The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire

by Margaret Vandercook

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE CAMPAIGN

  A few weeks later, had Jacqueline Kent been altogether outspoken, therewere many hours when she would have confessed her regret at not havingobeyed her sister Frieda's command. One could hardly describe Frieda'sattitude otherwise.

  Certainly Jack had not been able to imagine the degree of excitement andcontroversy aroused by the simple fact that a comparatively unknownyoung woman had been nominated for membership in the Congress of theUnited States. If it were in her power and the power of the men andwomen voters supporting her she intended to be elected. Nevertheless,Jack had not understood either the amount or the character of work thatwould be required of her personally to accomplish this result.

  In the past electioneering had appeared as a fairly amusing pastime.Living in England, she had often seen Englishwomen engaged in it. Theyhad not at that time been electioneering for themselves, but for theirhusbands or brothers, fathers or friends. Their method had been to driveabout from one village to another talking to the village people andasking their support, or else stopping to argue or plead with thepassers-by along the country roads. At big political meetings, which menand women attended together, speeches were made and questions put to thespeakers. In the past Jack had frequently accompanied her husband tothese gatherings, where she had been greatly entertained. Then she hadbeen a spectator with no personal role to fill. Now the situation waswholly changed.

  A curious fact, but in the United States, supposedly less conservative acountry than England, the nomination of a woman for a high public officewas creating a greater storm of protest and of indignation than had beenaroused in England by the same act. True, Jack was not the first womanchosen for this same office in a western state. But the fact that thenumber should increase, many persons in Wyoming declared to be alarming.

  Now when Jack went to political gatherings, she found herself not only acenter of attention and of controversy, but more often than not wascompelled to make a speech. Never regarding herself as a good speaker,and always frightened, she never learned to enjoy the opportunity.

  Moreover, as Frieda had warned her and as she had not fully appreciated,there was hardly an issue of the daily papers in which some informationor misinformation concerning her personal history did not appear.

  At first Jack refused to allow her photograph to be reproduced,insisting that people might wish to know what she thought and why shethought it, but certainly could have no interest in her appearance. Yetthis was so absurd a position, as her friends and acquaintances agreed,that Jack was obliged to surrender. Afterwards she was forced to seephotographs of herself, or at least what claimed to be photographs, inpapers and magazines throughout the entire country, so that if ever shehad possessed any personal vanity Jack considered that it would havebeen hopelessly lost. Now and then she used to carry the newspaperscontaining her pictures to members of her family, asking them if it werereally true that she looked as the pictures indicated? Sometimes thefamily cruelly said the likeness was perfect and at others they were asannoyed as Jack herself.

  But she really did not enjoy the political meetings as she had expected,or the notoriety, or the personal enmity oftentimes directed toward her.

  Since the afternoon of her meeting with Peter Stevens by the Rainbowcreek he had declined to do more than bow to her in public. The reasonJack did not fully comprehend. She had not intended to be frivolous orungrateful concerning his proposal. She had not believed for a momentthat he really cared for her. Peter was a confirmed old bachelor andalways freely expressed himself as disapproving of her from theafternoon of their first re-meeting after many years. At the time shehad been engaged in an escapade which had annoyed Peter Stevens almostas much as her present one.

  Peter had not resigned as her political opponent. The only remark he hadmade to Jack which was at all friendly was to say to her one day whenthey were passing each other on the street in Laramie, that the greatestkindness he could pay her was to defeat her in the present election.

  Yet notwithstanding all the worry and the work, Jack did not agree withhim. She did not intend to be defeated. She meant to win, else why thestruggle and the fatigue and, more often than she confessed, theheartache?

  Frieda had never forgiven her. This Jack had not at first believedpossible, yet as the days passed Frieda did not relent. Instead sheappeared more annoyed and more unyielding, continuing to insist Jack wasdisgracing not alone herself but her family by running for a politicaloffice as if she were a man.

