particulars of the rivalry which interests in many respects so divergent
necessarily entailed. A gentleman who had singular opportunities for
arriving at an unprejudiced judgment recently informed the writer of
this article that one company alone employed the element of "influence"
to the extent of three millions of dollars, or its supposed equivalent.
Facts of this nature, however, are outside of our purpose; and we shall
limit our illustration of the character of the struggle to a brief
glance at the curious tangle of compromises which the charter itself
presents. Passed in the Lower House by a catch vote, and pushed with
difficulty through the Senate by appeals to party pledges, by
unimpeachable proofs of the feasibility of the scheme and the financial
integrity of its advocates, and above all by intimations amounting
almost to threats of a possible secession of the Pacific communities,
the act of 1862 bears the evidence of a conflict of purposes in almost
every one of its sections. It is evident, for example, that, with the
tide of civil war beating fiercely around the national capital, Congress
was still under the spell of the past, and severely distrustful of any
avoidable increase of public obligations. Bonds were loaned to the
enterprise at the rate of sixteen thousand dollars per mile for the easy
work, with treble aid for the mountain division and double for the Salt
Lake Valley; but this loan was made a first mortgage, twenty-five per
cent, was reserved till the completion of the road, and the transit
business of government was to be paid solely by the extinguishment of
the bonded debt. The land grant also was but six thousand four hundred
acres per mile. The clashing interests of St. Louis and Chicago are
shown in the ignoring of any special eastern terminus, and the location
of the initial point of a new trunk road upon the one hundredth
meridian, at some equidistant station, to be designated by the
President. As the Kansas party was already possessed of an organization,
the charter modified this advantage by incorporating the Nebraska
line[B], under the name of the Union Pacific Company, and gave it a
predominant place in the specifications of the act. The aid of
government, however, was proffered in equal degree to the road which
was to cross the mountains from Sacramento, and to both the Eastern
lines; the last two being required to complete a hundred miles each
within two years after they had respectively filed their assent to the
terms of the act, while the Central was to build at the rate of
twenty-five miles a year up the ridges of the Sierra.
In hard-currency times, and with the labor and iron market easy, these
terms might have been sufficient to invite the ready aid of capital. But
the close of 1862 and the year succeeding were the darkest periods of
the war. Gold vibrated from 140 to 180. Iron, which in 1859, sold for
$35 a ton, was now selling for $130. Moreover, while money was tight,
labor was also scarce. The two great agencies on which a vast public
work like this must inevitably depend proved utterly inadequate to the
emergency. Nevertheless, both the companies which had already an organic
existence bent themselves with no inconsiderable vigor to their task.
The Central Pacific accepted the responsibilities and obligations of the
charter six months after its passage, and commenced the work of grading
in the succeeding February. Rails, chairs, and rolling stock were
forwarded by sea, involving heavy expenditures for freightage, and a ten
per cent war risk on insurance. The company endured further
embarrassments from the lack of capital, and the fact that in California
a metallic currency formed the only circulating medium. Nor was it the
least of its difficulties that the enterprise met with an ambiguous
reception in many portions of the State, San Francisco especially
regarding it with cold indifference. The zeal with which the road was
pushed amid these embarrassments is a striking evidence of the thorough
faith of its projectors. Although it soon became apparent that further
legislation would be needed to relieve them from the disabilities
inherent in the meagreness of the government subsidy, they nevertheless
succeeded by the 6th of June, 1864, in cutting their line through to
New Castle, and in laying thereon a solid and continuous track.
In Kansas, the Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western Railroad Company or, as
they were beginning to style themselves the Union Pacific Railway,
Eastern Division, had contracted for an immediate and rapid construction
of their line as early as September 30th. By the spring of 1863, the
contractors, Messrs. Ross, Steele, & Co., had involved themselves to the
extent of five millions, of dollars, and were in full operation with an
adequate corps of laborers, grading, quarrying stone, building culverts,
etc. Suddenly, however, all this busy movement ceased. By one of those
strange revolutions that occasionally occur in the management of
corporations, a man notorious throughout the whole border, familiarly
called Sam Hallet, assumed control of the company, denounced the
contract as in nowise valid, and peremptorily ordered the agents of the
contracting party to abandon the work. The agents refused. Affairs now
assumed the aspect of war. Hallet procured a company of United States
dragoons from Fort Leavenworth, and rode down upon the contumacious
contractors. The result of this cavalry dash is rather picturesquely
described in a letter of this novel railroad general, dated August 15,
1863:--
"I have had an awful row with Carter, a battle on the works, and a sharp
'pitch in' to get possession; we drove them back, and into the river,
until they cried enough. S. S. Sharp, my foreman Section No. 1, led
Carter to the river-bank by the collar; and but for his begging, he
would have ducked him. I expect Steele and Carter on again with
reinforcements. Let them come! We will put them into the river the next
time. We have had to use _strong force_, _quick_ and _bold_. We have
taken all their ties, houses, and works, and shall hold them."
Triumphant on the battle-field, Hallet now made a rapid
counter-movement, and effected a transfer of the ownership of the
company to a new set of capitalists, putting them into immediate
possession of the entire property of the old corporation. Of the legal
merits of this singular manoeuvre we are not prepared to give an
opinion; but it is proper for us to add, that it met with vigorous
resistance on the part of the former stockholders, at the head of whom
stood Fremont. Sharp litigations and stormy altercations ensued; and for
many months most vital to its interests the whole Kansas enterprise was
shut from view.
While these two companies were moving forward, the one steadily
overcoming financial and engineering difficulties, the other plunging
into an inexplicable imbroglio of contested management and contested
contracts, that great combination of capitalists which held the
destinies of the Union Pacific met at Chicago in September, 1862, and
took the preliminary steps for the formation of a company. Books for
stock subscriptions were opened in every loyal State and Territory. In
June of the next year the acceptance of the charter by a provisional
direction was filed at Washington. Nevertheless, an annoying apathy
filled the public mind. Capital was shy of the enterprise. The terms of
the act of 1862 were deemed unsatisfactory. Up to August, 1863, only
about eighty thousand dollars had been subscribed.
At this point, Thomas C. Durant, whose connection with Western roads had
inspired so much faith in the Pacific project, threw the weight of his
capital and influence so determinately into the scale, that by October
the subscriptions had reached two millions, and the company was in a
condition to organize. Major-General John A. Dix was elected president,
Dr. Durant became vice-president and general manager, and the
preliminary survey which he had ordered at his personal expense was
approved and officially adopted by the direction. As, however, a
wide-spread feeling existed, not only that additional legislation was
necessary, but that it might also be obtained, the company contented
itself that year with the selection of its eastern terminus. President
Lincoln was consulted; and, acting upon his unofficial sanction, the
Union Pacific broke ground for the railroad at Omaha, then a struggling
village in Nebraska Territory, nearly opposite Council Bluffs. The
inaugural ceremony took place December 2d, and with this event the year
closed.
For the next few months the efforts of all the companies converged upon
Congress. The Union Pacific Company appeared at Washington in great
force. The Central, equally urgent, presented arguments that amounted to
demonstration; the chief points being the energy with which they had
striven to comply with the terms of the charter, and the painful failure
that had attended their endeavor,--a failure clearly imputable to the
insufficiency of the original bill. The Kansas Company, though rent in
twain by rival boards of directors, was also on the ground, animated by
very ambitious purposes, and with a determination to win its ends in
spite of internal complications. The vigor with which the latter body
took the field gave a complex character to the struggle, and very much
prolonged it. On vital points, however, all parties were in accord, and
in the main results of the campaign each achieved a splendid success.
The supplementary bill, approved July 2, 1864, as much surpassed the
legislation of two years previous as the sixteen hundred million
national debt of 1864 exceeded the five-hundred million debt of 1862;
The colossal expenditures of the war had led Congressmen to accept the
estimates of railroad men with implicit credence, and to second their
demands with generosity. The land grant was doubled, the government
bonds were made a second lien to the roads under construction, the
twenty-five per cent reservation was removed, and one half of government
business was to be paid in money.
The Union Pacific Company effected an important modification of the
charter in respect to their particular interests. Their maximum capital
was still fixed at one hundred millions, but individual shares were
lowered from a thousand to a hundred dollars each. Furthermore, the
hitherto unwieldy board of direction was limited to fifteen members. On
the other hand, the Kansas organization obtained the privilege of making
their own road the grand trunk route, connecting with the Central
Pacific, in case they should anticipate the Nebraska line in reaching
the one hundredth meridian, and the latter road should not appear to be
proceeding in good faith.
As the act which bestowed such signal favors had granted an extension of
a year for the completion of the first division of each road, the Union
Pacific was under no absolute compulsion to hasten its work.
Nevertheless, surveying parties were kept in the field, and the contract
for the construction of the road to the one hundredth meridian was
signed in August. This agreement, though nominally known, as the Hoxie
contract, derived the guaranty of its performance from the Credit
Mobilier,--an organization with an actual capital of two millions and a
half, recently created upon the model of the great Paris corporation,
and in the hands of a few moneyed men whose enterprise and energy were
admirably proportioned to their large wealth. Its heaviest capitalists
were also stockholders in the projected road; and as payment was to be
made in bonds and shares, the Credit Mobilier at once became an
over-shadowing stockholder in the Union Pacific. The arrangement at a
subsequent period may not have been wholly beneficial; but at the date
of the contract the alliance was of incalculable importance. Although
two millions of stock had been subscribed, the Nebraska line had in
reality only twenty thousand dollars in its treasury. Without the Credit
Mobilier, it would have faltered on the threshold of success. Even with
this powerful auxiliary, it was not yet strong enough to prevent an
unexpected and vexatious delay.
The first forty miles west from Omaha had been intrusted to Peter A.
Dey, an engineer of some experience in the West. This gentleman, whose
ideas seem to have been limited to a straight line, had constructed a
track satisfactory in its alignments, but with a maximum grade of eighty
feet per mile, and involving temporary grading of one hundred and
sixteen feet at several points of the route. A later survey, made under
the supervision of Colonel Seymour, demonstrated the existence of a far
better line with forty-feet grades and but nine miles longer. Placed
upon abstract grounds, there was no question of the relative advantage
of the two routes. The combined opinion of several of the most skilful
railroad managers in the country was unanimous for the lower grade, as
essential to rapid and economical transportation. But there was another
element in the case which gave a different aspect to the affair. Dey's
line terminated at Omaha; Seymour's, at Bellevue. If the new route were
selected, all the magnificent dreams of the Omaha land speculators would
be summarily dispelled. The territorial population caught the alarm.
Public meetings were called. A committee was sent post to Washington. It
was asserted, on grounds that were not destitute of plausibility, that
the change was attributable quite as much to motives of a stock-jobbing
order, as to economic considerations. To this charge Dr. Durant
indignantly replied, but this did not appease the clamor. Nor was the
dispute ended until after five months of tedious investigation, and a
guaranteed promise on the part of the company, that, in adopting the new
line, there should be no alteration of terminus.
While Omaha was still in the white-heat of excitement, the contractors
had been steadily employed in collecting material for a grand industrial
campaign. Distant, in the line of travel then open to them, more than
sixteen hundred miles from New York, with the Missouri River as their
main avenue for the transportation of rolling stock and machinery west
of St. Louis, the men who had undertaken to build the road bent
themselves to the task with a vigor and celerity heretofore
unequalled in railroad history. Iron from New England, shipped in
coasting-vessels, and working its slow way through the Gulf of Mexico
and up the knotted bends of the Mississippi; iron, from Pennsylvania by
the lower route, and from New York by upper lines; iron in all
conditions and shapes, from rails, chains, and spikes, to car-wheels and
steam-engines,--came pouring in week by week, a tonnage beyond all
estimate or comparison, and involving, from the want of rail
connections, unparalleled expenditures. The transportation of one class
of freight alone cost thirteen hundred thousand dollars. All other
expenses were upon the same magnificent scale. Nebraska, though
admirably adapted for agriculture, is singularly destitute of woodland.
