rollicking modern imitations with the movement and spirit of
a tinshop falling down a flight of stairs. Her audience listened in
delight from the first; but the latter songs quite overcame them with
pleasure and admiration, and before she finished, every head in the
room was jogging from side to side, and forward and back, in time to the
music, while every foot shuffled the measures on the carpet.

When the gentlemen from out of town discovered that it was time to leave
if they meant to catch their train, Helen called to them to wait, and
they gathered about her.

"Just one second," she said, and she poured all the glasses full to the
brim; then, standing in the centre of the circle they made around her,
she said:

"Before you go, shan't we pledge each other to our success in this
good, home-grown Indiana cider, that leaves our heads clear and our arms
strong? If you will--then--" She began to blush furiously and her voice
trembled, but she lifted the glass high over her head and cried bravely,
"Here's to 'Our Candidate'!"

The big men, towering over her, threw back their heads and quaffed the
gentle liquor to the last drop. Then they sent up the first shout of the
campaign, and cheered John Harkless till the rafters rang.

"My friends," said Mr. Keating, as he and Boswell and the men from
Gaines drove away in Judd Bennett's omnibus, "my friends, here is where
I begin the warmest hustling I ever did. I want Harkless, everybody
wants him----"

"It is a glorious idea," said Mr. Bence. "The name of Harkless----"

Keating drowned the oratory. "But that isn't all. That little girl wants
him to go to Congress, and that settles it. He goes."

That evening Minnie and her father were strolling up and down the front
walk together, between the flowered borders.

"Do you give up?" asked the judge.

"Give up what? No!" returned his daughter.

"She hasn't told you?"

"Not yet; she and Mr. Fisbee left for the office right after those men
went."

"Haven't you discovered what the 'something about politics' she's doing
for him is? Did you understand what she meant by 'Our Candidate'?"

"Not exactly."

"Did you see her blush when she proposed that toast?"

"Yes. So would anybody--with all those men, and their eyes hanging out
on their cheeks!"

"Pooh! She got up the whole show. Do you know why?"

"I only know it's politics."

"Politics!" He glanced over his shoulder, and then, leaning toward her,
he said, in a low