About ten o'clock a horse and wagon was descried making a slow approach

to the camp over the prairie. As it drew near, the wagon was seen to

contain a portly gentleman, who hitched impatiently forward on his seat,

shook the reins and gently touched up his horse, in the vain attempt to

communicate his own energy to that dull beast, and looked eagerly at the

tents. When the conveyance at length drew up to Mr. Thompson's door, the

gentleman descended with great deliberation, straightened himself

up, rubbed his hands, and beaming satisfaction from every part of his

radiant frame, advanced to the group that was gathered to welcome him,

and which had saluted him by name as soon as he came within hearing.

“Welcome to Napoleon, gentlemen, welcome. I am proud to see you here Mr.

Thompson. You are, looking well Mr. Sterling. This is the country, sir.

Right glad to see you Mr. Brierly. You got that basket of champagne? No?

Those blasted river thieves! I'll never send anything more by 'em. The

best brand, Roederer. The last I had in my cellar, from a lot sent me

by Sir George Gore--took him out on a buffalo hunt, when he visited our

country. Is always sending me some trifle. You haven't looked about any

yet, gentlemen? It's in the rough yet, in the rough. Those buildings

will all have to come down. That's the place for the public square,

Court House, hotels, churches, jail--all that sort of thing. About where

we stand, the deepo. How does that strike your engineering eye, Mr.

Thompson? Down yonder the business streets, running to the wharves. The

University up there, on rising ground, sightly place, see the river for

miles. That's Columbus river, only forty-nine miles to the Missouri. You

see what it is, placid, steady, no current to interfere with navigation,

wants widening in places and dredging, dredge out the harbor and raise

a levee in front of the town; made by nature on purpose for a mart. Look

at all this country, not another building within ten miles, no other

navigable stream, lay of the land points right here; hemp, tobacco,

corn, must come here. The railroad will do it, Napoleon won't know

itself in a year.”

“Don't now evidently,” said Philip aside to Harry. “Have you breakfasted

Colonel?”

“Hastily. Cup of coffee. Can't trust any coffee I don't import

myself. But I put up a basket of provisions,--wife would put in a few

delicacies, women always will, and a half dozen of that Burgundy, I was

telling you of Mr. Briefly. By the way, you never got to dine with me.”

And the Colonel strode away to the wagon and looked under the seat for

the basket.

Apparently it was not there. For the Colonel raised up the flap, looked

in front and behind, and then exclaimed,

“Confound it. That comes of not doing a thing yourself. I trusted to the

women folks to set that basket in the wagon, and it ain't there.”

The camp cook speedily prepared a savory breakfast for the Colonel,

broiled chicken, eggs, corn-bread, and coffee, to which he did ample

justice, and topped off with a drop of Old Bourbon, from Mr. Thompson's

private store, a brand which he said he knew well, he should think it

came from his own sideboard.

While the engineer corps went to the field, to run back a couple of

miles and ascertain, approximately, if a road could ever get down to the

Landing, and to sight ahead across the Run, and see if it could ever get

out again, Col. Sellers and Harry sat down and began to roughly map out

the city of Napoleon on a large piece of drawing paper.

“I've got the refusal of a mile square here,” said the Colonel, “in

our names, for a year, with a quarter interest reserved for the four

owners.”

They laid out the town liberally, not lacking room, leaving space

for the railroad to come in, and for the river as it was to be when

improved.

The engineers reported that the railroad could come in, by taking a

little sweep and crossing the stream on a high bridge, but the grades

would be steep. Col. Sellers said he didn't care so much about the

grades, if the road could only be made to reach the elevators on the

river. The next day Mr. Thompson made a hasty survey of the stream for a

mile or two, so that the Colonel and Harry were enabled to show on

their map how nobly that would accommodate the city. Jeff took a little

writing from the Colonel and Harry for a prospective share but Philip

declined to join in, saying that he had no money, and didn't want to

make engagements he couldn't fulfill.

The next morning the camp moved on, followed till it was out of sight

by the listless eyes of the group in front of the store, one of whom

remarked that, “he'd be doggoned if he ever expected to see that

railroad any mo'.”

Harry went with the Colonel to Hawkeye to complete their arrangements,

a part of which was the preparation of a petition to congress for the

improvement of the navigation of Columbus River.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Eight years have passed since the death of Mr. Hawkins. Eight years are

not many in the life of a nation or the history of a state, but they may

be years of destiny that shall fix the current of the century following.

