Chapter V: Part 5

He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day. At a little before six he took up his station near the front window. Once more the current of workers flowed by. “I'm an old fool,” he told himself, irritated at the wait; “as if it makes any difference whether she comes or not--when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just as big a fool as I am--liking it when she can't have it, only I'm the biggest fool of all--caring whether she likes it or not.” But just then the girl passed quickly by a crowd of girls who were ahead of her and came hurrying across the street. She was walking fast, and looked excited and anxious. “Afraid it might be gone,” he said--adding, grimly: “Needn't worry much about that.”

She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And yet the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches. “I'll tell you what it's like”--the old man's thoughts stumbling right into the heart of it--“it's like someone that's been wandering round in a desert country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's _thirsty_--she's drinking it in--she can't get enough of it. It's--it's the water of life to her!” And then, ashamed of saying a thing that sounded as if it were out of a poem, he shook his shoulders roughly as if to shake off a piece of sentiment unbecoming his age and sex.

He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. “I'll bet she'd never tip the scale to one hundred pounds,” he decided. “Looks like a good wind could blow her away.” She stooped a little and just as she passed from sight he saw that she was coughing.

Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction. “She's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her back for a minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so homesick.”

All through those July days he watched each night for the frail-looking little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She would always come hurrying across the street in the same eager way, an eagerness close to the feverish. But the tenseness would always relax as she saw the picture. “She never looks quite so wilted down when she goes away as she does when she comes,” the old man saw. “Upon my soul, I believe she really _goes_ there. It's--oh, Lord”--irritated at getting beyond his depth--“_I_ don't know!”

He never called it anything now but “Her Picture.” One day at just ten minutes of six he took it out of the window. “Seems kind of mean,” he admitted, “but I just want to find out how much she does think of it.”

And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God had ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the usual hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he thought for a minute she was going to sink right down there on the sidewalk. Everything about her seemed to give way--as if something from which she had been drawing had been taken from her. The luminousness gone from her face, there were cruel revelations. “Blast my _soul!_” the old man muttered angrily, not far from tearfully. She looked up and down the noisy, dirty, parched street, then back to the empty window. For a minute she just stood there--that was the worst minute of all. And then--accepting--she turned and walked slowly away, walked as the too-weary and the too-often disappointed walk.

It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to replace the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought of himself: more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse, meaner than the man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be loved than the man who would kick over the child's play-house, only to be compared with the brute who would snatch the cup of water from the dying--such were the verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps she would come back, and stayed there until almost seven, waiting for her, though pretending it was necessary that he take down and then put up again the front curtains. All the next day he was restless and irritable. As if to make up to the girl for the contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole hour that afternoon arranging a tapestry background for the picture. “She'll think,” he told himself, “that this was why it was out, and won't be worried about its being gone again. This will just be a little sign to her that it's here to stay.”

He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen minutes the thought came to him that she might be so disheartened she would go home by another street. He became so gloomily certain she would do this that he was jubilant when he finally saw her coming along on the other side--coming purposelessly, shorn of that eagerness which had always been able, for the moment, to vanquish the tiredness. But when she came to the place where she always crossed the street she only stood there an instant and then, a little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked on. She had given up! She was not coming over!

But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again and this time started across the street. “That's right,” approved the old man, “never give up the ship!”

She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed trying not to look, but her head turned--and she saw the picture. First her body seemed to stiffen, and then something--he couldn't make out whether or not it was a sob--shook her, and as she came toward the picture on her white, tired face were the tears.

“Don't you worry,” he murmured affectionately to her retreating form, “it won't never be gone again.”

The very next week he was put to the test. The kind of lady who did not often pass along that street entered the shop and asked to see the picture in the window. He looked at her suspiciously. Then he frowned at her, as he stood there, fumbling. _Her_ picture! What would she think? What would she do? Then a crafty smile stole over his face and he walked to the window and got the picture. “The price of this picture, madame,” he said, haughtily, “is forty dollars,”--adding to himself, “That'll fix her.”

But the lady made no comment, and stood there holding the picture up before her. “I will take it,” she said, quietly.

He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the picture was better than the young man had known. “Will you wrap it, please?” she asked. “I will take it with me.”

