The parting between Laura and her mother was exceedingly painful to both.

It was as if two friends parted on a wide plain, the one to journey

towards the setting and the other towards the rising sun, each

comprehending that every, step henceforth must separate their lives,

wider and wider.

CHAPTER LIX.

When Mr. Noble's bombshell fell, in Senator Dilworthy's camp, the

statesman was disconcerted for a moment. For a moment; that was all.

The next moment he was calmly up and doing. From the centre of our

country to its circumference, nothing was talked of but Mr. Noble's

terrible revelation, and the people were furious. Mind, they were not

furious because bribery was uncommon in our public life, but merely

because here was another case. Perhaps it did not occur to the nation of

good and worthy people that while they continued to sit comfortably at

home and leave the true source of our political power (the "primaries,")

in the hands of saloon-keepers, dog-fanciers and hod-carriers, they could

go on expecting "another" case of this kind, and even dozens and hundreds

of them, and never be disappointed. However, they may have thought that

to sit at home and grumble would some day right the evil.

Yes, the nation was excited, but Senator Dilworthy was calm--what was

left of him after the explosion of the shell. Calm, and up and doing.

What did he do first? What would you do first, after you had tomahawked

your mother at the breakfast table for putting too much sugar in your

coffee? You would "ask for a suspension of public opinion." That is

what Senator Dilworthy did. It is the custom. He got the usual amount

of suspension. Far and wide he was called a thief, a briber, a promoter

of steamship subsidies, railway swindles, robberies of the government in

all possible forms and fashions. Newspapers and everybody else called

him a pious hypocrite, a sleek, oily fraud, a reptile who manipulated

temperance movements, prayer meetings, Sunday schools, public charities,

missionary enterprises, all for his private benefit. And as these

charges were backed up by what seemed to be good and sufficient,

evidence, they were believed with national unanimity.

Then Mr. Dilworthy made another move. He moved instantly to Washington

and "demanded an investigation." Even this could not pass without,

comment. Many papers used language to this effect:

"Senator Dilworthy's remains have demanded an investigation. This

sounds fine and bold and innocent; but when we reflect that they

demand it at the hands of the Senate of the United States, it simply

becomes matter for derision. One might as well set the gentlemen

detained in the public prisons to trying each other. This

investigation is likely to be like all other Senatorial

investigations--amusing but not useful. Query. Why does the Senate

still stick to this pompous word, 'Investigation?' One does not

blindfold one's self in order to investigate an object."

Mr. Dilworthy appeared in his place in the Senate and offered a

resolution appointing a committee to investigate his case. It carried,

of course, and the committee was appointed. Straightway the newspapers

said:

"Under the guise of appointing a committee to investigate the late

Mr. Dilworthy, the Senate yesterday appointed a committee to

investigate his accuser, Mr. Noble. This is the exact spirit and

meaning of the resolution, and the committee cannot try anybody but

Mr. Noble without overstepping its authority. That Dilworthy had

the effrontery to offer such a resolution will surprise no one, and

that the Senate could entertain it without blushing and pass it

without shame will surprise no one. We are now reminded of a note

which we have received from the notorious burglar Murphy, in which

he finds fault with a statement of ours to the effect that he had

served one term in the penitentiary and also one in the U. S.

Senate. He says, 'The latter statement is untrue and does me great

injustice.' After an unconscious sarcasm like that, further comment

is unnecessary."

And yet the Senate was roused by the Dilworthy trouble. Many speeches

were made. One Senator (who was accused in the public prints of selling

his chances of re-election to his opponent for $50,000 and had not yet

denied the charge) said that, "the presence in the Capital of such a

creature as this man Noble, to testify against a brother member of their

body, was an insult to the Senate."

Another Senator said, "Let the investigation go on and let it make an

example of this man Noble; let it teach him and men like him that they

could not attack the reputation of a United States-Senator with

impunity."

Another said he was glad the investigation was to be had, for it was high

time that the Senate should crush some cur like this man Noble, and thus

show his kind that it was able and resolved to uphold its ancient

dignity.

A by-stander laughed, at this finely delivered peroration; and said:

"Why, this is the Senator who franked his, baggage home through the mails

last week-registered, at that. However, perhaps he was merely engaged in

'upholding the ancient dignity of the Senate,'--then."

"No, the modern dignity of it," said another by-stander. "It don't

resemble its ancient dignity but it fits its modern style like a glove."

There being no law against making offensive remarks about U. S.

Senators, this conversation, and others like it, continued without let or

hindrance. But our business is with the investigating committee.

Mr. Noble appeared before the Committee of the Senate; and testified to

the following effect:

He said that he was a member of the State legislature of the

Happy-Land-of-Canaan; that on the --- day of ------ he assembled himself

together at the city of Saint's Rest, the capital of the State, along

with his brother legislators; that he was known to be a political enemy

of Mr. Dilworthy and bitterly opposed to his re-election; that Mr.

Dilworthy came to Saint's Rest and reported to be buying pledges of votes

with money; that the said Dilworthy sent for him to come to his room in

the hotel at night, and he went; was introduced to Mr. Dilworthy; called

two or three times afterward at Dilworthy's request--usually after

midnight; Mr. Dilworthy urged him to vote for him Noble declined;

Dilworthy argued; said he was bound to be elected, and could then ruin

him (Noble) if he voted no; said he had every railway and every public

office and stronghold of political power in the State under his thumb,

and could set up or pull down any man he chose; gave instances showing

where and how he had used this power; if Noble would vote for him he

would make him a Representative in Congress; Noble still declined to

vote, and said he did not believe Dilworthy was going to be elected;

Dilworthy showed a list of men who would vote for him--a majority of the

legislature; gave further proofs of his power by telling Noble everything

the opposing party had done or said in secret caucus; claimed that his

spies reported everything to him, and that--

Here a member of the Committee objected that this evidence was irrelevant

and also in opposition to the spirit of the Committee's instructions,

because if these things reflected upon any one it was upon Mr. Dilworthy.

The chairman said, let the person proceed with his statement--the

Committee could exclude evidence that did not bear upon the case.

Mr. Noble continued. He said that his party would cast him out if he

voted for Mr, Dilworthy; Dilwortby said that that would inure to his

benefit because he would then be a recognized friend of his (Dilworthy's)

and he could consistently exalt him politically and make his fortune;

Noble said he was poor, and it was hard to tempt him so; Dilworthy said

he would fix that; he said, "Tell, me what you want, and say you will vote

for me;" Noble could not say; Dilworthy said "I will give you $5,000."

A Committee man said, impatiently, that this stuff was all outside the

case, and valuable time was being wasted; this was all, a plain

reflection upon a brother Senator. The Chairman said it was the quickest

way to proceed, and the evidence need have no weight.

Mr. Noble continued. He said he told Dilworthy that $5,000 was not much

to pay for a man's honor, character and everything that was worth having;

Dilworthy said he was surprised; he considered $5,000 a fortune--for some

men; asked what Noble's figure was; Noble said he could not think $10,000

too little; Dilworthy said it was a great deal too much; he would not do

it for any other man, but he had conceived a liking for Noble, and where

he liked a man his heart yearned to help him; he was aware that Noble was

poor, and had a family to support, and that he bore an unblemished

reputation at home; for such a man and such a man's influence he could do

much, and feel that to help such a man would be an act that would have

its reward; the struggles of the poor always touched him; he believed

that Noble would make a good use of this money and that it would cheer

many a sad heart and needy home; he would give the, $10,000; all he

desired in return was that when the balloting began, Noble should cast

his vote for him and should explain to the legislature that upon looking

into the charges against Mr. Dilworthy of bribery, corruption, and

forwarding stealing measures in Congress he had found them to be base

calumnies upon a man whose motives were pure and whose character was

stainless; he then took from his pocket $2,000 in bank bills and handed

them to Noble, and got another package containing $5,000 out of his trunk

and gave to him also. He----

A Committee man jumped up, and said:

"At last, Mr. Chairman, this shameless person has arrived at the point.

This is sufficient and conclusive. By his own confession he has received

a bribe, and did it deliberately.

"This is a grave offense, and cannot be passed over in silence, sir. By

the terms of our instructions we can now proceed to mete out to him such

punishment as is meet for one who has maliciously brought disrespect upon

a Senator of the United States. We have no need to hear the rest of his

evidence."

The Chairman said it would be better and more regular to proceed with the

investigation according to the usual forms. A note would be made of

Mr. Noble's admission.

Mr. Noble continued. He said that it was now far past midnight; that he

took his leave and went straight to certain legislators, told them

everything, made them count the money, and also told them of the exposure

he would make in joint convention; he made that exposure, as all the

world knew. The rest of the $10,000 was to be paid the day after

Dilworthy was elected.

Senator Dilworthy was now asked to take the stand and tell what he knew

about the man Noble. The Senator wiped his mouth with his handkerchief,

adjusted his white cravat, and said that but for the fact that public

morality required an example, for the warning of future Nobles, he would

beg that in Christian charity this poor misguided creature might be

forgiven and set free. He said that it was but too evident that this

person had approached him in the hope of obtaining a bribe; he had

intruded himself time and again, and always with moving stories of his

poverty. Mr. Dilworthy said that his heart had bled for him--insomuch

that he had several times been on the point of trying to get some one to

do something for him. Some instinct had told him from the beginning that

this was a bad man, an evil-minded man, but his inexperience of such had

blinded him to his real motives, and hence he had never dreamed that his

object was to undermine the purity of a United States Senator.

He regretted that it was plain, now, that such was the man's object and

that punishment could not with safety to the Senate's honor be withheld.

He grieved to say that one of those mysterious dispensations of an

inscrutable Providence which are decreed from time to time by His wisdom

and for His righteous, purposes, had given this conspirator's tale a

color of plausibility,--but this would soon disappear under the clear

light of truth which would now be thrown upon the case.

It so happened, (said the Senator,) that about the time in question, a

poor young friend of mine, living in a distant town of my State, wished

to establish a bank; he asked me to lend him the necessary money; I said

I had no, money just then, but world try to borrow it. The day before

the election a friend said to me that my election expenses must be very

large specially my hotel bills, and offered to lend me some money.

Remembering my young, friend, I said I would like a few thousands now,

and a few more by and by; whereupon he gave me two packages of bills said

to contain $2,000 and $5,000 respectively; I did not open the packages or

count the money; I did not give any note or receipt for the same; I made

no memorandum of the transaction, and neither did my friend. That night

this evil man Noble came troubling me again: I could not rid myself of

him, though my time was very precious. He mentioned my young friend and

said he was very anxious to have the $7000 now to begin his banking

operations with, and could wait a while for the rest. Noble wished to

get the money and take it to him. I finally gave him the two packages of

bills; I took no note or receipt from him, and made no memorandum of the

matter. I no more look for duplicity and deception in another man than I

would look for it in myself. I never thought of this man again until I

was overwhelmed the next day by learning what a shameful use he had made

of the confidence I had reposed in him and the money I had entrusted to

his care. This is all, gentlemen. To the absolute truth of every detail

of my statement I solemnly swear, and I call Him to witness who is the

Truth and the loving Father of all whose lips abhor false speaking; I

pledge my honor as a Senator, that I have spoken but the truth. May God

forgive this wicked man as I do.

Mr. Noble--"Senator Dilworthy, your bank account shows that up to that

day, and even on that very day, you conducted all your financial business

through the medium of checks instead of bills, and so kept careful record

of every moneyed transaction. Why did you deal in bank bills on this

particular occasion?"

The Chairman--"The gentleman will please to remember that the Committee

is conducting this investigation."

Mr. Noble--"Then will the Committee ask the question?"

The Chairman--"The Committee will--when it desires to know."

