Chapter VII: Part 7

“De bressed chile! De bressed chile!” And yet he was aware that she had outwitted him and gained his secret. He knew how matters stood between the young lady and Tom Bannister, and there arose in his mind a vivid sense of the danger that might result to his own and Colonel Sommerton's plans from a disclosure of this one vital detail. Would Phyllis tell her lover? Barnaby shook his head in a dubious way.

“Gals is pow'ful onsartin so dey is,” he muttered. “Dey tells der sweethearts mos'ly all what dey knows, spacially secrets. Spec' de ole boss an' he plan done gone up de chimbly er-kally-hootin' fo' good.”

Then the old scamp began to turn over in his brain a scheme which seemed to offer him a fair way of approaching Mr. Tom Bannister's pocket and the portemonnaie of Phyllis as well. He chuckled atrociously as a pretty comprehensive view of “practical politics” opened itself to him.

Tom Bannister had not been to see Phyllis since her father had delivered his opinion to her touching the intrinsic merits of that young man, and she felt uneasy.

Colonel Sommerton, though notably eccentric, could be depended upon for outright dealing in general; still Phyllis had a pretty substantial belief that in politics success lay largely on the side of the trickster. For many years the Colonel had been in the Legislature. No man had been able to beat him for the nomination. She had often heard him tell how he laid out his antagonists by taking excellent and popular short turns on them, and it was plain to her mind now that he was weaving a snare for Tom Bannister.

She thought of Tom's running for office against her father as something prodigiously strange. Certainly it was a bold and daring piece of youthful audacity for him to be guilty of. He, a young sprig of the law, with his brown mustache not yet grown, setting himself up to beat Colonel Mobley Sommerton! Phyllis blushed whenever she thought of it; but the Colonel had never once mentioned Tom's candidacy to her.

The convention was approaching, and day by day signs of popular interest in it increased as the time shortened. Colonel Sommerton was preparing a speech for the occasion. The manuscript of it lay on the desk in his library.

About this time--it was near September 1st and the watermelons and cantaloupes were in their glory--the Colonel was called away to a distant town for a few days. In his absence Tom Bannister chanced to visit Sommerton Place. Of course Phyllis was not expecting him; indeed, she told him that he ought not to have come; but Tom thought differently in a very persuasive way. The melons were good, the library delightfully cool, and conversation caught the fragrance of innocent albeit stolen pleasure.

Tom Bannister was unquestionably a handsome young fellow, carrying a hearty, whole-souled expression in his open, almost rosy face. His large brown eyes, curly brown hair, silken young mustache, and firmly set mouth and chin well matched his stalwart, symmetrical form. He was not only handsome, he was brilliant in a way, and his memory was something prodigious. Unquestionably he would rise rapidly.

“I am going to beat your father for the nomination,” he remarked, midmost the discussion of their melons, speaking in a tone of the most absolute confidence.

“Tom,” she exclaimed, “you mustn't do it!”

“Why, I'd like to know?”

She looked at him as if she felt a sudden fright. His eyes fell before her intense, searching gaze.

“It would be dreadful,” she presently managed to say. “Papa couldn't bear it.”

“It will ruin me forever if I let him beat me. I shall have to go away from here.” It was now his turn to become intense.

“I don't see what makes men think so much of office,” she complained, evasively. “I've heard papa say that there was absolutely no profit in going to the Legislature.” Then, becoming insistent, she exclaimed, “Withdraw, Tom; please do, for my sake!”

She made a rudimentary movement as if to throw her arms around him, but it came to nothing. Her voice, however, carried a mighty appeal to Tom's heart. He looked at her, and thought how commonplace other young women were when compared with her.

“You will withdraw, won't you, Tom?” she prayed. One of her hands touched his arm. “Say yes, Tom.”

For a moment his political ambition and his standing with men appeared to dissolve into a mere mist, a finely comminuted sentiment of love; but he kept a good hold upon himself.

“I cannot do it, Phyllis,” he said, in a firm voice, which disclosed by some indescribable inflection how much it pained him to refuse. “My whole future depends upon success in this race. I am sorry it is your father I must beat, but, Phyllis, I must be nominated. I can't afford to sit down in your father's shadow. As sure as you live, I am going to beat him.”

In her heart she was proud of him, and proud of this resolution that not even she could break. From that moment she was between the millstones. She loved her father, it seemed to her, more than ever, and she could not bear the thought of his defeat. Indeed, with that generosity characteristic of the sex which can be truly humorous only when absolutely unconscious of it, she wanted both Tom and the Colonel nominated, and both elected. She was the partisan on Tom's side, the adherent on her father's.

Colonel Sommerton returned on the day before the convention, and found his friends enthusiastic, all his “fences” in good condition, and his nomination evidently certain. It followed that he was in high good-humor. He hugged Phyllis, and in a casual way brought up the thought of how pleasantly they could spend the winter in Atlanta when the Legislature met.

