CHAPTER XVIII Laura and Her Marriage to Colonel Selby--Deserted and

Returns to Hawkeye

ILLUSTRATIONS

37.  LAURA SEEKING POR EVIDENCES OF HER BIRTH 38.  EVER TRUE 39.  A

HEALTHY MEAL 40.  PHILIP AT THE THEATRE 41.  WHAT PHILIP LEARNED

AT COLLEGE 42.  THE DELEGATE'S INTERESTING GAME 43.  THE PERSON OF

IMPORTANCE 44.  “NOT THAT” 45.  RUTH'S MOTHER MAKES ENQUIRIES 46.  THE

LETTER 47.  CARING FOR THE POOR 48.  ANATOMICAL INVESTIGATIONS 49.  RUTH

LOOKING AT THE “NEW ONE” BY CANDLE LIGHT 60.  “ONLY FOR YOU, BRIERLY”

51.  AN ACCLIMATED MAN 51.  NO THANKS! GOOD BYE! 52.  “BRESS YOU, CHILE,

YOU DAR NOW” 53.  CAMP LIFE 54.  STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER 55.  JEFF

THOMPSON AS A NIGHTINGALE 56.  BOUND FOR STONE'S LANDING 57.  STONE'S

LANDING 58.  WAITING FOR A RAILROAD 59.  “IT AIN'T THERE” 60.  TAIL

PIECE 61.  CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON 63.  LAURA SWOONED 62.  TAILPIECE

CHAPTER X.

Only two or three days had elapsed since the funeral, when something

happened which was to change the drift of Laura's life somewhat, and

influence in a greater or lesser degree the formation of her character.

Major Lackland had once been a man of note in the State--a man of

extraordinary natural ability and as extraordinary learning. He had been

universally trusted and honored in his day, but had finally, fallen into

misfortune; while serving his third term in Congress, and while upon the

point of being elevated to the Senate--which was considered the summit

of earthly aggrandizement in those days--he had yielded to temptation,

when in distress for money wherewith to save his estate; and sold his

vote. His crime was discovered, and his fall followed instantly. Nothing

could reinstate him in the confidence of the people, his ruin was

irretrievable--his disgrace complete. All doors were closed against him,

all men avoided him. After years of skulking retirement and dissipation,

death had relieved him of his troubles at last, and his funeral followed

close upon that of Mr. Hawkins. He died as he had latterly lived--wholly

alone and friendless. He had no relatives--or if he had they did not

acknowledge him. The coroner's jury found certain memoranda upon his

body and about the premises which revealed a fact not suspected by the

villagers before-viz., that Laura was not the child of Mr. and Mrs.

Hawkins.

The gossips were soon at work. They were but little hampered by the

fact that the memoranda referred to betrayed nothing but the bare

circumstance that Laura's real parents were unknown, and stopped there.

So far from being hampered by this, the gossips seemed to gain all

the more freedom from it. They supplied all the missing information

themselves, they filled up all the blanks. The town soon teemed

with histories of Laura's origin and secret history, no two versions

precisely alike, but all elaborate, exhaustive, mysterious and

interesting, and all agreeing in one vital particular--to-wit, that

there was a suspicious cloud about her birth, not to say a disreputable

one.

Laura began to encounter cold looks, averted eyes and peculiar nods and

gestures which perplexed her beyond measure; but presently the pervading

gossip found its way to her, and she understood them--then. Her pride

was stung. She was astonished, and at first incredulous. She was about

to ask her mother if there was any truth in these reports, but upon

second thought held her peace. She soon gathered that Major Lackland's

memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself

and Judge Hawkins. She shaped her course without difficulty the day that

that hint reached her.

That night she sat in her room till all was still, and then she stole

into the garret and began a search. She rummaged long among boxes of

musty papers relating to business matters of no interest to her, but

at last she found several bundles of letters. One bundle was marked

“private,” and in that she found what she wanted. She selected six

or eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents,

heedless of the cold.

By the dates, these letters were from five to seven years old. They were

all from Major Lackland to Mr. Hawkins. The substance of them was, that

some one in the east had been inquiring of Major Lackland about a lost

child and its parents, and that it was conjectured that the child might

be Laura.

Evidently some of the letters were missing, for the name of the

inquirer was not mentioned; there was a casual reference to “this

handsome-featured aristocratic gentleman,” as if the reader and the

writer were accustomed to speak of him and knew who was meant.

In one letter the Major said he agreed with Mr. Hawkins that the

inquirer seemed not altogether on the wrong track; but he also agreed

that it would be best to keep quiet until more convincing developments

were forthcoming.

Another letter said that “the poor soul broke completely down when he

saw Laura's picture, and declared it must be she.”

Still another said:

“He seems entirely alone in the world, and his heart is so wrapped up in

this thing that I believe that if it proved a false hope, it would kill

him; I have persuaded him to wait a little while and go west when I go.”

Another letter had this paragraph in it:

“He is better one day and worse the next, and is out of his mind a good

deal of the time. Lately his case has developed a something which is a

wonder to the hired nurses, but which will not be much of a marvel

to you if you have read medical philosophy much. It is this: his lost

memory returns to him when he is delirious, and goes away again when he

is himself-just as old Canada Joe used to talk the French patois of his

boyhood in the delirium of typhus fever, though he could not do it when

his mind was clear. Now this poor gentleman's memory has always broken

down before he reached the explosion of the steamer; he could only

remember starting up the river with his wife and child, and he had an

idea that there was a race, but he was not certain; he could not name

the boat he was on; there was a dead blank of a month or more that

supplied not an item to his recollection. It was not for me to assist

him, of course. But now in his delirium it all comes out: the names of

the boats, every incident of the explosion, and likewise the details of

his astonishing escape--that is, up to where, just as a yawl-boat was

approaching him (he was clinging to the starboard wheel of the burning

wreck at the time), a falling timber struck him on the head. But I will

write out his wonderful escape in full to-morrow or next day. Of course

the physicians will not let me tell him now that our Laura is indeed his

child--that must come later, when his health is thoroughly restored. His

case is not considered dangerous at all; he will recover presently, the

doctors say. But they insist that he must travel a little when he

gets well--they recommend a short sea voyage, and they say he can be

persuaded to try it if we continue to keep him in ignorance and promise

to let him see L. as soon as he returns.” The letter that bore the

latest date of all, contained this clause:

“It is the most unaccountable thing in the world; the mystery remains as

impenetrable as ever; I have hunted high and low for him, and inquired

of everybody, but in vain; all trace of him ends at that hotel in New

York; I never have seen or heard of him since, up to this day; he could

hardly have sailed, for his name does not appear upon the books of any

shipping office in New York or Boston or Baltimore. How fortunate it

seems, now, that we kept this thing to ourselves; Laura still has a

father in you, and it is better for her that we drop this subject here

forever.” That was all. Random remarks here and there, being pieced

together gave Laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence, about

forty-three or forty-five years of age, with dark hair and eyes, and a

slight limp in his walk--it was not stated which leg was defective. And

this indistinct shadow represented her father. She made an exhaustive

search for the missing letters, but found none. They had probably been

burned; and she doubted not that the ones she had ferreted out would

have shared the same fate if Mr. Hawkins had not been a dreamer, void

of method, whose mind was perhaps in a state of conflagration over some

bright new speculation when he received them.

She sat long, with the letters in her lap, thinking--and unconsciously

freezing. She felt like a lost person who has traveled down a long

lane in good hope of escape, and, just as the night descends finds his

progress barred by a bridge-less river whose further shore, if it has

one, is lost in the darkness. If she could only have found these letters

a month sooner! That was her thought. But now the dead had carried

their secrets with them. A dreary, melancholy settled down upon her. An

undefined sense of injury crept into her heart. She grew very miserable.

She had just reached the romantic age--the age when there is a sad

sweetness, a dismal comfort to a girl to find out that there is a

mystery connected with her birth, which no other piece of good luck can

afford. She had more than her rightful share of practical good sense,

but still she was human; and to be human is to have one's little modicum

of romance secreted away in one's composition. One never ceases to make

a hero of one's self, (in private,) during life, but only alters the

style of his heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle

certain gods of his admiration and raise up others in their stead that

seem greater.

The recent wearing days and nights of watching, and the wasting grief

that had possessed her, combined with the profound depression that

naturally came with the reaction of idleness, made Laura peculiarly

susceptible at this time to romantic impressions. She was a heroine,

now, with a mysterious father somewhere. She could not really tell

whether she wanted to find him and spoil it all or not; but still all

the traditions of romance pointed to the making the attempt as the usual

and necessary course to follow; therefore she would some day begin the

search when opportunity should offer.

Now a former thought struck her--she would speak to Mrs. Hawkins. And

naturally enough Mrs. Hawkins appeared on the stage at that moment.

She said she knew all--she knew that Laura had discovered the secret

that Mr. Hawkins, the elder children, Col. Sellers and herself had kept

so long and so faithfully; and she cried and said that now that troubles

had begun they would never end; her daughter's love would wean itself

away from her and her heart would break. Her grief so wrought upon

Laura that the girl almost forgot her own troubles for the moment in her

compassion for her mother's distress. Finally Mrs. Hawkins said:

“Speak to me, child--do not forsake me. Forget all this miserable talk.

Say I am your mother!--I have loved you so long, and there is no other.

I am your mother, in the sight of God, and nothing shall ever take you

from me!”

All barriers fell, before this appeal. Laura put her arms about her

mother's neck and said:

“You are my mother, and always shall be. We will be as we have always

been; and neither this foolish talk nor any other thing shall part us or

make us less to each other than we are this hour.”

There was no longer any sense of separation or estrangement between

them. Indeed their love seemed more perfect now than it had ever been

before. By and by they went down stairs and sat by the fire and talked

long and earnestly about Laura's history and the letters. But it

transpired that Mrs. Hawkins had never known of this correspondence

between her husband and Major Lackland. With his usual consideration for

his wife, Mr. Hawkins had shielded her from the worry the matter would

have caused her.

Laura went to bed at last with a mind that had gained largely in

tranquility and had lost correspondingly in morbid romantic exaltation.

She was pensive, the next day, and subdued; but that was not matter for

remark, for she did not differ from the mournful friends about her in

that respect. Clay and Washington were the same loving and admiring

brothers now that they had always been. The great secret was new to some

of the younger children, but their love suffered no change under the

wonderful revelation.

It is barely possible that things might have presently settled down

into their old rut and the mystery have lost the bulk of its romantic

sublimity in Laura's eyes, if the village gossips could have quieted

down. But they could not quiet down and they did not. Day after day

they called at the house, ostensibly upon visits of condolence, and they

pumped away at the mother and the children without seeming to know

that their questionings were in bad taste. They meant no harm they only

wanted to know. Villagers always want to know.

The family fought shy of the questionings, and of course that was high

testimony “if the Duchess was respectably born, why didn't they come out

and prove it?--why did they, stick to that poor thin story about picking

her up out of a steamboat explosion?”

Under this ceaseless persecution, Laura's morbid self-communing was

renewed. At night the day's contribution of detraction, innuendo and

malicious conjecture would be canvassed in her mind, and then she would

drift into a course of thinking. As her thoughts ran on, the indignant

tears would spring to her eyes, and she would spit out fierce little

ejaculations at intervals. But finally she would grow calmer and say

some comforting disdainful thing--something like this:

“But who are they?--Animals! What are their opinions to me? Let

them talk--I will not stoop to be affected by it. I could hate----.