Such years were those that followed the little scrimmage on Lexington

Common. Such years were those that followed the double-shotted demand

for the surrender of Fort Sumter. History is never done with inquiring

of these years, and summoning witnesses about them, and trying to

understand their significance.

The eight years in America from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that

were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the

social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the

entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of

two or three generations.

As we are accustomed to interpret the economy of providence, the life of

the individual is as nothing to that of the nation or the race; but who

can say, in the broader view and the more intelligent weight of values,

that the life of one man is not more than that of a nationality, and

that there is not a tribunal where the tragedy of one human soul shall

not seem more significant than the overturning of any human institution

whatever?

When one thinks of the tremendous forces of the upper and the nether

world which play for the mastery of the soul of a woman during the few

years in which she passes from plastic girlhood to the ripe maturity of

womanhood, he may well stand in awe before the momentous drama.

What capacities she has of purity, tenderness, goodness; what capacities

of vileness, bitterness and evil. Nature must needs be lavish with the

mother and creator of men, and centre in her all the possibilities of

life. And a few critical years can decide whether her life is to be

full of sweetness and light, whether she is to be the vestal of a holy

temple, or whether she will be the fallen priestess of a desecrated

shrine. There are women, it is true, who seem to be capable neither of

rising much nor of falling much, and whom a conventional life saves from

any special development of character.

But Laura was not one of them. She had the fatal gift of beauty, and

that more fatal gift which does not always accompany mere beauty, the

power of fascination, a power that may, indeed, exist without beauty.

She had will, and pride and courage and ambition, and she was left to

be very much her own guide at the age when romance comes to the aid of

passion, and when the awakening powers of her vigorous mind had little

object on which to discipline themselves.

The tremendous conflict that was fought in this girl's soul none of

those about her knew, and very few knew that her life had in it anything

unusual or romantic or strange.

Those were troublous days in Hawkeye as well as in most other Missouri

towns, days of confusion, when between Unionist and Confederate

occupations, sudden maraudings and bush-whackings and raids, individuals

escaped observation or comment in actions that would have filled the

town with scandal in quiet times.

Fortunately we only need to deal with Laura's life at this period

historically, and look back upon such portions of it as will serve to

reveal the woman as she was at the time of the arrival of Mr. Harry

Brierly in Hawkeye.

The Hawkins family were settled there, and had a hard enough struggle

with poverty and the necessity of keeping up appearances in accord

with their own family pride and the large expectations they secretly

cherished of a fortune in the Knobs of East Tennessee. How pinched they

were perhaps no one knew but Clay, to whom they looked for almost their

whole support. Washington had been in Hawkeye off and on, attracted away

occasionally by some tremendous speculation, from which he invariably

returned to Gen. Boswell's office as poor as he went. He was the

inventor of no one knew how many useless contrivances, which were not

worth patenting, and his years had been passed in dreaming and planning

to no purpose; until he was now a man of about thirty, without a

profession or a permanent occupation, a tall, brown-haired, dreamy

person of the best intentions and the frailest resolution. Probably

however the eight years had been happier to him than to any others in

his circle, for the time had been mostly spent in a blissful dream of

the coming of enormous wealth.

He went out with a company from Hawkeye to the war, and was not wanting

in courage, but he would have been a better soldier if he had been less

engaged in contrivances for circumventing the enemy by strategy unknown

to the books.

It happened to him to be captured in one of his self-appointed

expeditions, but the federal colonel released him, after a short

examination, satisfied that he could most injure the confederate forces

opposed to the Unionists by returning him to his regiment. Col. Sellers

was of course a prominent man during the war. He was captain of the home

guards in Hawkeye, and he never left home except upon one occasion, when

on the strength of a rumor, he executed a flank movement and fortified

Stone's Landing, a place which no one unacquainted with the country

would be likely to find.

“Gad,” said the Colonel afterwards, “the Landing is the key to upper

Missouri, and it is the only place the enemy never captured. If other

places had been defended as well as that was, the result would have been

different, sir.”

The Colonel had his own theories about war as he had in other things. If

everybody had stayed at home as he did, he said, the South never would

have been conquered. For what would there have been to conquer? Mr.

