IX.
BRADLEY MEETS MRS. BROWN
Though Bradley had called a good many times at the Russell house, to accompany Nettie to parties or home from school, yet he had never had any conversation to speak of with Russell, who was a large and somewhat pompous man. He knew his place, as a Western father, and never interfered with his daughter's love affairs. He knew Bradley as a likely and creditable young fellow, and besides, his experience with his two older daughters had taught him the perfect uselessness of trying to marry them to suit himself or his wife.
He was annoyed at this attack of Bradley upon him and his brother, the treasurer. It was really carrying things too far. Accustomed to all sorts of epithets and charges on the part of opposing candidates, he ought not to have been so sensitive to Bradley's charge, but the case was peculiar. It was exactly true, in the first place, and then it came from a young man whom his daughter had brought into the family, and whom he had begun to think of as a probable son-in-law.
On Tuesday morning, just as Bradley was tumbling his dishes into a pan of hot water ("their weekly bath," Milton called it), there came a sharp knock on the door, and a girl's voice called out clearly:
"Hello, Brad! Can I come in?"
"Yes, come in."
Nettie came in, her cheeks radiant with color, her eyes shining. "Oh, washing your dishes? Wait a minute, I'll help." She flung off her coat in a helter-skelter way, and rolled up her sleeves.
Bradley expostulated: "No, no! Don't do that! I'll have 'em done in a jiffy. They aint but a few."
"I'll wipe 'em, anyway," she replied. "Oh, fun! What a towel!" she held up the side of a flour-sack, on which was a firm-name in brown letters. She laughed in high glee. There was a delicious suggestion in the fact that she was standing by his side helping him in his household affairs.
Bradley was embarrassed, but she chattered away, oblivious of space and time. Her regard for him had grown absolutely outspoken and without shame. There was something primitive and savage in her frank confession of her feelings. She had come to make all the advances herself, in a confidence that was at once beautiful and pathetic. She met him in the morning on the way to school, and clung to him at night, and made him walk home with her. She came afternoons with a team, to take him out driving. The presence of the whole town really made no difference to her. She took his arm just the same, proud and happy that he permitted it.
"Oh, say," she broke off suddenly, "pa wants to see you about something. He wanted me to tell you to come down to-night." She was dusting the floor at the moment, while he was moving the furniture. "I wonder what he wants?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied, evasively.
"Something about politics, I suppose." She came over and stood beside him in silence. She was very girlish, in spite of her assumption of a young lady's dress and airs, and she loved him devouringly. She stood so close to him that she could put her hand on his, as it lay on the table. Her clear, sweet eyes gazed at him with the confidence and purity of a child.
It was a relief to Bradley to hear the last bell ring. She withdrew her hand and threw down the broom which she had been holding in her left hand. "Oh, that's the last bell. Help me on with my cloak, quick!" He put her cloak on for her. She stamped her foot impatiently. "Pull my hair outside!"
He took her luxuriant hair in both his hands, and pulled it outside the cloak, and fitted the collar about her neck. She caught both his hands in hers, and looking up, laughed gleefully.
"You dassent kiss me now!"
He stooped and kissed her cheek, and blushed with shame. On the way up the walk to the chapel, he suffered an agony of remorse. He felt dimly that he had done his ideal an irreparable wrong. Nettie talked on, not minding his silence, looking up into his face in innocent glee, planning some new party or moonlit drive.
All that morning he was too deep in thought to give attention to his classes, and at noon he avoided Nettie, and went home to think, but try as he might, something prevented him from getting hold of the real facts in the case.
He was fond of Nettie. She stood near him, an embodied passion. His love for Miss Wilbur, which he had no idea of calling love, was a vague and massive feeling of adoration, entirely disassociated from the flesh. She stood for him as the embodiment of a world of longings and aspirations undeveloped and undefined.
One thought was clear. He ought not to allow – that is the way it took shape in his mind – he ought not to allow Nettie to be seen with him so much, unless he intended to marry her, and he had never thought of her as a possible wife.
He didn't know how to meet Russell, so put off going down to his house, as he had promised. He excused himself by saying he was busy moving, anyway. He had determined upon taking a boarding-place somewhere in correspondence with his change of fortunes and when he had spoken of it, the Judge had said:
"Why not come up to my house? Mrs. Brown and I get kind of lonesome sometimes, and then I hate to milk, an' curry horses, an' split kindlings, always did. Come up and try living with us."
