So it came to pass that there entered into the affairs of Judge Thomas Van Dorn, an element upon which he did not calculate. For he was dealing only with the material elements of a material universe!
When Nathan Perry came to Brotherton’s he sat down in the midst of a discussion of the Judgeship that began in rather etherial terms. For Doctor Nesbit was saying:
“Amos, I’ve got you cornered if you consider the visible universe. She works like a watch; she’s as predestined as a corn sheller. But let me tell you something–she isn’t all visible. There’s something back of matter–there’s another side to the shield. I know mighty well there’s a time when my medicine won’t help sick folks–and yet they get well. 292I’ve seen a great love flame up in a man’s heart or a woman’s heart or a child’s in a bed of torture, and when medicine wouldn’t take hold I’ve seen love burn through the wall between the worlds, and I have seen help come just as sure as you see the Harvey Hook and Ladder Company coming rattling down Market Street! Funny old world–funny old world–seventy rides around the sun–and then the fireworks.” After puffing away to revive his pipe he said: “I sort of got into this way of thinking recently going over this judgeship fight.” He smoked meditatively then broke out, “Lord, Lord, what an iron-clad, hog-tight, rock-ribbed, copper-riveted material proposition it is that Tom is putting up. He’s bound self-interest with self-interest everywhere. He and Joe Calvin have roped old man Sands in, and every material interest in this whole district is tied up in the Van Dorn candidacy. I’m a child in a cyclone in this fight. The self-interest of the county candidates, of all the deputies who hope two years from now to be county candidates, and all their friends, every straw boss at the shops, in the smelters, in the mines–and all the men who are near them and want to be straw bosses, every merchant who is caught in the old spider’s web with a ninety-day note; every street-car conductor, every employee of the light company, every man at the waterworks plant, every man at the gas plant, the telephone linemen–every human being that dances in the great woof of this little spider’s web feels the pull of devilish material power.”
Amos Adams threw back his grizzled head in a laugh that failed to vocalize. “Well, Jim, according to your account you’re liable to get burned and singed and disfigured until you’re as useless in politics as this old Amos Adams–the spook chaser!”
There was no bitterness in Amos Adams’s voice. “It’s all right, Jim–I have no complaint to make against life. Forty years ago Dan Sands got the first girl I ever loved. I went to war; he paid his bounty and married the girl. That was a long time ago. I often think of the girl–it’s no lack of faith to Mary. And I have the memory of the war–of that Day at Peach Tree Creek with all the wonderful exulting joy of that charge and what God gave me to do. This button,” 293he put his thumb under the Loyal Legion emblem in his warped coat lapel, “this button is more fragrant than any flower on earth to my heart. Dan Sands has had five wives; he missed the hardship of the war. He has a son by her. Jim,” said Amos Adams as he opened his eyes, “if you knew how it has cut into my heart year by year to see the beautiful soul that Hester Haley gave to Morty decay under the blight of his father–but you can’t.” He sighed. “Yet there is still her soul in him–gentle, kind, trying to do the right thing–but tied and hobbled by life with his father. Grant may be wrong, Doctor,” cried the father, raising his hand excitedly, “he may be crazy, and I know they laugh at him up town here–for a fool and the son of a fool; he certainly doesn’t know how he is going to do all the things he dreams of doing–but that is not the point. The important thing is that he is having his dream! For by the Eternal, Jim Nesbit, I’d rather feel that my boy was even a small part of the life force of his planet pushing forward–I’d rather be the father of that boy–I’d rather be old Amos Adams the spook chaser–than Dan Sands with his million. I’ve been happier, Jim, with the memory of my Mary than he with his five wives. I’d rather be on the point of the drill of life and mangled there, than to have my soul rot in greed.”
The Doctor puffed on his pipe. “Well, Amos,” he returned quietly, “I suppose if a man wants to get all messed up as one of the points of the drill of life, as you call it–it’s easy enough to find a place for the sacrifice. I admire Grant; but someway,” his falsetto broke out, “I have thought there was a little something in the bread-and-butter proposition.”
“A little, Doctor Jim–but not as much as you’d think!” answered Amos.
“Nevertheless in this fight here in Greeley County, I’m quietly lining up a few county delegates, and picking out a few trusty friends who will show up at the caucuses, and Grant has a handful of crazy Ikes that I am going to use in my business, and if we win it will be a practical proposition–my head against Tom’s.”
The Doctor rose. Amos Adams stopped him with “Don’t be too sure of that, Jim; I got a writing from Mr. Left last night and he says–”
294“Hold on, Amos–hold on,” squeaked the Doctor’s falsetto; “until Mr. Left is registered in the Third Ward–we won’t bother with him until after the convention.”