Thatcher

“ Still surprisingly calm, Thatcher maintained his position and calmly pushing Gould’s hand aside, said coldly:
“Don’t wave that dirty thing in front of me that way. Put it where it belongs. As for making me eat anything, you aren’t big enough or man enough to do it.”
“Why, you—you rotten Freshman. That means fight,” said Gould, now losing himself completely. He started to take off his overcoat.
Somehow Jeff Thatcher found great satisfaction in the turn of events. The word fight had a ring to it that brought joy to his soul. ”

“ Hurrah! cries Thatcher with delight
That shot was worth a crown;
Another warrior bites the dust
The boldest of them down.
Their leader gone, & falling fast
For mercy then, they pray,
And send their prettiest women out
To plead with bold Mc Rae
That flinty hearted champion
The damsels proudly eye;
He heeds not their entreating looks,
Nor cares about their sighs.
"Send out the old men, and the boys;
We only fight with men. ”

“ Do you know Thatcher—Edward G.? He has business interests with Bassett, and Thatcher dabbles in politics just enough to give him power when he wants it. Thatcher is a wealthy man, who isn't fooling with small politics. ”

“ Thatcher said he was powerless, and Grace regretted bitterly that he had not brought a crowd with him to see fair play, for the boys were getting rattled at being robbed of so many of their hard-won points. To make matters worse, the crowd took Thatcher in hand, and disputed every decision he gave against Hilltown. Thatcher’s blood rose at [156] this, and forgetting that the usual procedure would not be recognized by a Hilltown crowd, he turned on the spectators and told them that he would have the next man who interfered or questioned his decisions expelled from the grounds. ”

“ Thatcher wouldn't do such a thing; he might threaten, but he wouldn't really use that sort of weapon!"
"You don't know the man, Sylvia. He will risk anything to break Bassett down. There's nothing respectable about Thatcher but his love for Allen, and that doesn't redeem everything." ”

“ It's one on Ed Thatcher, that's all!"
"If I try to answer you, please don't think I pretend to any unusual knowledge of human nature; but what I see in the boy is a kind of poetic attitude toward America—our politics, the whole scheme; and it's a poetic strain in him that accounts for this feeling about labor. And he has a feeling for justice and mercy; he's strong for the underdog." "I suppose," said Thatcher dryly, "that if he'd been an underdog the way I was he'd be more tickled at a chance to sit on top. When I wore overalls it wasn't funny. ”

“ That's all right, Sylvia. I've known Thatcher for years, and last fall I went up to his house-boat on the Kankakee for a week's shooting. Allen and Dan Harwood were the rest of the party—and I happened to tell the story of this little book—an unfinished story. We ought never to tell stories until they are finished. And it seems that Thatcher, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, has been raking up the ashes of an old affair of Bassett's with a woman, and he's trying to hitch it on to the story I told him about this book. ”

“ For nine days Mildred Thatcher lived as her neighbours, a life as thick and solid, as uninformed with the spirit as the rubber plant which stood neglected in the drawing-room by the pile of books—as yet unshelved—and the dusty upright piano. ”

“ While Mary stood at the gate, Uncle Thatcher himself sat upon the stone door-step, sharpening with a whetstone the edge of a "blubber-spade"—a sort of huge long-handled chisel, used to cut a whale's blubber from his carcass and into strips. He was a tall man, wirily and powerfully built, past middle-age, but still bearing well his years. ”

“ For they hated him worse than they did James Otis, or Samuel Adams, and they feared him more, because they had no revenge for a father's disappointment of a seat on the superior bench to impute to him, as they did to Otis; and Thatcher's character through life had been so modest, decent, unassuming; his morals so pure, and his religion so venerated, that they dared not attack him. In his office were educated to the bar, two eminent characters, the late judge Lowell, and Josiah Quincy, aptly called the Boston Cicero. Mr. Thatcher's frame was slender, his constitution delicate ”

