Read the book: «Mixed Faces», page 5

At first Jimmy was half-paralyzed by misunderstanding. Next he was half-hypnotized by the voluble man's stream of rapid talk. Then his eye wandered to a big sign on a board wired up to a pillar of the court house entrance, where he read:

"GRAND PUBLIC RALLY! The distinguished Jurist, Hon. James Woodworth-Granger, Judge of the Fourth District Court of Princetown, will on Saturday, December 1st, address the voters of Yimville on the issues of the campaign. TURNOUT! TURNOUT! and hear our next governor on vital issues for the state welfare. COME ONE! COME ALL! EVERY MAN AND WOMAN WELCOME! Time 2 o'clock P. M. sharp! Place, County Court House. DON'T FORGET!"

He digested this in a flash, and comprehended the situation. "But – but – " he said, "Wetherby was to settle that affair of the Intermountain General Supply Company to-day and – "

"Oh, that was settled this forenoon, Judge," soothingly explained the other welcomer. "Court got it out of the way so's the court room could be open for the speech making this afternoon. Hello! Hear 'em? That's the Yimville Silver Comet Band. Bill – I mean Mister Perry – has given the band the tip you've got here. Come on! Now's the time!"

Any man less jocular, less nimble witted, and self-possessed than Mr. James Gollop, would have then and there declared himself, and his identity; but Mr. James Gollop's wits and humor, running in team and usually at a gallop, were now racing like lightning. It was too late to be a diplomat in behalf of his firm's future business with the Intermountain people; and this boob of a country judge, pompous, slow, egotistical, had been carrying a hatchet for one Jim Gollop ever since he had suffered through the peculiar likeness to this unmentionable candy drummer and – Jimmy suddenly grinned, buttoned his coat, cleared his throat and in ponderous dignity bent stiffly forward and said, "I am here! I am at your disposal! It will afford me great pleasure to express my views to such an attentive audience. Let us make haste!"

CHAPTER VI

The distinguished Judge, as impersonated by that rank and, for the moment, highly irresponsible, drummer, was led up a broad flight of stone stairs and two men opened two big green baize doors in front of him. The Silver Cornet Band played "See the Conquering Hero" with so much zest that trombones cracked, clarionets made frantic goose-notes and the cornets sounded as if made of anything other than silver. The commodious court room was, despite the outer inclemency of road and weather, packed with men and women who stood up and yelled a welcome that for the moment dazed the impostor; but he recovered his nerve and mischievousness instantly, and no actor ever fell into his part more completely than did he. The Judge was ponderous, but Jimmy went him one better. The Judge "threw a chest" when he had an audience, but Jimmy swelled until his buttons strained. The Judge walked like the late Henry Irving playing Mathias in The Bells, but Jimmy's feet dragged far more lugubriously. Jimmy had observed that the Judge assumed what is known as the "grave judicial" or otherwise "frozen face," and he therefore looked as much like a wooden image as was possible. Not immortal Caesar dead and turned to clay could have looked more claylike, for Jimmy looked like a whole brickyard. He moved austerely up the main aisle, now and then giving to right and left an imitation of the Judge's peculiarly stiff and condescending bow, mounted the platform, patronizingly shook hands with those thereon who hastened to greet him, and then, when the band subsided for want of wind, advanced to the front of the stage and was about to speak when he remembered the Judge's procedure and deliberately buttoned his coat, shot his cuffs, barked a stentorian "Ahem!" and poured himself a glass of water which he drank with almost painful deliberation, still affecting the Judge's mannerisms.

"Fellow citizens, I stand before you this afternoon," began Jimmy, in the hush, "first to apologize for my delay in reaching your welcoming and friendly greetings which, as you who have traveled so far on this momentous occasion, may appreciate as being unavoidable. Knowing that you would be here regardless of winter's snows and winds to hear me expound my views, I can assure you that had it been necessary to come on snow shoes to prevent your loyalty to me from being in vain, I should have made the attempt, and perhaps like the youth who cried 'Excelsior,' might last have been seen plodding through the shades of night into your Alpine fastness, still striving to reach you."

