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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5818-h.zip b/5818-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..148e6df --- /dev/null +++ b/5818-h.zip diff --git a/5818-h/5818-h.htm b/5818-h/5818-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe20b3d --- /dev/null +++ b/5818-h/5818-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3260 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>THE GILDED AGE, By Twain and Warner, Part 1</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>THE GILDED AGE, Part 1</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 1. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gilded Age, Part 1. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 1. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br><hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + +<center><h1>THE GILDED AGE</h1> +</center> +<center><h3>A Tale of Today</h3> +</center> +<center><h2>By<br><br> Mark Twain<br> and<br> Charles Dudley Warner</h2> +</center> +<center><h3>1873</h3> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center><h3>Part 1.</h3></center> + +<br><br> + + +<center><a name="Bookcover"></a><img alt="Bookcover.jpg (118K)" src="images/Bookcover.jpg" height="1028" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<a name="Frontpiece"></a><center><img alt="Frontpiece.jpg (96K)" src="images/Frontpiece.jpg" height="863" width="571"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><a name="Titlepage"></a><img alt="Titlepage.jpg (38K)" src="images/Titlepage.jpg" height="993" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><h2>CONTENTS</h2> +</center> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + +<a href="#ch1">CHAPTER I.</a><br> +Squire Hawkins and His Tennessee Land—He Decides to Remove to Missouri +<br><br> +<a href="#ch2">CHAPTER II. </a><br> +He Meets With and Adopts the Boy Clay +<br><br> +<a href="#ch3">CHAPTER III </a><br> +Uncle Daniel's Apparition and PrayeR +<br><br> +<a href="#ch4">CHAPTER IV </a><br> +The Steamboat Explosion +<br><br> +<a href="#ch5">CHAPTER V</a><br> +Adoption of the Little Girl Laura—Arrival at Missouri—Reception by Colonel +Beriah Sellers +<br><br> +<a href="#ch6">CHAPTER VI</a><br> +Trouble and Darkness in the Hawkins Family—Proposed Sale of the Tennessee Land +<br><br> +<a href="#ch7">CHAPTER VII</a><br> +Colonel Sellers at Home—His Wonderful Clock and Cure for Rheumatism +<br><br> +<a href="#ch8">CHAPTER VIII</a><br> +Colonel Sellers Makes Known His Magnificent Speculation Schemes and +Astonishes Washington Hawkins +<br><br> +<a href="#ch9">CHAPTER IX</a><br> +Death of Judge Hawkins +<br> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<center><h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<br> + <a href="#Frontpiece">FRONTPIECE COL. SELLERS FEEDING HIS FAMILY ON EXPECTATIONS</a> <br> +1. <a href="#p017">CONTEMPLATION</a><br> +2. <a href="#p018">THE SQUIRE's HOUSE</a><br> +S. <a href="#p019">THE U. S. MAIL</a><br> +4. <a href="#p020">OBEDSTOWN MALES</a> <br> +5. <a href="#p022">HURRYING</a><br> +6. <a href="#p023">THE SQUIRE'S KITCHEN</a><br> +7. <a href="#p024">"FOR GOODNESS SAKE SI"</a> <br> +8. <a href="#p028">THE LAST COG WHEEL</a> <br> +9. <a href="#p029">GONE UP</a> <br> +10. <a href="#p030">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +11. <a href="#p033">THE ORPHANS LAST GIFT</a> <br> +12. <a href="#p035">MRS HAWKINS AND CLAY AT THE GRAVE OF HIS MOTHER</a> <br> +13. <a href="#p036">"CHILDREN, DAR'S SUMFIN' A COMIN</a><br> +14. <a href="#p038">"HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS!"</a><br> +15. <a href="#p040">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +16. <a href="#p043">NOT ENCOURAGED</a> <br> +17. <a href="#p045">SHE'S GAINING</a><br> +18. <a href="#p047">"BY THE MARK TWAIN!"</a><br> +19. <a href="#p048">FAST TOGETHER</a><br> +20. <a href="#p051">ONE OF THE VICTIMS</a><br> +21. <a href="#p058">THE PROCESSION—FORWARD MARCH!</a><br> +22. <a href="#p059">THE HAPPY WIFE</a><br> +23. <a href="#p063">LAURA</a> <br> +24. <a href="#p065">READY TO SELL</a><br> +25. <a href="#p068">STOCK RISING</a><br> +26. <a href="#p072">A FAMILY COUNCIL</a> <br> +27. <a href="#p074">TAIL PIECE</a><br> +28. <a href="#p077">ATTEMPTED CORNER IN SPECIE</a><br> +29. <a href="#p081">A BRILLIANT IDEA</a><br> +30. <a href="#p085">BIG THINGS SHOWN UP</a><br> +31. <a href="#p089">COL. SELLERS BLOWING BUBBLES FOR WASHINGTON</a><br> +32. <a href="#p091">GEN BOSWELL'S OFFICE</a><br> +33. <a href="#p092">TAIL PIECE</a><br> +34. <a href="#p095">CONSOLATION</a><br> +35. <a href="#p098">THE DYING FATHER</a><br> +36. <a href="#p099">TAIL PIECE</a><br> +<br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<a name="p017"></a> +<center><img alt="p017.jpg (58K)" src="images/p017.jpg" height="695" width="579"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h2><a name="ch1"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2></center> +<br> +<p>June 18—. Squire Hawkins sat upon the pyramid of large blocks, called +the "stile," in front of his house, contemplating the morning.</p> + +<p>The locality was Obedstown, East Tennessee. You would not know that +Obedstown stood on the top of a mountain, for there was nothing about the +landscape to indicate it—but it did: a mountain that stretched abroad +over whole counties, and rose very gradually. The district was called +the "Knobs of East Tennessee," and had a reputation like Nazareth, as far +as turning out any good thing was concerned.</p> + +<p>The Squire's house was a double log cabin, in a state of decay; two or +three gaunt hounds lay asleep about the threshold, and lifted their heads +sadly whenever Mrs. Hawkins or the children stepped in and out over their +bodies. Rubbish was scattered about the grassless yard; a bench stood +near the door with a tin wash basin on it and a pail of water and a +gourd; a cat had begun to drink from the pail, but the exertion was +overtaxing her energies, and she had stopped to rest. There was an +ash-hopper by the fence, and an iron pot, for soft-soap-boiling, near it.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p018"></a><img alt="p018.jpg (48K)" src="images/p018.jpg" height="413" width="535"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>This dwelling constituted one-fifteenth of Obedstown; the other fourteen +houses were scattered about among the tall pine trees and among the +corn-fields in such a way that a man might stand in the midst of the city and +not know but that he was in the country if he only depended on his eyes +for information.</p> + +<p>"Squire" Hawkins got his title from being postmaster of Obedstown—not +that the title properly belonged to the office, but because in those +regions the chief citizens always must have titles of some sort, and so +the usual courtesy had been extended to Hawkins. The mail was monthly, +and sometimes amounted to as much as three or four letters at a single +delivery. Even a rush like this did not fill up the postmaster's whole +month, though, and therefore he "kept store" in the intervals.</p> + +<p>The Squire was contemplating the morning. It was balmy and tranquil, +the vagrant breezes were laden with the odor of flowers, the murmur of +bees was in the air, there was everywhere that suggestion of repose that +summer woodlands bring to the senses, and the vague, pleasurable +melancholy that such a time and such surroundings inspire.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p019"></a><img alt="p019.jpg (17K)" src="images/p019.jpg" height="339" width="341"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Presently the United States mail arrived, on horseback. There was but +one letter, and it was for the postmaster. The long-legged youth who +carried the mail tarried an hour to talk, for there was no hurry; and in +a little while the male population of the village had assembled to help. +As a general thing, they were dressed in homespun "jeans," blue or +yellow—here were no other varieties of it; all wore one suspender and +sometimes two—yarn ones knitted at home,—some wore vests, but few wore +coats. Such coats and vests as did appear, however, were rather +picturesque than otherwise, for they were made of tolerably fanciful +patterns of calico—a fashion which prevails thereto this day among those +of the community who have tastes above the common level and are able to +afford style. Every individual arrived with his hands in his pockets; +a hand came out occasionally for a purpose, but it always went back again +after service; and if it was the head that was served, just the cant that +the dilapidated straw hat got by being uplifted and rooted under, was +retained until the next call altered the inclination; many' hats were +present, but none were erect and no two were canted just alike. We are +speaking impartially of men, youths and boys. And we are also speaking +of these three estates when we say that every individual was either +chewing natural leaf tobacco prepared on his own premises, or smoking the +same in a corn-cob pipe. Few of the men wore whiskers; none wore +moustaches; some had a thick jungle of hair under the chin and hiding the +throat—the only pattern recognized there as being the correct thing in +whiskers; but no part of any individual's face had seen a razor for a +week.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p020"></a><img alt="p020.jpg (57K)" src="images/p020.jpg" height="417" width="535"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>These neighbors stood a few moments looking at the mail carrier +reflectively while he talked; but fatigue soon began to show itself, +and one after another they climbed up and occupied the top rail of the +fence, hump-shouldered and grave, like a company of buzzards assembled +for supper and listening for the death-rattle. Old Damrell said:</p> + +<p>"Tha hain't no news 'bout the jedge, hit ain't likely?"</p> + +<p>"Cain't tell for sartin; some thinks he's gwyne to be 'long toreckly, +and some thinks 'e hain't. Russ Mosely he tote ole Hanks he mought git +to Obeds tomorrer or nex' day he reckoned."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wisht I knowed. I got a 'prime sow and pigs in the, cote-house, +and I hain't got no place for to put 'em. If the jedge is a gwyne to +hold cote, I got to roust 'em out, I reckon. But tomorrer'll do, I +'spect."</p> + +<p>The speaker bunched his thick lips together like the stem-end of a tomato +and shot a bumble-bee dead that had lit on a weed seven feet away. +One after another the several chewers expressed a charge of tobacco juice +and delivered it at the deceased with steady, aim and faultless accuracy.</p> + +<p>"What's a stirrin', down 'bout the Forks?" continued Old Damrell.</p> + +<p>"Well, I dunno, skasely. Ole, Drake Higgins he's ben down to Shelby las' +week. Tuck his crap down; couldn't git shet o' the most uv it; hit +wasn't no time for to sell, he say, so he 'fotch it back agin, 'lowin' to +wait tell fall. Talks 'bout goin' to Mozouri—lots uv 'ems talkin' +that—away down thar, Ole Higgins say. Cain't make a livin' here no mo', sich +times as these. Si Higgins he's ben over to Kaintuck n' married a +high-toned gal thar, outen the fust families, an' he's come back to the Forks +with jist a hell's-mint o' whoop-jamboree notions, folks says. He's tuck +an' fixed up the ole house like they does in Kaintuck, he say, an' tha's +ben folks come cler from Turpentine for to see it. He's tuck an gawmed +it all over on the inside with plarsterin'."</p> + +<p>"What's plasterin'?"</p> + +<p>"I dono. Hit's what he calls it. 'Ole Mam Higgins, she tole me. +She say she wasn't gwyne to hang out in no sich a dern hole like a hog. +Says it's mud, or some sich kind o' nastiness that sticks on n' covers up +everything. Plarsterin', Si calls it."</p> + +<p>This marvel was discussed at considerable length; and almost with +animation. But presently there was a dog-fight over in the neighborhood +of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their perch like so +many turtles and strode to the battle-field with an interest bordering on +eagerness. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p022"></a><img alt="p022.jpg (30K)" src="images/p022.jpg" height="347" width="565"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The Squire remained, and read his letter. Then he sighed, +and sat long in meditation. At intervals he said:</p> + +<p>"Missouri. Missouri. Well, well, well, everything is so uncertain."</p> + +<p>At last he said:</p> + +<p>"I believe I'll do it.—A man will just rot, here. My house my yard, +everything around me, in fact, shows' that I am becoming one of these +cattle—and I used to be thrifty in other times."</p> + +<p>He was not more than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him +seem older. He left the stile, entered that part of his house which was +the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of +beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-woolsey, put his letter away, an went +into the kitchen. His wife was there, constructing some dried apple +pies; a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of +his own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was +sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying-pan and +trying hard not to sop over a finger-mark that divided the pan through +the middle—for the other side belonged to the brother, whose musings +made him forget his stomach for the moment; a negro woman was busy +cooking, at a vast fire-place. Shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the +place.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p023"></a><img alt="p023.jpg (34K)" src="images/p023.jpg" height="335" width="537"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Nancy, I've made up my mind. The world is done with me, and perhaps I +ought to be done with it. But no matter—I can wait. I am going to +Missouri. I won't stay in this dead country and decay with it. I've had +it on my mind sometime. I'm going to sell out here for whatever I can +get, and buy a wagon and team and put you and the children in it and +start."</p> + +<p>"Anywhere that suits you, suits me, Si. And the children can't be any +worse off in Missouri than, they are here, I reckon."</p> + +<p>Motioning his wife to a private conference in their own room, Hawkins +said: "No, they'll be better off. I've looked out for them, Nancy," and +his face lighted. "Do you see these papers? Well, they are evidence +that I have taken up Seventy-five Thousand Acres of Land in this +county—think what an enormous fortune it will be some day! Why, Nancy, enormous +don't express it—the word's too tame! I tell your Nancy——"</p> + +<p>"For goodness sake, Si——"</p> + +<p>"Wait, Nancy, wait—let me finish—I've been secretly bailing and fuming +with this grand inspiration for weeks, and I must talk or I'll burst! +I haven't whispered to a soul—not a word—have had my countenance under +lock and key, for fear it might drop something that would tell even these +animals here how to discern the gold mine that's glaring under their +noses. Now all that is necessary to hold this land and keep it in the +family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly—five or ten +dollars—the whole tract would not sell for over a third of a cent an acre now, +but some day people wild be glad to get it for twenty dollars, fifty +dollars, a hundred dollars an acre! What should you say to" [here he +dropped his voice to a whisper and looked anxiously around to see that +there were no eavesdroppers,] "a thousand dollars an acre!</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p024"></a><img alt="p024.jpg (40K)" src="images/p024.jpg" height="475" width="433"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Well you may open your eyes and stare! But it's so. You and I may not +see the day, but they'll see it. Mind I tell you; they'll see it. +Nancy, you've heard of steamboats, and maybe you believed in them—of +course you did. You've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call +them lies and humbugs,—but they're not lies and humbugs, they're a +reality and they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day than they +are now. They're going to make a revolution in this world's affairs that +will make men dizzy to contemplate. I've been watching—I've been +watching while some people slept, and I know what's coming.</p> + +<p>"Even you and I will see the day that steamboats will come up that little +Turkey river to within twenty miles of this land of ours—and in high +water they'll come right to it! And this is not all, Nancy—it isn't +even half! There's a bigger wonder—the railroad! These worms here have +never even heard of it—and when they do they'll not believe in it. +But it's another fact. Coaches that fly over the ground twenty miles an +hour—heavens and earth, think of that, Nancy! Twenty miles an hour. +It makes a main's brain whirl. Some day, when you and I are in our +graves, there'll be a railroad stretching hundreds of miles—all the way +down from the cities of the Northern States to New Orleans—and its got +to run within thirty miles of this land—may be even touch a corner of +it. Well; do you know, they've quit burning wood in some places in the +Eastern States? And what do you suppose they burn? Coal!" [He bent over +and whispered again:] "There's world—worlds of it on this land! You +know that black stuff that crops out of the bank of the branch?—well, +that's it. You've taken it for rocks; so has every body here; and +they've built little dams and such things with it. One man was going to +build a chimney out of it. Nancy I expect I turned as white as a sheet! +Why, it might have caught fire and told everything. I showed him it was +too crumbly. Then he was going to build it of copper ore—splendid +yellow forty-per-cent. ore! There's fortunes upon fortunes of copper ore +on our land! It scared me to death, the idea of this fool starting a +smelting furnace in his house without knowing it, and getting his dull +eyes opened. And then he was going to build it of iron ore! There's +mountains of iron ore here, Nancy—whole mountains of it. I wouldn't +take any chances. I just stuck by him—I haunted him—I never let him +alone till he built it of mud and sticks like all the rest of the +chimneys in this dismal country. Pine forests, wheat land, corn land, +iron, copper, coal-wait till the railroads come, and the steamboats! +We'll never see the day, Nancy—never in the world—-never, never, never, +child. We've got to drag along, drag along, and eat crusts in toil and +poverty, all hopeless and forlorn—but they'll ride in coaches, Nancy! +They'll live like the princes of the earth; they'll be courted and +worshiped; their names will be known from ocean to ocean! Ah, +well-a-day! Will they ever come back here, on the railroad and the steamboat, +and say, 'This one little spot shall not be touched—this hovel shall be +sacred—for here our father and our mother suffered for us, thought for +us, laid the foundations of our future as solid as the hills!'"</p> + +<p>"You are a great, good, noble soul, Si Hawkins, and I am an honored woman +to be the wife of such a man"—and the tears stood in her eyes when she +said it. "We will go to Missouri. You are out of your place, here, +among these groping dumb creatures. We will find a higher place, where +you can walk with your own kind, and be understood when you speak—not +stared at as if you were talking some foreign tongue. I would go +anywhere, anywhere in the wide world with you I would rather my body +would starve and die than your mind should hunger and wither away in this +lonely land."</p> + +<p>"Spoken like yourself, my child! But we'll not starve, Nancy. Far from +it. I have a letter from Beriah Sellers—just came this day. A letter +that—I'll read you a line from it!"</p> + +<p>He flew out of the room. A shadow blurred the sunlight in Nancy's +face—there was uneasiness in it, and disappointment. A procession of +disturbing thoughts began to troop through her mind. Saying nothing +aloud, she sat with her hands in her lap; now and then she clasped them, +then unclasped them, then tapped the ends of the fingers together; +sighed, nodded, smiled—occasionally paused, shook her head. This +pantomime was the elocutionary expression of an unspoken soliloquy which +had something of this shape:</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of it—was afraid of it. Trying to make our fortune in +Virginia, Beriah Sellers nearly ruined us and we had to settle in +Kentucky and start over again. Trying to make our fortune in Kentucky he +crippled us again and we had to move here. Trying to make our fortune +here, he brought us clear down to the ground, nearly. He's an honest +soul, and means the very best in the world, but I'm afraid, I'm afraid +he's too flighty. He has splendid ideas, and he'll divide his chances +with his friends with a free hand, the good generous soul, but something +does seem to always interfere and spoil everything. I never did think he +was right well balanced. But I don't blame my husband, for I do think +that when that man gets his head full of a new notion, he can out-talk a +machine. He'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll listen to him +ten minutes—why I do believe he would make a deaf and dumb man believe +in it and get beside himself, if you only set him where he could see his +eyes tally and watch his hands explain. What a head he has got! When he +got up that idea there in Virginia of buying up whole loads of negroes in +Delaware and Virginia and Tennessee, very quiet, having papers drawn to +have them delivered at a place in Alabama and take them and pay for them, +away yonder at a certain time, and then in the meantime get a law made +stopping everybody from selling negroes to the south after a certain +day—it was somehow that way—mercy how the man would have made money! +Negroes would have gone up to four prices. But after he'd spent money +and worked hard, and traveled hard, and had heaps of negroes all +contracted for, and everything going along just right, he couldn't get +the laws passed and down the whole thing tumbled. And there in Kentucky, +when he raked up that old numskull that had been inventing away at a +perpetual motion machine for twenty-two years, and Beriah Sellers saw at +a glance where just one more little cog-wheel would settle the business, +why I could see it as plain as day when he came in wild at midnight and +hammered us out of bed and told the whole thing in a whisper with the +doors bolted and the candle in an empty barrel. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p028"></a><img alt="p028.jpg (24K)" src="images/p028.jpg" height="331" width="375"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Oceans of money in it—anybody could see that. But it did cost a deal to buy the old numskull +out—and then when they put the new cog wheel in they'd overlooked +something somewhere and it wasn't any use—the troublesome thing wouldn't +go. That notion he got up here did look as handy as anything in the +world; and how him and Si did sit up nights working at it with the +curtains down and me watching to see if any neighbors were about. The +man did honestly believe there was a fortune in that black gummy oil that +stews out of the bank Si says is coal; and he refined it himself till it +was like water, nearly, and it did burn, there's no two ways about that; +and I reckon he'd have been all right in Cincinnati with his lamp that he +got made, that time he got a house full of rich speculators to see him +exhibit only in the middle of his speech it let go and almost blew the +heads off the whole crowd. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p029"></a><img alt="p029.jpg (20K)" src="images/p029.jpg" height="311" width="431"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I haven't got over grieving for the money +that cost yet. I am sorry enough Beriah Sellers is in Missouri, now, but +I was glad when he went. I wonder what his letter says. But of course +it's cheerful; he's never down-hearted—never had any trouble in his +life—didn't know it if he had. It's always sunrise with that man, and +fine and blazing, at that—never gets noon; though—leaves off and rises +again. Nobody can help liking the creature, he means so well—but I do +dread to come across him again; he's bound to set us all crazy, of +coarse. Well, there goes old widow Hopkins—it always takes her a week +to buy a spool of thread and trade a hank of yarn. Maybe Si can come +with the letter, now."</p> + +<p>And he did:</p> + +<p>"Widow Hopkins kept me—I haven't any patience with such tedious people. +Now listen, Nancy—just listen at this:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + "'Come right along to Missouri! Don't wait and worry about a good + price but sell out for whatever you can get, and come along, or you + might be too late. Throw away your traps, if necessary, and come + empty-handed. You'll never regret it. It's the grandest + country—the loveliest land—the purest atmosphere—I can't describe it; no + pen can do it justice. And it's filling up, every day—people + coming from everywhere. I've got the biggest scheme on earth—and + I'll take you in; I'll take in every friend I've got that's ever + stood by me, for there's enough for all, and to spare. Mum's the + word—don't whisper—keep yourself to yourself. You'll see! Come! + —rush!—hurry!—don't wait for anything!' +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>"It's the same old boy, Nancy, jest the same old boy—ain't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think there's a little of the old sound about his voice yet. +I suppose you—you'll still go, Si?"</p> + +<p>"Go! Well, I should think so, Nancy. It's all a chance, of course, and, +chances haven't been kind to us, I'll admit—but whatever comes, old +wife, they're provided for. Thank God for that!"</p> + +<p>"Amen," came low and earnestly.</p> + +<p>And with an activity and a suddenness that bewildered Obedstown and +almost took its breath away, the Hawkinses hurried through with their +arrangements in four short months and flitted out into the great +mysterious blank that lay beyond the Knobs of Tennessee.</p> + + +<a name="p030"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="p030 (14K)" src="images/p030.jpg" height="285" width="301" /> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch2"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2></center> +<br> +<p>Toward the close of the third day's journey the wayfarers were just +beginning to think of camping, when they came upon a log cabin in the +woods. Hawkins drew rein and entered the yard. A boy about ten years +old was sitting in the cabin door with his face bowed in his hands. +Hawkins approached, expecting his footfall to attract attention, but it +did not. He halted a moment, and then said:</p> + +<p>"Come, come, little chap, you mustn't be going to sleep before sundown"</p> + +<p>With a tired expression the small face came up out of the hands,—a face +down which tears were flowing.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I'm sorry I spoke so, my boy. Tell me—is anything the matter?"</p> + +<p>The boy signified with a scarcely perceptible gesture that the trouble +was in the, house, and made room for Hawkins to pass. Then he put his +face in his hands again and rocked himself about as one suffering a grief +that is too deep to find help in moan or groan or outcry. Hawkins +stepped within. It was a poverty stricken place. Six or eight +middle-aged country people of both sexes were grouped about an object in the +middle of the room; they were noiselessly busy and they talked in +whispers when they spoke. Hawkins uncovered and approached. A coffin +stood upon two backless chairs. These neighbors had just finished +disposing the body of a woman in it—a woman with a careworn, gentle face +that had more the look of sleep about it than of death. An old lady +motioned, toward the door and said to Hawkins in a whisper:</p> + +<p>"His mother, po' thing. Died of the fever, last night. Tha warn't no +sich thing as saving of her. But it's better for her—better for her. +Husband and the other two children died in the spring, and she hain't +ever hilt up her head sence. She jest went around broken-hearted like, +and never took no intrust in anything but Clay—that's the boy thar. +She jest worshiped Clay—and Clay he worshiped her. They didn't 'pear to +live at all, only when they was together, looking at each other, loving +one another. She's ben sick three weeks; and if you believe me that +child has worked, and kep' the run of the med'cin, and the times of +giving it, and sot up nights and nussed her, and tried to keep up her +sperits, the same as a grown-up person. And last night when she kep' a +sinking and sinking, and turned away her head and didn't know him no mo', +it was fitten to make a body's heart break to see him climb onto the bed +and lay his cheek agin hern and call her so pitiful and she not answer. +But bymeby she roused up, like, and looked around wild, and then she see +him, and she made a great cry and snatched him to her breast and hilt him +close and kissed him over and over agin; but it took the last po' +strength she had, and so her eyelids begin to close down, and her arms +sort o' drooped away and then we see she was gone, po' creetur. And +Clay, he—Oh, the po' motherless thing—I cain't talk abort it—I cain't +bear to talk about it."</p> + +<p>Clay had disappeared from the door; but he came in, now, and the +neighbors reverently fell apart and made way for him. He leaned upon the +open coffin and let his tears course silently. Then he put out his small +hand and smoothed the hair and stroked the dead face lovingly. After a +bit he brought his other hand up from behind him and laid three or four +fresh wild flowers upon the breast, bent over and kissed the unresponsive +lips time and time again, and then turned away and went out of the house +without looking at any of the company. The old lady said to Hawkins:</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p033"></a><img alt="p033.jpg (33K)" src="images/p033.jpg" height="467" width="431"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"She always loved that kind o' flowers. He fetched 'em for her every +morning, and she always kissed him. They was from away north somers—she +kep' school when she fust come. Goodness knows what's to become o' that +po' boy. No father, no mother, no kin folks of no kind. Nobody to go +to, nobody that k'yers for him—and all of us is so put to it for to get +along and families so large."</p> + +<p>Hawkins understood. All, eyes were turned inquiringly upon him. He +said:</p> + +<p>"Friends, I am not very well provided for, myself, but still I would not +turn my back on a homeless orphan. If he will go with me I will give him +a home, and loving regard—I will do for him as I would have another do +for a child of my own in misfortune."</p> + +<p>One after another the people stepped forward and wrung the stranger's +hand with cordial good will, and their eyes looked all that their hands +could not express or their lips speak.</p> + +<p>"Said like a true man," said one.</p> + +<p>"You was a stranger to me a minute ago, but you ain't now," said another.</p> + +<p>"It's bread cast upon the waters—it'll return after many days," said the +old lady whom we have heard speak before.</p> + +<p>"You got to camp in my house as long as you hang out here," said one. +"If tha hain't room for you and yourn my tribe'll turn out and camp in +the hay loft."</p> + +<p>A few minutes afterward, while the preparations for the funeral were +being concluded, Mr. Hawkins arrived at his wagon leading his little waif +by the hand, and told his wife all that had happened, and asked her if he +had done right in giving to her and to himself this new care? She said:</p> + +<p>"If you've done wrong, Si Hawkins, it's a wrong that will shine brighter +at the judgment day than the rights that many' a man has done before you. +And there isn't any compliment you can pay me equal to doing a thing like +this and finishing it up, just taking it for granted that I'll be willing +to it. Willing? Come to me; you poor motherless boy, and let me take +your grief and help you carry it."</p> + +<p>When the child awoke in the morning, it was as if from a troubled dream. +But slowly the confusion in his mind took form, and he remembered his +great loss; the beloved form in the coffin; his talk with a generous +stranger who offered him a home; the funeral, where the stranger's wife +held him by the hand at the grave, and cried with him and comforted him; +and he remembered how this, new mother tucked him in his bed in the +neighboring farm house, and coaxed him to talk about his troubles, and +then heard him say his prayers and kissed him good night, and left him +with the soreness in his heart almost healed and his bruised spirit at +rest.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p035"></a><img alt="p035.jpg (79K)" src="images/p035.jpg" height="873" width="557"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And now the new mother came again, and helped him to dress, and combed +his hair, and drew his mind away by degrees from the dismal yesterday, +by telling him about the wonderful journey he was going to take and the +strange things he was going to see. And after breakfast they two went +alone to the grave, and his heart went out to his new friend and his +untaught eloquence poured the praises of his buried idol into her ears +without let or hindrance. Together they planted roses by the headboard +and strewed wild flowers upon the grave; and then together they went +away, hand in hand, and left the dead to the long sleep that heals all +heart-aches and ends all sorrows.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch3"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Whatever the lagging dragging journey may have been to the rest of the +emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of +enchantment; and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious +dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales the negro slaves +were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuddering light of the +kitchen fire.</p> + +<p>At the end of nearly a week of travel, the party went into camp near a +shabby village which was caving, house by house, into the hungry +Mississippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its +mile-breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight, +and the vague riband of trees on the further shore, the verge of a +continent which surely none but they had ever seen before.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Dan'l"(colored,) aged 40; his wife, "aunt Jinny," aged 30, "Young +Miss" Emily Hawkins, "Young Mars" Washington Hawkins and "Young Mars" +Clay, the new member of the family, ranged themselves on a log, after +supper, and contemplated the marvelous river and discussed it. The moon +rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the +sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light; a deep +silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals, rather than +broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled +crash of a raving bank in the distance.