best. I wonder who bought it. God help the commissary who should have
issued it as rations, even in the starvation days of the Army of
Northern Virginia. The men would have made meat of him. But I can at
least make it look a little more palatable, and perhaps improve its
flavor a little in the cooking, till Barbara sends fresh supplies and
some capable cooks."
"What answer did she make to you when you telegraphed?"
"Hardly any at all," he answered. "She clicked out--'I'll do my best,'
and then shut off the circuit, without even a word of encouragement or
sympathy. I'm seriously afraid she is ill. You know she shares our
anxiety, and she hasn't been sleeping much, I imagine, since our
troubles here reached a crisis."
"That's your fault," said Temple. "You've told her too much of detail.
My Mary would be sleepless, too, if I had kept her minutely informed of
matters here. So I've only telegraphed her now and then, saying: 'Doing
our best, and hopeful. Love to the baby,' and she has responded: 'Your
best is always good. Go on doing it. Baby well,' or something like
that. If you ever get married, Duncan, you'll learn to practice certain
reserves with your wife--for her sake."
"No I won't."
"But why so sure?"
"Because, if I ever marry, my wife will be a certain little woman whose
fixed determination it will be to share both my triumphs and my
perplexities--especially the perplexities. She will permit no
reserves--God bless her for the most supremely unselfish and heroically
helpful woman that He ever made!"
"How women do differ in their ways!" said Temple, half musingly.
"Yes, and how stupidly men blunder in not adequately recognizing and
respecting their varying attitudes and temperaments! Do you know, Dick,
I think life is fearfully hard upon women and very unjust to them, even
at its best; and it is my conviction that the hardship might be very
largely relieved and the injustice remedied, if men only had sense
enough to discover and grace enough to recognize the individualities and
idiosyncracies of the women with whom they are associated?"
"I think the trouble is not there," responded Temple. "Most men
understand their womankind fairly well. The trouble is that instead of
respecting the individualities of women as something to which they have
a right, most men conceitedly assume that it is their duty to repress
those individualities, to mould their wives and daughters to a model of
their own shaping. The process is a cruel one when it succeeds. When it
fails, it means wretchedness all around. Indeed, I think that absolutely
all there is of human disagreement of an unpleasant sort, whether
between men and women, or between persons of the same sex, is ultimately
traceable to a failure duly to recognize and respect the rights of
individuality."
"I'm inclined to agree with you," answered Duncan; "but now I've got to
dish up and carve this kettleful of corned beef, and you, I imagine,
might somewhat expedite the work of the earth shovelers by lending them
the light of your countenance for a time."
Duncan had scarcely finished the dishing up of the unsavory corned beef,
the only merit of which was that it was sufficiently cooked, when a
dispatch came to him from the New York bankers whom he had left in
charge of the company's interests in the financial capital. They
telegraphed:
Tandy reports that you have completely failed to build across
county line. The others give notice that if so, they will deflect
road to Paducah. Tandy offers subscriptions of vast sum from
counties, towns, Paducah, and his Memphis and Ohio road. What
answer shall we give? Answer by telegraph.
This message acted like an electric shock. It quickened every pulse of
Duncan's being. It nerved him to new endeavor and renewed
determination. He promptly replied:
Tell them to wait till time is up. They have given their promise
and I have given mine. I will keep mine. They must keep theirs.
Remind them I'm not dead yet.
Then Duncan went to inspect the progress of the work.
XXXIV
A CHEER FOR LITTLE MISSIE
It was after seven o'clock, and darkness had completely fallen, when
Barbara received Guilford Duncan's telegraphic appeal for help "in
earnest." She wasted no time--slow operator that she was on the
telegraph--in sending messages of sympathy and reassurance. She
laboriously spelled out the words: "I'll do my best," and closed the
instrument in order that she might attend to more pressing things than
telegraphic chatting.
She summoned Bob to serve as her protector, and promptly sallied forth
into the night. The great groceries, known as "boat stores," were
accustomed to be open very late at night, and often all night, for the
accommodation of the stewards of steamboats landing at the levee. At
seven or eight in the evening they were sure to be open, with business
in unabated activity. But the clerks were full of curiosity when
Barbara, escorted only by the negro serving boy, presented herself and
began rattling off orders greater in volume than any they had ever
received, even from the steward of an overcrowded passenger steamer.