Unwittingly he had made a flattering allusion to the locality, whose residents firmly believed it a rival of the Alps in scenic glories and hence he was well applauded.

"Didn't know the Judge was such a good campaigner," whispered one of the local politicians to his neighbor.

"That's the mush for 'em," assented the other.

Mr. James Gollop, beginning to feel more thoroughly at home, was now thinking with ease and adroitness. Needless to note that he was mentally grinning.

"Inasmuch as I arrived so unavoidably late, and that the early darkness of winter renders the roads so difficult for those who have long journeys to make, I shall somewhat curtail the remarks I have in mind," he said, pompously, and took another long drink of water.

"The great issue before the nation to-day, my fellow citizens, is Tariff Reform." And then he drawled and droned through a lot of stock arguments familiar to every man, woman and child in America, but in the meantime kept a furtive eye on the clock at the end of the court room, and gleefully observed that the afternoon was waning, and that outside it threatened an early twilight, intensified by a new fall of snow. He decided that it was time to get in his precious work of assisting the Judge's campaign with the final straws.

"Now, my friends," he said, confidentially and observing that his audience was growing restless, "I have given you the customary platform remarks concerning tariff and free trade; but I feel that I am in the hands of my friends, so I shall tell you that personally it doesn't matter a hang to me whether we have free trade or protection or tariff reform, or any of that wash!"

A bomb shell dropped from a Zeppelin could have had but little more effect. Everyone sat up and gasped; particularly the two or three local politicians on the platform who half arose from their seats to protest.

"All I care about, to tell the honest truth," said the ingenious Jimmy, "is to get elected to the fat job of governing this state. It pays well, and I, as well as you, are aware that in addition there are some few pickings and perquisites which are well worth having."

Somebody in the audience cried, "Shame! Shame!" and a few more hissed; but Jimmy quelled the rising storm by holding up his hand for silence.

"Listen and have patience, My Friends!" he appealed, oracularly. "Other candidates from time immemorial have come to you with a lot of talk, but I am the first one who has ever dared to be honest with you. Isn't that true?"

Some of his party adherents, doing their best to uphold him to the last, loudly assented, and yelled, "Give the Judge a chance to finish! Let him finish!"

In tense silence and expectancy they settled back in their seats.

"Politics are to me like the law," he said, thoughtfully. "All bunkum! A man comes to a lawyer to get a tiny agreement drawn that if he had the brains of a cow he could draw just as well himself. The lawyer looks profoundly intellectual, terribly wise, considerably puzzled as if this document might require a further course in a law school to be able to handle, and so forth, but I tell you, My Friends, that down in his innermost mind all he is thinking is, 'How much can I get out of this gazabo for this simple little job?' and then he taps the poor victim for all he thinks the latter will stand, pockets the fee, and after his client has gone, hands a memorandum to a four-dollar-a-week clerk and says, 'Jones, fill up a contract form with that stuff and mail it to this John Doe person in Squashville.'"

The crowd by this time was hopelessly divided, some believing the orator facetious, and the others for the first time in their lives having sympathy with a lawyer and believing they had for the first time met one who told the truth.

"Most judges, My Friends, are elected to the bench because their fellow lawyers think they will prove easy marks after they get there, and not because they are supposed to be particularly clever in the law. The best judge is the one that whacks his decisions up so that Lawyer Skinem wins this week, and Lawyer Squeezehard the next, and Lawyer Gouge the next, and so on. If he can satisfy the lawyers he becomes renowned, and as far as the litigants are concerned, they don't matter at all. If they had any sense they wouldn't resort to the law anyway. Any fool knows that!"

Wetherby got up behind him, red faced and angry, to protest, but the crowd howled him down. And Wetherby, muttering, stormed indignantly out of the court room. Jimmy observed that he did so by a corner entrance near at hand and saw through the door that had been left open that it led into a cloak room and thence out to the street. He noted this with satisfaction. It increased his daring. Also by now it was getting dusk and someone turned on the electric lights.

A tall, angular, mannish sort of woman, raw-boned, shrill, got up in about the center of the audience, and said, "You've been honest I take it, in what you said this far. But you don't dast to be honest, I'll bet, if I ask you a plain out and out question, Mister?"

