SOON after sunrise on the morning after the cyclone, Claybanks began
to fill with horror-seekers and rumor-mongers from the outer world;
but most of the natives were invisible, for they had worked and talked
far into the night. It seemed to the Somertons that they had not slept
an hour when they were roused by heavy knocking at the door; then
they were amazed to find the sun quite high. The man who had done the
knocking handed Philip a telegram, brought from the railway station, an
hour distant. It was from New York, and read as follows:--
"Back yesterday. Good as new. English business well
started. Cyclone in New York papers this morning.
Please don't abuse the Maker of it. Look out for His
children. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same
place. Do you want anything from here? Answer. If not,
I start West at once.
"CALEB."
"'Tis evident he hasn't given up his habit of early rising," said
Philip, as he gave the despatch to his wife. When she had read it,
Grace said:--
"Dear Caleb! His return is absolutely providential, and his despatch is
very like him."
"I'm not quite sure of that," Philip replied, shaking his head
doubtingly, yet smiling under his mustache. "To be entirely like Caleb,
it should have said that the cyclone was a means of grace."
"I think he distinctly intimates as much, where he refers to the Maker
of the storm."
"True. Well, he expects an answer, and I will make it exactly as you
wish."
Grace rubbed her drowsy eyes and instantly became alert. She looked
inquiringly at her husband, and said:--
"Exactly as I wish? May I write it?"
"May you? What a question! Was there ever a time when your wish was not
law to me?"
"Never--bless you!--but some laws are hard to bear."
"Not when you make them, sweetheart. Aren't we one? Write the answer."
Grace's eyes became by turns melting, luminous, dancing,--exactly as
they had been of old, at the rare times when Philip would come home
from the office with a pleasing surprise,--opera-tickets, perhaps, or
the promise of an afternoon and night at the seashore, or a moonlight
trip on the river. They reminded him of the delightful old times of
which they seemed to promise a renewal, and his heart leaped with joy
at the hope and belief that the answer Grace would write would break
the chains that bound her and him to Claybanks. While Grace wrote,
Philip closed his eyes and imagined himself and his wife spending
a restful, delightful summer together, far from the heat, dust,
shabbiness, and dilapidation of their part of the West. Certainly they
would have earned it, and was not the laborer worthy of his hire?
He was aroused from his dreams by a bit of paper thrust into his hand.
He opened his eyes and read:--
"Count on me to do as you would in the same
circumstances. Will reopen for business at once.
Duplicate in New York your purchases of a few weeks
ago. Refer to ---- Bank, in which I have a large
deposit. Then hurry home.
"PHILIP."
Apparently Philip read and re-read the despatch, for he kept his eyes
upon the paper a long time. When finally he looked from it he saw his
wife's countenance very pale and strained. He sprang toward her, and
exclaimed:--
"My dear girl, you are sacrificing yourself!"
"Oh, no, I am not," Grace whispered.
"Then why are you trembling so violently?--why do you look like a
person in the agony of death?"
"Because--because I fear that I am trying to sacrifice you--dooming you
for life. The despatch shan't go, for you don't like it. Yet I wrote
only what I thought was right. All that you inherited from your uncle
was earned here, from the people who have suffered by the cyclone,
or must suffer from the troubles that will follow it. 'Twould be
heartless--really dishonest--to leave them, wouldn't it? Besides, many
of them like us very much, and have learned to look up to us, after a
fashion. Perhaps I wrote too hastily; it may not be practicable, but--"
"Trying, at least, will be practicable," said Philip, after a mighty
effort against himself. "'When in Rome, do as the Romans do;' when with
an angel, follow the angel's lead. I'll hire some one at once to take
the despatch to the wire, and then--why, then I'll wonder where to
reopen for business until the store can be rebuilt."
"Why won't the warehouse answer? And why don't you go at once to the
city?--'tis only a trip of three or four hours, buy a small assortment
of groceries and other things most likely to be called for at once, and
order a larger stock, by wire, from Chicago? Caleb's purchases will
follow quickly. While you're away I'll manage to get the warehouse into
some resemblance to a store ready for goods; some men can surely be
hired, and I'll get Mr. Truett to help devise such makeshifts as are
necessary. You can be back by to-morrow night, if you start at once."
