A Statesman of To-morrow BY ROY ROLFE GILSON 'HE campaign had begun. TH Father was a Reformative, so Mother and you and Lizbeth were Reformatives. As to Publicrats, you had a vague notion, taking them by and large, as Grandfather used to say, that they were by nature drinking-men, inclined to staying out nights, poker, even thievery and wife - beating, and other naughtiness. Father did not say so, but you had seen pictures of them in the newspapers on the library table. Gross, full stomached men they were, with short-cropped hair, and square, unshaven jaws; gambling-looking men, with monster diamonds in their striped shirts, tilting their plug hats rakishly, clutching cigars with pudgy, bejewelled fingers, and rolling their swollen eyes gloatingly over bags of gold. Sometimes they kept a tiger. It was an emblem, Father said. You rather fancied it scared policemen while its masters jingled and gambled their ill-gotten gains, wrung somehow, somewhere, as you opined, from the widows and orphans and the honest workman with his square cap and his dinner-pail. But, on the other hand, what a noble race were the Reformatives! What fine pictures they always made in those newspapers on the library table! How gracefully they wore their long Prince Alberts, carried their tall silk hats! What dignity of mien! What venerable beards! What flashing eyes and philanthropic brows! And what a way they had of lifting their index-fingers to the Stars and Stripes, or winding its folds about their heaving breasts-while above their heads the Sun of Prosperity burst, triumphant, through the lowering clouds of Publicratic rule! licrats. Father himself admitted that. There were several in Ourtown-church members, too. Stanch, dyed-in-the-wool Publicrats they were, but you never would have thought it. They looked like Reformatives. Misguided beings you thought them; for it followed, as the night the day, in your love for Father, that a party of men that could give him so much pain, whose deeds down-town or under domes could wring from him such direful prophecies, must be a godless breed indeed. Mother thought so too. You heard the table-talk. You listened to the bands. You watched the torches flaring in the wind of an October night, and the white transparencies bobbing by. On foot, jostling the other boys, you followed a Senator and four white horses from the railroad to the Grand Opera House. Breathless you heard him, watched him thresh the air, saw his face redden, his bosom swell, heard his speech-worn voice leap hoarsely from his throat as he raised aloft a trembling finger to the flag above his head. Five hundred men sprang to their feet in answer. The floor quivered. The rafters rang. You could not hear the music of the band-but in that din you heard a still, small voice. You heard the Man within you rapping at the door. Homeward that night you struck at shadows with your hedgerow stick. Parry! Thrust! You fenced with them and laughed aloud at your folly. Across the threshold you wandered restlessly from room to room. From the library shelf a plaster Webster glowered upon your dream. You halted suddenly. Manfully you stood before him, giving him frown for frown, matching your future against his past. Your lips tightened. Your jaws set. Your eyes flashed fire beneath your beetling brows. The glow of that recent eloquence was still upon you. The words of the Senator Some good men, doubtless, were Pub- still sounded sweetly in your ears. Oh, it was all there there in the newspapers on the library table, — and even a boy like you had but to look on this picture and on that to be a Reformative. Something within you struggled, fought "Ye great men of the past-" But got no further. Things there are too deep for utterance. Frowning, you stood one silent moment more; then, with your hand still tucked between the buttons of your vest, stalked, like a Senator, through the door. .. "Wait. Just wait-old Publicrats!" 66 "Publicrats," said your friend the Sawdust Man, are always a - stickin' their noses in where they aren't wanted. They've been a-messin' with this here gover❜ment ever since I can remember, and when they once get in,"-here the Sawdust Man winked and nodded sagely, -"look out!" "That's so, Mr. Luggins." "Of course it is," said the Sawdust Man. "When you see a Publicrat a-seekin' office, keep your eye on him. Keep your eye on him, I say; for mark my words, there's a nigger in the fence somewhere, every time.” The shop was fragrant with pine. Astride the sawhorse, your toes just touching the littered floor, you watched the carpenter at his bench. From the pockets of his brown apron he took long, shining nails, and hammered them straight as the flight of arrows into the yellow pine. Then with his square and his great pencil he drew a line, and reached for his saw. "Publicrats," he paused to say-" Publicrats are the worst cusses for takin' things ever I see." From edge to edge of the gleaming board the saw's teeth gnawed their way. The air resounded with their harsh music. The pine dust fell in a golden shower on the shavings by the bench. "Can I have the little piece?" "Oh-I don't know-something." The carpenter laughed. Even the castoff end of a yellow board was precious in those days-precious in all the unknown possibilities of its clean and scented freshness, of its perfect corners and its smooth and shining sides. So you would carry it home to the wood-shed against the sometime of its