The Gentleman From Indiana

B >> Booth Tarkington >> The Gentleman From Indiana

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The bed was disarranged and vacant. Harkless, fully dressed, was standing
in the middle of the floor, hurling garments at a big travelling bag.

The horrified Meredith stood for a second, bleached and speechless, then
he rushed upon his friend and seized him with both hands.

"Mad, by heaven! Mad!"

"Let go of me, Tom!"

"Lunatic! Lunatic!"

"Don't stop me one instant!"

Meredith tried to force him toward the bed. "For mercy's sake, get back to
bed. You're delirious, boy!"

"Delirious nothing. I'm a well man."

"Go to bed--go to bed."

Harkless set him out of the way with one arm. "Bed be hanged!" he cried.
"I'm going to Plattville!"

Meredith wrung his hands. "The doctor----"!

"Doctor be damned!"

"Will you tell me what has happened, John?"

His companion slung a light overcoat, unfolded, on the overflowing,
misshapen bundle of clothes that lay in the bag; then he jumped on the lid
with both feet and kicked the hasp into the lock; a very elegantly
laundered cuff and white sleeve dangling out from between the fastened
lids. "I haven't one second to talk, Tom; I have seventeen minutes to
catch the express, and it's a mile and a half to the station; the train
leaves here at eight fifty, I get to Plattville at ten forty-seven.
Telephone for a cab for me, please, or tell me the number; I don't want to
stop to hunt it up."

Meredith looked him in the eyes. In the pupils of Harkless flared a fierce
light. His cheeks were reddened with an angry, healthy glow, and his teeth
were clenched till the line of his jaw stood out like that of an embattled
athlete in sculpture; his brow was dark; his chest was thrown out, and he
took deep, quick breaths; his shoulders were squared, and in spite of his
thinness they looked massy. Lethargy, or malaria, or both, whatever were
his ailments, they were gone. He was six feet of hot wrath and cold
resolution.

Tom said: "You are going?"

"Yes," he answered, "I am going."

"Then I will go with you."

"Thank you, Tom," said the other quietly.

Meredith ran into his own room, pressed an electric button, sprang out of
his pyjamas like Aphrodite from the white sea-foam, and began to dive into
his clothes with a panting rapidity astonishingly foreign to his desire.
Jim appeared in the doorway.

"The cart, Jim," shouted his master. "We want it like lightning. Tell the
cook to give Mr. Harkless his breakfast in a hurry. Set a cup of coffee on
the table by the front door for me. Run like the deuce! We've got to catch
a train.--That will be quicker than any cab," he explained to Harkless.
"We'll break the ordinance against fast driving, getting down there."

Ten minutes later the cart swept away from the house at a gait which
pained the respectable neighborhood. The big horse plunged through the
air, his ears laid flat toward his tail; the cart careened sickeningly;
the face of the servant clutching at the rail in the rear was smeared with
pallor as they pirouetted around curves on one wheel--to him it seemed
they skirted the corners and Death simultaneously--and the speed of their
going made a strong wind in their faces.

Harkless leaned forward.

"Can you make it a little faster, Tom?" he said.

They dashed up to the station amid the cries of people flying to the walls
for safety; the two gentlemen leaped from the cart, bore down upon the
ticket-office, stormed at the agent, and ran madly at the gates,
flourishing their passports. The official on duty eyed them wearily, and
barred the way.

"Been gone two minutes," he remarked, with a peaceable yawn.

Harkless stamped his foot on the cement flags; then he stood stock still,
gazing at the empty tracks; but Meredith turned to him, smiling.

"Won't it keep?" he asked.

"Yes, it will keep," John answered. "Part of it may have to keep till
election day, but some of it I will settle before night. And that," he
cried, between his teeth, "and that is the part of it in regard to young
Mr. Fisbee!"

"Oh, it's about H. Fisbee, is it?"

"Yes, it's H. Fisbee."

"Well, we might as well go up and see what the doctor thinks of you;
there's no train."

"I don't want to see a doctor again, ever--as long as I live. I'm as well
as anybody."

Tom burst out laughing, and clapped his companion lightly on the shoulder,
his eyes dancing with pleasure.

"Upon my soul," he cried, "I believe you are! It's against all my
tradition, and I see I am the gull of poetry; for I've always believed it
to be beyond question that this sort of miracle was wrought, not by rage,
but by the tenderer senti--" Tom checked himself. "Well, let's take a
drive."