Nonsense--nobody I care for or in any way respect is changed toward me,

I fancy.”

She may have supposed she was thinking of many individuals, but it was

not so--she was thinking of only one. And her heart warmed somewhat,

too, the while. One day a friend overheard a conversation like

this:--and naturally came and told her all about it:

“Ned, they say you don't go there any more. How is that?”

“Well, I don't; but I tell you it's not because I don't want to and

it's not because I think it is any matter who her father was or who he

wasn't, either; it's only on account of this talk, talk, talk. I think

she is a fine girl every way, and so would you if you knew her as well

as I do; but you know how it is when a girl once gets talked about--it's

all up with her--the world won't ever let her alone, after that.”

The only comment Laura made upon this revelation, was:

“Then it appears that if this trouble had not occurred I could have

had the happiness of Mr. Ned Thurston's serious attentions. He is well

favored in person, and well liked, too, I believe, and comes of one of

the first families of the village. He is prosperous, too, I hear; has

been a doctor a year, now, and has had two patients--no, three, I think;

yes, it was three. I attended their funerals. Well, other people have

hoped and been disappointed; I am not alone in that. I wish you could

stay to dinner, Maria--we are going to have sausages; and besides, I

wanted to talk to you about Hawkeye and make you promise to come and see

us when we are settled there.”

But Maria could not stay. She had come to mingle romantic tears with

Laura's over the lover's defection and had found herself dealing with a

heart that could not rise to an appreciation of affliction because its

interest was all centred in sausages.

But as soon as Maria was gone, Laura stamped her expressive foot and

said:

“The coward! Are all books lies? I thought he would fly to the front,

and be brave and noble, and stand up for me against all the world, and

defy my enemies, and wither these gossips with his scorn! Poor crawling

thing, let him go. I do begin to despise this world!”

She lapsed into thought. Presently she said:

“If the time ever comes, and I get a chance, Oh, I'll----”

She could not find a word that was strong enough, perhaps. By and by she

said:

“Well, I am glad of it--I'm glad of it. I never cared anything for him

anyway!”

And then, with small consistency, she cried a little, and patted her

foot more indignantly than ever.

CHAPTER XI.

Two months had gone by and the Hawkins family were domiciled in

Hawkeye. Washington was at work in the real estate office again, and

was alternately in paradise or the other place just as it happened

that Louise was gracious to him or seemingly indifferent--because

indifference or preoccupation could mean nothing else than that she was

thinking of some other young person. Col. Sellers had asked him

several times, to dine with him, when he first returned to Hawkeye, but

Washington, for no particular reason, had not accepted. No particular

reason except one which he preferred to keep to himself--viz. that he

could not bear to be away from Louise. It occurred to him, now, that the

Colonel had not invited him lately--could he be offended? He resolved

to go that very day, and give the Colonel a pleasant surprise. It was a

good idea; especially as Louise had absented herself from breakfast that

morning, and torn his heart; he would tear hers, now, and let her see

how it felt.

The Sellers family were just starting to dinner when Washington

burst upon them with his surprise. For an instant the Colonel looked

nonplussed, and just a bit uncomfortable; and Mrs. Sellers looked

actually distressed; but the next moment the head of the house was

himself again, and exclaimed:

“All right, my boy, all right--always glad to see you--always glad

to hear your voice and take you by the hand. Don't wait for special

invitations--that's all nonsense among friends. Just come whenever you

can, and come as often as you can--the oftener the better. You can't

please us any better than that, Washington; the little woman will tell

you so herself. We don't pretend to style. Plain folks, you know--plain

folks. Just a plain family dinner, but such as it is, our friends are

always welcome, I reckon you know that yourself, Washington. Run along,

children, run along; Lafayette,--[**In those old days the average man

called his children after his most revered literary and historical

idols; consequently there was hardly a family, at least in the West,

but had a Washington in it--and also a Lafayette, a Franklin, and six or

eight sounding names from Byron, Scott, and the Bible, if the offspring

held out. To visit such a family, was to find one's self confronted by

a congress made up of representatives of the imperial myths and the

majestic dead of all the ages. There was something thrilling about it,

to a stranger, not to say awe inspiring.]--stand off the cat's tail,

child, can't you see what you're doing?--Come, come, come, Roderick

Dhu, it isn't nice for little boys to hang onto young gentlemen's coat

tails--but never mind him, Washington, he's full of spirits and don't

mean any harm. Children will be children, you know. Take the chair

next to Mrs. Sellers, Washington--tut, tut, Marie Antoinette, let your

brother have the fork if he wants it, you are bigger than he is.”

Washington contemplated the banquet, and wondered if he were in his

right mind. Was this the plain family dinner? And was it all present?

It was soon apparent that this was indeed the dinner: it was all on the

table: it consisted of abundance of clear, fresh water, and a basin of

raw turnips--nothing more.

Washington stole a glance at Mrs. Sellers's face, and would have given

the world, the next moment, if he could have spared her that. The poor

woman's face was crimson, and the tears stood in her eyes. Washington

did not know what to do. He wished he had never come there and spied out

this cruel poverty and brought pain to that poor little lady's heart

and shame to her cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. Col.

Sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who

should say “Now for solid enjoyment!” seized a fork, flourished it and

began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before him “Let

me help you, Washington--Lafayette, pass this plate to Washington--ah,

well, well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, I tell you.

Speculation--my! the whole atmosphere's full of money. I would'nt take

three fortunes for one little operation I've got on hand now--have

anything from the casters? No? Well, you're right, you're right.

Some people like mustard with turnips, but--now there was Baron

Poniatowski--Lord, but that man did know how to live!--true Russian

you know, Russian to the back bone; I say to my wife, give me a Russian

every time, for a table comrade. The Baron used to say, 'Take mustard,

Sellers, try the mustard,--a man can't know what turnips are in

perfection without, mustard,' but I always said, 'No, Baron, I'm a plain

man and I want my food plain--none of your embellishments for Beriah

Sellers--no made dishes for me! And it's the best way--high living kills

more than it cures in this world, you can rest assured of that.--Yes

indeed, Washington, I've got one little operation on hand that--take

some more water--help yourself, won't you?--help yourself, there's

plenty of it.--You'll find it pretty good, I guess. How does that fruit

strike you?”

Washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better. He did

not add that he detested turnips even when they were cooked--loathed

them in their natural state. No, he kept this to himself, and praised

the turnips to the peril of his soul.

“I thought you'd like them. Examine them--examine them--they'll bear

it. See how perfectly firm and juicy they are--they can't start any like

them in this part of the country, I can tell you. These are from New

Jersey--I imported them myself. They cost like sin, too; but lord bless

me, I go in for having the best of a thing, even if it does cost a

little more--it's the best economy, in the long run. These are the

Early Malcolm--it's a turnip that can't be produced except in just one

orchard, and the supply never is up to the demand. Take some more water,

Washington--you can't drink too much water with fruit--all the doctors

say that. The plague can't come where this article is, my boy!”

“Plague? What plague?”

“What plague, indeed? Why the Asiatic plague that nearly depopulated

London a couple of centuries ago.”

“But how does that concern us? There is no plague here, I reckon.”

“Sh! I've let it out! Well, never mind--just keep it to yourself.

Perhaps I oughtn't said anything, but its bound to come out sooner

or later, so what is the odds? Old McDowells wouldn't like me

to--to--bother it all, I'll jest tell the whole thing and let it go. You

see, I've been down to St. Louis, and I happened to run across old Dr.

McDowells--thinks the world of me, does the doctor. He's a man that

keeps himself to himself, and well he may, for he knows that he's got

a reputation that covers the whole earth--he won't condescend to open

himself out to many people, but lord bless you, he and I are just like

brothers; he won't let me go to a hotel when I'm in the city--says I'm

the only man that's company to him, and I don't know but there's some

truth in it, too, because although I never like to glorify myself and

make a great to-do over what I am or what I can do or what I know, I

don't mind saying here among friends that I am better read up in most

sciences, maybe, than the general run of professional men in these days.

Well, the other day he let me into a little secret, strictly on the

quiet, about this matter of the plague.

“You see it's booming right along in our direction--follows the Gulf

Stream, you know, just as all those epidemics do, and within three

months it will be just waltzing through this land like a whirlwind! And

whoever it touches can make his will and contract for the funeral.

Well you can't cure it, you know, but you can prevent it. How? Turnips!

that's it! Turnips and water! Nothing like it in the world, old

McDowells says, just fill yourself up two or three times a day, and you

can snap your fingers at the plague. Sh!--keep mum, but just you

confine yourself to that diet and you're all right. I wouldn't have old

McDowells know that I told about it for anything--he never would speak

to me again. Take some more water, Washington--the more water you drink,

the better. Here, let me give you some more of the turnips. No, no,

no, now, I insist. There, now. Absorb those. They're, mighty

sustaining--brim full of nutriment--all the medical books say so. Just

eat from four to seven good-sized turnips at a meal, and drink from a

pint and a half to a quart of water, and then just sit around a couple

of hours and let them ferment. You'll feel like a fighting cock next

day.”

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the Colonel's tongue was still

chattering away--he had piled up several future fortunes out of several

incipient “operations” which he had blundered into within the past week,

and was now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of

late promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye-water.

And at such a time Washington ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic

listener, but he was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and

distracted his attention. One was, that he discovered, to his confusion

and shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the

turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. He had not needed the

dreadful “fruit,” and had not wanted it; and when he saw the pathetic

sorrow in their faces when they asked for more and there was no more to

give them, he hated himself for his stupidity and pitied the famishing

young things with all his heart. The other matter that disturbed him was

the dire inflation that had begun in his stomach. It grew and grew,

it became more and more insupportable. Evidently the turnips were

“fermenting.” He forced himself to sit still as long as he could, but

his anguish conquered him at last.

He rose in the midst of the Colonel's talk and excused himself on the

plea of a previous engagement. The Colonel followed him to the door,

promising over and over again that he would use his influence to get

some of the Early Malcolms for him, and insisting that he should not be

such a stranger but come and take pot-luck with him every chance he

got. Washington was glad enough to get away and feel free again. He

immediately bent his steps toward home.

In bed he passed an hour that threatened to turn his hair gray, and

then a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his heart with

gratitude. Weak and languid, he made shift to turn himself about

and seek rest and sleep; and as his soul hovered upon the brink of

unconciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh, and said to himself that in

his heart he had cursed the Colonel's preventive of rheumatism, before,

and now let the plague come if it must--he was done with preventives; if

ever any man beguiled him with turnips and water again, let him die the

death.

If he dreamed at all that night, no gossiping spirit disturbed his

visions to whisper in his ear of certain matters just then in bud in

the East, more than a thousand miles away that after the lapse of a few

years would develop influences which would profoundly affect the fate

and fortunes of the Hawkins family.

CHAPTER XII.

“Oh, it's easy enough to make a fortune,” Henry said.

“It seems to be easier than it is, I begin to think,” replied Philip.

“Well, why don't you go into something? You'll never dig it out of the

Astor Library.”

