Prosperity had settled upon the plains of Tasajara. Not only had the
embarcadero emerged from the tules of Tasajara Creek as a thriving town
of steamboat wharves, warehouses, and outlying mills and factories, but
in five years the transforming railroad had penetrated the great plain
itself and revealed its undeveloped fertility. The low-lying lands that
had been yearly overflowed by the creek, now drained and cultivated,
yielded treasures of wheat and barley that were apparently
inexhaustible. Even the helpless indolence of Sidon had been surprised
into activity and change. There was nothing left of the straggling
settlement to recall its former aspect. The site of Harkutt's old store
and dwelling was lost and forgotten in the new mill and granary that
rose along the banks of the creek. Decay leaves ruin and traces for the
memory to linger over; prosperity is unrelenting in its complete and
smiling obliteration of the past.
But Tasajara City, as the embarcadero was now called, had no previous
record, and even the former existence of an actual settler like the
forgotten Elijah Curtis was unknown to the present inhabitants. It was
Daniel Harkutt's idea carried out in Daniel Harkutt's land, with Daniel
Harkutt's capital and energy. But Daniel Harkutt had become Daniel
Harcourt, and Harcourt Avenue, Harcourt Square, and Harcourt House,
ostentatiously proclaimed the new spelling of his patronymic. When the
change was made and for what reason, who suggested it and under what
authority, were not easy to determine, as the sign on his former store
had borne nothing but the legend, Goods and Provisions, and his name did
not appear on written record until after the occupation of Tasajara;
but it is presumed that it was at the instigation of his daughters, and
there was no one to oppose it. Harcourt was a pretty name for a street,
a square, or a hotel; even the few in Sidon who had called it Harkutt
admitted that it was an improvement quite consistent with the change
from the fever-haunted tules and sedges of the creek to the broad,
level, and handsome squares of Tasajara City.
This might have been the opinion of a visitor at the Harcourt House, who
arrived one summer afternoon from the Stockton boat, but whose shrewd,
half-critical, half-professional eyes and quiet questionings betrayed
some previous knowledge of the locality. Seated on the broad veranda
of the Harcourt House, and gazing out on the well-kept green and young
eucalyptus trees of the Harcourt Square or Plaza, he had elicited a
counter question from a prosperous-looking citizen who had been lounging
at his side.
“I reckon you look ez if you might have been here before, stranger.”
“Yes,” said the stranger quietly, “I have been. But it was when the
tules grew in the square opposite, and the tide of the creek washed
them.”
“Well,” said the Tasajaran, looking curiously at the stranger, “I call
myself a pioneer of Tasajara. My name's Peters,--of Peters and Co.,--and
those warehouses along the wharf, where you landed just now, are mine;
but I was the first settler on Harcourt's land, and built the next cabin
after him. I helped to clear out them tules and dredged the channels
yonder. I took the contract with Harcourt to build the last fifteen
miles o' railroad, and put up that depot for the company. Perhaps you
were here before that?”
“I was,” returned the stranger quietly.
“I say,” said Peters, hitching his chair a little nearer to his
companion, “you never knew a kind of broken-down feller, called
Curtis--'Lige Curtis--who once squatted here and sold his right to
Harkutt? He disappeared; it was allowed he killed hisself, but they
never found his body, and, between you and me, I never took stock in
that story. You know Harcourt holds under him, and all Tasajara rests on
that title.”
“I've heard so,” assented the stranger carelessly, “but I never knew the
original settler. Then Harcourt has been lucky?”
“You bet. He's got three millions right about HERE, or within this
quarter section, to say nothing of his outside speculations.”
“And lives here?”
“Not for two years. That's his old house across the plaza, but his
women-folks live mostly in 'Frisco and New York, where he's got houses
too. They say they sorter got sick of Tasajara after his youngest
daughter ran off with a feller.”
“Hallo!” said the stranger with undisguised interest. “I never heard of
that! You don't mean that she eloped”--he hesitated.