Mr. Noble--"Which will not be daring this century perhaps."

The Chairman--"Another remark like that, sir, will procure you the

attentions of the Sergeant-at-arms."

Mr. Noble--"D--n the Sergeant-at-arms, and the Committee too!"

Several Committeemen--"Mr. Chairman, this is Contempt!"

Mr. Noble--"Contempt of whom?"

"Of the Committee! Of the Senate of the United States!"

Mr. Noble--"Then I am become the acknowledged representative of a nation.

You know as well as I do that the whole nation hold as much as

three-fifths of the United States Senate in entire contempt.--Three-fifths

of you are Dilworthys."

The Sergeant-at-arms very soon put a quietus upon the observations of the

representative of the nation, and convinced him that he was not, in the

over-free atmosphere of his Happy-Land-of-Canaan:

The statement of Senator Dilworthy naturally carried conviction to the

minds of the committee.--It was close, logical, unanswerable; it bore

many internal evidences of its, truth. For instance, it is customary in

all countries for business men to loan large sums of money in bank bills

instead of checks. It is customary for the lender to make no memorandum

of the transaction. It is customary, for the borrower to receive the

money without making a memorandum of it, or giving a note or a receipt

for it's use--the borrower is not likely to die or forget about it.

It is customary to lend nearly anybody money to start a bank with

especially if you have not the money to lend him and have to borrow it

for the purpose. It is customary to carry large sums of money in bank

bills about your person or in your trunk. It is customary to hand a

large sure in bank bills to a man you have just been introduced to (if he

asks you to do it,) to be conveyed to a distant town and delivered to

another party. It is not customary to make a memorandum of this

transaction; it is not customary for the conveyor to give a note or a

receipt for the money; it is not customary to require that he shall get a

note or a receipt from the man he is to convey it to in the distant town.

It would be at least singular in you to say to the proposed conveyor,

"You might be robbed; I will deposit the money in a bank and send a check

for it to my friend through the mail."

Very well. It being plain that Senator Dilworthy's statement was rigidly

true, and this fact being strengthened by his adding to it the support of

"his honor as a Senator," the Committee rendered a verdict of "Not proven

that a bribe had been offered and accepted." This in a manner exonerated

Noble and let him escape.

The Committee made its report to the Senate, and that body proceeded to

consider its acceptance. One Senator indeed, several Senators--objected

that the Committee had failed of its duty; they had proved this man Noble

guilty of nothing, they had meted out no punishment to him; if the report

were accepted, he would go forth free and scathless, glorying in his

crime, and it would be a tacit admission that any blackguard could insult

the Senate of the United States and conspire against the sacred

reputation of its members with impunity; the Senate owed it to the

upholding of its ancient dignity to make an example of this man Noble

--he should be crushed.

An elderly Senator got up and took another view of the case. This was a

Senator of the worn-out and obsolete pattern; a man still lingering among

the cobwebs of the past, and behind the spirit of the age. He said that

there seemed to be a curious misunderstanding of the case. Gentlemen

seemed exceedingly anxious to preserve and maintain the honor and dignity

of the Senate.

Was this to be done by trying an obscure adventurer for attempting to

trap a Senator into bribing him? Or would not the truer way be to find

out whether the Senator was capable of being entrapped into so shameless

an act, and then try him? Why, of course. Now the whole idea of the

Senate seemed to be to shield the Senator and turn inquiry away from him.

The true way to uphold the honor of the Senate was to have none but

honorable men in its body. If this Senator had yielded to temptation and

had offered a bribe, he was a soiled man and ought to be instantly

expelled; therefore he wanted the Senator tried, and not in the usual

namby-pamby way, but in good earnest. He wanted to know the truth of

this matter. For himself, he believed that the guilt of Senator

Dilworthy was established beyond the shadow of a doubt; and he considered

that in trifling with his case and shirking it the Senate was doing a

shameful and cowardly thing--a thing which suggested that in its

willingness to sit longer in the company of such a man, it was

acknowledging that it was itself of a kind with him and was therefore not

dishonored by his presence. He desired that a rigid examination be made

into Senator Dilworthy's case, and that it be continued clear into the

approaching extra session if need be. There was no dodging this thing

with the lame excuse of want of time.

In reply, an honorable Senator said that he thought it would be as well

to drop the matter and accept the Committee's report. He said with some

jocularity that the more one agitated this thing, the worse it was for

the agitator. He was not able to deny that he believed Senator Dilworthy

to be guilty--but what then? Was it such an extraordinary case? For his

part, even allowing the Senator to be guilty, he did not think his

continued presence during the few remaining days of the Session would

contaminate the Senate to a dreadful degree. [This humorous sally was

received with smiling admiration--notwithstanding it was not wholly new,

having originated with the Massachusetts General in the House a day or

two before, upon the occasion of the proposed expulsion of a member for

selling his vote for money.]

The Senate recognized the fact that it could not be contaminated by

sitting a few days longer with Senator Dilworthy, and so it accepted the

committee's report and dropped the unimportant matter.

Mr. Dilworthy occupied his seat to the last hour of the session. He said

that his people had reposed a trust in him, and it was not for him to

desert them. He would remain at his post till he perished, if need be.

His voice was lifted up and his vote cast for the last time, in support

of an ingenious measure contrived by the General from Massachusetts

whereby the President's salary was proposed to be doubled and every

Congressman paid several thousand dollars extra for work previously done,

under an accepted contract, and already paid for once and receipted for.

Senator Dilworthy was offered a grand ovation by his friends at home, who

said that their affection for him and their confidence in him were in no

wise impaired by the persecutions that had pursued him, and that he was

still good enough for them.

--[The $7,000 left by Mr. Noble with his state legislature was placed in

safe keeping to await the claim of the legitimate owner. Senator

Dilworthy made one little effort through his protege the embryo banker

to recover it, but there being no notes of hand or, other memoranda to

support the claim, it failed. The moral of which is, that when one loans

money to start a bank with, one ought to take the party's written

acknowledgment of the fact.]

CHAPTER LX.

For some days Laura had been a free woman once more. During this time,

she had experienced--first, two or three days of triumph, excitement,

congratulations, a sort of sunburst of gladness, after a long night of

gloom and anxiety; then two or three days of calming down, by degrees

--a receding of tides, a quieting of the storm-wash to a murmurous

surf-beat, a diminishing of devastating winds to a refrain that bore the

spirit of a truce-days given to solitude, rest, self-communion, and the

reasoning of herself into a realization of the fact that she was actually

done with bolts and bars, prison, horrors and impending, death; then came

a day whose hours filed slowly by her, each laden with some remnant,

some remaining fragment of the dreadful time so lately ended--a day

which, closing at last, left the past a fading shore behind her and

turned her eyes toward the broad sea of the future. So speedily do we

put the dead away and come back to our place in the ranks to march in the

pilgrimage of life again.

And now the sun rose once more and ushered in the first day of what Laura

comprehended and accepted as a new life.

The past had sunk below the horizon, and existed no more for her;

she was done with it for all time. She was gazing out over the trackless

expanses of the future, now, with troubled eyes. Life must be begun

again--at eight and twenty years of age. And where to begin? The page

was blank, and waiting for its first record; so this was indeed a

momentous day.

Her thoughts drifted back, stage by stage, over her career. As far as

the long highway receded over the plain of her life, it was lined with

the gilded and pillared splendors of her ambition all crumbled to ruin

and ivy-grown; every milestone marked a disaster; there was no green spot

remaining anywhere in memory of a hope that had found its fruition; the

unresponsive earth had uttered no voice of flowers in testimony that one

who was blest had gone that road.

Her life had been a failure. That was plain, she said. No more of that.

She would now look the future in the face; she would mark her course upon

the chart of life, and follow it; follow it without swerving, through

rocks and shoals, through storm and calm, to a haven of rest and peace or

shipwreck. Let the end be what it might, she would mark her course now

--to-day--and follow it.

On her table lay six or seven notes. They were from lovers; from some of

the prominent names in the land; men whose devotion had survived even the

grisly revealments of her character which the courts had uncurtained;

men who knew her now, just as she was, and yet pleaded as for their lives

for the dear privilege of calling the murderess wife.

As she read these passionate, these worshiping, these supplicating

missives, the woman in her nature confessed itself; a strong yearning

came upon her to lay her head upon a loyal breast and find rest from the

conflict of life, solace for her griefs, the healing of love for her

bruised heart.

With her forehead resting upon her hand, she sat thinking, thinking,

while the unheeded moments winged their flight. It was one of those

mornings in early spring when nature seems just stirring to a half

consciousness out of a long, exhausting lethargy; when the first faint

balmy airs go wandering about, whispering the secret of the coming

change; when the abused brown grass, newly relieved of snow, seems

considering whether it can be worth the trouble and worry of contriving

its green raiment again only to fight the inevitable fight with the

implacable winter and be vanquished and buried once more; when the sun

shines out and a few birds venture forth and lift up a forgotten song;

when a strange stillness and suspense pervades the waiting air. It is a

time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the

past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the

future but a way to death. It is a time when one is filled with vague

longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote

solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of

struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up.

It was into such a mood as this that Laura had drifted from the musings

which the letters of her lovers had called up. Now she lifted her head

and noted with surprise how the day had wasted. She thrust the letters

aside, rose up and went and stood at the window. But she was soon

thinking again, and was only gazing into vacancy.

By and by she turned; her countenance had cleared; the dreamy look was

gone out of her face, all indecision had vanished; the poise of her head

and the firm set of her lips told that her resolution was formed.

She moved toward the table with all the old dignity in her carriage,

and all the old pride in her mien. She took up each letter in its turn,

touched a match to it and watched it slowly consume to ashes. Then she

said:

"I have landed upon a foreign shore, and burned my ships behind me.

These letters were the last thing that held me in sympathy with any

remnant or belonging of the old life. Henceforth that life and all that

appertains to it are as dead to me and as far removed from me as if I

were become a denizen of another world."

She said that love was not for her--the time that it could have satisfied

her heart was gone by and could not return; the opportunity was lost,

nothing could restore it. She said there could be no love without

respect, and she would only despise a man who could content himself with

a thing like her. Love, she said, was a woman's first necessity: love

being forfeited; there was but one thing left that could give a passing

zest to a wasted life, and that was fame, admiration, the applause of the

multitude.

And so her resolution was taken. She would turn to that final resort of

the disappointed of her sex, the lecture platform. She would array

herself in fine attire, she would adorn herself with jewels, and stand in

her isolated magnificence before massed, audiences and enchant them with

her eloquence and amaze them with her unapproachable beauty. She would

move from city to city like a queen of romance, leaving marveling

multitudes behind her and impatient multitudes awaiting her coming.

Her life, during one hour of each day, upon the platform, would be a

rapturous intoxication--and when the curtain fell; and the lights were

out, and the people gone, to nestle in their homes and forget her, she

would find in sleep oblivion of her homelessness, if she could, if not

she would brave out the night in solitude and wait for the next day's

hour of ecstasy.

So, to take up life and begin again was no great evil. She saw her way.

She would be brave and strong; she would make the best of, what was left

for her among the possibilities.

She sent for the lecture agent, and matters were soon arranged.

Straightway, all the papers were filled with her name, and all the dead

walls flamed with it. The papers called down imprecations upon her head;

they reviled her without stint; they wondered if all sense of decency was

dead in this shameless murderess, this brazen lobbyist, this heartless

seducer of the affections of weak and misguided men; they implored the

people, for the sake of their pure wives, their sinless daughters, for

the sake of decency, for the sake of public morals, to give this wretched

creature such a rebuke as should be an all-sufficient evidence to her and

to such as her, that there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul

acts and opinions before the world must stop; certain of them, with a

higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture, uttered no

abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking eulogy and ironical

admiration. Everybody talked about the new wonder, canvassed the theme

of her proposed discourse, and marveled how she would handle it.

