Part 31 (1/2)
The Judge's family affairs were in no way related to the nomination, as the youth saw the case. Yet they were affecting the cams and cogs and pulleys of young Mr. Perry's love affairs, and he felt the matter must be repaired, and put in running order. For he knew that love affair was the mainspring of his life. And the mechanic in him--the Yankee that talked in his rasping, high-keyed tenor voice, that shone from his thin, lean face, and cadaverous body, the Yankee in him, the dreaming, sentimental Yankee, half poet and half tinker, fell upon the problem with unbending will and open mind.
So it came to pa.s.s that there entered into the affairs of Judge Thomas Van Dorn, an element upon which he did not calculate. For he was dealing only with the material elements of a material universe!
When Nathan Perry came to Brotherton's he sat down in the midst of a discussion of the Judges.h.i.+p that began in rather etherial terms. For Doctor Nesbit was saying:
”Amos, I've got you cornered if you consider the visible universe. She works like a watch; she's as predestined as a corn sh.e.l.ler. But let me tell you something--she isn't all visible. There's something back of matter--there's another side to the s.h.i.+eld. I know mighty well there's a time when my medicine won't help sick folks--and yet they get well. I've seen a great love flame up in a man's heart or a woman's heart or a child's in a bed of torture, and when medicine wouldn't take hold I've seen love burn through the wall between the worlds, and I have seen help come just as sure as you see the Harvey Hook and Ladder Company coming rattling down Market Street! Funny old world--funny old world--seventy rides around the sun--and then the fireworks.” After puffing away to revive his pipe he said: ”I sort of got into this way of thinking recently going over this judges.h.i.+p fight.” He smoked meditatively then broke out, ”Lord, Lord, what an iron-clad, hog-tight, rock-ribbed, copper-riveted material proposition it is that Tom is putting up. He's bound self-interest with self-interest everywhere. He and Joe Calvin have roped old man Sands in, and every material interest in this whole district is tied up in the Van Dorn candidacy. I'm a child in a cyclone in this fight. The self-interest of the county candidates, of all the deputies who hope two years from now to be county candidates, and all their friends, every straw boss at the shops, in the smelters, in the mines--and all the men who are near them and want to be straw bosses, every merchant who is caught in the old spider's web with a ninety-day note; every street-car conductor, every employee of the light company, every man at the waterworks plant, every man at the gas plant, the telephone linemen--every human being that dances in the great woof of this little spider's web feels the pull of devilish material power.”
Amos Adams threw back his grizzled head in a laugh that failed to vocalize. ”Well, Jim, according to your account you're liable to get burned and singed and disfigured until you're as useless in politics as this old Amos Adams--the spook chaser!”
There was no bitterness in Amos Adams's voice. ”It's all right, Jim--I have no complaint to make against life. Forty years ago Dan Sands got the first girl I ever loved. I went to war; he paid his bounty and married the girl. That was a long time ago. I often think of the girl--it's no lack of faith to Mary. And I have the memory of the war--of that Day at Peach Tree Creek with all the wonderful exulting joy of that charge and what G.o.d gave me to do. This b.u.t.ton,” he put his thumb under the Loyal Legion emblem in his warped coat lapel, ”this b.u.t.ton is more fragrant than any flower on earth to my heart. Dan Sands has had five wives; he missed the hards.h.i.+p of the war. He has a son by her. Jim,” said Amos Adams as he opened his eyes, ”if you knew how it has cut into my heart year by year to see the beautiful soul that Hester Haley gave to Morty decay under the blight of his father--but you can't.” He sighed. ”Yet there is still her soul in him--gentle, kind, trying to do the right thing--but tied and hobbled by life with his father. Grant may be wrong, Doctor,” cried the father, raising his hand excitedly, ”he may be crazy, and I know they laugh at him up town here--for a fool and the son of a fool; he certainly doesn't know how he is going to do all the things he dreams of doing--but that is not the point. The important thing is that he is having his dream! For by the Eternal, Jim Nesbit, I'd rather feel that my boy was even a small part of the life force of his planet pus.h.i.+ng forward--I'd rather be the father of that boy--I'd rather be old Amos Adams the spook chaser--than Dan Sands with his million. I've been happier, Jim, with the memory of my Mary than he with his five wives. I'd rather be on the point of the drill of life and mangled there, than to have my soul rot in greed.”
The Doctor puffed on his pipe. ”Well, Amos,” he returned quietly, ”I suppose if a man wants to get all messed up as one of the points of the drill of life, as you call it--it's easy enough to find a place for the sacrifice. I admire Grant; but someway,” his falsetto broke out, ”I have thought there was a little something in the bread-and-b.u.t.ter proposition.”
”A little, Doctor Jim--but not as much as you'd think!” answered Amos.
”Nevertheless in this fight here in Greeley County, I'm quietly lining up a few county delegates, and picking out a few trusty friends who will show up at the caucuses, and Grant has a handful of crazy Ikes that I am going to use in my business, and if we win it will be a practical proposition--my head against Tom's.”
The Doctor rose. Amos Adams stopped him with ”Don't be too sure of that, Jim; I got a writing from Mr. Left last night and he says--”
”Hold on, Amos--hold on,” squeaked the Doctor's falsetto; ”until Mr.
Left is registered in the Third Ward--we won't bother with him until after the convention.”