“Oh, it was a square enough marriage. I reckon too square to suit some
folks; but the fellow hadn't nothin', and wasn't worth shucks,--a sort
of land surveyor, doin' odd jobs, you know; and the old man and old
woman were agin it, and the tother daughter worse of all. It was allowed
here--you know how women-folks talk!--that the surveyor had been sweet
on Clementina, but had got tired of being played by her, and took up
with Phemie out o' spite. Anyhow they got married, and Harcourt gave
them to understand they couldn't expect anything from him. P'raps that's
why it didn't last long, for only about two months ago she got a divorce
from Rice and came back to her family again.”
“Rice?” queried the stranger. “Was that her husband's name, Stephen
Rice?”
“I reckon! You knew him?”
“Yes,--when the tide came up to the tules, yonder,” answered the
stranger musingly. “And the other daughter,--I suppose she has made a
good match, being a beauty and the sole heiress?”
The Tasajaran made a grimace. “Not much! I reckon she's waitin' for the
Angel Gabriel,--there ain't another good enough to suit her here. They
say she's had most of the big men in California waitin' in a line with
their offers, like that cue the fellows used to make at the 'Frisco
post-office steamer days--and she with nary a letter or answer for any
of them.”
“Then Harcourt doesn't seem to have been as fortunate in his family
affairs as in his speculations?”
Peters uttered a grim laugh. “Well, I reckon you know all about his
son's stampeding with that girl last spring?”
“His son?” interrupted the stranger. “Do you mean the boy they called
John Milton? Why, he was a mere child!”
“He was old enough to run away with a young woman that helped in his
mother's house, and marry her afore a justice of the peace. The old man
just snorted with rage, and swore he'd have the marriage put aside, for
the boy was under age. He said it was a put-up job of the girl's; that
she was older by two years, and only wanted to get what money might be
comin' some day, but that they'd never see a red cent of it. Then, they
say, John Milton up and sassed the old man to his face, and allowed that
he wouldn't take his dirty money if he starved first, and that if the
old man broke the marriage he'd marry her again next year; that true
love and honorable poverty were better nor riches, and a lot more o'
that stuff he picked out o' them ten-cent novels he was allus reading.
My women-folks say that he actually liked the girl, because she was the
only one in the house that was ever kind to him; they say the girls were
just ragin' mad at the idea o' havin' a hired gal who had waited on 'em
as a sister-in-law, and they even got old Mammy Harcourt's back up by
sayin' that John's wife would want to rule the house, and run her out
of her own kitchen. Some say he shook THEM, talked back to 'em mighty
sharp, and held his head a heap higher nor them. Anyhow, he's livin'
with his wife somewhere in 'Frisco, in a shanty on a sand lot, and
workin' odd jobs for the newspapers. No! takin' it by and large--it
don't look as if Harcourt had run his family to the same advantage that
he has his land.”
“Perhaps he doesn't understand them as well,” said the stranger smiling.
“Mor'n likely the material ain't thar, or ain't as vallyble for a new
country,” said Peters grimly. “I reckon the trouble is that he lets them
two daughters run him, and the man who lets any woman or women do that,
lets himself in for all their meannesses, and all he gets in return is a
woman's result,--show!”
Here the stranger, who was slowly rising from his chair with the polite
suggestion of reluctantly tearing himself from the speaker's spell,
said: “And Harcourt spends most of his time in San Francisco, I
suppose?”
“Yes! but to-day he's here to attend a directors' meeting and the
opening of the Free Library and Tasajara Hall. I saw the windows open,
and the blinds up in his house across the plaza as I passed just now.”
The stranger had by this time quite effected his courteous withdrawal.
“Good-afternoon, Mr. Peters,” he said, smilingly lifting his hat, and
turned away.