Bradley had accepted the offer with the greatest delight. It meant a great deal to him. It took him out of a cellar and put him into one of the finest houses in town – albeit it was a cold and gloomy house. It was large, and white, and square, with sharp gables, and its blinds were always closed. He went up to dinner that day with the judge, to meet Mrs. Brown, whom he had never seen; nobody saw her, for she was a "perfect recluse."
She looked at her husband through her glasses in a calm surprise, as he introduced Bradley, and stated he had invited him to dinner.
"Well, Mr. Brown, if you will do such things, you must expect your company to take every-day fare."
"Maybe our every-day fare, Mrs. Brown, will be Sunday fare for this young man."
They sat down at the table, which Mrs. Brown waited upon herself, rising from her place for the tea or the biscuits. She said very little thereafter, but Bradley caught the gleam of her glasses fixed upon him several times. She had a beautiful mouth, but the line of her lips seemed to indicate sadness and a determined silence.
"Mrs. Brown, I wish you'd take care of this young man for a few weeks. He's my clerk, and I – ahem! – I – suppose he's going to milk the cow and split the kindlings for me, to pay for his board in that useful way."
She looked at him again in silence, and the line of her lips got a little straighter, as she waited for the Judge to go on.
"This young man is going to study law with me, and I hope to make a great man of him, Mrs. Brown."
"Mr. Brown, I wish you'd consult with me once in a while," she said without anger.
"Mrs. Brown, it was a case of necessity. I was on the point of giving up the milking of that cow, and my back got a crick in it every time I split the kindlings. I consider I've done you a benefit and myself a favor, Mrs. Brown."
She turned her glasses upon Bradley again, and studied him in silence. She was a very dignified woman of fifty. Her hair was like wavy masses of molasses candy, and her brow cold and placid. Her eyes could not be seen, but her mouth and chin were almost girlish in their beauty.
The Judge felt that he had done a hazardous thing. He took a new tone, his reminiscent tone. "Mrs. Brown, do you remember the first time you saw me? Well, I was 'pirating' through Oberlin – (chopping wood, you remember we didn't saw it in those days) and living in a cellar, just like this young man. He's been cookin' his own grub, just as I did then, because he hasn't any money to pay for board. Now I think we ought to give him a lift. Don't you think so, Mrs. Brown?"
Her mouth relaxed a little. The glasses turned upon Bradley again, and looked upon him so steadily that he was able to see her gray eyes.
"Mr. Brown is always doing things without consulting me," she explained to Bradley, "but you are welcome, sir, if our lonesome house aint worse than your cellar. Mr. Brown very seldom takes the trouble to explain what he wants to do, but I'll try to make you feel at home, sir."
They ate the rest of the meal in silence. The Judge was evidently thinking over old times, and it would be very difficult to say what his wife was thinking of. At last he rose saying:
"Now if you'll come out, I'll show you the well and the cow." As he went by his wife's chair, he stopped a moment, and said gently, "He'll do us two lonely old fossils good, Elizabeth." His hand lay on her shoulder an instant as he passed, and when Bradley went out of the room, he saw her wiping her eyes upon her handkerchief, her glasses in her hand.
The Judge coughed a little. "We never had but one child – a boy. He was killed while out hunting" – he broke off quickly. "Now here's the meal for the cow. I give her about a panful twice a day – when I don't forget it."
Somehow, Mrs. Brown didn't seem so hard when he met her again at supper. The line of her mouth was softer. In his room he found many little touches of her motherly hand – a clean, sweet bed, and little hand-made things upon the wall, that made him think of his own mother, who had been dead since his sixteenth year. He had never had such a room as this. It appeared to him as something very fine. Its frigid atmosphere and lack of grace and charm did not appear to his eyes. It was nothing short of princely after his cellar.
His knowledge of the inner life of the common Western homes made him feel that this rigid coldness between the Judge and his wife was only their way. The touch of the Judge's hand on her shoulder meant more than a thousand worn phrases spoken every day. Under that silence and reserve there was a deep of tenderness and wistful longing which they could not utter, and dared not acknowledge, even to themselves. Their lonely house had grown intolerable, and Bradley came into it bringing youth and sunlight.
X.
A COUNTRY POLLING PLACE
The suffering of the county papers was acute. They had supported the "incumbents" for so long, and had derived a reciprocal support so long, that they could not bring themselves to a decision. The Democratic paper, the Call, was too feeble to be anything distinctive at this stage of its career Chard Foster had not yet assumed control of it. It lent a half-hearted support to the Independent movement, and justified its action on the ground that it was really a Democratic movement leading toward reform, and it assumed to be the only paper advocating reform. The other paper, unequivocally Republican, supported the regular ticket with that single-heartedness of enmity, born of bribery, or that ignorance which shuts out any admission that the other side has a case.