Laura's few friends wrote to her or came and talked with her, and pleaded

with her to retire while it was yet time, and not attempt to face the

gathering storm. But it was fruitless. She was stung to the quick by

the comments of the newspapers; her spirit was roused, her ambition was

towering, now. She was more determined than ever. She would show these

people what a hunted and persecuted woman could do.

The eventful night came. Laura arrived before the great lecture hall in

a close carriage within five minutes of the time set for the lecture to

begin. When she stepped out of the vehicle her heart beat fast and her

eyes flashed with exultation: the whole street was packed with people,

and she could hardly force her way to the hall! She reached the

ante-room, threw off her wraps and placed herself before the

dressing-glass. She turned herself this way and that--everything was

satisfactory, her attire was perfect. She smoothed her hair, rearranged

a jewel here and there, and all the while her heart sang within her, and

her face was radiant. She had not been so happy for ages and ages, it

seemed to her. Oh, no, she had never been so overwhelmingly grateful and

happy in her whole life before. The lecture agent appeared at the door.

She waved him away and said:

"Do not disturb me. I want no introduction. And do not fear for me; the

moment the hands point to eight I will step upon the platform."

He disappeared. She held her watch before her. She was so impatient

that the second-hand seemed whole tedious minutes dragging its way around

the circle. At last the supreme moment came, and with head erect and the

bearing of an empress she swept through the door and stood upon the

stage. Her eyes fell upon only a vast, brilliant emptiness--there were

not forty people in the house! There were only a handful of coarse men

and ten or twelve still coarser women, lolling upon the benches and

scattered about singly and in couples.

Her pulses stood still, her limbs quaked, the gladness went out of her

face. There was a moment of silence, and then a brutal laugh and an

explosion of cat-calls and hisses saluted her from the audience. The

clamor grew stronger and louder, and insulting speeches were shouted at

her. A half-intoxicated man rose up and threw something, which missed

her but bespattered a chair at her side, and this evoked an outburst of

laughter and boisterous admiration. She was bewildered, her strength was

forsaking her. She reeled away from the platform, reached the ante-room,

and dropped helpless upon a sofa. The lecture agent ran in, with a

hurried question upon his lips; but she put forth her hands, and with the

tears raining from her eyes, said:

"Oh, do not speak! Take me away-please take me away, out of this.

dreadful place! Oh, this is like all my life--failure, disappointment,

misery--always misery, always failure. What have I done, to be so

pursued! Take me away, I beg of you, I implore you!"

Upon the pavement she was hustled by the mob, the surging masses roared

her name and accompanied it with every species of insulting epithet;

they thronged after the carriage, hooting, jeering, cursing, and even

assailing the vehicle with missiles. A stone crushed through a blind,

wounding Laura's forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what

further transpired during her flight.

It was long before her faculties were wholly restored, and then she found

herself lying on the floor by a sofa in her own sitting-room, and alone.

So she supposed she must have sat down upon the sofa and afterward

fallen. She raised herself up, with difficulty, for the air was chilly

and her limbs were stiff. She turned up the gas and sought the glass.

She hardly knew herself, so worn and old she looked, and so marred with

blood were her features. The night was far spent, and a dead stillness

reigned. She sat down by her table, leaned her elbows upon it and put

her face in her hands.

Her thoughts wandered back over her old life again and her tears flowed

unrestrained. Her pride was humbled, her spirit was broken. Her memory

found but one resting place; it lingered about her young girlhood with a

caressing regret; it dwelt upon it as the one brief interval of her life

that bore no curse. She saw herself again in the budding grace of her

twelve years, decked in her dainty pride of ribbons, consorting with the

bees and the butterflies, believing in fairies, holding confidential

converse with the flowers, busying herself all day long with airy trifles

that were as weighty to her as the affairs that tax the brains of

diplomats and emperors. She was without sin, then, and unacquainted with

grief; the world was full of sunshine and her heart was full of music.

From that--to this!

"If I could only die!" she said. "If I could only go back, and be as I

was then, for one hour--and hold my father's hand in mine again, and see

all the household about me, as in that old innocent time--and then die!

My God, I am humbled, my pride is all gone, my stubborn heart repents

--have pity!"

When the spring morning dawned, the form still sat there, the elbows

resting upon the table and the face upon the hands. All day long the

figure sat there, the sunshine enriching its costly raiment and flashing

from its jewels; twilight came, and presently the stars, but still the

figure remained; the moon found it there still, and framed the picture

with the shadow of the window sash, and flooded, it with mellow light; by

and by the darkness swallowed it up, and later the gray dawn revealed it

again; the new day grew toward its prime, and still the forlorn presence

was undisturbed.

But now the keepers of the house had become uneasy; their periodical

knockings still finding no response, they burst open the door.

The jury of inquest found that death had resulted from heart disease, and

was instant and painless. That was all. Merely heart disease.

CHAPTER LXI.

Clay Hawkins, years gone by, had yielded, after many a struggle, to the

migratory and speculative instinct of our age and our people, and had

wandered further and further westward upon trading ventures. Settling

finally in Melbourne, Australia, he ceased to roam, became a steady-going

substantial merchant, and prospered greatly. His life lay beyond the

theatre of this tale.

His remittances had supported the Hawkins family, entirely, from the time

of his father's death until latterly when Laura by her efforts in

Washington had been able to assist in this work. Clay was away on a long

absence in some of the eastward islands when Laura's troubles began,

trying (and almost in vain,) to arrange certain interests which had

become disordered through a dishonest agent, and consequently he knew

nothing of the murder till he returned and read his letters and papers.

His natural impulse was to hurry to the States and save his sister if

possible, for he loved her with a deep and abiding affection. His

business was so crippled now, and so deranged, that to leave it would be

ruin; therefore he sold out at a sacrifice that left him considerably

reduced in worldly possessions, and began his voyage to San Francisco.

Arrived there, he perceived by the newspapers that the trial was near its

close. At Salt Lake later telegrams told him of the acquittal, and his

gratitude was boundless--so boundless, indeed, that sleep was driven from

his eyes by the pleasurable excitement almost as effectually as preceding

weeks of anxiety had done it. He shaped his course straight for Hawkeye,

now, and his meeting with his mother and the rest of the household was

joyful--albeit he had been away so long that he seemed almost a stranger

in his own home.

But the greetings and congratulations were hardly finished when all the

journals in the land clamored the news of Laura's miserable death.

Mrs. Hawkins was prostrated by this last blow, and it was well that Clay

was at her side to stay her with comforting words and take upon himself

the ordering of the household with its burden of labors and cares.

Washington Hawkins had scarcely more than entered upon that decade which

carries one to the full blossom of manhood which we term the beginning:

of middle age, and yet a brief sojourn at the capital of the nation had

made him old. His hair was already turning gray when the late session of

Congress began its sittings; it grew grayer still, and rapidly, after the

memorable day that saw Laura proclaimed a murderess; it waxed grayer and

still grayer during the lagging suspense that succeeded it and after the

crash which ruined his last hope--the failure of his bill in the Senate

and the destruction of its champion, Dilworthy. A few days later, when

he stood uncovered while the last prayer was pronounced over Laura's

grave, his hair was whiter and his face hardly less old than the

venerable minister's whose words were sounding in his ears.

A week after this, he was sitting in a double-bedded room in a cheap

boarding house in Washington, with Col. Sellers. The two had been living

together lately, and this mutual cavern of theirs the Colonel sometimes

referred to as their "premises" and sometimes as their "apartments"--more

particularly when conversing with persons outside. A canvas-covered

modern trunk, marked "G. W. H." stood on end by the door, strapped and

ready for a journey; on it lay a small morocco satchel, also marked "G.

W. H." There was another trunk close by--a worn, and scarred, and

ancient hair relic, with "B. S." wrought in brass nails on its top;

on it lay a pair of saddle-bags that probably knew more about the last

century than they could tell. Washington got up and walked the floor a

while in a restless sort of way, and finally was about to sit down on the

hair trunk.

"Stop, don't sit down on that!" exclaimed the Colonel: "There, now that's

all right--the chair's better. I couldn't get another trunk like that

--not another like it in America, I reckon."

"I am afraid not," said Washington, with a faint attempt at a smile.

"No indeed; the man is dead that made that trunk and that saddle-bags."

"Are his great-grand-children still living?" said Washington, with levity

only in the words, not in the tone.

"Well, I don't know--I hadn't thought of that--but anyway they can't make

trunks and saddle-bags like that, if they are--no man can," said the

Colonel with honest simplicity. "Wife didn't like to see me going off

with that trunk--she said it was nearly certain to be stolen."

"Why?"

"Why? Why, aren't trunks always being stolen?"

"Well, yes--some kinds of trunks are."

"Very well, then; this is some kind of a trunk--and an almighty rare

kind, too."

"Yes, I believe it is."

"Well, then, why shouldn't a man want to steal it if he got a chance?"

"Indeed I don't know.--Why should he?"

"Washington, I never heard anybody talk like you. Suppose you were a

thief, and that trunk was lying around and nobody watching--wouldn't you

steal it? Come, now, answer fair--wouldn't you steal it?

"Well, now, since you corner me, I would take it,--but I wouldn't

consider it stealing.

"You wouldn't! Well, that beats me. Now what would you call stealing?"

"Why, taking property is stealing."

"Property! Now what a way to talk that is: What do you suppose that

trunk is worth?"

"Is it in good repair?"

"Perfect. Hair rubbed off a little, but the main structure is perfectly

sound."

"Does it leak anywhere?"

"Leak? Do you want to carry water in it? What do you mean by does it

leak?"

"Why--a--do the clothes fall out of it when it is--when it is

stationary?"

"Confound it, Washington, you are trying to make fun of me. I don't know

what has got into you to-day; you act mighty curious. What is the matter

with you?"

"Well, I'll tell you, old friend. I am almost happy. I am, indeed.

It wasn't Clay's telegram that hurried me up so and got me ready to start

with you. It was a letter from Louise."

"Good! What is it? What does she say?"

"She says come home--her father has consented, at last."

"My boy, I want to congratulate you; I want to shake you by the hand!

It's a long turn that has no lane at the end of it, as the proverb says,

or somehow that way. You'll be happy yet, and Beriah Sellers will be

there to see, thank God!"

"I believe it. General Boswell is pretty nearly a poor man, now. The

railroad that was going to build up Hawkeye made short work of him, along

with the rest. He isn't so opposed to a son-in-law without a fortune,

now."

"Without a fortune, indeed! Why that Tennessee Land--"

"Never mind the Tennessee Land, Colonel. I am done with that, forever

and forever--"

"Why no! You can't mean to say--"

"My father, away back yonder, years ago, bought it for a blessing for his

children, and--"

"Indeed he did! Si Hawkins said to me--"

"It proved a curse to him as long as he lived, and never a curse like it

was inflicted upon any man's heirs--"

"I'm bound to say there's more or less truth--"

"It began to curse me when I was a baby, and it has cursed every hour of

my life to this day--"

"Lord, lord, but it's so! Time and again my wife--"

"I depended on it all through my boyhood and never tried to do an honest

stroke of work for my living--"

"Right again--but then you--"

"I have chased it years and years as children chase butterflies. We

might all have been prosperous, now; we might all have been happy, all

these heart-breaking years, if we had accepted our poverty at first and

gone contentedly to work and built up our own wealth by our own toil and

sweat--"

"It's so, it's so; bless my soul, how often I've told Si Hawkins--"

"Instead of that, we have suffered more than the damned themselves

suffer! I loved my father, and I honor his memory and recognize his good

intentions; but I grieve for his mistaken ideas of conferring happiness

upon his children. I am going to begin my life over again, and begin it

and end it with good solid work! I'll leave my children no Tennessee

Land!"

