A Spoil of Office: A Story of the Modern West

A few days after there came to him a pamphlet directed in a woman's hand. Its title page struck him as something utterly new, but it was only the first of a flood of similar publications.

"The Coming Conflict. A Series of Lectures prophetic of the Coming Revolution of the Poor, when they will rise against the National Banks and against all Indirect Taxation."

Its dedication was marked with a pencil and he read it over and over: "To the Toiling Millions who produce all the wealth, yet because they have never controlled legislation, have been impoverished by unjust laws made in the interests of the Land-holder and the Money-changer, who seize upon and hold the surplus wealth of the nation by the same right that the slave-master held his slave, legal right and that alone, this tract is inscribed by the author."

It was Bradley's first intimation of the mighty forces beginning to stir in the deeps of American society. He found the pamphlet filled with great confusing thoughts. He confessed frankly in his letter to Miss Wilbur that he got nothing satisfactory out of it, though it made him think.

It was astonishing to himself to find his thoughts flowing out to her upon paper with the greatest ease. He was stricken with fear after he had mailed his letter, it was so bulky. He was appalled at the length of time which must pass before he might reasonably expect to hear from her. He counted the days, the hours that intervened. Her note came at last, and it made his blood leap as the clerk flung it out with a grin. "She's blessed yeh this time!" It was a red-headed clerk, and his grin, by reason of a quid of tobacco in his thin cheek, was particularly offensive. Bradley felt an impulse to call him out of his box and whip him.

When he opened the letter in his own room he felt a sort of fear. How would she reply? The letter gave out a faint perfume like that he remembered floated with her dress. It was a rather brief note, but very kind. She called his attention to two or three passages in the pamphlet, and especially asked him to read the chapters touching on the land and money questions. But the part over which he spent the most time was the paragraph at the close:

"I liked your letter very much. It shows a sincere desire for the truth. You will never stop short of the truth, I'm sure, but you will have sacrifices to make – you must expect that. I shall take great interest in your work.

"Very sincerely,"Ida Wilbur."

XIV.

BRADLEY CHANGES HIS POLITICAL VIEWS

The West had always been Republican. Its States had come into the Union as Republican States. It met the solid South with a solid North-west year after year, and it firmly believed that the salvation of the nation's life depended on its fidelity to the war traditions and on the principle of protection to American industries.

Its orators waved the bloody shirt to keep the party together, though each election placed the war and its issues farther into the background of history, and an increasing number of people deprecated the action of fanning smouldering embers into flame again. Iowa and Kansas and Nebraska were Stalwarts of the Stalwart. Kansas was the battle-ground of the old Abolition and Free Soil forces, and their traditions kept alive a love and reverence for the Republican party long after its real leaders had passed away, and long after it had ceased to be the party of the people.

Iowa was hopelessly Republican, also. A strong force in the Rebellion, dominated by New England thought, its industries predominantly agricultural, it held rigidly to its Republicanism, and trained its young men to believe that, while "all Democrats were not thieves, all thieves were Democrats," and, when pressed to the wall, admitted, reluctantly, that there were "some good men among the Democrats."

In the fall of Bradley's last year at Iowa City, another presidential campaign was coming on, but few men considered that there was any change impending. Local fights really supplied the incitement to action among the Republican leaders. There was no statement of a general principle, no discussion of economic issues by their political leaders. They carefully avoided anything like a discussion of the real condition of the people.

Rock County had been the banner Republican county. For years the Democrats of Rock County had met in annual convention to nominate a ticket which they had not the slightest expectation of electing. There was something pathetic in the habit. It was not faith – it was a sort of desperation; and yet the Republicans as regularly had their joke about it, regardless of the pathos presented in the action of a body of men thus fighting a forlorn and hopeless battle. Each year some old-fashioned Democrat dropped away into the grave, and yet the remnant met and nominated a complete ticket, and voted for it solemnly, even religiously.

