IN a night, Tommy had jumped into prominence. If her surplus enthusiasm over the Rough Rider hero had made her colleagues choose her to give the nominating address, her glorification of him certainly helped to fix her in the appreciation of the college body. It was not the wisdom of what she said, so much as the spirit of it all. She was quoted and repeated, and "the man behind the man behind the gun" became a household word. Tommy's energy was unbounded. She was full of schemes and ideas about banners and processions, et cetera, which sooner or later went into effect. Through her efforts came an armful of Roosevelt lithographs -- gratis -- from political leaders in Holyoke, and every other window in the three Republican halls had a face of Roosevelt looking out of it. The post office was likewise placarded, and trees in the grove held them like Orlando's love messages.
But the Democrats were not slow in organizing. Monday night came their National Convention, and their candidates were named with hardly less enthusiasm than the Republican. Before the Republicans were awake the next morning, an immense portrait of Judge Parker filled the great window of Wilder that opens on the staircase; another hung above the small Mead balcony, another over that of Rockefeller. It needed no opera glasses to tell who it was.
On the noon car Monday, two Porterites came from Holyoke laden with heavy bolts of muslin; with that, the artists of the house were set to work making banners and transparencies. In the secrecy of her room, one of the girls made very good likenesses of Roosevelt and Fairbanks, and these were attached to a great banner Tommy was painting down in the basement. In this cobwebby mysteriousness the girls worked all evening on their political "properties." Only the ten o'clock bell brought Tommy up to her room, and then she had to wash her hands in the dark.
Tommy was awake before the rising bell and down cellar again. She painted through breakfast, but Fanny smuggled some food to her and insisted on her eating it. The banner had an immense area of lettering, and the black paint was none too easy to lay on. It must be done before noon! Tommy missed chapel. French came at I0.50 and she nearly missed going to that -- she had to scrub her hands so long with sapolio and pumice stone to get the miserable paint off!
"Vhy, vhat hev zyou been doing vith zhur hands?" asked the little French teacher, as Tommy came in.
"Painting signs for election," whispered Tommy, smiling.
"I sink zyou were painting signs on zyour hands," laughed Mademoiselle.
But the banner was finished by noon, and as the girls came through the grove to lunch from their last recitation, this patriotic emblem greeted them, strung across from Porter to Safford:
On the front of the house, over the door, was stretched another banner, without portraits, but more striking if less artistic:
Similar signs appeared on all the halls, and the banner that hung out of Pearsons had a fountain in the center, and around it:
The girls of other parties remarked, that if that caricature of a fountain was all they had to drink or go thirsty, they'd be "switched" if they'd swallow that!
There was a great feast at Porter that night, with the tables set around banquet fashion. The nominees and their families were invited, the Republican delegates, and many other famous people -- and they came all in costume. Mr. Taft distinguished himself by eating too much, and Teddy Junior scandalized the guests by chasing a napkin ring his father had dropped under the table and doing other unconventional things.
There were toasts and after-dinner speeches. Mr. Roosevelt was duly notified of his nomination, and had to cut short an elaborate speech to please his wife, who urged him to accept the nomination quickly before the people changed their minds and took it back again!
Similar functions were being gone through in Mead Hall by the rival party, but perhaps they were a little more hurried. For suddenly, in the midst of the toasting in Porter, the sound of music was heard, coming nearer and nearer. It had grown quite dark by now, and word came to go to the students' parlor and look out of the windows.
Then, as they adjourned with little ceremony, a wonderful sight met their gaze. Worming its way over the quadrangle came a firefly procession of lights toward the gymnasium and Porter.
"The Democrats have stolen a march on us!" cried the Republicans, flinging out of the house, forgetful of Roosevelt and guests who followed after them.
The Democrats had stolen a march. For if they had been forced to be second in the matter of conventions, they were bound to get there ahead with their procession -- planned at the first mention of campaign. Up the driveway in front of the gymnasium they came, winding round along the back and lake side of Porter, and so to the front again.