"You ask it and see if I'm not," retorted Jimmy combatively.

"Then what's your honest opinion about votes for women? That's what interests a lot of us women more than all you've been talking about. What about general national suffrage, eh?"

The woman sat down and immediately around her was a group that vociferously and shrilly applauded, and Jimmy knew at once that this must be the militant suffragette party of that vicinity in full force and that it had come to try to put the Judge on record.

"First," he said, once more assuming great pomposity, "may I ask the lady who just spoke, whether she does, or does not represent any authoritative body of women of this grand and noble state?"

"You should know that, Judge. Don't pretend you don't; because you have seen me at a dozen meetings before, when I asked the same question and you hemmed and hawed, and straddled the fence and gave no answer at all that meant anything at all. You know well enough that I am the President of the Women's Suffrage Society of this state, and that sooner or later you've got to answer my question. Are you going to do it to-day, or do we have to keep following you?"

Jimmy looked carefully over to a chair at the edge of the stage where, on his entry, he had deposited his hat and coat despite the invitation of one of his supposed henchmen to hang them in the cloak room. Almost involuntarily he edged closer toward that chair before making his reply, and took time to drink another glass of water.

"Since that question has been so repeatedly asked, and hitherto, I admit, evaded, I shall now endeavor to make myself completely, plainly, and fully understood on that subject," he said, impressively, and waited until in the silence nothing could be heard save suppressed breathings.

"As I understand it, I am asked what is my personal opinion concerning the expediency and the justice of granting women of majority age the right of franchise in both national as well as state elections. Am I right?"

"That's it, precisely," came the voice of the woman who had asked the question, and there was a considerable note of triumph in her tone as if at last she had run her fox to earth.

"Then I say," said Jimmy, slowly, and emphatically, "that it is my honest opinion that women should do as their mothers before them did, stay home, work, and raise their families and keep out of politics. Stop! Stop! Let me say what I have to say! I can't make myself heard if you hiss and yell!"

Some of them were on their feet. Some of the men applauded. Most of the women hissed; but they slowly settled back to hear him conclude.

"I say that a large majority – a very large majority! – of women don't know enough about politics to vote, and that a big percentage haven't brains enough to vote intelligently for a town dog catcher! And that if I had my way any woman who wanted to vote would be arrested and given six months in an imbecile asylum!"

And then, before anyone could surmise his intention, and in the midst of a wild pandemonium of noise he made a jump for his hat and coat, took a flying leap for the cloak room door, jumped through, bolted it on the inside, and like a flash was out in the street. The noise from the court room he had left behind sounded as if a riot had broken loose. There were shouts, screams, yells, and sundry intimations that a certain part of Yimville's population wanted either his scalp, or to decorate him with tar and feathers. A boy driving a delivery wagon reduced to sleigh runners was passing by and Jimmy hastily waylaid him.

"Sonny," he said, "I'm in a hurry to get to the railway station to catch the four-thirty train. I've got just five minutes and if you make it for me, you get a five dollar bill."

That boy was a genius of finance. He lost small time in making a decision.

"Hop in, Mister. We'll make it or have a runaway!"

But short as was the delay, it had given time for the crowd in the court house to fairly heave itself into the street. And foremost in the lot charged a tall, angular woman, screaming to her followers, "Come on! Come on! Don't let him get away!"

The boy brought his reins down on the horse's back with a loud thwack and let out a yell for speed. The horse jumped like a sprinter taking off the tape and it was then that the large angry woman who headed the militant section of the state league, seeing that pursuit was futile, found a pile of bricks conveniently left by some repairer and with rather perfect aim let a chunk fly at the retreating orator. It caught him neatly in its passage and although it barely grazed him, nearly knocked him from his seat.

"Wow!" he shouted. "That was a close one!" and then rubbing his scalp, burst into roars of delighted laughter as the mob was left behind. "That woman ought to get out of the bush league and pitch for the New Yorks! Who said a woman could never throw a brick?"

