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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:26:15 -0700 |
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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/5819-h.zip b/5819-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..58ef91e --- /dev/null +++ b/5819-h.zip diff --git a/5819-h/5819-h.htm b/5819-h/5819-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af29bc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/5819-h/5819-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3179 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>THE GILDED AGE, By Twain and Warner, Part 2</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 2</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 2. +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 2. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5819] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 2. *** + + + + +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><br> +<center><h2>by <br><br>Mark Twain <br>and <br>Charles Dudley Warner</h2> +</center> +<center><h3>1873</h3> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center><h3>Volume 2.</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="#ch10">CHAPTER X</a><br> +Laura Hawkins Discovers a Mystery in Her Parentage and Grows Morbid Under the +Village Gossip +<br><br> +<a href="#ch11">CHAPTER XI</a><br> +A Dinner with Col Sellers—Wonderful Effects of Raw Turnips +<br><br> +<a href="#ch12">CHAPTER XII</a><br> +Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly—Arrangements to Go West +as Engineers +<br><br> +<a href="#ch13">CHAPTER XIII</a><br> +Rail—Road Contractors and Party Traveling—Philip and Harry +form the Acquaintance of Col Sellers +<br><br> +<a href="#ch13">CHAPTER XIV</a><br> +Ruth Bolton and Her Parents +<br><br> +<a href="#ch15">CHAPTER XV</a><br> +Visitors of the Boltons—Mr Bigler "Sees the Legislature"—Ruth Bolton +Commences Medical Studies +<br><br> +<a href="#ch16">CHAPTER XVI</a><br> +The Engineers Detained at St Louis—Off for Camp—Reception by Jeff +<br><br> +<a href="#ch17">CHAPTER XVII</a><br> +The Engineer Corps Arrive at Stone's Landing +<br><br> +<a href="#ch18">CHAPTER XVIII </a><br> +Laura and Her Marriage to Colonel Selby—Deserted and Returns to Hawkeye + +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</center> + + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +37. <a href="#p100">LAURA SEEKING POR EVIDENCES OF HER BIRTH</a><br> +38. <a href="#p105">EVER TRUE</a><br> +39. <a href="#p110">A HEALTHY MEAL</a><br> +40. <a href="#p115">PHILIP AT THE THEATRE</a><br> +41. <a href="#p117">WHAT PHILIP LEARNED AT COLLEGE</a><br> +42. <a href="#p124">THE DELEGATE'S INTERESTING GAME</a><br> +43. <a href="#p128">THE PERSON OF IMPORTANCE</a><br> +44. <a href="#p131">"NOT THAT"</a><br> +45. <a href="#p134">RUTH'S MOTHER MAKES ENQUIRIES</a><br> +46. <a href="#p138">THE LETTER</a> <br> +47. <a href="#p142">CARING FOR THE POOR</a><br> +48. <a href="#p145">ANATOMICAL INVESTIGATIONS</a> <br> +49. <a href="#p146">RUTH LOOKING AT THE "NEW ONE" BY CANDLE LIGHT</a> <br> +60. <a href="#p151">"ONLY FOR YOU, BRIERLY"</a> <br> +51. <a href="#p154">AN ACCLIMATED MAN</a><br> +51. <a href="#p155">NO THANKS! GOOD BYE!</a><br> +52. <a href="#p157">"BRESS YOU, CHILE, YOU DAR NOW"</a><br> +53. <a href="#p157">CAMP LIFE</a><br> +54. <a href="#p157b">STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER</a> <br> +55. <a href="#p158">JEFF THOMPSON AS A NIGHTINGALE</a> <br> +56. <a href="#p161">BOUND FOR STONE'S LANDING</a> <br> +57. <a href="#p162">STONE'S LANDING</a> <br> +58. <a href="#p163">WAITING FOR A RAILROAD</a> <br> +59. <a href="#p165">"IT AIN'T THERE"</a> <br> +60. <a href="#p167">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +61. <a href="#p171">CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON</a> <br> +63. <a href="#p174">LAURA SWOONED</a><br> +62. <a href="#p176">TAILPIECE</a> <br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Only two or three days had elapsed since the funeral, when something +happened which was to change the drift of Laura's life somewhat, and +influence in a greater or lesser degree the formation of her character.</p> + +<p>Major Lackland had once been a man of note in the State—a man of +extraordinary natural ability and as extraordinary learning. He had been +universally trusted and honored in his day, but had finally, fallen into +misfortune; while serving his third term in Congress, and while upon the +point of being elevated to the Senate—which was considered the summit of +earthly aggrandizement in those days—he had yielded to temptation, when +in distress for money wherewith to save his estate; and sold his vote. +His crime was discovered, and his fall followed instantly. Nothing could +reinstate him in the confidence of the people, his ruin was +irretrievable—his disgrace complete. All doors were closed against him, +all men avoided him. After years of skulking retirement and dissipation, +death had relieved him of his troubles at last, and his funeral followed +close upon that of Mr. Hawkins. He died as he had latterly lived—wholly +alone and friendless. He had no relatives—or if he had they did not +acknowledge him. The coroner's jury found certain memoranda upon his +body and about the premises which revealed a fact not suspected by the +villagers before-viz., that Laura was not the child of Mr. and Mrs. +Hawkins.</p> + +<p>The gossips were soon at work. They were but little hampered by the fact +that the memoranda referred to betrayed nothing but the bare circumstance +that Laura's real parents were unknown, and stopped there. So far from +being hampered by this, the gossips seemed to gain all the more freedom +from it. They supplied all the missing information themselves, they +filled up all the blanks. The town soon teemed with histories of Laura's +origin and secret history, no two versions precisely alike, but all +elaborate, exhaustive, mysterious and interesting, and all agreeing in +one vital particular-to-wit, that there was a suspicious cloud about her +birth, not to say a disreputable one.</p> + +<p>Laura began to encounter cold looks, averted eyes and peculiar nods and +gestures which perplexed her beyond measure; but presently the pervading +gossip found its way to her, and she understood them—then. Her pride +was stung. She was astonished, and at first incredulous. She was about +to ask her mother if there was any truth in these reports, but upon +second thought held her peace. She soon gathered that Major Lackland's +memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself and +Judge Hawkins. She shaped her course without difficulty the day that +that hint reached her.</p> + +<p>That night she sat in her room till all was still, and then she stole +into the garret and began a search. She rummaged long among boxes of +musty papers relating to business matters of no, interest to her, but at +last she found several bundles of letters. One bundle was marked +"private," and in that she found what she wanted. She selected six or +eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents, +heedless of the cold.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p100"></a><img alt="p100.jpg (79K)" src="images/p100.jpg" height="907" width="561"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>By the dates, these letters were from five to seven years old. They were +all from Major Lackland to Mr. Hawkins. The substance of them was, that +some one in the east had been inquiring of Major Lackland about a lost +child and its parents, and that it was conjectured that the child might +be Laura.</p> + +<p>Evidently some of the letters were missing, for the name of the inquirer +was not mentioned; there was a casual reference to "this +handsome-featured aristocratic gentleman," as if the reader and the writer were +accustomed to speak of him and knew who was meant.</p> + +<p>In one letter the Major said he agreed with Mr. Hawkins that the inquirer +seemed not altogether on the wrong track; but he also agreed that it +would be best to keep quiet until more convincing developments were +forthcoming.</p> + +<p>Another letter said that "the poor soul broke completely down when be saw +Laura's picture, and declared it must be she."</p> + +<p>Still another said:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + "He seems entirely alone in the world, and his heart is so wrapped + up in this thing that I believe that if it proved a false hope, it + would kill him; I have persuaded him to wait a little while and go + west when I go." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Another letter had this paragraph in it:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + "He is better one day and worse the next, and is out of his mind a + good deal of the time. Lately his case has developed a something + which is a wonder to the hired nurses, but which will not be much of + a marvel to you if you have read medical philosophy much. It is + this: his lost memory returns to him when he is delirious, and goes + away again when he is himself-just as old Canada Joe used to talk + the French patois of his boyhood in the delirium of typhus fever, + though he could not do it when his mind was clear. Now this poor + gentleman's memory has always broken down before he reached the + explosion of the steamer; he could only remember starting up the + river with his wife and child, and he had an idea that there was a + race, but he was not certain; he could not name the boat he was on; + there was a dead blank of a month or more that supplied not an item + to his recollection. It was not for me to assist him, of course. + But now in his delirium it all comes out: the names of the boats, + every incident of the explosion, and likewise the details of his + astonishing escape—that is, up to where, just as a yawl-boat was + approaching him (he was clinging to the starboard wheel of the + burning wreck at the time), a falling timber struck him on the head. + But I will write out his wonderful escape in full to-morrow or next + day. Of course the physicians will not let me tell him now that our + Laura is indeed his child—that must come later, when his health is + thoroughly restored. His case is not considered dangerous at all; + he will recover presently, the doctors say. But they insist that he + must travel a little when he gets well—they recommend a short sea + voyage, and they say he can be persuaded to try it if we continue to + keep him in ignorance and promise to let him see L. as soon as he + returns." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The letter that bore the latest date of all, contained this clause:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + "It is the most unaccountable thing in the world; the mystery + remains as impenetrable as ever; I have hunted high and low for him, + and inquired of everybody, but in vain; all trace of him ends at + that hotel in New York; I never have seen or heard of him since, + up to this day; he could hardly have sailed, for his name does not + appear upon the books of any shipping office in New York or Boston + or Baltimore. How fortunate it seems, now, that we kept this thing + to ourselves; Laura still has a father in you, and it is better for + her that we drop this subject here forever." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>That was all. Random remarks here and there, being pieced together gave +Laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence, abort forty-three or +forty-five years of age, with dark hair and eyes, and a slight limp in +his walk—it was not stated which leg was defective. And this indistinct +shadow represented her father. She made an exhaustive search for the +missing letters, but found none. They had probably been burned; and she +doubted not that the ones she had ferreted out would have shared the same +fate if Mr. Hawkins had not been a dreamer, void of method, whose mind +was perhaps in a state of conflagration over some bright new speculation +when he received them.</p> + +<p>She sat long, with the letters in her lap, thinking—and unconsciously +freezing. She felt like a lost person who has traveled down a long lane +in good hope of escape, and, just as the night descends finds his +progress barred by a bridge-less river whose further shore, if it has +one, is lost in the darkness. If she could only have found these letters +a month sooner! That was her thought. But now the dead had carried +their secrets with them. A dreary, melancholy settled down upon her. +An undefined sense of injury crept into her heart. She grew very +miserable.</p> + +<p>She had just reached the romantic age—the age when there is a sad +sweetness, a dismal comfort to a girl to find out that there is a mystery +connected with her birth, which no other piece of good luck can afford. +She had more than her rightful share of practical good sense, but still +she was human; and to be human is to have one's little modicum of romance +secreted away in one's composition. One never ceases to make a hero of +one's self, (in private,) during life, but only alters the style of his +heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle certain gods of +his admiration and raise up others in their stead that seem greater.</p> + +<p>The recent wearing days and nights of watching, and the wasting grief +that had possessed her, combined with the profound depression that +naturally came with the reaction of idleness, made Laura peculiarly +susceptible at this time to romantic impressions. She was a heroine, +now, with a mysterious father somewhere. She could not really tell +whether she wanted to find him and spoil it all or not; but still all the +traditions of romance pointed to the making the attempt as the usual and +necessary, course to follow; therefore she would some day begin the +search when opportunity should offer.</p> + +<p>Now a former thought struck her—she would speak to Mrs. Hawkins. +And naturally enough Mrs. Hawkins appeared on the stage at that moment.</p> + +<p>She said she knew all—she knew that Laura had discovered the secret that +Mr. Hawkins, the elder children, Col. Sellers and herself had kept so +long and so faithfully; and she cried and said that now that troubles had +begun they would never end; her daughter's love would wean itself away +from her and her heart would break. Her grief so wrought upon Laura that +the girl almost forgot her own troubles for the moment in her compassion +for her mother's distress. Finally Mrs. Hawkins said:</p> + +<p>"Speak to me, child—do not forsake me. Forget all this miserable talk. +Say I am your mother!—I have loved you so long, and there is no other. +I am your mother, in the sight of God, and nothing shall ever take you +from me!"</p> + +<p>All barriers fell, before this appeal. Laura put her arms about her +mother's neck and said:</p> + +<p>"You are my mother, and always shall be. We will be as we have always +been; and neither this foolish talk nor any other thing shall part us or +make us less to each other than we are this hour."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p105"></a><img alt="p105.jpg (31K)" src="images/p105.jpg" height="477" width="449"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>There was no longer any sense of separation or estrangement between them. +Indeed their love seemed more perfect now than it had ever been before. +By and by they went down stairs and sat by the fire and talked long and +earnestly about Laura's history and the letters. But it transpired that +Mrs. Hawkins had never known of this correspondence between her husband +and Major Lackland. With his usual consideration for his wife, Mr. +Hawkins had shielded her from the worry the matter would have caused her.</p> + +<p>Laura went to bed at last with a mind that had gained largely in +tranquility and had lost correspondingly in morbid romantic exaltation. +She was pensive, the next day, and subdued; but that was not matter for +remark, for she did not differ from the mournful friends about her in +that respect. Clay and Washington were the same loving and admiring +brothers now that they had always been. The great secret was new to some +of the younger children, but their love suffered no change under the +wonderful revelation.</p> + +<p>It is barely possible that things might have presently settled down into +their old rut and the mystery have lost the bulk of its romantic +sublimity in Laura's eyes, if the village gossips could have quieted +down. But they could not quiet down and they did not. Day after day +they called at the house, ostensibly upon visits of condolence, and they +pumped away at the mother and the children without seeming to know that +their questionings were in bad taste. They meant no harm they only +wanted to know. Villagers always want to know.</p> + +<p>The family fought shy of the questionings, and of course that was high +testimony "if the Duchess was respectably born, why didn't they come out +and prove it?—why did they, stick to that poor thin story about picking +her up out of a steamboat explosion?"</p> + +<p>Under this ceaseless persecution, Laura's morbid self-communing was +renewed. At night the day's contribution of detraction, innuendo and +malicious conjecture would be canvassed in her mind, and then she would +drift into a course of thinking. As her thoughts ran on, the indignant +tears would spring to her eyes, and she would spit out fierce little +ejaculations at intervals. But finally she would grow calmer and say +some comforting disdainful thing—something like this:</p> + +<p>"But who are they?—Animals! What are their opinions to me? Let them +talk—I will not stoop to be affected by it. I could hate——. +Nonsense—nobody I care for or in any way respect is changed toward me, +I fancy."</p> + +<p>She may have supposed she was thinking of many individuals, but it was +not so—she was thinking of only one. And her heart warmed somewhat, +too, the while. One day a friend overheard a conversation like +this:—and naturally came and told her all about it:</p> + +<p>"Ned, they say you don't go there any more. How is that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't; but I tell you it's not because I don't want to and it's +not because I think it is any matter who her father was or who he wasn't, +either; it's only on account of this talk, talk, talk. I think she is a +fine girl every way, and so would you if you knew her as well as I do; +but you know how it is when a girl once gets talked about—it's all up +with her—the world won't ever let her alone, after that."</p> + +<p>The only comment Laura made upon this revelation, was:</p> + +<p>"Then it appears that if this trouble had not occurred I could have had +the happiness of Mr. Ned Thurston's serious attentions. He is well +favored in person, and well liked, too, I believe, and comes of one of +the first families of the village. He is prosperous, too, I hear; has +been a doctor a year, now, and has had two patients—no, three, I think; +yes, it was three. I attended their funerals. Well, other people have +hoped and been disappointed; I am not alone in that. I wish you could +stay to dinner, Maria—we are going to have sausages; and besides, +I wanted to talk to you about Hawkeye and make you promise to come and +see us when we are settled there."</p> + +<p>But Maria could not stay. She had come to mingle romantic tears with +Laura's over the lover's defection and had found herself dealing with a +heart that could not rise to an appreciation of affliction because its +interest was all centred in sausages.</p> + +<p>But as soon as Maria was gone, Laura stamped her expressive foot and +said:</p> + +<p>"The coward! Are all books lies? I thought he would fly to the front, +and be brave and noble, and stand up for me against all the world, and +defy my enemies, and wither these gossips with his scorn! Poor crawling +thing, let him go. I do begin to despise thin world!"</p> + +<p>She lapsed into thought. Presently she said:</p> + +<p>"If the time ever comes, and I get a chance, Oh, I'll——"</p> + +<p>She could not find a word that was strong enough, perhaps. By and by she +said:</p> + +<p>"Well, I am glad of it—I'm glad of it. I never cared anything for him +anyway!"</p> + +<p>And then, with small consistency, she cried a little, and patted her foot +more indignantly than ever.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Two months had gone by and the Hawkins family were domiciled in Hawkeye. +Washington was at work in the real estate office again, and was +alternately in paradise or the other place just as it happened that +Louise was gracious to him or seemingly indifferent—because indifference +or preoccupation could mean nothing else than that she was thinking of +some other young person. Col. Sellers had asked him several times, to +dine with him, when he first returned to Hawkeye, but Washington, for no +particular reason, had not accepted. No particular reason except one +which he preferred to keep to himself—viz. that he could not bear to be +away from Louise. It occurred to him, now, that the Colonel had not +invited him lately—could he be offended? He resolved to go that very +day, and give the Colonel a pleasant surprise. It was a good idea; +especially as Louise had absented herself from breakfast that morning, +and torn his heart; he would tear hers, now, and let her see how it felt.</p> + +<p>The Sellers family were just starting to dinner when Washington burst +upon them with his surprise. For an instant the Colonel looked +nonplussed, and just a bit uncomfortable; and Mrs. Sellers looked +actually distressed; but the next moment the head of the house was +himself again, and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"All right, my boy, all right—always glad to see you—always glad to +hear your voice and take you by the hand. Don't wait for special +invitations—that's all nonsense among friends. Just come whenever you +can, and come as often as you can—the oftener the better. You can't +please us any better than that, Washington; the little woman will tell +you so herself. We don't pretend to style. Plain folks, you know—plain +folks. Just a plain family dinner, but such as it is, our friends are +always welcome, I reckon you know that yourself, Washington. Run along, +children, run along; Lafayette,—[**In those old days the average man +called his children after his most revered literary and historical idols; +consequently there was hardly a family, at least in the West, but had a +Washington in it—and also a Lafayette, a Franklin, and six or eight +sounding names from Byron, Scott, and the Bible, if the offspring held +out. To visit such a family, was to find one's self confronted by a +congress made up of representatives of the imperial myths and the +majestic dead of all the ages. There was something thrilling about it, +to a stranger, not to say awe inspiring.]—stand off the cat's tail, +child, can't you see what you're doing?—Come, come, come, Roderick Dhu, +it isn't nice for little boys to hang onto young gentlemen's coat +tails—but never mind him, Washington, he's full of spirits and don't mean any +harm. Children will be children, you know. Take the chair next to Mrs. +Sellers, Washington—tut, tut, Marie Antoinette, let your brother have +the fork if he wants it, you are bigger than he is."</p> + +<p>Washington contemplated the banquet, and wondered if he were in his right +mind. Was this the plain family dinner? And was it all present? It was +soon apparent that this was indeed the dinner: it was all on the table: +it consisted of abundance of clear, fresh water, and a basin of raw +turnips—nothing more.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p110"></a><img alt="p110.jpg (51K)" src="images/p110.jpg" height="461" width="543"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Washington stole a glance at Mrs. Sellers's face, and would have given +the world, the next moment, if he could have spared her that. The poor +woman's face was crimson, and the tears stood in her eyes. Washington +did not know what to do. He wished he had never come there and spied out +this cruel poverty and brought pain to that poor little lady's heart and +shame to her cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. Col. +Sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who +should say "Now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and +began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before him "Let +me help you, Washington—Lafayette pass this plate Washington—ah, well, +well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, I tell you. +Speculation—my! the whole atmosphere's full of money. I would'nt take +three fortunes for one little operation I've got on hand now—have +anything from the casters? No? Well, you're right, you're right. Some +people like mustard with turnips, but—now there was Baron +Poniatowski—Lord, but that man did know how to live!—true Russian you know, Russian +to the back bone; I say to my wife, give me a Russian every time, for a +table comrade. The Baron used to say, 'Take mustard, Sellers, try the +mustard,—a man can't know what turnips are in perfection without, +mustard,' but I always said, 'No, Baron, I'm a plain man and I want my +food plain—none of your embellishments for Beriah Sellers—no made +dishes for me! And it's the best way—high living kills more than it +cures in this world, you can rest assured of that.—Yes indeed, +Washington, I've got one little operation on hand that—take some more +water—help yourself, won't you?—help yourself, there's plenty +of it.—You'll find it pretty good, I guess. How does that fruit strike you?"</p> + +<p>Washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better. He did +not add that he detested turnips even when they were cooked loathed them +in their natural state. No, he kept this to himself, and praised the +turnips to the peril of his soul.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd like them. Examine them—examine them—they'll bear it. +See how perfectly firm and juicy they are—they can't start any like them +in this part of the country, I can tell you. These are from New +Jersey—I imported them myself. They cost like sin, too; but lord bless me, +I go in for having the best of a thing, even if it does cost a little +more—it's the best economy, in the long run. These are the Early +Malcolm—it's a turnip that can't be produced except in just one orchard, +and the supply never is up to the demand. Take some more water, +Washington—you can't drink too much water with fruit—all the doctors +say that. The plague can't come where this article is, my boy!"</p> + +<p>"Plague? What plague?"</p> + +<p>"What plague, indeed? Why the Asiatic plague that nearly depopulated +London a couple of centuries ago."</p> + +<p>"But how does that concern us? There is no plague here, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"Sh! I've let it out! Well, never mind—just keep it to yourself. +Perhaps I oughtn't said anything, but its bound to come out sooner or +later, so what is the odds? Old McDowells wouldn't like +me to—to—bother it all, I'll jest tell the whole thing and let it go. You see, +I've been down to St. Louis, and I happened to run across old Dr. +McDowells—thinks the world of me, does the doctor. He's a man that +keeps himself to himself, and well he may, for he knows that he's got a +reputation that covers the whole earth—he won't condescend to open +himself out to many people, but lord bless you, he and I are just like +brothers; he won't let me go to a hotel when I'm in the city—says I'm +the only man that's company to him, and I don't know but there's some +truth in it, too, because although I never like to glorify myself and +make a great to-do over what I am or what I can do or what I know, +I don't mind saying here among friends that I am better read up in most +sciences, maybe, than the general run of professional men in these days. +Well, the other day he let me into a little secret, strictly on the +quiet, about this matter of the plague.</p> + +<p>"You see it's booming right along in our direction—follows the Gulf +Stream, you know, just as all those epidemics do, and within three months +it will be just waltzing through this land like a whirlwind! And whoever +it touches can make his will and contract for the funeral. Well you +can't cure it, you know, but you can prevent it. How? Turnips! that's +it! Turnips and water! Nothing like it in the world, old McDowells +says, just fill yourself up two or three times a day, and you can snap +your fingers at the plague. Sh!—keep mum, but just you confine yourself +to that diet and you're all right. I wouldn't have old McDowells know +that I told about it for anything—he never would speak to me again. +Take some more water, Washington—the more water you drink, the better. +Here, let me give you some more of the turnips. No, no, no, now, I +insist. There, now. Absorb those. They're, mighty sustaining—brim +full of nutriment—all the medical books say so. Just eat from four to +seven good-sized turnips at a meal, and drink from a pint and a half to a +quart of water, and then just sit around a couple of hours and let them +ferment. You'll feel like a fighting cock next day."</p> + +<p>Fifteen or twenty minutes later the Colonel's tongue was still chattering +away—he had piled up several future fortunes out of several incipient +"operations" which he had blundered into within the past week, and was +now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of late +promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye-water. +And at such a time Washington ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic +listener, but he was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and +distracted his attention. One was, that he discovered, to his confusion +and shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the +turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. He had not needed the +dreadful "fruit," and had not wanted it; and when he saw the pathetic +sorrow in their faces when they asked for more and there was no more to +give them, he hated himself for his stupidity and pitied the famishing +young things with all his heart. The other matter that disturbed him was +the dire inflation that had begun in his stomach. It grew and grew, it +became more and more insupportable. Evidently the turnips were +"fermenting." He forced himself to sit still as long as he could, but +his anguish conquered him at last.</p> + +<p>He rose in the midst of the Colonel's talk and excused himself on the +plea of a previous engagement. The Colonel followed him to the door, +promising over and over again that he would use his influence to get some +of the Early Malcolms for him, and insisting that he should not be such a +stranger but come and take pot-luck with him every chance he got. +Washington was glad enough to get away and feel free again. He +immediately bent his steps toward home.</p> + +<p>In bed he passed an hour that threatened to turn his hair gray, and then +a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his heart with +gratitude. Weak and languid, he made shift to turn himself about and +seek rest and sleep; and as his soul hovered upon the brink of +unconciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh, and said to himself that in +his heart he had cursed the Colonel's preventive of rheumatism, before, +and now let the plague come if it must—he was done with preventives; +if ever any man beguiled him with turnips and water again, let him die +the death.</p> + +<p>If he dreamed at all that night, no gossiping spirit disturbed his +visions to whisper in his ear of certain matters just then in bud in the +East, more than a thousand miles away that after the lapse of a few years +would develop influences which would profoundly affect the fate and +fortunes of the Hawkins family.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>"Oh, it's easy enough to make a fortune," Henry said.</p> + +<p>"It seems to be easier than it is, I begin to think," replied Philip.</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you go into something? You'll never dig it out of the +Astor Library."</p> + +<p>If there be any place and time in the world where and when it seems easy +to "go into something" it is in Broadway on a spring morning, when one is +walking city-ward, and has before him the long lines of palace-shops with +an occasional spire seen through the soft haze that lies over the lower +town, and hears the roar and hum of its multitudinous traffic.</p> + +<p>To the young American, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are +innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success in +all his wide horizon. He is embarrassed which to choose, and is not +unlikely to waste years in dallying with his chances, before giving +himself to the serious tug and strain of a single object. He has no +traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away +from the occupation his father has followed, and make a new way for +himself.</p> + +<p>Philip Sterling used to say that if he should seriously set himself for +ten years to any one of the dozen projects that were in his brain, he +felt that he could be a rich man. He wanted to be rich, he had a sincere +desire for a fortune, but for some unaccountable reason he hesitated +about addressing himself to the narrow work of getting it. He never +walked Broadway, a part of its tide of abundant shifting life, without +feeling something of the flush of wealth, and unconsciously taking the +elastic step of one well-to-do in this prosperous world.</p> + +<p>Especially at night in the crowded theatre—Philip was too young to +remember the old Chambers' Street box, where the serious Burton led his +hilarious and pagan crew—in the intervals of the screaming comedy, when +the orchestra scraped and grunted and tooted its dissolute tunes, the +world seemed full of opportunities to Philip, and his heart exulted with +a conscious ability to take any of its prizes he chose to pluck.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p115"></a><img alt="p115.jpg (52K)" src="images/p115.jpg" height="461" width="543"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Perhaps it was the swimming ease of the acting, on the stage, where +virtue had its reward in three easy acts, perhaps it was the excessive +light of the house, or the music, or the buzz of the excited talk between +acts, perhaps it was youth which believed everything, but for some reason +while Philip was at the theatre he had the utmost confidence in life and +his ready victory in it.