He spoke with an almost boyish nervousness, resting his hands on the table before him, and clinging, as it were, with his eyes to the Chairman for support. What he said was brief, to the point, and worth repeating here:
“I got substituted, ez p’raps some of yeh hev guessed, because I wanted a word at the very start. I hev my reasons. I ain’t a’ goin’ to mention no names—” he darted a swift, significant glance over toward the Dearborn County men, singling out Milton for a second, then reverting his troubled gaze to the Chairman—“but I kin feel it in my bones that things ain’t on the square here. Ther’s a nigger in the fence. Mebbe it’s no business of mine to yank him aout, but it’s only fair to my caounty that we shouldn’t let anybody git ahead of us in doin’ what we want to dew. It’s trew that D. comes ahead o’ J. in the alph’bet, but”—and there was a momentary relaxation of his eager, sombre face as he enunciated this undoubted fact—“its jest as trew that A. comes in front o’ D. Ef any set o’ men—mind, I mention no names, but—ef any set o’ delegates come here with the idee o’ sellin’ their man aout, or o’ makin’ a combination which’ll put them solid with the next Congressman, and leave Jay aout in the cold, perhaps ’fore I’m threw they’ll see thet they bit off more’n their jaws could wag.
“Mr. Cheerman, I don’t want to go to Congress. I never ’v’ hed the least hankerin’ after it. This State of aours is good enough for me. I wouldn’t feel like myself ef I had to stan’ ’raoun’ ’n’ see chaps from Rhode Island or Floridy puttin’ on airs, and pretendin’ to cut as big a swath as New York did. I’m too much of a State man fer thet. I’d be itchin’ to jump on ’em all the while. So I want to say that I withdraw my name——”
The Hon. Elhanan Pratt rose here, his weazen little figure coming up with a spring like a jack-in-the-box, and squeaked out sharply: “I rise to a point of order. The Abram K. Beekman whose name is before this Convention is a Jay County man, nominated by Jay County, and voted for alone by Jay County. No Adams County man”—there was an elaborate sarcasm in the tone—“has any right to withdraw that name.”
“The point of order is well taken,” said the Chair.
“Well, in thet case I won’t ask to withdraw my name,” responded Beekman. “But I don’t think it’ll make much differ’nce. A wink is as good as a nod to a bline man. P’raps you kin git an idee by this time haow the Jay caounty cat’s goin’ to jump; p’raps you can’t. I’m-goin’ to vaote fer Mr. Richard Ansdell, ’n’ I wan’ to say——”
He was interrupted here by a stout, sharp burst of hand-clapping from the Adams delegates, and the few Adams men in the audience. The Tyre crowd were taken aback for an instant, and sat bewildered; then the fact that their man had played his game, and was acting as if he had won, inspired them to join tumultuously in the applause, though they were in total darkness as to the nature of the stakes played for.
The Boss went on: “I wan’ to say that I’ve never laid eyes on him but once, ’n’ never spoke a word with him in my life. But I ain’t lived all this while ’thaout learnin’ to read somethin’ of a man’s natur’ in his face. I believe he’s honest and straight-aout; I don’t believe there’s a crookid hair in his head. P’raps he’s got some naotions that we’d look on as finnickin’ up here in Jay, but I ain’t afeard o’ them. It’s better to hev a man standin’ so upright thet he bends back’rd, then to hev—— to hev—— the fact is, Mr. Cheerman, I think I’ve said ’baout enough. Th’ other candidate hain’t showed up today! P’raps it’s jest as well fur him that he hain’t. I guess he’ll consider that he’s got abaout threw with deestrick politics—but I don’t want to appear to be rubbin’ it in. The lawyers hev a Latin sayin’ abaout speakin’ nothin’ but good o’ the dead——”
Beekman stopped short. The Chairman had risen to his feet. Half the delegates had followed his example, and were gazing intently at one of the tall, small-paned windows on the right side of the room. The three reporters who were sitting in the clerk’s desk had begun climbing over the rails and weaving their way between the chairs toward this same window. A hum of rising murmurs was running through the audience. Beekman, finding suddenly that he had no auditors, and disconcerted at the interruption, looked about the room for a moment, in search of an explanation. Then he followed the direction of the faces, and saw his retainer, Jim Bunner, clambering in under the lifted sash, and making strenuous, almost frantic, efforts meanwhile to attract his attention.
The man was breathless with excitement. He had climbed to the window from the roof of a low adjoining shed, and he could be heard now, as he found a footing on the back of a bench, in panting explanation of his conduct: “I hed to come this way! It’d ’a taken me tew long to’ve got threw the crowd at th’ door. I’ve got news for th’ Boss that won’t keep a second!”