Ancestors Part 22

"Best come to business," he said, abruptly. "Judge, will you do the talking?"

But Judge Leslie, who was a modest man, waved his hand deprecatingly.

"The idea is yours, sir, and yours is the right to state the case."

The host hastily poured whiskey-and-soda lest he should look haughtily expectant.

"It's just this, Mr. Gwynne," began Boutts, in his suave even tones. "We have seen your ads. We know that you contemplate selling off a good part of your ranch--Well, there was a buzz round town when those ads were read, and I was not long pa.s.sing the word that there would be a ma.s.s-meeting that night in Armory Hall. That's where we thresh things out, and in this case there was no time to lose. We had a pretty full meeting. Judge Leslie took the chair, and I opened with some of the most pointed remarks I ever made. I was followed with more unanimity than usually falls to my lot. The upshot was that resolutions were pa.s.sed before nine o'clock, and a committee of four was appointed to wait upon you to-day--and endeavor to win you to our point of view," he continued, suddenly lame, for by this time Gwynne, forgetting Isabel and his good resolutions, was staring at the common little man with all the arrogance of his nature in arms, and the color rising in his cheeks. Mr. Boutts's hands gripped his knees as if for anchorage, and he proceeded, firmly: "No offence, sir, I a.s.sure you. This is a free country. The man who tells another man what he'd orter do should be called down good and hard. Nothing could be further from our intention. The meeting was called only in the cause of what you might call both self-defence and patriotic local sentiment, although it's a sentiment that's local to about two-thirds of California--only we do more acting and less talking than most. It's now some weeks since we adopted resolutions in a still bigger ma.s.s-meeting and got the best part of the county to subscribe to them; on the ground that an ounce of prevention and so forth. So we just hoped that as you have come to live among us you could be brought to see things from our point of view."

He sc.r.a.ped his chair forward and dropped his voice confidentially, at the same time darting a sharp glance through the open window beside him.

"It's this j.a.panese business. The Chinese, back in the Seventies, was not a patch on it, because the Chinee never aspired to be anything but house servants, fruit pickers, vegetable raisers and vendors on a small scale, and the like. The agitation against them which led to the exclusion bill was wholly Irish; that is to say it was entirely a working-cla.s.s political agitation, because the Chinee was doing better work for less money than the white man. The better cla.s.s liked the Chinee and have always regretted the loss of them; and to-day those who are left, particularly cooks and workers on those big reclaimed islands of the San Joaquin River, where they raise the best asparagus in the world--yes, in the world, sir--get higher wages than any white man or woman in the State.

"But these j.a.ps are a different proposition. They're slack servants, unless they happen to be a better sort than the majority, and that unreliable you never know where you are with them. And being servants is about the last ambition they've come for to this great and glorious country. They're buyin' farms all up and down the rivers, the most fertile land in the State, to say nothing of some of the interior valleys. You see, there were big grants like Lumalitas at first over a good part of California. Then the ranches of thousands of acres were cut up and sold into farms of three or four hundred acres that paid like the mischief so long as the old man stuck to business himself. This he generally did; but times have changed, and now all the young men want to go to town; and most of the big farms have been cut up into little ones and sold off to immigrants and the like. Well, that's the j.a.ps' lay.

They like things on a small scale and know how to wring a dollar out of every five-cent piece. No one's denying they're smart. They slid in and got a good grip before we thought them worth looking at. Now we're saddled with about thirty thousand of them, and more coming on every steamer from Honolulu and j.a.pan. Some years ago when they began to find themselves as a nation, and to rebel at the foreigners that were ruling things through the open ports, they let it be pretty well known that it was going to be j.a.pan for the j.a.panese. Well, now the sooner they know that it's California for the Californians the better it will be for all hands. We don't go round lookin' for trouble, but if it comes our way we don't mind it one little bit. We'll tolerate the j.a.ps just in so far as we find them useful, and useful they are as servants; for if they don't hold a candle to the old Chinee, they're a long sight better than our lazy high-toned hired girls, who are good for just exactly nothing; and we need a certain amount of them for hire in other fields; but as citizens, not much. We've put a stop to that right here, in this county at least; and so, Mr. Gwynne, that's the milk in the cocoanut, and we hope that you'll see things our way, and not sell any of your land to the j.a.ps."

