“Who is this young gentleman or lady?” Dr. Clay asked of Pearlie Watson one day when he met her wheeling a baby carriage with an abnormally fat baby in it.

“This is the Czar of all the Rooshia,” Pearl answered gravely, “and I’m his body-guard.”

The doctor’s face showed no surprise as he stepped back to get a better look at the czar, who began to squirm at the delay.

“See the green plush on his kerridge,” Pearl said proudly, “and every stitch he has on is hand-made, and was did for him, too, and he’s fed every three hours, rain or shine, hit or miss.”

“Think of that!” the doctor exclaimed with emphasis, “and yet some people tell us that the Czar has a hard time of it.”

Pearl drew a step nearer, moving the carriage up and down rapidly to appease the wrath of the czar, who was expressing his disapproval in a very lumpy cry.

“I’m just ‘tendin’, you know, about him bein’ the czar,” she said confidentially. “You see, I mind him every day, and that’s the way I play. Maudie Ducker said one day I never had no time to play cos we wuz so pore, and that started me. It’s a lovely game.”

The doctor nodded. He knew something of “‘tendin’ games” too.

“I have to taste everything he eats, for fear of Paris green,” Pearl went on, speaking now in the loud official tone of the body-guard. “I have to stand between him and the howlin’ mob thirstin’ for his gore.”

“He seems to howl more than the mob,” the doctor said smiling.

“He’s afraid we’re plottin’,” Pearl whispered. “Can’t trust no one. He ain’t howlin’. That’s his natcheral voice when he’s talkin’ Rooshan. He don’t know one English word, only ‘Goo!’ But he’ll say that every time. See now. How is a precious luvvy-duvvy? See the pitty man, pull um baby toofin!”

At which the czar, secure in his toothlessness, rippled his fat face into dimples, and triumphantly brought forth a whole succession of “goos.”

“Ain’t he a peach?” Pearlie said with pride. “Some kids won’t show off worth a cent when ye want them to, but he’ll say ‘goo’ if you even nudge him. His mother thinks ‘goo’ is awful childish, and she is at him all the time to say ‘Daddy-dinger,’ but he never lets on he hears her. Say, doctor”-Pearlie’s face was troubled-“what do you think of his looks? Just between ourselves. Hasn’t he a fine little nub of a nose? Do you see anything about him to make his mother cry?”

The doctor looked critically at the czar, who returned his gaze with stolid indifference.

“I never saw a more perfect nub on any nose,” he answered honestly. “He’s a fine big boy, and his mother should be proud of him.”

“There now, what did I tell you!” Pearlie cried delightedly, nodding her head at an imaginary audience.

“That’s what I always say to his mother, but she’s so tuk up with pictures of pretty kids with big eyes and curly hair, she don’t seem to be able to get used to him. She never says his nose is a pug, but she says it’s ‘different,’ and his voice is not what she wanted. He cries lumpy, I know, but his goos are all right. The kid in the book she is readin’ could say ‘Daddy-dinger’ before he was as old as the czar is, and it’s awful hard on her. You see, he can’t pat-a-cake, or this-little-pig-went-to-market, or wave a bye-bye or nothin’. I never told her what Danny could do when he was this age. But I am workin’ hard to get him to say ‘Daddy-dinger.’ She has her heart set on that. Well, I must go on now.”

The doctor lifted his hat, and the imperial carriage moved on.

She had gone a short distance when she remembered something:

“I’ll let you know when he says it, doc!” she shouted.

“All right, don’t forget,” he smiled back.

When Pearlie turned the next corner she met Maudie Ducker. Maudie Ducker had on a new plaid dress with velvet trimming, and Maudie knew it.

“Is that your Sunday dress,” she asked Pearl, looking critically at Pearlie’s faded little brown winsey.

“My, no!” Pearlie answered cheerfully. “This is just my morning dress. I wear my blue satting in the afternoon, and on Sundays, my purple velvet with the watter-plait, and basque-yoke of tartaric plaid, garnished with lace. Yours is a nice little plain dress. That stuff fades though; ma lined a quilt for the boys’ bed with it and it faded gray.”

Maudie Ducker was a “perfect little lady.” Her mother often said so; Maudie could not bear to sit near a child in school who had on a dirty pinafore or ragged clothes, and the number of days that she could wear a pinafore without its showing one trace of stain was simply wonderful! Maudie had two dolls which she never played with. They were propped up against the legs of the parlour table. Maudie could play the “Java March” and “Mary’s Pet Waltz” on the piano. She always spoke in a hushed vox tremulo, and never played any rough games. She could not bear to touch a baby, because it might put a sticky little finger on her pinafore. All of which goes to show what a perfect little lady she was.