usefulness and your play. If you forgot it-pine made kindling; kindling, a roaring fire in the kitchen; and crullers were a fair reward. "I think," you said, sitting more decorously on the sawhorse, with crossed legs, in the fashion of other men-"I think I'll have you build my house for me when I grow up." "Much obliged, I'm sure," said the Sawdust Man. "And what kind of a house will it be, do you think, now?” "Well, I've been looking at a picture of Mount Vernon - where Washington lived, you know. I think a house like that will be all right." "Ah, I see. Will you will you build it in Ourtown, do you think?" "I don't think so. There aren't any statesmen around here, you see." "Then I take it that you-expect to be -a Senator or something?" murmured the Sawdust Man, as he squinted along a board. "Well-it isn't quite settled, you know. Something like Daniel Webster, I guess. It's been on my mind for some time. Sometimes I think I will, and then again I think I won't. But since the rally last night I've about made up my mind for good." "Daniel Webster was a great hand at speakin'," asserted the Sawdust Man. "I often make up speeches," you said. "Do you, now?" "Yes; when nobody's around." "Could you give a sample like do you think?" asked the Sawdust Man. "Well-" "Just one," he urged. "You mustn't mind me." "Well," you said, "you mustn't laugh if I make mistakes." "Oh, they all make mistakes-all the statesmen," said the Sawdust Man. Suppose you stand right there on that soap-box." 66 You stood carefully, with one hand "Good!" ejaculated the Sawdust Man, b-banner of our country's prosperity!" nodding his head. "Fellow-citizens, I am glad to see so many faces before me this evening." "Good!" cried the Sawdust Man again, his face beaming. "That's the way Webster began once- or Clay; I've forgotten which." "You mustn't interrupt, you know, Mr. Luggins." "Oh, they “Oh, 'Cheers' Great applause,' you know. I was only tryin' to make it seem more natural like." always do, Senator. "Oh, that's all right, Mr. Luggins. They do make a good deal of noise. But I thought that would come later, when I-" "When you-" "Yes, when I-" "When you rise to a specially fine flight," suggested the Sawdust Man. "Yes, that's it," you said. "Suppose I just begin all over again." The Sawdust Man settled himself more firmly on the sawhorse and folded his arms. 66 Fellow-citizens, I am glad to see so many faces-intelligent faces-before me this evening. I know Ourtown very well. Why, gentlemen, I once caught fish right here in your river when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. (They always say something like that, you know, Mr. Luggins, to make everybody feel good.)" "Bully!" roared the Sawdust Man. "Webster never—” The “Gentlemen, again I thank you. hour is late. There are other distinguished speakers to follow me. But ere I close-ere I close-I wish to call your attention to that noble flag-" The Sawdust Man leaped to his feet. "that noble flag, my friends - the Stars and Stripes-" "Hooray!" "the flag of this great and glorious United States-" "Three cheers!" "-whose broad stars and bright stripes, gentlemen-will never be dimmed -by the rain the rain-of Publicratic tears!" The shop rang with applause. The Sawdust Man seized your hand. "There is no doubt of it," he cried, ecstatically. "There isn't a lawyer in Ourtown could 'a' done better. You're a born statesman." "Do you think so, Mr. Luggins?” "Think so! Why, boy, it's 'most like Webster- that there part about the flag!" "Where I said-" "Where you said about the Publicratic tears, you know. That's great." "I thought that all out myself when I was bringing in the wood." "It's wonderful," said the Sawdust Man. "Just wonderful. Now don't you "That's right, Senator. Give 'em give up. You just keep right on. You'll taffy. That's the way to get 'em." be a Senator some day see if you ain't. And I'll vote for you, too Why, my friends-" "Hooray! Hooray for our next Sen- twice, if necessary." ator!" Well," you said, "if I am a Senator, Mr. Luggins, I'll see that you get a good place at Washington." "Oh, I wouldn't be much good down there," said the Sawdust Man-a little sadly, you thought. 'No. I wouldn't know what to do in the Capitol-unless I could fix things. Maybe they'd have a new board to put in now and then. I could do that." "Then you really liked that part where I said about the tears, Mr. Luggins?" "Yes. I think them all out when I'm doing the chores. Of course I wouldn't tell them to any one but you. You don't poke fun-or laugh or anything." "Of course I don't," said the Sawdust Man. "I've been there myself. Why, when I was a boy, I thought some of being a statesman." "Did you, Mr. Luggins?" "Oh yes!" "Then how did you happen to change your mind, Mr. Luggins?" "Well," said the Sawdust Man, reflectively, "you see, I was always so busy being a carpenter, I never had time to run the gover'ment." "But you might be coroner, like Abe Peters, or a justice of the peace," you suggested. "Well-no," said the Sawdust Man. "I couldn't be bothered with pesky little jobs like that. I'm ambitious, I am. 'It's Congress or nothin',' says I, when I was your age. And I've kept my word. I've been nothin' ever since." The carpenter chuckled. "And you you really think it was all right, Mr. Luggins-that part where I-" "Where you said " "Yes-about the tears, you know?" "Boy," said the Sawdust Man, solemnly, "Daniel Webster himself couldn't 'a' done no better." |