“But Tom--I mean Mr. Bannister--is going to beat you, and get the nomination,” she archly remarked.

“If he does, I'll deed you Sommerton Place!” As he spoke he glared at her as a lion might glare at thought of being defeated by a cub.

“To him and me?” she inquired, with sudden eagerness of tone. “If he---”

“Phyllis!” he interrupted, savagely, “no joking on that subject. I won't---”

“No; I'm serious,” she sweetly said. “If he can't beat you, I don't want him.”

“Zounds! Is that a bargain?” He put his hand on her shoulder, and bent down so that his eyes were on a level with hers.

“Yes,” she replied; “and I'll hold you to it.”

“You promise me?” he insisted.

“A man must go ahead of my papa,” she said, putting her arms about the old gentleman's neck, “or I'll stay by papa.”

He kissed her with atrocious violence. Even the knee-sag of his trousers suggested more than ordinary vigor of feeling.

“Well, it's good-bye, Tom,” he said, pushing her away from him, and letting go a profound bass laugh. “I'll settle him to-morrow.”

“You'll see,” she rejoined. “He may not be so easy to settle.”

He gave her a savage but friendly cuff as they parted.

That evening old Barnaby brought his banjo around to the veranda. Colonel Sommerton was down in town mixing with the “boys,” and doing up his final political chores so that there might be no slip on the morrow. It was near eleven o'clock when he came up the hill and stopped at the gate to hear the song that Barnaby was singing. He supposed that the old negro was all alone. Certainly the captivating voice, with its unkempt melody, and its throbbing, skipping, harum-scarum banjo accompaniment, was all that broke the silence of the place.

His song was:

“DE SASSAFRAS BLOOM

“Dey's sugah in de win' when de sassafras bloom,
When de little co'n fluttah in de row,
When de robin in de tree, like er young gal in de loom,
Sing sweet, sing sof', sing low.

“Oh, de sassafras blossom hab de keen smell o' de root,
An' it hab rich er tender yaller green!
De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot,
While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le in between.

“Oh, de sassafras tassel, an' de young shoot o' de co'n,
An' de young gal er-singing in de loom,
Dey's somefin' 'licious in 'em f'om de day 'at dey is bo'n,
An' dis darky's sort o' took er likin' to 'm.

“Hit's kind o' sort o' glor'us when yo' feels so quare an' cur'us,
An' yo' don' know what it is yo' wants ter do;
But I takes de chances on it 'at hit jes can't be injur'us
When de whole endurin' natur tells yo' to!

“Den wake up, niggah, see de sassafras in bloom!
Lis'n how de sleepy wedder blow!
An' de robin in de haw--bush an' de young gal in de loom
Is er-singin' so sof' an' low.”

“Thank you, Barn; here's your dollar,” said the voice of Tom Bannister when the song was ended. “You may go now.”

And while Colonel Sommerton stood amazed, the young man came clown the veranda steps with Phyllis on his arm. They stopped when they reached the ground.

“Good--night, dear. I'll win you to-morrow or my name is not Tom Bannister. I'll win you, and Sommerton Place too.” And when they parted he came right down the walk between the trees, to run almost against Colonel Sommerton.

“Why, good-evening, Colonel,” he said, with a cordial, liberal spirit in his voice. “I have been waiting in hopes of seeing you.”

“You'll get enough of me to-morrow to last you a lifetime, sah,” promptly responded the old man, marching straight on into the house. Nothing could express more concentrated and yet comprehensive contempt than Colonel Sommerton's manner.

“The impudent young scamp,” he growled. “I'll show him!”

Phyllis sprang from ambush behind a vine, and covered her father's face with warm kisses, then broke away before he could say a word, and ran up to her room.

In the distant kitchen Barnaby was singing:

“Kick so high I broke my neck,
An' fling my right foot off'm my leg
Went to work mos' awful quick,
An' mended 'em wid er wooden peg.”

Next morning at nine o'clock sharp the convention was called to order, General John Duff Tolliver in the chair. Speeches were expected, and it had been arranged that Tom Bannister should first appear, Colonel Sommerton would follow, and then the ballot would be taken.

This order of business showed the fine tactics of the Colonel, who well understood how much advantage lay in the vivid impression of a closing speech.

As the two candidates made their way from opposite directions through the throng to the platform, which was under a tree in a beautiful suburban grove, both were greeted with effusive warmth by admiring constituents. Many women were present, and Tom Bannister felt the blood surge mightily through his veins at sight of Phyllis standing tall and beautiful before him with her hand extended.

“If you lose, die game, Tom,” she murmured, as he pressed her fingers and passed on.