Peters, who was obliged to take his legs off the chair, and half rise
to the stranger's politeness, here reflected that he did not know his
interlocutor's name and business, and that he had really got nothing
in return for his information. This must be remedied. As the stranger
passed through the hall into the street, followed by the unwonted
civilities of the spruce hotel clerk and the obsequious attentions of
the negro porter, Peters stepped to the window of the office. “Who was
that man who just passed out?” he asked.
The clerk stared in undisguised astonishment. “You don't mean to say you
didn't know WHO he was--all the while you were talking to him?”
“No,” returned Peters, impatiently.
“Why, that was Professor Lawrence Grant!--THE Lawrence Grant--don't you
know?--the biggest scientific man and recognized expert on the Pacific
slope. Why, that's the man whose single word is enough to make or break
the biggest mine or claim going! That man!--why, that's the man whose
opinion's worth thousands, for it carries millions with it--and can't be
bought. That's him who knocked the bottom outer El Dorado last year, and
next day sent Eureka up booming! Ye remember that, sure?”
“Of course--but”--stammered Peters.
“And to think you didn't know him!” repeated the hotel clerk
wonderingly. “And here I was reckoning you were getting points from him
all the time! Why, some men would have given a thousand dollars for your
chance of talking to him--yes!--of even being SEEN talking to him.
Why, old Wingate once got a tip on his Prairie Flower lead worth five
thousand dollars while just changing seats with him in the cars and
passing the time of day, sociable like. Why, what DID you talk about?”
Peters, with a miserable conviction that he had thrown away a valuable
opportunity in mere idle gossip, nevertheless endeavored to look
mysterious as he replied, “Oh, business gin'rally.” Then in the faint
hope of yet retrieving his blunder he inquired, “How long will he be
here?”
“Don't know. I reckon he and Harcourt's got something on hand. He just
asked if he was likely to be at home or at his office. I told him I
reckoned at the house, for some of the family--I didn't get to see who
they were--drove up in a carriage from the 3.40 train while you were
sitting there.”
Meanwhile the subject of this discussion, quite unconscious of the
sensation he had created, or perhaps like most heroes philosophically
careless of it, was sauntering indifferently towards Harcourt's house.
But he had no business with his former host, his only object was to pass
an idle hour before his train left. He was, of course, not unaware that
he himself was largely responsible for Harcourt's success; that it was
HIS hint which had induced the petty trader of Sidon to venture his all
in Tasajara; HIS knowledge of the topography and geology of the
plain that had stimulated Harcourt's agricultural speculations; HIS
hydrographic survey of the creek that had made Harcourt's plan of
widening the channel to commerce practicable and profitable. This he
could not help but know. But that it was chiefly owing to his own clear,
cool, far-seeing, but never visionary, scientific observation,--his
own accurate analysis, unprejudiced by even a savant's enthusiasm, and
uninfluenced by any personal desire or greed of gain,--that Tasajara
City had risen from the stagnant tules, was a speculation that had never
occurred to him. There was a much more uneasy consciousness of what he
had done in Mr. Harcourt's face a few moments later, when his visitor's
name was announced, and it is to be feared that if that name had been
less widely honored and respected than it was, no merely grateful
recollection of it would have procured Grant an audience. As it was,
it was with a frown and a touch of his old impatient asperity that he
stepped to the threshold of an adjoining room and called, “Clemmy!”
Clementina appeared at the door.
“There's that man Grant in the parlor. What brings HIM here, I wonder?
Who does he come to see?”
“Who did he ask for?”
“Me,--but that don't mean anything.”
“Perhaps he wants to see you on some business.”
“No. That isn't his high-toned style. He makes other people go to him
for that,” he said bitterly. “Anyhow--don't you think it's mighty queer
his coming here after his friend--for it was he who introduced Rice
to us--had behaved so to your sister, and caused all this divorce and
scandal?”
“Perhaps he may know nothing about it; he and Rice separated long ago,
even before Grant became so famous. We never saw much of him, you know,
after we came here. Suppose you leave him to ME. I'll see him.”
