“But he is an honest man and a God-fearin' man. Ez a soldier under the stars and bars he done his duty to the sorrowful end. Ez a citizen he has never wilfully harmed his feller-man. He never invaded the sanctity of any man's home, and he never brought sorrow to any hearthstone. Ef he has his faults—and who amongst us is without them?—he has been the sole sufferer by them. I believe it has been charged that he drank some, but I never seen him under the influence of licker, and I don't believe anybody else ever did either.
“I nominate———” His voice took on the shrillness of a fife and his right fist, pudgy and clenched, came up at arm's length above his head—“I nominate—and on that nomination, in accordance with a rule but newly framed by this body, I call here and now fur an alphabetical roll call of each and every delegate—I offer as a candidate fur Congress ag'inst the Honourable Horace K. Maydew the name of my friend, my neighbour and my former comrade, Lysandy John Curd, of the voting precinct of Lone Ellum and the County of Red Gravel.”
There was no applause. Not a ripple of approbation went up, nor a ripple of hostility either. But a gasp went up—a mighty gasp, deep and sincere and tremendously significant.
Of those upon the stage it was the chairman, I think, who got his wits back first. He was naturally quick-witted, else his sponsor would never have chosen him for chairman. In a mute plea for guidance he turned his head toward the wing of the stage where he knew that sponsor should be, and abruptly, at a distance from him to be measured by inches rather than by feet, his gaze encountered the hypnotising stare of Cap'n Buck Owings, who had magically materialised from nowhere in particular and was now at his elbow.
“Stay right where you are,” counselled Cap'n Buck in a half whisper. “We've had plenty of these here recesses—these proceedin's are goin' right on.”
Daunted and bewildered, the chairman hesitated, his gavel trembling in his temporarily palsied hand. In that same moment Sheriff Giles Birdsong had got upon the stage, too; only he deemed his proper place to be directly alongside the desk of the secretary, and into the startled ear of the secretary he now spoke.
“Start your roll call, buddy,” was what Mr. Birdsong said, saying it softly, in lullaby tones, yet imparting a profound meaning to his crooning and gentle accents. “And be shore to call off the names in alphabetical order—don't fur-git that part!”
Inward voices of prudence dictated the value of prompt obedience in the brain of that secretary. Quaveringly he called the first name on the list of the first county, and the county was Bland and the name was Homer H. Agnew.
Down in the Bland County delegation, seated directly in front of the stage, an old man stood up—the Rev. Homer H. Agnew, an itinerant Baptist preacher.
“My county convention,” he explained, “instructed us for Maydew. But under the law of this convention I vote now as an individual. As between the two candidates presented I can vote only one way. I vote for Curd.”