At the Age of Eve Part 4

"Some of the _meanest_ things the _Times_ has ever printed about him were my thoughts," she said proudly. "But it has never printed a lie!"

"Ah, that must be something worth while," I commented admiringly, for my ideas concerning women and their possible achievements are strictly modern. "I should like to be the power behind the revolving-chair."

I see already that the above paragraph contradicts itself, for being the power _behind_ things is as old as Eve; but then, the prerogative of contradicting oneself belongs by rights to her daughters.

"Do you care for politics any more than you used to?" Cousin Eunice asked hopefully.

"Politics and mathematics were ever of equal interest to me," I was bound to acknowledge. "But I have been able to understand a little about the primary plan this summer--father's taught me. And I know that the 'machine gang' is _always_ the other fellows!"

"Well, that's a brilliant start," said a sarcastic male voice from the other side of the hedge, and Rufe's amused face rose up to our confusion. Without waiting for invitation he came through and sat down on the gra.s.s beside us.

"Well, she'd enjoy some of _our_ politicians, wouldn't she?" Cousin Eunice asked Rufe as she moved over farther to give him more room, for the althea branches were wide and thick, and entangled themselves in our hair persistently. "Whether she cares for politics or no, eh?"

"Oh, she'd lose her head over Chalmers," Rufe acquiesced as indifferently as the male relative of a girl always shows in discussing "possible" men. "Lord Byron is as a comic valentine compared with him in looks."

"Richard Chalmers," I repeated. "I've seen his name in the paper often, but I don't know exactly what he is."

"Neither does any one else," Rufe answered meaningly. "He's a rich young lawyer--inherited his money--and so shrewd that he's not going to join the Appleton forces, no matter what pretentions they make to get him on their side." He spoke as if he were arguing the question.

"Of course he isn't," Cousin Eunice added stoutly.

"But what _is_ he?" I asked, fearful lest they get into a discussion and forget to satisfy my curiosity, which was--strange to say--considerably aroused.

"Well, if he would declare himself definitely upon the liquor question," Rufe explained concisely, "he would be about the most promising piece of gubernatorial timber that we have."

CHAPTER IV

A NEW GAME

"If we knew when walking thoughtless Through some crowded, noisy way, That a pearl of wondrous whiteness, Close beside our pathway lay; We would pause, where now we hasten, We would often look around, Lest our careless feet should trample Some rare jewel in the ground."

It was like my extravagant nature to quote this verse of "speech day"

poetry while engaged in such a commonplace pursuit, but then the age of Eve is an extravagant age.

I was in a tight little cell of a room back of the pantry, a hot enough place on an August morning; a little den where we store old magazines, last summer hats, pictures and bric-a-brac that we have outgrown, and piles of newspapers.

It was the last named species of junk that was absorbing my earnest attention, to say naught of perspiration, on the day I have in mind, which is by no means a distant one. My forehead was wet and my hair was sticking to it in damp little slabs, but I was unaware of this until afterward, when my family called my attention to it, and inquired where I had been and what I had been doing. Then I was in no mood to tell them.

"It ought to be somewhere in the June lot," I mused, as I stretched my arm across a bundle of worn-out bedroom curtains and dragged a batch of dusty papers over into my lap.

I have been very idle and lonely for the last few days, else I doubt if I should have been driven to such occupation as this. I knew it was foolish, even as I did it, but the Claybornes have been away, staying with the elder Claybornes a while, only returning this morning early, and Cousin Eunice has been so busy since then repairing the damage done Waterloo's clothes that she has been uninteresting to me. The Sullivans spent last week down in the country at a tiny town named Bayville, where there is no sign of a bay; and I have missed the workings of Neva sadly.

It denoted the recent trend of my mind that, as I thought of Neva, upon this occasion, I immediately remembered that her father is a strict anti-Appleton man. Anti-Appleton! How much the term means to me now! A week ago I cared no more for its sound than I cared for the nouns of the fifth declension.

I picked up the paper lying on top and began to fan with it a while before wading into the mazes of the stack. In the few papers which I had already looked over I found, _not_ the object of my search, it is true, but wood-cuts and cartoons of men whose names have been familiar to me for months in a vague, unreal sort of way, making a sound to my ears, but meaning nothing--like the ringing of the telephone bell in the next room when you are fast asleep. Yet the telephone bell will finally awaken you if you are not dead--even _so_ it might, if it is a doctor's telephone--and with what a start do you come to your senses as you reproach yourself for not recognizing its important voice sooner! I have felt this way many times lately, since I have taken up the study of politics; and have found it vastly more interesting than geometry.

The first mighty political name which ever forced itself upon my understanding was Cleveland, and it is not surprising to me now that I was mixed up as to its significance and imagined that, instead of a surname, it was a t.i.tle of n.o.bility. It sounded like such a swelling note of praise to me, for I was only a few years old, and the torchlight procession on the night of his election filled me with a strange delight.

Since then I have always had a good memory for oft-repeated names, although I have frequently held as hazy impressions concerning them as I did of Mr. Cleveland's honored cognomen. The politicians of my native state have all gone by names that were as sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbals to my untutored ears until the last few days, when I have turned in and studied them as most girls study new embroidery st.i.tches.

This is, in part, what I have learned: Appleton is our governor and is said to be everything that Charles I. of England was beheaded for--"tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy to his country." I know this is true because the paper we take says so; and if you are going to doubt what your favorite newspaper says, why, then, do you take it?