"You see," interposed Judge Leslie, that Gwynne might not feel himself rushed to a decision. "These little men, while possessing so many admirable traits that I am quite willing to take off my hat to them, are not desirable citizens in a white man's country. Not only is their whole view of life and religion, every antecedent and tradition, exactly opposed to the Occidental, so that we never could a.s.similate them, never even contemplate their taking a part in our legislation nor marrying our daughters, but--and for the majority of the people this is the crux of the whole matter--commercially and industrially they are a menace. With their excessive frugality they can undersell the most thrifty white man, both as farmers and merchants; and the contempt they excite, particularly in this state of extravagant traditions, is as detrimental in its effects as their business methods; the more a man exercises his faculty for contempt the more must his general standards sink toward pessimism, and pessimism is neither more nor less than a confession of failure in the struggle with life. I never was much of a fighter, so I believe in eliminating the foe whenever it is possible. At all events we have made up our minds to eliminate the j.a.p, what with one motive and another, and I think we will. It may come to war in time--when the United States are ready--but we Californians have a way of taking matters into our own hands, and as war is a remote possibility, and we have little prospects of legislation--what with the treaty and the unpreparedness of the country for war--we just do what we can to freeze the j.a.ps out. If we must have small farmers and our own young men have other ambitions, there are plenty of good European immigrants, and it is our business to encourage them. We a.s.similate anything white so quickly it is a wonder an immigrant remembers the native way of p.r.o.nouncing his own name. But the Oriental we can't a.s.similate, for all our ostrich-like digestion, and what we can't a.s.similate we won't have.

It is also true that we don't like the j.a.p. He antagonizes us with his ill-concealed impertinence under a thin veneer of servility; and superior as he is, still he has a colored skin. Now, right or wrong, Christian or merely natural, we despise and dislike colored blood, every decent man of us in this United States of America. Your sentimentalists can come over and wonder and write about us, reproach us and do their honest ingenuous best to convert us, it never will make _one d.a.m.ned bit of difference_. We are as we are and that is the end of it. The antagonism, of course, only leaps to life when the colored man wants equal rights and recognition, something he will never get in the United States of America, as long as the stripes and the stars wave over it; and the sooner the sentimentalists quit holding out false hopes the better. As to the Chinese, it is quite true that there was no objection to them outside of politics. And the reason was, they kept their place.

The antipathy to the j.a.panese extends throughout all cla.s.ses. Every thinking man in the State is concerned with the question. California will be overrun with them before we know where we are; and we are hoping that other counties will give an ear to the wisdom and farsightedness Mr. Boutts has displayed, in proposing that no more land shall be sold--or rented--to the j.a.panese. They can work for us if we have need of them, for a while, but they cannot settle."

Gwynne had been thinking rapidly as Judge Leslie drawled out his homily. In his new apprehension of latent weaknesses in his character he was indisposed to yield to pressure, but he was equally desirous not to let the turmoil into which his inner life had been thrown lead him to any ridiculous extremes; not only interfering with his prospects, but converting himself into chaos. He was extremely anxious to make no mistakes at the outset of his new career, beset with difficulties enough. Their words had every appearance of being a just presentment of a just cause. He didn't care a hang about the "j.a.p." For the matter of that, he reflected with some bitterness, he didn't care a hang about California. At this point in his reflections he became aware that Colton was turning his head with a sort of slow significance. He looked up and watched a pale eyelash drop over a deep gleam of intelligence. Mr.

Leslie finished speaking, and Gwynne replied with an elaborate politeness, which might be his vehicle for spontaneous sympathy or utter indifference.

"Thank you all very much for your confidence in me, and also for preventing me from making what no doubt would have been a serious mistake. I have no desire whatever for the j.a.panese as a neighbor. I was one of the few to recognize the menace of j.a.pan to Occidental civilization when all the world was sympathizing with it during its war with Russia, and they will get no encouragement from me. So the matter is settled as far as I am concerned."

"Shake!" said Mr. Wheaton, in a deep rumbling voice.

