The Great Deception

by ROBERT RICHARDS

1

ONCE there was a town in South Carolina that did not like John C. Calhoun. Its people hated him. They named the rats in their barns after him, and took double pleasure in the shooting.

They said, “He’s another one from the hills. He’ll fade. Yes, give him time and he’ll fade.”

There can be no purpose in revealing this town’s location, because even today there are people in South Carolina who might do it harm speaking harshly of Mr. Calhoun, but it is safe to say it lies near the heart of the state; not too near the sea for some, yet not too far for others.

Of course, as always in America, there was at least one man who disagreed with the others. There was one in this town who loved Calhoun — and he was but a simple tailor.

It is to the credit of these normally intolerant people that they did not ride this tailor from town on a rail. They did not even break the windows of his shop, or allow their larger boys to twist his thin arms as they passed him on the street. For one thing he was a good tailor, — the best to be had at the price, they said, — and for another they loved him.

They loved him because he had come into this town an orphan. He had grown, as the sparrow grows, from door to door, — eating here and sleeping there, — until the feeling became permanent that here was the ward of every man; here was the town’s responsibility.

Because of this, because he was almost a foster son, they went into his shop to argue with him. “Look, Tom Howard,” they said. “You’re a good fellow, but you’re wrong. Just as wrong as you can be.”

Cross-legged Tom would pull a stitch here, or miss a stitch there, staring at his visitors with wide-open eyes. “Why?” he asked.

“You shouldn’t admire this John Calhoun,” they told him. “He isn’t the man you believe him to be, Tom. If you really knew him, you would laugh. He looks like a scarecrow, with knots for hands and string for hair. You shouldn’t go about telling people you like this Calhoun. It won’t help you along, or butter your bread.”

Then Tom Howard would pucker his lips into a slow smile, looking at Calhoun’s picture on the wall, studying the gaunt face and angry eyes. “Well, sir, he ain’t much to look at, but he’s about the dangdest man in the state,” Tom always said.

Some people called the tailor ungrateful, asking: “What else can you expect from vagrant stock?” They worried aloud, discussing it among themselves. They worried about Tom Howard’s influence with the little people of the town: the people who did not say much, and did not own much beyond a few barren acres, but who held a ballot in their hands.

“One rotten apple in a barrel, you know,” the anxious ones said. There was always the fear that John C. Calhoun might carry this town, might tuck its votes into his pocket some dark night — like a watch and chain — on his way to Washington. “When that happens, we’ll be laughed from the state,” they said. “If it happens, you can blame Tom Howard.”

Others, Josh Greene among them, said, “No, our Tom is all right. He won’t influence any man’s vote. We’ll bring him around.”

Josh Greene owned a plantation that covered more ground than most small farmers walk over in a lifetime. It was Josh who later changed his mind and did a terrible thing to poor Tom Howard, but that’s getting the hounds ahead of the fox. This South Carolina gamecock drank his whiskey from the keg, balancing it high on his shoulder, and some said he chased tavern women too much, but he was a thinking man.

Josh said, “This Tom of ours came into the world with nothing, and so did this John C. Calhoun — at least, with almost nothing. It isn’t far from natural then that Tom should like the man, but we’ll cure him of it in time. We’ll make this politician look silly, and Tom Howard will be the first to see it.”

2

AS TIME passed and Calhoun became more famous, — with people calling him Mr. Calhoun, or the great Calhoun, even when he wasn’t present, — it looked as if the town could never make Tom Howard recant. There was no chance to prove this thing to him, or so it seemed. Of course, that was before Tom fell in love.

After he fell, after he told Josh Greene about it, things were different. Josh said, “This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

It began one night in Tom Howard’s shop. Josh Greene was there, tapping the floor with his silvermounted stick, as were several of Tom’s other friends. There are those who claim little Tom tried to match Josh, glass for glass, and, being of shorter stature, filled up faster.

Tom Howard said, “There’s a girl around here I’m going to marry.”

“A girl?” asked Josh Greene, putting aside his liquor, not trusting his ears.

“Yes,” said Tom. “A redhead, Mr. Greene, the likes of which you have never seen. I’ve passed her house in my buggy and I’ve looked at her and she has looked at me. I tell you, sir, I’ll marry that girl.”

Tom Howard did not tell it all; he wasn’t drunk enough for that. He didn’t tell how once she had laughed when his little mare shied at a loose stone in the road, and how the sound of it quickened his blood and sat beside him on the wagon seat all the way home.

He was thinking of this, and other things, when Josh Greene said, “Why, Tom, you’re thirty if you’re a day. You’re thirty, man, and never kissed a woman — any woman. How can you expect to marry one?”