The Oak Grove schoolhouse was the real storm-centre of the election, and there was a great crowd there all day. It was a cold, raw day. The men and boys all came in their overcoats and stood about on the leeward side of the schoolhouse – where a pale sunlight fell – and scuffled, and told stories, and bet cookies and apples on the election.
Some of the boys made up fires out in the woods near by, to which they ran whooping whenever the cold became intolerable. They crouched around the flames with a weird return of ancestral barbarism and laughed when the smoke puffed out into their faces. They made occasional forages in company with boys who lived near, after eggs, and apples, and popcorn, which they placed before the fire and ate spiced with ashes.
Horsemen galloped up at intervals, bringing encouraging news of other voting places. Teams clattered up filled with roughly-dressed farmers, who greeted the other voters with loud and hearty shouts. They tumbled out of the wagons, voted riotously, and then clattered back into the corn-fields to their work, with wild hurrahs for the granger ticket.
The schoolhouse itself roared with laughter and excited talk, and the big stove in the centre devoured its huge chunks of wood, making the heat oppressive near it. No presidential election had ever brought out such throngs of voters, or produced such interested discussion.
Bradley had been made clerk. His capital handwriting and knowledge of book-keeping made him a valuable man for that work. He sat behind his desk with the books before him, and impassively performed his duties, but it was his first public appointment, and he was really deeply gratified. He felt paid for all his year's hard study.
About two o'clock, when the voters were thickest at the polls, a man galloped up with an excited air, and reining in his foaming horse, yelled:
"Deering has withdrawn in favor of Russell!" The crowd swarmed out.
"What's the matter?"
"Who spoke?"
"Deering has withdrawn in favor of Russell. Cast your votes for Russell," repeated the man, and plunged off up the road.
The farmers looked at each other. "What the hell's all this?" said Smith.
"Who was it?"
"I don't know."
"He's a liar, whoever he is," said Councill. "Where've I seen him before?"
"I know – it's Deering's hired man."
"You don't say so!" This seemed like the truth.
"I know who it is – it's Sam Harding," shouted Milton. "But that ain't Deering's horse. It's a Republican trick. Jump y'r horse there, Councill." He was carried out of himself by his excitement and anger. The men leaped upon their horses.
"Some o' you fellers take his back trail," shouted Councill. "He'll come from Shell-rock and Hell's Corner."
The men saw the whole trick. This man had been sent out to the most populous of the county voting places to spread a lying report, trusting to the surprise of the announcement to carry a few indecisive votes for Russell.
Other men leaped their horses and rode off on Harding's back trail, while Councill, Milton, and old man Bacon rode away after him. Bacon growled as he rode:
"I'm agin you fellers, but by God! I b'lieve in a square game. If I kin git my paw on that houn'" —
They rode furiously in the hope of overtaking him before he reached the next polling-place. Milton was in the lead on his gray colt, a magnificent creature. He was light and a fine rider, and forged ahead of the elder men. But the "spy" was also riding a fine horse, and was riding very fast.
When they reached the next polling-place he was just passing out of sight beyond. They dashed up, scattering the wondering crowd.
"It's a lie! It's a trick!" shouted Milton. "Deering wouldn't withdraw. Cast every vote for Deering. It's all done to fool yeh!"
The others came thundering up. "It's a lie!" they shouted.
"Come on!" cried Milton, dropping the rein on Mark's neck, and darting away on the trail of the false courier.
The young fellows caught the excitement, and every one who had a horse leaped into the saddle and clattered after, with whoop and halloo, as if they were chasing a wolf.
The rider ahead suddenly discovered that he was being followed, and he urged his horse to a more desperate pace along the lane which skirted the woods' edge for a mile, and then turned sharply and led across the river.
Along the lane is the chase led. There was something in the grim silence with which Milton and Bacon rode in the lead that startled the spy's guilty heart. He pushed his horse unmercifully, hoping to discourage his pursuers.
Milton's blood was up now, and bringing the flat of his hand down on the proud neck of his colt – the first blow he ever struck him, he shouted —
"Get out o' this, Mark!"
The magnificent animal threw out his chin, his ears laid flat back, he seemed to lower and lengthen, his eyes took on a wild glare. The air whizzed by Milton's ears. A wild exultation rose in his heart. All the stories of rides and desperate men he had ever read came back in a vague mass to make his heart thrill.
Mark's terrific pace steadily ate up the intervening distance, and Milton turned the corner and thundered down the decline at the very heels of the fugitive.
