Okochee, in Georgia, had a boom, and J. Pinkney Bloom came out of it
with a “wad.” Okochee came out of it with a half-million-dollar debt, a
two and a half per cent. city property tax, and a city council that
showed a propensity for traveling the back streets of the town. These
things came about through a fatal resemblance of the river Cooloosa to
the Hudson, as set forth and expounded by a Northern tourist. Okochee
felt that New York should not be allowed to consider itself the only
alligator in the swamp, so to speak. And then that harmless, but
persistent, individual so numerous in the South—the man who is always
clamoring for more cotton mills, and is ready to take a dollar’s worth
of stock, provided he can borrow the dollar—that man added his deadly
work to the tourist’s innocent praise, and Okochee fell.
The Cooloosa River winds through a range of small mountains, passes
Okochee and then blends its waters trippingly, as fall the mellifluous
Indian syllables, with the Chattahoochee.
Okochee rose, as it were, from its sunny seat on the post-office stoop,
hitched up its suspender, and threw a granite dam two hundred and forty
feet long and sixty feet high across the Cooloosa one mile above the
town. Thereupon, a dimpling, sparkling lake backed up twenty miles
among the little mountains. Thus in the great game of municipal rivalry
did Okochee match that famous drawing card, the Hudson. It was conceded
that nowhere could the Palisades be judged superior in the way of
scenery and grandeur. Following the picture card was played the ace of
commercial importance. Fourteen thousand horsepower would this dam
furnish. Cotton mills, factories, and manufacturing plants would rise
up as the green corn after a shower. The spindle and the flywheel and
turbine would sing the shrewd glory of Okochee. Along the picturesque
heights above the lake would rise in beauty the costly villas and the
splendid summer residences of capital. The naphtha launch of the
millionaire would spit among the romantic coves; the verdured hills
would take formal shapes of terrace, lawn, and park. Money would be
spent like water in Okochee, and water would be turned into money.
The fate of the good town is quickly told. Capital decided not to
invest. Of all the great things promised, the scenery alone came to
fulfilment. The wooded peaks, the impressive promontories of solemn
granite, the beautiful green slants of bank and ravine did all they
could to reconcile Okochee to the delinquency of miserly gold. The
sunsets gilded the dreamy draws and coves with a minting that should
charm away heart-burning. Okochee, true to the instinct of its blood
and clime, was lulled by the spell. It climbed out of the arena, loosed
its suspender, sat down again on the post-office stoop, and took a
chew. It consoled itself by drawling sarcasms at the city council which
was not to blame, causing the fathers, as has been said, to seek back
streets and figure perspiringly on the sinking fund and the
appropriation for interest due.
The youth of Okochee—they who were to carry into the rosy future the
burden of the debt—accepted failure with youth’s uncalculating joy.
For, here was sport, aquatic and nautical, added to the meagre round of
life’s pleasures. In yachting caps and flowing neckties they pervaded
the lake to its limits. Girls wore silk waists embroidered with anchors
in blue and pink. The trousers of the young men widened at the bottom,
and their hands were proudly calloused by the oft-plied oar. Fishermen
were under the spell of a deep and tolerant joy. Sailboats and rowboats
furrowed the lenient waves, popcorn and ice-cream booths sprang up
about the little wooden pier. Two small excursion steamboats were
built, and plied the delectable waters. Okochee philosophically gave up
the hope of eating turtle soup with a gold spoon, and settled back, not
ill content, to its regular diet of lotus and fried hominy. And out of
this slow wreck of great expectations rose up J. Pinkney Bloom with his
“wad” and his prosperous, cheery smile.
Needless to say J. Pinkney was no product of Georgia soil. He came out
of that flushed and capable region known as the “North.” He called
himself a “promoter”; his enemies had spoken of him as a “grafter”;
Okochee took a middle course, and held him to be no better nor no worse
than a “Yank.”
Far up the lake—eighteen miles above the town—the eye of this cheerful
camp-follower of booms had spied out a graft. He purchased there a
precipitous tract of five hundred acres at forty-five cents per acre;
and this he laid out and subdivided as the city of Skyland—the Queen
City of the Switzerland of the South. Streets and avenues were
surveyed; parks designed; corners of central squares reserved for the
“proposed” opera house, board of trade, lyceum, market, public schools,
and “Exposition Hall.” The price of lots ranged from five to five
hundred dollars. Positively, no lot would be priced higher than five
hundred dollars.