He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!--he kept repeating it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him, and the papers said coal would be high that winter--those facts seemed to have something to do with forty dollars. _Forty dollars!_--it was hammering at him, overwhelmed him, too big a sum to contend with. With long, grim stroke he tore off the wrapping paper; stoically he began folding it. But something was the matter. The paper would not go on right. Three times he took it off, and each time he could not help looking down at the picture of the pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a little farther; each time it seemed bigger--bigger even than forty dollars; it seemed as if it _knew things_--things more important than even coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place was a noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was eagerly hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a girl who probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at all--then a light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as from a cooling breeze--and _anyway_, suddenly furious at the lady, furious at himself--“he'd be gol-_darned_ if it wasn't _her_ picture!”

He walked firmly back to the front of the store.

“I forgot at first,” he said, brusquely, “that this picture belongs to someone else.”

The lady looked at him in astonishment. “I do not understand,” she said.

“There's nothing to understand,” he fairly shouted, “except that it belongs to someone else!”

She turned away, but came back to him. “I will give you fifty dollars for it,” she said, in her quiet way.

“Madame,” he thundered at her, “you can stand there and offer me five hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is not for sale. Do you _hear_?”

“I certainly do,” replied the lady, and walked from the store.

He was a long time in cooling off. “I tell you,” he stormed to a very blue Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, “it's hers--it's _hern_--and anybody that comes along here with any nonsense is just going to hear from _me_!”

In the days which followed he often thought to go out and speak to her, but perhaps the old man had a restraining sense of values. He planned some day to go out and tell her the picture was hers, but that seemed a silly thing to tell her, for surely she knew it anyway. He worried a good deal about her cough, which seemed to be getting worse, and he had it all figured out that when cold weather came he would have her come in where it was warm, and take her look in there. He felt that he knew all about her, and though he did not know her name, though he had never heard her speak one word, in some ways he felt closer to her than to any one else in the world.

Yet if the old man had known just how it was with the girl it is altogether unlikely that he would have understood. It would have mystified and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen a pine forest or a mountain in her life. Indeed there was a great deal about the little girl which the old man, together with almost all the rest of the world, would not have understood.

Not that the surface facts about her were either incomprehensible or interesting. The tale of her existence would sound much like that of a hundred other girls in the same city. Inquiry about her would have developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company, that she did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big boarding-house. At the boarding-house they would have told you that she was a nice little thing, quiet as a mouse, and that it was too bad she had to work, for she seemed more than half sick. There the story would have rested, and the real things about her would not have been touched.

She worked for the Chicago branch of a big Northwestern land company. They dealt in the lands of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The things she sat at her typewriter and wrote were of the wonders of that great country: the great timber lands, the valleys and hills, towering mountain peaks and rushing rivers. She typewrote “literature” telling how there was a chance for every man out there, how the big, exhaustless land was eager to yield of its store to all who would come and seek. Day after day she wrote those things telling how the sick were made well and the poor were made rich, how it was a land of indescribable wonders which the feeble pen could not hope to portray.

And the girl with whom almost everything in life had gone wrong came to think of Out There as the place where everything was right. It was the far country where there was no weariness nor loneliness, the land where one did not grow tired, where one never woke up in the morning too tired to get up, where no one went to bed at night too tired to go to sleep. The street-cars did not ring their gongs so loud Out There, the newsboys had pleasant voices, and there were no elevated trains. It was a pure, high land which knew no smoke nor dirt, a land where great silences drew one to the heart of peace, where the people in the next room did not come in and bang things around late at night. Out There was a wide land where buildings were far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the horses did not grow tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams came true--a beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was never greasy and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and birds and lovely people--a land of wealth and health and many smiles.

Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming the desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what had been an almost undiscovered State. She thrilled to the poetry of irrigation. Often when hot and tired and dusty her fancy would follow the little mountain stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her imagination rushing with it through sweetening forest and tumbling with it down cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided it to the desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and the grateful desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could make it more like a story than any story in any book. And she could always breathe better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There was something liberating--expanding--in just the thought of them. She dreamed cooling dreams about them, dreams of their reaching farther than one's fancy could reach, big widening dreams of their standing there serene in the consciousness of their own immensity. They stood to her for a beautiful idea: the idea of space, of room--room for everybody, and then much more room! Even one's understanding grew big as one turned to them.

