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
Meanwhile all the closed carriages the livery-stables of Grand Prairie
could muster were rolling along Sangamon Avenue, stretching frostily
white under a November moon. Their rendezvous was St. James Church,
over the stony tower of which some native ivy had kindly grown to
give the English effect so much desired. An awning was stretched from
the curb to the Gothic doorway, and about it were already gathered
ragged children and truant servant girls, willing to shiver in the
night air for a mere glimpse of the bride, and perhaps of the groom,
who, so short a time before acclaimed as the popular champion of equal
rights, was now to be identified with that fashionable exclusiveness
which is separated by satin ribbons and striped awnings from the mass
of mankind. Inside, the church lights were blazing; at the door, two
policemen, in new white cotton gloves, stood guard.
Garwood, dressed for the first time in his life in evening clothes, was
restlessly pacing the musty sacristy of the church. With him were Dr.
Abercrombie, the rector of the parish, in his white surplice and stole,
and Colonel Warfield, his best man. Garwood had found difficulty in
selecting a man for this affair. When, in discussing the plans for the
wedding, he had learned from Emily that it devolved upon him to choose
not only a best man but groomsmen and ushers, he had found, in casting
over his acquaintances, that he had none who were intimate enough and
at the same time fashionable enough to fill these social offices.
But he had thought of Colonel Warfield, and as he considered how
peculiarly fitting it was that a man of Colonel Warfield's social and
political position in the state should attend him at a wedding which
would attract the attention his was sure to attract, he assumed an
intimacy that did not exist, and boldly invited the colonel to serve
him in this delicate capacity. He could not, for public reasons, have
made a better selection. The old bachelor, with as many social as
political campaigns to his credit, was too polite to decline, and so
came down to Grand Prairie, giving, by his position, a new importance
to Garwood in the eyes of the politicians of Illinois, and by his white
hair and military bearing, a distinction to the wedding that made it
complete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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