"But I don"t understand," began Mrs. Perkins.
"Oh, it"s simple," said Thaddeus, with a sigh of mingled relief and chagrin. "It"s simple enough. The other lamps are to be put--er--on Captain Haskins"s place."
THE BALANCE OF POWER
It was a pleasant night in the spring of 189-.
The residents of Dumfries Corners were enjoying an early spring, and suffering from the demoralizing influences of a munic.i.p.al election.
Incidentally Mr. Thaddeus Perkins, candidate, was beginning to feel very much like Moses when he saw the promised land afar. The promised land was now in plain sight; but whether or not the name of Perkins should be inscribed in one of its high places depended upon the voters who on the morrow were to let their ballots express their choice as to who should preside over the interests of the city and hold in check the fiery, untamed aldermen of Dumfries Corners.
The candidate was tired, very tired, and was trying to gain a few hours"
rest before plunging again and for the last time into the whirlpool of vote-getting; and as he sat enjoying a few moments of blissful ease behind the close-drawn portieres of his library there came the much-dreaded sound of heavy feet upon the porch without, and the door-bell rang.
"Norah!" cried the candidate, in an agonized stage-whisper, as the maid approached in answer to the summons, "tell them I"m out, unless it"s some one of my personal friends."
"Yis, sorr," was the answer. "Oi will."
And the door was opened.
"Is Misther Perkins in?" came a deep, unmistakably "voting" voice from without.
"Oi dun"no". Are yees a personal friend of Misther Perkins?" was the response, and the heart of the listening Perkins sought his boots.
"Oi am not, but--" said the deep voice.
"Thin he isn"t in," said Norah, positively.
"When "ll he be back?" asked the visitor, huskily.
"Ye say ye niver met him?" demanded Norah.
"Oi told ye oi hadn"t," said the visitor, a trifle irritably. "But--"
"Thin he"ll niver be back," put in the glorious Norah, and she shut the door with considerable force and retired.
For a moment the candidate was overcome; first he paled, but then catching Mrs. Perkins"s eye and noting a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt therein, he yielded to his emotions and roared with laughter. What if Norah"s manner was unconventional? Had she not carried out instructions?
"My dear," said the candidate to Mrs. Perkins, as the shuffling feet on the porch shuffled off into the night, "what wages do you pay Norah?"
"Sixteen dollars, Thaddeus," was the answer. "Why?"
"Make it twenty hereafter," replied the candidate. "She is an emerald beyond price. If I had only let her meet the nominating committee when they entered our little Eden three weeks ago, I should not now be involved in this wretched game of politics."
"Well, I sincerely wish you had," Mrs. Perkins observed, heartily. "This affair has made a very different man of you, and as for your family, they hardly see you any more. You are neglecting every single household duty for your horrid old politics."
"Well, now, my dear--" began the candidate.
"The pipes in the laundry have been leaking for four days now, and yet you won"t send for a plumber, or even let me send for one," continued Mrs. Perkins.
"Well, Bessie dear, how can I? The race is awfully close. It wouldn"t surprise me if the majority either way was less than a hundred."
"There you go again, Thaddeus. What on earth has the leak in the laundry pipes to do with the political situation?" asked the puzzled woman.
The candidate showed that in spite of his recent affiliations he still retained some remnant of his former self-respect, for he blushed as he thought of the explanation; but he tried nevertheless to shuffle out of it.
"Of course you can"t understand," he said, with a cowardly resolve to shirk the issue. "That"s because you are a woman, Bess. Women don"t understand great political questions. And what I have particularly liked about you is that you never pretended that you did."
"Well, I"d like to know," persisted Mrs. Perkins. "I want to be of as much a.s.sistance to my husband in his work as I can, and if public questions are hereafter to be the problems of your life, they must become my problems too. Besides, my curiosity is really aroused in this especial case, and I"d love to know what bearing our calling a plumber has upon the tariff, or the money question, or any other thing in politics."
The candidate hesitated. He was cornered, and he did not exactly like the prospect.
"Well--" he began. "You see, I"m standing as the representative of a great party, and we--we naturally wish to win. If I am defeated, every one will say that it is a rebuke to the administration at Washington; and so, you see, we"d better let those leaks leak until day after to-morrow, when the voting will all be over."
Mrs. Perkins looked at her husband narrowly.
"I think I"ll have to call the doctor," was her comment. "Either for you or for myself, Teddy. One of us is gone--wholly gone, mentally. There"s no question about it, either you are rambling in your speech, or I have entirely lost all comprehension of the English language."
"I don"t see--" began Perkins.
"Neither do I," interrupted Mrs. Perkins; "and I hardly hope to. You"ve explained and explained, but how a plumber"s calling here to fix a laundry leak is to rebuke the administration at Washington is still far beyond me."
"But the plumbers are said to hold the balance of power!" cried the candidate. "There are a hundred of them here in Dumfries Corners, and each one controls at least five a.s.sistants, which makes six hundred voters in all. If I call in one, he and his five workers will vote for me, but the other five hundred and ninety-four will vote for Haskins; and if they do, the administration might as well go out of business.
Can"t you see? It"s the same with the dandelions. These spring elections are perfect--ah--Gehenna for a candidate if it happens to be an early spring like this."
Perkins"s voice had the suggestion of a wail in it as he spoke of the dandelions, and his wife"s alarm grew upon her. She understood now about the plumber, but his interjection of the dandelions had brought a fearful doubt into her heart. Surely he was losing his mind.
"Dandelions, Thaddeus?" she echoed, aghast.
"Yes, dandelions," retorted the candidate, forcibly. "They"ve queered me as much as anything. The neighbors say I"m not a good neighbor because I don"t have them pulled. Mike"s been so thoroughly alcoholic all through the fight, looking after my interests, that he can"t pull them; and if I hire two men to come and do the work, seven hundred other men will want to know why they didn"t get a chance."
"But why not employ boys?" demanded Mrs. Perkins.
"And be set down as an advocate of cheap child labor? Not I!" cried Perkins.
"Then the dandelion-pullers are another balance of power, are they?"
asked Mrs. Perkins, beginning to grow somewhat easier in her mind as to her husband"s sanity.
"Precisely; you have a very remarkable gift of insight, Bess," answered the candidate.
"And how many balances of power are there?" demanded the lady.
"The Lord only knows," sighed Perkins. "I"ve made about eighty of "em solid already, but as soon as one balance is fixed a thousand others rise up like Banquo"s ghost, and will not down. I haven"t a doubt that it was a balance of power that Norah just turned away from the front door. They strike you everywhere. Why, even Bobbie ruined me with one of them in the Eighth Ward the other day--one solidified balance wiped out in a moment by my interesting son."
"Bobbie?" cried Mrs. Perkins. "A six-year-old boy?"