In the Shadow of the River by Ann H. Gabhart

Author:Ann H. Gabhart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance;Novel;FIC042030;FIC042040;FIC027050
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2023-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

19

ONCE ALL THE ACTS were done and Gabe got through the waltz with Winnie, he stood at the edge of the curtains to watch Griffith Giles come onstage. The captain assured Gabe the senator promised to keep his speech short before Gabe finished off the night with happy talk that didn’t mean anything but generally sent the folks away in a good mood.

Gabe had no idea what the people were going to think about being a captive audience for a political speech. But his father was as hard to sway from what he decided as his mother. Sometimes Gabe wondered if he shouldn’t just build his own showboat and find some new rivers to tour. Not that he really wanted to do that. He liked being part of the family show. Besides, if he did try to branch out on his own, he couldn’t be sure Jacci would go with him. He wouldn’t leave Jacci.

The senator had a politician’s gift for glib talk. He got the crowd laughing with an old joke and then launched into what he would do when he was president. From what Gabe had read in the papers, there wasn’t much chance of that actually happening. Even if Giles won the Progressive pick as a candidate, he had no chance in a national election. The Republicans had already selected William McKinley as their candidate in their convention the first of June. The Democratic Party was more divided, but this Progressive Party Giles was stumping for hadn’t been in the newspapers hardly at all. A politician had to get print.

He was a big man, barrel shaped from shoulders to thighs in the long suit coat he wore. He had to be sweating. A showboat’s stage could be the hottest place on earth, with all the lanterns and the heat of the packed auditorium. Gabe wondered if the man wore a hairpiece. It was hard to tell.

He was dressed fine in the gray-striped coat, a starched shirt, and cravat. Way too fine for a showboat crowd, but maybe not for a political campaign. Gabe was on the river so much, going along through this state and then another, that he’d never been absolutely sure which politicians to claim represented him. Of course, the president represented the whole nation. The trouble was that even if he did want to cast a vote, election days generally found them on a river somewhere miles from Cincinnati, which was the closest to a land address they had.

Gabe watched Giles throw out easy words, promises to get the country back on track after the last rough years of the economic downturn. Open up better markets for farm products. That had to play well here in farming country. He got some cheers and only a few boos from way in the back where the boo birds always settled down to roost. Some people would boo if somebody was handing out their favorite cookies. In bags.

At least the man was smart enough not to talk so long that he would fray the patience of the crowd.

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