If there be any place and time in the world where and when it seems easy

to “go into something” it is in Broadway on a spring morning, when one

is walking city-ward, and has before him the long lines of palace-shops

with an occasional spire seen through the soft haze that lies over the

lower town, and hears the roar and hum of its multitudinous traffic.

To the young American, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are

innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success

in all his wide horizon. He is embarrassed which to choose, and is not

unlikely to waste years in dallying with his chances, before giving

himself to the serious tug and strain of a single object. He has no

traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away

from the occupation his father has followed, and make a new way for

himself.

Philip Sterling used to say that if he should seriously set himself for

ten years to any one of the dozen projects that were in his brain, he

felt that he could be a rich man. He wanted to be rich, he had a sincere

desire for a fortune, but for some unaccountable reason he hesitated

about addressing himself to the narrow work of getting it. He never

walked Broadway, a part of its tide of abundant shifting life, without

feeling something of the flush of wealth, and unconsciously taking the

elastic step of one well-to-do in this prosperous world.

Especially at night in the crowded theatre--Philip was too young to

remember the old Chambers' Street box, where the serious Burton led his

hilarious and pagan crew--in the intervals of the screaming comedy, when

the orchestra scraped and grunted and tooted its dissolute tunes, the

world seemed full of opportunities to Philip, and his heart exulted with

a conscious ability to take any of its prizes he chose to pluck.

Perhaps it was the swimming ease of the acting, on the stage, where

virtue had its reward in three easy acts, perhaps it was the excessive

light of the house, or the music, or the buzz of the excited talk

between acts, perhaps it was youth which believed everything, but for

some reason while Philip was at the theatre he had the utmost confidence

in life and his ready victory in it.

Delightful illusion of paint and tinsel and silk attire, of cheap

sentiment and high and mighty dialogue! Will there not always be rosin

enough for the squeaking fiddle-bow?

Do we not all like the maudlin hero, who is sneaking round the right

entrance, in wait to steal the pretty wife of his rich and tyrannical

neighbor from the paste-board cottage at the left entrance? and when

he advances down to the foot-lights and defiantly informs the audience

that, “he who lays his hand on a woman except in the way of kindness,”

do we not all applaud so as to drown the rest of the sentence?

Philip never was fortunate enough to hear what would become of a man who

should lay his hand on a woman with the exception named; but he learned

afterwards that the woman who lays her hand on a man, without any

exception whatsoever, is always acquitted by the jury.

The fact was, though Philip Sterling did not know it, that he wanted

several other things quite as much as he wanted wealth. The modest

fellow would have liked fame thrust upon him for some worthy

achievement; it might be for a book, or for the skillful management of

some great newspaper, or for some daring expedition like that of Lt.

Strain or Dr. Kane. He was unable to decide exactly what it should be.

Sometimes he thought he would like to stand in a conspicuous pulpit and

humbly preach the gospel of repentance; and it even crossed his mind

that it would be noble to give himself to a missionary life to some

benighted region, where the date-palm grows, and the nightingale's voice

is in tune, and the bul-bul sings on the off nights. If he were good

enough he would attach himself to that company of young men in the

Theological Seminary, who were seeing New York life in preparation for

the ministry.

Philip was a New England boy and had graduated at Yale; he had not

carried off with him all the learning of that venerable institution, but

he knew some things that were not in the regular course of study. A

very good use of the English language and considerable knowledge of its

literature was one of them; he could sing a song very well, not in time

to be sure, but with enthusiasm; he could make a magnetic speech at a

moment's notice in the class room, the debating society, or upon any

fence or dry-goods box that was convenient; he could lift himself by one

arm, and do the giant swing in the gymnasium; he could strike out from

his left shoulder; he could handle an oar like a professional and pull

stroke in a winning race. Philip had a good appetite, a sunny temper,

and a clear hearty laugh. He had brown hair, hazel eyes set wide apart,

a broad but not high forehead, and a fresh winning face. He was six feet

high, with broad shoulders, long legs and a swinging gait; one of those

loose-jointed, capable fellows, who saunter into the world with a free

air and usually make a stir in whatever company they enter.

After he left college Philip took the advice of friends and read law.

Law seemed to him well enough as a science, but he never could discover

a practical case where it appeared to him worth while to go to law, and

all the clients who stopped with this new clerk in the ante-room of the

law office where he was writing, Philip invariably advised to settle--no

matter how, but settle--greatly to the disgust of his employer, who

knew that justice between man and man could only be attained by the

recognized processes, with the attendant fees. Besides Philip hated the

copying of pleadings, and he was certain that a life of “whereases”

and “aforesaids” and whipping the devil round the stump, would be

intolerable.

[Note: these few paragraphs are nearly an autobiography of the life of

Charles Dudley Warner whose contributions to the story start here with

Chapter XII. D.W.]

His pen therefore, and whereas, and not as aforesaid, strayed off into

other scribbling. In an unfortunate hour, he had two or three papers

accepted by first-class magazines, at three dollars the printed page,

and, behold, his vocation was open to him. He would make his mark in

literature.

Life has no moment so sweet as that in which a young man believes

himself called into the immortal ranks of the masters of literature.

It is such a noble ambition, that it is a pity it has usually such a

shallow foundation.

At the time of this history, Philip had gone to New York for a career.

With his talent he thought he should have little difficulty in getting

an editorial position upon a metropolitan newspaper; not that he knew

anything about newspaper work, or had the least idea of journalism;

he knew he was not fitted for the technicalities of the subordinate

departments, but he could write leaders with perfect ease, he was sure.

The drudgery of the newspaper office was too distasteful, and besides

it would be beneath the dignity of a graduate and a successful magazine

writer. He wanted to begin at the top of the ladder.

To his surprise he found that every situation in the editorial

department of the journals was full, always had been full, was always

likely to be full. It seemed to him that the newspaper managers didn't

want genius, but mere plodding and grubbing. Philip therefore read

diligently in the Astor library, planned literary works that should

compel attention, and nursed his genius. He had no friend wise enough

to tell him to step into the Dorking Convention, then in session, make

a sketch of the men and women on the platform, and take it to the editor

of the Daily Grapevine, and see what he could get a line for it.

One day he had an offer from some country friends, who believed in him,

to take charge of a provincial daily newspaper, and he went to consult

Mr. Gringo--Gringo who years ago managed the Atlas--about taking the

situation.

“Take it of course,” says Gringo, “take anything that offers, why not?”

“But they want me to make it an opposition paper.”

“Well, make it that. That party is going to succeed, it's going to elect

the next president.”

“I don't believe it,” said Philip, stoutly, “its wrong in principle,

and it ought not to succeed, but I don't see how I can go for a thing I

don't believe in.”

“O, very well,” said Gringo, turning away with a shade of contempt,

“you'll find if you are going into literature and newspaper work that

you can't afford a conscience like that.”

But Philip did afford it, and he wrote, thanking his friends, and

declining because he said the political scheme would fail, and ought to

fail. And he went back to his books and to his waiting for an opening

large enough for his dignified entrance into the literary world.

It was in this time of rather impatient waiting that Philip was

one morning walking down Broadway with Henry Brierly. He frequently

accompanied Henry part way down town to what the latter called his

office in Broad Street, to which he went, or pretended to go, with

regularity every day. It was evident to the most casual acquaintance

that he was a man of affairs, and that his time was engrossed in the

largest sort of operations, about which there was a mysterious air. His

liability to be suddenly summoned to Washington, or Boston or Montreal

or even to Liverpool was always imminent. He never was so summoned, but

none of his acquaintances would have been surprised to hear any day that

he had gone to Panama or Peoria, or to hear from him that he had bought

the Bank of Commerce.

The two were intimate at that time,--they had been classmates--and saw

a great deal of each other. Indeed, they lived together in Ninth Street,

in a boarding-house, there, which had the honor of lodging and partially

feeding several other young fellows of like kidney, who have since gone

their several ways into fame or into obscurity.

It was during the morning walk to which reference has been made that

Henry Brierly suddenly said, “Philip, how would you like to go to St.

Jo?”

“I think I should like it of all things,” replied Philip, with some

hesitation, “but what for.”

“Oh, it's a big operation. We are going, a lot of us, railroad men,

engineers, contractors. You know my uncle is a great railroad man. I've

no doubt I can get you a chance to go if you'll go.”

“But in what capacity would I go?”

“Well, I'm going as an engineer. You can go as one.”

“I don't know an engine from a coal cart.”

“Field engineer, civil engineer. You can begin by carrying a rod, and

putting down the figures. It's easy enough. I'll show you about that.

We'll get Trautwine and some of those books.”

“Yes, but what is it for, what is it all about?”

“Why don't you see? We lay out a line, spot the good land, enter it up,

know where the stations are to be, spot them, buy lots; there's heaps of

money in it. We wouldn't engineer long.”

“When do you go?” was Philip's next question, after some moments of

silence.

“To-morrow. Is that too soon?”

“No, its not too soon. I've been ready to go anywhere for six months.

The fact is, Henry, that I'm about tired of trying to force myself

into things, and am quite willing to try floating with the stream for a

while, and see where I will land. This seems like a providential call;

it's sudden enough.”

The two young men who were by this time full of the adventure, went down

to the Wall street office of Henry's uncle and had a talk with that

wily operator. The uncle knew Philip very well, and was pleased with his

frank enthusiasm, and willing enough to give him a trial in the western

venture. It was settled therefore, in the prompt way in which things are

settled in New York, that they would start with the rest of the company

next morning for the west.

On the way up town these adventurers bought books on engineering, and

suits of India-rubber, which they supposed they would need in a new and

probably damp country, and many other things which nobody ever needed

anywhere.

The night was spent in packing up and writing letters, for Philip would

not take such an important step without informing his friends. If they

disapprove, thought he, I've done my duty by letting them know. Happy

youth, that is ready to pack its valise, and start for Cathay on an

hour's notice.

“By the way,” calls out Philip from his bed-room, to Henry, “where is

St. Jo.?”

“Why, it's in Missouri somewhere, on the frontier I think. We'll get a

map.”

“Never mind the map. We will find the place itself. I was afraid it was

nearer home.”

Philip wrote a long letter, first of all, to his mother, full of love

and glowing anticipations of his new opening. He wouldn't bother her

with business details, but he hoped that the day was not far off when

she would see him return, with a moderate fortune, and something to add

to the comfort of her advancing years.

To his uncle he said that he had made an arrangement with some New York

capitalists to go to Missouri, in a land and railroad operation, which

would at least give him a knowledge of the world and not unlikely offer

him a business opening. He knew his uncle would be glad to hear that he

had at last turned his thoughts to a practical matter.

It was to Ruth Bolton that Philip wrote last. He might never see her

again; he went to seek his fortune. He well knew the perils of the

frontier, the savage state of society, the lurking Indians and the

dangers of fever. But there was no real danger to a person who took care

of himself. Might he write to her often and, tell her of his life. If he

returned with a fortune, perhaps and perhaps. If he was unsuccessful, or

if he never returned--perhaps it would be as well. No time or distance,

however, would ever lessen his interest in her. He would say good-night,

but not good-bye.

In the soft beginning of a Spring morning, long before New York had

breakfasted, while yet the air of expectation hung about the wharves of

the metropolis, our young adventurers made their way to the Jersey City

railway station of the Erie road, to begin the long, swinging, crooked

journey, over what a writer of a former day called a causeway of cracked

rails and cows, to the West.