“ Now, I don't intend that Ed Thatcher shall buy a seat in the United States Senate if our party in Indiana has one to dispose of. I'm not so good myself, but when I found that Thatcher had begun to build up a little machine for himself, I resolved to show him that I can't be used by any man so long as he thinks he needs me and then kicked out when I'm in the way. ”

“ Mr. Thatcher has since been in vaudeville singly, also at various periods with Ed. Marble, Charley Ernest, Banks Winter, Mrs. Zenaide Thatcher and Will Phillips.
Also did he play an engagement with Moore and Burgess’ Minstrels in London, England, about twenty-five years ago; his success there was nothing short of phenomenal.
Mr. Thatcher is a natural wit, always original, and an actor as well as a performer, as evinced by his clever interpretations of black-face characters in “The County Chairman” and “Cameo Kirby.” ”

“ Miss Bryarly,—Believing you to be the affianced wife of Mr. Thatcher, I take the liberty of writing to you to admonish you of his conduct. If his engagement with you is not broken off, he must either be a villain, or he is acting like one. ”

“ Thatcher felt the same beauty and power in the droop of the head which had attracted him first in the old school-house, only enriched and in nobler colorings here.
They went sleighing together, with shouting and laughter, as if the Doctor were a girl, too. They went skating, and once in awhile to some entertainment at the church. They were not theatre-going people, and the lectures and socials of the town and college made up their outings. It was the Doctor's merry interest in their doings which made young men so unnecessary to Rose as well as to Josephine. ”

“ His hands were cold and trembling. He pulled a blanket up over him. He lay listening to the steady beat of the rain and the hissing spatter of a gutter. Now and then a puff of wind blew a faint cool spray in his face. There still lingered in the room a frail cedarwood gruff smell of her heavycoiled hair, a silkiness of her body where she had crouched wrapped in the sheet hiding.
Ed Thatcher sat in his bay window among the Sunday papers. His hair was grizzled and there were deep folds in his cheeks. The upper buttons of his pongee trousers were undone to ease his sudden little potbelly. ”

“ The chubby man turned on him, delight bubbling through his thick voice. "Congradulade me, congradulade me; mein vife has giben birth to a poy."
Thatcher shook a fat little hand. "Mine's a girl," he admitted, sheepishly.
"It is fif years yet and every year a girl, and now dink of it, a poy."
"Yes," said Ed Thatcher as they stepped out on the pavement, "it's a great moment." ”

“ Thatcher had noticed this with the sensitiveness of an impoverished gentleman. But when, a few days after her lodger's sudden disappearance, a note came from him containing a draft in noble excess of all arrears and charges, the widow's heart was lifted, and the rock smitten with the golden wand gushed beneficence that shone in a new gown for the widow and a new suit for “Johnny,” her son, a new oil cloth in the hall, better service to the lodgers, and, let us be thankful, a kindlier consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then dreadfully behind in her room rent. ”

“ Thatcher led the way, and Fitzhugh rode by my side.
“Look there!” cried Fitzhugh in my ear. “There's some one running to the hotel!”
I looked, and thought I could see a form moving through the blackness. The hotel could just be distinguished two blocks away. It might well be a scout of the enemy hastening to give the alarm.
“Never mind,” I said. “We've got the start.”
Thatcher suddenly turned to the west, and in another minute we were on the open highway, with the steady beat of the horses' hoofs splashing a wild rhythm on the muddy road. ”

“ He remarked with the diplomatic unconcern that it was best to employ with her:—
"Refused the offer, did you, Miss Farrell?"
"I certainly did. As between a fat old sport like Ed Thatcher and a gentleman like Mr. Bassett, money doesn't count—not even with a p.w.g., or poor working girl, like me. Hush!—are we quite alone?" She bent toward the door dramatically. "What he was playing for, as neat as a hatpin in your loved one's eye, was some facts about the boss's committee work in that last session I worked at the State House. Cute of Thatcher? Well, not so awful bright! ”