Jeff Davis was constantly writing him to take command of a corps in the

confederate army, but Col. Sellers said, no, his duty was at home. And

he was by no means idle. He was the inventor of the famous air torpedo,

which came very near destroying the Union armies in Missouri, and the

city of St. Louis itself.

His plan was to fill a torpedo with Greek fire and poisonous and deadly

missiles, attach it to a balloon, and then let it sail away over the

hostile camp and explode at the right moment, when the time-fuse burned

out. He intended to use this invention in the capture of St. Louis,

exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it

until the army of occupation would gladly capitulate. He was unable to

procure the Greek fire, but he constructed a vicious torpedo which would

have answered the purpose, but the first one prematurely exploded in his

wood-house, blowing it clean away, and setting fire to his house. The

neighbors helped him put out the conflagration, but they discouraged any

more experiments of that sort.

The patriotic old gentleman, however, planted so much powder and so

many explosive contrivances in the roads leading into Hawkeye, and then

forgot the exact spots of danger, that people were afraid to travel

the highways, and used to come to town across the fields. The Colonel's

motto was, “Millions for defence but not one cent for tribute.”

When Laura came to Hawkeye she might have forgotten the annoyances of

the gossips of Murpheysburg and have out lived the bitterness that was

growing in her heart, if she had been thrown less upon herself, or if

the surroundings of her life had been more congenial and helpful.

But she had little society, less and less as she grew older that was

congenial to her, and her mind preyed upon itself; and the mystery of

her birth at once chagrined her and raised in her the most extravagant

expectations. She was proud and she felt the sting of poverty. She could

not but be conscious of her beauty also, and she was vain of that, and

came to take a sort of delight in the exercise of her fascinations upon

the rather loutish young men who came in her way and whom she despised.

There was another world opened to her--a world of books. But it was not

the best world of that sort, for the small libraries she had access to

in Hawkeye were decidedly miscellaneous, and largely made up of romances

and fictions which fed her imagination with the most exaggerated notions

of life, and showed her men and women in a very false sort of heroism.

From these stories she learned what a woman of keen intellect and some

culture joined to beauty and fascination of manner, might expect to

accomplish in society as she read of it; and along with these ideas she

imbibed other very crude ones in regard to the emancipation of woman.

There were also other books--histories, biographies of distinguished

people, travels in far lands, poems, especially those of Byron, Scott

and Shelley and Moore, which she eagerly absorbed, and appropriated

therefrom what was to her liking. Nobody in Hawkeye had read so much

or, after a fashion, studied so diligently as Laura. She passed for an

accomplished girl, and no doubt thought herself one, as she was, judged

by any standard near her.

During the war there came to Hawkeye a confederate officer, Col. Selby,

who was stationed there for a time, in command of that district. He was

a handsome, soldierly man of thirty years, a graduate of the University

of Virginia, and of distinguished family, if his story might be

believed, and, it was evident, a man of the world and of extensive

travel and adventure.

To find in such an out of the way country place a woman like Laura was

a piece of good luck upon which Col. Selby congratulated himself. He was

studiously polite to her and treated her with a consideration to which

she was unaccustomed. She had read of such men, but she had never seen

one before, one so high-bred, so noble in sentiment, so entertaining in

conversation, so engaging in manner.

It is a long story; unfortunately it is an old story, and it need not

be dwelt on. Laura loved him, and believed that his love for her was as

pure and deep as her own. She worshipped him and would have counted her

life a little thing to give him, if he would only love her and let her

feed the hunger of her heart upon him.

The passion possessed her whole being, and lifted her up, till she

seemed to walk on air. It was all true, then, the romances she had read,

the bliss of love she had dreamed of. Why had she never noticed before

how blithesome the world was, how jocund with love; the birds sang it,

the trees whispered it to her as she passed, the very flowers beneath

her feet strewed the way as for a bridal march.

When the Colonel went away they were engaged to be married, as soon as

he could make certain arrangements which he represented to be necessary,

and quit the army. He wrote to her from Harding, a small town in the

southwest corner of the state, saying that he should be held in the

service longer than he had expected, but that it would not be more than

a few months, then he should be at liberty to take her to Chicago where

he had property, and should have business, either now or as soon as the

war was over, which he thought could not last long. Meantime why should

they be separated? He was established in comfortable quarters, and if

she could find company and join him, they would be married, and gain so

many more months of happiness.