CHAPTER XIII.

What ever to say be toke in his entente,

his langage was so fayer & pertynante,

yt semeth unto manys herying not only the worde,

but veryly the thyng.

Caxton's Book of Curtesye.

In the party of which our travelers found themselves members, was Duff

Brown, the great railroad contractor, and subsequently a well-known

member of Congress; a bluff, jovial Bost'n man, thick-set, close shaven,

with a heavy jaw and a low forehead--a very pleasant man if you were

not in his way. He had government contracts also, custom houses and dry

docks, from Portland to New Orleans, and managed to get out of congress,

in appropriations, about weight for weight of gold for the stone

furnished.

Associated with him, and also of this party, was Rodney Schaick, a

sleek New York broker, a man as prominent in the church as in the

stock exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary

complement of Duff Brown in any enterprise that needed assurance and

adroitness.

It would be difficult to find a pleasanter traveling party, one

that shook off more readily the artificial restraints of Puritanic

strictness, and took the world with good-natured allowance. Money was

plenty for every attainable luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt

that its supply would continue, and that fortunes were about to be made

without a great deal of toil. Even Philip soon caught the prevailing

spirit; Barry did not need any inoculation, he always talked in six

figures. It was as natural for the dear boy to be rich as it is for most

people to be poor.

The elders of the party were not long in discovering the fact, which

almost all travelers to the west soon find out; that the water was

poor. It must have been by a lucky premonition of this that they all had

brandy flasks with which to qualify the water of the country; and it

was no doubt from an uneasy feeling of the danger of being poisoned that

they kept experimenting, mixing a little of the dangerous and changing

fluid, as they passed along, with the contents of the flasks, thus

saving their lives hour by hour. Philip learned afterwards that

temperance and the strict observance of Sunday and a certain gravity of

deportment are geographical habits, which people do not usually carry

with them away from home.

Our travelers stopped in Chicago long enough to see that they could

make their fortunes there in two week's time, but it did not seem worth

while; the west was more attractive; the further one went the wider the

opportunities opened.

They took railroad to Alton and the steamboat from there to St. Louis,

for the change and to have a glimpse of the river.

“Isn't this jolly?” cried Henry, dancing out of the barber's room, and

coming down the deck with a one, two, three step, shaven, curled and

perfumed after his usual exquisite fashion.

“What's jolly?” asked Philip, looking out upon the dreary and monotonous

waste through which the shaking steamboat was coughing its way.

“Why, the whole thing; it's immense I can tell you. I wouldn't give that

to be guaranteed a hundred thousand cold cash in a year's time.”

“Where's Mr. Brown?”

“He is in the saloon, playing poker with Schaick and that long haired

party with the striped trousers, who scrambled aboard when the stage

plank was half hauled in, and the big Delegate to Congress from out

west.”

“That's a fine looking fellow, that delegate, with his glossy, black

whiskers; looks like a Washington man; I shouldn't think he'd be at

poker.”

“Oh, its only five cent ante, just to make it interesting, the Delegate

said.”

“But I shouldn't think a representative in Congress would play poker any

way in a public steamboat.”

“Nonsense, you've got to pass the time. I tried a hand myself, but those

old fellows are too many for me. The Delegate knows all the points. I'd

bet a hundred dollars he will ante his way right into the United States

Senate when his territory comes in. He's got the cheek for it.”

“He has the grave and thoughtful manner of expectoration of a public

man, for one thing,” added Philip.

“Harry,” said Philip, after a pause, “what have you got on those big

boots for; do you expect to wade ashore?”

“I'm breaking 'em in.”

The fact was Harry had got himself up in what he thought a proper

costume for a new country, and was in appearance a sort of compromise

between a dandy of Broadway and a backwoodsman. Harry, with blue eyes,

fresh complexion, silken whiskers and curly chestnut hair, was as

handsome as a fashion plate. He wore this morning a soft hat, a short

cutaway coat, an open vest displaying immaculate linen, a leathern belt

round his waist, and top-boots of soft leather, well polished, that came

above his knees and required a string attached to his belt to keep them

up. The light hearted fellow gloried in these shining encasements of his

well shaped legs, and told Philip that they were a perfect protection

against prairie rattle-snakes, which never strike above the knee.

The landscape still wore an almost wintry appearance when our travelers

left Chicago. It was a genial spring day when they landed at St. Louis;

the birds were singing, the blossoms of peach trees in city garden

plots, made the air sweet, and in the roar and tumult on the long river

levee they found an excitement that accorded with their own hopeful

anticipations.

The party went to the Southern Hotel, where the great Duff Brown was

very well known, and indeed was a man of so much importance that even

the office clerk was respectful to him. He might have respected in him

also a certain vulgar swagger and insolence of money, which the clerk

greatly admired.

The young fellows liked the house and liked the city; it seemed to them

a mighty free and hospitable town. Coming from the East they were struck

with many peculiarities. Everybody smoked in the streets, for one thing,

they noticed; everybody “took a drink” in an open manner whenever he

wished to do so or was asked, as if the habit needed no concealment or

apology. In the evening when they walked about they found people

sitting on the door-steps of their dwellings, in a manner not usual in a

northern city; in front of some of the hotels and saloons the side walks

were filled with chairs and benches--Paris fashion, said Harry--upon

which people lounged in these warm spring evenings, smoking, always

smoking; and the clink of glasses and of billiard balls was in the air.

It was delightful.

Harry at once found on landing that his back-woods custom would not be

needed in St. Louis, and that, in fact, he had need of all the resources

of his wardrobe to keep even with the young swells of the town. But this

did not much matter, for Harry was always superior to his clothes. As

they were likely to be detained some time in the city, Harry told

Philip that he was going to improve his time. And he did. It was an

encouragement to any industrious man to see this young fellow rise,

carefully dress himself, eat his breakfast deliberately, smoke his cigar

tranquilly, and then repair to his room, to what he called his work,

with a grave and occupied manner, but with perfect cheerfulness.

Harry would take off his coat, remove his cravat, roll up his

shirt-sleeves, give his curly hair the right touch before the glass,

get out his book on engineering, his boxes of instruments, his drawing

paper, his profile paper, open the book of logarithms, mix his India

ink, sharpen his pencils, light a cigar, and sit down at the table to

“lay out a line,” with the most grave notion that he was mastering the

details of engineering. He would spend half a day in these preparations

without ever working out a problem or having the faintest conception

of the use of lines or logarithms. And when he had finished, he had the

most cheerful confidence that he had done a good day's work.

It made no difference, however, whether Harry was in his room in a hotel

or in a tent, Philip soon found, he was just the same. In camp he would

get himself up in the most elaborate toilet at his command, polish his

long boots to the top, lay out his work before him, and spend an hour or

longer, if anybody was looking at him, humming airs, knitting his brows,

and “working” at engineering; and if a crowd of gaping rustics were

looking on all the while it was perfectly satisfactory to him.

“You see,” he says to Philip one morning at the hotel when he was thus

engaged, “I want to get the theory of this thing, so that I can have a

check on the engineers.”

“I thought you were going to be an engineer yourself,” queried Philip.

“Not many times, if the court knows herself. There's better game. Brown

and Schaick have, or will have, the control for the whole line of the

Salt Lick Pacific Extension, forty thousand dollars a mile over the

prairie, with extra for hard-pan--and it'll be pretty much all hardpan

I can tell you; besides every alternate section of land on this line.

There's millions in the job. I'm to have the sub-contract for the first

fifty miles, and you can bet it's a soft thing.”

“I'll tell you what you do, Philip,” continued Larry, in a burst of

generosity, “if I don't get you into my contract, you'll be with the

engineers, and you jest stick a stake at the first ground marked for a

depot, buy the land of the farmer before he knows where the depot will

be, and we'll turn a hundred or so on that. I'll advance the money for

the payments, and you can sell the lots. Schaick is going to let me have

ten thousand just for a flyer in such operations.”

“But that's a good deal of money.”

“Wait till you are used to handling money. I didn't come out here for

a bagatelle. My uncle wanted me to stay East and go in on the Mobile

custom house, work up the Washington end of it; he said there was a

fortune in it for a smart young fellow, but I preferred to take the

chances out here. Did I tell you I had an offer from Bobbett and

Fanshaw to go into their office as confidential clerk on a salary of ten

thousand?”

“Why didn't you take it?” asked Philip, to whom a salary of two thousand

would have seemed wealth, before he started on this journey.

“Take it? I'd rather operate on my own hook;” said Harry, in his most

airy manner.

A few evenings after their arrival at the Southern, Philip and Harry

made the acquaintance of a very agreeable gentleman, whom they had

frequently seen before about the hotel corridors, and passed a casual

word with. He had the air of a man of business, and was evidently a

person of importance.

The precipitating of this casual intercourse into the more substantial

form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himself, and

occurred in this wise. Meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening,

he asked them to give him the time, and added:

“Excuse me, gentlemen--strangers in St. Louis? Ah, yes-yes. From the

East, perhaps? Ah; just so, just so. Eastern born myself--Virginia.

Sellers is my name--Beriah Sellers.

“Ah! by the way--New York, did you say? That reminds me; just met

some gentlemen from your State, a week or two ago--very prominent

gentlemen--in public life they are; you must know them, without doubt.

Let me see--let me see. Curious those names have escaped me. I know

they were from your State, because I remember afterward my old friend

Governor Shackleby said to me--fine man, is the Governor--one of the

finest men our country has produced--said he, 'Colonel, how did you

like those New York gentlemen?--not many such men in the world,--Colonel

Sellers,' said the Governor--yes, it was New York he said--I remember it

distinctly. I can't recall those names, somehow. But no matter. Stopping

here, gentlemen--stopping at the Southern?”

In shaping their reply in their minds, the title “Mr.” had a place in

it; but when their turn had arrived to speak, the title “Colonel” came

from their lips instead.

They said yes, they were abiding at the Southern, and thought it a very

good house.

“Yes, yes, the Southern is fair. I myself go to the Planter's, old,

aristocratic house. We Southern gentlemen don't change our ways, you

know. I always make it my home there when I run down from Hawkeye--my

plantation is in Hawkeye, a little up in the country. You should know

the Planter's.”

Philip and Harry both said they should like to see a hotel that had been

so famous in its day--a cheerful hostelrie, Philip said it must have

been where duels were fought there across the dining-room table.

“You may believe it, sir, an uncommonly pleasant lodging. Shall we

walk?”

And the three strolled along the streets, the Colonel talking all

the way in the most liberal and friendly manner, and with a frank

open-heartedness that inspired confidence.

“Yes, born East myself, raised all along, know the West--a great

country, gentlemen. The place for a young fellow of spirit to pick up a

fortune, simply pick it up, it's lying round loose here. Not a day that

I don't put aside an opportunity; too busy to look into it. Management

of my own property takes my time. First visit? Looking for an opening?”

“Yes, looking around,” replied Harry.

“Ah, here we are. You'd rather sit here in front than go to my

apartments? So had I. An opening eh?”

The Colonel's eyes twinkled. “Ah, just so. The country is opening up,

all we want is capital to develop it. Slap down the rails and bring the

land into market. The richest land on God Almighty's footstool is

lying right out there. If I had my capital free I could plant it for

millions.”

“I suppose your capital is largely in your plantation?” asked Philip.