"Meredith," said the other, turning to him gravely, "you may think me a
fool, if you will, and it's likely I am; but I don't leave this station
except by train. I've only two days to work in, and every minute lessens
our chances to beat McCune, and I have to begin by wasting time on a
tussle with a traitor. There's another train at eleven fifty-five; I don't
take any chances on missing that one."

"Well, well," laughed his friend, pushing him good-humoredly toward a door
by a red and white striped pillar, "we'll wait here, if you like; but at
least go in there and get a shave; it's a clean shop. You want to look
your best if you are going down to fight H. Fisbee."

"Take these, then, and you will understand," said Harkless; and he thrust
his three telegrams of the morning into Tom's hand and disappeared into
the barber-shop. When he was gone, Meredith went to the telegraph office
in the station, and sent a line over the wire to Helen:

"Keep your delegation at home. He's coming on the 11.55."

Then he read the three telegrams Harkless had given him. They were all
from Plattville:

"Sorry cannot oblige. Present incumbent tenacious. Unconditionally refuses
surrender. Delicate matter. No hope for K. H. But don't worry. Everything
all right.

"WARREN SMITH."

"Harkless, if you have the strength to walk, come down before the
convention. Get here by 10.47. Looks bad. Come if it kills you.

"K. H."

"You entrusted me with sole responsibility for all matters pertaining to
'Herald.' Declared yourself mere spectator. Does this permit your
interfering with my policy for the paper? Decline to consider any
proposition to relieve me of my duties without proper warning and
allowance of time.

"H. FISBEE."

CHAPTER XIX

THE GREAT HARKLESS COMES HOME

The accommodation train wandered languidly through the early afternoon
sunshine, stopping at every village and almost every country post-office
on the line; the engine toot-tooting at the road crossings; and, now and
again, at such junctures, a farmer, struggling with a team of prancing
horses, would be seen, or, it might be, a group of school children,
homeward bound from seats of learning. At each station, when the train
came to a stand-still, some passenger, hanging head and elbows out of his
window, like a quilt draped over a chair, would address a citizen on the
platform:

"Hey, Sam, how's Miz Bushkirk?"

"She's wal."

"Where's Milt, this afternoon?"

"Warshing the buggy." Then at the cry, "All 'board"--"See you Sunday over
at Amo."

"You make Milt come. I'll be there, shore. So long."

There was an impatient passenger in the smoker, who found the stoppages at
these wayside hamlets interminable, both in frequency and in the delay at
each of them; and while the dawdling train remained inert, and the moments
passed inactive, his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till the nails bit
his palm; then, when the trucks groaned and the wheels crooned against the
rails once more, he sank back in his seat with sighs of relief. Sometimes
he would get up and pace the aisle until his companion reminded him that
this was not certain to hasten the hour of their arrival at their
destination.

"I know that," answered the other, "but I've got to beat McCune."

"By the way," observed Meredith, "you left your stick behind."

"You don't think I need a club to face----"

Tom choked. "Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of your giving H. Fisbee a
thrashing. I meant to lean on."

"I don't want it. I've got to walk lame all my life, but I'm not going to
hobble on a stick." Tom looked at him sadly; for it was true, and the
Cross-Roaders might hug themselves in their cells over the thought. For
the rest of his life John Harkless was to walk with just the limp they
themselves would have had, if, as in former days, their sentence had been
to the ball and chain.

The window was open beside the two young men, and the breeze swept in,
fresh from the wide fields, There was a tang in the air; it soothed like a
balm, but there was a spur to energy and heartiness in its crispness, the
wholesome touch of fall. John looked out over the boundless aisles of corn
that stood higher than a tall man could reach; long waves rippled across
them. Here, where the cry of the brave had rung in forest glades, where
the painted tribes had hastened, were marshalled the tasselled armies of
peace. And beyond these, where the train ran between shadowy groves,
delicate landscape vistas, framed in branches, opened, closed, and
succeeded each other, and then the travellers were carried out into the
level open again, and the intensely blue September skies ran down to the
low horizon, meeting the tossing plumes of corn.

It takes a long time for the full beauty of the flat lands to reach a
man's soul; once there, nor hills, nor sea, nor growing fan leaves of palm
shall suffice him. It is like the beauty in the word "Indiana." It may be
that there are people who do not consider "Indiana" a beautiful word; but
once it rings true in your ears it has a richer sound than "Vallombrosa."