The lumber for building, and the cross-ties for track-laying, could only
be obtained in small quantities and at great distances. Many of the
sleepers travelled two hundred miles before they found repose on the
road-bed. The labor market also was but scantily supplied, and agents
for procuring navvies were despatched east, west, and south. But the
splendid energy of the contractors had been fruitful of success. A vast
aggregate of forces stood ready at the melting of the winter's snow and
the click of the telegraph key to spring into enormous activity.
About the middle of April, 1866, the message came, and the work began.
Along the dead level of the Platte Valley, through endless reaches of
prairie, and behind the meagre shelter of outlying hills, the rails are
still falling in place,--a continuous belt of iron out-rolled over black
loam and arid sand,--mile after mile, day after day; and with the close
of the present year there will stretch an unbroken line of five hundred
and twenty miles of rail across the Plains to the foot of the Black
Hills. There is no occasion to dilate upon the wonderful systemization
of labor which has characterized the work of construction. The public is
already well apprised of the details, from the pens of industrious and
graphic newspaper correspondents. The company itself has been by no
means laggard in celebrating its enterprise. Excursion parties of
capitalists, editors, and Congressmen have severally given in their
testimony; but, after all, the one fact that in less than twenty months
American energy has brought the Rocky Mountains within two and one half
days' journey of New York--though the distance is two thousand
miles--tells the whole story. One of the chief difficulties of this
Nebraska route has been, as we have intimated, the scarcity of suitable
material for cross-ties, and of fuel for the engines. The employment of
Burnetized cottonwood, and the discovery of a very considerable quantity
of cedar in the interior, have, however, effectually solved one phase of
this problem; while for the production of steam science now offers
petroleum as a practical substitute for wood and coal. But independently
of this, the road has already reached the bituminous beds of the Black
Hills, where it will probably find a plentiful supply for its
necessities. Water also is obtained in sufficient quantities by digging
from ten to twenty feet down, to the sand which filters the waters of
the Platte.
Shortly after the Nebraska Company had thrown off the drag-weight of
local embarrassment, the Kansas line began to disentangle itself from
legal complications; and on July 1, 1865, the enterprise passed into the
hands of a management which, if powerless to retrieve the past, was at
least determined to make the future secure. At the head of this new
organization was John D. Perry of St Louis; and associated with him were
a body of capitalists in Missouri and Pennsylvania whose financial
ability was unquestioned, and who have since evinced a vigor and
commercial prescience which elevate them to the level of their Eastern
rivals. Perceiving that the miserable Fremont-Hallet quarrel had
effectually frustrated all rivalry in the construction of a track to the
one hundredth meridian, they made application to Congress for an
extension of their line to Denver, by the Smoky Hill Fork, with the
privilege of connecting at that point with the Union Pacific. The
request was readily granted, and the usual land gift of twelve thousand
eight hundred acres per mile accorded for the entire route. No further
issue of government bonds was allowed; but as the company was now
possessed of adequate capital, and as the loans to the other companies
must all eventually be paid back, there was really very little
difference in financial advantage on the side of the Nebraska line.
Moreover, the slight balance against the Kansas route was quite made up
in the greater fertility of the soil which it would traverse, and the
large preponderance of its local business, the population along the line
being treble that of the upper road. These considerations gave an
elasticity to the Kansas project, and under the new management the work
of construction has gone on rapidly. The present year will probably find
the road halting at not less than three hundred and fifty miles west of
Wyandotte, now the junction-point of the Union Pacific, Eastern
Division, with the Missouri Pacific Railroad. But this company is not
satisfied with a simple connection with the Nebraska road. It proposes,
after making this connection, to continue its main line to San Francisco
by an extensive detour southward, avoiding the difficult mountain
systems between Denver and Sacramento, and at the same time availing
itself of that immense trade which lies visible or latent throughout
Arizona, New Mexico, and Southern California. Escaping the overwhelming
snows of the Rocky Mountains, this route will pass through a salubrious
region abounding in timber and bituminous coal.[C] By intersecting the
Rio Grande at Albuquerque, it will hold out to the Southern States a
tempting invitation to form connections, and share to the fullest extent
in the benefits of this great national enterprise. In this way the
Pacific Railroad stands ready to second Congress in the work of
"reconstruction."
Of the Central Pacific Road we have not as yet spoken adequately, and
shall now be compelled to give the history of its achievements in a
wholly insufficient space. Unlike the Eastern roads, it has allowed no
pause in its work from the day of the first track-laying to the present
moment. Unlike these roads, also, it has had to contend with great
engineering difficulties from the start, while the material for its
construction required to be brought over distances to which the
transportation annoyances of the other lines offer no parallel. All the
rolling stock, rails, etc. doubled Cape Horn. The timber for the
trestle-work of bridges was brought from Puget's Sound. For laborers it
had recourse to China. To reach the crest of the Sierra, they were
obliged to pierce the hillsides fifteen times, the tunnelling alone
amounting in continuous line to 6,262 feet. The eight-hour labor
movement was an additional embarrassment. Embankments built up with
incalculable labor, and protected by every device of engineering
science, settled in many cases, and were repaired only after much delay
and vast expense. Nevertheless, the indomitable projectors of the
enterprise have proved themselves equal to their task. The Summit Tunnel
was cut through in August of this year; and by November the road will
have been extended, not only to the crest of the mountains, but far down
the eastern slope. Hunter's, which is the wagon depot of the Nevada
miners, two hundred and seventy-four miles from San Francisco, and one
hundred and fifty miles from Sacramento, is the point which the
locomotive is certain to reach by the close of 1867.[D]
Thus far there have been built six hundred and fifty miles of completed
road. Adding the water route to San Francisco, there are about eight
hundred miles of continuous steam communication. Despite also the
bleakness of the Plains in winter, and the protracted rigors of the
Sierra, it is demonstrated that snow can be no more an obstacle to the
railroads than icebergs have proved to the Atlantic cable. Including the
Eastern connections with New York as the Atlantic terminus, we have,
therefore, two thousand two hundred and fifty miles of the interoceanic
railroad already in actual operation.
From Hunter's, in Nevada, to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains,
stretches the long space of unfinished work, ten hundred and fifty-four
miles of railroad line, with three sharp crests and a gently rolling
intra-mountain desert, where the dew never falls, where the twilight
lingers long into the evening, and the eye wearies of the wastes of
sage-bush, and the tracts of scant grass between arid breadths of
dazzling white alkaline sand. A glance at the grades discloses one of
the difficulties with which the Union Pacific has now to grapple. From
the Black Hills, within thirty miles the track must rise to its first
and loftiest ascent, 8,242 feet above the sea-level. Then comes a
descent of a thousand feet for the same distance, succeeded by equal
alternations of rise and fall for eight successive points. Beyond Bear
River, however, these gigantic mountain waves lengthen, and the vast
interior basin rolls broadly and heavily, with an average level of
forty-five hundred feet, past Weber Canon and Humboldt Wells. Here the
line strikes Humboldt River, and runs southwesterly to the Big Bend of
the Truckee River, along a region singularly favorable in its
alignments, and described as well supplied with wood and water. In this
respect recent surveys essentially corroborate the testimony of Fremont.
The difficulties to be overcome by the Central Pacific in its route over
and through the mountains to meet its eastern branches have already been
described. But, notwithstanding these, the company claims that it can
readily construct its line at the rate of one mile per day for five
hundred working-days. It has nearly ten thousand laborers at work, most
of them Chinese. The portion of the road completed, with its excellent
rails, its ties of red-wood and tamarack, and its granite culverts, has
elicited praise from government commissioners for the thoroughness of
its execution.
Though none of the routes are as yet completed, the net earnings of each
of the three companies, over and above the interest on its bonds, have
surpassed all expectation. In 1865 and 1866 the net earnings of the
Central Road amounted to $936,000 in gold, and in 1867 they are
estimated at one million dollars; and this surplus is applied to the
construction of the road. The net earnings of the Union Pacific
(Nebraska) Road for the quarter ending July 31, 1867, were $376,589 in
currency. Those of the Eastern or Kansas branch, for the month of
August alone, $235,000. Of course these estimates of the profit of the
roads under the present circumstances are but faint indications of the
wealth which must accrue to them upon their completion, and after the
fuller development of the resources upon which they depend. At the
sources of this future wealth we shall glance presently.
There can be no possible occasion for rivalry between these three
companies. Each road will take its place in the great work of
interoceanic communication, and each will find its capacities meagre as
compared with the commerce which awaits it. But apart from a merely
commercial view, there are certain points of comparison between the
various routes which demand a brief notice. The Kansas route will
probably prove most attractive to the tourists, especially in the event
of its making the detour through New Mexico above alluded to. The
Nebraska route will be more monotonous, running across the level and
treeless valley of the Platte for three hundred miles. To the traveller
there will always be presented the same swift but shallow river at his
side, the same bare, misty hills along the horizon, the same limitless
stretch of the plain before and behind, and the same solitary sky above,
save as it is varied by sunrise and sunset, until the Black Hills come
to his relief, and he enters upon the snow-whelmed Sierra. The Central
route is more picturesque, and also has more elements of grandeur, than
either of the others. The Nebraska Road, on account of the character of
the country through which it passes, will probably derive its main
revenue from the through trade; while the Kansas--if its present purpose
be carried out--will depend upon the local trade and its multifarious
connections.
Having traced the history of these Pacific roads, the difficulties which
they have met and in a large degree conquered, and their general
features, our consideration of them must from this point grow out of
their national importance and world-wide significance. For the Pacific
Railroad is not simply a gigantic public work, it is the world's great
highway. The world has had several grand routes, along the line of
which, for certain periods of time, the life-blood and intelligence of
humanity have coursed. Such was the route which history discloses as the
most ancient from India overland to the Mediterranean, whence it was
continued by that old Phoenician Coast Navigation Company to the
shores of Britain. Along this overland line grew up the great cities of
Asia, depending upon it for their wealth, refinement, and power; and
when commerce was diverted from the inland, and the riches of India took
the ocean path westward, the glory of these cities departed. Such also
was that later route which gave the Italian cities their opulence and
strength in the Middle Ages. When the Cape of Good Hope was doubled,
these Italian centres grew comparatively weak and lustreless. The Roman
road to Britain laid the foundation of that power, the full development
of which has given to London its present position as the European
metropolis. New York City also owes her rapid and stupendous growth to
that peculiar conjunction of circumstances which has secured her the
control of the grand Transatlantic commercial route of present times.
The railroads leading westward from that city, converging upon the
termini of the Pacific lines, continue this world-route of the incoming
era to San Francisco, and there, through the Golden Gate, we grasp the
wealth of Eastern Asia, whence the first great world-route started.
Events more powerful than tradition have thus revolutionized the old
system of travel and commerce, calling them eastward. America becomes at
once interoceanic and mediterranean, commanding the two oceans, and
mediating between Europe and Asia. By the Pacific Railroad, Hong Kong
via New York is only forty days distant from London. The tea and silks
of China and the products of the Spice Islands must pass through America
to Europe. In this connection, also, there is a profound significance
in our alliance, every year growing stronger, with Russia, whose extreme
southern boundary joins Japan, our latest and warmest Asiatic ally.
