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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/5820-h.zip b/5820-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..afd520e --- /dev/null +++ b/5820-h.zip diff --git a/5820-h/5820-h.htm b/5820-h/5820-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..378b821 --- /dev/null +++ b/5820-h/5820-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2905 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>THE GILDED AGE, By Twain and Warner, Part 3</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 3</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 3. +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 3. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5820] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 3. *** + + + + +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><br><br> +</center> +<center><h2>by <br><br>Mark Twain <br>and <br>Charles Dudley Warner</h2> +</center><br><br> +<center><h3>1873</h3> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center><h3>Part 3.</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="#ch19">CHAPTER XIX </a><br> +Harry Brierly Infatuated With Laura and Proposes She Visit Washington +<br><br> +<a href="#ch20">CHAPTER XX</a><br> +Senator Abner Dilwortliy Visits Hawkeye—Addresses the People and Makes +the Acquaintance of Laura 186 +<br><br> +<a href="#ch21">CHAPTER XXI</a><br> +Ruth Bolton at Fallkill Seminary—The Montagues—Ruth Becomes Quite +Gay—Alice Montague +<br><br> +<a href="#ch22">CHAPTER XXII</a><br> +Philip and Harry Visit Fallkill—Harry Does the Agreeable to Ruth +<br><br> +<a href="#ch23">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br> +Harry at Washington Lobbying For An Appropriation For Stone's +Landing —Philip in New York Studying Engineering +<br><br> +<a href="#ch24">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br> +Washington and Its Sights—The Appropriation Bill Reported From the +Committee and Passed +<br><br> +<a href="#ch25">CHAPTER XXV</a><br> +Energetic Movements at Stone's Landing—Everything Booming—A Grand +Smash Up +<br><br> +<a href="#ch26">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br> +The Boltons—Ruth at Home—Visitors and Speculations +<br><br> +<a href="#ch27">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br> +Col Sellers Comforts His Wife With His Views on the Prospects +<br><br> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<center><h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +64. <a href="#p179">NOT EASILY REFERRED</a><br> +65. <a href="#p188">ORDER, GENTLEMEN</a> <br> +66. <a href="#p192">THE SENATOR'S WALK</a> <br> +67. <a href="#p196">RESIDENCE OF SQUIRE MONTAGUE</a> <br> +68. <a href="#p197">INSIDE THE MANSION</a> <br> +69. <a href="#p200">RUTH DISSIPATING</a> <br> +70. <a href="#p201">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +71. <a href="#p206">ANTICIPATION</a> <br> +72. <a href="#p206">REALITY</a> <br> +73. <a href="#p207">PHILIP HEARS HARRY ENTERTAINING RUTH</a> <br> +74. <a href="#p209">AN ENTERTAINING FELLOW</a> <br> +75. <a href="#p214">HARRY EXPLAINS BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE</a> <br> +76. <a href="#p215">PHILIP STUDYING</a> <br> +77. <a href="#p218a">"KEEP OUT OF HERE, SIR!"</a> <br> +78. <a href="#p218b">AN OLD ONE</a> <br> +79. <a href="#p219">A PROMENADE OUTFIT</a> <br> +80. <a href="#p221">REARED BY A GRATEFUL COUNTRY</a><br> +81. <a href="#p224">BENEFIT OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE</a><br> +82. <a href="#p227">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +83. <a href="#p229">VISIONS OF A HAPPY MAN</a> <br> +84. <a href="#p231">EXODUS OF THE NATIVES</a> <br> +85. <a href="#p232">HARRY BRIERLY FLIES FROM THE MOB</a> <br> +86. <a href="#p234">ENJOYING THE BONFIRE</a> <br> +87. <a href="#p240">BROTHER PLUM</a><br> +88. <a href="#p241">RUTH AT HOME</a> <br> +89. <a href="#MapA">MAP OF THE SALT LICK BRANCH OF THE PACIFIC R. R.</a> <br> +90. <a href="#p248">RESULT OF A STRAIGHT LINE</a> <br> + + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Mr. Harry Brierly drew his pay as an engineer while he was living at the +City Hotel in Hawkeye. Mr. Thompson had been kind enough to say that it +didn't make any difference whether he was with the corps or not; and +although Harry protested to the Colonel daily and to Washington Hawkins +that he must go back at once to the line and superintend the lay-out with +reference to his contract, yet he did not go, but wrote instead long +letters to Philip, instructing him to keep his eye out, and to let him +know when any difficulty occurred that required his presence.</p> + +<p>Meantime Harry blossomed out in the society of Hawkeye, as he did in any +society where fortune cast him and he had the slightest opportunity to +expand. Indeed the talents of a rich and accomplished young fellow like +Harry were not likely to go unappreciated in such a place. A land +operator, engaged in vast speculations, a favorite in the select circles +of New York, in correspondence with brokers and bankers, intimate with +public men at Washington, one who could play the guitar and touch the +banjo lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the +language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye. Even Miss Laura +Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to +endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the meshes of her +attractions.</p> + +<p>"Gad," says Harry to the Colonel, "she's a superb creature, she'd make a +stir in New York, money or no money. There are men I know would give her +a railroad or an opera house, or whatever she wanted—at least they'd +promise."</p> + +<p>Harry had a way of looking at women as he looked at anything else in the +world he wanted, and he half resolved to appropriate Miss Laura, during +his stay in Hawkeye. Perhaps the Colonel divined his thoughts, or was +offended at Harry's talk, for he replied,</p> + +<p>"No nonsense, Mr. Brierly. Nonsense won't do in Hawkeye, not with my +friends. The Hawkins' blood is good blood, all the way from Tennessee. +The Hawkinses are under the weather now, but their Tennessee property is +millions when it comes into market."</p> + +<p>"Of course, Colonel. Not the least offense intended. But you can see +she is a fascinating woman. I was only thinking, as to this +appropriation, now, what such a woman could do in Washington. All +correct, too, all correct. Common thing, I assure you in Washington; the +wives of senators, representatives, cabinet officers, all sorts of wives, +and some who are not wives, use their influence. You want an +appointment? Do you go to Senator X? Not much. You get on the right +side of his wife. Is it an appropriation? You'd go 'straight to the +Committee, or to the Interior office, I suppose? You'd learn better than +that. It takes a woman to get any thing through the Land Office: I tell +you, Miss Laura would fascinate an appropriation right through the Senate +and the House of Representatives in one session, if she was in +Washington, as your friend, Colonel, of course as your friend."</p> + +<p>"Would you have her sign our petition?" asked the Colonel, innocently.</p> + +<p>Harry laughed. "Women don't get anything by petitioning Congress; nobody +does, that's for form. Petitions are referred somewhere, and that's the +last of them; you can't refer a handsome woman so easily, when she is +present. They prefer 'em mostly."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p179"></a><img alt="p179.jpg (41K)" src="images/p179.jpg" height="651" width="441"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The petition however was elaborately drawn up, with a glowing description +of Napoleon and the adjacent country, and a statement of the absolute +necessity to the prosperity of that region and of one of the stations on +the great through route to the Pacific, of the, immediate improvement of +Columbus River; to this was appended a map of the city and a survey of +the river. It was signed by all the people at Stone's Landing who could +write their names, by Col. Beriah Sellers, and the Colonel agreed to have +the names headed by all the senators and representatives from the state +and by a sprinkling of ex-governors and ex-members of congress. When +completed it was a formidable document. Its preparation and that of more +minute plots of the new city consumed the valuable time of Sellers and +Harry for many weeks, and served to keep them both in the highest +spirits.</p> + +<p>In the eyes of Washington Hawkins, Harry was a superior being, a man who +was able to bring things to pass in a way that excited his enthusiasm. +He never tired of listening to his stories of what he had done and of +what he was going to do. As for Washington, Harry thought he was a man +of ability and comprehension, but "too visionary," he told the Colonel. +The Colonel said he might be right, but he had never noticed anything +visionary about him.</p> + +<p>"He's got his plans, sir. God bless my soul, at his age, I was full of +plans. But experience sobers a man, I never touch any thing now that +hasn't been weighed in my judgment; and when Beriah Sellers puts his +judgment on a thing, there it is."</p> + +<p>Whatever might have been Harry's intentions with regard to Laura, he saw +more and more of her every day, until he got to be restless and nervous +when he was not with her.</p> + +<p>That consummate artist in passion allowed him to believe that the +fascination was mainly on his side, and so worked upon his vanity, while +inflaming his ardor, that he scarcely knew what he was about. Her +coolness and coyness were even made to appear the simple precautions of a +modest timidity, and attracted him even more than the little tendernesses +into which she was occasionally surprised. He could never be away from +her long, day or evening; and in a short time their intimacy was the town +talk. She played with him so adroitly that Harry thought she was +absorbed in love for him, and yet he was amazed that he did not get on +faster in his conquest.</p> + +<p>And when he thought of it, he was piqued as well. A country girl, poor +enough, that was evident; living with her family in a cheap and most +unattractive frame house, such as carpenters build in America, scantily +furnished and unadorned; without the adventitious aids of dress or jewels +or the fine manners of society—Harry couldn't understand it. But she +fascinated him, and held him just beyond the line of absolute familiarity +at the same time. While he was with her she made him forget that the +Hawkins' house was nothing but a wooden tenement, with four small square +rooms on the ground floor and a half story; it might have been a palace +for aught he knew.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Laura was older than Harry. She was, at any rate, at that ripe +age when beauty in woman seems more solid than in the budding period of +girlhood, and she had come to understand her powers perfectly, and to +know exactly how much of the susceptibility and archness of the girl it +was profitable to retain. She saw that many women, with the best +intentions, make a mistake of carrying too much girlishness into +womanhood. Such a woman would have attracted Harry at any time, but only +a woman with a cool brain and exquisite art could have made him lose his +head in this way; for Harry thought himself a man of the world. The +young fellow never dreamed that he was merely being experimented on; he +was to her a man of another society and another culture, different from +that she had any knowledge of except in books, and she was not unwilling +to try on him the fascinations of her mind and person.</p> + +<p>For Laura had her dreams. She detested the narrow limits in which her +lot was cast, she hated poverty. Much of her reading had been of modern +works of fiction, written by her own sex, which had revealed to her +something of her own powers and given her indeed, an exaggerated notion +of the influence, the wealth, the position a woman may attain who has +beauty and talent and ambition and a little culture, and is not too +scrupulous in the use of them. She wanted to be rich, she wanted luxury, +she wanted men at her feet, her slaves, and she had not—thanks to some +of the novels she had read—the nicest discrimination between notoriety +and reputation; perhaps she did not know how fatal notoriety usually is +to the bloom of womanhood.</p> + +<p>With the other Hawkins children Laura had been brought up in the belief +that they had inherited a fortune in the Tennessee Lands. She did not by +any means share all the delusion of the family; but her brain was not +seldom busy with schemes about it. Washington seemed to her only to +dream of it and to be willing to wait for its riches to fall upon him in +a golden shower; but she was impatient, and wished she were a man to take +hold of the business.</p> + +<p>"You men must enjoy your schemes and your activity and liberty to go +about the world," she said to Harry one day, when he had been talking of +New York and Washington and his incessant engagements.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," replied that martyr to business, "it's all well enough, if you +don't have too much of it, but it only has one object."</p> + +<p>"What is that?"</p> + +<p>"If a woman doesn't know, it's useless to tell her. What do you suppose +I am staying in Hawkeye for, week after week, when I ought to be with my +corps?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose it's your business with Col. Sellers about Napoleon, you've +always told me so," answered Laura, with a look intended to contradict +her words.</p> + +<p>"And now I tell you that is all arranged, I suppose you'll tell me I +ought to go?"</p> + +<p>"Harry!" exclaimed Laura, touching his arm and letting her pretty hand +rest there a moment. "Why should I want you to go away? The only person +in Hawkeye who understands me."</p> + +<p>"But you refuse to understand me," replied Harry, flattered but still +petulant. "You are like an iceberg, when we are alone."</p> + +<p>Laura looked up with wonder in her great eyes, and something like a blush +suffusing her face, followed by a look of langour that penetrated Harry's +heart as if it had been longing.</p> + +<p>"Did I ever show any want of confidence in you, Harry?" And she gave him +her hand, which Harry pressed with effusion—something in her manner told +him that he must be content with that favor.</p> + +<p>It was always so. She excited his hopes and denied him, inflamed his +passion and restrained it, and wound him in her toils day by day. To +what purpose? It was keen delight to Laura to prove that she had power +over men.</p> + +<p>Laura liked to hear about life at the east, and especially about the +luxurious society in which Mr. Brierly moved when he was at home. It +pleased her imagination to fancy herself a queen in it.</p> + +<p>"You should be a winter in Washington," Harry said.</p> + +<p>"But I have no acquaintances there."</p> + +<p>"Don't know any of the families of the congressmen? They like to have a +pretty woman staying with them."</p> + +<p>"Not one."</p> + +<p>"Suppose Col. Sellers should, have business there; say, about this +Columbus River appropriation?"</p> + +<p>"Sellers!" and Laura laughed.</p> + +<p>"You needn't laugh. Queerer things have happened. Sellers knows +everybody from Missouri, and from the West, too, for that matter. He'd +introduce you to Washington life quick enough. It doesn't need a crowbar +to break your way into society there as it does in Philadelphia. It's +democratic, Washington is. Money or beauty will open any door. If I +were a handsome woman, I shouldn't want any better place than the capital +to pick up a prince or a fortune."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," replied Laura. "But I prefer the quiet of home, and the +love of those I know;" and her face wore a look of sweet contentment and +unworldliness that finished Mr. Harry Brierly for the day.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the hint that Harry had dropped fell upon good ground, and +bore fruit an hundred fold; it worked in her mind until she had built up +a plan on it, and almost a career for herself. Why not, she said, why +shouldn't I do as other women have done? She took the first opportunity +to see Col. Sellers, and to sound him about the Washington visit. How +was he getting on with his navigation scheme, would it be likely to take +him from home to Jefferson City; or to Washington, perhaps?</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe. If the people of Napoleon want me to go to Washington, and +look after that matter, I might tear myself from my home. It's been +suggested to me, but—not a word of it to Mrs. Sellers and the children. +Maybe they wouldn't like to think of their father in Washington. But +Dilworthy, Senator Dilworthy, says to me, 'Colonel, you are the man, you +could influence more votes than any one else on such a measure, an old +settler, a man of the people, you know the wants of Missouri; you've a +respect for religion too, says he, and know how the cause of the gospel +goes with improvements: Which is true enough, Miss Laura, and hasn't been +enough thought of in connection with Napoleon. He's an able man, +Dilworthy, and a good man. A man has got to be good to succeed as he +has. He's only been in Congress a few years, and he must be worth a +million. First thing in the morning when he stayed with me he asked +about family prayers, whether we had 'em before or after breakfast. +I hated to disappoint the Senator, but I had to out with it, tell him we +didn't have 'em, not steady. He said he understood, business +interruptions and all that, some men were well enough without, but as for +him he never neglected the ordinances of religion. He doubted if the +Columbus River appropriation would succeed if we did not invoke the +Divine Blessing on it."</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is unnecessary to say to the reader that Senator Dilworthy had +not stayed with Col. Sellers while he was in Hawkeye; this visit to his +house being only one of the Colonel's hallucinations—one of those +instant creations of his fertile fancy, which were always flashing into +his brain and out of his mouth in the course of any conversation and +without interrupting the flow of it.</p> + +<p>During the summer Philip rode across the country and made a short visit +in Hawkeye, giving Harry an opportunity to show him the progress that he +and the Colonel had made in their operation at Stone's Landing, to +introduce him also to Laura, and to borrow a little money when he +departed. Harry bragged about his conquest, as was his habit, and took +Philip round to see his western prize.</p> + +<p>Laura received Mr. Philip with a courtesy and a slight hauteur that +rather surprised and not a little interested him. He saw at once that +she was older than Harry, and soon made up his mind that she was leading +his friend a country dance to which he was unaccustomed. At least he +thought he saw that, and half hinted as much to Harry, who flared up at +once; but on a second visit Philip was not so sure, the young lady was +certainly kind and friendly and almost confiding with Harry, and treated +Philip with the greatest consideration. She deferred to his opinions, +and listened attentively when he talked, and in time met his frank manner +with an equal frankness, so that he was quite convinced that whatever she +might feel towards Harry, she was sincere with him. Perhaps his manly +way did win her liking. Perhaps in her mind, she compared him with +Harry, and recognized in him a man to whom a woman might give her whole +soul, recklessly and with little care if she lost it. Philip was not +invincible to her beauty nor to the intellectual charm of her presence.</p> + +<p>The week seemed very short that he passed in Hawkeye, and when he bade +Laura good by, he seemed to have known her a year.</p> + +<p>"We shall see you again, Mr. Sterling," she said as she gave him her +hand, with just a shade of sadness in her handsome eyes.</p> + +<p>And when he turned away she followed him with a look that might have +disturbed his serenity, if he had not at the moment had a little square +letter in his breast pocket, dated at Philadelphia, and signed "Ruth."</p> + + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>The visit of Senator Abner Dilworthy was an event in Hawkeye. When a +Senator, whose place is in Washington moving among the Great and guiding +the destinies of the nation, condescends to mingle among the people and +accept the hospitalities of such a place as Hawkeye, the honor is not +considered a light one. All, parties are flattered by it and politics +are forgotten in the presence of one so distinguished among his fellows.</p> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy, who was from a neighboring state, had been a Unionist +in the darkest days of his country, and had thriven by it, but was that +any reason why Col. Sellers, who had been a confederate and had not +thriven by it, should give him the cold shoulder?</p> + +<p>The Senator was the guest of his old friend Gen. Boswell, but it almost +appeared that he was indebted to Col. Sellers for the unreserved +hospitalities of the town. It was the large hearted Colonel who, in a +manner, gave him the freedom of the city.</p> + +<p>"You are known here, sir," said the Colonel, "and Hawkeye is proud of +you. You will find every door open, and a welcome at every hearthstone. +I should insist upon your going to my house, if you were not claimed by +your older friend Gen. Boswell. But you will mingle with our people, and +you will see here developments that will surprise you."</p> + +<p>The Colonel was so profuse in his hospitality that he must have made the +impression upon himself that he had entertained the Senator at his own +mansion during his stay; at any rate, he afterwards always spoke of him +as his guest, and not seldom referred to the Senator's relish of certain +viands on his table. He did, in fact, press him to dine upon the morning +of the day the Senator was going away.</p> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy was large and portly, though not tall—a pleasant +spoken man, a popular man with the people.</p> + +<p>He took a lively interest in the town and all the surrounding country, +and made many inquiries as to the progress of agriculture, of education, +and of religion, and especially as to the condition of the emancipated +race.</p> + +<p>"Providence," he said, "has placed them in our hands, and although you +and I, General, might have chosen a different destiny for them, under the +Constitution, yet Providence knows best."</p> + +<p>"You can't do much with 'em," interrupted Col. Sellers. "They are a +speculating race, sir, disinclined to work for white folks without +security, planning how to live by only working for themselves. Idle, +sir, there's my garden just a ruin of weeds. Nothing practical in 'em."</p> + +<p>"There is some truth in your observation, Colonel, but you must educate +them."</p> + +<p>"You educate the niggro and you make him more speculating than he was +before. If he won't stick to any industry except for himself now, what +will he do then?"</p> + +<p>"But, Colonel, the negro when educated will be more able to make his +speculations fruitful."</p> + +<p>"Never, sir, never. He would only have a wider scope to injure himself. +A niggro has no grasp, sir. Now, a white man can conceive great +operations, and carry them out; a niggro can't."</p> + +<p>"Still," replied the Senator, "granting that he might injure himself in a +worldly point of view, his elevation through education would multiply his +chances for the hereafter—which is the important thing after all, +Colonel. And no matter what the result is, we must fulfill our duty by +this being."</p> + +<p>"I'd elevate his soul," promptly responded the Colonel; "that's just it; +you can't make his soul too immortal, but I wouldn't touch him, himself. +Yes, sir! make his soul immortal, but don't disturb the niggro as he +is."</p> + +<p>Of course one of the entertainments offered the Senator was a public +reception, held in the court house, at which he made a speech to his +fellow citizens. Col. Sellers was master of ceremonies. He escorted the +band from the city hotel to Gen. Boswell's; he marshalled the procession +of Masons, of Odd Fellows, and of Firemen, the Good Templars, the Sons of +Temperance, the Cadets of Temperance, the Daughters of Rebecca, the +Sunday School children, and citizens generally, which followed the +Senator to the court house; he bustled about the room long after every +one else was seated, and loudly cried "Order!" in the dead silence which +preceded the introduction of the Senator by Gen. Boswell. The occasion +was one to call out his finest powers of personal appearance, and one he +long dwelt on with pleasure.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p188"></a><img alt="p188.jpg (36K)" src="images/p188.jpg" height="343" width="519"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>This not being an edition of the Congressional Globe it is impossible to +give Senator Dilworthy's speech in full. He began somewhat as follows:</p> + +<p>"Fellow citizens: It gives me great pleasure to thus meet and mingle with +you, to lay aside for a moment the heavy duties of an official and +burdensome station, and confer in familiar converse with my friends in +your great state. The good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections +is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. I look forward with longing +to the time when I can lay aside the cares of office—" ["dam sight," +shouted a tipsy fellow near the door. Cries of "put him out."]</p> + +<p>"My friends, do not remove him. Let the misguided man stay. I see that +he is a victim of that evil which is swallowing up public virtue and +sapping the foundation of society. As I was saying, when I can lay down +the cares of office and retire to the sweets of private life in some such +sweet, peaceful, intelligent, wide-awake and patriotic place as Hawkeye +(applause). I have traveled much, I have seen all parts of our glorious +union, but I have never seen a lovelier village than yours, or one that +has more signs of commercial and industrial and religious +prosperity—(more applause)."</p> + +<p>The Senator then launched into a sketch of our great country, and dwelt +for an hour or more upon its prosperity and the dangers which threatened +it.</p> + +<p>He then touched reverently upon the institutions of religion, and upon +the necessity of private purity, if we were to have any public morality. +"I trust," he said, "that there are children within the sound of my +voice," and after some remarks to them, the Senator closed with an +apostrophe to "the genius of American Liberty, walking with the Sunday +School in one hand and Temperance in the other up the glorified steps of +the National Capitol."</p> + +<p>Col. Sellers did not of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so +influential a person as the Senator the desirability of improving the +navigation of Columbus river. He and Mr. Brierly took the Senator over +to Napoleon and opened to him their plan. It was a plan that the Senator +could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to be +familiar with the like improvements elsewhere. When, however, they +reached Stone's Landing the Senator looked about him and inquired,</p> + +<p>"Is this Napoleon?"</p> + +<p>"This is the nucleus, the nucleus," said the Colonel, unrolling his map. +"Here is the deepo, the church, the City Hall and so on."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see. How far from here is Columbus River? Does that stream +empty——"</p> + +<p>"That, why, that's Goose Run. Thar ain't no Columbus, thout'n it's over +to Hawkeye," interrupted one of the citizens, who had come out to stare +at the strangers. "A railroad come here last summer, but it haint been +here no mo'."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," the Colonel hastened to explain, "in the old records Columbus +River is called Goose Run. You see how it sweeps round the +town-forty-nine miles to the Missouri; sloop navigation all the way pretty much, +drains this whole country; when it's improved steamboats will run right +up here. It's got to be enlarged, deepened. You see by the map. +Columbus River. This country must have water communication!"</p> + +<p>"You'll want a considerable appropriation, Col. Sellers.</p> + +<p>"I should say a million; is that your figure Mr. Brierly."</p> + +<p>"According to our surveys," said Harry, "a million would do it; a million +spent on the river would make Napoleon worth two millions at least."</p> + +<p>"I see," nodded the Senator. "But you'd better begin by asking only for +two or three hundred thousand, the usual way. You can begin to sell town +lots on that appropriation you know."</p> + +<p>The Senator, himself, to do him justice, was not very much interested in +the country or the stream, but he favored the appropriation, and he gave +the Colonel and Mr. Brierly to and understand that he would endeavor to +get it through. Harry, who thought he was shrewd and understood +Washington, suggested an interest.</p> + +<p>But he saw that the Senator was wounded by the suggestion.</p> + +<p>"You will offend me by repeating such an observation," he said. +"Whatever I do will be for the public interest. It will require a +portion of the appropriation for necessary expenses, and I am sorry to +say that there are members who will have to be seen. But you can reckon +upon my humble services."</p> + +<p>This aspect of the subject was not again alluded to. The Senator +possessed himself of the facts, not from his observation of the ground, +but from the lips of Col. Sellers, and laid the appropriation scheme away +among his other plans for benefiting the public.</p> + +<p>It was on this visit also that the Senator made the acquaintance of Mr. +Washington Hawkins, and was greatly taken with his innocence, his +guileless manner and perhaps with his ready adaptability to enter upon +any plan proposed.</p> + +<p>Col. Sellers was pleased to see this interest that Washington had +awakened, especially since it was likely to further his expectations with +regard to the Tennessee lands; the Senator having remarked to the +Colonel, that he delighted to help any deserving young man, when the +promotion of a private advantage could at the same time be made to +contribute to the general good. And he did not doubt that this was an +opportunity of that kind.</p> + +<p>The result of several conferences with Washington was that the Senator +proposed that he should go to Washington with him and become his private +secretary and the secretary of his committee; a proposal which was +eagerly accepted.</p> + +<p>The Senator spent Sunday in Hawkeye and attended church. He cheered the +heart of the worthy and zealous minister by an expression of his sympathy +in his labors, and by many inquiries in regard to the religious state of +the region. It was not a very promising state, and the good man felt how +much lighter his task would be, if he had the aid of such a man as +Senator Dilworthy.