She began by ordering forty sugar cured hams and four hindquarters of
beef. She followed up these purchases with orders for four kegs of
molasses, six boxes of macaroni, a barrel of rice, and so on through her
list. Still more to the astonishment of the clerks, she gave scarcely a
moment to the pricing of the several articles, and seemed to treat her
purchases as matters of ordinary detail. They began to understand,
however, when she ordered the goods sent that night by express, to that
station on the Illinois Central Railroad which lay nearest the scene of
Guilford Duncan's operations, and directed that the bill be sent to him
at the X National Bank for payment.
Barbara made short work of her buying. When it was done she hurried home
and packed a small trunk with some simple belongings of her own. At
seven o'clock the next morning, accompanied by the negro boy Robert, she
took the train and before noon found herself at the little station to
which she had ordered the freight sent. She was disappointed to find
that although she had ordered the goods sent by express, they had not
come by the train on which she had traveled.
The railroad was run by telegraphic orders in those days, and so, even
at this small station, there was an instrument and an operator. Making
use of these, Barbara inquired concerning the freight, and was assured
of its arrival by a train due at four o'clock.
She spent the intervening time in securing two wagons with four stout
horses to each, and when the freight came it was loaded upon these with
particular care, so that no accidents might occur to delay the journey.
If the roads had been even tolerably good, one of the wagons might have
carried the load, perhaps, but the roads were execrably bad and Barbara
was not minded to take any risks.
When the loading was done, it was nearly nightfall, but the eager girl
insisted upon starting immediately, to the profound disgust of her
drivers. The first ten miles of road was the best ten miles, as the
drivers assured her, and by insisting upon a start that evening instead
of waiting for morning, she managed to cover that part of the distance
by eleven o'clock. Then she established a camp, saw the horses fed, gave
the drivers a hot and savory supper, and ordered them to be ready to
start again at sunrise.
On resuming the journey in the morning, Barbara urged the teamsters to
their best endeavors, reinforcing her plea for haste with a promise of a
tempting money reward for each of them if they should complete the
journey that day.
The drivers did their mightiest to earn the reward, but the difficulties
in the way proved to be much greater than even they had anticipated. For
the two great rivers had at last broken over their banks and their
waters were already spreading over the face of the land. The country
through which the road ran was slightly rolling. The small hillocks were
secure from overflow at any time, but the low-lying spaces between them
were already under water, the depth of which varied from a few inches to
two or three feet. The soft earth of the roadbed was now a mere
quagmire, through which the horses laboriously dragged the wagons hub
deep in mud.
Worse still were those stretches of road which had been corduroyed with
logs. For there some of the logs were floating out of place, and some
were piled on top of those that were still held fast in the mud.
In dragging the wagons through the mud reaches, it was necessary to stop
every few minutes to give the horses a breathing spell. On the corduroy
stretches it was often necessary to stop for half an hour or more at a
time, while the drivers and Bob, wading knee deep, made such repairs as
were possible and absolutely necessary.
Bob, with his habitual exuberance of spirit, enjoyed all this mightily.
The drivers did not enjoy it at all. Several times, indeed, they wanted
to abandon the attempt, declaring that it was impossible to go farther.
But for Barbara's persuasive urgency, they would have unhitched the
horses and gone home, leaving the wagons to such fate as might overtake
them. As it was, the caravan moved slowly onward, with many haltings and
much of weariness.
It was midnight when, at last, the flare of the torches told Barbara
that the journey was done. Not knowing whither the wagons should be
taken, Barbara bade Bob go and find Duncan.
When the young man heard of Barbara's arrival, he and Dick Temple
hurried to her, full of apprehension lest the journey and the exposure
should have made her ill, and fuller still of fear that the conditions
of life in the camp might prove to involve more of hardship than she
could bear. For the first time in his life, Guilford Duncan felt like
scolding.