But the development of American commercial power as against the world is
secondary to the internal development of our own resources, and to the
indissoluble bond of national union afforded by this inland route from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and by its future connections with every
portion of our territory. In thirty years, California will have a
population equal to that of New York to-day, and yet not be half full,
and the city of St. Louis will number a million of souls. New York City
and San Francisco, as the two great _entrepots_ of trade; Chicago and
St. Louis as its two vital centres; and New Orleans at the mouth of our
great national canal, the Mississippi,--will become nations rather than
cities, out-stripping all the great cities of ancient and modern
history. As far as the resources of the West are concerned, one Pacific
railroad, with two or three branches, will not suffice; we may need a
road along every parallel. The West is still in a large degree _terra
incognita_. We know it only in parts. We are indeed aware that
California is already competing with Russia and the cis-Mississippi
States in the production of cereals, and that the mineral region of the
West now annually yields gold and silver worth one hundred millions of
dollars. But California's agricultural resources are almost untouched;
while the best "leads" of the vast mineral region are not worked, from
the fear of a savage race. Missouri extends over thirty-five millions of
acres of arable land, two millions of which are the alluvial margins of
rivers, and twenty thousand high rolling prairie; but five sevenths of
the soil is yet fallow. We see Denver and other cities of the Far West
spring up in a day; but their growth, marvellous as it is, arises from
the circumstance that they are great mineral centres, and is cramped and
partial, depending upon a wearisome and insecure overland route,
extending over hundreds of miles, via Salt Lake, to Atchison. The
Pacific Railroad will quicken this development to its full
possibilities; it will populate the West in a few years; and along its
lines will spring up a hundred cities, which will advance in the swift
march of national progress just in proportion to their opportunities for
rapid communication with the older centres of opulence and culture.
The Indians also, whose sad plaint against the inevitable civilization
of the locomotive is still ringing in all ears, must succumb before the
presence of this new power. When we reflect that a single regiment of
soldiers costs a million a year, we must see that the railroad as a
peace instrument will render more than an equivalent for all government
assistance given to it. Moreover, our frontier posts must soon be
rendered unnecessary by the operation of commerce. The same influence
will also dissipate the power which the Mormons have gained solely by
their isolation.
But beyond these immediate considerations arise the magnificent
commercial certainties which the logic of history reveals. Space fails
us at this point of fruitful speculation; but it will suffice to say
that the corollary of the Pacific railroads is the transfer of the
world's commerce to America, and the substitution of New York for Paris
and London as the world's exchange. In the train of these immeasurable
events must come the wealth and the culture which have hitherto been
limited to Europe. With the year 1866 began the _rapid_ work of this
revolutionizing enterprise. The year of grace 1870 will witness its
completion. The four years' civil war is followed by the four years'
victory of peace. Already the Western cities are tremulous with the
aspirations which it excites; and the metropolis of the East, with its
new steamship lines to Brazil, its Cuban cable, and its hundred
prospective enterprises, awaits the moment which shall lift it to
imperial importance.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] The use of this phrase requires explanation. It has been previously
stated that Council Bluffs was the point on which the Chicago lines were
concentrating. It is now to be added, that beyond this growing
settlement, across the Missouri River, lies Nebraska, and the proposed
route would necessarily pass through the whole length of this State. At
the rival roads are connected to a greater or less degree with the
interests of the States in which are their respective eastern termini,
and as the legal titles of the two roads are at once ambiguous and
disagreeably long, we have preferred to designate them simply as the
Kansas and Nebraska lines.
[C] The point suggested for this divergence southward is in the vicinity
of Pond Creek, four hundred and twenty miles west of the Missouri River.
Thence it will deflect to the southwest, touching the base of the
mountains one hundred and seventy miles beyond Pond Creek, near the
boundary-line between Colorado and New Mexico. Thus, having passed
through Southeastern Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, it finds its way
northward, through the marvellously fertile region of Southern
California, to San Francisco. It is noteworthy that this project offers
to Mexico immediate participation in our commerce, affording the basis
of a far more enduring annexation. It is possible that in no far-distant
future, if this scheme is achieved, San Francisco will find a rival in
San Diego,--four hundred and fifty-six miles southeast of the former,
and a much nearer port for the purposes of this route. The project of a
mountain line from Denver to Salt Lake City, connecting at that point
with the Central Railroad, is also said to be entertained by the Kansas
company.
[D] Up to the present time, the Nebraska line has expended about
twenty-five millions; the Central Railroad, twenty-two millions. On two
hundred and fifty-nine miles of the Kansas Road there were also
expended, in cost and equipment, eleven millions. All this has been
obtained from the sale of bonds, paid-in stock, and the net earnings of
the roads. The bonds have been made a popular loan, sold by New York
agents, and chiefly taken in New England, New York State, and Eastern
Pennsylvania. The purchasing clasp, though largely composed of heavy
capitalists, consists also of those who have small sums of money to
invest, and who seek this means as especially secure.
The stockholders of the Union Pacific number from one to two hundred,
but most of the shares are in a few hands; the Credit Mobilier, Durant,
and the Ameses being the principal owners. The Central Railroad also
exhibits the same phenomenon of few shareholders; all of them, of
course, large capitalists. This gives great power in pushing the work
on, and illustrates the tendency of the day toward consolidation.
Hereafter, when the Central and Nebraska lines shall have combined, this
commanding influence of a comparatively few men will make itself
signally felt in our politics.
GRANDMOTHER'S STORY: THE GREAT SNOW.
It had been snowing all day, and when father came in at dark he said
that the wind was rising, and the storm gathering power every moment,
and that before morning all the roads would be fast locked.
Grandmother is a gentle, sweet old lady, whom I remember always with the
same serene face, bearing all earthly troubles with such holy patience
as lifts this common life to heaven; she waits for hours in unbroken
silence, while her face wears the rapt, mystical look of one who talks
with angels, and then we move softly about her, and not one of us would
by words of our own call her down from the mount of vision. Within a
year or two she has grown quite deaf, and since this her life seems yet
more isolated; sometimes, however, like most deaf persons, she hears
words spoken in low tones that are not meant for her, perhaps because at
times the spirit is vividly awake, and more than usually quick to catch
at and interpret what else might beat in vain upon the dull, corporeal
sense.
She put by her knitting at father's words, and rose and walked feebly to
the window, where she stood a long time looking out at the death-white
waste, shut in by the morose, ominous sky. Then, turning slowly, her
face alight and beautiful with that beauty which is fairer than youth,
she said, "It puts me in mind of the Great Snow, Ephraim,--it puts me in
mind of a good many things!"
Then she came back to the fire, and sat down again in her corner. Memory
was stirring, the Past unfolding its scroll. The knitting-work fell
unheeded from the old, trembling fingers. She was a girl again, and the
story of that far-off girlhood fell softly upon the evening silence.
"I was only eighteen years old, Ephraim, when your grandfather moved
down from the new State. I had lived up there in the wilderness all my
life; and I was as shy as a wild rabbit, and, in my own fashion, proud.
Father was poor in those days, for there were six of us children to feed
and clothe, and mother was delicate and often ill; so we moved into a
low, one-story house, that was old too, as well as small; but as we had
always lived in a log-house, and this was a frame one, we were more than
satisfied. We did not mind if the snow blew in at the cracks in the
roof, and nestled in little drifts on the counterpane, for we were used
to it. I remember that one bright star always peeped down at me in the
winter through the open spaces between the boards, and shone so calm and
clear that I used to fancy it was God's home, and somehow my prayers
seemed surer of getting to him when I said them in the pure light of
this star. But that was while we were in the new State. When we moved
down country, I was a grown-up girl, able to turn my hand to any chore
about the house; and I went to meeting in the meeting-house at the
Corner, and had got over my childish notions.
"Elder Crane was a very pious man, and he always preached long sermons
and made long prayers. The sermons were easier to bear than the prayers,
for the people sat through the sermon; but if you had sat down during
the prayer, you would have been thought dreadfully wicked, and the Elder
might have called your name right out the next Sabbath, and prayed for
you as a poor sinner whom Satan was tempting. And so you stood up, of
course, though the children sometimes got asleep and fell down, and
often the girls used to faint away and be carried out. Semantha Lee did,
at one time, almost as regularly as the Sabbath came round, until at
last a church committee was sent to labor with her. But Semantha was a
very free-spoken girl, and she said some hard things against Elder
Crane's prayers. I always thought that it was more her corsets than the
length of the prayers.
"I never fainted; for up in the new State I had run wild in the woods,
and, though I was a frail thing to look at, I had a deal of strength in
me. But my thoughts rambled a great deal too often; and sometimes I
doubted if I was as near God in Elder Crane's church as I used to be
lying on my bed in the chamber of the log-house, and saying my prayers
to the bright star that looked down so friendly. I asked mother about it
one day, and she said that surely God was about us everywhere; but she
added that the church was the appointed means of grace, and that I must
follow Elder Crane closely, and try to make my heart feel the words. I
did try, but there was so much about the Israelites in the house of
bondage, and Moses, and the sacrifices, that, do what I would, I always
lost myself in the Red Sea, and the chosen people entered the Promised
Land without me. At such times, when my thoughts went wandering, my eyes
followed them, and most frequently they went right over to Mr. Jacob
Allen's pew. I could not well help it, indeed, for his was a wall pew,
directly opposite ours. Mr. Allen seldom came to meeting, being old and
rheumatic, but his wife and girls came, and his son, Ephraim.
"At first I noticed Ephraim Allen just as I did the cobwebs upon the
walls, and the yellow streaks in the wainscoting; afterward I began to
see what a fine figure he had,--a whole head above his companions,--and
how broad-shouldered and erect and manly he was; the narrow-backed,
short-waisted coat that made the rest look so pinched and uncomfortable
sat gracefully and easily upon him. He had a wide, white
forehead,--though I did not notice this for a long time,--and short
curly hair, that looked very black beside the fair skin. Then his cheeks
were as bright as a rose, and his eyes--but I seldom got so far as his
eyes, because by some chance they always met mine, and then I was much
confused and ashamed. But always, in going out of meeting, he used to
bow to me in passing, and say, 'Good morning, Mercy'; and then I saw
that his eyes were a clear, dark blue, and I thought they were very
honest, tender ones. They said that Semantha Lee had been setting her
cap at him a good while, and I wondered if he liked her.
"This was all the acquaintance we had for two years and more. There was
not much chance for young people to meet in those days, especially where
they were strictly brought up, as I was; for father and mother were both
very pious, and at that time church-members thought it was sinful to
join in the profane amusements of the world. So when an invitation came
for me to a husking-frolic, or a paring-bee, or a dance, I was not
allowed to go. I was shy, as I told you, but I had a girl's natural
longing for company; and many were the bitter tears I shed up in my
garret because I could not go with the rest. Mother used to look at me
as if she pitied me, and once she ventured to speak up in favor of my
going; but father said sternly that these sports were the means Satan
used to win away souls from God,--and father was a good deal set in his
way, and mother gave up to him, as she always did.
"Once or twice Ephraim Allen came to our house, but somehow my shyness
came over me when I heard his voice at the door, and I hid myself in the
pantry, and pretended to be very busy turning the cheeses; and so I was,
for I turned them over and over again, till mother came and said I
mustn't waste any more butter. Ephraim stayed and stayed, and kept
talking about the oxbow he had come to see about a great deal longer
than I thought there was any need of; and I could not get courage enough
to go out, though I was sore ashamed and vexed at my foolish shyness.