The four shook hands solemnly with their new neighbor, then, with even a greater gusto, drank his health. Gwynne suddenly remembering the California tradition, and the ducks, invited them to remain for supper; but all declined except Colton, who sent his wife a message by his father-in-law. The other three climbed into Judge Leslie's surrey and departed, Colton remarking, apologetically, and somewhat wistfully:

"She's dining at the judge's and won't miss me: I never leave her alone.

I'll get back in time to take her home."

XIII

Mariana cooked the ducks with the skill of the unsung _chef_ she was, and enhanced them with other delicacies for which she alone had a name.

Gwynne, faithless to Isabel's crude though honest effort, rose to gayety and wondered whether California was practising the insidious methods of the wife. Colton, absent of eye, disposed of his share of the repast as negatively as he did most things, and as soon as they had retired to the veranda produced a bag of peanuts from his pocket, without which, he remarked, no meal was complete. Gwynne declined the national delicacy, feeling that diplomacy had its limits, and lit a pipe, wondering how he should lead his new friend to give him some practical political information. He detected the guile under that bland, almost vacant exterior, and Colton's prattle about duck-shooting and deer-hunting, although apparently endless, did not divert him for a moment. But he had less trouble than he had antic.i.p.ated. Colton's mind seldom roved far from politics, and it required little tact to lead him to the trough.

"As I am necessarily in your confidence I will take you voluntarily into mine," he announced, in his clear high pipe. "I don't in my heart care a hang more for the Democratic party than I do for the Republican. But the Republicans own the State at present, and there's no chance to get your name up and really do things in that party. They're out for graft, every last one of them. The chance is on the other side. It's a big chance; for the laboring cla.s.s, what with unions, and being rotten spoilt with easy living in this State, is becoming more and more dissatisfied every day. If they were let alone it would never occur to them they weren't the chosen of the Lord; but we--the Democratic party--can't afford to let them alone, unless we want to go out of business altogether. They are just about the only dough we've got to work on, and for the last few years we've been systematically sowing the seeds of discontent by means of the press, metropolitan and local, abusing the rich, the trusts, harping on the segregation of capital by a favored few, to the unjust and illegal impoverishment of the many, painting gaudy pictures of what the working-man's lot will be when he gets his rights, emphasizing that in this State, of all others, man was intended to be happy and share equally in her abundance. We sail pretty close to anarchy; but they are an ignorant foolish lot, and we keep a tight hand on the reins and will drive them in a straight line when the time comes. I am qualifying for the position of district leader hereabouts, although I'm not announcing it from the house-tops. But the present one is getting old, and I'm on the inside track. I dress in these battered old clothes, that make my little wife weep--she'll never have any other cause from me--just to impress the farmers what a good Democrat I am; not a bit like Hyliard Wheaton, who is a dude. All he is waiting for is his father's death so that he can move to San Francisco. But I drive round in a dusty old buggy, with candy for the children in my pocket, and chin with the farmers about the crops and any old thing. When this county turns Democratic, as it shall in the next five years--likely as not sooner, we have so much raw material to work on in these immigrants--I intend to go to Congress, hold on in the House until there is a vacancy in the Senate, and there I'll be for life, and the boss of this State to boot.

I can't say I care about the Presidency. It's only a chance that there may be anything doing while you're in--it's largely luck--and then when you're out, if you survive the White House--which most Presidents don't--you're as good as dead. I don't care about going abroad as a Consul-General, or even Amba.s.sador, for I wouldn't hold any office under the United States government that was dependent upon the favor of a small group in Was.h.i.+ngton. You're no better than a servant, and you never know where you are. Political enemies at home, liars abroad, somebody with a little more influence, or any low political business, and you're fired without being heard in your own defence. You've got no redress, and may be disgraced for life without ever knowing where you were hit. None of that for me, although I'd like a big position of that sort for my wife. But she can cut all the dash she wants as a senator's wife, and I'll wield the big stick. That's where the fun comes in. I have a natural turn for politics, and then it's the only road out of Rosewater. The old gentleman is dead set upon my succeeding him in the bank, and he'd never give me a lift, although if I made a hit at anything he'd be so proud it would be easy sailing after. He's not a bit displeased that I've turned over a few thousands an aunt left me. But I'm after bigger game than that. She also left me two thousand acres of land, that look hopeless because there's not so much as a spring on them, and they're in one of the droughtiest sections in the State--she got them as a bad debt. Now, just over the border of that ranch is a big lake, and the owner of it won't sell or rent me water rights, thinking I'll sell out for a song. But he don't know Tom Colton. I'm a member of the present legislature--and that isn't the least of the reasons why. A few hundreds in a few hungry pockets, and we run a snake through the legislature declaring that lake state property. Then I ditch from the lake, and I am the proud owner of a large tract of valuable irrigated land. I sell off in small farms, and clean up a hundred thousand dollars. That I'll invest in a Cla.s.s A building in San Francisco. I'm also in this projected electric railway of Boutts's--would advise you to buy a block of that stock--I can let you in on the ground floor. Money and political power, boss of this State--that's what I'm after--and no idle dream either. I know the ropes, and all I have to do is to hang on.