"What on earth are you doing here, Barbara?" he asked, and before he
could add anything to the question, she playfully answered:
"Just now, I'm waiting for you to tell the teamsters where to drive the
wagons."
"But Barbara----"
"Never mind the rest of your scolding. I've already rehearsed it in my
imagination till I know it all by heart--forwards and backwards. Tell
the men where the cooking place is."
"But what are we to do with you, in all this flood and mud, and in the
incessant rain?"
"Just let me alone while I 'help in earnest,' as you said in your
dispatch that you wanted me to do. You telegraphed me that you wanted
two good cooks, so here we are, Bob and I. For, really, Bob has learned
to cook as well as I can. I only wonder you didn't send for us sooner.
Now, we mustn't waste any more time talking. I've got to set to work if
the men are to have their breakfast on time, and there's a lot of
unloading to do before I can get at the things."
The girl's voice was strained and her manner not quite natural. The long
anxiety and the cold and the weariness had begun to tell upon her. She
was strong and resolute still, and ready for any physical effort or
endurance that might be required of her. But she felt that she could
stand no more of emotional strain. So, speaking low to Duncan, in order
that his friend might not hear, she said:
"Please, Guilford, don't say anything more that your tenderness
suggests. I can't stand it. Be just commonplace and practical. Show the
teamsters the way and let me get to work. I'll be happier then and
better."
Duncan understood and was wise enough to obey. Half an hour later he and
Temple had gone back to the crib, leaving Barbara to direct the
unloading of the wagons. A little later still, Bob and the two negro
women who had hitherto done the cooking went out among the men at work,
bearing great kettles of steaming coffee for the refreshment of the
well-nigh exhausted toilers. Bob accompanied his share of the coffee
distribution by a little speech of his own devising:
"Dar, now! Dat's coffee as is, an' it's hot an' strong, too. Little
Missie done mek it wif her own han's and she's de lady wot sen's it to
you. She's done come out inter de wilderness, jes to cook victuals fer
you men, and you jes bet yer bottom dollar you'll git a breakfas' in the
mawnin'."
Realizing the situation, and stimulated by their deep draughts of
coffee, the men set up a cheer for "Little Missie," though they knew not
who she was, and thought of her chiefly as a source of food supply. But
they worked the better for the coffee, and for the promise it held out
of good things to come.
XXXV
THE END OF A STRUGGLE
When Duncan and Temple went to Barbara's fire for their breakfast, after
the workmen had been served, both were quick-witted enough to see that
the little lady was in no condition to endure emotion of any kind. She
had slept little on the night before leaving Cairo, very little more at
the night camp during the journey, and not at all on the night of her
arrival. Her first words indicated a purpose on her part to fend off all
talk that might touch upon personal matters.
"Good-morning, gentlemen," she said. "I'm very well, thank you, so you
needn't ask me about that, especially as there are more important things
to be discussed. I brought all the supplies I could, but after seeing
the men eat, I realize that we shall run short of food very soon. How
many more days are there?"
"Four more--including to-day."
"Then you must telegraph at once to Cairo for more beef, or we shall run
short. Please go and telegraph at once, Guilford. Then come back and
your breakfast will be ready."
When he had gone, the girl turned to Temple and said:
"Everything is ready for you two. Bob will serve it. I think I'll go and
sleep a little, now. Don't fail to wake me at ten o'clock, Bob, and have
the roasts cut and ready to hang over the fire when I get up."
With that, she tripped away to the canvas-covered wagon, which Duncan
had detained at the camp to serve her as sleeping quarters.
Late in the evening of that day, the two teamsters, who had started
early in the morning on their return journey with the other wagon, rode
back into camp on their horses. They reported the water as rising
everywhere. In addition to the incoming flood from the swollen rivers,
the nearly ceaseless rain had made raging torrents of all the creeks,
and lakes of all the valleys. The teamsters had been obliged to abandon
their wagon, wholly unable to make their way further.
"Then we shall get no more provisions," said Barbara, in a sadly
troubled voice.
"And that's a pity," answered Temple. "For the men's spirits have
greatly revived under the stimulus of your improved commissariat, Miss
Barbara. How long will your supplies last?"