</p> + +<p>The little company assembled on the log were all children (at least in +simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance,) and the remarks they +made about the river were in keeping with the character; and so awed were +they by the grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before then, and by +their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits and that the +faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all their talk +took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued +to a low and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Chil'en, dah's sum fin a comin!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p036"></a><img alt="p036.jpg (42K)" src="images/p036.jpg" height="461" width="571"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>All crowded close together and every heart beat faster.</p> + +<p>Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger.</p> + +<p>A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape +that jetted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce +eye of fire shot out froth behind the cape and sent a long brilliant +pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and +louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and +still wilder. A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from +its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled +with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. +Nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with +spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the +monster like a torchlight procession.</p> + +<p>"What is it! Oh, what is it, Uncle Dan'l!"</p> + +<p>With deep solemnity the answer came:</p> + +<p>"It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!"</p> + +<p>It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling, in a +moment. And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and +stronger and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's +voice lifted up its supplications:</p> + +<p>"O Lord', we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go to de +bad place, but good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit, we ain't +ready—let dese po' chilen hab one mo' chance, jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole +niggah if you's, got to hab somebody.—Good Lord, good deah Lord, we +don't know whah you's a gwyne to, we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, +but we knows by de way you's a comin', we knows by de way you's a tiltin' +along in yo' charyot o' fiah dat some po' sinner's a gwyne to ketch it. +But good Lord, dose chilen don't b'long heah, dey's f'm Obedstown whah +dey don't know nuffin, an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't +'sponsible. An' deah Lord, good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't +like yo' pity, it ain't like yo' long-sufferin' lovin' kindness for to +take dis kind o' 'vantage o' sick little chil'en as dose is when dey's so +many ornery grown folks chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down +dah. Oh, Lord, spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away +f'm dey frens, jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole +niggah. HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, +de ole——"</p> + +<p>The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, and not +twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst +forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan'l snatched a child +under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at +his heels. And then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness +and shouted, (but rather feebly:)</p> + +<p>"Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p038"></a><img alt="p038.jpg (39K)" src="images/p038.jpg" height="467" width="563"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and +the comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone +by, for its dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious +reconnaissance in the direction of the log. Sure enough "the Lord" was +just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked +the lights winked out and the coughing diminished by degrees and +presently ceased altogether.</p> + +<p>"H'wsh! Well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah. +Dis Chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat +prah? Dat's it. Dat's it!"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Dan'l, do you reckon it was the prayer that saved us?" said Clay.</p> + +<p>"Does I reckon? Don't I know it! Whah was yo' eyes? Warn't de Lord +jes' a cumin' chow! chow! CHOW! an' a goin' on turrible—an' do de +Lord carry on dat way 'dout dey's sumfin don't suit him? An' warn't he a +lookin' right at dis gang heah, an' warn't he jes' a reachin' for 'em? +An' d'you spec' he gwyne to let 'em off 'dout somebody ast him to do it? +No indeedy!"</p> + +<p>"Do you reckon he saw, us, Uncle Dan'l?</p> + +<p>"De law sakes, Chile, didn't I see him a lookin' at us?".</p> + +<p>"Did you feel scared, Uncle Dan'l?"</p> + +<p>"No sah! When a man is 'gaged in prah, he ain't fraid o' nuffin—dey +can't nuffin tetch him."</p> + +<p>"Well what did you run for?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I—I—mars Clay, when a man is under de influence ob de sperit, +he do-no, what he's 'bout—no sah; dat man do-no what he's 'bout. You +mout take an' tah de head off'n dat man an' he wouldn't scasely fine it +out. Date's de Hebrew chil'en dat went frough de fiah; dey was burnt +considable—ob coase dey was; but dey didn't know nuffin 'bout it—heal +right up agin; if dey'd ben gals dey'd missed dey long haah, (hair,) +maybe, but dey wouldn't felt de burn."</p> + +<p>"I don't know but what they were girls. I think they were."</p> + +<p>"Now mars Clay, you knows bettern dat. Sometimes a body can't tell +whedder you's a sayin' what you means or whedder you's a sayin' what you +don't mean, 'case you says 'em bofe de same way."</p> + +<p>"But how should I know whether they were boys or girls?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness sakes, mars Clay, don't de Good Book say? 'Sides, don't it +call 'em de HE-brew chil'en? If dey was gals wouldn't dey be de SHE-brew +chil'en? Some people dat kin read don't 'pear to take no notice when dey +do read."</p> + +<p>"Well, Uncle Dan'l, I think that——-My! here comes another one up the +river! There can't be two!"</p> + +<p>"We gone dis time—we done gone dis time, sho'! Dey ain't two, mars +Clay—days de same one. De Lord kin 'pear eberywhah in a second. +Goodness, how do fiah and de smoke do belch up! Dat mean business, +honey. He comin' now like he fo'got sumfin. Come 'long, chil'en, time +you's gwyne to roos'. Go 'long wid you—ole Uncle Daniel gwyne out in de +woods to rastle in prah—de ole nigger gwyne to do what he kin to sabe +you agin"</p> + +<p>He did go to the woods and pray; but he went so far that he doubted, +himself, if the Lord heard him when He went by.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p040"></a><img alt="p040.jpg (28K)" src="images/p040.jpg" height="277" width="565"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch4"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +—Seventhly, Before his Voyage, He should make his peace with God, +satisfie his Creditors if he be in debt; Pray earnestly to God to prosper +him in his Voyage, and to keep him from danger, and, if he be 'sui juris' +he should make his last will, and wisely order all his affairs, since +many that go far abroad, return not home. (This good and Christian +Counsel is given by Martinus Zeilerus in his Apodemical Canons before his +Itinerary of Spain and Portugal.) +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p> +Early in the morning Squire Hawkins took passage in a small steamboat, +with his family and his two slaves, and presently the bell rang, the +stage-plank; was hauled in, and the vessel proceeded up the river. +The children and the slaves were not much more at ease after finding out +that this monster was a creature of human contrivance than they were the +night before when they thought it the Lord of heaven and earth. They +started, in fright, every time the gauge-cocks sent out an angry hiss, +and they quaked from head to foot when the mud-valves thundered. The +shivering of the boat under the beating of the wheels was sheer misery to +them.</p> + +<p>But of course familiarity with these things soon took away their terrors, +and then the voyage at once became a glorious adventure, a royal progress +through the very heart and home of romance, a realization of their +rosiest wonder-dreams. They sat by the hour in the shade of the pilot +house on the hurricane deck and looked out over the curving expanses of +the river sparkling in the sunlight. Sometimes the boat fought the +mid-stream current, with a verdant world on either hand, and remote from +both; sometimes she closed in under a point, where the dead water and the +helping eddies were, and shaved the bank so closely that the decks were +swept by the jungle of over-hanging willows and littered with a spoil of +leaves; departing from these "points" she regularly crossed the river +every five miles, avoiding the "bight" of the great binds and thus +escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high +"bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed +it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head—and +then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" +the bar, and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her +bows vanished, a great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under +way, and in this instant she leaned far over on her side, shied from the +bar and fled square away from the danger like a frightened thing—and the +pilot was lucky if he managed to "straighten her up" before she drove her +nose into the opposite bank; sometimes she approached a solid wall of +tall trees as if she meant to break through it, but all of a sudden a +little crack would open just enough to admit her, and away she would go +plowing through the "chute" with just barely room enough between the +island on one side and the main land on the other; in this sluggish water +she seemed to go like a racehorse; now and then small log cabins appeared +in little clearings, with the never-failing frowsy women and girls in +soiled and faded linsey-woolsey leaning in the doors or against woodpiles +and rail fences, gazing sleepily at the passing show; sometimes she found +shoal water, going out at the head of those "chutes" or crossing the +river, and then a deck-hand stood on the bow and hove the lead, while the +boat slowed down and moved cautiously; sometimes she stopped a moment at +a landing and took on some freight or a passenger while a crowd of +slouchy white men and negroes stood on the bank and looked sleepily on +with their hands in their pantaloons pockets,—of course—for they never +took them out except to stretch, and when they did this they squirmed +about and reached their fists up into the air and lifted themselves on +tip-toe in an ecstasy of enjoyment.</p> + +<p>When the sun went down it turned all the broad river to a national banner +laid in gleaming bars of gold and purple and crimson; and in time these +glories faded out in the twilight and left the fairy archipelagoes +reflecting their fringing foliage in the steely mirror of the stream.</p> + +<p>At night the boat forged on through the deep solitudes of the river, +hardly ever discovering a light to testify to a human presence—mile +after mile and league after league the vast bends were guarded by +unbroken walls of forest that had never been disturbed by the voice or +the foot-fall of man or felt the edge of his sacrilegious axe.</p> + +<p>An hour after supper the moon came up, and Clay and Washington ascended +to the hurricane deck to revel again in their new realm of enchantment. +They ran races up and down the deck; climbed about the bell; made friends +with the passenger-dogs chained under the lifeboat; tried to make friends +with a passenger-bear fastened to the verge-staff but were not +encouraged; + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p043"></a><img alt="p043.jpg (25K)" src="images/p043.jpg" height="323" width="425"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"skinned the cat" on the hog-chains; in a word, exhausted the +amusement-possibilities of the deck. Then they looked wistfully up at +the pilot house, and finally, little by little, Clay ventured up there, +followed diffidently by Washington. The pilot turned presently to "get +his stern-marks," saw the lads and invited them in. Now their happiness +was complete. This cosy little house, built entirely of glass and +commanding a marvelous prospect in every direction was a magician's +throne to them and their enjoyment of the place was simply boundless.</p> + +<p>They sat them down on a high bench and looked miles ahead and saw the +wooded capes fold back and reveal the bends beyond; and they looked miles +to the rear and saw the silvery highway diminish its breadth by degrees +and close itself together in the distance. Presently the pilot said:</p> + +<p>"By George, yonder comes the Amaranth!"</p> + +<p>A spark appeared, close to the water, several miles down the river. The +pilot took his glass and looked at it steadily for a moment, and said, +chiefly to himself:</p> + +<p>"It can't be the Blue Wing. She couldn't pick us up this way. It's the +Amaranth, sure!"</p> + +<p>He bent over a speaking tube and said:</p> + +<p>"Who's on watch down there?"</p> + +<p>A hollow, unhuman voice rumbled up through the tube in answer:</p> + +<p>"I am. Second engineer."</p> + +<p>"Good! You want to stir your stumps, now, Harry—the Amaranth's just +turned the point—and she's just a—humping herself, too!"</p> + +<p>The pilot took hold of a rope that stretched out forward, jerked it +twice, and two mellow strokes of the big bell responded. A voice out on +the deck shouted:</p> + +<p>"Stand by, down there, with that labboard lead!"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't want the lead," said the pilot, "I want you. Roust out the +old man—tell him the Amaranth's coming. And go and call Jim—tell him."</p> + +<p>"Aye-aye, sir!"</p> + +<p>The "old man" was the captain—he is always called so, on steamboats and +ships; "Jim" was the other pilot. Within two minutes both of these men +were flying up the pilothouse stairway, three steps at a jump. Jim was +in his shirt sleeves,—with his coat and vest on his arm. He said:</p> + +<p>"I was just turning in. Where's the glass"</p> + +<p>He took it and looked:</p> + +<p>"Don't appear to be any night-hawk on the jack-staff—it's the Amaranth, +dead sure!"</p> + +<p>The captain took a good long look, and only said:</p> + +<p>"Damnation!"</p> + +<p>George Davis, the pilot on watch, shouted to the night-watchman on deck:</p> + +<p>"How's she loaded?"</p> + +<p>"Two inches by the head, sir."</p> + +<p>"'T ain't enough!"</p> + +<p>The captain shouted, now:</p> + +<p>"Call the mate. Tell him to call all hands and get a lot of that sugar +forrard—put her ten inches by the head. Lively, now!"</p> + +<p>"Aye-aye, sir."</p> + +<p>A riot of shouting and trampling floated up from below, presently, and +the uneasy steering of the boat soon showed that she was getting "down by +the head."</p> + +<p>The three men in the pilot house began to talk in short, sharp sentences, +low and earnestly. As their excitement rose, their voices went down. +As fast as one of them put down the spy-glass another took it up—but +always with a studied air of calmness. Each time the verdict was:</p> + +<p>"She's a gaining!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p045"></a><img alt="p045.jpg (22K)" src="images/p045.jpg" height="307" width="435"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The captain spoke through the tube:</p> + +<p>"What steam are You carrying?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred and forty-two, sir! But she's getting hotter and hotter all +the time."</p> + +<p>The boat was straining and groaning and quivering like a monster in pain. +Both pilots were at work now, one on each side of the wheel, with their +coats and vests off, their bosoms and collars wide open and the +perspiration flowing down heir faces. They were holding the boat so +close to the shore that the willows swept the guards almost from stem to +stern.</p> + +<p>"Stand by!" whispered George.</p> + +<p>"All ready!" said Jim, under his breath.</p> + +<p>"Let her come!"</p> + +<p>The boat sprang away, from the bank like a deer, and darted in a long +diagonal toward the other shore. She closed in again and thrashed her +fierce way along the willows as before. The captain put down the glass:</p> + +<p>"Lord how she walks up on us! I do hate to be beat!"</p> + +<p>"Jim," said George, looking straight ahead, watching the slightest yawing +of the boat and promptly meeting it with the wheel, "how'll it do to try +Murderer's Chute?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's—it's taking chances. How was the cottonwood stump on the +false point below Boardman's Island this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Water just touching the roots."</p> + +<p>"Well it's pretty close work. That gives six feet scant in the head of +Murderer's Chute. We can just barely rub through if we hit it exactly +right. But it's worth trying. She don't dare tackle it!"—meaning the +Amaranth.</p> + +<p>In another instant the Boreas plunged into what seemed a crooked creek, +and the Amaranth's approaching lights were shut out in a moment. Not a +whisper was uttered, now, but the three men stared ahead into the shadows +and two of them spun the wheel back and forth with anxious watchfulness +while the steamer tore along. The chute seemed to come to an end every +fifty yards, but always opened out in time. Now the head of it was at +hand. George tapped the big bell three times, two leadsmen sprang to +their posts, and in a moment their weird cries rose on the night air and +were caught up and repeated by two men on the upper deck:</p> + +<p>"No-o bottom!"</p> + +<p>"De-e-p four!"</p> + +<p>"Half three!"</p> + +<p>"Quarter three!"</p> + +<p>"Mark under wa-a-ter three!"</p> + +<p>"Half twain!"</p> + +<p>"Quarter twain!——-"</p> + +<p>Davis pulled a couple of ropes—there was a jingling of small bells far +below, the boat's speed slackened, and the pent steam began to whistle +and the gauge-cocks to scream:</p> + +<p>"By the mark twain!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p047"></a><img alt="p047.jpg (25K)" src="images/p047.jpg" height="455" width="275"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Quar—ter—her—er—less twain!"</p> + +<p>"Eight and a half!"</p> + +<p>"Eight feet!"</p> + +<p>"Seven-ana-half!"</p> + +<p>Another jingling of little bells and the wheels ceased turning +altogether. The whistling of the steam was something frightful now—it +almost drowned all other noises.</p> + +<p>"Stand by to meet her!"</p> + +<p>George had the wheel hard down and was standing on a spoke.</p> + +<p>"All ready!"</p> + +<p>The, boat hesitated seemed to hold her breath, as did the captain and +pilots—and then she began to fall away to starboard and every eye +lighted:</p> + +<p>"Now then!—meet her! meet her! Snatch her!"</p> + +<p>The wheel flew to port so fast that the spokes blended into a +spider-web—the swing of the boat subsided—she steadied herself——</p> + +<p>"Seven feet!"</p> + +<p>"Sev—six and a half!"</p> + +<p>"Six feet! Six f——"</p> + +<p>Bang! She hit the bottom! George shouted through the tube:</p> + +<p>"Spread her wide open! Whale it at her!"</p> + +<p>Pow-wow-chow! The escape-pipes belched snowy pillars of steam aloft, the +boat ground and surged and trembled—and slid over into——</p> + +<p>"M-a-r-k twain!"</p> + +<p>"Quarter-her——"</p> + +<p>"Tap! tap! tap!" (to signify "Lay in the leads")</p> + +<p>And away she went, flying up the willow shore, with the whole silver sea +of the Mississippi stretching abroad on every hand.</p> + +<p>No Amaranth in sight!</p> + +<p>"Ha-ha, boys, we took a couple of tricks that time!" said the captain.</p> + +<p>And just at that moment a red glare appeared in the head of the chute and +the Amaranth came springing after them!</p> + +<p>"Well, I swear!"</p> + +<p>"Jim, what is the meaning of that?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what's the meaning of it. That hail we had at Napoleon +was Wash Hastings, wanting to come to Cairo—and we didn't stop. He's in +that pilot house, now, showing those mud turtles how to hunt for easy +water."</p> + +<p>"That's it! I thought it wasn't any slouch that was running that middle +bar in Hog-eye Bend. If it's Wash Hastings—well, what he don't know +about the river ain't worth knowing—a regular gold-leaf, kid-glove, +diamond breastpin pilot Wash Hastings is. We won't take any tricks off +of him, old man!"</p> + +<p>"I wish I'd a stopped for him, that's all."</p> + +<p>The Amaranth was within three hundred yards of the Boreas, and still +gaining. The "old man" spoke through the tube:</p> + +<p>"What is she-carrying now?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred and sixty-five, sir!"</p> + +<p>"How's your wood?"</p> + +<p>"Pine all out-cypress half gone-eating up cotton-wood like pie!"</p> + +<p>"Break into that rosin on the main deck-pile it in, the boat can pay for +it!"</p> + +<p>Soon the boat was plunging and quivering and screaming more madly than +ever. But the Amaranth's head was almost abreast the Boreas's stern:</p> + +<p>"How's your steam, now, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Hundred and eighty-two, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Break up the casks of bacon in the forrard hold! Pile it in! Levy on +that turpentine in the fantail-drench every stick of wood with it!"</p> + +<p>The boat was a moving earthquake by this time:</p> + +<p>"How is she now?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred and ninety-six and still a-swelling!—water, below the middle +gauge-cocks!—carrying every pound she can stand!—nigger roosting on the +safety-valve!"</p> + +<p>"Good! How's your draft?"</p> + +<p>"Bully! Every time a nigger heaves a stick of wood into the furnace he +goes out the chimney, with it!"</p> + +<p>The Amaranth drew steadily up till her jack-staff breasted the Boreas's +wheel-house—climbed along inch by inch till her chimneys breasted +it—crept along, further and further, till the boats were wheel to wheel—and +then they, closed up with a heavy jolt and locked together tight and fast +in the middle of the big river under the flooding moonlight! A roar and +a hurrah went up from the crowded decks of both steamers—all hands +rushed to the guards to look and shout and gesticulate—the weight +careened the vessels over toward each other—officers flew hither and +thither cursing and storming, trying to drive the people amidships—both +captains were leaning over their railings shaking their fists, swearing +and threatening—black volumes of smoke rolled up and canopied the +scene,—delivering a rain of sparks upon the vessels—two pistol shots +rang out, and both captains dodged unhurt and the packed masses of +passengers surged back and fell apart while the shrieks of women and +children soared above the intolerable din——</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p048"></a><img alt="p048.jpg (76K)" src="images/p048.jpg" height="422" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And then there was a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled +Amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away!</p> + +<p>Instantly the fire-doors of the Boreas were thrown open and the men began +dashing buckets of water into the furnaces—for it would have been death +and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on.</p> + +<p>As soon as possible the Boreas dropped down to the floating wreck and +took off the dead, the wounded and the unhurt—at least all that could be +got at, for the whole forward half of the boat was a shapeless ruin, with +the great chimneys lying crossed on top of it, and underneath were a +dozen victims imprisoned alive and wailing for help. While men with axes +worked with might and main to free these poor fellows, the Boreas's boats +went about, picking up stragglers from the river.</p> + +<p>And now a new horror presented itself. The wreck took fire from the +dismantled furnaces! Never did men work with a heartier will than did +those stalwart braves with the axes. But it was of no use. The fire ate +its way steadily, despising the bucket brigade that fought it. It +scorched the clothes, it singed the hair of the axemen—it drove them +back, foot by foot-inch by inch—they wavered, struck a final blow in the +teeth of the enemy, and surrendered. And as they fell back they heard +prisoned voices saying:</p> + +<p>"Don't leave us! Don't desert us! Don't, don't do it!"</p> + +<p>And one poor fellow said:</p> + +<p>"I am Henry Worley, striker of the Amaranth! My mother lives in St. +Louis. Tell her a lie for a poor devil's sake, please. Say I was killed +in an instant and never knew what hurt me—though God knows I've neither +scratch nor bruise this moment! It's hard to burn up in a coop like this +with the whole wide world so near. Good-bye boys—we've all got to come +to it at last, anyway!"</p> + +<p>The Boreas stood away out of danger, and the ruined steamer went drifting +down the stream an island of wreathing and climbing flame that vomited +clouds of smoke from time to time, and glared more fiercely and sent its +luminous tongues higher and higher after each emission. A shriek at +intervals told of a captive that had met his doom. The wreck lodged upon +a sandbar, and when the Boreas turned the next point on her upward +journey it was still burning with scarcely abated fury.</p> + +<p>When the boys came down into the main saloon of the Boreas, they saw a +pitiful sight and heard a world of pitiful sounds. Eleven poor creatures +lay dead and forty more lay moaning, or pleading or screaming, while a +score of Good Samaritans moved among them doing what they could to +relieve their sufferings; bathing their chinless faces and bodies with +linseed oil and lime water and covering the places with bulging masses of +raw cotton that gave to every face and form a dreadful and unhuman +aspect.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p051"></a><img alt="p051.jpg (28K)" src="images/p051.jpg" height="319" width="421"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>A little wee French midshipman of fourteen lay fearfully injured, but +never uttered a sound till a physician of Memphis was about to dress his +hurts. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"Can I get well? You need not be afraid to tell me."</p> + +<p>"No—I—I am afraid you can not."</p> + +<p>"Then do not waste your time with me—help those that can get well."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Help those that can get well! It is, not for me to be a girl. I carry +the blood of eleven generations of soldiers in my veins!"</p> + +<p>The physician—himself a man who had seen service in the navy in his +time—touched his hat to this little hero, and passed on.</p> + +<p>The head engineer of the Amaranth, a grand specimen of physical manhood, +struggled to his feet a ghastly spectacle and strode toward his brother, +the second engineer, who was unhurt. He said:</p> + +<p>"You were on watch. You were boss. You would not listen to me when I +begged you to reduce your steam. Take that!—take it to my wife and tell +her it comes from me by the hand of my murderer! Take it—and take my +curse with it to blister your heart a hundred years—and may you live so +long!"</p> + +<p>And he tore a ring from his finger, stripping flesh and skin with it, +threw it down and fell dead!</p> + +<p>But these things must not be dwelt upon. The Boreas landed her dreadful +cargo at the next large town and delivered it over to a multitude of +eager hands and warm southern hearts—a cargo amounting by this time to +39 wounded persons and 22 dead bodies. And with these she delivered a +list of 96 missing persons that had drowned or otherwise perished at the +scene of the disaster.</p> + +<p>A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry +they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar +to our ears all the days of our lives—"NOBODY TO BLAME."</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +**[The incidents of the explosion are not invented. They happened just +as they are told.—The Authors.] +</blockquote></blockquote> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch5"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2></center> +<br> + +<blockquote> +<br><i>Il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc.</i> +</blockquote> +<p> +When the Boreas backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the +river, the Hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in +the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard +work how to relieve it. And they were richer in another way also. +In the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed +girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling +through the throng in the Boreas' saloon calling her mother and father, +but no one answered. Something in the face of Mr. Hawkins attracted her +and she came and looked up at him; was satisfied, and took refuge with +him. He petted her, listened to her troubles, and said he would find her +friends for her. Then he put her in a state-room with his children and +told them to be kind to her (the adults of his party were all busy with +the wounded) and straightway began his search.</p> + +<p>It was fruitless. But all day he and his wife made inquiries, and hoped +against hope. All that they could learn was that the child and her +parents came on board at New Orleans, where they had just arrived in a +vessel from Cuba; that they looked like people from the Atlantic States; +that the family name was Van Brunt and the child's name Laura. This was +all. The parents had not been seen since the explosion. The child's +manners were those of a little lady, and her clothes were daintier and +finer than any Mrs. Hawkins had ever seen before.</p> + +<p>As the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for +her mother that it seemed to the Hawkinses that the moanings and the +wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain +at their heart-strings as the sufferings of this little desolate +creature. They tried hard to comfort her; and in trying, learned to love +her; they could not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her +arms about their necks and found-no solace but in their kind eyes and +comforting words: There was a question in both their hearts—a question +that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the +hours wore on—but both hesitated to give it voice—both kept +silence—and—waited. But a time came at last when the matter would bear delay no +longer. The boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being +conveyed to the shore. The tired child was asleep in the arms of Mrs. +Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins came into their presence and stood without +speaking. His eyes met his wife's; then both looked at the child—and as +they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer; an expression of +contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the +mother-heart; and when the eyes of husband and wife met again, the question was +asked and answered.</p> + +<p>When the Boreas had journeyed some four hundred miles from the time the +Hawkinses joined her, a long rank of steamboats was sighted, packed side +by side at a wharf like sardines, in a box, and above and beyond them +rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a +city—a city with an imposing umbrella of black smoke spread over it. +This was St. Louis. The children of the Hawkins family were playing +about the hurricane deck, and the father and mother were sitting in the +lee of the pilot house essaying to keep order and not greatly grieved +that they were not succeeding.</p> + +<p>"They're worth all the trouble they are, Nancy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and more, Si."</p> + +<p>"I believe you! You wouldn't sell one of them at a good round figure?"</p> + +<p>"Not for all the money in the bank, Si."</p> + +<p>"My own sentiments every time. It is true we are not rich—but still you +are not sorry—-you haven't any misgivings about the additions?"</p> + +<p>"No. God will provide"</p> + +<p>"Amen. And so you wouldn't even part with Clay? Or Laura!"</p> + +<p>"Not for anything in the world. I love them just the same as I love my +own: They pet me and spoil me even more than the others do, I think. +I reckon we'll get along, Si."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, it will all come out right, old mother. I wouldn't be afraid to +adopt a thousand children if I wanted to, for there's that Tennessee +Land, you know—enough to make an army of them rich. A whole army, +Nancy! You and I will never see the day, but these little chaps will. +Indeed they will. One of these days it will be the rich Miss Emily +Hawkins—and the wealthy Miss Laura Van Brunt Hawkins—and the Hon. +George Washington Hawkins, millionaire—and Gov. Henry Clay Hawkins, +millionaire! That is the way the world will word it! Don't let's ever +fret about the children, Nancy—never in the world. They're all right. +Nancy, there's oceans and oceans of money in that land—mark my words!"</p> + +<p>The children had stopped playing, for the moment, and drawn near to +listen. Hawkins said:</p> + +<p>"Washington, my boy, what will you do when you get to be one of the +richest men in the world?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, father. Sometimes I think I'll have a balloon and go up +in the air; and sometimes I think I'll have ever so many books; and +sometimes I think I'll have ever so many weathercocks and water-wheels; +or have a machine like that one you and Colonel Sellers bought; and +sometimes I think I'll have—well, somehow I don't know—somehow I ain't +certain; maybe I'll get a steamboat first."</p> + +<p>"The same old chap!—always just a little bit divided about things.—And +what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world, +Clay?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir. My mother—my other mother that's gone away—she +always told me to work along and not be much expecting to get rich, and +then I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't get rich. And so I reckon +it's better for me to wait till I get rich, and then by that time maybe +I'll know what I'll want—but I don't now, sir."</p> + +<p>"Careful old head!—Governor Henry Clay Hawkins!—that's what you'll be, +Clay, one of these days. Wise old head! weighty old head! Go on, now, +and play—all of you. It's a prime lot, Nancy; as the Obedstown folk say +about their hogs."</p> + +<p>A smaller steamboat received the Hawkinses and their fortunes, and bore +them a hundred and thirty miles still higher up the Mississippi, and +landed them at a little tumble-down village on the Missouri shore in the +twilight of a mellow October day.