Those Times and These

by Irvin S. Cobb

By reason of the free-silver split four years earlier, and bitter dissensions within the party organization subsequently, our state had fallen into the doubtful column; wherefore, campaigns took on even a more hectic and feverish aspect than before. Of course there was no doubt about our own district. Whatever might betide, she was safe and sound—a Democratic Rock of Ages. “Solid as Gibraltar!” John C. Breckinridge called her once; and, taking the name, a Gibraltar she remained forever after, piling up a plurality on which the faithful might mount and stand, even as on a watch-tower of the outer battlements, to observe the struggle for those debatable counties to the eastward and the northward of us. It was not a question whether she would give a majority for the ticket, but a question of how big a majority she would give. Come to think about it, that was not much of a question, either. We had sincere voters and competent compilers of election returns down our way then; and still have, for that matter.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, it was to be remembered that, four years before, the bulk of the state's votes in the Electoral College, for the first time in history, had been recorded for a Republican nominee; and so, with a possibility of a recurrence of this catastrophe staring us in the face, the rally that was held on that fine Indian summery day at Cold Springs, five miles out from town on the road to Maxon's Mills, assumed a scope and an importance beyond the rallies of earlier and less uncertain times. It was felt that by precept and deed the Stalwarts should set an example for all wavering brethren above the river. So there was a parade through town in the morning and burgoo and a barbecue in the woods at noon, and in the afternoon a feast of oratory, with Congressman Dabney Prentiss to preside and a United States Senator from down across the line in Tennessee to deliver the principal address. There was forethought in the shaping of the programme thus: those who came to feast would remain to hear.

Time waits on no man, but has an accommodating way of checking up occasionally, while the seed pod of reminiscence sprouts beneath the warm, rich humus of a fellow's memory; and, because time does do just this, I yet can visualise, with sufficient clarity for my present purposes, some of the things which happened that day. Again is my blood quickened by sweet strains of music as Dean's Brass Band swings up Franklin Street, leading the procession of the forenoon.

Without serious mental strain I re-create the picture of the prominent guests riding in open carriages with members of the reception committee and, behind them, the Young Men's Democratic Marching Club going afoot, four hundred strong.

I see a big four-horse wagon, used ordinarily for such prosaic purpose as moving household goods, but now with bunting and flags converted into a tableau car, and bearing pretty girls, badged and labelled with the names of the several states of the Union. And the prettiest, stateliest girl of all stands for Kentucky. At her side is a little dark girl who represents the Philippines, and accordingly she wears upon her wrists a dangling doubled loop of ironmongery. This hardware is very new and very shiny, and its links jangle effectively as the pageant moves onward, thereby causing the captive sister to smile a gratified smile not altogether in keeping with the lorn state of servitude here typified by these trace-chain manacles of hers.

It seems a long time—doesn't it?—since Expansion was a cardinal issue and Imperialism a war cry, and we were deeply concerning ourselves with the fate and future of the little brown brother, and warmly debating among ourselves whether we should continue to hold him as a more or less unwilling ward of the nation or turn him and his islands loose to fend for themselves. But really, when we cast up the tally of the intervening years, it isn't so very long ago after all. It is as though this might have happened yesterday, isn't it?

So it is with me—abiding as one of those yesterdays that stand out from the ruck and run of yesterdays. Perhaps that is why I can almost taste the dust which is winnowed up from beneath the hoofs of the teams and the turning wheels as the crowds stream off out the gravel turnpike, bound for Cold Springs. Nearly everybody of consequence, politically or socially, joins in that hurrying pilgrimage. Like palmers of old, Judge Priest and Commonwealth's Attorney Flournoy and Sheriff Giles Birdsong and all our district and county and city officials attend, to attest by their presence the faith that is in them. I attend, too; but in the capacity of scribe. I go to report the doings for the Daily Evening News. I am the principal reporter and, by the same token, one-half of the local staff of that dependable journal, the remaining half being its editor in chief.

Time in its flight continuing to turn backward, we are now at Cold Springs. Mint-master Jack Frost has been busy there these last few nights, so that the leaves of the hickories are changing from summer's long green to swatches of the crisp yellow-backed currency of October. On the snake fence, which separates the flanks of the woodland from the cleared lands beyond, the trumpet vine and the creeper blaze in clumps so red that one almost wonders the dried rails do not catch fire too.

The smells of fall are in the air—of com in the shock; of bruised winesaps dropping, dead ripe, from the orchard trees; of fox grapes turning purple in the vine canopies away up in the tops of the trees. From the fringes of the grove come the sounds of the stamping of horses' feet and the restless swishing of horses' tails. Off in quiet places a hundred flat flasks have been uncorked; in each thicket rendezvous fore-thoughted citizens are extending the hospitalities of the occasion to such as forgot to freight their hip pockets before journeying hither. There have been two fights and one runaway.

And now it is noon time; and now it is half an hour past it, and the county committee, with the aid of the only known Republicans present—all these latter being of African descent and all, or nearly all, camp cooks of high repute in Red Gravel County—is about to play host to the multitude.