A Spoil of Office: A Story of the Modern West

"Brad, set down here and make a lot o' copies of this call. Milt, you help him."

The call read:

"A New Deal. Reform in County Politics."

"A mass convention of the citizens of Rock County will be held at Rock Creek Grove on September 28th, for the purpose of nominating a people's ticket. All who favor reform in politics and rebel against the ring-rule of our county officers are invited to be present.

"Per order,"Amos Ridings,John Jennings,William Councill,"People's Committee."

"What's all this?" asked Milton of his father.

"We're going to have a convention of our own."

"We're on the war path," said Amos grimly. "We'll make them fellers think hell's t' pay and no pitch hot."

After dinner Amos took a roll of the copies of the call and rode away to the north, and Jennings hitched up his team and drove away to the south. Milton and Bradley went back to their corn-husking, feeling that they were "small petaters."

"They don't intend to let us into it, that's dead sure," said Milton. "All the same, I know the scheme. They're going to bolt the convention, and there'll be fun in the air."

The county woke up the next morning to find its schoolhouse doors proclaiming a revolt of the farmers, and the new deal was the talk of the county. It was the grange that had made this revolt possible. This general intelligence and self-cognizance was the direct result of the work of the grange. It had brought the farmers together, and had made them acquainted with their own men, their own leaders, and when they came together a few days later, under the open sky, like the Saxon thanes of old, there was a spirit of rebellion in the air that made every man look his neighbor in the face with exultation.

It was a perfectly Democratic meeting. They came together that beautiful September day, under the great oaks, a witenagemote of serious, liberty-loving men, ready to follow wherever their leaders pointed.

Amos Ridings was the chairman, tall, grim-lipped and earnest-eyed. His curt speech carried the convention with him. His platform was a wagon box, and he stood there with his hat off, the sun falling upon his shock of close-clipped stiff hair, making a powerful and resolute figure with a touch of poetry in his face.

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