The young Republicans of the county called this remnant "Free traders" and "Copperheads," exactly as if the terms were synonymous. The Republican boys of the country felt that there was something mysteriously uncanny in the term "Free Trader" (and always associated "Copperhead" with the yellow-backed rattlesnakes that made their dens in the limestone cliffs), and in their snowballing took sides with these mysterious words as shibboleths.

In truth, many of these Democrats were very thoughtful men – old-line Jeffersonians, who held to a principle of liberty. Others had been born Democrats a half-century ago, and had never been able to make any change. They continued the habit of being Democrats, just as they continued the habit of wearing fuzzy old plug hats, of old-fashioned shapes, and long, polished frock coats. Then there were a few of that perpetually cross-grained class who will never agree with anybody else if they can help it. They belonged to the Democracy because the Democrats were in the minority, and considered it wrong to belong to a majority, anyhow. Of this sort were men like Colonel Peavy and old Judd Colwell.

The Colonel had been nominated for treasurer and Colwell for sheriff on the Democratic ticket year after year, and each year the leaders of the party had prophesied decided gains, but they did not come. The State remained apparently hopelessly Republican. The forces which were really preparing for change were too far below the surface for these old-line politicians to understand and measure.

As a matter of fact, the schools and debating clubs and newspapers were preparing the whole country for a political revolution. Radicals were everywhere being educated. Men like Radbourn, who still remained nominally a Republican, and a host of other young men and progressive men were becoming disabused of the protective idea, and were ready for a revolt. There needed but a change of leadership to make a change of the relation of parties and of party names.

The Grange, which was still non-partisan, seemed not destined to play a very strong part in politics, though it was still at work wresting some advanced forms of legislation from one or the other of the old parties.

But the deeper change was one which Judge Brown and a few of the progressive men had only just dimly perceived. The war and the issues of the war were slowly drawing off. The militant was being lost in the problems of the industrial. Each year a larger mass of people practically said, "The issues of to-day are not the issues of twenty-five years ago. The bloody shirt is an anachronism."

Here and there a young man coming to maturity caught the spirit of the new era, and turned away from the talk of the solid South, and addressed himself to a consideration of the questions of taxation and finance. These men formed a growing power in the State, and chafed under the restraint of their leaders.

And above all, death, the great pacificator, unlooser of bonds, and aider of progress, was doing his work. The old men were dying and carrying their prejudices with them, while each year thousands of young voters, to whom the war was an echo of passion, sprang to the polls and faced the future policy of the parties, not their past. Not only all over the State of Iowa, but all over the West, they were silent factors, in many cases kept so by the all-compelling power of party ties; but they represented a growing power, and they were to become leaders in their turn.

This spreading radicalism reached Bradley in the quiet of his life in Iowa City. The young fellows in the school were debating it with fierce enthusiasm, and several of them capitulated. They all recognized that the liquor question once out of the way, the tariff was the next great State issue. At the Judge's suggestion, Bradley did not return to Rock River during vacation, but spent the time reading with a prominent lawyer of the town who had a very fine law library.

He did not care to return particularly, for the quiet studious life he led, almost lonely, had grown to be very pleasant to him. He read a great deal outside his law, and enjoyed his days as he had never done before. Unconsciously he had fallen into a mode of life and a habit of thought which were unfitting him for a politician's career. He gave very little thought to that, however; his ambition for the time had taken a new form. He wished to be well read; to be a scholar such as he imagined Miss Wilbur to be.

He began reading for that purpose, and kept at it because he really had the literary perception. He wrote to her of his reading; and when in her reply she mentioned some book which he had not read, he searched for it, and read it as soon as possible. In this quiet way he spent his days, the happiest he had ever known.

He had just two disturbing factors: one was Nettie's relation to him, and the other was his desire to see Miss Wilbur. Nettie wrote quite often at first, letters all very much alike, and very short, sending love and kisses. She was not a good letter writer, and even under the inspiration of love could not write above two pages of repetitious matter. "It's dreadfully hard work to write," she kept saying. "I wish you was to home. When are you coming back?"