The Doctor left the place smiling at Amos and glancing casually at young Mr. Perry. The dissertation had been a hard strain on the practical mind of young Mr. Perry, and while he was fumbling his way through the mazes of what he had heard, Amos Adams left the shop and another practical man very much after Nathan Perry's own heart came in. Daniel Sands had no cosmic problems on his mind with which to befuddle young Perry. Daniel Sands was a seedy little old man of nearly three score years and ten; his dull, fishy eyes framed in red lids looked s.h.i.+ftily at one as though he was forever preoccupied in casting up sums in interest. His skin was splotched and dirty, a kind of scale seemed to be growing over it, and his long, thin nose stuck out of his s.h.a.ggy, ill-kept whiskers like a sharp snout, attenuated by rooting in money. When he smiled, which was rarely, the false quality of his smile seemed expressed by his false teeth that were forever falling out of place when he loosed his facial muscles. He walked rather stealthily back to the desk where the proprietor of the shop was working; but he spoke loud enough for Nate Perry's practical ear to comprehend the elder man's mission.
”George, I've got to be out of town for the next ten days, and the county convention will meet when I'm gone.” He stopped, and cleared his throat. Mr. Brotherton knew what was coming. ”I just called to say that we're expecting you to do all you can for Tom.” He paused. Mr.
Brotherton was about to reply when the old man smiled his false smile and added:
”Of course, we can't afford to let our good Doctor's family affairs interfere with business. And George,” he concluded, ”just tell the boys to put Morty on in my place. And George, you kind of sit by Morty, and see that he gets his vote in right. Morty's a good boy, George--but he someway doesn't get interested in things as I like to see him. He'll be all right if you'll just fix his ballot in the convention and see that he votes it.” He blinked his dull, red eyes at the book seller and dropped his voice.
”I noticed your paper as I pa.s.sed the note counter just now; some of it will be due while I'm gone; I'll tell 'em to renew it if you want it.”
He smiled again, and Mr. Brotherton answered, ”Very well--I'll see that Morty votes right, Mr. Sands,” and solemnly went back to his ledger. And thus the practical mind of Nathan Perry had its first practical lesson in practical politics--a lesson which soon afterwards produced highly practical results.
Up and down Market Street tiptoed Daniel Sands that day, tightening his web of business and politics. Busily he fluttered over the web, his water pipes, his gas pipes, his electric wires. The pathway to the trade of the miners and the men in the shops and smelters lay through his door. Material prosperity for every merchant and every clerk in Market Street lay in the paunch of the old spider, and he could spin it out or draw it in as he chose. It was not usual for him to appear on Market Street. Dr. Nesbit had always been his vicegerent. And often it had pleased the Doctor to pretend that he was seeking their aid as friends and getting it solely upon the high grounds of friends.h.i.+p.
But as the Doctor stood by his office window that day and saw the old spider dancing up and down the web, Dr. Nesbit knew the truth--and the truth was wormwood in his mouth--that he had been only an errand boy between greed in the bank and self-interest in the stores. In a flash, a merciless, cynical flash, he looked into his life in the capital, and there he saw with sickening distinctness that with all his power as a boss, with his control over Senators and Governors and courts and legislatures, he was still the errand boy--that he reigned as boss only because he could be trusted by those who controlled the great aggregations of capital in the state--the railroads, the insurance companies, the brewers, the public service corporations. In the street below walked a flashy youth who went in and out of the saloons in obvious pride of being. His complacent smile, his evident glory in himself, made Dr. Nesbit turn away and shut his eyes in shame. He had loathed the youth as a person unspeakable. Yet the youth also was a messenger--the errand boy of vice in South Harvey who doubtless thought himself a person of great power and consequence. And the difference between an errand boy of greed and the errand boy of vice was not sufficient to revive the Doctor's spirits. So the Doctor, sadly sobered, left the window. The gay enthusiasm of the diver plunging for the pearl was gone from the depressed little white clad figure. He was finding his pearl a burden rather than a joy.
That evening Morty Sands, resplendent in purple and fine linen--the purple being a gorgeous necktie, and the fine linen a most sumptuous tailor-made s.h.i.+rt waist above a pair of white broadcloth trousers and silk hose, and under a fifty dollar Panama hat, tripped into the Brotherton store for his weekly armload of reading and tobacco.
”Morty,” said Mr. Brotherton, after the young man had picked out the latest word in literature and nicotine, ”your father was in here to-day with instructions for me to chaperone you through the county convention Sat.u.r.day,--you'll be on the delegation.”
The young man blinked good naturedly. ”I haven't got the intellect to go through with it, George.”
”Oh, yes, you have, Morty,” returned Mr. Brotherton, expansively. ”The Governor wants me to be sure you vote for Van Dorn--that's about all there is in the convention. Old Linen Pants is to name the delegates to the State and congressional conventions--they're trying to let the old man down easy--not to beat him out of his State and congressional leaders.h.i.+p.”
The young man thought for a moment then smiled up into the big moon-face of Brotherton--”All right, Georgie, I suppose I'll have to cast my unfettered vote for Van Dorn, though as a sporting proposition my sympathies are with the other side.”
”Well, say--you orter 'a' heard a talk I heard Doc Nesbit give this afternoon. That old sinner will be shouting on the mourner's bench soon--if he doesn't check up.”