rst roll call of the
counties. Later we found out that the Stickney forces had been
counting, all along, on throwing the convention into a disorder of such
proportions as to force an adjournment, trusting then to their
acknowledged superiority at organization to win some strong strategic
advantage in the intervening gap of time. Failing there they meant to
raise a cry of unfairness and walk out. That then was their
program--first the riot and then, as a last resort, the bolt. But they
had men in their ranks, high-tempered men who, like so many skittish
colts, wouldn't stand without hitching. The signals crossed and the
thunder cracked across that calm-before-the-storm situation before there
was proper color of excuse either for attack or for retreat.

It came with scarcely any warning at all. Old Judge Marcellus Barbee,
the state chairman, called the convention to order, he standing at a
little table in the center of the stage. Although counted as our man,
the judge was of such uncertain fiber as to render it doubtful whose man
he really was. He was a kindly, wind-blown old gentleman, who very much
against his will had been drawn unawares, as it were, into the middle of
this fight, and he was bewildered by it all--and not only bewildered but
unhappy and frightened. His gavel seemed to quaver its raps out
timorously.

A pastor of one of the churches, a reverend man with a bleak, worried
face, prayed the Good Lord that peace and good-will and wise counsel
might rule these deliberations, and then fled away as though fearing the
mocking echoes of his own Amen. Summoning his skulking voice out of his
lower throat, Judge Barbee bade the secretary of the state committee
call the counties. The secretary got as far as Blanton, the third county
alphabetically down the list. And Blanton was one of the contested
counties. So up rose two rival chairmen of delegations, each waving
aloft his credentials, each demanding the right to cast the vote of free
and sovereign Blanton, each shaking a clenched fist at the other. Up got
the rival delegations from Blanton. Up got everybody. Judge Barbee, with
a gesture, recognized the rights of the anti-Stickney delegation. Jeers
and yells broke out, spattering forth like a skirmish fire, then almost
instantly were merged into a vast, ominous roar. Chairs began to
overturn. Not twenty feet from me the clattering of the chairman's
gavel, as he vainly beat for order, sounded like the clicking of a