When Maudie made inquiries of Pearl Watson as to her Sabbath-day attire, her motives were more kindly than Pearl thought. Maudie’s mother was giving her a party. Hitherto the guests upon such occasions had been selected with great care, and with respect to social standing, and blue china, and correct enunciation. This time they were selected with greater care, but with respect to their fathers’ politics. All conservatives and undecided voters’ children were included. The fight-to-a-finish-for-the-grand-old-party Reformers were tabooed.

Algernon Evans, otherwise known as the Czar of all the Rooshias, only son of J. H. Evans, editor of the Millford Mercury, could not be overlooked. Hence the reason for asking Pearl Watson, his body-guard.

Millford had two weekly newspapers-one Conservative in its tendencies and the other one Reform. Between them there existed a feud, long standing, unquenchable, constant. It went with the printing press, the subscription list and the good-will of the former owner, when the paper changed hands.

The feud was discernible in the local news as well as in the editorials. In the Reform paper, which was edited at the time of which we write by a Tipperary man named McSorley, you might read of a distressing accident which befell one Simon Henry (also a Reformer), while that great and good man was abroad upon an errand of mercy, trying to induce a drunken man to go quietly to his home and family. Mr. Henry was eulogised for his kind act, and regret was expressed that Mr. Henry should have met with such rough usage while endeavouring to hold out a helping hand to one unfortunate enough to be held in the demon chains of intemperance.

In the Conservative paper the following appeared:

We regret to hear that Simon Henry, secretary of the Young Liberal Club, got mixed up in a drunken brawl last evening and as a result will be confined to his house for a few days. We trust his injuries are not serious, as his services are indispensable to his party in the coming campaign.

Reports of concerts, weddings, even deaths, were tinged with partyism. When Daniel Grover, grand old Conservative war-horse, was gathered to his fathers at the ripe age of eighty-seven years, the Reform paper said that Mr. Grover’s death was not entirely unexpected, as his health had been failing for some time, the deceased having passed his seventieth birthday.

McSorley, the Liberal editor, being an Irishman, was not without humour, but Evans, the other one, revelled in it. He was like the little boys who stick pins in frogs, not that they bear the frogs any ill-will, but for the fun of seeing them jump. He would sit half the night over his political editorials, smiling grimly to himself, and when he threw himself back in his chair and laughed like a boy the knife was turned in someone!

One day Mr. James Ducker, lately retired farmer, sometimes insurance agent, read in the Winnipeg Telegram that his friend the Honourable Thomas Snider had chaperoned an Elk party to St. Paul. Mr. Ducker had but a hazy idea of the duties of a chaperon, but he liked the sound of it, and it set him thinking. He remembered when Tom Snider had entered politics with a decayed reputation, a large whiskey bill, and about $2.20 in cash. Now he rode in a private car, and had a suite of rooms at the Empire, and the papers often spoke of him as “mine host” Snider. Mr. Ducker turned over the paper and read that the genial Thomas had replied in a very happy manner to a toast at the Elks’ banquet. Whereupon Mr. Ducker became wrapped in deep thought, and during this passive period he distinctly heard his country’s call! The call came in these words: “If Tom Snider can do it, why not me?”

The idea took hold of him. He began to brush his hair artfully over the bald spot. He made strange faces at his mirror, wondering which side of his face would be the best to have photographed for his handbills. He saw himself like Cincinnatus of old called from the plough to the Senate, but he told himself there could not have been as good a thing in it then as there is now, or Cincinnatus would not have come back to the steers.

Mr. Ducker’s social qualities developed amazingly. He courted his neighbours assiduously, sending presents from his garden, stopping to have protracted conversations with men whom he had known but slightly before. Every man whose name was on the voters’ list began to have a new significance for him.

There was one man whom he feared-that was Evans, editor of the Conservative paper. Sometimes when his fancy painted for him a gay and alluring picture of carrying “the proud old Conservative banner that has suffered defeat, but, thank God! never disgrace in the face of the foe” (quotation from speech Mr. Ducker had prepared), sometimes he would in the midst of the most glowing and glorious passages inadvertently think of Evans, and it gave him goose-flesh. Mr. Ducker had lived in and around Millford for some time. So had Evans, and Evans had a most treacherous memory. You could not depend on him to forget anything!

When Evans was friendly with him, Mr. Ducker’s hopes ran high, but when he caught Evans looking at him with that boyish smile of his twinkling in his eyes, the vision of chaperoning an Elk party to St. Paul became very shadowy indeed.