"Hey! Hold on there!" Milton shouted, as he drew alongside and passed the fellow. "Hold on there!"
"Git out o' my way!" was the savage answer.
"Stop right here!" commanded Milton, reining Mark in the way of the other horse.
The fellow struck Mark. "Git out o' my way!" he yelled.
Milton seized the bit of the other horse and held it. The fellow raised his arm and struck him twice before Bacon came thundering up.
"H'yare! Damn yeh – none o' that!"
He leaped from his horse, and running up, tore the rider from his saddle in one swift effort. The fellow struggled fiercely.
"Let go o' me, 'r I'll kill yeh!"
Bacon growled something inarticulate as he cuffed the man from side to side, shook him like a rag, and threw him to the ground. He lay there dazed and scared, while Bacon caught his horse and tied it to a tree.
He came back to the fellow as he was rising, and again laid his bear-like clutch upon him.
"Who paid you to do this?" he demanded, as Councill and the others came straggling up, their horses panting with fatigue.
The fellow struck him in the face. The old man lifted him in the air and dashed him to the ground with a snarling cry. His gesture was like that of one who slams a biting cat upon the floor. The man did not rise.
"You've killed him!" cried Milton.
"Damn 'im – I don't care!"
The man was about thirty-five years of age, a slender, thin-faced man with tobacco-stained whiskers. The fellows knew him for a sneaking fellow, but they plead for him.
"Don't hit 'im agin, Bacon. He's got enough."
The fellow sat up and looked around. The blood was streaming from his nose and from a wound in his head. He had a savage and hunted look. He was unsubdued, but was too much dazed to be able to do anything more than swear at them all.
"What a' yuh chasen' me fur, y' damn cowards? Six on one!"
"What're you do-un ridin' across the country like this fur?"
"None o' your business, you low-lived" —
Bacon brought the doubled leading-strap which he held in his hand down over the fellow's shoulders with a sounding slap.
"What you need is a sound tannun," he said. He plied the strap in perfect silence upon the writhing man, who swore and yelled, but dared not rise.
"Give him enough of it!" yelled the crowd.
"Give the fool enough!"
Bacon worked away with a curious air of taking a job. The strap fell across the man's upheld hands and over his shoulders, penetrating even the thick coat he wore – but it was not the blows that quelled him, it was the look in Bacon's eyes. He saw that the old man would stand there till sunset and ply that strap.
"Hold on! Dam yeh – y' want 'o kill me?"
"Got 'nough?"
"Yes, yes! My God, yes!"
"Climb onto that horse there."
He climbed upon his horse, and with Bacon leading it, rode back along the road he had come, covered with blood.
"Now I want you to say with y'r own tongue ye lied," Bacon said, as they came to the last polling-place he had passed.
The crowd came rushing out with excited questions.
"What y' got there, Bacon?"
"A liar. Come, what ye goun't' say?" he asked the captive.
"I lied – Deering aint withdrawn."
They rode on, Councill and Milton following Bacon and his prisoner. At the Oak Grove schoolhouse a great crowd had gathered, and they came out in a swarm as the cavalcade rode up. Bradley left his book and came out to see the poor prisoner, who reeled in his saddle, covered with blood and dirt.
They rode on to the next polling-place, relentlessly forcing the man to undo as much of his villainy as possible. Milton remained with Bradley. "That shows how desperate they are," he said as they went back into the schoolhouse. "They see we mean business this time."
All was quiet, even gloomy, when Bradley and Milton reached Rock River. The streets were deserted, and only an occasional opening door at some favorite haunt, like the drug-store or Robie's grocery, showed that a living soul was interested in the outcome of the election. There were no bonfires, no marching of boys through the street with tin pans and horns.
Some reckless fellows tried it out of devilment, but were promptly put down by the strong hand of the city marshal, whose sympathies were with the broken "ring." It had been evident at an early hour of the day that the town of Rock River itself was divided. Amos Ridings and Robie had carried a strong following over into the camp of the farmers. A general feeling had developed which demanded a change.
Milton was wild with excitement. He realized more of the significance of the victory than Bradley. He had been in politics longer. For the first time in the history of the county, the farmers had asserted themselves. For the first time in the history of the farmers of Iowa, had they felt the power of their own mass.
For the first time in the history of the American farmer there had come a feeling of solidarity. They perceived, for a moment at least, their community of interests and their power to preserve themselves against the combined forces of the political pensioners of the small towns. They made the mistake of supposing the interests of the merchant, artisan, and mechanic were also inimicable.
They saw the smaller circle first. They had not yet risen to the perception of the solidarity of all productive interests. That was sure to follow.