Читать книгу The 13th District - Brand Whitlock - Страница 7

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RANKIN was not only chairman of the Polk County central committee, a position he had held for years, but he was also chairman of the congressional committee. It was, therefore, with an authority no one cared to question that, early in September, he engaged two rooms in the Lawrence Block for the county committee’s headquarters, though he preferred to pitch his own in Garwood’s law office, which was on the same floor. Then he swung a banner across the street and began to menace Garwood’s opponent with challenges for joint debates. To Grand Prairie this expressed the formal opening of the campaign, but Garwood already had been two weeks away from home, speaking twice daily in Piatt and DeWitt Counties, under the skies in the afternoon, under the stars by night, and had returned for a day before going down into Moultrie. The office had been crowded all day and it was late in the afternoon before he had a chance to write the letters that needed his attention. He had just dismissed, rather ungraciously, a delegation of negroes—for Rankin never had any patience with negro delegations—and had begun dictating to the typewriter, when another caller came demanding a personal interview.

The caller was a little man, who walked with stooped shoulders, swung a slender stick energetically as he advanced, and continued to twist it nervously when he had come. His head was but thinly covered with lank, moist hair, as was shown when he pushed back the sun-burned straw hat he wore. This moisture seemed to be general in his whole system. It was apparent in the perspiring hand he gave to Garwood; it affected the short mustache, dyed a dull, lifeless black, at which he scratched with a black-edged finger nail as he talked, when he was not plucking at the few hairs that strayed on his chin. This moisture showed again in his blue eyes, from which it had almost washed the color. After he had been shut in the room with Garwood for half an hour, the air was laden with alcoholic fumes, which, exuding from his whole body, may have accounted for his moist personality. While he talked he chewed and puffed a glossy yellow cigar.

This man was Freeman H. Pusey, and he was publisher, editor, reporter, all in one, of the Grand Prairie Evening News. His journal was a small one of four pages, for the most part given over to boiler-plate matter, but it carried a column of “locals,” a portentous editorial page, and took on a happy, almost gala expression whenever it could exploit, under the heavy ragged type in which its headlines were set, some scandal that would shock Grand Prairie. In politics the News claimed to be independent, which meant that it leaned far to one side in one campaign, and as far to the other in the next; indeed, it sometimes held these two extreme positions in the same campaign, and found no difficulty in vindicating its policy.

“I came to see you, Mr. Garwood, in regard to a little political matter,” Pusey began.

“Well?” said Garwood, not too cordially.

“Of course you know that the News is the accepted organ of the people, that is, the great mass of the common people here in Grand Prairie and,—ah—I might say in Polk County.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Garwood.

“Thus far, you may have noticed, we have been neutral, that is, I should say, independent, as between you and Judge Bromley.”

Garwood was looking out of his window down into the court house square, where the winds played with the rubbish that always litters the streets of Grand Prairie. He made no reply, and Pusey eyed him out of his swimming little eyes.

“Yes,” continued Pusey, pinching his chin, “we have waited to see how events would shape themselves before—ah—”

Garwood grunted, and Pusey went on:

“Yes—ah—I had come to the conclusion that perhaps our best course would be to support you, inasmuch as you’re our fellow townsman—and it occurred to me that perhaps a write-up would do you some good, that is, with the great mass of the common people, the laboring people generally, you understand.”

“I should be obliged to you, of course,” said Garwood.

“H-m-m, yes,” answered Pusey, “I presume so. But—if I—that is, we, were to give you such a write-up and run your cut, you would, I presume, be ready to take twenty or thirty thousand copies for distribution?”

“What would it cost?” said Garwood.

“Well—at two cents a copy—you can—”

“I see,” said Garwood, “for your support you would expect about five hundred dollars.”

“I did not put it in that light,” said Pusey, spitting, and trying to assume a dignity.

“No, but I—”

“You can see, of course, Mr. Garwood—a man of your experience can readily see, that a paper like the News can hardly afford to give up its valuable space to that which is not strictly news matter without some hope of compensation.”

“I see,” said Garwood, “but to be frank with you, Pusey,” he turned and looked straight into the little man’s watery eyes, “I can’t afford it. This campaign, into which I sometimes wish I hadn’t gone, has proved expensive, and my practice has suffered, so that I need all the money at my command for more immediate and pressing expenses.”

“You do not consider this immediate and pressing then?” said Pusey.

“Well, not exactly,” Garwood replied. “Would you?”

Pusey was silent for a while. When he spoke he said:

“There are certain passages in your life, Mr. Garwood, which just now—”

Garwood glared at Pusey.

“So that’s the game, is it?” he said. His tone was low, for he was calculating carefully the part he had to play.

The little man was revolving his straw hat on the head of his stick, and he wore a grin about his moist mouth. Garwood had mastered his anger, but Pusey had to wait some time before he spoke. Presently he did so.

“I’ll tell you, Pusey,” he said, “you know Jim Rankin is running my campaign, and I have promised him not to take any steps without consulting him. We’ve had all sorts of callers here, white and black, cranks, mind readers, palmists, faith curists and men with votes in their vest pockets, and I’ve adopted the rule of turning over to him every one who comes. I’ll speak to him about your case, and you may call around to-morrow and see him.”

When Pusey had gone, Garwood burst upon Rankin, his face white with anger.

“The damned little blackmailing—”

“What’n hell’s the matter?” asked Rankin, letting his feet fall from the desk.

