IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH
Her words rang in my ears while I went along the crooked pavement under
the burnished sycamore. As I met the General at the corner I was still
hearing them, and they prompted the speech that burst impulsively from
my lips.
"General, I've got to get rich quickly, and I'm finding a way."
"You'd better make sure first that your royal road doesn't end in a
ditch."
"I was talking to a man from West Virginia yesterday about buying out
the National Oil Company, and I dreamed of it all night. He wants me to
go in with him, and start a refining plant. If I can get special
privileges and rebates from the railroads to give us advantages, we may
make a big business of it."
"You may and you mayn't. Who's your man?"
"Sam Brackett. Bob's brother, you know."
"A mighty good fellow, and shrewd, too. But I'd think it over carefully,
if I were you."
I did think it over, and the result of my thoughts was, as I told the
General a fortnight later, the purchase of a refining plant near
Clarksburg, and the beginning of a lively war with the competitors in
the business.
"We're going to sweep the South, General, with the help of the
railroad," I said.
The great man, with his gouty foot in a felt slipper, sat gazing
meditatively over the words of a telegram, which had come on his private
wire.
"Midland stock is selling at 160," he said. "It's a big railroad, my
boy, and I've made it."
Even to-day, with the living presence of Sally still in my eyes, I was
filled again with the old unappeasable desire for the great railroad.
The woman and the road were distinct and yet blended in my thoughts.
At dinner-time, when the General hobbled to his buggy on my arm, I made
again the remark I had blurted out so inopportunely.
"General, I've been to West Virginia and started the plant, and we're
going to give Hail Columbia to our competitors."
He looked at me attentively, and a sly twinkle appeared in his little
watery grey eyes, which were sunk deep in the bluish and swollen
sockets.
"Do you feel yourself getting big, Ben?" he enquired, with a chuckle.
I shook my head. "Not yet, but it's a fair risk and a good chance to
make a big business."
"Well, you're right, I suppose, and if you ain't you'll find out before
long. What's luck, after all, but the thing that enables a man to see a
long way ahead?"
He settled himself under his fur rug, flicked the reins over the old
grey horse, and we drove slowly up Main Street behind a street car.
"I don't know about luck, General, but I'm going to win out if hard
pushing can do it."
"It can do 'most anything if you only push hard, enough. But you talk as
if you were in love, Ben, I've said the same thing a hundred times in my
day, I reckon."
I blushed furiously, and then turning my face from him, stared at a
group of children upon the sidewalk.
"Whom could I marry, General?" I asked. "You know well enough that a
woman in your class wouldn't marry a man in mine--unless--"
"Unless she were over head and heels in love with him," he chuckled.
"Unless he were a great man," I corrected.
"You mean a rich man, Ben? So your oil business is merely a little love
attention, after all."
"No, money has very little to do with it, and the woman I want to marry
wouldn't marry me for money. But it's the mettle that counts, and in
this age, given the position I've started from, how can a man prove his
mettle except by success?--and success does mean money. The president of
the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad is obliged to be a rich
man, isn't he?"
"So you're still after my job, eh? Is that why you've let me bully and
badger you for the last six years?"
"It was at the bottom of it," I answered honestly, for the gay old bird
liked downright speaking, and I knew it. "I'd rather have been your
confidential secretary for six years than general manager of traffic. I
was learning what I wanted to know."
"And what was that?"
"The way you did things. The way you handled men and bought and sold
stocks."
"You like the road, too, eh?"
"I like the road as long as it can be of use to me."
"And when it ceases to be you'll throw it over?"
"Yes, if it ever ceases to be I'll throw it over--honestly," I answered.
"Now that's the thing," he said, "remember always that in handling men
honesty is a big asset. I've always been honest, my boy, and it's helped
me when I needed it. Why, when I came in and got control of the road in
that slump after the war, I was able to reorganise it principally
because of the reputation for honesty I had earned. It was a long time
before it began to pay dividends, but nobody grumbled. They knew I was
doing my best--and that I was doing it fair and square, and to-day we
control nearly twenty thousand miles of road."
