It was with a peculiar feeling of pain and relief that he read Miss Wilbur's renunciation of her home-market idea. It seemed as if something sweet and fine had gone with it; and yet it strengthened him, for he had come to believe that a home-market built up by legislation was unnatural and a mistake. Judge Brown's constant hammerings had left a mark.

He wrote to her something of his hesitation, and she replied substantially that there was no abandonment of the home-market idea; only the method of bringing it about had changed. She had come to believe in what was free and natural, not what was artificial and forced.

"If you will study the past," she went on, "you will find that advance in legislation has always been in the direction of less law, less granting of special privileges. Take the time of the Stuarts, for example, when the king granted monopolies in the sale of all kinds of goods. It is abhorrent to us, and yet I suppose those protected merchants believed their monopolies to be rights. Slowly these rights have come to be considered wrongs, and the people have abolished them. So all other monopolies will be abolished, when people come to see that it is an infringement of liberty to have a class of men enjoying any special privilege whatever. The way to build up a home-market is to make our own people able to buy what they want.

"There never was a time when our own people were not too poor to buy what they wanted. Goods lie rotting in our Eastern factories, and we export many products which the farmer would be very glad to consume, if he were able. The farmer is poor; but it isn't because he needs protection, it isn't because he doesn't produce enough—it's because what he does produce is taken from him by bankers and corporations."

Bradley read her letters over and over again. Every word which she uttered had more significance than words from any one else. She seemed a marvellous being to him. He looked eagerly in every letter for some personal expression, but she seemed carefully to avoid that; and though his own letters were filled with personalities, she remained studiously impersonal. She replied cordially and kindly, but with a reserve that should have been a warning to him; but he would not accept warnings now—he was too deeply moved. Under the influence of her letters he developed a tremendous capacity for work. The greatest stimulus in the world had come to him, and remained with him. If it should be withdrawn at any time, it would weaken him. He did not speculate on that.



XV.

HOME AGAIN WITH THE JUDGE.

The day that came to close his work at Iowa City had something of an awakening effect in it. The mere motion of the train brought back again in intensified form the feelings he had experienced on the day he left Rock River. Life was really before him at last. His studies were ended, and he was prepared for his entrance into law. He looked forward to a political career indefinitely. He left that in the hands of the Judge.

It was in June, and the country was very beautiful. Groves heavy with foliage, rivers curving away into the glooms of bending elm and bass-wood trees, fields of wheat and corn alternating with smooth pastures where the cattle fed—a long panorama of glorified landscape which his escape from manual labor now enabled him to see the beauty of, its associations of toil and dirt no longer acutely painful.

He thought of the June day in which he had first met Miss Wilbur—just such a day! Then he thought of Nettie with a sudden twinge. She had not written for several weeks; he really didn't remember just when she had written last. He wondered what it meant; was she forgetting him? He hardly dared hope for it; it was such an easy way out of his difficulty.

The Judge met him at the depot with a carriage. There were a number of people he knew at the station, but they did not recognize him: his brown beard had changed him so, and his silk hat made him so tall.

"Right this way, colonel," said the Judge, in a calm nasal. He was filled with delight at Bradley's appearance. He shook hands with dignified reserve, all for the benefit of the crowd standing about. "You paralyzed 'em," he chuckled, as they got in and drove off. "That beard and hat will fix 'em sure. I was afraid you wouldn't carry out my orders on the hat."

"The hat was an extravagance for your benefit alone. It goes into a band-box to-morrow," replied Bradley. "How's Mrs. Brown?"

"Quite well, thank you; little older, of course. She caught a bad cold somewhere last winter, and she hasn't been quite so well since. We keep a girl now; I forced the issue. Mrs. Brown had done her own work so long she considered it a sort of high treason to let any one else in."

Mrs. Brown met him at the door; and she looked so good and motherly, and there was such a peculiar wistful look in her eyes, that he put his arm around her in a sudden impulse and kissed her. It made her lips tremble, and she was obliged to wipe her glasses before she could see him clearly. Supper was on the table for him, and she made him sit right down.

"How that beard changes you, Bradley! I would hardly have known you. What will Nettie think?"

"How is Nettie?"

"Haven't you heard from her lately?"

"Not for some weeks."

"Then I suppose the neighborhood gossip is true." He looked at her inquiringly, and she went on, studying his face carefully, "They say she's soured on you, and is sweet on her father's new book-keeper."

Bradley took refuge in silence, as usual. His face became thoughtful, and his eyes fell.

"I've hoped it was true, Bradley, because she was no wife for you. You'd outgrown her, and she'd be a drag about your neck. I see her out riding a good deal with this young fellow; he's just her sort, so I guess she isn't heart-broken over your absence."

There was a certain shock in all this. He recurred to his last evening with her, when in her paroxysm of agony she had thrown herself at his feet. Much as he had desired such an outcome, it puzzled him to find her in love with some one else. It was not at all like books.

"Well, Mrs. Brown, what do you think of my junior partner?" said the Judge, coming in and looking down on Bradley with a fatherly pride.

"I suppose, Mr. Brown, you refer to our adopted son."

Bradley dressed for church the next day with a new sort of embarrassment. He felt very conscious of his beard and of his tailor-made clothes, for he knew everybody would observe any change in him. He knew he would be the object of greater attention than the service; but he determined to go, and have the whole matter over at once.

The windows were open, and the sound of the bell came in mingled with the scent of the sunlit flowers, the soft rustle of the maple leaves, and the sound of the insects in the grass. His heart turned toward Miss Wilbur now whenever any keen enjoyment came to him; instinctively turned to her, with the wish that she might share his pleasure with him. He sat by the open window, dreaming, until the last bell sounded through the heavy leaf-scented air.

"Won't you go to church with me, Judge?" he said, going out.

The Judge turned a slow look upon him. He was seated on the shady porch, his feet on the railing, a Chicago daily paper in his lap. He said very gravely: "Mrs. Brown, our boy is going to church."

"Can't you let him, Mr. Brown? It'll do him good, maybe," said Mrs. Brown, who was at work near the window.

"Goes to see the girls. Know all about it myself. Go ahead, young man, and remember the text now, or we'll put a stop to this"—Bradley went off down the walk. He passed by a tiny little box of a house where a man in his shirt sleeves was romping with some children.

"Hello, Milton," called Bradley cheerily.

The young man looked up. His face flashed into a broad smile. "Hello! Brad Talcott, by thunder! Well, well. When'd you get back?"

"Last night. Yours?" he inquired, nodding toward the children.

"Yep. Well, how are you, old man? You look well. Couldn't fool me with that beard. Come in and sit down, won't yeh?"

"No, I'm on my way to church. Can't you come?"

"Great Caesar, no! not with these young hyenas to attend to." He had grown fat, and his chin beard made him look like a Methodist minister; but his sunny blue eyes laughed up into Bradley's face just as in the past. "Say!" he exclaimed, "you struck it with the old Judge, didn't you? He's goin' to run you for governor one of these days. County treasurer ain't good enough for you. But say," he said, as a final word, "I guess you'd better not wear that suit much; it's too soft altogether. Stop in when you come back. Eileen'll be glad to see you," he called after him.

The audience had risen to sing as he entered, and he took his place without attracting much attention. As he stood there listening to the familiar Moody and Sankey hymn, there came again the touch of awe which the church used to put upon him. He was not a "religious" man. He had no more thought of his soul or his future state than a powerful young Greek. His feeling of awe arose from the association of beauty, music, and love with a church. It was feminine, some way, and shared his reverence for a beautiful woman.

The churches of the town were the only things of a public nature which had any touch of beauty or grace. They were poor little wooden boxes at best; and yet they had colored windows, which seemed to hush the dazzling summer sun into a dim glory, transfiguring the shabby interior, and making the bent heads of the girls more beautiful than words can tell. It was the one place which was set apart for purposes not utilitarian, and a large part of what these people called religious reverence was in fact a pathetic homage to beauty and poetry, and rest.

When they all took their seats, and while the preacher was praying, Bradley was absorbing the churchy smell of fresh linen, buoyant perfumes, (camphor, cinnamon, violets, rose) and the hot, sweet odor of newly-mown grass lying under the sun just outside of the windows. The wind pulsed in through the half-swung window, a bee came buzzing wildly along, a butterfly rested an instant on the window sill, and the preacher prayed on in an oratorical way for the various departments of government.

Bradley felt a sharp eye fixed upon him, and, turning cautiously, caught Nettie looking at him. She nodded and smiled in her audacious way. Two or three of the young fellows saw him and nodded at him, but mainly the people sat with bowed heads, feeling some presence that was full of grace and power to banish, for a short time at least the stress of the struggle to live.

The young fellows were mainly in the back seats; and while they were decorously quiet, it was evident that they had very little interest in the prayer. Death and hell and the grave! Why should one trouble himself about such things when the red blood leaped in the heart, and the June wind was flinging a flickering flight of leaf shadows across the window pane? There sat the girls with roguish eyes, the rounded outline of their cheeks (as tempting as peaches), displayed with miraculous skill at just their most taking angle. Their Sunday gowns and gloves and hats transfigured them into something too dainty and fine to be touched, and yet every glance and motion was an invitation and a lure.

Here was the proper function of the church; to enable these young people to see each other at their best, and to bring into their sordid lives some hint, at least, of music and beauty.

Bradley did not hear the sermon. He was wondering just what Nettie's smile meant, and what he was going to say to her. He was not subtle enough to take a half-way or an ambiguous stand. He must either treat her tenderness as a forgotten thing or hold himself to his promise as something which he was under orders from his conscience to fulfill.