And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing with passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the Washington harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma--all those pulsing, vivid cities of a country of big chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle, a city builded upon many hills--how wonderful that a city should be builded upon hills!--in Chicago there was nothing that could possibly be thought of as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and let the great mountain peak grow in the distance, as one could see it from Portland--how noble a thing to see a mountain peak from a city! Sometimes she trembled before that consciousness of a mountain. Often when so tired she scarcely knew what she was doing she found she was saying her prayers to a mountain. Indeed, Out There seemed the place to send one's prayers--for was it not a place where prayers were answered?

During that summer when the West was overrun with tourists who grumbled about everything from the crowded trains to the way in which sea-foods were served, this little girl sat in one of the hot office buildings of Chicago and across the stretch of miles drew to herself the spirit of that country of coming days. Thousands rode in Pullman cars along the banks of the Columbia--saw, and felt not; she sat before her typewriter in a close, noisy room and heard the cooling rush of waters and got the freeing message of the pines. In some rare moments when she rose from the things about her to the things of which she dreamed she possessed the whole great land, and as the sultry days sapped of her meagre strength, and the bending over the typewriter cramped an already too cramped chest she clung with a more and more passionate tenacity to the bigness and the beauty and rightness of things Out There. And it was so kind to her--that land of deep breaths and restoring breezes. It never shut her out. It always kept itself bigger and more wonderful than one could ever hope to fancy it.

And the night she found the picture she knew that it was all really so. That was why it was so momentous a night. The picture was a dream visualised--a dreamer vindicated. They had pictures in the office, of course--some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of a place. But those were just pictures; this _proved_ it, told what it meant. It told that she had been right, and there was joy in knowing that she had known. She clung to the picture as one would to that which proves as real all one has long held dear, loved it as the dreamer loves that which secures him in his dreaming.

She came to think of it as her own abiding place. Often when too tired for long wings of fancy she would just sink down in the deep, cool shadows of the pines, beside the little river which one knew so well was the gift of distant snows. It rested her most of all; it quieted her.

She smiled sometimes to think how no one in the office knew about it, wondered what they would think if they knew. Often she would find someone in the office looking at her strangely. She used to wonder about it a little.

And then one day Mr. Osborne sent for her to come into his office. He acted so queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he swung his chair around and sat there with his back to her. After that he got up and walked to the window.

The head stenographer had complained of her cough. She said she did not think it right either to the girl or to the rest of them for her to be there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand it any longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had been putting it off. But now he could put it off no longer; the head stenographer was valuable, and besides he knew that she was right.

And so he told her--this was all he could think of just then--that they were contemplating some changes in the office, and for a time would have less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would she be willing to do her work there for a while? Hers was the kind of work that could be done at home.

She was sorry, for she wondered if she could find a place in her room for the typewriter, and it did not seem there would be air enough there to last her all day long. And she had grown fond of the office, with its “literature” and pictures and maps and the men who had just come from Out There coming in every once in a while. It was a bond--a place to touch realities. But of course there was nothing for her to do but comply, and she made no comment on the arrangement.

She pushed her chair back and rose to go. “Are you alone in the world?” he asked abruptly then,

“Yes; I--oh yes.”

It was too much for him. “How would you like,” he asked recklessly, “to have me get you transportation out West?”

She sank back in her chair. Every particle of colour had left her face. Her deep eyes had grown almost wild. “Oh,” she gasped--“you can't mean--you don't think--”

“You wouldn't want to go?”

“I mean”--it was but a whisper--“it would be--too wonderful.”

“You would like it then?”

She only nodded; but her lips were parted, her eyes glowing. He wondered why he had never seen before how different looking and--yes, beautiful, in a strange kind of way--she was.

“I see you have a cold,” he said, “and I think you would get along better out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and get something with our people in one of the towns that would be good for you.”

She leaned back in her chair and sat there smiling at him. Something in the smile made him say, abruptly: “That's all; you may go now, and I'll send a boy with your machine.”

She walked through the streets as one who had already found another country. More than one turned to look at her. She reached her room at last and pulling her one little chair up to the window sat staring out across the alley at the brick wall across from her. But she was not seeing a narrow alley and a high brick wall. She was seeing rushing rivers and mighty forests and towering peaks. She leaned back in her chair--an indulgence less luxurious than it sounds, as the chair only reached the middle of her back--and looked out at the high brick wall and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But she was tired; this tremendous idea was too much for her; the very wonder of it was exhausting. She lay down on her bed--radiant, but languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters. At first it was only someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it was the little stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was not lying on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees--all so sweet and still and cool. But an awful thing was happening!--the forest was on fire--it was choking and burning her! She awoke to find smoke from the building opposite pouring into her room; flies were buzzing about, and her face and hands were hot.