"So the whole two years slipped away, and good morning was all we had
ever said to each other. About this time I began to notice that Deacon
Lee got in the way of looking at me in meeting, and his face was very
sober, as if something displeased him. Semantha, too, would push past me
in going in and out, and didn't speak to me as she always used to do
before she went down to Boston to make that long visit among her
relations. Deacon Lee had a brother living in Boston who was said to be
a very rich man. Father was at his house once when he went down to sell
the butter and wool,--as he did every winter,--and he said we could not
imagine how beautiful it was,--carpets on all the floors, and even in
the entry, which mother thought must make a deal of work with people
coming in and out, especially in wet weather. But then father said the
Lees had negro servants to do the work, and that Mrs. Lee and her
daughters had nothing to do but sit in the parlor all day long. When
Semantha came back after her long visit, she brought a great many fine
things that her cousins had given her. She used to come into meeting,
her high-heeled slippers clattering, and her clocked stockings showing
clear down to the peaked toe; she wore a pink crape gown, and over that
a white muslin cape that came just down to the waist in the back, and
crossed over in front, and was pinned to her gown at the corners; it was
bound around with blue lutestring, and her bonnet had a blue bow on it.
It was a Navarino bonnet, and cost an extravagant price, seeing that it
couldn't be done over.
"None of us had ever seen such fine things before; and when Semantha
came in, Elder Crane might as well have sat down, for everybody looked
at Semantha. I thought it was well that her bonnet hid her face; for if
she was like me, it must have been crimson. I am sure I should have died
of mortification to have been so stared at.
"Mother said she feared it was sinful for a deacon's daughter to make
such a display, and wondered if Semantha remembered what the Apostle
Paul says of the ornaments that women ought to wear.
"But in talking of Semantha, I have forgotten Deacon Lee's queer
behavior. He would look at me awhile, and then at Ephraim Allen. It was
so curious, I began to fear that he was deranged. But at last I found
out what it meant.
"One day as I was coming out of meeting, and Ephraim had just said,
'Good morning,' I looked around and there was Deacon Lee close beside
us, watching us with a severe expression in his face. 'Young man,' said
he, and the tone was so awful that I trembled all over,--'young man, I
have noticed for some time past your attempts to attract the attention
of this young woman, who, I am grieved to say,'--turning to me,--'does
not receive this notice as she ought. Instead of assuming an expression
of severe reproof, she blushes from time to time, and casts down her
eyes, and I cannot discover from her face that this ungodly conduct is
displeasing to her.'
"I was so overwhelmed by this rebuke that I could not look up or speak,
and in a minute more I should have cried in good earnest It was
Ephraim's voice that stopped me. 'I am sure I beg Mercy's pardon and
yours, Deacon, if I have done anything improper. I suppose I looked at
her because my eye couldn't find a pleasanter resting-place. You won't
pretend that Elder Crane is handsome enough to make it a pleasure to
look at _him_.'
"I was astonished, and Deacon Lee looked horrified, but Ephraim's face
glowed all over with smiles.
"'Ephraim Allen,' said the Deacon sternly, 'if you were a professor, I
should present you to the church for irreverence. As it is, I have done
my duty';--and with that he went away.
"Most of the people had left the meeting-house by this time, but a good
many of them were turning back to look at me where I stood near Deacon
Lee and Ephraim Allen. I suppose they didn't know what it could mean;
for in those days we always Walked soberly home from service, not
profaning the holy day by common talk. And this was the reason that I
was surprised and frightened when Ephraim, instead of going away by
himself, walked down the steps with me, and along the road at my side.
It was a good two miles home, and I had happened to come alone that day,
father being laid up with a cut in his foot, and mother staying at home
to nurse him.
"The path was a beautiful one, leading through deep, still woods, now
coming out into the edge of a clearing, and now running along a
brookside where there were flowers nodding over the water, and
bird's-nests in the thick grass on the bank; I thought sometimes that
the walk did me as much good as going to church, particularly if I came
alone, and stopped now and then to read my Bible by the way.
"So we walked along, Ephraim and I; and presently we passed a great
clump of witch-hazel bushes that were in all their bridal white, and
Ephraim picked a bunch of the flowers, and gave them to me. He had not
spoken a word since we started, but now he said, 'Are you very much put
out with Deacon Lee, Mercy?'
"This made me feel very much ashamed again, but I said I hoped I knew
better than to bear anger against anybody; and then--quite excited and
eager--I said I wanted him to forgive me if I had looked his way more
than was proper, and not think I meant to be forward or unmaidenly. And
Ephraim made reply that he would never believe any ill of me, no, not if
all the deacons in the world were to testify to it; and he said that he
owed Deacon Lee thanks for so bringing us together, for he should never
have had the courage to come to me, though he longed for a sight of my
face every day, and was constant at church, never missing a Sunday, so
that he might see me. All this he said in such an earnest, sincere
manner, and his voice was so gentle that I could not rebuke him, though
I feared that his heart was in a dark, unregenerate state, if he cared
so much more for me than for Elder Crane's sermons.
"You won't care to have an old woman tell any more of her love-story.
Now-a-days these things are all written in novels, and I should think
the bloom of a girl's delicacy must be long gone before she hears such
words said to herself. Then it was different. I had never dreamed of
anything so beautiful.
"The woods were very still all around us, only once in a while a bird
would sing out, and then the silence fall again all the sweeter for the
song. When the woods opened we caught glimpses of the green grain-fields
and orchards in blossom. A chipmonk darted across the path, and,
scampering up into a beech-tree, clung to the great brown hole, and
looked down at us, perking his head so mischievously that I could not
help thinking he knew our secret. And so on and on. I've often thought
that walk was like the life we lived together, and a prophecy of
it,--bright, and full of songs and flowers and sweetness, leading
sometimes through shady places, but never losing sight of God's sweet
heaven, never missing the warm winds of its inspiration and its hope.
"But before this a dark time was to come.
"We must have been a good while going home, for when we came in sight of
the house there was mother standing in the door, shading her eyes with
her hand, and watching for us, and all at once I remembered that she
must have been anxious; there were bears in those woods, and the next
winter one was killed in the very path where we walked.
"When mother saw us coming, she smiled, and came down to the road to
meet us, and shook hands with Ephraim in such a friendly way that my
heart danced; I had been thinking what if father and mother should not
approve of him.
"Father was friendly too, and while they sat in the fore-room, and
talked, mother made some of her cream biscuits for tea. Now I knew by
this that Ephraim would find favor in her eyes, because in our house
all unnecessary labor was forbidden on the Sabbath, and no small thing
could have tempted mother to break over this rule. When I went to call
them to supper, I knew that Ephraim had been speaking to father, and
that he was kindly disposed towards Ephraim. Father named me in asking
the blessing, and Ephraim also, speaking of him so tenderly that it
brought the tears to my eyes.
"All the rest of that summer is very dear to remember. When I think over
my life, much of it seems misty and far away; but that summer is as
distinct to my mind as it was when its roses had but just faded, just as
sweet and wonderful in its sunshine, its blue skies, its fresh-blowing
winds, its birds and flowers, as it seemed to me then,--only now I know
what it was that so glorified it.
"Ephraim had a much greater flow of spirits than I had. I was grave
beyond my years. But I caught the love of fun from him, and mother and
father wondered at the change in me. I think a girl always changes when
she is engaged. A whole world of feeling that has slept is now awakened.
Even shallow women bloom out for a brief time, and sparkle and shine
wonderfully. To be sure they fade full soon oftentimes, and only the dry
leaves are left of all the charm and fragrance.
"And so autumn came, and winter, and with the winter the frolics which
Ephraim was so fond of, and which he persisted stoutly were as innocent
as church-going. But father was so disturbed when I spoke of going that
I gave it up at once, and told Ephraim that, as long as I lived at home,
I couldn't feel right to disobey father. So at first Ephraim stayed
contentedly with me, but by and by the old love stirred. A bit of
dance-music would start his color, and set his feet in motion, and it
was plain to see where his heart was. I was sorely grieved at this; nay,
I was more than grieved. I wanted him all to myself. I could not bear
that he should need anything but me. Ephraim said I was exacting, and I
thought him cold and unkind. And so there gradually grew up a coldness
between us; and yet the coldness was all on my side. Ephraim was always
gentle, even when I was pettish and cross. For so I was. It was partly
physical. I was not well that winter. I did not sleep, or when I did by
fits and starts, I woke frightened and crying. Now, my doctor would call
it nervous sensitiveness; but then people did not give fine names to
their humors, and mother only looked sorry, and said she was afraid I
was growing ill-tempered.
"While things were in this state, Ephraim's mother invited me to come
and spend a week with them. I didn't feel acquainted, and I was shy
about going; but Ephraim urged it, and mother advised it, and so at last
I consented to go.
"I was a good deal mortified that I had nothing nice to wear. My best
gown had been in use two winters, and there were only three breadths in
the skirt, and Semantha Lee said that nobody in Boston thought of making
up less than four. But mother's wise counsel reconciled me. She said
that the Allens knew we had no money to spend on fine clothes, and would
only expect me to be clean and neat and well-behaved.
"Ephraim, too, praised me boldly to my face, and pretended to think that
nothing could be so becoming as my faded hood. It was yellow silk, and
was made out of a turban that mother had worn when she was a girl.
"After I was in the sleigh with Ephraim, all my unhappiness and anxiety
fled, and I enjoyed every bit of the ride. It was a lonely road, and
part of the way it went through the woods where the lately fallen snow
lay in pure white sheets that were written all over with the tracks of
birds, and rabbits and other wild animals; and the stillness of the
great woods was so deep and solemn that our love-talk was silenced, and
we rode on singing hymns. Then out of the woods, and sweeping down into
a hollow where pleasant farms were nestled snugly together, and so up
to Ephraim's door. Mr. Jacob Allen was a forehanded farmer, and the
house was by far the best in town.
"When we drove up to the door, Mary Allen was at the window, watching
for us. She ran out to the sleigh, and when Ephraim told her here was
her sister Mercy, she laughed, and shook hands,--women did not kiss each
other then,--and said she was glad I was come to stay a week. So my
meeting her was not at all dreadful.
"While Ephraim went around to put up the horse, Mary took me into the
fore-room, where there was a fire, and helped me with my things, and was
as sociable as if she had known me all her life.
"The room was a great deal nicer than anything I had ever seen. I was
almost afraid to step on the carpet at first; but then I remembered that
it must have been meant to be stepped on, or it wouldn't have been laid
on the floor.
"Pretty soon Mrs. Allen and Prudence came in. Mrs. Allen was a very
notable woman, and when she had told me how she made her cheese, and
that she put down her butter in cedar firkins,--she seemed to think that
pine ones were not fit for a Christian to use, and that my mother must
be a terribly shiftless person to put up with them,--she said she must
go and see to the pies that were baking. I don't think she was still
five minutes at a time while I was there, but just driving about the
house from morning till night. And yet there were her two girls to help
her, and mother and I did the work for eight, and took in spinning all
the year round.
"I think Prudence didn't like housework. She was very intimate with
Semantha Lee; and what Semantha said and did and wore was pretty much
all her talk. All that week she was at work on old gowns, altering them
to be like Semantha's. Prudence didn't seem to fancy me at the very
first; and though I don't want to speak evil of her, she was certainly
rather a hard person to get along with.
"One day she would remark that I would be quite good-looking if my nose
wasn't such a pug. And another day that it was a pity I had red hair,
for really my other features were not so bad; and she said that my gown
was just like one she had hung up in the garret; and so in this way she
picked me to pieces, until it seemed as if she couldn't find a good
thing in me. But this was not as bad as the way in which she talked to
me about Semantha.