I'll build a house on Connecticut Avenue in Was.h.i.+ngton, and my wife shall have dresses four times a year from Paris." He turned to Gwynne with glowing eyes. "You've barely seen her--and you haven't had a sight of the kids. She's Isabel's great friend. I wonder you haven't been round. I've got the nicest little shanty you ever saw, and we'd always be glad to see you."

Gwynne thanked him absently; then, while his guest, dismissing politics, indulged in domestic rhapsodies, relating several anecdotes the while he consumed another bag of peanuts, Gwynne's brain worked rapidly. He boiled with discouragement and disgust. The cynical frankness of this young provincial, with his serene confidence in his star, and in his power to handle the millions he despised, bore a primitive and humiliating likeness to his younger self: Americanized by the lower standards of his country perhaps, but painfully like in its elements.

All he could claim, it seemed to him at the moment, was a higher personal sense of honesty and honor; and how long would he keep it in this country? While he was hesitating between taking a possible rival into his confidence, and an arrogant desire to announce his reason for coming to California, without regard to consequences, Colton dropped the subject of his family, scattered the ma.s.s of sh.e.l.ls on the floor with a sudden sweep of his foot, and tipping his chair back against the wall, produced a large red apple and his pocket-knife.

"I can't say that I like the seamy side of politics," he remarked, absently, as he performed a delicate operation without breaking the skin. "My wife always maintains that I'm the most honest man alive, and I shouldn't wonder if that was the way I really was made. Anyhow, I know I'd a heap sight rather do a man a good turn than an ill one; but when he gets in your way what are you going to do in a country where politics are machine-made and every cog has to be oiled with graft? I'm thankful I'll never be forced to accept a bribe--there's a lot of difference between giving and taking, and I guess I'll have to do a lot of the first. But it's politics or nothing with me, aside from having a natural genius for them. I'll never get out of Rosewater otherwise. My father is likely to live for twenty years yet, and I hope to G.o.d he will; but I want the big game while I'm young. If the country was better I'd be, too, and like my job. But you've got to play the game in your s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. Kid gloves, and you sit on the fence and watch somebody else wallow in after the prizes."

"It seems to me that the best chance for fame and power lies in that superior strength which is allied with honesty. A man who is at the same time a clever manipulator of men, and whose aim is statesmans.h.i.+p, should be able to reach his goal by a clean road."

Gwynne had been long enough in the United States to blush uneasily as he delivered these sentiments, and his color deepened as Colton gave a little snort.

"Can't be done. Not in this State, anyhow. You've been talking to Isabel. She looks like the Pilgrim Fathers and has inherited all their antiquated notions. Honest, now--_are_ your politics so much better than ours?"

"A long sight. And they are by no means perfect. We have our machine and our compromises, and all the rest of it; and even a few wholly rotten boroughs. Fifty years ago we were blatantly worse than you are to-day.

As long as the game lasts, and there are two parties, there must be more or less chicanery, but we are snow-white compared with the mire of this country. And it is an anomaly I cannot understand. I have now been a year in the United States, have talked with hundreds of Americans, studied them and their inst.i.tutions. Few have struck me as personally dishonest--as we interpret the word in England. Human nature in this country, indeed, has at times appeared to me almost elemental, utterly without the subtlety that makes for crooked dealing. There is a thousand times more petty trickery in Europe; and, with us, more hypocrisy, certainly; but politics we have at least elevated. Here, the best man in private life seems to become transformed the moment he enters the political atmosphere, and if he is not a scoundrel, he sails pretty close to the wind."