“I can with your help,” said Tom. “They say you know women like a book, Mr. Greene. They say you’ve read all the pages.”

Being a generous man, a kindhearted man, Josh Greene almost said, “Tell me what you wish, Tom. I’ll help.” He almost spoke, but caught the words behind his lips. No, it was true what the others had said, it had been true for some time — Tom Howard was swinging votes within the town to John Calhoun. It wasn’t that Tom asked for them, or campaigned for them, but the little people followed him. “That Tom knows what he’s about,” they said.

The vote had grown so rapidly that Calhoun, himself, was coming into the town. He was to stand on Tom Howard’s porch, overlooking the market place, and he was to speak to those who had voted for him. It is said his friends warned Calhoun against this visit but he had replied, “I’ll win this town over. I’ll stop this thing.”

So Josh Greene, being a thinking man, held his liquor and held his tongue — the better to use his wits.

“Will you help me?” asked Tom.

Josh told his friends later the idea came to him unbidden, as great thoughts often come. He reached out and there it was, like a coat, ready to be worn.

“I could help you, Tom, but that right belongs to another man,” Josh said.

“To whom?” asked Tom Howard.

“To John Calhoun,” replied Josh. “He’ll be in town tomorrow. He wouldn’t be coming if it were not for you. Surely a man like this Calhoun will jump at the chance to repay such a debt. He’ll want the chance. Ask him to visit the girl’s home, talk shop with her father or pinch the cheeks of her mother, and put in a good word for you. Then you go along later, Tom. You can go driving behind my best pair of bays, and she’ll be glad. She’ll welcome you as the friend of Mr. Calhoun.”

“I’ll do it,” said Tom, dropping his glass.

Josh Greene felt more than liquor when he stumbled home that night. His wife, accustomed to his ways, did not listen when Josh muttered, “I have the old boy now. He’ll cut Tom Howard off, like a rotten limb. He’ll say, ‘Don’t bother me with such things, you fool.’ He’ll turn his back on Tom, and ruin himself in this man’s town.”

The next morning Tom’s friends told him of this thing he had planned. They came to him with damp cloths for his head, and they whispered, “My, Tom, you’re in for it now.”

And Tom Howard realized the weight of what they said. He did not know this redhead: how could he ask the help of John Calhoun? He had never spoken to the girl. She lived at the fork of the road, six miles east of town, and sometimes she had stood at her fence as he passed — only once had she noticed him, and that was to laugh at his mare.

Someone said, “Old John C. is settin’ on the porch, Tom, looking big and great. Will you ask him?”

“No,” replied Tom. “I’ll not ask him.”

3

THEY say when John Calhoun started talking that day his voice floated up and down the street like a hummingbird and the folks who hated him, the rich ones of the town, took their children by the hand and slipped away home. The wild-haired man had a way of speaking that got under their skins and started them thinking: “Why, he’s not so bad. He sounds like a right smart man.”

When they realized he was pulling them to him, as he stood there with half-shut eyes, they turned and ran. “He’ll not keep me from hating him,” they said.

Josh Greene was one who stayed. Josh had a mind built of iron, and he never listened closely when anyone else was talking. He stood there thinking about Tom Howard and the girl, and he told himself, “Let this Calhoun talk, but he’ll trip himself sooner or later.”

It happened quickly, when it happened. It came from the ground and slapped Josh Greene in the face, and twisted the innards of excited Tom Howard. One minute John C. Calhoun was talking, and the crowd stood on its toes. The next minute he had finished, with his listeners waiting for the wonderful sounds to die, and he turned on Tom Howard, asking, “Well, where does this girl live?”

They say old John C. smiled when he asked this; at least, there was a crack in his face resembling a smile. He rubbed his hands together as if he were enjoying the joke he was about to play on the town. Try to trap him, like an old fool, would they? Try to trap the great Calhoun?

“Come, now, where does she live?”

Tom Howard told him, as best he could. Tom did not know what else to do — here was the great man asking questions, demanding answers. “It’s six miles away, sir,” he said. “You haven’t the time to go out there.”

While he talked, Tom Howard asked himself, “ Who betrayed me? Who told him about the girl ? ”

As if anyone had to tell the great Calhoun.

They say Mr. Calhoun licked his lips, blinked his eyes, and three women fainted, falling upon the splintered floor of Tom Howard’s porch. They say old Calhoun waved his big hat over the women’s faces, one at a time, and told a small boy not to be frightened and cry. Then the women opened their eyes, climbed to their feet, and Calhoun said, “A woman’s place is in the home.”

Yet he did not neglect Tom Howard, not for a minute. He turned back to Tom after the women had fled. “If I want to do a thing, I’ve always got the time,” he said, his deep eyes shining.