</p> + +<p>Delightful illusion of paint and tinsel and silk attire, of cheap +sentiment and high and mighty dialogue! Will there not always be rosin +enough for the squeaking fiddle-bow?</p> + +<p>Do we not all like the maudlin hero, who is sneaking round the right +entrance, in wait to steal the pretty wife of his rich and tyrannical +neighbor from the paste-board cottage at the left entrance? and when he +advances down to the foot-lights and defiantly informs the audience that, +"he who lays his hand on a woman except in the way of kindness," do we +not all applaud so as to drown the rest of the sentence?</p> + +<p>Philip never was fortunate enough to hear what would become of a man who +should lay his hand on a woman with the exception named; but he learned +afterwards that the woman who lays her hand on a man, without any +exception whatsoever, is always acquitted by the jury.</p> + +<p>The fact was, though Philip Sterling did not know it, that he wanted +several other things quite as much as he wanted wealth. The modest +fellow would have liked fame thrust upon him for some worthy achievement; +it might be for a book, or for the skillful management of some great +newspaper, or for some daring expedition like that of Lt. Strain or Dr. +Kane. He was unable to decide exactly what it should be. Sometimes he +thought he would like to stand in a conspicuous pulpit and humbly preach +the gospel of repentance; and it even crossed his mind that it would be +noble to give himself to a missionary life to some benighted region, +where the date-palm grows, and the nightingale's voice is in tune, and +the bul-bul sings on the off nights. If he were good enough he would +attach himself to that company of young men in the Theological Seminary, +who were seeing New York life in preparation for the ministry.</p> + +<p>Philip was a New England boy and had graduated at Yale; he had not +carried off with him all the learning of that venerable institution, but +he knew some things that were not in the regular course of study. A very +good use of the English language and considerable knowledge of its +literature was one of them; he could sing a song very well, not in time +to be sure, but with enthusiasm; he could make a magnetic speech at a +moment's notice in the class room, the debating society, or upon any +fence or dry-goods box that was convenient; he could lift himself by one +arm, and do the giant swing in the gymnasium; he could strike out from +his left shoulder; he could handle an oar like a professional and pull +stroke in a winning race. Philip had a good appetite, a sunny temper, +and a clear hearty laugh. He had brown hair, hazel eyes set wide apart, +a broad but not high forehead, and a fresh winning face. He was six feet +high, with broad shoulders, long legs and a swinging gait; one of those +loose-jointed, capable fellows, who saunter into the world with a free +air and usually make a stir in whatever company they enter.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p117"></a><img alt="p117.jpg (26K)" src="images/p117.jpg" height="233" width="579"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>After he left college Philip took the advice of friends and read law. +Law seemed to him well enough as a science, but he never could discover a +practical case where it appeared to him worth while to go to law, and all +the clients who stopped with this new clerk in the ante-room of the law +office where he was writing, Philip invariably advised to settle—no +matter how, but settle—greatly to the disgust of his employer, who knew +that justice between man and man could only be attained by the recognized +processes, with the attendant fees. Besides Philip hated the copying of +pleadings, and he was certain that a life of "whereases" and "aforesaids" +and whipping the devil round the stump, would be intolerable.</p> + +<p>[Note: these few paragraphs are nearly an autobiography of the life of +Charles Dudley Warner whose contributions to the story start here with +Chapter XII. D.W.]</p> + +<p>His pen therefore, and whereas, and not as aforesaid, strayed off into +other scribbling. In an unfortunate hour, he had two or three papers +accepted by first-class magazines, at three dollars the printed page, +and, behold, his vocation was open to him. He would make his mark in +literature.</p> + +<p>Life has no moment so sweet as that in which a young man believes himself +called into the immortal ranks of the masters of literature. It is such +a noble ambition, that it is a pity it has usually such a shallow +foundation.</p> + +<p>At the time of this history, Philip had gone to New York for a career. +With his talent he thought he should have little difficulty in getting an +editorial position upon a metropolitan newspaper; not that he knew +anything about news paper work, or had the least idea of journalism; he +knew he was not fitted for the technicalities of the subordinate +departments, but he could write leaders with perfect ease, he was sure. +The drudgery of the newspaper office was too distaste ful, and besides it +would be beneath the dignity of a graduate and a successful magazine +writer. He wanted to begin at the top of the ladder.</p> + +<p>To his surprise he found that every situation in the editorial department +of the journals was full, always had been full, was always likely to be +full. It seemed to him that the newspaper managers didn't want genius, +but mere plodding and grubbing. Philip therefore read diligently in the +Astor library, planned literary works that should compel attention, and +nursed his genius. He had no friend wise enough to tell him to step into +the Dorking Convention, then in session, make a sketch of the men and +women on the platform, and take it to the editor of the Daily Grapevine, +and see what he could get a line for it.</p> + +<p>One day he had an offer from some country friends, who believed in him, +to take charge of a provincial daily newspaper, and he went to consult +Mr. Gringo—Gringo who years ago managed the Atlas—about taking the +situation.</p> + +<p>"Take it of course," says Gringo, take anything that offers, why not?"</p> + +<p>"But they want me to make it an opposition paper."</p> + +<p>"Well, make it that. That party is going to succeed, it's going to elect +the next president."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said Philip, stoutly, "its wrong in principle, and +it ought not to succeed, but I don't see how I can go for a thing I don't +believe in."</p> + +<p>"O, very well," said Gringo, turning away with a shade of contempt, +"you'll find if you are going into literature and newspaper work that you +can't afford a conscience like that."</p> + +<p>But Philip did afford it, and he wrote, thanking his friends, and +declining because he said the political scheme would fail, and ought to +fail. And he went back to his books and to his waiting for an opening +large enough for his dignified entrance into the literary world.</p> + +<p>It was in this time of rather impatient waiting that Philip was one +morning walking down Broadway with Henry Brierly. He frequently +accompanied Henry part way down town to what the latter called his office +in Broad Street, to which he went, or pretended to go, with regularity +every day. It was evident to the most casual acquaintance that he was a +man of affairs, and that his time was engrossed in the largest sort of +operations, about which there was a mysterious air. His liability to be +suddenly summoned to Washington, or Boston or Montreal or even to +Liverpool was always imminent. He never was so summoned, but none of his +acquaintances would have been surprised to hear any day that he had gone +to Panama or Peoria, or to hear from him that he had bought the Bank of +Commerce.</p> + +<p>The two were intimate at that time,—they had been class, mates—and saw +a great deal of each other. Indeed, they lived together in Ninth Street, +in a boarding-house, there, which had the honor of lodging and partially +feeding several other young fellows of like kidney, who have since gone +their several ways into fame or into obscurity.</p> + +<p>It was during the morning walk to which reference has been made that +Henry Brierly suddenly said, "Philip, how would you like to go to +St. Jo?"</p> + +<p>"I think I should like it of all things," replied Philip, with some +hesitation, "but what for."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's a big operation. We are going, a lot of us, railroad men, +engineers, contractors. You know my uncle is a great railroad man. I've +no doubt I can get you a chance to go if you'll go."</p> + +<p>"But in what capacity would I go?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm going as an engineer. You can go as one."</p> + +<p>"I don't know an engine from a coal cart."</p> + +<p>"Field engineer, civil engineer. You can begin by carrying a rod, and +putting down the figures. It's easy enough. I'll show you about that. +We'll get Trautwine and some of those books."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but what is it for, what is it all about?"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you see? We lay out a line, spot the good land, enter it up, +know where the stations are to be, spot them, buy lots; there's heaps of +money in it. We wouldn't engineer long."</p> + +<p>"When do you go?" was Philip's next question, after some moments of +silence.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow. Is that too soon?"</p> + +<p>"No, its not too soon. I've been ready to go anywhere for six months. +The fact is, Henry, that I'm about tired of trying to force myself into +things, and am quite willing to try floating with the stream for a while, +and see where I will land. This seems like a providential call; it's +sudden enough."</p> + +<p>The two young men who were by this time full of the adventure, went down +to the Wall street office of Henry's uncle and had a talk with that wily +operator. The uncle knew Philip very well, and was pleased with his +frank enthusiasm, and willing enough to give him a trial in the western +venture. It was settled therefore, in the prompt way in which things are +settled in New York, that they would start with the rest of the company +next morning for the west.</p> + +<p>On the way up town these adventurers bought books on engineering, and +suits of India-rubber, which they supposed they would need in a new and +probably damp country, and many other things which nobody ever needed +anywhere.</p> + +<p>The night was spent in packing up and writing letters, for Philip would +not take such an important step without informing his friends. If they +disapprove, thought he, I've done my duty by letting them know. Happy +youth, that is ready to pack its valise, and start for Cathay on an +hour's notice.</p> + +<p>"By the way," calls out Philip from his bed-room, to Henry, "where is +St. Jo.?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's in Missouri somewhere, on the frontier I think. We'll get a +map."</p> + +<p>"Never mind the map. We will find the place itself. I was afraid it was +nearer home."</p> + +<p>Philip wrote a long letter, first of all, to his mother, full of love and +glowing anticipations of his new opening. He wouldn't bother her with +business details, but he hoped that the day was not far off when she +would see him return, with a moderate fortune, and something to add to +the comfort of her advancing years.</p> + +<p>To his uncle he said that he had made an arrangement with some New York +capitalists to go to Missouri, in a land and railroad operation, which +would at least give him a knowledge of the world and not unlikely offer +him a business opening. He knew his uncle would be glad to hear that he +had at last turned his thoughts to a practical matter.</p> + +<p>It was to Ruth Bolton that Philip wrote last. He might never see her +again; he went to seek his fortune. He well knew the perils of the +frontier, the savage state of society, the lurking Indians and the +dangers of fever. But there was no real danger to a person who took care +of himself. Might he write to her often and, tell her of his life. +If he returned with a fortune, perhaps and perhaps. If he was +unsuccessful, or if he never returned—perhaps it would be as well. +No time or distance, however, would ever lessen his interest in her. He +would say good-night, but not good-bye.</p> + +<p>In the soft beginning of a Spring morning, long before New York had +breakfasted, while yet the air of expectation hung about the wharves of +the metropolis, our young adventurers made their way to the Jersey City +railway station of the Erie road, to begin the long, swinging, crooked +journey, over what a writer of a former day called a causeway of cracked +rails and cows, to the West.</p> + + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2></center> +<br> +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> What ever to say be toke in his entente, +<br> his langage was so fayer & pertynante, +<br> yt semeth unto manys herying not only the worde, +<br> but veryly the thyng. +<br> Caxton's Book of Curtesye. +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>In the party of which our travelers found themselves members, was Duff +Brown, the great railroad contractor, and subsequently a well-known +member of Congress; a bluff, jovial Bost'n man, thick-set, close shaven, +with a heavy jaw and a low forehead—a very pleasant man if you were not +in his way. He had government contracts also, custom houses and dry +docks, from Portland to New Orleans, and managed to get out of congress, +in appropriations, about weight for weight of gold for the stone +furnished.</p> + +<p>Associated with him, and also of this party, was Rodney Schaick, a sleek +New York broker, a man as prominent in the church as in the stock +exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary complement +of Duff Brown in any enterprise that needed assurance and adroitness.</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to find a pleasanter traveling party one that shook +off more readily the artificial restraints of Puritanic strictness, and +took the world with good-natured allowance. Money was plenty for every +attainable luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt that its supply would +continue, and that fortunes were about to be made without a great deal of +toil. Even Philip soon caught the prevailing spirit; Barry did not need +any inoculation, he always talked in six figures. It was as natural for +the dear boy to be rich as it is for most people to be poor.</p> + +<p>The elders of the party were not long in discovering the fact, which +almost all travelers to the west soon find out; that the water was poor. +It must have been by a lucky premonition of this that they all had brandy +flasks with which to qualify the water of the country; and it was no +doubt from an uneasy feeling of the danger of being poisoned that they +kept experimenting, mixing a little of the dangerous and changing fluid, +as they passed along, with the contents of the flasks, thus saving their +lives hour by hour. Philip learned afterwards that temperance and the +strict observance of Sunday and a certain gravity of deportment are +geographical habits, which people do not usually carry with them away +from home.</p> + +<p>Our travelers stopped in Chicago long enough to see that they could make +their fortunes there in two week's tine, but it did not seem worth while; +the west was more attractive; the further one went the wider the +opportunities opened.</p> + +<p>They took railroad to Alton and the steamboat from there to St. Louis, +for the change and to have a glimpse of the river.</p> + +<p>"Isn't this jolly?" cried Henry, dancing out of the barber's room, and +coming down the deck with a one, two, three step, shaven, curled and +perfumed after his usual exquisite fashion.</p> + +<p>"What's jolly?" asked Philip, looking out upon the dreary and monotonous +waste through which the shaking steamboat was coughing its way.</p> + +<p>"Why, the whole thing; it's immense I can tell you. I wouldn't give that +to be guaranteed a hundred thousand cold cash in a year's time."</p> + +<p>"Where's Mr. Brown?"</p> + +<p>"He is in the saloon, playing poker with Schaick and that long haired +party with the striped trousers, who scrambled aboard when the stage +plank was half hauled in, and the big Delegate to Congress from out +west."</p> + +<p>"That's a fine looking fellow, that delegate, with his glossy, black +whiskers; looks like a Washington man; I shouldn't think he'd be at +poker."</p> + +<p>"Oh, its only five cent ante, just to make it interesting, the Delegate +said."</p> + +<p>"But I shouldn't think a representative in Congress would play poker any +way in a public steamboat."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p124"></a><img alt="p124.jpg (56K)" src="images/p124.jpg" height="479" width="543"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Nonsense, you've got to pass the time. I tried a hand myself, but those +old fellows are too many for me. The Delegate knows all the points. +I'd bet a hundred dollars he will ante his way right into the United +States Senate when his territory comes in. He's got the cheek for it."</p> + +<p>"He has the grave and thoughtful manner of expectoration of a public man, +for one thing," added Philip.</p> + +<p>"Harry," said Philip, after a pause, "what have you got on those big +boots for; do you expect to wade ashore?"</p> + +<p>"I'm breaking 'em in."</p> + +<p>The fact was Harry had got himself up in what he thought a proper costume +for a new country, and was in appearance a sort of compromise between a +dandy of Broadway and a backwoodsman. Harry, with blue eyes, fresh +complexion, silken whiskers and curly chestnut hair, was as handsome as +a fashion plate. He wore this morning a soft hat, a short cutaway coat, +an open vest displaying immaculate linen, a leathern belt round his +waist, and top-boots of soft leather, well polished, that came above his +knees and required a string attached to his belt to keep them up. The +light hearted fellow gloried in these shining encasements of his well +shaped legs, and told Philip that they were a perfect protection against +prairie rattle-snakes, which never strike above the knee.</p> + +<p>The landscape still wore an almost wintry appearance when our travelers +left Chicago. It was a genial spring day when they landed at St. Louis; +the birds were singing, the blossoms of peach trees in city garden plots, +made the air sweet, and in the roar and tumult on the long river levee +they found an excitement that accorded with their own hopeful +anticipations.</p> + +<p>The party went to the Southern Hotel, where the great Duff Brown was very +well known, and indeed was a man of so much importance that even the +office clerk was respectful to him. He might have respected in him also +a certain vulgar swagger and insolence of money, which the clerk greatly +admired.</p> + +<p>The young fellows liked the house and liked the city; it seemed to them a +mighty free and hospitable town. Coming from the East they were struck +with many peculiarities. Everybody smoked in the streets, for one thing, +they noticed; everybody "took a drink" in an open manner whenever he +wished to do so or was asked, as if the habit needed no concealment or +apology. In the evening when they walked about they found people sitting +on the door-steps of their dwellings, in a manner not usual in a northern +city; in front of some of the hotels and saloons the side walks were +filled with chairs and benches—Paris fashion, said Harry—upon which +people lounged in these warm spring evenings, smoking, always smoking; +and the clink of glasses and of billiard balls was in the air. It was +delightful.</p> + +<p>Harry at once found on landing that his back-woods custom would not be +needed in St. Louis, and that, in fact, he had need of all the resources +of his wardrobe to keep even with the young swells of the town. But this +did not much matter, for Harry was always superior to his clothes. +As they were likely to be detained some time in the city, Harry told +Philip that he was going to improve his time. And he did. It was an +encouragement to any industrious man to see this young fellow rise, +carefully dress himself, eat his breakfast deliberately, smoke his cigar +tranquilly, and then repair to his room, to what he called his work, with +a grave and occupied manner, but with perfect cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>Harry would take off his coat, remove his cravat, roll up his +shirt-sleeves, give his curly hair the right touch before the glass, get out +his book on engineering, his boxes of instruments, his drawing paper, +his profile paper, open the book of logarithms, mix his India ink, +sharpen his pencils, light a cigar, and sit down at the table to "lay out +a line," with the most grave notion that he was mastering the details of +engineering. He would spend half a day in these preparations without +ever working out a problem or having the faintest conception of the use +of lines or logarithms. And when he had finished, he had the most +cheerful confidence that he had done a good day's work.</p> + +<p>It made no difference, however, whether Harry was in his room in a hotel +or in a tent, Philip soon found, he was just the same. In camp he would +get himself, up in the most elaborate toilet at his command, polish his +long boots to the top, lay out his work before him, and spend an hour or +longer, if anybody was looking at him, humming airs, knitting his brows, +and "working" at engineering; and if a crowd of gaping rustics were +looking on all the while it was perfectly satisfactory to him.</p> + +<p>"You see," he says to Philip one morning at the hotel when he was thus +engaged, "I want to get the theory of this thing, so that I can have a +check on the engineers."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were going to be an engineer yourself," queried Philip.</p> + +<p>"Not many times, if the court knows herself. There's better game. Brown +and Schaick have, or will have, the control for the whole line of the +Salt Lick Pacific Extension, forty thousand dollars a mile over the +prairie, with extra for hard-pan—and it'll be pretty much all hardpan +I can tell you; besides every alternate section of land on this line. +There's millions in the job. I'm to have the sub-contract for the first +fifty miles, and you can bet it's a soft thing."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what you do, Philip," continued Larry, in a burst of +generosity, "if I don't get you into my contract, you'll be with the +engineers, and you jest stick a stake at the first ground marked for a +depot, buy the land of the farmer before he knows where the depot will +be, and we'll turn a hundred or so on that. I'll advance the money for +the payments, and you can sell the lots. Schaick is going to let me have +ten thousand just for a flyer in such operations."</p> + +<p>"But that's a good deal of money."</p> + +<p>"Wait till you are used to handling money. I didn't come out here for a +bagatelle. My uncle wanted me to stay East and go in on the Mobile +custom house, work up the Washington end of it; he said there was a +fortune in it for a smart young fellow, but I preferred to take the +chances out here. Did I tell you I had an offer from Bobbett and Fanshaw +to go into their office as confidential clerk on a salary of ten +thousand?"</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you take it ?" asked Philip, to whom a salary of two thousand +would have seemed wealth, before he started on this journey.</p> + +<p>"Take it? I'd rather operate on my own hook;" said Harry, in his most +airy manner.</p> + +<p>A few evenings after their arrival at the Southern, Philip and Harry made +the acquaintance of a very agreeable gentleman, whom they had frequently +seen before about the hotel corridors, and passed a casual word with. He +had the air of a man of business, and was evidently a person of +importance.</p> + +<p>The precipitating of this casual intercourse into the more substantial +form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himself, and +occurred in this wise. Meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening, +he asked them to give him the time, and added:</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, gentlemen—strangers in St. Louis? Ah, yes-yes. From the +East, perhaps? Ah; just so, just so. Eastern born myself—Virginia. +Sellers is my name—Beriah Sellers.</p> + +<p>"Ah! by the way—New York, did you say? That reminds me; just met some +gentlemen from your State, a week or two ago—very prominent +gentlemen—in public life they are; you must know them, without doubt. Let me +see—let me see. Curious those names have escaped me. I know they were from +your State, because I remember afterward my old friend Governor Shackleby +said to me—fine man, is the Governor—one of the finest men our country +has produced—said he, 'Colonel, how did you like those New York +gentlemen?—not many such men in the world,—Colonel Sellers,' said the +Governor—yes, it was New York he said—I remember it distinctly. +I can't recall those names, somehow. But no matter. Stopping here, +gentlemen—stopping at the Southern?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p128"></a><img alt="p128.jpg (31K)" src="images/p128.jpg" height="471" width="469"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>In shaping their reply in their minds, the title "Mr." had a place in it; +but when their turn had arrived to speak, the title "Colonel" came from +their lips instead.</p> + +<p>They said yes, they were abiding at the Southern, and thought it a very +good house.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, the Southern is fair. I myself go to the Planter's, old, +aristocratic house. We Southern gentlemen don't change our ways, you +know. I always make it my home there when I run down from Hawkeye—my +plantation is in Hawkeye, a little up in the country. You should know +the Planter's."</p> + +<p>Philip and Harry both said they should like to see a hotel that had been +so famous in its day—a cheerful hostelrie, Philip said it must have been +where duels were fought there across the dining-room table.</p> + +<p>"You may believe it, sir, an uncommonly pleasant lodging. Shall we +walk?"</p> + +<p>And the three strolled along the streets, the Colonel talking all the way +in the most liberal and friendly manner, and with a frank +open-heartedness that inspired confidence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, born East myself, raised all along, know the West—a great country, +gentlemen. The place for a young fellow of spirit to pick up a fortune, +simply pick it up, it's lying round loose here. Not a day that I don't +put aside an opportunity; too busy to look into it. Management of my own +property takes my time. First visit? Looking for an opening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, looking around," replied Harry.</p> + +<p>"Ah, here we are. You'd rather sit here in front than go to my +apartments? So had I. An opening eh?"</p> + +<p>The Colonel's eyes twinkled. "Ah, just so. The country is opening up, +all we want is capital to develop it. Slap down the rails and bring the +land into market. The richest land on God Almighty's footstool is lying +right out there. If I had my capital free I could plant it for +millions."</p> + +<p>"I suppose your capital is largely in your plantation?" asked Philip.</p> + +<p>"Well, partly, sir, partly. I'm down here now with reference to a little +operation—a little side thing merely. By the way gentlemen, excuse the +liberty, but it's about my usual time"—</p> + +<p>The Colonel paused, but as no movement of his acquaintances followed this +plain remark, he added, in an explanatory manner,</p> + +<p>"I'm rather particular about the exact time—have to be in this climate."</p> + +<p>Even this open declaration of his hospitable intention not being +understood the Colonel politely said,</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, will you take something?"</p> + +<p>Col. Sellers led the way to a saloon on Fourth street under the hotel, +and the young gentlemen fell into the custom of the country.</p> + +<p>"Not that," said the Colonel to the bar-keeper, who shoved along the +counter a bottle of apparently corn-whiskey, as if he had done it before +on the same order; "not that," with a wave of the hand. "That Otard if +you please. Yes. Never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the +evening, in this climate. There. That's the stuff. My respects!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p131"></a><img alt="p131.jpg (40K)" src="images/p131.jpg" height="371" width="547"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The hospitable gentleman, having disposed of his liquor, remarking that +it was not quite the thing—"when a man has his own cellar to go to, he +is apt to get a little fastidious about his liquors"—called for cigars. +But the brand offered did not suit him; he motioned the box away, and +asked for some particular Havana's, those in separate wrappers.</p> + +<p>"I always smoke this sort, gentlemen; they are a little more expensive, +but you'll learn, in this climate, that you'd better not economize on +poor cigars"</p> + +<p>Having imparted this valuable piece of information, the Colonel lighted +the fragrant cigar with satisfaction, and then carelessly put his fingers +into his right vest pocket. That movement being without result, with a +shade of disappointment on his face, he felt in his left vest pocket. +Not finding anything there, he looked up with a serious and annoyed air, +anxiously slapped his right pantaloon's pocket, and then his left, and +exclaimed,</p> + +<p>"By George, that's annoying. By George, that's mortifying. Never had +anything of that kind happen to me before. I've left my pocket-book. +Hold! Here's a bill, after all. No, thunder, it's a receipt."</p> + +<p>"Allow me," said Philip, seeing how seriously the Colonel was annoyed, +and taking out his purse.</p> + +<p>The Colonel protested he couldn't think of it, and muttered something to +the barkeeper about "hanging it up," but the vender of exhilaration made +no sign, and Philip had the privilege of paying the costly shot; Col. +Sellers profusely apologizing and claiming the right "next time, next +time."</p> + +<p>As soon as Beriah Sellers had bade his friends good night and seen them +depart, he did not retire apartments in the Planter's, but took his way +to his lodgings with a friend in a distant part of the city.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>The letter that Philip Sterling wrote to Ruth Bolton, on the evening of +setting out to seek his fortune in the west, found that young lady in her +own father's house in Philadelphia. It was one of the pleasantest of the +many charming suburban houses in that hospitable city, which is +territorially one of the largest cities in the world, and only prevented +from becoming the convenient metropolis of the country by the intrusive +strip of Camden and Amboy sand which shuts it off from the Atlantic +ocean. It is a city of steady thrift, the arms of which might well be +the deliberate but delicious terrapin that imparts such a royal flavor to +its feasts.</p> + +<p>It was a spring morning, and perhaps it was the influence of it that made +Ruth a little restless, satisfied neither with the out-doors nor the +in-doors. Her sisters had gone to the city to show some country visitors +Independence Hall, Girard College and Fairmount Water Works and Park, +four objects which Americans cannot die peacefully, even in Naples, +without having seen. But Ruth confessed that she was tired of them, and +also of the Mint. She was tired of other things. She tried this morning +an air or two upon the piano, sang a simple song in a sweet but slightly +metallic voice, and then seating herself by the open window, read +Philip's letter. Was she thinking about Philip, as she gazed across the +fresh lawn over the tree tops to the Chelton Hills, or of that world +which his entrance, into her tradition-bound life had been one of the +means of opening to her? Whatever she thought, she was not idly musing, +as one might see by the expression of her face. After a time she took +up a book; it was a medical work, and to all appearance about as +interesting to a girl of eighteen as the statutes at large; but her face +was soon aglow over its pages, and she was so absorbed in it that she did +not notice the entrance of her mother at the open door.</p> + +<p>"Ruth?"</p> + +<p>"Well, mother," said the young student, looking up, with a shade of +impatience.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to talk with thee a little about thy plans."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p134"></a><img alt="p134.jpg (35K)" src="images/p134.jpg" height="469" width="453"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Mother; thee knows I couldn't stand it at Westfield; the school stifled +me, it's a place to turn young people into dried fruit."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Margaret Bolton, with a half anxious smile, thee chafes +against all the ways of Friends, but what will thee do? Why is thee so +discontented?"</p> + +<p>"If I must say it, mother, I want to go away, and get out of this dead +level."</p> + +<p>With a look half of pain and half of pity, her mother answered, "I am +sure thee is little interfered with; thee dresses as thee will, and goes +where thee pleases, to any church thee likes, and thee has music. I had +a visit yesterday from the society's committee by way of discipline, +because we have a piano in the house, which is against the rules."</p> + +<p>"I hope thee told the elders that father and I are responsible for the +piano, and that, much as thee loves music, thee is never in the room when +it is played. Fortunately father is already out of meeting, so they +can't discipline him. I heard father tell cousin Abner that he was +whipped so often for whistling when he was a boy that he was determined +to have what compensation he could get now."