|IN San Francisco Dr. Ulswater set about despatching Hannah Atkins
eastward, and I got into communication with The Union Electric Company.
Sadler disappeared. He went with Dr. Ulswater to see Hannah Atkins
despatched, and then disappeared on business of his own.
Dr. Ulswater wired east: “Goods shipped by S. P. as per letter to
follow.” Two days later he received a telegram from the East: “What's
the trouble with your shipment?” He wired back: “Don't know of any
trouble,” and received this mystic and portentous reply: “Held up at
Zionville.”
Zionville! Where and what was Zionville? Dr. Ulswater and I were to
find out. How shall one answer the question: “What is Zionville?” We may
begin in this way:
A stranger visiting Zionville to-day, if he is one with eyes to see
understanding, will notice that the distinction of the place, in some
singular and subtle way, seems to come together and concentrate on its
cemetery, a noble enclosure with an imposing arched gateway. He will
wonder how and why.
If he takes my advice, he will inquire first for Babbitt's Hotel. He
will find there a long veranda with thin green pillars, many cane-backed
chairs, and many occupants of the chairs. Of these occupants let him
inquire for William C. Jones. It may well be that one of the occupants
will be William C. Jones. Let him fall into casual conversation with
William C. Jones. He will find him full of local patriotism, elderly,
cross-eyed, a lawyer by profession, a man of harsh voice, and manner of
speech as indirect as his left eye; of a bleak and barren face, heavy,
morose, shaped like a Bartlett pear, with light eyelashes and no
eyebrows; a man of statesmanlike carriage, with care up on his forehead.
Let the stranger, pointing to the cemetery's tallest monument, at last
inquire:
“What's that monument for?” Maybe, if he should speak of it as “that
pillar of distress,” or some such equivocal term as might suggest a
doubt whether he liked its architecture, it might be a good plan. Then
William C. Jones will fasten on either side of his questioner a glassy
diagonal stare, and speak something to this general effect, inquiring:
--Whether you are a sarcastic and facetious party, or one that has
misspent his youth and means to die sudden and ignorant; and if so,
whether you are inclined to ribaldry, and don't know a real serious
subject from a can of spoiled beans; or are merely a sort of Hottentot
party, disguised in a different and on the whole inferior kind of
homeliness, with features not well assorted, morals depraved, and
intellect omitted; and if so, whether on that account you ought to be
excused for illiteracy respecting that world-renowned monument, or were
not well brought up, and possibly intend better than you talk.----
In that way the subject will be fairly opened.
Under the guidance of William C. Jones let the stranger go about,
listen, and observe. He will hear that originally Zionville was the
offspring of a gold mine. He will see that at present she lies in the
midst of orchards and vineyards. Superficially, she is a small and
happy city lying between the flat plain of the Sacramento and the lower
foothills of the Sierras. In reality she is a personage. No origins
account for Zionville, and no appearances define her.
Dr. Ulswater is fond of drawing fine distinctions between what he calls
“the phenomenal and noumenal Zionville,” between “the objective and the
subjective Zionville,” between Zionville as she appears to the senses
and “Zionville as such.” This is all more or less beyond me, but I'd
go so far as to admit that “Zionville as such” is a personage without
parallel in the solar system, without example in the Milky Way. How
shall I describe her? She is romantic, and incurably young. She
is nonchalant, and yet interested. She is open, unashamed, and yet
impenetrable.
When Dr. Ulswater and I first saw her, she appeared to consist of some
hundreds of ramshackle houses thrown down anywhere, a few handsome
residences on the hillsides, a couple of brick blocks, a high school, a
jail, three churches, Babbitt s Hotel, and an outlying Chinatown. There
were no sidewalks then to speak of, except on Main Street. There were
some gas lamps, but nothing electric, and nothing that looked like a
cemetery. Westward lay the plain, eastward the wooded hills and lonely
canyons. Nothing spoke outwardly of Zionville s aspirations, her hopes
and dreams. And yet she stood there in a crisis of her history.
It is well established now that there are three great dates in Zionville
history, of which the first marks the discovery of the Eureka Gold
Mine, and the second the Reformation. Opinion agrees that before the
Reformation she was already a personage, but admits that her morals
were seedy; that morals was not a subject to which she gave any great
attention.
The history of the reform movement is a volume by itself. The subject
of morals once called to her attention, she went at it with her
characteristic ardour and efficiency. Anything labelled “Morality”
she was ready to try. She set her mind on higher things. She became
conscious of her destiny. A new era dawned. She discarded her old name.
The name “Zionville” dates only from the Reformation. Her former name is
expunged from her records. No public-spirited citizen ever mentions it
now.
Dr. Ulswater and I stepped, then, from the train, and looked about us,
and saw a drowsy, shiftless looking town, loafing, sprawling at the feet
of the hills. We cared nothing for Zionville. We were looking for Hannah
Atkins. We wanted to know what brigand of the Sierras was low-down
enough to hold up a lady of her age, discretion, decent poverty, and
illustrious descent. We asked the station master if he had any news
about him concerning such and such goods, so and so labelled.
He was a small man with pale eyes. No sooner had Dr. Ulswater spoken
than his pale eyes glowed with purpose. There was a sudden and
mysterious light in them. It was the reflection of the torch of
Zionville. It was our first glimpse of Zionville's pure flame.
He sprang up. He ran past us without speaking, out through the open
door, and sped up the dusty street. We stood alone in the silent, empty
station. The doctor walked to the door, adjusted his glasses, and gazed
after. I followed.
“Doctor,” I said, “Hannah's got into trouble. Maybe she stopped off for
breakfast and didn't pay her bills.”
He was beyond the reach of jibes, listening, gazing at the phenomena
before him. We both looked. We saw Zionville waking up, shaking her
mane, pealing her eagle eye, girding her loins and unlimbering herself.
First one figure, then another appeared in the hot sunny street; then
groups, throngs, gathered and martialled. The dust rose so thickly as
to hide them, but the distant murmur grew, and now we heard the thump of
drums, the clash of cymbals, the piping of fifes. The brown dust cloud
came rolling down the street toward the station; through it we soon
discerned the approaching procession, men and women and a fringe of
clamouring children.
“Mad!” said Dr. Ulswater. “Why, it's a palpably insane community! What
do you conjecture they're after?” I said:
“Maybe it's Hannah's pedigree. Maybe it's us.”
The dusty procession was upon us. We were seized and thrust into the
middle of it. The tumult, the shouting, and the noise of semi-musical
instruments was so great that if anybody attempted to explain or answer
questions, I didn't make it out. I noticed that the confusion was really
superficial. Nobody seemed to be in command, every one seemed to have a
hand in what was going on--whatever it was--and some common understood
purpose seemed to guide it all. It was an organised miscellany. Up the
the street we went through the dust, drums, cymbals, fifes, and flags
before and after. We turned at last, crowding up the alley where a large
hall used to stand behind Gregson's grocery. Whoever in Zionville was
not in that hall was looking in through the windows.