When the service was over he went out into the anteroom with the young fellows, who were anxious to meet him. Quite a number of farmers were in from the country, and they all crowded about, shaking his hand with great heartiness. He moved on with them to the sidewalk, where many of the congregation stood talking in groups. The women came by in their starched neatness, leading rebellious boys in torturing suits of winter thickness topped with collars, stiff as sauce pans; while the little girls walked as upright as dolls, looking disdainfully at their sulking brothers. Some of the merchants passing by discussed the sermon, some talked about crops with the farmers, and those around Bradley dipped into the political situation guardedly.

While he was talking to some of the town people, he saw Nettie come up and join a young man at the door whom he had recognized as the tenor in the choir; and they sauntered off together under the full-leafed maples—she in dainty white and pink, he in a miraculously modish suit of gray, a rose in his lapel. Bradley looked after them without special wonder. It was only as he went back to his room that he began to see how fully Nettie had outgrown her passion for him.

* * * * *

He met her the next day as he was going home from the office.

"Hello, Bradley," she said, without blushing, though her eyes wavered before his.

He held out his hand with a frank smile. "Hello, Nettie, which way are you going?"

"Going home now, been up to the grocery. Want to go 'long?"

"I don't mind. How are you, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm all right. Say! that beard of yours makes you look as funny as old fun."

"Does it?" he said.

"You bet! It makes you look old enough to go to Congress. Say! heard from Radbourn lately?" Bradley shook his head. "Well, I haven't, but Lily has. He's writing—writing for the newspapers, she said."

"Is that so? I haven't heard it."

"E-huh! Say, do you know Lily's all bent on him yet! Funny, ain't it? I ain't that way, am I?" she ended, with her customary audacity.

"No, it's out o' sight, out o' mind with you," he replied, with equal frankness.

"Oh, not quite so bad as that. Ain't yeh comin' in?" They were at the gate.

"Guess not. You remember your father's command; I must never darken his door."

She laughed heartily. "I guess that don't count now."

"Don't it? Well, some other time then."

"All right, but gimme that basket. Goin' to lug that off with you?"



XVI.

NOMINATION.

On the Monday evening following Bradley's return, there was quite a gathering at Robie's along about sundown. Colonel Peavy and Judge Brown came down together, and Ridings and Deering were there also, seated comfortably under the awning, in mild discussion with Robie, who had taken the side of free trade, to be contrary, as Deering said.

"No, sir; I take that side for it's right." There was something sincere in his reply, and Ridings stared.

"How long since?"

"About a week."

"What's got into yeh, anyhow?"

"A little horse sense," said Robie. "I've been a readin' the other side; an' if a few more of yeh'd do the same, you'd lose some of your damn pig-headed nonsense." The Democrats cheered, but the Republicans stared at Robie, as if he had suddenly become insane.

"Well, I'll be dinged!" said Smith, his brother-in-law. "I'd like to know what you'd been a readin' to make a blazin' old copperhead of you."

Robie held up two or three tracts. The Judge took them, looked them over, and read the titles out loud to the wondering crowd.

"'The Power of Money to Oppress.' 'Free Trade Philosophy.' 'The Money Question.' 'The Right to the Use of the Earth,' by Herbert Spencer. 'Land and Labor Library.' 'Progress and Poverty,' by Henry George."

"Oh, so you've got hold of Spencer and George, have you?" said the Judge.

"No; they've got hold 'f me."

"Spencer!" said Smith, in vast disgust. "What the hell has he to do with it?" The rest sat in silence. The occasion was too momentous for jokes.

"Where'd you get hold o' these?" said the Judge, fingering the leaves.

"Radbourn sent 'em out."

"I'll bet yeh! If there was a rank, rotten book anywhere on God's green footstool, that feller'd have it," said Smith.

The Judge ruminated: "Well, if that's the effect, guess I'll circulate a few copies 'mong the young Republicans of the county. Gentlemen, this is our year."

"You've been a sayin' that for ten years, Judge," said Ridings.

"And it's been a comin' all the time, gentlemen. I tell you, I've had my ear to the ground, and there's something moving. The river is shifting its bed. Look out for a flood. I'm going to make an entirely new move this fall; I'm going to put up a man for legislature that'll sweep the county; and you'll all vote for 'im, too. He's young, he's got brains, he's an orator, and he can't be bought."

Robie brought his fist down on the counter in an excitement such as he had never before manifested. "Brad Talcott! We'll elect him sure as hell!"

Amos hastened to put in a word. "Brad's a Republican."

"He's a Free Trade Republican," said the Judge, quietly.

"How do yeh know?"

"Oh, I know. Haven't I been a workin' 'im for these last two years? Did you expect a man to live with me and not become inoculated with the Simon-pure Jeffersonian Democracy?"

"I don't believe it," Amos replied; "and I won't till I hear him say so himself. I want to see him go to Des Moines, but I want to see him go as a Republican."

"Well, you attend the Independent convention next week, and you'll hear something that'll set you thinking. Your Grange is losing force. You failed to elect your candidate last year. Now, if we put up a man who is a farmer and a clean man—a man that can sweep the county and carry Rock River—why not join in and elect him?"

The railroad interest was the great opposing factor; and the Judge, who was a great politician, had calculated upon a fusion of the farmer Republicans and the Democrats. He was really the ablest man in that part of the State, and could wield the Democratic party like a pistol. He succeeded in getting Amos, Councill, Jennings, and a few other leading grangers to sign his call for a people's convention to nominate county officers and the member of the legislature. It really amounted to a union of the independent Republicans and the young Democrats.

The old liners, however, were there, and set out from the first to control the convention, as was shown in the opening words of the chairman, old man Colwell, whom the Judge had kindly allowed in the chair, in order that he might have a chance to speak on the floor.

"This is a great day for us," said the chairman. "We've waited a long time for the people to see that Republican rings were sapping the foundations of political honesty, but they see it now. This crowded convention, fellow-citizens, shows that the deathless principles of Jacksonian Democracy still slumber under the ashes of defeat."

He went on in this strain, calmly taking to himself and the other old moss-backs (as young Mason contemptuously called them) all the credit of the meeting, and bespeaking, at the same time, all the offices.

Following this intimation, Colonel Peavy presented a slate, wherein all the leading places on the ticket had been given "to the men who stood so long for the principles of Jackson and Jefferson. It was fitting that these men should be honored for their heroic waiting outside the gates of emolument."

Young Mason was on his feet in an instant. "Mr. Chairman," he said, penetratingly.

"Mr. Mason."

"While I appreciate, sir, the fortitude, the patience, of the men who have been waiting outside the gates of emolument so long, I want to say distinctly, that if that slate is not broken, we'll all wait outside the gates of emolument twenty years longer. But I want to say further, Mr. Chairman, that the strength of this new movement is in its freedom from spoils-seeking; is in its independence from the old party lines. Its strength is in its appeal to the farmer, in its support of his war against unjust tariff and against railway domination. Its strength also is in its appeal to the young men of this county, sir."

Applause showed that the young orator had his audience with him. He was a small man, but his voice was magnificent, and his oratory powerful, self-contained, full of telling points.

"If we win, gentlemen of this convention," he said, turning, "we must put at the head of this movement a man who is absolutely incorruptible—a man who can command the granger vote, the temperance vote, the young man's vote, and the Independent vote. That man"—

"Mr. Chairman," snarled Colonel Peavy, rising with impressive dignity and drawing his coat around him with ominous deliberation.

"Colonel Peavy," acknowledged the chairman.

"Mr. Chairman," shouted young Mason, "I have the floor. I deny the right of your recognition of another member while I'm speaking."

"Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of information," said the Colonel.

"State your point, Colonel."

"I would like to ask this young gentleman who holds the floor how many votes he has cast in his whole life."

Young Mason colored with anger, but his voice was cool and decisive. "For the gentleman's information, Mr. Chairman, I will say that I have voted once, but that vote entitles me to stand here as a delegate, and I have the floor."

The delegates were mainly with young Mason, and the Colonel sat down grimly in the midst of the Old Guard. Milton and Bradley, sitting together, rejoiced in the glorious attitude of the young champion, who went on—

"I say, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that we cannot win this election on old party lines. I'm a Democrat." (Applause.) "But we are not strong enough as a party in this district to elect, and I'm willing to work with the Independents. There is just one man who can be elected from this convention. He is a young man; he is sound on the tariff; he is an orator; he can sweep the county. I present, as nominee for our next representative, Bradley Talcott, of Rock River."

Bradley sat still, stunned by the applause which burst forth at the mention of his name. Brown had prepared him for the presentation of his name, but he had not dared to hope that any considerable number of delegates would support him.

Judge Brown rose to his feet. "I second the nomination, Mr. Chairman. I am a Democrat—an old Democrat, but I'm damned if I'm a moss-back. I don' allow any young man to get ahead of me on radicalism. I stand for progress; and because I know Bradley Talcott stands for progress, I second his nomination. His canvass will be an honor to himself, and a historical event in this county."

Amos Ridings arose. "Mr. Chairman, I second that nomination as a Granger-Republican. I second it because I know Brad Talcott can't be bought, and because I know he's honest in his convictions. I'll stand by him as long as he stands by principle."

This practically brought to Bradley's support the winning force, for Amos was a power in the county. Somebody called for Milton Jennings, and after some hesitation he got upon his feet.

"Mr. Chairman, I'm not a delegate to this convention, and so it isn't my place to speak here; but I want to say that if I was, I should second this nomination. It's a complete surprise to me to have him nominated. If I had known of it before, I would have been working for him all along. I'm pledged in another direction; but if I could honorably withdraw my support from the regular nominee, I would do everything I could to elect my old classmate and esteemed colleague."

With this boom, the vote was wildly enthusiastic. The chairman pronounced it unanimous.

"Give us a speech!" shouted the crowd.

Young Mason leaped up, a sardonic gleam in his eye. "Mr. Chairman, I move that Colonel Peavy and Amos Ridings escort the nominee to the platform."