"Nobody was so handsome or so good or so smart as Semantha; and Deacon
Lee was the most forehanded man in town. As a great secret, she told me
that Ephraim and Semantha were once as good as engaged, and she didn't
doubt, if anything should happen to break up the match between Ephraim
and me, that Ephraim would go back to Semantha.
"I was terribly angry at this, and I felt my lips stiffen, and it was as
much as I could do to say, 'What could happen to break our engagement?
Ephraim is solemnly promised to me, and it is just the same in God's
sight as if we were married.'
"Prudence looked at me a minute, and then said she 'had no idea I had
such a temper. She had heard that I talked of uniting with the church,
but after what she had seen, she shouldn't think--' And here she
stopped, and it was as much what was not said as what she did say that
vexed me so. I was heartily thankful that she was only a half-sister to
Ephraim, for I began to fear I should hate her.
"With all this Mary did not seem to dare to be her own pleasant self,
and even Ephraim acted as if he wasn't quite at his ease. I began to be
sadly homesick. I almost hated the sight of the carpet on the floor, and
the high-curtained bedstead, and the tall chimney-glass, and I longed
for the love and peace of my humble home.
"I had been at Mrs. Allen's three days, when Semantha Lee came over to
spend the day. She came in the morning, and sent back the hired man
with the sleigh, because she meant to stay all night with Prudence.
"Semantha was dressed very elegantly. She had a scarlet cloth cloak that
came down to the bottom of her gown, and the gown itself was green silk,
with great bishop sleeves lined with buckram, so that they stood out,
and rattled like a drum when they hit against anything. Mary laughed at
her because she could not go through our chamber door without turning
sidewise; but Semantha said they were all the fashion in Boston.
"She was very lively and full of fun that day, though she didn't take
much notice of me. In the evening we had popped corn and apples, and
when we pared the apples and threw down the long coils of peel,
Semantha's took the shape of a letter E. She laughed and blushed, and
pretended to be very much vexed, but she was really as pleased as she
could be. Mary whispered to me not to mind, and said Prudence had given
the peel a sly push with her foot to shape the E; but for all that I
could hardly help crying.
"That night all of us girls slept in the great double-bedded room.
Semantha was with Prudence; and long after Mary was asleep I could hear
them whispering, and every minute or two I would catch Ephraim's name.
"I did not sleep much that night, and in the morning I was almost sick.
Ephraim was very kind, and when Prudence said she was going to invite in
some of the young people of the neighborhood that evening, he wanted her
to put it off; but Prudence said she guessed I would be better,--she
thought people could throw off sickness if they tried to do so. At this
Semantha laughed so disagreeably, and looked over at Ephraim in so
significant a way, that I am afraid I almost hated her.
"The company came in the evening,--five or six merry young girls and
young men. If my head and heart had been right, I could have enjoyed it
too. But my head ached, and for the rest you would have thought it was
Semantha who was engaged to Ephraim, and not I.
"There was a young man there named Elihu Parsons. He was very
handsome,--too handsome for a man,--and what with this and his pleasant
ways he was a great favorite with the girls. I had only seen him once or
twice, but he remembered me, and came and sat by me while the games were
going on. I thought this was very good of him, for nobody was so much
called for as he; but he would not leave me, and was so sociable and
pleasant that I tried to brighten up and entertain him as well as I
could. We were in the midst of our talk, when I happened to glance up
and saw Ephraim looking over at us,--looking, too, as I had never seen
him. All at once it flashed upon me that I could make him suffer as he
had made me. From that moment an evil spirit possessed me. I felt my
cheeks flush; my heart beat fast; I was full of wild gayety. I sang
songs when they asked me. Elihu asked me to dance, and I danced,--I, who
had never taken a step before in my life. I felt as light as air; I
seemed to float through the figure.
"Ephraim never came near me the whole evening, but Elihu kept close to
me, and we had a great deal of talk that I am glad to have forgotten.
But I remember that he laughed at Semantha Lee, and made fun of her hair
that he said was like tow, and her eyes that squinted, and her mincing
gait; and I listened, and felt a malicious pleasure in this dispraise of
Semantha. Through it all my head ached terribly, and I stupidly wondered
how I dared be such a wicked girl, and what my mother would say if she
knew it.
"By and by it was ten o'clock, and then Semantha suddenly discovered
that she must go home. Mrs. Allen tried to persuade her to stay. But no!
It was going to snow, she said, and she would not stay. Then Prudence
said, if she _must_ go, Ephraim would take her home in the sleigh,
which, of course, was just what Semantha wanted.
"I don't know what made me do it, but upon this I rose and went over to
where they were standing, and said that Elihu Parsons was going directly
past Deacon Lee's, and would be happy to take Semantha, and that I would
rather Ephraim should not go.
"Prudence lifted up both hands, as if she was too horrified to speak,
and looked at Semantha. Semantha giggled. She was one of those girls who
are always laughing foolishly.
"As for Ephraim, his face was dark, and his voice was cold and hard, as
he said, 'From what we have seen tonight, Mercy, I don't think it can
make much difference to you what I do'; and then, without another word,
went out.
"Presently I heard the sleigh-bells, and in a moment Ephraim came in at
the front door. I hurried out to him. I would make one more effort, I
thought.
"He stopped on seeing me.
"'Are you going to leave me for Semantha? You are very unkind to me!' I
said passionately.
"'You are foolish, Mercy. Semantha is our guest, and I have shown her no
more attention than she has a right to.'
"'Can't you see, Ephraim?' I cried. 'Don't you know that she came here
on purpose to make trouble between you and me, and that Prudence is
helping her?'
"He looked surprised, then wholly incredulous. 'You are mistaken, Mercy.
You are prejudiced against Semantha.'
"I grew angry. I did not know that many men, acute enough to all else,
are stone-blind where the wiles of a woman are concerned. 'You may go
then, if you like. I see you don't care for me,' I said bitterly.
"'You know I do care for you,' said Ephraim. His voice was softer. I
might have won him then, if I would have stooped to persuade. But I
would not. My pride was hurt. I turned away from him.
"Presently Semantha came out and they drove off.
"Pretty soon Elihu Parsons brought his sleigh round, flung down the
reins, and came in to say good night. He held my hand and lingered,
talking, when I was eager for his going. My gayety had fled, and every
word cost me a pang. At last he said, 'I am going by your house. Can I
carry any message for you?'
"A wild thought darted into my mind, 'Going by our house? O, if I might
go too!'
"'You can!' he said eagerly. 'I will take you with the greatest
pleasure.'
"In an instant I had resolved to go. It seemed to me that I should die
if I stayed under that roof another night. So I begged him to wait a
minute, ran up stairs, packed my things; and came down and told the
family that I was going home. They seemed thunderstruck. Only Prudence
spoke.
"'Very well,' said she. 'But I suppose you know it is all over between
you and Ephraim if you go off in this way.'
"I told her that I knew it was all over, thanks to her, and I hoped it
was a pleasure to her to reflect that she had separated two persons who
would never have had a hard thought of each other but for her. Mary came
out into the entry to me crying, and said she hoped we should make it
up. But I told her that was not likely. And so we drove away.
"I was dull enough now, and Elihu had the talk mostly to himself. It was
not till we were almost home that he said something which roused me up.
And then I was angry with him, and asked him what he thought of me to
suppose I would so readily on with the new love before I was off with
the old. But I had no sooner made this speech than I burst into tears,
and prayed him to forgive me, for I knew I had done wrong, and not say
any more to me, since I was so wretched. I do not know well what reply
he made, for before I had done speaking I was at home. There was the
dear old house I had so longed for,--the little, homely, unpainted
house, with the well-sweep taller than itself, and the great clump of
lilacs by the front door.
"I went up the path unsteadily; my head was swimming, and there was a
curious noise in my ears. I pushed open the door. There was father with
the open Bible before him, and his spectacles lying upon it; the room
was bright with the fire and the light of the pine-knot, and mother was
spinning on the little wheel, as she frequently did in the evening. Her
face wore its own sweet, peaceful look, but when she saw me the
expression changed to one of alarm. She said afterward that I looked
more like a ghost than anything else.
"Why, Mercy!' she cried.
"Father turned slowly round, and beyond that I remember nothing. I fell
on the floor in a dead faint.
"Mother said I talked all night about what had been troubling me.
Through all my delirium, I had an aching consciousness that Ephraim was
lost to me forever. I would rise to go to him, as I thought, but when I
reached the place where he had been, there was only Prudence or
Semantha.
"In the morning the doctor came, and said it was scarlet fever. The
other children had got over it in childhood, but it had waited for me
till now.
"I was very sick for a whole month. All that time mother was an angel of
goodness to me. When I was able to sit up, she told me that Ephraim had
been to inquire for me often. But she said no more, and I could not tell
her the trouble then.
"I was wasted to a shadow, and was as weak as an hour-old babe. Mother
used to tuck me up in the great arm-chair, and then the boys would push
the chair to the window, where I could look out.
"A great snow had fallen during my sickness. It had begun the night I
came home, as Semantha predicted, and the roads had been almost
impassable. But they were quite good again now, and father said the time
had come for him to go down below. It was late in February, and he said
we should not have a great deal more snow, he thought, and if he waited
till the spring thaws came, there would be no getting to Boston.
"It was arranged that the oldest boy at home should go with father, so
that there would be nobody left with mother and me but Jem and David.
Jem was eight years old, and David six come May; but they were both
smart, and we thought, with their help, we could take care of the cattle
till father came back.
"I could not do much yet, and I sat in my arm-chair while mother fried
doughnuts, and baked great loaves of bread, and made puddings, and
roasted chickens, for them to take for food on the journey. Father's way
was to carry his own provisions, and stay at night with friends and
relations along the road; even if the sleighing was good, and nothing
happened, he would be a week or more in going to Boston. So, of course,
the supply must be pretty generous.
"It was a still, bright morning when they set off, with a sky so clear
that father thought there would be no storm for many days. After the
excitement of their starting passed away, it seemed very quiet and
lonesome; for you remember, though I have not said anything about it,
that my heart was aching for its lost love.
"I had said nothing about it to mother yet, but after they were gone,
and the chores done up for the night, and the boys playing with their
cob-houses in the corner, she sat down beside me, saying, 'Now, Mercy,
tell me all about the trouble between you and Ephraim.' As well as I
could for crying, I told her, feeling very much ashamed when I came to
the part about Elihu. But mother was very gentle, and only said, 'I
fear, my child, that savors of an unregenerate heart.'
"That was true. But while I had been sick I had thought very seriously,
and I was thankful I had not been taken away while my heart was in such
a state. I did not dare to tell mother how God's goodness had shone down
upon me while I lay ill in my bed, but I hoped and prayed that it would
not leave me.
"It was a relief as well as pain to see that mother blamed Ephraim. She
said he should not have allowed himself to be deceived and influenced by
Prudence. I told her I was sure he could not have loved me as he ought,
and that I thought I would send back to him the little presents he had
made me, and say that I did not hold him to his promise.
"Mother agreed with me, and the next day I made up the package. There
was a string of gold beads, and a pair of silver shoe-buckles, and a
Chinese fan, and a hymn-book, the bunch of witch-hazel blossoms he
picked for me that day in the woods, and, more precious than all the
rest, a letter, six foolscap pages in length, that he had written in the
fall, while I was visiting my cousin in Keene.
"I could not help crying-while I was putting them up, and I took out the
letter twice, thinking I might keep that. But mother said, if we were
indeed to be separated, it was my duty to forget my love for Ephraim,
else it would darken all my life; and life, she said, was given us for
cheerful praise, and work, which is also praise.