It was very curious to see the different way in which he came to the writing of letters to these two persons.

"Dear Nettie," he would begin, with a scowling brow, "I can't write any oftener, because in the first place I'm too busy, and in the second place nothing happened here that you would care to hear about. I don't know when I'll be home. I ought to finish my course here. No, I don't expect you to mope. I expect you to have a good time, go to parties and dances all you want to."

But when Miss Wilbur's letters arrived, he devoured them with tremulous eagerness, and sat up half the night writing an elaborate answer, while Nettie's letters lay unanswered for days.

"Miss Ida Wilbur, Dear Miss." (That was the way he addressed her. He was afraid to call her Dear Miss Wilbur, it seemed a little too familiar.) In the body of his letters there was no expressed word of his regard for her. It was only put indirectly into the length of his letters, and was shown in the eager promptness of his reply. She wrote kindly, scholarly replies, giving him a great deal to think about. Her letters were very far apart, however, as she was moving about so much. She advised him to read the modern books.

"I'm always on the wrong side of everything," she wrote once, "so I'm on the side of the modern novel. I champion Mr. Howells. Are you reading his story in the Century? I like it because it isn't like anybody else; and Mr. Cable, too, you should read, and Henry James and Miss Jewett; they're all of this modern school, that most Western people know nothing about. The West is so afraid of its own judgments. My friends go about praising the classics because they know it's safe to do so, I suppose, while I am an image breaker to them. Mr. Howells says the idea of progress in art does not admit of the conception that any art is finished. Just like the question of social advance, there is always new work to be done and new victories to be won."

But more often she wrote upon economic subjects, as being more impersonal; and then her wish to make Bradley a reformer was greater than her desire to make him a lover of modern art.

"The spirit of reform is beginning to move over the face of the great deep," she wrote at another time. "No one who travels about as I do, can fail to see it. The labor question in the cities, and the farmer question in the country, will soon be the great disturbing factors in politics. The protective theory will go down: it is based on a privilege; and the new war, like the old war, is going to be against all kinds of special privileges."

It was with a peculiar feeling of pain and relief that he read Miss Wilbur's renunciation of her home-market idea. It seemed as if something sweet and fine had gone with it; and yet it strengthened him, for he had come to believe that a home-market built up by legislation was unnatural and a mistake. Judge Brown's constant hammerings had left a mark.

He wrote to her something of his hesitation, and she replied substantially that there was no abandonment of the home-market idea; only the method of bringing it about had changed. She had come to believe in what was free and natural, not what was artificial and forced.

"If you will study the past," she went on, "you will find that advance in legislation has always been in the direction of less law, less granting of special privileges. Take the time of the Stuarts, for example, when the king granted monopolies in the sale of all kinds of goods. It is abhorrent to us, and yet I suppose those protected merchants believed their monopolies to be rights. Slowly these rights have come to be considered wrongs, and the people have abolished them. So all other monopolies will be abolished, when people come to see that it is an infringement of liberty to have a class of men enjoying any special privilege whatever. The way to build up a home-market is to make our own people able to buy what they want.

"There never was a time when our own people were not too poor to buy what they wanted. Goods lie rotting in our Eastern factories, and we export many products which the farmer would be very glad to consume, if he were able. The farmer is poor; but it isn't because he needs protection, it isn't because he doesn't produce enough – it's because what he does produce is taken from him by bankers and corporations."

Bradley read her letters over and over again. Every word which she uttered had more significance than words from any one else. She seemed a marvellous being to him. He looked eagerly in every letter for some personal expression, but she seemed carefully to avoid that; and though his own letters were filled with personalities, she remained studiously impersonal. She replied cordially and kindly, but with a reserve that should have been a warning to him; but he would not accept warnings now – he was too deeply moved. Under the influence of her letters he developed a tremendous capacity for work. The greatest stimulus in the world had come to him, and remained with him. If it should be withdrawn at any time, it would weaken him. He did not speculate on that.

