Chapter XXXIV: Judy's Plans of Campaign

The events at Fighting Creek threw Webb's political advisers into something like panic. They realized that Butler's withdrawal and Colonel Conway's support of Westover's candidacy would give Westover a majority vote in the piedmont section of the district. If Webb was to win at all, it must be by securing the mountain vote. To that end they sent all their speakers into the mountains, arranging that Webb himself should speak there twice or thrice a day. He was a plausible fellow, persuasive in his oratory and capable of verbal acrobatics of a kind likely to be attractive to simple minded audiences. But chiefly, Webb's backers relied upon negotiations with Judy Peters, whose control over the mountain vote of her own county was almost absolute, and whose influence over the vote in other mountain parts of the district was apt to be controlling if she saw fit to exercise it, as in many cases she did not.

In the present campaign Judy had given no sign. Apparently she was altogether indifferent. If she should persist in that indifference, then a vigorous speaking campaign might turn the battle; but if she could be induced to take an active interest in Webb's election, the result would be secure.

So Webb and some of his most persuasive lieutenants were set to "arouse Judy's interest." They visited her immediately after the Fighting Creek disaster, and told her of the danger that impended. She entertained them with glorified fried chicken, stewed shoat, salt pork with cream gravy, apple butter, and limitless apple jack, but she declined to commit herself. To all their solicitations she replied in carefully equivocal phrases that left them pleased, encouraged, but by no means satisfied.

"The old gal's a-goin' back on us, it's my belief," said Foggy when these results were reported to him.

"You are certainly mistaken," Webb answered. "I had a long, confidential talk with her and I came away from the conference with an unshakable conviction that she means to throw her uttermost influence in my favor."

"Did she say so in plain words?" asked Foggy.

"No, not precisely that, but she certainly intended to give me that impression. You don't know Judy, or you would understand. She likes to keep one hanging on, as it were. She never commits herself by definite promises. Sometimes she doesn't let even her henchmen know how they are going to vote until the night before election. We can safely trust ourselves in Judy's hands."

"Well, I hope you're right, but I'd feel a good deal better," responded Foggy, "if we had a definite promise."

No sooner was the visit of the Webb forces over than Judy turned to Sapphira and said:

"Go an' hang my red petticoat on the frontmost panel o' the fence, an' leave it there."

"Is Edgar Coffey a-comin' long by here this evenin'?" asked the girl who had rendered this service on several former occasions.

"Don't be too knowin', Sapphiry, an' don't git yourself into a inquirin' frame o' mind. That there red petticoat's enough fer you to think about jest now."

About sunset Edgar Coffey came slouching up the road, apparently intending to pass the place without stopping, but when he saw the red petticoat hanging over the top rail of the fence he seemed suddenly to remember that he wanted a drink of water from Judy's glacial spring, with something to temper its coldness perhaps. So he leaped the fence, and passing around the house, toward the spring, confronted Judy at her back door. Quite casually she invited him in, and after her hospitable habit she brought forth a decanter of apple jack for his entertainment.

"Now drink sparin'-like, Edgar," she said, "'cause you's got business to ten' to an' I don't want none o' that confusion o' tongues the Bible tells about. But mend your drink an' git over your tired an' then I'll give you your pinters."

Edgar Coffey was habitually a sober man. That is to say he never drank liquor that he must pay for; but when the tipple cost him nothing he was apt to make up for lost time. Judy, whose habit it was to know all about the men she dealt with, knew this, and upon occasion tempered her alcoholic hospitality with prudent reserve. If she had had no mission for Edgar Coffey to fulfil, he might have emptied the bottle without interference on her part. As it was, she withdrew the supply as soon as he had filled his little tumbler for the third time, and as soon as he had emptied it again she addressed herself to the business in hand.

"That there William Wilberforce Webb has been here with his gang, to 'lectioneer me," she said. She would have used some opprobrious epithet with Webb's name if she could have thought of one that seemed to her more scornful than the man's own cumbersome name did.

"Yes, I knowed they was a-comin'," answered Edgar.

"Never mind what you knowed. Listen to me. You is to go an' git Morris Bryant an' Lem Fulcher, an' Wyatt Fletcher an' two or three others, an' 'tend his speakin' meetin's, specially' them as don't lay close to here--them as is held in the furder parts o' the mountings where may be a word from me don't count for as much as it does round here."

"Is we to raise a racket an' break up the meetin's?"

"No. Yous is to be as meek as Moses, an' ax questions, jest as ef you was doubtful like an' a seekin' information. But you ain't to ax William Wilberforce Webb none o' the questions, 'cause he mout answer 'em an' spile the game. 'Tain't answers we want, but effec's. You is to ax everybody you see, what that feller's wagon-load o' name means. An' you's to wonder, jest curious like whar he got it to tote round. An' then you can sort o' explain your curiosity by sayin' you's heard somewhere's as how William Wilberforce is one o' the biggest abolitionists, an' wonder whether Webb is his nephew or his son, an' if Webb ain't maybe a abolitionist in disguise, a tryin' to git into the Legislatur. Ef anybody answers your questions an' tries to explain, you can jest say, 'Well, I dunno nothin' 'bout it, only it looks sort o' 'spicious like,' an' go away an' hunt up another crowd. You know how to do a sneakin' thing like that, Edgar, better'n anybody I ever seen, an' the men I's named fer your feller sinners ain't no slouches at that sort o' thing nuther. You's got no call to argify or say anything as anybody can pick up. You-all's business is jest to ax questions, raise suspicions an' make impressions."