</p> + +<p>"Thy ways greatly try me, Ruth, and all thy relations. I desire thy +happiness first of all, but thee is starting out on a dangerous path. +Is thy father willing thee should go away to a school of the world's +people?"</p> + +<p>"I have not asked him," Ruth replied with a look that might imply that +she was one of those determined little bodies who first made up her own +mind and then compelled others to make up theirs in accordance with hers.</p> + +<p>"And when thee has got the education thee wants, and lost all relish for +the society of thy friends and the ways of thy ancestors, what then?"</p> + +<p>Ruth turned square round to her mother, and with an impassive face and +not the slightest change of tone, said,</p> + +<p>"Mother, I'm going to study medicine?"</p> + +<p>Margaret Bolton almost lost for a moment her habitual placidity.</p> + +<p>"Thee, study medicine! A slight frail girl like thee, study medicine! +Does thee think thee could stand it six months? And the lectures, +and the dissecting rooms, has thee thought of the dissecting rooms?"</p> + +<p>"Mother," said Ruth calmly, "I have thought it all over. I know I can go +through the whole, clinics, dissecting room and all. Does thee think I +lack nerve? What is there to fear in a person dead more than in a person +living?"</p> + +<p>"But thy health and strength, child; thee can never stand the severe +application. And, besides, suppose thee does learn medicine?"</p> + +<p>"I will practice it."</p> + +<p>"Here?"</p> + +<p>"Here."</p> + +<p>"Where thee and thy family are known?"</p> + +<p>"If I can get patients."</p> + +<p>"I hope at least, Ruth, thee will let us know when thee opens an office," +said her mother, with an approach to sarcasm that she rarely indulged in, +as she rose and left the room.</p> + +<p>Ruth sat quite still for a tine, with face intent and flushed. It was +out now. She had begun her open battle.</p> + +<p>The sight-seers returned in high spirits from the city. Was there any +building in Greece to compare with Girard College, was there ever such a +magnificent pile of stone devised for the shelter of poor orphans? Think +of the stone shingles of the roof eight inches thick! Ruth asked the +enthusiasts if they would like to live in such a sounding mausoleum, with +its great halls and echoing rooms, and no comfortable place in it for the +accommodation of any body? If they were orphans, would they like to be +brought up in a Grecian temple?</p> + +<p>And then there was Broad street! Wasn't it the broadest and the longest +street in the world? There certainly was no end to it, and even Ruth was +Philadelphian enough to believe that a street ought not to have any end, +or architectural point upon which the weary eye could rest.</p> + +<p>But neither St. Girard, nor Broad street, neither wonders of the Mint nor +the glories of the Hall where the ghosts of our fathers sit always +signing the Declaration; impressed the visitors so much as the splendors +of the Chestnut street windows, and the bargains on Eighth street. +The truth is that the country cousins had come to town to attend the +Yearly Meeting, and the amount of shopping that preceded that religious +event was scarcely exceeded by the preparations for the opera in more +worldly circles.</p> + +<p>"Is thee going to the Yearly Meeting, Ruth?" asked one of the girls.</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to wear," replied that demure person. "If thee wants to +see new bonnets, orthodox to a shade and conformed to the letter of the +true form, thee must go to the Arch Street Meeting. Any departure from +either color or shape would be instantly taken note of. It has occupied +mother a long time, to find at the shops the exact shade for her new +bonnet. Oh, thee must go by all means. But thee won't see there a +sweeter woman than mother."</p> + +<p>"And thee won't go?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I? I've been again and again. If I go to Meeting at all I +like best to sit in the quiet old house in Germantown, where the windows +are all open and I can see the trees, and hear the stir of the leaves. +It's such a crush at the Yearly Meeting at Arch Street, and then there's +the row of sleek-looking young men who line the curbstone and stare at us +as we come out. No, I don't feel at home there."</p> + +<p>That evening Ruth and her father sat late by the drawing-room fire, as +they were quite apt to do at night. It was always a time of confidences.</p> + +<p>"Thee has another letter from young Sterling," said Eli Bolton.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Philip has gone to the far west."</p> + +<p>"How far?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't say, but it's on the frontier, and on the map everything +beyond it is marked 'Indians' and 'desert,' and looks as desolate as a +Wednesday Meeting."</p> + +<p>"Humph. It was time for him to do something. Is he going to start a +daily newspaper among the Kick-a-poos?"</p> + +<p>"Father, thee's unjust to Philip. He's going into business."</p> + +<p>"What sort of business can a young man go into without capital?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't say exactly what it is," said Ruth a little dubiously, "but +it's something about land and railroads, and thee knows, father, that +fortunes are made nobody knows exactly how, in a new country."</p> + +<p>"I should think so, you innocent puss, and in an old one too. But Philip +is honest, and he has talent enough, if he will stop scribbling, to make +his way. But thee may as well take care of theeself, Ruth, and not go +dawdling along with a young man in his adventures, until thy own mind is +a little more settled what thee wants."</p> + +<p>This excellent advice did not seem to impress Ruth greatly, for she was +looking away with that abstraction of vision which often came into her +grey eyes, and at length she exclaimed, with a sort of impatience,</p> + +<p>"I wish I could go west, or south, or somewhere. What a box women are +put into, measured for it, and put in young; if we go anywhere it's in a +box, veiled and pinioned and shut in by disabilities. Father, I should +like to break things and get loose!"</p> + +<p>What a sweet-voiced little innocent, it was to be sure.</p> + +<p>"Thee will no doubt break things enough when thy time comes, child; women +always have; but what does thee want now that thee hasn't?"</p> + +<p>"I want to be something, to make myself something, to do something. Why +should I rust, and be stupid, and sit in inaction because I am a girl? +What would happen to me if thee should lose thy property and die? What +one useful thing could I do for a living, for the support of mother and +the children? And if I had a fortune, would thee want me to lead a +useless life?"</p> + +<p>"Has thy mother led a useless life?"</p> + +<p>"Somewhat that depends upon whether her children amount to anything," +retorted the sharp little disputant. "What's the good, father, of a +series of human beings who don't advance any?"</p> + +<p>Friend Eli, who had long ago laid aside the Quaker dress, and was out of +Meeting, and who in fact after a youth of doubt could not yet define his +belief, nevertheless looked with some wonder at this fierce young eagle +of his, hatched in a Friend's dove-cote. But he only said,</p> + +<p>"Has thee consulted thy mother about a career, I suppose it is a career +thee wants?"</p> + +<p>Ruth did not reply directly; she complained that her mother didn't +understand her. But that wise and placid woman understood the sweet +rebel a great deal better than Ruth understood herself. She also had a +history, possibly, and had sometime beaten her young wings against the +cage of custom, and indulged in dreams of a new social order, and had +passed through that fiery period when it seems possible for one mind, +which has not yet tried its limits, to break up and re-arrange the world.</p> + +<p>Ruth replied to Philip's letter in due time and in the most cordial and +unsentimental manner. Philip liked the letter, as he did everything she +did; but he had a dim notion that there was more about herself in the +letter than about him. He took it with him from the Southern Hotel, when +he went to walk, and read it over and again in an unfrequented street as +he stumbled along. The rather common-place and unformed hand-writing +seemed to him peculiar and characteristic, different from that of any +other woman.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p138"></a><img alt="p138.jpg (22K)" src="images/p138.jpg" height="479" width="303"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Ruth was glad to hear that Philip had made a push into the world, and she +was sure that his talent and courage would make a way for him. She +should pray for his success at any rate, and especially that the Indians, +in St. Louis, would not take his scalp.</p> + +<p>Philip looked rather dubious at this sentence, and wished that he had +written nothing about Indians.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Eli Bolton and his wife talked over Ruth's case, as they had often done +before, with no little anxiety. Alone of all their children she was +impatient of the restraints and monotony of the Friends' Society, and +wholly indisposed to accept the "inner light" as a guide into a life of +acceptance and inaction. When Margaret told her husband of Ruth's newest +project, he did not exhibit so much surprise as she hoped for. In fact +he said that he did not see why a woman should not enter the medical +profession if she felt a call to it.</p> + +<p>"But," said Margaret, "consider her total inexperience of the world, and +her frail health. Can such a slight little body endure the ordeal of the +preparation for, or the strain of, the practice of the profession?"</p> + +<p>"Did thee ever think, Margaret, whether, she can endure being thwarted in +an, object on which she has so set her heart, as she has on this? Thee +has trained her thyself at home, in her enfeebled childhood, and thee +knows how strong her will is, and what she has been able to accomplish in +self-culture by the simple force of her determination. She never will be +satisfied until she has tried her own strength."</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Margaret, with an inconsequence that is not exclusively +feminine, "that she were in the way to fall in love and marry by and by. +I think that would cure her of some of her notions. I am not sure but if +she went away, to some distant school, into an entirely new life, her +thoughts would be diverted."</p> + +<p>Eli Bolton almost laughed as he regarded his wife, with eyes that never +looked at her except fondly, and replied,</p> + +<p>"Perhaps thee remembers that thee had notions also, before we were +married, and before thee became a member of Meeting. I think Ruth comes +honestly by certain tendencies which thee has hidden under the Friend's +dress."</p> + +<p>Margaret could not say no to this, and while she paused, it was evident +that memory was busy with suggestions to shake her present opinions.</p> + +<p>"Why not let Ruth try the study for a time," suggested Eli; "there is a +fair beginning of a Woman's Medical College in the city. Quite likely +she will soon find that she needs first a more general culture, and fall, +in with thy wish that she should see more of the world at some large +school."</p> + +<p>There really seemed to be nothing else to be done, and Margaret consented +at length without approving. And it was agreed that Ruth, in order to +spare her fatigue, should take lodgings with friends near the college and +make a trial in the pursuit of that science to which we all owe our +lives, and sometimes as by a miracle of escape.</p> + +<p>That day Mr. Bolton brought home a stranger to dinner, Mr. Bigler of the +great firm of Pennybacker, Bigler & Small, railroad contractors. He was +always bringing home somebody, who had a scheme; to build a road, or open +a mine, or plant a swamp with cane to grow paper-stock, or found a +hospital, or invest in a patent shad-bone separator, or start a college +somewhere on the frontier, contiguous to a land speculation.</p> + +<p>The Bolton house was a sort of hotel for this kind of people. They were +always coming. Ruth had known them from childhood, and she used to say +that her father attracted them as naturally as a sugar hogshead does +flies. Ruth had an idea that a large portion of the world lived by +getting the rest of the world into schemes. Mr. Bolton never could say +"no" to any of them, not even, said Ruth again, to the society for +stamping oyster shells with scripture texts before they were sold at +retail.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bigler's plan this time, about which he talked loudly, with his mouth +full, all dinner time, was the building of the Tunkhannock, Rattlesnake +and Young-womans-town railroad, which would not only be a great highway to +the west, but would open to market inexhaustible coal-fields and untold +millions of lumber. The plan of operations was very simple.</p> + +<p>"We'll buy the lands," explained he, "on long time, backed by the notes +of good men; and then mortgage them for money enough to get the road well +on. Then get the towns on the line to issue their bonds for stock, and +sell their bonds for enough to complete the road, and partly stock it, +especially if we mortgage each section as we complete it. We can then +sell the rest of the stock on the prospect of the business of the road +through an improved country, and also sell the lands at a big advance, +on the strength of the road. All we want," continued Mr. Bigler in his +frank manner, "is a few thousand dollars to start the surveys, and +arrange things in the legislature. There is some parties will have to be +seen, who might make us trouble."</p> + +<p>"It will take a good deal of money to start the enterprise," remarked Mr. +Bolton, who knew very well what "seeing" a Pennsylvania Legislature +meant, but was too polite to tell Mr. Bigler what he thought of him, +while he was his guest; "what security would one have for it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Bigler smiled a hard kind of smile, and said, "You'd be inside, Mr. +Bolton, and you'd have the first chance in the deal."</p> + +<p>This was rather unintelligible to Ruth, who was nevertheless somewhat +amused by the study of a type of character she had seen before. +At length she interrupted the conversation by asking,</p> + +<p>"You'd sell the stock, I suppose, Mr. Bigler, to anybody who was +attracted by the prospectus?"</p> + +<p>"O, certainly, serve all alike," said Mr. Bigler, now noticing Ruth for +the first time, and a little puzzled by the serene, intelligent face that +was turned towards him.</p> + +<p>"Well, what would become of the poor people who had been led to put their +little money into the speculation, when you got out of it and left it +half way?"</p> + +<p>It would be no more true to say of Mr. Bigler that he was or could be +embarrassed, than to say that a brass counterfeit dollar-piece would +change color when refused; the question annoyed him a little, in Mr. +Bolton's presence.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p142"></a><img alt="p142.jpg (35K)" src="images/p142.jpg" height="583" width="331"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Why, yes, Miss, of course, in a great enterprise for the benefit of the +community there will little things occur, which, which—and, of course, +the poor ought to be looked to; I tell my wife, that the poor must be +looked to; if you can tell who are poor—there's so many impostors. And +then, there's so many poor in the legislature to be looked after," said +the contractor with a sort of a chuckle, "isn't that so, Mr. Bolton?"</p> + +<p>Eli Bolton replied that he never had much to do with the legislature.</p> + +<p>"Yes," continued this public benefactor, "an uncommon poor lot this year, +uncommon. Consequently an expensive lot. The fact is, Mr. Bolton, that +the price is raised so high on United States Senator now, that it affects +the whole market; you can't get any public improvement through on +reasonable terms. Simony is what I call it, Simony," repeated Mr. +Bigler, as if he had said a good thing.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bigler went on and gave some very interesting details of the intimate +connection between railroads and politics, and thoroughly entertained +himself all dinner time, and as much disgusted Ruth, who asked no more +questions, and her father who replied in monosyllables:</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Ruth to her father, after the guest had gone, "that you +wouldn't bring home any more such horrid men. Do all men who wear big +diamond breast-pins, flourish their knives at table, and use bad grammar, +and cheat?"</p> + +<p>"O, child, thee mustn't be too observing. Mr. Bigler is one of the most +important men in the state; nobody has more influence at Harrisburg. +I don't like him any more than thee does, but I'd better lend him a +little money than to have his ill will."</p> + +<p>"Father, I think thee'd better have his ill-will than his company. Is it +true that he gave money to help build the pretty little church of +St. James the Less, and that he is, one of the vestrymen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He is not such a bad fellow. One of the men in Third street asked +him the other day, whether his was a high church or a low church? Bigler +said he didn't know; he'd been in it once, and he could touch the ceiling +in the side aisle with his hand."</p> + +<p>"I think he's just horrid," was Ruth's final summary of him, after the +manner of the swift judgment of women, with no consideration of the +extenuating circumstances. Mr. Bigler had no idea that he had not made a +good impression on the whole family; he certainly intended to be +agreeable. Margaret agreed with her daughter, and though she never said +anything to such people, she was grateful to Ruth for sticking at least +one pin into him.</p> + +<p>Such was the serenity of the Bolton household that a stranger in it would +never have suspected there was any opposition to Ruth's going to the +Medical School. And she went quietly to take her residence in town, and +began her attendance of the lectures, as if it were the most natural +thing in the world. She did not heed, if she heard, the busy and +wondering gossip of relations and acquaintances, gossip that has no less +currency among the Friends than elsewhere because it is whispered slyly +and creeps about in an undertone.</p> + +<p>Ruth was absorbed, and for the first time in her life thoroughly happy; +happy in the freedom of her life, and in the keen enjoyment of the +investigation that broadened its field day by day. She was in high +spirits when she came home to spend First Days; the house was full of her +gaiety and her merry laugh, and the children wished that Ruth would never +go away again. But her mother noticed, with a little anxiety, the +sometimes flushed face, and the sign of an eager spirit in the kindling +eyes, and, as well, the serious air of determination and endurance in her +face at unguarded moments.</p> + +<p>The college was a small one and it sustained itself not without +difficulty in this city, which is so conservative, and is yet the origin +of so many radical movements. There were not more than a dozen +attendants on the lectures all together, so that the enterprise had the +air of an experiment, and the fascination of pioneering for those engaged +in it. There was one woman physician driving about town in her carriage, +attacking the most violent diseases in all quarters with persistent +courage, like a modern Bellona in her war chariot, who was popularly +supposed to gather in fees to the amount ten to twenty thousand dollars a +year. Perhaps some of these students looked forward to the near day when +they would support such a practice and a husband besides, but it is +unknown that any of them ever went further than practice in hospitals and +in their own nurseries, and it is feared that some of them were quite as +ready as their sisters, in emergencies, to "call a man."</p> + +<p>If Ruth had any exaggerated expectations of a professional life, she kept +them to herself, and was known to her fellows of the class simply as a +cheerful, sincere student, eager in her investigations, and never +impatient at anything, except an insinuation that women had not as much +mental capacity for science as men.</p> + +<p>"They really say," said one young Quaker sprig to another youth of his +age, "that Ruth Bolton is really going to be a saw-bones, attends +lectures, cuts up bodies, and all that. She's cool enough for a surgeon, +anyway." He spoke feelingly, for he had very likely been weighed in +Ruth's calm eyes sometime, and thoroughly scared by the little laugh that +accompanied a puzzling reply to one of his conversational nothings. Such +young gentlemen, at this time, did not come very distinctly into Ruth's +horizon, except as amusing circumstances.</p> + +<p>About the details of her student life, Ruth said very little to her +friends, but they had reason to know, afterwards, that it required all +her nerve and the almost complete exhaustion of her physical strength, +to carry her through. She began her anatomical practice upon detached +portions of the human frame, which were brought into the demonstrating +room—dissecting the eye, the ear, and a small tangle of muscles and +nerves—an occupation which had not much more savor of death in it than +the analysis of a portion of a plant out of which the life went when it +was plucked up by the roots. Custom inures the most sensitive persons to +that which is at first most repellant; and in the late war we saw the +most delicate women, who could not at home endure the sight of blood, +become so used to scenes of carnage, that they walked the hospitals and +the margins of battle-fields, amid the poor remnants of torn humanity, +with as perfect self-possession as if they were strolling in a flower +garden.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p145"></a><img alt="p145.jpg (42K)" src="images/p145.jpg" height="467" width="439"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It happened that Ruth was one evening deep in a line of investigation +which she could not finish or understand without demonstration, and so +eager was she in it, that it seemed as if she could not wait till the +next day. She, therefore, persuaded a fellow student, who was reading +that evening with her, to go down to the dissecting room of the college, +and ascertain what they wanted to know by an hour's work there. Perhaps, +also, Ruth wanted to test her own nerve, and to see whether the power of +association was stronger in her mind than her own will.</p> + +<p>The janitor of the shabby and comfortless old building admitted the +girls, not without suspicion, and gave them lighted candles, which they +would need, without other remark than "there's a new one, Miss," as the +girls went up the broad stairs.</p> + +<p>They climbed to the third story, and paused before a door, which they +unlocked, and which admitted them into a long apartment, with a row of +windows on one side and one at the end. The room was without light, save +from the stars and the candles the girls carried, which revealed to them +dimly two long and several small tables, a few benches and chairs, a +couple of skeletons hanging on the wall, a sink, and cloth-covered heaps +of something upon the tables here and there.</p> + +<p>The windows were open, and the cool night wind came in strong enough to +flutter a white covering now and then, and to shake the loose casements. +But all the sweet odors of the night could not take from the room a faint +suggestion of mortality.</p> + +<p>The young ladies paused a moment. The room itself was familiar enough, +but night makes almost any chamber eerie, and especially such a room of +detention as this where the mortal parts of the unburied might—almost be +supposed to be, visited, on the sighing night winds, by the wandering +spirits of their late tenants.</p> + +<p>Opposite and at some distance across the roofs of lower buildings, the +girls saw a tall edifice, the long upper story of which seemed to be a +dancing hall. The windows of that were also open, and through them they +heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump +of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick +transition, and heard the prompter's drawl.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Ruth, "what the girls dancing there would think if they +saw us, or knew that there was such a room as this so near them."</p> + +<p>She did not speak very loud, and, perhaps unconsciously, the girls drew +near to each other as they approached the long table in the centre of the +room. A straight object lay upon it, covered with a sheet. This was +doubtless "the new one" of which the janitor spoke. Ruth advanced, and +with a not very steady hand lifted the white covering from the upper part +of the figure and turned it down. Both the girls started. It was a +negro. The black face seemed to defy the pallor of death, and asserted +an ugly life-likeness that was frightful.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p146"></a><img alt="p146.jpg (108K)" src="images/p146.jpg" height="875" width="583"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Ruth was as pale as the white sheet, and her comrade whispered, "Come +away, Ruth, it is awful."</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was the wavering light of the candles, perhaps it was only the +agony from a death of pain, but the repulsive black face seemed to wear a +scowl that said, "Haven't you yet done with the outcast, persecuted black +man, but you must now haul him from his grave, and send even your women +to dismember his body?"</p> + +<p>Who is this dead man, one of thousands who died yesterday, and will be +dust anon, to protest that science shall not turn his worthless carcass +to some account?</p> + +<p>Ruth could have had no such thought, for with a pity in her sweet face, +that for the moment overcame fear and disgust, she reverently replaced +the covering, and went away to her own table, as her companion did to +hers. And there for an hour they worked at their several problems, +without speaking, but not without an awe of the presence there, "the new +one," and not without an awful sense of life itself, as they heard the +pulsations of the music and the light laughter from the dancing-hall.</p> + +<p>When, at length, they went away, and locked the dreadful room behind +them, and came out into the street, where people were passing, they, for +the first time, realized, in the relief they felt, what a nervous strain +they had been under.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>While Ruth was thus absorbed in her new occupation, and the spring was +wearing away, Philip and his friends were still detained at the Southern +Hotel. The great contractors had concluded their business with the state +and railroad officials and with the lesser contractors, and departed for +the East. But the serious illness of one of the engineers kept Philip +and Henry in the city and occupied in alternate watchings.</p> + +<p>Philip wrote to Ruth of the new acquaintance they had made, Col. Sellers, +an enthusiastic and hospitable gentleman, very much interested in the +development of the country, and in their success. They had not had an +opportunity to visit at his place "up in the country" yet, but the +Colonel often dined with them, and in confidence, confided to them his +projects, and seemed to take a great liking to them, especially to his +friend Harry. It was true that he never seemed to have ready money, +but he was engaged in very large operations.</p> + +<p>The correspondence was not very brisk between these two young persons, +so differently occupied; for though Philip wrote long letters, he got +brief ones in reply, full of sharp little observations however, such as +one concerning Col. Sellers, namely, that such men dined at their house +every week.</p> + +<p>Ruth's proposed occupation astonished Philip immensely, but while he +argued it and discussed it, he did not dare hint to her his fear that it +would interfere with his most cherished plans. He too sincerely +respected Ruth's judgment to make any protest, however, and he would have +defended her course against the world.</p> + +<p>This enforced waiting at St. Louis was very irksome to Philip. His money +was running away, for one thing, and he longed to get into the field, +and see for himself what chance there was for a fortune or even an +occupation. The contractors had given the young men leave to join the +engineer corps as soon as they could, but otherwise had made no provision +for them, and in fact had left them with only the most indefinite +expectations of something large in the future.</p> + +<p>Harry was entirely happy; in his circumstances. He very soon knew +everybody, from the governor of the state down to the waiters at the +hotel. He had the Wall street slang at his tongue's end; he always +talked like a capitalist, and entered with enthusiasm into all the land +and railway schemes with which the air was thick.</p> + +<p>Col. Sellers and Harry talked together by the hour and by the day. Harry +informed his new friend that he was going out with the engineer corps of +the Salt Lick Pacific Extension, but that wasn't his real business.</p> + +<p>"I'm to have, with another party," said Harry, "a big contract in the +road, as soon as it is let; and, meantime, I'm with the engineers to spy +out the best land and the depot sites."</p> + +<p>"It's everything," suggested' the Colonel, "in knowing where to invest. +I've known people throwaway their money because they were too +consequential to take Sellers' advice. Others, again, have made their +pile on taking it. I've looked over the ground; I've been studying it +for twenty years. You can't put your finger on a spot in the map of +Missouri that I don't know as if I'd made it. When you want to place +anything," continued the Colonel, confidently, "just let Beriah Sellers +know. That's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I haven't got much in ready money I can lay my hands on now, but if +a fellow could do anything with fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, +as a beginning, I shall draw for that when I see the right opening."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's something, that's something, fifteen or twenty thousand +dollars, say twenty—as an advance," said the Colonel reflectively, as if +turning over his mind for a project that could be entered on with such a +trifling sum.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p151"></a><img alt="p151.jpg (18K)" src="images/p151.jpg" height="385" width="409"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I'll tell you what it is—but only to you Mr. Brierly, only to you, +mind; I've got a little project that I've been keeping. It looks small, +looks small on paper, but it's got a big future. What should you say, +sir, to a city, built up like the rod of Aladdin had touched it, built up +in two years, where now you wouldn't expect it any more than you'd expect +a light-house on the top of Pilot Knob? and you could own the land! It +can be done, sir. It can be done!"</p> + +<p>The Colonel hitched up his chair close to Harry, laid his hand on his +knee, and, first looking about him, said in a low voice, "The Salt Lick +Pacific Extension is going to run through Stone's Landing! The Almighty +never laid out a cleaner piece of level prairie for a city; and it's the +natural center of all that region of hemp and tobacco."</p> + +<p>"What makes you think the road will go there? It's twenty miles, on the +map, off the straight line of the road?"</p> + +<p>"You can't tell what is the straight line till the engineers have been +over it. Between us, I have talked with Jeff Thompson, the division +engineer. He understands the wants of Stone's Landing, and the claims of +the inhabitants—who are to be there. Jeff says that a railroad is +for—the accommodation of the people and not for the benefit of gophers; and +if, he don't run this to Stone's Landing he'll be damned! You ought to +know Jeff; he's one of the most enthusiastic engineers in this western +country, and one of the best fellows that ever looked through the bottom +of a glass."</p> + +<p>The recommendation was not undeserved. There was nothing that Jeff +wouldn't do, to accommodate a friend, from sharing his last dollar with +him, to winging him in a duel. When he understood from Col. Sellers. +how the land lay at Stone's Landing, he cordially shook hands with that +gentleman, asked him to drink, and fairly roared out, "Why, God bless my +soul, Colonel, a word from one Virginia gentleman to another is 'nuff +ced.' There's Stone's Landing been waiting for a railroad more than four +thousand years, and damme if she shan't have it."</p> + +<p>Philip had not so much faith as Harry in Stone's Landing, when the latter +opened the project to him, but Harry talked about it as if he already +owned that incipient city.</p> + +<p>Harry thoroughly believed in all his projects and inventions, and lived +day by day in their golden atmosphere. Everybody liked the young fellow, +for how could they help liking one of such engaging manners and large +fortune? The waiters at the hotel would do more for him than for any +other guest, and he made a great many acquaintances among the people of +St. Louis, who liked his sensible and liberal views about the development +of the western country, and about St. Louis. He said it ought to be the +national capital. Harry made partial arrangements with several of the +merchants for furnishing supplies for his contract on the Salt Lick +Pacific Extension; consulted the maps with the engineers, and went over +the profiles with the contractors, figuring out estimates for bids. +He was exceedingly busy with those things when he was not at the bedside +of his sick acquaintance, or arranging the details of his speculation +with Col. Sellers.