buck-boards, were still smaller parties, the red-necktie young men and
the girls with bright flowers in their hats, two and two, two and two,
all through the thicket, each duet very happy, drinking out of one tin
cup, the red-necktie young man assiduously putting his lips to the cup
on the spot where the girl's lips had touched it.
Everybody ate incessantly. At first to appease hunger; then probably
because of a dim prevision that by the middle of next week some
reproachful memory might assail one if one did not do one's full part by
the present abundance. It was not until the sun had long passed the
zenith that the gorging and stuffing came to an end, and then it was
only because word began to circulate among the people that "the mill
was open"; that "the people could go down now," in fine, that the great
hour of that great day had come. Following upon the rumour, Francois
Placide DeLassus Bernique again mounted a stump. This time he said:
"I am authorise' to make to you the announcement that the first mill of
the Canaan Mining and Development Company is now to commence to r-r-un,
and to invite you in the name of Mistaire Steering to assemble in the
Choke Gulch, there to behold the begin' of a new e-r-a of pr-r-osperitee
for thees gr-r-eat State of Missouri. But before that we go, I ask your
attention for the one moment to those word of our fellow-citizen,
Mistaire Steering!" He stopped, reluctantly but heroically, and
Steering, quitting the side of the girl in black, mounted the stump.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Steering, "it was my wife's idea to make
the opening of the first mill of the Canaan Mining and Development
Company a gala day, a holiday, and I believe that you are all prepared
to agree with me that it was a good idea. All that I want to say to you
now for myself and for Mr. Carington, and for the eastern gentlemen
whose money Mr. Carington represents, is just this: A great opportunity
has opened up for us all down here. A new Missouri is about to be made.
All our dreams are coming true. The golden harvest of our wheat fields
has been found to be rooted deep in mines of wonderful richness. But
just because we have found something inside these hills of ours, don't
let's neglect the outside of the hills. We must cultivate and improve on
the outside, while we dig down deep on the inside. Life is going to give
us chances from now on that we have never had before. As a people we
must rise to these chances all along the line. We must come up all along
the line. We must get better schools, better houses, better barns,
better farming implements, better kitchen implements, better roads. Our
watchword down here in the Southwest must be to _come up_. Don't forget
it. We've got our chance now, now we must come up!"
Bruce sat down and the people, who had listened to him attentively, the
faces of the farm-women especially keen and responsive, broke into
another vast applause that set the leaves astir.
Somebody began to insist then that somebody else ought to make a speech
of thanks, appreciation, to the Steerings for the day, and for the
general satisfaction and prosperity that had come into Canaan with the
new regime of the Canaan Company's affairs. Everybody began to turn
toward Mr. Quin Beasley. Those nearest him nudged him. Very slowly Mr.
Beasley got to his feet, mounted the stump, fell off and mounted it
again.
"Frien's an'," Mr. Beasley's scared eye lit upon some children just
beneath him who were regarding him with awe and the ecstatic hope that
he would fall off again, and, encouraged by the awe, he levelled his
next words at them powerfully, "Fellow Citizens! Taint fer me to say
anythin' more ceppen only that ef I did say anythin', which I shan't, it
'ud jes be to say over whut Mist' Steerin' has said as bein' the whole
thing, an fer that reason I'll say nothin'."
It was a master stroke! Never in his life before had Beasley refrained
from saying anything because he had nothing to say. The Canaanites were
impressed. They said, "Good! Good!" For fear of some anticlimax Bruce at
once gave his signal and the people began to swarm down the hillside
into Choke Gulch, defiling through the Gulch toward a great shed that
stood backed up to the hillside arrogantly. Although all Canaan had
watched the building and rigging day by day, in Choke Gulch, the sight
of the shed made the people almost hysterical, as though they had never
seen the "plant" of the Canaan Mining and Development Company before,
the shack office, the tool-house, the big proud mill shed, the tramway,
the hoister. There was a group already ranged at the door of the
engine-room as the people came on. Bruce Steering and his wife, Old
Bernique, and the tramp-boy were in the centre of the group.
"We are all steamed up!" cried Bruce. "Make ready there, boys! Hurrah
for the greatest zinc run in the greatest State in the Union! _Now_,
Piney!"