"H--m! All you say may be true. I don't agitate my gray matter over problems. I know what we are, and the work cut out for me if I want to stay on top. I have known reformers. We have lots of spasmodic attempts at reform right here in this district. When the reform is directed at some glaring evil, something that makes us uncomfortable, then it goes through. When it's directed against politics in general, then the reformer falls so hard he never gets up--unless, to be sure, he scrambles up p. d. q. and trims with the wind. And that, I'm bound to say, he generally does. We've had our idealists--talk till your mouth waters. One session in Sacramento generally cures them. When it doesn't, we have no more idea what becomes of them than of an ant that b.u.t.ts in on a procession of other ants. Ever watch ants?"

It was Gwynne's turn to snort.

"I take my boy up on the hills every Sunday afternoon when it is fine, and we watch ants and gra.s.shoppers and birds and all the rest of it. Why don't you get married? There's nothing like it. I may have some hard hoeing ahead of me, but I always have that cosy pretty home at the end of the day, and the sweetest wife in the world--who doesn't know the Republican party from the Democrat, and never opens a newspaper. Isabel is too high and mighty. She's a wonderful girl all right, but the last woman I'd want for a wife. I know a girl that would just suit you--Dolly Boutts. She's as pretty as a peach, and as domestic as Anabel. I'll have you both in to supper, as soon as we get a new cook. We've had four this month, and my wife warned me I was not to ask you to anything until she was perfectly satisfied. She's the best housekeeper you ever saw."

Gwynne maintained an infuriated silence. It was some moments before he could trust himself to articulate. Colton, munching his apple, and twirling the long spiral of skin he had peeled off without a break, detected nothing unusual in the atmosphere. It was characteristic of him that he took no interest in his new friend's future. Isabel had told him that Gwynne had not sufficient income to maintain his rank in England, and had resolved not only to drop his t.i.tles, but the name by which he had so long been known; being averse from notoriety. Colton, who had barely recalled the name of Elton Gwynne--he usually skipped the telegrams unless a war with picturesque details monopolized the foreign columns--had been somewhat amused at the precaution, but respected it; he would never have thought of betraying a confidence reposed in the bank. He a.s.sumed that Gwynne intended to become a rancher, like so many other Englishmen, and that he purposed reading law merely as a secondary occupation. He could have thought of several more interesting methods of putting in time; but every one to his taste.

Gwynne spoke finally, and when he did, Colton, whose chair was still tipped against the wall, sat forward with a square planting of his feet.

"I came to California with one intention only," said Gwynne: "to have the political career that my elevation to the peerage deprived me of in England. I had intended to work with the Democratic party, but I am free to state that your account of it has turned my stomach. My reasons for selecting it were, partly, that in principle at least it more nearly approached the Liberal party in England; partly because of its weakness in strong men. But if it is as rotten as you say I am afraid it would be a waste of time to qualify for it; I certainly could not work in harmony with it. However, there is an abundance of time for close observation. I cannot vote for four years, and if I finally decide in favor of the Republican party, at least we shall not be rivals."

"_Jiminy!_" exclaimed young Colton, ingenuously; but Gwynne could see the glitter of his eye. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Not much you don't go over to the Republicans! There isn't five cents' worth of choice between the two parties when it comes to a square deal on any measure ever put up, and this slow wave of reform that's trying to crawl over the country--against trusts, graft, and the like--is just strong enough to swamp the Republicans and give us our chance. Rivals! Not a bit of it. There's room for all, and you're just the man we want. Isabel told me you were a wonderful speaker--I'd forgotten. That's _just_ what we want. I can't speak for a cent. There's no one in the district that can carry a crowd. The boss was wailing over it the other day. You can do a lot in the next four years. You'll go to all the conventions and county meetings with me and make my speeches. I'll introduce you to everybody that can put you _on_. You've fallen into clover with the judge, because his only son, who was practising with him, has had to go to southern California to live--nerves all broken up. He'll push you all right, and as soon as you have swallowed the California codes you can practise in the courts by courtesy. Then I'll take you to Sacramento with me next year--I'm a senator this term--as my private secretary, and you'll learn a lot. Your hair will stand up straight, but never mind. All that will pave the way for whatever office you want to begin with when your papers are ripe. I'll see that it's a good conspicuous town or county office, and the legislature will follow as a matter of course. That will fill in while you are waiting a chance for Congress--you must be seven years in the country for that--nine for the Senate. Only, you must swallow us whole. You can't make us over. We Democrats are determined to get on top again and have our chance at the pickings. We'll talk reform, of course.