Mr. Harcourt reflected. “Didn't he used to be rather attentive to
Phemie?”
Clementina shrugged her shoulders carelessly. “I dare say--but I don't
think that NOW”--
“Who said anything about NOW?” retorted her father, with a return of his
old abruptness. After a pause he said: “I'll go down and see him first,
and then send for you. You can keep him for the opening and dinner, if
you like.”
Meantime Lawrence Grant, serenely unsuspicious of these domestic
confidences, had been shown into the parlor--a large room furnished in
the same style as the drawing-room of the hotel he had just quitted.
He had ample time to note that it was that wonderful Second Empire
furniture which he remembered that the early San Francisco pioneers in
the first flush of their wealth had imported directly from France, and
which for years after gave an unexpected foreign flavor to the western
domesticity and a tawdry gilt equality to saloons and drawing-rooms,
public and private. But he was observant of a corresponding change in
Harcourt, when a moment later he entered the room. That individuality
which had kept the former shopkeeper of Sidon distinct from, although
perhaps not superior to, his customers--was strongly marked. He was
perhaps now more nervously alert than then; he was certainly more
impatient than before,--but that was pardonable in a man of
large affairs and action. Grant could not deny that he seemed
improved,--rather perhaps that the setting of fine clothes, cleanliness,
and the absence of petty worries, made his characteristics respectable.
That which is ill breeding in homespun, is apt to become mere
eccentricity in purple and fine linen; Grant felt that Harcourt
jarred on him less than he did before, and was grateful without
superciliousness. Harcourt, relieved to find that Grant was neither
critical nor aggressively reminiscent, and above all not inclined to
claim the credit of creating him and Tasajara, became more confident,
more at his ease, and, I fear, in proportion more unpleasant. It is the
repose and not the struggle of the parvenu that confounds us.
“And YOU, Grant,--you have made yourself famous, and, I hear, have got
pretty much your own prices for your opinions ever since it was known
that you--you--er--were connected with the growth of Tasajara.”
Grant smiled; he was not quite prepared for this; but it was amusing
and would pass the time. He murmured a sentence of half ironical
deprecation, and Mr. Harcourt continued:--
“I haven't got my San Francisco house here to receive you in, but I hope
some day, sir, to see you there. We are only here for the day and night,
but if you care to attend the opening ceremonies at the new hall, we
can manage to give you dinner afterwards. You can escort my daughter
Clementina,--she's here with me.”
The smile of apologetic declination which had begun to form on Grant's
lips was suddenly arrested. “Then your daughter is here?” he asked, with
unaffected interest.
“Yes,--she is in fact a patroness of the library and sewing-circle, and
takes the greatest interest in it. The Reverend Doctor Pilsbury relies
upon her for everything. She runs the society, even to the training of
the young ladies, sir. You shall see their exercises.”
This was certainly a new phase of Clementina's character. Yet why should
she not assume the role of Lady Bountiful with the other functions of
her new condition. “I should have thought Miss Harcourt would have found
this rather difficult with her other social duties,” he said, “and would
have left it to her married sister.” He thought it better not to appear
as if avoiding reference to Euphemia, although quietly ignoring her late
experiences. Mr. Harcourt was less easy in his response.
“Now that Euphemia is again with her own family,” he said ponderously,
with an affectation of social discrimination that was in weak contrast
to his usual direct business astuteness, “I suppose she may take her
part in these things, but just now she requires rest. You may have heard
some rumor that she is going abroad for a time? The fact is she hasn't
the least intention of doing so, nor do we consider there is the
slightest reason for her going.” He paused as if to give great emphasis
to a statement that seemed otherwise unimportant. “But here's Clementina
coming, and I must get you to excuse ME. I've to meet the trustees of
the church in ten minutes, but I hope she'll persuade you to stay, and
I'll see you later at the hall.”