The motion was put and carried amid laughter. As they dragged Bradley out of his chair and pushed him up the aisle, everybody laughed and cheered. William Councill kicked the Colonel as he went past and Robie hit him a sounding slap between the shoulders. The Colonel bore it all with astonishing good nature. As they reached the platform, young Mason stepped into the aisle and shouted:

"Three cheers for the Honorable Bradley Talcott!"

With the roar of these cheers in his ears, Bradley turned and faced his fellow-citizens. His knees shook, and his voice was so weak he could hardly be heard.

"Fellow-citizens, do you know what you're doing?" he said, in a curiously colloquial tone.

"You bet we do!" roared the crowd. "What d'ye think we've done?"

"You've nominated a man for your legislature who hasn't got a dollar in the world."

"So much the better! The campaign 'll be honest!" shouted young Mason.

Bradley's throat was too full to speak, and his head whirled. "I can't make a speech now, gentlemen; I am all out o' breath. All I can say is, I'm very thankful to have such friends, and I'll try to do my duty in the campaign, and in the legislature, if I'm elected."

The delegates swarmed about him to shake his hand and promise him their support. Bradley, dazed by the suddenness of it, could only smile and grip each man's hand. The Judge was jubilant. Had Bradley been his son, he couldn't have felt more sincerely pleased.

"We'll see such a campaign this fall as this county never had," he said to everybody; "a campaign with a principle; a campaign that will be educational."

Bradley had now a greater work before him than he had ever undertaken before. He had now to go to his old friends and neighbors in a new light, practically as a Democrat. He had to face audiences mainly hostile to his ideas, and defend opinions which he knew not only cut athwart the judgment of the farmers of the county, but squarely across their prejudices.

But he had something irresistible on his side; he was debating a principle. He was widening the discussion, and he made men feel that. He rose above local factions and local questions to the discussion of the principles of justice and freedom. He voiced this in his speech of acceptance in the Opera House the next day. The house was packed to its anteroom with people from every part of the county. A curious feeling of expectancy was abroad. Men seemed to feel instinctively that this was the beginning of a change in the thought of Rock River. Everybody remarked on the change in Bradley, and his beard made him look so much older.

Judge Brown and Dr. Carver sat on the stage with the speakers, young Mason and Bradley. The Judge was very dignified, but there was an exultant strut in his walk and a special deliberation in his voice which proclaimed his pride in his junior partner. He alluded, in his dry, nasal way, to the pleasure it gave him to inaugurate the new era in politics in Rock River. "The liquor question I regard as settled in this State," he said. "And now the discussion of the tariff has free sailing. But you don't want to hear us old fellows, with our prejudices; you want to hear our young leaders, with their principles."

He introduced young Mason, who made one of his audacious speeches. "Death is a great friend of youth and progress," he said. "The old men die, off, thank God! and give young men and new principles a chance. I tell you, friends and neighbors, the Democratic party is being born again—it must be born again, in order to be worth saving."

When Bradley stepped forward, he was very pale.

"Friends and fellow-citizens," he began, after the applause had ended, "I can't find words to express my feeling for the great honor you have done me. I thank the citizens of Rock River for their aid, but I want to say—I'm going to run this campaign in the farmers' interest, because the interests of this county and of this State are agricultural, and whatever hurts the farmer hurts every other man in the State. There is no war between the town and the country. The war is between the people and the monopolist wherever he is, whether he is in the country or in the town. It is not true that the interests of the town dweller and of the farmer are necessarily antagonistic; the cause of the people is the same everywhere. It's like the condition of affairs between England and Ireland. People say that Ireland is fighting England—fighting the English people, but that is not the fact. The antagonism is between the Irish people and the English landlord. So the fight in America is the people against the special privileges enjoyed by a few. It's because these few generally live in towns that we seem to be fighting the towns.

"As the Judge said, we've settled the liquor question in this State; it won't come up again unless office seekers drag it up. It has been our State issue—that and the railroads; and now that is settled, we can turn our attention to the finishing up of the railway problem and to the discussion of the tariff."

"And the money!" shouted some one; "abolish the national banks!"

Bradley hesitated a little. "No, we can't do that, but we can destroy any special privilege they hold. But the first thing that stares us in the face is the war tariff that is eating us up. I'm going to state just what I think in this campaign, and you can vote for me or not. It is sheer robbery to continue a tariff that was laid at a time when we needed enormous revenue. See the surplus piling up in the public vault. You say it's better to have a surplus than a deficit. Yes, but I'd rather have the surplus in the pockets of the people. This taxing the people to death, in order to have a surplus to expend in senseless appropriations, is poor policy."

In this strain his whole speech ran, and it had an electrical effect. They cheered him tremendously, and the meeting broke up, and discussion burst out all over the hall with appalling fury, and continued each day thereafter. The railroad question and the tariff question began right there to divide the county into two camps. The young leader carried the same disturbing influence into every township in which he spoke, and the whole county became a debating school. It took a position far ahead of the other counties of the State in the questions.

Men stopped each other, and talked from plow to plow across the line fence. They met in the road upon dusty loads of wheat, and sat hours at a time under the burning August sun to discuss the matter of railroad commissions, and the fixing of rates, and the question of reducing the surplus in the treasury.

The old greenbackers came out of their temporary retirement, and helped Bradley's cause simply because he was young and a dissenter. They were a power, for most of them were deeply read on the tariff and on the railroad problem; in fact, were all round radicals and fluent speakers.

Judge Brown kept out of it. "I don't want to seem too prominent in this campaign," he said to Colonel Peavey. "We old Mohawks are a damage to any man's campaign just now. The time is coming, Colonel, when we'll help, but not now. We've set the mischief afoot; now let the young fellows and the farmers do the rest of it. Besides, my young man here is quite able to look out for himself. All that scares me is he'll get too radical, even for the Democracy, one of these days. If he does, all is we'll have to build a party up to his principle, for he'll be right, Colonel; there's no two ways about that."



XVII.

ELECTION.

The interest of the election was very great; and as the vote of Rock River practically settled the contest, the centre of interest was the Court House, which was crowded to suffocation on election night. There was a continual jam and a continual change. Crowds stood around the doorway, or moved up and down the sidewalk. Crowds were constantly running up and down the stairway, and crowding in and out the dingy, dimly lighted court-room, which was roaring with voices, blue with smoke, and foul as a dungeon—with tobacco and vitiated breaths.

All the men of the town seemed to be present, from old man Dickey, the chicken thief and fisherman, to cold, aristocratic R. F. Russell, the banker. Rowdyish boys pushed and banged and howled, playing at hide-and-seek among the legs of the men, who filled every foot of standing space, or were perched on the railings or tables near the Judge's bench, from which the returns were being called. The kerosene lamp shed a dim light, through the smoke. There was no fire, and the excited partisans kept their hats and coats on, and warmed themselves by wild gestures and stamping.

Occasionally a boy's shrill yell or whistle, or some excited Democrat's calling, "It's a whack! I'll take yeh!" rose above the clamor. Upon the benches piled up along the wall, to leave the middle space free, groups of the less demonstrative citizens of both parties sat discussing the chances of the different candidates. Bradley was not there, but young Mason and Milton were considered his representatives, and were surrounded by a constant crowd of sympathizers. It was about nine o'clock at night before the decisive returns began to come in.

Occasionally the sound of furious pounding was heard, and a momentary lull was enforced while the clerk read some telegraphic message or report of a neighboring town. While he stood upon the Judge's bench, at about nine o'clock, the crowd, aware in some mysterious way of the arrival of decisive news, made a wild surge toward the clerk, and shouted for silence, while he announced in a high nasal key: "Rock River gives a hundred and ninety-one for Kimball, two hundred and twenty-five for Talcott." At this a wild cheer broke forth, led by Milton and young Mason.

"That means victory!" said Milton.

"Don't be too sure of it! Wait for Cedarville."

The reading went on, with occasional yells from either the Democrats or Republicans, according to the special quality of the report, but it was plain that the most interest was centered in the contest for representative.

As the evening wore on, messengers clattered up on horseback from other towns of the county, and amid yells and cheers were hustled up the stairway, through the crowd to the clerk, carrying in their hands envelopes filled with election returns. These returns from the townships were almost entirely in Bradley's favor, but Cedarville was the decisive vote. Messengers from the little telegraph station dashed to and fro, and the excitement was fanned into greater fury by the accounts of Democratic gains from other counties and other States. "It is a political landslide," exclaimed Mason. "The Democrats are in it this time."

At length there rose the cry of "Cedarville! Cedarville!" and a messenger bearing a telegraph blank was rushed through to the reading-desk, where his message was snatched by the clerk. Again there was a wild surge toward the desk, and a silence, broken only by derisive cheers from the boys, while the clerk glanced over it.

"Cedarville gives seventy votes for Kimball, and a hundred and ten for Talcott."

The Independents shouted themselves hoarse, and flung their caps in the air. Talcott had carried both of the towns of the county; he was sure of the farmers. The boys howled like savages, and tripped each other over the railings and seats, boxed hats, punched the men in the back, and hid around their legs; while the clerk went on with his reading, at more and more frequent intervals, of reports from other States and districts of the congressional field. The old-line Democrats were delirious with joy. The promised land was in sight.

It was about half past twelve o'clock when Colonel Russell conceded Bradley's election, and two stout men toiled up the stairs, bringing his forfeit of two barrels of apples. Amid wild yells from the crowd, they threw the barrels to the floor, where they burst, and sent Northern Spys rolling in every direction.

Then came a wilder roar and scramble, that outdid everything that had gone before, and a surging mass of struggling men and boys covered the apples. They threw themselves upon each other's backs. They clawed like wild-cats, barked like wolves. They kicked each other out of the way, and scratched and mauled each other, crushing hats, tearing coats, bruising shins. As fast as one man filled his hands or arms or pockets, the others set upon him, struck them from his arm, snatched them from his hands, tore them from his pockets, or tripped him headlong to the floor, where he rolled in the filthy sawdust, under the feet of the crazy mob.

