CHAPTER VIII
THE ELECTION BONFIRE
The election had been on Tuesday, November 4th. Our paper, containingthe news of the result, was to be expected at the Corners on Fridaymorning. But long before that date we had learned--I think it was Hurleywho found it out--that the Abolitionists had actually been beaten inour Congressional district. It was so amazing a thing that Abner couldscarcely credit it, but it was apparently beyond dispute. For thatmatter, one hardly needed further evidence than the dejected way inwhich Philo Andrews and Myron Pierce and other followers of "Jee"Hagadorn hung their heads as they drove past our place.
Of course it had all been done by the vote in the big town of Tecumseh,way at the other end of the district, and by those towns surrounding itwhere the Mohawk Dutch were still very numerous. But this did not atall lessen the exhilaration with which the discovery that the Radicalsof our own Dearborn County had been snowed under, filled our breasts.Was it not wonderful to think of, that these heroes of remote Adams andJay Counties should have been at work redeeming the district on thevery day when the two votes of our farm marked the almost despairinglow-water mark of the cause in Agrippa?
Abner could hardly keep his feet down on the ground or floor when hewalked, so powerfully did the tidings of this achievement thrill hisveins. He said the springs of his knees kept jerking upward, so thathe wanted to kick and dance all the while. Janey Wilcox, who, though ameek and silent girl, was a wildly bitter partisan, was all eagernessto light a bonfire out on the knoll in front of the house Thursdaynight, so that every mother's son of them down at the Corners mightsee it, but Abner thought it would be better to wait until we had theprinted facts before us.
I could hardly wait to finish breakfast Friday morning, so great wasmy zeal to be off to the post-office. It was indeed not altogetherdaylight when I started at quick step down the hill. Yet, early asI was, there were some twenty people inside Lee Watkins's storewhen I arrived, all standing clustered about the high square row ofglass-faced pigeon-holes reared on the farther end of the counter,behind which could be seen Lee and his sour-faced wife sorting over themail by lamp-light. "Jee" Hagadorn was in this group and Squire Avery,and most of the other prominent citizens of the neighborhood. All weredeeply restless.
Every minute or two some one of them would shout: "Come, Lee, give usout one of the papers, anyway!" But for some reason Mrs. Watkins wasinexorable. Her pursed-up lips and resolute expression told us plainlythat none would be served till all were sorted. So the impatientwaiters bided their time under protest, exchanging splenetic remarksunder their breath. We must have stood there three-quarters of an hour.
At last Mrs. Watkins wiped her hands on the apron over her bloomers.Everybody knew the signal, and on the instant a dozen arms werestretched vehemently toward Lee, struggling for precedence. In anothermoment wrappers had been ripped off and sheets flung open. Thenthe store was alive with excited voices. "Yes, sir! It's true! TheCopperheads have won!" "_Tribune_ concedes Seymour's election!" "We'rebeaten in the district by less'n a hundred!" "Good-by, human liberty!""Now we know how Lazarus felt when he was licked by the dogs!" and soon--a stormy warfare of wrathful ejaculations.
In my turn I crowded up, and held out my hand for the paper I saw inthe box. Lee Watkins recognized me, and took the paper out to deliverto me. But at the same moment his wife, who had been hastily scanningthe columns of some other journal, looked up and also saw who I was.With a lightning gesture she threw out her hand, snatched our _World_from her husband's grasp, and threw it spitefully under the counter.
"There ain't nothing for _you_!" she snapped at me. "Pesky Copperheadrag!" she muttered to herself.
Although I had plainly seen the familiar wrapper, and understood heraction well enough, it never occurred to me to argue the questionwith Mrs. Watkins. Her bustling, determined demeanor, perhaps alsoher bloomers, had always filled me with awe. I hung about for a time,avoiding her range of vision, until she went out into her kitchen. ThenI spoke with resolution to Lee:
"If you don't give me that paper," I said, "I'll tell Abner, an' he'llmake you sweat for it!"
The postmaster stole a cautious glance kitchenward. Then he made aswift, diving movement under the counter, and furtively thrust thepaper out at me.
"Scoot!" he said, briefly, and I obeyed him.
Abner was simply wild with bewildered delight over what this paper hadto tell him. Even my narrative about Mrs. Watkins, which ordinarilywould have thrown him into transports of rage, provoked only a passingsniff. "They've only got two more years to hold that post-office," washis only remark upon it.
Hurley and Janey Wilcox and even the Underwood girl came in, andlistened to Abner reading out the news. He shirked nothing, but wadedmanfully through long tables of figures and meaningless cataloguesof counties in other States, the names of which he scarcely knew howto pronounce: "'Five-hundred and thirty-one townships in Wisconsingive Brown 21,409, Smith 16,329, Ferguson 802, a Republican loss of26.' Do you see that, Hurley? It's everywhere the same." "'KalapoosasCounty elects Republican Sheriff for first time in history ofparty.' That isn't so good, but it's only one out of ten thousand.""'Four-hundred-and-six townships in New Hampshire show a net Democraticloss of--' pshaw! there ain't nothing in that! Wait till the other townsare heard from!"
So Abner read on and on, slapping his thigh with his free hand wheneveranything specially good turned up. And there was a great deal that wefelt to be good. The State had been carried. Besides our Congressman,many others had been elected in unlooked-for places--so much so thatthe paper held out the hope that Congress itself might be ours. Ofcourse Abner at once talked as if it were already ours. Resting betweenparagraphs, he told Hurley and the others that this settled it. Thewar must now surely be abandoned, and the seceding States invited toreturn to the Union on terms honorable to both sides.
Hurley had assented with acquiescent nods to everything else. He seemedto have a reservation on this last point. "An' what if they won'tcome?" he asked.
"Let 'em stay out, then," replied Abner, dogmatically. "This war--thiswicked war between brothers--must stop. That's the meaning of Tuesday'svotes. What did you and I go down to the Corners and cast our ballotsfor?--why, for peace!"
"Well, somebody else got my share of it, then," remarked Hurley, with arueful chuckle.
Abner was too intent upon his theme to notice. "Yes, peace!" herepeated, in the deep vibrating tones of his class-meeting manner."Why, just think what's been a-goin' on! Great armies raised, hundredsof thousands of honest men taken from their work an' set to murderin'each other, whole deestricks of country torn up by the roots, homesdesolated, the land filled with widows an' orphans, an' every house ahouse of mournin'."
Mrs. Beech had been sitting, with her mending-basket on her knee,listening to her husband like the rest of us. She shot to her feet nowas these last words of his quivered in the air, paying no heed to thebasket or its scattered contents on the floor, but putting her apronto her eyes, and making her way thus past us, half-blindly, into herbedroom. I thought I heard the sound of a sob as she closed the door.
That the stately, proud, self-contained mistress of our householdshould act like this before us all was even more surprising thanSeymour's election. We stared at one another in silent astonishment.
"M'rye ain't feelin' over 'n' above well," Abner said at last,apologetically. "You girls ought to spare her all you kin."
One could see, however, that he was as puzzled as the rest of us.He rose to his feet, walked over to the stove, rubbed his bootmeditatively against the hearth for a minute or two, then came backagain to the table. It was with a visible effort that he finally shookoff this mood, and forced a smile to his lips.
"Well, Janey," he said, with an effort at briskness, "ye kin go aheadwith your bonfire, now. I guess I've got some old bar'ls for ye over'n' the cow-barn."
But having said this, he turned abruptly and followed his wife into thelittle chamber off the living-room.
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