</p> + +<p>Meantime the days went along and the weeks, and the money in Harry's +pocket got lower and lower. He was just as liberal with what he had as +before, indeed it was his nature to be free with his money or with that +of others, and he could lend or spend a dollar with an air that made it +seem like ten. At length, at the end of one week, when his hotel bill +was presented, Harry found not a cent in his pocket to meet it. He +carelessly remarked to the landlord that he was not that day in funds, +but he would draw on New York, and he sat down and wrote to the +contractors in that city a glowing letter about the prospects of the +road, and asked them to advance a hundred or two, until he got at work. +No reply came. He wrote again, in an unoffended business like tone, +suggesting that he had better draw at three days. A short answer came to +this, simply saying that money was very tight in Wall street just then, +and that he had better join the engineer corps as soon as he could.</p> + +<p>But the bill had to be paid, and Harry took it to Philip, and asked him +if he thought he hadn't better draw on his uncle. Philip had not much +faith in Harry's power of "drawing," and told him that he would pay the +bill himself. Whereupon Harry dismissed the matter then and thereafter +from his thoughts, and, like a light-hearted good fellow as he was, gave +himself no more trouble about his board-bills. Philip paid them, swollen +as they were with a monstrous list of extras; but he seriously counted +the diminishing bulk of his own hoard, which was all the money he had in +the world. Had he not tacitly agreed to share with Harry to the last in +this adventure, and would not the generous fellow divide; with him if he, +Philip, were in want and Harry had anything?</p> + +<p>The fever at length got tired of tormenting the stout young engineer, who +lay sick at the hotel, and left him, very thin, a little sallow but an +"acclimated" man. Everybody said he was "acclimated" now, and said it +cheerfully. What it is to be acclimated to western fevers no two persons +exactly agree.</p> + +<p>Some say it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some malignant +type of fever less probable. Some regard it as a sort of initiation, +like that into the Odd Fellows, which renders one liable to his regular +dues thereafter. Others consider it merely the acquisition of a habit of +taking every morning before breakfast a dose of bitters, composed of +whiskey and assafoetida, out of the acclimation jug.</p> + +<p>Jeff Thompson afterwards told Philip that he once asked Senator Atchison, +then acting Vice-President: of the United States, about the possibility +of acclimation; he thought the opinion of the second officer of our great +government would be, valuable on this point. They were sitting together +on a bench before a country tavern, in the free converse permitted by our +democratic habits.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, Senator, that you have become acclimated to this country?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p154"></a><img alt="p154.jpg (20K)" src="images/p154.jpg" height="467" width="297"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Well," said the Vice-President, crossing his legs, pulling his +wide-awake down over his forehead, causing a passing chicken to hop quickly +one side by the accuracy of his aim, and speaking with senatorial +deliberation, "I think I have. I've been here twenty-five years, and +dash, dash my dash to dash, if I haven't entertained twenty-five separate +and distinct earthquakes, one a year. The niggro is the only person who +can stand the fever and ague of this region."</p> + +<p>The convalescence of the engineer was the signal for breaking up quarters +at St. Louis, and the young fortune-hunters started up the river in good +spirits. It was only the second time either of them had been upon a +Mississippi steamboat, and nearly everything they saw had the charm of +novelty. Col. Sellers was at the landing to bid thorn good-bye.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p155"></a><img alt="p155.jpg (51K)" src="images/p155.jpg" height="459" width="581"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I shall send you up that basket of champagne by the next boat; no, no; +no thanks; you'll find it not bad in camp," he cried out as the plank was +hauled in. "My respects to Thompson. Tell him to sight for Stone's. +Let me know, Mr. Brierly, when you are ready to locate; I'll come over +from Hawkeye. Goodbye."</p> + +<p>And the last the young fellows saw of the Colonel, he was waving his hat, +and beaming prosperity and good luck.</p> + +<p>The voyage was delightful, and was not long enough to become monotonous. +The travelers scarcely had time indeed to get accustomed to the splendors +of the great saloon where the tables were spread for meals, a marvel of +paint and gilding, its ceiling hung with fancifully cut tissue-paper of +many colors, festooned and arranged in endless patterns. The whole was +more beautiful than a barber's shop. The printed bill of fare at dinner +was longer and more varied, the proprietors justly boasted, than that of +any hotel in New York. It must have been the work of an author of talent +and imagination, and it surely was not his fault if the dinner itself was +to a certain extent a delusion, and if the guests got something that +tasted pretty much the same whatever dish they ordered; nor was it his +fault if a general flavor of rose in all the dessert dishes suggested +that they hid passed through the barber's saloon on their way from the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>The travelers landed at a little settlement on the left bank, and at once +took horses for the camp in the interior, carrying their clothes and +blankets strapped behind the saddles. Harry was dressed as we have seen +him once before, and his long and shining boots attracted not a little +the attention of the few persons they met on the road, and especially of +the bright faced wenches who lightly stepped along the highway, +picturesque in their colored kerchiefs, carrying light baskets, or riding +upon mules and balancing before them a heavier load.</p> + +<p>Harry sang fragments of operas and talked abort their fortune. Philip +even was excited by the sense of freedom and adventure, and the beauty of +the landscape. The prairie, with its new grass and unending acres of +brilliant flowers—chiefly the innumerable varieties of phlox-bore the +look of years of cultivation, and the occasional open groves of white +oaks gave it a park-like appearance. It was hardly unreasonable to +expect to see at any moment, the gables and square windows of an +Elizabethan mansion in one of the well kept groves.</p> + +<p>Towards sunset of the third day, when the young gentlemen thought they +ought to be near the town of Magnolia, near which they had been directed +to find the engineers' camp, they descried a log house and drew up before +it to enquire the way. Half the building was store, and half was +dwelling house. At the door of the latter stood a regress with a bright +turban on her head, to whom Philip called,</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me, auntie, how far it is to the town of Magnolia?"</p> + +<p>"Why, bress you chile," laughed the woman, "you's dere now."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p157"></a><img alt="p157.jpg (84K)" src="images/p157.jpg" height="1005" width="615"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was true. This log horse was the compactly built town, and all +creation was its suburbs. The engineers' camp was only two or three +miles distant.</p> + +<p>"You's boun' to find it," directed auntie, "if you don't keah nuffin +'bout de road, and go fo' de sun-down."</p> + +<p>A brisk gallop brought the riders in sight of the twinkling light of the +camp, just as the stars came out. It lay in a little hollow, where a +small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half +dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled +at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on +blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as +they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring +plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" +of the spectators.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jeff Thompson, for it was the camp of this redoubtable engineer, gave +the travelers a hearty welcome, offered them ground room in his own tent, +ordered supper, and set out a small jug, a drop from which he declared +necessary on account of the chill of the evening.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p157b"></a><img alt="p157b.jpg (37K)" src="images/p157b.jpg" height="477" width="455"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I never saw an Eastern man," said Jeff, "who knew how to drink from a +jug with one hand. It's as easy as lying. So." He grasped the handle +with the right hand, threw the jug back upon his arm, and applied his +lips to the nozzle. It was an act as graceful as it was simple. +"Besides," said Mr. Thompson, setting it down, "it puts every man on his +honor as to quantity."</p> + +<p>Early to turn in was the rule of the camp, and by nine o'clock everybody +was under his blanket, except Jeff himself, who worked awhile at his +table over his field-book, and then arose, stepped outside the tent door +and sang, in a strong and not unmelodious tenor, the Star Spangled Banner +from beginning to end. It proved to be his nightly practice to let off +the unexpended seam of his conversational powers, in the words of this +stirring song.</p> + +<p>It was a long time before Philip got to sleep. He saw the fire light, +he saw the clear stars through the tree-tops, he heard the gurgle of the +stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which +followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed +he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and +heard him sing, "Oh, say, can you see?", It was the first time he had +ever slept on the ground.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p158"></a><img alt="p158.jpg (23K)" src="images/p158.jpg" height="461" width="281"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> ——"We have view'd it, +<br> And measur'd it within all, by the scale +<br> The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom! +<br> There will be made seventeen or eighteeen millions, +<br> Or more, as't may be handled!" +<br> +<br> The Devil is an Ass. +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Nobody dressed more like an engineer than Mr. Henry Brierly. The +completeness of his appointments was the envy of the corps, and the gay +fellow himself was the admiration of the camp servants, axemen, teamsters +and cooks.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you didn't git them boots no wher's this side o' Sent Louis?" +queried the tall Missouri youth who acted as commissariy's assistant.</p> + +<p>"No, New York."</p> + +<p>"Yas, I've heern o' New York," continued the butternut lad, attentively +studying each item of Harry's dress, and endeavoring to cover his design +with interesting conversation. "'N there's Massachusetts.",</p> + +<p>"It's not far off."</p> + +<p>"I've heern Massachusetts was a——-of a place. Les, see, what state's +Massachusetts in?"</p> + +<p>"Massachusetts," kindly replied Harry, "is in the state of Boston."</p> + +<p>"Abolish'n wan't it? They must a cost right smart," referring to the +boots.</p> + +<p>Harry shouldered his rod and went to the field, tramped over the prairie +by day, and figured up results at night, with the utmost cheerfulness and +industry, and plotted the line on the profile paper, without, however, +the least idea of engineering practical or theoretical. Perhaps there +was not a great deal of scientific knowledge in the entire corps, nor was +very much needed. They were making, what is called a preliminary survey, +and the chief object of a preliminary survey was to get up an excitement +about the road, to interest every town in that part of the state in it, +under the belief that the road would run through it, and to get the aid +of every planter upon the prospect that a station would be on his land.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jeff Thompson was the most popular engineer who could be found for +this work. He did not bother himself much about details or +practicabilities of location, but ran merrily along, sighting from the +top of one divide to the top of another, and striking "plumb" every town +site and big plantation within twenty or thirty miles of his route. In +his own language he "just went booming."</p> + +<p>This course gave Harry an opportunity, as he said, to learn the practical +details of engineering, and it gave Philip a chance to see the country, +and to judge for himself what prospect of a fortune it offered. Both he +and Harry got the "refusal" of more than one plantation as they went +along, and wrote urgent letters to their eastern correspondents, upon the +beauty of the land and the certainty that it would quadruple in value as +soon as the road was finally located. It seemed strange to them that +capitalists did not flock out there and secure this land.</p> + +<p>They had not been in the field over two weeks when Harry wrote to his +friend Col. Sellers that he'd better be on the move, for the line was +certain to go to Stone's Landing. Any one who looked at the line on the +map, as it was laid down from day to day, would have been uncertain which +way it was going; but Jeff had declared that in his judgment the only +practicable route from the point they then stood on was to follow the +divide to Stone's Landing, and it was generally understood that that town +would be the next one hit.</p> + +<p>"We'll make it, boys," said the chief, "if we have to go in a balloon."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p161"></a><img alt="p161.jpg (42K)" src="images/p161.jpg" height="447" width="535"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And make it they did In less than a week, this indomitable engineer had +carried his moving caravan over slues and branches, across bottoms and +along divides, and pitched his tents in the very heart of the city of +Stone's Landing.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be dashed," was heard the cheery voice of Mr. Thompson, as he +stepped outside the tent door at sunrise next morning. "If this don't +get me. I say, yon, Grayson, get out your sighting iron and see if you +can find old Sellers' town. Blame me if we wouldn't have run plumb by it +if twilight had held on a little longer. Oh! Sterling, Brierly, get up +and see the city. There's a steamboat just coming round the bend." And +Jeff roared with laughter. "The mayor'll be round here to breakfast."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p162"></a><img alt="p162.jpg (87K)" src="images/p162.jpg" height="423" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The fellows turned out of the tents, rubbing their eyes, and stared about +them. They were camped on the second bench of the narrow bottom of a +crooked, sluggish stream, that was some five rods wide in the present +good stage of water. Before them were a dozen log cabins, with stick and +mud chimneys, irregularly disposed on either side of a not very well +defined road, which did not seem to know its own mind exactly, and, after +straggling through the town, wandered off over the rolling prairie in an +uncertain way, as if it had started for nowhere and was quite likely to +reach its destination. Just as it left the town, however, it was cheered +and assisted by a guide-board, upon which was the legend "10 Mils to +Hawkeye."</p> + +<p>The road had never been made except by the travel over it, and at this +season—the rainy June—it was a way of ruts cut in the black soil, and +of fathomless mud-holes. In the principal street of the city, it had +received more attention; for hogs; great and small, rooted about in it +and wallowed in it, turning the street into a liquid quagmire which could +only be crossed on pieces of plank thrown here and there.</p> + +<p>About the chief cabin, which was the store and grocery of this mart of +trade, the mud was more liquid than elsewhere, and the rude platform in +front of it and the dry-goods boxes mounted thereon were places of refuge +for all the loafers of the place. Down by the stream was a dilapidated +building which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky wharf extended +out from it, into the water. In fact a flat-boat was there moored by it, +it's setting poles lying across the gunwales. Above the town the stream +was crossed by a crazy wooden bridge, the supports of which leaned all +ways in the soggy soil; the absence of a plank here and there in the +flooring made the crossing of the bridge faster than a walk an offense +not necessary to be prohibited by law.</p> + +<p>"This, gentlemen," said Jeff, "is Columbus River, alias Goose Run. If it +was widened, and deepened, and straightened, and made, long enough, it +would be one of the finest rivers in the western country."</p> + +<p>As the sun rose and sent his level beams along the stream, the thin +stratum of mist, or malaria, rose also and dispersed, but the light was +not able to enliven the dull water nor give any hint of its apparently +fathomless depth. Venerable mud-turtles crawled up and roosted upon the +old logs in the stream, their backs glistening in the sun, the first +inhabitants of the metropolis to begin the active business of the day.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p163"></a><img alt="p163.jpg (26K)" src="images/p163.jpg" height="339" width="457"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was not long, however, before smoke began to issue from the city +chimneys; and before the engineers, had finished their breakfast they +were the object of the curious inspection of six or eight boys and men, +who lounged into the camp and gazed about them with languid interest, +their hands in their pockets every one.</p> + +<p>"Good morning; gentlemen," called out the chief engineer, from the table.</p> + +<p>"Good mawning," drawled out the spokesman of the party. "I allow +thish-yers the railroad, I heern it was a-comin'."</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is the railroad; all but the rails and the ironhorse."</p> + +<p>"I reckon you kin git all the rails you want oaten my white oak timber +over, thar," replied the first speaker, who appeared to be a man of +property and willing to strike up a trade.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to negotiate with the contractors about the rails, sir," +said Jeff; "here's Mr. Brierly, I've no doubt would like to buy your +rails when the time comes."</p> + +<p>"O," said the man, "I thought maybe you'd fetch the whole bilin along +with you. But if you want rails, I've got em, haint I Eph."</p> + +<p>"Heaps," said Eph, without taking his eyes off the group at the table.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Thompson, rising from his seat and moving towards his +tent, "the railroad has come to Stone's Landing, sure; I move we take a +drink on it all round."</p> + +<p>The proposal met with universal favor. Jeff gave prosperity to Stone's +Landing and navigation to Goose Run, and the toast was washed down with +gusto, in the simple fluid of corn; and with the return compliment that a +rail road was a good thing, and that Jeff Thompson was no slouch.</p> + +<p>About ten o'clock a horse and wagon was descried making a slow approach +to the camp over the prairie. As it drew near, the wagon was seen to +contain a portly gentleman, who hitched impatiently forward on his seat, +shook the reins and gently touched up his horse, in the vain attempt to +communicate his own energy to that dull beast, and looked eagerly at the +tents. When the conveyance at length drew up to Mr. Thompson's door, +the gentleman descended with great deliberation, straightened himself up, +rubbed his hands, and beaming satisfaction from every part of his radiant +frame, advanced to the group that was gathered to welcome him, and which +had saluted him by name as soon as he came within hearing.</p> + +<p>"Welcome to Napoleon, gentlemen, welcome. I am proud to see you here +Mr. Thompson. You are, looking well Mr. Sterling. This is the country, +sir. Right glad to see you Mr. Brierly. You got that basket of +champagne? No? Those blasted river thieves! I'll never send anything +more by 'em. The best brand, Roederer. The last I had in my cellar, +from a lot sent me by Sir George Gore—took him out on a buffalo hunt, +when he visited our, country. Is always sending me some trifle. You +haven't looked about any yet, gentlemen? It's in the rough yet, in the +rough. Those buildings will all have to come down. That's the place for +the public square, Court House, hotels, churches, jail—all that sort of +thing. About where we stand, the deepo. How does that strike your +engineering eye, Mr. Thompson? Down yonder the business streets, running +to the wharves. The University up there, on rising ground, sightly +place, see the river for miles. That's Columbus river, only forty-nine +miles to the Missouri. You see what it is, placid, steady, no current to +interfere with navigation, wants widening in places and dredging, dredge +out the harbor and raise a levee in front of the town; made by nature on +purpose for a mart. Look at all this country, not another building +within ten miles, no other navigable stream, lay of the land points right +here; hemp, tobacco, corn, must come here. The railroad will do it, +Napoleon won't know itself in a year."</p> + +<p>"Don't now evidently," said Philip aside to Harry. "Have you breakfasted +Colonel?"</p> + +<p>"Hastily. Cup of coffee. Can't trust any coffee I don't import myself. +But I put up a basket of provisions,—wife would put in a few delicacies, +women always will, and a half dozen of that Burgundy, I was telling you +of Mr. Briefly. By the way, you never got to dine with me." And the +Colonel strode away to the wagon and looked under the seat for the +basket.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p165"></a><img alt="p165.jpg (52K)" src="images/p165.jpg" height="469" width="545"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Apparently it was not there. For the Colonel raised up the flap, looked +in front and behind, and then exclaimed,</p> + +<p>"Confound it. That comes of not doing a thing yourself. I trusted to +the women folks to set that basket in the wagon, and it ain't there."</p> + +<p>The camp cook speedily prepared a savory breakfast for the Colonel, +broiled chicken, eggs, corn-bread, and coffee, to which he did ample +justice, and topped off with a drop of Old Bourbon, from Mr. Thompson's +private store, a brand which he said he knew well, he should think it +came from his own sideboard.</p> + +<p>While the engineer corps went to the field, to run back a couple of miles +and ascertain, approximately, if a road could ever get down to the +Landing, and to sight ahead across the Run, and see if it could ever get +out again, Col. Sellers and Harry sat down and began to roughly map out +the city of Napoleon on a large piece of drawing paper.</p> + +<p>"I've got the refusal of a mile square here," said the Colonel, "in our +names, for a year, with a quarter interest reserved for the four owners."</p> + +<p>They laid out the town liberally, not lacking room, leaving space for the +railroad to come in, and for the river as it was to be when improved.</p> + +<p>The engineers reported that the railroad could come in, by taking a +little sweep and crossing the stream on a high bridge, but the grades +would be steep. Col. Sellers said he didn't care so much about the +grades, if the road could only be made to reach the elevators on the +river. The next day Mr. Thompson made a hasty survey of the stream for a +mile or two, so that the Colonel and Harry were enabled to show on their +map how nobly that would accommodate the city. Jeff took a little +writing from the Colonel and Harry for a prospective share but Philip +declined to join in, saying that he had no money, and didn't want to make +engagements he couldn't fulfill.</p> + +<p>The next morning the camp moved on, followed till it was out of sight by +the listless eyes of the group in front of the store, one of whom +remarked that, "he'd be doggoned if he ever expected to see that railroad +any mo'."</p> + +<p>Harry went with the Colonel to Hawkeye to complete their arrangements, a +part of which was the preparation of a petition to congress for the +improvement of the navigation of Columbus River.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p167"></a><img alt="p167.jpg (23K)" src="images/p167.jpg" height="301" width="501"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Eight years have passed since the death of Mr. Hawkins. Eight years are +not many in the life of a nation or the history of a state, but they +maybe years of destiny that shall fix the current of the century +following. Such years were those that followed the little scrimmage on +Lexington Common. Such years were those that followed the double-shotted +demand for the surrender of Fort Sumter. History is never done with +inquiring of these years, and summoning witnesses about them, and trying +to understand their significance.</p> + +<p>The eight years in America from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that +were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the +social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the +entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of +two or three generations.</p> + +<p>As we are accustomed to interpret the economy of providence, the life of +the individual is as nothing to that of the nation or the race; but who +can say, in the broader view and the more intelligent weight of values, +that the life of one man is not more than that of a nationality, and that +there is not a tribunal where the tragedy of one human soul shall not +seem more significant than the overturning of any human institution +whatever?</p> + +<p>When one thinks of the tremendous forces of the upper and the nether +world which play for the mastery of the soul of a woman during the few +years in which she passes from plastic girlhood to the ripe maturity of +womanhood, he may well stand in awe before the momentous drama.</p> + +<p>What capacities she has of purity, tenderness, goodness; what capacities +of vileness, bitterness and evil. Nature must needs be lavish with the +mother and creator of men, and centre in her all the possibilities of +life. And a few critical years can decide whether her life is to be full +of sweetness and light, whether she is to be the vestal of a holy temple, +or whether she will be the fallen priestess of a desecrated shrine. +There are women, it is true, who seem to be capable neither of rising +much nor of falling much, and whom a conventional life saves from any +special development of character.</p> + +<p>But Laura was not one of them. She had the fatal gift of beauty, and +that more fatal gift which does not always accompany mere beauty, the +power of fascination, a power that may, indeed, exist without beauty. +She had will, and pride and courage and ambition, and she was left to be +very much her own guide at the age when romance comes to the aid of +passion, and when the awakening powers of her vigorous mind had little +object on which to discipline themselves.</p> + +<p>The tremendous conflict that was fought in this girl's soul none of those +about her knew, and very few knew that her life had in it anything +unusual or romantic or strange.</p> + +<p>Those were troublous days in Hawkeye as well as in most other Missouri +towns, days of confusion, when between Unionist and Confederate +occupations, sudden maraudings and bush-whackings and raids, individuals +escaped observation or comment in actions that would have filled the town +with scandal in quiet times.</p> + +<p>Fortunately we only need to deal with Laura's life at this period +historically, and look back upon such portions of it as will serve to +reveal the woman as she was at the time of the arrival of Mr. Harry +Brierly in Hawkeye.</p> + +<p>The Hawkins family were settled there, and had a hard enough struggle +with poverty and the necessity of keeping up appearances in accord with +their own family pride and the large expectations they secretly cherished +of a fortune in the Knobs of East Tennessee. How pinched they were +perhaps no one knew but Clay, to whom they looked for almost their whole +support. Washington had been in Hawkeye off and on, attracted away +occasionally by some tremendous speculation, from which he invariably +returned to Gen. Boswell's office as poor as he went. He was the +inventor of no one knew how many useless contrivances, which were not +worth patenting, and his years had been passed in dreaming and planning +to no purpose; until he was now a man of about thirty, without a +profession or a permanent occupation, a tall, brown-haired, dreamy person +of the best intentions and the frailest resolution. Probably however +the, eight years had been happier to him than to any others in his +circle, for the time had been mostly spent in a blissful dream of the +coming of enormous wealth.</p> + +<p>He went out with a company from Hawkeye to the war, and was not wanting +in courage, but he would have been a better soldier if he had been less +engaged in contrivances for circumventing the enemy by strategy unknown +to the books.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p171"></a><img alt="p171.jpg (39K)" src="images/p171.jpg" height="421" width="429"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It happened to him to be captured in one of his self-appointed +expeditions, but the federal colonel released him, after a short +examination, satisfied that he could most injure the confederate forces +opposed to the Unionists by returning him to his regiment. Col. Sellers +was of course a prominent man during the war. He was captain of the home +guards in Hawkeye, and he never left home except upon one occasion, when +on the strength of a rumor, he executed a flank movement and fortified +Stone's Landing, a place which no one unacquainted with the country would +be likely to find.</p> + +<p>"Gad," said the Colonel afterwards, "the Landing is the key to upper +Missouri, and it is the only place the enemy never captured. If other +places had been defended as well as that was, the result would have been +different, sir."</p> + +<p>The Colonel had his own theories about war as he had in other things. +If everybody had stayed at home as he did, he said, the South never would +have been conquered. For what would there have been to conquer? Mr. +Jeff Davis was constantly writing him to take command of a corps in the +confederate army, but Col. Sellers said, no, his duty was at home. And +he was by no means idle. He was the inventor of the famous air torpedo, +which came very near destroying the Union armies in Missouri, and the +city of St. Louis itself.</p> + +<p>His plan was to fill a torpedo with Greek fire and poisonous and deadly +missiles, attach it to a balloon, and then let it sail away over the +hostile camp and explode at the right moment, when the time-fuse burned +out. He intended to use this invention in the capture of St. Louis, +exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it +until the army of occupation would gladly capitulate. He was unable to +procure the Greek fire, but he constructed a vicious torpedo which would +have answered the purpose, but the first one prematurely exploded in his +wood-house, blowing it clean away, and setting fire to his house. The +neighbors helped him put out the conflagration, but they discouraged any +more experiments of that sort.</p> + +<p>The patriotic old gentleman, however, planted so much powder and so many +explosive contrivances in the roads leading into Hawkeye, and then forgot +the exact spots of danger, that people were afraid to travel the +highways, and used to come to town across the fields, The Colonel's motto +was, "Millions for defence but not one cent for tribute."</p> + +<p>When Laura came to Hawkeye she might have forgotten the annoyances of the +gossips of Murpheysburg and have out lived the bitterness that was +growing in her heart, if she had been thrown less upon herself, or if the +surroundings of her life had been more congenial and helpful. But she +had little society, less and less as she grew older that was congenial to +her, and her mind preyed upon itself; and the mystery of her birth at +once chagrined her and raised in her the most extravagant expectations. +She was proud and she felt the sting of poverty. She could not but be +conscious of her beauty also, and she was vain of that, and came to take +a sort of delight in the exercise of her fascinations upon the rather +loutish young men who came in her way and whom she despised.</p> + +<p>There was another world opened to her—a world of books. But it was not +the best world of that sort, for the small libraries she had access to in +Hawkeye were decidedly miscellaneous, and largely made up of romances and +fictions which fed her imagination with the most exaggerated notions of +life, and showed her men and women in a very false sort of heroism. From +these stories she learned what a woman of keen intellect and some culture +joined to beauty and fascination of manner, might expect to accomplish in +society as she read of it; and along with these ideas she imbibed other +very crude ones in regard to the emancipation of woman.</p> + +<p>There were also other books-histories, biographies of distinguished +people, travels in far lands, poems, especially those of Byron, Scott and +Shelley and Moore, which she eagerly absorbed, and appropriated therefrom +what was to her liking. Nobody in Hawkeye had read so much or, after a +fashion, studied so diligently as Laura. She passed for an accomplished +girl, and no doubt thought herself one, as she was, judged by any +standard near her.</p> + +<p>During the war there came to Hawkeye a confederate officer, Col. Selby, +who was stationed there for a time, in command of that district. He was +a handsome, soldierly man of thirty years, a graduate of the University +of Virginia, and of distinguished family, if his story might be believed, +and, it was evident, a man of the world and of extensive travel and +adventure.</p> + +<p>To find in such an out of the way country place a woman like Laura was a +piece of good luck upon which Col. Selby congratulated himself. He was +studiously polite to her and treated her with a consideration to which +she was unaccustomed. She had read of such men, but she had never seen +one before, one so high-bred, so noble in sentiment, so entertaining in +conversation, so engaging in manner.