The wrestle of starving wild hogs for corn or potatoes could not have been more tumultuous or ear-splitting than this ferocious, jovial scramble. It ceased only when the last apple was secured, so that none could snatch it away. Then began the fusilade of cores and parings. Shining stove-pipe hats were choice game, and to throw a core clean through a silk hat was a distinction which everybody seemed to covet. In five minutes not a tall hat was to be seen. Colonel Peavy wrapped his handkerchief around his, thus drawing upon himself the attack of the entire crowd, and he was forced to retreat.

Then they threw at faces and bald heads. The uproar redoubled. No one was drunk, no one was mad; but the scene was furious with mirth. It was contagious. Word spread outside, and the whole male population of the town jammed into the stairway, and struggled furiously to reach the court-room, where the fun was going on. A stranger would have imagined it the loosing of the hordes of hell.

In the streets of the town, the boys, without the slightest care about who was elected, were stealing kerosene barrels and dry-goods boxes, in order to keep the bonfire going. When they heard of the free apples which they had missed by their zeal in bonfiring, a bitterness came upon them, and they came together and tried to organize a committee to go down and see Judge Brown and state their grievance.

At last one desperate young fellow took the lead, and the rest marched after. He moved off down the street, shouting through his closed lips "Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!" The rest took up the drum-like cry, and marched after him two and two. They made straight toward Judge Brown's office, where they knew Bradley was. They halted and raised a great shout.

"Three cheers for the Honorable Brad," and gave them wildly.

This brought the Judge out; and when they saw him, they yelled in lugubrious tones, as if they were starving, "Apples! apples!"

The Judge shouted down, "All right, boys, I'll send Robie up. He'll roll out all the apples you want." The boys gave another cheer, and left.

Bradley sat there in the Judge's office in a sort of daze. He could not say a word. His thought was not clear. He was not at all anxious. Somehow he could not feel that it was his fate that was being decided. On the contrary, it seemed to be some other person. He was not excited; he was only puzzled and wondering.

At last the crowd was heard coming from the Court House. Wild cheers sounded faintly far up the street. The sound of a band was heard, and the marching of feet, rhythmic on the sidewalks. There came the sound of rapid footsteps, and so familiar was Bradley with the sidewalk that he knew exactly where the runners were by the different note given out by each section of planking. They were crossing the street. Now they came across the warped and clattering length before the butcher shop. Then over the crisp, solid planking before Robie's. Then came a rush up the stairway, and Milton and young Mason burst into the room.

"Hurrah, we've carried you through! You're elected, sure as guns!"

"Three cheers for Democracy and progress," shouted the Judge, in high excitement, from the open windows. They were given with tremendous vigor by the crowd from below and the band struck up "Hail Columbia."

* * * * *

It was two o'clock when Bradley and the Judge got away from the crowd and went home to bed. They found Mrs. Brown sitting up. With the customary thoughtlessness of men, neither of them had taken her anxiety into account.

"Well, Mrs. Brown, are you up?"

"Yes, Mr. Brown; I wanted to hear the news. You didn't suppose I could go to bed without it," she replied calmly, though she was trembling with eagerness.

"Well, we're elected, Mrs. Brown," said the Judge proudly.

She came up to Bradley timidly, a longing mixed with pride expressed in her face. Bradley took her in his arms, and laid her cheek on his shoulder. She stood before him like a mother now. He felt her pride in him, and she had grown very dear to him.



XVIII.

"DON'T BLOW OUT THE GAS."

Des Moines appeared to Bradley to be very great and very noisy. It was the largest city he had ever seen. He was born in Eastern Wisconsin on a farm, and his early life had been spent far from any populous centre; very largely, indeed, in the timber-lands. He had been in Lacrosse, that is to say, he changed cars there, and Rock River and Iowa City were the only towns he had ever lived in.

He had the preconception that Des Moines was a fine city, but its streets seemed endless to him that cold, clear night that he got off the train and walked up the sidewalk. He had been told to go right to the Windom House, because there was the legislative headquarters. He walked, carrying his valise in his hand, and looking furtively about him. He knew he ought not to do so, but the life about him and the endless rows of vast buildings fascinated him—drew his attention constantly.

The portico of the hotel awed him with its red sandstone magnificence, and he moved timidly on toward the centre of the rotunda with hesitating and uncertain steps. It seemed to be the realization of his imaginings of Chicago. It subdued him into absolute clownishness; and the porter who rushed toward him and took his valise from his hands, classified him off-hand as another one of those country fellows who must be watched and prevented from blowing out the gas. Bradley signed his name on the book without any flourishes, and without writing the "Honorable" before his name, as most of the other members had done.

"Front!" yelled the clerk, in an imperative voice. Bradley started, and then grew hot over his foolishness. "Show this gentleman to No. 30. Like dinner?" the clerk asked, in a kindly interest. Bradley nodded, suddenly remembering that in fashionable life dinner came at six o'clock. "All ready in about ten minutes," the clerk said, looking at the clock.

Bradley followed the boy to the elevator. He noticed that the darkey did not enter with him, but ran up the stairs. He could see him rushing around the curves, his hands sliding on the railings. He met him at the door of the elevator and motioned to him—"This way, suh." There was something in his tone that puzzled Bradley; and as he walked along the hall, he thought of the soft carpet under his feet (it must have been two inches thick) and of that tone in the boy's voice.

A dull fire of soft coal was burning on the grate, and the boy punched it up, and said, "'Nother gent jes' left. I git some mo' coal."

The room, like all hotel rooms, was a desolate place, notwithstanding its one or two elaborate pieces of furniture, its fine carpet, and its easy chair. It had a distinctly homeless quality. Bradley sat down in the big chair before the fire, and took time to think it all over. He was really here as a legislator for a great State. The responsibility and honor of the position came upon him strongly as he sat there alone in this great hotel looking at the fire. That he, of all the men in his county, should have been selected for this office, was magnificent. He drew a long sigh, and said inwardly:

"I'll be true to my trust." And he meant, in addition, to be so dignified and serious that he would not seem young to the other legislators.

He was reading, from a little frame on the wall, the rules of the house when the boy knocked on the door, and started away toward the fire so that the boy should not suspect what he had been doing. He returned to the reading, however, after the boy had gone out. He read "Don't Blow out the Gas," without feeling it an impertinence, and went over to read the code of signals posted above the bell punch.

RING ONCE FOR BELL BOY. RING TWICE FOR ICE WATER. RING THREE FOR FIRE. RING FOUR FOR CHAMBERMAID.

His mind went off in a pursuit of trivial matters concerning this code. What would happen if he rang three times—which he thought stood for alarm of fire. In imagination he heard the outcries throughout the various floors and rooms of the house. Then his mind went back to the fact that the boy was not allowed to ride in the elevator. He wondered if this touch of southern feeling would ever get any farther north. For the first time in his life he had met the question of caste.

He went down to supper, as he called it himself, in the dining-room, which he found to be a very large and splendid apartment. A waiter in a dress coat (he had never seen a live figure in a dress coat before) met him at the door, and with elaborate authority called another darkey, in a similar dress coat, to show him to a chair.

The second darkey led his way down the polished floor (which Bradley walked with difficulty), his coat tails wagging in a curious fashion, by reason of the action of his bow legs. He was obliged to take the uncomprehending Bradley by the arm, while he shoved the chair under him; but he did it so courteously that no one noticed it. He was accustomed to give this silent instruction in ceremonials. Bradley noticed that, notwithstanding the splendor of his shirt-front, collar and dress-coat, his shoes were badly broken, though highly polished.

A man sat at the opposite side of the table reading a paper over his coffee. He attracted Bradley's attention because he had a scowl on his face, and his hair was tumbled picturesquely about his forehead. Even his brown moustache contrived to have an oddly dishevelled look.

They ate in silence for some time, or rather Bradley did; the other man read and sipped his coffee, and continued to frown and swear under his breath. At length he burst forth in a suppressed exclamation: "Well, I'll be damned." When he looked at Bradley, his eyes were friendly, and he seemed to require some one to talk to.

"These devilish railroads will own the country, body and breeches yet."

"What are they up to now?" said Bradley.

"They've secured Joe Manley as their attorney, one of the best lawyers in the State. It's too cussed bad." He looked sad. "I can't account for it. I suppose he got hard up, and couldn't stand the pressure. I wonder if you know how these infernal corporations capture a State!"

"No, but I'd like to know. I'm down here to fight 'em."

"That so? From where?"

"From Rock County. I'm the representative; Talcott is my name," Bradley said, seizing an excuse to announce himself.

"Is that so! Well, now, I'm an old cock in the pit, and I want to warn you. I've known many a fine, honest fellow to get involved. Now I'll tell you how it's done. Before you have been here a week, some of these railroads will send for you, and tell you they've heard of you as a prominent young lawyer of the State. Oh, they've heard of you, we've all heard of your canvass; and as they are in need of an attorney in your county, they'd like very much to have you take charge, etc., of any legislation that may arise there, and so on. There may not be a week's work during the year, and there may be a great deal, etc., but they will be glad to pay you six hundred dollars or eight hundred dollars, if you will take the position.

"Well, we'll suppose you take it. You go back to Rock, there is very little business for the railroad, but your salary comes in regularly. You say to yourself that, in case any work comes in which is dishonorable, you'll refuse to take hold of it. But that money comes in nicely. You marry on the expectations of its continuance. You get to depending upon it. You live up to it. You don't find anything which they demand of you really dishonest, and you keep on; but really cases of the railroad against the people do come up, and your sense of justice isn't so acute as it used to be. You manage to argue yourself into doing it. If you don't do it, somebody else will, etc., and so you keep on."

After an impressive pause, during which the speaker gazed in his face, he finished: "Suddenly the war of the corporation against the people is on us, and you find you are the paid tool of the corporation, and that the people are distrustful of you, and that you are practically helpless."