While the boom was growing in Okochee, J. Pinkney’s circulars, maps,
and prospectuses were flying through the mails to every part of the
country. Investors sent in their money by post, and the Skyland Real
Estate Company (J. Pinkney Bloom) returned to each a deed, duly placed
on record, to the best lot, at the price, on hand that day. All this
time the catamount screeched upon the reserved lot of the Skyland Board
of Trade, the opossum swung by his tail over the site of the exposition
hall, and the owl hooted a melancholy recitative to his audience of
young squirrels in opera house square. Later, when the money was coming
in fast, J. Pinkney caused to be erected in the coming city half a
dozen cheap box houses, and persuaded a contingent of indigent natives
to occupy them, thereby assuming the role of “population” in subsequent
prospectuses, which became, accordingly, more seductive and
remunerative.
So, when the dream faded and Okochee dropped back to digging bait and
nursing its two and a half per cent. tax, J. Pinkney Bloom (unloving of
checks and drafts and the cold interrogatories of bankers) strapped
about his fifty-two-inch waist a soft leather belt containing eight
thousand dollars in big bills, and said that all was very good.
One last trip he was making to Skyland before departing to other salad
fields. Skyland was a regular post-office, and the steamboat, _Dixie
Belle_, under contract, delivered the mail bag (generally empty) twice
a week. There was a little business there to be settled—the postmaster
was to be paid off for his light but lonely services, and the
“inhabitants” had to be furnished with another month’s homely rations,
as per agreement. And then Skyland would know J. Pinkney Bloom no more.
The owners of these precipitous, barren, useless lots might come and
view the scene of their invested credulity, or they might leave them to
their fit tenants, the wild hog and the browsing deer. The work of the
Skyland Real Estate Company was finished.
The little steamboat _Dixie Belle_ was about to shove off on her
regular up-the-lake trip, when a rickety hired carriage rattled up to
the pier, and a tall, elderly gentleman, in black, stepped out,
signaling courteously but vivaciously for the boat to wait. Time was of
the least importance in the schedule of the _Dixie Belle_; Captain
MacFarland gave the order, and the boat received its ultimate two
passengers. For, upon the arm of the tall, elderly gentleman, as he
crossed the gangway, was a little elderly lady, with a gray curl
depending quaintly forward of her left ear.
Captain MacFarland was at the wheel; therefore it seemed to J. Pinkney
Bloom, who was the only other passenger, that it should be his to play
the part of host to the boat’s new guests, who were, doubtless, on a
scenery-viewing expedition. He stepped forward, with that translucent,
child-candid smile upon his fresh, pink countenance, with that air of
unaffected sincerity that was redeemed from bluffness only by its
exquisite calculation, with that promptitude and masterly decision of
manner that so well suited his calling—with all his stock in trade well
to the front; he stepped forward to receive Colonel and Mrs. Peyton
Blaylock. With the grace of a grand marshal or a wedding usher, he
escorted the two passengers to a side of the upper deck, from which the
scenery was supposed to present itself to the observer in increased
quantity and quality. There, in comfortable steamer chairs, they sat
and began to piece together the random lines that were to form an
intelligent paragraph in the big history of little events.
“Our home, sir,” said Colonel Blaylock, removing his wide-brimmed,
rather shapeless black felt hat, “is in Holly Springs—Holly Springs,
Georgia. I am very proud to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bloom. Mrs.
Blaylock and myself have just arrived in Okochee this morning, sir, on
business—business of importance in connection with the recent rapid
march of progress in this section of our state.”
The Colonel smoothed back, with a sweeping gesture, his long, smooth,
locks. His dark eyes, still fiery under the heavy black brows, seemed
inappropriate to the face of a business man. He looked rather to be an
old courtier handed down from the reign of Charles, and re-attired in a
modern suit of fine, but raveling and seam-worn, broadcloth.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bloom, in his heartiest prospectus voice, “things
have been whizzing around Okochee. Biggest industrial revival and
waking up to natural resources Georgia ever had. Did you happen to
squeeze in on the ground floor in any of the gilt-edged grafts,
Colonel?”