It was a tremendous procession, three hundred strong. At their head was a band consisting of half a dozen fiddlers from the violin orchestra, who played march music with a vim and were supplemented with two little drummer boys from the town, who gloried in the fun and felt proud of their distinction. Leading, was a most active drum major dressed in red, with a tall, narrow waste basket shaped like a stovepipe on her head, twirling a stick dexterously.
Following the band came the Wilder Democrats, in short dark skirts and gymnasium blouses with red sailor collars, wearing cocked hats of red paper and carrying Japanese lanterns. Before them went a transparency:
In their midst came a float -- one of Mr. Reynolds's wagons decorated with bunting and drawn by a dozen girls. The lights that followed it showed Roosevelt trampling and tearing the Constitution, while Liberty cowered in agony, and Mr. Parker, bald-pated and dignified, stood in a judicial (Senior's) gown, holding out a restraining hand and catching the destructive Roosevelt by the collar.
More transparencies and more lantems, and then came the Mead contingent, dressed in crisp white skirts and waists of summer, with white cocked hats, bearing Japanese lanterns. They had two floats arranged on trucks drawn by white horses. Ahead of the first went a transparency bearing the sentiments:
The float depicted a worn-out father -- a laborer in overalls -- showing to his crowd of ragged, starved children (their faces marked by lines of hunger made with stage paint) an empty, battered dinner pail, while they looked wistfully at a splendid table at which sat Roosevelt and the Beef Trust and John D. Rockefeller eating a sumptuous feast of bananas and college crackers. Roosevelt's "Big Stick" lay useless by his side, and John D. poured out "wine" from an oil can that graced the table.
The second float was headed by a transparency bearing on its sides the legends:
This showed Judge Parker waving the Constitution over the former group, with Roosevelt gone and John D., a woe-begone expression on his countenance, examining his empty oil can, while the joyful children had the bananas and college crackers.
But the blue-clad contingent from Texas had the most unique idea of all, for, at their head, in the midst of the soft, uncertain light of swinging Japanese lanterns, was a live donkey -- obtained from goodness knows where -- with the bonneted and befrizzled Miss Democracy in her trailing skirts on its back.
It was surely a procession worthy of the name, and, as it wound from hall to hall on the campus, it received the applause of the spectators. Speeches were made in front of every dormitory, extolling Judge Parker and the Democratic party, decrying every evil that had occurred during the three and a half years of Roosevelt's administration and charging it to him, contradicted and defied by Roosevelt adherents.
"It was grand," said the Porter committee, when the whole thing was over. "But, girls, we'll have to put our heads together and get up something better."
But, while they were thinking it over, the Prohibition Party was not slumbering. Fertile minds had been at work, and students were on their way to get their mail after lunch on Wednesday, when their ears were assailed by the continuous ringing of a dinner bell that came from somewhere on College Street. Running around to the street side of Mary Lyon they beheld a motley crowd in procession, coming in upon the campus from Pearsons. At their head went a band composed of combs and chafing-dish covers (as cymbals), which managed to make sufficient noise for the cohort to march by. Following the band was the feature of the parade--the college water wagon, with Carrie Nation, plus her hatchet, perched on the seat, and Mr. Swallow attempting to shield the energetic old lady from the sun with a red parasol. Chalked on the sides of the wagon with black crayon was the exhortation:
Then came a band of W. C. T. U.'s, elderly maidens in sunbonnets, wearing their white badges, and at their head a white banner bearing the inscription:
In fact, everybody was down on the Demon Rum that day, and the whole army as it marched along sang the woes and the agonies brought on by the anathematized liquid, repeating again and again the refrain:
As if to offset the evil thing, and give a substitute to the thirsty, came a company of white-clad maidens, wearing pink sashes and bearing in their hands white water pitchers from their rooms. There were no floats in the whole procession, but the girls of the other two parties said that there should have been -- there was so much water.