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see, my dear sir," said the Senator, "that you give them +the doctrines. It is owing to a neglect of the doctrines, that there is +such a fearful falling away in the country. I wish that we might have +you in Washington—as chaplain, now, in the senate."</p> + +<p>The good man could not but be a little flattered, and if sometimes, +thereafter, in his discouraging work, he allowed the thought that he +might perhaps be called to Washington as chaplain of the Senate, to cheer +him, who can wonder. The Senator's commendation at least did one service +for him, it elevated him in the opinion of Hawkeye.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p192"></a><img alt="p192.jpg (20K)" src="images/p192.jpg" height="471" width="361"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Laura was at church alone that day, and Mr. Brierly walked home with her. +A part of their way lay with that of General Boswell and Senator +Dilworthy, and introductions were made. Laura had her own reasons for +wishing to know the Senator, and the Senator was not a man who could be +called indifferent to charms such as hers. That meek young lady so +commended herself to him in the short walk, that he announced his +intentions of paying his respects to her the next day, an intention which +Harry received glumly; and when the Senator was out of hearing he called +him "an old fool."</p> + +<p>"Fie," said Laura, "I do believe you are jealous, Harry. He is a very +pleasant man. He said you were a young man of great promise."</p> + +<p>The Senator did call next day, and the result of his visit was that he +was confirmed in his impression that there was something about him very +attractive to ladies. He saw Laura again and again daring his stay, and +felt more and more the subtle influence of her feminine beauty, which +every man felt who came near her.</p> + +<p>Harry was beside himself with rage while the Senator remained in town; +he declared that women were always ready to drop any man for higher game; +and he attributed his own ill-luck to the Senator's appearance. The +fellow was in fact crazy about her beauty and ready to beat his brains +out in chagrin. Perhaps Laura enjoyed his torment, but she soothed him +with blandishments that increased his ardor, and she smiled to herself to +think that he had, with all his protestations of love, never spoken of +marriage. Probably the vivacious fellow never had thought of it. At any +rate when he at length went away from Hawkeye he was no nearer it. But +there was no telling to what desperate lengths his passion might not +carry him.</p> + +<p>Laura bade him good bye with tender regret, which, however, did not +disturb her peace or interfere with her plans. The visit of Senator +Dilworthy had become of more importance to her, and it by and by bore the +fruit she longed for, in an invitation to visit his family in the +National Capital during the winter session of Congress.</p> + + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2></center> +<br> +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> O lift your natures up: +<br> Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, +<br> Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed; +<br> Drink deep until the habits of the slave, +<br> The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite +<br> And slander, die. +<br> +<br> The Princess. +<br> +</blockquote></blockquote> +<p>Whether medicine is a science, or only an empirical method of getting a +living out of the ignorance of the human race, Ruth found before her +first term was over at the medical school that there were other things +she needed to know quite as much as that which is taught in medical +books, and that she could never satisfy her aspirations without more +general culture.</p> + +<p>"Does your doctor know any thing—I don't mean about medicine, but about +things in general, is he a man of information and good sense?" once asked +an old practitioner. "If he doesn't know any thing but medicine the +chance is he doesn't know that:"</p> + +<p>The close application to her special study was beginning to tell upon +Ruth's delicate health also, and the summer brought with it only +weariness and indisposition for any mental effort.</p> + +<p>In this condition of mind and body the quiet of her home and the +unexciting companionship of those about her were more than ever tiresome.</p> + +<p>She followed with more interest Philip's sparkling account of his life +in the west, and longed for his experiences, and to know some of those +people of a world so different from here, who alternately amused and +displeased him. He at least was learning the world, the good and the bad +of it, as must happen to every one who accomplishes anything in it.</p> + +<p>But what, Ruth wrote, could a woman do, tied up by custom, and cast into +particular circumstances out of which it was almost impossible to +extricate herself? Philip thought that he would go some day and +extricate Ruth, but he did not write that, for he had the instinct to +know that this was not the extrication she dreamed of, and that she must +find out by her own experience what her heart really wanted.</p> + +<p>Philip was not a philosopher, to be sure, but he had the old fashioned +notion, that whatever a woman's theories of life might be, she would come +round to matrimony, only give her time. He could indeed recall to mind +one woman—and he never knew a nobler—whose whole soul was devoted and +who believed that her life was consecrated to a certain benevolent +project in singleness of life, who yielded to the touch of matrimony, as +an icicle yields to a sunbeam.</p> + +<p>Neither at home nor elsewhere did Ruth utter any complaint, or admit any +weariness or doubt of her ability to pursue the path she had marked out +for herself. But her mother saw clearly enough her struggle with +infirmity, and was not deceived by either her gaiety or by the cheerful +composure which she carried into all the ordinary duties that fell to +her. She saw plainly enough that Ruth needed an entire change of scene +and of occupation, and perhaps she believed that such a change, with the +knowledge of the world it would bring, would divert Ruth from a course +for which she felt she was physically entirely unfitted.</p> + +<p>It therefore suited the wishes of all concerned, when autumn came, that +Ruth should go away to school. She selected a large New England +Seminary, of which she had often heard Philip speak, which was attended +by both sexes and offered almost collegiate advantages of education. +Thither she went in September, and began for the second time in the year +a life new to her.</p> + +<p>The Seminary was the chief feature of Fallkill, a village of two to three +thousand inhabitants. It was a prosperous school, with three hundred +students, a large corps of teachers, men and women, and with a venerable +rusty row of academic buildings on the shaded square of the town. The +students lodged and boarded in private families in the place, and so it +came about that while the school did a great deal to support the town, +the town gave the students society and the sweet influences of home life. +It is at least respectful to say that the influences of home life are +sweet.</p> + +<p>Ruth's home, by the intervention of Philip, was in a family—one of the +rare exceptions in life or in fiction—that had never known better days. +The Montagues, it is perhaps well to say, had intended to come over in +the Mayflower, but were detained at Delft Haven by the illness of a +child. They came over to Massachusetts Bay in another vessel, and thus +escaped the onus of that brevet nobility under which the successors of +the Mayflower Pilgrims have descended. Having no factitious weight of +dignity to carry, the Montagues steadily improved their condition from +the day they landed, and they were never more vigorous or prosperous than +at the date of this narrative. With character compacted by the rigid +Puritan discipline of more than two centuries, they had retained its +strength and purity and thrown off its narrowness, and were now +blossoming under the generous modern influences. Squire Oliver Montague, +a lawyer who had retired from the practice of his profession except in +rare cases, dwelt in a square old fashioned New England mansion a quarter of a mile away from +the green. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p196"></a><img alt="p196.jpg (15K)" src="images/p196.jpg" height="255" width="299"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was called a mansion because it stood alone with ample +fields about it, and had an avenue of trees leading to it from the road, +and on the west commanded a view of a pretty little lake with gentle +slopes and nodding were now blossoming under the generous modern +influences. Squire Oliver Montague, a lawyer who had retired from the +practice of his profession except in rare cases, dwelt in a square old +fashioned New England groves. But it was just a plain, roomy house, +capable of extending to many guests an unpretending hospitality.</p> + +<p>The family consisted of the Squire and his wife, a son and a daughter +married and not at home, a son in college at Cambridge, another son at +the Seminary, and a daughter Alice, who was a year or more older than +Ruth. Having only riches enough to be able to gratify reasonable +desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a +pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely +attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent.</p> + +<p>If Ruth did not find so much luxury in the house as in her own home, +there were evidences of culture, of intellectual activity and of a zest +in the affairs of all the world, which greatly impressed her. Every room +had its book-cases or book-shelves, and was more or less a library; upon +every table was liable to be a litter of new books, fresh periodicals and +daily newspapers. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p197"></a><img alt="p197.jpg (16K)" src="images/p197.jpg" height="285" width="287"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>There were plants in the sunny windows and some choice +engravings on the walls, with bits of color in oil or water-colors; +the piano was sure to be open and strewn with music; and there were +photographs and little souvenirs here and there of foreign travel. +An absence of any "what-pots" in the corners with rows of cheerful +shells, and Hindoo gods, and Chinese idols, and nests of use less boxes +of lacquered wood, might be taken as denoting a languidness in the family +concerning foreign missions, but perhaps unjustly.</p> + +<p>At any rate the life of the world flowed freely into this hospitable +house, and there was always so much talk there of the news of the day, +of the new books and of authors, of Boston radicalism and New York +civilization, and the virtue of Congress, that small gossip stood a very +poor chance.</p> + +<p>All this was in many ways so new to Ruth that she seemed to have passed +into another world, in which she experienced a freedom and a mental +exhilaration unknown to her before. Under this influence she entered +upon her studies with keen enjoyment, finding for a time all the +relaxation she needed, in the charming social life at the Montague house.</p> + +<p>It is strange, she wrote to Philip, in one of her occasional letters, +that you never told me more about this delightful family, and scarcely +mentioned Alice who is the life of it, just the noblest girl, unselfish, +knows how to do so many things, with lots of talent, with a dry humor, +and an odd way of looking at things, and yet quiet and even serious +often—one of your "capable" New England girls. We shall be great +friends. It had never occurred to Philip that there was any thing +extraordinary about the family that needed mention. He knew dozens of +girls like Alice, he thought to himself, but only one like Ruth.</p> + +<p>Good friends the two girls were from the beginning. Ruth was a study to +Alice; the product of a culture entirely foreign to her experience, so +much a child in some things, so much a woman in others; and Ruth in turn, +it must be confessed, probing Alice sometimes with her serious grey eyes, +wondered what her object in life was, and whether she had any purpose +beyond living as she now saw her. For she could scarcely conceive of a +life that should not be devoted to the accomplishment of some definite +work, and she had-no doubt that in her own case everything else would +yield to the professional career she had marked out.</p> + +<p>"So you know Philip Sterling," said Ruth one day as the girls sat at +their sewing. Ruth never embroidered, and never sewed when she could +avoid it. Bless her.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, we are old friends. Philip used to come to Fallkill often while +he was in college. He was once rusticated here for a term."</p> + +<p>"Rusticated?"</p> + +<p>"Suspended for some College scrape. He was a great favorite here. +Father and he were famous friends. Father said that Philip had no end of +nonsense in him and was always blundering into something, but he was a +royal good fellow and would come out all right."</p> + +<p>"Did you think he was fickle?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I never thought whether he was or not," replied Alice looking up. +"I suppose he was always in love with some girl or another, as college +boys are. He used to make me his confidant now and then, and be terribly +in the dumps."</p> + +<p>"Why did he come to you?" pursued Ruth you were younger than he."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know. He was at our house a good deal. Once at a +picnic by the lake, at the risk of his own life, he saved sister Millie +from drowning, and we all liked to have him here. Perhaps he thought as +he had saved one sister, the other ought to help him when he was in +trouble. I don't know."</p> + +<p>The fact was that Alice was a person who invited confidences, because she +never betrayed them, and gave abundant sympathy in return. There are +persons, whom we all know, to whom human confidences, troubles and +heart-aches flow as naturally its streams to a placid lake.</p> + +<p>This is not a history of Fallkill, nor of the Montague family, worthy as +both are of that honor, and this narrative cannot be diverted into long +loitering with them. If the reader visits the village to-day, he will +doubtless be pointed out the Montague dwelling, where Ruth lived, the +cross-lots path she traversed to the Seminary, and the venerable chapel +with its cracked bell.</p> + +<p>In the little society of the place, the Quaker girl was a favorite, and +no considerable social gathering or pleasure party was thought complete +without her. There was something in this seemingly transparent and yet +deep character, in her childlike gaiety and enjoyment of the society +about her, and in her not seldom absorption in herself, that would have +made her long remembered there if no events had subsequently occurred to +recall her to mind.</p> + +<p>To the surprise of Alice, Ruth took to the small gaieties of the village +with a zest of enjoyment that seemed foreign to one who had devoted her +life to a serious profession from the highest motives. Alice liked +society well enough, she thought, but there was nothing exciting in that +of Fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young +gentlemen one met in it. It must have worn a different aspect to Ruth, +for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then with +interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one would have +deemed possible for her. Parties, picnics, rowing-matches, moonlight +strolls, nutting expeditions in the October woods,—Alice declared that +it was a whirl of dissipation. The fondness of Ruth, which was scarcely +disguised, for the company of agreeable young fellows, who talked +nothings, gave Alice opportunity for no end of banter.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p200"></a><img alt="p200.jpg (50K)" src="images/p200.jpg" height="469" width="571"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Do you look upon them as I subjects, dear?" she would ask.</p> + +<p>And Ruth laughed her merriest laugh, and then looked sober again. +Perhaps she was thinking, after all, whether she knew herself.</p> + +<p>If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would +swim if you brought it to the Nile.</p> + +<p>Surely no one would have predicted when Ruth left Philadelphia that she +would become absorbed to this extent, and so happy, in a life so unlike +that she thought she desired. But no one can tell how a woman will act +under any circumstances. The reason novelists nearly always fail in +depicting women when they make them act, is that they let them do what +they have observed some woman has done at sometime or another. And that +is where they make a mistake; for a woman will never do again what has +been done before. It is this uncertainty that causes women, considered +as materials for fiction, to be so interesting to themselves and to +others.</p> + +<p>As the fall went on and the winter, Ruth did not distinguish herself +greatly at the Fallkill Seminary as a student, a fact that apparently +gave her no anxiety, and did not diminish her enjoyment of a new sort of +power which had awakened within her.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p201"></a><img alt="p201.jpg (25K)" src="images/p201.jpg" height="277" width="421"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>In mid-winter, an event occurred of unusual interest to the inhabitants +of the Montague house, and to the friends of the young ladies who sought +their society.</p> + +<p>This was the arrival at the Sassacua Hotel of two young gentlemen from +the west.</p> + +<p>It is the fashion in New England to give Indian names to the public +houses, not that the late lamented savage knew how to keep a hotel, but +that his warlike name may impress the traveler who humbly craves shelter +there, and make him grateful to the noble and gentlemanly clerk if he is +allowed to depart with his scalp safe.</p> + +<p>The two young gentlemen were neither students for the Fallkill Seminary, +nor lecturers on physiology, nor yet life assurance solicitors, three +suppositions that almost exhausted the guessing power of the people at +the hotel in respect to the names of "Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly, +Missouri," on the register. They were handsome enough fellows, that was +evident, browned by out-door exposure, and with a free and lordly way +about them that almost awed the hotel clerk himself. Indeed, he very +soon set down Mr. Brierly as a gentleman of large fortune, with enormous +interests on his shoulders. Harry had a way of casually mentioning +western investments, through lines, the freighting business, and the +route through the Indian territory to Lower California, which was +calculated to give an importance to his lightest word.</p> + +<p>"You've a pleasant town here, sir, and the most comfortable looking hotel +I've seen out of New York," said Harry to the clerk; "we shall stay here +a few days if you can give us a roomy suite of apartments."</p> + +<p>Harry usually had the best of everything, wherever he went, as such +fellows always do have in this accommodating world. Philip would have +been quite content with less expensive quarters, but there was no +resisting Harry's generosity in such matters.</p> + +<p>Railroad surveying and real-estate operations were at a standstill during +the winter in Missouri, and the young men had taken advantage of the lull +to come east, Philip to see if there was any disposition in his friends, +the railway contractors, to give him a share in the Salt Lick Union +Pacific Extension, and Harry to open out to his uncle the prospects of +the new city at Stone's Landing, and to procure congressional +appropriations for the harbor and for making Goose Run navigable. Harry +had with him a map of that noble stream and of the harbor, with a perfect +net-work of railroads centering in it, pictures of wharves, crowded with +steamboats, and of huge grain-elevators on the bank, all of which grew +out of the combined imaginations of Col. Sellers and Mr. Brierly. The +Colonel had entire confidence in Harry's influence with Wall street, and +with congressmen, to bring about the consummation of their scheme, and he +waited his return in the empty house at Hawkeye, feeding his pinched +family upon the most gorgeous expectations with a reckless prodigality.</p> + +<p>"Don't let 'em into the thing more than is necessary," says the Colonel +to Harry; "give 'em a small interest; a lot apiece in the suburbs of the +Landing ought to do a congressman, but I reckon you'll have to mortgage a +part of the city itself to the brokers."</p> + +<p>Harry did not find that eagerness to lend money on Stone's Landing in +Wall street which Col. Sellers had expected, (it had seen too many such +maps as he exhibited), although his uncle and some of the brokers looked +with more favor on the appropriation for improving the navigation of +Columbus River, and were not disinclined to form a company for that +purpose. An appropriation was a tangible thing, if you could get hold of +it, and it made little difference what it was appropriated for, so long +as you got hold of it.</p> + +<p>Pending these weighty negotiations, Philip has persuaded Harry to take a +little run up to Fallkill, a not difficult task, for that young man would +at any time have turned his back upon all the land in the West at sight +of a new and pretty face, and he had, it must be confessed, a facility in +love making which made it not at all an interference with the more +serious business of life. He could not, to be sure, conceive how Philip +could be interested in a young lady who was studying medicine, but he had +no objection to going, for he did not doubt that there were other girls +in Fallkill who were worth a week's attention.</p> + +<p>The young men were received at the house of the Montagues with the +hospitality which never failed there.</p> + +<p>"We are glad to see you again," exclaimed the Squire heartily, "you are +welcome Mr. Brierly, any friend of Phil's is welcome at our house"</p> + +<p>"It's more like home to me, than any place except my own home," cried +Philip, as he looked about the cheerful house and went through a general +hand-shaking.</p> + +<p>"It's a long time, though, since you have been here to say so," Alice +said, with her father's frankness of manner; "and I suspect we owe the +visit now to your sudden interest in the Fallkill Seminary."</p> + +<p>Philip's color came, as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale +face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry came in with,</p> + +<p>"That accounts for Phil's wish to build a Seminary at Stone's Landing, +our place in Missouri, when Col. Sellers insisted it should be a +University. Phil appears to have a weakness for Seminaries."</p> + +<p>"It would have been better for your friend Sellers," retorted Philip, +"if he had had a weakness for district schools. Col. Sellers, Miss +Alice, is a great friend of Harry's, who is always trying to build a +house by beginning at the top."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it's as easy to build a University on paper as a Seminary, and +it looks better," was Harry's reflection; at which the Squire laughed, +and said he quite agreed with him. The old gentleman understood Stone's +Landing a good deal better than he would have done after an hour's talk +with either of it's expectant proprietors.</p> + +<p>At this moment, and while Philip was trying to frame a question that he +found it exceedingly difficult to put into words, the door opened +quietly, and Ruth entered. Taking in the, group with a quick glance, her +eye lighted up, and with a merry smile she advanced and shook hands with +Philip. She was so unconstrained and sincerely cordial, that it made +that hero of the west feel somehow young, and very ill at ease.</p> + +<p>For months and months he had thought of this meeting and pictured it to +himself a hundred times, but he had never imagined it would be like this. +He should meet Ruth unexpectedly, as she was walking alone from the +school, perhaps, or entering the room where he was waiting for her, and +she would cry "Oh! Phil," and then check herself, and perhaps blush, and +Philip calm but eager and enthusiastic, would reassure her by his warm +manner, and he would take her hand impressively, and she would look up +timidly, and, after his' long absence, perhaps he would be permitted to +Good heavens, how many times he had come to this point, and wondered if +it could happen so. Well, well; he had never supposed that he should be +the one embarrassed, and above all by a sincere and cordial welcome.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p206"></a><img alt="p206.jpg (42K)" src="images/p206.jpg" height="497" width="595"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"We heard you were at the Sassacus House," were Ruth's first words; "and +this I suppose is your friend?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," Philip at length blundered out, "this is Mr. Brierly +of whom I have written you."</p> + +<p>And Ruth welcomed Harry with a friendliness that Philip thought was due +to his friend, to be sure, but which seemed to him too level with her +reception of himself, but which Harry received as his due from the other +sex.</p> + +<p>Questions were asked about the journey and about the West, and the +conversation became a general one, until Philip at length found himself +talking with the Squire in relation to land and railroads and things he +couldn't keep his mind on especially as he heard Ruth and Harry in an +animated discourse, and caught the words "New York," and "opera," and +"reception," and knew that Harry was giving his imagination full range in +the world of fashion.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p207"></a><img alt="p207.jpg (24K)" src="images/p207.jpg" height="487" width="337"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Harry knew all about the opera, green room and all (at least he said so) +and knew a good many of the operas and could make very entertaining +stories of their plots, telling how the soprano came in here, and the +basso here, humming the beginning of their +airs—tum-ti-tum-ti-ti—suggesting the profound dissatisfaction of the basso +recitative—down-among-the-dead-men—and touching off the whole with an airy grace quite +captivating; though he couldn't have sung a single air through to save +himself, and he hadn't an ear to know whether it was sung correctly. All +the same he doted on the opera, and kept a box there, into which he +lounged occasionally to hear a favorite scene and meet his society +friends.</p> + +<p>If Ruth was ever in the city he should be happy to place his box at the +disposal of Ruth and her friends. Needless to say that she was delighted +with the offer.</p> + +<p>When she told Philip of it, that discreet young fellow only smiled, and +said that he hoped she would be fortunate enough to be in New York some +evening when Harry had not already given the use of his private box to +some other friend.</p> + +<p>The Squire pressed the visitors to let him send for their trunks and +urged them to stay at his house, and Alice joined in the invitation, but +Philip had reasons for declining. They staid to supper, however, and in; +the evening Philip had a long talk apart with Ruth, a delightful hour to +him, in which she spoke freely of herself as of old, of her studies at +Philadelphia and of her plans, and she entered into his adventures and +prospects in the West with a genuine and almost sisterly interest; an +interest, however, which did not exactly satisfy Philip—it was too +general and not personal enough to suit him. And with all her freedom in +speaking of her own hopes, Philip could not, detect any reference to +himself in them; whereas he never undertook anything that he did not +think of Ruth in connection with it, he never made a plan that had not +reference to her, and he never thought of anything as complete if she +could not share it. Fortune, reputation these had no value to him except +in Ruth's eyes, and there were times when it seemed to him that if Ruth +was not on this earth, he should plunge off into some remote wilderness +and live in a purposeless seclusion.</p> + +<p>"I hoped," said Philip; "to get a little start in connection with this +new railroad, and make a little money, so that I could came east and +engage in something more suited to my tastes. I shouldn't like to live +in the West. Would you?</p> + +<p>"It never occurred to me whether I would or not," was the unembarrassed +reply. "One of our graduates went to Chicago, and has a nice practice +there. I don't know where I shall go. It would mortify mother +dreadfully to have me driving about Philadelphia in a doctor's gig."</p> + +<p>Philip laughed at the idea of it. "And does it seem as necessary to you +to do it as it did before you came to Fallkill?"</p> + +<p>It was a home question, and went deeper than Philip knew, for Ruth at +once thought of practicing her profession among the young gentlemen and +ladies of her acquaintance in the village; but she was reluctant to admit +to herself that her notions of a career had undergone any change.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't think I should come to Fallkill to practice, but I must do +something when I am through school; and why not medicine?"</p> + +<p>Philip would like to have explained why not, but the explanation would be +of no use if it were not already obvious to Ruth.</p> + +<p>Harry was equally in his element whether instructing Squire Montague +about the investment of capital in Missouri, the improvement of Columbus +River, the project he and some gentlemen in New York had for making a +shorter Pacific connection with the Mississippi than the present one; or +diverting Mrs. Montague with his experience in cooking in camp; or +drawing for Miss Alice an amusing picture of the social contrasts of New +England and the border where he had been. Harry was a very entertaining +fellow, having his imagination to help his memory, and telling his +stories as if he believed them—as perhaps he did. Alice was greatly +amused with Harry and listened so seriously to his romancing that he +exceeded his usual limits. Chance allusions to his bachelor +establishment in town and the place of his family on the Hudson, could +not have been made by a millionaire, more naturally.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p209"></a><img alt="p209.jpg (20K)" src="images/p209.jpg" height="303" width="297"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I should think," queried Alice, "you would rather stay in New York than +to try the rough life at the West you have been speaking of."