CALEB and the corn-meal sailed for Europe, but first Caleb wired the
address of a firm that would do the fair thing with a car-load of
walnut stumps. Miss Truett's brother Harold arrived at Claybanks soon
afterward, and when he learned accidentally that Philip wished some
walnut stumps extracted and that the land was stoneless, he offered
to do the work quickly and cheaply, and his devices so impressed
occasional beholders, accustomed to burning and digging as the only
means of removing stumps, that the young man soon made several
stump-extracting contracts, for which he was to be paid--in land.
Meanwhile, from the back of Philip's horse he studied the swamp lands
near the town; then he went over the ground with a level, and afterward
reported to Philip that for the trifling sum of three thousand
dollars, added to right of way for a main ditch, which the farmers
should be glad to give free of cost, the swamp lands might be converted
into dry, rich farming land.
"This county couldn't raise three thousand dollars in cash," Philip
replied, "even if you could guarantee that the main ditch would flow
liquid gold."
"If that is the case," said the young man, who had nothing to lose
and everything to gain, "and as labor and farm tools are almost the
only requirements,--except some cash for my services,--why not form an
association of all the owners of swamp lands, determine the share of
each in the cost, according to the amount of benefit he'll get, and let
all, if they wish, pay in labor at a specified day-price per man, team,
plough, or scraper, and go to work at once? Such things have been done.
A farmer who hasn't enough working force on his place can generally
hire a helper or two, on credit, against crop-selling time. This is
just the time to do it, too; for a lot of farmers in the vicinity
who have swamp land will have nothing especial to do, now that their
winter wheat is cut, till the thrashing machine comes to them, and
others are through with heavy work until corn ripens."
"I begin to see daylight," said Philip. "But, young man, how did you
get all these practical wrinkles in New York?"
"By listening to men who've been in the business many years. Most of
them have had to take scrub jobs once in a while. But please secure
the right of way at once for the main ditch; that's where the work
should begin. I shouldn't wonder if you could get a lot of volunteer
labor from the villagers, if you go about it rightly; for your Doctor
Taggess believes that to drain the swamps would be to greatly lessen
the number and violence of malarial attacks,--perhaps banish malaria
entirely,--and I suppose you know what it means for a town, in
certain parts of the West, to have a no-malaria reputation. It means
manufactures, and better prices for building sites, and perhaps the
beginnings of a city."
"Mr. Truett, I shouldn't wonder if you've struck just the place to
exercise your professional wits."
"I hope so. I'll soon find out, if you'll arrange that combination of
land-owners, and secure that right of way. Now is the golden time,
while the swamp land has least water and the earth is easiest handled."
Doctor Taggess, summoned for consultation on the drainage subject,
promised to make an earnest speech at any general meeting that might be
called; so Philip hurried about among the merchants, town and county
officials, and other local magnates, and arranged for an anti-malaria,
city-compelling mass-meeting at the court-house at an early date.
Political jealousies and personal dog-in-the-manger feeling are
quite as common in small towns as in great ones, but the possibility
of a village becoming a city, and farm property being cut up into
building-lots at high prices, is the one darling hope of every little
village in the far West, and at the right time--or even at the wrong
one--it may be depended upon to weld all discordant elements into one
great enthusiastic force. When the meeting was held, Doctor Taggess
made a strong plea for the proposed improvement, from the standpoint
of the public health; the young engineer read a mass of statistics
on the amazing fertility of drained swamp lands, and announced his
willingness to wait for his own pay until his work proved itself
effective; and the county clerk told of scores of Western villages,
settled no longer ago than Claybanks, that had become cities. The
upshot was that the improvement plan was adopted without a dissenting
voice, and the right of way was secured at the meeting itself, as was
also a volunteer force to begin work at once on the main ditch.
"Truett," said Philip, after the meeting adjourned, and he, the
engineer, and Doctor Taggess walked away together, "unless you've made
some mistake in your figures, this enterprise will make you a great man
in this section of country."
"That's what I wish it to do," was the reply, "for I must make a
permanent start somewhere."
"Your offer to defer asking for pay till the drainage should prove
successful," said the Doctor, "helped the movement amazingly, and it
also made everybody think you a very fair man."
