All-Wool Morrison by Holman Day (ebook offline reader txt) 📖

the habit of talking out loud with me! I won't even talk politics in a whisper."
"It really shouldn't be talked out, not at this time," expostulated Dow, wedded to the old ways. "I have had to burrow deep for it. It ought to be saved carefully--to do business with later! To win a stroke in politics it's necessary to jump the people with a sensation!"
"Try it on me! I'm one of the people. See if it will work," insisted Morrison, after the manner of his methods with Despeaux.
"They propose to go according to the strict letter of the law."
"Important but not sensational."
Dow was plainly having hard work to keep his voice above a whisper. "Returns not properly sworn to or not attested in due form by city clerks, returns not signed in open town meeting or otherwise defective on account of strictly technical errors, no matter how plainly the intent of the voters was registered, have been finally and definitely thrown out by North and his executive council, acting as a canvassing board."
"Damn'd picayune hair-splitting! Why can't they use business horse-sense?"
"I'll tell you what they've used! They've used Tim Snell and Waddy Sturges and a few other safe hounds with muffled paws to run around and lug back to cities and towns deficient returns and have 'em quietly and secretly corrected where it was a case of adding a safe man to the legislature. I know that, Stewart. I know how to make some of my close friends brag to me. I know it, but I can't prove it. Clean-scrubbed are the faces of those returns. They'll show up to-morrow like the faces of the good boys on the first day at school."
"That's North's idea of that game he was talking about, is it?" Morrison exploded. "I don't believe that Senator Corson knows about those dirty details, or is a party to 'em."
"Well," asserted the Hon. Calvin Dow, stroking his nose contemplatively, "Jodrey and I used to cut sharp corners on two wheels of the four of the old wagon, in past times when he was a politician. But now that he's a statesman he doesn't like to be bothered by details."
"Do you see any joke to this, Calvin?" demanded Morrison, not relishing the veteran's chuckle.
"I can't help seeing the humor," confessed Dow, blandly. "The other, boys would be grinding the same grist if they had control of the machinery. It's only what I myself used to do." Then his face became grave. "But, confound it! in these days there seems to be an element that can't take a joke in politics. There's trouble in the air!"
"Probably!" agreed Morrison, dryly.
Dow walked to the window and looked out with the air of a man who wanted proof to confirm a statement. "I reckon I'll let you be informed direct from Trouble Headquarters, Stewart. Headquarters was at the Soldiers' Memorial in the park when I came past. I gathered that they were picking out a delegation to call on you. Post-Commander Lanigan of the American Legion was doing the picking. He's heading the bunch that I see coming across the street."
"Resign!" barked Mac Tavish through his wicket. But the mayor of Marion did not appear to hear, nor Calvin Dow to understand.
Morrison faced the door of his office.
Lanigan led in his companions with the marching stride of an overseas veteran and halted them with a top-sergeant's yelp. Click o' heels and snap o' the arm! The salute made Captain Sweetsir's previous effort seem torpid by comparison. That a further comparison with Home Guard methods and morale was in Commander Lanigan's mind became promptly evident.
"Your Honor the Mayor, we represent John P. Dunn Post, American Legion, and the independent young men of this city in general. May we have a word with you?"
"Certainly, Mr. Commander!"
In the stress of his emotions Lanigan immediately sloughed off his official air. "It's a hell of a note when a bunch of sissy slackers can keep real soldiers ten feet from the door of the city armory at the end of a bayonet."
The mayor strolled over and placed a placatory palm on the shoulder of the spokesman. "What's, all the row, Joe? Let's not get excited!"
"I have been away fighting for liberty and justice and I don't know what's been going on in politics at home. I don't know anything about politics."
"Nor I, Joe, so let's not try to discuss 'em. What else?"
"They've got three machine-guns up in our State House. What for? They are going to put in them sissy slackers--"
"Let's not call names, Joe. Those boys would have followed you across if you boys hadn't been so all-fired smart that you cleaned it all up in a hurry! What else?"
"Why have a gang of politicians got to barricade our State House against the people?"
"Let's keep cool, Joe, my boy, and find out."
"They won't let us in to find out. How are we going to find out?"
"Why, I was thinking of doing something in that line--thinking about it just before you came in."
Lanigan looked relieved, also a bit ashamed. "Excuse me for being pretty hot, Mr. Morrison. But the boys have been saying we couldn't depend on anybody to stand up for the people. By gad! I told 'em we'd come to you. Says I, 'All-Wool Morrison is our kind!'"
"I hope the name fits the goods, Joe! Suppose you boys keep all quiet and calm for the good name of the city and let me find out how the thing stands?"
He was assured of support and compliance by a chorus of voices.