</p> + +<p>It is a long story; unfortunately it is an old story, and it need not be +dwelt on. Laura loved him, and believed that his love for her was as +pure and deep as her own. She worshipped him and would have counted her +life a little thing to give him, if he would only love her and let her +feed the hunger of her heart upon him.</p> + +<p>The passion possessed her whole being, and lifted her up, till she seemed +to walk on air. It was all true, then, the romances she had read, the +bliss of love she had dreamed of. Why had she never noticed before how +blithesome the world was, how jocund with love; the birds sang it, the +trees whispered it to her as she passed, the very flowers beneath her +feet strewed the way as for a bridal march.</p> + +<p>When the Colonel went away they were engaged to be married, as soon as he +could make certain arrangements which he represented to be necessary, and +quit the army. He wrote to her from Harding, a small town in the +southwest corner of the state, saying that he should be held in the +service longer than he had expected, but that it would not be more than a +few months, then he should be at liberty to take her to Chicago where he +had property, and should have business, either now or as soon as the war +was over, which he thought could not last long. Meantime why should they +be separated? He was established in comfortable quarters, and if she +could find company and join him, they would be married, and gain so many +more months of happiness.</p> + +<p>Was woman ever prudent when she loved? Laura went to Harding, the +neighbors supposed to nurse Washington who had fallen ill there. +Her engagement was, of course, known in Hawkeye, and was indeed a matter +of pride to her family. Mrs. Hawkins would have told the first inquirer +that. Laura had gone to be married; but Laura had cautioned her; she did +not want to be thought of, she said, as going in search of a husband; let +the news come back after she was married.</p> + +<p>So she traveled to Harding on the pretence we have mentioned, and was +married. She was married, but something must have happened on that very +day or the next that alarmed her. Washington did not know then or after +what it was, but Laura bound him not to send news of her marriage to +Hawkeye yet, and to enjoin her mother not to speak of it. Whatever cruel +suspicion or nameless dread this was, Laura tried bravely to put it away, +and not let it cloud her happiness.</p> + +<p>Communication that summer, as may be imagined, was neither regular nor +frequent between the remote confederate camp at Harding and Hawkeye, and +Laura was in a measure lost sight of—indeed, everyone had troubles +enough of his own without borrowing from his neighbors.</p> + +<p>Laura had given herself utterly to her husband, and if he had faults, if +he was selfish, if he was sometimes coarse, if he was dissipated, she did +not or would not see it. It was the passion of her life, the time when +her whole nature went to flood tide and swept away all barriers. Was her +husband ever cold or indifferent? She shut her eyes to everything but +her sense of possession of her idol.</p> + +<p>Three months passed. One morning her husband informed her that he had +been ordered South, and must go within two hours.</p> + +<p>"I can be ready," said Laura, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"But I can't take you. You must go back to Hawkeye."</p> + +<p>"Can't-take-me?" Laura asked, with wonder in her eyes. "I can't live +without you. You said——-"</p> + +<p>"O bother what I said,"—and the Colonel took up his sword to buckle it +on, and then continued coolly, "the fact is Laura, our romance is played +out."</p> + +<p>Laura heard, but she did not comprehend. She caught his arm and cried, +"George, how can you joke so cruelly? I will go any where with you. +I will wait any where. I can't go back to Hawkeye."</p> + +<p>"Well, go where you like. Perhaps," continued he with a sneer, "you +would do as well to wait here, for another colonel."</p> + +<p>Laura's brain whirled. She did not yet comprehend. "What does this +mean? Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"It means," said the officer, in measured words, "that you haven't +anything to show for a legal marriage, and that I am going to New +Orleans."</p> + +<p>"It's a lie, George, it's a lie. I am your wife. I shall go. I shall +follow you to New Orleans."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps my wife might not like it!"</p> + +<p>Laura raised her head, her eyes flamed with fire, she tried to utter a +cry, and fell senseless on the floor.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p174"></a><img alt="p174.jpg (89K)" src="images/p174.jpg" height="871" width="565"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>When she came to herself the Colonel was gone. Washington Hawkins stood +at her bedside. Did she come to herself? Was there anything left in her +heart but hate and bitterness, a sense of an infamous wrong at the hands +of the only man she had ever loved?</p> + +<p>She returned to Hawkeye. With the exception of Washington and his +mother, no one knew what had happened. The neighbors supposed that the +engagement with Col. Selby had fallen through. Laura was ill for a long +time, but she recovered; she had that resolution in her that could +conquer death almost. And with her health came back her beauty, and an +added fascination, a something that might be mistaken for sadness. Is +there a beauty in the knowledge of evil, a beauty that shines out in the +face of a person whose inward life is transformed by some terrible +experience? Is the pathos in the eyes of the Beatrice Cenci from her +guilt or her innocence?</p> + +<p>Laura was not much changed. The lovely woman had a devil in her heart. +That was all.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p176"></a><img alt="p176.jpg (8K)" src="images/p176.jpg" height="231" width="405"> +</center> + + +<br><br> +<hr> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 2. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 2. *** + +***** This file should be named 5819-h.htm or 5819-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/1/5819/ + +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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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 2. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5819] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 2. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE GILDED AGE + +A Tale of Today + +by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner + +1873 + + +Part 2. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Only two or three days had elapsed since the funeral, when something +happened which was to change the drift of Laura's life somewhat, and +influence in a greater or lesser degree the formation of her character. + +Major Lackland had once been a man of note in the State--a man of +extraordinary natural ability and as extraordinary learning. He had been +universally trusted and honored in his day, but had finally, fallen into +misfortune; while serving his third term in Congress, and while upon the +point of being elevated to the Senate--which was considered the summit of +earthly aggrandizement in those days--he had yielded to temptation, when +in distress for money wherewith to save his estate; and sold his vote. +His crime was discovered, and his fall followed instantly. Nothing could +reinstate him in the confidence of the people, his ruin was +irretrievable--his disgrace complete. All doors were closed against him, +all men avoided him. After years of skulking retirement and dissipation, +death had relieved him of his troubles at last, and his funeral followed +close upon that of Mr. Hawkins. He died as he had latterly lived--wholly +alone and friendless. He had no relatives--or if he had they did not +acknowledge him. The coroner's jury found certain memoranda upon his +body and about the premises which revealed a fact not suspected by the +villagers before-viz., that Laura was not the child of Mr. and Mrs. +Hawkins. + +The gossips were soon at work. They were but little hampered by the fact +that the memoranda referred to betrayed nothing but the bare circumstance +that Laura's real parents were unknown, and stopped there. So far from +being hampered by this, the gossips seemed to gain all the more freedom +from it. They supplied all the missing information themselves, they +filled up all the blanks. The town soon teemed with histories of Laura's +origin and secret history, no two versions precisely alike, but all +elaborate, exhaustive, mysterious and interesting, and all agreeing in +one vital particular-to-wit, that there was a suspicious cloud about her +birth, not to say a disreputable one. + +Laura began to encounter cold looks, averted eyes and peculiar nods and +gestures which perplexed her beyond measure; but presently the pervading +gossip found its way to her, and she understood them--then. Her pride +was stung. She was astonished, and at first incredulous. She was about +to ask her mother if there was any truth in these reports, but upon +second thought held her peace. She soon gathered that Major Lackland's +memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself and +Judge Hawkins. She shaped her course without difficulty the day that +that hint reached her. + +That night she sat in her room till all was still, and then she stole +into the garret and began a search. She rummaged long among boxes of +musty papers relating to business matters of no, interest to her, but at +last she found several bundles of letters. One bundle was marked +"private," and in that she found what she wanted. She selected six or +eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents, +heedless of the cold. + +By the dates, these letters were from five to seven years old. They were +all from Major Lackland to Mr. Hawkins. The substance of them was, that +some one in the east had been inquiring of Major Lackland about a lost +child and its parents, and that it was conjectured that the child might +be Laura. + +Evidently some of the letters were missing, for the name of the +inquirer was not mentioned; there was a casual reference to "this +handsome-featured aristocratic gentleman," as if the reader and the +writer were accustomed to speak of him and knew who was meant. + +In one letter the Major said he agreed with Mr. Hawkins that the inquirer +seemed not altogether on the wrong track; but he also agreed that it +would be best to keep quiet until more convincing developments were +forthcoming. + +Another letter said that "the poor soul broke completely down when be saw +Laura's picture, and declared it must be she." + +Still another said: + + "He seems entirely alone in the world, and his heart is so wrapped + up in this thing that I believe that if it proved a false hope, it + would kill him; I have persuaded him to wait a little while and go + west when I go." + +Another letter had this paragraph in it: + + "He is better one day and worse the next, and is out of his mind a + good deal of the time. Lately his case has developed a something + which is a wonder to the hired nurses, but which will not be much of + a marvel to you if you have read medical philosophy much. It is + this: his lost memory returns to him when he is delirious, and goes + away again when he is himself-just as old Canada Joe used to talk + the French patois of his boyhood in the delirium of typhus fever, + though he could not do it when his mind was clear. Now this poor + gentleman's memory has always broken down before he reached the + explosion of the steamer; he could only remember starting up the + river with his wife and child, and he had an idea that there was a + race, but he was not certain; he could not name the boat he was on; + there was a dead blank of a month or more that supplied not an item + to his recollection. It was not for me to assist him, of course. + But now in his delirium it all comes out: the names of the boats, + every incident of the explosion, and likewise the details of his + astonishing escape--that is, up to where, just as a yawl-boat was + approaching him (he was clinging to the starboard wheel of the + burning wreck at the time), a falling timber struck him on the head. + But I will write out his wonderful escape in full to-morrow or next + day. Of course the physicians will not let me tell him now that our + Laura is indeed his child--that must come later, when his health is + thoroughly restored. His case is not considered dangerous at all; + he will recover presently, the doctors say. But they insist that he + must travel a little when he gets well--they recommend a short sea + voyage, and they say he can be persuaded to try it if we continue to + keep him in ignorance and promise to let him see L. as soon as he + returns." + +The letter that bore the latest date of all, contained this clause: + + "It is the most unaccountable thing in the world; the mystery + remains as impenetrable as ever; I have hunted high and low for him, + and inquired of everybody, but in vain; all trace of him ends at + that hotel in New York; I never have seen or heard of him since, + up to this day; he could hardly have sailed, for his name does not + appear upon the books of any shipping office in New York or Boston + or Baltimore. How fortunate it seems, now, that we kept this thing + to ourselves; Laura still has a father in you, and it is better for + her that we drop this subject here forever." + +That was all. Random remarks here and there, being pieced together gave +Laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence, abort forty-three or +forty-five years of age, with dark hair and eyes, and a slight limp in +his walk--it was not stated which leg was defective. And this indistinct +shadow represented her father. She made an exhaustive search for the +missing letters, but found none. They had probably been burned; and she +doubted not that the ones she had ferreted out would have shared the same +fate if Mr. Hawkins had not been a dreamer, void of method, whose mind +was perhaps in a state of conflagration over some bright new speculation +when he received them. + +She sat long, with the letters in her lap, thinking--and unconsciously +freezing. She felt like a lost person who has traveled down a long lane +in good hope of escape, and, just as the night descends finds his +progress barred by a bridge-less river whose further shore, if it has +one, is lost in the darkness. If she could only have found these letters +a month sooner! That was her thought. But now the dead had carried +their secrets with them. A dreary, melancholy settled down upon her. +An undefined sense of injury crept into her heart. She grew very +miserable. + +She had just reached the romantic age--the age when there is a sad +sweetness, a dismal comfort to a girl to find out that there is a mystery +connected with her birth, which no other piece of good luck can afford. +She had more than her rightful share of practical good sense, but still +she was human; and to be human is to have one's little modicum of romance +secreted away in one's composition. One never ceases to make a hero of +one's self, (in private,) during life, but only alters the style of his +heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle certain gods of +his admiration and raise up others in their stead that seem greater. + +The recent wearing days and nights of watching, and the wasting grief +that had possessed her, combined with the profound depression that +naturally came with the reaction of idleness, made Laura peculiarly +susceptible at this time to romantic impressions. She was a heroine, +now, with a mysterious father somewhere. She could not really tell +whether she wanted to find him and spoil it all or not; but still all the +traditions of romance pointed to the making the attempt as the usual and +necessary, course to follow; therefore she would some day begin the +search when opportunity should offer. + +Now a former thought struck her--she would speak to Mrs. Hawkins. +And naturally enough Mrs. Hawkins appeared on the stage at that moment. + +She said she knew all--she knew that Laura had discovered the secret that +Mr. Hawkins, the elder children, Col. Sellers and herself had kept so +long and so faithfully; and she cried and said that now that troubles had +begun they would never end; her daughter's love would wean itself away +from her and her heart would break. Her grief so wrought upon Laura that +the girl almost forgot her own troubles for the moment in her compassion +for her mother's distress. Finally Mrs. Hawkins said: + +"Speak to me, child--do not forsake me. Forget all this miserable talk. +Say I am your mother!--I have loved you so long, and there is no other. +I am your mother, in the sight of God, and nothing shall ever take you +from me!" + +All barriers fell, before this appeal. Laura put her arms about her +mother's neck and said: + +"You are my mother, and always shall be. We will be as we have always +been; and neither this foolish talk nor any other thing shall part us or +make us less to each other than we are this hour." + +There was no longer any sense of separation or estrangement between them. +Indeed their love seemed more perfect now than it had ever been before. +By and by they went down stairs and sat by the fire and talked long and +earnestly about Laura's history and the letters. But it transpired that +Mrs. Hawkins had never known of this correspondence between her husband +and Major Lackland. With his usual consideration for his wife, Mr. +Hawkins had shielded her from the worry the matter would have caused her. + +Laura went to bed at last with a mind that had gained largely in +tranquility and had lost correspondingly in morbid romantic exaltation. +She was pensive, the next day, and subdued; but that was not matter for +remark, for she did not differ from the mournful friends about her in +that respect. Clay and Washington were the same loving and admiring +brothers now that they had always been. The great secret was new to some +of the younger children, but their love suffered no change under the +wonderful revelation. + +It is barely possible that things might have presently settled down into +their old rut and the mystery have lost the bulk of its romantic +sublimity in Laura's eyes, if the village gossips could have quieted +down. But they could not quiet down and they did not. Day after day +they called at the house, ostensibly upon visits of condolence, and they +pumped away at the mother and the children without seeming to know that +their questionings were in bad taste. They meant no harm they only +wanted to know. Villagers always want to know. + +The family fought shy of the questionings, and of course that was high +testimony "if the Duchess was respectably born, why didn't they come out +and prove it?--why did they, stick to that poor thin story about picking +her up out of a steamboat explosion?" + +Under this ceaseless persecution, Laura's morbid self-communing was +renewed. At night the day's contribution of detraction, innuendo and +malicious conjecture would be canvassed in her mind, and then she would +drift into a course of thinking. As her thoughts ran on, the indignant +tears would spring to her eyes, and she would spit out fierce little +ejaculations at intervals. But finally she would grow calmer and say +some comforting disdainful thing--something like this: + +"But who are they?--Animals! What are their opinions to me? Let them +talk--I will not stoop to be affected by it. I could hate----. +Nonsense--nobody I care for or in any way respect is changed toward me, +I fancy." + +She may have supposed she was thinking of many individuals, but it was +not so--she was thinking of only one. And her heart warmed somewhat, +too, the while. One day a friend overheard a conversation like this: +--and naturally came and told her all about it: + +"Ned, they say you don't go there any more. How is that?" + +"Well, I don't; but I tell you it's not because I don't want to and it's +not because I think it is any matter who her father was or who he wasn't, +either; it's only on account of this talk, talk, talk. I think she is a +fine girl every way, and so would you if you knew her as well as I do; +but you know how it is when a girl once gets talked about--it's all up +with her--the world won't ever let her alone, after that." + +The only comment Laura made upon this revelation, was: + +"Then it appears that if this trouble had not occurred I could have had +the happiness of Mr. Ned Thurston's serious attentions. He is well +favored in person, and well liked, too, I believe, and comes of one of +the first families of the village. He is prosperous, too, I hear; has +been a doctor a year, now, and has had two patients--no, three, I think; +yes, it was three. I attended their funerals. Well, other people have +hoped and been disappointed; I am not alone in that. I wish you could +stay to dinner, Maria--we are going to have sausages; and besides, +I wanted to talk to you about Hawkeye and make you promise to come and +see us when we are settled there." + +But Maria could not stay. She had come to mingle romantic tears with +Laura's over the lover's defection and had found herself dealing with a +heart that could not rise to an appreciation of affliction because its +interest was all centred in sausages. + +But as soon as Maria was gone, Laura stamped her expressive foot and +said: + +"The coward! Are all books lies? I thought he would fly to the front, +and be brave and noble, and stand up for me against all the world, and +defy my enemies, and wither these gossips with his scorn! Poor crawling +thing, let him go. I do begin to despise thin world!" + +She lapsed into thought. Presently she said: + +"If the time ever comes, and I get a chance, Oh, I'll----" + +She could not find a word that was strong enough, perhaps. By and by she +said: + +"Well, I am glad of it--I'm glad of it. I never cared anything for him +anyway!" + +And then, with small consistency, she cried a little, and patted her foot +more indignantly than ever. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Two months had gone by and the Hawkins family were domiciled in Hawkeye. +Washington was at work in the real estate office again, and was +alternately in paradise or the other place just as it happened that +Louise was gracious to him or seemingly indifferent--because indifference +or preoccupation could mean nothing else than that she was thinking of +some other young person. Col. Sellers had asked him several times, to +dine with him, when he first returned to Hawkeye, but Washington, for no +particular reason, had not accepted. No particular reason except one +which he preferred to keep to himself--viz. that he could not bear to be +away from Louise. It occurred to him, now, that the Colonel had not +invited him lately--could he be offended? He resolved to go that very +day, and give the Colonel a pleasant surprise. It was a good idea; +especially as Louise had absented herself from breakfast that morning, +and torn his heart; he would tear hers, now, and let her see how it felt. + +The Sellers family were just starting to dinner when Washington burst +upon them with his surprise. For an instant the Colonel looked +nonplussed, and just a bit uncomfortable; and Mrs. Sellers looked +actually distressed; but the next moment the head of the house was +himself again, and exclaimed: + +"All right, my boy, all right--always glad to see you--always glad to +hear your voice and take you by the hand. Don't wait for special +invitations--that's all nonsense among friends. Just come whenever you +can, and come as often as you can--the oftener the better. You can't +please us any better than that, Washington; the little woman will tell +you so herself. We don't pretend to style. Plain folks, you know--plain +folks. Just a plain family dinner, but such as it is, our friends are +always welcome, I reckon you know that yourself, Washington. Run along, +children, run along; Lafayette,--[**In those old days the average man +called his children after his most revered literary and historical idols; +consequently there was hardly a family, at least in the West, but had a +Washington in it--and also a Lafayette, a Franklin, and six or eight +sounding names from Byron, Scott, and the Bible, if the offspring held +out. To visit such a family, was to find one's self confronted by a +congress made up of representatives of the imperial myths and the +majestic dead of all the ages. There was something thrilling about it, +to a stranger, not to say awe inspiring.]--stand off the cat's tail, +child, can't you see what you're doing?--Come, come, come, Roderick Dhu, +it isn't nice for little boys to hang onto young gentlemen's coat tails +--but never mind him, Washington, he's full of spirits and don't mean any +harm. Children will be children, you know. Take the chair next to Mrs. +Sellers, Washington--tut, tut, Marie Antoinette, let your brother have +the fork if he wants it, you are bigger than he is." + +Washington contemplated the banquet, and wondered if he were in his right +mind. Was this the plain family dinner? And was it all present? It was +soon apparent that this was indeed the dinner: it was all on the table: +it consisted of abundance of clear, fresh water, and a basin of raw +turnips--nothing more. + +Washington stole a glance at Mrs. Sellers's face, and would have given +the world, the next moment, if he could have spared her that. The poor +woman's face was crimson, and the tears stood in her eyes. Washington +did not know what to do. He wished he had never come there and spied out +this cruel poverty and brought pain to that poor little lady's heart and +shame to her cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. Col. +Sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who +should say "Now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and +began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before him "Let +me help you, Washington--Lafayette pass this plate Washington--ah, well, +well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, I tell you. +Speculation--my! the whole atmosphere's full of money. I would'nt take +three fortunes for one little operation I've got on hand now--have +anything from the casters? No? Well, you're right, you're right. Some +people like mustard with turnips, but--now there was Baron Poniatowski +--Lord, but that man did know how to live!--true Russian you know, Russian +to the back bone; I say to my wife, give me a Russian every time, for a +table comrade. The Baron used to say, 'Take mustard, Sellers, try the +mustard,--a man can't know what turnips are in perfection without, +mustard,' but I always said, 'No, Baron, I'm a plain man and I want my +food plain--none of your embellishments for Beriah Sellers--no made +dishes for me! And it's the best way--high living kills more than it +cures in this world, you can rest assured of that.--Yes indeed, +Washington, I've got one little operation on hand that--take some more +water--help yourself, won't you?--help yourself, there's plenty of it. +--You'll find it pretty good, I guess. How does that fruit strike you?" + +Washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better. He did +not add that he detested turnips even when they were cooked loathed them +in their natural state. No, he kept this to himself, and praised the +turnips to the peril of his soul. + +"I thought you'd like them. Examine them--examine them--they'll bear it. +See how perfectly firm and juicy they are--they can't start any like them +in this part of the country, I can tell you. These are from New Jersey +--I imported them myself. They cost like sin, too; but lord bless me, +I go in for having the best of a thing, even if it does cost a little +more--it's the best economy, in the long run. These are the Early +Malcolm--it's a turnip that can't be produced except in just one orchard, +and the supply never is up to the demand. Take some more water, +Washington--you can't drink too much water with fruit--all the doctors +say that. The plague can't come where this article is, my boy!" + +"Plague? What plague?" + +"What plague, indeed? Why the Asiatic plague that nearly depopulated +London a couple of centuries ago." + +"But how does that concern us? There is no plague here, I reckon." + +"Sh! I've let it out! Well, never mind--just keep it to yourself. +Perhaps I oughtn't said anything, but its bound to come out sooner or +later, so what is the odds? Old McDowells wouldn't like me to--to +--bother it all, I'll jest tell the whole thing and let it go. You see, +I've been down to St. Louis, and I happened to run across old Dr. +McDowells--thinks the world of me, does the doctor. He's a man that +keeps himself to himself, and well he may, for he knows that he's got a +reputation that covers the whole earth--he won't condescend to open +himself out to many people, but lord bless you, he and I are just like +brothers; he won't let me go to a hotel when I'm in the city--says I'm +the only man that's company to him, and I don't know but there's some +truth in it, too, because although I never like to glorify myself and +make a great to-do over what I am or what I can do or what I know, +I don't mind saying here among friends that I am better read up in most +sciences, maybe, than the general run of professional men in these days. +Well, the other day he let me into a little secret, strictly on the +quiet, about this matter of the plague. + +"You see it's booming right along in our direction--follows the Gulf +Stream, you know, just as all those epidemics do, and within three months +it will be just waltzing through this land like a whirlwind! And whoever +it touches can make his will and contract for the funeral. Well you +can't cure it, you know, but you can prevent it. How? Turnips! that's +it! Turnips and water! Nothing like it in the world, old McDowells +says, just fill yourself up two or three times a day, and you can snap +your fingers at the plague. Sh!--keep mum, but just you confine yourself +to that diet and you're all right. I wouldn't have old McDowells know +that I told about it for anything--he never would speak to me again. +Take some more water, Washington--the more water you drink, the better. +Here, let me give you some more of the turnips. No, no, no, now, I +insist. There, now. Absorb those. They're, mighty sustaining--brim +full of nutriment--all the medical books say so. Just eat from four to +seven good-sized turnips at a meal, and drink from a pint and a half to a +quart of water, and then just sit around a couple of hours and let them +ferment. You'll feel like a fighting cock next day." + +Fifteen or twenty minutes later the Colonel's tongue was still chattering +away--he had piled up several future fortunes out of several incipient +"operations" which he had blundered into within the past week, and was +now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of late +promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye-water. +And at such a time Washington ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic +listener, but he was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and +distracted his attention. One was, that he discovered, to his confusion +and shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the +turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. He had not needed the +dreadful "fruit," and had not wanted it; and when he saw the pathetic +sorrow in their faces when they asked for more and there was no more to +give them, he hated himself for his stupidity and pitied the famishing +young things with all his heart. The other matter that disturbed him was +the dire inflation that had begun in his stomach. It grew and grew, it +became more and more insupportable. Evidently the turnips were +"fermenting." He forced himself to sit still as long as he could, but +his anguish conquered him at last. + +He rose in the midst of the Colonel's talk and excused himself on the +plea of a previous engagement. The Colonel followed him to the door, +promising over and over again that he would use his influence to get some +of the Early Malcolms for him, and insisting that he should not be such a +stranger but come and take pot-luck with him every chance he got. +Washington was glad enough to get away and feel free again. He +immediately bent his steps toward home. + +In bed he passed an hour that threatened to turn his hair gray, and then +a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his heart with +gratitude. Weak and languid, he made shift to turn himself about and +seek rest and sleep; and as his soul hovered upon the brink of +unconciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh, and said to himself that in +his heart he had cursed the Colonel's preventive of rheumatism, before, +and now let the plague come if it must--he was done with preventives; +if ever any man beguiled him with turnips and water again, let him die +the death. + +If he dreamed at all that night, no gossiping spirit disturbed his +visions to whisper in his ear of certain matters just then in bud in the +East, more than a thousand miles away that after the lapse of a few years +would develop influences which would profoundly affect the fate and +fortunes of the Hawkins family. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"Oh, it's easy enough to make a fortune," Henry said. + +"It seems to be easier than it is, I begin to think," replied Philip. + +"Well, why don't you go into something? You'll never dig it out of the +Astor Library." + +If there be any place and time in the world where and when it seems easy +to "go into something" it is in Broadway on a spring morning, when one is +walking city-ward, and has before him the long lines of palace-shops with +an occasional spire seen through the soft haze that lies over the lower +town, and hears the roar and hum of its multitudinous traffic. + +To the young American, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are +innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success in +all his wide horizon. He is embarrassed which to choose, and is not +unlikely to waste years in dallying with his chances, before giving +himself to the serious tug and strain of a single object. He has no +traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away +from the occupation his father has followed, and make a new way for +himself. + +Philip Sterling used to say that if he should seriously set himself for +ten years to any one of the dozen projects that were in his brain, he +felt that he could be a rich man. He wanted to be rich, he had a sincere +desire for a fortune, but for some unaccountable reason he hesitated +about addressing himself to the narrow work of getting it. He never +walked Broadway, a part of its tide of abundant shifting life, without +feeling something of the flush of wealth, and unconsciously taking the +elastic step of one well-to-do in this prosperous world. + +Especially at night in the crowded theatre--Philip was too young to +remember the old Chambers' Street box, where the serious Burton led his +hilarious and pagan crew--in the intervals of the screaming comedy, when +the orchestra scraped and grunted and tooted its dissolute tunes, the +world seemed full of opportunities to Philip, and his heart exulted with +a conscious ability to take any of its prizes he chose to pluck. + +Perhaps it was the swimming ease of the acting, on the stage, where +virtue had its reward in three easy acts, perhaps it was the excessive +light of the house, or the music, or the buzz of the excited talk between +acts, perhaps it was youth which believed everything, but for some reason +while Philip was at the theatre he had the utmost confidence in life and +his ready victory in it. + +Delightful illusion of paint and tinsel and silk attire, of cheap +sentiment and high and mighty dialogue! Will there not always be rosin +enough for the squeaking fiddle-bow? + +Do we not all like the maudlin hero, who is sneaking round the right +entrance, in wait to steal the pretty wife of his rich and tyrannical +neighbor from the paste-board cottage at the left entrance? and when he +advances down to the foot-lights and defiantly informs the audience that, +"he who lays his hand on a woman except in the way of kindness," do we +not all applaud so as to drown the rest of the sentence? + +Philip never was fortunate enough to hear what would become of a man who +should lay his hand on a woman with the exception named; but he learned +afterwards that the woman who lays her hand on a man, without any +exception whatsoever, is always acquitted by the jury. + +The fact was, though Philip Sterling did not know it, that he wanted +several other things quite as much as he wanted wealth. The modest +fellow would have liked fame thrust upon him for some worthy achievement; +it might be for a book, or for the skillful management of some great +newspaper, or for some daring expedition like that of Lt. Strain or Dr. +Kane. He was unable to decide exactly what it should be. Sometimes he +thought he would like to stand in a conspicuous pulpit and humbly preach +the gospel of repentance; and it even crossed his mind that it would be +noble to give himself to a missionary life to some benighted region, +where the date-palm grows, and the nightingale's voice is in tune, and +the bul-bul sings on the off nights. If he were good enough he would +attach himself to that company of young men in the Theological Seminary, +who were seeing New York life in preparation for the ministry. + +Philip was a New England boy and had graduated at Yale; he had not +carried off with him all the learning of that venerable institution, but +he knew some things that were not in the regular course of study. A very +good use of the English language and considerable knowledge of its +literature was one of them; he could sing a song very well, not in time +to be sure, but with enthusiasm; he could make a magnetic speech at a +moment's notice in the class room, the debating society, or upon any +fence or dry-goods box that was convenient; he could lift himself by one +arm, and do the giant swing in the gymnasium; he could strike out from +his left shoulder; he could handle an oar like a professional and pull +stroke in a winning race. Philip had a good appetite, a sunny temper, +and a clear hearty laugh. He had brown hair, hazel eyes set wide apart, +a broad but not high forehead, and a fresh winning face. He was six feet +high, with broad shoulders, long legs and a swinging gait; one of those +loose-jointed, capable fellows, who saunter into the world with a free +air and usually make a stir in whatever company they enter. + +After he left college Philip took the advice of friends and read law. +Law seemed to him well enough as a science, but he never could discover a +practical case where it appeared to him worth while to go to law, and all +the clients who stopped with this new clerk in the ante-room of the law +office where he was writing, Philip invariably advised to settle--no +matter how, but settle--greatly to the disgust of his employer, who knew +that justice between man and man could only be attained by the recognized +processes, with the attendant fees. Besides Philip hated the copying of +pleadings, and he was certain that a life of "whereases" and "aforesaids" +and whipping the devil round the stump, would be intolerable. + +[Note: these few paragraphs are nearly an autobiography of the life of +Charles Dudley Warner whose contributions to the story start here with +Chapter XII. D.W.] + +His pen therefore, and whereas, and not as aforesaid, strayed off into +other scribbling. In an unfortunate hour, he had two or three papers +accepted by first-class magazines, at three dollars the printed page, +and, behold, his vocation was open to him. He would make his mark in +literature. + +Life has no moment so sweet as that in which a young man believes himself +called into the immortal ranks of the masters of literature. It is such +a noble ambition, that it is a pity it has usually such a shallow +foundation. + +At the time of this history, Philip had gone to New York for a career. +With his talent he thought he should have little difficulty in getting an +editorial position upon a metropolitan newspaper; not that he knew +anything about news paper work, or had the least idea of journalism; he +knew he was not fitted for the technicalities of the subordinate +departments, but he could write leaders with perfect ease, he was sure. +The drudgery of the newspaper office was too distaste ful, and besides it +would be beneath the dignity of a graduate and a successful magazine +writer. He wanted to begin at the top of the ladder. + +To his surprise he found that every situation in the editorial department +of the journals was full, always had been full, was always likely to be +full. It seemed to him that the newspaper managers didn't want genius, +but mere plodding and grubbing. Philip therefore read diligently in the +Astor library, planned literary works that should compel attention, and +nursed his genius. He had no friend wise enough to tell him to step into +the Dorking Convention, then in session, make a sketch of the men and +women on the platform, and take it to the editor of the Daily Grapevine, +and see what he could get a line for it. + +One day he had an offer from some country friends, who believed in him, +to take charge of a provincial daily newspaper, and he went to consult +Mr. Gringo--Gringo who years ago managed the Atlas--about taking the +situation. + +"Take it of course," says Gringo, take anything that offers, why not?" + +"But they want me to make it an opposition paper." + +"Well, make it that. That party is going to succeed, it's going to elect +the next president." + +"I don't believe it," said Philip, stoutly, "its wrong in principle, and +it ought not to succeed, but I don't see how I can go for a thing I don't +believe in." + +"O, very well," said Gringo, turning away with a shade of contempt, +"you'll find if you are going into literature and newspaper work that you +can't afford a conscience like that." + +But Philip did afford it, and he wrote, thanking his friends, and +declining because he said the political scheme would fail, and ought to +fail. And he went back to his books and to his waiting for an opening +large enough for his dignified entrance into the literary world. + +It was in this time of rather impatient waiting that Philip was one +morning walking down Broadway with Henry Brierly. He frequently +accompanied Henry part way down town to what the latter called his office +in Broad Street, to which he went, or pretended to go, with regularity +every day. It was evident to the most casual acquaintance that he was a +man of affairs, and that his time was engrossed in the largest sort of +operations, about which there was a mysterious air. His liability to be +suddenly summoned to Washington, or Boston or Montreal or even to +Liverpool was always imminent. He never was so summoned, but none of his +acquaintances would have been surprised to hear any day that he had gone +to Panama or Peoria, or to hear from him that he had bought the Bank of +Commerce. + +The two were intimate at that time,--they had been class, mates--and saw +a great deal of each other. Indeed, they lived together in Ninth Street, +in a boarding-house, there, which had the honor of lodging and partially +feeding several other young fellows of like kidney, who have since gone +their several ways into fame or into obscurity. + +It was during the morning walk to which reference has been made that +Henry Brierly suddenly said, "Philip, how would you like to go to +St. Jo?" + +"I think I should like it of all things," replied Philip, with some +hesitation, "but what for." + +"Oh, it's a big operation. We are going, a lot of us, railroad men, +engineers, contractors. You know my uncle is a great railroad man. I've +no doubt I can get you a chance to go if you'll go." + +"But in what capacity would I go?" + +"Well, I'm going as an engineer. You can go as one." + +"I don't know an engine from a coal cart." + +"Field engineer, civil engineer. You can begin by carrying a rod, and +putting down the figures. It's easy enough. I'll show you about that. +We'll get Trautwine and some of those books." + +"Yes, but what is it for, what is it all about?" + +"Why don't you see? We lay out a line, spot the good land, enter it up, +know where the stations are to be, spot them, buy lots; there's heaps of +money in it. We wouldn't engineer long." + +"When do you go?" was Philip's next question, after some moments of +silence. + +"To-morrow. Is that too soon?" + +"No, its not too soon. I've been ready to go anywhere for six months. +The fact is, Henry, that I'm about tired of trying to force myself into +things, and am quite willing to try floating with the stream for a while, +and see where I will land. This seems like a providential call; it's +sudden enough." + +The two young men who were by this time full of the adventure, went down +to the Wall street office of Henry's uncle and had a talk with that wily +operator. The uncle knew Philip very well, and was pleased with his +frank enthusiasm, and willing enough to give him a trial in the western +venture. It was settled therefore, in the prompt way in which things are +settled in New York, that they would start with the rest of the company +next morning for the west. + +On the way up town these adventurers bought books on engineering, and +suits of India-rubber, which they supposed they would need in a new and +probably damp country, and many other things which nobody ever needed +anywhere. + +The night was spent in packing up and writing letters, for Philip would +not take such an important step without informing his friends. If they +disapprove, thought he, I've done my duty by letting them know. Happy +youth, that is ready to pack its valise, and start for Cathay on an +hour's notice. + +"By the way," calls out Philip from his bed-room, to Henry, "where is +St. Jo.?" + +"Why, it's in Missouri somewhere, on the frontier I think. We'll get a +map." + +"Never mind the map. We will find the place itself. I was afraid it was +nearer home." + +Philip wrote a long letter, first of all, to his mother, full of love and +glowing anticipations of his new opening. He wouldn't bother her with +business details, but he hoped that the day was not far off when she +would see him return, with a moderate fortune, and something to add to +the comfort of her advancing years. + +To his uncle he said that he had made an arrangement with some New York +capitalists to go to Missouri, in a land and railroad operation, which +would at least give him a knowledge of the world and not unlikely offer +him a business opening. He knew his uncle would be glad to hear that he +had at last turned his thoughts to a practical matter. + +It was to Ruth Bolton that Philip wrote last. He might never see her +again; he went to seek his fortune. He well knew the perils of the +frontier, the savage state of society, the lurking Indians and the +dangers of fever. But there was no real danger to a person who took care +of himself. Might he write to her often and, tell her of his life. +If he returned with a fortune, perhaps and perhaps. If he was +unsuccessful, or if he never returned--perhaps it would be as well. +No time or distance, however, would ever lessen his interest in her. He +would say good-night, but not good-bye. + +In the soft beginning of a Spring morning, long before New York had +breakfasted, while yet the air of expectation hung about the wharves of +the metropolis, our young adventurers made their way to the Jersey City +railway station of the Erie road, to begin the long, swinging, crooked +journey, over what a writer of a former day called a causeway of cracked +rails and cows, to the West. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + What ever to say be toke in his entente, + his langage was so fayer & pertynante, + yt semeth unto manys herying not only the worde, + but veryly the thyng. + Caxton's Book of Curtesye. + +In the party of which our travelers found themselves members, was Duff +Brown, the great railroad contractor, and subsequently a well-known +member of Congress; a bluff, jovial Bost'n man, thick-set, close shaven, +with a heavy jaw and a low forehead--a very pleasant man if you were not +in his way. He had government contracts also, custom houses and dry +docks, from Portland to New Orleans, and managed to get out of congress, +in appropriations, about weight for weight of gold for the stone +furnished. + +Associated with him, and also of this party, was Rodney Schaick, a sleek +New York broker, a man as prominent in the church as in the stock +exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary complement +of Duff Brown in any enterprise that needed assurance and adroitness. + +It would be difficult to find a pleasanter traveling party one that shook +off more readily the artificial restraints of Puritanic strictness, and +took the world with good-natured allowance. Money was plenty for every +attainable luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt that its supply would +continue, and that fortunes were about to be made without a great deal of +toil. Even Philip soon caught the prevailing spirit; Barry did not need +any inoculation, he always talked in six figures. It was as natural for +the dear boy to be rich as it is for most people to be poor. + +The elders of the party were not long in discovering the fact, which +almost all travelers to the west soon find out; that the water was poor. +It must have been by a lucky premonition of this that they all had brandy +flasks with which to qualify the water of the country; and it was no +doubt from an uneasy feeling of the danger of being poisoned that they +kept experimenting, mixing a little of the dangerous and changing fluid, +as they passed along, with the contents of the flasks, thus saving their +lives hour by hour. Philip learned afterwards that temperance and the +strict observance of Sunday and a certain gravity of deportment are +geographical habits, which people do not usually carry with them away +from home. + +Our travelers stopped in Chicago long enough to see that they could make +their fortunes there in two week's tine, but it did not seem worth while; +the west was more attractive; the further one went the wider the +opportunities opened. + +They took railroad to Alton and the steamboat from there to St. Louis, +for the change and to have a glimpse of the river. + +"Isn't this jolly?" cried Henry, dancing out of the barber's room, and +coming down the deck with a one, two, three step, shaven, curled and +perfumed after his usual exquisite fashion. + +"What's jolly?" asked Philip, looking out upon the dreary and monotonous +waste through which the shaking steamboat was coughing its way. + +"Why, the whole thing; it's immense I can tell you. I wouldn't give that +to be guaranteed a hundred thousand cold cash in a year's time." + +"Where's Mr. Brown?" + +"He is in the saloon, playing poker with Schaick and that long haired +party with the striped trousers, who scrambled aboard when the stage +plank was half hauled in, and the big Delegate to Congress from out +west." + +"That's a fine looking fellow, that delegate, with his glossy, black +whiskers; looks like a Washington man; I shouldn't think he'd be at +poker." + +"Oh, its only five cent ante, just to make it interesting, the Delegate +said." + +"But I shouldn't think a representative in Congress would play poker any +way in a public steamboat." + +"Nonsense, you've got to pass the time. I tried a hand myself, but those +old fellows are too many for me. The Delegate knows all the points. +I'd bet a hundred dollars he will ante his way right into the United +States Senate when his territory comes in. He's got the cheek for it." + +"He has the grave and thoughtful manner of expectoration of a public man, +for one thing," added Philip. + +"Harry," said Philip, after a pause, "what have you got on those big +boots for; do you expect to wade ashore?" + +"I'm breaking 'em in." + +The fact was Harry had got himself up in what he thought a proper costume +for a new country, and was in appearance a sort of compromise between a +dandy of Broadway and a backwoodsman. Harry, with blue eyes, fresh +complexion, silken whiskers and curly chestnut hair, was as handsome as +a fashion plate. He wore this morning a soft hat, a short cutaway coat, +an open vest displaying immaculate linen, a leathern belt round his +waist, and top-boots of soft leather, well polished, that came above his +knees and required a string attached to his belt to keep them up. The +light hearted fellow gloried in these shining encasements of his well +shaped legs, and told Philip that they were a perfect protection against +prairie rattle-snakes, which never strike above the knee. + +The landscape still wore an almost wintry appearance when our travelers +left Chicago. It was a genial spring day when they landed at St. Louis; +the birds were singing, the blossoms of peach trees in city garden plots, +made the air sweet, and in the roar and tumult on the long river levee +they found an excitement that accorded with their own hopeful +anticipations. + +The party went to the Southern Hotel, where the great Duff Brown was very +well known, and indeed was a man of so much importance that even the +office clerk was respectful to him. He might have respected in him also +a certain vulgar swagger and insolence of money, which the clerk greatly +admired. + +The young fellows liked the house and liked the city; it seemed to them a +mighty free and hospitable town. Coming from the East they were struck +with many peculiarities. Everybody smoked in the streets, for one thing, +they noticed; everybody "took a drink" in an open manner whenever he +wished to do so or was asked, as if the habit needed no concealment or +apology. In the evening when they walked about they found people sitting +on the door-steps of their dwellings, in a manner not usual in a northern +city; in front of some of the hotels and saloons the side walks were +filled with chairs and benches--Paris fashion, said Harry--upon which +people lounged in these warm spring evenings, smoking, always smoking; +and the clink of glasses and of billiard balls was in the air. It was +delightful. + +Harry at once found on landing that his back-woods custom would not be +needed in St. Louis, and that, in fact, he had need of all the resources +of his wardrobe to keep even with the young swells of the town. But this +did not much matter, for Harry was always superior to his clothes. +As they were likely to be detained some time in the city, Harry told +Philip that he was going to improve his time. And he did. It was an +encouragement to any industrious man to see this young fellow rise, +carefully dress himself, eat his breakfast deliberately, smoke his cigar +tranquilly, and then repair to his room, to what he called his work, with +a grave and occupied manner, but with perfect cheerfulness. + +Harry would take off his coat, remove his cravat, roll up his +shirt-sleeves, give his curly hair the right touch before the glass, get +out his book on engineering, his boxes of instruments, his drawing paper, +his profile paper, open the book of logarithms, mix his India ink, +sharpen his pencils, light a cigar, and sit down at the table to "lay out +a line," with the most grave notion that he was mastering the details of +engineering. He would spend half a day in these preparations without +ever working out a problem or having the faintest conception of the use +of lines or logarithms. And when he had finished, he had the most +cheerful confidence that he had done a good day's work. + +It made no difference, however, whether Harry was in his room in a hotel +or in a tent, Philip soon found, he was just the same. In camp he would +get himself, up in the most elaborate toilet at his command, polish his +long boots to the top, lay out his work before him, and spend an hour or +longer, if anybody was looking at him, humming airs, knitting his brows, +and "working" at engineering; and if a crowd of gaping rustics were +looking on all the while it was perfectly satisfactory to him. + +"You see," he says to Philip one morning at the hotel when he was thus +engaged, "I want to get the theory of this thing, so that I can have a +check on the engineers." + +"I thought you were going to be an engineer yourself," queried Philip. + +"Not many times, if the court knows herself. There's better game. Brown +and Schaick have, or will have, the control for the whole line of the +Salt Lick Pacific Extension, forty thousand dollars a mile over the +prairie, with extra for hard-pan--and it'll be pretty much all hardpan +I can tell you; besides every alternate section of land on this line. +There's millions in the job. I'm to have the sub-contract for the first +fifty miles, and you can bet it's a soft thing." + +"I'll tell you what you do, Philip," continued Larry, in a burst of +generosity, "if I don't get you into my contract, you'll be with the +engineers, and you jest stick a stake at the first ground marked for a +depot, buy the land of the farmer before he knows where the depot will +be, and we'll turn a hundred or so on that. I'll advance the money for +the payments, and you can sell the lots. Schaick is going to let me have +ten thousand just for a flyer in such operations." + +"But that's a good deal of money." + +"Wait till you are used to handling money. I didn't come out here for a +bagatelle. My uncle wanted me to stay East and go in on the Mobile +custom house, work up the Washington end of it; he said there was a +fortune in it for a smart young fellow, but I preferred to take the +chances out here. Did I tell you I had an offer from Bobbett and Fanshaw +to go into their office as confidential clerk on a salary of ten +thousand?" + +"Why didn't you take it ?" asked Philip, to whom a salary of two thousand +would have seemed wealth, before he started on this journey. + +"Take it? I'd rather operate on my own hook;" said Harry, in his most +airy manner. + +A few evenings after their arrival at the Southern, Philip and Harry made +the acquaintance of a very agreeable gentleman, whom they had frequently +seen before about the hotel corridors, and passed a casual word with. He +had the air of a man of business, and was evidently a person of +importance. + +The precipitating of this casual intercourse into the more substantial +form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himself, and +occurred in this wise. Meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening, +he asked them to give him the time, and added: + +"Excuse me, gentlemen--strangers in St. Louis? Ah, yes-yes. From the +East, perhaps? Ah; just so, just so. Eastern born myself--Virginia. +Sellers is my name--Beriah Sellers. + +"Ah! by the way--New York, did you say? That reminds me; just met some +gentlemen from your State, a week or two ago--very prominent gentlemen +--in public life they are; you must know them, without doubt. Let me see +--let me see. Curious those names have escaped me. I know they were from +your State, because I remember afterward my old friend Governor Shackleby +said to me--fine man, is the Governor--one of the finest men our country +has produced--said he, 'Colonel, how did you like those New York +gentlemen?--not many such men in the world,--Colonel Sellers,' said the +Governor--yes, it was New York he said--I remember it distinctly. +I can't recall those names, somehow. But no matter. Stopping here, +gentlemen--stopping at the Southern?" + +In shaping their reply in their minds, the title "Mr." had a place in it; +but when their turn had arrived to speak, the title "Colonel" came from +their lips instead. + +They said yes, they were abiding at the Southern, and thought it a very +good house. + +"Yes, yes, the Southern is fair. I myself go to the Planter's, old, +aristocratic house. We Southern gentlemen don't change our ways, you +know. I always make it my home there when I run down from Hawkeye--my +plantation is in Hawkeye, a little up in the country. You should know +the Planter's." + +Philip and Harry both said they should like to see a hotel that had been +so famous in its day--a cheerful hostelrie, Philip said it must have been +where duels were fought there across the dining-room table. + +"You may believe it, sir, an uncommonly pleasant lodging. Shall we +walk?" + +And the three strolled along the streets, the Colonel talking all +the way in the most liberal and friendly manner, and with a frank +open-heartedness that inspired confidence. + +"Yes, born East myself, raised all along, know the West--a great country, +gentlemen. The place for a young fellow of spirit to pick up a fortune, +simply pick it up, it's lying round loose here. Not a day that I don't +put aside an opportunity; too busy to look into it. Management of my own +property takes my time. First visit? Looking for an opening?" + +"Yes, looking around," replied Harry. + +"Ah, here we are. You'd rather sit here in front than go to my +apartments? So had I. An opening eh?" + +The Colonel's eyes twinkled. "Ah, just so. The country is opening up, +all we want is capital to develop it. Slap down the rails and bring the +land into market. The richest land on God Almighty's footstool is lying +right out there. If I had my capital free I could plant it for +millions." + +"I suppose your capital is largely in your plantation?" asked Philip. + +"Well, partly, sir, partly. I'm down here now with reference to a little +operation--a little side thing merely. By the way gentlemen, excuse the +liberty, but it's about my usual time"-- + +The Colonel paused, but as no movement of his acquaintances followed this +plain remark, he added, in an explanatory manner, + +"I'm rather particular about the exact time--have to be in this climate." + +Even this open declaration of his hospitable intention not being +understood the Colonel politely said, + +"Gentlemen, will you take something?" + +Col. Sellers led the way to a saloon on Fourth street under the hotel, +and the young gentlemen fell into the custom of the country. + +"Not that," said the Colonel to the bar-keeper, who shoved along the +counter a bottle of apparently corn-whiskey, as if he had done it before +on the same order; "not that," with a wave of the hand. "That Otard if +you please. Yes. Never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the +evening, in this climate. There. That's the stuff. My respects!" + +The hospitable gentleman, having disposed of his liquor, remarking that +it was not quite the thing--"when a man has his own cellar to go to, he +is apt to get a little fastidious about his liquors"--called for cigars. +But the brand offered did not suit him; he motioned the box away, and +asked for some particular Havana's, those in separate wrappers. + +"I always smoke this sort, gentlemen; they are a little more expensive, +but you'll learn, in this climate, that you'd better not economize on +poor cigars" + +Having imparted this valuable piece of information, the Colonel lighted +the fragrant cigar with satisfaction, and then carelessly put his fingers +into his right vest pocket. That movement being without result, with a +shade of disappointment on his face, he felt in his left vest pocket. +Not finding anything there, he looked up with a serious and annoyed air, +anxiously slapped his right pantaloon's pocket, and then his left, and +exclaimed, + +"By George, that's annoying. By George, that's mortifying. Never had +anything of that kind happen to me before. I've left my pocket-book. +Hold! Here's a bill, after all. No, thunder, it's a receipt." + +"Allow me," said Philip, seeing how seriously the Colonel was annoyed, +and taking out his purse. + +The Colonel protested he couldn't think of it, and muttered something to +the barkeeper about "hanging it up," but the vender of exhilaration made +no sign, and Philip had the privilege of paying the costly shot; Col. +Sellers profusely apologizing and claiming the right "next time, next +time." + +As soon as Beriah Sellers had bade his friends good night and seen them +depart, he did not retire apartments in the Planter's, but took his way +to his lodgings with a friend in a distant part of the city. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +The letter that Philip Sterling wrote to Ruth Bolton, on the evening of +setting out to seek his fortune in the west, found that young lady in her +own father's house in Philadelphia. It was one of the pleasantest of the +many charming suburban houses in that hospitable city, which is +territorially one of the largest cities in the world, and only prevented +from becoming the convenient metropolis of the country by the intrusive +strip of Camden and Amboy sand which shuts it off from the Atlantic +ocean. It is a city of steady thrift, the arms of which might well be +the deliberate but delicious terrapin that imparts such a royal flavor to +its feasts. + +It was a spring morning, and perhaps it was the influence of it that made +Ruth a little restless, satisfied neither with the out-doors nor the +in-doors. Her sisters had gone to the city to show some country visitors +Independence Hall, Girard College and Fairmount Water Works and Park, +four objects which Americans cannot die peacefully, even in Naples, +without having seen. But Ruth confessed that she was tired of them, and +also of the Mint. She was tired of other things. She tried this morning +an air or two upon the piano, sang a simple song in a sweet but slightly +metallic voice, and then seating herself by the open window, read +Philip's letter. Was she thinking about Philip, as she gazed across the +fresh lawn over the tree tops to the Chelton Hills, or of that world +which his entrance, into her tradition-bound life had been one of the +means of opening to her? Whatever she thought, she was not idly musing, +as one might see by the expression of her face. After a time she took +up a book; it was a medical work, and to all appearance about as +interesting to a girl of eighteen as the statutes at large; but her face +was soon aglow over its pages, and she was so absorbed in it that she did +not notice the entrance of her mother at the open door. + +"Ruth?" + +"Well, mother," said the young student, looking up, with a shade of +impatience. + +"I wanted to talk with thee a little about thy plans." + +"Mother; thee knows I couldn't stand it at Westfield; the school stifled +me, it's a place to turn young people into dried fruit." + +"I know," said Margaret Bolton, with a half anxious smile, thee chafes +against all the ways of Friends, but what will thee do? Why is thee so +discontented?" + +"If I must say it, mother, I want to go away, and get out of this dead +level." + +With a look half of pain and half of pity, her mother answered, "I am +sure thee is little interfered with; thee dresses as thee will, and goes +where thee pleases, to any church thee likes, and thee has music. I had +a visit yesterday from the society's committee by way of discipline, +because we have a piano in the house, which is against the rules." + +"I hope thee told the elders that father and I are responsible for the +piano, and that, much as thee loves music, thee is never in the room when +it is played. Fortunately father is already out of meeting, so they +can't discipline him. I heard father tell cousin Abner that he was +whipped so often for whistling when he was a boy that he was determined +to have what compensation he could get now." + +"Thy ways greatly try me, Ruth, and all thy relations. I desire thy +happiness first of all, but thee is starting out on a dangerous path. +Is thy father willing thee should go away to a school of the world's +people?" + +"I have not asked him," Ruth replied with a look that might imply that +she was one of those determined little bodies who first made up her own +mind and then compelled others to make up theirs in accordance with hers. + +"And when thee has got the education thee wants, and lost all relish for +the society of thy friends and the ways of thy ancestors, what then?" + +Ruth turned square round to her mother, and with an impassive face and +not the slightest change of tone, said, + +"Mother, I'm going to study medicine?" + +Margaret Bolton almost lost for a moment her habitual placidity. + +"Thee, study medicine! A slight frail girl like thee, study medicine! +Does thee think thee could stand it six months? And the lectures, +and the dissecting rooms, has thee thought of the dissecting rooms?" + +"Mother," said Ruth calmly, "I have thought it all over. I know I can go +through the whole, clinics, dissecting room and all. Does thee think I +lack nerve? What is there to fear in a person dead more than in a person +living?" + +"But thy health and strength, child; thee can never stand the severe +application. And, besides, suppose thee does learn medicine?" + +"I will practice it." + +"Here?" + +"Here." + +"Where thee and thy family are known?" + +"If I can get patients." + +"I hope at least, Ruth, thee will let us know when thee opens an office," +said her mother, with an approach to sarcasm that she rarely indulged in, +as she rose and left the room. + +Ruth sat quite still for a tine, with face intent and flushed. It was +out now. She had begun her open battle. + +The sight-seers returned in high spirits from the city. Was there any +building in Greece to compare with Girard College, was there ever such a +magnificent pile of stone devised for the shelter of poor orphans? Think +of the stone shingles of the roof eight inches thick! Ruth asked the +enthusiasts if they would like to live in such a sounding mausoleum, with +its great halls and echoing rooms, and no comfortable place in it for the +accommodation of any body? If they were orphans, would they like to be +brought up in a Grecian temple? + +And then there was Broad street! Wasn't it the broadest and the longest +street in the world? There certainly was no end to it, and even Ruth was +Philadelphian enough to believe that a street ought not to have any end, +or architectural point upon which the weary eye could rest. + +But neither St. Girard, nor Broad street, neither wonders of the Mint nor +the glories of the Hall where the ghosts of our fathers sit always +signing the Declaration; impressed the visitors so much as the splendors +of the Chestnut street windows, and the bargains on Eighth street. +The truth is that the country cousins had come to town to attend the +Yearly Meeting, and the amount of shopping that preceded that religious +event was scarcely exceeded by the preparations for the opera in more +worldly circles. + +"Is thee going to the Yearly Meeting, Ruth?" asked one of the girls. + +"I have nothing to wear," replied that demure person. "If thee wants to +see new bonnets, orthodox to a shade and conformed to the letter of the +true form, thee must go to the Arch Street Meeting. Any departure from +either color or shape would be instantly taken note of. It has occupied +mother a long time, to find at the shops the exact shade for her new +bonnet. Oh, thee must go by all means. But thee won't see there a +sweeter woman than mother." + +"And thee won't go?" + +"Why should I? I've been again and again. If I go to Meeting at all I +like best to sit in the quiet old house in Germantown, where the windows +are all open and I can see the trees, and hear the stir of the leaves. +It's such a crush at the Yearly Meeting at Arch Street, and then there's +the row of sleek-looking young men who line the curbstone and stare at us +as we come out. No, I don't feel at home there." + +That evening Ruth and her father sat late by the drawing-room fire, as +they were quite apt to do at night. It was always a time of confidences. + +"Thee has another letter from young Sterling," said Eli Bolton. + +"Yes. Philip has gone to the far west." + +"How far?" + +"He doesn't say, but it's on the frontier, and on the map everything +beyond it is marked 'Indians' and 'desert,' and looks as desolate as a +Wednesday Meeting." + +"Humph. It was time for him to do something. Is he going to start a +daily newspaper among the Kick-a-poos?" + +"Father, thee's unjust to Philip. He's going into business." + +"What sort of business can a young man go into without capital?" + +"He doesn't say exactly what it is," said Ruth a little dubiously, "but +it's something about land and railroads, and thee knows, father, that +fortunes are made nobody knows exactly how, in a new country." + +"I should think so, you innocent puss, and in an old one too. But Philip +is honest, and he has talent enough, if he will stop scribbling, to make +his way. But thee may as well take care of theeself, Ruth, and not go +dawdling along with a young man in his adventures, until thy own mind is +a little more settled what thee wants." + +This excellent advice did not seem to impress Ruth greatly, for she was +looking away with that abstraction of vision which often came into her +grey eyes, and at length she exclaimed, with a sort of impatience, + +"I wish I could go west, or south, or somewhere. What a box women are +put into, measured for it, and put in young; if we go anywhere it's in a +box, veiled and pinioned and shut in by disabilities. Father, I should +like to break things and get loose!" + +What a sweet-voiced little innocent, it was to be sure. + +"Thee will no doubt break things enough when thy time comes, child; women +always have; but what does thee want now that thee hasn't?" + +"I want to be something, to make myself something, to do something. Why +should I rust, and be stupid, and sit in inaction because I am a girl? +What would happen to me if thee should lose thy property and die? What +one useful thing could I do for a living, for the support of mother and +the children? And if I had a fortune, would thee want me to lead a +useless life?" + +"Has thy mother led a useless life?" + +"Somewhat that depends upon whether her children amount to anything," +retorted the sharp little disputant. "What's the good, father, of a +series of human beings who don't advance any?" + +Friend Eli, who had long ago laid aside the Quaker dress, and was out of +Meeting, and who in fact after a youth of doubt could not yet define his +belief, nevertheless looked with some wonder at this fierce young eagle +of his, hatched in a Friend's dove-cote. But he only said, + +"Has thee consulted thy mother about a career, I suppose it is a career +thee wants?" + +Ruth did not reply directly; she complained that her mother didn't +understand her. But that wise and placid woman understood the sweet +rebel a great deal better than Ruth understood herself. She also had a +history, possibly, and had sometime beaten her young wings against the +cage of custom, and indulged in dreams of a new social order, and had +passed through that fiery period when it seems possible for one mind, +which has not yet tried its limits, to break up and re-arrange the world. + +Ruth replied to Philip's letter in due time and in the most cordial and +unsentimental manner. Philip liked the letter, as he did everything she +did; but he had a dim notion that there was more about herself in the +letter than about him. He took it with him from the Southern Hotel, when +he went to walk, and read it over and again in an unfrequented street as +he stumbled along. The rather common-place and unformed hand-writing +seemed to him peculiar and characteristic, different from that of any +other woman. + +Ruth was glad to hear that Philip had made a push into the world, and she +was sure that his talent and courage would make a way for him. She +should pray for his success at any rate, and especially that the Indians, +in St. Louis, would not take his scalp. + +Philip looked rather dubious at this sentence, and wished that he had +written nothing about Indians. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +Eli Bolton and his wife talked over Ruth's case, as they had often done +before, with no little anxiety. Alone of all their children she was +impatient of the restraints and monotony of the Friends' Society, and +wholly indisposed to accept the "inner light" as a guide into a life of +acceptance and inaction. When Margaret told her husband of Ruth's newest +project, he did not exhibit so much surprise as she hoped for. In fact +he said that he did not see why a woman should not enter the medical +profession if she felt a call to it. + +"But," said Margaret, "consider her total inexperience of the world, and +her frail health. Can such a slight little body endure the ordeal of the +preparation for, or the strain of, the practice of the profession?" + +"Did thee ever think, Margaret, whether, she can endure being thwarted in +an, object on which she has so set her heart, as she has on this? Thee +has trained her thyself at home, in her enfeebled childhood, and thee +knows how strong her will is, and what she has been able to accomplish in +self-culture by the simple force of her determination. She never will be +satisfied until she has tried her own strength." + +"I wish," said Margaret, with an inconsequence that is not exclusively +feminine, "that she were in the way to fall in love and marry by and by. +I think that would cure her of some of her notions. I am not sure but if +she went away, to some distant school, into an entirely new life, her +thoughts would be diverted." + +Eli Bolton almost laughed as he regarded his wife, with eyes that never +looked at her except fondly, and replied, + +"Perhaps thee remembers that thee had notions also, before we were +married, and before thee became a member of Meeting. I think Ruth comes +honestly by certain tendencies which thee has hidden under the Friend's +dress." + +Margaret could not say no to this, and while she paused, it was evident +that memory was busy with suggestions to shake her present opinions. + +"Why not let Ruth try the study for a time," suggested Eli; "there is a +fair beginning of a Woman's Medical College in the city. Quite likely +she will soon find that she needs first a more general culture, and fall, +in with thy wish that she should see more of the world at some large +school." + +There really seemed to be nothing else to be done, and Margaret consented +at length without approving. And it was agreed that Ruth, in order to +spare her fatigue, should take lodgings with friends near the college and +make a trial in the pursuit of that science to which we all owe our +lives, and sometimes as by a miracle of escape. + +That day Mr. Bolton brought home a stranger to dinner, Mr. Bigler of the +great firm of Pennybacker, Bigler & Small, railroad contractors. He was +always bringing home somebody, who had a scheme; to build a road, or open +a mine, or plant a swamp with cane to grow paper-stock, or found a +hospital, or invest in a patent shad-bone separator, or start a college +somewhere on the frontier, contiguous to a land speculation. + +The Bolton house was a sort of hotel for this kind of people. They were +always coming. Ruth had known them from childhood, and she used to say +that her father attracted them as naturally as a sugar hogshead does +flies. Ruth had an idea that a large portion of the world lived by +getting the rest of the world into schemes. Mr. Bolton never could say +"no" to any of them, not even, said Ruth again, to the society for +stamping oyster shells with scripture texts before they were sold at +retail. + +Mr. Bigler's plan this time, about which he talked loudly, with his mouth +full, all dinner time, was the building of the Tunkhannock, Rattlesnake +and Young-womans-town railroad, which would not only be a great highway to +the west, but would open to market inexhaustible coal-fields and untold +millions of lumber. The plan of operations was very simple. + +"We'll buy the lands," explained he, "on long time, backed by the notes +of good men; and then mortgage them for money enough to get the road well +on. Then get the towns on the line to issue their bonds for stock, and +sell their bonds for enough to complete the road, and partly stock it, +especially if we mortgage each section as we complete it. We can then +sell the rest of the stock on the prospect of the business of the road +through an improved country, and also sell the lands at a big advance, +on the strength of the road. All we want," continued Mr. Bigler in his +frank manner, "is a few thousand dollars to start the surveys, and +arrange things in the legislature. There is some parties will have to be +seen, who might make us trouble." + +"It will take a good deal of money to start the enterprise," remarked Mr. +Bolton, who knew very well what "seeing" a Pennsylvania Legislature +meant, but was too polite to tell Mr. Bigler what he thought of him, +while he was his guest; "what security would one have for it?" + +Mr. Bigler smiled a hard kind of smile, and said, "You'd be inside, Mr. +Bolton, and you'd have the first chance in the deal." + +This was rather unintelligible to Ruth, who was nevertheless somewhat +amused by the study of a type of character she had seen before. +At length she interrupted the conversation by asking, + +"You'd sell the stock, I suppose, Mr. Bigler, to anybody who was +attracted by the prospectus?" + +"O, certainly, serve all alike," said Mr. Bigler, now noticing Ruth for +the first time, and a little puzzled by the serene, intelligent face that +was turned towards him. + +"Well, what would become of the poor people who had been led to put their +little money into the speculation, when you got out of it and left it +half way?" + +It would be no more true to say of Mr. Bigler that he was or could be +embarrassed, than to say that a brass counterfeit dollar-piece would +change color when refused; the question annoyed him a little, in Mr. +Bolton's presence. + +"Why, yes, Miss, of course, in a great enterprise for the benefit of the +community there will little things occur, which, which--and, of course, +the poor ought to be looked to; I tell my wife, that the poor must be +looked to; if you can tell who are poor--there's so many impostors. And +then, there's so many poor in the legislature to be looked after," said +the contractor with a sort of a chuckle, "isn't that so, Mr. Bolton?" + +Eli Bolton replied that he never had much to do with the legislature. + +"Yes," continued this public benefactor, "an uncommon poor lot this year, +uncommon. Consequently an expensive lot. The fact is, Mr. Bolton, that +the price is raised so high on United States Senator now, that it affects +the whole market; you can't get any public improvement through on +reasonable terms. Simony is what I call it, Simony," repeated Mr. +Bigler, as if he had said a good thing. + +Mr. Bigler went on and gave some very interesting details of the intimate +connection between railroads and politics, and thoroughly entertained +himself all dinner time, and as much disgusted Ruth, who asked no more +questions, and her father who replied in monosyllables: + +"I wish," said Ruth to her father, after the guest had gone, "that you +wouldn't bring home any more such horrid men. Do all men who wear big +diamond breast-pins, flourish their knives at table, and use bad grammar, +and cheat?" + +"O, child, thee mustn't be too observing. Mr. Bigler is one of the most +important men in the state; nobody has more influence at Harrisburg. +I don't like him any more than thee does, but I'd better lend him a +little money than to have his ill will." + +"Father, I think thee'd better have his ill-will than his company. Is it +true that he gave money to help build the pretty little church of +St. James the Less, and that he is, one of the vestrymen?" + +"Yes. He is not such a bad fellow. One of the men in Third street asked +him the other day, whether his was a high church or a low church? Bigler +said he didn't know; he'd been in it once, and he could touch the ceiling +in the side aisle with his hand." + +"I think he's just horrid," was Ruth's final summary of him, after the +manner of the swift judgment of women, with no consideration of the +extenuating circumstances. Mr. Bigler had no idea that he had not made a +good impression on the whole family; he certainly intended to be +agreeable. Margaret agreed with her daughter, and though she never said +anything to such people, she was grateful to Ruth for sticking at least +one pin into him. + +Such was the serenity of the Bolton household that a stranger in it would +never have suspected there was any opposition to Ruth's going to the +Medical School. And she went quietly to take her residence in town, and +began her attendance of the lectures, as if it were the most natural +thing in the world. She did not heed, if she heard, the busy and +wondering gossip of relations and acquaintances, gossip that has no less +currency among the Friends than elsewhere because it is whispered slyly +and creeps about in an undertone. + +Ruth was absorbed, and for the first time in her life thoroughly happy; +happy in the freedom of her life, and in the keen enjoyment of the +investigation that broadened its field day by day. She was in high +spirits when she came home to spend First Days; the house was full of her +gaiety and her merry laugh, and the children wished that Ruth would never +go away again. But her mother noticed, with a little anxiety, the +sometimes flushed face, and the sign of an eager spirit in the kindling +eyes, and, as well, the serious air of determination and endurance in her +face at unguarded moments. + +The college was a small one and it sustained itself not without +difficulty in this city, which is so conservative, and is yet the origin +of so many radical movements. There were not more than a dozen +attendants on the lectures all together, so that the enterprise had the +air of an experiment, and the fascination of pioneering for those engaged +in it. There was one woman physician driving about town in her carriage, +attacking the most violent diseases in all quarters with persistent +courage, like a modern Bellona in her war chariot, who was popularly +supposed to gather in fees to the amount ten to twenty thousand dollars a +year. Perhaps some of these students looked forward to the near day when +they would support such a practice and a husband besides, but it is +unknown that any of them ever went further than practice in hospitals and +in their own nurseries, and it is feared that some of them were quite as +ready as their sisters, in emergencies, to "call a man." + +If Ruth had any exaggerated expectations of a professional life, she kept +them to herself, and was known to her fellows of the class simply as a +cheerful, sincere student, eager in her investigations, and never +impatient at anything, except an insinuation that women had not as much +mental capacity for science as men. + +"They really say," said one young Quaker sprig to another youth of his +age, "that Ruth Bolton is really going to be a saw-bones, attends +lectures, cuts up bodies, and all that. She's cool enough for a surgeon, +anyway." He spoke feelingly, for he had very likely been weighed in +Ruth's calm eyes sometime, and thoroughly scared by the little laugh that +accompanied a puzzling reply to one of his conversational nothings. Such +young gentlemen, at this time, did not come very distinctly into Ruth's +horizon, except as amusing circumstances. + +About the details of her student life, Ruth said very little to her +friends, but they had reason to know, afterwards, that it required all +her nerve and the almost complete exhaustion of her physical strength, +to carry her through. She began her anatomical practice upon detached +portions of the human frame, which were brought into the demonstrating +room--dissecting the eye, the ear, and a small tangle of muscles and +nerves--an occupation which had not much more savor of death in it than +the analysis of a portion of a plant out of which the life went when it +was plucked up by the roots. Custom inures the most sensitive persons to +that which is at first most repellant; and in the late war we saw the +most delicate women, who could not at home endure the sight of blood, +become so used to scenes of carnage, that they walked the hospitals and +the margins of battle-fields, amid the poor remnants of torn humanity, +with as perfect self-possession as if they were strolling in a flower +garden. + +It happened that Ruth was one evening deep in a line of investigation +which she could not finish or understand without demonstration, and so +eager was she in it, that it seemed as if she could not wait till the +next day. She, therefore, persuaded a fellow student, who was reading +that evening with her, to go down to the dissecting room of the college, +and ascertain what they wanted to know by an hour's work there. Perhaps, +also, Ruth wanted to test her own nerve, and to see whether the power of +association was stronger in her mind than her own will. + +The janitor of the shabby and comfortless old building admitted the +girls, not without suspicion, and gave them lighted candles, which they +would need, without other remark than "there's a new one, Miss," as the +girls went up the broad stairs. + +They climbed to the third story, and paused before a door, which they +unlocked, and which admitted them into a long apartment, with a row of +windows on one side and one at the end. The room was without light, save +from the stars and the candles the girls carried, which revealed to them +dimly two long and several small tables, a few benches and chairs, a +couple of skeletons hanging on the wall, a sink, and cloth-covered heaps +of something upon the tables here and there. + +The windows were open, and the cool night wind came in strong enough to +flutter a white covering now and then, and to shake the loose casements. +But all the sweet odors of the night could not take from the room a faint +suggestion of mortality. + +The young ladies paused a moment. The room itself was familiar enough, +but night makes almost any chamber eerie, and especially such a room of +detention as this where the mortal parts of the unburied might--almost be +supposed to be, visited, on the sighing night winds, by the wandering +spirits of their late tenants. + +Opposite and at some distance across the roofs of lower buildings, the +girls saw a tall edifice, the long upper story of which seemed to be a +dancing hall. The windows of that were also open, and through them they +heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump +of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick +transition, and heard the prompter's drawl. + +"I wonder," said Ruth, "what the girls dancing there would think if they +saw us, or knew that there was such a room as this so near them." + +She did not speak very loud, and, perhaps unconsciously, the girls drew +near to each other as they approached the long table in the centre of the +room. A straight object lay upon it, covered with a sheet. This was +doubtless "the new one" of which the janitor spoke. Ruth advanced, and +with a not very steady hand lifted the white covering from the upper part +of the figure and turned it down. Both the girls started. It was a +negro. The black face seemed to defy the pallor of death, and asserted +an ugly life-likeness that was frightful. + +Ruth was as pale as the white sheet, and her comrade whispered, "Come +away, Ruth, it is awful." + +Perhaps it was the wavering light of the candles, perhaps it was only the +agony from a death of pain, but the repulsive black face seemed to wear a +scowl that said, "Haven't you yet done with the outcast, persecuted black +man, but you must now haul him from his grave, and send even your women +to dismember his body?" + +Who is this dead man, one of thousands who died yesterday, and will be +dust anon, to protest that science shall not turn his worthless carcass +to some account? + +Ruth could have had no such thought, for with a pity in her sweet face, +that for the moment overcame fear and disgust, she reverently replaced +the covering, and went away to her own table, as her companion did to +hers. And there for an hour they worked at their several problems, +without speaking, but not without an awe of the presence there, "the new +one," and not without an awful sense of life itself, as they heard the +pulsations of the music and the light laughter from the dancing-hall. + +When, at length, they went away, and locked the dreadful room behind +them, and came out into the street, where people were passing, they, for +the first time, realized, in the relief they felt, what a nervous strain +they had been under. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +While Ruth was thus absorbed in her new occupation, and the spring was +wearing away, Philip and his friends were still detained at the Southern +Hotel. The great contractors had concluded their business with the state +and railroad officials and with the lesser contractors, and departed for +the East. But the serious illness of one of the engineers kept Philip +and Henry in the city and occupied in alternate watchings. + +Philip wrote to Ruth of the new acquaintance they had made, Col. Sellers, +an enthusiastic and hospitable gentleman, very much interested in the +development of the country, and in their success. They had not had an +opportunity to visit at his place "up in the country" yet, but the +Colonel often dined with them, and in confidence, confided to them his +projects, and seemed to take a great liking to them, especially to his +friend Harry. It was true that he never seemed to have ready money, +but he was engaged in very large operations. + +The correspondence was not very brisk between these two young persons, +so differently occupied; for though Philip wrote long letters, he got +brief ones in reply, full of sharp little observations however, such as +one concerning Col. Sellers, namely, that such men dined at their house +every week. + +Ruth's proposed occupation astonished Philip immensely, but while he +argued it and discussed it, he did not dare hint to her his fear that it +would interfere with his most cherished plans. He too sincerely +respected Ruth's judgment to make any protest, however, and he would have +defended her course against the world. + +This enforced waiting at St. Louis was very irksome to Philip. His money +was running away, for one thing, and he longed to get into the field, +and see for himself what chance there was for a fortune or even an +occupation. The contractors had given the young men leave to join the +engineer corps as soon as they could, but otherwise had made no provision +for them, and in fact had left them with only the most indefinite +expectations of something large in the future. + +Harry was entirely happy; in his circumstances. He very soon knew +everybody, from the governor of the state down to the waiters at the +hotel. He had the Wall street slang at his tongue's end; he always +talked like a capitalist, and entered with enthusiasm into all the land +and railway schemes with which the air was thick. + +Col. Sellers and Harry talked together by the hour and by the day. Harry +informed his new friend that he was going out with the engineer corps of +the Salt Lick Pacific Extension, but that wasn't his real business. + +"I'm to have, with another party," said Harry, "a big contract in the +road, as soon as it is let; and, meantime, I'm with the engineers to spy +out the best land and the depot sites." + +"It's everything," suggested' the Colonel, "in knowing where to invest. +I've known people throwaway their money because they were too +consequential to take Sellers' advice. Others, again, have made their +pile on taking it. I've looked over the ground; I've been studying it +for twenty years. You can't put your finger on a spot in the map of +Missouri that I don't know as if I'd made it. When you want to place +anything," continued the Colonel, confidently, "just let Beriah Sellers +know. That's all." + +"Oh, I haven't got much in ready money I can lay my hands on now, but if +a fellow could do anything with fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, +as a beginning, I shall draw for that when I see the right opening." + +"Well, that's something, that's something, fifteen or twenty thousand +dollars, say twenty--as an advance," said the Colonel reflectively, as if +turning over his mind for a project that could be entered on with such a +trifling sum. + +"I'll tell you what it is--but only to you Mr. Brierly, only to you, +mind; I've got a little project that I've been keeping. It looks small, +looks small on paper, but it's got a big future. What should you say, +sir, to a city, built up like the rod of Aladdin had touched it, built up +in two years, where now you wouldn't expect it any more than you'd expect +a light-house on the top of Pilot Knob? and you could own the land! It +can be done, sir. It can be done!" + +The Colonel hitched up his chair close to Harry, laid his hand on his +knee, and, first looking about him, said in a low voice, "The Salt Lick +Pacific Extension is going to run through Stone's Landing! The Almighty +never laid out a cleaner piece of level prairie for a city; and it's the +natural center of all that region of hemp and tobacco." + +"What makes you think the road will go there? It's twenty miles, on the +map, off the straight line of the road?" + +"You can't tell what is the straight line till the engineers have been +over it. Between us, I have talked with Jeff Thompson, the division +engineer. He understands the wants of Stone's Landing, and the claims of +the inhabitants--who are to be there. Jeff says that a railroad is for +--the accommodation of the people and not for the benefit of gophers; and +if, he don't run this to Stone's Landing he'll be damned! You ought to +know Jeff; he's one of the most enthusiastic engineers in this western +country, and one of the best fellows that ever looked through the bottom +of a glass." + +The recommendation was not undeserved. There was nothing that Jeff +wouldn't do, to accommodate a friend, from sharing his last dollar with +him, to winging him in a duel. When he understood from Col. Sellers. +how the land lay at Stone's Landing, he cordially shook hands with that +gentleman, asked him to drink, and fairly roared out, "Why, God bless my +soul, Colonel, a word from one Virginia gentleman to another is 'nuff +ced.' There's Stone's Landing been waiting for a railroad more than four +thousand years, and damme if she shan't have it." + +Philip had not so much faith as Harry in Stone's Landing, when the latter +opened the project to him, but Harry talked about it as if he already +owned that incipient city. + +Harry thoroughly believed in all his projects and inventions, and lived +day by day in their golden atmosphere. Everybody liked the young fellow, +for how could they help liking one of such engaging manners and large +fortune? The waiters at the hotel would do more for him than for any +other guest, and he made a great many acquaintances among the people of +St. Louis, who liked his sensible and liberal views about the development +of the western country, and about St. Louis. He said it ought to be the +national capital. Harry made partial arrangements with several of the +merchants for furnishing supplies for his contract on the Salt Lick +Pacific Extension; consulted the maps with the engineers, and went over +the profiles with the contractors, figuring out estimates for bids. +He was exceedingly busy with those things when he was not at the bedside +of his sick acquaintance, or arranging the details of his speculation +with Col. Sellers. + +Meantime the days went along and the weeks, and the money in Harry's +pocket got lower and lower. He was just as liberal with what he had as +before, indeed it was his nature to be free with his money or with that +of others, and he could lend or spend a dollar with an air that made it +seem like ten. At length, at the end of one week, when his hotel bill +was presented, Harry found not a cent in his pocket to meet it. He +carelessly remarked to the landlord that he was not that day in funds, +but he would draw on New York, and he sat down and wrote to the +contractors in that city a glowing letter about the prospects of the +road, and asked them to advance a hundred or two, until he got at work. +No reply came. He wrote again, in an unoffended business like tone, +suggesting that he had better draw at three days. A short answer came to +this, simply saying that money was very tight in Wall street just then, +and that he had better join the engineer corps as soon as he could. + +But the bill had to be paid, and Harry took it to Philip, and asked him +if he thought he hadn't better draw on his uncle. Philip had not much +faith in Harry's power of "drawing," and told him that he would pay the +bill himself. Whereupon Harry dismissed the matter then and thereafter +from his thoughts, and, like a light-hearted good fellow as he was, gave +himself no more trouble about his board-bills. Philip paid them, swollen +as they were with a monstrous list of extras; but he seriously counted +the diminishing bulk of his own hoard, which was all the money he had in +the world. Had he not tacitly agreed to share with Harry to the last in +this adventure, and would not the generous fellow divide; with him if he, +Philip, were in want and Harry had anything? + +The fever at length got tired of tormenting the stout young engineer, who +lay sick at the hotel, and left him, very thin, a little sallow but an +"acclimated" man. Everybody said he was "acclimated" now, and said it +cheerfully. What it is to be acclimated to western fevers no two persons +exactly agree. + +Some say it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some malignant +type of fever less probable. Some regard it as a sort of initiation, +like that into the Odd Fellows, which renders one liable to his regular +dues thereafter. Others consider it merely the acquisition of a habit of +taking every morning before breakfast a dose of bitters, composed of +whiskey and assafoetida, out of the acclimation jug. + +Jeff Thompson afterwards told Philip that he once asked Senator Atchison, +then acting Vice-President: of the United States, about the possibility +of acclimation; he thought the opinion of the second officer of our great +government would be, valuable on this point. They were sitting together +on a bench before a country tavern, in the free converse permitted by our +democratic habits. + +"I suppose, Senator, that you have become acclimated to this country?" + +"Well," said the Vice-President, crossing his legs, pulling his +wide-awake down over his forehead, causing a passing chicken to hop +quickly one side by the accuracy of his aim, and speaking with senatorial +deliberation, "I think I have. I've been here twenty-five years, and +dash, dash my dash to dash, if I haven't entertained twenty-five separate +and distinct earthquakes, one a year. The niggro is the only person who +can stand the fever and ague of this