As Clementina entered the room her father vanished and, I fear,
as completely dropped out of Mr. Grant's mind. For the daughter's
improvement was greater than her father's, yet so much more refined as
to be at first only delicately perceptible. Grant had been prepared for
the vulgar enhancement of fine clothes and personal adornment, for the
specious setting of luxurious circumstances and surroundings, for the
aplomb that came from flattery and conscious power. But he found none of
these; her calm individuality was intensified rather than subdued; she
was dressed simply, with an economy of ornament, rich material, and
jewelry, but an accuracy of taste that was always dominant. Her plain
gray merino dress, beautifully fitting her figure, suggested, with
its pale blue facings, some uniform, as of the charitable society she
patronized. She came towards him with a graceful movement of greeting,
yet her face showed no consciousness of the interval that had elapsed
since they met; he almost fancied himself transported back to the
sitting-room at Sidon with the monotonous patter of the leaves outside,
and the cool moist breath of the bay and alder coming in at the window.
“Father says that you are only passing through Tasajara to-day, as you
did through Sidon five years ago,” she said with a smiling earnestness
that he fancied however was the one new phase of her character. “But
I won't believe it! At least we will not accept another visit quite as
accidental as that, even though you brought us twice the good fortune
you did then. You see, we have not forgotten it if you have, Mr. Grant.
And unless you want us to believe that your fairy gifts will turn some
day to leaves and ashes, you will promise to stay with us tonight, and
let me show you some of the good we have done with them. Perhaps
you don't know, or don't want to know, that it was I who got up this
'Library and Home Circle of the Sisters of Tasajara' which we are
to open to-day. And can you imagine why? You remember--or have you
forgotten--that you once affected to be concerned at the social
condition of the young ladies on the plains of Sidon? Well, Mr. Grant,
this is gotten up in order that the future Mr. Grants who wander may
find future Miss Billingses who are worthy to converse with them and
entertain them, and who no longer wear men's hats and live on the public
road.”
It was such a long speech for one so taciturn as he remembered
Clementina to have been; so unexpected in tone considering her father's
attitude towards him, and so unlooked for in its reference to a slight
incident of the past, that Grant's critical contemplation of her gave
way to a quiet and grateful glance of admiration. How could he have
been so mistaken in her character? He had always preferred the outspoken
Euphemia, and yet why should he not have been equally mistaken in
her? Without having any personal knowledge of Rice's matrimonial
troubles--for their intimate companionship had not continued after the
survey--he had been inclined to blame him; now he seemed to find excuses
for him. He wondered if she really had liked him as Peters had hinted;
he wondered if she knew that he, Grant, was no longer intimate with him
and knew nothing of her affairs. All this while he was accepting her
proffered hospitality and sending to the hotel for his luggage. Then
he drifted into a conversation, which he had expected would be brief,
pointless, and confined to a stupid resume of their mutual and social
progress since they had left Sidon. But here he was again mistaken; she
was talking familiarly of present social topics, of things that she knew
clearly and well, without effort or attitude. She had been to New
York and Boston for two winters; she had spent the previous summer at
Newport; it might have been her whole youth for the fluency, accuracy,
and familiarity of her detail, and the absence of provincial enthusiasm.
She was going abroad, probably in the spring. She had thought of going
to winter in Italy, but she would wait now until her sister was ready to
go with her. Mr. Grant of course knew that Euphemia was separated from
Mr. Rice--no--not until her father told him? Well--the marriage had been
a wild and foolish thing for both. But Euphemia was back again with them
in the San Francisco house; she had talked of coming to Tasajara to-day,
perhaps she might be there tonight. And, good heavens! it was actually
three o'clock already, and they must start at once for the Hall. She
would go and get her hat and return instantly.
