He rushed the Whip out to find and bring in the absentee
brethren. Some came. Others could not be found. They might be in
hiding. A tally was showing a considerably greater number of "no"
votes than "ayes". . .
A motion to "excuse the absentees" prevailed. . .
Grandpap's Bourbon County Bill was killed, by one vote. . .
Senator Winker plumbed the depths. Back of it all, he could not
forget the fact, he had nine good Majority votes unaccounted-for
in the tabulation--somewhere in the Legislative wilderness. . .
Next day the separate court bill met a similar fate--only more
directly. The Minority helped do that.
The death of the Bourbon County Bill was a crushing blow to
Mahrug's future and Grandpap's dream. But it did one thing. It
fixed, once and for all, his and our family politics, if by any
chance our politics needed any stabilization. It is true that
Uncle Ben turned to be a Republican during the Civil War. But
that was to preserve the Union, and incidentally a considerable
amount of U.S. Bonds he had acquired at most attractive
discounts. Thereafter Pap and Uncle Ben studiously avoided all
mention of politics until the first Cleveland campaign. By that
time all of Uncle Ben's evidences of Federal indebtedness had
been retired at par and accrued interest, and he was free to
return to his first political love.
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