Mr. Crewe's Career — Complete. Winston Churchill
actually drove to the Hammonds' in a buggy with an unknown lawyer from Ripton. But I told you about it. Tell your gardener and the people that do your haying, dear, and your chicken woman. My chicken woman is most apathetic, but do you wonder, with the life they lead?”
Mr. Humphrey Crewe might have had, with King Charles, the watchword “Thorough.” He sent to the town clerk for a check-list, and proceeded to honour each of the two hundred Republican voters with a personal visit. This is a fair example of what took place in the majority of cases.
Out of a cloud of dust emerges an automobile, which halts, with protesting brakes, in front of a neat farmhouse, guarded by great maples. Persistent knocking by a chauffeur at last brings a woman to the door. Mrs. Jenney has a pleasant face and an ample figure.
“Mr. Jenney live here?” cries Mr. Crewe from the driver's seat.
“Yes,” says Mrs. Jenney, smiling.
“Tell him I want to see him.”
“Guess you'll find him in the apple orchard.”
“Where's that?”
The chauffeur takes down the bars, Mr. Jenney pricks up his ears, and presently—to his amazement—perceives a Leviathan approaching him, careening over the ruts of his wood road. Not being an emotional person, he continues to pick apples until he is summarily hailed. Then he goes leisurely towards the Leviathan.
“Are you Mr. Jenney?”
“Callate to be,” says Mr. Jenney, pleasantly.
“I'm Humphrey Crewe.”
“How be you?” says Mr. Jenney, his eyes wandering over the Leviathan.
“How are the apples this year?” asks Mr. Crewe, graciously.
“Fair to middlin',” says Mr. Jenney.
“Have you ever tasted my Pippins?” says Mr. Crewe. “A little science in cultivation helps along. I'm going to send you a United States government pamphlet on the fruit we can raise here.”
Mr. Jenney makes an awkward pause by keeping silent on the subject of the pamphlet until he shall see it.
“Do you take much interest in politics?”
“Not a great deal,” answers Mr. Jenney.
“That's the trouble with Americans,” Mr. Crewe declares, “they don't care who represents 'em, or whether their government's good or bad.”
“Guess that's so,” replies Mr. Jenney, politely.
“That sort of thing's got to stop,” declares Mr. Crewe; “I'm a candidate for the Republican nomination for representative.”
“I want to know!” ejaculates Mr. Jenney, pulling his beard. One would never suspect that this has been one of Mr. Jenney's chief topics of late.
“I'll see that the interests of this town are cared for.”
“Let's see,” says Mr. Jenney, “there's five hundred in the House, ain't there?”
“It's a ridiculous number,” says Mr. Crewe, with truth.
“Gives everybody a chance to go,” says Mr. Jenney. “I was thar in '78, and enjoyed it some.”
“Who are you for?” demanded Mr. Crewe, combating the tendency of the conversation to slip into a pocket.
“Little early yet, hain't it? Hain't made up my mind. Who's the candidates?” asks Mr. Jenney, continuing to stroke his beard.
“I don't know,” says Mr. Crewe, “but I do know I've done something for this town, and I hope you'll take it into consideration. Come and see me when you go to the village. I'll give you a good cigar, and that pamphlet, and we'll talk matters over.”
“Never would have thought to see one of them things in my orchard,” says Mr. Jenney. “How much do they cost? Much as a locomotive, don't they?”
It would not be exact to say that, after some weeks of this sort of campaigning, Mr. Crewe was discouraged, for such writhe vitality with which nature had charged him that he did not know the meaning of the word. He was merely puzzled, as a June-bug is puzzled when it bumps up against a wire window-screen. He had pledged to him his own gardener, Mrs. Pomfret's, the hired men of three of his neighbours, a few modest souls who habitually took off their hats to him, and Mr. Ball, of the village, who sold groceries to Wedderburn and was a general handy man for the summer people. Mr. Ball was an agitator by temperament and a promoter by preference. If you were a summer resident of importance and needed anything from a sewing-machine to a Holstein heifer, Mr. Ball, the grocer, would accommodate you. When Mrs. Pomfret's cook became inebriate and refractory, Mr. Ball was sent for, and enticed her to the station and on board of a train; when the Chillinghams' tank overflowed, Mr. Ball found the proper valve and saved the house from being washed away. And it was he who, after Mrs. Pomfret, took the keenest interest in Mr. Crewe's campaign. At length came one day when Mr. Crewe pulled up in front of the grocery store and called, as his custom was, loudly for Mr. Ball. The fact that Mr. Ball was waiting on customers made no difference, and presently that gentleman appeared, rubbing his hands together.
“How do you do, Mr. Crewe?” he said, “automobile going all right?”
“What's the matter with these fellers?” said Mr. Crewe. “Haven't I done enough for the town? Didn't I get 'em rural free delivery? Didn't I subscribe to the meeting-house and library, and don't I pay more taxes than anybody else?”
“Certain,” assented Mr. Ball, eagerly, “certain you do.” It did not seem to occur to him that it was unfair to make him responsible for the scurvy ingratitude of his townsmen. He stepped gingerly down into the dust and climbed up on the tool box.
“Look out,” said Mr. Crewe, “don't scratch the varnish. What is it?”
Mr. Ball shifted obediently to the rubber-covered step, and bent his face to his patron's ear.
“It's railrud,” he said.
“Railroad!” shouted Mr. Crewe, in a voice that made the grocer clutch his arm in terror. “Don't pinch me like that. Railroad! This town ain't within ten miles of the railroad.”
“For the love of David,” said Mr. Ball, “don't talk so loud, Mr. Crewe.”
“What's the railroad got to do with it?” Mr. Crewe demanded.
Mr. Ball glanced around him, to make sure that no one was within shouting distance.
“What's the railrud got to do with anything in this State?” inquired Mr. Ball, craftily.
“That's different,” said Mr. Crewe, shortly, “I'm a corporation man myself. They've got to defend 'emselves.”
“Certain. I ain't got anything again' 'em,” Mr. Ball agreed quickly. “I guess they know what they're about. By the bye, Mr. Crewe,” he added, coming dangerously near the varnish again, and drawing back, “you hain't happened to have seen Job Braden, have you?”
“Job Braden!” exclaimed Mr. Crewe, “Job Braden! What's all this mystery about Job Braden? Somebody whispers that name in my ear every day. If you mean that smooth-faced cuss that stutters and lives on Braden's Hill, I called on him, but he was out. If you see him, tell him to come up to Wedderburn, and I'll talk with him.”
Mr. Ball made a gesture to indicate a feeling divided between respect for Mr. Crewe and despair at the hardihood of such a proposition.
“Lord bless you, sir, Job wouldn't go.”
“Wouldn't go?”
“He never pays visits—folks go to him.”
“He'd come to see me, wouldn't he?”
“I—I'm afraid riot, Mr. Crewe. Job holds his comb rather high.”
“Do