|IN the history of Zionville the dates of the Discovery of the Eureka
Mine, of the Reformation, and of the Burial of Hannah Atkins, are like
1492 and 1776 in the history of this country. Whether those foreseeing
statesmen, William C. Jones and Louisa, had reasoned the whole thing out
or not, is now the question. For Sadler claimed that the statesmanship
was all his, and that Louisa and W. C. were trying to jump his claim. He
and Louisa and W. C. Jones used to sit on the veranda of Babbitt's, and
argue which of them ought to be pensioned, and have a bronze statue, and
brass band to play for him at meals. Sadler's argument was that he came
down on the heels of his Letter to the Magistrates, with the whole menu
cooked in his own mind. He saw to it himself that Hannah stopped over.
Louisa and W. C. Jones argued that the menu developed in the cooking,
that is, under discussion, to say nothing of the delicate handling which
lay to their credit. Moreover, they argued that Sadler had mostly
in mind the private need that lay in his nature to get even with the
Ulswaters for shanghaiing him off Lua. That was one of W. C. Jones'
strong arguments against him, whereby there fell a shadow of suspicion
on his (Sadler's) purity of motive. He had wanted to draw Dr. Ulswater
to, and get him interested in Zionville, where he, Sadler, had lived
when he was younger, and before he went over to Asia, and got the gray
ashes of Asia on his head. He had a sentiment for Zionville, as have all
who breathe her air.
“I used to sit,” he said once, “in that there monastery in Rangoon, in
Burmah, with a yeller robe on, and I'd contemplate the same idea for
hours and days, same as Ram Nad is doing out there in the dust, which I
don't see why Ram Nad can't do his meditating somewhere else besides up
against that hitching post to employ one able-bodied man on detail to
see nobody's horse don't step on him--Here, Bobby Lee! You call your dog
off the prophet, or I'll come around and spank the fattest side of your
trousers!--Well, by and by, what with turning that idea over and over,
it'd get smooth and round like a billiard ball, and by and by I'd get
into a condition where I'd begin to see things running round the ball,
like the colours on a soap bubble, and them visions got mixed up with
the daylight. But about once in three times when I'd got a vision pinned
down so I could make it give its name, it was nothing but Main Street
from the station to Babbitt's Hotel. That was the peculiar thing in the
cultivation of my soul's garden. I guess their wasn't another garden
like it in Burmah. When I started after Nirvana, about once in three I
fetched up at Babbitt's.”
“Which,” said W. C. Jones, “is a proper sentiment, but it don't prove
you was onto Hannah.”
I don't know either just why Ram Nad liked to meditate against the
hitching post in front of Babbitt's. He got into the habit of it when
the Ulswaters, and all theirs, lived at Babbitt's. It was before they
built the big stone house on the hill, from whose porch one could see
thirty miles to where the _Violetta_ lay at anchor in the river. Ram Nad
never got over the habit of the hitching post. He'd sit there placidly
in the dust, with somebody's pony jingling a chain bit over his head,
and somebody's dog investigating the conical basket, whose perils no dog
could ever understand. Zionville was more than used to Ram Nad. He
was one of the assets of the town. He could squat down where he liked,
provided it was conspicuous and handy for pointing out to tourists.
He was part of Zionville's fame--he and his basket and his dingy long
beard, dingy cotton clothes, and brown bony ankles--a sort of public
institution. He ate and slept at Babbitt's, or at the Ulswaters', or
anywhere he chose. As I recollect, in his later years, he wore a Navajo
blanket that Sadler gave him, of a fiery red that burnt a hole in the
atmosphere. I recollect the Chinamen from Chinatown that used to drop
around and consult him at the hitching post, but what about I don't
know. He appeared to be an institution with them too, a sort of high
priest or spiritual adviser.
So lived Ram Nad in Zionville. So he died in Zionville by a unanimous
agreement with himself. He left off breathing one afternoon, in the
sunlight, by his hitching post, calm and harmonious, in a Navajo
blanket.
But I was speaking of the burial of Hannah Atkins, and what person, in
truth, ought to have a bronze statue in front of the City Hall, with a
laurel wreath on his head, and one finger pointing toward Hannah's
monument.
Of course, any man, of any likely town in the West, advertises his town.