She chuckled as Edgar winked at her in token of complete comprehension, and as she did so she muttered:

"That feller's name'll be the death of him yit."

Then she added:

"Now you can have another pull at the apple jack, Edgar, an' then you must be off, fer they's a big Webb gatherin' 'pinted fer to-morrer over at Olivet church, an' I want all you fellers to be thar."

"Wait a minute, Judy," said the hulking mountaineer as he unlimbered his legs and sat upright in his chair. "I's got a message fer you from Dr. Carley Farnsworth."

"Why didn't you tell me that fust off?" asked Judy almost angrily.

"'Cause 'twouldn't 'a' been polite, like, tell you was done speakin'. 'Ladies fust' is my motto."

"All right. Limber up your tongue an' tell me what 'tis."

"Well, he says he'll cover all expenses, but you is to give a very select--them was his words--a _very select_ Brunswick Stew here next Saturday an' let him bring up a wagon-load o' folks from down below. He says it'll do more'n the 'lection itself for Westover in the way you an' him is a-thinkin' of. I didn't ax him what he meant by that, 'cause he seemed to think you'd know all about it. Oh, he said you must be sure to send a partic'lar invite to Westover. He's to speak over at Cob Station Friday."

Judy received the message placidly, and, without comment upon it, hurried Edgar Coffey away on his mission.

"Well," she said to herself presently, "Carley Farnsworth ain't no fool; but I'd give somethin' purty to know how he expects me to make a Brunswick Stew this late in the fall when they ain't a tomato or a ear o' green corn left alive in all the land."

Then suddenly she called for her three sons, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Theonidas, who happened to be at home at the time.

"We's a goin' to give a barbecue nex' Saturday, right out in the patch o' red oak an' black gum woods. So you's got to git to work. Kill an' dress a shoat an' two lambs an' 'bout a dozen chickens, an' hang 'em in the spring house to cool. Then you three haul out the lumber from the corn crib an' knock up a lot o' tables. No, Daniel Webster an' Henry Clay can ten' to that, while Theonidas digs the roastin' pits an' chops some oak an' hickory wood to roast with. Chop it short, Theonidas, an' split it fine, so's it'll go to coals quick."

After she had given these orders and instructed Sapphira as to duties that must devolve on her, she busied her mind with other things relating to the affair. First of all she filled and lighted her pipe and sat down in a big rocking chair to "do a little studyin'."

"Very select," she mused. "That means I mustn't let the fellers drink too much. I can ten' to that, so they ain't no bother. He's a goin' to bring a lot o' stuck-ups with him. That's all right, an' I'll make 'em think we's purty nigh on to bein' sort o' civilized ourselves. Le's see; Burch Wrigley an' Lewis Vance an' Jim Woodson won't do. They'd go round chawin' meat an' a holdin' it in their han's what hain't been washed sence Noah's flood cleaned things up, like. Them fellers ain't to have no invites. I'll send 'em a feed in a bucket instid.

"Le' me see! Jim Wood's a-goin' down to the speakin' at Cob Station, Friday. I'll tell him to tell Boyd to come up here Friday night. Then I'll have him on the ground fer Saturday. Oh say, Judy, I'll send a invite to William Wilberforce Webb! It'll be good fun to see him when he fin's out what sort o' party I's got, an' oh Jemimy! When he fin's Boyd here! An' jes' ten days 'fore the 'lection too! It'll be fun all over the woods!"

And Judy was so pleased with her little device for amusement that she chuckled over it for full ten minutes afterward. She wound up her chuckling with the exclamation:

"William Wilberforce Webb! Blue lightning what a name! By the time Edgar Coffey an' them fellers is through with him he'll wish he'd boxed up that name an' put it in his cellar 'fore ever he come up into the mountings. An' I'll string out the whole o' that name every time I speak to him on Saturday."

Having thus settled upon her arrangements and set them going, Judy turned her meditations into another channel.

"Of course Carley Farnsworth knows what he's about, but I don't. May be I can figger it out, though. He sent word as how this thing would do more good to Boyd than the 'lection itself. I reckon it somehow tetches on his trouble with that gal what's been a preyin' on his mind. I reckon that's it, an' Carley sees how to make it patch things up like. Course that's it. They wouldn't be no sense in it ef that wasn't the meanin'. All right. Ef we can straighten things out, twix' Boyd an' the gal, they won't be no more trouble o' no sort 'bout him. They ain't never no cause to worry 'bout a feller that's got a big office an' a little gal all to wunst, I reckon."