There was a newness in the atmosphere that day, a bright invigoration,
that set the blood tingling. The hot months were done with, languor was
routed. Autumn spoke to industry, told of the sowing of another harvest,
of the tawny shock, of the purple grape, of the red apple, and called upon
muscle and laughter; breathed gaiety into men's hearts. The little
stations hummed with bustle and noise; big farm wagons rattled away and
raced with cut-under or omnibus; people walked with quick steps; the
baggage-masters called cheerily to the trainmen, and the brakemen laughed
good-bys to rollicking girls.

As they left Gainesville three children, clad in calico, barefoot and
bareheaded, came romping out of a log cabin on the outskirts of the town,
and waved their hands to the passengers. They climbed on the sagging gate
in front of their humble domain, and laughed for joy to see the monstrous
caravan come clattering out of the unknown, bearing the faces by. The
smallest child, a little cherubic tow-head, whose cheeks were smeared with
clean earth and the tracks of forgotten tears, stood upright on a fence-
post, and blew the most impudent of kisses to the strangers on a journey.

Beyond this they came into a great plain, acres and acres of green
rag-weed where the wheat had grown, all so flat one thought of an enormous
billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed the country roads,
they saw the staunch brown thistle, sometimes the sumach, and always the
graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing a purple-turbaned head,
or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood too close to the train. The
fields, like great, flat emeralds set in new metal, were bordered with
golden-rod, and at sight of this the heart leaped; for the golden-rod is a
symbol of stored granaries, of ripe sheaves, of the kindness of the season
generously given and abundantly received; more, it is the token of a land
of promise and of bounteous fulfilment; and the plant stains its blossom
with yellow so that when it falls it pays tribute to the ground which has
nourished it.

From the plain they passed again into a thick wood, where ruddy arrows of
the sun glinted among the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a courtly
maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson and pale brown,
gallants of the forest preparing early for the October masquerade, when
they should hold wanton carnival, before they stripped them of their
finery for pious gray.

And when the coughing engine drew them to the borders of this wood, they
rolled out into another rich plain of green and rust-colored corn; and far
to the south John Harkless marked a winding procession of sycamores,
which, he knew, followed the course of a slender stream; and the waters of
the stream flowed by a bank where wild thyme might have grown, and where,
beyond an orchard and a rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in the
shade of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hibbard's Creek. Here
the land lay flatter than elsewhere; the sky came closer, with a gentler
benediction; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices; there was the
flavor of apples and the smell of the walnut and a hint of coming frost;
the immeasurable earth lay more patiently to await the husbandman; and the
whole world seemed to extend flat in line with the eye--for this was
Carlow County.

All at once the anger ran out of John Harkless; he was a hard man for
anger to tarry with. And in place of it a strong sense of home-coming
began to take possession of him. He was going home. "Back to Plattville,
where I belong," he had said; and he said it again without bitterness, for
it was the truth. "Every man cometh to his own place in the end."

Yes, as one leaves a gay acquaintance of the playhouse lobby for some
hard-handed, tried old friend, so he would wave the outer world God-speed
and come back to the old ways of Carlow. What though the years were dusty,
he had his friends and his memories and his old black brier pipe. He had a
girl's picture that he should carry in his heart till his last day; and if
his life was sadder, it was infinitely richer for it. His winter fireside
should be not so lonely for her sake; and losing her, he lost not
everything, for he had the rare blessing of having known her. And what man
could wish to be healed of such a hurt? Far better to have had it than to
trot a smug pace unscathed.

He had been a dullard; he had lain prostrate in the wretchedness of his
loss. "A girl you could put in your hat--and there you have a strong man
prone." He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, unfit to fight, a
failure in life and a failure in love. That was ended; he was tired of
failing, and it was time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst that
Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it instead of despair, that is
success; and it was the success that he would have. He would take Fate by
the neck. But had it done him unkindness? He looked out over the
beautiful, "monotonous" landscape, and he answered heartily, "No!" There
was ignorance in man, but no unkindness; were man utterly wise he were
utterly kind. The Cross-Roaders had not known better; that was all.