The young man's appearance on the stand called forth a tremendous roar of applause. Certainly he was popular. Colonel Sommerton felt a queer shock of surprise thrill along his nerves. Could it be possible that he would lose? No; the thought was intolerable. He sat a trifle straighter on his bench, and began gathering the points of his well-conned speech. He saw old Barnaby moving around the rim of the crowd, apparently looking for a seat.

Meantime, Tom was proceeding in a clear, soft, far-reaching voice. The Colonel started and looked askance. What did it mean? At first his brain was confused, but presently he understood. Word for word, sentence for sentence, paragraph for paragraph, Tom was delivering the Colonel's own sonorous speech! Of course the application was reversed here and there, so that the wit, the humor, and the personal thrusts all went home. It was a wonderful piece of _ad captandum_ oratory. The crowd went wild from start to finish.

Colonel Mobley Sommerton sat dazed and stupefied, mopping his forehead and trying to collect his faculties. He felt beaten, annihilated, while Tom soared superbly on the wings of Sommertonian oratory so mysteriously at his command.

From a most eligible point of view Phyllis was gazing at Tom and receiving the full brilliant current of his speech, and she appeared to catch a fine stimulus from the flow of its opening sentences. As it proceeded her face alternately flushed and paled, and her heart pounded heavily. All around rose the tumult of unbridled applause. Men flung up their hats and yelled themselves hoarse. A speech of that sort from a young fellow like Tom Bannister was something to create irrepressible enthusiasm. It ended in such a din that when General John Duff Tolliver arose to introduce Colonel Sommerton he had to wait some time to be heard.

The situation was one that absolutely appalled, though it did not quite paralyze, the older candidate, who, even after he had gained his feet and stalked to the front of the rude rostrum, was as empty of thought as he was full of despair. This sudden and unexpected appropriation of his great speech had sapped and stupefied his intellect. He slowly swept the crowd with his dazed eyes, and by some accident the only countenance clearly visible to him was that of old Barnaby, who now sat far back on a stump, looking for all the world like a mightily mystified baboon. The negro winked and grimaced, and scratched his flat nose in sheer vacant stupidity. Colonel Sommerton saw this, and it added an enfeebling increment to his mental torpor.

“Fellow-citizens,” he presently roared, in his melodious bass voice, “I am proud of this honor.” He was not sure of another word as he stood, with bagging trousers and sweat-beaded face, but he made a superhuman effort to call up his comatose wits. “I should be ungrateful were I not proud of this great demonstration.” Just then his gaze fell upon the face of his daughter. Their eyes met with a mutual flash of restrospection. They were remembering the bargain. The Colonel was not aware of it, but the deliberateness and vocal volume of his opening phrases made them very impressive. “I assure you,” he went on, fumbling for something to say, “that my heart is brimming with gratitude so that my lips find it hard to utter the words that crowd into my mind.” At this point some kindly friend in the audience gingerly set going a ripple of applause, which, though evidently forced, was like wine to the old man's intellect; it flung a glow through his imagination.

“The speech you have heard the youthful lamb of law declaim is a very good one, a very eloquent one indeed. If it were his own, I should not hesitate to say right here that I ought to stand aside and let him be nominated; but, fellow-citizens, that speech belongs to another and far more distinguished and eligible man than Tom Bannister.” Here he paused again, and stood silent for a moment. Then, lifting his voice to a clarion pitch, he added:

“Fellow-citizens, I wrote that speech, intending to deliver it here to-day. I was called to Canton on business early in the week, and during my absence Tom Bannister went to my house and got my manuscript and learned it by heart. To prove to you what I say is true, I will now read.”

At this point the Colonel, after deliberately wiping his glasses, drew from his capacious coat-pocket the manuscript of his address, and proceeded to read it word for word, just as Bannister had declaimed it. The audience listened in silence, quite unable to comprehend the situation. There was no applause. Evidently sentiment was dormant, or it was still with Tom. Colonel Sommerton, feeling the desperation of the moment, reached forth at random, and seeing Barnaby's old black face, it amused him, and he chanced to grab a thought as if out of the expression he saw there.

“Fellow-citizens,” he added, “there is one thing I desired to say upon this important occasion. Whatever you do, be sure not to nominate to-day a man who would, if elected, ally himself with the niggers. I don't pretend to hint that my young opponent, Tom Bannister, would favor nigger rule, but I do say--do you hear me, fellow-citizens?--I do say that every nigger in this county is a Bannister man! How do I know?? I will tell you. Last Saturday night the niggers had a meeting in an old stable on my premises. Wishing to know what they were up to, I stole slyly to where I could overhear their proceedings. My old nigger, Barnaby--yonder he sits, and he can't deny it--was presiding, and the question before the meeting was, 'Which of the two candidates, Tom Bannister and Colonel Sommerton, shall we niggers support? On this question there was some debate and difference of opinion, until old Bob Warmus arose and said, 'Mistah Pres'dent, dey's no use er talkin'; I likes Colonel Sommerton mighty well; he's a berry good man; dey's not a bit er niggah in 'im. On t' odder han', Mistah Pres'dent, Mistah Tom Bannistah is er white man too, jes de same; but I kin say fo' Mistah Bannistah 'at he's mo' like er niggah an' any white man 'at I ebber seed afore!”'

