"Luke, I swear I don"t know. I knew there was some growling in this district--there always is in a district. A man like Ivus Niles would growl about John the Baptist, if he came back to earth and went in for politics. But this thing, here, gets me!" He turned to the window once more. "There"s men out there I thought I could reckon on like I"d tie to my own grandson, and they"re standing with their mouths open, whooping on that old blatherskite."
Chairman Presson went and stood with him at the window, hands in trousers pockets, c.h.i.n.king loose silver and staring gloomily through the dusty panes.
"It"s h.e.l.l to pave this State, and no hot pitch ready," he observed.
"I"ve known it was bad. I knew they meant you. I warned you they were going to get in early and hit hard in this district--but I didn"t realize it was as bad as this. They"re calling it reform, but I tell you, Thelismer, there"s big money and big men sitting back in the dark and rubbing the ears of these prohibition p.u.s.s.ies and tom-cats. It"s a State overturn that they"re playing for!"
He began to stride around the big room. In two of the corners stuffed black bears reared and grinned at each other. In opposite corners loup-cerviers stared with unwinking eyes of gla.s.s, lips drawn over their teeth. "I"m running across something just as savage-looking in every political corner of this State," he muttered, "and the trouble is those outside of here are pretty blame much alive."
Niles was shouting without, and men were cheering his harangue.
"There used to be some sensible politics in this State," went on the disgusted chairman. "But it"s got so now that a State committee is called on to consult a lot of cranks before drawing up the convention platform. Even a fellow in the legislature can"t do what he wants to for the boys; cranks howling at him from home all the time. Candidates pumped for ante-election pledges, pet.i.tions rammed in ahead of every roll-call, lobby committees from the farmers" a.s.sociations tramping around the State House in their cowhide boots, and a good government angel peeking in at every committee-room keyhole! Jeemsrollickins! Jim Blaine, himself, couldn"t play the game these days."
If Thornton listened, he gave no sign. He had his elbows on the window-sill and was glowering on his const.i.tuents. They seemed determined to keep up the hateful serenade. It was hard for the old man to understand. But he did understand human nature--how dependence breeds resentment, how favors bestowed hatch sullen ingrat.i.tude, how jealousy turns and rends as soon as Democracy hisses, "At him!"
There was a dingy wall map beside him between the windows. A red line surrounded a section of it: two towns, a dozen plantations, and a score of unorganized townships--a thousand square miles of territory that composed his political barony. And on that section double red lines marked off half a million acres of timber-land, mountain, plain, and lake that Thelismer Thornton owned.
Chairman Presson, walking off his indignation, came and stood in front of the map.
"Between you and me, Thelismer, they"ve got quite a lot to grumble about, the farmers have. You wild-land fellows have grabbed a good deal, and you don"t pay much taxes on it. You ought to have loosened a little earlier."
"You feel the cold water on your feet and you lay it to me rocking the boat, hey?" returned the Duke. "This is no time to begin to call names, Luke. But I want to tell you that where there"s one man in this State grumbling about wild-land taxes, there are a hundred up and howling against you and the rest of the gilt-edged hotel-keepers that are selling rum and running bars just as though there wasn"t any prohibitory law in our const.i.tution." He had turned from the window. "You"re looking at that map, eh? You think I"ve stolen land, do you? Look here! I came down that river out there on a raft--just married--my wife and a few poor little housekeeping traps on it. We never had a comfort till we got to the age where most folks die. I"ve had to live to be eighty-five to get a little something out of life. And she worked herself to death in spite of all I could say to stop her. Why, when the bill of sale fell due on the first pair of oxen I owned, she gave me the three hundred old-fashioned cents that she--don"t get me to talking, Presson! But, by the Jehovah, I"ve earned that land up there! Dollars don"t pay up a man and a woman for being pioneers. I"m not twitting you nor some of the rest of the men in this State in regard to how you got your money--but you know how you did get it!"
"We"ve stood by you on the tax question."
"And I"ve stood by you against the prohibition ramrodders, who were foolish enough to think that rumshops ought to be shut up because the law said so; and I"ve stood with the corporations and I"ve stood with the politicians, and played the game according to the rules. From the minute you came into my dooryard to-day you"ve acted as though you thought I"d stirred this whole uproar in the State."
"Did you ever know a man to get anywhere in politics if he didn"t play the game--honesty or no honesty?"
"Yes, a few--they got there, but they didn"t stay there long," replied the Duke, a flicker of humor in his wistfulness.
"You bet they didn"t," agreed the chairman. "Thelismer, I"m just as honest as the world will let me be and succeed! But when a man gets to be perfectly honest in politics, and tries to lead his crowd at the same time, they turn around and swat him. I reckon he makes human nature ashamed of itself, and folks want to get him out of sight."
"I know," agreed the old man, and he looked out again on Niles and his audience. "The tough part of it is, Presson, those men out there are right--at bottom. They"re playing traitor to me and acting like infernal fools, and I wouldn"t let them know that I thought them anything else.
But I"d like to step out there, Luke, and say, "Boys, you"re right. I"ve been working you. I"ve done you a lot of favors, I"ve brought a lot of benefits home to this district, but I"ve been looking after myself, and standing in with the bunch that has got the best things of the State tied up in a small bundle. I"ve only done what every successful politician has done--played the game. But you"re right. Now go ahead and clean the State.""
"You don"t mean to say you"d do that?" demanded Presson, looking his old friend over pityingly.
"Luke, _I mean_ that--but I don"t intend to _do_ it, not by a blame sight! I don"t believe you ever realized that I was really honest deep down. I have told you something from the bottom of my heart. But"--he held out his big hands and closed and unclosed them--"if I should ever let them loose that way they"d be picked up before they"d gone forty feet by some other fellow that might be hollering reform and not be half as honest as I am."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and squinted shrewdly, and spoke with his satiric drawl.