She did little work in the next few days. It was hard to go on with the same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's whole life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great languor to come over her. And her chair was not right for her typewriter, and the smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out There seemed farther away. Sometimes she could not go there at all; she supposed it was because she was really going.

At the close of the week she went to the office with her work. She was weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr. Osborne have the transportation for her? Would he tell her when she was to go?

But she did not see Mr. Osborne at all. When she asked for him the clerk just replied carelessly that he was not there. She was going to ask if he had left any message for her, but the telephone rang then and the man to whom she was talking turned away. Someone was sitting at her old desk, and they did not seem to be making the changes they had contemplated; everyone in the office seemed very busy and uncaring, and because she knew her chin was trembling she turned away.

She had a strange feeling as she left the office: as if standing on ground which quivered, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell someone that something must be done right away, a dreadful fear that she was going to cry out that she could not wait much longer.

All at once she found that she was crossing the street, and saw ahead the little art store with the wonderful picture which proved it was all really so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It would show her again that it was all just as she had thought it was, and if that were true, then it must be true also that Mr. Osborne was going to get her the transportation. It would prove that everything was all right.

But a cruel thing happened. It failed her. It was just as beautiful--but something a long way off, impossible to reach. Try as she would, she could not get _into_ it, as she used to. It was only a picture; a beautiful picture of some pine trees. And they were very far away, and they had nothing at all to do with her.

Through the window, at the back of the store, she saw the old man standing with his back to her. She thought of going in and asking to sit down--she wanted to sit down--but perhaps he would say something cross to her--he was such a queer looking old man--and she knew she would cry if anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for her each night, that he had tried and tried to think of a way of finding her, that he would have been more glad to see her than to see anyone in the world, would have been kinder to her than anyone on earth would have been--those were the things she did not know. And so--more lonely than she had ever been before--she turned away.

On Monday she felt she could wait no longer. It did not seem that it would be _safe_. She got ready to go to see Mr. Osborne, but the getting ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting, looking out at the high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at all. She was counting the blocks, thinking of how many times she would have to cross the street. But just then it occurred to her that she could telephone.

When she came back upstairs she crept up on the bed and lay there very still. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be gone two weeks. No one in the office had heard him say anything about her transportation.

All through the day she lay there, and what she saw before her was a narrow alley and a high brick wall. She had lost her mountains and her forests and her rivers and her lakes. She tried to go out to them in the same old way--but she could not get beyond the high brick wall. She was shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they could not come across the wall. It shut them out. She tried to pray to the great mountain which one could see from Portland. But even prayers could get no farther than the wall.

Late that afternoon, because she was so shut in that she was choking, because she was consumed with the idea that she must claim her country now or lose it forever, she got up and started for the picture. It was a long, long way to go, and dreadful things were in between--people who would bump against her, hot, uneven streets, horses that might run over her--but she must make the journey. She must make it because the things that she lived on were slipping from her--and she was choking--sinking down--and all alone.

Step by step, never knowing just how her foot was going to make the next step, sick with the fear that people were going to run into her--the streets going up and down, the buildings round and round, she did go; holding to the window casings for the last few steps--each step a terrible chasm which she was never sure she was going to be able to cross--she was there at last. And in the window as she stood there, swayingly, was a dark, blurred thing which might have been anything at all. She tried to remember why she had come. What _was_ it--? And then she was sinking down into an abyss.

That the hemorrhage came then, that the old man came out and found her and tenderly took her in, that he had her taken where she should have been taken long before, that the doctors said it was too late, and that soon their verdict was confirmed--those are the facts which would seem to tell the rest of the story. But deep down beneath facts rests truth, and the truth is that this is a story with the happiest kind of a happy ending. What facts would call the breeze from an electric fan was in truth the gracious breath of the pines. And when the nurse said “She's going,” she was indeed going, but to a land of great spaces and benign breezes, a land of deep shadows and rushing waters. For a most wondrous thing had happened. She had called to the mountain, and the mountain had heard her voice; and because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew her to itself, across high brick walls and past millions of hurrying, noisy people--oh, a most triumphant flight! And the mountain said--“I give you this whole great land. It is yours because you have loved it so well. Hills and valleys and rivers and forests and lakes--it is all for you.” Yes, the nurse was quite right; she was going: going for a long sweet sleep beneath trees of many shadows, beside clear waters which had come from distant snows--really going “Out There.”

