She had blood in her eye and gum in her mouth, and she grasped
the lawyer, who is a weak man, by the arms, and hissed in his ear:
"Hurrah for Garfield, or I will plunge you headlong into the yawning gulf
below!"
It was a trying moment. Chapin rather enjoyed being held by a woman, but
not in such a position that, if she let go her hold to spit on her hands,
he would go a hundred feet down, and become as flat as the Greenback
party, and have to be carried home in a basket.
In a second he thought over all the sins of his past life, which was
pretty quick work, as anybody will admit who knows the man. He thought of
how he would be looked down upon by Gabe Bouck, and all the fellows, if it
once got out that he had been frightened into going back on his party.
He made up his mind that he would die before he would hurrah for Garfield,
but when the merciless woman pushed him towards the edge of the rock, and,
"Last call! Yell, or down you go!" he opened his mouth and yelled so they
heard it in Kilbourn City:
"Hurrah for Garfield! Now lemme go!"
Though endowed with more than ordinary eloquence, no remarks that he had
ever made before brought the applause that this did. Everybody yelled, and
the woman smiled as pleasantly as though she had not crushed the young
life out of her victim, and left him a bleeding sacrifice on the altar of
his country, but when she had realized what she had done her heart smote
her, and she felt bad.
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