"After I had sent my package by the mail-rider, who passed Mr. Allen's
house every other day, I thought my trouble would be easier to bear. But
every day made it harder. I fell into a miserable torpid state, taking
no interest in anything, and feeling only my misery acutely. I could not
even pray for help, for prayer itself was a cross.
"Mother was very good to me; she gave me light, pleasant work to do,
thinking to keep me busy. But however busy my hands were, my thoughts
were free, and used their freedom to make me suffer.
"Father had been gone eight days, when one afternoon mother came in from
the barn, where she had been to shake down some hay for the cows, with a
face so sober that I was frightened at once.
"'Why, mother! what is the matter?' I cried.
"'I'm worried about your father, child,' she said, and then she went to
the window and looked out.
"'Why, mother, if he started for home yesterday--'
"'He would be just in season to be caught in the snow,' she interrupted,
with a vehemence unnatural to her.
"'Snow, mother!'
"I rose, and went to the window. The sky was full of great masses of
gray clouds, that sometimes parted, and showed a steel-colored
background, intense and cold, and immeasurably distant. Wide before us
spread the waste, white, uninhabited fields,--the nearest house a mile
away, and its chimney only visible above the hills which hid it. A
tawny, brazen belt of light lying along the west, where the sun had gone
down, illuminated the snow, and gave a weird character to the whole
scene. There was a high wind swaying the tops of the tall trees before
the house; and once in a while you would see a fragment of cloud caught
from the great gray curtain, and torn into shreds, or ravelled into a
thin web, which seemed for a moment to shut close down upon us. It was a
strange night, a strange sky.
"I felt a vague alarm. But I tried to speak cheerfully. 'It is too cold
to snow, mother!'
"She pointed to the window. Even as I spoke the air was suddenly
darkened by a multitude of fine flakes, that crowded faster and faster,
and were swirled about by the wind, and quickly built up a wall around
the door.
"As it grew dark the storm increased. The wind, which had been blowing
steadily all day, rose to a gale. It tugged at the doors and windows; it
thundered down the chimney; it caught the little house, and shook it
till the timbers creaked; the noise was truly awful. We got the boys
into the trundle-bed as soon as we could, and then mother brought out
her wheel, and I took my knitting. There was a great blazing fire on the
hearth, and the room was so warm that the yarn ran beautifully. Mother
made out her stint that night; she was a famous spinner, and the wheel
went as fast and the yarn was as even as if she had not been so
dreadfully worried about father. But every few minutes she would stop
and say she hoped he had not started, or that, having set out, he would
be warned in time, and stop by the way.
"It was so strange to see mother, who was usually calm, so put about
that I got very nervous, and was glad when she stopped the wheel, and
twisted up the yarn she had spun. But as she turned around toward me
with it in her hand, she looked so strange that I cried out to know what
was the matter.
"'It is nothing,' she whispered; but I took hold of her, and steadied
her down into the arm-chair, and then ran for the camphor. That brought
her round; but now she looked feverish, and was shaking all over, and I
knew that she was going to have one of her ill turns,--possibly
lung-fever,--for her lungs were but weak, and she rarely got over the
winter without a fever. The thought made me half wild, but I dared not
wait to cry or fret. I knew there was no time to be lost, and I hurried
around, and gave her a warm foot-bath, and kept hot flannels on her
chest, and made her drink a nice bowl of herb tea as soon as she was in
bed; for I thought when the perspiration started she would be relieved.
I was glad enough when the great drops stood on her forehead. Yet the
hard breathing and the rattling in the chest were not cured. I kept
renewing the steaming flannels, as the doctor always directed, till she
fell asleep. She slept almost all night, and I sat in the chair by her,
occasionally rousing up to put more wood on the fire, and listen to the
wind, which still held as fierce as it was at sundown.
"By and by I dozed,--I don't know how long, but I was wakened by hearing
Jem call out, 'Mercy! why don't it come day?'
"I started up. My fire had gone down, and the room was dark. Mother was
breathing heavily beside me.
"'I say, Mercy, isn't it morning? Why don't we get up?' persisted Jem.
"I begged him to be still, and, rising, made my way to the clock. I
could not see the face, but by touching the hands I made out that it
was eight o'clock. I knew now that we were snowed up, and that was the
reason why it was so dark.
"I kindled up the fire and lighted a pine knot. Jem and David came up to
the hearth to dress, half crying and fretting for mother. But I pacified
them with a breakfast of bread and milk, and while they were eating it I
ventured to open a door. There was a solid wall of snow, I looked into
the fore-room,--it was as dark as a cellar. Then I ran up my stairs, and
here the little courage I had forsook me, and I grew weak and sick. For
the snow was already even with the ledge of the chamber window, and all
the outbuildings were as completely hidden as if the earth had swallowed
them in the night.
"I ran down stairs hastily, for I heard mother call.
"She looked up at me anxiously. 'How is it, Mercy?'
"'I'm afraid, mother, we are snowed up,' I said.
"'And I'm sick!'
"Mother was sick. That was the worst side of the trouble. It was a
settled fever by this time, I was sure. We both knew it, we both knew
that no help was to be had, and that she might die for want of it. We
were both silent, neither daring to speak, not knowing how to encourage
and strengthen the other.
"Mother grew worse all day, in spite of all that I could do for her. The
darkness in the house was most depressing, and made the situation
tenfold more painful; though I kept a fire and a light burning as at
evening, I had to be economical of both, for there was only a small
stock of fuel and a handful of pine knots in the house. It was painful
to hear the poor cows at the barn lowing for food, and to know that it
was impossible to reach them. I might, perhaps, have gone out on
snow-shoes and managed to get into the barn by the window in the loft;
but father's shoes were loaned to a neighbor, and, even if they had
been at hand, I should hardly dare to risk my strength, not yet
renovated after my sickness, and, which was so essential to mother's
safety, in an effort that might fail.
"So the hours went on, and the day that was like night wore to a close.
In the evening mother brightened up a little. She was calm now, and for
the time free from pain. There was an unearthly beauty in the large,
bright hollow eyes, and the thin cheeks, where the rose of fever burned.
The disease had worked swiftly. Even this revival might be only a
forerunner of death.
"'I want to tell you, dear,' she said, 'what to do in case I should not
get well.'
"I hid my face in the quilt, and tried not to sob, while she went on, in
a sweet, calm, thoughtful way, to tell me of the things that in my
inexperience I might forget. I must not be wasteful of food or fuel; if
the snow--which was still falling--should cover the chimney so that I
could not make a fire, I must wrap myself and the children in all the
warm things I could find,--there were some new blankets in the chest in
the chamber, she said, that she had meant for me. I must get those if I
needed them. 'And if I am not here to encourage you, my child,' she said
tenderly, 'don't give up hoping. Help cannot be very far off. Some of
the neighbors will come to us, or father will work his way through the
snow, and get home. And, Mercy, don't be afraid of the poor body that I
shall leave behind me. Think of it as the empty house that I have used
for a little while, and be sure it can do you no harm.'
"I promised all she asked, and hid my tears as well as I could. While
she slept, and I could do nothing for her, I kept the children quiet
with playthings and stories. I cooked bread and meat, and made a great
kettle of porridge against the time when we might not be able to have a
fire; I hunted in the garret for bits of old boards and broken
furniture that might serve for fuel.
"For two days the wind held, and then there fell an awful silence as of
the grave.
"Sometimes I read from the Psalms, or from the Gospel of John, which
mother dearly loved; and though she did not take much notice, but lay in
a stupor most of the time, the holy words were comfort and company to
me. At other times I sat in mute grief, watching her painful breathing,
and the gradual pinching and sharpening of her features as the
relentless disease worked upon them. O, it was hard! I don't think many
lives know so much and such utter misery. In my anxiety and grief, and
the mental bewilderment resulting from loss of sleep, I forgot to reckon
the days as they passed.
"But one day, as I sat by mother's pillow, my mind full of the dread
that seemed now as if it might any moment be realized,--of the awfulness
of being left alone in that living tomb with the marble image of what
was and yet was not my mother, the clock struck nine in the morning.
Somewhere the sun was shining, I thought. Somewhere there were happy
lovers, merry-makings in divers places, wedding-bells ringing.
"A faint sound disturbed my revery. I started up and listened intently;
but the noise did not recur, and I dropped my head again, thinking my
fancy had cheated me.
"I don't know why it was that what failed to reach my strained ear found
its way to mother's; but all at once, from having been in a stupid state
from which I could hardly rouse her, she opened her eyes, and said,
'What is that?'
"'Do you hear anything?' I asked, trembling. But before she could
answer, I too heard a shout.
"Help was at hand! And mother might yet be saved!
"I burst into tears, and Jem and David set up a loud cry for company.
Those outside heard it, for the next instant there was a great halloo.
They were cutting their way through the drift,--they came every minute
nearer and nearer. Pretty soon I heard a voice that set my heart beating
and made me sob again. It was Ephraim's.
"'Are you all alive?' he cried.
"'We are all alive, but mother is very sick.'
"I don't know how long it took to tunnel that huge snow-drift. I sat
holding mother's hand till there was a noise at the door. I sprang up
then, and the next instant stood face to face with Ephraim. And we did
not meet as we had parted.
"I was glad to think that we owed our deliverance to him. He had roused
up the neighbors, and they came over that trackless waste on snow-shoes.
On snow-shoes Ephraim went for the doctor, and mother began to mend from
the time of his coming.
"It was a week before father got home. Yet he had come as fast as the
roads would let him, travelling night and day in his eagerness to reach
us. He told us of houses snowed up, and people and animals perishing
miserably. And by God's grace we were saved, even to the cows, which in
their hunger had broken loose from their stalls, and eaten the hay from
the mow.
"And so my life's greatest joy and pain came to me by the storm. It gave
Ephraim back to me. For forty years as man and wife we had never a hard
word.
"'Tis thirty years since he went,--thirty years of Heaven's peace for
him. I did not think to wait so long when he went. The children have
been very good to me, but I've missed their father always. But I shall
go to him soon. Son Ephraim, I am ninety-two to-morrow!"
TOUJOURS AMOUR.
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin,
At what age does Love begin?
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen
Summers three, my fairy queen,
But a miracle of sweets,
Soft approaches, sly retreats,
Show the little archer there,
Hidden in your pretty hair:
When didst learn a heart to win?
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!
"Oh!" the rosy lips reply,
"I can't tell you if I try!
'Tis so long I can't remember:
Ask some younger Miss than I!"
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face,
Do your heart and head keep pace?
When does hoary Love expire,
When do frosts put out the fire?
Can its embers burn below
All that chill December snow?
Care you still soft hands to press,
Bonny heads to smooth and bless?
When does Love give up the chase?
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face!
"Ah!" the wise old lips reply,
"Youth may pass and strength may die;
But of Love I can't foretoken:
Ask some older Sage than I!"
AMONG THE WORKERS IN SILVER.
Excursionists to Lake Superior, when they get away up in the northern
part of Lake Huron, where are those "four thousand islands" lying flat
and green in the sun, without a tree or a hut upon them, see at length,
in the distance, a building like a large storehouse, evidently not made
by Indian hands. The thing is neither rich nor rare; the only wonder is,
how it got there. For many hours before coming in sight of this
building, no sign of human life is visible, unless, perchance, the
joyful passengers catch sight of a dug-out canoe, with a blanket for a
sail, in which an Indian fisherman sits solitary and motionless, as
though he too were one of the inanimate features of the scene. On
drawing near this most unexpected structure, the curiosity of the
travellers is changed into wild wonder. It is a storehouse with all the
modern improvements, and over the door is a well-painted sign, bearing
the words,
RASPBERRY JAM.