"There was old Lem Ferguson. Lem got to reading books about soul transmigration or something of the kind, and turned to and let all his critters loose. Said that one living being didn"t have any right to enslave another living being. Told them to go and be free. And somebody put his steers in the pound, and vealed two calves and sold "em, and milked his cows, and stole his sheep, and ripped the tags out of their ears and sheared "em for what wool they had. Luke, I"m no relative of Lem Ferguson"s when it comes to practical politics. I know just as well as you do who"s trying to steal this State, a hunk at a time. They"ve had the nerve to tackle my district. But if they think that I"m going to ungrip and let them grab it they"ve got a wrong line on old Thornton"s sheepfold."
"What do you need in the way of help?" asked the State chairman.
"Nothing." Thornton turned again to survey his unruly flock. It was plain that they were baiting their overlord. Presson"s ac.u.men in politics enlightened him. An angry man may be made to antagonize the neutrals and even to insult his friends--and Thelismer Thornton was not patient when provoked. There was shrewd management behind this revolt.
Suddenly the yard was full of men, new arrivals. It was an orderly little army, woodsmen with meal-sack packs, an incoming crew on its march to the woods. A big man plodded ahead and marshalled them.
Thornton hastened out upon the porch, and the chairman followed. The big man halted his crew, and leaned his elbows on the porch rail.
"Thought I"d walk "em early in the cool of the day," he explained, "and lay off here for dinner and a rest. Pretty good lot of gash-fiddlers, there, Mr. Thornton. I picked the market for you."
"And I"ll sample "em right now," said the Duke, grimly. "Ben, tell "em to drop those duffel-bags and rush that gang of steers out of my yard."
He pointed at the flock of const.i.tuents. Niles had begun fresh harangue in regard to despots, addressing the new arrivals. They did not seem to be especially interested. There were a few long-legged Prince Edward Islanders, but most of them were wiry little French Canadians, who did not seem to understand much of the orator"s tumultuous speech.
"If you"ve got a crew that"s any good on a log-landing, we"ll find it out," added the Duke. "Get at "em!"
"Good gaddlemighty!" gasped Presson, "you ain"t going to do anything like that!"
"You watch."
"Politics?" queried the big boss, swinging about to go to his crew. He grinned. It was evident that he considered that anything under that general head was in the Duke"s supreme control, and that his employer"s orders absolved him.
"It"s just what they"ve been trying to prod into you--it"s their game,"
adjured Presson, beating expostulating palms upon Thornton"s breast.
"Then it has worked," the old man replied, calmly. He pushed the chairman aside. "Rush"em, Ben, and, if they don"t go easy, toss "em over the fence."
The big boss sauntered among his crew and growled a few crisp commands.
The smile he wore gave the affair the appearance of a lark, and the woodsmen took it in that spirit. But the mob was sullen. Those who were not active rebels had been stung by the contempt that their leader now displayed. Some resisted when the woodsmen pushed them half playfully. A burly fellow stood his ground. Ivus Niles lurked at his back.
"The folks up in the Jo Quacca Mountains will snicker in good shape when I tell "em that Fightin" MacCracken let himself be dumped out of Duke Thornton"s dooryard by a pack of lard-eating Quedaws," he sneered in the giant"s ear.
MacCracken swept away the first three men with swinging cuffs. He was thinking of his reputation at home. The taunt p.r.i.c.ked him.
"Call "em off--call "em off, sir," pleaded Davis. "I"ve been trying to get these men out of your yard. I don"t approve of Niles. Let"s have our politics clean, Mr. Thornton. I"m willing to argue with you. But don"t let"s have it said outside that Fort Canibas" politics is run by plug-uglies."
"He"s right, Thelismer; you"re letting them score a point on you,"
protested Presson.
But Thornton had been too grievously wounded that day to be able to listen to peace measures. He strode down off the porch, shouting commands. His men were willing, and MacCracken"s defiance gave them the provocation they wanted.
"If it"s fight you"re looking for, you spike-horn stag," announced the boss, bursting through the press to reach the Jo Quacca champion, "we can open a full a.s.sortment, and no trouble to show goods."
He knocked MacCracken flat, reaching over the heads of the smaller men, and the next moment the Canadians swarmed on the fallen gladiator like flies, lifted him and tossed him into the road. The rest of the mob escaped. Niles"s emblematic buck sheep, cropping the gra.s.s in the fence corner, was tossed out behind the fugitives.
"I was hoping there"d be a little more cayenne in it," complained the big boss, scrubbing his knuckles against his belted jacket.
"Come out in the road where it ain"t private ground owned by the old land-grabber," pleaded MacCracken. "I"ll meet you somewhere, Ben Kyle, where it"ll have to be a fair stand-up." But Kyle gave him no further attention.
"Take the boys into the ram pasture," directed his employer. He pointed to a long, low addition in the rear of "The Barracks," the shelter that served for the housing of the Thorntons" crews, migratory to or from the big woods. "I"ll bring out a present. I guess you"ve got a good, able crew there, Ben."
Chairman Presson followed the old man back into the mansion. He was angry, and made his sentiment known, but Thornton was stubborn.
"There may be another way of running this district just at this time, Luke, but this is _my_ way of running it, and I"m going to control that caucus. So what are you growling about?" He was opening a closet in the wall.
"But you"re starting a scandal--and they"ll get so stirred up that they"ll put an independent ticket into the field. You"ll have to fight "em all over again at the polls. You"re rasping them too hard."
"Luke, there are a lot of things you know about down-country politics, and perhaps you know more than I do about politics in general. But there"s a rule in seafaring that holds good in politics. If you"re trying to ratch off a lee sh.o.r.e it"s no time to be pulling down your canvas."