"Yes, honesty I've learned in your office, sir."
"Well, it's good training,--it's mighty good training, if I do say it
myself. You could have got with a darn bloater like Dick Horseley, and
he'd have worked your ruin. Now you never saw me lose my head, did you,
eh, Ben?"
I replied that I had not--not even when his private wire had ticked off
news of the last panic.
"Well, I never did," he said reflectively, "except with women. Take my
advice, Ben, and find a good sensible wife, even if she's in your own
class, and marry and settle down. It steadies a man, somehow. I'd be a
long ways happier to-day," he added, a little wistfully, "if I'd taken a
wife when I was young."
I thought of Miss Matoaca, with her bright brown eyes, her withered
roseleaf cheeks, and her sacrifice in the cause of honour.
"Whatever you are don't be an old bachelor," he pursued after a pause,
"it may be pleasant in the beginning, but I'll be blamed if it pays in
the end. Find a good sensible woman who hasn't any opinions of her own,
and you will be happy. But as you value your peace, don't go and fall in
love with a woman who has any heathenish ideas in her head. When a woman
once gets that maggot in her brain, she stops believing in gentleness
and self-sacrifice, and by George, she ceases to be a woman. Every man
knows there's got to be a lot of sacrifice in marriage, and he likes to
feel that he's marrying a woman who is fully capable of making it. A
strong-minded woman can't--she's gone and unsexed herself--and instead
of taking pleasure in giving up, she begins to talk everlastingly about
her 'honour.' Pshaw! the next thing she'll expect to be treated as
punctiliously as if she were a business partner!"
The old wound still ached sometimes, it was easy to see; and because of
his age and his growing infirmities, he found it harder to keep back the
querulous complaints that rose to his lips.
"Now, there's that George of mine," he resumed, still fretting, "he's
probably gone and set his eyes on Sally Mickleborough, and it's as plain
as daylight that she's got a plenty of that outlandish spirit of her
aunt's. I don't mean she's got her notions--I ain't saying any harm of
the girl--she's handsome enough in spite of Hatty's nonsense about her
mouth--and I call it downright scandalous of Edmund Bland to leave every
last penny of his money away from her. But, mark my words, and I tell
George so every single day I live, if she marries George he's going to
have trouble as sure as shot. She's just the kind to expect him to make
sacrifices, and by Jove, no man wants to be expected to make sacrifices
in his own home!"
Sacrifices! My blood sang in my ears. If she would only marry me I'd
promise to make a sacrifice for her every blessed minute that I lived.
"And do you think she likes George, General?" I asked timidly.
"Oh, I don't suppose she knows her own mind," he retorted. "I never in
my life, sir, knew but one woman who did."
We drove on for a minute in silence, and from the red and watery look in
the General's eyes, I inferred that, in spite of his broken engagement
and his bitter judgment, Miss Matoaca had managed to retain her place in
his memory. As I looked at him, sitting there like a wounded eagle,
huddled under his fur rug, a feeling of thanksgiving that was almost one
of rapture swelled in my heart. If I had a plain name, I had also a
clean life to offer the woman I loved. When I remembered the strong,
pure line of her features, her broad, intelligent brow, her clear,
unswerving gaze, I told myself that whatever the world had to say, she,
at least, would consider the difference a fair one. At the great moment
she would choose me, I knew, for myself alone; choose in a democracy the
man who, God helping him, would stand always for the best in the
democratic spirit--for courage and truth and strength and a clean honour
toward men and women.
"Who was that pretty girl, Ben," the General enquired presently, "I saw
you walking with last Sunday? A sweetheart?"
"No, sir. My sister."
"A lady? She looked it."
"She has been taught like one."
"What'll you do with her? Marry her off?"