The last group of all was introduced by a banner entitled :
Tattered and woe-begone mothers led and dragged tattered and starving children -- pinched and hungry children that might have come from the famine districts of India; children crying for bread, or even college biscuits, and calling for their drink-conquered fathers. Placards borne along here and there labeled them as
WE SUFFER FOR THE SINS OF OTHERS
SAVE THE LITTLE ONES! AS THE TREE IS BENT, SO THE TWIG IS INCLINED
They needed saving indeed! For every now and then they got away from the parade and became interested in things by the wayside, so that their mothers had all they could do to get them together again.
The procession was a splendid diversion for a Wednesday afternoon. The college was well satisfied with it and, in fact, the procession was well satisfied with itself. They addressed and exhorted their fellow citizens from the steps of Williston Hall. They were none too backward about it, either, for it was the right attitude and they all had plenty of " spirit" -- so the college said -- from Carrie Nation down. In fact, it was a woman's parade, and they talked everything, from big hats to woman's suffrage. Several of the Faculty even, going to the Williston laboratories, were entrapped by the students and not let off until they had mounted the steps and given their theories upon some of the above subjects.
All these happenings only made the Republican Party more eager than ever to show what they could do; for their procession had been set for Friday night.
"But we'll have to do something new," they said -- "something beside floats and water wagons."
It was Tommy's idea, and the three houses took it up. By Friday noon a wagon came from Holyoke and smuggled some two hundred "real election torches, that burned oil" into the power house. The Republicans held this secret very close, for they considered the torches a great asset to their procession. Several gallons of oil came with the torches, but as the matrons had refused to have the combustible in the houses, the kindly engineer had come to the rescue with the hospitality of the power house, and even helped them in the colossal task of filling the cans.
Then there were all sorts of other schemes, in which crape paper and cheesecloth and stitching came into requisition. There was more painting of transparencies and more trips to Holyoke, town people were hunted up and interviewed, and when a wagon took a load of logwood up on the hill, those who happened to see it thought it had lost its way.
Supper was eaten with feverish haste, and the committee from Porter, who were nearest the power house, had no supper at all. By quarter after seven girls were streaming down in that direction. The procession formed there. Serious and worried captains went about arranging their "men," lighting their torches, and giving them last instructions. Slowly the various component parts of the procession came together, and the anxious committee-men that met the half-past seven car brought back with them a miniature fife and drum corps from Holyoke.
With the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" the column started, two and two, swinging down the path toward Wilder.
"Sing, everybody sing!" commanded the little drum major, who kept herself busy doing tricks with her stick. Who was it, this small figure in white with the cocked hat? Nobody but Molly -- Molly Walsh -- who fitted into this position as though the place had been made for her. She felt as if the success of the whole parade sat on her shoulders and depended on every fancy twirl of her wand.
As they swung along after her, with all the vim the band could put into the music, they looked like a picture in dreamland--a multitude of torches flaming and glancing on the white-clad figures. Porter, as New York, had the position of prominence. Red crape-paper collars over their white dresses, red sashes at the waist, and red cocked hats formed their uniform. Safford came all in white; Brigham with blue where Porter wore red. There were improvised banners and flags, and transparencies with telling remarks.
Roosevelt, the hero of the day, was driven along as befitted his station. He occupied a little toy express wagon, which two "horses" were drawing, with three citizens walking on each side bearing a white canopy made of sheets. Mr. Fairbanks was in similar honor further back, but he was more out of it than in it, for his legs hung out so long they almost got in the way of the wheels. And Taft was there, too, though hardly in a more comfortable vehicle. His was a wheelbarrow -- there being not another express wagon to borrow in town. But woe to those who had to trundle him along.