The man spoke in a low voice, but somehow his words had the quality of exciting the imagination. Bradley thrilled at the picture of moral disintegration hinted at. The imaginative tragedy was brought very close to him.

"Do they really do that?" he asked.

"That's a part of their plan. The proof of it will be in the offer which they'll make to you in less than ten days. They're always on the lookout for such men, especially men who have the confidence of the farmers. The next war in this State and in the nation is to be a railway war."

"You think so. I think the tariff"—

"What is the tariff, compared to the robbery that makes Gould and Sage and Vanderbilt? I tell you, young man, the corporations in this country are eating the life out of it. This power of three men to get together, steal the privilege from the people, and by their joint action to produce a fourth body (corpus), behind which they hide and push their schemes—an intangible something which outlives them all—that is the power that is undermining this government. It's against the Constitution. Old Chief Justice Marshall in his verdict (which ushered in the reign of corporations, in this country) distinctly said that it was based on usurpation, dating back to the Stuarts or the Georges; and the hint in that was, that it was un-American and un-Constitutional."

Bradley perceived that he was in the presence of another reformer like himself. He wondered if he seemed so cranky to other men. He was interested by the man's evident thought and honesty of purpose and by the sympathy of a city man with a farmer's fight.

"You're with us in our fight against the railroads?"

The man threw one arm back over the top of his chair and looked at Bradley out of his half-closed eyes. "Of course. Only you're so damned narrow. Excuse me. You don't see that you've got to kill every corporation. Every corporation is an infringement of individual rights. When three men go into business as a firm, they should every one be liable for every contract which they make. The creation of an intangible corporate personality is a trick to evade liability. Make war against the whole system," he said, rising. "Don't go fooling about with regulating fares and forming commissions. Declare corporations illegal, and let the people know their practices."

They went down to the rotunda floor together. The electric lights flooded the brilliant marbles with a dazzling light. Groups of men were gathered around spittoons, talking earnestly, gesticulating with fists and elaborate broad-hand, free-arm movements—political gestures, as Bradley recognized.

"These are your colleagues and their parasites," said Bradley's companion, whose name was Cargill. "Know any of 'em?"

"No; I don't know any of the legislators."

Cargill led Bradley up to a group which surrounded a gigantic old man who leaned on a cane and gesticulated with his powerful left hand.

"Senator Wood, let me introduce Hon. Bradley Talcott, of Rock."

"Ah, glad to see you, sir. Glad to see you. Gentlemen, this is the young man who made that gallant fight up in Rock. This is the Hon. Jones of Boone, Mr. Talcott, and this is Sam Wells of Cerro Gordo, one of the most remorseless jokers in the House. Look out for him!"

After shaking hands all about, Bradley hastened to say, "Don't let me interrupt. Go on, senator. I want to listen." This made a fine impression on the senator, who loved dearly to hear the sound of his own voice. He proceeded to enlarge upon his plan for gerrymandering the state—to the advantage of the Democratic party, of course.

In the talk which followed, Bradley was brought face to face with the fact that these men were more earnest in maintaining the hold of their parties upon the offices than principles of legislation. They were not legislators in any instances; they were gamesters.

"Now, let me tell you something more," said Cargill, as he led his way back to a settee near the wall. He drew up a chair for his feet, lighted his cigar, pulled his little soft hat down to the bridge of his nose, put one thumb behind his vest, and began in a peculiarly sardonic tone: "Now, here is where the legislation really takes place—here and at the Iowa House. See those fellows?" He waved his hand in a circle around the rotunda, now filled with stalwart men laughing loudly or talking in confidential, deeply interested groups, with their heads close together. "There are the supposed law-makers of the State. What do you think of them, anyway?"

Bradley was silent. He was so filled with new sensations and ideas that he could not talk.

Cargill mused a little. "I suppose it all appears to you as something very fine and very important. Now, don't make a mistake. The most of these fellows are not even average men. I have a theory that, take it one ten years with another, the legislatures of our country must be necessarily beneath the average, because the man who is a thinker or a moralist necessarily represents a minority. Anyhow, these men support my theory, don't they?"

There was a distinct bitterness in his tone that made his words sink deep. There was a touch of literary grace also in his phrases, quite unlike anything Bradley had ever heard. "You imagine these men honest. You say 'they differ from me' honestly. But I know there is no question of principle in their action. They simply say No. 1 first, party next, and principle last of all. I remember how awe-struck I was during my first term. Now, don't waste any nervous energy on admiring these men or standing in awe of them. Jump right in and take care of yourself. Vote for party, but make arrangements before you vote—no; I forgot. You stand for a real principle, and success may lie for you in standing by it. Yes, on the whole, I believe I would stand by principle; it will bring you out in greater relief from the rest of them, and then the people may begin to think. I doubt it, however."

"You are a pessimist, then," said Bradley, feeling that there was an undercurrent of dark philosophy in Cargill's voice.

"I am. The whole damned thing is a botch, in my opinion. You may find it different," he said, with a mocking gleam in his eyes as he rose and walked away. Bradley did not believe the man meant half he said, and yet his bitterness had thrown a sombre shadow over his heart. The vista ahead was not quite so bright as it had been except where Miss Wilbur seemed to walk. He longed to go out and find her, and tried to content himself with walking up and down the street, which seemed incredibly brilliant with its lighted windows and streams of gay young people coming and going.

At last he came to a corner where he saw the name of her street upon the lamp post, and the hunger to see her was irresistible. He rushed up the street with desperate haste. He wished he had started sooner. It was eight o'clock and there was danger that she might be gone out. The electric cars hardly diverted him as they came floating weirdly down the line—the trolley invisible, the wheels emitting green sheets of light at the crossings.

The street grew more quiet as it climbed the hill, and at last became quite like Rock River, with its rows of small wooden houses on each side of the maple-lined streets, through which the keen wind went hissing. The stars glittered through the clear cold air like crystals of green and gold and white fire. As he walked along, his newly acquired honors fell away from him, together with his war for the grange, and his ambitious plans displayed their warmer side. He began to feel that all he was and was to do must be shared with a woman in order that he could enjoy it himself, and he had known for a long time that Ida was that woman.

His face lifted to the stars as he implored their aid in a vast and dangerous enterprise. It meant all or nothing to him. He was in the mood to risk all his life and plans that night if she had been with him. The strangeness of the city had exalted him to the mood where his timidity was gone.

When he came to the house, he found it all dark save a dim light in the rear, and it made him shiver with a premonition of failure. A servant girl answered his ring. He had the hope that this was the wrong house after all.

"Can you tell me if Miss Wilbur lives here?"

"Yassir, but she nat haar," answered the girl, with the Norwegian accent.

"Where is she?"

"Ay nat know. Ay tank she ees good ways off; her moder she ees gawn to churtz."

Bradley no longer looked at the stars as he walked along the street. All his doubts and fears and his timidity and his reticence came back upon him, and something warm and sweet seemed to go out of the far vista of his life. He felt that he had lost her.



XIX.

CARGILL TAKES BRADLEY IN HAND.

Cargill was not at the table the next morning, but he came in later, and greeted Bradley brusquely, as he flung his rag of a hat on the floor.

"Well, legislator, what is on the tapis this morning? Anything I can do for you?"

"No, I guess not. I am going to look up a new boarding-house."

"What's the matter with this?"

"Too rich for my blood."

"Just repeat that, please."

"Can't stand the expense."

Cargill poured the cream on his oatmeal before he replied: "But, dear sir, nothing is too good for a representative. Young man, you don't seem to know how to farm yourself out."

All day Saturday the Windom rotunda was crowded with men. The speakerships, the house offices, were being contested for here; the real battle was being fought here, and under Cargill's cynical comment the scene assumed great significance to Bradley's uninitiated eyes. They took seats on the balcony which ran around the "bear pit," as he called it. Around them, flitting to and fro, were dozens of bright, rather self-sufficient young women.

"This is one of the most dangerous and demoralizing features of each legislature," he said to Bradley. "These girls come down here from every part of the State to cajole and flatter their way into a State House office. You see them down there buttonholing every man they can get an introduction to, and some of them don't even wait for an introduction. They'd be after you if you were a Republican."

Bradley looked out upon it all with a growing shadow in his eyes. He suddenly saw terrible results of this unwomanly struggle for office. He saw back of it also the need for employment which really forced these girls into such a contest.

"They soon learn," Cargill was saying, "where their strength lies. The pretty ones and the bold ones succeed where the plain and timid ones fail. It has its abuses. Good God, how could it be otherwise! It's a part of our legislative rottenness. Legal labor pays so little, and vice and corruption pay so well. Now see those two girls button-holing that leprous old goat Bergheim! If it don't mean ruin to them both, it will be because they're as knowing as he is. Every year this thing goes on. What the friends and parents of these girls are thinking of, I'll be damned if I know."

Bradley was dumb with the horror of it all. He had such an instinctive reverence for women that this scene produced in him a profound, almost despairing sorrow. He sat there after Cargill left him, and gazed upon it all with stern eyes. There was no more tragical thing to him than the woman who could willingly allure men for pay. It made him shudder to see those bright, pretty girls go down among those men, whose hard, peculiar, savage stare he knew almost as well as a woman.

They did not know that he was a legislator, and he escaped their importunities; but he overheard several of them, as they came up with some member—sometimes a married man—and took seats on the balcony near him.

"But you had no business to promise Miss Jones! How could you when I was living?"

"But I didn't know you then!"

"Well, then, now you've seen me, you can tell Miss Jones your contract don't go," laughed the girl.

"Oh, that wouldn't do, she'd kick."

"Let'er kick. She aint got any people who are constituents. My people are your constituents."

Bradley walked away sick at heart. As he passed a settee near the stairway, he saw another girl with a childish face looking up at a hard-featured young man, and saying with eager, wistful voice, her hands clasped, "Oh, I hope you can help me. I need it so much."

