182 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 7, 1901, 
^—^ 
Politics in Danvis. 
BY ROWLAND E. ROBINSON. 
Mrs. Harriet Piper's curiosity was exercised concern- 
ing the cause of a peripatetic visit which her husband 
was enjoying with two influential townsmen who had 
called upon him one June morning in the imposing array 
of holiday attire. Brother Foot, a class leader and deacon, 
Avore his bell -crowned hat and black coat of severely for- 
mal cut, and his fine calfskin boots, whose toes had ac- 
quired a devout upward turn at frequent prayer meet- 
ings, and noAV creaked with something of the Sabbath-day 
solemnity in their measured cadence as he walked to and 
fro. His more worldly companion, Roswell Kent, honored 
the occasion with as much attention to dress. He wore 
a beaver of the same style, which had not changed in 
Danvis for twenty years, but his swallow-tailed coat was 
blue, garnished with shining brass buttons. The deep 
cuffs were rolled back till the soiled lining was conspicu- 
ous above the wristbands of the shirt. Both men wore 
uncomfortable black silk stocks and broad collars that 
came high up on their freshly shaven cheeks. 
Mrs. Piper's curiosity enhanced the usual alertness of 
her mien as she craned her neck and pricked her ears to 
catch a word of the conversation as the trio passed 
through the yard and walked toward the barn. She was 
rewarded by no sound but the exasperating creak of 
the deacon's boots growing fainter, and as the party en- 
tered the barn it was succeeded by the alarmed twitter of 
the swallows, resounding through the empty bays, mingled 
with the louder cackle of a hen frightened from her nest. 
"I should like to know what on airth them men's up 
lu, a-shootin' hether an' yon, along wi' your father?" the 
brisk, little woman said to her comely daughter, who was 
wiping the last of a pile of milk pans. "If it wa'n't for 
both on 'era bein' here, I should guess like's not they 
was beggin' for the minister, but they wouldn't come 
tugether for that, bein' the Kents is Universalists, which 
Solomon Foot 'Id jes' 's soon fellership the ol' Scratch. 
Your father 'Id ortu give suthin' an' not be haounded by 
all on 'em. 'T 'id be cheaper an' more sartain. Mebby 
that's what they be up tu, kinder tirin' one 'nother aout. I 
du declare, Malvinj-," she said, as her daughter passed to 
the open door with a pile of shining tin pans on her arm. 
"it's turrible aggravatin'. the way you go 'raoun', not 
takin' no more int'res' in what's a-goin' on 'an a post in 
the fence! Hain't you a-feelin' well?" She noticed the 
roses in her daughter's cheeks were a little faded, and the 
luster of her black eyes was less bright than usual, and fol- 
lowed her to the open door, just outside of which Malvina 
deftly turned the milk pans on their shelf to sweeten in 
the sunlight. Her mother, ignoring the clatter, called 
out, "I guess I'd ortu fix you up some boneset or suthin' 
tu take." 
"Shaw ! mother, the' hain't nothin' ails me," Melvina 
laughed, nervously, "but I don't see no use o' stewin' an' 
s'misin' abaout what you can't find aout till you know." 
"You don't s'pose your father's took it intu his head tu 
sell the place? I'd ortu go an' find the ol' Dominick 'at 
stole her nest an' come off wi* a mess o' chickens yist'd'y," 
she said, after a minute's study. So, putting on a sun- 
bonnet and taking a basin of chicken feed, she set forth 
to execute this bit of strategy. But before she reached 
the barn, wading with lifted skirts through the rank barn 
grass, pigweed and redroot of the yard, her husband and 
his visitors came out of it and marched toward the hog 
pen, for, in fact, he was attending to some belated chores, 
while they bore him company to economize time and en- 
joy a critical, neighborly inspection of the premises. As 
they passed, she noticed that the Deacon was notching 
tallies in the corners of a pine stick which he carried in 
his hand, but she caught no words and heard no sound 
save the contented grunting of the swine, and concluded 
to await what information her husband might be disposed 
to give when he came to the house. 
