The Ramrodders | Page 3

right before your eyes. Do you
propose to be sheep any longer?" He put his hat on his head, and shook
a hairy fist at the Duke of Fort Canibas. "This ain't a dynasty, and you
can't make it into one. I call on you to take note of the signs and act
accordingly; for the people are awake and arming for the fray. And
when the people are once awake they can't any more be bamboozled by
a political despot than the war eagle, screaming across the blue dome of
the everlasting heavens, will turn tail when he hears the twittering of a
pewee!" Mr. Niles closed, as he always closed a speech, with the
metaphor that had given him his sobriquet.
"That is real oratory, Ivus," stated Mr. Thornton, serenely; "I know it is,
because a man who is listening to real oratory never understands what
the orator is driving at."
The Hon. Thelismer Thornton usually spoke with a slow, dry,

half-quizzical drawl. That drawl was effective now. He came down
from his chair, carefully stepping on the roots, and loomed above Mr.
Niles, amiable, tolerant, serene. His wrinkled crash suit, in whose
ample folds his mighty frame bulked, contrasted oddly with the dusty,
rusty black in which Mr. Niles defied the heat of the summer day.
"Now I am down where I can talk business, Ivus. What's the matter
with you?"
"Look into the depths of your own soul, if you've got the moral
eyesight to look through mud," declaimed Mr. Niles, refusing to
descend from polemics to plain business, "and you'll see what is the
matter. You have made yourself the voice by which this district has
spoken in the halls of state for fifty years, and that voice is not the
voice of the people!" He stood on tiptoe and roared the charge.
"It is certainly not your voice that I take down to the State House with
me," broke in their representative. "Freight charges on it would more
than eat up my mileage allowance. Now let's call off this bass-drum
solo business. Pull down your kite. To business!" He snapped his
fingers under Mr. Niles's nose.
One of those in the throng who had not smiled stepped forth and spoke
before the disconcerted "War Eagle" had recovered his voice.
"Since I am no orator, perhaps I can talk business to you,
Representative Thornton." He was a grave, repressed, earnest man,
whose sunburned face, bowed shoulders, work-stained hands, and
general air proclaimed the farmer. "We've come here on a matter of
business, sir."
"Led by a buck sheep and a human windmill, eh?"
"Mr. Niles's notions of tactics are his own. I'm sorry to see him handle
this thing as he has. It was coming up in the caucus this afternoon in the
right way." Thornton was listening with interest, and the man went on
with the boldness the humble often display after long and earnest
pondering has made duty plain. "When I saw Niles pass through the

street and the crowd following, I was afraid that a matter that's very
serious to some of us would be turned into horseplay, and so I came
along, too. But I am not led by a buck sheep, Mr. Thornton, nor are
those who believe with me."
"Believe what?"
"That, after fifty years of honors at our hands, you should be willing to
step aside."
The Hon. Thelismer Thornton dragged up his huge figure into the
stiffness of resentment. He ran searching eyes over the faces before him.
All were grave now, for the sounding of the first note of revolt in a half
century makes for gravity. The Duke of Fort Canibas could not
distinguish adherents from foes at that moment, when all faces were
masked with deep attention. His eyes came back to the stubborn
spokesman.
"Walt Davis," he said, "your grandfather put my name before the
caucus that nominated me for the legislature fifty years ago, and your
father and you have voted for me ever since. You and every other voter
in this district know that I do not intend to run again. I have announced
it. What do you mean, then, by coming here in this fashion?"
"You have given out that you are going to make your grandson our next
representative."
"And this ain't a dynasty!" roared Mr. Niles.
"Is there anything the matter with my grandson?" But Davis did not
retreat before the bent brows of the district god.
"The trouble with him is, that he's your grandson."
"And what fault do you find with me after all these years?" There was
wrathful wonderment in the tone.
"If you're going to retire from office," returned Mr. Davis, doggedly,

"there's no need of raking the thing over to make trouble and hard
feelings. I've