Читать книгу The 13th District. A Story of a Candidate онлайн

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“Ah, indeed,” said the candidate. “He raised a regiment about there, did he not?”

“Yes—the old ninety-third—the Bloody Ninety-third they called it. A number of his old soldiers will be at your meeting this afternoon.”

The candidate reflected that most communities like to think that their regiments have been known as “the Bloody,” but he did not say so to Garwood.

The train sped on, then Garwood heard it stop, heard the cheers and cries of the crowds outside, heard the rich voice of the candidate speaking, heard the restless bell as the train moved on again with quickly accelerated speed, while the little station and the crowd and the two shining tracks dissolved into one disappearing point of the perspective far behind. The cheers faded away, and he tried to imagine the sensation of the man for whom all this outcry was being made. The great man seemed to take it coolly enough. Either such things had grown common to him, or he had trained himself by a long course of public life to appear as if they had, for when he was not making speeches on the rear platform, or shaking hands with little delegations that boarded the train to go to the Lincoln meeting, he was resting in his stateroom. He was not well, Garwood heard the colonel explain to some one, and had to conserve his energies, though like some athlete in training he seemed able to rest and sleep between his exertions.