The 13th District: A Story of a CandidateWhitlock, Brand
General
The 13th District: A Story of a Candidate
Whitlock, Brand
Didactic fiction; Elections -- Fiction; Political campaigns -- Fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
Somewhere in the depths of the multitude Garwood was conscious of
meeting the mayor, who took his hand, when he could reclaim it from
a score of other hands thrust forth all about him, and then in a
zigzag path of glory, he was dragged through the throng, Rankin and
the delegates following, moving like a current in the sea. Garwood
laughed as he was pulled this way and that, and tried to answer
each one of the thousand greetings poured in on him from every side.
The perspiration streamed from his face. His waistcoat had been torn
open and when some one saw this and shouted "Look out for your watch,
Jerry!" the whole crowd laughed delightedly at the witticism, and
Garwood himself laughed with them.
The crowd had been a first surprise to Garwood, the band had been
another, now a third was added by the sight of an open carriage drawn
by two white horses. He had not expected an ovation, which made it all
the more grateful when it came, and as he was being helped into the
carriage with a solicitude that was a new thing in men's treatment of
him, he expressed something of this to Rankin. But Rankin, who had
been in politics all his days and could view the varying moods of the
populace with a politician's cynicism, replied:
"Well, if we'd been skinned, they wouldn't 'a' been here when you
needed sympathy."
The truth flashed upon Garwood at once, and if it embittered for an
instant his triumph when it was at its sweetest, it seemed to give him
a better control, so that as he settled himself in the back seat of
the carriage, with the mayor beside him, and Rankin filling the whole
front seat, he rearranged his rumpled garments, readjusted his hat, and
then looked calmly around on the crowd that swarmed up to the carriage
wheels as if they had never seen him before. His face was calm and
composed, almost stern. It was the face he hoped to leave to history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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