The Landloper Part 51

"You have accused me of trifling in the past," she continued. "I will now try to show you that I can conduct straight business as it should be handled. Shall I make a memo of our agreement and hand it to you?"

"There is no need of it," he stammered.

"Thank you, Mr. Dodd. And now that the matter has been settled to our mutual satisfaction, I will ask you to go. I think my mother needs my attention. And I am reminded that our bargain does not dispose of the fact that my mother owes you five thousand dollars. I will reflect on how that debt may be paid--by insurance"--her face grew whiter still--"or by some arrangement."

"I wish you wouldn't say such--" But she interrupted him.

"On my part, this is strictly business, Mr. Dodd, and I must consider all sides. I will give the money matter careful thought. I'm sure we can arrange it. I have merely bought my mother's good name with _myself_!"

He stumbled out of the room and went on his way.

"Mother, you and I have some long, long thoughts to busy ourselves with before we attempt to talk to each other," said the girl when the two were alone. "I am going to my room. Please do not disturb me until to-morrow."

For an hour Kate Kilgour was a girl once more, sobbing her heart out against her pillow, stretched upon her bed in abandon of woe, torn by the bitter knowledge that she was alone in her pitiful fight. She was more frank with herself in her sorrow than she ever had been before.

She owned to her heart that a few days before even a mother's desperate plight would hardly have won such a sacrifice as she had made.

She was ready to own that she loved that tall young man of mystery whose face had refuted the suspicion that he was a mere vagrant. It was strange--it was unaccountable. But she had ceased to wonder at the vagaries of love. In her prostration of mental energies and of hope she confessed to herself that she had loved him.

But now between his face and hers, as she shut her eyes and reproduced his features, limned in her memory, those fiery words danced--there was a "play-mamma" who with him had loved the little girl named Rosemarie.

Checking her sobs, she sighed, and her heart surrendered him.

Her sacrifice had been made both easier and yet more difficult.

Then she snuggled close to her pillows and gazed out into the gathering night, and pondered on the fact that if Walker Farr won his fight in the state convention that victory put an end to her poor little truce in the matter of Richard Dodd.

Then she was sure that she had put Walker Farr out of her heart for ever, because she found herself hoping that he would win. The girl had not yet grown into full knowledge of the dynamics of a true and unselfish love--she did not fully know herself.

XXVII

A d.i.c.kER FOR A MAN'S SOUL

The populace came first and packed solidly into the galleries of the great auditorium of Marion city.

For years the state conventions of the dominant party had attracted but little public attention. They had been simple affairs of routine, indorsing the men and the principles of the Big Machine. The next governor had been groomed and announced to the patient people long months before the date of the convention; platforms protecting the interests were glued placidly and secretly and brought forth from the star chamber to be admired; and no delegate was expected or allowed to joggle a plank or nick the smooth varnish which had been smoothed over selfish privilege.

But this year came all the people who could pack themselves into galleries and aisles.

Below on the main floor were more than two thousand delegates. Every town and city sent the full number accredited. After these men had been seated the men and women who thronged the corridors and stairways were allowed to enter and stand in the rear of the great hall.

Strange stories, rumors, predictions, had been running from lip to lip all over the big commonwealth. It was reported that the throne of the tyrant was menaced at last by rebellion which was not mere vaporings of the restless and resentful; organized revolt had appeared, marching in grim silence, not revealing all its strength, and therefore all the more ominous.

A military band brayed music unceasingly into the high arches of the hall. The music served as...o...b..igato for the mighty diapason of men's voices; the thousands talked as they waited.

The broad platform of the stage was untenanted. The speakers, the chairman, the clerks, the members of the state committee, did not appear, though the hour named as the time of calling the meeting to order arrived and pa.s.sed.

In an anteroom, so far removed from the main hall that only the dull rumble of voices and the shredded echoes of the blaring music reached there, was a.s.sembled the state's oligarchy awaiting the pleasure of Colonel Symonds Dodd.