"I haven't thought--but she won't look at any of the men she knows."
"Oh, well, if the National Oil wins, you may give her a fortune. There
are plenty of young chaps who would jump at her. Bless my soul, she's
more to my taste than Sally Mickleborough. It's the women who are such
fools about birth, you know, men don't care a rap. Why, if I'd loved a
woman, she might have been born in the poorhouse for all the thought I'd
have given it. A pretty face or a small foot goes a long sight farther
with a man than the tallest grandfather that ever lived." For a moment
he was silent, and then he spoke softly, unconscious that he uttered his
thought aloud. "No, Matoaca's birth, whatever it might have been,
couldn't have come between us--it was her damned principles."
He looked tired and old, now that his armour of business had dropped
from him, as he sat there, with the fur rug drawn over his chest, and
his loose lower lip hanging slightly away from his shrunken gums. A
sudden pity, the first I had ever dared feel for the president of the
Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, shot through my heart. The
gay old bird, I told myself, was shedding his plumage at last.
"Well, as long as I can't rest on my birth, I might as well stand up on
something," I said.
"Women think a lot of it," he resumed, as if he had not noticed my
flippant interjection; "and I reckon it about fits the size of their
minds. Why, to hear Miss Mitty Bland talk you would think good birth was
the only virtue she admitted to the first rank. I was telling her about
you," he added with a chuckle, "and you've got sense enough to see the
humour of what she said."
"I hope I have, General."
"Well, I began it by boasting about your looks, Ben, if you don't mind.
'That wonderful boy of ours is the finest-looking fellow in the South
to-day, Miss Mitty,' I burst out, 'and he stands six feet two in his
stockings.' 'Ah, General,' she replied sadly, 'what are six feet two
inches without a grandfather?'"
He threw back his head with a roar, appearing a trifle chagrined the
next instant by my faint-hearted pretence of mirth.
"Doesn't it tickle you, Ben?" he enquired, checking his laughter.
"I'm afraid it makes me rather angry, General," I answered.
"Oh, well, I didn't think you'd take it seriously. It's just a joke, you
know. Go ahead and make your fortune, and they'll receive you quick
enough."
"But they have received me. They asked me to their party."
"That was Sally, my boy--it was her party, and she fought the ladies for
you. That girl's a born fighter, and I reckon she gets it from Harry
Mickleborough--for the only blessed thing he could do was to fight. He
was a mighty poor man, was Harry, but a God Almighty soldier--and he
sent more Yankees to glory than any single man in the whole South. The
girl gets it from him, and she hasn't any of her aunts' aristocratic
nonsense in her either. She told Miss Mitty, on the spot, and I can see
her eyes shine now, that she liked you and she meant to know you."
"That she meant to know me," I repeated, with a singing heart.
"The ladies were put out, I could see, but they ain't a match for that
scamp Harry, and he's in her. There never lived the general that could
command him, and he'd have been shot for insubordination in '63 if he
hadn't been as good as a whole company to the army. 'I'll fight for the
South and welcome,' he used to say, 'but, by God, sir, I'll fight as I
damn please.' 'Twas the same way about the church, too. Old Dr. Peterson
got after him once about standing, instead of kneeling, during prayers,
and 'I'll pray as I damn please, sir!' responded Harry. Oh, he was a sad
scamp!"
"So his daughter fought for me?" I said. "How did it end?"
"It will end all right when you are president of the Great South Midland
and Atlantic Railroad, and have shipped me to Kingdom Come. They won't
shut their doors in your face, then."
"But she stood up for me?" I asked, and my voice trembled.
"She? Do you mean Miss Matoaca? Well, she granted your good looks and
your virtues, but she regretted that they couldn't ask you to their
house."
"And Miss Mitty?"
"Oh, Miss Mitty assured me that six feet two were as an inch in her
sight, without a grandfather."
"But her niece--Miss Mickleborough?" I had worked delicately up to my
point.