I believe in loyalty above everything, and I think if the paper which supports the other side of the question should, by mistake, be thrown into your yard, you ought to run and kick the horrid sheet over the fence into the gutter. That is, if you are a man. If you are a lady I advise you to use the tongs for the purpose, especially if there is any one pa.s.sing by at the time.

Personally, I do not know Mr. Appleton, but I heard one fat, motherly woman, whose son held a job under him, say that he was such a kind-hearted governor because he set free so many poor prisoners! This remark impressed me, and I was beginning to think well of him, when here came that paper again (Rufe's paper) saying that the governor was turning them loose at so much per, a murderer being a little higher in price than a "pistol-toter," who, in turn, is more expensive than a boot-legger, the last really being a kind of bargain-day leader, inasmuch as he is such a help to the administration!

Well, I dare say no governor is a hero to all the papers in his state!

This is quite enough penmanship wasted on Mr. Appleton anyway; for he is as dead as Philadelphia on Sunday, and the public, with its handkerchief held to its nose, is only waiting until next election, when quicklime will be poured over the remains by the young and gallant Richard Chalmers.

Of course, you understand the cause of the political unrest? It is the whisky question, and everything in our state has been turned upside down by it; that is, everything except the whisky. It is turned upside down only when there is a gla.s.s under the bottle. Mr. Appleton favors this phase of the whisky agitation.

Next in importance after the governor is a man named Blake, Jim Blake, whom n.o.body ever calls James, and who is so much like a big fat worm that I never pa.s.s him in the streets without wanting to mash him. He is like one of those soft, white worms, you know, which I am sure I have eaten dozens of on nights when I used to take a handful of chestnuts to bed with me.

In the mountainous regions during his campaigns, they say, to make himself solid with the boys, Jim Blake uses bad English and good whisky; in the cities he uses good English and better whisky. All in all, he is the most popular man in the state--a fact which makes you wish you had antic.i.p.ated Carlyle's remark about the population of his country being mainly fools.

Major Blake was a power in politics a few years back, then he went into obscurity for a while, on account of an ailing daughter, it was said, who had to live in the West if she would live at all. The story goes the rounds that at one time he gave up a senatorship for the sake of staying with this daughter; and, if this is true, I beg his pardon for calling him a worm!

Her name is Berenice Blake, which sounds so beautiful to me that I feel sure her mother must have been the one who named her. I suppose she improved somewhat in health from her outdoor life in the West, for her father came back after a while, and at this present time she makes frequent vibrations between her home and Denver, every one of which causes prolonged paroxysms in the society columns.

In his political affiliations Jim Blake is like--like--my kingdom for a simile! I might with truth say that he is like a chameleon, but I have already likened him to a worm, and I do not care about getting reptiles on the brain, especially this late at night. Also I might say that he is like a lake of quicksilver, except that such a body would resemble a stagnant, green-sc.u.mmed pool compared with the surface spring of his opinions--opinions which vary with the tinkle of silvery sounds.

Yet the fact is there, and as immovable as a window-sash in wet weather, that he is the most popular man in the state. And, while what I have repeated about him is truth, or as near truth as anything is supposed to be in politics, it is disloyal gossip coming from me _now_, for Jim Blake is at home at present, he is unpledged, and we are hoping high hopes that he will come out on our side. The spectacle is pretty much like a body of priests which might be standing by watching for the devil to shed horn, hoofs and tail and put on a clean collar, b.u.t.toned behind.

With their zest for canonizing their leaders I wonder what the temperance workers _will_ do with a man as handsome as Richard Chalmers is said to be? How the "popular young ladies" of the towns will fall over one another in trying to present him with a great sheaf of roses at the close of his speech! I hate that bouquet-presenting worse than anything else done by the women who mix up with candidates!

Men hate it, too, and when I sounded Rufe on the subject he just frowned and said: "Oh, it's _awful_, but what are you going to do?" I suggested that he have the candidate say "Please omit flowers," or "I will not look upon the roses while they are red," or words to that effect, at the close of his speech.

But Rufe shook his head sadly.

"There are three things in this life that a woman is a fool about," he explained to me, "the surgeon who removes her appendix, the minister who saves her soul, and the politician who lets her 'take on' over him in public!"

"But the candidate _hates_ the flowers and the praying at the polls and the general patting on the back like 'he's-mamma's-good-little-boy'

that they inflict upon him, doesn't he?"

"I should _think_ so," Rufe admitted.

I was studying over this phase of the next year's campaign when I attacked the pile of papers in my lap and was wondering if Richard Chalmers would hate the fuss they would inevitably make over him.

June 14, 15, 16, I glanced through without finding anything of interest, and it was tiresome work. Oh, why did I not realize at the time these papers were fresh and new that they held a "pearl of wondrous whiteness?" It would have saved all this trouble. But likely Mammy Lou had used the _very_ one to kindle the fire with. That would be worse than tramping the rare jewel in the ground! Ah!

Was it prophetic that just as I was thinking over the words "rare jewel" the object of my search met my eyes? Of course, you are not stupid, my journal, and you have long ago seen that I was looking diligently for all the news, but _mostly_ the picture of Richard Chalmers, the good-looking young David who might slay the monster Goliath, if he would take his smooth pebble from a _brook_ and not from a brewery!

Well, it was the picture I found, and his name was in big letters beneath. I looked at the face first, then quickly at the name, but I put the two together with difficulty.

"So Richard Chalmers is _you_!" I said aloud in my surprise. Then I stared at the picture as steadfastly as Ahmed Al Kamel must have looked at the portrait of the princess, the first woman's face he had ever seen. A feeling of superst.i.tion came stealing over me and daring me to say that this was only a happen-so.