The boy, intent on earning the five, was on his feet and bending over the dash board exhorting his horse into a run. The improvised sleigh was careening madly as it took corners and an occasional bump, and in the last glimpse Jimmy had of the court house square it looked as if a hive of human beings had begun to swarm, or else that a nest of hornets had been so badly disturbed that its occupants were undecided whither to direct their stings. He looked hopefully forward as the station came in sight, expecting to see the train standing there panting after its previous run; but no train was in sight He began to speculate on which way he could turn to escape the tempest of wrath he had aroused in case he had missed the train. He doubted if he could induce the boy to take him to the nearest town, and moreover, had no idea of the distance. Also he doubted if he could escape a mob there, provided the news got through. For once in his life he began to doubt the wisdom of practical jokes.

The boy brought the horse up skating on its heels, by throwing his full weight back on the lines and shouting pacifyingly "Whoa-a-a! Who-oa, Bill!"

Jimmy leaped, out on the platform shouting, "Wait right there, son, till I get some change. I think we're in time and – anyhow, you get the fiver!"

He ran into the station and, finding the window closed, opened the office door. A placid, disinterested young man wearing an eyeshade, who was sitting with his feet on a window desk and reading a novel, looked up at him and said, "Well?"

"Has that four-thirty train gone through?" demanded Jimmy, anxiously.

"Sixteen? Naw! She's off the map as far as I know."

Jimmy's spirits ebbed like mercury in a typhoon.

"And – when will the next train come through?" he asked, striving to speak calmly.

"The next train? That'll be a freight. It's due now from Morgan City. But you won't go on that?"

"Why?" questioned Jimmy, grasping at straws.

"Two reasons. One that she doesn't carry passengers, and the other that she doesn't stop here at all. Just whistles up there by the tank, and goes lobbin' along on her way."

"But – but couldn't you stop her in case of emergency?" asked Jimmy, feeling like a petitioner.

"Only thing I could stop her for would be on an order from the train despatcher," said the agent, with a grin of sympathy. "I'm not the owner of the line, you know. They don't thank me for stoppin' heavy freights on an upgrade such as they have to climb to get through here, just to ask 'em how the weather is where they come from, or what time it is, or to send a message to the engineer's beautiful daughter. Guess you'll have to wait for Number Sixteen, Mister, or, if you're in too big a hurry, hoof it. It's only eighteen miles to the next stop. Sorry!"

And then he yawned as if bored, and deliberately resumed his interrupted reading. Jimmy realized that he was knocking on the locked and unbending doors of an inexorable fate, and backed out. He went outside and hailed his rescuer, who had found a piece of gum that he was extricating from some wrappings that indicated a rather dirty pocket.

"Son, my brave youth, how far, I beseech thee, is it to the nearest town from here?" Jimmy asked.

"On a railroad?" queried the boy, biting off the tip end of the stick of gum and testing its flavor.

"Of course. What good is a town that's not on the railroad?"

"I guess it's about seven miles to Mountain City up to the north, and about eleven to Hargus. Hargus is down south."

Jimmy thought for a moment and then said, winningly, "And do you think you could drive me with old Bill as far as Mountain City?"

"Not on your life! Me drive you there? Humph! What's the matter with Jones? He runs a livery stable. I deliver groceries for the Emporium and – say! Mister! – if they find out I drove you down here for that five dollars I ain't got yet, I'd get fired! Now about that five, did you get change?"

Jimmy appreciated that boy's business sense and gave him a five dollar bill that caused the young man much glee.

"Now," said Jimmy, cajolingly, "if you were to drive me to Mountain City, and I were to give you ten, and you were to go back to the Emporium with a letter I would write them when we got to Mountain City, a letter that would cause them to pat you on the back and maybe make you a clerk in the store; or if they didn't do that and fired you, and I was to get you a nice job somewhere in New York, maybe you might find the way to Mountain City, eh?"

The boy suddenly stopped masticating, and looked at him doubtfully. Jimmy assumed his most seductive grin, took his wallet from his pocket and exposed several bills, and fingered them with something like a caress.

"I could find the way all right, and I guess the roads could be got across somehow, and I'd like to make that money – Gee! I never had that much in my life! But – somehow it don't look square to treat the Emporium that way!"