It was true; he had been talking with her an hour--pleasantly,
intelligently, and yet with a consciousness of an indefinite
satisfaction beyond all this. It must have been surprise at her
transformation, or his previous misconception of her character. He had
been watching her features and wondering why he had ever thought them
expressionless. There was also the pleasant suggestion--common to
humanity in such instances--that he himself was in some way responsible
for the change; that it was some awakened sympathy to his own nature
that had breathed into this cold and faultless statue the warmth of
life. In an odd flash of recollection he remembered how, five years ago,
when Rice had suggested to her that she was “hard to please,” she had
replied that she “didn't know, but that she was waiting to see.” It did
not occur to him to wonder why she had not awakened then, or if this
awakening had anything to do with her own volition. It was not probable
that they would meet again after to-day, or if they did, that she would
not relapse into her former self and fail to impress him as she had now.
But--here she was--a paragon of feminine promptitude--already standing
in the doorway, accurately gloved and booted, and wearing a demure gray
hat that modestly crowned her decorously elegant figure.
They crossed the plaza side by side, in the still garish sunlight that
seemed to mock the scant shade of the youthful eucalyptus trees, and
presently fell in with the stream of people going in their direction.
The former daughters of Sidon, the Billingses, the Peterses, and
Wingates, were there bourgeoning and expanding in the glare of their new
prosperity, with silk and gold; there were newer faces still, and pretty
ones,--for Tasajara as a “Cow County” had attracted settlers with large
families,--and there were already the contrasting types of East and
West. Many turned to look after the tall figure of the daughter of the
Founder of Tasajara,--a spectacle lately rare to the town; a few glanced
at her companion, equally noticeable as a stranger. Thanks, however, to
some judicious preliminary advertising from the hotel clerk, Peters, and
Daniel Harcourt himself, by the time Grant and Miss Harcourt had reached
the Hall his name and fame were already known, and speculation had
already begun whether this new stroke of Harcourt's shrewdness might not
unite Clementina to a renowned and profitable partner.
The Hall was in one of the further and newly opened suburbs, and its
side and rear windows gave immediately upon the outlying and illimitable
plain of Tasajara. It was a tasteful and fair-seeming structure of wood,
surprisingly and surpassingly new. In fact that was its one dominant
feature; nowhere else had youth and freshness ever shown itself
as unconquerable and all-conquering. The spice of virgin woods and
trackless forests still rose from its pine floors, and breathed from its
outer shell of cedar that still oozed its sap, and redwood that still
dropped its life-blood. Nowhere else were the plastered walls and
ceilings as white and dazzling in their unstained purity, or as redolent
of the outlying quarry in their clear cool breath of lime and stone.
Even the turpentine of fresh and spotless paint added to this sense
of wholesome germination, and as the clear and brilliant Californian
sunshine swept through the open windows west and east, suffusing the
whole palpitating structure with its searching and resistless radiance,
the very air seemed filled with the aroma of creation.
The fresh colors of the young Republic, the bright blazonry of the
newest State, the coat-of-arms of the infant County of Tasajara--(a
vignette of sunset-tules cloven by the steam of an advancing
train)--hanging from the walls, were all a part of this invincible
juvenescence. Even the newest silks, ribbons and prints of the latest
holiday fashions made their first virgin appearance in the new building
as if to consecrate it, until it was stirred by the rustle of youth, as
with the sound and movement of budding spring.
A strain from the new organ--whose heart, however, had prematurely
learned its own bitterness--and a thin, clear, but somewhat shrill
chanting from a choir of young ladies were followed by a prayer from the
Reverend Mr. Pilsbury. Then there was a pause of expectancy, and Grant's
fair companion, who up to that moment had been quietly acting as guide
and cicerone to her father's guest, excused herself with a little
grimace of mock concern and was led away by one of the committee.