“Well, sir,” said the Colonel, hesitating in courteous doubt, “if I
understand your question, I may say that I took the opportunity to make
an investment that I believe will prove quite advantageous—yes, sir, I
believe it will result in both pecuniary profit and agreeable
occupation.”
“Colonel Blaylock,” said the little elderly lady, shaking her gray curl
and smiling indulgent explanation at J. Pinkney Bloom, “is so devoted
to businesss. He has such a talent for financiering and markets and
investments and those kind of things. I think myself extremely
fortunate in having secured him for a partner on life’s journey—I am so
unversed in those formidable but very useful branches of learning.”
Colonel Blaylock rose and made a bow—a bow that belonged with silk
stockings and lace ruffles and velvet.
“Practical affairs,” he said, with a wave of his hand toward the
promoter, “are, if I may use the comparison, the garden walks upon
which we tread through life, viewing upon either side of us the flowers
which brighten that journey. It is my pleasure to be able to lay out a
walk or two. Mrs. Blaylock, sir, is one of those fortunate higher
spirits whose mission it is to make the flowers grow. Perhaps, Mr.
Bloom, you have perused the lines of Lorella, the Southern poetess.
That is the name above which Mrs. Blaylock has contributed to the press
of the South for many years.”
“Unfortunately,” said Mr. Bloom, with a sense of the loss clearly
written upon his frank face, “I’m like the Colonel—in the walk-making
business myself—and I haven’t had time to even take a sniff at the
flowers. Poetry is a line I never dealt in. It must be nice,
though—quite nice.”
“It is the region,” smiled Mrs. Blaylock, “in which my soul dwells. My
shawl, Peyton, if you please—the breeze comes a little chilly from yon
verdured hills.”
The Colonel drew from the tail pocket of his coat a small shawl of
knitted silk and laid it solicitously about the shoulders of the lady.
Mrs. Blaylock sighed contentedly, and turned her expressive eyes—still
as clear and unworldly as a child’s—upon the steep slopes that were
slowly slipping past. Very fair and stately they looked in the clear
morning air. They seemed to speak in familiar terms to the responsive
spirit of Lorella. “My native hills!” she murmured, dreamily. “See how
the foliage drinks the sunlight from the hollows and dells.”
“Mrs. Blaylock’s maiden days,” said the Colonel, interpreting her mood
to J. Pinkney Bloom, “were spent among the mountains of northern
Georgia. Mountain air and mountain scenery recall to her those days.
Holly Springs, where we have lived for twenty years, is low and flat. I
fear that she may have suffered in health and spirits by so long a
residence there. That is one portent reason for the change we are
making. My dear, can you not recall those lines you wrote—entitled, I
think, ‘The Georgia Hills’—the poem that was so extensively copied by
the Southern press and praised so highly by the Atlanta critics?”
Mrs. Blaylock turned a glance of speaking tenderness upon the Colonel,
fingered for a moment the silvery curl that drooped upon her bosom,
then looked again toward the mountains. Without preliminary or
affectation or demurral she began, in rather thrilling and more deeply
pitched tones to recite these lines:
“The Georgia hills, the Georgia hills!—
Oh, heart, why dost thou pine?
Are not these sheltered lowlands fair
With mead and bloom and vine?
Ah! as the slow-paced river here
Broods on its natal rills
My spirit drifts, in longing sweet,
Back to the Georgia hills.
“And through the close-drawn, curtained night
I steal on sleep’s slow wings
Back to my heart’s ease—slopes of pine—
Where end my wanderings.
Oh, heaven seems nearer from their tops—
And farther earthly ills—
Even in dreams, if I may but
Dream of my Georgia hills.
The grass upon their orchard sides
Is a fine couch to me;
The common note of each small bird
Passes all minstrelsy.
It would not seem so dread a thing
If, when the Reaper wills,
He might come there and take my hand
Up in the Georgia hills.”
“That’s great stuff, ma’am,” said J. Pinkney Bloom, enthusiastically,
when the poetess had concluded. “I wish I had looked up poetry more
than I have. I was raised in the pine hills myself.”
