“I'll just call up and see if our man is at home. If he is, we'll all three step over there right now and break the news to him, that the voice of the people has been lifted in an irresistible and clamorous demand for him to become their public servant at his own expense.” The Senator was in a good humour again. “And say, Hod, whilst I'm thinkin' of it,” put in Mr. Barnhill sapiently, “ef he should be at home and ef we should go over there, tell him for Goddle Midey's sake not to drag in that late lamentable grandpaw of his'n, more'n a million times durin' the course of the campaign. It's all right mebbe to appeal to the old famblies. I ain't bearin' ary grudge ag'inst old famblies, 'though I ain't never found the time to belong to one of 'em myself. But there's a right smart chance of middle-aged famblies and even a few toler'ble new famblies in this here community. And them's the kind that does the large bulk of the votin' in primary elections.” We've had campaigns and campaigns and then more and yet other campaigns in our county. We had them every year--and we still do. Being what they were and true to their breeding the early settlers started running for office, almost before the Indians had cleared out of the young settlements. Politics is breath to the nostrils and strong meat to the bellies of grown men down our way. Found among us are persons who are office-seekers by instinct and office-holders by profession. Whole families, from one generation to another, from father to son and from that son to his son and his son's son become candidates almost as soon as they have become voters. You expect it of them and are not disappointed. Indeed, this same is true of our whole state. Times change, party lines veer and snarl, new issues come up and flourish for awhile and then are cut down again to make room for newer crops of newer issues still, but the Breckinridges and Clays, the Hardins and Helms, the Breathitts and Trimbles, the Crittendons and Wickliffes, go on forever and ever asking the support of their fellow-Ken-tuckians at the polls and frequently are vouchsafed it. But always the winner has cause to know, after winning, that he had a fight. As goes the state at large, so goes the district and the precinct and the ward. As I was saying just now, we have had warm campaigns before now; but rarely do I recall a campaign of which the early stages showed so feverishly high a temperature as this campaign between Quintus Q. Montjoy and young Tobias Houser for the Democratic nomination for State Senator. You see, beneath the surface of things, a woman's personality ran in the undercurrents, roiling the waters and soiling the channel. Her name of course, was not spoken on the hustings or printed in the paper, but her influence was manifest, nevertheless.