He deferred this event by a pretended errand to the 
woodshed, and then came with deliberation. 
"Well, what was they a-wantin' ?" she asked, after more 
than reasonable waiting for him to speak. 
"Where's Malviny?" he whispered. 
"Up in her chahmber. Now. what was it?" 
"You can't never guess," said he, with an air of 
mystery. 
"Levi Piper, if you got anything tu tell, why don't you 
tell it?" 
He began impressively, "They want me to run for 
Legislator' nex' fall!" 
'Squizzle!" she exclaimed, contemptuously. "They're 
just a-foolin'. They know 't they can't kill off Peck, a 
ye'rlin', an' you'll git beat an' be aouten the way for good 
an' all. Foot an' Kent's both on 'em layin' the' corns tu 
rep'sent the taown." 
"Mebby they be at some futur' time, but they're honest 
naow in a-wantin' me' tu, Har'it. The's lots 'at won't 
s'port Peck, an' says so, an' Foot an' Kent's got it all 
figered aout who'll go for me jest tu beat him, an' the's 
'nough for tu gi' me a clean m'jority." 
"I say as I said afore, squizzle ! The' re jest a-makin' a 
stool pigin on ye." 
"Wall, naow, you women folks do' know jest haow 
folks is a-feelin'. Le' me tell ye." Levi took ah argu- 
mentative position, resting his elbows on his knees, the 
fingers of his left hand spread and the forefinger of the 
other ready to count them off. His wife looked at them 
and permitted herself to listen, with the determination 
of not being convinced. 
"In the first place, the' 's sev'ral of the m'litia com- 
p ny 'at don't like Peck for keptain, an* they'll go ag'in 
him, twenty on 'em, at the least cal'lation. Then, ther's 
Clapham won't vote for him 'cause he buys all his 
groceries tu V'gennes; he'll kerry twenty votes. Then 
Th's all the bloomers is ag'in him. Hamner an' his gang 
will; but Joel Bartlett an' what Quakers the' is is ag'in 
him 'cause he don't come aout flatfooted Anter Slavery. 
Sam Lovel an' his folks raither favors him, an' so does 
the Hillses, but th's all the Burtons over in the nor'east 
corner, Beri's brothers an' 'mongst 'em. 'at '11 go for any- 
body fust. Foot's got 'em all notched off on a stick, for 
an' ag'in, an' he figur's me aout a m'Joritjs as high as ten,"' 
Mrs. Piper shook her head. "Then ag'in," he continued, 
indicating a fresh finger, "the's sights o' women folks '11 
like tu see Mis' Peck took daown a peg, for the airs she 
puts on, 'caount o' bein' a member's wife, an' they'll hev 
influence, as you know, an' I know," he added, with the 
air of one having experience. "You was mentioned by 
the Deacon an' Kent as one cal'lated tu adorn s'ciety tu 
the Capital. Them was the Deacon's exack words. It's 
usuil, you know, for members' folks tu spend a week or 
so tu Montpelier durin' the settin'." The delicate hint had 
its effect upon the worthy Harriet, who was not without 
aspirations. , 
"There's another thing that I speak on only tu you." 
He went softly to the stairway to assure himself that 
Malvina was in her chamber, where he heard her moving 
about and singing softly to herself. "If you an' me favors 
Andrew Colby makin' up tu Malviny, with a proper onder- 
standin', him an' his'n will s'port me, an' that'll make my 
'lection poorty nigh sartain." He placed the tips of all his 
fingers together and complacently regarded his wife. 
"Yes, I know Andrew's fas' for her, but she's turrible 
sot on Tom Farr, an' I do' know's she can be made tu 
hear tu reason," the mother remarked. 
"Parental authority an' moral 'suasion'll go a good 
ways, an' the' hain't nO' comparin' the advantages o' the 
tew men. Andrew'U hev a good farm an' a sheer o' his 
father's money 'at's aout tu int'res', an' Tom hain't nothin' 
but his tew hands." 