“Well, partly, sir, partly. I'm down here now with reference to a little

operation--a little side thing merely. By the way gentlemen, excuse the

liberty, but it's about my usual time”--

The Colonel paused, but as no movement of his acquaintances followed

this plain remark, he added, in an explanatory manner,

“I'm rather particular about the exact time--have to be in this

climate.”

Even this open declaration of his hospitable intention not being

understood the Colonel politely said,

“Gentlemen, will you take something?”

Col. Sellers led the way to a saloon on Fourth street under the hotel,

and the young gentlemen fell into the custom of the country.

“Not that,” said the Colonel to the bar-keeper, who shoved along the

counter a bottle of apparently corn-whiskey, as if he had done it before

on the same order; “not that,” with a wave of the hand. “That Otard if

you please. Yes. Never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the

evening, in this climate. There. That's the stuff. My respects!”

The hospitable gentleman, having disposed of his liquor, remarking that

it was not quite the thing--“when a man has his own cellar to go to, he

is apt to get a little fastidious about his liquors”--called for cigars.

But the brand offered did not suit him; he motioned the box away, and

asked for some particular Havana's, those in separate wrappers.

“I always smoke this sort, gentlemen; they are a little more expensive,

but you'll learn, in this climate, that you'd better not economize on

poor cigars.”

Having imparted this valuable piece of information, the Colonel lighted

the fragrant cigar with satisfaction, and then carelessly put his

fingers into his right vest pocket. That movement being without result,

with a shade of disappointment on his face, he felt in his left vest

pocket. Not finding anything there, he looked up with a serious and

annoyed air, anxiously slapped his right pantaloon's pocket, and then

his left, and exclaimed,

“By George, that's annoying. By George, that's mortifying. Never had

anything of that kind happen to me before. I've left my pocket-book.

Hold! Here's a bill, after all. No, thunder, it's a receipt.”

“Allow me,” said Philip, seeing how seriously the Colonel was annoyed,

and taking out his purse.

The Colonel protested he couldn't think of it, and muttered something to

the barkeeper about “hanging it up,” but the vender of exhilaration made

no sign, and Philip had the privilege of paying the costly shot; Col.

Sellers profusely apologizing and claiming the right “next time, next

time.”

As soon as Beriah Sellers had bade his friends good night and seen them

depart, he did not retire apartments in the Planter's, but took his way

to his lodgings with a friend in a distant part of the city.

CHAPTER XIV.

The letter that Philip Sterling wrote to Ruth Bolton, on the evening of

setting out to seek his fortune in the west, found that young lady in

her own father's house in Philadelphia. It was one of the pleasantest

of the many charming suburban houses in that hospitable city, which is

territorially one of the largest cities in the world, and only prevented

from becoming the convenient metropolis of the country by the intrusive

strip of Camden and Amboy sand which shuts it off from the Atlantic

ocean. It is a city of steady thrift, the arms of which might well be

the deliberate but delicious terrapin that imparts such a royal flavor

to its feasts.

It was a spring morning, and perhaps it was the influence of it that

made Ruth a little restless, satisfied neither with the out-doors nor

the in-doors. Her sisters had gone to the city to show some country

visitors Independence Hall, Girard College and Fairmount Water Works

and Park, four objects which Americans cannot die peacefully, even in

Naples, without having seen. But Ruth confessed that she was tired of

them, and also of the Mint. She was tired of other things. She tried

this morning an air or two upon the piano, sang a simple song in a

sweet but slightly metallic voice, and then seating herself by the open

window, read Philip's letter. Was she thinking about Philip, as she

gazed across the fresh lawn over the tree tops to the Chelton Hills, or

of that world which his entrance, into her tradition-bound life had been

one of the means of opening to her? Whatever she thought, she was not

idly musing, as one might see by the expression of her face. After a

time she took up a book; it was a medical work, and to all appearance

about as interesting to a girl of eighteen as the statutes at large; but

her face was soon aglow over its pages, and she was so absorbed in it

that she did not notice the entrance of her mother at the open door.

“Ruth?”

“Well, mother,” said the young student, looking up, with a shade of

impatience.

“I wanted to talk with thee a little about thy plans.”

“Mother; thee knows I couldn't stand it at Westfield; the school stifled

me, it's a place to turn young people into dried fruit.”

“I know,” said Margaret Bolton, with a half anxious smile, “thee chafes

against all the ways of Friends, but what will thee do? Why is thee so

discontented?”

“If I must say it, mother, I want to go away, and get out of this dead

level.”

With a look half of pain and half of pity, her mother answered, “I am

sure thee is little interfered with; thee dresses as thee will, and goes

where thee pleases, to any church thee likes, and thee has music. I had

a visit yesterday from the society's committee by way of discipline,

because we have a piano in the house, which is against the rules.”

“I hope thee told the elders that father and I are responsible for the

piano, and that, much as thee loves music, thee is never in the room

when it is played. Fortunately father is already out of meeting, so

they can't discipline him. I heard father tell cousin Abner that he was

whipped so often for whistling when he was a boy that he was determined

to have what compensation he could get now.”

“Thy ways greatly try me, Ruth, and all thy relations. I desire thy

happiness first of all, but thee is starting out on a dangerous path.

Is thy father willing thee should go away to a school of the world's

people?”

“I have not asked him,” Ruth replied with a look that might imply that

she was one of those determined little bodies who first made up her

own mind and then compelled others to make up theirs in accordance with

hers.

“And when thee has got the education thee wants, and lost all relish for

the society of thy friends and the ways of thy ancestors, what then?”

Ruth turned square round to her mother, and with an impassive face and

not the slightest change of tone, said,

“Mother, I'm going to study medicine?”

Margaret Bolton almost lost for a moment her habitual placidity.

“Thee, study medicine! A slight frail girl like thee, study medicine!

Does thee think thee could stand it six months? And the lectures, and

the dissecting rooms, has thee thought of the dissecting rooms?”

“Mother,” said Ruth calmly, “I have thought it all over. I know I can go

through the whole, clinics, dissecting room and all. Does thee think I

lack nerve? What is there to fear in a person dead more than in a person

living?”

“But thy health and strength, child; thee can never stand the severe

application. And, besides, suppose thee does learn medicine?”

“I will practice it.”

“Here?”

“Here.”

“Where thee and thy family are known?”

“If I can get patients.”

“I hope at least, Ruth, thee will let us know when thee opens an

office,” said her mother, with an approach to sarcasm that she rarely

indulged in, as she rose and left the room.

Ruth sat quite still for a time, with face intent and flushed. It was

out now. She had begun her open battle.

The sight-seers returned in high spirits from the city. Was there any

building in Greece to compare with Girard College, was there ever such a

magnificent pile of stone devised for the shelter of poor orphans? Think

of the stone shingles of the roof eight inches thick! Ruth asked the

enthusiasts if they would like to live in such a sounding mausoleum,

with its great halls and echoing rooms, and no comfortable place in it

for the accommodation of any body? If they were orphans, would they like

to be brought up in a Grecian temple?

And then there was Broad street! Wasn't it the broadest and the longest

street in the world? There certainly was no end to it, and even Ruth was

Philadelphian enough to believe that a street ought not to have any end,

or architectural point upon which the weary eye could rest.

But neither St. Girard, nor Broad street, neither wonders of the Mint

nor the glories of the Hall where the ghosts of our fathers sit always

signing the Declaration; impressed the visitors so much as the splendors

of the Chestnut street windows, and the bargains on Eighth street. The

truth is that the country cousins had come to town to attend the Yearly

Meeting, and the amount of shopping that preceded that religious event

was scarcely exceeded by the preparations for the opera in more worldly

circles.

“Is thee going to the Yearly Meeting, Ruth?” asked one of the girls.

“I have nothing to wear,” replied that demure person. “If thee wants to

see new bonnets, orthodox to a shade and conformed to the letter of the

true form, thee must go to the Arch Street Meeting. Any departure from

either color or shape would be instantly taken note of. It has occupied

mother a long time, to find at the shops the exact shade for her new

bonnet. Oh, thee must go by all means. But thee won't see there a

sweeter woman than mother.”

“And thee won't go?”

“Why should I? I've been again and again. If I go to Meeting at all I

like best to sit in the quiet old house in Germantown, where the windows

are all open and I can see the trees, and hear the stir of the leaves.

It's such a crush at the Yearly Meeting at Arch Street, and then there's

the row of sleek-looking young men who line the curbstone and stare at

us as we come out. No, I don't feel at home there.”

That evening Ruth and her father sat late by the drawing-room fire, as

they were quite apt to do at night. It was always a time of confidences.

“Thee has another letter from young Sterling,” said Eli Bolton.

“Yes. Philip has gone to the far west.”

“How far?”

“He doesn't say, but it's on the frontier, and on the map everything

beyond it is marked 'Indians' and 'desert,' and looks as desolate as a

Wednesday Meeting.”

“Humph. It was time for him to do something. Is he going to start a

daily newspaper among the Kick-a-poos?”

“Father, thee's unjust to Philip. He's going into business.”

“What sort of business can a young man go into without capital?”

“He doesn't say exactly what it is,” said Ruth a little dubiously, “but

it's something about land and railroads, and thee knows, father, that

fortunes are made nobody knows exactly how, in a new country.”

“I should think so, you innocent puss, and in an old one too. But Philip

is honest, and he has talent enough, if he will stop scribbling, to make

his way. But thee may as well take care of theeself, Ruth, and not go

dawdling along with a young man in his adventures, until thy own mind is

a little more settled what thee wants.”

This excellent advice did not seem to impress Ruth greatly, for she was

looking away with that abstraction of vision which often came into her

grey eyes, and at length she exclaimed, with a sort of impatience,

“I wish I could go west, or south, or somewhere. What a box women are

put into, measured for it, and put in young; if we go anywhere it's in

a box, veiled and pinioned and shut in by disabilities. Father, I should

like to break things and get loose!”

What a sweet-voiced little innocent, it was to be sure.

“Thee will no doubt break things enough when thy time comes, child;

women always have; but what does thee want now that thee hasn't?”

“I want to be something, to make myself something, to do something. Why

should I rust, and be stupid, and sit in inaction because I am a girl?

What would happen to me if thee should lose thy property and die? What

one useful thing could I do for a living, for the support of mother

and the children? And if I had a fortune, would thee want me to lead a

useless life?”

“Has thy mother led a useless life?”

“Somewhat that depends upon whether her children amount to anything,”

retorted the sharp little disputant. “What's the good, father, of a

series of human beings who don't advance any?”

Friend Eli, who had long ago laid aside the Quaker dress, and was out of

Meeting, and who in fact after a youth of doubt could not yet define his

belief, nevertheless looked with some wonder at this fierce young eagle

of his, hatched in a Friend's dove-cote. But he only said,

“Has thee consulted thy mother about a career, I suppose it is a career

thee wants?”

Ruth did not reply directly; she complained that her mother didn't

understand her. But that wise and placid woman understood the sweet

rebel a great deal better than Ruth understood herself. She also had a

history, possibly, and had sometime beaten her young wings against the

cage of custom, and indulged in dreams of a new social order, and had

passed through that fiery period when it seems possible for one mind,

which has not yet tried its limits, to break up and re-arrange the

world.