“The mountains ever call to their children,” murmured Mrs. Blaylock. “I
feel that life will take on the rosy hue of hope again in among these
beautiful hills. Peyton—a little taste of the currant wine, if you will
be so good. The journey, though delightful in the extreme, slightly
fatigues me.” Colonel Blaylock again visited the depths of his prolific
coat, and produced a tightly corked, rough, black bottle. Mr. Bloom was
on his feet in an instant.
“Let me bring a glass, ma’am. You come along, Colonel—there’s a little
table we can bring, too. Maybe we can scare up some fruit or a cup of
tea on board. I’ll ask Mac.”
Mrs. Blaylock reclined at ease. Few royal ladies have held their royal
prerogative with the serene grace of the petted Southern woman. The
Colonel, with an air as gallant and assiduous as in the days of his
courtship, and J. Pinkney Bloom, with a ponderous agility half
professional and half directed by some resurrected, unnamed,
long-forgotten sentiment, formed a diversified but attentive court. The
currant wine—wine home made from the Holly Springs fruit—went round,
and then J. Pinkney began to hear something of Holly Springs life.
It seemed (from the conversation of the Blaylocks) that the Springs was
decadent. A third of the population had moved away. Business—and the
Colonel was an authority on business—had dwindled to nothing. After
carefully studying the field of opportunities open to capital he had
sold his little property there for eight hundred dollars and invested
it in one of the enterprises opened up by the book in Okochee.
“Might I inquire, sir,” said Mr. Bloom, “in what particular line of
business you inserted your coin? I know that town as well as I know the
regulations for illegal use of the mails. I might give you a hunch as
to whether you can make the game go or not.”
J. Pinkney, somehow, had a kindly feeling toward these unsophisticated
representatives of by-gone days. They were so simple, impractical, and
unsuspecting. He was glad that he happened not to have a gold brick or
a block of that western Bad Boy Silver Mine stock along with him. He
would have disliked to unload on people he liked so well as he did
these; but there are some temptations toe enticing to be resisted.
“No, sir,” said Colonel Blaylock, pausing to arrange the queen’s wrap.
“I did not invest in Okochee. I have made an exhaustive study of
business conditions, and I regard old settled towns as unfavorable
fields in which to place capital that is limited in amount. Some months
ago, through the kindness of a friend, there came into my hands a map
and description of this new town of Skyland that has been built upon
the lake. The description was so pleasing, the future of the town set
forth in such convincing arguments, and its increasing prosperity
portrayed in such an attractive style that I decided to take advantage
of the opportunity it offered. I carefully selected a lot in the centre
of the business district, although its price was the highest in the
schedule—five hundred dollars—and made the purchase at once.”
“Are you the man—I mean, did you pay five hundred dollars for a lot in
Skyland” asked J. Pinkney Bloom.
“I did, sir,” answered the Colonel, with the air of a modest
millionaire explaining his success; “a lot most excellently situated on
the same square with the opera house, and only two squares from the
board of trade. I consider the purchase a most fortuitous one. It is my
intention to erect a small building upon it at once, and open a modest
book and stationery store. During past years I have met with many
pecuniary reverses, and I now find it necessary to engage in some
commercial occupation that will furnish me with a livelihood. The book
and stationery business, though an humble one, seems to me not inapt
nor altogether uncongenial. I am a graduate of the University of
Virginia; and Mrs. Blaylock’s really wonderful acquaintance with
belles-lettres and poetic literature should go far toward insuring
success. Of course, Mrs. Blaylock would not personally serve behind the
counter. With the nearly three hundred dollars I have remaining I can
manage the building of a house, by giving a lien on the lot. I have an
old friend in Atlanta who is a partner in a large book store, and he
has agreed to furnish me with a stock of goods on credit, on extremely
easy terms. I am pleased to hope, sir, that Mrs. Blaylock’s health and
happiness will be increased by the change of locality. Already I fancy
I can perceive the return of those roses that were once the hope and
despair of Georgia cavaliers.”
Again followed that wonderful bow, as the Colonel lightly touched the
pale cheek of the poetess. Mrs. Blaylock, blushing like a girl, shook
her curl and gave the Colonel an arch, reproving tap. Secret of eternal
youth—where art thou? Every second the answer comes—“Here, here, here.”
Listen to thine own heartbeats, O weary seeker after external miracles.