</p> + +<p>"Oh, adventure," says Harry, "I get tired of New York. And besides I +got involved in some operations that I had to see through. Parties in +New York only last week wanted me to go down into Arizona in a big +diamond interest. I told them, no, no speculation for me. I've got my +interests in Missouri; and I wouldn't leave Philip, as long as he stays +there."</p> + +<p>When the young gentlemen were on their way back to the hotel, Mr. Philip, +who was not in very good humor, broke out,</p> + +<p>"What the deuce, Harry, did you go on in that style to the Montagues +for?"</p> + +<p>"Go on?" cried Harry. "Why shouldn't I try to make a pleasant evening? +And besides, ain't I going to do those things? What difference does it +make about the mood and tense of a mere verb? Didn't uncle tell me only +last Saturday, that I might as well go down to Arizona and hunt for +diamonds? A fellow might as well make a good impression as a poor one."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. You'll get to believing your own romancing by and by."</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll see. When Sellers and I get that appropriation, I'll show +you an establishment in town and another on the Hudson and a box at the +opera."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it will be like Col. Sellers' plantation at Hawkeye. Did you ever +see that?"</p> + +<p>"Now, don't be cross, Phil. She's just superb, that little woman. You +never told me."</p> + +<p>"Who's just superb?" growled Philip, fancying this turn of the +conversation less than the other.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Montague, if you must know." And Harry stopped to light a +cigar, and then puffed on in silence. The little quarrel didn't last +over night, for Harry never appeared to cherish any ill-will half a +second, and Philip was too sensible to continue a row about nothing; and +he had invited Harry to come with him.</p> + +<p>The young gentlemen stayed in Fallkill a week, and were every day at the +Montagues, and took part in the winter gaieties of the village. There +were parties here and there to which the friends of Ruth and the +Montagues were of course invited, and Harry in the generosity of his +nature, gave in return a little supper at the hotel, very simple indeed, +with dancing in the hall, and some refreshments passed round. And Philip +found the whole thing in the bill when he came to pay it.</p> + +<p>Before the week was over Philip thought he had a new light on the +character of Ruth. Her absorption in the small gaieties of the society +there surprised him. He had few opportunities for serious conversation +with her. There was always some butterfly or another flitting about, +and when Philip showed by his manner that he was not pleased, Ruth +laughed merrily enough and rallied him on his soberness—she declared he +was getting to be grim and unsocial. He talked indeed more with Alice +than with Ruth, and scarcely concealed from her the trouble that was in +his mind. It needed, in fact, no word from him, for she saw clearly +enough what was going forward, and knew her sex well enough to know there +was no remedy for it but time.</p> + +<p>"Ruth is a dear girl, Philip, and has as much firmness of purpose as +ever, but don't you see she has just discovered that she is fond of +society? Don't you let her see you are selfish about it, is my advice."</p> + +<p>The last evening they were to spend in Fallkill, they were at the +Montagues, and Philip hoped that he would find Ruth in a different mood. +But she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her eye +and in her laugh. "Confound it," said Philip to himself, "she's in a +perfect twitter."</p> + +<p>He would have liked to quarrel with her, and fling himself out of the +house in tragedy style, going perhaps so far as to blindly wander off +miles into the country and bathe his throbbing brow in the chilling rain +of the stars, as people do in novels; but he had no opportunity. For +Ruth was as serenely unconscious of mischief as women can be at times, +and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and +half-confidences. She even said "Thee" to him once in reproach for a cutting +speech he began. And the sweet little word made his heart beat like a +trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said "thee" to him before.</p> + +<p>Was she fascinated with Harry's careless 'bon homie' and gay assurance? +Both chatted away in high spirits, and made the evening whirl along in +the most mirthful manner. Ruth sang for Harry, and that young gentleman +turned the leaves for her at the piano, and put in a bass note now and +then where he thought it would tell.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was a merry evening, and Philip was heartily glad when it was +over, and the long leave-taking with the family was through with.</p> + +<p>"Farewell Philip. Good night Mr. Brierly," Ruth's clear voice sounded +after them as they went down the walk.</p> + +<p>And she spoke Harry's name last, thought Philip.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> "O see ye not yon narrow road +<br> So thick beset wi' thorns and briers? +<br> That is the Path of Righteousness, +<br> Though after it but few inquires. +<br> +<br> "And see ye not yon braid, braid road, +<br> That lies across the lily leven? +<br> That is the Path of Wickedness, +<br> Though some call it the road to Heaven." +<br> +<br> Thomas the Rhymer. +<br> +</blockquote></blockquote> +<p>Phillip and Harry reached New York in very different states of mind. +Harry was buoyant. He found a letter from Col. Sellers urging him to go +to Washington and confer with Senator Dilworthy. The petition was in his +hands.</p> + +<p>It had been signed by everybody of any importance in Missouri, and would +be presented immediately.</p> + +<p>"I should go on myself," wrote the Colonel, "but I am engaged in the +invention of a process for lighting such a city as St. Louis by means of +water; just attach my machine to the water-pipes anywhere and the +decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for +the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I +want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. +It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation +going while I am perfecting it."</p> + +<p>Harry took letters to several congressmen from his uncle and from Mr. +Duff Brown, each of whom had an extensive acquaintance in both houses +where they were well known as men engaged in large private operations for +the public good and men, besides, who, in the slang of the day, +understood the virtues of "addition, division and silence."</p> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy introduced the petition into the Senate with the remark +that he knew, personally, the signers of it, that they were men +interested; it was true, in the improvement of the country, but he +believed without any selfish motive, and that so far as he knew the +signers were loyal. It pleased him to see upon the roll the names of +many colored citizens, and it must rejoice every friend of humanity to +know that this lately emancipated race were intelligently taking part in +the development of the resources of their native land. He moved the +reference of the petition to the proper committee.</p> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy introduced his young friend to influential members, +as a person who was very well informed about the Salt Lick Extension of +the Pacific, and was one of the Engineers who had made a careful survey +of Columbus River; and left him to exhibit his maps and plans and to show +the connection between the public treasury, the city of Napoleon and +legislation for the benefit off the whole country.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p214"></a><img alt="p214.jpg (43K)" src="images/p214.jpg" height="419" width="539"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Harry was the guest of Senator Dilworthy. There was scarcely any good +movement in which the Senator was not interested. His house was open to +all the laborers in the field of total abstinence, and much of his time +was taken up in attending the meetings of this cause. He had a Bible +class in the Sunday school of the church which he attended, and he +suggested to Harry that he might take a class during the time he remained +in Washington, Mr. Washington Hawkins had a class. Harry asked the +Senator if there was a class of young ladies for him to teach, and after +that the Senator did not press the subject.</p> + +<p>Philip, if the truth must be told, was not well satisfied with his +western prospects, nor altogether with the people he had fallen in with. +The railroad contractors held out large but rather indefinite promises. +Opportunities for a fortune he did not doubt existed in Missouri, but for +himself he saw no better means for livelihood than the mastery of the +profession he had rather thoughtlessly entered upon. During the summer +he had made considerable practical advance in the science of engineering; +he had been diligent, and made himself to a certain extent necessary to +the work he was engaged on. The contractors called him into their +consultations frequently, as to the character of the country he had been +over, and the cost of constructing the road, the nature of the work, etc.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p215"></a><img alt="p215.jpg (35K)" src="images/p215.jpg" height="469" width="423"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Still Philip felt that if he was going to make either reputation or money +as an engineer, he had a great deal of hard study before him, and it is +to his credit that he did not shrink from it. While Harry was in +Washington dancing attendance upon the national legislature and making +the acquaintance of the vast lobby that encircled it, Philip devoted +himself day and night, with an energy and a concentration he was capable +of, to the learning and theory of his profession, and to the science of +railroad building. He wrote some papers at this time for the "Plow, the +Loom and the Anvil," upon the strength of materials, and especially upon +bridge-building, which attracted considerable attention, and were copied +into the English "Practical Magazine." They served at any rate to raise +Philip in the opinion of his friends the contractors, for practical men +have a certain superstitious estimation of ability with the pen, and +though they may a little despise the talent, they are quite ready to make +use of it.</p> + +<p>Philip sent copies of his performances to Ruth's father and to other +gentlemen whose good opinion he coveted, but he did not rest upon his +laurels. Indeed, so diligently had he applied himself, that when it came +time for him to return to the West, he felt himself, at least in theory, +competent to take charge of a division in the field.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>The capital of the Great Republic was a new world to country-bred +Washington Hawkins. St. Louis was a greater city, but its floating. +population did not hail from great distances, and so it had the general +family aspect of the permanent population; but Washington gathered its +people from the four winds of heaven, and so the manners, the faces and +the fashions there, presented a variety that was infinite. Washington +had never been in "society" in St. Louis, and he knew nothing of the ways +of its wealthier citizens and had never inspected one of their dwellings. +Consequently, everything in the nature of modern fashion and grandeur was +a new and wonderful revelation to him.</p> + +<p>Washington is an interesting city to any of us. It seems to become more +and more interesting the oftener we visit it. Perhaps the reader has +never been there? Very well. You arrive either at night, rather too +late to do anything or see anything until morning, or you arrive so early +in the morning that you consider it best to go to your hotel and sleep an +hour or two while the sun bothers along over the Atlantic. You cannot +well arrive at a pleasant intermediate hour, because the railway +corporation that keeps the keys of the only door that leads into the town +or out of it take care of that. You arrive in tolerably good spirits, +because it is only thirty-eight miles from Baltimore to the capital, and +so you have only been insulted three times (provided you are not in a +sleeping car—the average is higher there): once when you renewed your +ticket after stopping over in Baltimore, once when you were about to +enter the "ladies' car" without knowing it was a lady's car, and once +When you asked the conductor at what hour you would reach Washington.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p218a"></a><img alt="p218a.jpg (21K)" src="images/p218a.jpg" height="463" width="285"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>You are assailed by a long rank of hackmen who shake their whips in your +face as you step out upon the sidewalk; you enter what they regard as a +"carriage," in the capital, and you wonder why they do not take it out of +service and put it in the museum: we have few enough antiquities, and +it is little to our credit that we make scarcely any effort to preserve +the few we have. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p218b"></a><img alt="p218b.jpg (20K)" src="images/p218b.jpg" height="337" width="511"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>You reach your hotel, presently—and here let us draw +the curtain of charity—because of course you have gone to the wrong one. +You being a stranger, how could you do otherwise? There are a hundred +and eighteen bad hotels, and only one good one. The most renowned and +popular hotel of them all is perhaps the worst one known to history.</p> + +<p>It is winter, and night. When you arrived, it was snowing. When you +reached the hotel, it was sleeting. When you went to bed, it was +raining. During the night it froze hard, and the wind blew some chimneys +down. When you got up in the morning, it was foggy. When you finished +your breakfast at ten o'clock and went out, the sunshine was brilliant, +the weather balmy and delicious, and the mud and slush deep and +all-pervading. You will like the climate when you get used to it.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p219"></a><img alt="p219.jpg (17K)" src="images/p219.jpg" height="449" width="327"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>You naturally wish to view the city; so you take an umbrella, an +overcoat, and a fan, and go forth. The prominent features you soon +locate and get familiar with; first you glimpse the ornamental upper +works of a long, snowy palace projecting above a grove of trees, and a +tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and +pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. That building is +the capitol; gossips will tell you that by the original estimates it was +to cost $12,000,000, and that the government did come within $21,200,000 +of building it for that sum.</p> + +<p>You stand at the back of the capitol to treat yourself to a view, and it +is a very noble one. You understand, the capitol stands upon the verge +of a high piece of table land, a fine commanding position, and its front +looks out over this noble situation for a city—but it don't see it, for +the reason that when the capitol extension was decided upon, the property +owners at once advanced their prices to such inhuman figures that the +people went down and built the city in the muddy low marsh behind the +temple of liberty; so now the lordly front of the building, with, its +imposing colonades, its, projecting, graceful wings, its, picturesque +groups of statuary, and its long terraced ranges of steps, flowing down +in white marble waves to the ground, merely looks out upon a sorrowful +little desert of cheap boarding houses.</p> + +<p>So you observe, that you take your view from the back of the capitol. +And yet not from the airy outlooks of the dome, by the way, because to +get there you must pass through the great rotunda: and to do that, you +would have to see the marvelous Historical Paintings that hang there, +and the bas-reliefs—and what have you done that you should suffer thus? +And besides, you might have to pass through the old part of the building, +and you could not help seeing Mr. Lincoln, as petrified by a young lady +artist for $10,000—and you might take his marble emancipation +proclamation, which he holds out in his hand and contemplates, for a +folded napkin; and you might conceive from his expression and his +attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing. Which is not the +case. Nobody knows what is the matter with him; but everybody feels for +him. Well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow, because it would be +utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the frescoes in it—and +why should you be interested in the delirium tremens of art?</p> + +<p>The capitol is a very noble and a very beautiful building, both within +and without, but you need not examine it now. Still, if you greatly +prefer going into the dome, go. Now your general glance gives you +picturesque stretches of gleaming water, on your left, with a sail here +and there and a lunatic asylum on shore; over beyond the water, on a +distant elevation, you see a squat yellow temple which your eye dwells +upon lovingly through a blur of unmanly moisture, for it recalls your +lost boyhood and the Parthenons done in molasses candy which made it +blest and beautiful. Still in the distance, but on this side of the +water and close to its edge, the Monument to the Father of his Country +towers out of the mud—sacred soil is the, customary term. It has the +aspect of a factory chimney with the top broken off. The skeleton of a +decaying scaffolding lingers about its summit, and tradition says that +the spirit of Washington often comes down and sits on those rafters to +enjoy this tribute of respect which the nation has reared as the symbol +of its unappeasable gratitude. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p221"></a><img alt="p221.jpg (25K)" src="images/p221.jpg" height="459" width="277"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The Monument is to be finished, some day, +and at that time our Washington will have risen still higher in the +nation's veneration, and will be known as the Great-Great-Grandfather of +his Country. The memorial Chimney stands in a quiet pastoral locality +that is full of reposeful expression. With a glass you can see the +cow-sheds about its base, and the contented sheep nimbling pebbles in the +desert solitudes that surround it, and the tired pigs dozing in the holy +calm of its protecting shadow.</p> + +<p>Now you wrench your gaze loose, and you look down in front of you and see +the broad Pennsylvania Avenue stretching straight ahead for a mile or +more till it brings up against the iron fence in front of a pillared +granite pile, the Treasury building-an edifice that would command respect +in any capital. The stores and hotels that wall in this broad avenue are +mean, and cheap, and dingy, and are better left without comment. Beyond +the Treasury is a fine large white barn, with wide unhandsome grounds +about it. The President lives there. It is ugly enough outside, but +that is nothing to what it is inside. Dreariness, flimsiness, bad taste +reduced to mathematical completeness is what the inside offers to the +eye, if it remains yet what it always has been.</p> + +<p>The front and right hand views give you the city at large. It is a wide +stretch of cheap little brick houses, with here and there a noble +architectural pile lifting itself out of the midst-government buildings, +these. If the thaw is still going on when you come down and go about +town, you will wonder at the short-sightedness of the city fathers, when +you come to inspect the streets, in that they do not dilute the mud a +little more and use them for canals.</p> + +<p>If you inquire around a little, you will find that there are more +boardinghouses to the square acre in Washington than there are in any +other city in the land, perhaps. If you apply for a home in one of them, +it will seem odd to you to have the landlady inspect you with a severe +eye and then ask you if you are a member of Congress. Perhaps, just as a +pleasantry, you will say yes. And then she will tell you that she is +"full." Then you show her her advertisement in the morning paper, and +there she stands, convicted and ashamed. She will try to blush, and it +will be only polite in you to take the effort for the deed. She shows +you her rooms, now, and lets you take one—but she makes you pay in +advance for it. That is what you will get for pretending to be a member +of Congress. If you had been content to be merely a private citizen, +your trunk would have been sufficient security for your board. If you +are curious and inquire into this thing, the chances are that your +landlady will be ill-natured enough to say that the person and property +of a Congressman are exempt from arrest or detention, and that with the +tears in her eyes she has seen several of the people's representatives +walk off to their several States and Territories carrying her unreceipted +board bills in their pockets for keepsakes. And before you have been in +Washington many weeks you will be mean enough to believe her, too.</p> + +<p>Of course you contrive to see everything and find out everything. And +one of the first and most startling things you find out is, that every +individual you encounter in the City of Washington almost—and certainly +every separate and distinct individual in the public employment, from the +highest bureau chief, clear down to the maid who scrubs Department halls, +the night watchmen of the public buildings and the darkey boy who +purifies the Department spittoons—represents Political Influence. +Unless you can get the ear of a Senator, or a Congressman, or a Chief of +a Bureau or Department, and persuade him to use his "influence" in your +behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in +Washington. Mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to +you without "influence." The population of Washington consists pretty +much entirely of government employee and the people who board them. +There are thousands of these employees, and they have gathered there from +every corner of the Union and got their berths through the intercession +(command is nearer the word) of the Senators and Representatives of their +respective States. It would be an odd circumstance to see a girl get +employment at three or four dollars a week in one of the great public +cribs without any political grandee to back her, but merely because she +was worthy, and competent, and a good citizen of a free country that +"treats all persons alike." Washington would be mildly thunderstruck at +such a thing as that. If you are a member of Congress, (no offence,) and +one of your constituents who doesn't know anything, and does not want to +go into the bother of learning something, and has no money, and no +employment, and can't earn a living, comes besieging you for help, do you +say, "Come, my friend, if your services were valuable you could get +employment elsewhere—don't want you here?" Oh, no: You take him to a +Department and say, "Here, give this person something to pass away the +time at—and a salary"—and the thing is done. You throw him on his +country. He is his country's child, let his country support him. There +is something good and motherly about Washington, the grand old benevolent +National Asylum for the Helpless.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p224"></a><img alt="p224.jpg (18K)" src="images/p224.jpg" height="425" width="339"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The wages received by this great hive of employees are placed at the +liberal figure meet and just for skilled and competent labor. Such of +them as are immediately employed about the two Houses of Congress, are +not only liberally paid also, but are remembered in the customary Extra +Compensation bill which slides neatly through, annually, with the general +grab that signalizes the last night of a session, and thus twenty per +cent. is added to their wages, for—for fun, no doubt.</p> + +<p>Washington Hawkins' new life was an unceasing delight to him. Senator +Dilworthy lived sumptuously, and Washington's quarters were +charming—gas; running water, hot and cold; bath-room, coal-fires, rich carpets, +beautiful pictures on the walls; books on religion, temperance, public +charities and financial schemes; trim colored servants, dainty +food—everything a body could wish for. And as for stationery, there was no +end to it; the government furnished it; postage stamps were not +needed—the Senator's frank could convey a horse through the mails, if necessary.</p> + +<p>And then he saw such dazzling company. Renowned generals and admirals +who had seemed but colossal myths when he was in the far west, went in +and out before him or sat at the Senator's table, solidified into +palpable flesh and blood; famous statesmen crossed his path daily; that +once rare and awe-inspiring being, a Congressman, was become a common +spectacle—a spectacle so common, indeed, that he could contemplate it +without excitement, even without embarrassment; foreign ministers were +visible to the naked eye at happy intervals; he had looked upon the +President himself, and lived. And more; this world of enchantment teemed +with speculation—the whole atmosphere was thick with hand that indeed +was Washington Hawkins' native air; none other refreshed his lungs so +gratefully. He had found paradise at last.</p> + +<p>The more he saw of his chief the Senator, the more he honored him, and +the more conspicuously the moral grandeur of his character appeared to +stand out. To possess the friendship and the kindly interest of such a +man, Washington said in a letter to Louise, was a happy fortune for a +young man whose career had been so impeded and so clouded as his.</p> + +<p>The weeks drifted by;—Harry Brierly flirted, danced, added lustre to the +brilliant Senatorial receptions, and diligently "buzzed" and +"button-holed" Congressmen in the interest of the Columbus River scheme; meantime +Senator Dilworthy labored hard in the same interest—and in others of +equal national importance. Harry wrote frequently to Sellers, and always +encouragingly; and from these letters it was easy to see that Harry was a +pet with all Washington, and was likely to carry the thing through; that +the assistance rendered him by "old Dilworthy" was pretty fair—pretty +fair; "and every little helps, you know," said Harry.</p> + +<p>Washington wrote Sellers officially, now and then. In one of his letters +it appeared that whereas no member of the House committee favored the +scheme at first, there was now needed but one more vote to compass a +majority report. Closing sentence:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<br> "Providence seems to further our efforts." +<br> (Signed,) "ABNER DILWORTHY, U. S. S., +<br> +<br> per WASHINGTON HAWKINS, P. S." +<br> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>At the end of a week, Washington was able to send the happy news, +officially, as usual,—that the needed vote had been added and the bill +favorably reported from the Committee. Other letters recorded its perils +in Committee of the whole, and by and by its victory, by just the skin of +its teeth, on third reading and final passage. Then came letters telling +of Mr. Dilworthy's struggles with a stubborn majority in his own +Committee in the Senate; of how these gentlemen succumbed, one by one, +till a majority was secured.</p> + +<p>Then there was a hiatus. Washington watched every move on the board, and +he was in a good position to do this, for he was clerk of this committee, +and also one other. He received no salary as private secretary, but +these two clerkships, procured by his benefactor, paid him an aggregate +of twelve dollars a day, without counting the twenty percent extra +compensation which would of course be voted to him on the last night of +the session.</p> + +<p>He saw the bill go into Committee of the whole and struggle for its life +again, and finally worry through. In the fullness of time he noted its +second reading, and by and by the day arrived when the grand ordeal came, +and it was put upon its final passage. Washington listened with bated +breath to the "Aye!" "No!" "No!" "Aye!" of the voters, for a few dread +minutes, and then could bear the suspense no longer. He ran down from +the gallery and hurried home to wait.</p> + +<p>At the end of two or three hours the Senator arrived in the bosom of his +family, and dinner was waiting. Washington sprang forward, with the +eager question on his lips, and the Senator said:</p> + +<p>"We may rejoice freely, now, my son—Providence has crowned our efforts +with success."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p227"></a><img alt="p227.jpg (13K)" src="images/p227.jpg" height="341" width="317"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Washington sent grand good news to Col. Sellers that night. To Louise he +wrote:</p> + +<p>"It is beautiful to hear him talk when his heart is full of thankfulness +for some manifestation of the Divine favor. You shall know him, some day +my Louise, and knowing him you will honor him, as I do."</p> + +<p>Harry wrote:</p> + +<p>"I pulled it through, Colonel, but it was a tough job, there is no +question about that. There was not a friend to the measure in the House +committee when I began, and not a friend in the Senate committee except +old Dil himself, but they were all fixed for a majority report when I +hauled off my forces. Everybody here says you can't get a thing like +this through Congress without buying committees for straight-out cash on +delivery, but I think I've taught them a thing or two—if I could only +make them believe it. When I tell the old residenters that this thing +went through without buying a vote or making a promise, they say, 'That's +rather too thin.' And when I say thin or not thin it's a fact, anyway, +they say, 'Come, now, but do you really believe that?' and when I say I +don't believe anything about it, I know it, they smile and say, 'Well, +you are pretty innocent, or pretty blind, one or the other—there's no +getting around that.' Why they really do believe that votes have been +bought—they do indeed. But let them keep on thinking so. I have found +out that if a man knows how to talk to women, and has a little gift in +the way of argument with men, he can afford to play for an appropriation +against a money bag and give the money bag odds in the game. We've raked +in $200,000 of Uncle Sam's money, say what they will—and there is more +where this came from, when we want it, and I rather fancy I am the person +that can go in and occupy it, too, if I do say it myself, that shouldn't, +perhaps. I'll be with you within a week. Scare up all the men you can, +and put them to work at once. When I get there I propose to make things +hum."