He realized that most of the voters did not understand him aright. They did not understand sincerity in politics. But his own consciousness of rectitude supplied his consolation and provided his impetus. Till then he had employed the Thornton grit only in his business efforts; he employed it now with just as much vigor in his proselyting. Once in the fight, he was awake to what it meant. His frank earnestness impressed those with whom he talked. He did not lose his temper, when men assailed him and tried to discredit his protestations. Here and there, in neighborhoods, knots of farmers gathered about him and listened. He began to win his way, and he knew it. The knowledge that Harlan Thornton was a square man in business needed no herald in that section.
That this integrity would extend to his politics grew into belief more and more as he went about.
The distrust of him, because of his associations, a suspicion fostered by the paid agents of the opposition, began to give way before his calm, earnest young manhood. But in every knot of men he found a few bitter irreconcilables still. They were those whom change invites, and the established order offends. One man, unable to provoke him by vituperation, and in a frenzy of childish rage because Harlan's calm poise was not disturbed by his outpourings, ran at him and struck him. He was a little man, and though he leaped when he struck, the blow landed no higher than the shoulder that Harlan turned to him. And when he leaped again the young man caught him by the wrist and smiled down on him, unperturbed.
"If that's the way you talk politics, Sam, I'll have to adjourn the debate," he said, quietly. And the story of that went the rounds, accompanied by much laughter, and the big, sturdy, serene young man who was master of his own passions met smiles wherever he went.
Another story preceded him, too. "Fighting" MacCracken, of the Jo Quacca neighborhood, smarting ever since that day in the yard of "The Barracks," jealous of his prestige as a man of might, offered obscene and brutal insult to the name of Thelismer Thornton in the hearing of his grandson. It had been hinted previously along the border that the six-foot scion of the Thorntons was a handy man in a scrap, but now his prowess was surely established. MacCracken went about, a living advertisement of how effectually righteous anger can back up two good fists.
Therefore, respect attended on good-humor and went with, or ahead of, the candidate.
He wondered at himself sometimes. He hardly understood the zeal that now animated him, so sudden a convert. But the zest of youth was in him; the spirit of the toil of the big woods, of the race with drought when the drives are going down, the everlasting struggle with nature's forces, the rivalry between man and man where accomplishment that bulks large in the eyes of men is the only accomplishment that counts—all these spurred him to make good, now that he had begun. In the open arena of life his training had been that of man to man, and the best man taking the prize. And his reading during the long evenings had been more in the way of education in public matters than he had realized. As for ideals, he had followed the masterful men who preached a gospel that appealed to him, living the life of the open, battling for the weak against the selfishly strong—so it seemed to the one who studied their achievements on the printed page. With his own opportunity now thrust upon him, Harlan Thornton determined to make candor his code, honesty his system. He entertained no false ideas of his personal importance. But his lack of experience did not daunt him. He simply made up his mind that he would go forward, keeping soul and heart open, as well as eyes and ears. He believed that the square deal could not be hidden from those who entered public life in that manner.
He did not discuss all this with his grandfather. If he had, Thelismer Thornton would have been vastly interested. He might have been amused. Probably he would have been more amused than interested, for hot youth and glowing ideals have humorous phases for the man who has lived among men for more than eighty years.
But that he had unloosed a bottle imp in his own family would not have occurred to the old man, even after he had listened, for he still had the cynical belief that circumstances must control, interest convert, and personal profit kill the most glowing ardor in reform.
Lacking the gift of divination, Thelismer Thornton watched the rapid development of this bottle imp with much complacency. "Whispering" Urban Cobb brought him reports from the field. Talleyrand Sylvester was trying to place bets on Harlan Thornton, but there were no takers. It was even stated that Enoch Dudley was finding it hard work to secure pledges enough to warrant his running as an independent candidate.