Suddenly Jimmy was aware of a rumbling and roaring and puffing, and saw the expected freight train approaching. It whistled at the tank, true to form, and Jimmy ran across to the edge of the platform as it came panting along, and stared at it wistfully. He wished that he were expert in boarding trains, and then, as it passed, decided that it must be traveling at a rate of at least a hundred miles an hour, although it was barely doing fifteen. He made a desperate clutch at the rails of the caboose, felt as if his arm had been jerked from its socket and his heels into the air, and then found himself sitting in the middle of the track with his hat some ten or fifteen feet away and a cooling mixture of snow and cinders up his trousers legs. He got up, felt himself over to learn that he was unbroken, and recovered his hat.

"By gee whiz!" he exclaimed. "Never knew it was so hard to hop aboard one of those things before. Hoboes have it on me all right! My education's been neglected."

His solicitous friend, the boy, had come to see if there was anything left of him and said, "Hope you ain't hurted much, Mister? Humph! I could have caught her all right, I bet you! You don't know how. The minute you catch hold you want to jump. If you wait you can't do nothin'. But I'll say you did look funny, all right, with your heels and your coat tails and your hat all flyin' at onct!"

"Well, I'm glad I amused you, anyway," said Jimmy, cheerfully. "Now about going to Mountain City, where were we? Oh, yes! The Emporium. Would you go if I got their consent – for a ten dollar bill you know?"

The boy brightened visibly.

"If you can get old Wade to say I can, you bet I'll go!" said the boy with marked enthusiasm. "He's got a 'phone, and there's one in the depot. Ask him!"

Jimmy hastened inside as fast as his stiffness would permit and was starting toward the ticket office to make a request for permission to use the 'phone when he happened to glance through the window looking toward the street. An arc light had sprung into being, and – he stopped with a gasp. Down the street was coming a crowd that was evidently in some haste and he recognized its leader. It was a large, bony woman, who strode like a man, and Jimmy thought that she carried something in her hand, something that he surmised might be a selected missile.

"Good Lord!" he breathed. "If she hit me a clip with a little chunk before, what'll she do with a full-grown brick? Why, it'd be murder I I've got to get away from here if I have to steal the horse and kidnap that boy!"

Being quick in decision and swift in enterprise, and adaptable to sudden emergency, he ran back out with great presence of mind and shouted to the boy, "Come on, son! Get a move on you. Mr. Wade says it's all right and for you to take me as fast as you can. Let's be off before that crowd gets here looking for the train."

The boy barely caught the tail of the sleigh and thus proved that he might have boarded the train; for Jimmy, not waiting for him, had clutched the lines and stirred the restless nag to action by a surreptitious slap with his hand.

"The shortest road is back the way we come," insisted the boy, as Jimmy drove the horse recklessly across the end of the platform and into a road that appeared fortuitously in front of him.

"But I certainly do like this way best," insisted Jimmy, urging the horse to speed. "I've always been fond of this road."

"Well it's a mile outen the way," protested the boy.

"What's a mile to us, eh? You see it's such a nice clean road and it's been so well traveled that it's better than – what? Turn to the left you say? I always thought we went straight ahead here."

"Straight ahead would take us to the slaughter house," objected his guide.

"Oh! I thought the slaughter house was somewhere around the depot," said Jimmy with a grin at his own joke, which was entirely unappreciated by the boy.

The station, with its menace, had by now been left behind in the whirl of snow, and the heavy dusk of twilight. Jimmy was breathing again, and cheerful, having escaped the most imminent peril. The horse was loping steadily up the street as if imbued with the hope of a warm stall in a warm stable.

"Turn to the right! The right! That's the way," insisted the boy, and Jimmy, after a single backward glance to convince him that they had escaped the mob, said, "Son, I don't know these roads as well as you do. Maybe it'd be better if you took the lines. But whatever you do, keep going. Mr. Wade says you are to hurry – that is for the first few miles. You see, he's afraid old Bill will catch cold if he's not kept moving, and they tell me that it's an awful thing for a horse to catch cold on a day like this for the want of exercise. Make him hustle!"