River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1913-08-07


XAl DespI a ines, con-
templa lively cut
the end from a fresh cigar and said:
"But I'm not so sure, after all. MY
experience with the Bailey bill shook
my faith in that proposition.
The two other men in the salon
looked up with startled eyes.
Baldwin had been driven over from
his Michigan Avenue home and caught
the Alton Limited when it made the
station stop at Twenty-third Street,
where he boarded the last of it's cur
tanned Pullmans. This coach was the
political institution known to Illinois
craftsmanship as the Springfield
sleeper, and Baldwin and his two COM
panions, Jennings, the secretary or
state, and Denny Healy, canal COM
missioner, had the capsulated coziness
of it's smoking compartment all to
themselves Down by Dwight they
had fallen into a desultory discussion
of the old question as to whether or
not every man has his price. The
question could hardly interest these
slant contemplation, under the gray
dome of the state house, of the weak
nesses of men, they had come to an
acceptance OF the doctrine now grown
frank enough to have no lingering
faint of cynicism. Jennings, indeed,
had just dismissed the subject by de-
claring:
"All men air fer sale, an most of
'em damn cheap"
And so the subject might have
lapsed had it not been for Baldwin's
heterodoxy. That George r. Baldwin
Of all men should doubt the first max
i'm Of their profession was beyond
comprehension Though he played
his part In life with suite of law
offices in a skyscraper as a back
ground, his serious business was lob
bying bills through the legislature
His friends, who were many, boosted
that he always stood by them. right
or wrong Which he did, indeed, and
as they were generally wrong, the
value of such friendship, or his opin-
ions on practical politics, could hardly
be overestimated. The day had been
hot one in Chicago, but now a cold
draft of smoky air was sucking
through the narrow window-screen, on
which the cinders hailed as the Linn
tied plunged southwark.
Smoke and dirt had long since be-
grimed the dark and sweaty face OF
Jennings, who with waistcoat opened
in the comfort dear to the Egyptian
was sprawling his shanks on the
cushion opposite him, while Healy,
doomed by corpulence to an attitude
more erect, sitting with his chubby
knees far apart, as the fat will. his
paunch resting on the edge Of the
seat he filled, now and then brushed
a fat palm over his red scalp and
sighed, as he pulled his domestic
cigar But Baldwin sat and smiled,
showing his excellent teeth beneath
his reddish mustache, and visibly ex-
banded They could hear, as an un-
dertone to their talking. the dull roll
of the Pullman's paper wheels. and
now and then they were interrupted
by the whistles long and lonesome
note at a country road-crossing. Out
through the double windows, against
which Healy sometimes pressed his
forehead because the glass cooled it.,
the dark fields wheeled past in an
endless belt of darkness. save where
an occasional bunch of sparks from
the engine burrowed under the right
of-way fence, and then, in the mo-
mentary glow of light, they could
catch sight of a tossing plume of corn,
which told them they were out on the
prairies of central Illinois.
When the train paused for the Big
Four crossing at Gardner, they heard
In the sudden flood of silence the snor-
ing of a sensible fare-paying passen-
ger who had gone to bed. The stri-
dent noise Of the crickets and the
frogs outside was noted only as an
effect of the silence The three men
had no thought of retiring until they
reached Pontiac at two o'clock, for
the lives they led were such that they
could not sleep until that hour,> and
then not very we'll.
Baldwin had lighted his imported
perceptible even in an atmosphere
choked with coal gases and the fumes
of the domestic cigars Jennings and
Healy were smoking, indicated family
the height of cultivation to which he
had brought his appetites. when Jen-
nings, f1ecking his ashes on the floor
of the salon just as he would have
done on his own parlor carpet. said:
Well, go on with the story
"One session there was an old man
named Henderson in the house, who
had come up from Greene County:
Henderson of Greene, everybody call
ed him. to distinguish him from Tom
Henderson, of Efingham. He was a
queer figure was Henderson of Greene.
tall and gaunt. with a stoop in his
shoulders. He always wore a hickory
shirt. opened at a red and wrinkled
throat, and his hair was just stubble
bleached by harvest suns. The old
Inan was a riddle to everybody in
Springfield that winter. He was al
ways in his seat even on Monday
evenings, when no one else was there.
He voted always with his party, and
he voted consistently as Well, like
good country member, against all the
Chicago legislation. But he was a
silent man, who stood apart from his
fellows, looking with eyes that peered
from under his shaggy, sun burned
brows with an expression no one