  In fact, had it not been for her little girl, Jack feared that Friedawould have declined speaking to her. But Peace continued to adore herand Frieda would do nothing to frighten or grieve the child. The year ormore spent at the ranch for the sake of the little girl's health had notbeen successful. Peace seemed to grow more ethereal, more fairylike witheach passing day. She was like a spring flower, so fragile and delicateone feared the first harsh wind would destroy her. Yet if she were atall seriously ill, it was Jack she wanted, Jack who seemed able to givea part of her vitality to the child, when Frieda was oftentimes toofrightened to be helpful.

  Therefore during the spring and summer of Jack's political campaign, ifFrieda was not entirely estranged from her sister, it was only becausePeace was occasionally ill and needed her.

  Moreover, Jack had to endure Jim Colter's regret. Little as Jack hadknown what experiences she would be forced to pass through in apolitical campaign, Jim apparently had known even less. Now, although hewas not given to looking backward when no good could come of it, morethan once he had been driven to confess to Jack that he wished to heavenhe had opposed her acceptance of the political nomination with every bitof influence he possessed.

  Jack could see that it was agony to Jim to hear her name and characterdiscussed as it had to be discussed were she to win enough popularity toelect her to office.

  Not that he talked to her upon the subject during the few evenings whenthey were at home and saw each other a short time alone.

  "You need a rest from the plagued thing, Jack, and so do I. To thinkthat I actually agreed to allow one of my little Rainbow ranch girls toenter a campaign for office in Washington, D. C!" If Jim Colter hadbeen speaking of a much worse place his tone could not have beendrearier.

  However, what worried Jack even more was that Jim insisted uponaccompanying her wherever and whenever she was forced to attend any kindof political meeting. For this purpose he was neglecting his own work onthe two ranches, and growing older and more haggard, chiefly, Jackthought, through boredom and the effort to hold his temper.

  He did not always manage to keep his temper, however; on severaloccasions, although Jim never reported the fact, he came to blows overremarks he overheard. When Jack asked questions he simply declined toanswer, and as Jim Colter was the one person in the world of whomJacqueline Kent was afraid, she did not dare press the matter.

  Naturally Jack made enemies, as every human being does who enterspolitical life, and she was unusually frank and outspoken with regardboth to her principles and ideas. But there was one enemy she made whomboth she and Jim Colter especially disliked and distrusted. He was ayoung man who had been employed as a private secretary by SenatorMarshall and was helping to manage Peter Stevens' election to Congress.

  Senator Marshall had made a friendly call upon Jacqueline Kent at thetime of her nomination, protesting in a fatherly fashion against herpermitting herself to be put up as a candidate.

  Afterwards he declared he had the right to oppose her election in favorof Peter Stevens. This right Jack never disputed. Mrs. Marshall led theopposition against Jacqueline Kent among the conservative women inWyoming.

  In fact, among her own family and her more intimate friends andacquaintances Jack possessed only three staunch and always enthusiasticsupporters, her own small son, Jimmie Kent, who accompanied her to mostof the day-time political meetings, Billy Preston, the young Kentuckymountaineer who after soldiering in France had decided to try his fateas a cowboy in Wyoming, and
John Marshall, Senator Marshall's son.

  Billy Preston assured Jack that he was making it his business to seethat every cowboy in Wyoming voted for her. John Marshall declared thathe proposed showing his father who had the greater influence in thestate. He protested that his father had lost all chivalry by assisting aman when a woman was his opponent. If he would not descend to thetactics employed by Alec Robertson, his father's secretary and PeterStevens' campaign manager, nevertheless, he was backing Mrs. Kent to winagainst all odds.

  "The boy is falling in love with Jacqueline Kent, I am afraid, my dear,as he has never showed the slightest interest in politics in his entirelife until recently," Senator Marshall confided to his wife toward thelatter part of the summer.

  "Nonsense, Mrs. Kent is older than John, and is not an especiallyattractive woman!"

  And although Senator Marshall did not agree with his wife, he pretendedto accept her opinion.