The Gentleman From Indiana

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When the gentlemen from out of town discovered that it was time to leave
if they meant to catch their train, Helen called to them to wait, and they
gathered about her.

"Just one second," she said, and she poured all the glasses full to the
brim; then, standing in the centre of the circle they made around her, she
said:

"Before you go, shan't we pledge each other to our success in this good,
home-grown Indiana cider, that leaves our heads clear and our arms strong?
If you will--then--" She began to blush furiously and her voice trembled,
but she lifted the glass high over her head and cried bravely, "Here's to
'Our Candidate'!"

The big men, towering over her, threw back their heads and quaffed the
gentle liquor to the last drop. Then they sent up the first shout of the
campaign, and cheered John Harkless till the rafters rang.

"My friends," said Mr. Keating, as he and Boswell and the men from Gaines
drove away in Judd Bennett's omnibus, "my friends, here is where I begin
the warmest hustling I ever did. I want Harkless, everybody wants him----"

"It is a glorious idea," said Mr. Bence. "The name of Harkless----"

Keating drowned the oratory. "But that isn't all. That little girl wants
him to go to Congress, and that settles it. He goes."

That evening Minnie and her father were strolling up and down the front
walk together, between the flowered borders.

"Do you give up?" asked the judge.

"Give up what? No!" returned his daughter.

"She hasn't told you?"

"Not yet; she and Mr. Fisbee left for the office right after those men
went."

"Haven't you discovered what the 'something about politics' she's doing
for him is? Did you understand what she meant by 'Our Candidate'?"

"Not exactly."

"Did you see her blush when she proposed that toast?"

"Yes. So would anybody--with all those men, and their eyes hanging out on
their cheeks!"

"Pooh! She got up the whole show. Do you know why?"

"I only know it's politics."

"Politics!" He glanced over his shoulder, and then, leaning toward her, he
said, in a low tone: "I'll tell you in confidence, Minnie; she's sending
him to Congress!"

"Ah!" she cried triumphantly. "If she loved him she wouldn't do _that_,
would she?"

"Minnie!" Briscoe turned upon her sternly. "I don't want to hear any more
talk like that. It's the way with some papers to jibe at our great
institutions, and you've been reading them; that's the trouble with you.
The only criticism any one has any business making against Congress is
that it's too good for some of the men we send there. Congress is our
great virtue, understand; the congressmen are our fault."

"I didn't mean anything like that," protested the girl. "I haven't been
reading any papers except the 'Herald.' I meant why should she send him
away if she cared about him?"

"She'll go with him."

"They couldn't both go. What would become of the 'Herald'?"

"They'd fix that easy enough; there are plenty of smart young fellows in
Rouen they could get to run it while they are in Washington."

"Mr. Harkless is sure to be elected, is he?"

"He is, if he's nominated."

"Can't he get the nomination?"

"Get it! Nobody ever happened to think of him for it till it came into
_her_ head; and the only thing I look to see standing in the way of it is
Harkless himself; but I expect we can leave it to her to manage, and I
guess she will. She's got more diplomacy than Blaine. Kedge Halloway is up
the spout all right, but they want to keep it quiet; that's why she had
them come here instead of the office."

"She wouldn't marry him a minute sooner because he went to Congress," said
Minnie thoughtfully.

"You're giving up," he exclaimed. "You know I'm right."

"Wait and see. It might--No, you're wrong as wrong can be! I wish you
weren't. Don't you see? You're blind. She _couldn't_ do all these things
for him if she loved him. That's the very proof itself. I suppose you--
well, you can't understand."

"I'll tell you one thing," he returned. "If she doesn't, the rest of it
won't amount to a rip with John Harkless."

"Yes, it will. Nobody could help liking to find himself as big a man as
he'll be when he comes back here. Besides, don't you see, it's her way of
making it up to him for not liking him as much as he wants. _You_ give up,
don't you?"

"No," he cried, with feeble violence, "I don't. She'll find out some
things about herself when she sees him again."

Minnie shook her head.

There was a sound of wheels; the buckboard drew up at the gate, and Helen,
returning from her evening's labor, jumped out lightly, and ran around to
pat the horses' heads. "Thank you so much, Mr. Willetts," she said to the
driver. "I know you will handle the two delegates you are to look after as
well as you do the judge's team; and you ought to, you know, because the
delegates are men. You dears!" She stroked the sleek necks of the colts
and handed them bunches of grass.

