Old Judge Priest

by Irvin S. Cobb

As we are following the course of things with some regard for their chronological sequence, perhaps I should state here that on the next day but one the Lysander John Curd hay and feed store was closed on executions sworn out by a coterie of panic-stricken creditors. It is a mistake, I think, to assume that rats always leave a sinking ship. It has been my limited observation that, if they are commercial rats, they stay aboard and nibble more holes in the hull. However, that is neither here nor there.

In less than no time at all following this—in less than two weeks thereafter, to be exact—the coils which united Mr. Lysander Curd and Luella his wife in the bonds of matrimony were by due process of the statutory law unloosed and slackened off. Being free, the ex-husband promptly gathered together such meagre belongings as he might call his own and betook himself to that little mortgage-covered farm of his out Lone Elm way. Being free also, the ex-wife with equal celerity became the bride of State Senator Horace K. Maydew, with a handy justice of the peace to officiate at the ceremony. It was characteristic of State Senator Maydew that he should move briskly in consummating this, the paramount romance of his life. For he was certainly an up-and-coming man.

There was no holding him down, it seemed. Undoubtedly he was a rising light, and the lady who now bore his name was bound and determined that she rise with him. She might have made one matrimonial mistake, but this time she had hitched her wagon to a star—a star which soared amain and cast its radiance afar. Soon she was driving her own car—and a seven-passenger car at that. They sent to Chicago for an architect to design their new home on Flournoy Boulevard and to Louisville for a decorator to decorate it. It wasn't the largest house in town, but it was by long odds the smartest.

The Senator willed that she should have the best of everything, and she had it. For himself he likewise desired much. His was an uneasy ambition, which ate into him like a canker and gave him no peace. Indeed, peace was not of his craving. He watered his desire with the waters of self-appreciation and mulched it with constant energy, and behold it grew like the gourd and bourgeoned like the bay. He had been mayor; at this time he was state senator; presently it was to transpire that he would admire to be more than that.

Always his handclasp had been ardent and clinging. Now the inner flames that burned its owner made it feverish to the touch. His smile was as warming as a grate fire and almost as wide. Shoulders were made for him to slap, and children had been created into the world to the end that he might inquire regarding their general health and well doing. Wherefore parents—and particularly young parents—were greatly drawn to him. If there was a lodge he joined it; if there was a church fair he went to it; if there was an oration to be made he made it. His figure broadened and took on a genial dignity. Likewise in the accumulation of worldly goods he waxed amazingly well. His manner was paternal where it was not fraternal. His eye, though, remained as before—a sharp, greedy, appraising eye. There is no alibi for a bad eye. Still, a lot of people never look as high as the eyes. They stop at the diamond in the scarfpin.

When a vacancy occurred in the district chairmanship it seemed quite in keeping with the trend of the political impulses of the times that Senator Maydew should slip into the hole. Always a clever organiser, he excelled his past record in building up and strengthening the district organisation. It wasn't long before he had his fences as they should be—hog-tight, horse-high and bull-strong.

Yet in the midst of manifold activities he found time to be an attentive and indulgent husband. If the new Mrs. Maydew did not enjoy the aloof society of those whom we fondly call down our way The Old Families, at least she had her fine new home, and her seven-passenger car, and her generous and loving husband. And she was content; you could tell that by her air and her expression at all times. Some thought there was just a trace of defiance in her bearing.

It was just about a year after her marriage to him that the Senator, in response to the demands of a host of friends and admirers—so ran the language of his column-long paid-for card in the Daily Evening News and other papers—announced himself as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for congressman. Considering conditions and everything, the occasion appeared to be propitious for such action on his part. The incumbent, old Major J. C. C. Guest, had been congressman a long, long time—entirely too long a time, some were beginning to say. He had never been a particularly exciting personage, even back yonder in those remote dim days of his entry into public life. At the beginning his principal asset and his heaviest claim upon the support of his fellow-citizens had been an empty trouser-leg.

In eighty-four, a cross-roads wag had said he didn't believe Major Guest ever lost that leg in battle—it was his private opinion that the Maje wore it off running for office. At the time this quip was thought almost to border upon the sacrilegious, and nobody had laughed at it except the utterer thereof. But fully sixteen lagging years had dragged by since then; and for the old-soldier element the times were out of joint. Maybe that was because there weren't so very many of the old soldier element left. A mouse-coloured sleeve without an arm inside of it, no longer had the appeal upon the popular fancy that once it had, and the same was true of the one-time sentimental and vote-catching combination of a pair of hickory crutches and an amputation at the hip joint.

Nevertheless, Major Guest was by no means ready to give up and quit. With those who considered him ripe for retirement he disagreed violently. As between resting on his laurels and dying in the harness he infinitely preferred the chafe of the leather to the questionable softness of the laurel-bed. So the campaign shaped itself to be a regular campaign. Except for these two—Maydew and Guest—there were no openly avowed candidates, though Dabney Prentiss, who dearly loved a flirtation with reluctant Destiny, was known to have his ear to the ground, ready to qualify as the dark horse in the event a deadlock should develop and a cry go forth for a compromise nominee. Possibly it was because Dabney Prentiss generally kept his ear to the ground that he had several times been most painfully trampled upon. From head to foot he was one big mental bruise.