Читать книгу The Great Accident - Ben Ames Williams - Страница 10

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THE home-coming of Congressman Caretall created a momentary stir in Hardiston; but that was all. Every one knew he had come home to take a hand in the mayoralty election; but every one also knew that the elder Chase was going to be elected Mayor in spite of all Caretall could do, and so the first stir of interest soon lagged. There was no sport to be had in an election that was a foregone conclusion.

Caretall did not seem to be worrying about the situation. He walked uptown every morning, waited at the Post Office while the morning mail was distributed, talked with the men that gathered there, went to the barber shop for his shave, to the Smoke House for his plug of black tobacco, to the hotel, or to the Journal office, or some other rallying spot for men otherwise unattached.

Now and then he was seen to drop in at Peter Gergue’s office; but the best proof that he was doing nothing to change the election lay in the fact that Gergue was idle. That lank gentleman seldom emerged from his office, and when he did so, the fact that his mind was free of care was attested by the circumstance that he left his back hair severely alone. Gergue was a Caretall barometer; and all the signs pointed to “fair, followed by a probable depression!”

A lull settled over Hardiston. Chase carried on his campaign regularly but without heat. He talked with individuals on street corners and with groups wherever he found them; he spoke most graciously to all who met him on the street; and as the last week before election dawned, he announced two meetings, to which all voters were invited. They would be held in the Rink; otherwise the Crescent Opera House—and at these meetings, numerous speakers would expound the justice of the Chase cause. Chase himself, of course, would be the principal speaker.

The first of these meetings was held on Tuesday night, a week before the election; the second was set for the following Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon, Amos Caretall and Chase came face to face in the Post Office; and half a dozen people saw them greet each other pleasantly and without heat. Chase spoke as though he could afford to be generous, Amos like a man willing to accept generosity.

“I hope you’ll come to my meeting to-night, Amos,” Chase invited with grave condescension; and he laughed and added: “You might learn something that would be of value—about municipal affairs—”

“I was figuring on coming,” said Amos, surprisingly enough. It was surprising even to Chase; but he hid this feeling.

“Fine, fine!” he declared. “Amos, I’m glad to hear it. Partisanship has no place in city affairs.”

“That’s right,” Amos agreed.

Chase laughed. “If you don’t look out, I’ll call on you to speak to-night,” he threatened.

Amos grinned at that. “I reckon I wouldn’t be scared,” he declared. “I’ve spoke before.”

They parted with no further word save laughing jests; but when Chase turned toward his office, his eyes were thoughtful, and Amos watched his departing figure with a faint smile. While Chase was still in sight, Gergue came along; and he spoke to Amos in his habitual low drawl, and received a word from Amos in reply.

Gergue nodded. “The bee’ll keep a buzzing till he does it,” he promised; and Amos chuckled. He chuckled all that day; but his countenance was sober enough when he presented himself at the entrance to the Rink that night. He was alone; and he walked boldly down the aisle, responding to greetings on every hand, and took a conspicuous seat near the front.

The curtain had been raised; and the stage was set with a stock scene representing a farmyard, or something of the kind. There was an impracticable well at the right, in the rear; and at the left, the kitchen door of the farmhouse stood open beneath an arborway of cardboard grapevines. In the center of the stage, a table had been set; upon it a white pitcher of water and a glass; and in the semicircle about the table, half a dozen chairs. The stage setting was not strikingly appropriate, but no one save Amos gave it so much as a chuckle.

When he had studied the stage, Amos turned to look about at the audience. The Rink was half filled; but half of the people in it were either women or boys too young to vote. The women in Hardiston were all immensely interested in politics; and as for the boys—well, a boy loves a meeting.

While Amos was still studying the audience, Ed Skinner, editor of the weekly Sun, appeared on the stage, walked to the table, rapped on it with a wooden mallet which had obviously been designed for the uses of carpentry, and called the house to order. Amos settled in his seat and the meeting began.

There were four speakers. Skinner talked first; he was followed by Davy Morgan, a foreman in Chase’s furnace; and he in turn gave way to Will Murchie, from up the creek, who had been elected Attorney General the year before, and so won the honor of breaking the air-tight Republican grip on state offices. The testimony of these men was unanimously to the effect that Winthrop Chase, Senior, had the makings of the best Mayor any city in the state ever saw.

After which, Chase himself appeared, to prove the case indisputably.

Chase read his speech. He always read his speeches. Murchie had written this one for him; and it was well done, flowery, measured, resounding. It was real oratory, even as Chase rendered it. And Amos, in a front seat, was the loudest of all the audience in his applause. He was so loud that at times he interrupted the speaker; but Chase forgave him, beaming on Amos over the footlights.