"I've enough coffee, flour, and molasses," she answered, "to last
through. But the fresh meat will be exhausted by to-morrow night. The
hams will help out, for breakfasts, but they won't go far among two
hundred men. I'm sorry I couldn't have brought more."
"You could not have got through at all if your loads had been heavier,"
said Duncan. "We must simply do the best we can with what we've got. The
coffee alone will go far to sustain the men, and the molasses will be a
valuable substitute for meat. I still have hopes that we shall win."
"Oh, we _must_ win, you know. You mustn't allow yourself to think of
anything else."
"We'll try, at any rate, and with your superb courage to help us, I
think we shall win."
* * * * *
It was six o'clock on the morning of the last day, when the night gave
its first intimation of a purpose to come to an end. In the slow-coming
gray of the dawn, the torches still flared, casting long and distorted
shadows of the work-weary men, as they continued their toil. During that
last night the entire company had been kept at work in a last desperate
effort to accomplish the end so vitally necessary. All night long Duncan
had done what he could to encourage the toilers, while Temple had given
his attention to such devices as might shorten the task, or otherwise
facilitate its doing. All night long Barbara had busied herself
furnishing limitless coffee as an atonement for the insufficient food
the men had had since her supplies of meat ran out, two days before.
During the last half hour the rain had almost ceased, and Guilford
Duncan had indulged an anxious hope that the skies might clear away with
the sunrise, but just as the gray of morning began to give light enough
for the workmen to see without the aid of the torches, the downpour
began again, more pitilessly than ever.
Its discouraging effect upon the already exhausted men was instantly
apparent. A dozen of them at once quitted work and doggedly sat down in
the mud of the embankment. Two or three others, reckless of everything
but their own suffering, stretched themselves at full length to sleep
where they were--too weary and hopeless, now, even to seek the less
uncomfortable spots in which to rest their worn-out bodies.
"Six hours more," said Duncan, looking at his watch. "Only six hours
between us and triumph. Only six hours--and we must lose all, simply
because the men are done up."
"We'll do it yet," answered young Temple.
"We never can. Those fellows are done for, I tell you. I know the
symptoms. They've lost their _morale_, lost the ambition for success.
I've seen soldiers fall in precisely that way, too far gone even to
shelter themselves from a cannonade."
For the first time in his life, Guilford Duncan realized that there is
such a thing as the Impossible. For the first time, he recognized the
fact that there may be things which even courage and determination
cannot achieve.
The simple fact was that the long strain had at last begun to tell, even
upon his resolute spirit. For three days and nights now he had not
slept. For three days and nights he had not sat down. For three days and
nights he had been wading in water and struggling in mud, and exhausting
all his resources of mind and character in efforts to stimulate the men
to continued endeavor.
He was playing for a tremendous stake, as we know. His career, his
future, all that he had ever dreamed of of ambition, hung upon success
or failure in this undertaking, and now at last, and in spite of his
heroic struggle, failure stared him in the face.
And apart from these considerations of self-interest, there were other
and higher things to be thought of. If he failed now, an enterprise must
be lost in which he had labored for a year to induce others to invest
millions. If he failed, the diversion of this railroad from its original
course must become an accomplished fact, to the ruin of his adopted city
and the paralysis of growth in all that region, for perhaps ten years to
come. Thus his own career, the millions of other men's money, which had
been risked upon faith in his power to achieve, and, worst of all, the
development of all this fair, but very backward region--all of good to
others, of which he had dreamed, and for which he had hoped and
toiled--depended upon his success or failure in keeping two hundred
utterly worn-out men at work in the rain, the water, and the mud, for
six hours more.
At last, this resolute man, whose courage had seemed unconquerable, was
discouraged.
"Might as well give it up," said Will Hallam. "The men simply will not
work any longer."
"It isn't a case of will not, but of cannot," answered Duncan.
Barbara heard all, as she hovered over the fire of logs, and busied
herself with her tasks, regardless of rain and weariness, regardless of
every consideration of self. She wore no wraps or protection of any kind
against the torrents of rain. "They would simply bother me," she said,
when urged to protect her person. Her face was flushed by the heat of
the fire, but otherwise she was very pale, and her tightly compressed
lips were livid as she straightened herself up to answer Duncan's
despairing words.