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p229"></a><img alt="p229.jpg (22K)" src="images/p229.jpg" height="331" width="469"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The great news lifted Sellers into the clouds. He went to work on +the instant. He flew hither and thither making contracts, engaging men, +and steeping his soul in the ecstasies of business. He was the happiest +man in Missouri. And Louise was the happiest woman; for presently came a +letter from Washington which said:</p> + +<p>"Rejoice with me, for the long agony is over! We have waited patiently +and faithfully, all these years, and now at last the reward is at hand. +A man is to pay our family $40,000 for the Tennessee Land! It is but a +little sum compared to what we could get by waiting, but I do so long to +see the day when I can call you my own, that I have said to myself, +better take this and enjoy life in a humble way than wear out our best +days in this miserable separation. Besides, I can put this money into +operations here that will increase it a hundred fold, yes, a thousand +fold, in a few months. The air is full of such chances, and I know our +family would consent in a moment that I should put in their shares with +mine. Without a doubt we shall be worth half a million dollars in a year +from this time—I put it at the very lowest figure, because it is always +best to be on the safe side—half a million at the very lowest +calculation, and then your father will give his consent and we can marry +at last. Oh, that will be a glorious day. Tell our friends the good +news—I want all to share it."</p> + +<p>And she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be kept +still for the present. The careful father also told her to write +Washington and warn him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a +little and advise with one or two wise old heads. She did this. And she +managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the +most careless observer might have seen by her springing step and her +radiant countenance that some fine piece of good fortune had descended +upon her.</p> + +<p>Harry joined the Colonel at Stone's Landing, and that dead place sprang +into sudden life. A swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air was +filled with the cheery music of labor. Harry had been constituted +engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into +his work. He moved among his hirelings like a king. Authority seemed to +invest him with a new splendor. Col. Sellers, as general superintendent +of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could +be—and more. These two grandees went at their imposing "improvement" with +the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the +foundations of the globe.</p> + +<p>They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above +the Landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans +showed that the process of straightening would not only shorten distance +but increase the "fall." They started a cut-off canal across the +peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth +and slopping around in the mud as followed the order to the men, had +never been seen in that region before. There was such a panic among the +turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be found within +three miles of Stone's Landing. They took the young and the aged, the +decrepit and the sick upon their backs and left for tide-water in +disorderly procession, the tadpoles following and the bull-frogs bringing +up the rear.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p231"></a><img alt="p231.jpg (31K)" src="images/p231.jpg" height="323" width="553"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait, because the +appropriation had not come. Harry said he had written to hurry up the +money and it would be along presently. So the work continued, on Monday. +Stone's Landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time. +Sellers threw a lot or two on the market, "as a feeler," and they sold +well. He re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and +still had money left. He started a bank account, in a small way—and +mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to +everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing—on the contrary, as a matter +of life-long standing. He could not keep from buying trifles every day +that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his +bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula, +"Charge it" Harry sold a lot or two, also—and had a dinner party or two +at Hawkeye and a general good time with the money. Both men held on +pretty strenuously for the coming big prices, however.</p> + +<p>At the end of a month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the +New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation +Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no +purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even +answered. The workmen were clamorous, now. The Colonel and Harry +retired to consult.</p> + +<p>"What's to be done?" said the Colonel.</p> + +<p>"Hang'd if I know."</p> + +<p>"Company say anything?"</p> + +<p>"Not a word."</p> + +<p>"You telegraphed yesterday?"</p> + +<p>Yes, and the day before, too."</p> + +<p>"No answer?"</p> + +<p>"None-confound them!"</p> + +<p>Then there was a long pause. Finally both spoke at once:</p> + +<p>"I've got it!"</p> + +<p>"I've got it!"</p> + +<p>"What's yours?" said Harry.</p> + +<p>"Give the boys thirty-day orders on the Company for the back pay."</p> + +<p>"That's it-that's my own idea to a dot. But then—but then——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said the Colonel; "I know they can't wait for the orders +to go to New York and be cashed, but what's the reason they can't get +them discounted in Hawkeye?"</p> + +<p>"Of course they can. That solves the difficulty. Everybody knows the +appropriation's been made and the Company's perfectly good."</p> + +<p>So the orders were given and the men appeased, though they grumbled a +little at first. The orders went well enough for groceries and such +things at a fair discount, and the work danced along gaily for a time. +Two or three purchasers put up frame houses at the Landing and moved in, +and of course a far-sighted but easy-going journeyman printer wandered +along and started the "Napoleon Weekly Telegraph and Literary +Repository"—a paper with a Latin motto from the Unabridged dictionary, +and plenty of "fat" conversational tales and double-leaded poetry—all +for two dollars a year, strictly in advance. Of course the merchants +forwarded the orders at once to New York—and never heard of them again.</p> + +<p>At the end of some weeks Harry's orders were a drug in the market—nobody +would take them at any discount whatever. The second month closed with a +riot.—Sellers was absent at the time, and Harry began an active absence +himself with the mob at his heels. But being on horseback, he had the +advantage. He did not tarry in Hawkeye, but went on, thus missing +several appointments with creditors. He was far on his flight eastward, +and well out of danger when the next morning dawned. He telegraphed the +Colonel to go down and quiet the laborers—he was bound east for +money—everything would be right in a week—tell the men so—tell them to rely +on him and not be afraid.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p232"></a><img alt="p232.jpg (70K)" src="images/p232.jpg" height="841" width="573"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Sellers found the mob quiet enough when he reached the Landing. +They had gutted the Navigation office, then piled the beautiful engraved +stock-books and things in the middle of the floor and enjoyed the bonfire +while it lasted. They had a liking for the Colonel, but still they had +some idea of hanging him, as a sort of make-shift that might answer, +after a fashion, in place of more satisfactory game.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p234"></a><img alt="p234.jpg (42K)" src="images/p234.jpg" height="589" width="429"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>But they made the mistake of waiting to hear what he had to say first. +Within fifteen minutes his tongue had done its work and they were all +rich men.—He gave every one of them a lot in the suburbs of the city of +Stone's Landing, within a mile and a half of the future post office and +railway station, and they promised to resume work as soon as Harry got +east and started the money along. Now things were blooming and pleasant +again, but the men had no money, and nothing to live on. The Colonel +divided with them the money he still had in bank—an act which had +nothing surprising about it because he was generally ready to divide +whatever he had with anybody that wanted it, and it was owing to this +very trait that his family spent their days in poverty and at times were +pinched with famine.</p> + +<p>When the men's minds had cooled and Sellers was gone, they hated +themselves for letting him beguile them with fine speeches, but it was +too late, now—they agreed to hang him another time—such time as +Providence should appoint.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Rumors of Ruth's frivolity and worldliness at Fallkill traveled to +Philadelphia in due time, and occasioned no little undertalk among the +Bolton relatives.</p> + +<p>Hannah Shoecraft told another, cousin that, for her part, she never +believed that Ruth had so much more "mind" than other people; and Cousin +Hulda added that she always thought Ruth was fond of admiration, and that +was the reason she was unwilling to wear plain clothes and attend +Meeting. The story that Ruth was "engaged" to a young gentleman of +fortune in Fallkill came with the other news, and helped to give point to +the little satirical remarks that went round about Ruth's desire to be a +doctor!</p> + +<p>Margaret Bolton was too wise to be either surprised or alarmed by these +rumors. They might be true; she knew a woman's nature too well to think +them improbable, but she also knew how steadfast Ruth was in her +purposes, and that, as a brook breaks into ripples and eddies and dances +and sports by the way, and yet keeps on to the sea, it was in Ruth's +nature to give back cheerful answer to the solicitations of friendliness +and pleasure, to appear idly delaying even, and sporting in the sunshine, +while the current of her resolution flowed steadily on.</p> + +<p>That Ruth had this delight in the mere surface play of life that she +could, for instance, be interested in that somewhat serious by-play +called "flirtation," or take any delight in the exercise of those little +arts of pleasing and winning which are none the less genuine and charming +because they are not intellectual, Ruth, herself, had never suspected +until she went to Fallkill. She had believed it her duty to subdue her +gaiety of temperament, and let nothing divert her from what are called +serious pursuits: In her limited experience she brought everything to the +judgment of her own conscience, and settled the affairs of all the world +in her own serene judgment hall. Perhaps her mother saw this, and saw +also that there was nothing in the Friends' society to prevent her from +growing more and more opinionated.</p> + +<p>When Ruth returned to Philadelphia, it must be confessed—though it would +not have been by her—that a medical career did seem a little less +necessary for her than formerly; and coming back in a glow of triumph, as +it were, and in the consciousness of the freedom and life in a lively +society and in new and sympathetic friendship, she anticipated pleasure +in an attempt to break up the stiffness and levelness of the society at +home, and infusing into it something of the motion and sparkle which were +so agreeable at Fallkill. She expected visits from her new friends, she +would have company, the new books and the periodicals about which all the +world was talking, and, in short, she would have life.</p> + +<p>For a little while she lived in this atmosphere which she had brought +with her. Her mother was delighted with this change in her, with the +improvement in her health and the interest she exhibited in home affairs. +Her father enjoyed the society of his favorite daughter as he did few +things besides; he liked her mirthful and teasing ways, and not less a +keen battle over something she had read. He had been a great reader all +his life, and a remarkable memory had stored his mind with encyclopaedic +information. It was one of Ruth's delights to cram herself with some out +of the way subject and endeavor to catch her father; but she almost +always failed. Mr. Bolton liked company, a house full of it, and the +mirth of young people, and he would have willingly entered into any +revolutionary plans Ruth might have suggested in relation to Friends' +society.</p> + +<p>But custom and the fixed order are stronger than the most enthusiastic +and rebellious young lady, as Ruth very soon found. In spite of all her +brave efforts, her frequent correspondence, and her determined animation, +her books and her music, she found herself settling into the clutches of +the old monotony, and as she realized the hopelessness of her endeavors, +the medical scheme took new hold of her, and seemed to her the only +method of escape.</p> + +<p>"Mother, thee does not know how different it is in Fallkill, how much +more interesting the people are one meets, how much more life there is."</p> + +<p>"But thee will find the world, child, pretty much all the same, when thee +knows it better. I thought once as thee does now, and had as little +thought of being a Friend as thee has. Perhaps when thee has seen more, +thee will better appreciate a quiet life."</p> + +<p>"Thee married young. I shall not marry young, and perhaps not at all," +said Ruth, with a look of vast experience.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps thee doesn't know thee own mind; I have known persons of thy +age who did not. Did thee see anybody whom thee would like to live with +always in Fallkill?"</p> + +<p>"Not always," replied Ruth with a little laugh. "Mother, I think I +wouldn't say 'always' to any one until I have a profession and am as +independent as he is. Then my love would be a free act, and not in any +way a necessity."</p> + +<p>Margaret Bolton smiled at this new-fangled philosophy. "Thee will find +that love, Ruth, is a thing thee won't reason about, when it comes, nor +make any bargains about. Thee wrote that Philip Sterling was at +Fallkill."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Henry Brierly, a friend of his; a very amusing young fellow and +not so serious-minded as Philip, but a bit of a fop maybe."</p> + +<p>"And thee preferred the fop to the serious-minded?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't prefer anybody; but Henry Brierly was good company, which +Philip wasn't always."</p> + +<p>"Did thee know thee father had been in correspondence with Philip?"</p> + +<p>Ruth looked up surprised and with a plain question in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's not about thee."</p> + +<p>"What then?" and if there was any shade of disappointment in her tone, +probably Ruth herself did not know it.</p> + +<p>"It's about some land up in the country. That man Bigler has got father +into another speculation."</p> + +<p>"That odious man! Why will father have anything to do with him? Is it +that railroad?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Father advanced money and took land as security, and whatever has +gone with the money and the bonds, he has on his hands a large tract of +wild land."</p> + +<p>"And what has Philip to do with that?"</p> + +<p>"It has good timber, if it could ever be got out, and father says that +there must be coal in it; it's in a coal region. He wants Philip to +survey it, and examine it for indications of coal."</p> + +<p>"It's another of father's fortunes, I suppose," said Ruth. "He has put +away so many fortunes for us that I'm afraid we never shall find them."</p> + +<p>Ruth was interested in it nevertheless, and perhaps mainly because Philip +was to be connected with the enterprise. Mr. Bigler came to dinner with +her father next day, and talked a great deal about Mr. Bolton's +magnificent tract of land, extolled the sagacity that led him to secure +such a property, and led the talk along to another railroad which would +open a northern communication to this very land.</p> + +<p>"Pennybacker says it's full of coal, he's no doubt of it, and a railroad +to strike the Erie would make it a fortune."</p> + +<p>"Suppose you take the land and work the thing up, Mr. Bigler; you may +have the tract for three dollars an acre."</p> + +<p>"You'd throw it away, then," replied Mr. Bigler, "and I'm not the man to +take advantage of a friend. But if you'll put a mortgage on it for the +northern road, I wouldn't mind taking an interest, if Pennybacker is +willing; but Pennybacker, you know, don't go much on land, he sticks to +the legislature." And Mr. Bigler laughed.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Bigler had gone, Ruth asked her father about Philip's connection +with the land scheme.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing definite," said Mr. Bolton. "Philip is showing aptitude +for his profession. I hear the best reports of him in New York, though +those sharpers don't 'intend to do anything but use him. I've written +and offered him employment in surveying and examining the land. We want +to know what it is. And if there is anything in it that his enterprise +can dig out, he shall have an interest. I should be glad to give the +young fellow a lift."</p> + +<p>All his life Eli Bolton had been giving young fellows a lift, and +shouldering the loses when things turned out unfortunately. His ledger, +take-it-altogether, would not show a balance on the right side; but +perhaps the losses on his books will turn out to be credits in a world +where accounts are kept on a different basis. The left hand of the +ledger will appear the right, looked at from the other side.</p> + +<p>Philip, wrote to Ruth rather a comical account of the bursting up of the +city of Napoleon and the navigation improvement scheme, of Harry's flight +and the Colonel's discomfiture. Harry left in such a hurry that he +hadn't even time to bid Miss Laura Hawkins good-bye, but he had no doubt +that Harry would console himself with the next pretty face he +saw—a remark which was thrown in for Ruth's benefit. Col. Sellers had in all +probability, by this time, some other equally brilliant speculation in +his brain.</p> + +<p>As to the railroad, Philip had made up his mind that it was merely kept +on foot for speculative purposes in Wall street, and he was about to quit +it. Would Ruth be glad to hear, he wondered, that he was coming East? +For he was coming, in spite of a letter from Harry in New York, advising +him to hold on until he had made some arrangements in regard to +contracts, he to be a little careful about Sellers, who was somewhat +visionary, Harry said.</p> + +<p>The summer went on without much excitement for Ruth. She kept up a +correspondence with Alice, who promised a visit in the fall, she read, +she earnestly tried to interest herself in home affairs and such people +as came to the house; but she found herself falling more and more into +reveries, and growing weary of things as they were. She felt that +everybody might become in time like two relatives from a Shaker +establishment in Ohio, who visited the Boltons about this time, a father +and son, clad exactly alike, and alike in manners. The son; however, +who was not of age, was more unworldly and sanctimonious than his father; +he always addressed his parent as "Brother Plum," and bore himself, +altogether in such a superior manner that Ruth longed to put bent pins in +his chair. Both father and son wore the long, single breasted collarless +coats of their society, without buttons, before or behind, but with a row +of hooks and eyes on either side in front. It was Ruth's suggestion that +the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the +small of the back where the buttons usually are.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p240"></a><img alt="p240.jpg (20K)" src="images/p240.jpg" height="587" width="321"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Amusing as this Shaker caricature of the Friends was, it oppressed Ruth +beyond measure; and increased her feeling of being stifled.</p> + +<p>It was a most unreasonable feeling. No home could be pleasanter than +Ruth's. The house, a little out of the city; was one of those elegant +country residences which so much charm visitors to the suburbs of +Philadelphia. A modern dwelling and luxurious in everything that wealth +could suggest for comfort, it stood in the midst of exquisitely kept +lawns, with groups of trees, parterres of flowers massed in colors, with +greenhouse, grapery and garden; and on one side, the garden sloped away +in undulations to a shallow brook that ran over a pebbly bottom and sang +under forest trees. The country about teas the perfection of cultivated +landscape, dotted with cottages, and stately mansions of Revolutionary +date, and sweet as an English country-side, whether seen in the soft +bloom of May or in the mellow ripeness of late October.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p241"></a><img alt="p241.jpg (79K)" src="images/p241.jpg" height="863" width="575"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It needed only the peace of the mind within, to make it a paradise. +One riding by on the Old Germantown road, and seeing a young girl +swinging in the hammock on the piazza and, intent upon some volume of old +poetry or the latest novel, would no doubt have envied a life so idyllic. +He could not have imagined that the young girl was reading a volume of +reports of clinics and longing to be elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Ruth could not have been more discontented if all the wealth about her +had been as unsubstantial as a dream. Perhaps she so thought it.</p> + +<p>"I feel," she once said to her father, "as if I were living in a house of +cards."</p> + +<p>"And thee would like to turn it into a hospital?"</p> + +<p>"No. But tell me father," continued Ruth, not to be put off, "is thee +still going on with that Bigler and those other men who come here and +entice thee?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton smiled, as men do when they talk with women about "business" +"Such men have their uses, Ruth. They keep the world active, and I owe a +great many of my best operations to such men. Who knows, Ruth, but this +new land purchase, which I confess I yielded a little too much to Bigler +in, may not turn out a fortune for thee and the rest of the children?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, father, thee sees every thing in a rose-colored light. I do believe +thee wouldn't have so readily allowed me to begin the study of medicine, +if it hadn't had the novelty of an experiment to thee."</p> + +<p>"And is thee satisfied with it?"</p> + +<p>"If thee means, if I have had enough of it, no. I just begin to see what +I can do in it, and what a noble profession it is for a woman. Would +thee have me sit here like a bird on a bough and wait for somebody to +come and put me in a cage?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton was not sorry to divert the talk from his own affairs, and he +did not think it worth while to tell his family of a performance that +very day which was entirely characteristic of him.</p> + +<p>Ruth might well say that she felt as if she were living in a house of +cards, although the Bolton household had no idea of the number of perils +that hovered over them, any more than thousands of families in America +have of the business risks and contingences upon which their prosperity +and luxury hang.</p> + +<p>A sudden call upon Mr. Bolton for a large sum of money, which must be +forthcoming at once, had found him in the midst of a dozen ventures, from +no one of which a dollar could be realized. It was in vain that he +applied to his business acquaintances and friends; it was a period of +sudden panic and no money. "A hundred thousand! Mr. Bolton," said +Plumly. "Good God, if you should ask me for ten, I shouldn't know where +to get it."</p> + +<p>And yet that day Mr. Small (Pennybacker, Bigler and Small) came to Mr. +Bolton with a piteous story of ruin in a coal operation, if he could not +raise ten thousand dollars. Only ten, and he was sure of a fortune. +Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small's notes for a +large amount in his safe, labeled "doubtful;" he had helped him again and +again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a +faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant +of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton +put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping +together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar, +who had never kept a promise to him nor paid a debt.</p> + +<p>Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that +this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon +human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a +whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar +newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished +speculator in lands and mines this remark:—"I wasn't worth a cent two +years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars."</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling +enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been +such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. It was hard to come +down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a General Superintendent +and the most conspicuous man in the community. It was sad to see his +name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected at +intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed +on with rhetorical tar and feathers.</p> + +<p>But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork +that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time.</p> + +<p>He had to bolster up his wife's spirits every now and then. On one of +these occasions he said:</p> + +<p>"It's all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little +while. There's $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again: +Harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that's to be expected—you +can't move these big operations to the tune of Fisher's Hornpipe, you +know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you'll +see! I expect the news every day now."</p> + +<p>"But Beriah, you've been expecting it every day, all along, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes; yes—I don't know but I have. But anyway, the longer it's +delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start—same as +every day you live brings you nearer to—nearer—"</p> + +<p>"The grave?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no—not that exactly; but you can't understand these things, Polly +dear—women haven't much head for business, you know. You make yourself +perfectly comfortable, old lady, and you'll see how we'll trot this right +along. Why bless you, let the appropriation lag, if it wants to—that's +no great matter—there's a bigger thing than that."</p> + +<p>"Bigger than $200,000, Beriah?"</p> + +<p>"Bigger, child?—why, what's $200,000? Pocket money! Mere pocket money! +Look at the railroad! Did you forget the railroad? It ain't many months +till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming +right along behind it. Where'll it be by the middle of summer? Just +stop and fancy a moment—just think a little—don't anything suggest +itself? Bless your heart, you dear women live right in the present all +the time—but a man, why a man lives——</p> + +<p>"In the future, Beriah? But don't we live in the future most too much, +Beriah? We do somehow seem to manage to live on next year's crop of corn +and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along, +but sometimes it's not a robust diet,—Beriah. But don't look that way, +dear—don't mind what I say. I don't mean to fret, I don't mean to +worry; and I don't, once a month, do I, dear? But when I get a little +low and feel bad, I get a bit troubled and worrisome, but it don't mean +anything in the world. It passes right away. I know you're doing all +you can, and I don't want to seem repining and ungrateful—for I'm not, +Beriah—you know I'm not, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Lord bless you, child, I know you are the very best little woman that +ever lived—that ever lived on the whole face of the Earth! And I know +that I would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and scheme +for you with all my might. And I'll bring things all right yet, +honey—cheer up and don't you fear. The railroad——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a +body forgets everything. Yes, the railroad—tell me about the railroad."</p> + +<p>"Aha, my girl, don't you see? Things ain't so dark, are they? Now I +didn't forget the railroad. Now just think for a moment—just figure up +a little on the future dead moral certainties. For instance, call this +waiter St. Louis.</p> + +<p>"And we'll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from St. Louis to +this potato, which is Slouchburg:</p> + +<p>"Then with this carving knife we'll continue the railroad from Slouchburg +to Doodleville, shown by the black pepper:</p> + +<p>"Then we run along the—yes—the comb—to the tumbler that's Brimstone:</p> + +<p>"Thence by the pipe to Belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar:</p> + +<p>"Thence to, to—that quill—Catfish—hand me the pincushion, Marie +Antoinette:</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="MapA"></a><img alt="MapA.jpg (32K)" src="images/MapA.jpg" height="1565" width="475"> +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="MapB"></a><img alt="MapB.jpg (30K)" src="images/MapB.jpg" height="1559" width="475"> +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="MapC"></a><img alt="MapC.jpg (46K)" src="images/MapC.jpg" height="1281" width="475"></center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<p>"Thence right along these shears to this horse, Babylon:</p> + +<p>"Then by the spoon to Bloody Run—thank you, the ink:</p> + +<p>"Thence to Hail Columbia—snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and +saucer close up, that's Hail Columbia:</p> + +<p>"Then—let me open my knife—to Hark-from-the-Tomb, where we'll put the +candle-stick—only a little distance from Hail Columbia to +Hark-from-the-Tomb—down-grade all the way.</p> + +<p>"And there we strike Columbus River—pass me two or throe skeins of +thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and +the rat trap for Stone's Landing-Napoleon, I mean—and you can see how +much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your +railroad complete, and showing its continuation to Hallelujah and thence +to Corruptionville.