"Spoken like a man, sir, spoken like a man! Your hand, again my boy!

And always remember that when a word of advice from Beriah Sellers can

help, it is at your service. I'm going to begin again, too!"

"Indeed!"

"Yes, sir. I've seen enough to show me where my mistake was. The law is

what I was born for. I shall begin the study of the law. Heavens and

earth, but that Brabant's a wonderful man--a wonderful man sir! Such a

head! And such a way with him! But I could see that he was jealous of

me. The little licks I got in in the course of my argument before the

jury--"

"Your argument! Why, you were a witness."

"Oh, yes, to the popular eye, to the popular eye--but I knew when I was

dropping information and when I was letting drive at the court with an

insidious argument. But the court knew it, bless you, and weakened every

time! And Brabant knew it. I just reminded him of it in a quiet way,

and its final result, and he said in a whisper, 'You did it, Colonel, you

did it, sir--but keep it mum for my sake; and I'll tell you what you do,'

says he, 'you go into the law, Col. Sellers--go into the law, sir; that's

your native element!' And into the law the subscriber is going. There's

worlds of money in it!--whole worlds of money! Practice first in

Hawkeye, then in Jefferson, then in St. Louis, then in New York! In the

metropolis of the western world! Climb, and climb, and climb--and wind

up on the Supreme bench. Beriah Sellers, Chief Justice of the Supreme

Court of the United States, sir! A made man for all time and eternity!

That's the way I block it out, sir--and it's as clear as day--clear as

the rosy-morn!"

Washington had heard little of this. The first reference to Laura's

trial had brought the old dejection to his face again, and he stood

gazing out of the window at nothing, lost in reverie.

There was a knock-the postman handed in a letter. It was from Obedstown.

East Tennessee, and was for Washington. He opened it. There was a note

saying that enclosed he would please find a bill for the current year's

taxes on the 75,000 acres of Tennessee Land belonging to the estate of

Silas Hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within

sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes, as

provided by law. The bill was for $180--something more than twice the

market value of the land, perhaps.

Washington hesitated. Doubts flitted through his mind. The old instinct

came upon him to cling to the land just a little longer and give it one

more chance. He walked the floor feverishly, his mind tortured by

indecision. Presently he stopped, took out his pocket book and counted

his money. Two hundred and thirty dollars--it was all he had in the

world.

"One hundred and eighty . . . . . . . from two hundred and

thirty," he said to himself. "Fifty left . . . . . . It is enough

to get me home . . . .. . . Shall I do it, or shall I not? . . .

. . . . I wish I had somebody to decide for me."

The pocket book lay open in his hand, with Louise's small letter in view.

His eye fell upon that, and it decided him.

"It shall go for taxes," he said, "and never tempt me or mine any more!"

He opened the window and stood there tearing the tax bill to bits and

watching the breeze waft them away, till all were gone.

"The spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!" he said. "Let us

go."

The baggage wagon had arrived; five minutes later the two friends were

mounted upon their luggage in it, and rattling off toward the station,

the Colonel endeavoring to sing "Homeward Bound," a song whose words he

knew, but whose tune, as he rendered it, was a trial to auditors.

CHAPTER LXII

Philip Sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. The prospect

was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell

upon his spirits; but what told still more upon them was the undeniable

fact that the promise of ultimate success diminished every day, now.

That is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which was

considerably beyond where the coal vein should pass (according to all his

calculations) if there were a coal vein there; and so, every foot that

the tunnel now progressed seemed to carry it further away from the object

of the search.

Sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a mistake in estimating

the direction which the vein should naturally take after crossing the

valley and entering the hill. Upon such occasions he would go into the

nearest mine on the vein he was hunting for, and once more get the

bearings of the deposit and mark out its probable course; but the result

was the same every time; his tunnel had manifestly pierced beyond the

natural point of junction; and then his, spirits fell a little lower.

His men had already lost faith, and he often overheard them saying it was

perfectly plain that there was no coal in the hill.

Foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no end of experienced

loafers from the village, visited the tunnel from time to time, and their

verdicts were always the same and always disheartening--"No coal in that

hill." Now and then Philip would sit down and think it all over and

wonder what the mystery meant; then he would go into the tunnel and ask

the men if there were no signs yet? None--always "none."

He would bring out a piece of rock and examine it, and say to himself,

"It is limestone--it has crinoids and corals in it--the rock is right"

Then he would throw it down with a sigh, and say, "But that is nothing;

where coal is, limestone with these fossils in it is pretty certain to

lie against its foot casing; but it does not necessarily follow that

where this peculiar rock is coal must lie above it or beyond it; this

sign is not sufficient."

The thought usually followed:--"There is one infallible sign--if I could

only strike that!"

Three or four tines in as many weeks he said to himself, "Am I a

visionary? I must be a visionary; everybody is in these days; everybody

chases butterflies: everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one

up by slow toil. This is not right, I will discharge the men and go at

some honest work. There is no coal here. What a fool I have been; I

will give it up."

But he never could do it. A half hour of profound thinking always

followed; and at the end of it he was sure to get up and straighten

himself and say: "There is coal there; I will not give it up; and coal

or no coal I will drive the tunnel clear through the hill; I will not

surrender while I am alive."

He never thought of asking Mr. Montague for more money. He said there

was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety

nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make

the request and foolish in Mr. Montague to grant it.

He had been working three shifts of men. Finally, the settling of a

weekly account exhausted his means. He could not afford to run in debt,

and therefore he gave the men their discharge. They came into his cabin

presently, where he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his

hands--the picture of discouragement and their spokesman said:

"Mr. Sterling, when Tim was down a week with his fall you kept him on

half-wages and it was a mighty help to his family; whenever any of us was

in trouble you've done what you could to help us out; you've acted fair

and square with us every time, and I reckon we are men and know a man

when we see him. We haven't got any faith in that hill, but we have a

respect for a man that's got the pluck that you've showed; you've fought

a good fight, with everybody agin you and if we had grub to go on, I'm

d---d if we wouldn't stand by you till the cows come home! That is what

the boys say. Now we want to put in one parting blast for luck. We want

to work three days more; if we don't find anything, we won't bring in no

bill against you. That is what we've come to say."

Philip was touched. If he had had money enough to buy three days' "grub"

he would have accepted the generous offer, but as it was, he could not

consent to be less magnanimous than the men, and so he declined in a

manly speech; shook hands all around and resumed his solitary communings.

The men went back to the tunnel and "put in a parting blast for luck"

anyhow. They did a full day's work and then took their leave. They

called at his cabin and gave him good-bye, but were not able to tell him

their day's effort had given things a mere promising look.

The next day Philip sold all the tools but two or three sets; he also

sold one of the now deserted cabins as old, lumber, together with its

domestic wares; and made up his mind that he would buy, provisions with

the trifle of money thus gained and continue his work alone. About the

middle of the after noon he put on his roughest clothes and went to the

tunnel. He lit a candle and groped his way in. Presently he heard the

sound of a pick or a drill, and wondered, what it meant. A spark of light

now appeared in the far end of the tunnel, and when he arrived there he

found the man Tim at work. Tim said:

"I'm to have a job in the Golden Brier mine by and by--in a week or ten

days--and I'm going to work here till then. A man might as well be at

some thing, and besides I consider that I owe you what you paid me when I

was laid up."

Philip said, Oh, no, he didn't owe anything; but Tim persisted, and then

Philip said he had a little provision now, and would share. So for

several days Philip held the drill and Tim did the striking. At first

Philip was impatient to see the result of every blast, and was always

back and peering among the smoke the moment after the explosion. But

there was never any encouraging result; and therefore he finally lost

almost all interest, and hardly troubled himself to inspect results at

all. He simply labored on, stubbornly and with little hope.

Tim staid with him till the last moment, and then took up his job at the

Golden Brier, apparently as depressed by the continued barrenness of

their mutual labors as Philip was himself. After that, Philip fought his

battle alone, day after day, and slow work it was; he could scarcely see

that he made any progress.

Late one afternoon he finished drilling a hole which he had been at work

at for more than two hours; he swabbed it out, and poured in the powder

and inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and

small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to

the fuse, and ran. By and by the I dull report came, and he was about to

walk back mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted;

presently turned on his heel and thought, rather than said:

"No, this is useless, this is absurd. If I found anything it would only

be one of those little aggravating seams of coal which doesn't mean

anything, and--"

By this time he was walking out of the tunnel. His thought ran on:

"I am conquered . . . . . . I am out of provisions, out of money.

. . . . I have got to give it up . . . . . . All this hard work

lost! But I am not conquered! I will go and work for money, and come

back and have another fight with fate. Ah me, it may be years, it may,

be years."

Arrived at the mouth of the tunnel, he threw his coat upon the ground,

sat down on, a stone, and his eye sought the westering sun and dwelt upon

the charming landscape which stretched its woody ridges, wave upon wave,

to the golden horizon.

Something was taking place at his feet which did not attract his

attention.

His reverie continued, and its burden grew more and more gloomy.

Presently he rose up and, cast a look far away toward the valley, and his

thoughts took a new direction:

"There it is! How good it looks! But down there is not up here. Well,

I will go home and pack up--there is nothing else to do"

He moved off moodily toward his cabin. He had gone some distance before

he thought of his coat; then he was about to turn back, but he smiled at

the thought, and continued his journey--such a coat as that could be of

little use in a civilized land; a little further on, he remembered that

there were some papers of value in one of the pockets of the relic, and

then with a penitent ejaculation he turned back picked up the coat and

put it on.

He made a dozen steps, and then stopped very suddenly. He stood still a

moment, as one who is trying to believe something and cannot. He put a

hand up over his shoulder and felt his back, and a great thrill shot

through him. He grasped the skirt of the coat impulsively and another

thrill followed. He snatched the coat from his back, glanced at it,

threw it from him and flew back to the tunnel. He sought the spot where

the coat had lain--he had to look close, for the light was waning--then

to make sure, he put his hand to the ground and a little stream of water

swept against his fingers:

"Thank God, I've struck it at last!"

He lit a candle and ran into the tunnel; he picked up a piece of rubbish

cast out by the last blast, and said:

"This clayey stuff is what I've longed for--I know what is behind it."

He swung his pick with hearty good will till long after the darkness had

gathered upon the earth, and when he trudged home at length he knew he

had a coal vein and that it was seven feet thick from wall to wall.

He found a yellow envelope lying on his rickety table, and recognized

that it was of a family sacred to the transmission of telegrams.

He opened it, read it, crushed it in his hand and threw it down. It

simply said:

"Ruth is very ill."

CHAPTER LXIII.

It was evening when Philip took the cars at the Ilium station. The news

of, his success had preceded him, and while he waited for the train, he

was the center of a group of eager questioners, who asked him a hundred

things about the mine, and magnified his good fortune. There was no

mistake this time.

Philip, in luck, had become suddenly a person of consideration, whose

speech was freighted with meaning, whose looks were all significant.

The words of the proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound,

and his common sayings are repeated as if they were solid wisdom.

Philip wished to be alone; his good fortune at this moment seemed an

empty mockery, one of those sarcasms of fate, such as that which spreads

a dainty banquet for the man who has no appetite. He had longed for

success principally for Ruth's sake; and perhaps now, at this very moment

of his triumph, she was dying.

"Shust what I said, Mister Sederling," the landlord of the Ilium hotel

kept repeating. "I dold Jake Schmidt he find him dere shust so sure as

noting."