X

THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE

The Governor was sitting alone in his private office with an open letter in his hand. He was devoutly and gloomily wishing that some other man was just then in his shoes. The Governor had not devoted a large portion of his life to nursing a desire of that nature, for he was a man in whose soul the flame of self-satisfaction glowed cheeringly; but just now there were reasons, and he deemed them ample, for deploring that he had been made chief executive of his native State.

Had he chosen to take you into his confidence--a thing the Governor would assuredly choose not to do--he would have told you there were greater things in the world than the governorship of that State. He might have suggested a seat in the Senate of the United States as one of those things. It was of the United States Senate his Excellency was thinking as he sat there alone moodily deploring the gubernatorial shoes.

The senior Senator was going to die. He differed therein from his fellows in that he was going to die soon, almost immediately. He had reached the tottering years even at the time of his reelection, and it had never been supposed that his life would outstretch his term. He had been sent back, not for another six years of service, but to hold out the leader of the Boxers, as they called themselves--the younger and unorthodox element of the party in the State, an element growing to dangerous proportions. It was only by returning the aged Senator, whom they held it would be brutal to turn down after a life of service to the party, that the “machine” won the memorable fight of the previous winter.

From the viewpoint of the machine, the Governor was the senior Senator's logical successor. Had it not been for the heavy inroads of the Boxers, his Excellency would even then have been sitting in the Senate Chamber at Washington. It had not been considered safe to nominate the Governor. Had his supporters conceded that the time was at hand for a change, there would have been a general clamour for the leader of the Boxers--Huntington, undeniably the popular man of the State. And so they concocted a beautiful sentiment about “rounding out the veteran's career,” and letting him “die with his boots on”; and through the omnipotence of sentiment, they won.

Down in his heart the venerable Senator was not seeking to die with his boots on. He would have preferred sitting in a large chair before the fire and reading quietly of what other men were doing in the Senate of the United States. But they told him he must sacrifice that wish, for if he retired he would be succeeded by a dangerous man. And the old man, believing them, had gone dutifully back into the arena.

Now it seemed that a power outside man's control was declaring against the well-laid plans of the machine. As the machine saw things, the time was not ripe for the senior Senator to die. He had just entered upon his new term, and the Governor himself had but lately stepped into a second term. They had assumed that the Senator would live on for at least two years, but now they heard that he was likely to die almost at once. His Excellency could not very well name himself for the vacancy, and it seemed dangerous just then to risk a call of the Assembly. They dared not let the Governor appoint a weaker man, even if he would consent to do so, for they would need the best they had to put up against the leader of the Boxers. With the Governor, they believed they could win, but the question of appointing him had suddenly become a knotty one.

The Governor himself was bowed with chagrin. He saw now that he had erred in taking a second term, and he was not the man to enjoy reviewing his mistakes. As he sat there reading and rereading the letter which told him that the work of the senior Senator was almost done, he said to himself that it was easy enough to wrestle with men, but a harder thing to try one's mettle with fate. He spent a gloomy and unprofitable day.

Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office. Styles was coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor at the hotel. Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and so, though still unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at once.

Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things were a sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an interest in politics when he had so many other things on his mind, and that he must be a very public-spirited man. That he took an interest in politics, no one familiar with the affairs of the State would deny. The orthodox papers painted him as a public benefactor, but the Boxers arrayed him with hoofs and horns.

The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that their friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two men had held together through all the vicissitudes of life was touching and beautiful--at least, so some people observed. There were others whose eyebrows went up when the Governor and Mr. Styles were mentioned in their Damon and Pythias capacity.

That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the Governor and his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock came they were still talking; more than that, the Governor was excitedly pacing the floor.

“I tell you, Styles,” he expostulated, “I don't like it! It doesn't put me in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it, sure as fate. Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!”

Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The public benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary. He smoked in silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in his chair.

“Well, have you anything better to offer?”

“No, I haven't,” replied the Governor, tartly; “but it seems to me you ought to have.”

Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted himself to the art of smoking. There were times when this philanthropic dabbler in politics was irritating.