"Yes, I know, but Malviny don't look at it that way, an' 
she's sot." 
"Wal, you talk her inter it, Har'i't," said he. "An' 
naow, don't you think I'd better just consent tu run. an' 
put myself int' the hands o' my friends? I lot consid'able 
on seein' you up tu Montpelier." 
"I do' know but what you hed, considerin'," she as- 
sented. "If Malviny was tu go up a .spell, it 'Id kinder 
take her mind off'n Tom. She's a-lookin' kinder peaked, 
an don't 'pear tu take no int'res' in nothin'." 
Approaching footsteps put an end to the conversation, 
but there was no need of more, as the question of Levi 
Piper's candidacy was settled as far as he was concerned. 
Mrs._ Piper took the first opportunity to acquaint Mal- 
vina with the part she was expected to play in the coming 
campaign, and to dazzle her with the glamor of gay life 
at the Capital, and her silence was taken as consent to 
offer herself as a bribe to secure the votes of the Colby 
faction. 
In a fortnight the adherents of the two candidates be- 
gan to fall in line, and as summer advanced the battle was 
cn, and wordy warfare waged on rainy days and even- 
ings at Clapham's, Hamner's and Uncle Lisha's shop. 
On the highways, teamsters hauled alongside and poured 
broadsides into each other, and even the Sundays were 
shattered by political discourses during noonings' 
Gran'ther Hill maintained, "Peck hain't no sort of a 
captain, and wa'n't fit for tu rep'sent the taown." At 
last he allowed himself to become convinced that as no 
military measures were likely to come before the Legis- 
lature, he could give Peck his support. In this he was 
joined by Joseph, though the latter said, "It did 'most 
seem's 'ough Peck wa'n't no more fit tu go to Legislatur' 
'n' any other man 'at wa'n't no more fit 'n what he was." 
Solon's grievance was, "The regular candidate had in 
some of his speeches in taown meeting used dambiguous 
words, which wa'n't in his dictionary nor in his vocalga- 
bulary, nor yet in the English language, wherefore, on 
which account, I shall not support the present incumbent." 
With this single exception the frequenters of the shop 
were harmoniously united in politics, Sam being a staunch 
supporter of Peck and Antoine a noisy partisan, very 
proud of his newly acquired political rights, in which he 
proved himself an efficient worker. 
"They du say," said Uncle Lisha, after a season of 
silent meditation, one August evening, when the whole 
company was assembled in conclave, "that the hull b'ilin' 
o' Burton's taown corner's goin' for Piper, sole an' up- 
pers, ev'ything 'at Stan's on tew laigs. even tu ol' Beri's 
grm'stun 'at's framed int' the side o' his lawg haouse." 
"Yes, I s'pose so," Sam assented, reluctantly. "They all 
suck through the same straw, an' they're as "sot as a row 
o' posts, an' you might's well argy wi' posts." 
"Wal, Ah don' care, Ah'll paid for it an' Ah'U can lie 
jes nat'ral naow sem if Ah'll was born here." cried An- 
toine, gesticulating frantically with his pipe in one hand 
and^ the other grasping a pipeful of prepared tobacco. 
"Le's see ; taown meetin's was nex' Tuesday. Wal, Mon- 
day Ah'll goin' over on dat Burton Corner, me, an' Ah'll 
goin' for 'lection some." 
"'T won't du no good," Sam said. "Thev're goin' tu 
put ol' Beri on the justice ticket, an' that'll fix him, sure 
as guns." 
"Wal, pro'bbr, Ah'll can' scairt it," said Antoine, pulling 
at his pipe, now ablast. 
"Young Colby, he's arter the Piper gal, hot-footed," 
said Peltier, not yet a voter, "so the hull forty-'leven o' 
the Colbys '11 vote for ol' Piper." 
