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And in that time the farmers will elect Fleckenstein to Congress and the open fight for repudiation will be on!" Jim groaned again. Then abruptly he jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and looked at the little picture of Pen on the wall. "Pen," he said, "Fleckenstein shan't be elected! I'm going out of this Project, fighting like a hound.
Manning was up against, she flew round like a wet hen. I've heard she threatened to foreclose on anyone that voted for Fleckenstein." Uncle Denny chuckled. "And the boy thinks he has no friends!" The fight into which Jim had thrown himself was an intangible one.
Let me tell you that Fleckenstein is a crook. He'll steal anything from a woman's honor to a water power site. He's playing you folks for suckers. He's having everything his own way. Charlie Ives is the only fellow who's had the nerve to run against Fleckenstein and he's a dead one. "And now Fleckenstein has done the Big Boss. He's made monkeys of you farmers.
One of those marvelous changes of sentiment that sometimes sweep a community began in the wild applause that greeted the tender little closing of Uncle Denny's speech. When Fleckenstein arrived an hour late, he found an empty hall. His audience had dispersed to scour the valleys for signatures for Jim.
Uncle Denny, standing before the grate, looked at Jim in a troubled way. The Big Boss, as he loved to call Jim, was looking very tired. "Well," said Murphy, "Fleckenstein can't make much trouble for a year. Even after he takes his seat it will take time to start things even with the money from the Trust.
Insinuations and accusations had appeared so often about the engineers of the dam in the local papers that they had ceased to be a sensation. In the East, though, Jim knew the story would leave its permanent imprint. Murphy interviewed Fleckenstein and never would tell what he and the politician said to each other. But the threat of the letter never was carried out.
"But I came out for that very thing." "I thought you had just come out for one of your usual visits. It won't do, dear Uncle Denny. I can't say anything against Fleckenstein nor must you." "Me boy," said Michael Dennis, "all the public sentiment on earth can't keep me from fighting Fleckenstein. Pen sent for me and I'm here." "Pen sent for you?" repeated Jim. "Why, Pen should not have done that."
Fleckenstein continued a vigorous campaign, however. Money and whiskey flowed freely and Fleckenstein saw every man that Jim saw. Uncle Denny was only temporarily dismayed by Jim's refusal to allow him to work openly against Fleckenstein. Mrs. Ames, having come to the end of her talking capacity, he hired Bill Evans and his machine for the remaining six weeks of the campaign.
"Well, fellow citizens, Fleckenstein and his crowd and all the rest of us, helping with kicks, have worked it so that Jim Manning has been asked to resign. They tell him that he's so unpopular here that the Service can't afford to keep him. Understand that? In other words, we farmers are such fools that we can't appreciate a good man just because his ideas differ from ours.
Fleckenstein was late in getting to the meeting. This, too, was better luck than the three conspirators had hoped for. The meeting was made up almost entirely of farmers who wanted to hear Fleckenstein's last statement of his pledges. Before the chairman called the meeting to order, Oscar Ames mounted the platform and asked permission to say a few words while the audience waited for Fleckenstein.
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