“ Here the road was broader, and we rode three abreast, silent, watchful, each busy with his own thoughts, and all alert for the signs of chase behind. Thrice my heart beat fast with the sound in my ears of galloping pursuers. Thrice I laughed to think that the patter of falling drops on the roadway should deceive my sense of sound. Here the track narrowed, and Thatcher shot ahead, flinging mud and water from his horse's heels fair upon us. There it broadened once more, and our willing beasts pressed forward and galloped beside the stableman's till the hoofs beat in unison. ”

“ Thatcher said that gentlemen generally set out wrong, on this subject, and leave off about half right; they debated till they were almost tired, and then the petition was not to be committed. If Congress had not power to legislate on the African trade, then why did they say it was with a committee? If they had power, where was the impropriety of referring, at least that part which could be considered? Would any gentleman say that it was policy not to legislate about 700,000 enemies in the very body of the United States? While they were slaves they were enemies. ”

“ But as for any sheik's daughter—keep the crowd out, Thatcher, I won't have them here, not in these tombs—"
"I tell you they are policemen—they are armed—you can't resist—"
"How many are they? A lot? But they'll take your word, won't they? Look here, McLean, can't you settle this for me and keep them out?"
"The natives have been talking," murmured Thatcher, reddening still deeper, "and they have said enough about your riding in at night and—and keeping to this tomb all day to make the men very suspicious. ”

“ So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.
That pleased the old man till he couldn’t rest. He said he’d cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn’t raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight ”

“ After refreshing himself, our hero, whom we shall call Harry Thatcher, urged on by his enthusiastic love of nature, and contrary to the advice of his landlord, who thought it rather late to make the attempt alone, resolved to gain the summit of Mount Deception. ”

“ Thatcher is pleased with her because he has probably seen no one else. Wait till he comes to Washington and has an opportunity for comparison;” and she cast a frank glance at her mirror, where Wiles, with a sardonic bow, left her standing.
Mr. Gashwiler was quite as confident of his own success with Congress. “We are within a few days of the end of the session. We will manage to have it taken up and rushed through before that fellow Thatcher knows what he is about.” ”

“ You was it?” Thatcher lurched from his chair, a gaunt and terrible figure. “You turned loose them—them crazy monkeys?” His voice lifted to a shrill scream. “You done that when—when you knew my place was here?”
Korry brushed aside the hands that reached for his throat; gave Thatcher a shove that sent him crashing back into the chair. “What did you suppose I'd do?” he snarled. “Cut their throats and dump 'em overboard? The cutter had me trapped! It was a case of protecting my own interests first.”
Meech gazed down at the writhing, babbling fisherman; then glanced nervously toward the smuggler. ”

“ Ed Thatcher looked out across the bay that stretched in blue sparkling reaches into the brown haze towards the Narrows. The statue of Liberty stood up vague as a sleepwalker among the curling smoke of tugboats and the masts of schooners and the blunt lumbering masses of brickbarges and sandscows. Here and there the glary sun shone out white on a sail or on the superstructure of a steamer. Red ferryboats shuttled back and forth.
“Daddy why arent we rich?”
“There are lots of people poorer than us Ellie.... You wouldn’t like your daddy any better if he were rich would you?” ”

“ Thatcher seemed balder and more repellent than when she had first seen him on the floor of the convention hall on the day Harwood uttered Bassett's defiance. Sylvia rose with the book still in her hand and walked to the end of the room; but any one in the house might have heard what Thatcher was saying.
"That's the way with you preachers; you talk about clean politics, and when we get all ready to clean out a bad man, you duck; you're a lot of cowardly dodgers. ”

“ Had he been a baron of old he might have seized the prospective bride bodily and made off with her to his ancestral castle, but, even with the handicap imposed by modern civilization, now that the diverting influence had been eliminated, he believed the opportunity was nearer to the point of offering itself. The fact that Thatcher had turned to him in this proposition, whatever it was, not only pleased him as a further evidence of recognition, but supplied him with an agreeable outlet for his pent-up energy. ”