There were no floats, but up toward the front went the G. O. P. elephant -- a monster constructed of two girls as legs, with barrel hoops for ribs and a hide of gray muslin. A transparency ahead labeled him:
With Sundry grunts he went where he was led. Not so with the "Beef Trust." For further down the line was led Dr. Lyman's cow Dorothy, garlanded and festooned with colors and greens. An executioner walked on each side of her -- two Roosevelts, dressed like ranchmen -- one bearing Mr. Finnigan's ax, abstracted from the wood pile in the Porter cellar, the other bearing the "Big Stick." The transparency said :
There had been some doubt about Dorothy when she was first suggested. The idea was splendid, but:
"Will she walk at night?" was the unsophisticated query.
Dorothy "walked"; but the multitude of lights was a constant puzzle, and as nobody could talk cow talk to her she had to remain unsoothed.
The procession stopped at each hall and made speeches -- Wilder, Mead, and Rockefeller; then up the Rockefeller "chute" to Brigham and out to the street. They visited Pearsons, and passed up College Street to the park. The minister burned fireworks for them as they went by the parsonage, and so did Mr. Bradley when they reached his store.
It was as "real" an election parade as could be wished for, and as it went along it gained in numbers. There were transparencies calling for all true Republicans to join TEDDY'S ARMY, and enthusiastic Teddyites of other halls flocked to the standard and fell into line. For there was some mystery as to what was going to happen next.
The "army" struck across the lawns back of Dwight and the library, through the grove, where the moving lights glanced here and there on tree trunk and foliage, and down the hilly avenue of trees toward the lake. Never before in their young lives had the squirrels and chipmunks that inhabited these regions been disturbed by such a queer pageant. They must have wondered, looking down with blinking eyes, what were these lights that flared up to the leafy arches; what was this pound-pounding and phew-phewing that was to others music and inspiration; what this singing host, marching down the hilly road and over the bridge, were ever about!
There was a piece of a moon, soft and white, coming over the shoulder of Prospect and casting silver shadows through the landscape. Into the dim stillness went the long line of lights, winding around the path up the hill. But for the noise, it might have been a procession of pilgrims.
Near the summit they suddenly left the path, struck through a little pine forest, then out beyond an amphitheater to the open brow of the hill. A flare of light sprang up from the ground in front of them, and the smell and crackling of burning leaves and twigs came to their senses. As the light became stronger the form of a man loomed up from the darkness, bending over the burning stuff, and then they knew he was building a bonfire for them.
It was a jolly old rally, and had they been men some six hundred votes would have been pledged to the Rough Rider President around that bonfire. Eloquence seemed to catch with the sparks that went up from the burning logs, and the tribute the orators paid to their candidate was unbounded. Sublime and ridiculous were intermingled, for some of the "camp followers" were staunch Democratic sympathizers, and they put queries, attacked, and defended. The girl who impersonated Roosevelt -- more by her looks than her eloquence -- was giving the speech of the evening with more than usual interruption.
"Seems to me," remarked a facetious person, "that the Republican party burn a lot of oil for people who pretend to fight the Oil Trust."
"That comes from their uncle, John D.," commented another.
"Whoever says that," retorted the speaker, "tells a deliberate and unqualified falsehood. We --"
"Another for the Ananias Club."
"If you have the least doubt as to where this oil came from, apply to our committee of subscriptions. They know that every drop of it came out of our pockets. If one of those trust men -- we call them so for euphemism -- if one of them were to offer us a can of this liquid, we would sniff at it. No, fellow citizens, no! they are not of our cast. They are undesirable citizens; and if they had not the good fortune to have been born in this fair land of ours, we would have shut our too-hospitable gates upon them. Wealthy men are all undesirable citizens. Every one of you who has over a million dollars is an undesirable citizen!"
"Much fear," came the laughing comment; "we've just paid our bills for Junior lunches."
"See all the hungry mouths to be fed," broke in another. "If the Democrats were in the White House there could be no hungry mouths."
"We have no doubt of that," retorted a defender. "They are the only ones who go hungry." And the gibe brought a general laugh.
"Well, Roosevelt doesn't pay for our Junior lunches, anyway. Why should we burn oil on his altar?"