If the present writer, when he first beheld this sign, had read thereon,
"Opera-Glasses for hire," or "Kid Gloves cleaned by a new and improved
method," he could not have been more surprised or more puzzled. The
explanation, however, was very simple. Many years ago, it seems, a
Yankee visiting that region discovered thousands upon thousands of acres
of raspberry-bushes hanging full of fruit, and all going to waste. He
also observed that Indian girls and squaws in considerable numbers lived
near by. Putting this and that together, he conceived the idea of a
novel speculation. In the summer following he returned to the place,
with a copper kettle, many barrels of sugar, and plenty of large stone
jars. For one cent a pail he had as many raspberries picked as he could
use; and he kept boiling and jarring until he had filled all his vessels
with jam, when he put them on board a sloop, took them down to Detroit,
and sold them. The article being approved, and the speculation being
profitable, he returned every year to the raspberry country, and the
business grew to an extent which warranted the erection of this large
and well-appointed building. In the Western country, the raspberry jam
made in the region of Lake Huron has been for twenty years an
established article of trade. We had the curiosity once to taste tarts
made of it, and can testify that it was as bad as heart could wish. It
appeared to be a soggy mixture of melted brown sugar and small seeds.
But that is neither here nor there. The oddity of our adventure was in
discovering such an establishment in such a place. Since that time we
have often had similar surprises, especially in New England, where
curious industries have established themselves in the most
out-of-the-way nooks. In a hamlet of three or four houses and a church,
we see such signs as "Melodeon Manufactory." At a town in Northern
Vermont we find four hundred men busy, the year round, in making those
great Fairbanks Scales, which can weigh an apple or a train of cars.
There is nothing in St. Johnsbury which marks it out as the town in the
universe fittest to produce huge scales for mankind. The business exists
there because, forty years ago, there were three excellent heads in the
place upon the shoulders of three brothers, who put those heads
together, and learned how to make and how to sell scales. All over New
England, industries have rooted themselves which appear to have no
congruity with the places in which they are found. We heard the other
day of a village in which are made every year three bushels of gold
rings. We ourselves passed, some time ago, in a remarkably plain New
England town, a manufactory of fine diamond jewelry. In another
town--Providence--there are seventy-two manufactories of common jewelry.
Now what is there in the character or in the situation of this city of
Roger Williams, that should have invited thither so many makers of cheap
trinkets? It is a solid town, that makes little show for its great
wealth, and contains less than the average number of people capable of
wearing tawdry ornaments. Nevertheless, along with machine-shops of
Titanic power, and cotton-mills of vast extent, we find these
seventy-two manufactories of jewelry. The reason is, that, about the
year 1795, one man, named Dodge, prospered in Providence by making such
jewelry as the simple people of those simple old times would buy of the
passing pedler. His prosperity lured others into the business, until it
has grown to its present proportions, and supplies half the country with
the glittering trash which we all despise upon others and love upon
ourselves.
But there is something at Providence less to be expected even than
seventy-two manufactories of jewelry: it is the largest manufactory of
solid silver-ware in the world! In a city so elegant and refined as
Providence, where wealth is so real and stable, we should naturally
expect to find on the sideboards plenty of silver plate; but we were
unprepared to discover there three or four hundred skilful men making
silver-ware for the rest of mankind, and all in one establishment,--that
of the Gorham Manufacturing Company. This is not only the largest
concern of the kind in existence, but it is the most complete. Every
operation of the business, from the melting of the coin out of which the
ware is made, to the making of the packing-boxes in which it is conveyed
to New York, takes place in this one congregation of buildings. Nor do
we hesitate to say, after an attentive examination of the products of
European taste, that the articles bearing the stamp of this American
house are not equalled by those imported. There is a fine simplicity and
boldness of outline about the forms produced here, together with an
absence of useless and pointless ornament, which render them at once
more pleasing and more useful than any others we have seen.
It was while going over this interesting establishment, that the
raspberry-jam incident recurred to us. _This_ thing, however, is both
rich and rare; and yet the wonder remains how it got there. It got there
because, forty years ago, an honest man began there a business which has
grown steadily to this day. It got there just as all the rooted
businesses of New England got where we find them now. In the brief
history of this one enterprise we may read the history of the industry
of New England. Not the less, however, ought the detailed history to be
written; for it would be a book full of every kind of interest and
instruction.
It was an honest man, we repeat, who founded this establishment. We
believe there is no house of business of the first class in the world,
of thirty years' standing, the success of which is not clearly traceable
to its serving the public with fidelity. An old clerk of Mr. A. T.
Stewart of New York informed us that, in the day of small things, many
years ago, when Mr. Stewart had only a retail dry-goods store of
moderate extent, one of the rules of the establishment was this: "_Don't
recommend goods; but never fail to point out defects_." Now a man
struggling with the difficulties of a new business, who lays down a rule
of that nature, must be either a very honest or a very able man. He is
likely to be both, for sterling ability is necessarily honest. It is not
surprising, therefore, that Mr. Stewart is now the monarch of the
dry-goods trade in the world; and we fully believe that the history of
all _lasting_ success would disclose a similar root of honesty. In all
the businesses which have to do with the precious metals and precious
stones, honesty is the prime necessity; because in them, though it is
the easiest thing in the world to cheat, the cheat is always capable of
being detected and proved. A great silver-house holds itself bound to
take back an article of plate made forty years ago, if it is discovered
that the metal is not equal in purity to the standard of the silver coin
of the country in which it was made. The entire and perfect natural
honesty, therefore, of Jabez Gorham, was the direct cause of the
prosperity of the house which he founded. He is now a serene and healthy
man of eighty-two, long ago retired from business. He walks about the
manufactory, mildly wondering at the extent to which its operations have
extended. "It is grown past me," he says with a smile; "I know nothing
about all this."
In the year 1805, this venerable old man was an apprentice to that Mr.
Dodge who began in Providence the manufacture of ear-rings, breastpins,
and rings,--the only articles made by the Providence jewellers for many
years. In due time Jabez Gorham set up for himself; and he added to the
list of articles the important item of watch-chains of a peculiar
pattern, long known in New England as the "Gorham chain." The old
gentleman gives an amusing account of the simple manner in which
business was done in those days. When he had manufactured a trunkful of
jewelry, he would jog away with it to Boston, where, after depositing
the trunk in his room, he would go round to all the jewellers in the
city to inform them of his arrival, and to say that his jewelry would be
ready in his room for inspection on the following morning at ten
o'clock, and not before. Before the appointed hour every jeweller in the
town would be at his door; but as it was a point of honor to give them
all an equal chance, no one was admitted till the clock struck, when all
pushed in in a body. The jewelry was spread out on the bed, around which
all the jewellers of Boston, in 1820, could gather without crowding.
Each man began by placing his hat in some convenient place, and it was
in his hat that he deposited the articles selected by him for purchase.
When the whole stock had been transferred from the bed to the several
hats, Mr. Gorham took a list of the contents of each; whereupon the
jewellers packed their purchases, and carried them home. In the course
of the day, the bills were made out; and the next morning Mr. Gorham
went his rounds and collected the money. The business being thus happily
concluded, he returned to Providence, to work uninterruptedly for
another six months. In this manner, Jabez Gorham conducted business for
sixteen years, before he ever thought of attempting silver-ware. Such
was his reputation for scrupulous honesty, that, for many years before
he left the business, none of his customers ever subjected his work to
any test whatever, not even to that of a pair of scales. It is his
boast, that, during the whole of his business career of more than half
a century, he never sold an article of a lower standard of purity than
the one established by law or by the nature of the precious metals.
About the year 1825, some Boston people discovered that a tolerable
silver spoon could be made much thinner than the custom of the trade had
previously permitted, and that these thin spoons could be sold by
pedlers very advantageously. The consequence of this discovery was, that
silver spoons became an article of manufacture in Boston, whence pedlers
conveyed them to the remotest nooks of New England. One day, in 1830,
the question occurred to Jabez Gorham, Why not make spoons in
Providence, and sell them to the pedlers who buy our jewelry? The next
time he took his trunk of trinkets to Boston, he looked about him for a
man who knew something of the art of spoon-making. One such he found, a
young man just "out of his time," whom he took back with him to
Providence, where he established him in an odd corner of his jewelry
shop. In this small way, thirty-seven years ago, the business began
which has grown to be the largest and most complete manufactory of
silver-ware in the world. For the first ten years he made nothing but
spoons, thimbles, and silver combs, with an occasional napkin-ring, if
any one in Providence was bold enough to order one. Businesses grew very
slowly in those days. It was thought a grand success when Jabez Gorham,
after nearly twenty years' exertion, had fifteen men employed in making
spoons, forks, thimbles, napkin-rings, children's mugs, and such small
ware. Nor would Mr. Gorham, of his own motion, have ever carried the
business much farther; certainly not to the point of producing articles
that approach the rank of works of art. We have heard the old gentleman
say, that he often stood at a store-window in Boston, wondering by what
process certain operations were performed in silver, the results of
which he saw before him in the form of pitchers and teapots.
But in due course of time Mr. John Gorham, the present head of the
house, eldest son of the founder, came upon the scene,--an aspiring,
ingenious young man, whose nature it was to excel in anything in which
he might chance to engage. The silversmith's art was then so little
known in the United States that neither workmen nor information could be
obtained here in its higher branches. Mr. John Gorham crossed the ocean
soon after coming of age, and examined every leading silver
establishment in Europe. He was freely admitted everywhere, as no one in
the business had ever thought of America as a possible competitor; still
less did any one see in this quiet Yankee youth the person who was to
annihilate the American demand for European, silver-ware, and produce
articles which famous European houses would servilely copy. From the
time of Mr. John Gorham's return dates the eminence of the present
company, and of the production of the costlier kinds of silver-ware, on
a great scale, in the United States. From first to last, the company
have induced sixty-three accomplished workmen to come from Europe and
settle in Providence, some of whom might not unjustly be enrolled in the
list of artists.
The war gave an amazing development to this business, as it did to all
others ministering to pleasure or the sense of beauty. When the war
began, in 1861, the Gorham Company employed about one hundred and fifty
men; and in 1864 this number had increased to four hundred, all engaged
in making articles of solid silver. Even with this great force the
company were sometimes unable to supply the demand for their beautiful
products. On Christmas morning, 1864, there was left in the store in
Maiden Lane, New York, but seven dollars' worth of ware, out of an
average stock of one hundred thousand dollars' worth. Perhaps we ought
not to be surprised at this. Consider our silver weddings. It is not
unusual for several thousands of dollars' worth of silver to be
presented on these occasions,--in one recent instance, sixteen thousand
dollars' worth was given. And what lady can be married, now-a-days,
without having a few pounds of silver given to her? For Christmas
presents, of course, silver-ware is always among the objects dangerous
to the sanity of those who go forth, just before the holidays, with a
limited purse and unlimited desires.
What particularly surprises the visitor to the Gorham works at
Providence is to see labor-saving machinery--the ponderous steam-hammer,
the stamping and rolling apparatus--employed in silver work, instead of
the baser metals to which they are usually applied. Nothing is done by
hand which can be done by machinery; so that the three hundred men
usually employed in solid ware are in reality doing the work of a
thousand. The first operation is to buy silver coin in Wall Street. In a
bag of dollars there are always some bad pieces; and as the company
embark their reputation in every silver vessel that leaves the factory,
and are always responsible for its purity, each dollar is wrenched
asunder and its goodness positively ascertained before it is thrown into
the crucible. The subsequent operations, by which these spoiled dollars
are converted into objects of brilliant and enduring beauty, can better
be imagined than described.