Garwood, digging his clenched fists into his trousers’ pockets, paced the floor, swearing angrily.

“Free Pusey’s been here,” he said.

“What’d he want?”

“Stuff.”

“Of course—but what for?”

“For keeping still, what’d you suppose?”

“Does he know anything?”

Garwood paused by the window, still breathing hard.

“Well,” he said presently, “he claims to.”

Rankin drew himself upright with the difficulty of a fat man, and leaned towards Garwood.

“Legislature?” he asked.

Garwood gave an impatient fling of his head. He turned then, drew a chair up to the desk, and sat down, facing Rankin. But Rankin spoke first.

“Some more of that newspaper rot ’bout the Ford bill?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said Garwood wearily. “I reckon I’ll never hear the last of that.”

“Oh, well,” Rankin said, “to hell with it. Let him print it!”

“But damn it,” Garwood went on, “it’s serious with me—just now—at any rate.”

“Aw, cheer up,” said Rankin, “that won’t cut any figure with you—it won’t lose a vote.”

“No, but it may lose me something else—” Garwood spoke with a significance that Rankin could not instantly appreciate. “Of course,” Garwood continued “there was nothing in it, but then—you know, a woman—”

The big fellow vented a little whistle, and then kept his lips puckered up to aid his thought.

“What can we do?” said Garwood, who could not then, in such a mood, endure the delay of silence.

“Well,” said Rankin, “let me think, I can’t straighten it out all at once. It ’as al’ays hard fer me to mix politics and business, or politics and religion, or politics and—” He was a sentimental man who feared to show his sentiment, and he did not speak the tender word of many meanings. But under the influence of the twilight, perhaps because they could not see each other’s face, they talked confidentially, until the gloom of evening was expanding in the room. Then Rankin took out his watch and tried to read its dial.

“Gosh!” he exclaimed, “I must be gettin’ home—I’ll try to fix it up somehow, Jerry. Don’t worry—just leave it to me.”

“If you think we ought to do it, Jim,” Garwood said, “I might borrow the—”

“Not a red cent for that pirate!” exclaimed Rankin, smiting the desk with his fist. “We’ll need all the money we can get in the campaign. Besides, he ain’t honest enough to stay bought.”

Though Rankin had told him not to worry, Garwood was depressed and troubled, and longed for sympathy. In the evening, when he found time to go to Emily, Pusey was uppermost in his mind.

“You’re tired, of course,” said Emily, “and how hoarse.”

“It’s the speaking, I reckon,” said Garwood. “I campaigned all week with old General Stager; we spoke outdoors to acres of people. How those old-timers stand it I don’t know. They can blow like steam whistles day and night. When I left the old gentleman last night at Mt. Pulaski, he was as fresh as a daisy—said he liked a little taste of the stump now and then—but that, of course, it wasn’t anything to what it used to be.”

Emily laughed a little.

“Won’t you have some meetings indoors?”

“Oh, after while—but we have to get the crowds where we can find them, and the farmers are all at the county fairs nowadays. I’ll be glad when it’s over. The strain is pulling me down.”

“Aren’t you well?” she asked with a woman’s constant concern.

“Oh, yes, well enough; of course I have a cold all the time, a candidate has to have that, and a sore throat, but you have to smile, and look pleasant, and shake hands, and be careful what you say. I’d give anything to be a free man once more, to be able to talk without weighing every word, without having to watch it as if I were drawing an indictment. I’d give anything to indulge one good fit of anger.”

“Can’t you—just get mad at me?”

Garwood laughed fondly. “Well,” he went on, “it’s good to come here and relax and speak my mind. I did get mad to-day though, and threaten to throw a man out of my office window.” His thought would revert to that subject.

“Who?” she asked, in alarm.

“Oh, that little Free Pusey.”

“What has he done?”

“He wanted me to give him money for his support.”

“Well, I don’t blame you. I can understand your righteous indignation, Jerome.”

Garwood felt the blood tinge his checks.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Emily.”

“W’y, why?”

“Because you don’t know how sordid politics are—or is—which is it? I’d probably have given it to him, only I didn’t have it; the righteously indignant was the only attitude left.”

“I don’t like to hear you talk like that, Jerome. I don’t like to see you in that cynical mood. It wasn’t an attitude, it was your real nature speaking.”

“Well, a man must keep his real nature in subjection in politics.”

“Please don’t, Jerome; you mustn’t keep your real nature in subjection in politics. We need just such men as you in our public life.”

They were silent then.

“Jerome,” the girl said later, “do you really need money so badly?”

“Well, it costs, you know.”

“Why don’t you speak to father—I know he’d be glad to help you. He is very anxious to see you succeed, you know—or if you think that Mr. Pusey can harm you, why can’t you let father speak to him? Father once did him some favor—don’t you remember those sickening, fulsome articles he wrote?”

Garwood gasped at the thought of Emily’s father penetrating that situation.

“Never that!” he said, bringing his fist down on his knee. “Don’t you ever suggest such a thing, Emily, do you hear?” He turned and his eyes glowed as he looked at her. The girl laughed a little laugh of pride in him.

“I’m afraid, Jerome,” she began in a playful way, “that you don’t understand politics very well yourself.” And then she became serious, and sighed.

“But how noble you are! And how high minded! And how I love you for it!”

They sat there a long while after that, in the darkness. But they did not talk politics any more.