“I think,” he began presently, “that you exaggerate the unpleasant features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't it worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the situation, and wasn't there something in the copy-books about meeting new situations with new methods? If you have anything better to offer, produce it; if not, we've got to go ahead with this. And really, I don't see that it's so bad. You have to go South to look after your cotton plantation; you find now that it's going to take more time than you feel you should take from the State; you can't afford to give it up; consequently, you withdraw in favor of the Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you say Berriman is a good man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply can't afford to go on. Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty quiet here; and after all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close of the year. After due deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little talk?--Yes. But it's worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works out very smoothly.”

When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked out very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days the Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were startled by the announcement that business considerations which he could not afford to overlook demanded his withdrawal from office. Previous to this time the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles had met and the result of their meeting was not made a matter of public record.

As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries were made into the venerable Senator's condition--which, the orthodox papers declared, was but another example of the indecency of the Boxer journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation. The Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a worthy successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator continued to live. As Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon quieted into a friendly hope that the Governor would realise large sums with his cotton.

It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed. The day the papers printed the story of his death, they printed speculative editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved family commented with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they were told that it was politics--enterprise--life.

The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State Capitol, and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and looked upon the quiet face; but far more numerous than those who gathered at his bier to weep were those who assembled in secluded corners to speculate on the wearing of his toga. It was politics--enterprise--life.

Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was no need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time things went on about the State-house much as usual, save that the absorbing topic was the senatorial situation, and that every one was watching the new chief executive. The retired Governor now spent part of his time in the South, and part at home. The cotton plantation was not demanding all his attention, after all.

It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great thing. He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an occasion; but there may have been something in the fact that an occasion admitting of a grand rising had never presented itself. Before he became Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in the State Senate for two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for Senator Berriman's vote. He had been put in by the machine, and it had always been assumed that he was machine property.

Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the human drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him to vote with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a tool, he would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the infallibility of the party.

The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not young and foolish enough to attempt to change it.

One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that he “adjust that matter” immediately. He thought of announcing the appointment that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the building, and as he had promised that they should know of it as soon as it was made, he concluded to wait until the next morning.

Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a meeting of the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a large farm in the southern part of the State. He knew but little of political methods, and had primitive ideas about honesty. There had always been a strong tie between the brothers, despite the fact that Hiram was fifteen years the Governor's senior. They talked of many things that night, and the hour was growing late. They were about to retire when the Governor remarked, a little sleepily:

“Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment.”

“You do, eh?” returned the farmer.

“Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to the time the State wants two senators in Washington.”

“Well, I suppose, John,” Hiram said, turning a serious face to his brother, “that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you are right?”

The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh.

“I guess it didn't require much thought on my part,” he answered carelessly.

“I don't see how you figure that out,” contended Hiram warmly. “You're Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?”

It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely confronted John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his own boss, and for some reason it went deep into his soul, and rankled there.

“Now see here, Hiram,” he said at length, “there's no use of your putting on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You know well enough it was all fixed before I went in.” The other man looked at him in bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely: “The party knew the Senator was going to die, and so the Governor pulled out and I went in just so the thing could be done decently when the time came.”

The old farmer was scratching his head.

“That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so the Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could step into the dead man's shoes, eh?”

“That's the situation--if you want to put it that way.”

“And now you're going to appoint the Governor?”

“Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political obligation? It's expected of me.”

“Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?”

“Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that doesn't make a particle of difference. The understanding was that the Governor was to pull out and I was to go in and appoint him. It's a matter of honour;” and Governor Berriman drew himself up with pride.

The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire.

“I suppose, then,” he said finally, “that you all think the Governor is the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that in appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests of the people before everything else, and that the people--I mean the working people of this State--will always be safe in his hands; do you?”

“Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!” exclaimed the Governor irritably. “I don't think that at all!”

Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red.

“You don't?” he cried. “You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and tell me that you don't think the man you're going to put in the United States Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by saying you're going to put a dishonest man in there to make laws for the people, to watch over them and protect them? If you don't think he's a good man, if you don't think he's the best man the State has”--the old farmer was pounding the table heavily with his huge fist--“if you don't think that, in God's name, _why do you appoint him_?”

“I wish I could make you understand, Hiram,” said the Governor in an injured voice, “that it's not for me to say.”

“Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying to steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see the day a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to bamboozle the honest, hard-working people of this State!”