"Upon my word, dear girl, you talk like a business veteran from
a cyclone country. If woman's intuitions can yield such business
telegrams and plans as you've disclosed within ten minutes, I think it
is time for men to go into retirement."
"Women's intuitions, indeed!" Grace murmured, with an accompaniment
of closing eyes, yawning, stretching, and other indications of
insufficient slumber. "I've lain awake most of the night, wondering
what we ought to do and how to do it."
"And your husband stupidly slept!"
"Not being a woman, he wasn't nervous, and I am very glad of it. As
for me, I couldn't sleep, so I had to think of something, and I knew
of nothing better to think of. But before you go to the city let's get
into the buggy and drive over the course of the storm in our county,
and see if any one specially needs help."
"And leave the remains of our store smouldering?"
"We can get Mr. Truett to attend to it. Engineers ought to know
something about keeping fires down."
"I wonder where he is. I thoughtlessly asked him to breakfast with us
this morning. I hope he's not starving somewhere, in anticipation. I
hope, also, that we've enough food material in the house to last a
day or two; we've the ice-house and warehouse to fall back upon for
meats. By the way, isn't it fortunate that I adopted Uncle Jethro's
habit of keeping most of the store cash on my person? Otherwise we'd be
penniless until the safe could be got from the ruins, and cooled and
opened."
While Grace was preparing breakfast Philip hurried about to learn
whether any additional casualties of the storm had been reported, and
he soon encountered the young engineer, who looked as cheerful as if
cyclones were to be reckoned among blessings.
"I've been out on horseback since daylight," said he, "and everything
is lovely."
"There's some ground for difference of opinion," replied Philip,
looking at the damaged court-house and church.
"I meant at the ditch and the swamps," the young man explained hastily.
"In spite of the great rainfall yesterday, the ditch did not overflow,
nor is there any standing water in the swamps. That isn't all; enough
trees have been knocked down, within three or four miles of town, to
make a block pavement for the main street--perhaps enough to pave
the road from here to the railway, so that full wagon-loads could be
hauled all winter long. But there's still more: the creek has been
accidentally dammed, a mile or two from town, by a bridge that the
cyclone took from its place and set up on edge in the stream. A little
work there, at once, would prepare a head for the water-power which I'm
told the town has been palavering about for years, and if you don't
want water-power, 'twould supply plenty of good water to be piped to
town, to replace the foul stuff from wells that have been polluted by
drainage. Doctor Taggess says some of the wells are to blame for many
of the troubles charged to malaria."
"Harold Truett," said Philip, "do have mercy upon us! We'll yet
hear of you engineers trying to get the inhabitants of a cemetery
interested in some of your enterprises. Block pavements, indeed!--and
water-power!--and a reservoir!--and pipe-service!--all this to a man
whose principal lot of worldly goods is still burning, and in a town
not yet a full day past a cyclone!"
"Oh, the town's all right," said Truett, confidently. "At least, the
people are. Already they're making the best of it and trying to make
repairs, and wondering to one another, in true Western fashion, if the
disaster won't make the town widely talked of, and give it a boom."
"They are, eh? Well, I shan't allow the procession to get ahead of
me. Do you wish to superintend the transforming of my warehouse into
a temporary store, while I hurry away to buy goods? Mrs. Somerton
can tell you what we need. You may also see that the fire which is
consuming the remains of the old store is kept down or put out. I think
the two jobs will keep you very busy."
"Quite likely, but I wish you'd keep that block pavement and
water-power and reservoir in mind, and speak to people about them. A
town is like a man: if it must make a new start, it might as well start
right, and for all it is worth."
"Bless me! You've been here less than two months, yet you talk like a
rabid Westerner! Do you chance to know just when and where you caught
the fever?"
"Oh, yes," replied the young man, with a laugh. "I got it in New York,
while listening to your man, Caleb Wright. I couldn't help it. I forgot
to say that now ought to be the time to coax a practical brick-maker
to town, and show what the banks of clay are really good for. Do it
before the state newspapers stop sending men down here to write about
the cyclone, and you'll get a lot of free advertising. And a railway
company ought to be persuaded to push a spur down here; they would do
it if you had water-power and any mills to use it."
"Anything else? Are all engineers like you?--contriving to turn nothing
into something?"