Here the Colonel paused to wait for the shouting and the hat-throwing to subside. Meantime the face of old Barnaby was drawn into one indescribable pucker of amazement. He could not believe his eyes or his ears. Surely that was not Colonel Sommerton standing up there telling such an enormous falsehood on him! He shook his woolly head dolefully, and gnawed a little splinter that he had plucked from the stump.

“Of course, fellow-citizens,” the Colonel went on, “that settled the matter, and the niggers endorsed Tom Bannister unanimously by a rising vote!”

The yell that went up when the speaker, bowing profoundly, took his seat, made it seem certain that Bannister would be beaten; but when the ballot was taken it was found that he had been chosen by one vote majority.

Colonel Mobley Sommerton's face turned as white as his hair. The iron of defeat went home to his proud heart with terrible effect, and as he tried to rise, the features of the hundreds of countenances below him swam and blended confusedly in his vision. The sedentary bubbles on the knees of his trousers fluttered with sympathetic violence.

Tom Bannister was on his feet in a moment--it was an appealing look from Phyllis that inspired him--and once more his genial voice rang out clear and strong.

“Fellow-citizens,” he said, “I have a motion to make. Hear me.” He waved his right hand to command silence, then proceeded: “Mr. President, I withdraw my name from this convention, and move that the nomination of Colonel Mobley Sommerton be made unanimous by acclamation. I have no right to this nomination, and nothing, save a matter greater than life or death to me, could have induced me to steal it as I this day have done. Colonel Sommerton knows why I did it. He gave his word of honor that he would cease all objections to giving his daughter to me in marriage, and that furthermore he would deed Sommerton Place to us as a wedding present, if I beat him for the nomination. Mr. President and fellow-citizens, do you blame me for memorizing his speech? That magnificent speech meant to me the most beautiful wife in America, and the handsomest estate in this noble county.”

If Tom Bannister had been boisterously applauded before this, it was as nothing beside the noise which followed when Colonel Mobley Sommerton was declared the unanimous nominee of the convention. Meantime, Phyllis had hurried to the carriage and been driven home: she dared not stay and let the crowd gaze at her after that bold confession of Tom's.

The cheering for the nominee was yet at its flood when Bannister leaped at Colonel Sommerton and grasped his hand. The old gentleman was flushed and smiling, as became a politician so wonderfully favored. It was a moment never to be forgotten by either of the men.

“I cordially congratulate you, Colonel Sommerton, on your nomination,” said Tom, with great feeling, “and you may count on my hearty support.”

“If I don't have to support you, and pay your office rent in the bargain, all the rest of my life, I miss my guess, you young scamp!” growled the Colonel, in a major key. “Be off with you!”

Tom moved away to let the Colonel's friends crowd up and shake hands with him; but the delighted youth could not withhold a Parthian shaft. As he retreated he said, “Oh, Colonel, don't bother about my support; Sommerton Plantation will be ample for that!”

“Hit do beat all thunder how dese white men syfoogles eroun' in politics,” old Barnaby thought to himself. Then he rattled the coins in his two pockets. The contributions of Colonel Sommerton chinked on the left, those of Tom Bannister and Phyllis rang on the right. “Blame this here ole chile's eyes,” he went on, “but 'twar a close shabe! Seem lak I's kinder holdin' de balernce ob power. I use my inflooence fer bofe ob 'em--yah, yah, yah-r-r! an' hit did look lak I's gwine ter balernce fings up tell I 'lee' 'em bofe ter oncet right dar! Bofe of 'em got de nomination--yah, yah, yah-r-r! But I say 'rah fo' little Miss Phyllis! She de one 'at know how to pull de right string--yah, yah, yah-r-r!”

The wedding at Sommerton Place came on the Wednesday following the fall election. Besides the great number of guests and the striking beauty of the bride there was nothing notable in it, unless the song prepared by Barnaby for the occasion, and sung by him thereupon to a captivating banjo accompaniment, may be so distinguished. A stanza, the final one of that masterpiece, has been preserved. It may serve as an informal ending, a charcoal tail-piece, to our light but truthful little story.

“Stan' by yo' frien's and nebber mek trouble,
An' so, ef yo's got any sense,
Yo'll know hit's a good t'ing ter be sorter double,
An' walk on bofe sides ob de fence!”

THE END