It was, indeed, true that the unfaithful Mklvina was 
bestowing her brightest smiles on Andrew, whom the wan- 
ing of every Sunday saw wending his way to the Piper 
homestead astride his handsome gray mare, where poor 
Tom Farr was sure to find her 'eatin' post fodder,' and 
hi.s own rightful place in the square room preoccupied, as 
niight be known by the streak of candle light not quite 
hidden at the edges of the painted curtains. It was quite 
heart-breaking to think of the two, perhaps even then 
sitting together on the sofa, slipping inevitably closer as 
they bent their heads over the steel plates in The Keep- 
sake, the room's sole book. It was a wonder that the 
baleful glitter of Gran'pa Piper's coffin plate on the 
mantlepiece, where it occupied a central position between 
a conch shell and a whale's tooth, did not strike terror 
to Malvina's perfidious soul. 
"Aaour Malviny 'pears tu be conductin' herself tol'lable 
cute." said Levi to his wife one Monday morning suc- 
ceeding a prolonged prosecution of Andrew's courtship. 
"She's fixin' my 'lection; sure an' I hain't a-goin' tu fur- 
git it. ^ I'm a-goin* tu Vergennes an' git the best dress 
Sutton's got in his store for you, an' the secont best for 
her. for I don't cal'late tu hev arv one on ye play secont 
fiddle tu anybody up to Montpelier." 
Mrs. Piper expressed her gratitude effusively, and gave 
plain directions concerning the style and color of the two 
dresses. Through the steanj pf her washing she had 
visions of social triumphs, 
"An' you might as well git you some fine shirt timber 
^ an' have Ann 'Lizer make 'em when she makes aour 
dresses," she said, making silent calculation. "You'd 
orter hev ye as many as tnree, for your old ones is as good 
as wore aout. You'd wear one a hull week up there duin' 
nothin'. an' that'll give you one tu fall back on, in case o' 
gittin' ketched in the rain or anything." 
"Peck tol' o' some on 'em lawyers from Burl'n't'n an' 
sech, as actilly changed th' shirts ev'y day!" 
"Good land o' Moses ! Wal, they must be awful dirty 
cre'tur's! I'H resk but what you'll keep yourn lookin' 
well 'nough if you wash your neck ev'ry mornin'." 
"An' some on 'em flourished clean pocket han'kerchers 
even oftener'n they changed the' shirts, so Peck says." 
"Wal, I guess you've got 'nough o' them tu answer, but 
abaout the shirts, you'll want ye nine yards o' bleached 
cotton cloth an' a yard an' a half o' linen, an' Ann 'Lizer 
won't charge over'n above fifty cents apiece if she comes 
right int' the haouse an' makes 'em up 'long wi' me an' 
Malviny's dresses." 
Soon Levi departed out of the steamy precincts of the 
washing in a radiant halo, out of whose airy fabric he 
builded not castles but legislative halls that arose and 
shone before him as he journeyed toward Vergennes and 
ever seemed a little nearer. He was gratified to be 
recognized as a candidate by some prominent out-of-town 
people, and flattered to be consulted concerning proposed 
legislative measures. In anticipation he already felt a 
lawmaker when Hamner, reckoned among his opponents, 
set forth a decanter of choice Jamaica and said : 
"Naow, Mr. Piper, when you git up tu Montpelier, I 
hope you won't forgit the poor tarvern keepers, an' help 
tu git aour licenses put daown kinder reason'ble," or when 
Judge Bradley beamed benignly upon him and said : 
"Piper, of course you'll go in for a new court house. 
That old barrack at Middlebury is a disgrace to aour 
caounty." . 
Mrs. Piper, when taken by neighbors in the pride and 
perplexities of dressmaking with her daughter and Ann 
'Lizer, innocently declared : 
"It's ridic'lous the way I've kep' a-puttin' off havin' 
me made a dress an' nothin' fit tu go nowheres, wi' no 
tellin' what may happen. Hevin' Ann 'Lizer, it seemed 
Avell 'nough for Malviny tu hev her a dress an' him some 
shirts, an' make one job on't." 