The tramp-boy, on his face an unaccustomed appreciation of this larger
side of the workaday world, stepped back inside the engine-room, laid
his hand on a throttle, and at the signal, as if by magic, there was a
whirr of slipping bands, a mighty throb, the renewed fashing of water
down the jigs, a grinding, a pounding, a crunching, a gurgling; and a
long, resonant shout went up again and again from the elastic throats of
the exalted Canaanites; for the first mill of the Canaan Mining and
Development Company was running!
Later on someone over in the crowd spoke. "Pity Mist' Crit Madeira aint
here to see all this. Haow he woulda taken to it. That son-in-law of his
woulda jes adzackly suited Mist' Crit. Pity he had to die off
sudden-like jes whend ev'thing wuz comin' araoun'." It was a woman's
voice and it was all softened with pity.
"Yass, oh yass," said a man next her gingerly. He was a man who had not
believed in Crit Madeira, but it occurred to him that this was not the
time or the place to recall that.
The evening of that gala day was a glorious evening. Rich and warm and
beautiful, self-indulgent nature had swaddled herself about in barbaric
bands of colour, a drowsy opulence of green and scarlet, soft-toned
amber and pale, veiled azure. It was an hour when the senses riot in
carnival, when colour sings and sound seems pink and gold, when light
is fragrant and flowers emit sparks of light.
Steering and his wife stood in the Garden of Dreams and the hour swirled
up to them out of the sunset, mystical, urgent, sweet. The house was
shut and locked behind them. Below them was the shivering Di. Off beyond
them tumbled the Canaan Tigmores. Canaan, the proud, lay to the West in
a fecund waiting.
"Do you know," said Steering, "I do not like to leave Missouri, Sally,
not even for a little while, not even to show you to Carington and
Elsie. We've no business along with brides and grooms anyway, we've been
married two months. I wish we weren't going to leave Missouri, Sally."
She turned her face up to him banteringly; her travelling hat was in her
hand; above her black gown her bright hair shone with its beautiful
lustres. "They must get along without you here for a little while, Mr.
President of the Canaan Mining and Development Company. I need some
clothes."
"Lay hold on my title gently, please, Mrs. Steering. Every time I hear
it I feel that it needs more glue."
"Mrs. Steering! That's something of a title, too, isn't it? But, after
all, who is so proud of newcome titles as the Superintendent of the
Gulch Mine, Francois Placide DeLassus Bernique, eh, Mistaire Steering?"
"Old chap's satisfaction is good to live in. Oh, we are all happy,
happy! Elsie and Carington seem to be hitting it off well, too, don't
they?" Steering heaved a benevolent sigh, as though he felt that he had
missed something whose missing was little short of escape. He regarded
the magnificent, glowing woman beside him worshipfully. "Hark!" he cried
next, "Piney's happy too, dear boy. That's the best of all! Hear that!"
From the river road below the garden came the sound of the pony's
galloping feet and down by the sheen of the river, the tramp-boy was
outlined presently, a gallant young figure, full of life and fire.
"I'm a-goin' to meet you at the station," he called up to them. "I'm
a-sayin' good-bye to Mizzourah! D'you think Italy's a-goin' to beat
this, Miss Sally?" He indicated the shimmering river, the woods beyond,
the wonderful sky in the west, with a half-homesick gesture, then dashed
on down the river road, gay with anticipation again, carolling the
potato song lustily:
"_The taters grow an' grow, they grow!_"
"That was a fine idea of yours, Sally, to send him to Italy. I suppose
he will have to be disappointed, for Italy, with him, is all
dream-stuff; still, life would never have been fulfilled for Piney
without Italy."
"No, it wouldn't. And he won't be disappointed. You see, it's the music
in him. That will count big some day. And Italy is the place for him to
find himself. He won't be disappointed, and we shan't be disappointed in
him. He is worth his chance. But see how low the sun is, Bruce. We, too,
must say good-bye to Missouri now, if we are to make the train. Take
your last look until we come back to it all."
The fragrance trembled about them. The pale wide Di quivered below them.
Far to the west flamed the sunset. Down through the ether dropped great
swaying draperies of orange and purple. Fair into the heart of heaven
unrolled a path of violet and blue and rose.
Young, ancestral, sweet, she stood there beside him, his. Steering
turned his eyes from the dusky-gold radiance of her face and hair to the
land beyond, where his hills billowed toward him with mighty promise,
submerging him again, reclaiming him, as they had done on a lonely day
not one year gone, making a Missourian of him, as it had done on that
day. The girl, the land, he, all the world, seemed banded in a golden
irradiation.