Lanigan trailed the chorus in solo. "Does that settle it? I'll say it does. It's up to you--the whole thing. You've given us the word of a square man! We can depend on you. And we thank you for taking the full responsibility for seeing to it that the people get theirs--and not in the neck, either!"
But the mayor looked like a man who had stretched forth his hand to take a kitten and had had an elephant tossed at him. "It's a pretty big contract, that! See here, Joe--"
"You're good for any contract you take on, sir! We should worry after what you promise!" He whirled on his heels. "'Bout face! Forward, march!" He followed them and turned at the door. "All the rest of the Big Ones seem to be too almighty busy to bother with the common folks to-day, sir! The Governor with his politics, the adjutant-general with his tin soldiers, and the high and mighty Senator Corson with that party he's giving to-night so as to spout socially the news that his daughter is engaged to marry a millionaire dude. Thank God, we've got a man who 'ain't taken up with anything of that sort and can put all his mind on to a square deal!"
Morrison did not turn immediately to face the three persons, his familiars in the office of St. Ronan's. He clasped his hands behind him and went to the window, as if to survey the departure of the delegation.
"What with one thing and another, they're loading the boy up--they're piling it on," observed Dow to Mac Tavish in sympathetic undertone.
"He'll resign out o' the meeser-r-rable pother," growled Mac Tavish. "The word he just gied the gillies! It was as much as to say, 'I'll be coomin' along wi' ye from noo on.'" The old man's hankerings were helping his persistent hope, in spite of his respect for the Morrison trait of devotion to duty.
"Resign, Andy! Confound it, he's only nailing his grit to the mast and planning on what end of the row to tackle first. You'll see!"
Stewart walked slowly, meditating deeply, went through the opening in the rail, sat down at his desk and fumbled in a drawer and sought deeply under many papers. He brought out a book, a worn volume.
Calvin Dow, daring to peer more closely than Miss Bunker or Mac Tavish had the courage to venture, noted that the place to which Morrison opened was marked by a slip of paper, a snapshot photograph.
"Miss Bunker!" called the master. "A memo.!"
She came with her note-book and sat at the lid of the desk, facing him.
"His resignation, I tell ye," whispered Mac Tavish. "I ken the look o' detar-rmination!"
"I want it typed on a narrow strip that I can slip into my pocketbook," stated Stewart. Then, to all appearances entirely unconcerned with the listening veterans, he dictated:
"Meanwhile I was thinking of my first love,
As I had not been thinking of aught for years.
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears."
Mac Tavish bent on Dow a wild look and swapped with the old pensioner of the Morrisons a stare of amazement for one of bewildered concern.
"I thought of the dress that she wore last time
When we stood 'neath the cypress-tree together
In that lost land, in that soft clime,
In the crimson evening weather.
"Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot)
And her warm white neck in its golden chain,
And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot,
And falling loose again.
"I thought of our little quarrels and strife,
And the letter that brought me back my ring.
And it all seemed then, in the waste of life,
Such a very little thing."
The girl dabbed up her hand under pretense of fixing a lock of hair; she scrubbed away tears that were trickling. So this was it! The powwow over business and politics had not been stirring even languid interest in her. Now her emotions were rioting. Here seemed to be something worth while in the life of the master!
"But I will marry my own first love
With her primrose face; for old things are best.
And the flower in her bosom I prize it above--
"My God!" Mac Tavish gasped. "Next he'll be playing jiggle-ma-ree wi' dollies on his desk! His wits hae gane agley!"
In the horror of his discovery he flung his arms and knocked off the desk his full stock of paperweight ammunition. Then he was convinced beyond doubt that the Morrison was daft. Stewart did not even raise his eyes from the book; he kept on dictating above the clatter of the rolling weights; his intentness on the matter in hand was that of a business man putting a proposition on paper for the purpose of making it definite and cogent and clear.
But Stewart's thoughts were not at all clear, he was confessing to himself; in spite of his assumed indifference, he was embarrassed by the focused stares of Dow and Mac Tavish. He wondered what sudden, devil-may-care whimsy was this that was galloping him away from business and politics and every other sane subject! He was conscious that there was in him a freakish and juvenile hankering to astonish his friends.
He heard Dow say: "Oh, don't worry about the boy, Andy! We do strange things in big times! Even Nero fiddled when Rome was burning!"
Stewart finished the dictation and closed the book.
"Losh! I canna understand!" mourned Mac Tavish, not troubling to hush his tones.
The girl hesitated, her gaze on her notes. Then she looked full into Morrison's face, all her woman's intuitive and long-repressed sympathy in her brimming eyes. "But I understand, sir!" She arose. She extended her hand and when he took it she put into her clasp of his fingers what she