</p> + +<p>"Now then-them you are! It's a beautiful road, beautiful. Jeff Thompson +can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through an aneroid, +or a theodolite, or whatever they call it—he calls it sometimes one and +sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest, I +reckon. But ain't it a ripping toad, though? I tell you, it'll make a +stir when it gets along. Just see what a country it goes through. +There's your onions at Slouchburg—noblest onion country that graces +God's footstool; and there's your turnip country all around +Doodleville—bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there when they get +that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips—if +there's any in them; and I reckon there is, because Congress has made an +appropriation of money to test the thing, and they wouldn't have done +that just on conjecture, of course. And now we come to the Brimstone +region—cattle raised there till you can't rest—and corn, and all that +sort of thing. Then you've got a little stretch along through Belshazzar +that don't produce anything now—at least nothing but rocks—but +irrigation will fetch it. Then from Catfish to Babylon it's a little +swampy, but there's dead loads of peat down under there somewhere. Next +is the Bloody Run and Hail Columbia country—tobacco enough can be raised +there to support two such railroads. Next is the sassparilla region. +I reckon there's enough of that truck along in there on the line of the +pocket-knife, from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the Tomb to fat up all the +consumptives in all the hospitals from Halifax to the Holy Land. It just +grows like weeds! I've got a little belt of sassparilla land in there +just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my little Universal +Expectorant to get into shape in my head. And I'll fix that, you know. +One of these days I'll have all the nations of the earth expecto—"</p> + +<p>"But Beriah, dear—"</p> + +<p>"Don't interrupt me; Polly—I don't want you to lose the run of the +map—well, take your toy-horse, James Fitz-James, if you must have it—and run +along with you. Here, now—the soap will do for Babylon. Let me +see—where was I? Oh yes—now we run down to Stone's Lan—Napoleon—now we +run down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at that, now. Perfectly +straight line-straight as the way to the grave.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p248"></a><img alt="p248.jpg (34K)" src="images/p248.jpg" height="325" width="543"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And see where it leaves +Hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear out in the cold. That +town's as bound to die as—well if I owned it I'd get its obituary ready, +now, and notify the mourners. Polly, mark my words—in three years from +this, Hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness. You'll see. And just look at +that river—noblest stream that meanders over the thirsty +earth!—calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom! Railroad goes +all over it and all through it—wades right along on stilts. Seventeen +bridges in three miles and a half-forty-nine bridges from +Hark-from-the-Tomb to Stone's Landing altogether—forty nine bridges, and culverts +enough to culvert creation itself! Hadn't skeins of thread enough to +represent them all—but you get an idea—perfect trestle-work of bridges +for seventy two miles: Jeff Thompson and I fixed all that, you know; he's +to get the contracts and I'm to put them through on the divide. Just +oceans of money in those bridges. It's the only part of the railroad I'm +interested in,—down along the line—and it's all I want, too. It's +enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon. Good enough country +plenty good enough—all it wants is population. That's all right—that +will come. And it's no bad country now for calmness and solitude, I can +tell you—though there's no money in that, of course. No money, but a +man wants rest, a man wants peace—a man don't want to rip and tear +around all the time. And here we go, now, just as straight as a string +for Hallelujah—it's a beautiful angle—handsome up grade all the +way—and then away you go to Corruptionville, the gaudiest country for early +carrots and cauliflowers that ever—good missionary field, too. There +ain't such another missionary field outside the jungles of Central +Africa. And patriotic?—why they named it after Congress itself. Oh, +I warn you, my dear, there's a good time coming, and it'll be right along +before you know what you're about, too. That railroad's fetching it. +You see what it is as far as I've got, and if I had enough bottles and +soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins +onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, I should +exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of +inconceivable sublimity. So, don't you see? We've got the rail road to +fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that +$200,000 appropriation for? That's all right. I'd be willing to bet +anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will—"</p> + +<p>The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter, +warm from the post-office.</p> + +<p>"Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I'm sorry I was blue, but it +did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open +the letter—open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir out +of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says."</p> + +<p>The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<hr> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 3. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 3. *** + +***** This file should be named 5820-h.htm or 5820-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/2/5820/ + +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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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 3. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5820] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 3. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE GILDED AGE + +A Tale of Today + +by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner + +1873 + + +Part 3. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +Mr. Harry Brierly drew his pay as an engineer while he was living at the +City Hotel in Hawkeye. Mr. Thompson had been kind enough to say that it +didn't make any difference whether he was with the corps or not; and +although Harry protested to the Colonel daily and to Washington Hawkins +that he must go back at once to the line and superintend the lay-out with +reference to his contract, yet he did not go, but wrote instead long +letters to Philip, instructing him to keep his eye out, and to let him +know when any difficulty occurred that required his presence. + +Meantime Harry blossomed out in the society of Hawkeye, as he did in any +society where fortune cast him and he had the slightest opportunity to +expand. Indeed the talents of a rich and accomplished young fellow like +Harry were not likely to go unappreciated in such a place. A land +operator, engaged in vast speculations, a favorite in the select circles +of New York, in correspondence with brokers and bankers, intimate with +public men at Washington, one who could play the guitar and touch the +banjo lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the +language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye. Even Miss Laura +Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to +endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the meshes of her +attractions. + +"Gad," says Harry to the Colonel, "she's a superb creature, she'd make a +stir in New York, money or no money. There are men I know would give her +a railroad or an opera house, or whatever she wanted--at least they'd +promise." + +Harry had a way of looking at women as he looked at anything else in the +world he wanted, and he half resolved to appropriate Miss Laura, during +his stay in Hawkeye. Perhaps the Colonel divined his thoughts, or was +offended at Harry's talk, for he replied, + +"No nonsense, Mr. Brierly. Nonsense won't do in Hawkeye, not with my +friends. The Hawkins' blood is good blood, all the way from Tennessee. +The Hawkinses are under the weather now, but their Tennessee property is +millions when it comes into market." + +"Of course, Colonel. Not the least offense intended. But you can see +she is a fascinating woman. I was only thinking, as to this +appropriation, now, what such a woman could do in Washington. All +correct, too, all correct. Common thing, I assure you in Washington; the +wives of senators, representatives, cabinet officers, all sorts of wives, +and some who are not wives, use their influence. You want an +appointment? Do you go to Senator X? Not much. You get on the right +side of his wife. Is it an appropriation? You'd go 'straight to the +Committee, or to the Interior office, I suppose? You'd learn better than +that. It takes a woman to get any thing through the Land Office: I tell +you, Miss Laura would fascinate an appropriation right through the Senate +and the House of Representatives in one session, if she was in +Washington, as your friend, Colonel, of course as your friend." + +"Would you have her sign our petition?" asked the Colonel, innocently. + +Harry laughed. "Women don't get anything by petitioning Congress; nobody +does, that's for form. Petitions are referred somewhere, and that's the +last of them; you can't refer a handsome woman so easily, when she is +present. They prefer 'em mostly." + +The petition however was elaborately drawn up, with a glowing description +of Napoleon and the adjacent country, and a statement of the absolute +necessity to the prosperity of that region and of one of the stations on +the great through route to the Pacific, of the, immediate improvement of +Columbus River; to this was appended a map of the city and a survey of +the river. It was signed by all the people at Stone's Landing who could +write their names, by Col. Beriah Sellers, and the Colonel agreed to have +the names headed by all the senators and representatives from the state +and by a sprinkling of ex-governors and ex-members of congress. When +completed it was a formidable document. Its preparation and that of more +minute plots of the new city consumed the valuable time of Sellers and +Harry for many weeks, and served to keep them both in the highest +spirits. + +In the eyes of Washington Hawkins, Harry was a superior being, a man who +was able to bring things to pass in a way that excited his enthusiasm. +He never tired of listening to his stories of what he had done and of +what he was going to do. As for Washington, Harry thought he was a man +of ability and comprehension, but "too visionary," he told the Colonel. +The Colonel said he might be right, but he had never noticed anything +visionary about him. + +"He's got his plans, sir. God bless my soul, at his age, I was full of +plans. But experience sobers a man, I never touch any thing now that +hasn't been weighed in my judgment; and when Beriah Sellers puts his +judgment on a thing, there it is." + +Whatever might have been Harry's intentions with regard to Laura, he saw +more and more of her every day, until he got to be restless and nervous +when he was not with her. + +That consummate artist in passion allowed him to believe that the +fascination was mainly on his side, and so worked upon his vanity, while +inflaming his ardor, that he scarcely knew what he was about. Her +coolness and coyness were even made to appear the simple precautions of a +modest timidity, and attracted him even more than the little tendernesses +into which she was occasionally surprised. He could never be away from +her long, day or evening; and in a short time their intimacy was the town +talk. She played with him so adroitly that Harry thought she was +absorbed in love for him, and yet he was amazed that he did not get on +faster in his conquest. + +And when he thought of it, he was piqued as well. A country girl, poor +enough, that was evident; living with her family in a cheap and most +unattractive frame house, such as carpenters build in America, scantily +furnished and unadorned; without the adventitious aids of dress or jewels +or the fine manners of society--Harry couldn't understand it. But she +fascinated him, and held him just beyond the line of absolute familiarity +at the same time. While he was with her she made him forget that the +Hawkins' house was nothing but a wooden tenement, with four small square +rooms on the ground floor and a half story; it might have been a palace +for aught he knew. + +Perhaps Laura was older than Harry. She was, at any rate, at that ripe +age when beauty in woman seems more solid than in the budding period of +girlhood, and she had come to understand her powers perfectly, and to +know exactly how much of the susceptibility and archness of the girl it +was profitable to retain. She saw that many women, with the best +intentions, make a mistake of carrying too much girlishness into +womanhood. Such a woman would have attracted Harry at any time, but only +a woman with a cool brain and exquisite art could have made him lose his +head in this way; for Harry thought himself a man of the world. The +young fellow never dreamed that he was merely being experimented on; he +was to her a man of another society and another culture, different from +that she had any knowledge of except in books, and she was not unwilling +to try on him the fascinations of her mind and person. + +For Laura had her dreams. She detested the narrow limits in which her +lot was cast, she hated poverty. Much of her reading had been of modern +works of fiction, written by her own sex, which had revealed to her +something of her own powers and given her indeed, an exaggerated notion +of the influence, the wealth, the position a woman may attain who has +beauty and talent and ambition and a little culture, and is not too +scrupulous in the use of them. She wanted to be rich, she wanted luxury, +she wanted men at her feet, her slaves, and she had not--thanks to some +of the novels she had read--the nicest discrimination between notoriety +and reputation; perhaps she did not know how fatal notoriety usually is +to the bloom of womanhood. + +With the other Hawkins children Laura had been brought up in the belief +that they had inherited a fortune in the Tennessee Lands. She did not by +any means share all the delusion of the family; but her brain was not +seldom busy with schemes about it. Washington seemed to her only to +dream of it and to be willing to wait for its riches to fall upon him in +a golden shower; but she was impatient, and wished she were a man to take +hold of the business. + +"You men must enjoy your schemes and your activity and liberty to go +about the world," she said to Harry one day, when he had been talking of +New York and Washington and his incessant engagements. + +"Oh, yes," replied that martyr to business, "it's all well enough, if you +don't have too much of it, but it only has one object." + +"What is that?" + +"If a woman doesn't know, it's useless to tell her. What do you suppose +I am staying in Hawkeye for, week after week, when I ought to be with my +corps?" + +"I suppose it's your business with Col. Sellers about Napoleon, you've +always told me so," answered Laura, with a look intended to contradict +her words. + +"And now I tell you that is all arranged, I suppose you'll tell me I +ought to go?" + +"Harry!" exclaimed Laura, touching his arm and letting her pretty hand +rest there a moment. "Why should I want you to go away? The only person +in Hawkeye who understands me." + +"But you refuse to understand me," replied Harry, flattered but still +petulant. "You are like an iceberg, when we are alone." + +Laura looked up with wonder in her great eyes, and something like a blush +suffusing her face, followed by a look of langour that penetrated Harry's +heart as if it had been longing. + +"Did I ever show any want of confidence in you, Harry?" And she gave him +her hand, which Harry pressed with effusion--something in her manner told +him that he must be content with that favor. + +It was always so. She excited his hopes and denied him, inflamed his +passion and restrained it, and wound him in her toils day by day. To +what purpose? It was keen delight to Laura to prove that she had power +over men. + +Laura liked to hear about life at the east, and especially about the +luxurious society in which Mr. Brierly moved when he was at home. It +pleased her imagination to fancy herself a queen in it. + +"You should be a winter in Washington," Harry said. + +"But I have no acquaintances there." + +"Don't know any of the families of the congressmen? They like to have a +pretty woman staying with them." + +"Not one." + +"Suppose Col. Sellers should, have business there; say, about this +Columbus River appropriation?" + +"Sellers!" and Laura laughed. + +"You needn't laugh. Queerer things have happened. Sellers knows +everybody from Missouri, and from the West, too, for that matter. He'd +introduce you to Washington life quick enough. It doesn't need a crowbar +to break your way into society there as it does in Philadelphia. It's +democratic, Washington is. Money or beauty will open any door. If I +were a handsome woman, I shouldn't want any better place than the capital +to pick up a prince or a fortune." + +"Thank you," replied Laura. "But I prefer the quiet of home, and the +love of those I know;" and her face wore a look of sweet contentment and +unworldliness that finished Mr. Harry Brierly for the day. + +Nevertheless, the hint that Harry had dropped fell upon good ground, and +bore fruit an hundred fold; it worked in her mind until she had built up +a plan on it, and almost a career for herself. Why not, she said, why +shouldn't I do as other women have done? She took the first opportunity +to see Col. Sellers, and to sound him about the Washington visit. How +was he getting on with his navigation scheme, would it be likely to take +him from home to Jefferson City; or to Washington, perhaps? + +"Well, maybe. If the people of Napoleon want me to go to Washington, and +look after that matter, I might tear myself from my home. It's been +suggested to me, but--not a word of it to Mrs. Sellers and the children. +Maybe they wouldn't like to think of their father in Washington. But +Dilworthy, Senator Dilworthy, says to me, 'Colonel, you are the man, you +could influence more votes than any one else on such a measure, an old +settler, a man of the people, you know the wants of Missouri; you've a +respect for religion too, says he, and know how the cause of the gospel +goes with improvements: Which is true enough, Miss Laura, and hasn't been +enough thought of in connection with Napoleon. He's an able man, +Dilworthy, and a good man. A man has got to be good to succeed as he +has. He's only been in Congress a few years, and he must be worth a +million. First thing in the morning when he stayed with me he asked +about family prayers, whether we had 'em before or after breakfast. +I hated to disappoint the Senator, but I had to out with it, tell him we +didn't have 'em, not steady. He said he understood, business +interruptions and all that, some men were well enough without, but as for +him he never neglected the ordinances of religion. He doubted if the +Columbus River appropriation would succeed if we did not invoke the +Divine Blessing on it." + +Perhaps it is unnecessary to say to the reader that Senator Dilworthy had +not stayed with Col. Sellers while he was in Hawkeye; this visit to his +house being only one of the Colonel's hallucinations--one of those +instant creations of his fertile fancy, which were always flashing into +his brain and out of his mouth in the course of any conversation and +without interrupting the flow of it. + +During the summer Philip rode across the country and made a short visit +in Hawkeye, giving Harry an opportunity to show him the progress that he +and the Colonel had made in their operation at Stone's Landing, to +introduce him also to Laura, and to borrow a little money when he +departed. Harry bragged about his conquest, as was his habit, and took +Philip round to see his western prize. + +Laura received Mr. Philip with a courtesy and a slight hauteur that +rather surprised and not a little interested him. He saw at once that +she was older than Harry, and soon made up his mind that she was leading +his friend a country dance to which he was unaccustomed. At least he +thought he saw that, and half hinted as much to Harry, who flared up at +once; but on a second visit Philip was not so sure, the young lady was +certainly kind and friendly and almost confiding with Harry, and treated +Philip with the greatest consideration. She deferred to his opinions, +and listened attentively when he talked, and in time met his frank manner +with an equal frankness, so that he was quite convinced that whatever she +might feel towards Harry, she was sincere with him. Perhaps his manly +way did win her liking. Perhaps in her mind, she compared him with +Harry, and recognized in him a man to whom a woman might give her whole +soul, recklessly and with little care if she lost it. Philip was not +invincible to her beauty nor to the intellectual charm of her presence. + +The week seemed very short that he passed in Hawkeye, and when he bade +Laura good by, he seemed to have known her a year. + +"We shall see you again, Mr. Sterling," she said as she gave him her +hand, with just a shade of sadness in her handsome eyes. + +And when he turned away she followed him with a look that might have +disturbed his serenity, if he had not at the moment had a little square +letter in his breast pocket, dated at Philadelphia, and signed "Ruth." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +The visit of Senator Abner Dilworthy was an event in Hawkeye. When a +Senator, whose place is in Washington moving among the Great and guiding +the destinies of the nation, condescends to mingle among the people and +accept the hospitalities of such a place as Hawkeye, the honor is not +considered a light one. All, parties are flattered by it and politics +are forgotten in the presence of one so distinguished among his fellows. + +Senator Dilworthy, who was from a neighboring state, had been a Unionist +in the darkest days of his country, and had thriven by it, but was that +any reason why Col. Sellers, who had been a confederate and had not +thriven by it, should give him the cold shoulder? + +The Senator was the guest of his old friend Gen. Boswell, but it almost +appeared that he was indebted to Col. Sellers for the unreserved +hospitalities of the town. It was the large hearted Colonel who, in a +manner, gave him the freedom of the city. + +"You are known here, sir," said the Colonel, "and Hawkeye is proud of +you. You will find every door open, and a welcome at every hearthstone. +I should insist upon your going to my house, if you were not claimed by +your older friend Gen. Boswell. But you will mingle with our people, and +you will see here developments that will surprise you." + +The Colonel was so profuse in his hospitality that he must have made the +impression upon himself that he had entertained the Senator at his own +mansion during his stay; at any rate, he afterwards always spoke of him +as his guest, and not seldom referred to the Senator's relish of certain +viands on his table. He did, in fact, press him to dine upon the morning +of the day the Senator was going away. + +Senator Dilworthy was large and portly, though not tall--a pleasant +spoken man, a popular man with the people. + +He took a lively interest in the town and all the surrounding country, +and made many inquiries as to the progress of agriculture, of education, +and of religion, and especially as to the condition of the emancipated +race. + +"Providence," he said, "has placed them in our hands, and although you +and I, General, might have chosen a different destiny for them, under the +Constitution, yet Providence knows best." + +"You can't do much with 'em," interrupted Col. Sellers. "They are a +speculating race, sir, disinclined to work for white folks without +security, planning how to live by only working for themselves. Idle, +sir, there's my garden just a ruin of weeds. Nothing practical in 'em." + +"There is some truth in your observation, Colonel, but you must educate +them." + +"You educate the niggro and you make him more speculating than he was +before. If he won't stick to any industry except for himself now, what +will he do then?" + +"But, Colonel, the negro when educated will be more able to make his +speculations fruitful." + +"Never, sir, never. He would only have a wider scope to injure himself. +A niggro has no grasp, sir. Now, a white man can conceive great +operations, and carry them out; a niggro can't." + +"Still," replied the Senator, "granting that he might injure himself in a +worldly point of view, his elevation through education would multiply his +chances for the hereafter--which is the important thing after all, +Colonel. And no matter what the result is, we must fulfill our duty by +this being." + +"I'd elevate his soul," promptly responded the Colonel; "that's just it; +you can't make his soul too immortal, but I wouldn't touch him, himself. +Yes, sir! make his soul immortal, but don't disturb the niggro as he +is." + +Of course one of the entertainments offered the Senator was a public +reception, held in the court house, at which he made a speech to his +fellow citizens. Col. Sellers was master of ceremonies. He escorted the +band from the city hotel to Gen. Boswell's; he marshalled the procession +of Masons, of Odd Fellows, and of Firemen, the Good Templars, the Sons of +Temperance, the Cadets of Temperance, the Daughters of Rebecca, the +Sunday School children, and citizens generally, which followed the +Senator to the court house; he bustled about the room long after every +one else was seated, and loudly cried "Order!" in the dead silence which +preceded the introduction of the Senator by Gen. Boswell. The occasion +was one to call out his finest powers of personal appearance, and one he +long dwelt on with pleasure. + +This not being an edition of the Congressional Globe it is impossible to +give Senator Dilworthy's speech in full. He began somewhat as follows: + +"Fellow citizens: It gives me great pleasure to thus meet and mingle with +you, to lay aside for a moment the heavy duties of an official and +burdensome station, and confer in familiar converse with my friends in +your great state. The good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections +is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. I look forward with longing +to the time when I can lay aside the cares of office--" ["dam sight," +shouted a tipsy fellow near the door. Cries of "put him out."] + +"My friends, do not remove him. Let the misguided man stay. I see that +he is a victim of that evil which is swallowing up public virtue and +sapping the foundation of society. As I was saying, when I can lay down +the cares of office and retire to the sweets of private life in some such +sweet, peaceful, intelligent, wide-awake and patriotic place as Hawkeye +(applause). I have traveled much, I have seen all parts of our glorious +union, but I have never seen a lovelier village than yours, or one that +has more signs of commercial and industrial and religious prosperity +--(more applause)." + +The Senator then launched into a sketch of our great country, and dwelt +for an hour or more upon its prosperity and the dangers which threatened +it. + +He then touched reverently upon the institutions of religion, and upon +the necessity of private purity, if we were to have any public morality. +"I trust," he said, "that there are children within the sound of my +voice," and after some remarks to them, the Senator closed with an +apostrophe to "the genius of American Liberty, walking with the Sunday +School in one hand and Temperance in the other up the glorified steps of +the National Capitol." + +Col. Sellers did not of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so +influential a person as the Senator the desirability of improving the +navigation of Columbus river. He and Mr. Brierly took the Senator over +to Napoleon and opened to him their plan. It was a plan that the Senator +could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to be +familiar with the like improvements elsewhere. When, however, they +reached Stone's Landing the Senator looked about him and inquired, + +"Is this Napoleon?" + +"This is the nucleus, the nucleus," said the Colonel, unrolling his map. +"Here is the deepo, the church, the City Hall and so on." + +"Ah, I see. How far from here is Columbus River? Does that stream +empty----" + +"That, why, that's Goose Run. Thar ain't no Columbus, thout'n it's over +to Hawkeye," interrupted one of the citizens, who had come out to stare +at the strangers. "A railroad come here last summer, but it haint been +here no mo'." + +"Yes, sir," the Colonel hastened to explain, "in the old records +Columbus River is called Goose Run. You see how it sweeps round the +town--forty-nine miles to the Missouri; sloop navigation all the way +pretty much, drains this whole country; when it's improved steamboats +will run right up here. It's got to be enlarged, deepened. You see by +the map. Columbus River. This country must have water communication!" + +"You'll want a considerable appropriation, Col. Sellers. + +"I should say a million; is that your figure Mr. Brierly." + +"According to our surveys," said Harry, "a million would do it; a million +spent on the river would make Napoleon worth two millions at least." + +"I see," nodded the Senator. "But you'd better begin by asking only for +two or three hundred thousand, the usual way. You can begin to sell town +lots on that appropriation you know." + +The Senator, himself, to do him justice, was not very much interested in +the country or the stream, but he favored the appropriation, and he gave +the Colonel and Mr. Brierly to and understand that he would endeavor to +get it through. Harry, who thought he was shrewd and understood +Washington, suggested an interest. + +But he saw that the Senator was wounded by the suggestion. + +"You will offend me by repeating such an observation," he said. +"Whatever I do will be for the public interest. It will require a +portion of the appropriation for necessary expenses, and I am sorry to +say that there are members who will have to be seen. But you can reckon +upon my humble services." + +This aspect of the subject was not again alluded to. The Senator +possessed himself of the facts, not from his observation of the ground, +but from the lips of Col. Sellers, and laid the appropriation scheme away +among his other plans for benefiting the public. + +It was on this visit also that the Senator made the acquaintance of Mr. +Washington Hawkins, and was greatly taken with his innocence, his +guileless manner and perhaps with his ready adaptability to enter upon +any plan proposed. + +Col. Sellers was pleased to see this interest that Washington had +awakened, especially since it was likely to further his expectations with +regard to the Tennessee lands; the Senator having remarked to the +Colonel, that he delighted to help any deserving young man, when the +promotion of a private advantage could at the same time be made to +contribute to the general good. And he did not doubt that this was an +opportunity of that kind. + +The result of several conferences with Washington was that the Senator +proposed that he should go to Washington with him and become his private +secretary and the secretary of his committee; a proposal which was +eagerly accepted. + +The Senator spent Sunday in Hawkeye and attended church. He cheered the +heart of the worthy and zealous minister by an expression of his sympathy +in his labors, and by many inquiries in regard to the religious state of +the region. It was not a very promising state, and the good man felt how +much lighter his task would be, if he had the aid of such a man as +Senator Dilworthy. + +"I am glad to see, my dear sir," said the Senator, "that you give them +the doctrines. It is owing to a neglect of the doctrines, that there is +such a fearful falling away in the country. I wish that we might have +you in Washington--as chaplain, now, in the senate." + +The good man could not but be a little flattered, and if sometimes, +thereafter, in his discouraging work, he allowed the thought that he +might perhaps be called to Washington as chaplain of the Senate, to cheer +him, who can wonder. The Senator's commendation at least did one service +for him, it elevated him in the opinion of Hawkeye. + +Laura was at church alone that day, and Mr. Brierly walked home with her. +A part of their way lay with that of General Boswell and Senator +Dilworthy, and introductions were made. Laura had her own reasons for +wishing to know the Senator, and the Senator was not a man who could be +called indifferent to charms such as hers. That meek young lady so +commended herself to him in the short walk, that he announced his +intentions of paying his respects to her the next day, an intention which +Harry received glumly; and when the Senator was out of hearing he called +him "an old fool." + +"Fie," said Laura, "I do believe you are jealous, Harry. He is a very +pleasant man. He said you were a young man of great promise." + +The Senator did call next day, and the result of his visit was that he +was confirmed in his impression that there was something about him very +attractive to ladies. He saw Laura again and again daring his stay, and +felt more and more the subtle influence of her feminine beauty, which +every man felt who came near her. + +Harry was beside himself with rage while the Senator remained in town; +he declared that women were always ready to drop any man for higher game; +and he attributed his own ill-luck to the Senator's appearance. The +fellow was in fact crazy about her beauty and ready to beat his brains +out in chagrin. Perhaps Laura enjoyed his torment, but she soothed him +with blandishments that increased his ardor, and she smiled to herself to +think that he had, with all his protestations of love, never spoken of +marriage. Probably the vivacious fellow never had thought of it. At any +rate when he at length went away from Hawkeye he was no nearer it. But +there was no telling to what desperate lengths his passion might not +carry him. + +Laura bade him good bye with tender regret, which, however, did not +disturb her peace or interfere with her plans. The visit of Senator +Dilworthy had become of more importance to her, and it by and by bore the +fruit she longed for, in an invitation to visit his family in the +National Capital during the winter session of Congress. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + O lift your natures up: + Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, + Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed; + Drink deep until the habits of the slave, + The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite + And slander, die. + The Princess. + +Whether medicine is a science, or only an empirical method of getting a +living out of the ignorance of the human race, Ruth found before her +first term was over at the medical school that there were other things +she needed to know quite as much as that which is taught in medical +books, and that she could never satisfy her aspirations without more +general culture. + +"Does your doctor know any thing--I don't mean about medicine, but about +things in general, is he a man of information and good sense?" once asked +an old practitioner. "If he doesn't know any thing but medicine the +chance is he doesn't know that:" + +The close application to her special study was beginning to tell upon +Ruth's delicate health also, and the summer brought with it only +weariness and indisposition for any mental effort. + +In this condition of mind and body the quiet of her home and the +unexciting companionship of those about her were more than ever tiresome. + +She followed with more interest Philip's sparkling account of his life +in the west, and longed for his experiences, and to know some of those +people of a world so different from here, who alternately amused and +displeased him. He at least was learning the world, the good and the bad +of it, as must happen to every one who accomplishes anything in it. + +But what, Ruth wrote, could a woman do, tied up by custom, and cast into +particular circumstances out of which it was almost impossible to +extricate herself? Philip thought that he would go some day and +extricate Ruth, but he did not write that, for he had the instinct to +know that this was not the extrication she dreamed of, and that she must +find out by her own experience what her heart really wanted. + +Philip was not a philosopher, to be sure, but he had the old fashioned +notion, that whatever a woman's theories of life might be, she would come +round to matrimony, only give her time. He could indeed recall to mind +one woman--and he never knew a nobler--whose whole soul was devoted and +who believed that her life was consecrated to a certain benevolent +project in singleness of life, who yielded to the touch of matrimony, as +an icicle yields to a sunbeam. + +Neither at home nor elsewhere did Ruth utter any complaint, or admit any +weariness or doubt of her ability to pursue the path she had marked out +for herself. But her mother saw clearly enough her struggle with +infirmity, and was not deceived by either her gaiety or by the cheerful +composure which she carried into all the ordinary duties that fell to +her. She saw plainly enough that Ruth needed an entire change of scene +and of occupation, and perhaps she believed that such a change, with the +knowledge of the world it would bring, would divert Ruth from a course +for which she felt she was physically entirely unfitted. + +It therefore suited the wishes of all concerned, when autumn came, that +Ruth should go away to school. She selected a large New England +Seminary, of which she had often heard Philip speak, which was attended +by both sexes and offered almost collegiate advantages of education. +Thither she went in September, and began for the second time in the year +a life new to her. + +The Seminary was the chief feature of Fallkill, a village of two to three +thousand inhabitants. It was a prosperous school, with three hundred +students, a large corps of teachers, men and women, and with a venerable +rusty row of academic buildings on the shaded square of the town. The +students lodged and boarded in private families in the place, and so it +came about that while the school did a great deal to support the town, +the town gave the students society and the sweet influences of home life. +It is at least respectful to say that the influences of home life are +sweet. + +Ruth's home, by the intervention of Philip, was in a family--one of the +rare exceptions in life or in fiction--that had never known better days. +The Montagues, it is perhaps well to say, had intended to come over in +the Mayflower, but were detained at Delft Haven by the illness of a +child. They came over to Massachusetts Bay in another vessel, and thus +escaped the onus of that brevet nobility under which the successors of +the Mayflower Pilgrims have descended. Having no factitious weight of +dignity to carry, the Montagues steadily improved their condition from +the day they landed, and they were never more vigorous or prosperous than +at the date of this narrative. With character compacted by the rigid +Puritan discipline of more than two centuries, they had retained its +strength and purity and thrown off its narrowness, and were now +blossoming under the generous modern influences. Squire Oliver Montague, +a lawyer who had retired from the practice of his profession except in +rare cases, dwelt in a square old fashioned New England mile away from +the green. It was called a mansion because it stood alone with ample +fields about it, and had an avenue of trees leading to it from the road, +and on the west commanded a view of a pretty little lake with gentle +slopes and nodding were now blossoming under the generous modern +influences. Squire Oliver Montague, a lawyer who had retired from the +practice of his profession except in rare cases, dwelt in a square old +fashioned New England groves. But it was just a plain, roomy house, +capable of extending to many guests an unpretending hospitality. + +The family consisted of the Squire and his wife, a son and a daughter +married and not at home, a son in college at Cambridge, another son at +the Seminary, and a daughter Alice, who was a year or more older than +Ruth. Having only riches enough to be able to gratify reasonable +desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a +pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely +attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent. + +If Ruth did not find so much luxury in the house as in her own home, +there were evidences of culture, of intellectual activity and of a zest +in the affairs of all the world, which greatly impressed her. Every room +had its book-cases or book-shelves, and was more or less a library; upon +every table was liable to be a litter of new books, fresh periodicals and +daily newspapers. There were plants in the sunny windows and some choice +engravings on the walls, with bits of color in oil or water-colors; +the piano was sure to be open and strewn with music; and there were +photographs and little souvenirs here and there of foreign travel. +An absence of any "what-pots" in the corners with rows of cheerful +shells, and Hindoo gods, and Chinese idols, and nests of use less boxes +of lacquered wood, might be taken as denoting a languidness in the family +concerning foreign missions, but perhaps unjustly. + +At any rate the life of the world flowed freely into this hospitable +house, and there was always so much talk there of the news of the day, +of the new books and of authors, of Boston radicalism and New York +civilization, and the virtue of Congress, that small gossip stood a very +poor chance. + +All this was in many ways so new to Ruth that she seemed to have passed +into another world, in which she experienced a freedom and a mental +exhilaration unknown to her before. Under this influence she entered +upon her studies with keen enjoyment, finding for a time all the +relaxation she needed, in the charming social life at the Montague house. + +It is strange, she wrote to Philip, in one of her occasional letters, +that you never told me more about this delightful family, and scarcely +mentioned Alice who is the life of it, just the noblest girl, unselfish, +knows how to do so many things, with lots of talent, with a dry humor, +and an odd way of looking at things, and yet quiet and even serious +often--one of your "capable" New England girls. We shall be great +friends. It had never occurred to Philip that there was any thing +extraordinary about the family that needed mention. He knew dozens of +girls like Alice, he thought to himself, but only one like Ruth. + +Good friends the two girls were from the beginning. Ruth was a study to +Alice; the product of a culture entirely foreign to her experience, so +much a child in some things, so much a woman in others; and Ruth in turn, +it must be confessed, probing Alice sometimes with her serious grey eyes, +wondered what her object in life was, and whether she had any purpose +beyond living as she now saw her. For she could scarcely conceive of a +life that should not be devoted to the accomplishment of some definite +work, and she had-no doubt that in her own case everything else would +yield to the professional career she had marked out. + +"So you know Philip Sterling," said Ruth one day as the girls sat at +their sewing. Ruth never embroidered, and never sewed when she could +avoid it. Bless her. + +"Oh yes, we are old friends. Philip used to come to Fallkill often while +he was in college. He was once rusticated here for a term." + +"Rusticated?" + +"Suspended for some College scrape. He was a great favorite here. +Father and he were famous friends. Father said that Philip had no end of +nonsense in him and was always blundering into something, but he was a +royal good fellow and would come out all right." + +"Did you think he was fickle?" + +"Why, I never thought whether he was or not," replied Alice looking up. +"I suppose he was always in love with some girl or another, as college +boys are. He used to make me his confidant now and then, and be terribly +in the dumps." + +"Why did he come to you?" pursued Ruth you were younger than he." + +"I'm sure I don't know. He was at our house a good deal. Once at a +picnic by the lake, at the risk of his own life, he saved sister Millie +from drowning, and we all liked to have him here. Perhaps he thought as +he had saved one sister, the other ought to help him when he was in +trouble. I don't know." + +The fact was that Alice was a person who invited confidences, because she +never betrayed them, and gave abundant sympathy in return. There are +persons, whom we all know, to whom human confidences, troubles and +heart-aches flow as naturally its streams to a placid lake. + +This is not a history of Fallkill, nor of the Montague family, worthy as +both are of that honor, and this narrative cannot be diverted into long +loitering with them. If the reader visits the village to-day, he will +doubtless be pointed out the Montague dwelling, where Ruth lived, the +cross-lots path she traversed to the Seminary, and the venerable chapel +with its cracked bell. + +In the little society of the place, the Quaker girl was a favorite, and +no considerable social gathering or pleasure party was thought complete +without her. There was something in this seemingly transparent and yet +deep character, in her childlike gaiety and enjoyment of the society +about her, and in her not seldom absorption in herself, that would have +made her long remembered there if no events had subsequently occurred to +recall her to mind. + +To the surprise of Alice, Ruth took to the small gaieties of the village +with a zest of enjoyment that seemed foreign to one who had devoted her +life to a serious profession from the highest motives. Alice liked +society well enough, she thought, but there was nothing exciting in that +of Fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young +gentlemen one met in it. It must have worn a different aspect to Ruth, +for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then with +interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one would have +deemed possible for her. Parties, picnics, rowing-matches, moonlight +strolls, nutting expeditions in the October woods,--Alice declared that +it was a whirl of dissipation. The fondness of Ruth, which was scarcely +disguised, for the company of agreeable young fellows, who talked +nothings, gave Alice opportunity for no end of banter. + +"Do you look upon them as I subjects, dear?" she would ask. + +And Ruth laughed her merriest laugh, and then looked sober again. +Perhaps she was thinking, after all, whether she knew herself. + +If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would +swim if you brought it to the Nile. + +Surely no one would have predicted when Ruth left Philadelphia that she +would become absorbed to this extent, and so happy, in a life so unlike +that she thought she desired. But no one can tell how a woman will act +under any circumstances. The reason novelists nearly always fail in +depicting women when they make them act, is that they let them do what +they have observed some woman has done at sometime or another. And that +is where they make a mistake; for a woman will never do again what has +been done before. It is this uncertainty that causes women, considered +as materials for fiction, to be so interesting to themselves and to +others. + +As the fall went on and the winter, Ruth did not distinguish herself +greatly at the Fallkill Seminary as a student, a fact that apparently +gave her no anxiety, and did not diminish her enjoyment of a new sort of +power which had awakened within her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +In mid-winter, an event occurred of unusual interest to the inhabitants +of the Montague house, and to the friends of the young ladies who sought +their society. + +This was the arrival at the Sassacua Hotel of two young gentlemen from +the west. + +It is the fashion in New England to give Indian names to the public +houses, not that the late lamented savage knew how to keep a hotel, but +that his warlike name may impress the traveler who humbly craves shelter +there, and make him grateful to the noble and gentlemanly clerk if he is +allowed to depart with his scalp safe. + +The two young gentlemen were neither students for the Fallkill Seminary, +nor lecturers on physiology, nor yet life assurance solicitors, three +suppositions that almost exhausted the guessing power of the people at +the hotel in respect to the names of "Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly, +Missouri," on the register. They were handsome enough fellows, that was +evident, browned by out-door exposure, and with a free and lordly way +about them that almost awed the hotel clerk himself. Indeed, he very +soon set down Mr. Brierly as a gentleman of large fortune, with enormous +interests on his shoulders. Harry had a way of casually mentioning +western investments, through lines, the freighting business, and the +route through the Indian territory to Lower California, which was +calculated to give an importance to his lightest word. + +"You've a pleasant town here, sir, and the most comfortable looking hotel +I've seen out of New York," said Harry to the clerk; "we shall stay here +a few days if you can give us a roomy suite of apartments." + +Harry usually had the best of everything, wherever he went, as such +fellows always do have in this accommodating world. Philip would have +been quite content with less expensive quarters, but there was no +resisting Harry's generosity in such matters. + +Railroad surveying and real-estate operations were at a standstill during +the winter in Missouri, and the young men had taken advantage of the lull +to come east, Philip to see if there was any disposition in his friends, +the railway contractors, to give him a share in the Salt Lick Union +Pacific Extension, and Harry to open out to his uncle the prospects of +the new city at Stone's Landing, and to procure congressional +appropriations for the harbor and for making Goose Run navigable. Harry +had with him a map of that noble stream and of the harbor, with a perfect +net-work of railroads centering in it, pictures of wharves, crowded with +steamboats, and of huge grain-elevators on the bank, all of which grew +out of the combined imaginations of Col. Sellers and Mr. Brierly. The +Colonel had entire confidence in Harry's influence with Wall street, and +with congressmen, to bring about the consummation of their scheme, and he +waited his return in the empty house at Hawkeye, feeding his pinched +family upon the most gorgeous expectations with a reckless prodigality. + +"Don't let 'em into the thing more than is necessary," says the Colonel +to Harry; "give 'em a small interest; a lot apiece in the suburbs of the +Landing ought to do a congressman, but I reckon you'll have to mortgage a +part of the city itself to the brokers." + +Harry did not find that eagerness to lend money on Stone's Landing in +Wall street which Col. Sellers had expected, (it had seen too many such +maps as he exhibited), although his uncle and some of the brokers looked +with more favor on the appropriation for improving the navigation of +Columbus River, and were not disinclined to form a company for that +purpose. An appropriation was a tangible thing, if you could get hold of +it, and it made little difference what it was appropriated for, so long +as you got hold of it. + +Pending these weighty negotiations, Philip has persuaded Harry to take a +little run up to Fallkill, a not difficult task, for that young man would +at any time have turned his back upon all the land in the West at sight +of a new and pretty face, and he had, it must be confessed, a facility in +love making which made it not at all an interference with the more +serious business of life. He could not, to be sure, conceive how Philip +could be interested in a young lady who was studying medicine, but he had +no objection to going, for he did not doubt that there were other girls +in Fallkill who were worth a week's attention. + +The young men were received at the house of the Montagues with the +hospitality which never failed there. + +"We are glad to see you again," exclaimed the Squire heartily, "you are +welcome Mr. Brierly, any friend of Phil's is welcome at our house" + +"It's more like home to me, than any place except my own home," cried +Philip, as he looked about the cheerful house and went through a general +hand-shaking. + +"It's a long time, though, since you have been here to say so," Alice +said, with her father's frankness of manner; "and I suspect we owe the +visit now to your sudden interest in the Fallkill Seminary." + +Philip's color came, as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale +face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry came in with, + +"That accounts for Phil's wish to build a Seminary at Stone's Landing, +our place in Missouri, when Col. Sellers insisted it should be a +University. Phil appears to have a weakness for Seminaries." + +"It would have been better for your friend Sellers," retorted Philip, +"if he had had a weakness for district schools. Col. Sellers, Miss +Alice, is a great friend of Harry's, who is always trying to build a +house by beginning at the top." + +"I suppose it's as easy to build a University on paper as a Seminary, and +it looks better," was Harry's reflection; at which the Squire laughed, +and said he quite agreed with him. The old gentleman understood Stone's +Landing a good deal better than he would have done after an hour's talk +with either of it's expectant proprietors. + +At this moment, and while Philip was trying to frame a question that he +found it exceedingly difficult to put into words, the door opened +quietly, and Ruth entered. Taking in the, group with a quick glance, her +eye lighted up, and with a merry smile she advanced and shook hands with +Philip. She was so unconstrained and sincerely cordial, that it made +that hero of the west feel somehow young, and very ill at ease. + +For months and months he had thought of this meeting and pictured it to +himself a hundred times, but he had never imagined it would be like this. +He should meet Ruth unexpectedly, as she was walking alone from the +school, perhaps, or entering the room where he was waiting for her, and +she would cry "Oh! Phil," and then check herself, and perhaps blush, and +Philip calm but eager and enthusiastic, would reassure her by his warm +manner, and he would take her hand impressively, and she would look up +timidly, and, after his' long absence, perhaps he would be permitted to +Good heavens, how many times he had come to this point, and wondered if +it could happen so. Well, well; he had never supposed that he should be +the one embarrassed, and above all by a sincere and cordial welcome. + +"We heard you were at the Sassacus House," were Ruth's first words; "and +this I suppose is your friend?" + +"I beg your pardon," Philip at length blundered out, "this is Mr. Brierly +of whom I have written you." + +And Ruth welcomed Harry with a friendliness that Philip thought was due +to his friend, to be sure, but which seemed to him too level with her +reception of himself, but which Harry received as his due from the other +sex. + +Questions were asked about the journey and about the West, and the +conversation became a general one, until Philip at length found himself +talking with the Squire in relation to land and railroads and things he +couldn't keep his mind on especially as he heard Ruth and Harry in an +animated discourse, and caught the words "New York," and "opera," and +"reception," and knew that Harry was giving his imagination full range in +the world of fashion. + +Harry knew all about the opera, green room and all (at least he said so) +and knew a good many of the operas and could make very entertaining +stories of their plots, telling how the soprano came in here, and the +basso here, humming the beginning of their airs--tum-ti-tum-ti-ti +--suggesting the profound dissatisfaction of the basso recitative--down +--among--the--dead--men--and touching off the whole with an airy grace +quite captivating; though he couldn't have sung a single air through to +save himself, and he hadn't an ear to know whether it was sung correctly. +All the same he doted on the opera, and kept a box there, into which he +lounged occasionally to hear a favorite scene and meet his society +friends. + +If Ruth was ever in the city he should be happy to place his box at the +disposal of Ruth and her friends. Needless to say that she was delighted +with the offer. + +When she told Philip of it, that discreet young fellow only smiled, and +said that he hoped she would be fortunate enough to be in New York some +evening when Harry had not already given the use of his private box to +some other friend. + +The Squire pressed the visitors to let him send for their trunks and +urged them to stay at his house, and Alice joined in the invitation, but +Philip had reasons for declining. They staid to supper, however, and in; +the evening Philip had a long talk apart with Ruth, a delightful hour to +him, in which she spoke freely of herself as of old, of her studies at +Philadelphia and of her plans, and she entered into his adventures and +prospects in the West with a genuine and almost sisterly interest; an +interest, however, which did not exactly satisfy Philip--it was too +general and not personal enough to suit him. And with all her freedom in +speaking of her own hopes, Philip could not, detect any reference to +himself in them; whereas he never undertook anything that he did not +think of Ruth in connection with it, he never made a plan that had not +reference to her, and he never thought of anything as complete if she +could not share it. Fortune, reputation these had no value to him except +in Ruth's eyes, and there were times when it seemed to him that if Ruth +was not on this earth, he should plunge off into some remote wilderness +and live in a purposeless seclusion. + +"I hoped," said Philip; "to get a little start in connection with this +new railroad, and make a little money, so that I could came east and +engage in something more suited to my tastes. I shouldn't like to live +in the West. Would you? + +"It never occurred to me whether I would or not," was the unembarrassed +reply. "One of our graduates went to Chicago, and has a nice practice +there. I don't know where I shall go. It would mortify mother +dreadfully to have me driving about Philadelphia in a doctor's gig." + +Philip laughed at the idea of it. "And does it seem as necessary to you +to do it as it did before you came to Fallkill?" + +It was a home question, and went deeper than Philip knew, for Ruth at +once thought of practicing her profession among the young gentlemen and +ladies of her acquaintance in the village; but she was reluctant to admit +to herself that her notions of a career had undergone any change. + +"Oh, I don't think I should come to Fallkill to practice, but I must do +something when I am through school; and why not medicine?" + +Philip would like to have explained why not, but the explanation would be +of no use if it were not already obvious to Ruth. + +Harry was equally in his element whether instructing Squire Montague +about the investment of capital in Missouri, the improvement of Columbus +River, the project he and some gentlemen in New York had for making a +shorter Pacific connection with the Mississippi than the present one; or +diverting Mrs. Montague with his experience in cooking in camp; or +drawing for Miss Alice an amusing picture of the social contrasts of New +England and the border where he had been. Harry was a very entertaining +fellow, having his imagination to help his memory, and telling his +stories as if he believed them--as perhaps he did. Alice was greatly +amused with Harry and listened so seriously to his romancing that he +exceeded his usual limits. Chance allusions to his bachelor +establishment in town and the place of his family on the Hudson, could +not have been made by a millionaire, more naturally. + +"I should think," queried Alice, "you would rather stay in New York than +to try the rough life at the West you have been speaking of." + +"Oh, adventure," says Harry, "I get tired of New York. And besides I +got involved in some operations that I had to see through. Parties in +New York only last week wanted me to go down into Arizona in a big +diamond interest. I told them, no, no speculation for me. I've got my +interests in Missouri; and I wouldn't leave Philip, as long as he stays +there." + +When the young gentlemen were on their way back to the hotel, Mr. Philip, +who was not in very good humor, broke out, + +"What the deuce, Harry, did you go on in that style to the Montagues +for?" + +"Go on?" cried Harry. "Why shouldn't I try to make a pleasant evening? +And besides, ain't I going to do those things? What difference does it +make about the mood and tense of a mere verb? Didn't uncle tell me only +last Saturday, that I might as well go down to Arizona and hunt for +diamonds? A fellow might as well make a good impression as a poor one." + +"Nonsense. You'll get to believing your own romancing by and by." + +"Well, you'll see. When Sellers and I get that appropriation, I'll show +you an establishment in town and another on the Hudson and a box at the +opera." + +"Yes, it will be like Col. Sellers' plantation at Hawkeye. Did you ever +see that?" + +"Now, don't be cross, Phil. She's just superb, that little woman. You +never told me." + +"Who's just superb?" growled Philip, fancying this turn of the +conversation less than the other. + +"Well, Mrs. Montague, if you must know." And Harry stopped to light a +cigar, and then puffed on in silence. The little quarrel didn't last +over night, for Harry never appeared to cherish any ill-will half a +second, and Philip was too sensible to continue a row about nothing; and +he had invited Harry to come with him. + +The young gentlemen stayed in Fallkill a week, and were every day at the +Montagues, and took part in the winter gaieties of the village. There +were parties here and there to which the friends of Ruth and the +Montagues were of course invited, and Harry in the generosity of his +nature, gave in return a little supper at the hotel, very simple indeed, +with dancing in the hall, and some refreshments passed round. And Philip +found the whole thing in the bill when he came to pay it. + +Before the week was over Philip thought he had a new light on the +character of Ruth. Her absorption in the small gaieties of the society +there surprised him. He had few opportunities for serious conversation +with her. There was always some butterfly or another flitting about, +and when Philip showed by his manner that he was not pleased, Ruth +laughed merrily enough and rallied him on his soberness--she declared he +was getting to be grim and unsocial. He talked indeed more with Alice +than with Ruth, and scarcely concealed from her the trouble that was in +his mind. It needed, in fact, no word from him, for she saw clearly +enough what was going forward, and knew her sex well enough to know there +was no remedy for it but time. + +"Ruth is a dear girl, Philip, and has as much firmness of purpose as +ever, but don't you see she has just discovered that she is fond of +society? Don't you let her see you are selfish about it, is my advice." + +The last evening they were to spend in Fallkill, they were at the +Montagues, and Philip hoped that he would find Ruth in a different mood. +But she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her eye +and in her laugh. "Confound it," said Philip to himself, "she's in a +perfect twitter." + +He would have liked to quarrel with her, and fling himself out of the +house in tragedy style, going perhaps so far as to blindly wander off +miles into the country and bathe his throbbing brow in the chilling rain +of the stars, as people do in novels; but he had no opportunity. For +Ruth was as serenely unconscious of mischief as women can be at times, +and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and +half-confidences. She even said "Thee" to him once in reproach for a +cutting speech he began. And the sweet little word made his heart beat +like a trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said "thee" to him +before. + +Was she fascinated with Harry's careless 'bon homie' and gay assurance? +Both chatted away in high spirits, and made the evening whirl along in +the most mirthful manner. Ruth sang for Harry, and that young gentleman +turned the leaves for her at the piano, and put in a bass note now and +then where he thought it would tell. + +Yes, it was a merry evening, and Philip was heartily glad when it was +over, and the long leave-taking with the family was through with. + +"Farewell Philip. Good night Mr. Brierly," Ruth's clear voice sounded +after them as they went down the walk. + +And she spoke Harry's name last, thought Philip. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + "O see ye not yon narrow road + So thick beset wi' thorns and briers? + That is the Path of Righteousness, + Though after it but few inquires. + + "And see ye not yon braid, braid road, + That lies across the lily leven? + That is the Path of Wickedness, + Though some call it the road to Heaven." + + Thomas the Rhymer. + +Phillip and Harry reached New York in very different states of mind. +Harry was buoyant. He found a letter from Col. Sellers urging him to go +to Washington and confer with Senator Dilworthy. The petition was in his +hands. + +It had been signed by everybody of any importance in Missouri, and would +be presented immediately. + +"I should go on myself," wrote the Colonel, "but I am engaged in the +invention of a process for lighting such a city as St. Louis by means of +water; just attach my machine to the water-pipes anywhere and the +decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for +the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I +want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. +It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation +going while I am perfecting it." + +Harry took letters to several congressmen from his uncle and from Mr. +Duff Brown, each of whom had an extensive acquaintance in both houses +where they were well known as men engaged in large private operations for +the public good and men, besides, who, in the slang of the day, +understood the virtues of "addition, division and silence." + +Senator Dilworthy introduced the petition into the Senate with the remark +that he knew, personally, the signers of it, that they were men +interested; it was true, in the improvement of the country, but he +believed without any selfish motive, and that so far as he knew the +signers were loyal. It pleased him to see upon the roll the names of +many colored citizens, and it must rejoice every friend of humanity to +know that this lately emancipated race were intelligently taking part in +the development of the resources of their native land. He moved the +reference of the petition to the proper committee. + +Senator Dilworthy introduced his young friend to influential members, +as a person who was very well informed about the Salt Lick Extension of +the Pacific, and was one of the Engineers who had made a careful survey +of Columbus River; and left him to exhibit his maps and plans and to show +the connection between the public treasury, the city of Napoleon and +legislation for the benefit off the whole country. + +Harry was the guest of Senator Dilworthy. There was scarcely any good +movement in which the Senator was not interested. His house was open to +all the laborers in the field of total abstinence, and much of his time +was taken up in attending the meetings of this cause. He had a Bible +class in the Sunday school of the church which he attended, and he +suggested to Harry that he might take a class during the time he remained +in Washington, Mr. Washington Hawkins had a class. Harry asked the +Senator if there was a class of young ladies for him to teach, and after +that the Senator did not press the subject. + +Philip, if the truth must be told, was not well satisfied with his +western prospects, nor altogether with the people he had fallen in with. +The railroad contractors held out large but rather indefinite promises. +Opportunities for a fortune he did not doubt existed in Missouri, but for +himself he saw no better means for livelihood than the mastery of the +profession he had rather thoughtlessly entered upon. During the summer +he had made considerable practical advance in the science of engineering; +he had been diligent, and made himself to a certain extent necessary to +the work he was engaged on. The contractors called him into their +consultations frequently, as to the character of the country he had been +over, and the cost of constructing the road, the nature of the work, etc. + +Still Philip felt that if he was going to make either reputation or money +as an engineer, he had a great deal of hard study before him, and it is +to his credit that he did not shrink from it. While Harry was in +Washington dancing attendance upon the national legislature and making +the acquaintance of the vast lobby that encircled it, Philip devoted +himself day and night, with an energy and a concentration he was capable +of, to the learning and theory of his profession, and to the science of +railroad building. He wrote some papers at this time for the "Plow, the +Loom and the Anvil," upon the strength of materials, and especially upon +bridge-building, which attracted considerable attention, and were copied +into the English "Practical Magazine." They served at any rate to raise +Philip in the opinion of his friends the contractors, for practical men +have a certain superstitious estimation of ability with the pen, and +though they may a little despise the talent, they are quite ready to make +use of it. + +Philip sent copies of his performances to Ruth's father and to other +gentlemen whose good opinion he coveted, but he did not rest upon his +laurels. Indeed, so diligently had he applied himself, that when it came +time for him to return to the West, he felt himself, at least in theory, +competent to take charge of a division in the field. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +The capital of the Great Republic was a new world to country-bred +Washington Hawkins. St. Louis was a greater city, but its floating. +population did not hail from great distances, and so it had the general +family aspect of the permanent population; but Washington gathered its +people from the four winds of heaven, and so the manners, the faces and +the fashions there, presented a variety that was infinite. Washington +had never been in "society" in St. Louis, and he knew nothing of the ways +of its wealthier citizens and had never inspected one of their dwellings. +Consequently, everything in the nature of modern fashion and grandeur was +a new and wonderful revelation to him. + +Washington is an interesting city to any of us. It seems to become more +and more interesting the oftener we visit it. Perhaps the reader has +never been there? Very well. You arrive either at night, rather too +late to do anything or see anything until morning, or you arrive so early +in the morning that you consider it best to go to your hotel and sleep an +hour or two while the sun bothers along over the Atlantic. You cannot +well arrive at a pleasant intermediate hour, because the railway +corporation that keeps the keys of the only door that leads into the town +or out of it take care of that. You arrive in tolerably good spirits, +because it is only thirty-eight miles from Baltimore to the capital, and +so you have only been insulted three times (provided you are not in a +sleeping car--the average is higher there): once when you renewed your +ticket after stopping over in Baltimore, once when you were about to +enter the "ladies' car" without knowing it was a lady's car, and once +When you asked the conductor at what hour you would reach Washington. + +You are assailed by a long rank of hackmen who shake their whips in your +face as you step out upon the sidewalk; you enter what they regard as a +"carriage," in the capital, and you wonder why they do not take it out of +service and put it in the museum: we have few enough antiquities, and +it is little to our credit that we make scarcely any effort to preserve +the few we have. You reach your hotel, presently--and here let us draw +the curtain of charity--because of course you have gone to the wrong one. +You being a stranger, how could you do otherwise? There are a hundred +and eighteen bad hotels, and only one good one. The most renowned and +popular hotel of them all is perhaps the worst one known to history. + +It is winter, and night. When you arrived, it was snowing. When you +reached the hotel, it was sleeting. When you went to bed, it was +raining. During the night it froze hard, and the wind blew some chimneys +down. When you got up in the morning, it was foggy. When you finished +your breakfast at ten o'clock and went out, the sunshine was brilliant, +the weather balmy and delicious, and the mud and slush deep and +all-pervading. You will like the climate when you get used to it. + +You naturally wish to view the city; so you take an umbrella, an +overcoat, and a fan, and go forth. The prominent features you soon +locate and get familiar with; first you glimpse the ornamental upper +works of a long, snowy palace projecting above a grove of trees, and a +tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and +pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. That building is +the capitol; gossips will tell you that by the original estimates it was +to cost $12,000,000, and that the government did come within $21,200,000 +of building it for that sum. + +You stand at the back of the capitol to treat yourself to a view, and it +is a very noble one. You understand, the capitol stands upon the verge +of a high piece of table land, a fine commanding position, and its front +looks out over this noble situation for a city--but it don't see it, for +the reason that when the capitol extension was decided upon, the property +owners at once advanced their prices to such inhuman figures that the +people went down and built the city in the muddy low marsh behind the +temple of liberty; so now the lordly front of the building, with, its +imposing colonades, its, projecting, graceful wings, its, picturesque +groups of statuary, and its long terraced ranges of steps, flowing down +in white marble waves to the ground, merely looks out upon a sorrowful +little desert of cheap boarding houses. + +So you observe, that you take your view from the back of the capitol. +And yet not from the airy outlooks of the dome, by the way, because to +get there you must pass through the great rotunda: and to do that, you +would have to see the marvelous Historical Paintings that hang there, +and the bas-reliefs--and what have you done that you should suffer thus? +And besides, you might have to pass through the old part of the building, +and you could not help seeing Mr. Lincoln, as petrified by a young lady +artist for $10,000--and you might take his marble emancipation +proclamation, which he holds out in his hand and contemplates, for a +folded napkin; and you might conceive from his expression and his +attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing. Which is not the +case. Nobody knows what is the matter with him; but everybody feels for +him. Well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow, because it would be +utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the frescoes in it--and +why should you be interested in the delirium tremens of art? + +The capitol is a very noble and a very beautiful building, both within +and without, but you need not examine it now. Still, if you greatly +prefer going into the dome, go. Now your general glance gives you +picturesque stretches of gleaming water, on your left, with a sail here +and there and a lunatic asylum on shore; over beyond the water, on a +distant elevation, you see a squat yellow temple which your eye dwells +upon lovingly through a blur of unmanly moisture, for it recalls your +lost boyhood and the Parthenons done in molasses candy which made it +blest and beautiful. Still in the distance, but on this side of the +water and close to its edge, the Monument to the Father of his Country +towers out of the mud--sacred soil is the, customary term. It has the +aspect of a factory chimney with the top broken off. The skeleton of a +decaying scaffolding lingers about its summit, and tradition says that +the spirit of Washington often comes down and sits on those rafters to +enjoy this tribute of respect which the nation has reared as the symbol +of its unappeasable gratitude. The Monument is to be finished, some day, +and at that time our Washington will have risen still higher in the +nation's veneration, and will be known as the Great-Great-Grandfather of +his Country. The memorial Chimney stands in a quiet pastoral locality +that is full of reposeful expression. With a glass you can see the +cow-sheds about its base, and the contented sheep nimbling pebbles in the +desert solitudes that surround it, and the tired pigs dozing in the holy +calm of its protecting shadow. + +Now you wrench your gaze loose, and you look down in front of you and see +the broad Pennsylvania Avenue stretching straight ahead for a mile or +more till it brings up against the iron fence in front of a pillared +granite pile, the Treasury building-an edifice that would command respect +in any capital. The stores and hotels that wall in this broad avenue are +mean, and cheap, and dingy, and are better left without comment. Beyond +the Treasury is a fine large white barn, with wide unhandsome grounds +about it. The President lives there. It is ugly enough outside, but +that is nothing to what it is inside. Dreariness, flimsiness, bad taste +reduced to mathematical completeness is what the inside offers to the +eye, if it remains yet what it always has been. + +The front and right hand views give you the city at large. It is a wide +stretch of cheap little brick houses, with here and there a noble +architectural pile lifting itself out of the midst-government buildings, +these. If the thaw is still going on when you come down and go about +town, you will wonder at the short-sightedness of the city fathers, when +you come to inspect the streets, in that they do not dilute the mud a +little more and use them for canals. + +If you inquire around a little, you will find that there are more +boardinghouses to the square acre in Washington than there are in any +other city in the land, perhaps. If you apply for a home in one of them, +it will seem odd to you to have the landlady inspect you with a severe +eye and then ask you if you are a member of Congress. Perhaps, just as a +pleasantry, you will say yes. And then she will tell you that she is +"full." Then you show her her advertisement in the morning paper, and +there she stands, convicted and ashamed. She will try to blush, and it +will be only polite in you to take the effort for the deed. She shows +you her rooms, now, and lets you take one--but she makes you pay in +advance for it. That is what you will get for pretending to be a member +of Congress. If you had been content to be merely a private citizen, +your trunk would have been sufficient security for your board. If you +are curious and inquire into this thing, the chances are that your +landlady will be ill-natured enough to say that the person and property +of a Congressman are exempt from arrest or detention, and that with the +tears in her eyes she has seen several of the people's representatives +walk off to their several States and Territories carrying her unreceipted +board bills in their pockets for keepsakes. And before you have been in +Washington many weeks you will be mean enough to believe her, too. + +Of course you contrive to see everything and find out everything. And +one of the first and most startling things you find out is, that every +individual you encounter in the City of Washington almost--and certainly +every separate and distinct individual in the public employment, from the +highest bureau chief, clear down to the maid who scrubs Department halls, +the night watchmen of the public buildings and the darkey boy who +purifies the Department spittoons--represents Political Influence. +Unless you can get the ear of a Senator, or a Congressman, or a Chief of +a Bureau or Department, and persuade him to use his "influence" in your +behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in +Washington. Mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to +you without "influence." The population of Washington consists pretty +much entirely of government employee and the people who board them. +There are thousands of these employees, and they have gathered there from +every corner of the Union and got their berths through the intercession +(command is nearer the word) of the Senators and Representatives of their +respective States. It would be an odd circumstance to see a girl get +employment at three or four dollars a week in one of the great public +cribs without any political grandee to back her, but merely because she +was worthy, and competent, and a good citizen of a free country that +"treats all persons alike." Washington would be mildly thunderstruck at +such a thing as that. If you are a member of Congress, (no offence,) and +one of your constituents who doesn't know anything, and does not want to +go into the bother of learning something, and has no money, and no +employment, and can't earn a living, comes besieging you for help, do you +say, "Come, my friend, if your services were valuable you could get +employment elsewhere--don't want you here?" Oh, no: You take him to a +Department and say, "Here, give this person something to pass away the +time at--and a salary"--and the thing is done. You throw him on his +country. He is his country's child, let his country support him. There +is something good and motherly about Washington, the grand old benevolent +National Asylum for the Helpless. + +The wages received by this great hive of employees are placed at the +liberal figure meet and just for skilled and competent labor. Such of +them as are immediately employed about the two Houses of Congress, are +not only liberally paid also, but are remembered in the customary Extra +Compensation bill which slides neatly through, annually, with the general +grab that signalizes the last night of a session, and thus twenty per +cent. is added to their wages, for--for fun, no doubt. + +Washington Hawkins' new life was an unceasing delight to him. Senator +Dilworthy lived sumptuously, and Washington's quarters were charming +--gas; running water, hot and cold; bath-room, coal-fires, rich carpets, +beautiful pictures on the walls; books on religion, temperance, public +charities and financial schemes; trim colored servants, dainty food +--everything a body could wish for. And as for stationery, there was no +end to it; the government furnished it; postage stamps were not needed +--the Senator's frank could convey a horse through the mails, if necessary. + +And then he saw such dazzling company. Renowned generals and admirals +who had seemed but colossal myths when he was in the far west, went in +and out before him or sat at the Senator's table, solidified into +palpable flesh and blood; famous statesmen crossed his path daily; that +once rare and awe-inspiring being, a Congressman, was become a common +spectacle--a spectacle so common, indeed, that he could contemplate it +without excitement, even without embarrassment; foreign ministers were +visible to the naked eye at happy intervals; he had looked upon the +President himself, and lived. And more; this world of enchantment teemed +with speculation--the whole atmosphere was thick with hand that indeed +was Washington Hawkins' native air; none other refreshed his lungs so +gratefully. He had found paradise at last. + +The more he saw of his chief the Senator, the more he honored him, and +the more conspicuously the moral grandeur of his character appeared to +stand out. To possess the friendship and the kindly interest of such a +man, Washington said in a letter to Louise, was a happy fortune for a +young man whose career had been so impeded and so clouded as his. + +The weeks drifted by;--Harry Brierly flirted, danced, added lustre +to the brilliant Senatorial receptions, and diligently "buzzed" and +"button-holed" Congressmen in the interest of the Columbus River scheme; +meantime Senator Dilworthy labored hard in the same interest--and in +others of equal national importance. Harry wrote frequently to Sellers, +and always encouragingly; and from these letters it was easy to see that +Harry was a pet with all Washington, and was likely to carry the thing +through; that the assistance rendered him by "old Dilworthy" was pretty +fair--pretty fair; "and every little helps, you know," said Harry. + +Washington wrote Sellers officially, now and then. In one of his letters +it appeared that whereas no member of the House committee favored the +scheme at first, there was now needed but one more vote to compass a +majority report. Closing sentence: + + "Providence seems to further our efforts." + (Signed,) "ABNER DILWORTHY, U. S. S., + per WASHINGTON HAWKINS, P. S." + +At the end of a week, Washington was able to send the happy news, +officially, as usual,--that the needed vote had been added and the bill +favorably reported from the Committee. Other letters recorded its perils +in Committee of the whole, and by and by its victory, by just the skin of +its teeth, on third reading and final passage. Then came letters telling +of Mr. Dilworthy's struggles with a stubborn majority in his own +Committee in the Senate; of how these gentlemen succumbed, one by one, +till a majority was secured. + +Then there was a hiatus. Washington watched every move on the board, and +he was in a good position to do this, for he was clerk of this committee, +and also one other. He received no salary as private secretary, but +these two clerkships, procured by his benefactor, paid him an aggregate +of twelve dollars a day, without counting the twenty percent extra +compensation which would of course be voted to him on the last night of +the session. + +He saw the bill go into Committee of the whole and struggle for its life +again, and finally worry through. In the fullness of time he noted its +second reading, and by and by the day arrived when the grand ordeal came, +and it was put upon its final passage. Washington listened with bated +breath to the "Aye!" "No!" "No!" "Aye!" of the voters, for a few dread +minutes, and then could bear the suspense no longer. He ran down from +the gallery and hurried home to wait. + +At the end of two or three hours the Senator arrived in the bosom of his +family, and dinner was waiting. Washington sprang forward, with the +eager question on his lips, and the Senator said: + +"We may rejoice freely, now, my son--Providence has crowned our efforts +with success." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +Washington sent grand good news to Col. Sellers that night. To Louise he +wrote: + +"It is beautiful to hear him talk when his heart is full of thankfulness +for some manifestation of the Divine favor. You shall know him, some day +my Louise, and knowing him you will honor him, as I do." + +Harry wrote: + +"I pulled it through, Colonel, but it was a tough job, there is no +question about that. There was not a friend to the measure in the House +committee when I began, and not a friend in the Senate committee except +old Dil himself, but they were all fixed for a majority report when I +hauled off my forces. Everybody here says you can't get a thing like +this through Congress without buying committees for straight-out cash on +delivery, but I think I've taught them a thing or two--if I could only +make them believe it. When I tell the old residenters that this thing +went through without buying a vote or making a promise, they say, 'That's +rather too thin.' And when I say thin or not thin it's a fact, anyway, +they say, 'Come, now, but do you really believe that?' and when I say I +don't believe anything about it, I know it, they smile and say, 'Well, +you are pretty innocent, or pretty blind, one or the other--there's no +getting around that.' Why they really do believe that votes have been +bought--they do indeed. But let them keep on thinking so. I have found +out that if a man knows how to talk to women, and has a little gift in +the way of argument with men, he can afford to play for an appropriation +against a money bag and give the money bag odds in the game. We've raked +in $200,000 of Uncle Sam's money, say what they will--and there is more +where this came from, when we want it, and I rather fancy I am the person +that can go in and occupy it, too, if I do say it myself, that shouldn't, +perhaps. I'll be with you within a week. Scare up all the men you can, +and put them to work at once. When I get there I propose to make things +hum." The great news lifted Sellers into the clouds. He went to work on +the instant. He flew hither and thither making contracts, engaging men, +and steeping his soul in the ecstasies of business. He was the happiest +man in Missouri. And Louise was the happiest woman; for presently came a +letter from Washington which said: + +"Rejoice with me, for the long agony is over! We have waited patiently +and faithfully, all these years, and now at last the reward is at hand. +A man is to pay our family $40,000 for the Tennessee Land! It is but a +little sum compared to what we could get by waiting, but I do so long to +see the day when I can call you my own, that I have said to myself, +better take this and enjoy life in a humble way than wear out our best +days in this miserable separation. Besides, I can put this money into +operations here that will increase it a hundred fold, yes, a thousand +fold, in a few months. The air is full of such chances, and I know our +family would consent in a moment that I should put in their shares with +mine. Without a doubt we shall be worth half a million dollars in a year +from this time--I put it at the very lowest figure, because it is always +best to be on the safe side--half a million at the very lowest +calculation, and then your father will give his consent and we can marry +at last. Oh, that will be a glorious day. Tell our friends the good +news--I want all to share it." + +And she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be kept +still for the present. The careful father also told her to write +Washington and warn him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a +little and advise with one or two wise old heads. She did this. And she +managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the +most careless observer might have seen by her springing step and her +radiant countenance that some fine piece of good fortune had descended +upon her. + +Harry joined the Colonel at Stone's Landing, and that dead place sprang +into sudden life. A swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air was +filled with the cheery music of labor. Harry had been constituted +engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into +his work. He moved among his hirelings like a king. Authority seemed to +invest him with a new splendor. Col. Sellers, as general superintendent +of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could be +--and more. These two grandees went at their imposing "improvement" with +the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the +foundations of the globe. + +They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above +the Landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans +showed that the process of straightening would not only shorten distance +but increase the "fall." They started a cut-off canal across the +peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth +and slopping around in the mud as followed the order to the men, had +never been seen in that region before. There was such a panic among the +turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be found within +three miles of Stone's Landing. They took the young and the aged, the +decrepit and the sick upon their backs and left for tide-water in +disorderly procession, the tadpoles following and the bull-frogs bringing +up the rear. + +Saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait, because the +appropriation had not come. Harry said he had written to hurry up the +money and it would be along presently. So the work continued, on Monday. +Stone's Landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time. +Sellers threw a lot or two on the market, "as a feeler," and they sold +well. He re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and +still had money left. He started a bank account, in a small way--and +mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to +everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing--on the contrary, as a matter +of life-long standing. He could not keep from buying trifles every day +that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his +bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula, +"Charge it" Harry sold a lot or two, also--and had a dinner party or two +at Hawkeye and a general good time with the money. Both men held on +pretty strenuously for the coming big prices, however. + +At the end of a month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the +New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation +Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no +purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even +answered. The workmen were clamorous, now. The Colonel and Harry +retired to consult. + +"What's to be done?" said the Colonel. + +"Hang'd if I know." + +"Company say anything?" + +"Not a word." + +"You telegraphed yesterday?" + +Yes, and the day before, too." + +"No answer?" + +"None-confound them!" + +Then there was a long pause. Finally both spoke at once: + +"I've got it!" + +"I've got it!" + +"What's yours?" said Harry. + +"Give the boys thirty-day orders on the Company for the back pay." + +"That's it-that's my own idea to a dot. But then--but then----" + +"Yes, I know," said the Colonel; "I know they can't wait for the orders +to go to New York and be cashed, but what's the reason they can't get +them discounted in Hawkeye?" + +"Of course they can. That solves the difficulty. Everybody knows the +appropriation's been made and the Company's perfectly good." + +So the orders were given and the men appeased, though they grumbled a +little at first. The orders went well enough for groceries and such +things at a fair discount, and the work danced along gaily for a time. +Two or three purchasers put up frame houses at the Landing and moved in, +and of course a far-sighted but easy-going journeyman printer wandered +along and started the "Napoleon Weekly Telegraph and Literary +Repository"--a paper with a Latin motto from the Unabridged dictionary, +and plenty of "fat" conversational tales and double-leaded poetry--all +for two dollars a year, strictly in advance. Of course the merchants +forwarded the orders at once to New York--and never heard of them again. + +At the end of some weeks Harry's orders were a drug in the market--nobody +would take them at any discount whatever. The second month closed with a +riot.