“Hold on, please--that's a little too strong!” flamed the Governor.

“It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a thief; and if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's bamboozlin' them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know much about politics, but I ain't lived my life without learning a little about right and wrong, and it's a sorry day we've come to, John Berriman, if right and wrong don't enter into the makin' of a Senator!”

The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his peace. This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his brother intently, and not unkindly.

“You're in a position now, John,” he said, and there was a kind of homely eloquence in his serious voice, “to be a friend to the people. It ain't many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great thing. We work along, and we do the best we can with what comes our way, but most of us don't get the chance to do a thing that's goin' to help thousands of people, and that the whole country's goin' to say was a move for the right. You want to think of that, and when you're thinkin' so much about honour, you don't want to clean forget about honesty. Don't you stick to any foolish notions about bein' faithful to the party; it ain't the party that needs helpin'. No matter how you got where you are, you're Governor of the State right now, John, and your first duty is to the people of this State, not to Tom Styles or anybody else. Just you remember that when you're namin' your Senator in the morning.”

It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the fireplace until after the fire had died down, and he was too absorbed to grow cold. He thought of many things. Like the man who had preceded him in office, he wished that some one else was just then encumbered with the gubernatorial shoes.

The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he thought a walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on foot for the Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there was something reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would make a slave feel like a free man to drink in such air, he was thinking. Snatches of his brother's outburst of the night before kept breaking into his consciousness but curiously enough they did not greatly disturb him. He concluded that it was wonderful what a walk in the bracing air could do. From the foot of the hill he looked up at the State-house, for the first time in his experience seeing and thinking about it--not simply taking it for granted. There seemed a nobility about it--in the building itself, and back of that in what it stood for.

As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the greetings a value they did not have and from that rose a sense of having the trust and goodwill of his fellows.

But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and satisfaction went from his bearing. He walked to the window and stood there looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking ahead at the State-house, he now looked out over the city really seeing and understanding it, not merely taking it for granted. He found himself wondering if many of the people in that city--in that State--looked to their Governor with the old-fashioned trust his brother had shown. His eyes dimmed; he was thinking of the satisfaction it would afford his children, if--long after he had gone--they could tell how a great chance had once come into their father's life, and how he had proved himself a man.

“Will you sign these now, Governor?” asked a voice behind him.

It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well, and whom every one seemed to respect.

“Mr. Haines,” he said abruptly, “who do you think is the best man we have for the United States Senate?”

The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question should be put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it. Then he told himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at the State-house, in his heart Haines was a Boxer.

“Why, I presume,” he ventured, “that the Governor is looked upon as the logical candidate, isn't he?”

“I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you think is the man who would most conscientiously and creditably represent this State in the Senate of the United States.”

It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering it as simply. “If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is the man, of course.”

“You think most of the people feel that way?”

“I know they do.”

“You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would be the new Senator?”

“There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to admit that. Huntington is the man the people want.”

“That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about it.”

Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent a telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was about eleven when one of the newspaper men came in.

“Good-morning, Governor,” he said briskly “how's everything to-day?”

“All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except that I've made the senatorial appointment.”

“Oh,” laughed the reporter excitedly, “that's all, is it?”

“Yes,” replied the Governor, smiling too; “that's all!”

The reporter looked at the clock. “I'll just catch the noon edition,” he said, “if I telephone right away.”

He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him.

“See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!”

“How so?”

“Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment--a matter of some slight importance--and you rush off never asking whom I've appointed.”

The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not detain him with a joke now when every second counted.

“That's right,” he said, with strained pleasantness. “Well, who's the man?”

The Governor raised his head. “Huntington,” he said quietly, and resumed his work.

“What?” gasped the reporter. “What?”

Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily taken in. “Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you, Governor?”

“Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so impossible. Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the place?”

But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. “May I ask,” he fumbled at last, “why you did it?”

“I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with them in believing Huntington the best man for the place.” He said it simply, and went quietly back to his work.

For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for “the motive.” Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of selling out; they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else. After their first rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing they could do, they wondered, sneeringly, why he did not “fix up a better story.” That was a little _too_ simple-minded. Did he think people were fools? And even the men who profited by the situation puzzled their brains for weeks trying to understand it. There was something behind it, of course.

XI

HIS AMERICA

He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it seemed certain that there was no putting it off any longer.

But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the stairway, he still clung to him.