Briscoe came out, and let the friendly animals nose his shoulder as he
looked gravely down on the piquant face beside him in the dusk. "Young
lady," he said, "go East. Wait till we get on to Washington, and sit in
the gallery, and see John Harkless rise up in his place, and hear the
Speaker say: 'The Gentleman from Indiana!' I know the chills would go up
and down my spine, and I guess you'd feel pretty well paid for your day's
work. I guess we all would."

"Aren't you tired, Helen?" asked Minnie, coming to her in the darkness and
clasping her waist.

"Tired? No; I'm happy. Did you ever see the stars so bright?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TREACHERY OF H. FISBEE

An Indiana town may lie asleep a long time, but there always comes a day
when it wakes up; and Plattville had wakened in August when the "Herald"
became a daily and Eph Watts struck oil. It was then that history began to
be made. The "Herald" printed News, and the paper was sold every morning
at stands in all the towns in that section of the State. Its circulation
tripled. Parker talked of new presses; two men were added to his staff,
and a reporter was brought from Rouen to join Mr. Fisbee. The "Herald"
boomed the oil-field; people swarmed into town; the hotel was crowded;
strangers became no sensation whatever. A capitalist bought the whole
north side of the Square to erect new stores, and the Carlow Bank began
the construction of a new bank building of Bedford stone on Main Street.
Then it was whispered, next affirmed, that the "Herald" had succeeded in
another of its enterprises, and Main Street was to be asphalted. That was
the end of the "old days" of Plattville.

There was a man who had laid the foundation upon which the new Plattville
was to be built; he who, through the quiet labor of years, had stamped his
spirit upon the people, as their own was stamped upon him; but he lay sick
in his friend's house and did not care. One day Meredith found him propped
up in bed, reading a letter--reading it listlessly, and with a dull eye.

"PLATTVILLE, _September 1st_.

"_Dear Mr. Harkless_: Yours of the 30th received. Every one here is very
glad to know that your health is so far improved as to admit of your
writing; and it is our strongest hope that you will soon be completely
recovered.

"New subscriptions are coming in at a slightly advanced rate since my last
letter; you will see they are distributed over several counties, when you
examine the books on your return; and I am glad to state that with our
arrangement for Gainesville the 'Herald' is now selling every morning at a
prominent store in all the towns within the radius we determined on. Our
plan of offering the daily with no advance on the price of the former
tri-weekly issue proves a success. I now propose making the issue a quarto
every day (at the same price) instead of once a week. I think our
experience warrants the experiment. It is my belief that our present
circulation will be increased forty per cent. Please advise me if you
approve. Of course this would mean a further increase of our working
force, and we should have to bring another man from Rouen--possibly two
more--but I think we need not fear such enlargements.

"I should tell you that I have taken you at your word entrusting me with
the entire charge of your interests here, and I had the store-room
adjoining the office put in shape, and offered it to the telegraph company
for half the rent they were paying in their former quarters over the
post-office. They have moved in; and this, in addition to giving us our
despatches direct, is a reduction of expense.

"Mr. Watts informs me that the Standard's offer is liberal and the terms
are settled. The boom is not hollow, it is simply an awakening; and the
town, so long a dependent upon the impetus of agriculture or its trade, is
developing a prosperity of its own on other lines as well. Strangers come
every day; oil has lubricated every commercial joint. Contracts have been
let for three new brick business buildings to be erected on the east side
of the Square. The value of your Main Street frontage will have doubled by
December, and possibly you may see fit to tear away the present building
and put up another, instead; the investment might be profitable. The
'Herald' could find room on the second and third floors, and the first
could be let to stores.

"I regret that you find your copy of the paper for the 29th overlooked in
the mail and that your messenger could find none for you at the newspaper
offices in Rouen. Mr. Schofield was given directions in regard to
supplying you with the missing issue at once.

"I fear that you may have had difficulty in deciphering some of my former
missives, as I was unfamiliar with the typewriter when I took charge of
the 'Herald'; however, I trust that you find my later letters more
legible.

"The McCune people are not worrying us; we are sure to defeat them. The
papers you speak of were found by Mr. Parker in your trunk, and are now in
my hands.

"I send with this a packet of communications and press clippings
indicative of the success of the daily, and in regard to other
innovations. The letters from women commendatory of our 'Woman's Page,'
thanking us for various house-keeping receipts, etc., strike me as
peculiarly interesting, as I admit that a 'Woman's Page' is always a
difficult matter for a man to handle without absurdity.