"The girl fought for you--but then she's obliged to fight for
something?--it's Harry in her. That's why, as I said to George at
breakfast, I don't want him to marry her. She's a good girl, and I like
her, but who in the deuce wants to marry a fighting wife? Look at that
fellow mauling his horse, Ben. It makes me sick to see 'em do it, but
it's no business of mine, I reckon."
"It is of mine, General," I replied, for the sight of an ill-treated
animal had made my blood boil since childhood. Before he could answer, I
had jumped over the moving wheel, and had reached the miserable,
sore-backed horse struggling under a load of coal and a big stick.
"Come off and put your shoulder to the wheel, you drunken brute," I
said, as my rage rose in my throat.
"I'll be damned if I will," replied the fellow, and he was about to
begin belabouring again, when I seized him by the collar and swung him
clear to the street.
"I'll be damned if you don't," I retorted.
I was a strong man, and when my passions were roused, the thought of my
own strength slipped from consciousness.
"You'll break his bones, Ben," said the General, leaning out of his
buggy, but his eyes shone as they might have shone at the sight of his
first battle.
"I hope I shall," I responded grimly, and going over to the wagon I put
my shoulder to the wheel, and began the ascent of the steep hill.
Somebody on the pavement came to my help on the other side, and we went
up slowly, with a half-drunken driver reeling at our sides and the
General following, in his buggy, a short way behind.
"I thought you were a diffident fellow, Ben," remarked the great man, as
I took my seat again by his side; "but I don't believe there's another
man in Richmond that would make such a spectacle of himself."
"I forget myself when I'm worked up," I answered, "and I forget that
anybody is looking."
"Well, somebody was," he replied slyly. "You didn't see Miss Matoaca
Bland pass you in a carriage as you were pushing that wheel?"
"No, I didn't see anybody."
"She saw you--and so did Sally Mickleborough. Why, I'd have given
something pretty in my day to make a girl's eyes blaze like that."
A week later I swallowed my pride, with an effort, and called at the old
grey house at the hour of sunset. Selim, stepping softly, conducted me
into the dimly lighted drawing-room, where a cedar log burned, with a
delicious fragrance, on a pair of high brass andirons. The red glow,
half light, half shadow, flickered over the quaint tapestried furniture,
the white-painted woodwork, and the portraits of departed Blands and
Fairfaxes that smiled gravely down, with averted eyes. In a massive gilt
frame over a rosewood spinet there was a picture of Miss Mitty and Miss
Mataoca, painted in fancy dress, with clasped hands, under a garland of
roses. My gaze was upon it, when the sound of a door opening quickly
somewhere in the rear came to my ears; and the next instant I heard Miss
Mitty's prim tones saying distinctly:--
"Tell Mr. Starr, Selim, that the ladies are not receiving."
There was a moment's silence, followed by a voice that brought my
delighted heart with a bound into my throat.
"Aunt Mitty, I _will_ see him."
"Sally, how can you receive a man who was not born a gentleman?"
"Aunt Mitty, if you don't let me see him here, I'll--I'll meet him in
the street."
The door shut sharply, there was a sound of rapid steps, and the voices
ceased. Harry Mickleborough, in his daughter, I judged, had gained the
victory; for an instant afterwards I heard her cross the hall, with a
defiant and energetic rustle of skirts. When she entered the room, and
held out her hand, I saw that she was dressed in her walking gown. There
were soft brown furs about her throat, and on her head she wore a small
fur hat, with a bunch of violets at one side, under a thin white veil.
"I was just going to walk," she said, breathing a little quickly, while
her eyes, very wide and bright, held that puzzled and resolute look I
remembered; "will you come with me?"
She turned at once to the door, as if eager to leave the house, and
while I followed her through the hall, and down the short flight of
steps to the pavement, I was conscious of a sharp presentiment that I
should never again cross that threshold.