Ruth replied to Philip's letter in due time and in the most cordial and

unsentimental manner. Philip liked the letter, as he did everything she

did; but he had a dim notion that there was more about herself in the

letter than about him. He took it with him from the Southern Hotel, when

he went to walk, and read it over and again in an unfrequented street

as he stumbled along. The rather common-place and unformed hand-writing

seemed to him peculiar and characteristic, different from that of any

other woman.

Ruth was glad to hear that Philip had made a push into the world, and

she was sure that his talent and courage would make a way for him.

She should pray for his success at any rate, and especially that the

Indians, in St. Louis, would not take his scalp.

Philip looked rather dubious at this sentence, and wished that he had

written nothing about Indians.

CHAPTER XV.

Eli Bolton and his wife talked over Ruth's case, as they had often done

before, with no little anxiety. Alone of all their children she was

impatient of the restraints and monotony of the Friends' Society, and

wholly indisposed to accept the “inner light” as a guide into a life of

acceptance and inaction. When Margaret told her husband of Ruth's newest

project, he did not exhibit so much surprise as she hoped for. In fact

he said that he did not see why a woman should not enter the medical

profession if she felt a call to it.

“But,” said Margaret, “consider her total inexperience of the world, and

her frail health. Can such a slight little body endure the ordeal of the

preparation for, or the strain of, the practice of the profession?”

“Did thee ever think, Margaret, whether, she can endure being thwarted

in an object on which she has so set her heart, as she has on this? Thee

has trained her thyself at home, in her enfeebled childhood, and thee

knows how strong her will is, and what she has been able to accomplish

in self-culture by the simple force of her determination. She never will

be satisfied until she has tried her own strength.”

“I wish,” said Margaret, with an inconsequence that is not exclusively

feminine, “that she were in the way to fall in love and marry by and by.

I think that would cure her of some of her notions. I am not sure but

if she went away, to some distant school, into an entirely new life, her

thoughts would be diverted.”

Eli Bolton almost laughed as he regarded his wife, with eyes that never

looked at her except fondly, and replied,

“Perhaps thee remembers that thee had notions also, before we were

married, and before thee became a member of Meeting. I think Ruth comes

honestly by certain tendencies which thee has hidden under the Friend's

dress.”

Margaret could not say no to this, and while she paused, it was evident

that memory was busy with suggestions to shake her present opinions.

“Why not let Ruth try the study for a time,” suggested Eli; “there is

a fair beginning of a Woman's Medical College in the city. Quite likely

she will soon find that she needs first a more general culture, and fall

in with thy wish that she should see more of the world at some large

school.”

There really seemed to be nothing else to be done, and Margaret

consented at length without approving. And it was agreed that Ruth, in

order to spare her fatigue, should take lodgings with friends near the

college and make a trial in the pursuit of that science to which we all

owe our lives, and sometimes as by a miracle of escape.

That day Mr. Bolton brought home a stranger to dinner, Mr. Bigler of the

great firm of Pennybacker, Bigler & Small, railroad contractors. He was

always bringing home somebody, who had a scheme; to build a road, or

open a mine, or plant a swamp with cane to grow paper-stock, or found a

hospital, or invest in a patent shad-bone separator, or start a college

somewhere on the frontier, contiguous to a land speculation.

The Bolton house was a sort of hotel for this kind of people. They were

always coming. Ruth had known them from childhood, and she used to say

that her father attracted them as naturally as a sugar hogshead does

flies. Ruth had an idea that a large portion of the world lived by

getting the rest of the world into schemes. Mr. Bolton never could

say “no” to any of them, not even, said Ruth again, to the society for

stamping oyster shells with scripture texts before they were sold at

retail.

Mr. Bigler's plan this time, about which he talked loudly, with his

mouth full, all dinner time, was the building of the Tunkhannock,

Rattlesnake and Youngwomans Town Railroad, which would not only be

a great highway to the west, but would open to market inexhaustible

coal-fields and untold millions of lumber. The plan of operations was

very simple.

“We'll buy the lands,” explained he, “on long time, backed by the notes

of good men; and then mortgage them for money enough to get the road

well on. Then get the towns on the line to issue their bonds for stock,

and sell their bonds for enough to complete the road, and partly stock

it, especially if we mortgage each section as we complete it. We can

then sell the rest of the stock on the prospect of the business of

the road through an improved country, and also sell the lands at a big

advance, on the strength of the road. All we want,” continued Mr. Bigler

in his frank manner, “is a few thousand dollars to start the surveys,

and arrange things in the legislature. There is some parties will have

to be seen, who might make us trouble.”

“It will take a good deal of money to start the enterprise,” remarked

Mr. Bolton, who knew very well what “seeing” a Pennsylvania Legislature

meant, but was too polite to tell Mr. Bigler what he thought of him,

while he was his guest; “what security would one have for it?”

Mr. Bigler smiled a hard kind of smile, and said, “You'd be inside, Mr.

Bolton, and you'd have the first chance in the deal.”

This was rather unintelligible to Ruth, who was nevertheless somewhat

amused by the study of a type of character she had seen before. At

length she interrupted the conversation by asking,

“You'd sell the stock, I suppose, Mr. Bigler, to anybody who was

attracted by the prospectus?”

“O, certainly, serve all alike,” said Mr. Bigler, now noticing Ruth for

the first time, and a little puzzled by the serene, intelligent face

that was turned towards him.

“Well, what would become of the poor people who had been led to put

their little money into the speculation, when you got out of it and left

it half way?”

It would be no more true to say of Mr. Bigler that he was or could be

embarrassed, than to say that a brass counterfeit dollar-piece would

change color when refused; the question annoyed him a little, in Mr.

Bolton's presence.

“Why, yes, Miss, of course, in a great enterprise for the benefit of the

community there will little things occur, which, which--and, of course,

the poor ought to be looked to; I tell my wife, that the poor must be

looked to; if you can tell who are poor--there's so many impostors. And

then, there's so many poor in the legislature to be looked after,” said

the contractor with a sort of a chuckle, “isn't that so, Mr. Bolton?”

Eli Bolton replied that he never had much to do with the legislature.

“Yes,” continued this public benefactor, “an uncommon poor lot this

year, uncommon. Consequently an expensive lot. The fact is, Mr. Bolton,

that the price is raised so high on United States Senator now, that it

affects the whole market; you can't get any public improvement through

on reasonable terms. Simony is what I call it, Simony,” repeated Mr.

Bigler, as if he had said a good thing.

Mr. Bigler went on and gave some very interesting details of the

intimate connection between railroads and politics, and thoroughly

entertained himself all dinner time, and as much disgusted Ruth, who

asked no more questions, and her father who replied in monosyllables:

“I wish,” said Ruth to her father, after the guest had gone, “that you

wouldn't bring home any more such horrid men. Do all men who wear

big diamond breast-pins, flourish their knives at table, and use bad

grammar, and cheat?”

“O, child, thee mustn't be too observing. Mr. Bigler is one of the most

important men in the state; nobody has more influence at Harrisburg. I

don't like him any more than thee does, but I'd better lend him a little

money than to have his ill will.”

“Father, I think thee'd better have his ill-will than his company. Is

it true that he gave money to help build the pretty little church of St.

James the Less, and that he is, one of the vestrymen?”

“Yes. He is not such a bad fellow. One of the men in Third street asked

him the other day, whether his was a high church or a low church?

Bigler said he didn't know; he'd been in it once, and he could touch the

ceiling in the side aisle with his hand.”

“I think he's just horrid,” was Ruth's final summary of him, after the

manner of the swift judgment of women, with no consideration of the

extenuating circumstances. Mr. Bigler had no idea that he had not made

a good impression on the whole family; he certainly intended to be

agreeable. Margaret agreed with her daughter, and though she never said

anything to such people, she was grateful to Ruth for sticking at least

one pin into him.

Such was the serenity of the Bolton household that a stranger in it

would never have suspected there was any opposition to Ruth's going to

the Medical School. And she went quietly to take her residence in town,

and began her attendance of the lectures, as if it were the most

natural thing in the world. She did not heed, if she heard, the busy and

wondering gossip of relations and acquaintances, gossip that has no less

currency among the Friends than elsewhere because it is whispered slyly

and creeps about in an undertone.

Ruth was absorbed, and for the first time in her life thoroughly happy;

happy in the freedom of her life, and in the keen enjoyment of the

investigation that broadened its field day by day. She was in high

spirits when she came home to spend First Days; the house was full of

her gaiety and her merry laugh, and the children wished that Ruth would

never go away again. But her mother noticed, with a little anxiety, the

sometimes flushed face, and the sign of an eager spirit in the kindling

eyes, and, as well, the serious air of determination and endurance in

her face at unguarded moments.

The college was a small one and it sustained itself not without

difficulty in this city, which is so conservative, and is yet the

origin of so many radical movements. There were not more than a dozen

attendants on the lectures all together, so that the enterprise had

the air of an experiment, and the fascination of pioneering for those

engaged in it. There was one woman physician driving about town in

her carriage, attacking the most violent diseases in all quarters with

persistent courage, like a modern Bellona in her war chariot, who

was popularly supposed to gather in fees to the amount ten to twenty

thousand dollars a year. Perhaps some of these students looked forward

to the near day when they would support such a practice and a husband

besides, but it is unknown that any of them ever went further than

practice in hospitals and in their own nurseries, and it is feared that

some of them were quite as ready as their sisters, in emergencies, to

“call a man.”

If Ruth had any exaggerated expectations of a professional life, she

kept them to herself, and was known to her fellows of the class simply

as a cheerful, sincere student, eager in her investigations, and never

impatient at anything, except an insinuation that women had not as much

mental capacity for science as men.

“They really say,” said one young Quaker sprig to another youth of

his age, “that Ruth Bolton is really going to be a saw-bones, attends

lectures, cuts up bodies, and all that. She's cool enough for a surgeon,

anyway.” He spoke feelingly, for he had very likely been weighed in

Ruth's calm eyes sometime, and thoroughly scared by the little laugh

that accompanied a puzzling reply to one of his conversational nothings.

Such young gentlemen, at this time, did not come very distinctly into

Ruth's horizon, except as amusing circumstances.

About the details of her student life, Ruth said very little to her

friends, but they had reason to know, afterwards, that it required all

her nerve and the almost complete exhaustion of her physical strength,

to carry her through. She began her anatomical practice upon detached

portions of the human frame, which were brought into the demonstrating

room--dissecting the eye, the ear, and a small tangle of muscles and

nerves--an occupation which had not much more savor of death in it than

the analysis of a portion of a plant out of which the life went when it

was plucked up by the roots. Custom inures the most sensitive persons

to that which is at first most repellant; and in the late war we saw the

most delicate women, who could not at home endure the sight of blood,

become so used to scenes of carnage, that they walked the hospitals and

the margins of battle-fields, amid the poor remnants of torn humanity,

with as perfect self-possession as if they were strolling in a flower

garden.

It happened that Ruth was one evening deep in a line of investigation

which she could not finish or understand without demonstration, and so

eager was she in it, that it seemed as if she could not wait till the

next day. She, therefore, persuaded a fellow student, who was reading

that evening with her, to go down to the dissecting room of the college,

and ascertain what they wanted to know by an hour's work there. Perhaps,

also, Ruth wanted to test her own nerve, and to see whether the power of

association was stronger in her mind than her own will.

