Chapter 27
The Campaign Heats Up
I tried hard to enjoy the city the next day. Miss Bean told me some things I ought to see, and I walked around a little, and took one cab. But I was afraid I’d run into Robin O’Flaridy around every corner. So it was with a great sigh of relief that I boarded the steamer the next morning back to Sacramento. And I was so glad to see Zack and Little Wolf later that afternoon that I gave them bigger hugs than I ever had before.
“What’s that for?” asked an embarrassed Zack as he half returned my embrace.
“Just to remind me how much I love you,” I answered. He was satisfied, in the boyish sort of way that avoids talking about such things, and I wasn’t inclined to explain any further.
Little Wolf hugged me back, smiled, and pretended to give my face a little slap. Even though we were two days from Miracle Springs, I already felt like I was home! Without people to love, you can get awfully lonely in a big hurry!
Back in Miracle, the mayor’s campaign had started to heat up. While I had been gone, Almeda had gotten the box of completed handbills back from the printer in Sacramento—one thousand copies printed on bright colored paper. Already Tad and Becky and Emily had been putting them around town, and Almeda had begun to call on some of the leading townsfolk, both to take them a handbill and to explain what she was doing and why. With the excitement over seeing the handbill, and then telling Pa and Almeda about my trip and the incident with Robin O’Flaridy, it was late in the evening before I remembered my most important news of all.
“But guess what?” I said. “Mr. Kemble said he’d print three articles on the election if I’d write them!”
“The state election?”
“No—Miracle Springs . . . you and Mr. Royce.”
“That is something—and three! My goodness, you are turning into a genuine newswoman, Corrie!”
“For pay?” asked Pa.
“More or less,” I answered. “A dollar each.”
“Three dollars!” exclaimed Almeda. “They paid you four times that just two weeks ago for that countryside article.”
“That was before he found out I was a girl.”
“Why—why, that is the most despicable, low—”
“Now hold on to your breeches, Almeda,” said Pa. “Don’t get all riled. You know how the world is. If Corrie’s gonna try to do a man’s job, she’s gonna have to expect this kind—”
“A man’s job! Drummond Hollister, not you too! Corrie can write just as well as any man her age, and better than some a lot older, and there’s no reason she shouldn’t be paid according to her ability.”
“Maybe you’re right, but then I figure that’s Corrie’s decision, not yours or mine. And if she doesn’t want to write an article for a measly eight bits, she don’t have to. And if she does, then it ain’t nothing for you or I to stick our noses into.”
Pa’s practicality silenced Almeda for a minute, then she smiled broadly. “Well it’s a start, Corrie.” She paused. “I’m really proud of you. Proud of your courage in standing up to a powerful man like Mr. Kemble, but even more proud of your honesty, your integrity.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Proud to have a young woman like you as my daughter.”
I thanked her, inside thinking how much I would like to have known what Robin O’Flaridy made for each of his articles.
With the handbill circulating and Almeda making visits to people, the whole feeling of the mayor’s campaign changed. People had been talking earlier, but I think it was mostly from interest’s sake, almost curiosity. Just the fact that Miracle Springs was going to have an election was an event in itself. Having two of the town’s most well-known people in it against each other made it all the more a topic of interest and conversation.
But now the initial novelty had worn off, and people were starting to ask more serious questions about the election. Which one of the two, Royce or Hollister, would actually make the best mayor? Who would do the most for Miracle Springs?
Almeda’s visits and the handbill got people to thinking about more than they had at first, and wondering if maybe she just might be a better person to vote for than the banker. But she was a woman, and having a woman for mayor just wasn’t done. And Royce was not only a man—he was the banker, and he still had financial power in one way or another over just about everybody around Miracle.
After several days Mr. Royce made another call at the freight office. This time none of us had seen him coming down the street, so when he walked in it took us by surprise.
“Almeda,” he said, “I’d like to talk with you for a minute.”
His voice was more serious than the last time he’d come into the office. He was trying to smile as he said the words, but you could tell he had more than just lighthearted conversation in his thoughts.
“Certainly. What is on your mind, Franklin?”
“In private?” he suggested.
Almeda nodded, then led him around the counter and into her small office. But when they went inside she made no attempt to close the door, and he did not particularly keep his voice down.
There was a pause while they both sat down. Mr. Ashton and I looked at each other sort of apprehensively and kept about our work as quietly as we could.
“Are you really sure you want to do this, Almeda?” asked Royce.
“Do what—you mean the election?”
“Yes, of course that’s what I mean. What’s the purpose? You’re doing nothing but getting people stirred up and confused. And what good can it possibly do in the end?”
“The last time you were in, Franklin, you welcomed me to the race and said you congratulated my intrepid decision, as I believe you so eloquently phrased it.” I could almost see Almeda smiling faintly as she said the words.