Grant's usually keen eyes were wandering somewhat abstractedly over the
agitated and rustling field of ribbons, flowers and feathers before him,
past the blazonry of banner on the walls, and through the open windows
to the long sunlit levels beyond, when he noticed a stir upon the raised
dais or platform at the end of the room, where the notables of Tasajara
were formally assembled. The mass of black coats suddenly parted and
drew back against the wall to allow the coming forward of a single
graceful figure. A thrill of nervousness as unexpected as unaccountable
passed over him as he recognized Clementina. In the midst of a sudden
silence she read the report of the committee from a paper in her hand,
in a clear, untroubled voice--the old voice of Sidon--and formally
declared the building opened. The sunlight, nearly level, streamed
through the western window across the front of the platform where she
stood and transfigured her slight but noble figure. The hush that had
fallen upon the Hall was as much the effect of that tranquil, ideal
presence as of the message with which it was charged. And yet that
apparition was as inconsistent with the clear, searching light
which helped to set it off, as it was with the broad new blazonry of
decoration, the yet unsullied record of the white walls, or even the
frank, animated and pretty faces that looked upon it. Perhaps it was
some such instinct that caused the applause which hesitatingly and
tardily followed her from the platform to appear polite and half
restrained rather than spontaneous.
Nevertheless Grant was honestly and sincerely profuse in his
congratulations. “You were far cooler and far more self-contained than I
should have been in your place,” he said, “than in fact I actually WAS,
only as your auditor. But I suppose you have done it before?”
She turned her beautiful eyes on his wonderingly. “No,--this is the
first time I ever appeared in public,--not even at school, for even
there I was always a private pupil.”
“You astonish me,” said Grant; “you seemed like an old hand at it.”
“Perhaps I did, or rather as if I didn't think anything of it
myself,--and that no doubt is why the audience didn't think anything of
it either.”
So she HAD noticed her cold reception, and yet there was not the
slightest trace of disappointment, regret, or wounded vanity in her
tone or manner. “You must take me to the refreshment room now,” she
said pleasantly, “and help me to look after the young ladies who are my
guests. I'm afraid there are still more speeches to come, and father and
Mr. Pilsbury are looking as if they confidently expected something more
would be 'expected' of them.”
Grant at once threw himself into the task assigned to him, with his
natural gallantry and a certain captivating playfulness which he still
retained. Perhaps he was the more anxious to please in order that his
companion might share some of his popularity, for it was undeniable that
Miss Harcourt still seemed to excite only a constrained politeness
among those with whom she courteously mingled. And this was still more
distinctly marked by the contrast of a later incident.
For some moments the sound of laughter and greeting had risen near the
door of the refreshment room that opened upon the central hall, and
there was a perceptible movement of the crowd--particularly of youthful
male Tasajara--in that direction. It was evident that it announced the
unexpected arrival of some popular resident. Attracted like the others,
Grant turned and saw the company making way for the smiling, easy,
half-saucy, half-complacent entry of a handsomely dressed young girl. As
she turned from time to time to recognize with rallying familiarity or
charming impertinence some of her admirers, there was that in her
tone and gesture which instantly recalled to him the past. It was
unmistakably Euphemia! His eyes instinctively sought Clementina's. She
was gazing at him with such a grave, penetrating look,--half doubting,
half wistful,--a look so unlike her usual unruffled calm that he felt
strangely stirred. But the next moment, when she rejoined him, the look
had entirely gone. “You have not seen my sister since you were at Sidon,
I believe?” she said quietly. “She would be sorry to miss you.” But
Euphemia and her train were already passing them on the opposite side of
the long table. She had evidently recognized Grant, yet the two sisters
were looking intently into each other's eyes when he raised his own.
Then Euphemia met his bow with a momentary accession of color, a
coquettish wave of her hand across the table, a slight exaggeration of
her usual fascinating recklessness, and smilingly moved away. He turned
to Clementina, but here an ominous tapping at the farther end of the
long table revealed the fact that Mr. Harcourt was standing on a chair
with oratorical possibilities in his face and attitude. There was
another forward movement in the crowd and--silence. In that solid,
black-broadclothed, respectable figure, that massive watchchain, that
white waistcoat, that diamond pin glistening in the satin cravat,
Euphemia might have seen the realization of her prophetic vision at
Sidon five years before.
