"Ain't she the daughter of that old fellow over there by the window? Ain't
her name Fisbee?"
"No; she's his daughter, but her legal name's Sherwood; she's an adop----"
"Great Scott! I know all about that. I'd like to know if there's a man,
woman, or child in this part of the country that doesn't. I guess it won't
be Fisbee or Sherwood either very long. She can easy get a new name,
that lady! And if she took a fancy to Boswell, why, I'm a bach----"
"I expect she won't take a fancy to Boswell very early," said Keating.
"They say it will be Harkless."
"Go 'way," returned Mr. Boswell. "What do you want to say that for? Can't
you bear for anybody to be happy a minute or two, now and then?"
Warren Smith approached Helen and inquired if it would be asking too much
if they petitioned her for some music; so she went to the piano, and sang
some darky songs for them, with a quaint suggestion of the dialect--two or
three old-fashioned negro melodies of Foster's, followed by some
rollicking modern imitations with the movement and spirit of a tinshop
falling down a flight of stairs. Her audience listened in delight from the
first; but the latter songs quite overcame them with pleasure and
admiration, and before she finished, every head in the room was jogging
from side to side, and forward and back, in time to the music, while every
foot shuffled the measures on the carpet.
When the gentlemen from out of town discovered that it was time to leave
if they meant to catch their train, Helen called to them to wait, and they
gathered about her.
"Just one second," she said, and she poured all the glasses full to the
brim; then, standing in the centre of the circle they made around her, she
said: "Before you go, shan't we pledge each other to our success in this good,
home-grown Indiana cider, that leaves our heads clear and our arms strong?
If you will--then--" She began to blush furiously and her voice trembled,
but she lifted the glass high over her head and cried bravely, "Here's to
'Our Candidate'!"
The big men, towering over her, threw back their heads and quaffed the
gentle liquor to the last drop. Then they sent up the first shout of the
campaign, and cheered John Harkless till the rafters rang.
"My friends," said Mr. Keating, as he and Boswell and the men from Gaines
drove away in Judd Bennett's omnibus, "my friends, here is where I begin
the warmest hustling I ever did. I want Harkless, everybody wants him----"