The unfolding aisles of corn swam pleasantly before John's eyes. The earth
hearkened to man's wants and answered; the clement sun and summer rains
hastened the fruition. Yonder stood the brown haystack, garnered to feed
the industrious horse who had earned his meed; there was the straw-
thatched shelter for the cattle. How the orchard boughs bent with their
burdens! The big red barns stood stored with the harvested wheat; and,
beyond the pasture-lands, tall trees rose against the benign sky to feed
the glance of a dreamer; the fertile soil lay lavender and glossy in the
furrow. The farmhouses were warmly built and hale and strong; no winter
blast should rage so bitterly as to shake them, or scatter the hospitable
embers on the hearth. For this was Carlow County, and he was coming home.

They crossed a by-road. An old man with a streaky gray chin-beard was
sitting on a sack of oats in a seatless wagon, waiting for the train to
pass. Harkless seized his companion excitedly by the elbow.

"Tommy!" he cried. "It's Kim Fentriss--look! Did you see that old fellow?"

"I saw a particularly uninterested and uninteresting gentleman sitting on
a bag," replied his friend.

"Why, that's old Kimball Fentriss. He's going to town; he lives on the
edge of the county."

"Can this be true?" said Meredith gravely.

"I wonder," said Harkless thoughtfully, a few moments later, "I wonder why
he had them changed around."

"Who changed around?"

"The team. He always used to drive the bay on the near side, and the
sorrel on the off."

"And at present," rejoined Meredith, "I am to understand that he is
driving the sorrel on the near side, and bay on the off?"

"That's it," returned the other. "He must have worked them like that for
some time, because they didn't look uneasy. They're all right about the
train, those two. I've seen them stand with their heads almost against a
fast freight. See there!" He pointed to a white frame farmhouse with green
blinds. "That's Win Hibbard's. We're just outside of Beaver."

"Beaver? Elucidate Beaver, boy!"

"Beaver? Meredith, your information ends at home. What do you know of your
own State if you are ignorant of Beaver. Beaver is that city of Carlow
County next in importance and population to Plattville."

Tom put his head out of the window. "I fancy you are right," he said. "I
already see five people there."

Meredith had observed the change in his companion's mood. He had watched
him closely all day, looking for a return of his malady; but he came to
the conclusion that in truth a miracle had been wrought, for the lethargy
was gone, and vigor seemed to increase in Harkless with every turn of the
wheels that brought them nearer Plattville; and the nearer they drew to
Plattville the higher the spirits of both the young men rose. Meredith
knew what was happening there, and he began to be a little excited. As he
had said, there were five people visible at Beaver; and he wondered where
they lived, as the only building in sight was the station, and to satisfy
his curiosity he walked out to the vestibule. The little station stood in
deep woods, and brown leaves whirled along the platform. One of the five
people was an old lady, and she entered a rear car. The other four were
men. One of them handed the conductor a telegram.

Meredith heard the official say, "All right. Decorate ahead. I'll hold it
five minutes."

The man sprang up the steps of the smoker and looked in. He turned to
Meredith: "Do you know if that gentleman in the gray coat is Mr. Harkless?
He's got his back this way, and I don't want to go inside. The--the air in
a smoker always gives me a spell."

"Yes, that's Mr. Harkless."

The man jumped to the platform. "All right, boys," he said. "Rip her out."

The doors of the freight-room were thrown open, and a big bundle of
colored stuffs was dragged out and hastily unfolded. One of the men ran to
the further end of the car with a strip of red, white and blue bunting,
and tacked it securely, while another fastened the other extremity to the
railing of the steps by Meredith. The two companions of this pair
performed the same operation with another strip on the other side of the
car. They ran similar strips of bunting along the roof from end to end, so
that, except for the windows, the car was completely covered by the
national colors. Then they draped the vestibules with flags. It was all
done in a trice.

Meredith's heart was beating fast. "What's it all about?" he asked.

"Picnic down the line," answered the man in charge, removing a tack from
his mouth. He motioned to the conductor, "Go ahead."

The wheels began to move; the decorators remained on the platform, letting
the train pass them; but Meredith, craning his neck from the steps, saw
that they jumped on the last car.

"What's the celebration?" asked Harkless, when Meredith returned.

"Picnic down the line," said Meredith.

"Nipping weather for a picnic; a little cool, don't you think? One of
those fellows looked like a friend of mine. Homer Tibbs, or as Homer might
look if he were in disgrace. He had his hat hung on his eyes, and he
slouched like a thief in melodrama, as he tacked up the bunting on this
side of the car." He continued to point out various familiar places,
finally breaking out enthusiastically, as they drew nearer the town,
"Hello! Look there--beyond the grove yonder! See that house?"