</p> + +<p>The next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they +wended slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited +forest solitudes. And when for the last time they pitched their tents, +metaphorically speaking, it was at the goal of their hopes, their new +home.</p> + +<p>By the muddy roadside stood a new log cabin, one story high—the store; +clustered in the neighborhood were ten or twelve more cabins, some new, +some old.</p> + +<p>In the sad light of the departing day the place looked homeless enough. +Two or three coatless young men sat in front of the store on a dry-goods +box, and whittled it with their knives, kicked it with their vast boots, +and shot tobacco-juice at various marks. Several ragged negroes leaned +comfortably against the posts of the awning and contemplated the arrival +of the wayfarers with lazy curiosity. All these people presently managed +to drag themselves to the vicinity of the Hawkins' wagon, and there they +took up permanent positions, hands in pockets and resting on one leg; and +thus anchored they proceeded to look and enjoy. Vagrant dogs came +wagging around and making inquiries of Hawkins's dog, which were not +satisfactory and they made war on him in concert. This would have +interested the citizens but it was too many on one to amount to anything +as a fight, and so they commanded the peace and the foreign dog coiled +his tail and took sanctuary under the wagon. Slatternly negro girls and +women slouched along with pails deftly balanced on their heads, and +joined the group and stared. Little half dressed white boys, and little +negro boys with nothing whatever on but tow-linen shirts with a fine +southern exposure, came from various directions and stood with their +hands locked together behind them and aided in the inspection. The rest +of the population were laying down their employments and getting ready to +come, when a man burst through the assemblage and seized the new-comers +by the hands in a frenzy of welcome, and exclaimed—indeed almost +shouted:</p> + +<p>"Well who could have believed it! Now is it you sure enough—turn +around! hold up your heads! I want to look at you good! Well, well, +well, it does seem most too good to be true, I declare! Lord, I'm so +glad to see you! Does a body's whole soul good to look at you! Shake +hands again! Keep on shaking hands! Goodness gracious alive. What will +my wife say?—Oh yes indeed, it's so!—married only last week—lovely, +perfectly lovely creature, the noblest woman that ever—you'll like her, +Nancy! Like her? Lord bless me you'll love her—you'll dote on +her—you'll be twins! Well, well, well, let me look at you again! Same +old—why bless my life it was only jest this very morning that my wife says, +'Colonel'—she will call me Colonel spite of everything I can do—she +says 'Colonel, something tells me somebody's coming!' and sure enough +here you are, the last people on earth a body could have expected. +Why she'll think she's a prophetess—and hanged if I don't think so +too—and you know there ain't any, country but what a prophet's an honor to, +as the proverb says. Lord bless me and here's the children, too! +Washington, Emily, don't you know me? Come, give us a kiss. Won't I fix +you, though!—ponies, cows, dogs, everything you can think of that'll +delight a child's heart-and—Why how's this? Little strangers? Well +you won't be any strangers here, I can tell you. Bless your souls we'll +make you think you never was at home before—'deed and 'deed we will, +I can tell you! Come, now, bundle right along with me. You can't +glorify any hearth stone but mine in this camp, you know—can't eat +anybody's bread but mine—can't do anything but just make yourselves +perfectly at home and comfortable, and spread yourselves out and rest! +You hear me! Here—Jim, Tom, Pete, Jake, fly around! Take that team to +my place—put the wagon in my lot—put the horses under the shed, and get +out hay and oats and fill them up! Ain't any hay and oats? Well get +some—have it charged to me—come, spin around, now! Now, Hawkins, the +procession's ready; mark time, by the left flank, forward-march!"</p> + +<p>And the Colonel took the lead, with Laura astride his neck, and the +newly-inspired and very grateful immigrants picked up their tired limbs +with quite a spring in them and dropped into his wake.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p058"></a><img alt="p058.jpg (40K)" src="images/p058.jpg" height="437" width="543"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Presently they were ranged about an old-time fire-place whose blazing +logs sent out rather an unnecessary amount of heat, but that was no +matter-supper was needed, and to have it, it had to be cooked. This +apartment was the family bedroom, parlor, library and kitchen, all in +one. The matronly little wife of the Colonel moved hither and thither +and in and out with her pots and pans in her hands', happiness in her +heart and a world of admiration of her husband in her eyes. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p059"></a><img alt="p059.jpg (13K)" src="images/p059.jpg" height="417" width="299"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And when at +last she had spread the cloth and loaded it with hot corn bread, fried +chickens, bacon, buttermilk, coffee, and all manner of country luxuries, +Col. Sellers modified his harangue and for a moment throttled it down to +the orthodox pitch for a blessing, and then instantly burst forth again +as from a parenthesis and clattered on with might and main till every +stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry. And when the +new-comers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather beds on the +second floor—to wit the garret—Mrs. Hawkins was obliged to say:</p> + +<p>"Hang the fellow, I do believe he has gone wilder than ever, but still a +body can't help liking him if they would—and what is more, they don't +ever want to try when they see his eyes and hear him talk."</p> + +<p>Within a week or two the Hawkinses were comfortably domiciled in a new +log house, and were beginning to feel at home. The children were put to +school; at least it was what passed for a school in those days: a place +where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day +to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting +it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply +of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell +the words or take breath. Hawkins bought out the village store for a +song and proceeded to reap the profits, which amounted to but little more +than another song.</p> + +<p>The wonderful speculation hinted at by Col. Sellers in his letter turned +out to be the raising of mules for the Southern market; and really it +promised very well. The young stock cost but a trifle, the rearing but +another trifle, and so Hawkins was easily persuaded to embark his slender +means in the enterprise and turn over the keep and care of the animals to +Sellers and Uncle Dan'l.</p> + +<p>All went well: Business prospered little by little. Hawkins even built a +new house, made it two full stories high and put a lightning rod on it. +People came two or three miles to look at it. But they knew that the rod +attracted the lightning, and so they gave the place a wide berth in a +storm, for they were familiar with marksmanship and doubted if the +lightning could hit that small stick at a distance of a mile and a half +oftener than once in a hundred and fifty times. Hawkins fitted out his +house with "store" furniture from St. Louis, and the fame of its +magnificence went abroad in the land. Even the parlor carpet was from +St. Louis—though the other rooms were clothed in the "rag" carpeting of +the country. Hawkins put up the first "paling" fence that had ever +adorned the village; and he did not stop there, but whitewashed it. +His oil-cloth window-curtains had noble pictures on them of castles such +as had never been seen anywhere in the world but on window-curtains. +Hawkins enjoyed the admiration these prodigies compelled, but he always +smiled to think how poor and, cheap they were, compared to what the +Hawkins mansion would display in a future day after the Tennessee Land +should have borne its minted fruit. Even Washington observed, once, that +when the Tennessee Land was sold he would have a "store" carpet in his +and Clay's room like the one in the parlor. This pleased Hawkins, but it +troubled his wife. It did not seem wise, to her, to put one's entire +earthly trust in the Tennessee Land and never think of doing any work.</p> + +<p>Hawkins took a weekly Philadelphia newspaper and a semi-weekly St. Louis +journal—almost the only papers that came to the village, though Godey's +Lady's Book found a good market there and was regarded as the perfection +of polite literature by some of the ablest critics in the place. Perhaps +it is only fair to explain that we are writing of a by gone age—some +twenty or thirty years ago. In the two newspapers referred to lay the +secret of Hawkins's growing prosperity. They kept him informed of the +condition of the crops south and east, and thus he knew which articles +were likely to be in demand and which articles were likely to be +unsalable, weeks and even months in advance of the simple folk about him. +As the months went by he came to be regarded as a wonderfully lucky man. +It did not occur to the citizens that brains were at the bottom of his +luck.</p> + +<p>His title of "Squire" came into vogue again, but only for a season; for, +as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible +stages, grew up into "Judge;" indeed' it bade fair to swell into +"General" bye and bye. All strangers of consequence who visited the +village gravitated to the Hawkins Mansion and became guests of the +"Judge."</p> + +<p>Hawkins had learned to like the people of his section very much. They +were uncouth and not cultivated, and not particularly industrious; but +they were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded +respect. Their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the +old fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry. +Whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless +hatred. They still cursed Benedict Arnold as if he were a personal +friend who had broken faith—but a week gone by.</p> + + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch6"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2></center> +<br> +<blockquote> +<br>We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record. +</blockquote> + +<p>Judge Hawkins and Col. Sellers have made and lost two or three moderate +fortunes in the meantime and are now pinched by poverty. Sellers has two +pairs of twins and four extras. In Hawkins's family are six children of +his own and two adopted ones. From time to time, as fortune smiled, the +elder children got the benefit of it, spending the lucky seasons at +excellent schools in St. Louis and the unlucky ones at home in the +chafing discomfort of straightened circumstances.</p> + +<p>Neither the Hawkins children nor the world that knew them ever supposed +that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: Such difference +as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The +girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time +of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which +had thrown their lives together.</p> + +<p>And yet any one who had known the secret of Laura's birth and had seen +her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or +thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more +winsome than her school companion.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p063"></a><img alt="p063.jpg (19K)" src="images/p063.jpg" height="439" width="283"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Philosophers dispute whether it is the promise of what she will be in +the careless school-girl, that makes her attractive, the undeveloped +maidenhood, or the mere natural, careless sweetness of childhood. +If Laura at twelve was beginning to be a beauty, the thought of it had +never entered her head. No, indeed. Her mind wad filled with more +important thoughts. To her simple school-girl dress she was beginning to +add those mysterious little adornments of ribbon-knots and ear-rings, +which were the subject of earnest consultations with her grown friends.</p> + +<p>When she tripped down the street on a summer's day with her dainty hands +propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows +consequently more or less akimbo with her wide Leghorn hat flapping down +and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her fore +head the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all +her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and that sweet ignorance +of care and that atmosphere of innocence and purity all about her that +belong to her gracious time of life, indeed she was a vision to warm the +coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest.</p> + +<p>Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, +bewitching, in short—was Laura at this period. Could she have remained +there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to +be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now +come—years which had seen Judge Hawkins pass through so many trials.</p> + +<p>When the judge's first bankruptcy came upon him, a homely human angel +intruded upon him with an offer of $1,500 for the Tennessee Land. Mrs. +Hawkins said take it. It was a grievous temptation, but the judge +withstood it. He said the land was for the children—he could not rob +them of their future millions for so paltry a sum. When the second +blight fell upon him, another angel appeared and offered $3,000 for the +land. He was in such deep distress that he allowed his wife to persuade +him to let the papers be drawn; but when his children came into his +presence in their poor apparel, he felt like a traitor and refused to +sign.</p> + +<p>But now he was down again, and deeper in the mire than ever. He paced +the floor all day, he scarcely slept at night. He blushed even to +acknowledge it to himself, but treason was in his mind—he was +meditating, at last, the sale of the land. Mrs. Hawkins stepped into the +room. He had not spoken a word, but he felt as guilty as if she had +caught him in some shameful act. She said:</p> + +<p>"Si, I do not know what we are going to do. The children are not fit to +be seen, their clothes are in such a state. But there's something more +serious still.—There is scarcely a bite in the house to eat"</p> + +<p>"Why, Nancy, go to Johnson——."</p> + +<p>"Johnson indeed! You took that man's part when he hadn't a friend in the +world, and you built him up and made him rich. And here's the result of +it: He lives in our fine house, and we live in his miserable log cabin. +He has hinted to our children that he would rather they wouldn't come +about his yard to play with his children,—which I can bear, and bear +easy enough, for they're not a sort we want to associate with much—but +what I can't bear with any quietness at all, is his telling Franky our +bill was running pretty high this morning when I sent him for some +meal—and that was all he said, too—didn't give him the meal—turned off and +went to talking with the Hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to +cheapen."</p> + +<p>"Nancy, this is astounding!"</p> + +<p>"And so it is, I warrant you. I've kept still, Si, as long as ever I +could. Things have been getting worse and worse, and worse and worse, +every single day; I don't go out of the house, I feel so down; but you +had trouble enough, and I wouldn't say a word—and I wouldn't say a word +now, only things have got so bad that I don't know what to do, nor where +to turn." And she gave way and put her face in her hands and cried.</p> + +<p>"Poor child, don't grieve so. I never thought that of Johnson. I am +clear at my wit's end. I don't know what in the world to do. Now if +somebody would come along and offer $3,000—Uh, if somebody only would +come along and offer $3,000 for that Tennessee Land."</p> + +<p>"You'd sell it, S!" said Mrs. Hawkins excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Try me!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p065"></a><img alt="p065.jpg (27K)" src="images/p065.jpg" height="319" width="437"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Mrs. Hawkins was out of the room in a moment. Within a minute she was +back again with a business-looking stranger, whom she seated, and then +she took her leave again. Hawkins said to himself, "How can a man ever +lose faith? When the blackest hour comes, Providence always comes with +it—ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; +if this blessed man offers but a thousand I'll embrace him like a +brother!"</p> + +<p>The stranger said:</p> + +<p>"I am aware that you own 75,000 acres, of land in East Tennessee, and +without sacrificing your time, I will come to the point at once. I am +agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you +ten thousand dollars for that land."</p> + +<p>Hawkins's heart bounded within him. His whole frame was racked and +wrenched with fettered hurrahs. His first impulse was to shout "Done! +and God bless the iron company, too!"</p> + +<p>But a something flitted through his mind, and his opened lips uttered +nothing. The enthusiasm faded away from his eyes, and the look of a man +who is thinking took its place. Presently, in a hesitating, undecided +way, he said:</p> + +<p>"Well, I—it don't seem quite enough. That—that is a very valuable +property—very valuable. It's brim full of iron-ore, sir—brim full of +it! And copper, coal,—everything—everything you can think of! Now, +I'll tell you what I'll, do. I'll reserve everything except the iron, +and I'll sell them the iron property for $15,000 cash, I to go in with +them and own an undivided interest of one-half the concern—or the stock, +as you may say. I'm out of business, and I'd just as soon help run the +thing as not. Now how does that strike you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I am only an agent of these people, who are friends of mine, and +I am not even paid for my services. To tell you the truth, I have tried +to persuade them not to go into the thing; and I have come square out +with their offer, without throwing out any feelers—and I did it in the +hope that you would refuse. A man pretty much always refuses another +man's first offer, no matter what it is. But I have performed my duty, +and will take pleasure in telling them what you say."</p> + +<p>He was about to rise. Hawkins said,</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit."</p> + +<p>Hawkins thought again. And the substance of his thought was: "This +is a deep man; this is a very deep man; I don't like his candor; your +ostentatiously candid business man's a deep fox—always a deep fox; +this man's that iron company himself—that's what he is; he wants that +property, too; I am not so blind but I can see that; he don't want the +company to go into this thing—O, that's very good; yes, that's very +good indeed—stuff! he'll be back here tomorrow, sure, and take my offer; +take it? I'll risk anything he is suffering to take it now; here—I must +mind what I'm about. What has started this sudden excitement about iron? +I wonder what is in the wind? just as sure as I'm alive this moment, +there's something tremendous stirring in iron speculation" [here Hawkins +got up and began to pace the floor with excited eyes and with gesturing +hands]—"something enormous going on in iron, without the shadow of a +doubt, and here I sit mousing in the dark and never knowing anything +about it; great heaven, what an escape I've made! this underhanded +mercenary creature might have taken me up—and ruined me! but I have +escaped, and I warrant me I'll not put my foot into—"</p> + +<p>He stopped and turned toward the stranger; saying:</p> + +<p>"I have made you a proposition, you have not accepted it, and I desire +that you will consider that I have made none. At the same time my +conscience will not allow me to—. Please alter the figures I named to +thirty thousand dollars, if you will, and let the proposition go to the +company—I will stick to it if it breaks my heart!" The stranger looked +amused, and there was a pretty well defined touch of surprise in his +expression, too, but Hawkins never noticed it. Indeed he scarcely +noticed anything or knew what he was about. The man left; Hawkins flung +himself into a chair; thought a few moments, then glanced around, looked +frightened, sprang to the door——</p> + +<p>"Too late—too late! He's gone! Fool that I am! always a fool! Thirty +thousand—ass that I am! Oh, why didn't I say fifty thousand!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p068"></a><img alt="p068.jpg (22K)" src="images/p068.jpg" height="473" width="331"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>He plunged his hands into his hair and leaned his elbows on his knees, +and fell to rocking himself back and forth in anguish. Mrs. Hawkins +sprang in, beaming:</p> + +<p>"Well, Si?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, con-found the con-founded—con-found it, Nancy. I've gone and done +it, now!"</p> + +<p>"Done what Si for mercy's sake!"</p> + +<p>"Done everything! Ruined everything!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me, tell me, tell me! Don't keep a body in such suspense. Didn't +he buy, after all? Didn't he make an offer?"</p> + +<p>Offer? He offered $10,000 for our land, and——"</p> + +<p>"Thank the good providence from the very bottom of my heart of hearts! +What sort of ruin do you call that, Si!"</p> + +<p>"Nancy, do you suppose I listened to such a preposterous proposition? +No! Thank fortune I'm not a simpleton! I saw through the pretty scheme +in a second. It's a vast iron speculation!—millions upon millions in +it! But fool as I am I told him he could have half the iron property for +thirty thousand—and if I only had him back here he couldn't touch it for +a cent less than a quarter of a million!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hawkins looked up white and despairing:</p> + +<p>"You threw away this chance, you let this man go, and we in this awful +trouble? You don't mean it, you can't mean it!"</p> + +<p>"Throw it away? Catch me at it! Why woman, do you suppose that man +don't know what he is about? Bless you, he'll be back fast enough +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Never, never, never. He never will comeback. I don't know what is to +become of us. I don't know what in the world is to become of us."</p> + +<p>A shade of uneasiness came into Hawkins's face. He said:</p> + +<p>"Why, Nancy, you—you can't believe what you are saying."</p> + +<p>"Believe it, indeed? I know it, Si. And I know that we haven't a cent +in the world, and we've sent ten thousand dollars a-begging."</p> + +<p>"Nancy, you frighten me. Now could that man—is it possible that +I—hanged if I don't believe I have missed a chance! Don't grieve, Nancy, +don't grieve. I'll go right after him. I'll take—I'll take—what a +fool I am!—I'll take anything he'll give!"</p> + +<p>The next instant he left the house on a run. But the man was no longer +in the town. Nobody knew where he belonged or whither he had gone. +Hawkins came slowly back, watching wistfully but hopelessly for the +stranger, and lowering his price steadily with his sinking heart. And +when his foot finally pressed his own threshold, the value he held the +entire Tennessee property at was five hundred dollars—two hundred down +and the rest in three equal annual payments, without interest.</p> + +<p>There was a sad gathering at the Hawkins fireside the next night. All +the children were present but Clay. Mr. Hawkins said:</p> + +<p>"Washington, we seem to be hopelessly fallen, hopelessly involved. I am +ready to give up. I do not know where to turn—I never have been down so +low before, I never have seen things so dismal. There are many mouths to +feed; Clay is at work; we must lose you, also, for a little while, my +boy. But it will not be long—the Tennessee land——"</p> + +<p>He stopped, and was conscious of a blush. There was silence for a +moment, and then Washington—now a lank, dreamy-eyed stripling between +twenty-two and twenty-three years of age—said:</p> + +<p>"If Col. Sellers would come for me, I would go and stay with him a while, +till the Tennessee land is sold. He has often wanted me to come, ever +since he moved to Hawkeye."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he can't well come for you, Washington. From what I can +hear—not from him of course, but from others—he is not far from as bad +off as we are—and his family is as large, too. He might find something +for you to do, maybe, but you'd better try to get to him yourself, +Washington—it's only thirty miles."</p> + +<p>"But how can I, father? There's no stage or anything."</p> + +<p>"And if there were, stages require money. A stage goes from Swansea, +five miles from here. But it would be cheaper to walk."</p> + +<p>"Father, they must know you there, and no doubt they would credit you in +a moment, for a little stage ride like that. Couldn't you write and ask +them?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you, Washington—seeing it's you that wants the ride? And what +do you think you'll do, Washington, when you get to Hawkeye? Finish your +invention for making window-glass opaque?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I have given that up. I almost knew I could do it, but it was +so tedious and troublesome I quit it."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of it, my boy. Then I suppose you'll finish your plan of +coloring hen's eggs by feeding a peculiar diet to the hen?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. I believe I have found out the stuff that will do it, but it +kills the hen; so I have dropped that for the present, though I can take +it up again some day when I learn how to manage the mixture better."</p> + +<p>"Well, what have you got on hand—anything?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, three or four things. I think they are all good and can all +be done, but they are tiresome, and besides they require money. But as +soon as the land is sold——"</p> + +<p>"Emily, were you about to say something?" said Hawkins.</p> + +<p>Yes, sir. If you are willing, I will go to St. Louis. That will make +another mouth less to feed. Mrs. Buckner has always wanted me to come."</p> + +<p>"But the money, child?"</p> + +<p>"Why I think she would send it, if you would write her—and I know she +would wait for her pay till——"</p> + +<p>"Come, Laura, let's hear from you, my girl."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p072"></a><img alt="p072.jpg (48K)" src="images/p072.jpg" height="463" width="533"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Emily and Laura were about the same age—between seventeen and eighteen. +Emily was fair and pretty, girlish and diffident—blue eyes and light +hair. Laura had a proud bearing, and a somewhat mature look; she had +fine, clean-cut features, her complexion was pure white and contrasted +vividly with her black hair and eyes; she was not what one calls +pretty—she was beautiful. She said:</p> + +<p>"I will go to St. Louis, too, sir. I will find a way to get there. +I will make a way. And I will find a way to help myself along, and do +what I can to help the rest, too."</p> + +<p>She spoke it like a princess. Mrs. Hawkins smiled proudly and kissed +her, saying in a tone of fond reproof:</p> + +<p>"So one of my girls is going to turn out and work for her living! It's +like your pluck and spirit, child, but we will hope that we haven't got +quite down to that, yet."</p> + +<p>The girl's eyes beamed affection under her mother's caress. Then she +straightened up, folded her white hands in her lap and became a splendid +ice-berg. Clay's dog put up his brown nose for a little attention, and +got it. He retired under the table with an apologetic yelp, which did +not affect the iceberg.</p> + +<p>Judge Hawkins had written and asked Clay to return home and consult with +him upon family affairs. He arrived the evening after this conversation, +and the whole household gave him a rapturous welcome. He brought sadly +needed help with him, consisting of the savings of a year and a half of +work—nearly two hundred dollars in money.</p> + +<p>It was a ray of sunshine which (to this easy household) was the earnest +of a clearing sky.</p> + +<p>Bright and early in the morning the family were astir, and all were busy +preparing Washington for his journey—at least all but Washington +himself, who sat apart, steeped in a reverie. When the time for his +departure came, it was easy to see how fondly all loved him and how hard +it was to let him go, notwithstanding they had often seen him go before, +in his St. Louis schooling days. In the most matter-of-course way they +had borne the burden of getting him ready for his trip, never seeming to +think of his helping in the matter; in the same matter-of-course way Clay +had hired a horse and cart; and now that the good-byes were ended he +bundled Washington's baggage in and drove away with the exile.</p> + +<p>At Swansea Clay paid his stage fare, stowed him away in the vehicle, and +saw him off. Then he returned home and reported progress, like a +committee of the whole.</p> + +<p>Clay remained at home several days. He held many consultations with his +mother upon the financial condition of the family, and talked once with +his father upon the same subject, but only once. He found a change in +that quarter which was distressing; years of fluctuating fortune had done +their work; each reverse had weakened the father's spirit and impaired +his energies; his last misfortune seemed to have left hope and ambition +dead within him; he had no projects, formed no plans—evidently he was a +vanquished man. He looked worn and tired. He inquired into Clay's +affairs and prospects, and when he found that Clay was doing pretty well +and was likely to do still better, it was plain that he resigned himself +with easy facility to look to the son for a support; and he said, "Keep +yourself informed of poor Washington's condition and movements, and help +him along all you can, Clay."</p> + +<p>The younger children, also, seemed relieved of all fears and distresses, +and very ready and willing to look to Clay for a livelihood. Within +three days a general tranquility and satisfaction reigned in the +household. Clay's hundred and eighty or ninety, dollars had worked a +wonder. The family were as contented, now, and as free from care as they +could have been with a fortune. It was well that Mrs. Hawkins held the +purse otherwise the treasure would have lasted but a very little while.</p> + +<p>It took but a trifle to pay Hawkins's outstanding obligations, for he had +always had a horror of debt.</p> + +<p>When Clay bade his home good-bye and set out to return to the field of +his labors, he was conscious that henceforth he was to have his father's +family on his hands as pensioners; but he did not allow himself to chafe +at the thought, for he reasoned that his father had dealt by him with a +free hand and a loving one all his life, and now that hard fortune had +broken his spirit it ought to be a pleasure, not a pain, to work for him. +The younger children were born and educated dependents. They had never +been taught to do anything for themselves, and it did not seem to occur +to them to make an attempt now.</p> + +<p>The girls would not have been permitted to work for a living under any +circumstances whatever. It was a southern family, and of good blood; +and for any person except Laura, either within or without the household +to have suggested such an idea would have brought upon the suggester the +suspicion of being a lunatic.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p074"></a><img alt="p074.jpg (24K)" src="images/p074.jpg" height="291" width="493"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch7"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2></center> +<br> + + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> Via, Pecunia! when she's run and gone +<br> And fled, and dead, then will I fetch her again +<br> With aqua vita, out of an old hogshead! +<br> While there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer, +<br> I'll never want her! Coin her out of cobwebs, +<br> Dust, but I'll have her! raise wool upon egg-shells, +<br> Sir, and make grass grow out of marrow-bones, +<br> To make her come! +<br> B. Jonson. +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Bearing Washington Hawkins and his fortunes, the stage-coach tore out of +Swansea at a fearful gait, with horn tooting gaily and half the town +admiring from doors and windows. But it did not tear any more after it +got to the outskirts; it dragged along stupidly enough, then—till it +came in sight of the next hamlet; and then the bugle tooted gaily again +and again the vehicle went tearing by the horses. This sort of conduct +marked every entry to a station and every exit from it; and so in those +days children grew up with the idea that stage-coaches always tore and +always tooted; but they also grew up with the idea that pirates went into +action in their Sunday clothes, carrying the black flag in one hand and +pistolling people with the other, merely because they were so represented +in the pictures—but these illusions vanished when later years brought +their disenchanting wisdom. They learned then that the stagecoach is but +a poor, plodding, vulgar thing in the solitudes of the highway; and that +the pirate is only a seedy, unfantastic "rough," when he is out of the +pictures.</p> + +<p>Toward evening, the stage-coach came thundering into Hawkeye with a +perfectly triumphant ostentation—which was natural and proper, for +Hawkey a was a pretty large town for interior Missouri. Washington, +very stiff and tired and hungry, climbed out, and wondered how he was to +proceed now. But his difficulty was quickly solved. Col. Sellers came +down the street on a run and arrived panting for breath. He said:</p> + +<p>"Lord bless you—I'm glad to see you, Washington—perfectly delighted to +see you, my boy! I got your message. Been on the look-out for you. +Heard the stage horn, but had a party I couldn't shake off—man that's +got an enormous thing on hand—wants me to put some capital into it—and +I tell you, my boy, I could do worse, I could do a deal worse. No, now, +let that luggage alone; I'll fix that. Here, Jerry, got anything to do? +All right-shoulder this plunder and follow me. Come along, Washington. +Lord I'm glad to see you! Wife and the children are just perishing to +look at you. Bless you, they won't know you, you've grown so. Folks all +well, I suppose? That's good—glad to hear that. We're always going to +run down and see them, but I'm into so many operations, and they're not +things a man feels like trusting to other people, and so somehow we keep +putting it off. Fortunes in them! Good gracious, it's the country to +pile up wealth in! Here we are—here's where the Sellers dynasty hangs +out. Hump it on the door-step, Jerry—the blackest niggro in the State, +Washington, but got a good heart—mighty likely boy, is Jerry. And now I +suppose you've got to have ten cents, Jerry. That's all right—when a +man works for me—when a man—in the other pocket, I reckon—when a +man—why, where the mischief as that portmonnaie!