Mr. Ducker tried diplomacy. He withdrew his insurance advertisement from McSorley’s paper, and doubled his space in Evans’s, paying in advance. He watched the trains for visitors and reported them to Evans. He wrote breezy little local briefs in his own light cow-like way for Evans’s paper.

But Mr. Ducker’s journalistic fervour received a serious set back one day. He rushed into the Mercury office just as the paper went to press with the news that old Mrs. Williamson had at last winged her somewhat delayed flight. Evans thanked him with some cordiality for letting him know in time to make a note of it, and asked him to go around to Mrs. Williamson’s home and find out a few facts for the obituary.

Mr. Ducker did so with great cheerfulness, rather out of keeping with the nature of his visit. He felt that his way was growing brighter. When he reached the old lady’s home he was received with all courtesy by her slow-spoken son. Mr. Ducker bristled with importance as he made known his errand, in a neat speech, in which official dignity and sympathy were artistically blended. “The young may die, but the old must die,” he reminded Mr. Williamson as he produced his pencil and tablet. Mr. Williamson gave a detailed account of his mother’s early life, marriages first and second, and located all her children with painstaking accuracy. “Left to mourn her loss,” Mr. Ducker wrote.

“And the cause of her death?” Mr. Ducker inquired gently, “general breaking down of the system, I suppose?” with his pencil poised in the air.

Mr. Williamson knit his shaggy brows.

“Well, I wouldn’t say too much about mother’s death if I were you. Stick to her birth, and the date she joined the church, and her marriages-they’re sure. But mother’s death is a little uncertain, just yet.”

A toothless chuckle came from the adjoining room. Mrs. Williamson had been an interested listener to the conversation.

“Order my coffin, Ducker, on your way down, but never mind the flowers, they might not keep,” she shrilled after him as he beat a hasty retreat.

When Mr. Ducker, crestfallen and humiliated, re-entered the Mercury office a few moments later, he was watched by two twinkling Irish eyes, that danced with unholy merriment at that good man’s discomfiture. They belonged to Ignatius Benedicto McSorley, the editor of the other paper.

But Mrs. Ducker was hopeful. A friend of hers in Winnipeg had already a house in view for them, and Mrs. Ducker had decided the church they would attend when the session opened, and what day she would have, and many other important things that it is well to have one’s mind made up on and not leave to the last. Maudie Ducker had been taken into the secret, and began to feel sorry for the other little girls whose papas were contented to let them live always in such a pokey little place as Millford. Maudie also began to dream dreams of sweeping in upon the Millford people in flowing robes and waving plumes and sparkling diamonds, in a gorgeous red automobile. Wilford Ducker only of the Ducker family was not taken into the secret. He was too young, his mother said, to understand the change.

The nomination day was drawing near, which had something to do with the date of Maudie Ducker’s party. Mrs. Ducker told Maudie they must invite the czar and Pearl Watson, though, of course, she did not say the czar. She said Algernon Evans and that little Watson girl. Maudie, being a perfect little lady objected to Pearl Watson on account of her scanty wardrobe, and to the czar’s moist little hands; but Mrs. Ducker, knowing that the czar’s father was their long suit, stood firm.

Mr. Ducker had said to her that very morning, rubbing his hands, and speaking in the conspirator’s voice: “We must leave no stone unturned. This is the time of seed-sowing, my dear. We must pull every wire.”

The czar was a wire, therefore they proceeded to pull him. They did not know he was a live wire until later.

Pearl Watson’s delight at being asked to a real party knew no bounds. Maudie need not have worried about Pearl’s appearing at the feast without the festal robe. The dress that Camilla had made for her was just waiting for such an occasion to air its loveliness. Anything that was needed to complete her toilet was supplied by her kind-hearted mistress, the czar’s mother.

But Mrs. Evans stood looking wistfully after her only son as Pearl wheeled him gaily down the walk. He was beautifully dressed in the finest of mull and valenciennes; his carriage was the loveliest they could buy; Pearl in her neat hat and dress was a little nurse girl to be proud of. But Mrs. Evans’s pretty face was troubled. She was thinking of the pretty baby pictures in the magazines, and Algernon was so-different! And his nose was-strange, too, and she had massaged it so carefully, too, and when, oh when, would he say “Daddy-dinger!”

But Algeron was not envious of any other baby’s beauty that afternoon, nor worried about his nose either as he bumped up and down in his carriage in glad good humour, and delivered full-sized gurgling “goos” at every person he met, even throwing them along the street in the prodigality of his heart, as he waved his fat hands and thumped his heavy little heels.

Pearl held her head high and was very much the body-guard as she lifted the weighty ruler to the ground. Mrs. Ducker ran down the steps and kissed the czar ostentatiously, pouring out such a volume of admiring and endearing epithets that Pearl stood in bewilderment, wondering why she had never heard of this before. Mrs. Ducker carried the czar into the house, Pearl following with one eye shut, which was her way of expressing perplexity.

Two little girls in very fluffy short skirts, sat demurely in the hammock, keeping their dresses clean and wondering if there would be ice-cream. Within doors Maudie worried out the “Java March” on the piano, to a dozen or more patient little listeners. On the lawn several little girls played croquet. There were no boys at the party. Wilford was going to have the boys-that is, the Conservative boys the next day. Mrs. Ducker did not believe in co-education. Boys are so rough, except Wilford. He had been so carefully brought up, he was not rough at all. He stood awkwardly by the gate watching the girls play croquet. He had been left without a station at his own request. Patsey Watson rode by on a dray wagon, dirty and jolly. Wilford called to him furtively, but Patsey was busy holding on and did not hear him. Wilford sighed heavily. Down at the tracks a freight train shunted and shuddered. Not a boy was in sight. He knew why. The farmers were loading cattle cars.

Pearl went around to the side lawn where the girls were playing croquet, holding the czar’s hand tightly.

“What are you playin’?” she asked.

They told her.

“Can you play it?” Mildred Bates asked.

“I guess I can,” Pearl said modestly. “But I’m always too busy for games like that!”

“Maudie Ducker says you never play,” Mildred Bates said with pity in her voice.

“Maudie Ducker is away off there,” Pearl answered with dignity. “I have more fun in one day than Maudie Ducker’ll ever have if she lives to be as old as Melchesidick, and it’s not this frowsy standin’-round-doin’-nothin’ that you kids call fun either.”

“Tell us about it, Pearl,” they shouted eagerly. Pearl’s stories had a charm.

“Well,” Pearl began, “ye know I wash Mrs. Evans’s dishes every day, and lovely ones they are, too, all pink and gold with dinky little ivy leaves crawlin’ out over the edges of the cups. I play I am at the seashore and the tide is comin’ in o’er and o’er the sand and ’round and ’round the land, far as eye can see-that’s out of a book. I put all the dishes into the big dish pan, and I pertend the tide is risin’ on them, though it’s just me pourin’ on the water. The cups are the boys and the saucers are the girls, the plates are the fathers and mothers and the butter chips are the babies. Then I rush in to save them, but not until they cry ‘Lord save us, we perish!’ Of course, I yell it for them, good and loud too-people don’t just squawk at a time like that-it often scares Mrs. Evans even yet. I save the babies first, I slush them around to clean them, but they never notice that, and I stand them up high and dry in the drip-pan. Then I go in after the girls, and they quiet down the babies in the drip-pan; and then the mothers I bring out, and the boys and the fathers. Sometimes some of the men make a dash out before the women, but you bet I lay them back in a hurry. Then I set the ocean back on the stove, and I rub the babies to get their blood circlin’ again, and I get them all put to bed on the second shelf and they soon forget they were so near death’s door.”

Mary Ducker had finished the “Java March” and “Mary’s Pet Waltz,” and had joined the interested group on the lawn and now stood listening in dull wonder.

“I rub them all and shine them well,” Pearl went on, “and get them all packed off home into the china cupboard, every man jack o’ them singin’ ‘Are we yet alive and see each other’s face,’ Mrs. Evans sings it for them when she’s there.

“Then I get the vegetable dishes and bowls and silverware and all that, and that’s an excursion, and they’re all drunk, not a sober man on board. They sing ‘Sooper up old boys,’ ‘We won’t go home till mornin’ and all that, and crash! a cry bursts from every soul on board. They have struck upon a rock and are going down! Water pours in at the gunnel (that’s just me with more water and soap, you know), but I ain’t sorry for them, for they’re all old enough to know that ’wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin’, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.’ But when the crash comes and the swellin’ waters burst in they get sober prêt’ quick and come rushin’ up on deck with pale faces to see what’s wrong, and I’ve often seen a big bowl whirl ’round and ‘round kind o’ dizzy and say ‘woe is me!’ and sink to the bottom. Mrs. Evans told me that. Anyway I do save them at last, when they see what whiskey is doin’ for them. I rub them all up and send them home. The steel knives-they’re the worst of all. But though they’re black and stained with sin, they’re still our brothers, and so we give them the gold cure-that’s the bath-brick, and they make a fresh start.

“When I sweep the floor I pertend I’m the army of the Lord that comes to clear the way from dust and sin, let the King of Glory in. Under the stove the hordes of sin are awful thick, they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil! But I say the ’sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’ and let them have it! Sometimes I pertend I’m the woman that lost the piece of silver and I sweep the house diligently till I find it, and once Mrs. Evans did put ten cents in a corner just for fun for me, and I never know when she’s goin’ to do something like that.”

Here Maudie Ducker, who had been listening with growing wonder interrupted Pearl with the cry of “Oh, here’s pa and Mr. Evans. They’re going to take our pictures!”

The little girls were immediately roused out of the spell that Pearlie’s story had put upon them, and began to group themselves under the trees, arranging their little skirts and frills.

The czar had toddled on his uncertain little fat legs around to the back door, for he had caught sight of a red head which he knew and liked very much. It belonged to Mary McSorley, the eldest of the McSorley family, who had brought over to Mrs. Ducker the extra two quarts of milk which Mrs. Ducker had ordered for the occasion.

Mary sat on the back step until Mrs. Ducker should find time to empty her pitcher. Mary was strictly an outsider. Mary’s father was a Reformer. He ran the opposition paper to dear Mr. Evans. Mary was never well dressed, partly accounted for by the fact that the angels had visited the McSorley home so often. Therefore, for these reasons, Mary sat on the back step, a rank outsider.

The czar, who knew nothing of these things, began to “goo” as soon as he saw her. Mary reached out her arms. The czar stumbled into them and Mary fell to kissing his bald head. She felt more at home with a baby in her arms.

It was at this unfortunate moment that Mr. Ducker and Mr. Evans came around to the rear of the house. Mr. Evans was beginning to think rather more favourably of Mr. Ducker, as the prospective Conservative member. He might do all right-there are plenty worse-he has no brains-but that does not matter. What need has a man of brains when he goes into politics? Brainy men make the trouble. The Grits made that mistake once, elected a brainy man, and they have had no peace since.

Mr. Ducker had adroitly drawn the conversation to a general discussion of children. He knew that Mr. Evans’s weak point was his little son Algernon.

“That’s a clever looking little chap of yours, Evans,” he had remarked carelessly as they came up the street. (Mr. Ducker had never seen the czar closely.) “My wife was just saying the other day that he has a wonderful forehead for a little fellow.”

“He has,” the other man said smiling, not at all displeased. “It runs clear down to his neck!”

“He can hardly help being clever if there’s anything in heredity,” Mr. Ducker went on with infinite tact, feeling his rainbow dreams of responding to toasts at Elk banquets drawing nearer and nearer.

Then the Evil Genius of the House of Ducker awoke from his slumber, sat up and took notice! The house that the friend in Winnipeg had selected for them fell into irreparable ruins! Poor Maudie’s automobile vanished at a touch. The rosy dreams of Cincinnatus, and of carrying the grand old Conservative banner in the face of the foe turned to clay and ashes!

They turned the corner, and came upon Mary McSorley who sat on the back step with the czar in her arms. Mary’s head was hidden as she kissed the czar’s fat neck, and in the general babel of voices, within and without, she did not hear them coming.

“Speaking about heredity,” Mr. Ducker said suavely, speaking in a low voice, and looking at whom he supposed to be the latest McSorley, “it looks as if there must be something in it over there. Isn’t that McSorley over again? Low forehead, pug nose, bulldog tendencies.” Mr. Ducker was something of a phrenologist, and went blithely on to his own destruction.

“Now the girl is rather pleasant looking, and some of the others are not bad at all. But this one is surely a regular little Mickey. I believe a person would be safe in saying that he would not grow up a Presbyterian.”-Mr. Evans was the worshipful Grand Master of the Loyal Orange Lodge, and well up in the Black, and this remark Mr. Ducker thought he would appreciate.

“McSorley will never be dead while this little fellow lives,” Mr. Ducker laughed merrily, rubbing his hands.

The czar looked up and saw his father. Perhaps he understood what had been said, and saw the hurt in his father’s face and longed to heal him of it; perhaps the time had come when he should forever break the goo-goo bonds that had lain upon his speech. He wriggled off Mary’s knee, and toddling uncertainly across the grass with a mighty mental conflict in his pudgy little face, held out his dimpled arms with a glad cry of “Daddy-dinger!”

That evening while Mrs. Ducker and Maudie were busy fanning Mr. Ducker and putting wet towels on his head, Mr. Evans sat down to write.

“Some more of that tiresome election stuff, John,” his pretty little wife said in disappointment, as she proudly rocked the emancipated czar to sleep.

“Yes, dear, it is election stuff, but it is not a bit tiresome,” he answered smiling, as he kissed her tenderly. Several times during the evening, and into the night, she heard him laugh his happy boyish laugh.

James Ducker did not get the nomination.