He sat in a big chair, his squat figure crowding its confines.

The state committee and the rest of his entourage were gathered about him.

There was a committeeman from every county in the state--the men who formed the motive cogs of his machine.

One after the other they had reported to him.

And each time a man finished talking the colonel drove a solid fist down on the arm of the chair and roared: "I say again I don't believe it's as bad as you figure it. It can't be as bad. Do you tell me that this party is going to be turned upside down by a kid-glove aristocrat who has hardly stirred out of his office during this campaign?"

"He has had a chap to do his stirring for him," stated one of the group.

"A hobo, sc.u.m of the rough-scruff, hailing from nowhere! Shown up in our newspapers as a ditch-digger--a fly-by-night--a n.o.body! I'm ashamed of this state committee, coming here and telling me that he has been allowed to influence anybody."

"Colonel Dodd, what I'm going to say to you may not sound like politics as we usually talk it," declared a committeeman, a gray-haired and spectacled person who had the grave mien of a student, "and it is not admitted very often by regular politicians who run with the machine. But we are up against something which has happened in this queer old world of ours a good many times. We have had the best organization here in this state that a machine ever put together. But in American politics it's always just when the machine is running best that something happens. Something is dropped into the gear, and it's usually done by the last man you'd expect to do it. The fellows who are tending the machine are too busy watching that part of the crowd they think is dangerous, and then the inconspicuous chap slips one over."

"I don't want any lecture on politics," snapped the boss. "Do you mean to insinuate that that low-lived Farr has put _this_ over on _us_?"

"I have hunted to the bottom of things and I do say so, Colonel Dodd."

"How in blazes did that fellow ever get any influence? I haven't been able to believe that he has been accomplishing anything."

"You ought to have listened a little more closely to us, Colonel,"

insisted the committeeman. "Every once in a while there comes forward a man whom the people will follow. And he is never the rich man nor the proud man, but he is one who knows how to reach the hearts of the crowd.

A shrewd politician can get power by building up his machine. And then some fellow in overalls who has some kind of a G.o.d-given quality that has never been explained yet so that we can understand, smashes into sight like a comet. It may be his way of talking to men, it may be his personality--it is more likely a divine spark in him that neither he himself nor other men understand. But every now and again some humble chap like that has changed the history of the world, and I reckon it's pretty easy for such a man to change the politics of a mere state."

His a.s.sociates were staring at him and Colonel Dodd was giving him furious glances. He had spoken with enthusiasm. He broke off suddenly.

"I beg your pardon. I don't mean to go quite so far. But I'm a student of history and I've read a lot about natural-born leaders."

"You evidently know more about history than you do about politics,"

growled the colonel. "This whole state committee doesn't seem to know much politics. If you have allowed that Farr to slime his way around under cover and do you up in your own counties, I'll see to it that we have a new state committee."

"I have an idea that that convention out there will attend to the matter of a new state committee for us."

The new speaker's voice was very soft. His nickname in state politics was "Whispering Saunders." He was known as being the most artistic political "p.u.s.s.y-foot" in the party. It was averred that he could put on rubber boots and run twice around the State House on a fresh fall of light snow and not leave a track.

"If I'm any kind of a smeller--and I reckon it's admitted that I am,"

purred Saunders, "we are walloped before the start-off in every county delegation out on that floor."

"But what has been the matter with you fellows all the time?" blazed the boss. "Up to now you have been reporting simply that the soreheads were growling and were not getting together so as to be dangerous."

"Did you ever try to shovel up soft soap from a cellar floor with a knitting-needle?" inquired the politician. "That's how it's been in this case. Every man I talked with was slippery. I know slippery times when I see 'em. I've been afraid, but I hoped for the best. Now that they are here, with this convention due to be called to order, they are not slippery any longer. They don't need to be. I've just been through the convention hall. They are out and open--and they're against us."

"That Farr has a proxy from a delegate in the Eleventh Ward and is on the floor," stated another.

"But he isn't a voter."