—when a—well now that's +odd—Oh, now I remember, must have left it at the bank; and b'George I've +left my check-book, too—Polly says I ought to have a nurse—well, no +matter. Let me have a dime, Washington, if you've got—ah, thanks. Now +clear out, Jerry, your complexion has brought on the twilight half an +hour ahead of time. Pretty fair joke—pretty fair. Here he is, Polly! +Washington's come, children! come now, don't eat him up—finish him in +the house. Welcome, my boy, to a mansion that is proud to shelter the +son of the best man that walks on the ground. Si Hawkins has been a good +friend to me, and I believe I can say that whenever I've had a chance to +put him into a good thing I've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully, +too. I put him into that sugar speculation—what a grand thing that was, +if we hadn't held on too long!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p077"></a><img alt="p077.jpg (37K)" src="images/p077.jpg" height="477" width="455"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>True enough; but holding on too long had utterly ruined both of them; +and the saddest part of it was, that they never had had so much money to +lose before, for Sellers's sale of their mule crop that year in New +Orleans had been a great financial success. If he had kept out of sugar +and gone back home content to stick to mules it would have been a happy +wisdom. As it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone—that is +to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he +had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that +laid the golden egg—which is but a figurative expression and will be so +understood. Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-handed, and the +mule business lapsed into other hands. The sale of the Hawkins property +by the Sheriff had followed, and the Hawkins hearts been torn to see +Uncle Dan'l and his wife pass from the auction-block into the hands of a +negro trader and depart for the remote South to be seen no more by the +family. It had seemed like seeing their own flesh and blood sold into +banishment.</p> + +<p>Washington was greatly pleased with the Sellers mansion. It was a +two-story-and-a-half brick, and much more stylish than any of its neighbors. +He was borne to the family sitting room in triumph by the swarm of little +Sellerses, the parents following with their arms about each other's +waists.</p> + +<p>The whole family were poorly and cheaply dressed; and the clothing, +although neat and clean, showed many evidences of having seen long +service. The Colonel's "stovepipe" hat was napless and shiny with much +polishing, but nevertheless it had an almost convincing expression about +it of having been just purchased new. The rest of his clothing was +napless and shiny, too, but it had the air of being entirely satisfied +with itself and blandly sorry for other people's clothes. It was growing +rather dark in the house, and the evening air was chilly, too. Sellers +said:</p> + +<p>"Lay off your overcoat, Washington, and draw up to the stove and make +yourself at home—just consider yourself under your own shingles my +boy—I'll have a fire going, in a jiffy. Light the lamp, Polly, dear, and +let's have things cheerful just as glad to see you, Washington, as if +you'd been lost a century and we'd found you again!"</p> + +<p>By this time the Colonel was conveying a lighted match into a poor little +stove. Then he propped the stove door to its place by leaning the poker +against it, for the hinges had retired from business. This door framed +a small square of isinglass, which now warmed up with a faint glow. +Mrs. Sellers lit a cheap, showy lamp, which dissipated a good deal of the +gloom, and then everybody gathered into the light and took the stove into +close companionship.</p> + +<p>The children climbed all over Sellers, fondled him, petted him, and were +lavishly petted in return. Out from this tugging, laughing, chattering +disguise of legs and arms and little faces, the Colonel's voice worked +its way and his tireless tongue ran blithely on without interruption; +and the purring little wife, diligent with her knitting, sat near at hand +and looked happy and proud and grateful; and she listened as one who +listens to oracles and, gospels and whose grateful soul is being +refreshed with the bread of life. Bye and bye the children quieted down +to listen; clustered about their father, and resting their elbows on his +legs, they hung upon his words as if he were uttering the music of the +spheres.</p> + +<p>A dreary old hair-cloth sofa against the wall; a few damaged chairs; the +small table the lamp stood on; the crippled stove—these things +constituted the furniture of the room. There was no carpet on the floor; +on the wall were occasional square-shaped interruptions of the general +tint of the plaster which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the +house—but there were none now. There were no mantel ornaments, unless +one might bring himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came +within fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands always +hitched together at twenty-two minutes past anything and traveled in +company the rest of the way home.</p> + +<p>"Remarkable clock!" said Sellers, and got up and wound it. "I've been +offered—well, I wouldn't expect you to believe what I've been offered +for that clock. Old Gov. Hager never sees me but he says, 'Come, now, +Colonel, name your price—I must have that clock!' But my goodness I'd +as soon think of selling my wife. As I was saying to— silence in the +court, now, she's begun to strike! You can't talk against her—you have +to just be patient and hold up till she's said her say. Ah well, as I +was saying, when—she's beginning again! Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, +twenty-two, twen——ah, that's all.—Yes, as I was saying to old +Judge——go it, old girl, don't mind me.—Now how is that?——isn't that a +good, spirited tone? She can wake the dead! Sleep? Why you might as +well try to sleep in a thunder-factory. Now just listen at that. She'll +strike a hundred and fifty, now, without stopping,—you'll see. There +ain't another clock like that in Christendom."</p> + +<p>Washington hoped that this might be true, for the din was +distracting—though the family, one and all, seemed filled with joy; and the more the +clock "buckled down to her work" as the Colonel expressed it, and the +more insupportable the clatter became, the more enchanted they all +appeared to be. When there was silence, Mrs Sellers lifted upon +Washington a face that beamed with a childlike pride, and said:</p> + +<p>"It belonged to his grandmother."</p> + +<p>The look and the tone were a plain call for admiring surprise, and +therefore Washington said (it was the only thing that offered itself at +the moment:)</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it did, didn't it father!" exclaimed one of the twins. "She was my +great-grandmother—and George's too; wasn't she, father! You never saw +her, but Sis has seen her, when Sis was a baby-didn't you, Sis! Sis has +seen her most a hundred times. She was awful deef—she's dead, now. +Aint she, father!"</p> + +<p>All the children chimed in, now, with one general Babel of information +about deceased—nobody offering to read the riot act or seeming to +discountenance the insurrection or disapprove of it in any way—but the +head twin drowned all the turmoil and held his own against the field:</p> + +<p>"It's our clock, now—and it's got wheels inside of it, and a thing that +flutters every time she strikes—don't it, father! Great-grandmother +died before hardly any of us was born—she was an Old-School Baptist and +had warts all over her—you ask father if she didn't. She had an uncle +once that was bald-headed and used to have fits; he wasn't our uncle, +I don't know what he was to us—some kin or another I reckon—father's +seen him a thousand times—hain't you, father! We used to have a calf +that et apples and just chawed up dishrags like nothing, and if you stay +here you'll see lots of funerals—won't he, Sis! Did you ever see a +house afire? I have! Once me and Jim Terry——"</p> + +<p>But Sellers began to speak now, and the storm ceased. He began to tell +about an enormous speculation he was thinking of embarking some capital +in—a speculation which some London bankers had been over to consult with +him about—and soon he was building glittering pyramids of coin, and +Washington was presently growing opulent under the magic of his +eloquence. But at the same time Washington was not able to ignore the +cold entirely. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p081"></a><img alt="p081.jpg (52K)" src="images/p081.jpg" height="453" width="557"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>He was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, +and yet he could not persuade himself, that he felt the slightest heat, +notwithstanding the isinglass' door was still gently and serenely +glowing. He tried to get a trifle closer to the stove, and the +consequence was, he tripped the supporting poker and the stove-door +tumbled to the floor. And then there was a revelation—there was nothing +in the stove but a lighted tallow-candle! The poor youth blushed and +felt as if he must die with shame. But the Colonel was only +disconcerted for a moment—he straightway found his voice again:</p> + +<p>"A little idea of my own, Washington—one of the greatest things in the +world! You must write and tell your father about it—don't forget that, +now. I have been reading up some European Scientific reports—friend of +mine, Count Fugier, sent them to me—sends me all sorts of things from +Paris—he thinks the world of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the +Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came +to the conclusion that it was a nonconductor or something like that, +and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous +organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any +tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you I saw in a moment what +was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your fires!—no more slow +torture and certain death for me, sir. What you want is the appearance +of heat, not the heat itself—that's the idea. Well how to do it was the +next thing. I just put my head, to work, pegged away, a couple of days, +and here you are! Rheumatism? Why a man can't any more start a case of +rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy! +Stove with a candle in it and a transparent door—that's it—it has been +the salvation of this family. Don't you fail to write your father about +it, Washington. And tell him the idea is mine—I'm no more conceited +than most people, I reckon, but you know it is human nature for a man to +want credit for a thing like that."</p> + +<p>Washington said with his blue lips that he would, but he said in his +secret heart that he would promote no such iniquity. He tried to believe +in the healthfulness of the invention, and succeeded tolerably well; +but after all he could not feel that good health in a frozen, body was +any real improvement on the rheumatism.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch8"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> —Whan pe horde is thynne, as of seruyse, +<br> Nought replenesshed with grete diuersite +<br> Of mete & drinke, good chere may then suffise +<br> With honest talkyng—— + The Book of Curtesye. +<br> +<br> MAMMON. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore +<br> In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru: +<br> And there within, sir, are the golden mines, +<br> Great Solomon's Ophir!—— +<br> B. Jonson +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The supper at Col. Sellers's was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but it +improved on acquaintance. That is to say, that what Washington regarded +at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became awe-inspiring +agricultural productions that had been reared in some ducal garden beyond +the sea, under the sacred eye of the duke himself, who had sent them to +Sellers; the bread was from corn which could be grown in only one favored +locality in the earth and only a favored few could get it; the Rio +coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the taste, took to itself an +improved flavor when Washington was told to drink it slowly and not hurry +what should be a lingering luxury in order to be fully appreciated—it +was from the private stores of a Brazilian nobleman with an +unrememberable name. The Colonel's tongue was a magician's wand that +turned dried apples into figs and water into wine as easily as it could +change a hovel into a palace and present poverty into imminent future +riches.</p> + +<p>Washington slept in a cold bed in a carpetless room and woke up in a +palace in the morning; at least the palace lingered during the moment +that he was rubbing his eyes and getting his bearings—and then it +disappeared and he recognized that the Colonel's inspiring talk had been +influencing his dreams. Fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered +the sitting room he noticed that the old hair-cloth sofa was absent; when +he sat down to breakfast the Colonel tossed six or seven dollars in bills +on the table, counted them over, said he was a little short and must call +upon his banker; then returned the bills to his wallet with the +indifferent air of a man who is used to money. The breakfast was not an +improvement upon the supper, but the Colonel talked it up and transformed +it into an oriental feast. Bye and bye, he said:</p> + +<p>"I intend to look out for you, Washington, my boy. I hunted up a place +for you yesterday, but I am not referring to that,—now—that is a mere +livelihood—mere bread and butter; but when I say I mean to look out for +you I mean something very different. I mean to put things in your way +than will make a mere livelihood a trifling thing. I'll put you in a way +to make more money than you'll ever know what to do with. You'll be +right here where I can put my hand on you when anything turns up. I've +got some prodigious operations on foot; but I'm keeping quiet; mum's the +word; your old hand don't go around pow-wowing and letting everybody see +his k'yards and find out his little game. But all in good time, +Washington, all in good time. You'll see. Now there's an operation in +corn that looks well. Some New York men are trying to get me to go into +it—buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they +mature—ah I tell you it's a great thing. And it only costs a trifle; +two millions or two and a half will do it. I haven't exactly promised +yet—there's no hurry—the more indifferent I seem, you know, the more +anxious those fellows will get. And then there is the hog +speculation—that's bigger still. We've got quiet men at work," [he was very +impressive here,] "mousing around, to get propositions out of all the +farmers in the whole west and northwest for the hog crop, and other +agents quietly getting propositions and terms out of all the +manufactories—and don't you see, if we can get all the hogs and all the +slaughter horses into our hands on the dead quiet—whew! it would take +three ships to carry the money.—I've looked into the thing—calculated +all the chances for and all the chances against, and though I shake my +head and hesitate and keep on thinking, apparently, I've got my mind made +up that if the thing can be done on a capital of six millions, that's the +horse to put up money on! Why Washington—but what's the use of talking +about it—any man can see that there's whole Atlantic oceans of cash in +it, gulfs and bays thrown in. But there's a bigger thing than that, yes +bigger——"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p085"></a><img alt="p085.jpg (46K)" src="images/p085.jpg" height="421" width="527"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Why Colonel, you can't want anything bigger!" said Washington, his eyes +blazing. "Oh, I wish I could go into either of those speculations—I +only wish I had money—I wish I wasn't cramped and kept down and fettered +with poverty, and such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! +Oh, it is a fearful thing to be poor. But don't throw away those +things—they are so splendid and I can see how sure they are. Don't throw them +away for something still better and maybe fail in it! I wouldn't, +Colonel. I would stick to these. I wish father were here and were his +old self again—Oh, he never in his life had such chances as these are. +Colonel; you can't improve on these—no man can improve on them!"</p> + +<p>A sweet, compassionate smile played about the Colonel's features, and he +leaned over the table with the air of a man who is "going to show you" +and do it without the least trouble:</p> + +<p>"Why Washington, my boy, these things are nothing. They look large of +course—they look large to a novice, but to a man who has been all his +life accustomed to large operations—shaw! They're well enough to while +away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a +trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting for +something to do, but—now just listen a moment—just let me give you an +idea of what we old veterans of commerce call 'business.' Here's the +Rothschild's proposition—this is between you and me, you understand——"</p> + +<p>Washington nodded three or four times impatiently, and his glowing eyes +said, "Yes, yes—hurry—I understand——"</p> + +<p>——"for I wouldn't have it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in +with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the +sly" [voice down to an impressive whisper, now,] "and buy up a hundred +and thirteen wild cat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and +Missouri—notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now—average +discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent—buy them all +up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! Whiz! +the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a tremendous +premium before you could turn a handspring—profit on the speculation not +a dollar less than forty millions!" [An eloquent pause, while the +marvelous vision settled into W.'s focus.] "Where's your hogs now? +Why my dear innocent boy, we would just sit down on the front door-steps +and peddle banks like lucifer matches!"</p> + +<p>Washington finally got his breath and said:</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is perfectly wonderful! Why couldn't these things have happened +in father's day? And I—it's of no use—they simply lie before my face +and mock me. There is nothing for me but to stand helpless and see other +people reap the astonishing harvest."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Washington, don't you worry. I'll fix you. There's plenty +of chances. How much money have you got?"</p> + +<p>In the presence of so many millions, Washington could not keep from +blushing when he had to confess that he had but eighteen dollars in the +world.</p> + +<p>"Well, all right—don't despair. Other people have been obliged to begin +with less. I have a small idea that may develop into something for us +both, all in good time. Keep your money close and add to it. I'll make +it breed. I've been experimenting (to pass away the time), on a little +preparation for curing sore eyes—a kind of decoction nine-tenths water +and the other tenth drugs that don't cost more than a dollar a barrel; +I'm still experimenting; there's one ingredient wanted yet to perfect the +thing, and somehow I can't just manage to hit upon the thing that's +necessary, and I don't dare talk with a chemist, of course. But I'm +progressing, and before many weeks I wager the country will ring with the +fame of Beriah Sellers' Infallible Imperial Oriental Optic Liniment and +Salvation for Sore Eyes—the Medical Wonder of the Age! Small bottles +fifty cents, large ones a dollar. Average cost, five and seven cents for +the two sizes.</p> + +<p>"The first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in Missouri, seven +thousand in Iowa, three thousand in Arkansas, four thousand in Kentucky, +six thousand in Illinois, and say twenty-five thousand in the rest of the +country. Total, fifty five thousand bottles; profit clear of all +expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest calculation. All +the capital needed is to manufacture the first two thousand +bottles—say a hundred and fifty dollars—then the money would begin to flow in. +The second year, sales would reach 200,000 bottles—clear profit, say, +$75,000—and in the meantime the great factory would be building in St. +Louis, to cost, say, $100,000. The third year we could, easily sell +1,000,000 bottles in the United States and——"</p> + +<p>"O, splendid!" said Washington. "Let's commence right away—let's——"</p> + +<p>"——1,000,000 bottles in the United States—profit at least +$350,000—and then it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the real +idea of the business."</p> + +<p>"The real idea of it! Ain't $350,000 a year a pretty real——"</p> + +<p>"Stuff! Why what an infant you are, Washington—what a guileless, +short-sighted, easily-contented innocent you, are, my poor little country-bred +know-nothing! Would I go to all that trouble and bother for the poor +crumbs a body might pick up in this country? Now do I look like a man +who——does my history suggest that I am a man who deals in trifles, +contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the common herd, +sees no further than the end of his nose? Now you know that that is not +me—couldn't be me. You ought to know that if I throw my time and +abilities into a patent medicine, it's a patent medicine whose field of +operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming nations that +inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an eye-water +country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway that you've +got to cross to get to the true eye-water market! Why, Washington, in +the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the desert; every +square mile of ground upholds its thousands upon thousands of struggling +human creatures—and every separate and individual devil of them's got +the ophthalmia! It's as natural to them as noses are—and sin. It's +born with them, it stays with them, it's all that some of them have left +when they die. Three years of introductory trade in the orient and what +will be the result? Why, our headquarters would be in Constantinople and +our hindquarters in Further India! Factories and warehouses in Cairo, +Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yedo, Peking, Bangkok, Delhi, +Bombay—and Calcutta! Annual income—well, God only knows how many +millions and millions apiece!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p089"></a><img alt="p089.jpg (33K)" src="images/p089.jpg" height="411" width="545"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Washington was so dazed, so bewildered—his heart and his eyes had +wandered so far away among the strange lands beyond the seas, and such +avalanches of coin and currency had fluttered and jingled confusedly down +before him, that he was now as one who has been whirling round and round +for a time, and, stopping all at once, finds his surroundings still +whirling and all objects a dancing chaos. However, little by little the +Sellers family cooled down and crystalized into shape, and the poor room +lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. Then the youth found his voice +and begged Sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water; and he +got his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the Colonel—pleaded +with him to take it—implored him to do it. But the Colonel would not; +said he would not need the capital (in his native magnificent way he +called that eighteen dollars Capital) till the eye-water was an +accomplished fact. He made Washington easy in his mind, though, by +promising that he would call for it just as soon as the invention was +finished, and he added the glad tidings that nobody but just they two +should be admitted to a share in the speculation.</p> + +<p>When Washington left the breakfast table he could have worshiped that +man. Washington was one of that kind of people whose hopes are in the +very, clouds one day and in the gutter the next. He walked on air, now. +The Colonel was ready to take him around and introduce him to the +employment he had found for him, but Washington begged for a few moments +in which to write home; with his kind of people, to ride to-day's new +interest to death and put off yesterday's till another time, is nature +itself. He ran up stairs and wrote glowingly, enthusiastically, to his +mother about the hogs and the corn, the banks and the eye-water—and +added a few inconsequential millions to each project. And he said that +people little dreamed what a man Col. Sellers was, and that the world +would open its eyes when it found out. And he closed his letter thus:</p> + +<p>"So make yourself perfectly easy, mother-in a little while you shall have +everything you want, and more. I am not likely to stint you in anything, +I fancy. This money will not be for me, alone, but for all of us. +I want all to share alike; and there is going to be far more for each +than one person can spend. Break it to father cautiously—you understand +the need of that—break it to him cautiously, for he has had such cruel +hard fortune, and is so stricken by it that great good news might +prostrate him more surely than even bad, for he is used to the bad but +is grown sadly unaccustomed to the other. Tell Laura—tell all the +children. And write to Clay about it if he is not with you yet. You may +tell Clay that whatever I get he can freely share in-freely. He knows +that that is true—there will be no need that I should swear to that to +make him believe it. Good-bye—and mind what I say: Rest perfectly easy, +one and all of you, for our troubles are nearly at an end."</p> + +<p>Poor lad, he could not know that his mother would cry some loving, +compassionate tears over his letter and put off the family with a +synopsis of its contents which conveyed a deal of love to then but not +much idea of his prospects or projects. And he never dreamed that such a +joyful letter could sadden her and fill her night with sighs, and +troubled thoughts, and bodings of the future, instead of filling it with +peace and blessing it with restful sleep.</p> + +<p>When the letter was done, Washington and the Colonel sallied forth, and +as they walked along Washington learned what he was to be. He was to be +a clerk in a real estate office. Instantly the fickle youth's dreams +forsook the magic eye-water and flew back to the Tennessee Land. And the +gorgeous possibilities of that great domain straightway began to occupy +his imagination to such a degree that he could scarcely manage to keep +even enough of his attention upon the Colonel's talk to retain the +general run of what he was saying. He was glad it was a real estate +office—he was a made man now, sure.</p> + +<p>The Colonel said that General Boswell was a rich man and had a good and +growing business; and that Washington's work world be light and he would +get forty dollars a month and be boarded and lodged in the General's +family—which was as good as ten dollars more; and even better, for he +could not live as well even at the "City Hotel" as he would there, and +yet the hotel charged fifteen dollars a month where a man had a good +room.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p091"></a><img alt="p091.jpg (39K)" src="images/p091.jpg" height="339" width="557"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>General Boswell was in his office; a comfortable looking place, with +plenty of outline maps hanging about the walls and in the windows, and +a spectacled man was marking out another one on a long table. The office +was in the principal street. The General received Washington with a +kindly but reserved politeness. Washington rather liked his looks. +He was about fifty years old, dignified, well preserved and well dressed. +After the Colonel took his leave, the General talked a while with +Washington—his talk consisting chiefly of instructions about the +clerical duties of the place. He seemed satisfied as to Washington's +ability to take care of the books, he was evidently a pretty fair +theoretical bookkeeper, and experience would soon harden theory into +practice. By and by dinner-time came, and the two walked to the +General's house; and now Washington noticed an instinct in himself that +moved him to keep not in the General's rear, exactly, but yet not at his +side—somehow the old gentleman's dignity and reserve did not inspire +familiarity.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p092"></a><img alt="p092.jpg (20K)" src="images/p092.jpg" height="343" width="571"> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch9"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Washington dreamed his way along the street, his fancy flitting from +grain to hogs, from hogs to banks, from banks to eyewater, from eye-water +to Tennessee Land, and lingering but a feverish moment upon each of these +fascinations. He was conscious of but one outward thing, to wit, the +General, and he was really not vividly conscious of him.</p> + +<p>Arrived at the finest dwelling in the town, they entered it and were at +home. Washington was introduced to Mrs. Boswell, and his imagination was +on the point of flitting into the vapory realms of speculation again, +when a lovely girl of sixteen or seventeen came in. This vision swept +Washington's mind clear of its chaos of glittering rubbish in an instant. +Beauty had fascinated him before; many times he had been in love even for +weeks at a time with the same object but his heart had never suffered so +sudden and so fierce an assault as this, within his recollection.</p> + +<p>Louise Boswell occupied his mind and drifted among his multiplication +tables all the afternoon. He was constantly catching himself in a +reverie—reveries made up of recalling how she looked when she first +burst upon him; how her voice thrilled him when she first spoke; how +charmed the very air seemed by her presence. Blissful as the afternoon +was, delivered up to such a revel as this, it seemed an eternity, so +impatient was he to see the girl again. Other afternoons like it +followed. Washington plunged into this love affair as he plunged into +everything else—upon impulse and without reflection. As the days went +by it seemed plain that he was growing in favor with Louise,—not +sweepingly so, but yet perceptibly, he fancied. His attentions to her +troubled her father and mother a little, and they warned Louise, without +stating particulars or making allusions to any special person, that a +girl was sure to make a mistake who allowed herself to marry anybody but +a man who could support her well.</p> + +<p>Some instinct taught Washington that his present lack of money would be +an obstruction, though possibly not a bar, to his hopes, and straightway +his poverty became a torture to him which cast all his former sufferings +under that held into the shade. He longed for riches now as he had ever +longed for them before.</p> + +<p>He had been once or twice to dine with Col. Sellers, and had been +discouraged to note that the Colonel's bill of fare was falling off both +in quantity and quality—a sign, he feared, that the lacking ingredient +in the eye-water still remained undiscovered—though Sellers always +explained that these changes in the family diet had been ordered by the +doctor, or suggested by some new scientific work the Colonel had stumbled +upon. But it always turned out that the lacking ingredient was still +lacking—though it always appeared, at the same time, that the Colonel +was right on its heels.</p> + +<p>Every time the Colonel came into the real estate office Washington's +heart bounded and his eyes lighted with hope, but it always turned out +that the Colonel was merely on the scent of some vast, undefined landed +speculation—although he was customarily able to say that he was nearer +to the all-necessary ingredient than ever, and could almost name the hour +when success would dawn. And then Washington's heart world sink again +and a sigh would tell when it touched bottom.</p> + +<p>About this time a letter came, saying that Judge Hawkins had been ailing +for a fortnight, and was now considered to be seriously ill. It was +thought best that Washington should come home. The news filled him with +grief, for he loved and honored his father; the Boswells were touched by +the youth's sorrow, and even the General unbent and said encouraging +things to him.—There was balm in this; but when Louise bade him +good-bye, and shook his hand and said, "Don't be cast down—it will all come +out right—I know it will all come out right," it seemed a blessed thing +to be in misfortune, and the tears that welled up to his eyes were the +messengers of an adoring and a grateful heart; and when the girl saw them +and answering tears came into her own eyes, Washington could hardly +contain the excess of happiness that poured into the cavities of his +breast that were so lately stored to the roof with grief.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p095"></a><img alt="p095.jpg (20K)" src="images/p095.jpg" height="465" width="319"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>All the way home he nursed his woe and exalted it. He pictured himself +as she must be picturing him: a noble, struggling young spirit persecuted +by misfortune, but bravely and patiently waiting in the shadow of a dread +calamity and preparing to meet the blow as became one who was all too +used to hard fortune and the pitiless buffetings of fate. These thoughts +made him weep, and weep more broken-heartedly than ever; and be wished +that she could see his sufferings now.</p> + +<p>There was nothing significant in the fact that Louise, dreamy and +distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling +"Washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. But there was +something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every +time she wrote it; examined the erasure critically to see if anybody +could guess at what the word had been; then buried it under a maze of +obliterating lines; and finally, as if still unsatisfied, burned the +paper.