"You ought to have taken a share, Mr. Dusenheimer," said Philip.

"Yaas, I know. But d'old woman, she say 'You sticks to your pisiness.

So I sticks to 'em. Und I makes noting. Dat Mister Prierly, he don't

never come back here no more, ain't it?"

"Why?" asked Philip.

"Vell, dere is so many peers, and so many oder dhrinks, I got 'em all set

down, ven he coomes back."

It was a long night for Philip, and a restless one. At any other time

the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and

clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only

been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. Now they were voices

of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed to

crawl at a snail's pace. And it not only crawled, but it frequently

stopped; and when it stopped it stood dead still and there was an ominous

silence. Was anything the matter, he wondered. Only a station probably.

Perhaps, he thought, a telegraphic station. And then he listened

eagerly. Would the conductor open the door and ask for Philip Sterling,

and hand him a fatal dispatch?

How long they seemed to wait. And then slowly beginning to move, they

were off again, shaking, pounding, screaming through the night. He drew

his curtain from time to time and looked out. There was the lurid sky

line of the wooded range along the base of which they were crawling.

There was the Susquehannah, gleaming in the moon-light. There was a

stretch of level valley with silent farm houses, the occupants all at

rest, without trouble, without anxiety. There was a church, a graveyard,

a mill, a village; and now, without pause or fear, the train had mounted

a trestle-work high in air and was creeping along the top of it while a

swift torrent foamed a hundred feet below.

What would the morning bring? Even while he was flying to her, her gentle

spirit might have gone on another flight, whither he could not follow

her. He was full of foreboding. He fell at length into a restless doze.

There was a noise in his ears as of a rushing torrent when a stream is

swollen by a freshet in the spring. It was like the breaking up of life;

he was struggling in the consciousness of coming death: when Ruth stood

by his side, clothed in white, with a face like that of an angel,

radiant, smiling, pointing to the sky, and saying, "Come." He awoke with

a cry--the train was roaring through a bridge, and it shot out into

daylight.

When morning came the train was industriously toiling along through the

fat lands of Lancaster, with its broad farms of corn and wheat, its mean

houses of stone, its vast barns and granaries, built as if, for storing

the riches of Heliogabalus. Then came the smiling fields of Chester,

with their English green, and soon the county of Philadelphia itself, and

the increasing signs of the approach to a great city. Long trains of

coal cars, laden and unladen, stood upon sidings; the tracks of other

roads were crossed; the smoke of other locomotives was seen on parallel

lines; factories multiplied; streets appeared; the noise of a busy city

began to fill the air;--and with a slower and slower clank on the

connecting rails and interlacing switches the train rolled into the

station and stood still.

It was a hot August morning. The broad streets glowed in the sun, and

the white-shuttered houses stared at the hot thoroughfares like closed

bakers' ovens set along the highway. Philip was oppressed with the heavy

air; the sweltering city lay as in a swoon. Taking a street car, he rode

away to the northern part of the city, the newer portion, formerly the

district of Spring Garden, for in this the Boltons now lived, in a small

brick house, befitting their altered fortunes.

He could scarcely restrain his impatience when he came in sight of the

house. The window shutters were not "bowed"; thank God, for that. Ruth

was still living, then. He ran up the steps and rang. Mrs. Bolton met

him at the door.

"Thee is very welcome, Philip."

"And Ruth?"

"She is very ill, but quieter than, she has been, and the fever is a

little abating. The most dangerous time will be when the fever leaves

her. The doctor fears she will not have strength enough to rally from

it. Yes, thee can see her."

Mrs. Bolton led the way to the little chamber where Ruth lay. "Oh,"

said her mother, "if she were only in her cool and spacious room in our

old home. She says that seems like heaven."

Mr. Bolton sat by Ruth's bedside, and he rose and silently pressed

Philip's hand. The room had but one window; that was wide open to admit

the air, but the air that came in was hot and lifeless. Upon the table

stood a vase of flowers. Ruth's eyes were closed; her cheeks were

flushed with fever, and she moved her head restlessly as if in pain.

"Ruth," said her mother, bending over her, "Philip is here."

Ruth's eyes unclosed, there was a gleam of recognition in them, there was

an attempt at a smile upon her face, and she tried to raise her thin

hand, as Philip touched her forehead with his lips; and he heard her

murmur,

"Dear Phil."

There was nothing to be done but to watch and wait for the cruel fever to

burn itself out. Dr. Longstreet told Philip that the fever had

undoubtedly been contracted in the hospital, but it was not malignant,

and would be little dangerous if Ruth were not so worn down with work,

or if she had a less delicate constitution.

"It is only her indomitable will that has kept her up for weeks. And if

that should leave her now, there will be no hope. You can do more for

her now, sir, than I can?"

"How?" asked Philip eagerly.

"Your presence, more than anything else, will inspire her with the desire

to live."

When the fever turned, Ruth was in a very critical condition. For two

days her life was like the fluttering of a lighted candle in the wind.

Philip was constantly by her side, and she seemed to be conscious of his

presence, and to cling to him, as one borne away by a swift stream clings

to a stretched-out hand from the shore. If he was absent a moment her

restless eyes sought something they were disappointed not to find.

Philip so yearned to bring her back to life, he willed it so strongly and

passionately, that his will appeared to affect hers and she seemed slowly

to draw life from his.

After two days of this struggle with the grasping enemy, it was evident

to Dr. Longstreet that Ruth's will was beginning to issue its orders to

her body with some force, and that strength was slowly coming back.

In another day there was a decided improvement. As Philip sat holding

her weak hand and watching the least sign of resolution in her face, Ruth

was able to whisper,

"I so want to live, for you, Phil!"

"You will; darling, you must," said Philip in a tone of faith and courage

that carried a thrill of determination--of command--along all her nerves.

Slowly Philip drew her back to life. Slowly she came back, as one

willing but well nigh helpless. It was new for Ruth to feel this

dependence on another's nature, to consciously draw strength of will from

the will of another. It was a new but a dear joy, to be lifted up and

carried back into the happy world, which was now all aglow with the light

of love; to be lifted and carried by the one she loved more than her own

life.

"Sweetheart," she said to Philip, "I would not have cared to come back

but for thy love."

"Not for thy profession?"

"Oh, thee may be glad enough of that some day, when thy coal bed is dug

out and thee and father are in the air again."

When Ruth was able to ride she was taken into the country, for the pure

air was necessary to her speedy recovery. The family went with her.

Philip could not be spared from her side, and Mr. Bolton had gone up to

Ilium to look into that wonderful coal mine and to make arrangements for

developing it, and bringing its wealth to market. Philip had insisted on

re-conveying the Ilium property to Mr. Bolton, retaining only the share

originally contemplated for himself, and Mr. Bolton, therefore, once

more found himself engaged in business and a person of some consequence

in Third street. The mine turned out even better than was at first

hoped, and would, if judiciously managed, be a fortune to them all.

This also seemed to be the opinion of Mr. Bigler, who heard of it as soon

as anybody, and, with the impudence of his class called upon Mr. Bolton

for a little aid in a patent car-wheel he had bought an interest in.

That rascal, Small, he said, had swindled him out of all he had.

Mr. Bolton told him he was very sorry, and recommended him to sue Small.

Mr. Small also came with a similar story about Mr. Bigler; and Mr.

Bolton had the grace to give him like advice. And he added, "If you and

Bigler will procure the indictment of each other, you may have the

satisfaction of putting each other in the penitentiary for the forgery of

my acceptances."

Bigler and Small did not quarrel however. They both attacked Mr. Bolton

behind his back as a swindler, and circulated the story that he had made

a fortune by failing.

In the pure air of the highlands, amid the golden glories of ripening

September, Ruth rapidly came back to health. How beautiful the world is

to an invalid, whose senses are all clarified, who has been so near the

world of spirits that she is sensitive to the finest influences, and

whose frame responds with a thrill to the subtlest ministrations of

soothing nature. Mere life is a luxury, and the color of the grass, of

the flowers, of the sky, the wind in the trees, the outlines of the

horizon, the forms of clouds, all give a pleasure as exquisite as the

sweetest music to the ear famishing for it. The world was all new and

fresh to Ruth, as if it had just been created for her, and love filled

it, till her heart was overflowing with happiness.

It was golden September also at Fallkill. And Alice sat by the open

window in her room at home, looking out upon the meadows where the

laborers were cutting the second crop of clover. The fragrance of it

floated to her nostrils. Perhaps she did not mind it. She was thinking.

She had just been writing to Ruth, and on the table before her was a

yellow piece of paper with a faded four-leaved clover pinned on it--only

a memory now. In her letter to Ruth she had poured out her heartiest

blessings upon them both, with her dear love forever and forever.

"Thank God," she said, "they will never know"

They never would know. And the world never knows how many women there

are like Alice, whose sweet but lonely lives of self-sacrifice, gentle,

faithful, loving souls, bless it continually.

"She is a dear girl," said Philip, when Ruth showed him the letter.

"Yes, Phil, and we can spare a great deal of love for her, our own lives

are so full."

APPENDIX.

Perhaps some apology to the reader is necessary in view of our failure to

find Laura's father. We supposed, from the ease with which lost persons

are found in novels, that it would not be difficult. But it was; indeed,

it was impossible; and therefore the portions of the narrative containing

the record of the search have been stricken out. Not because they were

not interesting--for they were; but inasmuch as the man was not found,

after all, it did not seem wise to harass and excite the reader to no

purpose.

THE AUTHORS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

by Mark Twain

CONTENTS:

Preface

My Watch

Political Economy

The Jumping Frog

Journalism In Tennessee

The Story Of The Bad Little Boy

The Story Of The Good Little Boy

A Couple Of Poems By Twain And Moore

Niagara

Answers To Correspondents

To Raise Poultry

Experience Of The Mcwilliamses With Membranous Croup

My First Literary Venture

How The Author Was Sold In Newark

The Office Bore

Johnny Greer

The Facts In The Case Of The Great Beef Contract

The Case Of George Fisher

Disgraceful Persecution Of A Boy

The Judges "Spirited Woman"

Information Wanted

Some Learned Fables, For Good Old Boys And Girls

My Late Senatorial Secretaryship

A Fashion Item

Riley-Newspaper Correspondent

A Fine Old Man

Science Vs. Luck

The Late Benjamin Franklin

Mr. Bloke's Item

A Medieval Romance

Petition Concerning Copyright

After-Dinner Speech

Lionizing Murderers

A New Crime

A Curious Dream

A True Story

The Siamese Twins

Speech At The Scottish Banquet In London

A Ghost Story

The Capitoline Venus

Speech On Accident Insurance

John Chinaman In New York

How I Edited An Agricultural Paper

The Petrified Man

My Bloody Massacre

The Undertaker's Chat

Concerning Chambermaids

Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man

"After" Jenkins

About Barbers

"Party Cries" In Ireland

The Facts Concerning The Recent Resignation

History Repeats Itself

Honored As A Curiosity

First Interview With Artemus Ward

Cannibalism In The Cars

The Killing Of Julius Caesar "Localized"

The Widow's Protest

The Scriptural Panoramist

Curing A Cold

A Curious Pleasure Excursion

Running For Governor

A Mysterious Visit

PREFACE

I have scattered through this volume a mass of matter which has never

been in print before (such as "Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and

Girls," the "Jumping Frog restored to the English tongue after martyrdom

in the French," the "Membranous Croup" sketch, and many others which I

need not specify): not doing this in order to make an advertisement of

it, but because these things seemed instructive.

HARTFORD, 1875.

MARK TWAIN.

SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

MY WATCH--[Written about 1870.]

AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE

My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining,

and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come

to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to

consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one

night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized

messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set

the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.

Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time,

and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to

set it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow-regulator wants

pushing up." I tried to stop him--tried to make him understand that the

watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was

that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up

a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him

to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My

watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the

week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred

and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the

timepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteen

days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow,

while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent,

bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could not

abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I

had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing.

He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open,

and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery.

He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating--come in a

week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down

to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by

trains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch

strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest;

I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last

week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and

alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of

sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling

for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went

to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited,

and then said the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in

three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For

half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking

and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could not

hear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out there

was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the

rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all

the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of

twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right and

just in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could

say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is

only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another

watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was

nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the

king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.

He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lost

in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run

awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals.

And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my

breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker.

He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his

glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with

the hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well

now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut

together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would

travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail

of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing

repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the

mainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works

needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and then my

timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after

working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let

go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would

straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their

individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate

spider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next

twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang.

I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he

took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for

this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars

originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for

repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this

watchmaker an old acquaintance--a steamboat engineer of other days, and

not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just

as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with

the same confidence of manner.

He said:

"She makes too much steam-you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the

safety-valve!"

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense.

My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was,

a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good

watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what

became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers,

and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

POLITICAL ECONOMY

Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest

men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the--

[Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger wished to see me

down at the door. I went and confronted him, and asked to know his

business, struggling all the time to keep a tight rein on my seething

political-economy ideas, and not let them break away from me or get

tangled in their harness. And privately I wished the stranger was in the

bottom of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him. I was all in a

fever, but he was cool. He said he was sorry to disturb me, but as he

was passing he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods. I said, "Yes,

yes--go on--what about it?" He said there was nothing about it, in

particular--nothing except that he would like to put them up for me.

I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-houses

all my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to appear

(to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in an

offhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eight

lightning-rods put up, but--The stranger started, and looked inquiringly

at me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make any

mistakes, he would not catch me by my countenance. He said he would

rather have my custom than any man's in town. I said, "All right," and

started off to wrestle with my great subject again, when he called me

back and said it would be necessary to know exactly how many "points" I

wanted put up, what parts of the house I wanted them on, and what quality

of rod I preferred. It was close quarters for a man not used to the

exigencies of housekeeping; but I went through creditably, and he

probably never suspected that I was a novice. I told him to put up eight

"points," and put them all on the roof, and use the best quality of rod.

He said he could furnish the "plain" article at 20 cents a foot;

"coppered," 25 cents; "zinc-plated spiral-twist," at 30 cents, that would

stop a streak of lightning any time, no matter where it was bound, and

"render its errand harmless and its further progress apocryphal." I said

apocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating from the source it did,

but, philology aside, I liked the spiral-twist and would take that brand.

Then he said he could make two hundred and fifty feet answer; but to do

it right, and make the best job in town of it, and attract the admiration

of the just and the unjust alike, and compel all parties to say they

never saw a more symmetrical and hypothetical display of lightning-rods

since they were born, he supposed he really couldn't get along without

four hundred, though he was not vindictive, and trusted he was willing to

try. I said, go ahead and use four hundred, and make any kind of a job

he pleased out of it, but let me get back to my work. So I got rid of

him at last; and now, after half an hour spent in getting my train of

political-economy thoughts coupled together again, I am ready to go on

once more.]

richest treasures of their genius, their experience of life, and

their learning. The great lights of commercial jurisprudence,

international confraternity, and biological deviation, of all ages,

all civilizations, and all nationalities, from Zoroaster down to

Horace Greeley, have--

[Here I was interrupted again, and required to go down and confer further

with that lightning-rod man. I hurried off, boiling and surging with

prodigious thoughts wombed in words of such majesty that each one of them

was in itself a straggling procession of syllables that might be fifteen

minutes passing a given point, and once more I confronted him--he so calm

and sweet, I so hot and frenzied. He was standing in the contemplative

attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on my infant tuberose,

and the other among my pansies, his hands on his hips, his hat-brim

tilted forward, one eye shut and the other gazing critically and

admiringly in the direction of my principal chimney. He said now there

was a state of things to make a man glad to be alive; and added, "I leave

it to you if you ever saw anything more deliriously picturesque than

eight lightning-rods on one chimney?" I said I had no present

recollection of anything that transcended it. He said that in his

opinion nothing on earth but Niagara Falls was superior to it in the way

of natural scenery. All that was needed now, he verily believed, to make

my house a perfect balm to the eye, was to kind of touch up the other

chimneys a little, and thus "add to the generous 'coup d'oeil' a soothing

uniformity of achievement which would allay the excitement naturally

consequent upon the 'coup d'etat.'" I asked him if he learned to talk

out of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere? He smiled pleasantly,

and said that his manner of speaking was not taught in books, and that

nothing but familiarity with lightning could enable a man to handle his

conversational style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, and

said that about eight more rods scattered about my roof would about fix

me right, and he guessed five hundred feet of stuff would do it; and

added that the first eight had got a little the start of him, so to

speak, and used up a mere trifle of material more than he had calculated

on--a hundred feet or along there. I said I was in a dreadful hurry,

and I wished we could get this business permanently mapped out, so that I

could go on with my work. He said, "I could have put up those eight

rods, and marched off about my business--some men would have done it.

But no; I said to myself, this man is a stranger to me, and I will die

before I'll wrong him; there ain't lightning-rods enough on that house,

and for one I'll never stir out of my tracks till I've done as I would be

done by, and told him so. Stranger, my duty is accomplished; if the

recalcitrant and dephlogistic messenger of heaven strikes your--"

"There, now, there," I said, "put on the other eight--add five hundred

feet of spiral-twist--do anything and everything you want to do; but calm

your sufferings, and try to keep your feelings where you can reach them

with the dictionary. Meanwhile, if we understand each other now, I will

go to work again."

I think I have been sitting here a full hour this time, trying to get

back to where I was when my train of thought was broken up by the last

interruption; but I believe I have accomplished it at last, and may

venture to proceed again.]

wrestled with this great subject, and the greatest among them have

found it a worthy adversary, and one that always comes up fresh and

smiling after every throw. The great Confucius said that he would

rather be a profound political economist than chief of police.

Cicero frequently said that political economy was the grandest

consummation that the human mind was capable of consuming; and even

our own Greeley had said vaguely but forcibly that "Political--

[Here the lightning-rod man sent up another call for me. I went down in

a state of mind bordering on impatience. He said he would rather have

died than interrupt me, but when he was employed to do a job, and that

job was expected to be done in a clean, workmanlike manner, and when it

was finished and fatigue urged him to seek the rest and recreation he

stood so much in need of, and he was about to do it, but looked up and

saw at a glance that all the calculations had been a little out, and if a

thunder-storm were to come up, and that house, which he felt a personal

interest in, stood there with nothing on earth to protect it but sixteen

lightning-rods--"Let us have peace!" I shrieked. "Put up a hundred and

fifty! Put some on the kitchen! Put a dozen on the barn! Put a couple

on the cow! Put one on the cook!--scatter them all over the persecuted

place till it looks like a zinc-plated, spiral-twisted, silver-mounted

canebrake! Move! Use up all the material you can get your hands on, and

when you run out of lightning-rods put up ramrods, cam-rods, stair-rods,

piston-rods--anything that will pander to your dismal appetite for

artificial scenery, and bring respite to my raging brain and healing to

my lacerated soul!" Wholly unmoved--further than to smile sweetly--this

iron being simply turned back his wrist-bands daintily, and said he would

now proceed to hump himself. Well, all that was nearly three hours ago.

It is questionable whether I am calm enough yet to write on the noble

theme of political economy, but I cannot resist the desire to try, for it

is the one subject that is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain of

all this world's philosophy.]

economy is heaven's best boon to man." When the loose but gifted

Byron lay in his Venetian exile he observed that, if it could be

granted him to go back and live his misspent life over again, he

would give his lucid and unintoxicated intervals to the composition,

not of frivolous rhymes, but of essays upon political economy.

Washington loved this exquisite science; such names as Baker,

Beckwith, Judson, Smith, are imperishably linked with it; and even

imperial Homer, in the ninth book of the Iliad, has said:

Fiat justitia, ruat coelum,

Post mortem unum, ante bellum,

Hic facet hoc, ex-parte res,

Politicum e-conomico est.

The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together with the

felicity of the wording which clothes them, and the sublimity of the

imagery whereby they are illustrated, have singled out that stanza,

and made it more celebrated than any that ever--

["Now, not a word out of you--not a single word. Just state your bill

and relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and ever on these

premises. Nine hundred, dollars? Is that all? This check for the

amount will be honored at any respectable bank in America. What is that

multitude of people gathered in the street for? How?--'looking at the

lightning-rods!' Bless my life, did they never see any lightning-rods

before? Never saw 'such a stack of them on one establishment,' did I

understand you to say? I will step down and critically observe this

popular ebullition of ignorance."]

THREE DAYS LATER.--We are all about worn out. For four-and-twenty hours

our bristling premises were the talk and wonder of the town. The

theaters languished, for their happiest scenic inventions were tame and

commonplace compared with my lightning-rods. Our street was blocked

night and day with spectators, and among them were many who came from

the country to see. It was a blessed relief on the second day when a

thunderstorm came up and the lightning began to "go for" my house, as the

historian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It cleared the galleries, so to

speak. In five minutes there was not a spectator within half a mile of

my place; but all the high houses about that distance away were full,

windows, roof, and all. And well they might be, for all the falling

stars and Fourth-of-July fireworks of a generation, put together and

rained down simultaneously out of heaven in one brilliant shower upon one

helpless roof, would not have any advantage of the pyrotechnic display

that was making my house so magnificently conspicuous in the general

gloom of the storm.

By actual count, the lightning struck at my establishment seven

hundred and sixty-four times in forty minutes, but tripped on one of

those faithful rods every time, and slid down the spiral-twist and shot

into the earth before it probably had time to be surprised at the way the

thing was done. And through all that bombardment only one patch of slates

was ripped up, and that was because, for a single instant, the rods in

the vicinity were transporting all the lightning they could possibly

accommodate. Well, nothing was ever seen like it since the world began.

For one whole day and night not a member of my family stuck his head out

of the window but he got the hair snatched off it as smooth as a

billiard-ball; and; if the reader will believe me, not one of us ever

dreamt of stirring abroad. But at last the awful siege came to an

end-because there was absolutely no more electricity left in the clouds

above us within grappling distance of my insatiable rods. Then I sallied

forth, and gathered daring workmen together, and not a bite or a nap did

we take till the premises were utterly stripped of all their terrific

armament except just three rods on the house, one on the kitchen, and one

on the barn--and, behold, these remain there even unto this day. And

then, and not till then, the people ventured to use our street again.

I will remark here, in passing, that during that fearful time I did not

continue my essay upon political economy. I am not even yet settled

enough in nerve and brain to resume it.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.--Parties having need of three thousand two

hundred and eleven feet of best quality zinc-plated spiral-twist

lightning-rod stuff, and sixteen hundred and thirty-one silver-tipped

points, all in tolerable repair (and, although much worn by use, still

equal to any ordinary emergency), can hear of a bargains by addressing

the publisher.

THE JUMPING FROG [written about 1865]

IN ENGLISH. THEN IN FRENCH. THEN CLAWED BACK INTO A CIVILIZED LANGUAGE

ONCE MORE BY PATIENT, UNREMUNERATED TOIL.

Even a criminal is entitled to fair play; and certainly when a man who

has done no harm has been unjustly treated, he is privileged to do his

best to right himself. My attention has just beep called to an article

some three years old in a French Magazine entitled, 'Revue des Deux

Mondes' (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of "Les

Humoristes Americaines" (These Humorist Americans). I am one of these

humorists American dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making.