"Yes, John."

"That's the Bowlders'. You've got to know the Bowlders."

"I'd like to."

"The kindest people in the world. The Briscoe house we can't see, because
it's so shut in by trees; and, besides, it's a mile or so ahead of us.
We'll go out there for supper to-night. Don't you like Briscoe? He's the
best they make. We'll go up town with Judd Bennett in the omnibus, and
you'll know how a rapid-fire machine gun sounds. I want to go straight to
the 'Herald' office," he finished, with a suddenly darkening brow.

"After all, there may be some explanation," Meredith suggested, with a
little hesitancy. "H. Fisbee might turn out more honest than you think."

Harkless threw his head back and laughed; it was the first time Meredith
had heard him laugh since the night of the dance in the country. "Honest!
A man in the pay of Rodney McCune! Well, we can let it wait till we get
there. Listen! There's the whistle that means we're getting near home. By
heaven, there's an oil-well!"

"So it is."

"And another--three--five--seven--seven in sight at once! They tried it
three miles south and failed; but you can't fool Eph Watts, bless him! I
want you to know Watts."

They were running by the outlying houses of the town, amidst a thousand
descriptive exclamations from Harkless, who wished Meredith to meet every
one in Carlow. But he came to a pause in the middle of a word.

"Do you hear music?" he asked abruptly. "Or is it only the rhythm of the
ties?"

"It seems to me there's music in the air," answered his companion. "I've
been fancying I heard it for a minute or so. There! No--yes. It's a band,
isn't it?"

"No; what would a band----"

The train slowed up, and stopped at a watertank, two hundred yards east of
the station, and their uncertainty was at an end.

From somewhere down the track came the detonating boom of a cannon. There
was a dash of brass, and the travellers became aware of a band playing
"Marching through Georgia." Meredith laid his hand on his companion's
shoulder. "John," he said, "John----" The cannon fired again, and there
came a cheer from three thousand throats, the shouters all unseen.

The engine coughed and panted, the train rolled on, and in another minute
it had stopped alongside the station in the midst of a riotous jam of
happy people, who were waving flags and banners and handkerchiefs, and
tossing their hats high in the air, and shouting themselves hoarse. The
band played in dumb show; it could not hear itself play. The people came
at the smoker like a long wave, and Warren Smith, Briscoe, Keating, and
Mr. Bence of Gaines were swept ahead of it. Before the train stopped they
had rushed eagerly up the steps and entered the car.

Harkless was on his feet and started to meet them. He stopped.

"What does it mean?" he said, and began to grow pale. "Is Halloway--did
McCune--have you----"

Warren Smith seized one of his hands and Briscoe the other. "What does it
mean?" cried Warren; "it means that you were nominated for Congress at
five minutes after one-o'clock this afternoon."

"On the second ballot," shouted the Judge, "just as young Fisbee planned
it, weeks ago."

It was one of the great crowds of Carlow's history. They had known since
morning that he was coming home, and the gentlemen of the Reception
Committee had some busy hours; but long before the train arrived,
everything was ready. Homer Tibbs had done his work well at Beaver, and
the gray-haired veterans of a battery Carlow had sent out in '61 had
placed their worn old gun in position to fire salutes. At one-o'clock,
immediately after the nomination had been made unanimous, the Harkless
Clubs of Carlow, Amo, and Gaines, secretly organized during the quiet
agitation preceding the convention, formed on parade in the court-house
yard, and, with the Plattville Band at their head, paraded the streets to
the station, to make sure of being on hand when the train arrived--it was
due in a couple of hours. There they were joined by an increasing number
of glad enthusiasts, all noisy, exhilarated, red-faced with shouting, and
patriotically happy. As Mr. Bence, himself the spoiled child of another
county, generously said, in a speech, which (with no outrageous pressure)
he was induced to make during the long wait: "The favorite son of Carlow
is returning to his Lares and Penates like another Cincinnatus accepting
the call of the people; and, for the first time in sixteen years, Carlow
shall have a representative to bear the banner of this district and the
flaming torch of Progress sweeping on to Washington and triumph like a
speedy galleon of old. And his friends are here to take his hand and do
him homage, and the number of his friends is as the number given in the
last census of the population of the counties of this district!"

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