</p> + +<p>When Washington reached home, he recognized at once how serious his +father's case was. The darkened room, the labored breathing and +occasional moanings of the patient, the tip-toeing of the attendants and +their whispered consultations, were full of sad meaning. For three or +four nights Mrs. Hawkins and Laura had been watching by the bedside; Clay +had arrived, preceding Washington by one day, and he was now added to the +corps of watchers. Mr. Hawkins would have none but these three, though +neighborly assistance was offered by old friends. From this time forth +three-hour watches were instituted, and day and night the watchers kept +their vigils. By degrees Laura and her mother began to show wear, but +neither of them would yield a minute of their tasks to Clay. He ventured +once to let the midnight hour pass without calling Laura, but he ventured +no more; there was that about her rebuke when he tried to explain, that +taught him that to let her sleep when she might be ministering to her +father's needs, was to rob her of moments that were priceless in her +eyes; he perceived that she regarded it as a privilege to watch, not a +burden. And, he had noticed, also, that when midnight struck, the +patient turned his eyes toward the door, with an expectancy in them which +presently grew into a longing but brightened into contentment as soon +as the door opened and Laura appeared. And he did not need Laura's +rebuke when he heard his father say:</p> + +<p>"Clay is good, and you are tired, poor child; but I wanted you so."</p> + +<p>"Clay is not good, father—he did not call me. I would not have treated +him so. How could you do it, Clay?"</p> + +<p>Clay begged forgiveness and promised not to break faith again; and as he +betook him to his bed, he said to himself: "It's a steadfast little +soul; whoever thinks he is doing the Duchess a kindness by intimating +that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to, +makes a mistake; and if I did not know it before, I know now that there +are surer ways of pleasing her than by trying to lighten her labor when +that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake of a person she +loves."</p> + +<p>A week drifted by, and all the while the patient sank lower and lower. +The night drew on that was to end all suspense. It was a wintry one. +The darkness gathered, the snow was falling, the wind wailed plaintively +about the house or shook it with fitful gusts. The doctor had paid his +last visit and gone away with that dismal remark to the nearest friend of +the family that he "believed there was nothing more that he could +do"—a remark which is always overheard by some one it is not meant for and +strikes a lingering half-conscious hope dead with a withering shock; +the medicine phials had been removed from the bedside and put out of +sight, and all things made orderly and meet for the solemn event that was +impending; the patient, with closed eyes, lay scarcely breathing; the +watchers sat by and wiped the gathering damps from his forehead while the +silent tears flowed down their faces; the deep hush was only interrupted +by sobs from the children, grouped about the bed.</p> + +<p>After a time—it was toward midnight now—Mr. Hawkins roused out of a +doze, looked about him and was evidently trying to speak. Instantly +Laura lifted his head and in a failing voice he said, while something of +the old light shone in his eyes:</p> + +<p>"Wife—children—come nearer—nearer. The darkness grows. Let me see +you all, once more."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p098"></a><img alt="p098.jpg (54K)" src="images/p098.jpg" height="481" width="553"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The group closed together at the bedside, and their tears and sobs came +now without restraint.</p> + +<p>"I am leaving you in cruel poverty. I have been—so foolish—so +short-sighted. But courage! A better day is—is coming. Never lose sight of +the Tennessee Land! Be wary. There is wealth stored up for you +there—wealth that is boundless! The children shall hold up their heads with +the best in the land, yet. Where are the papers?—Have you got the +papers safe? Show them—show them to me!"</p> + +<p>Under his strong excitement his voice had gathered power and his last +sentences were spoken with scarcely a perceptible halt or hindrance. +With an effort he had raised himself almost without assistance to a +sitting posture. But now the fire faded out of his eyes and be fell back +exhausted. The papers were brought and held before him, and the +answering smile that flitted across his face showed that he was +satisfied. He closed his eyes, and the signs of approaching dissolution +multiplied rapidly. He lay almost motionless for a little while, then +suddenly partly raised his head and looked about him as one who peers +into a dim uncertain light. He muttered:</p> + +<p>"Gone? No—I see you—still. It is—it is-over. But you are—safe. +Safe. The Ten——-"</p> + +<p>The voice died out in a whisper; the sentence was never finished. The +emaciated fingers began to pick at the coverlet, a fatal sign. After a +time there were no sounds but the cries of the mourners within and the +gusty turmoil of the wind without. Laura had bent down and kissed her +father's lips as the spirit left the body; but she did not sob, or utter +any ejaculation; her tears flowed silently. Then she closed the dead +eyes, and crossed the hands upon the breast; after a season, she kissed +the forehead reverently, drew the sheet up over the face, and then walked +apart and sat down with the look of one who is done with life and has no +further interest in its joys and sorrows, its hopes or its ambitions. +Clay buried his face in the coverlet of the bed; when the other children +and the mother realized that death was indeed come at last, they threw +themselves into each others' arms and gave way to a frenzy of grief.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p099"></a><img alt="p099.jpg (13K)" src="images/p099.jpg" height="191" width="437"> +</center> + + + +<br><br> +<hr> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 1. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 1. *** + +***** This file should be named 5818-h.htm or 5818-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/1/5818/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d27e415 --- /dev/null +++ b/5818-h/images/p099.jpg diff --git a/5818.txt b/5818.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..560996f --- /dev/null +++ b/5818.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2932 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 1. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gilded Age, Part 1. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 1. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE GILDED AGE + +A Tale of Today + +by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner + +1873 + + +Part 1. + + +PREFACE. + +This book was not written for private circulation among friends; it was +not written to cheer and instruct a diseased relative of the author's; +it was not thrown off during intervals of wearing labor to amuse an idle +hour. It was not written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is +submitted without the usual apologies. + +It will be seen that it deals with an entirely ideal state of society; +and the chief embarrassment of the writers in this realm of the +imagination has been the want of illustrative examples. In a State where +there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed desire for sudden wealth, +where the poor are all simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all +honest and generous, where society is in a condition of primitive purity +and politics is the occupation of only the capable and the patriotic, +there are necessarily no materials for such a history as we have +constructed out of an ideal commonwealth. + +No apology is needed for following the learned custom of placing +attractive scraps of literature at the heads of our chapters. It has +been truly observed by Wagner that such headings, with their vague +suggestions of the matter which is to follow them, pleasantly inflame the +reader's interest without wholly satisfying his curiosity, and we will +hope that it may be found to be so in the present case. + +Our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues; this is done for the +reason that very few foreign nations among whom the book will circulate +can read in any language but their own; whereas we do not write for a +particular class or sect or nation, but to take in the whole world. + +We do not object to criticism; and we do not expect that the critic will +read the book before writing a notice of it: We do not even expect the +reviewer of the book will say that he has not read it. No, we have no +anticipations of anything unusual in this age of criticism. But if the +Jupiter, Who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to peruse it +in some weary moment of his subsequent life, we hope that he will not be +the victim of a remorse bitter but too late. + +One word more. This is--what it pretends to be a joint production, in +the conception of the story, the exposition of the characters, and in its +literal composition. There is scarcely a chapter that does not bear the +marks of the two writers of the book. S. L. C. + C. D. W. + + + +[Etext Editor's Note: The following chapters were written by Mark Twain: +1-11, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32-34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51-53, 57, 59-62; +and portions of 35, 49, and 56. See Twain's letter to Dr. John Brown +Feb. 28, 1874 D.W.] + + + +CHAPTER I. + +June 18--. Squire Hawkins sat upon the pyramid of large blocks, called +the "stile," in front of his house, contemplating the morning. + +The locality was Obedstown, East Tennessee. You would not know that +Obedstown stood on the top of a mountain, for there was nothing about the +landscape to indicate it--but it did: a mountain that stretched abroad +over whole counties, and rose very gradually. The district was called +the "Knobs of East Tennessee," and had a reputation like Nazareth, as far +as turning out any good thing was concerned. + +The Squire's house was a double log cabin, in a state of decay; two or +three gaunt hounds lay asleep about the threshold, and lifted their heads +sadly whenever Mrs. Hawkins or the children stepped in and out over their +bodies. Rubbish was scattered about the grassless yard; a bench stood +near the door with a tin wash basin on it and a pail of water and a +gourd; a cat had begun to drink from the pail, but the exertion was +overtaxing her energies, and she had stopped to rest. There was an +ash-hopper by the fence, and an iron pot, for soft-soap-boiling, near it. + +This dwelling constituted one-fifteenth of Obedstown; the other fourteen +houses were scattered about among the tall pine trees and among the +corn-fields in such a way that a man might stand in the midst of the city +and not know but that he was in the country if he only depended on his +eyes for information. + +"Squire" Hawkins got his title from being postmaster of Obedstown--not +that the title properly belonged to the office, but because in those +regions the chief citizens always must have titles of some sort, and so +the usual courtesy had been extended to Hawkins. The mail was monthly, +and sometimes amounted to as much as three or four letters at a single +delivery. Even a rush like this did not fill up the postmaster's whole +month, though, and therefore he "kept store" in the intervals. + +The Squire was contemplating the morning. It was balmy and tranquil, +the vagrant breezes were laden with the odor of flowers, the murmur of +bees was in the air, there was everywhere that suggestion of repose that +summer woodlands bring to the senses, and the vague, pleasurable +melancholy that such a time and such surroundings inspire. + +Presently the United States mail arrived, on horseback. There was but +one letter, and it was for the postmaster. The long-legged youth who +carried the mail tarried an hour to talk, for there was no hurry; and in +a little while the male population of the village had assembled to help. +As a general thing, they were dressed in homespun "jeans," blue or +yellow--here were no other varieties of it; all wore one suspender and +sometimes two--yarn ones knitted at home,--some wore vests, but few wore +coats. Such coats and vests as did appear, however, were rather +picturesque than otherwise, for they were made of tolerably fanciful +patterns of calico--a fashion which prevails thereto this day among those +of the community who have tastes above the common level and are able to +afford style. Every individual arrived with his hands in his pockets; +a hand came out occasionally for a purpose, but it always went back again +after service; and if it was the head that was served, just the cant that +the dilapidated straw hat got by being uplifted and rooted under, was +retained until the next call altered the inclination; many' hats were +present, but none were erect and no two were canted just alike. We are +speaking impartially of men, youths and boys. And we are also speaking +of these three estates when we say that every individual was either +chewing natural leaf tobacco prepared on his own premises, or smoking the +same in a corn-cob pipe. Few of the men wore whiskers; none wore +moustaches; some had a thick jungle of hair under the chin and hiding the +throat--the only pattern recognized there as being the correct thing in +whiskers; but no part of any individual's face had seen a razor for a +week. + +These neighbors stood a few moments looking at the mail carrier +reflectively while he talked; but fatigue soon began to show itself, +and one after another they climbed up and occupied the top rail of the +fence, hump-shouldered and grave, like a company of buzzards assembled +for supper and listening for the death-rattle. Old Damrell said: + +"Tha hain't no news 'bout the jedge, hit ain't likely?" + +"Cain't tell for sartin; some thinks he's gwyne to be 'long toreckly, +and some thinks 'e hain't. Russ Mosely he tote ole Hanks he mought git +to Obeds tomorrer or nex' day he reckoned." + +"Well, I wisht I knowed. I got a 'prime sow and pigs in the, cote-house, +and I hain't got no place for to put 'em. If the jedge is a gwyne to +hold cote, I got to roust 'em out, I reckon. But tomorrer'll do, I +'spect." + +The speaker bunched his thick lips together like the stem-end of a tomato +and shot a bumble-bee dead that had lit on a weed seven feet away. +One after another the several chewers expressed a charge of tobacco juice +and delivered it at the deceased with steady, aim and faultless accuracy. + +"What's a stirrin', down 'bout the Forks?" continued Old Damrell. + +"Well, I dunno, skasely. Ole, Drake Higgins he's ben down to Shelby las' +week. Tuck his crap down; couldn't git shet o' the most uv it; hit +wasn't no time for to sell, he say, so he 'fotch it back agin, 'lowin' to +wait tell fall. Talks 'bout goin' to Mozouri--lots uv 'ems talkin' +that-away down thar, Ole Higgins say. Cain't make a livin' here no mo', +sich times as these. Si Higgins he's ben over to Kaintuck n' married a +high-toned gal thar, outen the fust families, an' he's come back to the +Forks with jist a hell's-mint o' whoop-jamboree notions, folks says. +He's tuck an' fixed up the ole house like they does in Kaintuck, he say, +an' tha's ben folks come cler from Turpentine for to see it. He's tuck +an gawmed it all over on the inside with plarsterin'." + +"What's plasterin'?" + +"I dono. Hit's what he calls it. 'Ole Mam Higgins, she tole me. +She say she wasn't gwyne to hang out in no sich a dern hole like a hog. +Says it's mud, or some sich kind o' nastiness that sticks on n' covers up +everything. Plarsterin', Si calls it." + +This marvel was discussed at considerable length; and almost with +animation. But presently there was a dog-fight over in the neighborhood +of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their perch like so +many turtles and strode to the battle-field with an interest bordering on +eagerness. The Squire remained, and read his letter. Then he sighed, +and sat long in meditation. At intervals he said: + +"Missouri. Missouri. Well, well, well, everything is so uncertain." + +At last he said: + +"I believe I'll do it.--A man will just rot, here. My house my yard, +everything around me, in fact, shows' that I am becoming one of these +cattle--and I used to be thrifty in other times." + +He was not more than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him +seem older. He left the stile, entered that part of his house which was +the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of +beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-woolsey, put his letter away, an went +into the kitchen. His wife was there, constructing some dried apple +pies; a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of +his own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was +sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying-pan and +trying hard not to sop over a finger-mark that divided the pan through +the middle--for the other side belonged to the brother, whose musings +made him forget his stomach for the moment; a negro woman was busy +cooking, at a vast fire-place. Shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the +place. + +"Nancy, I've made up my mind. The world is done with me, and perhaps I +ought to be done with it. But no matter--I can wait. I am going to +Missouri. I won't stay in this dead country and decay with it. I've had +it on my mind sometime. I'm going to sell out here for whatever I can +get, and buy a wagon and team and put you and the children in it and +start." + +"Anywhere that suits you, suits me, Si. And the children can't be any +worse off in Missouri than, they are here, I reckon." + +Motioning his wife to a private conference in their own room, Hawkins +said: "No, they'll be better off. I've looked out for them, Nancy," and +his face lighted. "Do you see these papers? Well, they are evidence +that I have taken up Seventy-five Thousand Acres of Land in this county +--think what an enormous fortune it will be some day! Why, Nancy, enormous +don't express it--the word's too tame! I tell your Nancy----" + +"For goodness sake, Si----" + +"Wait, Nancy, wait--let me finish--I've been secretly bailing and fuming +with this grand inspiration for weeks, and I must talk or I'll burst! +I haven't whispered to a soul--not a word--have had my countenance under +lock and key, for fear it might drop something that would tell even these +animals here how to discern the gold mine that's glaring under their +noses. Now all that is necessary to hold this land and keep it in the +family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly--five or ten dollars +--the whole tract would not sell for over a third of a cent an acre now, +but some day people wild be glad to get it for twenty dollars, fifty +dollars, a hundred dollars an acre! What should you say to" [here he +dropped his voice to a whisper and looked anxiously around to see that +there were no eavesdroppers,] "a thousand dollars an acre! + +"Well you may open your eyes and stare! But it's so. You and I may not +see the day, but they'll see it. Mind I tell you; they'll see it. +Nancy, you've heard of steamboats, and maybe you believed in them--of +course you did. You've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call +them lies and humbugs,--but they're not lies and humbugs, they're a +reality and they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day than they +are now. They're going to make a revolution in this world's affairs that +will make men dizzy to contemplate. I've been watching--I've been +watching while some people slept, and I know what's coming. + +"Even you and I will see the day that steamboats will come up that little +Turkey river to within twenty miles of this land of ours--and in high +water they'll come right to it! And this is not all, Nancy--it isn't +even half! There's a bigger wonder--the railroad! These worms here have +never even heard of it--and when they do they'll not believe in it. +But it's another fact. Coaches that fly over the ground twenty miles an +hour--heavens and earth, think of that, Nancy! Twenty miles an hour. +It makes a main's brain whirl. Some day, when you and I are in our +graves, there'll be a railroad stretching hundreds of miles--all the way +down from the cities of the Northern States to New Orleans--and its got +to run within thirty miles of this land--may be even touch a corner of +it. Well; do you know, they've quit burning wood in some places in the +Eastern States? And what do you suppose they burn? Coal!" [He bent over +and whispered again:] "There's world--worlds of it on this land! You +know that black stuff that crops out of the bank of the branch?--well, +that's it. You've taken it for rocks; so has every body here; and +they've built little dams and such things with it. One man was going to +build a chimney out of it. Nancy I expect I turned as white as a sheet! +Why, it might have caught fire and told everything. I showed him it was +too crumbly. Then he was going to build it of copper ore--splendid +yellow forty-per-cent. ore! There's fortunes upon fortunes of copper ore +on our land! It scared me to death, the idea of this fool starting a +smelting furnace in his house without knowing it, and getting his dull +eyes opened. And then he was going to build it of iron ore! There's +mountains of iron ore here, Nancy--whole mountains of it. I wouldn't +take any chances. I just stuck by him--I haunted him--I never let him +alone till he built it of mud and sticks like all the rest of the +chimneys in this dismal country. Pine forests, wheat land, corn land, +iron, copper, coal-wait till the railroads come, and the steamboats! +We'll never see the day, Nancy--never in the world---never, never, never, +child. We've got to drag along, drag along, and eat crusts in toil and +poverty, all hopeless and forlorn--but they'll ride in coaches, Nancy! +They'll live like the princes of the earth; they'll be courted and +worshiped; their names will be known from ocean to ocean! Ah, +well-a-day! Will they ever come back here, on the railroad and the +steamboat, and say, 'This one little spot shall not be touched--this +hovel shall be sacred--for here our father and our mother suffered for +us, thought for us, laid the foundations of our future as solid as the +hills!'" + +"You are a great, good, noble soul, Si Hawkins, and I am an honored woman +to be the wife of such a man"--and the tears stood in her eyes when she +said it. "We will go to Missouri. You are out of your place, here, +among these groping dumb creatures. We will find a higher place, where +you can walk with your own kind, and be understood when you speak--not +stared at as if you were talking some foreign tongue. I would go +anywhere, anywhere in the wide world with you I would rather my body +would starve and die than your mind should hunger and wither away in this +lonely land." + +"Spoken like yourself, my child! But we'll not starve, Nancy. Far from +it. I have a letter from Beriah Sellers--just came this day. A letter +that--I'll read you a line from it!" + +He flew out of the room. A shadow blurred the sunlight in Nancy's face +--there was uneasiness in it, and disappointment. A procession of +disturbing thoughts began to troop through her mind. Saying nothing +aloud, she sat with her hands in her lap; now and then she clasped them, +then unclasped them, then tapped the ends of the fingers together; +sighed, nodded, smiled--occasionally paused, shook her head. This +pantomime was the elocutionary expression of an unspoken soliloquy which +had something of this shape: + +"I was afraid of it--was afraid of it. Trying to make our fortune in +Virginia, Beriah Sellers nearly ruined us and we had to settle in +Kentucky and start over again. Trying to make our fortune in Kentucky he +crippled us again and we had to move here. Trying to make our fortune +here, he brought us clear down to the ground, nearly. He's an honest +soul, and means the very best in the world, but I'm afraid, I'm afraid +he's too flighty. He has splendid ideas, and he'll divide his chances +with his friends with a free hand, the good generous soul, but something +does seem to always interfere and spoil everything. I never did think he +was right well balanced. But I don't blame my husband, for I do think +that when that man gets his head full of a new notion, he can out-talk a +machine. He'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll listen to him +ten minutes--why I do believe he would make a deaf and dumb man believe +in it and get beside himself, if you only set him where he could see his +eyes tally and watch his hands explain. What a head he has got! When he +got up that idea there in Virginia of buying up whole loads of negroes in +Delaware and Virginia and Tennessee, very quiet, having papers drawn to +have them delivered at a place in Alabama and take them and pay for them, +away yonder at a certain time, and then in the meantime get a law made +stopping everybody from selling negroes to the south after a certain day +--it was somehow that way--mercy how the man would have made money! +Negroes would have gone up to four prices. But after he'd spent money +and worked hard, and traveled hard, and had heaps of negroes all +contracted for, and everything going along just right, he couldn't get +the laws passed and down the whole thing tumbled. And there in Kentucky, +when he raked up that old numskull that had been inventing away at a +perpetual motion machine for twenty-two years, and Beriah Sellers saw at +a glance where just one more little cog-wheel would settle the business, +why I could see it as plain as day when he came in wild at midnight and +hammered us out of bed and told the whole thing in a whisper with the +doors bolted and the candle in an empty barrel. Oceans of money in it +--anybody could see that. But it did cost a deal to buy the old numskull +out--and then when they put the new cog wheel in they'd overlooked +something somewhere and it wasn't any use--the troublesome thing wouldn't +go. That notion he got up here did look as handy as anything in the +world; and how him and Si did sit up nights working at it with the +curtains down and me watching to see if any neighbors were about. The +man did honestly believe there was a fortune in that black gummy oil that +stews out of the bank Si says is coal; and he refined it himself till it +was like water, nearly, and it did burn, there's no two ways about that; +and I reckon he'd have been all right in Cincinnati with his lamp that he +got made, that time he got a house full of rich speculators to see him +exhibit only in the middle of his speech it let go and almost blew the +heads off the whole crowd. I haven't got over grieving for the money +that cost yet. I am sorry enough Beriah Sellers is in Missouri, now, but +I was glad when he went. I wonder what his letter says. But of course +it's cheerful; he's never down-hearted--never had any trouble in his +life--didn't know it if he had. It's always sunrise with that man, and +fine and blazing, at that--never gets noon; though--leaves off and rises +again. Nobody can help liking the creature, he means so well--but I do +dread to come across him again; he's bound to set us all crazy, of +coarse. Well, there goes old widow Hopkins--it always takes her a week +to buy a spool of thread and trade a hank of yarn. Maybe Si can come +with the letter, now." + +And he did: + +"Widow Hopkins kept me--I haven't any patience with such tedious people. +Now listen, Nancy--just listen at this: + + "'Come right along to Missouri! Don't wait and worry about a good + price but sell out for whatever you can get, and come along, or you + might be too late. Throw away your traps, if necessary, and come + empty-handed. You'll never regret it. It's the grandest country + --the loveliest land--the purest atmosphere--I can't describe it; no + pen can do it justice. And it's filling up, every day--people + coming from everywhere. I've got the biggest scheme on earth--and + I'll take you in; I'll take in every friend I've got that's ever + stood by me, for there's enough for all, and to spare. Mum's the + word--don't whisper--keep yourself to yourself. You'll see! Come! + --rush!--hurry!--don't wait for anything!' + +"It's the same old boy, Nancy, jest the same old boy--ain't he?" + +"Yes, I think there's a little of the old sound about his voice yet. +I suppose you--you'll still go, Si?" + +"Go! Well, I should think so, Nancy. It's all a chance, of course, and, +chances haven't been kind to us, I'll admit--but whatever comes, old +wife, they're provided for. Thank God for that!" + +"Amen," came low and earnestly. + +And with an activity and a suddenness that bewildered Obedstown and +almost took its breath away, the Hawkinses hurried through with their +arrangements in four short months and flitted out into the great +mysterious blank that lay beyond the Knobs of Tennessee. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Toward the close of the third day's journey the wayfarers were just +beginning to think of camping, when they came upon a log cabin in the +woods. Hawkins drew rein and entered the yard. A boy about ten years +old was sitting in the cabin door with his face bowed in his hands. +Hawkins approached, expecting his footfall to attract attention, but it +did not. He halted a moment, and then said: + +"Come, come, little chap, you mustn't be going to sleep before sundown" + +With a tired expression the small face came up out of the hands,--a face +down which tears were flowing. + +"Ah, I'm sorry I spoke so, my boy. Tell me--is anything the matter?" + +The boy signified with a scarcely perceptible gesture that the trouble +was in the, house, and made room for Hawkins to pass. Then he put his +face in his hands again and rocked himself about as one suffering a grief +that is too deep to find help in moan or groan or outcry. Hawkins +stepped within. It was a poverty stricken place. Six or eight +middle-aged country people of both sexes were grouped about an object in +the middle of the room; they were noiselessly busy and they talked in +whispers when they spoke. Hawkins uncovered and approached. A coffin +stood upon two backless chairs. These neighbors had just finished +disposing the body of a woman in it--a woman with a careworn, gentle face +that had more the look of sleep about it than of death. An old lady +motioned, toward the door and said to Hawkins in a whisper: + +"His mother, po' thing. Died of the fever, last night. Tha warn't no +sich thing as saving of her. But it's better for her--better for her. +Husband and the other two children died in the spring, and she hain't +ever hilt up her head sence. She jest went around broken-hearted like, +and never took no intrust in anything but Clay--that's the boy thar. +She jest worshiped Clay--and Clay he worshiped her. They didn't 'pear to +live at all, only when they was together, looking at each other, loving +one another. She's ben sick three weeks; and if you believe me that +child has worked, and kep' the run of the med'cin, and the times of +giving it, and sot up nights and nussed her, and tried to keep up her +sperits, the same as a grown-up person. And last night when she kep' a +sinking and sinking, and turned away her head and didn't know him no mo', +it was fitten to make a body's heart break to see him climb onto the bed +and lay his cheek agin hern and call her so pitiful and she not answer. +But bymeby she roused up, like, and looked around wild, and then she see +him, and she made a great cry and snatched him to her breast and hilt him +close and kissed him over and over agin; but it took the last po' +strength she had, and so her eyelids begin to close down, and her arms +sort o' drooped away and then we see she was gone, po' creetur. And +Clay, he--Oh, the po' motherless thing--I cain't talk abort it--I cain't +bear to talk about it." + +Clay had disappeared from the door; but he came in, now, and the +neighbors reverently fell apart and made way for him. He leaned upon the +open coffin and let his tears course silently. Then he put out his small +hand and smoothed the hair and stroked the dead face lovingly. After a +bit he brought his other hand up from behind him and laid three or four +fresh wild flowers upon the breast, bent over and kissed the unresponsive +lips time and time again, and then turned away and went out of the house +without looking at any of the company. The old lady said to Hawkins: + +"She always loved that kind o' flowers. He fetched 'em for her every +morning, and she always kissed him. They was from away north somers--she +kep' school when she fust come. Goodness knows what's to become o' that +po' boy. No father, no mother, no kin folks of no kind. Nobody to go +to, nobody that k'yers for him--and all of us is so put to it for to get +along and families so large." + +Hawkins understood. All, eyes were turned inquiringly upon him. He +said: + +"Friends, I am not very well provided for, myself, but still I would not +turn my back on a homeless orphan. If he will go with me I will give him +a home, and loving regard--I will do for him as I would have another do +for a child of my own in misfortune." + +One after another the people stepped forward and wrung the stranger's +hand with cordial good will, and their eyes looked all that their hands +could not express or their lips speak. + +"Said like a true man," said one. + +"You was a stranger to me a minute ago, but you ain't now," said another. + +"It's bread cast upon the waters--it'll return after many days," said the +old lady whom we have heard speak before. + +"You got to camp in my house as long as you hang out here," said one. +"If tha hain't room for you and yourn my tribe'll turn out and camp in +the hay loft." + +A few minutes afterward, while the preparations for the funeral were +being concluded, Mr. Hawkins arrived at his wagon leading his little waif +by the hand, and told his wife all that had happened, and asked her if he +had done right in giving to her and to himself this new care? She said: + +"If you've done wrong, Si Hawkins, it's a wrong that will shine brighter +at the judgment day than the rights that many' a man has done before you. +And there isn't any compliment you can pay me equal to doing a thing like +this and finishing it up, just taking it for granted that I'll be willing +to it. Willing? Come to me; you poor motherless boy, and let me take +your grief and help you carry it." + +When the child awoke in the morning, it was as if from a troubled dream. +But slowly the confusion in his mind took form, and he remembered his +great loss; the beloved form in the coffin; his talk with a generous +stranger who offered him a home; the funeral, where the stranger's wife +held him by the hand at the grave, and cried with him and comforted him; +and he remembered how this, new mother tucked him in his bed in the +neighboring farm house, and coaxed him to talk about his troubles, and +then heard him say his prayers and kissed him good night, and left him +with the soreness in his heart almost healed and his bruised spirit at +rest. + +And now the new mother came again, and helped him to dress, and combed +his hair, and drew his mind away by degrees from the dismal yesterday, +by telling him about the wonderful journey he was going to take and the +strange things he was going to see. And after breakfast they two went +alone to the grave, and his heart went out to his new friend and his +untaught eloquence poured the praises of his buried idol into her ears +without let or hindrance. Together they planted roses by the headboard +and strewed wild flowers upon the grave; and then together they went +away, hand in hand, and left the dead to the long sleep that heals all +heart-aches and ends all sorrows. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +Whatever the lagging dragging journey may have been to the rest of the +emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of +enchantment; and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious +dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales the negro slaves +were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuddering light of the +kitchen fire. + +At the end of nearly a week of travel, the party went into camp near a +shabby village which was caving, house by house, into the hungry +Mississippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its +mile-breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight, +and the vague riband of trees on the further shore, the verge of a +continent which surely none but they had ever seen before. + +"Uncle Dan'l"(colored,) aged 40; his wife, "aunt Jinny," aged 30, "Young +Miss" Emily Hawkins, "Young Mars" Washington Hawkins and "Young Mars" +Clay, the new member of the family, ranged themselves on a log, after +supper, and contemplated the marvelous river and discussed it. The moon +rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the +sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light; a deep +silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals, rather than +broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled +crash of a raving bank in the distance. + +The little company assembled on the log were all children (at least in +simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance,) and the remarks they +made about the river were in keeping with the character; and so awed were +they by the grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before then, and by +their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits and that the +faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all their talk +took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued +to a low and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed: + +"Chil'en, dah's sum fin a comin!" + +All crowded close together and every heart beat faster. + +Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger. + +A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape +that jetted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce +eye of fire shot out froth behind the cape and sent a long brilliant +pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and +louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and +still wilder. A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from +its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled +with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. +Nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with +spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the +monster like a torchlight procession. + +"What is it! Oh, what is it, Uncle Dan'l!" + +With deep solemnity the answer came: + +"It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!" + +It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling, in a +moment. And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and +stronger and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's +voice lifted up its supplications: + +"O Lord', we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go to de +bad place, but good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit, we ain't ready +--let dese po' chilen hab one mo' chance, jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole +niggah if you's, got to hab somebody.--Good Lord, good deah Lord, we +don't know whah you's a gwyne to, we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, +but we knows by de way you's a comin', we knows by de way you's a tiltin' +along in yo' charyot o' fiah dat some po' sinner's a gwyne to ketch it. +But good Lord, dose chilen don't b'long heah, dey's f'm Obedstown whah +dey don't know nuffin, an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't +'sponsible. An' deah Lord, good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't +like yo' pity, it ain't like yo' long-sufferin' lovin' kindness for to +take dis kind o' 'vantage o' sick little chil'en as dose is when dey's so +many ornery grown folks chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down +dah. Oh, Lord, spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away +f'm dey frens, jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole +niggah. HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, +de ole----" + +The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, and not +twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst +forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan'l snatched a child +under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at +his heels. And then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness +and shouted, (but rather feebly:) + +"Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!" + +There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and +the comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone +by, for its dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious +reconnaissance in the direction of the log. Sure enough "the Lord" was +just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked +the lights winked out and the coughing diminished by degrees and +presently ceased altogether. + +"H'wsh! Well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah. +Dis Chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat +prah? Dat's it. Dat's it!" + +"Uncle Dan'l, do you reckon it was the prayer that saved us?" said Clay. + +"Does I reckon? Don't I know it! Whah was yo' eyes? Warn't de Lord +jes' a cumin' chow! chow! CHOW! an' a goin' on turrible--an' do de +Lord carry on dat way 'dout dey's sumfin don't suit him? An' warn't he a +lookin' right at dis gang heah, an' warn't he jes' a reachin' for 'em? +An' d'you spec' he gwyne to let 'em off 'dout somebody ast him to do it? +No indeedy!" + +"Do you reckon he saw, us, Uncle Dan'l? + +"De law sakes, Chile, didn't I see him a lookin' at us?". + +"Did you feel scared, Uncle Dan'l?" + +"No sah! When a man is 'gaged in prah, he ain't fraid o' nuffin--dey +can't nuffin tetch him." + +"Well what did you run for?" + +"Well, I--I--mars Clay, when a man is under de influence ob de sperit, +he do-no, what he's 'bout--no sah; dat man do-no what he's 'bout. You +mout take an' tah de head off'n dat man an' he wouldn't scasely fine it +out. Date's de Hebrew chil'en dat went frough de fiah; dey was burnt +considable--ob coase dey was; but dey didn't know nuffin 'bout it--heal +right up agin; if dey'd ben gals dey'd missed dey long haah, (hair,) +maybe, but dey wouldn't felt de burn." + +"I don't know but what they were girls. I think they were." + +"Now mars Clay, you knows bettern dat. Sometimes a body can't tell +whedder you's a sayin' what you means or whedder you's a sayin' what you +don't mean, 'case you says 'em bofe de same way." + +"But how should I know whether they were boys or girls?" + +"Goodness sakes, mars Clay, don't de Good Book say? 'Sides, don't it +call 'em de HE-brew chil'en? If dey was gals wouldn't dey be de SHE-brew +chil'en? Some people dat kin read don't 'pear to take no notice when dey +do read." + +"Well, Uncle Dan'l, I think that-----My! here comes another one up the +river! There can't be two!" + +"We gone dis time--we done gone dis time, sho'! Dey ain't two, mars +Clay--days de same one. De Lord kin 'pear eberywhah in a second. +Goodness, how do fiah and de smoke do belch up! Dat mean business, +honey. He comin' now like he fo'got sumfin. Come 'long, chil'en, time +you's gwyne to roos'. Go 'long wid you--ole Uncle Daniel gwyne out in de +woods to rastle in prah--de ole nigger gwyne to do what he kin to sabe +you agin" + +He did go to the woods and pray; but he went so far that he doubted, +himself, if the Lord heard him when He went by. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +--Seventhly, Before his Voyage, He should make his peace with God, +satisfie his Creditors if he be in debt; Pray earnestly to God to prosper +him in his Voyage, and to keep him from danger, and, if he be 'sui juris' +he should make his last will, and wisely order all his affairs, since +many that go far abroad, return not home. (This good and Christian +Counsel is given by Martinus Zeilerus in his Apodemical Canons before his +Itinerary of Spain and Portugal.) + + +Early in the morning Squire Hawkins took passage in a small steamboat, +with his family and his two slaves, and presently the bell rang, the +stage-plank; was hauled in, and the vessel proceeded up the river. +The children and the slaves were not much more at ease after finding out +that this monster was a creature of human contrivance than they were the +night before when they thought it the Lord of heaven and earth. They +started, in fright, every time the gauge-cocks sent out an angry hiss, +and they quaked from head to foot when the mud-valves thundered. The +shivering of the boat under the beating of the wheels was sheer misery to +them. + +But of course familiarity with these things soon took away their terrors, +and then the voyage at once became a glorious adventure, a royal progress +through the very heart and home of romance, a realization of their +rosiest wonder-dreams. They sat by the hour in the shade of the pilot +house on the hurricane deck and looked out over the curving expanses of +the river sparkling in the sunlight. Sometimes the boat fought the +mid-stream current, with a verdant world on either hand, and remote from +both; sometimes she closed in under a point, where the dead water and the +helping eddies were, and shaved the bank so closely that the decks were +swept by the jungle of over-hanging willows and littered with a spoil of +leaves; departing from these "points" she regularly crossed the river +every five miles, avoiding the "bight" of the great binds and thus +escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high +"bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed +it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head--and +then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" +the bar, and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her +bows vanished, a great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under +way, and in this instant she leaned far over on her side, shied from the +bar and fled square away from the danger like a frightened thing--and the +pilot was lucky if he managed to "straighten her up" before she drove her +nose into the opposite bank; sometimes she approached a solid wall of +tall trees as if she meant to break through it, but all of a sudden a +little crack would open just enough to admit her, and away she would go +plowing through the "chute" with just barely room enough between the +island on one side and the main land on the other; in this sluggish water +she seemed to go like a racehorse; now and then small log cabins appeared +in little clearings, with the never-failing frowsy women and girls in +soiled and faded linsey-woolsey leaning in the doors or against woodpiles +and rail fences, gazing sleepily at the passing show; sometimes she found +shoal water, going out at the head of those "chutes" or crossing the +river, and then a deck-hand stood on the bow and hove the lead, while the +boat slowed down and moved cautiously; sometimes she stopped a moment at +a landing and took on some freight or a passenger while a crowd of +slouchy white men and negroes stood on the bank and looked sleepily on +with their hands in their pantaloons pockets,--of course--for they never +took them out except to stretch, and when they did this they squirmed +about and reached their fists up into the air and lifted themselves on +tip-toe in an ecstasy of enjoyment. + +When the sun went down it turned all the broad river to a national banner +laid in gleaming bars of gold and purple and crimson; and in time these +glories faded out in the twilight and left the fairy archipelagoes +reflecting their fringing foliage in the steely mirror of the stream. + +At night the boat forged on through the deep solitudes of the river, +hardly ever discovering a light to testify to a human presence--mile +after mile and league after league the vast bends were guarded by +unbroken walls of forest that had never been disturbed by the voice or +the foot-fall of man or felt the edge of his sacrilegious axe. + +An hour after supper the moon came up, and Clay and Washington ascended +to the hurricane deck to revel again in their new realm of enchantment. +They ran races up and down the deck; climbed about the bell; made friends +with the passenger-dogs chained under the lifeboat; tried to make friends +with a passenger-bear fastened to the verge-staff but were not +encouraged; "skinned the cat" on the hog-chains; in a word, exhausted the +amusement-possibilities of the deck. Then they looked wistfully up at +the pilot house, and finally, little by little, Clay ventured up there, +followed diffidently by Washington. The pilot turned presently to "get +his stern-marks," saw the lads and invited them in. Now their happiness +was complete. This cosy little house, built entirely of glass and +commanding a marvelous prospect in every direction was a magician's +throne to them and their enjoyment of the place was simply boundless. + +They sat them down on a high bench and looked miles ahead and saw the +wooded capes fold back and reveal the bends beyond; and they looked miles +to the rear and saw the silvery highway diminish its breadth by degrees +and close itself together in the distance. Presently the pilot said: + +"By George, yonder comes the Amaranth!" + +A spark appeared, close to the water, several miles down the river. The +pilot took his glass and looked at it steadily for a moment, and said, +chiefly to himself: + +"It can't be the Blue Wing. She couldn't pick us up this way. It's the +Amaranth, sure!" + +He bent over a speaking tube and said: + +"Who's on watch down there?" + +A hollow, unhuman voice rumbled up through the tube in answer: + +"I am. Second engineer." + +"Good! You want to stir your stumps, now, Harry--the Amaranth's just +turned the point--and she's just a--humping herself, too!" + +The pilot took hold of a rope that stretched out forward, jerked it +twice, and two mellow strokes of the big bell responded. A voice out on +the deck shouted: + +"Stand by, down there, with that labboard lead!" + +"No, I don't want the lead," said the pilot, "I want you. Roust out the +old man--tell him the Amaranth's coming. And go and call Jim--tell him." + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + +The "old man" was the captain--he is always called so, on steamboats and +ships; "Jim" was the other pilot. Within two minutes both of these men +were flying up the pilothouse stairway, three steps at a jump. Jim was +in his shirt sleeves,--with his coat and vest on his arm. He said: + +"I was just turning in. Where's the glass" + +He took it and looked: + +"Don't appear to be any night-hawk on the jack-staff--it's the Amaranth, +dead sure!" + +The captain took a good long look, and only said: + +"Damnation!" + +George Davis, the pilot on watch, shouted to the night-watchman on deck: + +"How's she loaded?" + +"Two inches by the head, sir." + +"'T ain't enough!" + +The captain shouted, now: + +"Call the mate. Tell him to call all hands and get a lot of that sugar +forrard--put her ten inches by the head. Lively, now!" + +"Aye-aye, sir." + +A riot of shouting and trampling floated up from below, presently, and +the uneasy steering of the boat soon showed that she was getting "down by +the head." + +The three men in the pilot house began to talk in short, sharp sentences, +low and earnestly. As their excitement rose, their voices went down. +As fast as one of them put down the spy-glass another took it up--but +always with a studied air of calmness. Each time the verdict was: + +"She's a gaining!" + +The captain spoke through the tube: + +"What steam are You carrying?" + +"A hundred and forty-two, sir! But she's getting hotter and hotter all +the time." + +The boat was straining and groaning and quivering like a monster in pain. +Both pilots were at work now, one on each side of the wheel, with their +coats and vests off, their bosoms and collars wide open and the +perspiration flowing down heir faces. They were holding the boat so +close to the shore that the willows swept the guards almost from stem to +stern. + +"Stand by!" whispered George. + +"All ready!" said Jim, under his breath. + +"Let her come!" + +The boat sprang away, from the bank like a deer, and darted in a long +diagonal toward the other shore. She closed in again and thrashed her +fierce way along the willows as before. The captain put down the glass: + +"Lord how she walks up on us! I do hate to be beat!" + +"Jim," said George, looking straight ahead, watching the slightest yawing +of the boat and promptly meeting it with the wheel, "how'll it do to try +Murderer's Chute?" + +"Well, it's--it's taking chances. How was the cottonwood stump on the +false point below Boardman's Island this morning?" + +"Water just touching the roots." + +"Well it's pretty close work. That gives six feet scant in the head of +Murderer's Chute. We can just barely rub through if we hit it exactly +right. But it's worth trying. She don't dare tackle it!"--meaning the +Amaranth. + +In another instant the Boreas plunged into what seemed a crooked creek, +and the Amaranth's approaching lights were shut out in a moment. Not a +whisper was uttered, now, but the three men stared ahead into the shadows +and two of them spun the wheel back and forth with anxious watchfulness +while the steamer tore along. The chute seemed to come to an end every +fifty yards, but always opened out in time. Now the head of it was at +hand. George tapped the big bell three times, two leadsmen sprang to +their posts, and in a moment their weird cries rose on the night air and +were caught up and repeated by two men on the upper deck: + +"No-o bottom!" + +"De-e-p four!" + +"Half three!" + +"Quarter three!" + +"Mark under wa-a-ter three!" + +"Half twain!" + +"Quarter twain!-----" + +Davis pulled a couple of ropes--there was a jingling of small bells far +below, the boat's speed slackened, and the pent steam began to whistle +and the gauge-cocks to scream: + +"By the mark twain!" + +"Quar--ter--her--er--less twain!" + +"Eight and a half!" + +"Eight feet!" + +"Seven-ana-half!" + +Another jingling of little bells and the wheels ceased turning +altogether. The whistling of the steam was something frightful now--it +almost drowned all other noises. + +"Stand by to meet her!" + +George had the wheel hard down and was standing on a spoke. + +"All ready!" + +The, boat hesitated seemed to hold her breath, as did the captain and +pilots--and then she began to fall away to starboard and every eye +lighted: + +"Now then!--meet her! meet her! Snatch her!" + +The wheel flew to port so fast that the spokes blended into a spider-web +--the swing of the boat subsided--she steadied herself---- + +"Seven feet!" + +"Sev--six and a half!" + +"Six feet! Six f----" + +Bang! She hit the bottom! George shouted through the tube: + +"Spread her wide open! Whale it at her!" + +Pow-wow-chow! The escape-pipes belched snowy pillars of steam aloft, the +boat ground and surged and trembled--and slid over into---- + +"M-a-r-k twain!" + +"Quarter-her----" + +"Tap! tap! tap!" (to signify "Lay in the leads") + +And away she went, flying up the willow shore, with the whole silver sea +of the Mississippi stretching abroad on every hand. + +No Amaranth in sight! + +"Ha-ha, boys, we took a couple of tricks that time!" said the captain. + +And just at that moment a red glare appeared in the head of the chute and +the Amaranth came springing after them! + +"Well, I swear!" + +"Jim, what is the meaning of that?" + +"I'll tell you what's the meaning of it. That hail we had at Napoleon +was Wash Hastings, wanting to come to Cairo--and we didn't stop. He's in +that pilot house, now, showing those mud turtles how to hunt for easy +water." + +"That's it! I thought it wasn't any slouch that was running that middle +bar in Hog-eye Bend. If it's Wash Hastings--well, what he don't know +about the river ain't worth knowing--a regular gold-leaf, kid-glove, +diamond breastpin pilot Wash Hastings is. We won't take any tricks off +of him, old man!" + +"I wish I'd a stopped for him, that's all." + +The Amaranth was within three hundred yards of the Boreas, and still +gaining. The "old man" spoke through the tube: + +"What is she-carrying now?" + +"A hundred and sixty-five, sir!" + +"How's your wood?" + +"Pine all out-cypress half gone-eating up cotton-wood like pie!" + +"Break into that rosin on the main deck-pile it in, the boat can pay for +it!" + +Soon the boat was plunging and quivering and screaming more madly than +ever. But the Amaranth's head was almost abreast the Boreas's stern: + +"How's your steam, now, Harry?" + +"Hundred and eighty-two, sir!" + +"Break up the casks of bacon in the forrard hold! Pile it in! Levy on +that turpentine in the fantail-drench every stick of wood with it!" + +The boat was a moving earthquake by this time: + +"How is she now?" + +"A hundred and ninety-six and still a-swelling!--water, below the middle +gauge-cocks!--carrying every pound she can stand!--nigger roosting on the +safety-valve!" + +"Good! How's your draft?" + +"Bully! Every time a nigger heaves a stick of wood into the furnace he +goes out the chimney, with it!" + +The Amaranth drew steadily up till her jack-staff breasted the Boreas's +wheel-house--climbed along inch by inch till her chimneys breasted it +--crept along, further and further, till the boats were wheel to wheel +--and then they, closed up with a heavy jolt and locked together tight +and fast in the middle of the big river under the flooding moonlight! A +roar and a hurrah went up from the crowded decks of both steamers--all +hands rushed to the guards to look and shout and gesticulate--the weight +careened the vessels over toward each other--officers flew hither and +thither cursing and storming, trying to drive the people amidships--both +captains were leaning over their railings shaking their fists, swearing +and threatening--black volumes of smoke rolled up and canopied the +scene,--delivering a rain of sparks upon the vessels--two pistol shots +rang out, and both captains dodged unhurt and the packed masses of +passengers surged back and fell apart while the shrieks of women and +children soared above the intolerable din---- + +And then there was a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled +Amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away! + +Instantly the fire-doors of the Boreas were thrown open and the men began +dashing buckets of water into the furnaces--for it would have been death +and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on. + +As soon as possible the Boreas dropped down to the floating wreck and +took off the dead, the wounded and the unhurt--at least all that could be +got at, for the whole forward half of the boat was a shapeless ruin, with +the great chimneys lying crossed on top of it, and underneath were a +dozen victims imprisoned alive and wailing for help. While men with axes +worked with might and main to free these poor fellows, the Boreas's boats +went about, picking up stragglers from the river. + +And now a new horror presented itself. The wreck took fire from the +dismantled furnaces! Never did men work with a heartier will than did +those stalwart braves with the axes. But it was of no use. The fire ate +its way steadily, despising the bucket brigade that fought it. It +scorched the clothes, it singed the hair of the axemen--it drove them +back, foot by foot-inch by inch--they wavered, struck a final blow in the +teeth of the enemy, and surrendered. And as they fell back they heard +prisoned voices saying: + +"Don't leave us! Don't desert us! Don't, don't do it!" + +And one poor fellow said: + +"I am Henry Worley, striker of the Amaranth! My mother lives in St. +Louis. Tell her a lie for a poor devil's sake, please. Say I was killed +in an instant and never knew what hurt me--though God knows I've neither +scratch nor bruise this moment! It's hard to burn up in a coop like this +with the whole wide world so near. Good-bye boys--we've all got to come +to it at last, anyway!" + +The Boreas stood away out of danger, and the ruined steamer went drifting +down the stream an island of wreathing and climbing flame that vomited +clouds of smoke from time to time, and glared more fiercely and sent its +luminous tongues higher and higher after each emission. A shriek at +intervals told of a captive that had met his doom. The wreck lodged upon +a sandbar, and when the Boreas turned the next point on her upward +journey it was still burning with scarcely abated fury. + +When the boys came down into the main saloon of the Boreas, they saw a +pitiful sight and heard a world of pitiful sounds. Eleven poor creatures +lay dead and forty more lay moaning, or pleading or screaming, while a +score of Good Samaritans moved among them doing what they could to +relieve their sufferings; bathing their chinless faces and bodies with +linseed oil and lime water and covering the places with bulging masses of +raw cotton that gave to every face and form a dreadful and unhuman +aspect. + +A little wee French midshipman of fourteen lay fearfully injured, but +never uttered a sound till a physician of Memphis was about to dress his +hurts. Then he said: + +"Can I get well? You need not be afraid to tell me." + +"No--I--I am afraid you can not." + +"Then do not waste your time with me--help those that can get well." + +"But----" + +"Help those that can get well! It is, not for me to be a girl. I carry +the blood of eleven generations of soldiers in my veins!" + +The physician--himself a man who had seen service in the navy in his +time--touched his hat to this little hero, and passed on. + +The head engineer of the Amaranth, a grand specimen of physical manhood, +struggled to his feet a ghastly spectacle and strode toward his brother, +the second engineer, who was unhurt. He said: + +"You were on watch. You were boss. You would not listen to me when I +begged you to reduce your steam. Take that!--take it to my wife and tell +her it comes from me by the hand of my murderer! Take it--and take my +curse with it to blister your heart a hundred years--and may you live so +long!" + +And he tore a ring from his finger, stripping flesh and skin with it, +threw it down and fell dead! + +But these things must not be dwelt upon. The Boreas landed her dreadful +cargo at the next large town and delivered it over to a multitude of +eager hands and warm southern hearts--a cargo amounting by this time to +39 wounded persons and 22 dead bodies. And with these she delivered a +list of 96 missing persons that had drowned or otherwise perished at the +scene of the disaster. + +A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry +they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar +to our ears all the days of our lives--"NOBODY TO BLAME." + +**[The incidents of the explosion are not invented. They happened just +as they are told.--The Authors.] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc. + + +When the Boreas backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the +river, the Hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in +the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard +work how to relieve it. And they were richer in another way also. +In the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed +girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling +through the throng in the Boreas' saloon calling her mother and father, +but no one answered. Something in the face of Mr. Hawkins attracted her +and she came and looked up at him; was satisfied, and took refuge with +him. He petted her, listened to her troubles, and said he would find her +friends for her. Then he put her in a state-room with his children and +told them to be kind to her (the adults of his party were all busy with +the wounded) and straightway began his search. + +It was fruitless. But all day he and his wife made inquiries, and hoped +against hope. All that they could learn was that the child and her +parents came on board at New Orleans, where they had just arrived in a +vessel from Cuba; that they looked like people from the Atlantic States; +that the family name was Van Brunt and the child's name Laura. This was +all. The parents had not been seen since the explosion. The child's +manners were those of a little lady, and her clothes were daintier and +finer than any Mrs. Hawkins had ever seen before. + +As the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for +her mother that it seemed to the Hawkinses that the moanings and the +wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain +at their heart-strings as the sufferings of this little desolate +creature. They tried hard to comfort her; and in trying, learned to love +her; they could not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her +arms about their necks and found-no solace but in their kind eyes and +comforting words: There was a question in both their hearts--a question +that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the +hours wore on--but both hesitated to give it voice--both kept silence +--and--waited. But a time came at last when the matter would bear delay +no longer. The boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being +conveyed to the shore. The tired child was asleep in the arms of Mrs. +Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins came into their presence and stood without +speaking. His eyes met his wife's; then both looked at the child--and as +they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer; an expression of +contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the +mother-heart; and when the eyes of husband and wife met again, the +question was asked and answered. + +When the Boreas had journeyed some four hundred miles from the time the +Hawkinses joined her, a long rank of steamboats was sighted, packed side +by side at a wharf like sardines, in a box, and above and beyond them +rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a +city--a city with an imposing umbrella of black smoke spread over it. +This was St. Louis. The children of the Hawkins family were playing +about the hurricane deck, and the father and mother were sitting in the +lee of the pilot house essaying to keep order and not greatly grieved +that they were not succeeding. + +"They're worth all the trouble they are, Nancy." + +"Yes, and more, Si." + +"I believe you! You wouldn't sell one of them at a good round figure?" + +"Not for all the money in the bank, Si." + +"My own sentiments every time. It is true we are not rich--but still you +are not sorry---you haven't any misgivings about the additions?" + +"No. God will provide" + +"Amen. And so you wouldn't even part with Clay? Or Laura!" + +"Not for anything in the world. I love them just the same as I love my +own: They pet me and spoil me even more than the others do, I think. +I reckon we'll get along, Si." + +"Oh yes, it will all come out right, old mother. I wouldn't be afraid to +adopt a thousand children if I wanted to, for there's that Tennessee +Land, you know--enough to make an army of them rich. A whole army, +Nancy! You and I will never see the day, but these little chaps will. +Indeed they will. One of these days it will be the rich Miss Emily +Hawkins--and the wealthy Miss Laura Van Brunt Hawkins--and the Hon. +George Washington Hawkins, millionaire--and Gov. Henry Clay Hawkins, +millionaire! That is the way the world will word it! Don't let's ever +fret about the children, Nancy--never in the world. They're all right. +Nancy, there's oceans and oceans of money in that land--mark my words!" + +The children had stopped playing, for the moment, and drawn near to +listen. Hawkins said: + +"Washington, my boy, what will you do when you get to be one of the +richest men in the world?" + +"I don't know, father. Sometimes I think I'll have a balloon and go up +in the air; and sometimes I think I'll have ever so many books; and +sometimes I think I'll have ever so many weathercocks and water-wheels; +or have a machine like that one you and Colonel Sellers bought; and +sometimes I think I'll have--well, somehow I don't know--somehow I ain't +certain; maybe I'll get a steamboat first." + +"The same old chap!--always just a little bit divided about things.--And +what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world, +Clay?" + +"I don't know, sir. My mother--my other mother that's gone away--she +always told me to work along and not be much expecting to get rich, and +then I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't get rich. And so I reckon +it's better for me to wait till I get rich, and then by that time maybe +I'll know what I'll want--but I don't now, sir." + +"Careful old head!--Governor Henry Clay Hawkins!--that's what you'll be, +Clay, one of these days. Wise old head! weighty old head! Go on, now, +and play--all of you. It's a prime lot, Nancy; as the Obedstown folk say +about their hogs." + +A smaller steamboat received the Hawkinses and their fortunes, and bore +them a hundred and thirty miles still higher up the Mississippi, and +landed them at a little tumble-down village on the Missouri shore in the +twilight of a mellow October day. + +The next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they +wended slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited +forest solitudes. And when for the last time they pitched their tents, +metaphorically speaking, it was at the goal of their hopes, their new +home. + +By the muddy roadside stood a new log cabin, one story high--the store; +clustered in the neighborhood were ten or twelve more cabins, some new, +some old. + +In the sad light of the departing day the place looked homeless enough. +Two or three coatless young men sat in front of the store on a dry-goods +box, and whittled it with their knives, kicked it with their vast boots, +and shot tobacco-juice at various marks. Several ragged negroes leaned +comfortably against the posts of the awning and contemplated the arrival +of the wayfarers with lazy curiosity. All these people presently managed +to drag themselves to the vicinity of the Hawkins' wagon, and there they +took up permanent positions, hands in pockets and resting on one leg; and +thus anchored they proceeded to look and enjoy. Vagrant dogs came +wagging around and making inquiries of Hawkins's dog, which were not +satisfactory and they made war on him in concert. This would have +interested the citizens but it was too many on one to amount to anything +as a fight, and so they commanded the peace and the foreign dog coiled +his tail and took sanctuary under the wagon. Slatternly negro girls and +women slouched along with pails deftly balanced on their heads, and +joined the group and stared. Little half dressed white boys, and little +negro boys with nothing whatever on but tow-linen shirts with a fine +southern exposure, came from various directions and stood with their +hands locked together behind them and aided in the inspection. The rest +of the population were laying down their employments and getting ready to +come, when a man burst through the assemblage and seized the new-comers +by the hands in a frenzy of welcome, and exclaimed--indeed almost +shouted: + +"Well who could have believed it! Now is it you sure enough--turn +around! hold up your heads! I want to look at you good! Well, well, +well, it does seem most too good to be true, I declare! Lord, I'm so +glad to see you! Does a body's whole soul good to look at you! Shake +hands again! Keep on shaking hands! Goodness gracious alive. What will +my wife say?