"Yes? Well, that's why I made it"
"H'm!" said Philip, "you've the stuff that'll make a successful
Westerner of you."
"That's what I want to be."
"I don't think you'll regret it," said the Doctor; "for much though
I sometimes long to return to the East, and plainly though I see
the poverty and limitations of this part of the country, the West
is the proper starting-place for a young man, unless he chances to
have abundant capital. Even then he might do worse; for, of course,
the newer the country, the greater the number of natural resources
to be discovered and developed. The people, too, are interested in
everything new, and stand together, to a degree unknown at the East,
in favor of any improvements that are possible. They do their full
share of grumbling and complaining, to say nothing of their full share
of suffering, but there's scarcely one of them who doesn't secretly
hope and expect to become rich some day, or at least to be part of a
rich community; and they're not more than half wrong, for railways and
manufactures must reach us, in the ordinary course of events, and all
our people expect to see them. Let me give you an illustration. A year
or two ago I drove out one Sunday to see a family of my acquaintance,
living in a specially malarious part of the county, who were out of
quinine--a common matter of forgetfulness, strange though it may seem.
As I neared the house, I heard singing, of a peculiar, irregular kind.
As 'twas Sunday, I supposed a neighborhood meeting was in progress.
But there wasn't. One of the hundreds of projected Pacific railways
had been surveyed through the farm a few months before. On the day of
my call three of the seven members of the family were shaking with
chills; so to keep up their spirits they were singing, to the music of
a hymn-tune, some verses written and printed in the West long ago, and
beginning:--
"'The great Pacific railroad
To California, hail!
Bring on the locomotive,
Lay down the iron rail.'
There's Western spirit for you--fighting a chill with hopes of a
railway that thus far was only a line of stakes and indefinite
promises! Such people are worth tying to; their like cannot be found in
any other part of the country."
The work at the main ditch continued without interruption, thanks to
a month almost rainless, until the ditch was completed to the creek
at one end and to the swamps at the other. Then the main lines in
the swamps themselves were opened, one by one, and the swamps became
dry for the first time in their history, though small laterals, some
to drain springs, others to guard against the accidents of a rainy
season, were still to be cut by private enterprise. But the people of
Claybanks and vicinity were delighted to so great an extent that dreams
of a golden future would not satisfy them, so they planned a monster
celebration and procession, and there seemed no more appropriate route
of march than up one side of the main ditch and down the other, with a
halt midway for speeches and feasting.
The happiest man in all the town--happiest in his own estimation,
at least--was Philip; for within a few days he had learned that the
despised mining stock which was his only material inheritance from
his father had suddenly become of great value. He had sent it to New
York to be sold, and learned that the result was almost ten thousand
dollars, which had been deposited to his credit at a bank which he
had designated. At last he had something wholly his own, should
sickness or possible business reverses ever make him wish to abandon
his inheritance from his uncle. Grace shared his feeling, and was
correspondingly radiant and exuberant, for ten thousand dollars in cash
made Philip a greater capitalist than any other man within fifty miles.
He could buy real estate in his own right, to be in readiness for the
coming "boom" of Claybanks; he could become a banker, manufacturer,
perhaps even a railway president, so potent would ten thousand dollars
be in an impecunious land.
"You're an utter Westerner--a wild, woolly-brained Westerner," said
Philip, after listening to some of his wife's rose-tinted rhapsodies
over the future.
"I suspect I am, and I don't believe you're a bit better," was the
reply. "Tis in the air; we can't help it."
On the day of the celebration Grace gave herself up to fun with her
camera, for which she had ordered many plates in anticipation of the
occasion; for never before had there been such an opportunity to get
pictures of all the county's inhabitants in their Sunday clothes. She
was hurrying from group to group, during the great feast at the halt,
when Pastor Grateway, who was looking westward, said:--
"Mrs. Somerton, I've heard that you're fond of chasing whirlwinds with
your camera. There comes one that looks as if it might make a good
picture, if you could get near enough to it."
"Isn't it splendid!" Grace exclaimed. "Doctor Taggess, do look at this
magnificent whirlwind!"