He spoke for ten minutes with a fluency and comprehensive business-like
directness that surprised Grant. He was not there, he said, to glorify
what had been done by himself, his family, or his friends in Tasajara.
Others who were to follow him might do that, or at least might be better
able to explain and expatiate upon the advantages of the institution
they had just opened, and its social, moral, and religious effect upon
the community. He was there as a business man to demonstrate to
them--as he had always done and always hoped to do--the money value
of improvement; the profit--if they might choose to call it--of
well-regulated and properly calculated speculation. The plot of land
upon which they stood, of which the building occupied only one eighth,
was bought two years before for ten thousand dollars. When the plans
of the building were completed a month afterwards, the value of the
remaining seven eighths had risen enough to defray the cost of the
entire construction. He was in a position to tell them that only that
morning the adjacent property, subdivided and laid out in streets and
building-plots, had been admitted into the corporate limits of the city;
and that on the next anniversary of the building they would approach
it through an avenue of finished dwellings! An outburst of applause
followed the speaker's practical climax; the fresh young faces of his
auditors glowed with invincible enthusiasm; the afternoon trade-winds,
freshening over the limitless plain beyond, tossed the bright banners
at the windows as with sympathetic rejoicing, and a few odorous pine
shavings, overlooked in a corner in the hurry of preparation, touched
by an eddying zephyr, crept out and rolled in yellow ringlets across the
floor.
The Reverend Doctor Pilsbury arose in a more decorous silence. He had
listened approvingly, admiringly, he might say even reverently, to the
preceding speaker. But although his distinguished friend had, with his
usual modesty, made light of his own services and those of his charming
family, he, the speaker, had not risen to sing his praises. No; it
was not in this Hall, projected by his foresight and raised by his
liberality; in this town, called into existence by his energy and
stamped by his attributes; in this county, developed by his genius and
sustained by his capital; ay, in this very State whose grandeur was made
possible by such giants as he,--it was not in any of these places that
it was necessary to praise Daniel Harcourt, or that a panegyric of him
would be more than idle repetition. Nor would he, as that distinguished
man had suggested, enlarge upon the social, moral, and religious
benefits of the improvement they were now celebrating. It was written
on the happy, innocent faces, in the festive garb, in the decorous
demeanor, in the intelligent eyes that sparkled around him, in the
presence of those of his parishioners whom he could meet as freely here
to-day as in his own church on Sunday. What then could he say? What then
was there to say? Perhaps he should say nothing if it were not for
the presence of the young before him.--He stopped and fixed his eyes
paternally on the youthful Johnny Billings, who with a half dozen
other Sunday-school scholars had been marshaled before the reverend
speaker.--And what was to be the lesson THEY were to learn from it? They
had heard what had been achieved by labor, enterprise, and diligence.
Perhaps they would believe, and naturally too, that what labor,
enterprise, and diligence had done could be done again. But was that
all? Was there nothing behind these qualities--which, after all, were
within the reach of every one here? Had they ever thought that back
of every pioneer, every explorer, every pathfinder, every founder and
creator, there was still another? There was no terra incognita so rare
as to be unknown to one; no wilderness so remote as to be beyond a
greater ken than theirs; no waste so trackless but that one had already
passed that way! Did they ever reflect that when the dull sea ebbed and
flowed in the tules over the very spot where they were now standing, who
it was that also foresaw, conceived, and ordained the mighty change that
would take place; who even guided and directed the feeble means employed
to work it; whose spirit moved, as in still older days of which they had
read, over the face of the stagnant waters? Perhaps they had. Who then
was the real pioneer of Tasajara,--back of the Harcourts, the Peterses,
the Billingses, and Wingates? The reverend gentleman gently paused for
a reply. It was given in the clear but startled accents of the half
frightened, half-fascinated Johnny Billings, in three words:--
“'Lige Curtis, sir!”