"They ought to be. That's what they were made for. So were other
people, though some of them seem slow to understand it. I wish
you'd appoint me a reception committee to talk to all newspaper
correspondents that come down to write up the horrors. If you'll tell
your fellow-citizens to refer all such chaps to me, I'll engage to
have the town's natural resources exploited in fine style."
Philip promised, and an hour later when he and Grace were driving
rapidly over one of the county roads, Philip said that if Miss Truett
were of like temperament to her brother, it was not strange that she
was head of a large department. Still, Philip thought it strange that
a young man of so much energy and perceptive power should see anything
promising in Claybanks.
"'Tis all because of Caleb," Grace replied confidently. "Mr. Truett
says that Caleb was quite voluble about the defects of the country, but
his truthfulness was fascinating through its uniqueness."
"H'm! 'Tis evident that Caleb was the cause of Truett coming here, so
the town is still more deeply in debt to Caleb, who, poor chap, will
return to miss everything that he left behind him in his room, and even
the roof that sheltered him."
"And he was so attached to his belongings, too!" Grace said. "Do invite
him, by wire, to regard our home as his own; he is not the kind of man
to abuse the invitation, and I'm sure he will appreciate it."
Within six hours Philip had seen all of his own customers who had
been in the track of the storm, he had asked if there was anything in
particular he could bring them from the city, and assured them that if
they did not make free use of him, they would have only themselves to
blame. Naturally, he did not neglect to say that within a week he would
have on sale as large an assortment of goods as usual, and one with no
"dead stock" in it. Before nightfall, he was in the nearest small city,
and purchasing at a rate that made the dealers glad, and he was also
ordering freely by wire from Chicago houses that had sold to Jethro
Somerton for years, and who felt assured that no mere cyclone and fire
could lessen the Somerton power to pay. Twenty-four hours later he
was at home, congratulating his wife and Truett on the transformation
of the dingy warehouse into a light, clean-appearing room, thanks to
hundreds of yards of sheeting that had been tacked overhead in lieu of
ceiling, and also to the walls. Counters had been extemporized, and
shelving was going up. Some of the contents of the old store had been
saved, and the remainder was being drenched by a bucket brigade, under
the direction of Truett, who reported that he had had no trouble in
securing workmen, for Mrs. Somerton had asked them as a special favor
to her, and they had tumbled over one another in their eagerness to
respond. As to himself, he had found time to draw exterior and interior
plans for a new store to be erected on the old foundations, and he
begged permission to begin work as soon as the ruins were cool; for,
said he, "Lumber and labor will never be cheaper here than they are
now."
"As I remarked before I left, you're a rabid Westerner," Philip said,
in admiration of the young man's enthusiasm.
"Give it any name you like," was the reply, "though I'm suggesting only
what any Eastern man would do. Besides, I'd like to see everything well
started or arranged before Caleb can reach here."
"You seem to have become remarkably fond of Caleb on very short
acquaintance," said Philip.
"I have," was the reply, "and since I've learned that he was sent East
principally to regain his health, I'd like, in justice to both you and
him, that he should find nothing to give him a setback. That's only
fair, isn't it?"
"'Tis more than fair. 'Tis very hearty, and greatly to your credit."
"Oh, well; put it that way, if you like."
Philip's goods began to arrive a day later, in farm wagons, moving
almost in procession to and from Claybanks and the railway town, and
several men worked at unpacking them, while Philip and Grace arranged
them on the shelves and under the counters. When Saturday night ended
the fourth day, the merchant and his wife were fit to enjoy a day of
rest on Sunday. Sunday morning came, and while Philip and Grace were
leisurely preparing their breakfast, there was a knock at the door.
Philip opened it, and shouted:--
"Grace!"
Grace hurried from the kitchen, embraced a lady whom she saw, and
exclaimed:--
"Mary Truett!"
"Mrs. Wright, if you please," replied the lady.
"I beg a thousand pardons!" Grace gasped. She soon recovered herself
and looked very roguish as she continued, "Won't you kindly introduce
me to the distinguished-looking stranger beside you?"
Then Caleb pushed his hat to the back of his head, slapped his leg
noisily, and exclaimed:--
"Distinguished--looking--stranger! Hooray!"