The janitor of the shabby and comfortless old building admitted the

girls, not without suspicion, and gave them lighted candles, which they

would need, without other remark than “there's a new one, Miss,” as the

girls went up the broad stairs.

They climbed to the third story, and paused before a door, which they

unlocked, and which admitted them into a long apartment, with a row of

windows on one side and one at the end. The room was without light, save

from the stars and the candles the girls carried, which revealed to them

dimly two long and several small tables, a few benches and chairs, a

couple of skeletons hanging on the wall, a sink, and cloth-covered heaps

of something upon the tables here and there.

The windows were open, and the cool night wind came in strong enough to

flutter a white covering now and then, and to shake the loose casements.

But all the sweet odors of the night could not take from the room a

faint suggestion of mortality.

The young ladies paused a moment. The room itself was familiar enough,

but night makes almost any chamber eerie, and especially such a room of

detention as this where the mortal parts of the unburied might--almost

be supposed to be, visited, on the sighing night winds, by the wandering

spirits of their late tenants.

Opposite and at some distance across the roofs of lower buildings, the

girls saw a tall edifice, the long upper story of which seemed to be a

dancing hall. The windows of that were also open, and through them they

heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump,

pump of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick

transition, and heard the prompter's drawl.

“I wonder,” said Ruth, “what the girls dancing there would think if they

saw us, or knew that there was such a room as this so near them.”

She did not speak very loud, and, perhaps unconsciously, the girls drew

near to each other as they approached the long table in the centre of

the room. A straight object lay upon it, covered with a sheet. This was

doubtless “the new one” of which the janitor spoke. Ruth advanced, and

with a not very steady hand lifted the white covering from the upper

part of the figure and turned it down. Both the girls started. It was a

negro. The black face seemed to defy the pallor of death, and asserted

an ugly life-likeness that was frightful.

Ruth was as pale as the white sheet, and her comrade whispered, “Come

away, Ruth, it is awful.”

Perhaps it was the wavering light of the candles, perhaps it was only

the agony from a death of pain, but the repulsive black face seemed

to wear a scowl that said, “Haven't you yet done with the outcast,

persecuted black man, but you must now haul him from his grave, and send

even your women to dismember his body?”

Who is this dead man, one of thousands who died yesterday, and will be

dust anon, to protest that science shall not turn his worthless carcass

to some account?

Ruth could have had no such thought, for with a pity in her sweet face,

that for the moment overcame fear and disgust, she reverently replaced

the covering, and went away to her own table, as her companion did

to hers. And there for an hour they worked at their several problems,

without speaking, but not without an awe of the presence there, “the new

one,” and not without an awful sense of life itself, as they heard the

pulsations of the music and the light laughter from the dancing-hall.

When, at length, they went away, and locked the dreadful room behind

them, and came out into the street, where people were passing, they, for

the first time, realized, in the relief they felt, what a nervous strain

they had been under.

CHAPTER XVI.

While Ruth was thus absorbed in her new occupation, and the spring was

wearing away, Philip and his friends were still detained at the Southern

Hotel. The great contractors had concluded their business with the state

and railroad officials and with the lesser contractors, and departed for

the East. But the serious illness of one of the engineers kept Philip

and Henry in the city and occupied in alternate watchings.

Philip wrote to Ruth of the new acquaintance they had made, Col.

Sellers, an enthusiastic and hospitable gentleman, very much interested

in the development of the country, and in their success. They had not

had an opportunity to visit at his place “up in the country” yet, but

the Colonel often dined with them, and in confidence, confided to them

his projects, and seemed to take a great liking to them, especially to

his friend Harry. It was true that he never seemed to have ready money,

but he was engaged in very large operations.

The correspondence was not very brisk between these two young persons,

so differently occupied; for though Philip wrote long letters, he got

brief ones in reply, full of sharp little observations however, such as

one concerning Col. Sellers, namely, that such men dined at their house

every week.

Ruth's proposed occupation astonished Philip immensely, but while he

argued it and discussed it, he did not dare hint to her his fear that

it would interfere with his most cherished plans. He too sincerely

respected Ruth's judgment to make any protest, however, and he would

have defended her course against the world.

This enforced waiting at St. Louis was very irksome to Philip. His money

was running away, for one thing, and he longed to get into the field,

and see for himself what chance there was for a fortune or even an

occupation. The contractors had given the young men leave to join

the engineer corps as soon as they could, but otherwise had made

no provision for them, and in fact had left them with only the most

indefinite expectations of something large in the future.

Harry was entirely happy; in his circumstances. He very soon knew

everybody, from the governor of the state down to the waiters at the

hotel. He had the Wall street slang at his tongue's end; he always

talked like a capitalist, and entered with enthusiasm into all the land

and railway schemes with which the air was thick.

Col. Sellers and Harry talked together by the hour and by the day. Harry

informed his new friend that he was going out with the engineer corps of

the Salt Lick Pacific Extension, but that wasn't his real business.

“I'm to have, with another party,” said Harry, “a big contract in the

road, as soon as it is let; and, meantime, I'm with the engineers to spy

out the best land and the depot sites.”

“It's everything,” suggested the Colonel, “in knowing where to

invest. I've known people throwaway their money because they were too

consequential to take Sellers' advice. Others, again, have made their

pile on taking it. I've looked over the ground; I've been studying it

for twenty years. You can't put your finger on a spot in the map of

Missouri that I don't know as if I'd made it. When you want to place

anything,” continued the Colonel, confidently, “just let Beriah Sellers

know. That's all.”

“Oh, I haven't got much in ready money I can lay my hands on now, but if

a fellow could do anything with fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, as a

beginning, I shall draw for that when I see the right opening.”

“Well, that's something, that's something, fifteen or twenty thousand

dollars, say twenty--as an advance,” said the Colonel reflectively, as

if turning over his mind for a project that could be entered on with

such a trifling sum.

“I'll tell you what it is--but only to you Mr. Brierly, only to you,

mind; I've got a little project that I've been keeping. It looks small,

looks small on paper, but it's got a big future. What should you say,

sir, to a city, built up like the rod of Aladdin had touched it, built

up in two years, where now you wouldn't expect it any more than you'd

expect a light-house on the top of Pilot Knob? and you could own the

land! It can be done, sir. It can be done!”

The Colonel hitched up his chair close to Harry, laid his hand on his

knee, and, first looking about him, said in a low voice, “The Salt Lick

Pacific Extension is going to run through Stone's Landing! The Almighty

never laid out a cleaner piece of level prairie for a city; and it's the

natural center of all that region of hemp and tobacco.”

“What makes you think the road will go there? It's twenty miles, on the

map, off the straight line of the road?”

“You can't tell what is the straight line till the engineers have been

over it. Between us, I have talked with Jeff Thompson, the division

engineer. He understands the wants of Stone's Landing, and the claims

of the inhabitants--who are to be there. Jeff says that a railroad is

for--the accommodation of the people and not for the benefit of gophers;

and if, he don't run this to Stone's Landing he'll be damned! You

ought to know Jeff; he's one of the most enthusiastic engineers in this

western country, and one of the best fellows that ever looked through

the bottom of a glass.”

The recommendation was not undeserved. There was nothing that Jeff

wouldn't do, to accommodate a friend, from sharing his last dollar with

him, to winging him in a duel. When he understood from Col. Sellers.

how the land lay at Stone's Landing, he cordially shook hands with that

gentleman, asked him to drink, and fairly roared out, “Why, God bless

my soul, Colonel, a word from one Virginia gentleman to another is 'nuff

ced.' There's Stone's Landing been waiting for a railroad more than four

thousand years, and damme if she shan't have it.”

Philip had not so much faith as Harry in Stone's Landing, when the

latter opened the project to him, but Harry talked about it as if he

already owned that incipient city.

Harry thoroughly believed in all his projects and inventions, and lived

day by day in their golden atmosphere. Everybody liked the young fellow,

for how could they help liking one of such engaging manners and large

fortune? The waiters at the hotel would do more for him than for any

other guest, and he made a great many acquaintances among the people

of St. Louis, who liked his sensible and liberal views about the

development of the western country, and about St. Louis. He said it

ought to be the national capital. Harry made partial arrangements with

several of the merchants for furnishing supplies for his contract on the

Salt Lick Pacific Extension; consulted the maps with the engineers, and

went over the profiles with the contractors, figuring out estimates for

bids. He was exceedingly busy with those things when he was not at

the bedside of his sick acquaintance, or arranging the details of his

speculation with Col. Sellers.

Meantime the days went along and the weeks, and the money in Harry's

pocket got lower and lower. He was just as liberal with what he had as

before, indeed it was his nature to be free with his money or with that

of others, and he could lend or spend a dollar with an air that made it

seem like ten. At length, at the end of one week, when his hotel bill

was presented, Harry found not a cent in his pocket to meet it. He

carelessly remarked to the landlord that he was not that day in

funds, but he would draw on New York, and he sat down and wrote to the

contractors in that city a glowing letter about the prospects of the

road, and asked them to advance a hundred or two, until he got at work.

No reply came. He wrote again, in an unoffended business like tone,

suggesting that he had better draw at three days. A short answer came to

this, simply saying that money was very tight in Wall street just then,

and that he had better join the engineer corps as soon as he could.

But the bill had to be paid, and Harry took it to Philip, and asked him

if he thought he hadn't better draw on his uncle. Philip had not much

faith in Harry's power of “drawing,” and told him that he would pay the

bill himself. Whereupon Harry dismissed the matter then and thereafter

from his thoughts, and, like a light-hearted good fellow as he was, gave

himself no more trouble about his board-bills. Philip paid them, swollen

as they were with a monstrous list of extras; but he seriously counted

the diminishing bulk of his own hoard, which was all the money he had in

the world. Had he not tacitly agreed to share with Harry to the last in

this adventure, and would not the generous fellow divide with him if he,

Philip, were in want and Harry had anything?

The fever at length got tired of tormenting the stout young engineer,

who lay sick at the hotel, and left him, very thin, a little sallow but

an “acclimated” man. Everybody said he was “acclimated” now, and said it

cheerfully. What it is to be acclimated to western fevers no two persons

exactly agree.

Some say it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some

malignant type of fever less probable. Some regard it as a sort of

initiation, like that into the Odd Fellows, which renders one liable to

his regular dues thereafter. Others consider it merely the acquisition

of a habit of taking every morning before breakfast a dose of bitters,

composed of whiskey and assafoetida, out of the acclimation jug.

Jeff Thompson afterwards told Philip that he once asked Senator

Atchison, then acting Vice-President of the United States, about the

possibility of acclimation; he thought the opinion of the second officer

of our great government would be valuable on this point. They were

sitting together on a bench before a country tavern, in the free

converse permitted by our democratic habits.

“I suppose, Senator, that you have become acclimated to this country?”

“Well,” said the Vice-President, crossing his legs, pulling his

wide-awake down over his forehead, causing a passing chicken to

hop quickly one side by the accuracy of his aim, and speaking with

senatorial deliberation, “I think I have. I've been here twenty-five

years, and dash, dash my dash to dash, if I haven't entertained

twenty-five separate and distinct earthquakes, one a year. The niggro is

the only person who can stand the fever and ague of this region.”

