The Ramrodders | Page 7

hey?" returned the Duke. "This is no time to begin to call names, Luke. But I want to tell you that where there's one man in this State grumbling about wild-land taxes, there are a hundred up and howling against you and the rest of the gilt-edged hotel-keepers that are selling rum and running bars just as though there wasn't any prohibitory law in our constitution." He had turned from the window. "You're looking at that map, eh? You think I've stolen land, do you? Look here! I came down that river out there on a raft--just married--my wife and a few poor little housekeeping traps on it. We never had a comfort till we got to the age where most folks die. I've had to live to be eighty-five to get a little something out of life. And she worked herself to death in spite of all I could say to stop her. Why, when the bill of sale fell due on the first pair of oxen I owned, she gave me the three hundred old-fashioned cents that she--don't get me to talking, Presson! But, by the Jehovah, I've earned that land up there! Dollars don't pay up a man and a woman for being pioneers. I'm not twitting you nor some of the rest of the men in this State in regard to how you got your money--but you know how you did get it!"
"We've stood by you on the tax question."
"And I've stood by you against the prohibition ramrodders, who were foolish enough to think that rumshops ought to be shut up because the law said so; and I've stood with the corporations and I've stood with the politicians, and played the game according to the rules. From the minute you came into my dooryard to-day you've acted as though you thought I'd stirred this whole uproar in the State."
"Did you ever know a man to get anywhere in politics if he didn't play the game--honesty or no honesty?"
"Yes, a few--they got there, but they didn't stay there long," replied the Duke, a flicker of humor in his wistfulness.
"You bet they didn't," agreed the chairman. "Thelismer, I'm just as honest as the world will let me be and succeed! But when a man gets to be perfectly honest in politics, and tries to lead his crowd at the same time, they turn around and swat him. I reckon he makes human nature ashamed of itself, and folks want to get him out of sight."
"I know," agreed the old man, and he looked out again on Niles and his audience. "The tough part of it is, Presson, those men out there are right--at bottom. They're playing traitor to me and acting like infernal fools, and I wouldn't let them know that I thought them anything else. But I'd like to step out there, Luke, and say, 'Boys, you're right. I've been working you. I've done you a lot of favors, I've brought a lot of benefits home to this district, but I've been looking after myself, and standing in with the bunch that has got the best things of the State tied up in a small bundle. I've only done what every successful politician has done--played the game. But you're right. Now go ahead and clean the State.'"
"You don't mean to say you'd do that?" demanded Presson, looking his old friend over pityingly.
"Luke, I mean that--but I don't intend to do it, not by a blame sight! I don't believe you ever realized that I was really honest deep down. I have told you something from the bottom of my heart. But"--he held out his big hands and closed and unclosed them--"if I should ever let them loose that way they'd be picked up before they'd gone forty feet by some other fellow that might be hollering reform and not be half as honest as I am."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and squinted shrewdly, and spoke with his satiric drawl.
"There was old Lem Ferguson. Lem got to reading books about soul transmigration or something of the kind, and turned to and let all his critters loose. Said that one living being didn't have any right to enslave another living being. Told them to go and be free. And somebody put his steers in the pound, and vealed two calves and sold 'em, and milked his cows, and stole his sheep, and ripped the tags out of their ears and sheared 'em for what wool they had. Luke, I'm no relative of Lem Ferguson's when it comes to practical politics. I know just as well as you do who's trying to steal this State, a hunk at a time. They've had the nerve to tackle my district. But if they think that I'm going to ungrip and