It's the subject of his daily conversation and his nightly dreams, for
it's not merely a casual coincidence of people, but an enterprise that
every inhabitant has stock in. So far Zionville wasn't peculiar. But
no other town would have grasped and gathered in the possibilities
of Hannah Atkins. The question is, Whose genius first foresaw those
possibilities?
It is some years past now. And yet a tourist on the Overland train now
and then still drops off and asks to see where Hannah Atkins was
buried. But Oh! that great day of the Burial! Reporters came up from
San Francisco to attend, and Dr. Ulswater's oration was a monument
in itself. And Oh! the great days that followed! Zionville became
celebrated, suddenly and superbly, renowned. Fame jumped upon her.
It proclaimed her the healthiest town on earth, not to say the most
singular. There was a time--a short time, we admit--when nearly every
newspaper in the land had its item about Zionville. It was enough. Dr.
Uls-water, William C. Jones, Louisa, Sadler, Ram Nad, all, especially
Hannah Atkins, had a period of limelight fame. Europe and America spoke
of Zionville. The world stopped its business a moment and gave her a
cheer.
The thing was done. Zionville was as well known as Uneeda Biscuit, and
launched on her career of increase. Her boom was started.
As phrases from the Declaration of '76 have entered into the national
language, so phrases from Dr. Ulswater's great speech are embedded in
Zionville usage. “Centripetal point of envious resort,” were words to
be remembered and repeated. “Here we lay,” said Dr. Ulswater, “the
cornerstone of our fame,” and Zionville roared simultaneously! “He means
Hannah!”
“Born in purple of an extinct American dynasty,” said Dr. Ulswater,
“she, whom we here deposit, is henceforth become the symbol around which
the affections of this democratic community are gathered, the cynosure
of our pride, the nucleus of our respectful regrets.”
The statesmen of Zionville, then, saw and grasped their
opportunity,--Zionville's peculiar gifts, her imaginative reach and
supple unity of action being with them. They demonstrated this fact,
this principle, in the floating of a municipal enterprise, namely, the
automatic action of the newspaper paragraph.
Now, no one questions the talents, no one grudges the praise, of Sadler,
of William C. Jones, of Louisa. They foresaw an automatic paragraph
in Hannah Atkins. They developed and put that automatic paragraph in
action. But the question is: What seminal mind first bore this seed?
Where lay that creative spark of genius, of forecasting insight and
prophetic statemanship? Who first conceived the idea?
Susannah and I have long been married. We still occupy each other's
horizon. In the same way Dr. Ulswater is apt to see Mrs. Ulswater on the
horizon. She is perhaps a superstition of his.
And yet, whenever I hear the Burial debated, and the idea of it traced
through William C. Jones, Louisa, and Sadler, I seem to see, talking
with Sadler in the evening on the deck of the _Violetta_, a small, thin,
quiet woman, knitting, sewing. Sadler himself does not remember what
she said. Probably her words were few. He remembers that it was there
certain things took shape in his mind. He remembers describing Zionville
to her, and how his sentiments got lively while he did so, and that Mrs.
Ulswater was interested, and little by little he saw it all, clear as a
map, before him. Was Mrs. Uls-water's then the seminal mind? If you ask
her, she says “Fiddlesticks!” If you ask Dr. Ulswater, he says, “Not one
imaginable, remote doubt of it!”
I say nothing. Only I see Mrs. Ulswater on the deck of the _Violetta_,
knitting, sewing.
Even so she sits to-day, knitting, or sewing, on the porch of the stone
house on the hillside. Below lies the city of Zionville, busy, booming,
with its trolley line and electric lights, which I put in for The Union
Electric. On the further hillside stands the Sanatarium; built and
managed by the Uls-waters. Mrs. Ulswater sits in her rocking chair,
caring nothing for bronze statues, little known of newspaper paragraphs,
knitting the welfare of her fellow men, sewing, embroidering their
destinies, mending their misfortunes. Forward and back goes the restless
thrusting thimble; the fine needle glitters, is gone, and reappears.
So Athens lay below the Acropolis, where stood the bronze statue of
presiding Pallas, leaning on her spear. It was an idle weapon. The main
business of Pallas was to take in glory. Looked at in one way, it was
a foolish business. In Zionville Mrs. Uls-water turns all that over to
Hannah Atkins, to any one who can stand it. Mrs. Ulswater is a deity
from Ohio, and does not care for the parti-coloured bubble of glory.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Cruise of The Violetta, by Arthur Colton