’ let yeh fatten yerself on the profits of his farm—and naow yeh turn ’raound ’n’ offer to sell him aout. By gum! I was right. Fairchild hain’t got no sense! ’N’ you, yeh skunk, git aout! Don’t yeh walk on the same side of the street with me, or I’ll swat the hull top of yer head off!”
“We’ll nominate Ansdell ’fore you git a chance!” snarled Milton.
The Convention met, depressed by the evident feeling of disappointment among the spectators, who swarmed on all the high, pewlike seats back of the bar railing, while the delegates sat in rows of chairs inside the space reserved in term time for the lawyers. There was ground enough for this disappointment. Fairchild had not come, and the prospects of a good speech, or even a bitter personal contest, were fading away. No one had an explanation for his absence. The Dearborn delegates were more in the dark than outsiders even, for they had been told to meet him in Tyre, before the Convention, and that he would breakfast at the Turnpike Tavern. Milton reassured them for a time by enlarging upon the bad condition of the roads, but even he ended as they took their seats, by professing some fear of an accident. “However, I’ll cast th’ solid vaote, th’ same as before, I suppose?” he said, and the bondsmen nodded assent.
The proceedings opened tamely. The Chairman was a professor from the Tecumseh Academy; the other counties each had a secretary. Two written announcements were handed up to be read, one that Milton Squires was authorized to cast seventeen votes for Dearborn County, the other naming a man to perform a similar function for the ten votes of Jay. There was to be no break yet awhile, apparently, in the two machine counties. But—what would Adams do?
As this question flashed through the minds of the assemblage, one of the Adams delegates rose, walked to the bench, gave a paper to the presiding officer, and then joined the little throng of spectators to one side. Did this mean that he left the Convention? What did it mean? Experienced observers began to feel that something startling was coming.
The paper being read, turned out to be an announcement that Abram K. Beekman had been substituted in the Adams County delegation for the delegate who had just vacated his seat, and as the words died away the Boss himself pushed his way down the aisle, threw his long leg over the bar-rail, and took his seat. The master of Jay County getting substituted for Adams County—here was a mystery! Did it portend that Adams had been won for Beekman’s candidature? Yes, it must mean that—and Tyre’s heart leapt for joy. Or no—it couldn’t mean that. The Boss would hardly thrust himself forward in that brash way if he were sure of winning—and Tyre’s heart sank again, sadly.
The Chairman announced that balloting would be resumed; that the counties would be called in alphabetical order, and that, in the case of Adams County, which did not signify a desire to vote as a unit, the names of the delegates would also be called in that order. Before the words were fairly out of his mouth a hundred shrewd brains had discovered that this meant Beekman’s being the first name called. But what was his game?
So perplexed were the men of Tyre with this problem that they almost forgot to cheer when their man rose to his feet, in response to his name. It was rarely that one saw Abe Beekman in Conventions; he preferred to run them from the outside; and no one in the hall had ever heard him make a speech. Imagine how they listened now!