"As I was saying, gentlemen, when discourteously interrupted," went on the indignant orator, "the rich are always undesirable. They --"
"They don't give anything toward your Campaign Fund, do they!"
"No, for they dare not. And they are the more despicable because they gloat over the fact that we cannot accept their subscriptions."
"Harriman, for instance?"
"Or the Ice King?"
"What about the Ice Trust, Mr. Roosevelt?"
This was getting too much for the "Roosevelt," for she was plainly "fussed," and it was beginning to look as though the opposition held the stump. So she came to her peroration rather suddenly, feeling that "Roosevelt" was being driven to the wall.
"Helen Thompson! Where's Tommy?" cried one of the leaders, seeking some one to check the anti-Roosevelt sentiment.
"Yes, Tommy, Tommy," called the crowd, taking up the cry. "We want Tommy! We want Tommy! 'The man behind the man behind the gun.'"
They found her on the edge of the crowd, a torch in one hand and Dorothy's rope in the other; for she had become acquainted with that shy, docile creature and was trying to keep her quiet by letting her feed. Tommy was dragged to the front.
"This really would do Teddy's heart good," said Tommy, looking about the crowd before her. It would have done anybody's heart good to see all those splendid girls' faces, with the light of their torches playing on them, as the night breeze fanned the flames. The great fire around which they were circled rose and fell, sputtering and snapping, and cast a ruddy glow on the lake beneath, which before mirrored only dark shadows of trees on its waters. Beyond gleamed squares of light from the windows of dormitories, and the arc lights on the house on Mount Tom twinkled in the distance like a constellation.
"Girls, I haven't prepared any speech," went on Tommy, "but say 'Roosevelt' to me and I'll go into the fray and talk till morning. Why, fellow citizens, he's the finest thing going, and if any of you don't believe it I'll see you in private. Is there any doubt in anybody's mind here who's going to be elected next Tuesday? Why, Roosevelt, of course. You've been hearing the Democrats tell you about the hungry mouths they would fill. My dear friends, let me tell you there are not enough Democrats in this whole country to fill the hungry mouths." [Tremendous applause and laughter. "Good for Tommy!"] "As for Junior lunches -- it's just as well that he doesn't pay for them; he'd go bankrupt in a week." [Appreciative applause and cries of "You bet!"]
"And, after all, what sort of a man do we want for President? A man who is not afraid to beard falsehood in its den and say in plain Anglo-Saxon, 'You lie!' A man who can spin Congress about like a top till it shall do his bidding. A man who will kill bears, whether wild or 'Wall Street.' A man who will take that bull -- the Beef Trust -- by the horns and -- " ["Dorothy! Dorothy!"] "Poor Dorothy, I guess, wants to go to bed. She has honored us with her presence to-night, and if she could appreciate it, I'd propose nine Rah's for her. But instead I'll propose nine times nine Rah's for Roosevelt -- our next President -- 'the man behind the man behind the gun.'"
There were tired girls who crept into bed that night, but who cared when they were doing it for Teddy?
They "registered" at the post office the next day and paid their poll tax. Every girl had to pay five cents, and Freshmen had to answer a rigmarole of questions and bring their upper class friends to identify them, before the "Board of Registry" would allow their names to be entered on the lists.
That evening the debating societies held an open meeting, and discussed in seriousness the relative merits of the two prominent candidates and their platforms. It was no less enthusiastic than the fake meetings, and showed that a good many future women might be granted suffrage to advantage.
The short campaign was nearly over; indeed, it had lasted long enough, for the girls found it no easy task to keep both their work and nightly festivities going at the same time. The Senior Class, besides, were to give a play in the gymnasium the following Tuesday, and some of those most prominent in the campaign had been spending their noon-hours and evenings rehearsing. But it would not last much longer. Only the voting now remained.
Election day came with hushed suspense. The Springfield Republican was scanned for the signs of the election, and even that unbiased journal showed a trend toward Roosevelt in the real world. Would he win, or would Parker get the election at the last minute?