When the elegant dresses were finished, they lay in state 
for more than a week on the gay patchwork quilt of the 
bed in the spare bedroom, where they were exhibited with 
satisfaction to neighborly callers. The gorgeously painted 
vase of plaster of paris fruit and the lace pincushion 
founded on the foot of a broken glass candlestick were 
no longer objects of casual interest as they. stood on the 
curly maple bureau, although tomato, peach and orange 
^^tiU gave forth the same common, pervading odor of 
oil and turpentine, and the pinheads shone brightly as 
ever in various designs. 
The morning of the first Monday in September broke 
from a cloudless sky on the hills and vales of Danvis. 
One of its earliest beams slid from fir-bristling peak to 
the green depths of Burtontown, and gave greeting to 
Antoine Bissette, where he was plodding merrily along a 
road that followed the winding of a babbling stream, 
whose voice arose to mingle with the morning song of 
the breeze, now astir among the woodland steeps. To 
these, as he trudged briskly onward, flecking off now and 
then the leaves of obtruding wayside branches with a coil 
of rope that he carried in one hand, Antoine added a 
snatch of an old Canadian song, or his own rendering of 
some popular ballad of his adopted land. A partridge ran 
a little way before him and burst into noisy flight, a crow 
launched itself from a dead tree top and signalled to its 
comrades the presence of an intruder. As the glen 
widened and the broad light of a clearing shone through 
the trees, the clear "Zit, zit" of a meadowlark cut the air 
to give another token of open fields, into which the fern- 
edged road now entered. 
A log house stood near, and a tall, uncouth man beside 
It, stood curving his long back over a scythe which he 
bore with all his weight upon a grindstone, one end of- 
whose frame was mortised into the house, the other into 
two legs standing upon the ground. A tow-headed boy 
was wrestling with the crank, while the ungreased shaft 
in its irregular revolutions shrieked the doleful plaint 
that he might well have uttered. Searching sky and earth 
for some object of interest to lessen the weariness of his 
labor,^ he caught sight of Antoine, and communicated 
his discovery to the man, who, after a sidelong glance 
from the scythe, lifted his weight from it and devoted 
himself to regarding the stranger. 
"Good morning," the latter gave greeting, as he drew 
near the fence. "Pooty good day dis morny." 
"Morning'," Beri Burton responded, setting his scythe 
against the grindstone and approaching the fence, which 
he hung himself up on while the boy slumped upon the 
chips in the most convenient place for listening and 
staring, and wishing the opportunity might outlast his 
father's intention of scythe-sharpening. 
"Ah guess you'll goin' raek finish you hayin' to-day so 
you could vote to-morry, prob'ly, ant it?" Antoine asked, 
in allusion to the old saying he had heard reported at the 
last gathering in the shop, that a man who had not fin- 
ished haying by election day had no right to vote. 
"Hough!" Beri snorted, resentfully. "I goddonc er 
hayin' more'n er week ergo. Jus' er goin' ter cuddaown 
er lei bit er raowen. Guess I be all right for 'lection." 
"Ah guess so. Ant he too bad dey ant goin' for be no 
'lection to-morry?" 
"Hain't goin' tu be none? What in thunder ye mean? 
Oh, you git aout !" Beri mumbled, in considerable excite- 
ment. 
"Sartain, ant you hear haow dey all got some smally- 
poxes bus' aout on der Forge "Village ! Two case full o£ 
it on Hamner's Tavern. Clapham Clark he got some, ^ne 
de forge man's got mos' dead of it, an' everybody scare 
to deat', mos'." 
Beri's face grew as pale as uncleanliness and sunburn 
would let it and he slid hastily alo'ng the fence to a safer 
distance from Antoine. 
"Gol dumn ye! You be'n right in ermongst er cussed 
rotten di'see an' come up here peddlin' of it? Yer orter 
be shot !" he blubbered out in mixed terror and anger, and 
the boy, in vague comprehension of danger, scrambled on 
all fours to the limit of earshot. 
"Oh! no sah, M'sieu Burton," Antoine protested. "Ah'll 