"Please do not think I mean to plume myself upon our various successes; we
attempted our innovations and enlargements at just the right time--a time
which you had ripened by years of work and waiting, and at the moment when
you had built up the reputation of the 'Herald' to its highest point.
Everything that has been done is successful only because you paved the
way, and because every one knows it is your paper; and the people believe
that whatever your paper does is interesting and right.

"Trusting that your recovery will be rapid, I am

"Yours truly,

"H. FISBEE."

Harkless dropped the typewritten sheets with a sigh.

"I suppose I ought to get well," he said wearily.

"Yes," said Meredith, "I think you ought; but you're chock full of malaria
and fever and all kinds of meanness, and----"

"You 'tend to your own troubles," returned the other, with an imitation of
liveliness. "I--I don't think it interests me much," he said querulously.
He was often querulous of late, and it frightened Tom. "I'm just tired. I
am strong enough--that is, I think I am till I try to move around, and
then I'm like a log, and a lethargy gets me--that's it; I don't think it's
malaria; it's lethargy."

"Lethargy comes from malaria."

"It's the other way with me. I'd be all right if I only could get over
this--this tiredness. Let me have that pencil and pad, will you, please,
Tom?"

He set the pad on his knee, and began to write languidly:

"ROUEN, _September 2d_.

"_Dear Mr. Fisbee_: Yours of the 1st to hand. I entirely approve all
arrangements you have made. I think you understand that I wish you to
regard _everything_ as in your own hands. You are the editor of the
'Herald' and have the sole responsibility for everything, including
policy, until, after proper warning, I relieve you in person. But until
that time comes, you must look upon me as a mere spectator. I do not fear
that you will make any mistakes; you have done very much better in all
matters than I could have done myself. At present I have only one
suggestion: I observe that your editorials concerning Halloway's
renomination are something lukewarm.

"It is very important that he be renominated, not altogether on account of
assuring his return to Washington (for he is no Madison, I fear), but the
fellow McCune must be so beaten that his defeat will be remembered for
twenty years. Halloway is honest and clean, at least, while McCune is
corrupt to the bone. He has been bought and sold, and I am glad the proofs
of it are in your hands, as you tell me Parker found them, as directed, in
my trunk, and gave them to you.

"The papers you hold drove him out of politics once, by the mere threat of
publication; you should have printed them last week, as I suggested. Do so
at once; the time is short. You have been too gentle; it has the air of
fearing to offend, and of catering, as if we were afraid of antagonizing
people against us; as though we had a personal stake in the convention.
Possibly you consider our subscription books as such; I do not. But if
they are, go ahead twice as hard. What if it does give the enemy a weapon
in case McCune is nominated; if he is (and I begin to see a danger of it)
we will be with the enemy. I do not carry my partisanship so far as to
help elect Mr. McCune to Congress. You have been as non-committal in your
editorials as if this were a fit time for delicacy and the cheaper
conception of party policy. My notion of party policy--no new one--is that
the party which considers the public service before it considers itself
will thrive best in the long run. The 'Herald' is a little paper (not so
little nowadays, after all, thanks to you), but it is an honest one, and
it isn't afraid of Rod McCune and his friends. He is to be beaten,
understand, if we have to send him to the penitentiary on an old issue to
do it. And if the people wish to believe us cruel or vengeful, let them.
Please let me see as hearty a word as you can say for Halloway, also. You
can write with ginger; please show some in this matter.

"My condition is improved.

"I am, very truly yours,

"JOHN HARKLESS."

When the letter was concluded, he handed it to Meredith. "Please address
that, put a 'special' on it, and send it, Tom. It should go at once, so as
to reach him by to-night."

"H. Fisbee?"

"Yes; H. Fisbee."

"I believe it does you good to write, boy," said the other, as he bent
over him. "You look more chirrupy than you have for several days."

"It's that beast, McCune; young Fisbee is rather queer about it, and I
felt stirred up as I went along." But even before the sentence was
finished the favor of age and utter weariness returned, and the dark lids
closed over his eyes. They opened again, slowly, and he took the others
hand and looked up at him mournfully, but as it were his soul shone forth
in dumb and eloquent thanks.

"I--I'm giving you a jolly summer, Tom," he said, with a quivering effort
to smile. "Don't you think I am? I don't--I don't know what I should have
--done----"

"You old Indian!" said Meredith, tenderly.