In the basement dressing rooms of the gymnasium were the polls. The voters were sent into the locker rooms, one at a time, to prepare their ballots, and after doing so they dropped them into a slitted box before the committee. There was no repeating or stuffing the of ballot boxes. Indeed not! For the polling committee had the registry sheets, and challenged any who had not registered, and excluded those who had not paid their nickels.
What a tenseness there was in the atmosphere all day. It seemed as if the hands of the clock were tantalizingly slow. The girls haunted the telephone booths, and students who had been in Holyoke were mobbed for the latest news. The final returns were to be announced at intervals during the play at the gymnasium.
Evening came, and the Senior class were presenting "Colombe's Birthday," that beautiful play of Robert Browning's. It was the first play of the year, and while the rest of the college were busy campaigning, the Seniors were busy rehearsing, staging, and painting scenery. Oh, a college girl has an immense amount of versatility and adaptability! And when it comes to plays, the girl at Holyoke is her own stage manager, carpenter, scene shifter, and curtain raiser. A man's help is disdained. The girl is in her glory if, when she does not act, she can get into her "gym suit" and crawl around the dust on the rafters above the stage to let down ropes and arrange the scenery.
The gymnasium was full that night, for the most popular girls in college were to take the prominent parts. Was Tommy there, and Fanny, and Frances? Indeed and indeed! For Helen Crosby and Elinor Haskell and Gail Calder were in it, and the curtain went up none too soon.
What a sweet Colombe was Helen Crosby, and what a wonderful voice and smile! Was it strange Valence should fall in love with her? And what a Valence! The adoring Freshmen knew not if it was the grave and noble Advocate of Cleves that held their hearts or the whole-souled, personal self of Gail Calder. A brilliant Guibert, the courtier, was Elinor Haskell in her costume of slashed velvet and lace and orders. The Advocate came to plead for his town of Cleves, and stayed to defend the Duchess when the ambitious Prince Berthold claimed her titles. He stood, a stranger, firm when her courtiers fell off false. And when Berthold came and offered his greedy hand to Colombe, that she might lose her duchy with better heart, it was the grave and smileless Advocate who urged her, that she might not suffer want, to take the munificent offer. His own love was burning to ashes within him, and might have smouldered still but that she forced confession out of him when least she expected it. The Prince delayed not in putting the alternatives before her: either take his hand and keep the estates, or scorn the first and lose both. Colombe chose: she turned away from her titles and estates; she took Valence -- and what a luminous smile at last broke over his countenance! It seemed as Heaven "had opened and God were looking through and the two beautiful souls were blessed together.
It was a wonderfully pure and refreshing play to come at the end of such a week of worldly activity. It came like a breath of cool air, and the returns that were read between the acts seemed incongruous.
First, came the returns of the college campaign. All had voted according to their real sympathies, irrespective of houses, and the result only showed the wisdom of the apportionment: Roosevelt, 527; Parker, 49; Swallow, 14. The rest of the seven or eight hundred in college had failed to register.
What applause greeted the announcement! They were glad for one another that they had shown such good sense. How could it be anybody but Roosevelt?
But what of the real returns from outside? They came to the eager watchers at the telephone in Brigham, and these brought them to the gymnasium. Roosevelt was sweeping everything before him. From the first Judge Parker had not had a chance.
The girls would have stayed after the play was over -- they would have stayed up all night to get the news. But League rules sent them home at ten, and obliged them to stow themselves "horizontally between the sheets" -- as the old Seminary rules went -- without the least delay.
At midnight they were waked up from their first slumbers by the wild ringing of the dinner bell. They started and rubbed their eyes, and thought it must be a fire. Then they remembered.
"Roosevelt! Roosevelt!" cried the enthusiasts, sweeping through the corridors. "Roosevelt has been elected! Four years more for 'the man behind the man behind the gun'!"