XV.

HOME AGAIN WITH THE JUDGE

The day that came to close his work at Iowa City had something of an awakening effect in it. The mere motion of the train brought back again in intensified form the feelings he had experienced on the day he left Rock River. Life was really before him at last. His studies were ended, and he was prepared for his entrance into law. He looked forward to a political career indefinitely. He left that in the hands of the Judge.

It was in June, and the country was very beautiful. Groves heavy with foliage, rivers curving away into the glooms of bending elm and bass-wood trees, fields of wheat and corn alternating with smooth pastures where the cattle fed – a long panorama of glorified landscape which his escape from manual labor now enabled him to see the beauty of, its associations of toil and dirt no longer acutely painful.

He thought of the June day in which he had first met Miss Wilbur – just such a day! Then he thought of Nettie with a sudden twinge. She had not written for several weeks; he really didn't remember just when she had written last. He wondered what it meant; was she forgetting him? He hardly dared hope for it; it was such an easy way out of his difficulty.

The Judge met him at the depot with a carriage. There were a number of people he knew at the station, but they did not recognize him: his brown beard had changed him so, and his silk hat made him so tall.

"Right this way, colonel," said the Judge, in a calm nasal. He was filled with delight at Bradley's appearance. He shook hands with dignified reserve, all for the benefit of the crowd standing about. "You paralyzed 'em," he chuckled, as they got in and drove off. "That beard and hat will fix 'em sure. I was afraid you wouldn't carry out my orders on the hat."

"The hat was an extravagance for your benefit alone. It goes into a band-box to-morrow," replied Bradley. "How's Mrs. Brown?"

"Quite well, thank you; little older, of course. She caught a bad cold somewhere last winter, and she hasn't been quite so well since. We keep a girl now; I forced the issue. Mrs. Brown had done her own work so long she considered it a sort of high treason to let any one else in."

Mrs. Brown met him at the door; and she looked so good and motherly, and there was such a peculiar wistful look in her eyes, that he put his arm around her in a sudden impulse and kissed her. It made her lips tremble, and she was obliged to wipe her glasses before she could see him clearly. Supper was on the table for him, and she made him sit right down.

"How that beard changes you, Bradley! I would hardly have known you. What will Nettie think?"

"How is Nettie?"

"Haven't you heard from her lately?"

"Not for some weeks."

"Then I suppose the neighborhood gossip is true." He looked at her inquiringly, and she went on, studying his face carefully, "They say she's soured on you, and is sweet on her father's new book-keeper."

Bradley took refuge in silence, as usual. His face became thoughtful, and his eyes fell.

"I've hoped it was true, Bradley, because she was no wife for you. You'd outgrown her, and she'd be a drag about your neck. I see her out riding a good deal with this young fellow; he's just her sort, so I guess she isn't heart-broken over your absence."

There was a certain shock in all this. He recurred to his last evening with her, when in her paroxysm of agony she had thrown herself at his feet. Much as he had desired such an outcome, it puzzled him to find her in love with some one else. It was not at all like books.

"Well, Mrs. Brown, what do you think of my junior partner?" said the Judge, coming in and looking down on Bradley with a fatherly pride.

"I suppose, Mr. Brown, you refer to our adopted son."

Bradley dressed for church the next day with a new sort of embarrassment. He felt very conscious of his beard and of his tailor-made clothes, for he knew everybody would observe any change in him. He knew he would be the object of greater attention than the service; but he determined to go, and have the whole matter over at once.

The windows were open, and the sound of the bell came in mingled with the scent of the sunlit flowers, the soft rustle of the maple leaves, and the sound of the insects in the grass. His heart turned toward Miss Wilbur now whenever any keen enjoyment came to him; instinctively turned to her, with the wish that she might share his pleasure with him. He sat by the open window, dreaming, until the last bell sounded through the heavy leaf-scented air.

"Won't you go to church with me, Judge?" he said, going out.

