Part 88

"The Hub speaks!" exclaimed Mr. Dexter, as he tore open another envelope. Then he announced a vote from one of the wards of Boston.

"And it speaks right," said the man with the book. "Mr. Grayson cuts down the majority polled against us there four years ago by 433 votes."

A little cheer was raised in the room, and down the street at the transparency there was a cheer, too, but the voices were not the same as those that cheered a few moments ago.

"Good old Boston," said Hobart, "and we made that gain right where the enemy thought he was strongest!"

The first gain of the evening had a hopeful effect upon all, and they spoke cheerfully.

But a vote from Providence, a minute later went the other way, and it was followed by one of a similar nature from New Haven. The gloom returned. Their minds fluctuated with the bulletins.

"It was too good to last," whispered Hobart, downcast.

The children again appeared at the door and wanted to know if their father was elected. Sylvia took upon herself the task of assuring them that he was not yet elected, but he certainly would be before many hours. Then they went away sanguine and satisfied, and trying to keep sleepy eyelids from closing. In the street the noise was increasing as the crowd received facts, and the cheers were loud and various. But those of the enemy predominated, and Harley thrilled more than once with silent anger. A half-dozen men passed the house singing a song in derision of Jimmy Grayson; some of the words came to them through the window, and Sylvia flushed, but Mr. Grayson himself showed no sign that he understood.

The telegrams now were arriving fast; there were two streams of boys, one coming in at the door and the other going out, and Mr. Dexter, at the table, settled to his work. For a while the chief sounds in the room were the tearing of paper, the rustling of unfolded despatches, and the dry voice of the chairman announcing results. These votes were all from Eastern cities, where the polls closed early and the ballots could be counted quickly. Over the West and the Far West darkness still brooded, and the country districts everywhere were silent.

Yet Harley knew that throughout the United States the utmost activity prevailed. To him the night was wonderful; in a day of perfect peace nearly twenty million votes had been cast, and the most powerful ruler in the world had been made by the free choice of the nation, just as four years or eight years hence another ruler would be made in his place by the same free choice, the old giving way to the new. Now to-night they were trying to find out who this ruler was, and no one yet could tell.

But the tale would be told in a few hours. Harley knew that over an area of three million square miles, as large as the ancient civilized world, men were at work counting, down to the last remote mountain hamlet, and putting the result on the wires as they counted it. And ninety million people waited, ready to abide by the result, whether it was their man or the other. To him there was something extraordinary in this organized, this peaceful but tremendous activity. To-night all the efforts of the world's most energetic nation were bent upon a single point. In each state the wires talked from every town and village to a common centre, and each state in turn, through its metropolis, talked to the common centre of them all, and the general result of all they said would be known to everybody before morning. It seemed marvellous to him, although he understood it perfectly, that a few hours after the boxes were opened the votes should be counted and accredited to the proper man.

He resumed his seat at a table, although there was yet but little for him to write, and listened to the dry, monotonous voice of Dexter as he called the vote. The results were still of a variable nature, gains here and losses there, but on the whole the losses were the larger, and the atmosphere of the room grew more discouraging. The great state of New York, upon which they had relied, was showing every sign that it would not justify their faith. The returns from the city of New York, from Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, were all bad, and the most resolute hopes could not make them otherwise.

"'As goes New York, so goes the Union,'" whispered Hobart, quoting an old proverb.

"Maybe that rule will be broken at last," replied Harley, hopefully.

But even Sylvia looked gloomy. There was one thought, as these returns came, in the minds of them all. It was that the members of the Philipsburg Committee had made good their threat; their defection had drawn from Grayson thousands of votes in a pivotal state, and if he had ever had a chance of election this took it from him. Yet no one uttered a word of reproach for Jimmy Grayson, although Harley knew that those who called themselves practical politicians were silently upbraiding him. He feared that they might consider their early warnings justified, and he resented it.

A discordant note, too, was sounded by the South; Alabama, a state that they considered sure, although by a small majority, would go for the other man if the returns continued of the same tone. The only ray of light came from New England, whence it had not been expected. The large cities there were showing slight increases for Jimmy Grayson.

"Who would have thought it?" said Mr. Heathcote.

But it seemed too small to have any effect, and they turned their minds to other parts of the country that seemed to be more promising ground. The voice of Mr. Dexter, growing hoarse from incessant use and wholly without expression, read a bulletin from New York:

"Great crowd in front of the residence of the Honorable Mr. Goodnight, on upper Fifth Avenue, and he is speaking to them from the steps. Says the election of their man is assured. Derides Mr. Grayson; says no man can betray predominant interests and succeed. Crowd hooting the name of Grayson."

"The traitor!" exclaimed Hobart.

But Jimmy Grayson said nothing. Harley watched him closely, and he knew now that the candidate's expressionless face was but a mask--it was only human that he should feel deep emotion. Harley saw his lips quiver faintly now and then, and once or twice his eyes flashed. Down the street, in front of the transparency, there was a tremendous noise, the people had divided according to their predilections and were singing rival campaign songs, but there was no disorder.

Waiters came in bearing refreshments, and during a lull in the bulletins they ate and drank. Mrs. Grayson also joined them for a little while. She said nothing about the news, and Harley inferred from her silence on the point that she knew it to be discouraging. But he saw her give her husband a glance of pride and devotion that said as plain as print, "Even if you are beaten, you are the man who should have been elected." She reported that the younger of the children had dropped off to sleep, but the others were still eager.

Again some men passing the house raised a cry in derision of Jimmy Grayson, and Mrs. Grayson's face flushed. The others did not know what to do; they could not go out and rebuke the deriders, as that would only make a bad matter worse, but the men soon passed on. Mrs. Grayson stayed only a little while in the room, retiring on the plea of domestic duties. Jimmy Grayson, too, went out to see his children, he said, but Harley thought that man and wife wished to talk over the prospect.

The news, after the lull, began to come faster than ever. The West spoke at last, and its first words came through Denver and Salt Lake, but its voice was non-committal. There was nothing in it to indicate how Colorado and Utah, both doubtful states, would go. But presently, when Mr. Dexter broke an envelope and opened a bulletin, he laughed.

"Boys," he said, "here's faith for you: the precinct of Waterville, in Wyoming casts every one of her votes for Grayson."

They cheered. Certainly the people who had heard Mr. Grayson's decisive speech were loyal to him, and they should have honor despite their fewness. But immediately behind it came a bulletin that gave them the heaviest blow they had yet received.

"Complete returns from more than three-fourths of the precincts in the state," read Mr. Dexter, "show beyond doubt that New Jersey has gone at least 20,000 against Grayson."

"I never did think much of New Jersey, anyhow," said Hobart, sourly.