The crowd fell back before the fire in his stare; it was plain to see the great man suspected someone was trying to trick him. Josh Greene dropped his silver-mounted stick, they say, and forgot to retrieve it. Later folks claimed they would have liked to have seen Dan’l Webster around that day because Mr. Calhoun was in a determined mood and might have chewed him up — without pepper or salt.

“Say the word, Tom,” said Calhoun, bragging a bit for the crowd’s sake, — he always loved a crowd, — “and I’ll bring her home tonight for you to wed.”

“Oh, no,” said Tom. “Just talk enough, sir, so she’ll be glad to see me.”

Then John C. Calhoun climbed into his fancy buggy — they said his wife liked it better than he did — and was off down the road with the dust climbing the winds behind him. Try to trick him, would they? Try to play games with the great Calhoun?

Those nearest Tom Howard said, “My, Tom, you’re lucky to have such a friend.”

But Josh Greene spoke to no one: he saddled his black stallion and was off’ after the flying buggy. “Where is he going?” people asked, but none knew. No one ever knew much about this Josh.

It was not until later that the town discovered the evil thing in Josh’s mind. When he returned, when he realized what he had done to Tom Howard, Josh was ashamed and they claim he downed an entire barrel of whiskey in a single night. “Orphan, or no orphan, it had to be done,” Josh said.

He had remembered what others had forgotten, or did not know. Josh Greene owned land at the crossroads where the redhead lived, and he knew there was a house on the left and another on the right — the redhead lived on the left, while a darkhaired girl lived on the right.

4

Now this red-haired girl was as pretty as a flash of September sun and men flocked to her like bears to a honey tree, but she had a temper as quick as her eyes were bright, and there were neighbors who said: “ You wait and see, there’ll be a killing over her some dark night.”

The black-haired girl was as pretty and quiet as new spring rain, and when she sat in her yard — with the wind on her face — none of the men stopped to say, “Hello.” They never looked, they never saw her sitting there. They hunted the sparkle of the redheaded girl.

Josh took a short cut across fields, crashing through woods and leaping fences. Galloping and puffing, he reached the crossroads and tied his horse back from the road. Then Josh smeared dirt on his hands and dirt on his face. He smashed his soft hat’s crown with a bang of his fist, pulling it over his eyes. Then he leaned on a fence rail beside the road, chewing a bit of stubble.

The great Calhoun came tearing down the road, driving his team like a man with a fury and using his whip as if his horses were two Congressmen from Massachusetts. He almost passed Josh Greene, but he didn’t. He pulled up, after skidding ten or twelve yards, and yelled over his shoulder, “D’you know of a pretty girl living hereabouts?”

“I might,” said Josh Greene,

The man in the buggy frowned. “I’m John Calhoun,” he said.

“Be you?”

“I am,”

“Oh,” said Josh, removing his hat and scratching his head. “If that be the case, I might as well tell you — she lives in the house at the right of the road.”

“Fine,” said Calhoun, turning to his reins. “Fine, and thank you.” He flipped a piece of silver into the air and Josh Greene caught it — and laughed aloud. It was plain to see, Josh told himself, that poor Tom Howard had been too excited to mention red hair.

Two days passed before John Calhoun returned, riding in his painted buggy. He climbed down, grinning like a cat with a bird in its teeth, and said, “All right, Tom, she’s waiting — if you’re lad enough to take her.”

Little Tom trembled: “You told her about me?”

“ I told her.”

“And she wants to meet me?”

John Calhoun clapped his hands, and his eyebrows flapped in the wind. “Didn’t I say it?”

Josh Greene, standing across the street, felt the tears slip down his face — and he yearned for another drink as he watched the poor orphan, Tom Howard. Josh was never a mean man, and this trick he had played hurt deep within him. It hurt and hurt, despite the whiskey he had consumed. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he said, without moving his lips, “but it was the only way to get him.”

Others were shocked when Josh told them what he had done. “That’s being mighty hard on an orphan boy, Josh,” they said. “He might never recover.”

They were remembering that Tom Howard was their orphan, the town’s orphan, and he had never had a love before. He had never kissed a girl, looked deeply into her eyes, or held her hand. “It’ll lick old Calhoun in this town,” they said, “but it’ll break our Tom. It’ll split him up the middle, like a ripe peach in the sun.”

As for Tom Howard, he hurried home to dress in his Sunday best. He returned in polished boots, his neatest pants, and started along the road.

“Take my buggy,” said Calhoun.

“No, I’ll walk,” said Tom. He would not take the buggy of the great man. He would go to meet her on foot. He would walk up to her house, as if it were his own idea, and say, “Hello.”

