Gulmore, The Boss

Gulmore, The Boss, by Frank
Harris

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Title: Gulmore, The Boss
Author: Frank Harris
Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23010]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GULMORE, THE BOSS.
By Frank Harris
The habits of the Gulmore household were in some respects primitive.

Though it was not yet seven o'clock two negro girls were clearing away
the breakfast things under the minute supervision of their mistress, an
angular, sharp-faced woman with a reedy voice, and nervously abrupt
movements. Near the table sat a girl of nineteen absorbed in a book. In
an easy-chair by the open bay-window a man with a cigar in his mouth
was reading a newspaper. Jonathan Byrne Gulmore, as he always
signed himself, was about fifty years of age; his heavy frame was
muscular, and the coarse dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous
health. There was both obstinacy and combative-ness in his face with
its cocked nose, low irregular forehead, thick eyebrows, and square jaw,
but the deep-set grey eyes gleamed at times with humorous
comprehension, and the usual expression of the countenance was far
from ill-natured. As he laid the paper on his knees and looked up, he
drew the eye. His size and strength seemed to be the physical
equivalents of an extraordinary power of character and will. When Mrs.
Gulmore followed the servants out of the room the girl rose from her
chair and went towards the door. She was stopped by her father's voice:
"Ida, I want a talk with you. You'll be able to go to your books
afterwards; I won't keep you long." She sat down again and laid her
book on the table, while Mr. Gulmore continued:
"The election's next Monday week, and I've no time to lose." A
moment's silence, and he let his question fall casually:
"You know this--Professor Roberts--don't you? He was at the
University when you were there--eh?" The girl flushed slightly as she
assented.
"They say he's smart, an' he ken talk. I heard him the other night; but
I'd like to know what you think. Your judgment's generally worth
havin'."
Forced to reply without time for reflection, Miss Gulmore said as little
as possible with a great show of frankness:
"Oh, yes; he's smart, and knows Greek and Latin and German, and a
great many things. The senior students used to say he knew more than

all the other professors put together, and he--he thinks so too, I
imagine," and she laughed intentionally, for, on hearing her own
strained laughter, she blushed, and then stood up out of a nervous
desire to conceal her embarrassment. But her father was looking away
from her at the glowing end of his cigar; and, as she resumed her seat,
he went on:
"I'm glad you seem to take no stock in him, Ida, for he's makin' himself
unpleasant. I'll have to give him a lesson, I reckon, not in Greek or
Latin or them things--I never had nothin' taught me beyond the 'Fourth
Reader,' in old Vermont, and I've forgotten some of what I learned
then--but in election work an' business I guess I ken give Professor
Roberts points, fifty in a hundred, every time. Did you know he's
always around with Lawyer Hutchin's?"
"Is he? That's because of May--May Hutch-ings. Oh, she deserves
him;" the girl spoke with sarcastic bitterness, "she gave herself trouble
enough to get him. It was just sickening the way she acted, blushing
every time he spoke to her, and looking up at him as if he were
everything. Some people have no pride in them."
Her father listened impassively, and, after a pause, began his
explanation:
"Wall, Ida, anyway he means to help Hutchin's in this city election.
'Tain't the first time Hutchin's has run for mayor on the Democratic
ticket and come out at the little end of the horn, and I propose to whip
him again. But this Professor's runnin' him on a new track, and I want
some points about him. It's like this. At the Democratic meetin' the
other night, the Professor spoke, and spoke well. What he said was
popcorn; but it took with the Mugwumps--them that think themselves
too high-falutin' to work with either party, jest as if organization was no
good, an' a mob was as strong as an army. Wall, he talked for an hour
about purity an' patriotism, and