New forms of beauty are the constant study of the artist in silver. One
large apartment in the Gorham establishment--the artists' room--is a
kind of magazine or storehouse of beautiful forms, which have been
gathered in the course of years by Mr. George Wilkinson, the member of
the company who has charge of the designing, and who is himself a
designer of singular taste, fertility, and judgment. Here are deposited
copies or drawings of all the former products of the establishment. Here
is a large and most costly library of illustrated works in every
department of art and science. Mr. Wilkinson gets ideas from works upon
botany, sculpture, landscape,--from ancient bas-reliefs and modern
porcelain; but, more frequently, from those large volumes which exhibit
the glories of architecture. "The first requisite," he maintains, "of a
good piece of silver-plate is that it be _well built_." The artist in
silver has also to keep constantly in view the practical and commercial
limitations of his art. The forms which he designs must be such as can
be executed with due economy of labor and material, such as can be
easily cleaned, and such as will please the taste of the
silver-purchasing public. It is by his skill in complying with these
inexorable conditions, while producing forms of real excellence, that
Mr. Wilkinson has given such celebrity to the articles made by the
company to which he belongs.
Few of us, however, will ever be able to buy the dinner-sets, the
tea-sets, the gorgeous salvers, and the tall epergnes with which the
warerooms of this manufactory are filled. A silver salver of large size
costs a thousand dollars. A complete dinner-set for a party of
twenty-four costs twelve thousand dollars. The price of a nice tea-set
can easily run into three thousand dollars. We noticed one small vase
(six or eight inches high) exquisitely chased on two sides, which Mr.
Wilkinson assured us it cost the company about seven hundred dollars to
produce. There are, as yet, but two or three persons in all America who
would be likely to become purchasers of the articles in silver which
rank in Europe as works of art, and which are strictly entitled to that
distinction. The wonder is who buys the massive utilities that are
stacked away in such profusion in Maiden Lane. The Gorham Company have
always in course of manufacture about three tons of silver, and usually
have a ton of finished work for sale.
An important branch of their business is one recently introduced,--the
manufacture of a very superior kind of plated ware, intended to combine
the strength of baser metal with the beauty of silver. The manufacture
of such ware has attained great development in England of late years,
owing chiefly to the application of the mysterious power of electricity
to the laying-on of the silver. We must discourse a little upon this
admirable application of science to the arts.
Hamlet amused his friend Horatio by tracing the noble dust of Alexander
till he found it stopping a bunghole. If we trace the course of
discovery that resulted in this beautiful art, we shall have to reverse
Hamlet's order: we must begin with the homely object, and end with
magnificent ones. Electroplating, electrotyping, the electric telegraph,
and many other arts and wonders, all go back to that dish of frogs which
the amiable and fond Professor Galvani was preparing for his sick wife's
dinner one day, about the year 1787. It was a curious reflection, when
we were illuminating our houses to celebrate the laying of the first
Atlantic cable, that this bewildering and unique triumph of man over
nature had no more illustrious origin than the legs of an Italian frog.
We are aware that the honor _has_ been claimed for a Neapolitan mouse.
There _is_ a story in the books of a mouse in Naples that had the
impudence, in 1786, to bite the leg of a professor of medicine, and was
caught in the act by the professor himself, who punished his audacity by
dissecting him. While doing so, he observed that, when he touched a
nerve of the creature with his knife, its limbs were slightly convulsed.
The professor was struck with the circumstance, was puzzled by it,
mentioned it, and it was recorded; but as nothing further came of it, no
connection can be established between that mouse and the splendors of
silver-plated ware and the wonders of the telegraph. The claims of
Professor Galvani's frog rest upon a sure foundation of fact. Signora
Galvani--so runs one version of the story--lay sick upon a couch in a
room in which there was that chaos of domestic utensils and
philosophical apparatus that may still be observed sometimes in the
abodes of men addicted to science. The Professor himself had prepared
the frogs for the stew-pan, and left them upon a table near the
conductor of an electrical machine. A student, while experimenting with
the machine, chanced to touch with a steel instrument one of the frogs
at the intersection of the legs. The sick lady observed that, as often
as he did so, the legs were convulsed, or, as we now say, were
_galvanized_. Upon her husband's return to the room, she mentioned this
strange thing to him, and he immediately repeated the experiment.
From 1760 to 1790, as the reader is probably aware, all the scientific
world was on the _qui vive_ with regard to electricity. The most
brilliant reputations of that century had been won by electric
discoveries. Franklin was still alive, to reward with his benignant
approval those who should contribute anything valuable after his own
immense additions to man's knowledge of this alluring and baffling
element. It was, therefore, as much the spirit of the time as the genius
of the man, that made Galvani seize this new fact with eagerness, and
investigate it with untiring enthusiasm. It was a sad day for the frogs
of the Pope's dominions when Signora Galvani observed those two naked
legs fly apart and crook themselves with so much animation. There was
slaughter in the swamps of Bologna for many a month thereafter. For
mankind, however, it was a day to be held in everlasting remembrance,
since it was then that was taken the first step toward the galvanic
battery!
As fortune favors the brave, so accident aids the ingenious. After
Professor Galvani had touched the muscles and nerves of many frogs with
the spark drawn from the electrical machine, another accident occurred
which led directly to the discovery of the galvanic battery. Having
skinned a frog, he chanced to hang it by a _copper_ hook upon an _iron_
nail; and thus, without knowing it, he brought together the elements of
a battery,--two metals and a wet frog. His object in hanging up this
frog was to see if the electricity of the atmosphere would produce any
effects, however slight, similar to those produced when the spark of
the machine was applied to the creature. It did not. After watching his
frog awhile, the Professor was proceeding to take it down, and while in
the act of doing so the legs were convulsed! Struck with this
occurrence, he replaced the frog, took it down again, put it back, took
it down, until he discovered that, as often as the damp frog (still
hanging upon its copper hook) touched the iron nail, the contraction of
the muscles took place, as if the frog had been touched by a conductor
connected with an electrical machine. This experiment was repeated
hundreds of times, and varied in as many ways as mortal ingenuity could
devise. Galvani at length settled down upon the method following: he
wrapped the nerves taken from the loins of a frog in a leaf of tin, and
placed the legs of the frog upon a plate of copper; then, as often as
the leaf of tin was brought in contact with the plate of copper, the
legs of the frog were convulsed.
People regard Charles Lamb's story of the discovery of roast pig as a
most extravagant and impossible fiction; but, really, Professor Galvani
comported himself very much in the manner of that great discoverer. It
was no more necessary to employ the frog's nerves in the production of
the electricity, than it was necessary to burn down a house in roasting
pig for dinner. The poor frog contributed nothing to it but his
dampness,--as every boy in a telegraph office now perceives. He was
merely the _wet_ in the small galvanic battery. Professor Galvani,
however, exulting in his discovery, leaped to the conclusion that this
electricity was not the same as that produced by friction. He thought he
had discovered the long-sought something by which the muscles move
obedient to the will. "All creatures," he wrote, "have an electricity
inherent in their economy, which resides specially in the nerves, and is
by the nerves communicated to the whole body. It is secreted by the
brain. The interior substance of the nerves is endowed with a
conducting power for this electricity, and facilitates its movement and
its passage from one part of the nervous system to another; while the
oily coating of these organs hinders the dissipation of the fluid, and
permits its accumulation." He also thought that the muscles were the
Leyden jars of the animal system, in which the electricity generated by
the brain and conducted by the nerves was hoarded up for use. When a man
was tired, he had merely used his electricity too fast; when he was
fresh, his Leyden jars were all full.
The publication of these experiments in 1791, accompanied by Galvani's
theory of animal electricity, produced a sensation in scientific circles
only inferior to that caused by Franklin's demonstration of the identity
of lightning with electricity, thirty years before. The murder of
innocent frogs extended from the marshes of Bologna to the swamps of all
Christendom. "Wherever," says a writer of the time, "frogs were to be
found and two different metals could be procured, every one was anxious
to see the mangled limbs of frogs brought to life in this wonderful
way." Or, as Lamb says, in the dissertation upon Roast Pig: "The thing
took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fire in every
direction." At first the facts and the theory of Galvani were equally
accepted; and a grateful world insisted upon styling the new science, as
it was deemed, "Galvanism." Thus a word was added to all the languages,
which has been found useful in its literal sense, and forcible in its
figurative. Whatever we may think of Galvani's philosophy, we cannot
deny that he immortalized his name. He died a few years after, fully
satisfied with his theory, but having no suspicion of the many, the
peculiar, the marvellous results that were to flow from the chance
discovery of the fact, that a moist frog placed between two different
metals was a kind of electrical machine.
Among the Italians who caught at Galvani's discovery, the most skilful
and learned was Professor Volta, of Como, who had been an ardent
electrician from his youth. Many of our readers have seen this year the
colossal statue of that great man, which adorns his native city on the
southern shore of the lake. The statue was worthily decreed, because the
matt who contributes ever so little to a grand discovery in
science--provided that little is essential to it--ranks among the
greatest benefactors of his species. And what did the admirable Volta
discover? Reducing the labors of his long life to their simplest
expression, we should say that his just claim to immortality consists in
this,--he found out that the frog had nothing to do with the production
of electricity in Galvani's experiment, but that a wet card or rag would
do as well. This discovery was the central fact of his scientific career
of sixty-four years. It took all of his familiar knowledge of
electricity, acquired in twenty-seven years of entire devotion to the
study, to enable him to interpret Galvani's apparatus so far as to get
rid of the frog; and he spent the remaining thirty-seven years of his
existence in varying the experiment thus freed from that "demd, damp,
moist, unpleasant body." It was a severe affliction to the followers of
Galvani and to the University of Bologna to have their darling theory of
the nervous electricity so rudely yet so unanswerably refuted. "I do not
need your frog!" exclaimed the too impetuous Volta. "Give me two metals
and a moist rag, and I will produce your animal electricity. Your frog
is nothing but a moist conductor, and in this respect is not as good as
a wet rag." This was a decisive fact, and it silenced all but a few of
the disciples of the dead Galvani.
Volta was led to discard the frog by observing that no electric results
followed when the two plates were of the same metal. Suspecting from
this that the frog was merely a conductor (instead of the generator) of
the electric fluid, he tried the experiment with a wet card placed
between two pairs of plates, and thus discovered that the secret lay in
the metals being heterogeneous. But it cost thousands of experiments to
reach this result, and ten years of ceaseless thought and exertion to
arrive at the invention of the "pile," which merely consists of many
pairs of heterogeneous plates, each separated by a moist substance. The
weight of so much metal squeezed the wet cloth dry, and this led to
various contrivances for keeping it wet, resulting at last in the
invention of the familiar "trough-battery," now employed in all
telegraph offices and manufactories of electro-anything. Instead of
Galvani's frog or Volta's wet rag, the conductor is a solution of
sulphuric acid, which Volta himself suggested and employed. The negative
electricity is conveyed to the earth by a wire, and the positive is
conducted from pair to pair, increasing as it goes, until, if the
battery is large enough, it may have the force to send a message round
the world. And the current is continuous. The galvanic battery is an
electrical machine that goes without turning a handle. By the galvanic
battery, electricity is made subservient to man. Among other things, it
sends his messages, faces his type with copper, silvers his coffee-pot,
and coats the inside of his baby's silver mug with shining gold.