--Sellers was absent at the time, and Harry began an active absence +himself with the mob at his heels. But being on horseback, he had the +advantage. He did not tarry in Hawkeye, but went on, thus missing +several appointments with creditors. He was far on his flight eastward, +and well out of danger when the next morning dawned. He telegraphed the +Colonel to go down and quiet the laborers--he was bound east for money +--everything would be right in a week--tell the men so--tell them to rely +on him and not be afraid. + +Sellers found the mob quiet enough when he reached the Landing. +They had gutted the Navigation office, then piled the beautiful engraved +stock-books and things in the middle of the floor and enjoyed the bonfire +while it lasted. They had a liking for the Colonel, but still they had +some idea of hanging him, as a sort of make-shift that might answer, +after a fashion, in place of more satisfactory game. + +But they made the mistake of waiting to hear what he had to say first. +Within fifteen minutes his tongue had done its work and they were all +rich men.--He gave every one of them a lot in the suburbs of the city of +Stone's Landing, within a mile and a half of the future post office and +railway station, and they promised to resume work as soon as Harry got +east and started the money along. Now things were blooming and pleasant +again, but the men had no money, and nothing to live on. The Colonel +divided with them the money he still had in bank--an act which had +nothing surprising about it because he was generally ready to divide +whatever he had with anybody that wanted it, and it was owing to this +very trait that his family spent their days in poverty and at times were +pinched with famine. + +When the men's minds had cooled and Sellers was gone, they hated +themselves for letting him beguile them with fine speeches, but it was +too late, now--they agreed to hang him another time--such time as +Providence should appoint. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +Rumors of Ruth's frivolity and worldliness at Fallkill traveled to +Philadelphia in due time, and occasioned no little undertalk among the +Bolton relatives. + +Hannah Shoecraft told another, cousin that, for her part, she never +believed that Ruth had so much more "mind" than other people; and Cousin +Hulda added that she always thought Ruth was fond of admiration, and that +was the reason she was unwilling to wear plain clothes and attend +Meeting. The story that Ruth was "engaged" to a young gentleman of +fortune in Fallkill came with the other news, and helped to give point to +the little satirical remarks that went round about Ruth's desire to be a +doctor! + +Margaret Bolton was too wise to be either surprised or alarmed by these +rumors. They might be true; she knew a woman's nature too well to think +them improbable, but she also knew how steadfast Ruth was in her +purposes, and that, as a brook breaks into ripples and eddies and dances +and sports by the way, and yet keeps on to the sea, it was in Ruth's +nature to give back cheerful answer to the solicitations of friendliness +and pleasure, to appear idly delaying even, and sporting in the sunshine, +while the current of her resolution flowed steadily on. + +That Ruth had this delight in the mere surface play of life that she +could, for instance, be interested in that somewhat serious by-play +called "flirtation," or take any delight in the exercise of those little +arts of pleasing and winning which are none the less genuine and charming +because they are not intellectual, Ruth, herself, had never suspected +until she went to Fallkill. She had believed it her duty to subdue her +gaiety of temperament, and let nothing divert her from what are called +serious pursuits: In her limited experience she brought everything to the +judgment of her own conscience, and settled the affairs of all the world +in her own serene judgment hall. Perhaps her mother saw this, and saw +also that there was nothing in the Friends' society to prevent her from +growing more and more opinionated. + +When Ruth returned to Philadelphia, it must be confessed--though it would +not have been by her--that a medical career did seem a little less +necessary for her than formerly; and coming back in a glow of triumph, as +it were, and in the consciousness of the freedom and life in a lively +society and in new and sympathetic friendship, she anticipated pleasure +in an attempt to break up the stiffness and levelness of the society at +home, and infusing into it something of the motion and sparkle which were +so agreeable at Fallkill. She expected visits from her new friends, she +would have company, the new books and the periodicals about which all the +world was talking, and, in short, she would have life. + +For a little while she lived in this atmosphere which she had brought +with her. Her mother was delighted with this change in her, with the +improvement in her health and the interest she exhibited in home affairs. +Her father enjoyed the society of his favorite daughter as he did few +things besides; he liked her mirthful and teasing ways, and not less a +keen battle over something she had read. He had been a great reader all +his life, and a remarkable memory had stored his mind with encyclopaedic +information. It was one of Ruth's delights to cram herself with some out +of the way subject and endeavor to catch her father; but she almost +always failed. Mr. Bolton liked company, a house full of it, and the +mirth of young people, and he would have willingly entered into any +revolutionary plans Ruth might have suggested in relation to Friends' +society. + +But custom and the fixed order are stronger than the most enthusiastic +and rebellious young lady, as Ruth very soon found. In spite of all her +brave efforts, her frequent correspondence, and her determined animation, +her books and her music, she found herself settling into the clutches of +the old monotony, and as she realized the hopelessness of her endeavors, +the medical scheme took new hold of her, and seemed to her the only +method of escape. + +"Mother, thee does not know how different it is in Fallkill, how much +more interesting the people are one meets, how much more life there is." + +"But thee will find the world, child, pretty much all the same, when thee +knows it better. I thought once as thee does now, and had as little +thought of being a Friend as thee has. Perhaps when thee has seen more, +thee will better appreciate a quiet life." + +"Thee married young. I shall not marry young, and perhaps not at all," +said Ruth, with a look of vast experience. + +"Perhaps thee doesn't know thee own mind; I have known persons of thy +age who did not. Did thee see anybody whom thee would like to live with +always in Fallkill?" + +"Not always," replied Ruth with a little laugh. "Mother, I think I +wouldn't say 'always' to any one until I have a profession and am as +independent as he is. Then my love would be a free act, and not in any +way a necessity." + +Margaret Bolton smiled at this new-fangled philosophy. "Thee will find +that love, Ruth, is a thing thee won't reason about, when it comes, nor +make any bargains about. Thee wrote that Philip Sterling was at +Fallkill." + +"Yes, and Henry Brierly, a friend of his; a very amusing young fellow and +not so serious-minded as Philip, but a bit of a fop maybe." + +"And thee preferred the fop to the serious-minded?" + +"I didn't prefer anybody; but Henry Brierly was good company, which +Philip wasn't always." + +"Did thee know thee father had been in correspondence with Philip?" + +Ruth looked up surprised and with a plain question in her eyes. + +"Oh, it's not about thee." + +"What then?" and if there was any shade of disappointment in her tone, +probably Ruth herself did not know it. + +"It's about some land up in the country. That man Bigler has got father +into another speculation." + +"That odious man! Why will father have anything to do with him? Is it +that railroad?" + +"Yes. Father advanced money and took land as security, and whatever has +gone with the money and the bonds, he has on his hands a large tract of +wild land." + +"And what has Philip to do with that?" + +"It has good timber, if it could ever be got out, and father says that +there must be coal in it; it's in a coal region. He wants Philip to +survey it, and examine it for indications of coal." + +"It's another of father's fortunes, I suppose," said Ruth. "He has put +away so many fortunes for us that I'm afraid we never shall find them." + +Ruth was interested in it nevertheless, and perhaps mainly because Philip +was to be connected with the enterprise. Mr. Bigler came to dinner with +her father next day, and talked a great deal about Mr. Bolton's +magnificent tract of land, extolled the sagacity that led him to secure +such a property, and led the talk along to another railroad which would +open a northern communication to this very land. + +"Pennybacker says it's full of coal, he's no doubt of it, and a railroad +to strike the Erie would make it a fortune." + +"Suppose you take the land and work the thing up, Mr. Bigler; you may +have the tract for three dollars an acre." + +"You'd throw it away, then," replied Mr. Bigler, "and I'm not the man to +take advantage of a friend. But if you'll put a mortgage on it for the +northern road, I wouldn't mind taking an interest, if Pennybacker is +willing; but Pennybacker, you know, don't go much on land, he sticks to +the legislature." And Mr. Bigler laughed. + +When Mr. Bigler had gone, Ruth asked her father about Philip's connection +with the land scheme. + +"There's nothing definite," said Mr. Bolton. "Philip is showing aptitude +for his profession. I hear the best reports of him in New York, though +those sharpers don't 'intend to do anything but use him. I've written +and offered him employment in surveying and examining the land. We want +to know what it is. And if there is anything in it that his enterprise +can dig out, he shall have an interest. I should be glad to give the +young fellow a lift." + +All his life Eli Bolton had been giving young fellows a lift, and +shouldering the loses when things turned out unfortunately. His ledger, +take-it-altogether, would not show a balance on the right side; but +perhaps the losses on his books will turn out to be credits in a world +where accounts are kept on a different basis. The left hand of the +ledger will appear the right, looked at from the other side. + +Philip, wrote to Ruth rather a comical account of the bursting up of the +city of Napoleon and the navigation improvement scheme, of Harry's flight +and the Colonel's discomfiture. Harry left in such a hurry that he +hadn't even time to bid Miss Laura Hawkins good-bye, but he had no doubt +that Harry would console himself with the next pretty face he saw +--a remark which was thrown in for Ruth's benefit. Col. Sellers had in all +probability, by this time, some other equally brilliant speculation in +his brain. + +As to the railroad, Philip had made up his mind that it was merely kept +on foot for speculative purposes in Wall street, and he was about to quit +it. Would Ruth be glad to hear, he wondered, that he was coming East? +For he was coming, in spite of a letter from Harry in New York, advising +him to hold on until he had made some arrangements in regard to +contracts, he to be a little careful about Sellers, who was somewhat +visionary, Harry said. + +The summer went on without much excitement for Ruth. She kept up a +correspondence with Alice, who promised a visit in the fall, she read, +she earnestly tried to interest herself in home affairs and such people +as came to the house; but she found herself falling more and more into +reveries, and growing weary of things as they were. She felt that +everybody might become in time like two relatives from a Shaker +establishment in Ohio, who visited the Boltons about this time, a father +and son, clad exactly alike, and alike in manners. The son; however, +who was not of age, was more unworldly and sanctimonious than his father; +he always addressed his parent as "Brother Plum," and bore himself, +altogether in such a superior manner that Ruth longed to put bent pins in +his chair. Both father and son wore the long, single breasted collarless +coats of their society, without buttons, before or behind, but with a row +of hooks and eyes on either side in front. It was Ruth's suggestion that +the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the +small of the back where the buttons usually are. + +Amusing as this Shaker caricature of the Friends was, it oppressed Ruth +beyond measure; and increased her feeling of being stifled. + +It was a most unreasonable feeling. No home could be pleasanter than +Ruth's. The house, a little out of the city; was one of those elegant +country residences which so much charm visitors to the suburbs of +Philadelphia. A modern dwelling and luxurious in everything that wealth +could suggest for comfort, it stood in the midst of exquisitely kept +lawns, with groups of trees, parterres of flowers massed in colors, with +greenhouse, grapery and garden; and on one side, the garden sloped away +in undulations to a shallow brook that ran over a pebbly bottom and sang +under forest trees. The country about teas the perfection of cultivated +landscape, dotted with cottages, and stately mansions of Revolutionary +date, and sweet as an English country-side, whether seen in the soft +bloom of May or in the mellow ripeness of late October. + +It needed only the peace of the mind within, to make it a paradise. +One riding by on the Old Germantown road, and seeing a young girl +swinging in the hammock on the piazza and, intent upon some volume of old +poetry or the latest novel, would no doubt have envied a life so idyllic. +He could not have imagined that the young girl was reading a volume of +reports of clinics and longing to be elsewhere. + +Ruth could not have been more discontented if all the wealth about her +had been as unsubstantial as a dream. Perhaps she so thought it. + +"I feel," she once said to her father, "as if I were living in a house of +cards." + +"And thee would like to turn it into a hospital?" + +"No. But tell me father," continued Ruth, not to be put off, "is thee +still going on with that Bigler and those other men who come here and +entice thee?" + +Mr. Bolton smiled, as men do when they talk with women about "business" +"Such men have their uses, Ruth. They keep the world active, and I owe a +great many of my best operations to such men. Who knows, Ruth, but this +new land purchase, which I confess I yielded a little too much to Bigler +in, may not turn out a fortune for thee and the rest of the children?" + +"Ah, father, thee sees every thing in a rose-colored light. I do believe +thee wouldn't have so readily allowed me to begin the study of medicine, +if it hadn't had the novelty of an experiment to thee." + +"And is thee satisfied with it?" + +"If thee means, if I have had enough of it, no. I just begin to see what +I can do in it, and what a noble profession it is for a woman. Would +thee have me sit here like a bird on a bough and wait for somebody to +come and put me in a cage?" + +Mr. Bolton was not sorry to divert the talk from his own affairs, and he +did not think it worth while to tell his family of a performance that +very day which was entirely characteristic of him. + +Ruth might well say that she felt as if she were living in a house of +cards, although the Bolton household had no idea of the number of perils +that hovered over them, any more than thousands of families in America +have of the business risks and contingences upon which their prosperity +and luxury hang. + +A sudden call upon Mr. Bolton for a large sum of money, which must be +forthcoming at once, had found him in the midst of a dozen ventures, from +no one of which a dollar could be realized. It was in vain that he +applied to his business acquaintances and friends; it was a period of +sudden panic and no money. "A hundred thousand! Mr. Bolton," said +Plumly. "Good God, if you should ask me for ten, I shouldn't know where +to get it." + +And yet that day Mr. Small (Pennybacker, Bigler and Small) came to Mr. +Bolton with a piteous story of ruin in a coal operation, if he could not +raise ten thousand dollars. Only ten, and he was sure of a fortune. +Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small's notes for a +large amount in his safe, labeled "doubtful;" he had helped him again and +again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a +faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant +of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton +put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping +together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar, +who had never kept a promise to him nor paid a debt. + +Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that +this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon +human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a +whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar +newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished +speculator in lands and mines this remark:--"I wasn't worth a cent two +years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling +enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been +such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. It was hard to come +down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a General Superintendent +and the most conspicuous man in the community. It was sad to see his +name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected at +intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed +on with rhetorical tar and feathers. + +But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork +that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time. + +He had to bolster up his wife's spirits every now and then. On one of +these occasions he said: + +"It's all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little +while. There's $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again: +Harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that's to be expected--you +can't move these big operations to the tune of Fisher's Hornpipe, you +know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you'll +see! I expect the news every day now." + +"But Beriah, you've been expecting it every day, all along, haven't you?" + +"Well, yes; yes--I don't know but I have. But anyway, the longer it's +delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start--same as +every day you live brings you nearer to--nearer--" + +"The grave?" + +"Well, no--not that exactly; but you can't understand these things, Polly +dear--women haven't much head for business, you know. You make yourself +perfectly comfortable, old lady, and you'll see how we'll trot this right +along. Why bless you, let the appropriation lag, if it wants to--that's +no great matter--there's a bigger thing than that." + +"Bigger than $200,000, Beriah?" + +"Bigger, child?--why, what's $200,000? Pocket money! Mere pocket money! +Look at the railroad! Did you forget the railroad? It ain't many months +till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming +right along behind it. Where'll it be by the middle of summer? Just +stop and fancy a moment--just think a little--don't anything suggest +itself? Bless your heart, you dear women live right in the present all +the time--but a man, why a man lives---- + +"In the future, Beriah? But don't we live in the future most too much, +Beriah? We do somehow seem to manage to live on next year's crop of corn +and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along, +but sometimes it's not a robust diet,--Beriah. But don't look that way, +dear--don't mind what I say. I don't mean to fret, I don't mean to +worry; and I don't, once a month, do I, dear? But when I get a little +low and feel bad, I get a bit troubled and worrisome, but it don't mean +anything in the world. It passes right away. I know you're doing all +you can, and I don't want to seem repining and ungrateful--for I'm not, +Beriah--you know I'm not, don't you?" + +"Lord bless you, child, I know you are the very best little woman that +ever lived--that ever lived on the whole face of the Earth! And I know +that I would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and scheme +for you with all my might. And I'll bring things all right yet, honey +--cheer up and don't you fear. The railroad----" + +"Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a +body forgets everything. Yes, the railroad--tell me about the railroad." + +"Aha, my girl, don't you see? Things ain't so dark, are they? Now I +didn't forget the railroad. Now just think for a moment--just figure up +a little on the future dead moral certainties. For instance, call this +waiter St. Louis. + +"And we'll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from St. Louis to +this potato, which is Slouchburg: + +"Then with this carving knife we'll continue the railroad from Slouchburg +to Doodleville, shown by the black pepper: + +"Then we run along the--yes--the comb--to the tumbler that's Brimstone: + +"Thence by the pipe to Belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar: + +"Thence to, to--that quill--Catfish--hand me the pincushion, Marie +Antoinette: + +"Thence right along these shears to this horse, Babylon: + +"Then by the spoon to Bloody Run--thank you, the ink: + +"Thence to Hail Columbia--snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and +saucer close up, that's Hail Columbia: + +"Then--let me open my knife--to Hark-from-the-Tomb, where we'll put +the candle-stick--only a little distance from Hail Columbia to +Hark-from-the-Tomb--down-grade all the way. + +"And there we strike Columbus River--pass me two or throe skeins of +thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and +the rat trap for Stone's Landing-Napoleon, I mean--and you can see how +much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your +railroad complete, and showing its continuation to Hallelujah and thence +to Corruptionville. + +"Now then-them you are! It's a beautiful road, beautiful. Jeff Thompson +can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through an aneroid, +or a theodolite, or whatever they call it--he calls it sometimes one and +sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest, I +reckon. But ain't it a ripping toad, though? I tell you, it'll make a +stir when it gets along. Just see what a country it goes through. +There's your onions at Slouchburg--noblest onion country that graces +God's footstool; and there's your turnip country all around Doodleville +--bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there when they get +that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips--if +there's any in them; and I reckon there is, because Congress has made an +appropriation of money to test the thing, and they wouldn't have done +that just on conjecture, of course. And now we come to the Brimstone +region--cattle raised there till you can't rest--and corn, and all that +sort of thing. Then you've got a little stretch along through Belshazzar +that don't produce anything now--at least nothing but rocks--but +irrigation will fetch it. Then from Catfish to Babylon it's a little +swampy, but there's dead loads of peat down under there somewhere. Next +is the Bloody Run and Hail Columbia country--tobacco enough can be raised +there to support two such railroads. Next is the sassparilla region. +I reckon there's enough of that truck along in there on the line of the +pocket-knife, from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the Tomb to fat up all the +consumptives in all the hospitals from Halifax to the Holy Land. It just +grows like weeds! I've got a little belt of sassparilla land in there +just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my little Universal +Expectorant to get into shape in my head. And I'll fix that, you know. +One of these days I'll have all the nations of the earth expecto--" + +"But Beriah, dear--" + +"Don't interrupt me; Polly--I don't want you to lose the run of the map +--well, take your toy-horse, James Fitz-James, if you must have it--and run +along with you. Here, now--the soap will do for Babylon. Let me see +--where was I? Oh yes--now we run down to Stone's Lan--Napoleon--now we +run down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at that, now. Perfectly +straight line-straight as the way to the grave. And see where it leaves +Hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear out in the cold. That +town's as bound to die as--well if I owned it I'd get its obituary ready, +now, and notify the mourners. Polly, mark my words--in three years from +this, Hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness. You'll see. And just look at +that river--noblest stream that meanders over the thirsty earth! +--calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom! Railroad +goes all over it and all through it--wades right along on stilts. +Seventeen bridges in three miles and a half--forty-nine bridges from +Hark-from-the-Tomb to Stone's Landing altogether--forty nine bridges, and +culverts enough to culvert creation itself! Hadn't skeins of thread +enough to represent them all--but you get an idea--perfect trestle-work +of bridges for seventy two miles: Jeff Thompson and I fixed all that, you +know; he's to get the contracts and I'm to put them through on the +divide. Just oceans of money in those bridges. It's the only part of +the railroad I'm interested in,--down along the line--and it's all I +want, too. It's enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon. +Good enough country plenty good enough--all it wants is population. +That's all right--that will come. And it's no bad country now for +calmness and solitude, I can tell you--though there's no money in that, +of course. No money, but a man wants rest, a man wants peace--a man +don't want to rip and tear around all the time. And here we go, now, +just as straight as a string for Hallelujah--it's a beautiful angle +--handsome up grade all the way --and then away you go to Corruptionville, +the gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever--good +missionary field, too. There ain't such another missionary field outside +the jungles of Central Africa. And patriotic?--why they named it after +Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my dear, there's a good time coming, +and it'll be right along before you know what you're about, too. That +railroad's fetching it. You see what it is as far as I've got, and if I +had enough bottles and soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it +along to where it joins onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles +from here, I should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a +spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. So, don't you see? We've got the +rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying +about that $200,000 appropriation for? That's all right. I'd be willing +to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will--" + +The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter, +warm from the post-office. + +"Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I'm sorry I was blue, but it +did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open +the letter--open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir out +of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says." + +The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 3. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 3. *** + +***** This file should be named 5820.txt or 5820.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/2/5820/ + +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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