"You are wrong," she said. "They can work a little longer if they will.
It is for us to put will into them. Call them to the fire, a dozen or
twenty at a time, for breakfast. I've something new and tempting for
them--something that will renew their strength. You and Captain Hallam
and Mr. Temple must do the rest."
A dozen of the men had already come with their tin cups to drink again
of the strong coffee that Barbara had been serving to them at intervals
throughout the night. She had something more substantial for them now.
She had by her a barrel full of batter, and she and the negro boy, Bob,
each with two large frying pans, were making griddle cakes with
astonishing rapidity. To each of the men she gave one of the tin plates,
with half a dozen of the hot cakes upon it, bidding each help himself to
molasses from the half barrel, from which, for convenience of ladling,
Bob had removed the head.
"This is breakfast," she said to the men, as they refreshed themselves.
"There'll be dinner, and a good one, ready for all of you at noon, when
the work is done."
The men were too far exhausted to greet her suggestion with enthusiasm.
The few words they spoke in response were words of discouragement, and
even of despair. They did not tell her that they had decided to work no
more, but she saw clearly that they were on the point of such decision.
The breakfast she was serving comforted them and gave them some small
measure of fresh strength, but it did not give them courage enough to
overcome their weariness. The girl saw clearly that something more
effective must be devised and done.
She puckered her forehead quizzically--after her manner when working out
a problem in arithmetic. After a little the wrinkles passed away, and
lifting her eyes for a moment from her frying pans, she called to
Captain Hallam:
"Would you mind coming here a minute?" she asked.
The man of affairs responded, wearily, but promptly.
"What is it, Barbara?"
"May I spend two thousand dollars, if I get this job done by
noon?--that's the last minute, Mr. Duncan tells me."
"But how can you----"
"Never mind how. May I have the two thousand dollars?"
"Yes--twenty thousand--any amount, if only we succeed in pushing that
car on rails across the county line before the clock strikes twelve."
"Very well. I'll see what I can do. Mr. Duncan, can you cook griddle
cakes?"
"Happily, yes," answered he. "I'm an old soldier, you know."
"Very well, then. Please come here and cook for a little while--just
till I get back. I won't be long."
Duncan took command of her two frying pans. A little amused smile
appeared on his face as he did so, in spite of his discouragement and
melancholy. But to the common sense and sincerity of the girl, there
seemed nothing ludicrous in setting him thus to the undignified work.
Intent upon her scheme, she darted away to where the several gangs of
men were still making some pretense of working. To each gang, she said:
"I've got two thousand dollars for you men, if you stick to your work
and finish it before noon to-day. I'll divide the money equally among
all the men who stick. It will be ten dollars apiece, or more. Of
course, you'll get your triple wages besides. Will you keep it up? It's
only for a few hours more."
Her tone was eager, and her manner almost piteously pleading. Without
the persuasiveness of her personal appeal, it is doubtful that the men
would have yielded to the temptation of the extra earning. Even with her
influence added, more than a third of them--those who had already cast
their tools aside and surrendered to exhaustion--refused to go on again
with a task to which they felt themselves hopelessly unequal. But in
every gang she addressed, there was a majority of men who braced
themselves anew, and responded. The very last of the gangs to whom she
made her appeal put their response into the form of a cheer, and
instantly the other gangs echoed it.
"What on earth has that girl said or done to the men to fetch a cheer
from them!" ejaculated Will Hallam.
"Reckon Little Missie's jest done bewitched 'em," responded Bob, as he
poured batter into his pans.
A moment later Barbara, with a face that had not yet relaxed its look of
intense earnestness, returned to the fire, and resumed her work over
the frying pans.
"Thank you, Mr. Duncan," was all she said in recognition of his service
as a maker of griddle cakes. But she added:
"The men will stick to work, now, I think--or most of them, at any rate.
Perhaps you and Mr. Temple can do something to shorten it--to lessen the
amount."
Then, turning to Bob, she issued her orders:
"Bring the hog, Bob, as quickly as you can. There's barely time to roast
it, before noon."