Three days later, Tom was rejoiced by symptoms of invigoration in his
patient. A telegram came for Harkless, and Meredith, bringing it into the
sick room, was surprised to find the occupant sitting straight up on his
couch without the prop of pillows. He was reading the day's copy of the
"Herald," and his face was flushed and his brow stern.

"What's the matter, boy?"

"Mismanagement, I hope," said the other, in a strong voice. "Worse,
perhaps. It's this young Fisbee. I can't think what's come over the
fellow. I thought he was a rescuing angel, and he's turning out bad. I'll
swear it looks like they'd been--well, I won't say that yet. But he hasn't
printed that McCune business I told you of, and he's had two days. There
is less than a week before the convention, and--" He broke off, seeing the
yellow envelope in Meredith's hand. "Is that a telegram for me?" His
companion gave it to him. He tore it open and read the contents. They were
brief and unhappy.

"Can't you do something? Can't you come down? It begins to look the other
way. "K. H."

"It's from Halloway," said John. "I have got to go. What did that doctor
say?"

"He said two weeks at the earliest, or you'll run into typhoid and
complications from your hurts, and even pleasanter things than that. I've
got you here, and here you stay; so lie back and get easy, boy."

"Then give me that pad and pencil." He rapidly dashed off a note to H.
Fisbee:

"_September 5th_.

"H. FISBEE,

"Editor 'Carlow Herald.'

"_Dear Sir_: You have not acknowledged my letter of the 2d September by
a note (which should have reached me the following morning), or by the
alteration in the tenor of my columns which I requested, or by the
publication of the McCune papers which I directed. In this I hold you
grossly at fault. If you have a conscientious reason for refusing to carry
out my request it should have been communicated to me at once, as should
the fact--if such be the case--that you are a personal (or impersonal, if
you like) friend of Mr. Rodney McCune. Whatever the motive, ulterior or
otherwise, which prevents you from operating my paper as I direct, I
should have been informed of it. This is a matter vital to the interests
of our community, and you have hitherto shown yourself too alert in
accepting my slightest suggestion for me to construe this failure as
negligence. Negligence I might esteem as at least honest and frank; your
course has been neither the one nor the other.

"You will receive this letter by seven this evening by special delivery.
You will print the facts concerning McCune in to-morrow morning's paper.

"I am well aware of the obligations under which your extreme efficiency
and your thoughtfulness in many matters have placed me. It is to you I owe
my unearned profits from the transaction in oil, and it is to you I owe
the 'Herald's' extraordinary present circulation, growth of power and
influence. That power is still under my direction, and is an added
responsibility which shall not be misapplied.

"You must forgive me if I write too sharply. You see I have failed to
understand your silence; and if I wrong you I heartily ask your pardon in
advance of your explanation. Is it that you are sorry for McCune? It would
be a weak pity that could keep you to silence. I warned him long ago that
the papers you hold would be published if he ever tried to return to
political life, and he is deliberately counting on my physical weakness
and absence. Let him rely upon it; I am not so weak as he thinks.
Personally, I cannot say that I dislike Mr. McCune. I have found him a
very entertaining fellow; it is said he is the best of husbands, and a
friend to some of his friends, and, believe me, I am sorry for him from
the bottom of my heart. But the 'Herald' is not.

"You need not reply by letter. To-morrow's issue answers for you. Until I
have received a copy, I withhold my judgment.

"JOHN HARKLESS."

The morrow's issue--that fateful print on which depended John Harkless's
opinion of H. Fisbee's integrity--contained an editorial addressed to the
delegates of the convention, warning them to act for the vital interest of
the community, and declaring that the opportunity to be given them in the
present convention was a rare one, a singular piece of good fortune
indeed; they were to have the chance to vote for a man who had won the
love and respect of every person in the district--one who had suffered for
his championship of righteousness--one whom even his few political enemies
confessed they held in personal affection and esteem--one who had been the
inspiration of a new era--one whose life had been helpfulness, whose hand
had reached out to every struggler and unfortunate--a man who had met and
faced danger for the sake of others--one who lived under a threat for
years, and who had been almost overborne in the fulfilment of that threat,
but who would live to see the sun shine on his triumph, the tribute the
convention would bring him as a gift from a community that loved him. His
name needed not to be told; it was on every lip that morning, and in every
heart.

Tom was eagerly watching his companion as he read. Harkless fell back on
the pillows with a drawn face, and for a moment he laid his thin hand over
his eyes in a gesture of intense pain.

"What is it?" Meredith said quickly.