“That was then,” he replied, a little quickly. “I had no idea you were going to take the thing so seriously. I thought perhaps it was a ploy to help your sagging business.”
“My business is not sagging. We are managing just fine.”
“Nevertheless, you have taken it beyond the casual point, Almeda, and I simply suggest that it is time you paused to consider the implications. People are talking and, quite frankly, some of the talk has negative features to it that are not going to help my reputation and business if they persist.”
“And therefore you want me to withdraw?” asked Almeda. She wasn’t smiling now, that much I knew.
“Be reasonable, Almeda,” Mr. Royce said. “You’ve had the excitement of the campaign. You’ve thrust yourself into the center of attention. People respect you. It cannot help but heighten your image as a businesswoman. But now it’s time for you to face the realistic facts. No town is going to elect a woman mayor, and the longer you continue, the more the potential damage to my reputation and my business. And if I’m going to be the next mayor of Miracle Springs, both the bank and my image in the people’s thoughts need to be solid. And all this is not to mention the lasting impression your loss will leave. Right now you are riding high in the public mind. But after the election, your image, and perhaps even the reputation of your business itself, will be tarnished and you will be seen as a loser. All I’m attempting to convey to you in the most reasonable manner I can—from one business person to another, from one friend to another—is that it is time you stand aside and let Miracle Springs move forward without all this dissention and strife your being part of the election is causing—for your own good, Almeda.”
A long silence followed.
“So then, Franklin, you consider the outcome of the election a foregone conclusion?” said Almeda at length.
“I didn’t think there was ever any doubt about that,” said Mr. Royce, with the hint of a laugh.
“Maybe not as far as you’re concerned,” replied Almeda. “But I didn’t join this race to help my business or my reputation, as you call it, or anything else. I joined it to make every effort to win.”
“Surely you can’t be serious?” Royce sounded genuinely surprised.
“Of course I’m serious. I wouldn’t do something of this magnitude for frivolous or self-seeking motives. If you think I care about what people think of me, Franklin, then you do not know me very well.”
“Well, if you’re determined to see it out to the bitter end,” Mr. Royce finally said, “I wish you’d at least discontinue the distribution of this brochure of yours, and visiting people—a good many of them my friends, Almeda—and stirring everybody up and spreading talk about me that isn’t true.”
“Franklin, I have not said a single word about you to a soul! I’m surprised you would think I would stoop to such measures.”
“People are talking, Almeda. How can it be from anything other than your stirring them up against me?”
“I tell you, I am doing no such thing. I have never even hinted anything about you. I have only been talking to people about what I feel I would be able to offer Miracle Springs as its mayor.”
After the pause which followed, Mr. Royce’s tone cooled. He apparently realized he was not going to dissuade Almeda from anything she had her mind made up on.
“You can’t win, Almeda,” he said. “The thing’s simply impossible.”
“We’ll see,” she replied.
“You’re wasting time and money.”
“You may be right.”
“You’re determined to go ahead with it?”
“I am.”
“Will you stop making calls on my friends and customers?”
“They are my friends, too, Franklin. You are free to call on them yourself.”
“In other words, you will not stop?”
“No.”
“Will you withdraw the brochure?”
“I will not. Again, Franklin, you are free to circulate one of your own.”
The next sound was that of Mr. Royce’s chair scooting back on the wood floor as he rose to his feet. “At least it appears we understand each other,” he said.
“So it would appear,” repeated Almeda.
“Good day, Mrs. Hollister,” said the banker, and the next moment he reappeared from the office and walked briskly to the street door and out, not acknowledging me or Mr. Ashton in any way as he passed. We both pretended to be busy with the papers and files in front of us.
Two or three minutes later Almeda came out of the office. Her face was red with anger.
“That pompous, egotistical man!” was all she could say before she started sputtering and pacing around the office like a caged animal. “The nerve . . . to say that I stood no chance whatsoever! To ask me to withdraw from the race, because—because of his reputation! His reputation—ha! Calls on his friends! I doubt he even has that many friends around town—everyone is too afraid of him! What harm could I do his reputation!”
She walked around the office another time or two, then burst out again:
“I’ve got to get out of here!” She looked at the two of us. “I’m going for a ride. I’ll be back in about an hour.”
With that she left the room with as much grace as she could manage. When Mr. Ashton and I heard a yell and hoofbeats galloping away down the street a couple minutes later, we looked at each other and laughed. It was plain her horse was in for a time of it!
Almeda didn’t pull out of the mayor’s race, which continued to get livelier and livelier as we got into the month of August.
Mr. Royce paid no more visits to the Parrish Mine and Freight Company office.