“Those years,” said Mrs. Blaylock, “in Holly Springs were long, long,
long. But now is the promised land in sight. Skyland!—a lovely name.”
“Doubtless,” said the Colonel, “we shall be able to secure comfortable
accommodations at some modest hotel at reasonable rates. Our trunks are
in Okochee, to be forwarded when we shall have made permanent
arrangements.”
J. Pinkney Bloom excused himself, went forward, and stood by the
captain at the wheel.
“Mac,” said he, “do you remember my telling you once that I sold one of
those five-hundred-dollar lots in Skyland?”
“Seems I do,” grinned Captain MacFarland.
“I’m not a coward, as a general rule,” went on the promoter, “but I
always said that if I ever met the sucker that bought that lot I’d run
like a turkey. Now, you see that old babe-in-the-wood over there? Well,
he’s the boy that drew the prize. That was the only five-hundred-dollar
lot that went. The rest ranged from ten dollars to two hundred. His
wife writes poetry. She’s invented one about the high grounds of
Georgia, that’s way up in G. They’re going to Skyland to open a book
store.”
“Well,” said MacFarland, with another grin, “it’s a good thing you are
along, J. P.; you can show ’em around town until they begin to feel at
home.”
“He’s got three hundred dollars left to build a house and store with,”
went on J. Pinkney, as if he were talking to himself. “And he thinks
there’s an open house up there.”
Captain MacFarland released the wheel long enough to give his leg a
roguish slap.
“You old fat rascal!” he chuckled, with a wink.
“Mac, you’re a fool,” said J. Pinkney Bloom, coldly. He went back and
joined the Blaylocks, where he sat, less talkative, with that straight
furrow between his brows that always stood as a signal of schemes being
shaped within.
“There’s a good many swindles connected with these booms,” he said
presently. “What if this Skyland should turn out to be one—that is,
suppose business should be sort of dull there, and no special sale for
books?”
“My dear sir,” said Colonel Blaylock, resting his hand upon the back of
his wife’s chair, “three times I have been reduced to almost penury by
the duplicity of others, but I have not yet lost faith in humanity. If
I have been deceived again, still we may glean health and content, if
not worldly profit. I am aware that there are dishonest schemers in the
world who set traps for the unwary, but even they are not altogether
bad. My dear, can you recall those verses entitled ‘He Giveth the
Increase,’ that you composed for the choir of our church in Holly
Springs?”
“That was four years ago,” said Mrs. Blaylock; “perhaps I can repeat a
verse or two.
“The lily springs from the rotting mould;
Pearls from the deep sea slime;
Good will come out of Nazareth
All in God’s own time.
“To the hardest heart the softening grace
Cometh, at last, to bless;
Guiding it right to help and cheer
And succor in distress.
“I cannot remember the rest. The lines were not ambitious. They were
written to the music composed by a dear friend.”
“It’s a fine rhyme, just the same,” declared Mr. Bloom. “It seems to
ring the bell, all right. I guess I gather the sense of it. It means
that the rankest kind of a phony will give you the best end of it once
in a while.”
Mr. Bloom strayed thoughtfully back to the captain, and stood
meditating.
“Ought to be in sight of the spires and gilded domes of Skyland now in
a few minutes,” chirruped MacFarland, shaking with enjoyment.
“Go to the devil,” said Mr. Bloom, still pensive.
And now, upon the left bank, they caught a glimpse of a white village,
high up on the hills, smothered among green trees. That was Cold
Branch—no boom town, but the slow growth of many years. Cold Branch lay
on the edge of the grape and corn lands. The big country road ran just
back of the heights. Cold Branch had nothing in common with the frisky
ambition of Okochee with its impertinent lake.
“Mac,” said J. Pinkney suddenly, “I want you to stop at Cold Branch.
There’s a landing there that they made to use sometimes when the river
was up.”
“Can’t,” said the captain, grinning more broadly. “I’ve got the United
States mails on board. Right to-day this boat’s in the government
service. Do you want to have the poor old captain keelhauled by Uncle
Sam? And the great city of Skyland, all disconsolate, waiting for its
mail? I’m ashamed of your extravagance, J. P.”