"Give me the pad, please."

"What is it, boy?"

The other's teeth snapped together.

"What is it?" he cried. "What is it? It's treachery, and the worst I ever
knew. Not a word of the accusation I demanded--lying _praises_ instead!
Read that editorial--there, _there_!" He struck the page with the back of
his hand, and threw the paper to Meredith. "Read that miserable lie! 'One
who has won the love and respect of every person in the district!'--'One
who has suffered for his championship of righteousness!' _Righteousness!_
Save the mark!"

"What does it mean?"

"Mean! It means McCune--Rod McCune, 'who has lived under a threat for
years'--_my_ threat! I swore I would print him out of Indiana if he ever
raised his head again, and he knew I could. 'Almost overborne in the
fulfilment of that threat!' _Almost_! It's a black scheme, and I see it
now. This man came to Plattville and went on the 'Herald' for nothing in
the world but this. It's McCune's hand all along. He daren't name him even
now, the coward! The trick lies between McCune and young Fisbee--the old
man is innocent. Give me the pad. Not _almost_ overborne. There are three
good days to work in, and, by the gods of Perdition, if Rod McCune sees
Congress it will be in his next incarnation!"

He rapidly scribbled a few lines on the pad, and threw the sheets to
Meredith. "Get those telegrams to the Western Union office in a rush,
please. Read them first."

With a very red face Tom read them. One was addressed to H. Fisbee:

"You are relieved from the cares of editorship. You will turn over the
management of the 'Herald' to Warren Smith. You will give him the McCune
papers. If you do not, or if you destroy them, you cannot hide where I
shall not find you.

"JOHN HARKLESS."

The second was to Warren Smith:
"Take possession 'Herald.' Dismiss H. Fisbee. This your authority. Publish
McCune papers so labelled which H. Fisbee will hand you. Letter follows.
Beat McCune.

"JOHN HARKLESS."

The author of the curt epistles tossed restlessly on his couch, but the
reader of them stared, incredulous and dumfounded, uncertain of his
command of gravity. His jaw fell, and his open mouth might have betokened
a being smit to imbecility; and, haply, he might be, for Helen had written
him from Plattville, pledging his honor to secrecy with the first words,
and it was by her command that he had found excuses for not supplying his
patient with all the papers which happened to contain references to the
change of date for the Plattville convention. And Meredith had known for
some time where James Fisbee had found a "young relative" to be the savior
of the "Herald" for his benefactor's sake.

"You mean--you--intend to--you discharge young Fisbee?" he stammered at
last.

"Yes! Let me have the answers the instant they come, will you, Tom?" Then
Harkless turned his face from the wall and spoke through his teeth: "I
mean to see H. Fisbee before many days; I want to talk to him!"

But, though he tossed and fretted himself into what the doctor pronounced
a decidedly improved state, no answer came to either telegram that day or
night. The next morning a messenger boy stumbled up the front steps and
handed the colored man, Jim, four yellow envelopes, night messages. Three
of them were for Harkless, one was for Meredith. Jim carried them
upstairs, left the three with his master's guest, then knocked on his
master's door.

"What is it?" answered a thick voice. Meredith had not yet risen.

"A telegraph. Mist' Tawm."

There was a terrific yawn. "O-o-oh! Slide it--oh--under the--door."

"Yessuh."

Meredith lay quite without motion for several minutes, sleepily watching
the yellow rhomboid in the crevice. It was a hateful looking thing to come
mixing in with pleasant dreams and insist upon being read. After a while
he climbed groaningly out of bed, and read the message with heavy eyes,
still half asleep. He read it twice before it penetrated:

"Suppress all newspapers to-day. Convention meets at eleven. If we succeed
a delegation will come to Rouen this afternoon. They will come.

"HELEN."

Tom rubbed his sticky eyelids, and shook his head violently in a Spartan
effort to rouse himself; but what more effectively performed the task for
him were certain sounds issuing from Harkless's room, across the hall. For
some minutes, Meredith had been dully conscious of a rustle and stir in
the invalid's chamber, and he began to realize that no mere tossing about
a bed would account for a noise that reached him across a wide hall and
through two closed doors of thick walnut. Suddenly he heard a quick, heavy
tread, shod, in Harkless's room, and a resounding bang, as some heavy
object struck the floor. The doctor was not to come till evening; Jim had
gone down-stairs. Who wore shoes in the sick man's room? He rushed across
the hall in his pyjamas and threw open the unlocked door.

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