This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French,

where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start

into a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive or

not). It is a very good article and the writer says all manner of kind

and complimentary things about me--for which I am sure thank him with all

my heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by one

unlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my jumping Frog is

a funny story, but still he can't see why it should ever really convulse

any one with laughter--and straightway proceeds to translate it into

French in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so very

extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint

originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all

up; it is no more like the jumping Frog when he gets through with it than

I am like a meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof;

wherefore I print the French version, that all may see that I do not

speak falsely; furthermore, in order that even the unlettered may know my

injury and give me their compassion, I have been at infinite pains and

trouble to retranslate this French version back into English; and to tell

the truth I have well-nigh worn myself out at it, having scarcely rested

from my work during five days and nights. I cannot speak the French

language, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I being

self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original English

version of the jumping Frog, and then read the French or my

retranslation, and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled the

grammar. I think it is the worst I ever saw; and yet the French are

called a polished nation. If I had a boy that put sentences together as

they do, I would polish him to some purpose. Without further

introduction, the jumping Frog, as I originally wrote it, was as follows

[after it will be found the French version--(French version is deleted

from this edition)--, and after the latter my retranslation from the

French]

THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY [Pronounced Cal-e-va-ras]

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the

East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired

after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I

hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W.

Smiley is a myth that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he

on conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him

of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death

with some exasperating reminiscence him as long and as tedious as it

should be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the

dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp Angel's, and I noticed that

he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness

and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave me

good day. I told him that a friend of mine had commissioned me to make

some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas

W. Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who

he had heard was at one time resident of Angel's Camp. I added that if

Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley,

I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his

chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which

follows this paragraph. He never smiled he never frowned, he never

changed his voice from the gentle flowing key to which he tuned his

initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of

enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein

of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,

so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny

about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired

its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in 'finesse.' I let him go

on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.

"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le--well, there was a feller here, once

by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49--or maybe it was the

spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me

think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn't

finished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was the

curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever

see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't

he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him any

way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky,

uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and

laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but

that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was

just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or

you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd

bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a

chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a

fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a

camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he

judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was too, and a good

man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet

you how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to,

and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but

what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the

road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about

him. Why, it never made no difference to him--he'd bet on any thing--the

dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good

while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning

he come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she was

considerable better--thank the Lord for his inf'nite mercy--and coming on

so smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence she'd get well yet; and

Smiley, before he thought, says, 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half she

don't anyway.'

"Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,

but that was only in fun, you know, because of course she was faster than

that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and

always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something

of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start,

and then pass her under way; but always at the fag end of the race she

get excited and desperate like, and come cavorting and straddling up,

and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and

sometimes out to one side among the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust

and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her

nose--and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near

as you could cipher it down.

"And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he

warn't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for a

chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a

different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of

a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces.

And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him

over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson--which was the

name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was

satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and the bets being doubled

and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up;

and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int

of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only just

grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year.

Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once

that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in a

circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money

was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in a

minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the

door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter

discouraged-like and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got

shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was

broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind

legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight,

and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good

pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if

he'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius--I know it,

because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to

reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them

circumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when

I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats

and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't

fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog

one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so

he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn

that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a

little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in

the air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple,

if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a

cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep' him in

practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could

see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do

'most anything--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster

down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and sing

out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring

straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the

floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of

his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd

been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest

and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it

come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more

ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see.

Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it

come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red.

Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers

that had traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frog

that ever they see.

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to

fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller

--a stranger in the camp, he was--come acrost him with his box, and says:

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, 'It might be a parrot, or it

might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a frog.'

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round

this way and that, and says, 'H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's HE good for.

"'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for one thing,

I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.

"The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look,

and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says,

'I don't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other

frog.'

"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you understand frogs and maybe

you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you

ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll

resk forty dollars the he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.'

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 'Well,

I'm only a, stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog,

I'd bet you.

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right--that's all right if you'll hold

my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' Any so the feller took the

box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to

wait.

"So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself and then

he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and

filled him full of quail-shot-filled him pretty near up to his chin--and

set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in

the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him

in, and give him to this feller and says:

"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore paws

just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word.' Then he says,

'One-two-three--git' and him and the feller touches up the frogs from

behind, and the new frog hopped off lively but Dan'l give a heave, and

hysted up his shoulders---so-like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use--he

couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't no

more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised,

and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was

of course.

"The Teller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at

the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at Dan'l, and

says again, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no pints about

that frog that's any better'n any other frog.'

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long

time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frog

throw'd off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him

--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by the

nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why blame my cats if he don't

weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down and he belched out a double

handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man

--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never

ketched him. And--"

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up

to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said:

"Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to be

gone a second."

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of

the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much

information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started

away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me

and recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no

tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about

the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm can

further go:

[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.]

.......................

THE JUMPING FROG

"--Il y avait, une fois ici un individu connu sous le nom de Jim Smiley:

c'etait dans l'hiver de 49, peut-etre bien au printemps de 50, je ne me

reappelle pas exactement. Ce qui me fait croire que c'etait l'un ou

l'autre, c'est que je me souviens que le grand bief n'etait pas acheve

lorsqu'il arriva au camp pour la premiere fois, mais de toutes facons il

etait l'homme le plus friand de paris qui se put voir, pariant sur tout

ce qui se presentaat, quand il pouvait trouver un adversaire, et, quand

n'en trouvait pas il passait du cote oppose. Tout ce qui convenaiat

l'autre lui convenait; pourvu qu'il eut un pari, Smiley etait satisfait.

Et il avait une chance! une chance inouie: presque toujours il gagnait.

It faut dire qu'il etait toujours pret a'exposer, qu'on ne pouvait

mentionner la moindre chose sans que ce gaillard offrit de parier

la-dessus n'importe quoi et de prendre le cote que l'on voudrait, comme

je vous le disais tout a l'heure. S'il y avait des courses, vous le

trouviez riche ou ruine a la fin; s'il y avait un combat de chiens, il

apportait son enjeu; il l'apportait pour un combat de chats, pour un

combat de coqs;--parbleu! si vous aviez vu deux oiseaux sur une haie il

vous aurait offert de parier lequel s'envolerait le premier, et s'il y

aviat 'meeting' au camp, il venait parier regulierement pour le cure

Walker, qu'il jugeait etre le meilleur predicateur des environs, et qui

l'etait en effet, et un brave homme. Il aurai rencontre une punaise de

bois en chemin, qu'il aurait parie sur le temps qu'il lui faudrait pour

aller ou elle voudrait aller, et si vous l'aviez pris au mot, it aurait

suivi la punaise jusqu'au Mexique, sans se soucier d'aller si loin, ni du

temps qu'il y perdrait. Une fois la femme du cure Walker fut tres malade

pendant longtemps, il semblait qu'on ne la sauverait pas; mai un matin le

cure arrive, et Smiley lui demande comment ella va et il dit qu'elle est

bien mieux, grace a l'infinie misericorde tellement mieux qu'avec la

benediction de la Providence elle s'en tirerait, et voila que, sans y

penser, Smiley repond:--Eh bien! ye gage deux et demi qu'elle mourra tout

de meme.

"Ce Smiley avait une jument que les gars appelaient le bidet du quart

d'heure, mais seulement pour plaisanter, vous comprenez, parse que, bien

entendu, elle etait plus vite que ca! Et il avait coutume de gagner de

l'argent avec cette bete, quoi-qu'elle fut poussive, cornarde, toujours

prise d'asthme, de colique ou de consomption, ou de quelque chose

d'approchant. On lui donnait 2 ou 300 'yards' au depart, puffs on la

depassait sans peine; mais jamais a la fin elle ne manquait de

s'echauffer, de s'exasperer et elle arrivait, s'ecartant, se defendant,

ses jambes greles en l'ai devant les obstacles, quelquefois les evitant

et faisant avec cela plus de poussiare qu'aucun cheval, plus de bruit

surtout avec ses eternumens et reniflemens.---crac! elle arrivaat donc

toujour premiere d'une tete, aussi juste qu'on peut le mesurer. Et il

avait un petit bouledogue qui, a le voir, ne valait pas un sou; on aurait

cru que parier contre lui c'etait voler, tant il etait ordinaire; mais

aussitot les enjeux faits, il devenait un autre chien. Sa machoire

inferieure commencait a ressortir comme un gaillard d'avant, ses dents se

decouvcraient brillantes commes des fournaises, et un chien pouvait le

taquiner, l'exciter, le mordre, le jeter deux ou trois fois par-dessus

son epaule, Andre Jackson, c'etait le nom du chien, Andre Jackson prenait

cela tranquillement, comme s'il ne se fut jamais attendu a autre chose,

et quand les paris etaient doubles et redoubles contre lui, il vous

saisissait l'autre chien juste a l'articulation de la jambe de derriere,

et il ne la lachait plus, non pas qu'il la machat, vous concevez, mais il

s'y serait tenu pendu jusqu'a ce qu'on jetat l'eponge en l'air, fallut-il

attendre un an. Smiley gagnait toujours avec cette bete-la;

malheureusement ils ont fini par dresser un chien qui n'avait pas de

pattes de derriere, parce qu'on les avait sciees, et quand les choses

furent au point qu'il voulait, et qu'il en vint a se jeter sur son

morceau favori, le pauvre chien comprit en un instant qu'on s'etait moque

de lui, et que l'autre le tenait. Vous n'avez jamais vu personne avoir

l'air plus penaud et plus decourage; il ne fit aucun effort pour gagner

le combat et fut rudement secoue, de sorte que, regardant Smiley comme

pour lui dire:--Mon coeur est brise, c'est to faute; pourquoi m'avoir

livre a un chien qui n'a pas de pattes de derriere, puisque c'est par la

que je les bats?--il s'en alla en clopinant, et se coucha pour mourir.

Ah! c'etait un bon chien, cet Andre Jackson, et il se serait fait un nom,

s'il avait vecu, car il y avait de l'etoffe en lui, il avait du genie,

je la sais, bien que de grandes occasions lui aient manque; mais il est

impossible de supposer qu'un chien capable de se battre comme lui,

certaines circonstances etant donnees, ait manque de talent. Je me sens

triste toutes les fois que je pense a son dernier combat et au denoument

qu'il a eu. Eh bien! ce Smiley nourrissait des terriers a rats, et des

coqs combat, et des chats, et toute sorte de choses, au point qu'il etait

toujours en mesure de vous tenir tete, et qu'avec sa rage de paris on

n'avait plus de repos. Il attrapa un jour une grenouille et l'emporta

chez lui, disant qu'il pretendait faire son Education; vous me croirez si

vous voulez, mais pendant trois mois il n'a rien fait que lui apprendre a

sauter dans une cour retire de sa maison. Et je vous reponds qu'il avait

reussi. Il lui donnait un petit coup par derriere, et l'instant d'apres

vous voyiez la grenouille tourner en l'air comme un beignet au-dessus de

la poele, faire une culbute, quelquefois deux, lorsqu'elle etait bien

partie, et retomber sur ses pattes comme un chat. Il l'avait dressee

dans l'art de gober des mouches, er l'y exercait continuellement, si bien

qu'une mouche, du plus loin qu'elle apparaissait, etait une mouche

perdue. Smiley avait coutume de dire que tout ce qui manquait a une

grenouille, c'etait l'education, qu'avec l'education elle pouvait faire

presque tout, et je le crois. Tenez, je l'ai vu poser Daniel Webster la

sur se plancher,--Daniel Webster etait le nom de la grenouille,--et lui

chanter: Des mouches! Daniel, des mouches!--En un clin d'oeil, Daniel

avait bondi et saisi une mouche ici sur le comptoir, puis saute de

nouveau par terre, ou il restait vraiment a se gratter la tete avec sa

patte de derriere, comme s'il n'avait pas eu la moindre idee de sa

superiorite. Jamais vous n'avez grenouille vu de aussi modeste, aussi

naturelle, douee comme elle l'etait! Et quand il s'agissait de sauter

purement et simplement sur terrain plat, elle faisait plus de chemin en

un saut qu'aucune bete de son espece que vous puissiez connaitre. Sauter

a plat, c'etait son fort! Quand il s'agissait de cela, Smiley en tassait

les enjeux sur elle tant qu'il lui, restait un rouge liard. Il faut le

reconnaitre, Smiley etait monstrueusement fier de sa grenouille, et il en

avait le droit, car des gens qui avaient voyage, qui avaient tout vu,

disaient qu'on lui ferait injure de la comparer a une autre; de facon que

Smiley gardait Daniel dans une petite boite a claire-voie qu'il emportait

parfois a la Ville pour quelque pari.

