“I’m fer Beasley,” another politician explained, in an interview, “because he’s Dave Beasley! Yes, sir, I’m fer him. You know the boys say if a man is only for you, in this state, there isn’t much in it and he may go back on it; but if he’s fer you, he means it. Well, I’m fer Beasley!”
There were other candidates, of course; none of them formidable; but I was surprised to learn of the existence of a small but energetic faction opposing our friend in Wainwright, his own town. (“What are you surprised about?” inquired Dowden. “Don’t you know what our folks are like, yet? If St. Paul lived in Wainwright, do you suppose he could run for constable without some of his near neighbors getting out to try and down him?”)
The head and front (and backbone, too) of the opposition to Beasley was a close-fisted, hard-knuckled, risen-from-the-soil sort of man, one named Simeon Peck. He possessed no inconsiderable influence, I heard; was a hard worker, and vigorously seconded by an energetic lieutenant, a young man named Grist. These, and others they had been able to draw to their faction, were bitterly and eagerly opposed to Beasley’s nomination, and worked without ceasing to prevent it.
I quote the invaluable Mr. Dowden again: “Grist’s against us because he had a quarrel with a clerk in Beasley’s office, and wanted Beasley to discharge him, and Beasley wouldn’t; Sim Peck’s against us out of just plain wrong-headedness, and because he never was for anything nor fer anybody in his life. I had a talk with the old mutton-head the other day; he said our candidate ought to be a farmer, a ‘man of the common people,’ and when I asked him where he’d find anybody more a ‘man of the common people’ than Beasley, he said Beasley was ‘too much of a society man’ to suit him! The idea of Dave as a ‘society man’ was too much for me, and I laughed in Sim Peck’s face, but that didn’t stop Sim Peck! ‘Jest look at the style he lives in,’ he yelped. ‘Ain’t he fairly lapped in luxury? Look at that big house he lives in! Look at the way he goes around in that phaeton of his—and a nigger to drive him half the time!’ I had to holler again, and, of course, that made Sim twice as mad as he started out to be; and he went off swearing he’d show ME, before the campaign was over. The only trouble he and Grist and that crowd could give us would be by finding out something against Dave, and they can’t do that because there isn’t anything to find out.”
I shared his confidence on this latter score, but was somewhat less sanguine on some others. There were only two newspapers of any political influence in Wainwright, the Despatch and the Journal, both operated in the interest of Beasley’s party, and neither had “come out” for him. The gossip I heard about our office led me to think that each was waiting to see what headway Sim Peck and his faction would make; the Journal especially, I knew, had some inclination to coquette with Peck, Grist, and Company. Altogether, their faction was not entirely to be despised.
Thus, my thoughts were a great deal more occupied with Beasley’s chances than with the holiday spirit that now, with furs and bells and wreathing mists of snow, breathed good cheer over the town. So little, indeed, had this spirit touched me that, one evening when one of my colleagues, standing before the grate-fire in the reporters’ room, yawned and said he’d be glad when tomorrow was over, I asked him what was the particular trouble with tomorrow.
“Christmas,” he explained, languidly. “Always so tedious. Like Sunday.”
“It makes me homesick,” said another, a melancholy little man who was forever bragging of his native Duluth.
“Christmas,” I repeated—“tomorrow!”
It was Christmas Eve, and I had not known it! I leaned back in my chair in sudden loneliness, what pictures coming before me of long-ago Christmas Eves at home!—old Christmas Eves when there was a Tree.…
My name was called; the night City Editor had an assignment for me. “Go up to Sim Peck’s, on Madison Street,” he said. “He thinks he’s got something on David Beasley, but won’t say any more over the telephone. See what there is in it.”
I picked up my hat and coat, and left the office at a speed which must have given my superior the highest conception of my journalistic zeal. At a telephone station on the next corner I called up Mrs. Apperthwaite’s house and asked for Dowden.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, when his voice had responded.
“Playing bridge,” he answered.
“Are you going out anywhere?”
“No. What’s the trouble?”
“I’ll tell you later. I may want to see you before I go back to the office.”
“All right. I’ll be here all evening.”
I hung up the receiver and made off on my errand.
Downtown the streets were crowded with the package-laden people, bending heads and shoulders to the bitter wind, which swept a blinding, sleet-like snow horizontally against them. At corners it struck so tumultuous a blow upon the chest of the pedestrians that for a moment it would halt them, and you could hear them gasping half-smothered “Ahs” like bathers in a heavy surf. Yet there was a gayety in this eager gale; the crowds pressed anxiously, yet happily, up and down the street in their generous search for things to give away. It was not the rich who struggled through the storm tonight; these were people who carried their own bundles home. You saw them: toilers and savers, tired mothers and fathers, worn with the grinding thrift of all the year, but now for this one night careless of how hard-saved the money, reckless of everything but the joy of giving it to bring the children joy on the one great tomorrow. So they bent their heads to the freezing wind, their arms laden with daring bundles and their hearts uplifted with the tremulous happiness of giving more than they could afford. Meanwhile, Mr. Simeon Peck, honest man, had chosen this season to work harm if he might to the gentlest of his fellow-men.
I found Mr. Peck waiting for me at his house. There were four other men with him, one of whom I recognized as Grist, a squat young man with slippery-looking black hair and a lambrequin mustache. They were donning their coats and hats in the hall when I arrived.
“From the Despatch, hay?” Mr. Peck gave me greeting, as he wound a knit comforter about his neck. “That’s good. We’d most give you up. This here’s Mr. Grist, and Mr. Henry P. Cullop, and Mr. Gus Schulmeyer—three men that feel the same way about Dave Beasley that I do. That other young feller,” he waved a mittened hand to the fourth man—“he’s from the Journal. Likely you’re acquainted.”
The young man from the Journal was unknown to me; moreover, I was far from overjoyed at his presence.
“I’ve got you newspaper men here,” continued Mr. Peck, “because I’m goin’ to show you somep’n’ about Dave Beasley that’ll open a good many folk’s eyes when it’s in print.”
“Well, what is it?” I asked, rather sharply.
“Jest hold your horses a little bit,” he retorted. “Grist and me knows, and so do Mr. Cullop and Mr. Schulmeyer. And I’m goin’ to take them and you two reporters to look at it. All ready? Then come on.”
He threw open the door, stooped to the gust that took him by the throat, and led the way out into the storm.
“What is he up to?” I gasped to the Journal man as we followed in a straggling line.
“I don’t know any more than you do,” he returned. “He thinks he’s got something that’ll queer Beasley. Peck’s an old fool, but it’s just possible he’s got hold of something. Nearly everybody has one thing, at least,