“Mac,” almost whispered J. Pinkney, in his danger-line voice, “I looked
into the engine room of the _Dixie Belle_ a while ago. Don’t you know
of somebody that needs a new boiler? Cement and black Japan can’t hide
flaws from me. And then, those shares of building and loan that you
traded for repairs—they were all yours, of course. I hate to mention
these things, but—”
“Oh, come now, J. P.,” said the captain. “You know I was just fooling.
I’ll put you off at Cold Branch, if you say so.”
“The other passengers get off there, too,” said Mr. Bloom.
Further conversation was held, and in ten minutes the _Dixie Belle_
turned her nose toward a little, cranky wooden pier on the left bank,
and the captain, relinquishing the wheel to a roustabout, came to the
passenger deck and made the remarkable announcement: “All out for
Skyland.”
The Blaylocks and J. Pinkney Bloom disembarked, and the _Dixie Belle_
proceeded on her way up the lake. Guided by the indefatigable promoter,
they slowly climbed the steep hillside, pausing often to rest and
admire the view. Finally they entered the village of Cold Branch.
Warmly both the Colonel and his wife praised it for its homelike and
peaceful beauty. Mr. Bloom conducted them to a two-story building on a
shady street that bore the legend, “Pine-top Inn.” Here he took his
leave, receiving the cordial thanks of the two for his attentions, the
Colonel remarking that he thought they would spend the remainder of the
day in rest, and take a look at his purchase on the morrow.
J. Pinkney Bloom walked down Cold Branch’s main street. He did not know
this town, but he knew towns, and his feet did not falter. Presently he
saw a sign over a door: “Frank E. Cooly, Attorney-at-Law and Notary
Public.” A young man was Mr. Cooly, and awaiting business.
“Get your hat, son,” said Mr. Bloom, in his breezy way, “and a blank
deed, and come along. It’s a job for you.”
“Now,” he continued, when Mr. Cooly had responded with alacrity, “is
there a bookstore in town?”
“One,” said the lawyer. “Henry Williams’s.”
“Get there,” said Mr. Bloom. “We’re going to buy it.”
Henry Williams was behind his counter. His store was a small one,
containing a mixture of books, stationery, and fancy rubbish. Adjoining
it was Henry’s home—a decent cottage, vine-embowered and cosy. Henry
was lank and soporific, and not inclined to rush his business.
“I want to buy your house and store,” said Mr. Bloom. “I haven’t got
time to dicker—name your price.”
“It’s worth eight hundred,” said Henry, too much dazed to ask more than
its value.
“Shut that door,” said Mr. Bloom to the lawyer. Then he tore off his
coat and vest, and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Wanter fight about it, do yer?” said Henry Williams, jumping up and
cracking his heels together twice. “All right, hunky—sail in and cut
yer capers.”
“Keep your clothes on,” said Mr. Bloom. “I’m only going down to the
bank.”
He drew eight one-hundred-dollar bills from his money belt and planked
them down on the counter. Mr. Cooly showed signs of future promise, for
he already had the deed spread out, and was reaching across the counter
for the ink bottle. Never before or since was such quick action had in
Cold Branch.
“Your name, please?” asked the lawyer.
“Make it out to Peyton Blaylock,” said Mr. Bloom. “God knows how to
spell it.”
Within thirty minutes Henry Williams was out of business, and Mr. Bloom
stood on the brick sidewalk with Mr. Cooly, who held in his hand the
signed and attested deed.
“You’ll find the party at the Pinetop Inn,” said J. Pinkney Bloom. “Get
it recorded, and take it down and give it to him. He’ll ask you a
hell’s mint of questions; so here’s ten dollars for the trouble you’ll
have in not being able to answer ’em. Never run much to poetry, did
you, young man?”
“Well,” said the really talented Cooly, who even yet retained his right
mind, “now and then.”
“Dig into it,” said Mr. Bloom, “it’ll pay you. Never heard a poem, now,
that run something like this, did you?—
A good thing out of Nazareth
Comes up sometimes, I guess,
On hand, all right, to help and cheer
A sucker in distress.”
“I believe not,” said Mr. Cooly.
“It’s a hymn,” said J. Pinkney Bloom. “Now, show me the way to a livery
stable, son, for I’m going to hit the dirt road back to Okochee.”