"I don't mind. How are you, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm all right. Say! that beard of yours makes you look as funny as old fun."

"Does it?" he said.

"You bet! It makes you look old enough to go to Congress. Say! heard from Radbourn lately?" Bradley shook his head. "Well, I haven't, but Lily has. He's writing--writing for the newspapers, she said."

"Is that so? I haven't heard it."

"E-huh! Say, do you know Lily's all bent on him yet! Funny, ain't it? I ain't that way, am I?" she ended, with her customary audacity.

"No, it's out o' sight, out o' mind with you," he replied, with equal frankness.

"Oh, not quite so bad as that. Ain't yeh comin' in?" They were at the gate.

"Guess not. You remember your father's command; I must never darken his door."

She laughed heartily. "I guess that don't count now."

"Don't it? Well, some other time then."

"All right, but gimme that basket. Goin' to lug that off with you?"

XVI.

NOMINATION.

On the Monday evening following Bradley's return, there was quite a gathering at Robie's along about sundown. Colonel Peavy and Judge Brown came down together, and Ridings and Deering were there also, seated comfortably under the awning, in mild discussion with Robie, who had taken the side of free trade, to be contrary, as Deering said.

"No, sir; I take that side for it's right." There was something sincere in his reply, and Ridings stared.

"How long since?"

"About a week."

"What's got into yeh, anyhow?"

"A little horse sense," said Robie. "I've been a readin' the other side; an' if a few more of yeh'd do the same, you'd lose some of your d.a.m.n pig-headed nonsense." The Democrats cheered, but the Republicans stared at Robie, as if he had suddenly become insane.

"Well, I'll be dinged!" said Smith, his brother-in-law. "I'd like to know what you'd been a readin' to make a blazin' old copperhead of you."

Robie held up two or three tracts. The Judge took them, looked them over, and read the t.i.tles out loud to the wondering crowd.

"'The Power of Money to Oppress.' 'Free Trade Philosophy.' 'The Money Question.' 'The Right to the Use of the Earth,' by Herbert Spencer.

'Land and Labor Library.' 'Progress and Poverty,' by Henry George."

"Oh, so you've got hold of Spencer and George, have you?" said the Judge.

"No; they've got hold 'f me."

"_Spencer!_" said Smith, in vast disgust. "What the h.e.l.l has he to do with it?" The rest sat in silence. The occasion was too momentous for jokes.

"Where'd you get hold o' these?" said the Judge, fingering the leaves.

"Radbourn sent 'em out."

"I'll bet yeh! If there was a rank, rotten book anywhere on G.o.d's green footstool, that feller'd have it," said Smith.

The Judge ruminated: "Well, if that's the effect, guess I'll circulate a few copies 'mong the young Republicans of the county. Gentlemen, this is our year."

"You've been a sayin' that for ten years, Judge," said Ridings.

"And it's been a comin' all the time, gentlemen. I tell you, I've had my ear to the ground, and there's something moving. The river is shifting its bed. Look out for a flood. I'm going to make an entirely new move this fall; I'm going to put up a man for legislature that'll sweep the county; and you'll all vote for 'im, too. He's young, he's got brains, he's an orator, and he can't be bought."

Robie brought his fist down on the counter in an excitement such as he had never before manifested. "Brad Talcott! We'll elect him sure as h.e.l.l!"

Amos hastened to put in a word. "Brad's a Republican."

"He's a Free Trade Republican," said the Judge, quietly.

"How do yeh know?"

"Oh, I know. Haven't I been a workin' 'im for these last two years? Did you expect a man to live with me and not become inoculated with the Simon-pure Jeffersonian Democracy?"

"I don't believe it," Amos replied; "and I won't till I hear him say so himself. I want to see him go to Des Moines, but I want to see him go as a Republican."

"Well, you attend the Independent convention next week, and you'll hear something that'll set you thinking. Your Grange is losing force. You failed to elect your candidate last year. Now, if we put up a man who is a farmer and a clean man--a man that can sweep the county and carry Rock River--why not join in and elect him?"

The railroad interest was the great opposing factor; and the Judge, who was a great politician, had calculated upon a fusion of the farmer Republicans and the Democrats. He was really the ablest man in that part of the State, and could wield the Democratic party like a pistol.

He succeeded in getting Amos, Councill, Jennings, and a few other leading grangers to sign his call for a people's convention to nominate county officers and the member of the legislature. It really amounted to a union of the independent Republicans and the young Democrats.

The old liners, however, were there, and set out from the first to control the convention, as was shown in the opening words of the chairman, old man Colwell, whom the Judge had kindly allowed in the chair, in order that he might have a chance to speak on the floor.

"This is a great day for us," said the chairman. "We've waited a long time for the people to see that Republican rings were sapping the foundations of political honesty, but they see it now. This crowded convention, fellow-citizens, shows that the deathless principles of Jacksonian Democracy still slumber under the ashes of defeat."

He went on in this strain, calmly taking to himself and the other old moss-backs (as young Mason contemptuously called them) all the credit of the meeting, and bespeaking, at the same time, all the offices.

Following this intimation, Colonel Peavy presented a slate, wherein all the leading places on the ticket had been given "to the men who stood so long for the principles of Jackson and Jefferson. It was fitting that these men should be honored for their heroic waiting outside the gates of emolument."

Young Mason was on his feet in an instant. "Mr. Chairman," he said, penetratingly.

"Mr. Mason."

"While I appreciate, sir, the fort.i.tude, the patience, of the men who have been waiting outside the gates of emolument so long, I want to say distinctly, that if that slate is not broken, we'll all wait outside the gates of emolument twenty years longer. But I want to say further, Mr. Chairman, that the strength of this new movement is in its freedom from spoils-seeking; is in its independence from the old party lines.

Its strength is in its appeal to the farmer, in its support of his war against unjust tariff and against railway domination. Its strength also is in its appeal to the young men of this county, sir."