Her sweet face haunted him because of its suggested helplessness and its danger. His heart swelled with an indefinable and bitter rebellion. Everywhere was a scramble for office—everywhere a pouring into the city from the farms and villages. Why was it? Was he not a part of the movement as well as these girls? Did it not all spring from the barrenness and vacuity of rural life?

Bradley went to church, for the reason that he had nothing better to do, and, in order to get as much out of it as possible, went to the largest sanctuary in the city. The hotels were thronged by men who took little thought of the day. The rotunda echoed with roaring laughter and the tramp of feet. Every new member was being introduced and manipulated, but Bradley shrank from declaring himself. His name, B. Talcott, conveyed no information to those who saw it on the register, and so he sat aside from the crowd all day, untouched by the male lobbyist or the girl office seekers.

He went next day, according to promise, to call at Cargill's office, which was on the fifth floor of a large six-story building on the main street. There were two ornamental ground-glass doors opening from the end of a narrow hall. One was marked, "Bergen & Cargill, Commission Merchants, Private," and Bradley entered. A man seated at a low table was operating a telegraphic machine. He was in his shirt sleeves, and wore blue checked over-sleeves, and carried a handkerchief under his chin to keep his collar from getting soiled. He sat near two desks which separated the private room from the larger room, in which were seated several men looking at one side of the wall, which was a blackboard checked off in small squares by red lines. Columns of figures in chalk were there displayed.

Cargill did not seem to be about, and the busy operator did not see the visitor. A brisk young man of Scandinavian type was walking about in the larger office with a piece of chalk in his hand. He came to the desk and looked inquiringly at Bradley, who started to speak, but the sonorous voice of the operator interrupted him.

"Three eighths bid on wheat," he called, and handed a little slip of paper to the brisk young man with the flaxen mustache.

"Wheat, three eighths," he repeated in a resonant tone, and proceeded to put the figures in a small square under the section marked "Wheat" on the blackboard. When he came back, Bradley asked for Cargill.

"He'll be in soon; take a seat."

"Three eighths bid. They still hammer the market, as they sold short," shouted the operator.

Bergen repeated the telegram to the crowd. "Of course they'll do that," said one of the smokers, a young man with an assumption of great wisdom on all matters relating to wheat. He looked prematurely knowing, and spit with a manly air.

As Bradley took a seat at the desk, Bergen was calling into the telephone in a high, sonorous, monotonous voice, "Wheat opened at ninety-three, three quarters; sold as high as ninety-four; is now ninety-three and three eighths. Corn opened at forty-two; is now forty-one and seven eighths. Bradstreet's decrease on both coasts the past week, two and a quarter millions. Cables very strong."

Cargill came in a little later, and greeted Bradley with a nod while crossing the room to look at the blackboard.

"Draw up a chair," he said, and they took a seat at the table, while the business of the office went on. "You'll be interested in knowing something about this business," he said to Bradley. "It's as legitimate as buying or selling real estate on a commission; but so far as the popular impression goes, there is no difference between this and a bucket-shop."

"It's all very new to me," said Bradley. "I don't know the difference between this and the bucket-shop."

"Ninety-three and seven eighths bid on wheat," called Bergen from a slip, as he walked back and chalked the latest intelligence upon the board.

"Well, there is a difference. In this case, we simply buy and sell on commission. These are real purchases and sales. The order for wheat is transmitted to Chicago and registered, and has its effect upon the market; whereas in a bucket-shop the sale does not go out of the office, and, if there is a loss to the customer, the proprietor gains it. In other words, we buy and sell for others, with no personal interest in the sale; the bucket-shop is a pure gambling establishment, where men bet on what other men are going to do. But that ain't what I had you call to talk over. I want you to meet Bergen. Chris, come over here," he called. "I want to introduce the Honorable Talcott of Rock River. He's started in, like yourself, to reform politics.

"The reason why I wanted you to meet Bergen," Cargill went on, "is because he is a sincerer lover of literature than myself, and like yourself, I imagine, believes thoroughly in the classics. He's translating Ibsen for the Square Table Club. His idea of amusement ain't mine, I needn't say."

"New York still hammers away on the market. Partridge quietly buying to cover on the decline."

"Excuse me a moment," said Bergen, returning to business.

Cargill took an easy position. "I don't know why I have sized you up as literary in general effect, but I have. That's one reason why I took to you. It's so damned unusual to find a politician that has a single idea above votes. And then I'm literary myself," he said, his face a mask of impenetrable gravity. "I wrote up the sheep industry of Iowa for the Agricultural Encyclopaedia. That puts me in the front rank of Des Moines literary aspirants.

"Towns like this," he said, going off on a speculative side track, "have a two-per-cent. population who are inordinately literary. They recognize my genius. The other ninety-eight per cent. don't care a continental damn for Shakespeare or anybody else, barring Mary Jane Holmes, of course, and the five-cent story papers. But literary Des Moines is literary. They stand by Shakespeare and Homer, I can tell you, and they recognize genius when they see it. By the way, Bergen," he said, calling his brother-in-law to him again, "we must make this young man acquainted with our one literary girl."

"Wheat is ninety-four bid. New York strong." It was impossible to hold Bergen's attention, however, with a sharp bulge on the market, and Cargill was forced to turn to Bradley again.

"There is a girl in this town who has the literary quality. True, she has recognized my ability, which prejudices me in her favor, of course. In turn I presented her with my report on the sheep industry."

Bradley laughed, but Cargill proceeded as if there were nothing funny in the situation—

"And she read it, actually, and quoted it in one of her great speeches. It made the reporter bug out his eyes. He said he had observed of late quite a vein of poetry running through Miss Wilbur's speeches, which lifted them out of the common rut."

Bradley lost sight of the humor in this speech at the sound of Ida's name, and his face flushed. He had not heard her name spoken by a third person in months, and had never dared to say it out loud himself.

Cargill went on: "She's an infernal heretic and suffragist and all that, but she's a power. Her name is Wilbur—Ida Wilbur. Used to lecture for the Grange or something of that kind. Is still lecturing, I believe, but the Grange has snuffed out."

Six or eight men came into the larger room talking loudly and excitedly about the market, and Cargill's attention was drawn off by the resonant reports of the Chicago market.

"The market shows great elasticity. Western advices contribute to the Bull feeling."

"Do you know Miss Wilbur?" Bradley asked when Cargill came back, being afraid Cargill might forget the topic of conversation.

"Yes, I meet her occasionally. I meet her at the Square Table Club, where we fight on literature. They call it the Square Table Club, because they disagree with the opinions of the most of us real literary people of the town."

Bradley managed to say, in a comparatively firm tone of voice, that he had heard of Miss Wilbur as a Grange lecturer, and that he would like to know more about her.

"Well, I'll introduce you. She aint very easy to understand. She is one of these infernal advanced women. Now, I like thinkers, but what right has a woman to think? To think is our manly prerogative. I'm free to admit that we don't exercise it to much better advantage than we do our prerogative to vote; but then, damn it, how could we stand wives that think?"

Bradley had given up trying to understand when Cargill was joking and when he was in earnest. He knew this was either merciless sarcasm or the most pig-headed bigotry. Anyhow he did not care to say anything for fear of drawing him off into a discussion of an impersonal subject, just when he seemed likely to tell something about Ida's early life.

It was a singular place to receive this information. He sat there with his elbow on the desk, leaning his head on his palm, studying Cargill's face as he talked. Over at the other end of the room, the operator was feeding himself on a pickle with his left hand, and receiving the telegrams from the far-off, roaring, tumultuous wheat exchange, every repeated message being a sort of distant echo of the ocean of cries and the tumult of feet in the city. They were as much alone and talking in private as if they were in Cargill's own room at the hotel. Cargill talked on, unmindful of the telephone, the telegraphic ticking, and the brisk, business-like action of his partner.

"Yes, I have known her ever since she was a girl. Her father was a queer old seed of a farmer, just out of town here, cranky on religion—a Universalist, I believe. Had the largest library of his town; I don't know but the largest private library outside of a city in the State. His house was literally walled with books. How he got 'em I don't know. It was currently believed that he was full of information, but I never heard of any one who was able to get very much out of him. His wife had been a beauty; that was her dowry to her daughter.

"The girl went to school here at sixteen. I was a student then, six or seven years older than she, and I remember there were about six of us who used to stand around the schoolhouse door to carry her books for her; but she just walked past us all without a turn of the head. She didn't seem to know what ailed us. She was one of these girls born all brains, some way. I never saw her face flushed in my life, and her big eyes always made me shiver when she turned them on me."

"Wheat falls to ninety-three and a fourth. There is a break in the market. New York is still hammering," called the operator, his mouth full of pie.

Cargill was distinctly talking to himself, almost as much as to Bradley. The hardness had gone out of his eyes, and his voice had a touch of unconscious sadness in it.

"Does Miss Wilbur live here?" Bradley asked, to start him off again.

"Yes, she went into the Grange when she was eighteen, just after she graduated from our university here. Had a good deal of your enthusiasm, I should judge. Expected to revolutionize things some way. I don't take very much interest in her public work, but I thoroughly appreciate her literary perception." He had got back to his usual humor.

"Chris, when does the club meet next?"

"Friday night, I believe."

"All right. I'll take you up, and introduce you into the charmed circle. They pride themselves on being modern up there, though I don't see much glory in being modern."

Bradley stood for a moment at the door, looking at this strange scene. It appealed to him with its strangeness, and its suggestion of the great battles on the street which he had read of in the papers. The telegraph machine clicked out every important movement in Chicago and New York. The manager called up his customers, and bawled into the telephone the condition of the market and the significant gossip of the far-off exchange halls. It was so strange, and yet so familiar, that he went away with his head full of those cabalistic sentences—

"New York still hammering away. Partridge quietly buying to cover on the decline."



XX.

AT THE STATE HOUSE.