"Un jour, un individu etranger au camp l'arrete aver sa boite et lui

dit:--Qu'est-ce que vous avez donc serre la dedans?

"Smiley dit d'un air indifferent:--Cela pourrait etre un perroquet ou un

serin, mais ce n'est rien de pareil, ce n'est qu'une grenouille.

"L'individu la prend, la regarde avec soin, la tourne d'un cote et de

l'autre puis il dit.--Tiens! en effet! A quoi estelle bonne?

"--Mon Dieu! repond Smiley, toujours d'un air degage, elle est bonne pour

une chose a mon avis, elle peut battre en sautant toute grenouille du

comte de Calaveras.

"L'individu reprend la boite, l'examine de nouveau longuement, et la rend

a Smiley en disant d'un air delibere:--Eh bien! je ne vois pas que cette

grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune grenouille.

"--Possible qua vous ne le voyiez pat, dit Smiley, possible que vous vous

entendiez en grenouilles, possible que vous ne vous y entendez point,

possible qua vous avez de l'experience, et possible que vous ne soyez

qu'un amateur. De toute maniere, je parie quarante dollars qu'elle

battra en sautant n'importe quelle grenouille du comte de Calaveras.

"L'individu reflechit one seconde et dit comma attriste:--Je ne suis

qu'un etranger ici, je n'ai pas de grenouille; mais, si j'en

avais une, je tiendrais le pari.

"--Fort bien! repond Smiley. Rien de plus facile. Si vous voulez tenir

ma boite one minute, j'irai vous chercher une grenouille.--Voile donc

l'individu qui garde la boite, qui met ses quarante dollars sur ceux de

Smiley et qui attend. Il attend assez longtemps, reflechissant tout

seul, et figurez-vous qu'il prend Daniel, lui ouvre la bouche de force at

avec une cuiller a the l'emplit de menu plomb de chasse, mail l'emplit

jusqu'au menton, puis il le pose par terre. Smiley pendant ce temps

etait a barboter dans une mare. Finalement il attrape une grenouille,

l'apporte cet individu et dit:--Maintenant, si vous etes pret, mettez-la

tout contra Daniel, avec leurs pattes de devant sur la meme ligne, et je

donnerai le signal; puis il ajoute:--Un, deux, trois, sautez!

"Lui et l'individu touchent leurs grenouilles par derriere, et la

grenouille neuve se met h sautiller, mais Daniel se souleve lourdement,

hausse les epaules ainsi, comma un Francais; a quoi bon? il ne pouvait

bouger, il etait plante solide comma une enclume, il n'avancait pas plus

que si on l'eut mis a l'ancre. Smiley fut surpris et degoute, mais il ne

se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu. L'individu empoche l'argent, s'en

va, et en s'en allant est-ce qu'il ne donna pas un coup de pouce

pardessus l'epaule, comma ca, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air

delibere:--Eh bien! je ne vois pas qua cette grenouille ait rien de muiex

qu'une autre.

"Smiley se gratta longtemps la tete, les yeux fixes Sur Daniel; jusqu'a

ce qu'enfin il dit:--je me demande comment diable il se fait qua cette

bite ait refuse, . . . Est-ce qu'elle aurait quelque chose? . . . On

croirait qu'elle est enflee.

"Il empoigne Daniel par la peau du coo, le souleve et dit:--Le loup me

croque, s'il ne pese pas cinq livres.

"Il le retourne, et le malheureux crache deux poignees de plomb. Quand

Smiley reconnut ce qui en etait, il fut comme fou. Vous le voyez d'ici

poser sa grenouille par terra et courir apres cet individu, mais il ne le

rattrapa jamais, et ...."

[Translation of the above back from the French:]

THE FROG JUMPING OF THE COUNTY OF CALAVERAS

It there was one time here an individual known under the name of Jim

Smiley; it was in the winter of '89, possibly well at the spring of '50,

I no me recollect not exactly. This which me makes to believe that it

was the one or the other, it is that I shall remember that the grand

flume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp for the first time, but

of all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen,

betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find an

adversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the side

opposed. All that which convenienced to the other to him convenienced

also; seeing that he had a bet Smiley was satisfied. And he had a

chance! a chance even worthless; nearly always he gained. It must to say

that he was always near to himself expose, but one no could mention the

least thing without that this gaillard offered to bet the bottom, no

matter what, and to take the side that one him would, as I you it said

all at the hour (tout a l'heure). If it there was of races, you him find

rich or ruined at the end; if it, here is a combat of dogs, he bring his

bet; he himself laid always for a combat of cats, for a combat of cocks

--by-blue! If you have see two birds upon a fence, he you should have

offered of to bet which of those birds shall fly the first; and if there

is meeting at the camp (meeting au camp) he comes to bet regularly for

the cure Walker, which he judged to be the best predicator of the

neighborhood (predicateur des environs) and which he was in effect, and a

brave man. He would encounter a bug of wood in the road, whom he will

bet upon the time which he shall take to go where she would go--and if

you him have take at the word, he will follow the bug as far as Mexique,

without himself caring to go so far; neither of the time which he there

lost. One time the woman of the cure Walker is very sick during long

time, it seemed that one not her saved not; but one morning the cure

arrives, and Smiley him demanded how she goes, and he said that she is

well better, grace to the infinite misery (lui demande comment elle va,

et il dit qu'elle est bien mieux, grace a l'infinie misericorde) so much

better that with the benediction of the Providence she herself of it

would pull out (elle s'en tirerait); and behold that without there

thinking Smiley responds: "Well, I gage two-and-half that she will die

all of same."

This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter of

hour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, well

understand, she was more fast as that! [Now why that exclamation?--M. T.]

And it was custom of to gain of the silver with this beast,

notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always taken of asthma, of

colics or of consumption, or something of approaching. One him would

give two or three hundred yards at the departure, then one him passed

without pain; but never at the last she not fail of herself echauffer,

of herself exasperate, and she arrives herself ecartant, se defendant,

her legs greles in the air before the obstacles, sometimes them elevating

and making with this more of dust than any horse, more of noise above

with his eternumens and reniflemens--crac! she arrives then always first

by one head, as just as one can it measure. And he had a small bulldog

(bouledogue!) who, to him see, no value, not a cent; one would believe

that to bet against him it was to steal, so much he was ordinary; but as

soon as the game made, she becomes another dog. Her jaw inferior

commence to project like a deck of before, his teeth themselves discover

brilliant like some furnaces, and a dog could him tackle (le taquiner),

him excite, him murder (le mordre), him throw two or three times over his

shoulder, Andre Jackson--this was the name of the dog--Andre Jackson

takes that tranquilly, as if he not himself was never expecting other

thing, and when the bets were doubled and redoubled against him, he you

seize the other dog just at the articulation of the leg of behind, and he

not it leave more, not that he it masticate, you conceive, but he himself

there shall be holding during until that one throws the sponge in the

air, must he wait a year. Smiley gained always with this beast-la;

unhappily they have finished by elevating a dog who no had not of feet of

behind, because one them had sawed; and when things were at the point

that he would, and that he came to himself throw upon his morsel

favorite, the poor dog comprehended in an instant that he himself was

deceived in him, and that the other dog him had. You no have never seen

person having the air more penaud and more discouraged; he not made no

effort to gain the combat, and was rudely shucked.

Eh bien! this Smiley nourished some terriers a rats, and some cocks of

combat, and some pats, and all sorts of things; and with his rage of

betting one no had more of repose. He trapped one day a frog and him

imported with him (et l'emporta chez lui) saying that he pretended to

make his education. You me believe if you will, but during three months

he not has nothing done but to him apprehend to jump (apprendre a sauter)

in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And I you respond that

he have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, and the instant

after you shall see the frog turn in the air like a grease-biscuit, make

one summersault, sometimes two, when she was well started, and refall

upon his feet like a cat. He him had accomplished in the art of to

gobble the flies (gober des mouches), and him there exercised continually

--so well that a fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost.

Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was the

education, but with the education she could do nearly all--and I him

believe. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon this

plank--Daniel Webster was the name of the frog--and to him sing, "Some

flies, Daniel, some fifes!"--in a flash of the eye Daniel 30

had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew at

the earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with his

behind foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority.

Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was.

And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth,

she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than you

can know. To jump plain-this was his strong. When he himself agitated

for that, Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to him

remained a red. It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of his

frog, and he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had all

seen, said that they to him would be injurious to him compare, to another

frog. Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carried

bytimes to the village for some bet.

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box and

him said:

"What is this that you have them shut up there within?"

Smiley said, with an air indifferent:

"That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is

nothing of such, it not is but a frog."

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side

and from the other, then he said:

"Tiens! in effect!--At what is she good?"

"My God!" respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, "she is good for

one thing, to my notice (A mon avis), she can better in jumping (elle pent

battre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras."

The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it rendered

to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate:

"Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each

frog." (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune

grenouille.) [If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no

judge.--M. T.]

"Possible that you not it saw not," said Smiley, "possible that you--you

comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing;

possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but

an amateur. Of all manner (De toute maniere) I bet forty dollars that

she better in jumping no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras."

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad:

"I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it had

one, I would embrace the bet."

"Strong well!" respond Smiley; "nothing of more facility. If you will

hold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j'irai vous chercher)."

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his forty

dollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend). He

attended enough long times, reflecting all solely. And figure you that

he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon him

fills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he him

puts by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in a swamp.

Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, and

said:

"Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel with their before feet

upon the same line, and I give the signal"--then he added: "One, two,

three--advance!"

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog new

put to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted the

shoulders thus, like a Frenchman--to what good? he not could budge, he

is planted solid like a church he not advance no more than if one him had

put at the anchor.

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he no himself doubted not of the

turn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu).

The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of it

himself in going is it that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over the

shoulder--like that--at the poor Daniel, in saying with his air

deliberate--(L'individu empoche l'argent, s'en va et en s'en allant

est-ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup d pouce par-dessus l'epaule, comme ga,

au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air delibere):

"Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothin of better than another."

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel,

until that which at last he said:

"I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused.

Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed."

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said:

"The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds:"

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et le

malheureux, etc.). When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad.

He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but he

not him caught never.

Such is the jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye. I claim that I

never put together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and delirium

tremens in my life. And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to be

abused and misrepresented like this? When I say, "Well, I don't see no

pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," is it kind,

is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear that I said, "Eh

bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog"?

I have no heart to write more. I never felt so about anything before.

HARTFORD, March, 1875.

JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE--[Written about 1871.]