region." + +The convalescence of the engineer was the signal for breaking up quarters +at St. Louis, and the young fortune-hunters started up the river in good +spirits. It was only the second time either of them had been upon a +Mississippi steamboat, and nearly everything they saw had the charm of +novelty. Col. Sellers was at the landing to bid thorn good-bye. + +"I shall send you up that basket of champagne by the next boat; no, no; +no thanks; you'll find it not bad in camp," he cried out as the plank was +hauled in. "My respects to Thompson. Tell him to sight for Stone's. +Let me know, Mr. Brierly, when you are ready to locate; I'll come over +from Hawkeye. Goodbye." + +And the last the young fellows saw of the Colonel, he was waving his hat, +and beaming prosperity and good luck. + +The voyage was delightful, and was not long enough to become monotonous. +The travelers scarcely had time indeed to get accustomed to the splendors +of the great saloon where the tables were spread for meals, a marvel of +paint and gilding, its ceiling hung with fancifully cut tissue-paper of +many colors, festooned and arranged in endless patterns. The whole was +more beautiful than a barber's shop. The printed bill of fare at dinner +was longer and more varied, the proprietors justly boasted, than that of +any hotel in New York. It must have been the work of an author of talent +and imagination, and it surely was not his fault if the dinner itself was +to a certain extent a delusion, and if the guests got something that +tasted pretty much the same whatever dish they ordered; nor was it his +fault if a general flavor of rose in all the dessert dishes suggested +that they hid passed through the barber's saloon on their way from the +kitchen. + +The travelers landed at a little settlement on the left bank, and at once +took horses for the camp in the interior, carrying their clothes and +blankets strapped behind the saddles. Harry was dressed as we have seen +him once before, and his long and shining boots attracted not a little +the attention of the few persons they met on the road, and especially of +the bright faced wenches who lightly stepped along the highway, +picturesque in their colored kerchiefs, carrying light baskets, or riding +upon mules and balancing before them a heavier load. + +Harry sang fragments of operas and talked abort their fortune. Philip +even was excited by the sense of freedom and adventure, and the beauty of +the landscape. The prairie, with its new grass and unending acres of +brilliant flowers--chiefly the innumerable varieties of phlox-bore the +look of years of cultivation, and the occasional open groves of white +oaks gave it a park-like appearance. It was hardly unreasonable to +expect to see at any moment, the gables and square windows of an +Elizabethan mansion in one of the well kept groves. + +Towards sunset of the third day, when the young gentlemen thought they +ought to be near the town of Magnolia, near which they had been directed +to find the engineers' camp, they descried a log house and drew up before +it to enquire the way. Half the building was store, and half was +dwelling house. At the door of the latter stood a regress with a bright +turban on her head, to whom Philip called, + +"Can you tell me, auntie, how far it is to the town of Magnolia?" + +"Why, bress you chile," laughed the woman, "you's dere now." + +It was true. This log horse was the compactly built town, and all +creation was its suburbs. The engineers' camp was only two or three +miles distant. + +"You's boun' to find it," directed auntie, "if you don't keah nuffin +'bout de road, and go fo' de sun-down." + +A brisk gallop brought the riders in sight of the twinkling light of the +camp, just as the stars came out. It lay in a little hollow, where a +small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half +dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled +at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on +blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as +they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring +plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" +of the spectators. + +Mr. Jeff Thompson, for it was the camp of this redoubtable engineer, gave +the travelers a hearty welcome, offered them ground room in his own tent, +ordered supper, and set out a small jug, a drop from which he declared +necessary on account of the chill of the evening. + +"I never saw an Eastern man," said Jeff, "who knew how to drink from a +jug with one hand. It's as easy as lying. So." He grasped the handle +with the right hand, threw the jug back upon his arm, and applied his +lips to the nozzle. It was an act as graceful as it was simple. +"Besides," said Mr. Thompson, setting it down, "it puts every man on his +honor as to quantity." + +Early to turn in was the rule of the camp, and by nine o'clock everybody +was under his blanket, except Jeff himself, who worked awhile at his +table over his field-book, and then arose, stepped outside the tent door +and sang, in a strong and not unmelodious tenor, the Star Spangled Banner +from beginning to end. It proved to be his nightly practice to let off +the unexpended seam of his conversational powers, in the words of this +stirring song. + +It was a long time before Philip got to sleep. He saw the fire light, +he saw the clear stars through the tree-tops, he heard the gurgle of the +stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which +followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed +he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and +heard him sing, "Oh, say, can you see?", It was the first time he had +ever slept on the ground. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + ----"We have view'd it, + And measur'd it within all, by the scale + The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom! + There will be made seventeen or eighteeen millions, + Or more, as't may be handled!" + The Devil is an Ass. + +Nobody dressed more like an engineer than Mr. Henry Brierly. The +completeness of his appointments was the envy of the corps, and the gay +fellow himself was the admiration of the camp servants, axemen, teamsters +and cooks. + +"I reckon you didn't git them boots no wher's this side o' Sent Louis?" +queried the tall Missouri youth who acted as commissariy's assistant. + +"No, New York." + +"Yas, I've heern o' New York," continued the butternut lad, attentively +studying each item of Harry's dress, and endeavoring to cover his design +with interesting conversation. "'N there's Massachusetts.", + +"It's not far off." + +"I've heern Massachusetts was a-----of a place. Les, see, what state's +Massachusetts in?" + +"Massachusetts," kindly replied Harry, "is in the state of Boston." + +"Abolish'n wan't it? They must a cost right smart," referring to the +boots. + +Harry shouldered his rod and went to the field, tramped over the prairie +by day, and figured up results at night, with the utmost cheerfulness and +industry, and plotted the line on the profile paper, without, however, +the least idea of engineering practical or theoretical. Perhaps there +was not a great deal of scientific knowledge in the entire corps, nor was +very much needed. They were making, what is called a preliminary survey, +and the chief object of a preliminary survey was to get up an excitement +about the road, to interest every town in that part of the state in it, +under the belief that the road would run through it, and to get the aid +of every planter upon the prospect that a station would be on his land. + +Mr. Jeff Thompson was the most popular engineer who could be found for +this work. He did not bother himself much about details or +practicabilities of location, but ran merrily along, sighting from the +top of one divide to the top of another, and striking "plumb" every town +site and big plantation within twenty or thirty miles of his route. In +his own language he "just went booming." + +This course gave Harry an opportunity, as he said, to learn the practical +details of engineering, and it gave Philip a chance to see the country, +and to judge for himself what prospect of a fortune it offered. Both he +and Harry got the "refusal" of more than one plantation as they went +along, and wrote urgent letters to their eastern correspondents, upon the +beauty of the land and the certainty that it would quadruple in value as +soon as the road was finally located. It seemed strange to them that +capitalists did not flock out there and secure this land. + +They had not been in the field over two weeks when Harry wrote to his +friend Col. Sellers that he'd better be on the move, for the line was +certain to go to Stone's Landing. Any one who looked at the line on the +map, as it was laid down from day to day, would have been uncertain which +way it was going; but Jeff had declared that in his judgment the only +practicable route from the point they then stood on was to follow the +divide to Stone's Landing, and it was generally understood that that town +would be the next one hit. + +"We'll make it, boys," said the chief, "if we have to go in a balloon." + +And make it they did In less than a week, this indomitable engineer had +carried his moving caravan over slues and branches, across bottoms and +along divides, and pitched his tents in the very heart of the city of +Stone's Landing. + +"Well, I'll be dashed," was heard the cheery voice of Mr. Thompson, as he +stepped outside the tent door at sunrise next morning. "If this don't +get me. I say, yon, Grayson, get out your sighting iron and see if you +can find old Sellers' town. Blame me if we wouldn't have run plumb by it +if twilight had held on a little longer. Oh! Sterling, Brierly, get up +and see the city. There's a steamboat just coming round the bend." And +Jeff roared with laughter. "The mayor'll be round here to breakfast." + +The fellows turned out of the tents, rubbing their eyes, and stared about +them. They were camped on the second bench of the narrow bottom of a +crooked, sluggish stream, that was some five rods wide in the present +good stage of water. Before them were a dozen log cabins, with stick and +mud chimneys, irregularly disposed on either side of a not very well +defined road, which did not seem to know its own mind exactly, and, after +straggling through the town, wandered off over the rolling prairie in an +uncertain way, as if it had started for nowhere and was quite likely to +reach its destination. Just as it left the town, however, it was cheered +and assisted by a guide-board, upon which was the legend "10 Mils to +Hawkeye." + +The road had never been made except by the travel over it, and at this +season--the rainy June--it was a way of ruts cut in the black soil, and +of fathomless mud-holes. In the principal street of the city, it had +received more attention; for hogs; great and small, rooted about in it +and wallowed in it, turning the street into a liquid quagmire which could +only be crossed on pieces of plank thrown here and there. + +About the chief cabin, which was the store and grocery of this mart of +trade, the mud was more liquid than elsewhere, and the rude platform in +front of it and the dry-goods boxes mounted thereon were places of refuge +for all the loafers of the place. Down by the stream was a dilapidated +building which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky wharf extended +out from it, into the water. In fact a flat-boat was there moored by it, +it's setting poles lying across the gunwales. Above the town the stream +was crossed by a crazy wooden bridge, the supports of which leaned all +ways in the soggy soil; the absence of a plank here and there in the +flooring made the crossing of the bridge faster than a walk an offense +not necessary to be prohibited by law. + +"This, gentlemen," said Jeff, "is Columbus River, alias Goose Run. If it +was widened, and deepened, and straightened, and made, long enough, it +would be one of the finest rivers in the western country." + +As the sun rose and sent his level beams along the stream, the thin +stratum of mist, or malaria, rose also and dispersed, but the light was +not able to enliven the dull water nor give any hint of its apparently +fathomless depth. Venerable mud-turtles crawled up and roosted upon the +old logs in the stream, their backs glistening in the sun, the first +inhabitants of the metropolis to begin the active business of the day. + +It was not long, however, before smoke began to issue from the city +chimneys; and before the engineers, had finished their breakfast they +were the object of the curious inspection of six or eight boys and men, +who lounged into the camp and gazed about them with languid interest, +their hands in their pockets every one. + +"Good morning; gentlemen," called out the chief engineer, from the table. + +"Good mawning," drawled out the spokesman of the party. "I allow +thish-yers the railroad, I heern it was a-comin'." + +"Yes, this is the railroad; all but the rails and the ironhorse." + +"I reckon you kin git all the rails you want oaten my white oak timber +over, thar," replied the first speaker, who appeared to be a man of +property and willing to strike up a trade. + +"You'll have to negotiate with the contractors about the rails, sir," +said Jeff; "here's Mr. Brierly, I've no doubt would like to buy your +rails when the time comes." + +"O," said the man, "I thought maybe you'd fetch the whole bilin along +with you. But if you want rails, I've got em, haint I Eph." + +"Heaps," said Eph, without taking his eyes off the group at the table. + +"Well," said Mr. Thompson, rising from his seat and moving towards his +tent, "the railroad has come to Stone's Landing, sure; I move we take a +drink on it all round." + +The proposal met with universal favor. Jeff gave prosperity to Stone's +Landing and navigation to Goose Run, and the toast was washed down with +gusto, in the simple fluid of corn; and with the return compliment that a +rail road was a good thing, and that Jeff Thompson was no slouch. + +About ten o'clock a horse and wagon was descried making a slow approach +to the camp over the prairie. As it drew near, the wagon was seen to +contain a portly gentleman, who hitched impatiently forward on his seat, +shook the reins and gently touched up his horse, in the vain attempt to +communicate his own energy to that dull beast, and looked eagerly at the +tents. When the conveyance at length drew up to Mr. Thompson's door, +the gentleman descended with great deliberation, straightened himself up, +rubbed his hands, and beaming satisfaction from every part of his radiant +frame, advanced to the group that was gathered to welcome him, and which +had saluted him by name as soon as he came within hearing. + +"Welcome to Napoleon, gentlemen, welcome. I am proud to see you here +Mr. Thompson. You are, looking well Mr. Sterling. This is the country, +sir. Right glad to see you Mr. Brierly. You got that basket of +champagne? No? Those blasted river thieves! I'll never send anything +more by 'em. The best brand, Roederer. The last I had in my cellar, +from a lot sent me by Sir George Gore--took him out on a buffalo hunt, +when he visited our, country. Is always sending me some trifle. You +haven't looked about any yet, gentlemen? It's in the rough yet, in the +rough. Those buildings will all have to come down. That's the place for +the public square, Court House, hotels, churches, jail--all that sort of +thing. About where we stand, the deepo. How does that strike your +engineering eye, Mr. Thompson? Down yonder the business streets, running +to the wharves. The University up there, on rising ground, sightly +place, see the river for miles. That's Columbus river, only forty-nine +miles to the Missouri. You see what it is, placid, steady, no current to +interfere with navigation, wants widening in places and dredging, dredge +out the harbor and raise a levee in front of the town; made by nature on +purpose for a mart. Look at all this country, not another building +within ten miles, no other navigable stream, lay of the land points right +here; hemp, tobacco, corn, must come here. The railroad will do it, +Napoleon won't know itself in a year." + +"Don't now evidently," said Philip aside to Harry. "Have you breakfasted +Colonel?" + +"Hastily. Cup of coffee. Can't trust any coffee I don't import myself. +But I put up a basket of provisions,--wife would put in a few delicacies, +women always will, and a half dozen of that Burgundy, I was telling you +of Mr. Briefly. By the way, you never got to dine with me." And the +Colonel strode away to the wagon and looked under the seat for the +basket. + +Apparently it was not there. For the Colonel raised up the flap, looked +in front and behind, and then exclaimed, + +"Confound it. That comes of not doing a thing yourself. I trusted to +the women folks to set that basket in the wagon, and it ain't there." + +The camp cook speedily prepared a savory breakfast for the Colonel, +broiled chicken, eggs, corn-bread, and coffee, to which he did ample +justice, and topped off with a drop of Old Bourbon, from Mr. Thompson's +private store, a brand which he said he knew well, he should think it +came from his own sideboard. + +While the engineer corps went to the field, to run back a couple of miles +and ascertain, approximately, if a road could ever get down to the +Landing, and to sight ahead across the Run, and see if it could ever get +out again, Col. Sellers and Harry sat down and began to roughly map out +the city of Napoleon on a large piece of drawing paper. + +"I've got the refusal of a mile square here," said the Colonel, "in our +names, for a year, with a quarter interest reserved for the four owners." + +They laid out the town liberally, not lacking room, leaving space for the +railroad to come in, and for the river as it was to be when improved. + +The engineers reported that the railroad could come in, by taking a +little sweep and crossing the stream on a high bridge, but the grades +would be steep. Col. Sellers said he didn't care so much about the +grades, if the road could only be made to reach the elevators on the +river. The next day Mr. Thompson made a hasty survey of the stream for a +mile or two, so that the Colonel and Harry were enabled to show on their +map how nobly that would accommodate the city. Jeff took a little +writing from the Colonel and Harry for a prospective share but Philip +declined to join in, saying that he had no money, and didn't want to make +engagements he couldn't fulfill. + +The next morning the camp moved on, followed till it was out of sight by +the listless eyes of the group in front of the store, one of whom +remarked that, "he'd be doggoned if he ever expected to see that railroad +any mo'." + +Harry went with the Colonel to Hawkeye to complete their arrangements, a +part of which was the preparation of a petition to congress for the +improvement of the navigation of Columbus River. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +Eight years have passed since the death of Mr. Hawkins. Eight years are +not many in the life of a nation or the history of a state, but they +maybe years of destiny that shall fix the current of the century +following. Such years were those that followed the little scrimmage on +Lexington Common. Such years were those that followed the double-shotted +demand for the surrender of Fort Sumter. History is never done with +inquiring of these years, and summoning witnesses about them, and trying +to understand their significance. + +The eight years in America from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that +were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the +social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the +entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of +two or three generations. + +As we are accustomed to interpret the economy of providence, the life of +the individual is as nothing to that of the nation or the race; but who +can say, in the broader view and the more intelligent weight of values, +that the life of one man is not more than that of a nationality, and that +there is not a tribunal where the tragedy of one human soul shall not +seem more significant than the overturning of any human institution +whatever? + +When one thinks of the tremendous forces of the upper and the nether +world which play for the mastery of the soul of a woman during the few +years in which she passes from plastic girlhood to the ripe maturity of +womanhood, he may well stand in awe before the momentous drama. + +What capacities she has of purity, tenderness, goodness; what capacities +of vileness, bitterness and evil. Nature must needs be lavish with the +mother and creator of men, and centre in her all the possibilities of +life. And a few critical years can decide whether her life is to be full +of sweetness and light, whether she is to be the vestal of a holy temple, +or whether she will be the fallen priestess of a desecrated shrine. +There are women, it is true, who seem to be capable neither of rising +much nor of falling much, and whom a conventional life saves from any +special development of character. + +But Laura was not one of them. She had the fatal gift of beauty, and +that more fatal gift which does not always accompany mere beauty, the +power of fascination, a power that may, indeed, exist without beauty. +She had will, and pride and courage and ambition, and she was left to be +very much her own guide at the age when romance comes to the aid of +passion, and when the awakening powers of her vigorous mind had little +object on which to discipline themselves. + +The tremendous conflict that was fought in this girl's soul none of those +about her knew, and very few knew that her life had in it anything +unusual or romantic or strange. + +Those were troublous days in Hawkeye as well as in most other Missouri +towns, days of confusion, when between Unionist and Confederate +occupations, sudden maraudings and bush-whackings and raids, individuals +escaped observation or comment in actions that would have filled the town +with scandal in quiet times. + +Fortunately we only need to deal with Laura's life at this period +historically, and look back upon such portions of it as will serve to +reveal the woman as she was at the time of the arrival of Mr. Harry +Brierly in Hawkeye. + +The Hawkins family were settled there, and had a hard enough struggle +with poverty and the necessity of keeping up appearances in accord with +their own family pride and the large expectations they secretly cherished +of a fortune in the Knobs of East Tennessee. How pinched they were +perhaps no one knew but Clay, to whom they looked for almost their whole +support. Washington had been in Hawkeye off and on, attracted away +occasionally by some tremendous speculation, from which he invariably +returned to Gen. Boswell's office as poor as he went. He was the +inventor of no one knew how many useless contrivances, which were not +worth patenting, and his years had been passed in dreaming and planning +to no purpose; until he was now a man of about thirty, without a +profession or a permanent occupation, a tall, brown-haired, dreamy person +of the best intentions and the frailest resolution. Probably however +the, eight years had been happier to him than to any others in his +circle, for the time had been mostly spent in a blissful dream of the +coming of enormous wealth. + +He went out with a company from Hawkeye to the war, and was not wanting +in courage, but he would have been a better soldier if he had been less +engaged in contrivances for circumventing the enemy by strategy unknown +to the books. + +It happened to him to be captured in one of his self-appointed +expeditions, but the federal colonel released him, after a short +examination, satisfied that he could most injure the confederate forces +opposed to the Unionists by returning him to his regiment. Col. Sellers +was of course a prominent man during the war. He was captain of the home +guards in Hawkeye, and he never left home except upon one occasion, when +on the strength of a rumor, he executed a flank movement and fortified +Stone's Landing, a place which no one unacquainted with the country would +be likely to find. + +"Gad," said the Colonel afterwards, "the Landing is the key to upper +Missouri, and it is the only place the enemy never captured. If other +places had been defended as well as that was, the result would have been +different, sir." + +The Colonel had his own theories about war as he had in other things. +If everybody had stayed at home as he did, he said, the South never would +have been conquered. For what would there have been to conquer? Mr. +Jeff Davis was constantly writing him to take command of a corps in the +confederate army, but Col. Sellers said, no, his duty was at home. And +he was by no means idle. He was the inventor of the famous air torpedo, +which came very near destroying the Union armies in Missouri, and the +city of St. Louis itself. + +His plan was to fill a torpedo with Greek fire and poisonous and deadly +missiles, attach it to a balloon, and then let it sail away over the +hostile camp and explode at the right moment, when the time-fuse burned +out. He intended to use this invention in the capture of St. Louis, +exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it +until the army of occupation would gladly capitulate. He was unable to +procure the Greek fire, but he constructed a vicious torpedo which would +have answered the purpose, but the first one prematurely exploded in his +wood-house, blowing it clean away, and setting fire to his house. The +neighbors helped him put out the conflagration, but they discouraged any +more experiments of that sort. + +The patriotic old gentleman, however, planted so much powder and so many +explosive contrivances in the roads leading into Hawkeye, and then forgot +the exact spots of danger, that people were afraid to travel the +highways, and used to come to town across the fields, The Colonel's motto +was, "Millions for defence but not one cent for tribute." + +When Laura came to Hawkeye she might have forgotten the annoyances of the +gossips of Murpheysburg and have out lived the bitterness that was +growing in her heart, if she had been thrown less upon herself, or if the +surroundings of her life had been more congenial and helpful. But she +had little society, less and less as she grew older that was congenial to +her, and her mind preyed upon itself; and the mystery of her birth at +once chagrined her and raised in her the most extravagant expectations. +She was proud and she felt the sting of poverty. She could not but be +conscious of her beauty also, and she was vain of that, and came to take +a sort of delight in the exercise of her fascinations upon the rather +loutish young men who came in her way and whom she despised. + +There was another world opened to her--a world of books. But it was not +the best world of that sort, for the small libraries she had access to in +Hawkeye were decidedly miscellaneous, and largely made up of romances and +fictions which fed her imagination with the most exaggerated notions of +life, and showed her men and women in a very false sort of heroism. From +these stories she learned what a woman of keen intellect and some culture +joined to beauty and fascination of manner, might expect to accomplish in +society as she read of it; and along with these ideas she imbibed other +very crude ones in regard to the emancipation of woman. + +There were also other books-histories, biographies of distinguished +people, travels in far lands, poems, especially those of Byron, Scott and +Shelley and Moore, which she eagerly absorbed, and appropriated therefrom +what was to her liking. Nobody in Hawkeye had read so much or, after a +fashion, studied so diligently as Laura. She passed for an accomplished +girl, and no doubt thought herself one, as she was, judged by any +standard near her. + +During the war there came to Hawkeye a confederate officer, Col. Selby, +who was stationed there for a time, in command of that district. He was +a handsome, soldierly man of thirty years, a graduate of the University +of Virginia, and of distinguished family, if his story might be believed, +and, it was evident, a man of the world and of extensive travel and +adventure. + +To find in such an out of the way country place a woman like Laura was a +piece of good luck upon which Col. Selby congratulated himself. He was +studiously polite to her and treated her with a consideration to which +she was unaccustomed. She had read of such men, but she had never seen +one before, one so high-bred, so noble in sentiment, so entertaining in +conversation, so engaging in manner. + +It is a long story; unfortunately it is an old story, and it need not be +dwelt on. Laura loved him, and believed that his love for her was as +pure and deep as her own. She worshipped him and would have counted her +life a little thing to give him, if he would only love her and let her +feed the hunger of her heart upon him. + +The passion possessed her whole being, and lifted her up, till she seemed +to walk on air. It was all true, then, the romances she had read, the +bliss of love she had dreamed of. Why had she never noticed before how +blithesome the world was, how jocund with love; the birds sang it, the +trees whispered it to her as she passed, the very flowers beneath her +feet strewed the way as for a bridal march. + +When the Colonel went away they were engaged to be married, as soon as he +could make certain arrangements which he represented to be necessary, and +quit the army. He wrote to her from Harding, a small town in the +southwest corner of the state, saying that he should be held in the +service longer than he had expected, but that it would not be more than a +few months, then he should be at liberty to take her to Chicago where he +had property, and should have business, either now or as soon as the war +was over, which he thought could not last long. Meantime why should they +be separated? He was established in comfortable quarters, and if she +could find company and join him, they would be married, and gain so many +more months of happiness. + +Was woman ever prudent when she loved? Laura went to Harding, the +neighbors supposed to nurse Washington who had fallen ill there. +Her engagement was, of course, known in Hawkeye, and was indeed a matter +of pride to her family. Mrs. Hawkins would have told the first inquirer +that. Laura had gone to be married; but Laura had cautioned her; she did +not want to be thought of, she said, as going in search of a husband; let +the news come back after she was married. + +So she traveled to Harding on the pretence we have mentioned, and was +married. She was married, but something must have happened on that very +day or the next that alarmed her. Washington did not know then or after +what it was, but Laura bound him not to send news of her marriage to +Hawkeye yet, and to enjoin her mother not to speak of it. Whatever cruel +suspicion or nameless dread this was, Laura tried bravely to put it away, +and not let it cloud her happiness. + +Communication that summer, as may be imagined, was neither regular nor +frequent between the remote confederate camp at Harding and Hawkeye, and +Laura was in a measure lost sight of--indeed, everyone had troubles +enough of his own without borrowing from his neighbors. + +Laura had given herself utterly to her husband, and if he had faults, if +he was selfish, if he was sometimes coarse, if he was dissipated, she did +not or would not see it. It was the passion of her life, the time when +her whole nature went to flood tide and swept away all barriers. Was her +husband ever cold or indifferent? She shut her eyes to everything but +her sense of possession of her idol. + +Three months passed. One morning her husband informed her that he had +been ordered South, and must go within two hours. + +"I can be ready," said Laura, cheerfully. + +"But I can't take you. You must go back to Hawkeye." + +"Can't-take-me?" Laura asked, with wonder in her eyes. "I can't live +without you. You said-----" + +"O bother what I said,"--and the Colonel took up his sword to buckle it +on, and then continued coolly, "the fact is Laura, our romance is played +out." + +Laura heard, but she did not comprehend. She caught his arm and cried, +"George, how can you joke so cruelly? I will go any where with you. +I will wait any where. I can't go back to Hawkeye." + +"Well, go where you like. Perhaps," continued he with a sneer, "you +would do as well to wait here, for another colonel." + +Laura's brain whirled. She did not yet comprehend. "What does this +mean? Where are you going?" + +"It means," said the officer, in measured words, "that you haven't +anything to show for a legal marriage, and that I am going to New +Orleans." + +"It's a lie, George, it's a lie. I am your wife. I shall go. I shall +follow you to New Orleans." + +"Perhaps my wife might not like it!" + +Laura raised her head, her eyes flamed with fire, she tried to utter a +cry, and fell senseless on the floor. + +When she came to herself the Colonel was gone. Washington Hawkins stood +at her bedside. Did she come to herself? Was there anything left in her +heart but hate and bitterness, a sense of an infamous wrong at the hands +of the only man she had ever loved? + +She returned to Hawkeye. With the exception of Washington and his +mother, no one knew what had happened. The neighbors supposed that the +engagement with Col. Selby had fallen through. Laura was ill for a long +time, but she recovered; she had that resolution in her that could +conquer death almost. And with her health came back her beauty, and an +added fascination, a something that might be mistaken for sadness. Is +there a beauty in the knowledge of evil, a beauty that shines out in the +face of a person whose inward life is transformed by some terrible +experience? Is the pathos in the eyes of the Beatrice Cenci from her +guilt or her innocence? + +Laura was not much changed. The lovely woman had a devil in her heart. +That was all. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 2. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 2. *** + +***** This file should be named 5819.txt or 5819.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/1/5819/ + +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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