That's where your eloquence will come in, and the more you believe in it while you're holding forth about the Republican party robbing the widow and orphan--more particularly the farmer and the laborer--the better.

We'll promise the working-man a sort of sugar-coated socialism, but we won't inspire him with any higher ideals than pecuniary profits, _if you please_. That would mean content, and the end of the Democratic party.

Well, think it over. I must go. My little old woman doesn't like to sit up late. Mind you drop in and see her the next time you are in town."

Gwynne rang for his guest's buggy, thanked him for his advice; then ordered his horse and rode about the ranch half the night.

XIV

A fortnight later Isabel announced to Gwynne that she intended to give a party and introduce him to the young people of Rosewater.

"All the girls want to know you, Anabel tells me, and as it is a relief to hear that they are interested in something besides cards, and as n.o.body else seems disposed to take the initiative, I have concluded to play the _grande dame_ for a night. In a way it is my duty to introduce you formally, although it would be more so if they had done anything for me since my return. However--I will ask them for next Sat.u.r.day evening if you have nothing better to do."

"One day is quite the same as another to me," said Gwynne, dryly. "What do you fancy are my evening engagements? I have not even begun to read law with Mr. Leslie; he has gone off to southern California to see his son. He says he is always restless in the autumn, as young people are in the spring, but has promised me his attention before the middle of this month."

They were rowing down the channel of the wider portion of the creek towards Isabel's landing, their boat filled with spoil. The little steamboat was winding proudly through the marsh, there were a dozen sails in sight; from the south came an incessant sound of firing. The distant mountains looked as hard as metal and there was a new crispness in the air. Little rain had fallen, but it was no longer summer. Gwynne had exchanged his khaki riding-clothes for corduroy; and Isabel's habit, although still dust-colored, was made of cloth instead of pongee. To-day they wore light covert coats over their canvas and rubber.

With the pa.s.sing of the heat and the advent of the daily electric breezes sweeping up the valleys from the sea, Gwynne felt a slow lifting of the dead weight on his spirits, although he was only happy when he had his gun in his hand. California seemed less like a voluptuous leviathan blowing poppy-dust that blunted the memory of all things beyond her borders. At first he had been vaguely uneasy at the insidious suggestion that he had transferred himself to another planet, but he was beginning to suspect that California, true to her s.e.x, might have surprises in store that would quicken his blood at least. He still disliked her at night: the high unfriendly arch of her sky, the sinister atmosphere that brooded over her s.p.a.ces, suggesting illimitable reaches where no man dwelt, or would long be tolerated. But her days seemed full of promise, and they certainly were full of beauty.

He still fought with a longing to confide in Isabel: his apprehensions and doubts, his haunting interrogation of inherent greatness. But he turned from the temptation in a panic of spirit, sure that he would fail unless he fought his battle alone. He had pondered more and more upon his possible debt to his mother; and the doubt that she might have been the foundation of his courage and self-confidence was as bitter as that he might have owed the extraordinary rapidity of his career to the influence of his family and name. And Isabel's very strength alarmed him, the more so as he felt her subtle fingers among the leaves of his new destiny. So he merely smiled into her eyes and made a gallant remark, a purely masculine method of emphasizing that woman is charming in her proper place.

"I shall be delighted to dance again; particularly--it seems odd--as I have never danced with you. And it is a year since I have seen you in an evening gown. I have a vivid remembrance of how you looked that night at Arcot, when you turned so many heads."

Isabel colored, and whether with pleasure or resentment, she had not the least idea. But she answered, hastily: