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Title: The Pope Of The Big Sandy
Author: John Fox [
More Titles by Fox]
He entered a log cabin in the Kentucky hills. An old woman with a pair of scissors cut the tie that bound him to his mother and put him in swaddling-clothes of homespun. Now, in silk pajamas, with three doctors and two nurses to make his going easy, he was on his way out of a suite of rooms ten stories above the splendor of Fifth Avenue.
It was early morning. A taxi swung into the paved circle in front of the hotel below and a little man in slouch-hat and black frock coat, and with his trousers in his boots, stepped gingerly out. He took off the hat with one hand, dropped his saddle-pockets from the other, and mopped his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.
"My God, brother," he said to the grinning driver, "I tol' ye to hurry, but I didn't 'low you'd fly! How much d' I owe ye an' how do I git in hyeh?"
A giant in a gold-braided uniform had picked up the saddle-pockets when the little man turned.
"Well, now, that's clever of ye," he said, thrusting out his hand, "I reckon you air the proprietor--how's the Pope?"
"Sure, I dunno, sor--this way, sor." The astonished giant pointed to the swinging door and turned for light to the taxi man who, doubled with laughter over his wheel, tapped his forehead. At the desk the little man pushed his hat back and put both elbows down.
"Whar's the Pope?"
"The Pope!" From behind, the giant was making frantic signs, but the clerk's brow cleared. "Oh, yes--front!"
The little man gasped and swayed as the elevator shot upward, but a moment later the little judge of Happy Valley and the Pope of the Big Sandy were hand in hand.
"How're yo' folks, judge?"
"Stirrin'--how're you, Jim?"
"Ain't stirrin' at all."
"Shucks, you'll be up an' aroun' in no time."
"I ain't goin' to git up again."
"Don't you git stubborn now, Jim."
A nurse brought in some medicine and the Pope took it with a wry face. The judge reached for his saddle-pockets and pulled out a bottle of white liquor with a stopper of corn-shucks.
"This'll take the bad taste out o' yo' mouth."
"The docs won't let me--but lemme smell it." The judge had whipped out a twist of long green and again the Pope shook his head:
"Can't drink--can't chaw!"
"Oh, Lord!" The judge bit off a mouthful and a moment later walked to the window and, with his first and second fingers forked over his lips, ejected an amber stream.
"Good Lord, judge--don't do that. You'll splatter a million people." He called for a spittoon and the judge grunted disgustedly.
"I'd hate to live in a place whar a feller can't spit out o' his own window."
"Don't you like it?"
"Hit looks like circus day--I got the headache already."
A telegram was brought in.
"Been seein' a lot about you in the papers," said the judge, and the Pope waved wearily to a pile of dailies. There were columns about him in those papers--about his meteoric rise: how he started a poor boy in the mountains, studied by candle-light, taught school in the hills: how a vision of their future came to him even that early and how he clung to that vision all his life, turning, twisting for option money on coal lands, making a little sale now and then, but always options and more options and sales and more sales, until now the poor mountain boy was a king among the coal barons of the land.
"Judge," said the Pope, "the votin's started down home."
"How's it goin'?"
"Easy."
"Been spendin' any money?"
"Not a cent."
"Ole Bill Maddox is."
"Why, judge, I'm the daddy an' grandaddy o' that town. I built streets and sidewalks for it out o' my own pocket. I put up two churches for 'em. I built the water-works, the bank, an' God knows what all. Ole Bill Maddox can't turn a wheel against me." The little judge was marvelling: here was a man who had refused all his life to run for office, who could have been congressman, senator, governor; and who had succumbed at last.
"Jim, what in blue hell do you want that office fer?"
"To make folks realize their duties as citizens," said the Pope patiently; "to maintain streets and sidewalks and water-works and sewers an' become an independent community, instead o' layin' back on other folks!"
"How about all them churches you been buildin' all over them mountains--air they self-sustainin'?"
"Well, they do need a little help now and then." The judge grunted.
Through the morning many cards were brought the Pope, but the doctors allowed no business. To amuse himself the Pope sent the judge into the sitting-room to listen to the million-dollar project of one sleek young man, and the judge reported:
"Nothin' doin'--he's got a bad eye."
"Right," said the Pope. At twelve o'clock the judge looked at his watch:
"Dinner-time." And the Pope ordered his old mountain friend cabbage, bacon, and greens.
"Judge, I got to sleep now. I've got a car down below. After dinner you can take a ride or you can take a walk."
"You can't git me into a automobile an' I'm afeard to walk. I'd git run over. I'll jus' hang aroun'."
Another telegram was brought in.
"Runnin' easy an' winnin' in a walk," said the Pope. "It's a cinch. You can open anything else that comes while I'm asleep."
The judge himself had not slept well on the train; so he took off his boots, put his yarn-stockinged feet in one chair, and sitting up in another took a nap. An hour later the Pope called for him. The last telegram reported that he was so far ahead that none others would be sent until the committee started to count ballots.
"I've made you an executor in my will, judge," he said, "an' I want you to see that some things are done yourself." The judge nodded.
"I want you to have a new church built in Happy Valley. I want you to give St. Hilda and that settlement school five thousand a year. An'"--he paused--"you know ole Bill Maddox cut me out an' married Sally Ann Spurlock--how many children they got now, judge?"
"Ten--oldest, sixteen."
"Well, I want you to see that every gol-durned one of 'em gits the chance to go to school."
Now, old Bill Maddox was running against the Pope, and was fighting him hard, and the judge hated old Bill Maddox; so he said nothing. The Pope too was silent a long while.
"Judge, I got all my money out o' the mountain folks. I robbed 'em right and left."
"You ain't never robbed nobody in Happy Valley," said the judge a little grimly, and the Pope chuckled.
"No, you wouldn't let me. I got all my money from 'em an' do you know what I'm goin' to do?"
"Git some more, I reckon."
The Pope chuckled again: "I'm a-goin' to give it back to 'em. Churches, schools, libraries, hospitals, good roads--any durned thing in the world that will do 'em any good. It's all in my will. An', judge," he added with a little embarrassment, "I've sort o' fixed it so that when you want to help out a widder or a orphan in Happy Valley you can do it without always diggin' down into yo' own jeans."
"Shucks, don't you worry about me or the folks in Happy Valley--you done enough fer them lettin' 'em alone; an' that durned ole Bill Maddox, he's a fightin' you right now afore yo' face an' behind yo' back. He's the meanest----"
"Makes no difference. His children ain't to blame an' thar's Sally Ann." The Pope yawned and his brow wrinkled with pain. "I better take a little more sleep, judge." A doctor came in and felt the Pope's pulse and the judge left the room worried by the physician's face and his whispered direction to the nurse to summon another doctor.
An hour later the Pope called him back, and his voice was weak:
"Bring in every telegram, judge."
"You mustn't bother," interposed the doctor firmly, and the Pope's mouth set and the old dominant gleam came into his eyes.
"Bring in every telegram," he repeated. Outside, in the hallway, the judge waylaid the doctor.
"Ain't he goin' to pull through?"
"One chance in a thousand," was the curt answer.
About three o'clock the judge got a telegram that made him swear fearfully, and thereafter they came fast. The Pope would use no money. The judge wired the Pope's manager warily offering a thousand of his own. The answer came--"Too late." At five o'clock they were running neck and neck. Ten minutes before the polls closed old Bill Maddox rounded up twenty more votes and victory was his. And all the while the judge was making reports to the Pope:
"Runnin' easy."
"It's a cinch."
"Ole Bill fighting tooth and toe-nail but you got him, Jim."
"Countin' the votes now."
"Air ye shore, Jim, you want to leave all that money fer ole Bill's brats?--he's a hound."
"Ole Bill comin' up a little, Jim."
And then came that last telegram, reporting defeat, and with it crushed in his hand the judge made his last report:
"All over. You've got 'em, Jim. Hooray! Can't you hear 'em yell?" The Pope's white mouth smiled and his eyelids flickered, but his eyes stayed closed.
"Jim, I wouldn't give all that money to old Bill's brats--just some fer Sally Ann."
"All of it for old Bill's--for Sally Ann's children, the mountain folks, an' the old home town." The Pope opened his eyes and he spoke:
"All of you--nurses an' docs--git out o' here, please." And knowing that the end was nigh they quietly withdrew.
"Judge, you ain't no actor--you're a ham!"
"Whut you mean, Jim?" asked the judge, for in truth he did not understand--not just then. The roar of the city rose from below, but the sunset came through the window as through all windows of the world. The Pope's hand reached for the judge's hand. His lips moved and the judge bent low.
"Beat!" whispered the Pope; "beat, by God! Beat--for--councilman--in--my--own home town." And because he knew his fellow man, the good and the bad, the Pope passed with a smile.
[The end]
John Fox's short story: Pope Of The Big Sandy
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