That the invitation to attend the Square Table Club over-shadowed the importance and significance of Bradley's entrance into public life, was an excellent commentary upon his real character. The State House, however, appealed to his imagination very strongly as he walked up its unfinished lawn, amid the heaps of huge limestone blocks, his eyes upon the looming facade of the west front. He walked the echoing rotunda with a timid air; and the beautiful soaring vault was so majestic in his eyes, he wondered if Washington could be finer. There were a few other greenhorns, like himself, looking the building over with the same minute scrutiny. He entered all of the rooms into which it was possible to penetrate, and at last into the library, a cheerful, rectangular room, into which the sun streamed plenteously.

There was hardly any one in either the Senate or the Representative Halls except farmer-like groups of people, sometimes a family group of four or five, including the grandmother or grandfather. They were mainly in rough best suits of gray, or ostentatiously striped cassimere. The young men wore wide hats, pushed back, in some cases, to display a smooth, curling wave of hair, carefully combed down over their foreheads. He was able to catalogue them by reference to his old companions, Ed Blackler, Shep Watson, Sever Anderson, and others.

Soon the crowds thickened, and groups of men entered, talking and laughing loudly. They were wholly at their ease, being plainly old and experienced members. They greeted each other with boisterous cries and powerful handshaking.

"Hello, Stineberg, I hoped you'd git snowed under. Back again, eh?"

"Well, I'll be damned! Aint your county got any more sense than to send such a specimen as you back? Why weren't you around to the caucus?"

Bradley stood around awkwardly alone, not knowing just what to do. Perhaps some of these men would be glad to see him if they knew him, but he could not think of going to introduce himself. Being new in politics, there was not a man there whose face he recognized. The few that he had met at the hotel were not in sight. He felt as if he had been thrust into this jovial company, and was unwelcome.

The House was called to order by one of the members of the capital county, and prayer was offered. He sat quietly in his seat as things went on. The session adjourned after electing temporary speaker, clerk, etc. Bradley felt so alien to it all that he scarcely took the trouble to vote; and when the committee on credentials was appointed, he felt nervously in his pocket to see that his papers were safe. He felt very much as he used to when, as a boy, he went to have his hair cut, and sat in torture during the whole operation, in the fear that his quarter (all he had with him) might be lost, and trembling to think what would happen in such a case.

That night he moved to a new boarding-place. He secured a room near the Capitol, and went to supper in a small private house near by, which had a most astonishing amplitude of dining-room. He felt quite at home there, for the food was put on the table in the good old way, and passed around from hand to hand. The mashed potato tasted better, piled high, with a lump of butter in the top of it; and the slices of roast beef, outspread on the platter, enabled him to get the crisp outside, if it happened to start from his end of the table. There were judges and generals and senators and legislators of various ranks all about him. Crude, rough, wholesome fellows, most of them, with big, brawny hands like his own, and loud, hearty voices. It was impossible to stand in awe of a judge who handled his knife more deftly than his fork, and spooned the potato out of the big, earthen-ware dish with a resounding slap. He began to see that these men were exactly like the people he had been with all his life. He argued, however, that they were perhaps the poorer and the more honorable part of the legislature.

He wrote a note to Judge Brown, telling him that he was settled, but was taking very little part in the organizing of the House. He did not say that he was disappointed in his reception, but he was; his vanity had been hurt. His canvass had attracted considerable attention from the Democratic press of the country, and he expected to be received with great favor by them. He had come out of Republicanism for their sake, and they ought to recognize him. He did not consider that no one knew him by sight, and that recognition was impossible.

He was at the Capitol again early the next morning, and found the same scene being re-enacted. Straggling groups of roughly-dressed farmers loitered timidly along the corridors, brisk clerks dashed to and fro, and streams of men poured in and out the doors of the legislative halls. Bradley entered unobserved, and took a seat at the rear of the hall on a sofa. He did not feel safe in taking a seat.

It was a solemn moment to the new legislator as he stood before the clerk, and, with lifted hand, listened to the oath of office read in the clerk's sounding voice. He swore solemnly, with the help of God, to support the Constitution, and serve his people to the best of his ability; and he meant it. It did not occur to him that this oath was a shuffling and indefinite obligation. The room seemed to grow a little dimmer as he stood there; the lofty ceiling, rich in its colors, grand and spacious to him, seemed to gather new majesty, just as his office as lawmaker gathered a vast and sacred significance.

But as he came back to his seat, he heard a couple of old members laugh. "Comin' down to save their country. They'll learn to save their bacon before their term is up. That young feller looks like one of those retrenchment and reform cusses, one of the fellers who never want to adjourn—down here for business, ye know."

Their laughter made Bradley turn hot with indignation.

The selection of seats was the next great feature. The names of all the members were written upon slips of paper and shaken together in a box, while the members stood laughing and talking in the back part of the house. A blind-folded messenger boy selected the slips; and as the clerk read, in a sounding voice, the name on each slip, the representative so called went forward and selected his seat.

Bradley's name was called about the tenth, and he went forward timidly, and took a seat directly in the centre of the House. He did not care to seem anxious for a front seat. The Democratic members looked at him closely, and he stepped out of his obscurity as he went forward.

A young man of about his own age, a stalwart fellow, reached about and shook hands. "My name is Nelson Floyd. I wanted to see you."

Floyd took the first opportunity to introduce him to two or three of the Democratic members, but he sat quietly in his seat during the whole session, and took very little interest in the speakership contest, which seemed to go off very smoothly. He believed the speaker implicitly, when he stated the usual lie about having no pledges to redeem, and that he was free to choose his committee with regard only to superior fitness, etc., and was shocked when Floyd told him that a written contract had been drawn up and signed, before the legislature met, wherein the principal clerkships had been disposed of to party advantage. It was his second introduction to the hypocrisy of officialism.

If he had been neglected before, he was not now; all sorts of people came about him with axes to grind.

"Is this Mr. Talcott? Ah, yes! I have heard of your splendid canvass—splendid canvass! Now—ahem!—I'd like you to speak a good word for my girl, for the assistant clerkship of the Ways and Means"; while another wanted his son, Mr. John Smith, for page.

He told them that he had nothing to say about those things. "I am counted with the Democrats, anyhow; I haven't any influence."

They patted him on the shoulder, and winked slyly. "Oh, we know all about that! But every word helps, you know."

Going out at the close of the session, he met Cargill.

"Well, legislator, how goes it?"

"Oh, I don't know; smoothly, I guess. I've kept pretty quiet."

"That's right. The Republicans have everything in their hands this session."

"Hello, Cargill!" called a smooth, jovial voice.

"Ah, Barney! Talcott, this is an excellent opportunity. This is Barney, the great railway lobbyist. Barney, here is a new victim for you—Talcott, of Rock."

"Glad to see you, Mr. Talcott."

Bradley shook hands with moderate enthusiasm, looking into Barney's face with great interest. The lobbyist was large and portly and smiling. His moustache drooped over his mouth, and his chin had a jolly-looking hollow in it. His hazel eyes, once frank and honest, were a little clouded with drink.

"Cargill is an infernal old cynic," he exclaimed, "and he is corporation mad. Don't size us up according to his estimate."

It did not seem possible that this man could be the great tool of the railway interest, and yet that was his reputation.

Cargill moralized on the members, as they walked on: "Barney's on his rounds getting hold of the new members. He scents a corruptible man as the buzzard does carrion. Every session young fellows like you come down here with high and beautiful ideas of office, and start in to reform everything, and end by becoming meat for Barney and his like. There is something destructive in the atmosphere of politics."

Bradley listened to Cargill incredulously. These things could not be true. These groups of jovial, candid-looking men could not be the moral wrecks they were represented. He had expected to see men who looked villainous in some way, with bloated faces—disreputable, beery fellows. He had not risen to the understanding that the successful villain is always plausible.

When he left the Capitol and went down the steps with Cargill, he felt that he had fairly entered upon the work of his term.

"Now, young man," said Cargill, as they parted, "let me advise you. The fight of this session is going to be the people against the corporations. There are two positions and only two. You take your choice. If you side with the corporation, your success will be instantaneous. You can rig out, and board at the Richwood, and be dined out, and taken to see the town Saturday nights, and retire with a nice little boost and a record to apologize for when you go back to Rock River; that is, you can go in for all that there is in it, or you can take your chances with the people."

"I will take the chances with the people."

"Well, now, hold on! Don't deceive yourself. The people are a mob yet. They are fickle as the flames o' hell. They don't know what they do want, but in the end the man that leads them and stands by them is sure of success."

The daily walk down from the Capitol was very beautiful. As the sun sank low it struck through the smoke of the city, and flooded the rotunda of the building with a warm, red light, which lay along the floor in great streams of gold, and warmed each pillar till it glowed like burnished copper. At such moments the muddy streets, the poor hovels, the ugly bricks, lost to sight beneath the majesty and mystery of the sun-transfigured smoke and the purple deeps of the lower levels (out of which the searching, pitiless light had gone), became a sombre and engulfing flood of luminous darkness.

"Here, here!" Cargill said one day, when Bradley called his attention to the view, "a man can swear and get drunk and be a politician; but when he likes flowers or speaks of a sunset, his goose is cooked. It is political death."



XXI.

BRADLEY AND CARGILL CALL ON IDA.

Bradley had come to like Cargill very much. He was very thoughtful in his haphazard way, but not at all like Radbourn. Bradley compared every man he met with Radbourn and Judge Brown, and every woman suffered comparison with Ida Wilbur.

He went down to meet Cargill on the night of the promised call. He found him seated on the small of his back, his hands in his pockets. His absurd little hat (that seemed to partake of his every mood) was rolled into a point in front, and pulled down aggressively over his eyes. He was particularly violent, and paid no attention whatever to Bradley.

"No, sir; I am not a prohibitionist. My position is just this: If we vote prohibition in Iowa, the government has no business to license men to sell contrary to our regulations."