The convalescence of the engineer was the signal for breaking up

quarters at St. Louis, and the young fortune-hunters started up the

river in good spirits. It was only the second time either of them had

been upon a Mississippi steamboat, and nearly everything they saw

had the charm of novelty. Col. Sellers was at the landing to bid them

good-bye.

“I shall send you up that basket of champagne by the next boat; no, no;

no thanks; you'll find it not bad in camp,” he cried out as the plank

was hauled in. “My respects to Thompson. Tell him to sight for Stone's.

Let me know, Mr. Brierly, when you are ready to locate; I'll come over

from Hawkeye. Goodbye.”

And the last the young fellows saw of the Colonel, he was waving his

hat, and beaming prosperity and good luck.

The voyage was delightful, and was not long enough to become monotonous.

The travelers scarcely had time indeed to get accustomed to the

splendors of the great saloon where the tables were spread for meals,

a marvel of paint and gilding, its ceiling hung with fancifully cut

tissue-paper of many colors, festooned and arranged in endless patterns.

The whole was more beautiful than a barber's shop. The printed bill

of fare at dinner was longer and more varied, the proprietors justly

boasted, than that of any hotel in New York. It must have been the work

of an author of talent and imagination, and it surely was not his fault

if the dinner itself was to a certain extent a delusion, and if the

guests got something that tasted pretty much the same whatever dish they

ordered; nor was it his fault if a general flavor of rose in all the

dessert dishes suggested that they had passed through the barber's

saloon on their way from the kitchen.

The travelers landed at a little settlement on the left bank, and at

once took horses for the camp in the interior, carrying their clothes

and blankets strapped behind the saddles. Harry was dressed as we have

seen him once before, and his long and shining boots attracted not

a little the attention of the few persons they met on the road, and

especially of the bright faced wenches who lightly stepped along the

highway, picturesque in their colored kerchiefs, carrying light baskets,

or riding upon mules and balancing before them a heavier load.

Harry sang fragments of operas and talked about their fortune. Philip

even was excited by the sense of freedom and adventure, and the beauty

of the landscape. The prairie, with its new grass and unending acres of

brilliant flowers--chiefly the innumerable varieties of phlox--bore the

look of years of cultivation, and the occasional open groves of white

oaks gave it a park-like appearance. It was hardly unreasonable to

expect to see at any moment, the gables and square windows of an

Elizabethan mansion in one of the well kept groves.

Towards sunset of the third day, when the young gentlemen thought they

ought to be near the town of Magnolia, near which they had been directed

to find the engineers' camp, they descried a log house and drew up

before it to enquire the way. Half the building was store, and half was

dwelling house. At the door of the latter stood a negress with a bright

turban on her head, to whom Philip called,

“Can you tell me, auntie, how far it is to the town of Magnolia?”

“Why, bress you chile,” laughed the woman, “you's dere now.”

It was true. This log house was the compactly built town, and all

creation was its suburbs. The engineers' camp was only two or three

miles distant.

“You's boun' to find it,” directed auntie, “if you don't keah nuffin

'bout de road, and go fo' de sun-down.”

A brisk gallop brought the riders in sight of the twinkling light of

the camp, just as the stars came out. It lay in a little hollow, where

a small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half

dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled

at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on

blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible

as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some

neighboring plantation, “breaking down” a juba in approved style, amid

the “hi, hi's” of the spectators.

Mr. Jeff Thompson, for it was the camp of this redoubtable engineer,

gave the travelers a hearty welcome, offered them ground room in his

own tent, ordered supper, and set out a small jug, a drop from which he

declared necessary on account of the chill of the evening.

“I never saw an Eastern man,” said Jeff, “who knew how to drink from

a jug with one hand. It's as easy as lying. So.” He grasped the handle

with the right hand, threw the jug back upon his arm, and applied

his lips to the nozzle. It was an act as graceful as it was simple.

“Besides,” said Mr. Thompson, setting it down, “it puts every man on his

honor as to quantity.”

Early to turn in was the rule of the camp, and by nine o'clock everybody

was under his blanket, except Jeff himself, who worked awhile at his

table over his field-book, and then arose, stepped outside the tent

door and sang, in a strong and not unmelodious tenor, the Star Spangled

Banner from beginning to end. It proved to be his nightly practice to

let off the unexpended steam of his conversational powers, in the words

of this stirring song.

It was a long time before Philip got to sleep. He saw the fire light,

he saw the clear stars through the tree-tops, he heard the gurgle of the

stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which

followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed

he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and

heard him sing, “Oh, say, can you see?” It was the first time he had

ever slept on the ground.

CHAPTER XVII.

----“We have view'd it,

And measur'd it within all, by the scale

The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom!

There will be made seventeen or eighteeen millions,

Or more, as't may be handled!”

The Devil is an Ass.

Nobody dressed more like an engineer than Mr. Henry Brierly. The

completeness of his appointments was the envy of the corps, and the

gay fellow himself was the admiration of the camp servants, axemen,

teamsters and cooks.

“I reckon you didn't git them boots no wher's this side o' Sent Louis?”

queried the tall Missouri youth who acted as commissary's assistant.

“No, New York.”

“Yas, I've heern o' New York,” continued the butternut lad, attentively

studying each item of Harry's dress, and endeavoring to cover his design

with interesting conversation. “'N there's Massachusetts.”,

“It's not far off.”

“I've heern Massachusetts was a-----of a place. Les, see, what state's

Massachusetts in?”

“Massachusetts,” kindly replied Harry, “is in the state of Boston.”

“Abolish'n wan't it? They must a cost right smart,” referring to the

boots.

Harry shouldered his rod and went to the field, tramped over the prairie

by day, and figured up results at night, with the utmost cheerfulness

and industry, and plotted the line on the profile paper, without,

however, the least idea of engineering practical or theoretical. Perhaps

there was not a great deal of scientific knowledge in the entire corps,

nor was very much needed. They were making, what is called a preliminary

survey, and the chief object of a preliminary survey was to get up an

excitement about the road, to interest every town in that part of the

state in it, under the belief that the road would run through it, and to

get the aid of every planter upon the prospect that a station would be

on his land.

Mr. Jeff Thompson was the most popular engineer who could be found

for this work. He did not bother himself much about details or

practicabilities of location, but ran merrily along, sighting from the

top of one divide to the top of another, and striking “plumb” every town

site and big plantation within twenty or thirty miles of his route. In

his own language he “just went booming.”

This course gave Harry an opportunity, as he said, to learn the

practical details of engineering, and it gave Philip a chance to see the

country, and to judge for himself what prospect of a fortune it offered.

Both he and Harry got the “refusal” of more than one plantation as they

went along, and wrote urgent letters to their eastern correspondents,

upon the beauty of the land and the certainty that it would quadruple in

value as soon as the road was finally located. It seemed strange to them

that capitalists did not flock out there and secure this land.

They had not been in the field over two weeks when Harry wrote to his

friend Col. Sellers that he'd better be on the move, for the line was

certain to go to Stone's Landing. Any one who looked at the line on

the map, as it was laid down from day to day, would have been uncertain

which way it was going; but Jeff had declared that in his judgment the

only practicable route from the point they then stood on was to follow

the divide to Stone's Landing, and it was generally understood that that

town would be the next one hit.

“We'll make it, boys,” said the chief, “if we have to go in a balloon.”

And make it they did. In less than a week, this indomitable engineer had

carried his moving caravan over slues and branches, across bottoms and

along divides, and pitched his tents in the very heart of the city of

Stone's Landing.

“Well, I'll be dashed,” was heard the cheery voice of Mr. Thompson, as

he stepped outside the tent door at sunrise next morning. “If this don't

get me. I say, yon Grayson, get out your sighting iron and see if you

can find old Sellers' town. Blame me if we wouldn't have run plumb by it

if twilight had held on a little longer. Oh! Sterling, Brierly, get up

and see the city. There's a steamboat just coming round the bend.” And

Jeff roared with laughter. “The mayor'll be round here to breakfast.”

The fellows turned out of the tents, rubbing their eyes, and stared

about them. They were camped on the second bench of the narrow bottom of

a crooked, sluggish stream, that was some five rods wide in the present

good stage of water. Before them were a dozen log cabins, with stick

and mud chimneys, irregularly disposed on either side of a not very

well defined road, which did not seem to know its own mind exactly, and,

after straggling through the town, wandered off over the rolling prairie

in an uncertain way, as if it had started for nowhere and was quite

likely to reach its destination. Just as it left the town, however, it

was cheered and assisted by a guide-board, upon which was the legend “10

Mils to Hawkeye.”

The road had never been made except by the travel over it, and at this

season--the rainy June--it was a way of ruts cut in the black soil, and

of fathomless mud-holes. In the principal street of the city, it had

received more attention; for hogs, great and small, rooted about in

it and wallowed in it, turning the street into a liquid quagmire which

could only be crossed on pieces of plank thrown here and there.

About the chief cabin, which was the store and grocery of this mart of

trade, the mud was more liquid than elsewhere, and the rude platform

in front of it and the dry-goods boxes mounted thereon were places

of refuge for all the loafers of the place. Down by the stream was a

dilapidated building which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky

wharf extended out from it, into the water. In fact a flat-boat was

there moored by it, it's setting poles lying across the gunwales. Above

the town the stream was crossed by a crazy wooden bridge, the supports

of which leaned all ways in the soggy soil; the absence of a plank here

and there in the flooring made the crossing of the bridge faster than a

walk an offense not necessary to be prohibited by law.

“This, gentlemen,” said Jeff, “is Columbus River, alias Goose Run. If it

was widened, and deepened, and straightened, and made, long enough, it

would be one of the finest rivers in the western country.”

As the sun rose and sent his level beams along the stream, the thin

stratum of mist, or malaria, rose also and dispersed, but the light was

not able to enliven the dull water nor give any hint of its apparently

fathomless depth. Venerable mud-turtles crawled up and roosted upon the

old logs in the stream, their backs glistening in the sun, the first

inhabitants of the metropolis to begin the active business of the day.

It was not long, however, before smoke began to issue from the city

chimneys; and before the engineers had finished their breakfast they

were the object of the curious inspection of six or eight boys and men,

who lounged into the camp and gazed about them with languid interest,

their hands in their pockets every one.

“Good morning; gentlemen,” called out the chief engineer, from the

table.

“Good mawning,” drawled out the spokesman of the party. “I allow

thish-yers the railroad, I heern it was a-comin'.”

“Yes, this is the railroad; all but the rails and the ironhorse.”

“I reckon you kin git all the rails you want oaten my white oak timber

over, thar,” replied the first speaker, who appeared to be a man of

property and willing to strike up a trade.

“You'll have to negotiate with the contractors about the rails, sir,”

said Jeff; “here's Mr. Brierly, I've no doubt would like to buy your

rails when the time comes.”

“O,” said the man, “I thought maybe you'd fetch the whole bilin along

with you. But if you want rails, I've got em, haint I Eph.”

“Heaps,” said Eph, without taking his eyes off the group at the table.

“Well,” said Mr. Thompson, rising from his seat and moving towards his

tent, “the railroad has come to Stone's Landing, sure; I move we take a

drink on it all round.”

The proposal met with universal favor. Jeff gave prosperity to Stone's

Landing and navigation to Goose Run, and the toast was washed down with

gusto, in the simple fluid of corn; and with the return compliment that

a rail road was a good thing, and that Jeff Thompson was no slouch.