Tom Howard walked with a light heart and a loud whistle, kicking his heels high. He stepped along, like a man after a double brandy, and his head bumped the sky.

They say John C. Calhoun stood staring after Tom, shaking his head and grinning. They say old Calhoun was happy that afternoon. Later he sat on Tom’s porch in a crippled rocking chair, and folks admitted — to look at him — you’d never know he was such a hell raiser.

All this time, Josh Greene squatted in his cellar, getting drunker and drunker, and even his best friends said, “My, Josh, you’re a mean man.”

5

IT WAS dusk when Tom Howard reached the neighborhood of the two white houses — one on the right, and one on the left. When he was almost there, in sight of the roof-tops, he passed a darkhaired girl on the road. The girl smiled and said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” said Tom, but he kept walking. Black hair was pretty, and black hair was fine, but he wanted to see that redhead. He wanted to know if she was beside her fence waiting for him.

Tom had almost reached her house, the one on the left, when two men stepped from behind a bush. “What d’you want?”

“Me? I’m calling on a girl,” said Tom.

“What girl?”

“I’ll not tell you that.”

“A redheaded girl?”

“Yes, a redheaded girl.”

Both of the men pressed against him. “We’re her brothers, see? We don’t want any fancy callers from the village. We don’t like village men. You better run.”

And Tom Howard ran,

John Calhoun was angry when he heard about it. “ I’ll go back and talk to that girl,” he said. “Things are going from bad to worse in Washington, they tell me, but just the same I’ll take the time.”

Tom Howard waited with heavy heart, and Calhoun returned almost before he had left. “Just as I thought,” he said. “That must have been two jealous suitors trying to trick you, lad. I talked to the girl, and she has no brothers. You go back to see her again.”

Josh Greene watched Tom walking down the road, humming as he went, and Josh put his head between his hands, “It’ll kill him when he learns the truth,” said Josh. “It’ll kill him to lose the girl and his faith in old Calhoun at the same time.”

“Well, do something about it,” his friends told him.

But Josh looked at the great Calhoun, slowly rocking on Tom Howard’s porch, thinking about the things he had to do, — perhaps to this town, — and Josh replied, “No. Let him go.”

No one bothered Tom Howard, no one appeared to challenge his right to walk along the road, and it wasn’t long until he saw the redheaded girl. She was standing by the fence, just as she had stood the day she had laughed when his little mare danced. “It’s as Mr. Calhoun said,” Tom told himself. “There she is — waiting for me.”

Tom slipped inside the yard and approached her. He did not know what to say, even if she spoke first. His lips were caught in knots. She saw him coming through the gloom. She saw him and asked, “What d’you want?”

““Well,” said Tom. “Well—”

There was a lamp in the back of the house. A door opened, and a man stood in the yard. “Did I hear you having trouble, honey?”

“There’s a man here, Pa,” said the redhead. “A strange man.”

Tom Howard ran; he leaped the fence without brushing its top rail and pumped off down the road. Josh Greene saw him running in the moonlight, and Josh said: “Here it comes — here’s the busted heart.”

“I’ll settle this,” said John Calhoun, beating his knuckles against the arm of the chair.

“He’s licked,” said Josh. “He’ll never take this town.”

They rode off together early the next day, the great man and the orphan. They rode merrily enough until they neared the crossroads, and Calhoun turned toward the house on the right.

“Oh,” said Tom, and he looked to the left.

That was the end of the dream, right in the middle of a Wednesday morning, and everyone knew it. That is, everyone knew it but John Calhoun. It was the finish of things for the little tailor.

Those who had slipped through the fields and trailed the fancy buggy came back and told how it happened. “I’m real sorry,” said Josh, as he listened.

“But you ruined Calhoun in this town, Josh.”

“Calhoun, hell,” said Greene, sadly resting his weight on a liquor barrel. “I’ve trampled on an orphan boy.”

Poor Tom Howard was gone for two weeks after that; off he had driven down the road, and never returned. There were folks in town, Josh Greene among them, who worried about it. “We might do well to search the creek for his body,” they said.

“Not the creek,” others insisted. “Look on the limb of a tree. They always use a limb.”

Then Tom Howard came home — and with his bride.

Josh Greene, when he sobered up, was angry about it. After she had disappeared into the house, he collared the tailor: “Why, Tom, this one’s hair is black. She was a redhead — you said.”

But Tom Howard grinned: “No, her hair is black.”

Later he told them something else. Mr. Calhoun had long since made off to Washington, but Tom whispered it just the same.

“Hell, you can’t waste a great man’s time,” he said.