--Oh yes indeed, it's so!--married only last week--lovely, +perfectly lovely creature, the noblest woman that ever--you'll like her, +Nancy! Like her? Lord bless me you'll love her--you'll dote on her +--you'll be twins! Well, well, well, let me look at you again! Same old +--why bless my life it was only jest this very morning that my wife says, +'Colonel'--she will call me Colonel spite of everything I can do--she +says 'Colonel, something tells me somebody's coming!' and sure enough +here you are, the last people on earth a body could have expected. +Why she'll think she's a prophetess--and hanged if I don't think so too +--and you know there ain't any, country but what a prophet's an honor to, +as the proverb says. Lord bless me and here's the children, too! +Washington, Emily, don't you know me? Come, give us a kiss. Won't I fix +you, though!--ponies, cows, dogs, everything you can think of that'll +delight a child's heart-and--Why how's this? Little strangers? Well +you won't be any strangers here, I can tell you. Bless your souls we'll +make you think you never was at home before--'deed and 'deed we will, +I can tell you! Come, now, bundle right along with me. You can't +glorify any hearth stone but mine in this camp, you know--can't eat +anybody's bread but mine--can't do anything but just make yourselves +perfectly at home and comfortable, and spread yourselves out and rest! +You hear me! Here--Jim, Tom, Pete, Jake, fly around! Take that team to +my place--put the wagon in my lot--put the horses under the shed, and get +out hay and oats and fill them up! Ain't any hay and oats? Well get +some--have it charged to me--come, spin around, now! Now, Hawkins, the +procession's ready; mark time, by the left flank, forward-march!" + +And the Colonel took the lead, with Laura astride his neck, and the +newly-inspired and very grateful immigrants picked up their tired limbs +with quite a spring in them and dropped into his wake. + +Presently they were ranged about an old-time fire-place whose blazing +logs sent out rather an unnecessary amount of heat, but that was no +matter-supper was needed, and to have it, it had to be cooked. This +apartment was the family bedroom, parlor, library and kitchen, all in +one. The matronly little wife of the Colonel moved hither and thither +and in and out with her pots and pans in her hands', happiness in her +heart and a world of admiration of her husband in her eyes. And when at +last she had spread the cloth and loaded it with hot corn bread, fried +chickens, bacon, buttermilk, coffee, and all manner of country luxuries, +Col. Sellers modified his harangue and for a moment throttled it down to +the orthodox pitch for a blessing, and then instantly burst forth again +as from a parenthesis and clattered on with might and main till every +stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry. And when the +new-comers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather beds on the +second floor--to wit the garret--Mrs. Hawkins was obliged to say: + +"Hang the fellow, I do believe he has gone wilder than ever, but still a +body can't help liking him if they would--and what is more, they don't +ever want to try when they see his eyes and hear him talk." + +Within a week or two the Hawkinses were comfortably domiciled in a new +log house, and were beginning to feel at home. The children were put to +school; at least it was what passed for a school in those days: a place +where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day +to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting +it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply +of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell +the words or take breath. Hawkins bought out the village store for a +song and proceeded to reap the profits, which amounted to but little more +than another song. + +The wonderful speculation hinted at by Col. Sellers in his letter turned +out to be the raising of mules for the Southern market; and really it +promised very well. The young stock cost but a trifle, the rearing but +another trifle, and so Hawkins was easily persuaded to embark his slender +means in the enterprise and turn over the keep and care of the animals to +Sellers and Uncle Dan'l. + +All went well: Business prospered little by little. Hawkins even built a +new house, made it two full stories high and put a lightning rod on it. +People came two or three miles to look at it. But they knew that the rod +attracted the lightning, and so they gave the place a wide berth in a +storm, for they were familiar with marksmanship and doubted if the +lightning could hit that small stick at a distance of a mile and a half +oftener than once in a hundred and fifty times. Hawkins fitted out his +house with "store" furniture from St. Louis, and the fame of its +magnificence went abroad in the land. Even the parlor carpet was from +St. Louis--though the other rooms were clothed in the "rag" carpeting of +the country. Hawkins put up the first "paling" fence that had ever +adorned the village; and he did not stop there, but whitewashed it. +His oil-cloth window-curtains had noble pictures on them of castles such +as had never been seen anywhere in the world but on window-curtains. +Hawkins enjoyed the admiration these prodigies compelled, but he always +smiled to think how poor and, cheap they were, compared to what the +Hawkins mansion would display in a future day after the Tennessee Land +should have borne its minted fruit. Even Washington observed, once, that +when the Tennessee Land was sold he would have a "store" carpet in his +and Clay's room like the one in the parlor. This pleased Hawkins, but it +troubled his wife. It did not seem wise, to her, to put one's entire +earthly trust in the Tennessee Land and never think of doing any work. + +Hawkins took a weekly Philadelphia newspaper and a semi-weekly St. Louis +journal--almost the only papers that came to the village, though Godey's +Lady's Book found a good market there and was regarded as the perfection +of polite literature by some of the ablest critics in the place. Perhaps +it is only fair to explain that we are writing of a by gone age--some +twenty or thirty years ago. In the two newspapers referred to lay the +secret of Hawkins's growing prosperity. They kept him informed of the +condition of the crops south and east, and thus he knew which articles +were likely to be in demand and which articles were likely to be +unsalable, weeks and even months in advance of the simple folk about him. +As the months went by he came to be regarded as a wonderfully lucky man. +It did not occur to the citizens that brains were at the bottom of his +luck. + +His title of "Squire" came into vogue again, but only for a season; for, +as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible +stages, grew up into "Judge;" indeed' it bade fair to swell into +"General" bye and bye. All strangers of consequence who visited the +village gravitated to the Hawkins Mansion and became guests of the +"Judge." + +Hawkins had learned to like the people of his section very much. They +were uncouth and not cultivated, and not particularly industrious; but +they were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded +respect. Their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the +old fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry. +Whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless +hatred. They still cursed Benedict Arnold as if he were a personal +friend who had broken faith--but a week gone by. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record. + +Judge Hawkins and Col. Sellers have made and lost two or three moderate +fortunes in the meantime and are now pinched by poverty. Sellers has two +pairs of twins and four extras. In Hawkins's family are six children of +his own and two adopted ones. From time to time, as fortune smiled, the +elder children got the benefit of it, spending the lucky seasons at +excellent schools in St. Louis and the unlucky ones at home in the +chafing discomfort of straightened circumstances. + +Neither the Hawkins children nor the world that knew them ever supposed +that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: Such difference +as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The +girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time +of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which +had thrown their lives together. + +And yet any one who had known the secret of Laura's birth and had seen +her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or +thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more +winsome than her school companion. + +Philosophers dispute whether it is the promise of what she will be in +the careless school-girl, that makes her attractive, the undeveloped +maidenhood, or the mere natural, careless sweetness of childhood. +If Laura at twelve was beginning to be a beauty, the thought of it had +never entered her head. No, indeed. Her mind wad filled with more +important thoughts. To her simple school-girl dress she was beginning to +add those mysterious little adornments of ribbon-knots and ear-rings, +which were the subject of earnest consultations with her grown friends. + +When she tripped down the street on a summer's day with her dainty hands +propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows +consequently more or less akimbo with her wide Leghorn hat flapping down +and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her fore +head the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all +her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and that sweet ignorance +of care and that atmosphere of innocence and purity all about her that +belong to her gracious time of life, indeed she was a vision to warm the +coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest. + +Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, +bewitching, in short--was Laura at this period. Could she have remained +there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to +be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now +come--years which had seen Judge Hawkins pass through so many trials. + +When the judge's first bankruptcy came upon him, a homely human angel +intruded upon him with an offer of $1,500 for the Tennessee Land. Mrs. +Hawkins said take it. It was a grievous temptation, but the judge +withstood it. He said the land was for the children--he could not rob +them of their future millions for so paltry a sum. When the second +blight fell upon him, another angel appeared and offered $3,000 for the +land. He was in such deep distress that he allowed his wife to persuade +him to let the papers be drawn; but when his children came into his +presence in their poor apparel, he felt like a traitor and refused to +sign. + +But now he was down again, and deeper in the mire than ever. He paced +the floor all day, he scarcely slept at night. He blushed even to +acknowledge it to himself, but treason was in his mind--he was +meditating, at last, the sale of the land. Mrs. Hawkins stepped into the +room. He had not spoken a word, but he felt as guilty as if she had +caught him in some shameful act. She said: + +"Si, I do not know what we are going to do. The children are not fit to +be seen, their clothes are in such a state. But there's something more +serious still.--There is scarcely a bite in the house to eat" + +"Why, Nancy, go to Johnson----." + +"Johnson indeed! You took that man's part when he hadn't a friend in the +world, and you built him up and made him rich. And here's the result of +it: He lives in our fine house, and we live in his miserable log cabin. +He has hinted to our children that he would rather they wouldn't come +about his yard to play with his children,--which I can bear, and bear +easy enough, for they're not a sort we want to associate with much--but +what I can't bear with any quietness at all, is his telling Franky our +bill was running pretty high this morning when I sent him for some meal +--and that was all he said, too--didn't give him the meal--turned off and +went to talking with the Hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to +cheapen." + +"Nancy, this is astounding!" + +"And so it is, I warrant you. I've kept still, Si, as long as ever I +could. Things have been getting worse and worse, and worse and worse, +every single day; I don't go out of the house, I feel so down; but you +had trouble enough, and I wouldn't say a word--and I wouldn't say a word +now, only things have got so bad that I don't know what to do, nor where +to turn." And she gave way and put her face in her hands and cried. + +"Poor child, don't grieve so. I never thought that of Johnson. I am +clear at my wit's end. I don't know what in the world to do. Now if +somebody would come along and offer $3,000--Uh, if somebody only would +come along and offer $3,000 for that Tennessee Land." + +"You'd sell it, S!" said Mrs. Hawkins excitedly. + +"Try me!" + +Mrs. Hawkins was out of the room in a moment. Within a minute she was +back again with a business-looking stranger, whom she seated, and then +she took her leave again. Hawkins said to himself, "How can a man ever +lose faith? When the blackest hour comes, Providence always comes with +it--ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; +if this blessed man offers but a thousand I'll embrace him like a +brother!" + +The stranger said: + +"I am aware that you own 75,000 acres, of land in East Tennessee, and +without sacrificing your time, I will come to the point at once. I am +agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you +ten thousand dollars for that land." + +Hawkins's heart bounded within him. His whole frame was racked and +wrenched with fettered hurrahs. His first impulse was to shout "Done! +and God bless the iron company, too!" + +But a something flitted through his mind, and his opened lips uttered +nothing. The enthusiasm faded away from his eyes, and the look of a man +who is thinking took its place. Presently, in a hesitating, undecided +way, he said: + +"Well, I--it don't seem quite enough. That--that is a very valuable +property--very valuable. It's brim full of iron-ore, sir--brim full of +it! And copper, coal,--everything--everything you can think of! Now, +I'll tell you what I'll, do. I'll reserve everything except the iron, +and I'll sell them the iron property for $15,000 cash, I to go in with +them and own an undivided interest of one-half the concern--or the stock, +as you may say. I'm out of business, and I'd just as soon help run the +thing as not. Now how does that strike you?" + +"Well, I am only an agent of these people, who are friends of mine, and +I am not even paid for my services. To tell you the truth, I have tried +to persuade them not to go into the thing; and I have come square out +with their offer, without throwing out any feelers--and I did it in the +hope that you would refuse. A man pretty much always refuses another +man's first offer, no matter what it is. But I have performed my duty, +and will take pleasure in telling them what you say." + +He was about to rise. Hawkins said, + +"Wait a bit." + +Hawkins thought again. And the substance of his thought was: "This +is a deep man; this is a very deep man; I don't like his candor; your +ostentatiously candid business man's a deep fox--always a deep fox; +this man's that iron company himself--that's what he is; he wants that +property, too; I am not so blind but I can see that; he don't want the +company to go into this thing--O, that's very good; yes, that's very +good indeed--stuff! he'll be back here tomorrow, sure, and take my offer; +take it? I'll risk anything he is suffering to take it now; here--I must +mind what I'm about. What has started this sudden excitement about iron? +I wonder what is in the wind? just as sure as I'm alive this moment, +there's something tremendous stirring in iron speculation" [here Hawkins +got up and began to pace the floor with excited eyes and with gesturing +hands]--"something enormous going on in iron, without the shadow of a +doubt, and here I sit mousing in the dark and never knowing anything +about it; great heaven, what an escape I've made! this underhanded +mercenary creature might have taken me up--and ruined me! but I have +escaped, and I warrant me I'll not put my foot into--" + +He stopped and turned toward the stranger; saying: + +"I have made you a proposition, you have not accepted it, and I desire +that you will consider that I have made none. At the same time my +conscience will not allow me to--. Please alter the figures I named to +thirty thousand dollars, if you will, and let the proposition go to the +company--I will stick to it if it breaks my heart!" The stranger looked +amused, and there was a pretty well defined touch of surprise in his +expression, too, but Hawkins never noticed it. Indeed he scarcely +noticed anything or knew what he was about. The man left; Hawkins flung +himself into a chair; thought a few moments, then glanced around, looked +frightened, sprang to the door---- + +"Too late--too late! He's gone! Fool that I am! always a fool! Thirty +thousand--ass that I am! Oh, why didn't I say fifty thousand!" + +He plunged his hands into his hair and leaned his elbows on his knees, +and fell to rocking himself back and forth in anguish. Mrs. Hawkins +sprang in, beaming: + +"Well, Si?" + +"Oh, con-found the con-founded--con-found it, Nancy. I've gone and done +it, now!" + +"Done what Si for mercy's sake!" + +"Done everything! Ruined everything!" + +"Tell me, tell me, tell me! Don't keep a body in such suspense. Didn't +he buy, after all? Didn't he make an offer?" + +Offer? He offered $10,000 for our land, and----" + +"Thank the good providence from the very bottom of my heart of hearts! +What sort of ruin do you call that, Si!" + +"Nancy, do you suppose I listened to such a preposterous proposition? +No! Thank fortune I'm not a simpleton! I saw through the pretty scheme +in a second. It's a vast iron speculation!--millions upon millions in +it! But fool as I am I told him he could have half the iron property for +thirty thousand--and if I only had him back here he couldn't touch it for +a cent less than a quarter of a million!" + +Mrs. Hawkins looked up white and despairing: + +"You threw away this chance, you let this man go, and we in this awful +trouble? You don't mean it, you can't mean it!" + +"Throw it away? Catch me at it! Why woman, do you suppose that man +don't know what he is about? Bless you, he'll be back fast enough +to-morrow." + +"Never, never, never. He never will comeback. I don't know what is to +become of us. I don't know what in the world is to become of us." + +A shade of uneasiness came into Hawkins's face. He said: + +"Why, Nancy, you--you can't believe what you are saying." + +"Believe it, indeed? I know it, Si. And I know that we haven't a cent +in the world, and we've sent ten thousand dollars a-begging." + +"Nancy, you frighten me. Now could that man--is it possible that I +--hanged if I don't believe I have missed a chance! Don't grieve, Nancy, +don't grieve. I'll go right after him. I'll take--I'll take--what a +fool I am!--I'll take anything he'll give!" + +The next instant he left the house on a run. But the man was no longer +in the town. Nobody knew where he belonged or whither he had gone. +Hawkins came slowly back, watching wistfully but hopelessly for the +stranger, and lowering his price steadily with his sinking heart. And +when his foot finally pressed his own threshold, the value he held the +entire Tennessee property at was five hundred dollars--two hundred down +and the rest in three equal annual payments, without interest. + +There was a sad gathering at the Hawkins fireside the next night. All +the children were present but Clay. Mr. Hawkins said: + +"Washington, we seem to be hopelessly fallen, hopelessly involved. I am +ready to give up. I do not know where to turn--I never have been down so +low before, I never have seen things so dismal. There are many mouths to +feed; Clay is at work; we must lose you, also, for a little while, my +boy. But it will not be long--the Tennessee land----" + +He stopped, and was conscious of a blush. There was silence for a +moment, and then Washington--now a lank, dreamy-eyed stripling between +twenty-two and twenty-three years of age--said: + +"If Col. Sellers would come for me, I would go and stay with him a while, +till the Tennessee land is sold. He has often wanted me to come, ever +since he moved to Hawkeye." + +"I'm afraid he can't well come for you, Washington. From what I can +hear--not from him of course, but from others--he is not far from as bad +off as we are--and his family is as large, too. He might find something +for you to do, maybe, but you'd better try to get to him yourself, +Washington--it's only thirty miles." + +"But how can I, father? There's no stage or anything." + +"And if there were, stages require money. A stage goes from Swansea, +five miles from here. But it would be cheaper to walk." + +"Father, they must know you there, and no doubt they would credit you in +a moment, for a little stage ride like that. Couldn't you write and ask +them?" + +"Couldn't you, Washington--seeing it's you that wants the ride? And what +do you think you'll do, Washington, when you get to Hawkeye? Finish your +invention for making window-glass opaque?" + +"No, sir, I have given that up. I almost knew I could do it, but it was +so tedious and troublesome I quit it." + +"I was afraid of it, my boy. Then I suppose you'll finish your plan of +coloring hen's eggs by feeding a peculiar diet to the hen?" + +"No, sir. I believe I have found out the stuff that will do it, but it +kills the hen; so I have dropped that for the present, though I can take +it up again some day when I learn how to manage the mixture better." + +"Well, what have you got on hand--anything?" + +"Yes, sir, three or four things. I think they are all good and can all +be done, but they are tiresome, and besides they require money. But as +soon as the land is sold----" + +"Emily, were you about to say something?" said Hawkins. + +Yes, sir. If you are willing, I will go to St. Louis. That will make +another mouth less to feed. Mrs. Buckner has always wanted me to come." + +"But the money, child?" + +"Why I think she would send it, if you would write her--and I know she +would wait for her pay till----" + +"Come, Laura, let's hear from you, my girl." + +Emily and Laura were about the same age--between seventeen and eighteen. +Emily was fair and pretty, girlish and diffident--blue eyes and light +hair. Laura had a proud bearing, and a somewhat mature look; she had +fine, clean-cut features, her complexion was pure white and contrasted +vividly with her black hair and eyes; she was not what one calls pretty +--she was beautiful. She said: + +"I will go to St. Louis, too, sir. I will find a way to get there. +I will make a way. And I will find a way to help myself along, and do +what I can to help the rest, too." + +She spoke it like a princess. Mrs. Hawkins smiled proudly and kissed +her, saying in a tone of fond reproof: + +"So one of my girls is going to turn out and work for her living! It's +like your pluck and spirit, child, but we will hope that we haven't got +quite down to that, yet." + +The girl's eyes beamed affection under her mother's caress. Then she +straightened up, folded her white hands in her lap and became a splendid +ice-berg. Clay's dog put up his brown nose for a little attention, and +got it. He retired under the table with an apologetic yelp, which did +not affect the iceberg. + +Judge Hawkins had written and asked Clay to return home and consult with +him upon family affairs. He arrived the evening after this conversation, +and the whole household gave him a rapturous welcome. He brought sadly +needed help with him, consisting of the savings of a year and a half of +work--nearly two hundred dollars in money. + +It was a ray of sunshine which (to this easy household) was the earnest +of a clearing sky. + +Bright and early in the morning the family were astir, and all were busy +preparing Washington for his journey--at least all but Washington +himself, who sat apart, steeped in a reverie. When the time for his +departure came, it was easy to see how fondly all loved him and how hard +it was to let him go, notwithstanding they had often seen him go before, +in his St. Louis schooling days. In the most matter-of-course way they +had borne the burden of getting him ready for his trip, never seeming to +think of his helping in the matter; in the same matter-of-course way Clay +had hired a horse and cart; and now that the good-byes were ended he +bundled Washington's baggage in and drove away with the exile. + +At Swansea Clay paid his stage fare, stowed him away in the vehicle, and +saw him off. Then he returned home and reported progress, like a +committee of the whole. + +Clay remained at home several days. He held many consultations with his +mother upon the financial condition of the family, and talked once with +his father upon the same subject, but only once. He found a change in +that quarter which was distressing; years of fluctuating fortune had done +their work; each reverse had weakened the father's spirit and impaired +his energies; his last misfortune seemed to have left hope and ambition +dead within him; he had no projects, formed no plans--evidently he was a +vanquished man. He looked worn and tired. He inquired into Clay's +affairs and prospects, and when he found that Clay was doing pretty well +and was likely to do still better, it was plain that he resigned himself +with easy facility to look to the son for a support; and he said, "Keep +yourself informed of poor Washington's condition and movements, and help +him along all you can, Clay." + +The younger children, also, seemed relieved of all fears and distresses, +and very ready and willing to look to Clay for a livelihood. Within +three days a general tranquility and satisfaction reigned in the +household. Clay's hundred and eighty or ninety, dollars had worked a +wonder. The family were as contented, now, and as free from care as they +could have been with a fortune. It was well that Mrs. Hawkins held the +purse otherwise the treasure would have lasted but a very little while. + +It took but a trifle to pay Hawkins's outstanding obligations, for he had +always had a horror of debt. + +When Clay bade his home good-bye and set out to return to the field of +his labors, he was conscious that henceforth he was to have his father's +family on his hands as pensioners; but he did not allow himself to chafe +at the thought, for he reasoned that his father had dealt by him with a +free hand and a loving one all his life, and now that hard fortune had +broken his spirit it ought to be a pleasure, not a pain, to work for him. +The younger children were born and educated dependents. They had never +been taught to do anything for themselves, and it did not seem to occur +to them to make an attempt now. + +The girls would not have been permitted to work for a living under any +circumstances whatever. It was a southern family, and of good blood; +and for any person except Laura, either within or without the household +to have suggested such an idea would have brought upon the suggester the +suspicion of being a lunatic. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + Via, Pecunia! when she's run and gone + And fled, and dead, then will I fetch her again + With aqua vita, out of an old hogshead! + While there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer, + I'll never want her! Coin her out of cobwebs, + Dust, but I'll have her! raise wool upon egg-shells, + Sir, and make grass grow out of marrow-bones, + To make her come! + B. Jonson. + +Bearing Washington Hawkins and his fortunes, the stage-coach tore out of +Swansea at a fearful gait, with horn tooting gaily and half the town +admiring from doors and windows. But it did not tear any more after it +got to the outskirts; it dragged along stupidly enough, then--till it +came in sight of the next hamlet; and then the bugle tooted gaily again +and again the vehicle went tearing by the horses. This sort of conduct +marked every entry to a station and every exit from it; and so in those +days children grew up with the idea that stage-coaches always tore and +always tooted; but they also grew up with the idea that pirates went into +action in their Sunday clothes, carrying the black flag in one hand and +pistolling people with the other, merely because they were so represented +in the pictures--but these illusions vanished when later years brought +their disenchanting wisdom. They learned then that the stagecoach is but +a poor, plodding, vulgar thing in the solitudes of the highway; and that +the pirate is only a seedy, unfantastic "rough," when he is out of the +pictures. + +Toward evening, the stage-coach came thundering into Hawkeye with a +perfectly triumphant ostentation--which was natural and proper, for +Hawkey a was a pretty large town for interior Missouri. Washington, +very stiff and tired and hungry, climbed out, and wondered how he was to +proceed now. But his difficulty was quickly solved. Col. Sellers came +down the street on a run and arrived panting for breath. He said: + +"Lord bless you--I'm glad to see you, Washington--perfectly delighted to +see you, my boy! I got your message. Been on the look-out for you. +Heard the stage horn, but had a party I couldn't shake off--man that's +got an enormous thing on hand--wants me to put some capital into it--and +I tell you, my boy, I could do worse, I could do a deal worse. No, now, +let that luggage alone; I'll fix that. Here, Jerry, got anything to do? +All right-shoulder this plunder and follow me. Come along, Washington. +Lord I'm glad to see you! Wife and the children are just perishing to +look at you. Bless you, they won't know you, you've grown so. Folks all +well, I suppose? That's good--glad to hear that. We're always going to +run down and see them, but I'm into so many operations, and they're not +things a man feels like trusting to other people, and so somehow we keep +putting it off. Fortunes in them! Good gracious, it's the country to +pile up wealth in! Here we are--here's where the Sellers dynasty hangs +out. Hump it on the door-step, Jerry--the blackest niggro in the State, +Washington, but got a good heart--mighty likely boy, is Jerry. And now I +suppose you've got to have ten cents, Jerry. That's all right--when a +man works for me--when a man--in the other pocket, I reckon--when a man +--why, where the mischief as that portmonnaie!--when a--well now that's +odd--Oh, now I remember, must have left it at the bank; and b'George I've +left my check-book, too--Polly says I ought to have a nurse--well, no +matter. Let me have a dime, Washington, if you've got--ah, thanks. Now +clear out, Jerry, your complexion has brought on the twilight half an +hour ahead of time. Pretty fair joke--pretty fair. Here he is, Polly! +Washington's come, children! come now, don't eat him up--finish him in +the house. Welcome, my boy, to a mansion that is proud to shelter the +son of the best man that walks on the ground. Si Hawkins has been a good +friend to me, and I believe I can say that whenever I've had a chance to +put him into a good thing I've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully, +too. I put him into that sugar speculation--what a grand thing that was, +if we hadn't held on too long!" + +True enough; but holding on too long had utterly ruined both of them; +and the saddest part of it was, that they never had had so much money to +lose before, for Sellers's sale of their mule crop that year in New +Orleans had been a great financial success. If he had kept out of sugar +and gone back home content to stick to mules it would have been a happy +wisdom. As it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone--that is +to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he +had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that +laid the golden egg--which is but a figurative expression and will be so +understood. Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-handed, and the +mule business lapsed into other hands. The sale of the Hawkins property +by the Sheriff had followed, and the Hawkins hearts been torn to see +Uncle Dan'l and his wife pass from the auction-block into the hands of a +negro trader and depart for the remote South to be seen no more by the +family. It had seemed like seeing their own flesh and blood sold into +banishment. + +Washington was greatly pleased with the Sellers mansion. It was a +two-story-and-a-half brick, and much more stylish than any of its +neighbors. He was borne to the family sitting room in triumph by the +swarm of little Sellerses, the parents following with their arms about +each other's waists. + +The whole family were poorly and cheaply dressed; and the clothing, +although neat and clean, showed many evidences of having seen long +service. The Colonel's "stovepipe" hat was napless and shiny with much +polishing, but nevertheless it had an almost convincing expression about +it of having been just purchased new. The rest of his clothing was +napless and shiny, too, but it had the air of being entirely satisfied +with itself and blandly sorry for other people's clothes. It was growing +rather dark in the house, and the evening air was chilly, too. Sellers +said: + +"Lay off your overcoat, Washington, and draw up to the stove and make +yourself at home--just consider yourself under your own shingles my boy +--I'll have a fire going, in a jiffy. Light the lamp, Polly, dear, and +let's have things cheerful just as glad to see you, Washington, as if +you'd been lost a century and we'd found you again!" + +By this time the Colonel was conveying a lighted match into a poor little +stove. Then he propped the stove door to its place by leaning the poker +against it, for the hinges had retired from business. This door framed +a small square of isinglass, which now warmed up with a faint glow. +Mrs. Sellers lit a cheap, showy lamp, which dissipated a good deal of the +gloom, and then everybody gathered into the light and took the stove into +close companionship. + +The children climbed all over Sellers, fondled him, petted him, and were +lavishly petted in return. Out from this tugging, laughing, chattering +disguise of legs and arms and little faces, the Colonel's voice worked +its way and his tireless tongue ran blithely on without interruption; +and the purring little wife, diligent with her knitting, sat near at hand +and looked happy and proud and grateful; and she listened as one who +listens to oracles and, gospels and whose grateful soul is being +refreshed with the bread of life. Bye and bye the children quieted down +to listen; clustered about their father, and resting their elbows on his +legs, they hung upon his words as if he were uttering the music of the +spheres. + +A dreary old hair-cloth sofa against the wall; a few damaged chairs; the +small table the lamp stood on; the crippled stove--these things +constituted the furniture of the room. There was no carpet on the floor; +on the wall were occasional square-shaped interruptions of the general +tint of the plaster which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the +house--but there were none now. There were no mantel ornaments, unless +one might bring himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came +within fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands always +hitched together at twenty-two minutes past anything and traveled in +company the rest of the way home. + +"Remarkable clock!" said Sellers, and got up and wound it. "I've been +offered--well, I wouldn't expect you to believe what I've been offered +for that clock. Old Gov. Hager never sees me but he says, 'Come, now, +Colonel, name your price--I must have that clock!' But my goodness I'd +as soon think of selling my wife. As I was saying to ---- silence in the +court, now, she's begun to strike! You can't talk against her--you have +to just be patient and hold up till she's said her say. Ah well, as I +was saying, when--she's beginning again! Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, +twenty-two, twen----ah, that's all.--Yes, as I was saying to old Judge +----go it, old girl, don't mind me.--Now how is that?----isn't that a +good, spirited tone? She can wake the dead! Sleep? Why you might as +well try to sleep in a thunder-factory. Now just listen at that. She'll +strike a hundred and fifty, now, without stopping,--you'll see. There +ain't another clock like that in Christendom." + +Washington hoped that this might be true, for the din was distracting +--though the family, one and all, seemed filled with joy; and the more the +clock "buckled down to her work" as the Colonel expressed it, and the +more insupportable the clatter became, the more enchanted they all +appeared to be. When there was silence, Mrs Sellers lifted upon +Washington a face that beamed with a childlike pride, and said: + +"It belonged to his grandmother." + +The look and the tone were a plain call for admiring surprise, and +therefore Washington said (it was the only thing that offered itself at +the moment:) + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, it did, didn't it father!" exclaimed one of the twins. "She was my +great-grandmother--and George's too; wasn't she, father! You never saw +her, but Sis has seen her, when Sis was a baby-didn't you, Sis! Sis has +seen her most a hundred times. She was awful deef--she's dead, now. +Aint she, father!" + +All the children chimed in, now, with one general Babel of information +about deceased--nobody offering to read the riot act or seeming to +discountenance the insurrection or disapprove of it in any way--but the +head twin drowned all the turmoil and held his own against the field: + +"It's our clock, now--and it's got wheels inside of it, and a thing that +flutters every time she strikes--don't it, father! Great-grandmother +died before hardly any of us was born--she was an Old-School Baptist and +had warts all over her--you ask father if she didn't. She had an uncle +once that was bald-headed and used to have fits; he wasn't our uncle, +I don't know what he was to us--some kin or another I reckon--father's +seen him a thousand times--hain't you, father! We used to have a calf +that et apples and just chawed up dishrags like nothing, and if you stay +here you'll see lots of funerals--won't he, Sis! Did you ever see a +house afire? I have! Once me and Jim Terry----" + +But Sellers began to speak now, and the storm ceased. He began to tell +about an enormous speculation he was thinking of embarking some capital +in--a speculation which some London bankers had been over to consult with +him about--and soon he was building glittering pyramids of coin, and +Washington was presently growing opulent under the magic of his +eloquence. But at the same time Washington was not able to ignore the +cold entirely. He was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, +and yet he could not persuade himself, that he felt the slightest heat, +notwithstanding the isinglass' door was still gently and serenely +glowing. He tried to get a trifle closer to the stove, and the +consequence was, he tripped the supporting poker and the stove-door +tumbled to the floor. And then there was a revelation--there was nothing +in the stove but a lighted tallow-candle! The poor youth blushed and +felt as if he must die with shame. But the Colonel was only +disconcerted for a moment--he straightway found his voice again: + +"A little idea of my own, Washington--one of the greatest things in the +world! You must write and tell your father about it--don't forget that, +now. I have been reading up some European Scientific reports--friend of +mine, Count Fugier, sent them to me--sends me all sorts of things from +Paris--he thinks the world of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the +Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came +to the conclusion that it was a nonconductor or something like that, +and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous +organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any +tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you I saw in a moment what +was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your fires!--no more slow +torture and certain death for me, sir. What you want is the appearance +of heat, not the heat itself--that's the idea. Well how to do it was the +next thing. I just put my head, to work, pegged away, a couple of days, +and here you are! Rheumatism? Why a man can't any more start a case of +rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy! +Stove with a candle in it and a transparent door--that's it--it has been +the salvation of this family. Don't you fail to write your father about +it, Washington. And tell him the idea is mine--I'm no more conceited +than most people, I reckon, but you know it is human nature for a man to +want credit for a thing like that." + +Washington said with his blue lips that he would, but he said in his +secret heart that he would promote no such iniquity. He tried to believe +in the healthfulness of the invention, and succeeded tolerably well; +but after all he could not feel that good health in a frozen, body was +any real improvement on the rheumatism. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + --Whan pe horde is thynne, as of seruyse, + Nought replenesshed with grete diuersite + Of mete & drinke, good chere may then suffise + With honest talkyng---- + The Book of Curtesye. + + MAMMON. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore + In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru: + And there within, sir, are the golden mines, + Great Solomon's Ophir!---- + B. Jonson + +The supper at Col. Sellers's was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but it +improved on acquaintance. That is to say, that what Washington regarded +at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became awe-inspiring +agricultural productions that had been reared in some ducal garden beyond +the sea, under the sacred eye of the duke himself, who had sent them to +Sellers; the bread was from corn which could be grown in only one favored +locality in the earth and only a favored few could get it; the Rio +coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the taste, took to itself an +improved flavor when Washington was told to drink it slowly and not hurry +what should be a lingering luxury in order to be fully appreciated--it +was from the private stores of a Brazilian nobleman with an +unrememberable name. The Colonel's tongue was a magician's wand that +turned dried apples into figs and water into wine as easily as it could +change a hovel into a palace and present poverty into imminent future +riches. + +Washington slept in a cold bed in a carpetless room and woke up in a +palace in the morning; at least the palace lingered during the moment +that he was rubbing his eyes and getting his bearings--and then it +disappeared and he recognized that the Colonel's inspiring talk had been +influencing his dreams. Fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered +the sitting room he noticed that the old hair-cloth sofa was absent; when +he sat down to breakfast the Colonel tossed six or seven dollars in bills +on the table, counted them over, said he was a little short and must call +upon his banker; then returned the bills to his wallet with the +indifferent air of a man who is used to money. The breakfast was not an +improvement upon the supper, but the Colonel talked it up and transformed +it into an oriental feast. Bye and bye, he said: + +"I intend to look out for you, Washington, my boy. I hunted up a place +for you yesterday, but I am not referring to that,--now--that is a mere +livelihood--mere bread and butter; but when I say I mean to look out for +you I mean something very different. I mean to put things in your way +than will make a mere livelihood a trifling thing. I'll put you in a way +to make more money than you'll ever know what to do with. You'll be +right here where I can put my hand on you when anything turns up. I've +got some prodigious operations on foot; but I'm keeping quiet; mum's the +word; your old hand don't go around pow-wowing and letting everybody see +his k'yards and find out his little game. But all in good time, +Washington, all in good time. You'll see. Now there's an operation in +corn that looks well. Some New York men are trying to get me to go into +it--buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they +mature--ah I tell you it's a great thing. And it only costs a trifle; +two millions or two and a half will do it. I haven't exactly promised +yet--there's no hurry--the more indifferent I seem, you know, the more +anxious those fellows will get. And then there is the hog speculation +--that's bigger still. We've got quiet men at work," [he was very +impressive here,] "mousing around, to get propositions out of all the +farmers in the whole west and northwest for the hog crop, and other +agents quietly getting propositions and terms out of all the +manufactories--and don't you see, if we can get all the hogs and all the +slaughter horses into our hands on the dead quiet--whew! it would take +three ships to carry the money.--I've looked into the thing--calculated +all the chances for and all the chances against, and though I shake my +head and hesitate and keep on thinking, apparently, I've got my mind made +up that if the thing can be done on a capital of six millions, that's the +horse to put up money on! Why Washington--but what's the use of talking +about it--any man can see that there's whole Atlantic oceans of cash in +it, gulfs and bays thrown in. But there's a bigger thing than that, yes +bigger----" + +"Why Colonel, you can't want anything bigger!" said Washington, his eyes +blazing. "Oh, I wish I could go into either of those speculations--I +only wish I had money--I wish I wasn't cramped and kept down and fettered +with poverty, and such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! +Oh, it is a fearful thing to be poor. But don't throw away those things +--they are so splendid and I can see how sure they are. Don't throw them +away for something still better and maybe fail in it! I wouldn't, +Colonel. I would stick to these. I wish father were here and were his +old self again--Oh, he never in his life had such chances as these are. +Colonel; you can't improve on these--no man can improve on them!" + +A sweet, compassionate smile played about the Colonel's features, and he +leaned over the table with the air of a man who is "going to show you" +and do it without the least trouble: + +"Why Washington, my boy, these things are nothing. They look large of +course--they look large to a novice, but to a man who has been all his +life accustomed to large operations--shaw! They're well enough to while +away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a +trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting for +something to do, but--now just listen a moment--just let me give you an +idea of what we old veterans of commerce call 'business.' Here's the +Rothschild's proposition--this is between you and me, you understand----" + +Washington nodded three or four times impatiently, and his glowing eyes +said, "Yes, yes--hurry--I understand----" + +----"for I wouldn't have it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in +with them on the sly--agent was here two weeks ago about it--go in on the +sly" [voice down to an impressive whisper, now,] "and buy up a hundred +and thirteen wild cat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and +Missouri--notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now--average +discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent--buy them all +up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! Whiz! +the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a tremendous +premium before you could turn a handspring--profit on the speculation not +a dollar less than forty millions!" [An eloquent pause, while the +marvelous vision settled into W.'s focus.] "Where's your hogs now? +Why my dear innocent boy, we would just sit down on the front door-steps +and peddle banks like lucifer matches!" + +Washington finally got his breath and said: + +"Oh, it is perfectly wonderful! Why couldn't these things have happened +in father's day? And I--it's of no use--they simply lie before my face +and mock me. There is nothing for me but to stand helpless and see other +people reap the astonishing harvest." + +"Never mind, Washington, don't you worry. I'll fix you. There's plenty +of chances. How much money have you got?" + +In the presence of so many millions, Washington could not keep from +blushing when he had to confess that he had but eighteen dollars in the +world. + +"Well, all right--don't despair. Other people have been obliged to begin +with less. I have a small idea that may develop into something for us +both, all in good time. Keep your money close and add to it. I'll make +it breed. I've been experimenting (to pass away the time), on a little +preparation for curing sore eyes--a kind of decoction nine-tenths water +and the other tenth drugs that don't cost more than a dollar a barrel; +I'm still experimenting; there's one ingredient wanted yet to perfect the +thing, and somehow I can't just manage to hit upon the thing that's +necessary, and I don't dare talk with a chemist, of course. But I'm +progressing, and before many weeks I wager the country will ring with the +fame of Beriah Sellers' Infallible Imperial Oriental Optic Liniment and +Salvation for Sore Eyes--the Medical Wonder of the Age! Small bottles +fifty cents, large ones a dollar. Average cost, five and seven cents for +the two sizes. + +"The first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in Missouri, seven +thousand in Iowa, three thousand in Arkansas, four thousand in Kentucky, +six thousand in Illinois, and say twenty-five thousand in the rest of the +country. Total, fifty five thousand bottles; profit clear of all +expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest calculation. All +the capital needed is to manufacture the first two thousand bottles +--say a hundred and fifty dollars--then the money would begin to flow in. +The second year, sales would reach 200,000 bottles--clear profit, say, +$75,000--and in the meantime the great factory would be building in St. +Louis, to cost, say, $100,000. The third year we could, easily sell +1,000,000 bottles in the United States and----" + +"O, splendid!" said Washington. "Let's commence right away--let's----" + +"----1,000,000 bottles in the United States--profit at least $350,000 +--and then it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the real +idea of the business." + +"The real idea of it! Ain't $350,000 a year a pretty real----" + +"Stuff! Why what an infant you are, Washington--what a guileless, +short-sighted, easily-contented innocent you, are, my poor little +country-bred know-nothing! Would I go to all that trouble and bother for +the poor crumbs a body might pick up in this country? Now do I look like +a man who----does my history suggest that I am a man who deals in +trifles, contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the common +herd, sees no further than the end of his nose? Now you know that that +is not me--couldn't be me. You ought to know that if I throw my time and +abilities into a patent medicine, it's a patent medicine whose field of +operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming nations that +inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an eye-water +country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway that you've +got to cross to get to the true eye-water market! Why, Washington, in +the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the desert; every +square mile of ground upholds its thousands upon thousands of struggling +human creatures--and every separate and individual devil of them's got +the ophthalmia! It's as natural to them as noses are--and sin. It's +born with them, it stays with them, it's all that some of them have left +when they die. Three years of introductory trade in the orient and what +will be the result? Why, our headquarters would be in Constantinople and +our hindquarters in Further India! Factories and warehouses in Cairo, +Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yedo, Peking, Bangkok, Delhi, +Bombay--and Calcutta! Annual income--well, God only knows how many +millions and millions apiece!" + +Washington was so dazed, so bewildered--his heart and his eyes had +wandered so far away among the strange lands beyond the seas, and such +avalanches of coin and currency had fluttered and jingled confusedly down +before him, that he was now as one who has been whirling round and round +for a time, and, stopping all at once, finds his surroundings still +whirling and all objects a dancing chaos. However, little by little the +Sellers family cooled down and crystalized into shape, and the poor room +lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. Then the youth found his voice +and begged Sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water; and he +got his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the Colonel--pleaded +with him to take it--implored him to do it. But the Colonel would not; +said he would not need the capital (in his native magnificent way he +called that eighteen dollars Capital) till the eye-water was an +accomplished fact. He made Washington easy in his mind, though, by +promising that he would call for it just as soon as the invention was +finished, and he added the glad tidings that nobody but just they two +should be admitted to a share in the speculation. + +When Washington left the breakfast table he could have worshiped that +man. Washington was one of that kind of people whose hopes are in the +very, clouds one day and in the gutter the next. He walked on air, now. +The Colonel was ready to take him around and introduce him to the +employment he had found for him, but Washington begged for a few moments +in which to write home; with his kind of people, to ride to-day's new +interest to death and put off yesterday's till another time, is nature +itself. He ran up stairs and wrote glowingly, enthusiastically, to his +mother about the hogs and the corn, the banks and the eye-water--and +added a few inconsequential millions to each project. And he said that +people little dreamed what a man Col. Sellers was, and that the world +would open its eyes when it found out. And he closed his letter thus: + +"So make yourself perfectly easy, mother-in a little while you shall have +everything you want, and more. I am not likely to stint you in anything, +I fancy. This money will not be for me, alone, but for all of us. +I want all to share alike; and there is going to be far more for each +than one person can spend. Break it to father cautiously--you understand +the need of that--break it to him cautiously, for he has had such cruel +hard fortune, and is so stricken by it that great good news might +prostrate him more surely than even bad, for he is used to the bad but +is grown sadly unaccustomed to the other. Tell Laura--tell all the +children. And write to Clay about it if he is not with you yet. You may +tell Clay that whatever I get he can freely share in-freely. He knows +that that is true--there will be no need that I should swear to that to +make him believe it. Good-bye--and mind what I say: Rest perfectly easy, +one and all of you, for our troubles are nearly at an end." + +Poor lad, he could not know that his mother would cry some loving, +compassionate tears over his letter and put off the family with a +synopsis of its contents which conveyed a deal of love to then but not +much idea of his prospects or projects. And he never dreamed that such a +joyful letter could sadden her and fill her night with sighs, and +troubled thoughts, and bodings of the future, instead of filling it with +peace and blessing it with restful sleep. + +When the letter was done, Washington and the Colonel sallied forth, and +as they walked along Washington learned what he was to be. He was to be +a clerk in a real estate office. Instantly the fickle youth's dreams +forsook the magic eye-water and flew back to the Tennessee Land. And the +gorgeous possibilities of that great domain straightway began to occupy +his imagination to such a degree that he could scarcely manage to keep +even enough of his attention upon the Colonel's talk to retain the +general run of what he was saying. He was glad it was a real estate +office--he was a made man now, sure. + +The Colonel said that General Boswell was a rich man and had a good and +growing business; and that Washington's work world be light and he would +get forty dollars a month and be boarded and lodged in the General's +family--which was as good as ten dollars more; and even better, for he +could not live as well even at the "City Hotel" as he would there, and +yet the hotel charged fifteen dollars a month where a man had a good +room. + +General Boswell was in his office; a comfortable looking place, with +plenty of outline maps hanging about the walls and in the windows, and +a spectacled man was marking out another one on a long table. The office +was in the principal street. The General received Washington with a +kindly but reserved politeness. Washington rather liked his looks. +He was about fifty years old, dignified, well preserved and well dressed. +After the Colonel took his leave, the General talked a while with +Washington--his talk consisting chiefly of instructions about the +clerical duties of the place. He seemed satisfied as to Washington's +ability to take care of the books, he was evidently a pretty fair +theoretical bookkeeper, and experience would soon harden theory into +practice. By and by dinner-time came, and the two walked to the +General's house; and now Washington noticed an instinct in himself that +moved him to keep not in the General's rear, exactly, but yet not at his +side--somehow the old gentleman's dignity and reserve did not inspire +familiarity. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Washington dreamed his way along the street, his fancy flitting from +grain to hogs, from hogs to banks, from banks to eyewater, from eye-water +to Tennessee Land, and lingering but a feverish moment upon each of these +fascinations. He was conscious of but one outward thing, to wit, the +General, and he was really not vividly conscious of him. + +Arrived at the finest dwelling in the town, they entered it and were at +home. Washington was introduced to Mrs. Boswell, and his imagination was +on the point of flitting into the vapory realms of speculation again, +when a lovely girl of sixteen or seventeen came in. This vision swept +Washington's mind clear of its chaos of glittering rubbish in an instant. +Beauty had fascinated him before; many times he had been in love even for +weeks at a time with the same object but his heart had never suffered so +sudden and so fierce an assault as this, within his recollection. + +Louise Boswell occupied his mind and drifted among his multiplication +tables all the afternoon. He was constantly catching himself in a +reverie--reveries made up of recalling how she looked when she first +burst upon him; how her voice thrilled him when she first spoke; how +charmed the very air seemed by her presence. Blissful as the afternoon +was, delivered up to such a revel as this, it seemed an eternity, so +impatient was he to see the girl again. Other afternoons like it +followed. Washington plunged into this love affair as he plunged into +everything else--upon impulse and without reflection. As the days went +by it seemed plain that he was growing in favor with Louise,--not +sweepingly so, but yet perceptibly, he fancied. His attentions to her +troubled her father and mother a little, and they warned Louise, without +stating particulars or making allusions to any special person, that a +girl was sure to make a mistake who allowed herself to marry anybody but +a man who could support her well. + +Some instinct taught Washington that his present lack of money would be +an obstruction, though possibly not a bar, to his hopes, and straightway +his poverty became a torture to him which cast all his former sufferings +under that held into the shade. He longed for riches now as he had ever +longed for them before. + +He had been once or twice to dine with Col. Sellers, and had been +discouraged to note that the Colonel's bill of fare was falling off both +in quantity and quality--a sign, he feared, that the lacking ingredient +in the eye-water still remained undiscovered--though Sellers always +explained that these changes in the family diet had been ordered by the +doctor, or suggested by some new scientific work the Colonel had stumbled +upon. But it always turned out that the lacking ingredient was still +lacking--though it always appeared, at the same time, that the Colonel +was right on its heels. + +Every time the Colonel came into the real estate office Washington's +heart bounded and his eyes lighted with hope, but it always turned out +that the Colonel was merely on the scent of some vast, undefined landed +speculation--although he was customarily able to say that he was nearer +to the all-necessary ingredient than ever, and could almost name the hour +when success would dawn. And then Washington's heart world sink again +and a sigh would tell when it touched bottom. + +About this time a letter came, saying that Judge Hawkins had been ailing +for a fortnight, and was now considered to be seriously ill. It was +thought best that Washington should come home. The news filled him with +grief, for he loved and honored his father; the Boswells were touched by +the youth's sorrow, and even the General unbent and said encouraging +things to him.--There was balm in this; but when Louise bade him +good-bye, and shook his hand and said, "Don't be cast down--it will all +come out right--I know it will all come out right," it seemed a blessed +thing to be in misfortune, and the tears that welled up to his eyes were +the messengers of an adoring and a grateful heart; and when the girl saw +them and answering tears came into her own eyes, Washington could hardly +contain the excess of happiness that poured into the cavities of his +breast that were so lately stored to the roof with grief. + +All the way home he nursed his woe and exalted it. He pictured himself +as she must be picturing him: a noble, struggling young spirit persecuted +by misfortune, but bravely and patiently waiting in the shadow of a dread +calamity and preparing to meet the blow as became one who was all too +used to hard fortune and the pitiless buffetings of fate. These thoughts +made him weep, and weep more broken-heartedly than ever; and be wished +that she could see his sufferings now. + +There was nothing significant in the fact that Louise, dreamy and +distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling +"Washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. But there was +something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every +time she wrote it; examined the erasure critically to see if anybody +could guess at what the word had been; then buried it under a maze of +obliterating lines; and finally, as if still unsatisfied, burned the +paper. + +When Washington reached home, he recognized at once how serious his +father's case was. The darkened room, the labored breathing and +occasional moanings of the patient, the tip-toeing of the attendants and +their whispered consultations, were full of sad meaning. For three or +four nights Mrs. Hawkins and Laura had been watching by the bedside; Clay +had arrived, preceding Washington by one day, and he was now added to the +corps of watchers. Mr. Hawkins would have none but these three, though +neighborly assistance was offered by old friends. From this time forth +three-hour watches were instituted, and day and night the watchers kept +their vigils. By degrees Laura and her mother began to show wear, but +neither of them would yield a minute of their tasks to Clay. He ventured +once to let the midnight hour pass without calling Laura, but he ventured +no more; there was that about her rebuke when he tried to explain, that +taught him that to let her sleep when she might be ministering to her +father's needs, was to rob her of moments that were priceless in her +eyes; he perceived that she regarded it as a privilege to watch, not a +burden. And, he had noticed, also, that when midnight struck, the +patient turned his eyes toward the door, with an expectancy in them which +presently grew into a longing but brightened into contentment as soon +as the door opened and Laura appeared. And he did not need Laura's +rebuke when he heard his father say: + +"Clay is good, and you are tired, poor child; but I wanted you so." + +"Clay is not good, father--he did not call me. I would not have treated +him so. How could you do it, Clay?" + +Clay begged forgiveness and promised not to break faith again; and as he +betook him to his bed, he said to himself: "It's a steadfast little +soul; whoever thinks he is doing the Duchess a kindness by intimating +that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to, +makes a mistake; and if I did not know it before, I know now that there +are surer ways of pleasing her than by trying to lighten her labor when +that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake of a person she +loves." + +A week drifted by, and all the while the patient sank lower and lower. +The night drew on that was to end all suspense. It was a wintry one. +The darkness gathered, the snow was falling, the wind wailed plaintively +about the house or shook it with fitful gusts. The doctor had paid his +last visit and gone away with that dismal remark to the nearest friend of +the family that he "believed there was nothing more that he could do" +--a remark which is always overheard by some one it is not meant for and +strikes a lingering half-conscious hope dead with a withering shock; +the medicine phials had been removed from the bedside and put out of +sight, and all things made orderly and meet for the solemn event that was +impending; the patient, with closed eyes, lay scarcely breathing; the +watchers sat by and wiped the gathering damps from his forehead while the +silent tears flowed down their faces; the deep hush was only interrupted +by sobs from the children, grouped about the bed. + +After a time--it was toward midnight now--Mr. Hawkins roused out of a +doze, looked about him and was evidently trying to speak. Instantly +Laura lifted his head and in a failing voice he said, while something of +the old light shone in his eyes: + +"Wife--children--come nearer--nearer. The darkness grows. Let me see +you all, once more." + +The group closed together at the bedside, and their tears and sobs came +now without restraint. + +"I am leaving you in cruel poverty. I have been--so foolish--so +short-sighted. But courage! A better day is--is coming. Never lose +sight of the Tennessee Land! Be wary. There is wealth stored up for you +there --wealth that is boundless! The children shall hold up their heads +with the best in the land, yet. Where are the papers?--Have you got the +papers safe? Show them--show them to me!" + +Under his strong excitement his voice had gathered power and his last +sentences were spoken with scarcely a perceptible halt or hindrance. +With an effort he had raised himself almost without assistance to a +sitting posture. But now the fire faded out of his eyes and be fell back +exhausted. The papers were brought and held before him, and the +answering smile that flitted across his face showed that he was +satisfied. He closed his eyes, and the signs of approaching dissolution +multiplied rapidly. He lay almost motionless for a little while, then +suddenly partly raised his head and looked about him as one who peers +into a dim uncertain light. He muttered: + +"Gone? No--I see you--still. It is--it is-over. But you are--safe. +Safe. The Ten-----" + +The voice died out in a whisper; the sentence was never finished. The +emaciated fingers began to pick at the coverlet, a fatal sign. After a +time there were no sounds but the cries of the mourners within and the +gusty turmoil of the wind without. Laura had bent down and kissed her +father's lips as the spirit left the body; but she did not sob, or utter +any ejaculation; her tears flowed silently. Then she closed the dead +eyes, and crossed the hands upon the breast; after a season, she kissed +the forehead reverently, drew the sheet up over the face, and then walked +apart and sat down with the look of one who is done with life and has no +further interest in its joys and sorrows, its hopes or its ambitions. +Clay buried his face in the coverlet of the bed; when the other children +and the mother realized that death was indeed come at last, they threw +themselves into each others' arms and gave way to a frenzy of grief. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 1. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 1. *** + +***** This file should be named 5818.txt or 5818.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/1/5818/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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