"Oh, Missouri! Missouri!" he cried, with a joyful, trembling, upleaping
of spirit, his arms shut close about his wife, his eyes coming back to
her as to the spirit of this new and wonderful West, "You glorious
State! You sweet, wide land! I adore you!"
THE END.
* * * * *
ADVERTISEMENTS
* * * * *
By Henry Harland
Author of "The Cardinal's Snuff Box"
MY FRIEND PROSPERO
A novel which will fascinate by the grace and charm with which it is
written, by the delightful characters that take part in it, and by the
interest of the plot. The scene is laid in a magnificent Austrian castle
in North Italy, and that serves as a background for the working out of a
sparkling love-story between a heroine who is brilliant and beautiful
and a hero who is quite her match in cleverness and wit. It is a book
with all the daintiness and polish of Mr. Harland's former novels, and
other virtues all its own.
Frontispiece in colors by Louis Loeb.
$1.50
* * * * *
McClure, Phillips & Co.
* * * * *
By Stanley J. Weyman
Author of "A Gentleman of France"
THE LONG NIGHT
Geneva in the early days of the 17th century; a ruffling young theologue
new to the city; a beautiful and innocent girl, suspected of witchcraft;
a crafty scholar and metaphysician seeking to give over the city into
the hands of the Savoyards; a stern and powerful syndic whom the scholar
beguiles to betray his office by promises of an elixir which shall save
him from his fatal illness; a brutal soldier of fortune; these are the
elements of which Weyman has composed the most brilliant and thrilling
of his romances. Claude Mercier, the student, seeing the plot in which
the girl he loves is involved, yet helpless to divulge it, finds at last
his opportunity when the treacherous men of Savoy are admitted within
Geneva's walls, and in a night of whirlwind fighting saves the city by
his courage and address. For fire and spirit there are few chapters in
modern literature such as those which picture the splendid defence of
Geneva, by the staid, churchly, heroic burghers, fighting in their own
blood under the divided leadership of the fat Syndic, Baudichon, and the
bandy-legged sailor, Jehan Brosse, winning the battle against the armed
and armored forces of the invaders.
Illustrated by Solomon J. Solomon.
$1.50
* * * * *
McClure, Phillips & Co.
* * * * *
By Henry Seton Merriman
Author of "The Sowers," etc.
BARLASCH OF THE GUARD
The story is set in those desperate days when the ebbing tide of
Napoleon's fortunes swept Europe with desolation. Barlasch--"Papa
Barlasch of the Guard, Italy, Egypt, the Danube"--a veteran in the
Little Corporal's service--is the dominant figure of the story.
Quartered on a distinguished family in the historic town of Dantzig, he
gives his life to the romance of Desiree, the daughter of the family,
and Louis d'Arragon, whose cousin she has married and parted with at the
church door. Louis's search with Barlasch for the missing Charles gives
an unforgettable picture of the terrible retreat from Russia; and as a
companion picture there is the heroic defence of Dantzig by Rapp and his
little army of sick and starving. At the last Barlasch, learning of the
death of Charles, plans and executes the escape of Desiree from the
beleaguered town to join Louis.
Illustrated by the Kinneys.
$1.50
* * * * *
McClure, Phillips & Co.
* * * * *
By A. Conan Doyle
Author of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"
THE ADVENTURES OF GERARD
Stories of the remarkable adventures of a Brigadier in Napoleon's army.
In Etienne Gerard, Conan Doyle has added to his already famous gallery
of characters one worthy to stand beside the notable Sherlock Holmes.
Many and thrilling are Gerard's adventures, as related by himself, for
he takes part in nearly every one of Napoleon's campaigns. In Venice he
has an interesting romantic escapade which causes him the loss of an
ear. With the utmost bravery and cunning he captures the Spanish city of
Saragossa; in Portugal he saves the army; in Russia he feeds the
starving soldiers by supplies obtained at Minsk; after a wonderful ride.
Everywhere else he is just as marvelous, and at Waterloo he is the
center of the whole battle.
For all his lumbering vanity he is a genial old soul and a remarkably
vivid story-teller.
Illustrated by W. B. Wollen.
$1.50
* * * * *
McClure, Phillips & Co.