A Spoil of Office: A Story of the Modern West
TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS,
THE FOREMOST HISTORIAN OF OUR COMMON LIVES AND THE MOST VITAL FIGURE IN OUR LITERATURE, I DEDICATE THIS STUDY OF THE GREAT MIDDLE WEST, ITS CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND LANDSCAPE.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
In this story of "A Spoil of Office" it was my intention to treat life as it would present itself to a young Western man of humble condition, who should set himself to the task of winning a political success. I have therefore maintained with considerable care the point of view of Bradley Talcott. Such a design loses in variety but gains, it seems to me, in unity and continuity of movement.
It has one marked disadvantage, however: it is apt to be misunderstood by the reader who may take the characters, events, and theories, judged by the central figure, to be the author's estimate. To illustrate: Ida Wilbur is presented as she appeared to Bradley Talcott, and not as the reader would see her, and not as the author would have delineated her had she been taken as the central figure of the book. This explanatory word seemed needed; being given, I leave its working out to the reader.
The three great movements of the American farmer, herein used as background – the Grange, the Alliance, and the People's party – seem to me to be as legitimate subjects for fiction as any war or crusade. They came in impulses with mightiest enthusiasms, they died out like waves upon the beach; but the power which originated them did not die; it will return in different forms again and again, so long as the love of liberty and the hatred of injustice live in the hearts of men and women.
What the next movement will be I do not know; but when it comes, Bradley Talcott and Ida his wife will be foremost among its leaders.
Chicago, May, 1897.
I.
THE GRANGE PICNIC
Early in the cool hush of a June morning in the seventies, a curious vehicle left Farmer Councill's door, loaded with a merry group of young people. It was a huge omnibus, constructed out of a heavy farm wagon and a hay rack, and was drawn by six horses. The driver was Councill's hired man, Bradley Talcott. Councill himself held between his vast knees the staff of a mighty flag in which they all took immense pride. The girls of the grange had made it for the day.
Laughter and scraps of song and rude witticisms made the huge wagon a bouquet of smiling faces. Everybody laughed, except Bradley, who sat with intent eyes and steady lips, his sinewy brown hand holding the excited horses in place. This intentness and self-mastery lent a sort of majesty to his rough-hewn face.
"Let 'em out a little, Brad," said Councill. "We're a little late."
Behind them came teams, before them were teams, along every lane of the beautiful upland prairie, teams were rolling rapidly, all toward the south. The day was perfect summer; it made the heart of reticent Bradley Talcott ache with the beauty of it every time his thoughts went up to the blue sky. The larks, and bobolinks, and red-wings made every meadow riotous with song, and the ever-alert king-birds and flickers flew along from post to post as if to have a part in the celebration.
On every side stretched fields of wheat, green as emerald and soft as velvet. Some of it was high enough already to ripple in the soft winds. The corn fields showed their yellow-green rows of timid shoots, and cattle on the pastures luxuriated in the fullness of the June grass; the whole land was at its fairest and liberalest, and it seemed peculiarly fitting that the farmers should go on a picnic this day of all days.
At the four corners below stood scores of other wagons, loaded to the rim with men, women and children. Up and down the line rode Milton Jennings, the marshal of the day, exalted by the baton he held and the gay red sash looped across his shoulders. Everywhere rose merry shouts, and far away at the head of the procession the Burr Oak band was playing. All waited for the flag whose beautiful folds flamed afar in the bright sunlight.
Every member of the grange wore its quaint regalia, apron, sash, and pouch of white, orange, buff and red. Each grange was headed by banners, worked in silk by the patient fingers of the women. Counting the banners there were three Granges present – Liberty Grange, Meadow Grange, and Burr Oak Grange at the lead with the band. The marshal of the leading grange came charging back along the line, riding magnificently, his fiery little horse a-foam.
"Are we all ready?" he shouted like a field officer.
"Yaas!"
"All ready, Tom?"
"Ready when you are," came the fusillade of replies.
He consulted a moment with Milton, the two horses prancing with unwonted excitement that transformed them into fiery chargers of romance, in the eyes of the boys and girls, just as the sash and baton transfigured Milton into something martial.
"All ready there!" shouted the marshals with grandiloquent gestures of their be-ribboned rods, the band blared out again and the teams began to move toward the west. The men stood up to look ahead, while the boys in the back end of the wagons craned perilously over the edge of the box to see how long the line was. It seemed enormous to them, and their admiration of the marshals broke forth in shrill cries of primitive wildness.
Many of the young fellows had hired at ruinous expense the carriages in which they sat with their girls, wearing a quiet air of aristocratic reserve which did not allow them to shout sarcasms at Milton, when his horse broke into a trot and jounced him up and down till his hat flew off. But mainly the young people were in huge bowered lumber wagons in wildly hilarious groups. The girls in their simple white dresses tied with blue ribbon at the waist, and the boys in their thick woolen suits which did all-round duty for best wear.
As they moved off across the prairie toward the dim blue belt of timber which marked the banks of Rock River, other processions joined them with banner, and bands, and choirs, all making a peaceful and significant parade, an army of reapers of grain, not reapers of men. Some came singing "John Brown," or "Hail, Columbia." Everywhere was a voiced excitement which told how tremendous the occasion seemed. In every wagon hid in cool deeps of fresh-cut grass, were unimaginable quantities of good things which the boys never for a moment forgot even in their great excitement.
On the procession moved, with gay flags and flashing banners. The dust rolled up, the cattle stared across the fences, the colts ran snorting away, tails waving like flags, and unlucky toilers in the fields stopped to wave their hats and gaze wistfully till the caravan passed. The men shouted jovial words to them, and the boys waved their hats in ready sympathy.
At ten o'clock they entered the magnificent grove of oaks, where a speaker's stand had been erected, and where enterprising salesmen from Rock River had erected soda water and candy stands, with an eye to business.
There was already a stupendous crowd, at least so it seemed to the farmers' boys. Two or three bands were whanging away somewhere in the grove; children were shouting and laughing, and boys were racing to and fro, playing ball or wrestling; babies were screaming, and the marshals were shouting directions to the entering teams, in voices that rang through the vaulted foliage with thrilling effect, and the harsh bray of the ice cream and candy sellers completed the confusion.
Bradley's skill as a horseman came out as he swung into the narrow winding road which led through threatening stumps into the heart of the wood past the speaker's stand. Councill furled his great flag and trailed it over the heads of those behind, and Flora and Ceres, and all the other deities of the grange upheld the staff with smiling good-will. And so they drew up to the grand stand, the most imposing turn-out of the day. They sprang out and mingled with the merry crowd, while Bradley drove away. After he had taken care of the team he came back towards the grand stand and wandered about alone. He was not a native of the country and knew very few of the people. He stood about with a timid expression on his face that made him seem more awkward than he really was. He was tall, and strong, and graceful when not conscious of himself as he was now. He felt a little bitter at being ignored – that is, he felt it in a vague and wordless way.
Lovers passed him in pairs, eating peanuts or hot candy which they bit off from a huge