"That's state's rights!" burst in the other man who was trembling with rage and excitement.

Cargill slowly rose, transfixing him with a glare. "Go way, now; I won't waste any more time on you," he said, walking off with Bradley. "Let me see, we were going to the club to-night." He looked down at his boots. "Yes, they are shined; that puts a dress suit on me." As he walked along, he referred to Miss Wilbur. "She is a great woman, but she is abnormal from my point of view."

"Why so?" inquired Bradley.

"Well, look at the life she leads. On the road constantly, living at hotels. A woman can't hold herself up against such things."

"It depends upon the woman," was Bradley's succinct protest against sweeping generalizations.

It was crisp and clear, and the sound of their feet rang out in the still air as if they trod on glass at every step. They talked very little. Bradley wanted to tell Cargill that he had already met Miss Wilbur, but he could not see his way clear to make the explanation. Cargill was unwontedly silent.

The Norwegian girl ushered them into a pretty little parlor, where a beautiful fire of coal was burning in an open grate. While they stood warming their stiffened hands at the cheerful blaze, Ida entered.

"Mr. Cargill, this is an unexpected pleasure."

"I wonder how sincere you are in that. This is my friend Mr. Talcott."

Ida moved toward Bradley with her hand cordially extended. "I think we have met before," she said.

"I call him my friend," said Cargill, "because he has not known me long enough to become my enemy."

"That is very good, Mr. Cargill. Sit down, won't you? Please give me your coats." She moved about in that pleasant bustle of reception so natural to women.

Cargill slid down into a chair in his disjointed fashion. "We came to attend the intellectual sit-down."

"Why, that doesn't meet to-night! It meets every other Friday, and this is the other Friday."

"Oh, is it? So much the better; we will see you alone."

Ida turned gravely to Bradley. "Mr. Cargill is not often in this mood. I generally draw him off into a fight on Mr. Howell's, Thackeray or Scott."

"She prefers me in armor," Cargill explained, "and on horseback. My intellectual bowleggedness, so to say, and my moral squint are less obtrusive at an altitude."

Ida laughed appreciatively. "Your extraordinary choice of figures would distinguish you among the symbolists of Paris," she replied.

This all seemed very brilliant and droll to Bradley, and he sat with unwavering eyes fixed upon Ida, who appeared to him in a new light, more softly alluring than ever—that of the hostess. She was dressed in some loose, rich-colored robe, which had the effect of drapery.

"When did you get back?" Cargill inquired, a little more humanly.

"Yesterday, and I am just in the midst of the luxury of feeling at home, with no journeys to make to-morrow. I have a friend I would like to introduce to you," she said, rising and going out. She returned in a few moments with a tall young lady in street dress, whom she introduced as Miss Cassiday.

In a short time Cargill had involved Miss Cassiday in a discussion of the decline of literature, which left Ida free to talk with Bradley. It was the most beautiful evening in his life. He talked as never before. He told her of his reading, and of his plans. He told her of his election to the legislature.

"Ah, that is good!" she said; "then we have one more champion of women in our State House."

"Yes, I will do what I can," he said.

"I will be here to hear you. I am one of the committee in charge of the bill."

The firelight fell upon her face, flushing its pallor into a beauty that exalted the young farmer out of his fear and reticence. They talked upon high things. He told her how he had studied the social question, since hearing her speak in Iowa City. He called to her mind great passages in the books she had sent him, and quoted paragraphs which touched upon the fundamental questions at issue. He spoke of his hopes of advancement.

"I want to succeed," he said, "in order that I may teach the new doctrine of rights. I want to carry into the party I have joined the real democracy. I believe a new era has come in our party."

"I am afraid not," she said, looking at the fire. "I begin to believe that we must wait till a new party rises out of the needs of people, just as the old Free-soil Party rose to free the slaves. Don't deceive yourself about your party in this State. It is after the offices, just the same as the party you have left. They juggle with the tariffs and the license question, because it helps them. They will drop any question and any man when they think they are going to lose by retaining him. They will drop you if you get too radical. I warn you!" she said, looking up at him and smiling with a touch of bitterness in her smile; "I am dangerous. My counsel does not keep men in office. I belong to the minority. I am very dangerous."

"I'm not afraid," he said, thrilling with the intensity of his own voice. "I will trust human reason. I'm not afraid of you—I mean you can't harm me by giving me new thoughts, and that's what you've done ever since that day I heard you first at the picnic. You've helped me to get where I am."

"I have?" she asked, in surprise. His eyes fell before hers. "It will be strange if I have helped any one to political success."

Bradley was silent. How could he tell her what she had become to him? How could he tell her that she was woven into the innermost mesh of his intellectual fibre.

"You've taught me to think," he said, at last. "You gave me my first ambition to do something."

"I am very glad," she replied, simply. "Sometimes I get discouraged. I speak and people applaud, and I go away, and that seems to be all there is to it. I never hear a word afterwards; but once in a while, some one comes to me or writes to me, as you have done, and that gives me courage to go on; otherwise I'd think people came to hear me simply to be amused."

She was looking straight into the fire; and the light, streaming up along her dress, transfigured her into something alien and unapproachable. The easy flex of her untrammelled waist was magnificent. She had the effect of a statue, draped and flooded with color.

Cargill's penetrating voice cut through that sacred pause like the rasp of a saw file. He had been listening to his companion till he was full of rebellion. He was a bad listener.

"But what is success? Why, my dear young woman"—

"Don't patronize us, please," Ida interposed. "I speak for poor Miss Cassiday, because she's too timid to rebel. Nothing angers me more than that tone. Call us comrades or friends, but don't say 'My dear young woman!'" She was smiling, but she was more than half in sober earnest.

Cargill bowed low, and proceeded with scowling brow and eyes half-closed and fixed obliquely upon Ida. "Dear comrades in life-battle, what is success? You remember the two lords in Lilliput who could leap the pack thread half its width higher?"

"Don't drag Swift into our discussion," Ida cried. "Mr. Cargill's a sort of American Swift," turning to Bradley. "Don't let him spoil your splendid optimism. There is a kind of pessimism which is really optimism; that is to say, people who believe the imperfect and unjust can be improved upon. They are called pessimists because they dare to tell the truth about the present; but the pessimism of Mr. Cargill, I'm afraid, is the pessimism of personal failure."

There was a terrible truth in this, and it drove straight into Cargill's heart. Bradley was pleased to see Ida dominate a man who was accustomed to master every one who came into his presence. There was a look on her face which meant battle. She did not change her attitude of graceful repose, but her face grew stern and accusing. Cargill looked at her, wearing the same inscrutable expression of scowling attention; but a slow flush, rising to his face, showed that he had been struck hard.

There was a moment's pause full of intense interest to Bradley. The combatants were dealing with each other oblivious of every one else.

"I admire you, friend Cargill," Ida went on, "but your attitude is not right. Your influence upon young people is not good. You are always crying out against things, but you never try to help. What are you doing to help things?"

"Crying out against them," he replied, curtly.

Ida dropped her glance. "Yes, that's so; I'll admit that it has that effect, or it would if you didn't talk of the hopelessness of trying to do anything. Don't feel alarmed," she said, turning to the others, "Mr. Cargill and I understand each other very well. We've known each other so long that we can afford to talk plain."

"This is the first time she ever let into me so directly," Cargill explained. "Understand we generally fight on literature, or music, or the woman question. This really is the first encounter on my personal influence. I'm going home to stanch my wounds." He rose, with a return to his usual manner.

Ida made no effort to detain them. "Come and see me again, Mr. Talcott, and don't let Mr. Cargill spoil you."

After leaving the house, the two men walked on a block in silence, facing the wind, their overcoats drawn up about their ears.

"There's a woman I like," Cargill said, when they turned a corner and were shielded from the bitter wind. "She can forget her sex occasionally and become an intellect. Most women are morbid on their sex. They can't seem to escape it, as a man does part of the time. They can't rise, as this woman does, into the sexless region of affairs and of thought."

Bradley lacked the courage to ask him to speak lower, and he went on. "She's had suitors enough and flattery enough to turn her into a simpering fashion-plate; but you can not spoil brains. What the women want is not votes; it's brains, and less morbid emotions."

"She's a free woman?" said Bradley.

"Free! Yes, they'd all be free if they had her brains."

"I don't know about that; conditions might still"—

"They'd make their own conditions."

"That's true. It all comes back to a question of human thinking, doesn't it?"

This seemed a good point to leave off the discussion, and they walked on mainly in silence, though two or three times during the walk Cargill broke out in admiration. "I never saw a woman grow as that woman has. That's the kind of a woman a man would never get tired of. I've never married," he went on, with a sort of confession, "because I knew perfectly well I'd get sick of my choice, but"—

He did not finish—it was hardly necessary; perhaps he felt he had gone too far. They said good-night at the door of the Windom, and Bradley went on up the avenue, his brain whirling with his new ideas and emotions.

Ida had rushed away again into the far distance. It was utter foolishness to think she could care for him. She was surrounded with brilliant and wealthy men, while he was a poor young lawyer in a little country town. He looked back upon the picture of himself sitting by her side, there in the light of the fire, with deepening bewilderment. He remembered the strange look upon her face as she rebuked Cargill. He wondered if she did not care for him.



XXII.

THE JUDGE PLANS A NEW CAMPAIGN.

The first three or four weeks of legislative life sickened and depressed Bradley. He learned in that time, not only to despise, but to loath some of the legislators. The stench of corruption got into his nostrils, and jovial vice passed before his eyes. The duplicity, the monumental hypocrisy, of some of the leaders of legislation made him despair of humankind and to doubt the stability of the republic.

He was naturally a pure-minded, simple-hearted man, and when one of the leaders of the moral party of his State was dragged out of a low resort, drunk and disorderly, in company with a leader of the Senate, his heart failed him. He was ready to resign and go home.