Abruptly, Chase finished his speech. He finished it and folded it and put it in his pocket; and every one applauded, either from appreciation or relief. They applauded until they saw—by the fact that Chase still held the stage without starting to withdraw—that he had something further to say. Then they fell sulkily silent.

“My friends,” said Chase then, beaming on them. “My friends—I thank you. I thank you all; and particularly I wish to thank Congressman Caretall, down in front here, who has been loud in his applause.

“That’s a good sign. I’m glad he appreciates the fact that it is no use to fight longer. He told me this morning that he was coming here to-night; and in effect he dared me to invite him to speak to you to-night.

“My friends, I have nothing to hide. He cannot frighten me. Congressman Caretall—you have the floor!”

The listeners had been apathetic, bored; but they were so no longer. More of them rose, some climbed on seats and craned their necks the better to see the discomfiture of the Congressman. They yelled at him: “Speech! Sp-e-e-ech!” They jeered at him, confident he would accept their jeers in silence; and so they were the more delighted when he rose lumberingly in his place.

Every one yelled at everybody else to sit down and be quiet. Chase invited Amos up on the stage. Amos shook his head. “I can talk from here,” he roared, “if these gentlemen will be seated so I can look at them.” He spread his hands like one invoking a blessing. “Sit down! Sit down!”

They sat, rustling in their seats, grinning, whispering, gazing; and Amos waited benevolently, head on one side, until they were quiet. Then he spoke.

“My frien-n-d-s!” he drawled. “I am honored. It is an honor to any man to be asked to address a Hardiston audience. And especially on such an occasion—and in such a cause.

“My friends, the name of Chase is an old one in Hardiston. A Chase was one of the first to settle at the salt licks here; a Chase fought the Indians during those first hot years; a Chase dug salt wells when the riffles no longer proved profitable. And when the salt industry died, a Chase was the first to dig coal in this county, and a Chase was the first to establish an iron-smelting furnace here in Hardiston.

“The Chases have deserved well of Hardiston. They have been honored in the past; they will be honored in the future. But they should also be honored in the present.

“My friends, I came here to cast my vote in the city election. I came home in some doubt as to how I should cast that vote. But I am in doubt no longer, my friends.

“I shall go to the polls next Tuesday, and I shall ask for a ballot, and I shall go into a booth; and there, my friends, I shall cast my vote for Mayor.

“And the man I vote for, my friends, I tell you frankly; the man I vote for will be—a Chase!”

The storm broke; and Amos bowed to it and sat down. But that would not do. Chase climbed down from the stage to shake him by the hand and thank him; and others crowded around to do the same thing; and still others came crowding to storm at him for a traitor. And to them all Amos presented a smiling and agreeable countenance.

But this small tumult ended, as such things will. The crowd dispersed; the Rink emptied; and in the end, Chase and Amos walked up the street as far as the hotel together, separating there to go to their respective homes.

Next morning, Hardiston buzzed with the news. Strangely enough, Amos did not show himself in town. He hid at home, said his enemies—those who had been his friends. He hid at home to escape the storm. That was what they said; but it was observed, in the course of the day, that those who went to Amos’s home to accuse him, came away apparently reconciled to the Congressman’s course of action. They made no more complaint.

One of these was Jack Routt. Routt was an attorney, picking up the beginnings of a practice. He had ambitions. Other men had been prosecuting attorney, and there was no reason why a man named Routt should not hold that office. To this end, he had hitched his wagon to Amos’s star; and he was one of the Congressman’s first lieutenants.

Routt had not attended the meeting at the Rink. He and Wint Chase spent the evening together. But when he heard what had happened, he uttered one red-hot ejaculation, then clamped tight his lips and marched off to find Amos and demand an explanation.

He got it. It silenced him. It was observed that he came away from the Caretall home with a puzzled frown twisting his brow above the smile on his lips. But he spoke not, neither could word be enticed from him. Instead, he seemed to put politics off his shoulders, and attached himself, like a guardian angel, to Wint.

That was Wednesday. Wednesday evening, Wint and Routt and Agnes Caretall spent at Joan Arnold’s home, playing cards. Thursday, the four were again together, but this time at the Caretall home. Friday evening, Routt and Wint played pool at the hotel. Saturday evening they went together to the Chase rally at the Rink. It was a jubilant gathering; the speakers were exultant; and the elder Chase, again the speaker of the evening, was calm and paternally promising.

Sunday, the four went picnicking in Agnes Caretall’s car. And it was not until Monday evening that Wint broke away from Routt’s chaperonage. He spent that evening—it was the eve of election day—with Joan.

They were very happy together.