The Judge turned a slow look upon him. He was seated on the shady porch, his feet on the railing, a Chicago daily paper in his lap. He said very gravely: "Mrs. Brown, our boy is going to church."

"Can't you let him, Mr. Brown? It'll do him good, maybe," said Mrs. Brown, who was at work near the window.

"Goes to see the girls. Know all about it myself. Go ahead, young man, and remember the text now, or we'll put a stop to this" – Bradley went off down the walk. He passed by a tiny little box of a house where a man in his shirt sleeves was romping with some children.

"Hello, Milton," called Bradley cheerily.

The young man looked up. His face flashed into a broad smile. "Hello! Brad Talcott, by thunder! Well, well. When'd you get back?"

"Last night. Yours?" he inquired, nodding toward the children.

"Yep. Well, how are you, old man? You look well. Couldn't fool me with that beard. Come in and sit down, won't yeh?"

"No, I'm on my way to church. Can't you come?"

"Great Cæsar, no! not with these young hyenas to attend to." He had grown fat, and his chin beard made him look like a Methodist minister; but his sunny blue eyes laughed up into Bradley's face just as in the past. "Say!" he exclaimed, "you struck it with the old Judge, didn't you? He's goin' to run you for governor one of these days. County treasurer ain't good enough for you. But say," he said, as a final word, "I guess you'd better not wear that suit much; it's too soft altogether. Stop in when you come back. Eileen'll be glad to see you," he called after him.

The audience had risen to sing as he entered, and he took his place without attracting much attention. As he stood there listening to the familiar Moody and Sankey hymn, there came again the touch of awe which the church used to put upon him. He was not a "religious" man. He had no more thought of his soul or his future state than a powerful young Greek. His feeling of awe arose from the association of beauty, music, and love with a church. It was feminine, some way, and shared his reverence for a beautiful woman.

The churches of the town were the only things of a public nature which had any touch of beauty or grace. They were poor little wooden boxes at best; and yet they had colored windows, which seemed to hush the dazzling summer sun into a dim glory, transfiguring the shabby interior, and making the bent heads of the girls more beautiful than words can tell. It was the one place which was set apart for purposes not utilitarian, and a large part of what these people called religious reverence was in fact a pathetic homage to beauty and poetry, and rest.

When they all took their seats, and while the preacher was praying, Bradley was absorbing the churchy smell of fresh linen, buoyant perfumes, (camphor, cinnamon, violets, rose) and the hot, sweet odor of newly-mown grass lying under the sun just outside of the windows. The wind pulsed in through the half-swung window, a bee came buzzing wildly along, a butterfly rested an instant on the window sill, and the preacher prayed on in an oratorical way for the various departments of government.

Bradley felt a sharp eye fixed upon him, and, turning cautiously, caught Nettie looking at him. She nodded and smiled in her audacious way. Two or three of the young fellows saw him and nodded at him, but mainly the people sat with bowed heads, feeling some presence that was full of grace and power to banish, for a short time at least the stress of the struggle to live.

The young fellows were mainly in the back seats; and while they were decorously quiet, it was evident that they had very little interest in the prayer. Death and hell and the grave! Why should one trouble himself about such things when the red blood leaped in the heart, and the June wind was flinging a flickering flight of leaf shadows across the window pane? There sat the girls with roguish eyes, the rounded outline of their cheeks (as tempting as peaches), displayed with miraculous skill at just their most taking angle. Their Sunday gowns and gloves and hats transfigured them into something too dainty and fine to be touched, and yet every glance and motion was an invitation and a lure.

Here was the proper function of the church; to enable these young people to see each other at their best, and to bring into their sordid lives some hint, at least, of music and beauty.

Bradley did not hear the sermon. He was wondering just what Nettie's smile meant, and what he was going to say to her. He was not subtle enough to take a half-way or an ambiguous stand. He must either treat her tenderness as a forgotten thing or hold himself to his promise as something which he was under orders from his conscience to fulfill.