Was woman ever prudent when she loved? Laura went to Harding, the

neighbors supposed to nurse Washington who had fallen ill there. Her

engagement was, of course, known in Hawkeye, and was indeed a matter

of pride to her family. Mrs. Hawkins would have told the first inquirer

that. Laura had gone to be married; but Laura had cautioned her; she did

not want to be thought of, she said, as going in search of a husband;

let the news come back after she was married.

So she traveled to Harding on the pretence we have mentioned, and was

married. She was married, but something must have happened on that very

day or the next that alarmed her. Washington did not know then or after

what it was, but Laura bound him not to send news of her marriage to

Hawkeye yet, and to enjoin her mother not to speak of it. Whatever cruel

suspicion or nameless dread this was, Laura tried bravely to put it

away, and not let it cloud her happiness.

Communication that summer, as may be imagined, was neither regular nor

frequent between the remote confederate camp at Harding and Hawkeye,

and Laura was in a measure lost sight of--indeed, everyone had troubles

enough of his own without borrowing from his neighbors.

Laura had given herself utterly to her husband, and if he had faults,

if he was selfish, if he was sometimes coarse, if he was dissipated, she

did not or would not see it. It was the passion of her life, the time

when her whole nature went to flood tide and swept away all barriers.

Was her husband ever cold or indifferent? She shut her eyes to

everything but her sense of possession of her idol.

Three months passed. One morning her husband informed her that he had

been ordered South, and must go within two hours.

“I can be ready,” said Laura, cheerfully.

“But I can't take you. You must go back to Hawkeye.”

“Can't-take-me?” Laura asked, with wonder in her eyes. “I can't live

without you. You said-----”

“O bother what I said,”--and the Colonel took up his sword to buckle it

on, and then continued coolly, “the fact is Laura, our romance is played

out.”

Laura heard, but she did not comprehend. She caught his arm and cried,

“George, how can you joke so cruelly? I will go any where with you. I

will wait any where. I can't go back to Hawkeye.”

“Well, go where you like. Perhaps,” continued he with a sneer, “you

would do as well to wait here, for another colonel.”

Laura's brain whirled. She did not yet comprehend. “What does this mean?

Where are you going?”

“It means,” said the officer, in measured words, “that you haven't

anything to show for a legal marriage, and that I am going to New

Orleans.”

“It's a lie, George, it's a lie. I am your wife. I shall go. I shall

follow you to New Orleans.”

“Perhaps my wife might not like it!”

Laura raised her head, her eyes flamed with fire, she tried to utter a

cry, and fell senseless on the floor.

When she came to herself the Colonel was gone. Washington Hawkins stood

at her bedside. Did she come to herself? Was there anything left in her

heart but hate and bitterness, a sense of an infamous wrong at the hands

of the only man she had ever loved?

She returned to Hawkeye. With the exception of Washington and his

mother, no one knew what had happened. The neighbors supposed that the

engagement with Col. Selby had fallen through. Laura was ill for a

long time, but she recovered; she had that resolution in her that could

conquer death almost. And with her health came back her beauty, and an

added fascination, a something that might be mistaken for sadness. Is

there a beauty in the knowledge of evil, a beauty that shines out in

the face of a person whose inward life is transformed by some terrible

experience? Is the pathos in the eyes of the Beatrice Cenci from her

guilt or her innocence?

Laura was not much changed. The lovely woman had a devil in her heart.

That was all.

Part 3.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIX Harry Brierly Infatuated With Laura and Proposes She Visit

Washington

CHAPTER XX Senator Abner Dilwortliy Visits Hawkeye--Addresses the People

and Makes the Acquaintance of Laura 186

CHAPTER XXI Ruth Bolton at Fallkill Seminary--The Montagues--Ruth

Becomes Quite Gay--Alice Montague

CHAPTER XXII Philip and Harry Visit Fallkill--Harry Does the Agreeable

to Ruth

CHAPTER XXIII Harry at Washington Lobbying For An Appropriation For

Stone's Landing --Philip in New York Studying Engineering

CHAPTER XXIV Washington and Its Sights--The Appropriation Bill Reported

From the Committee and Passed

CHAPTER XXV Energetic Movements at Stone's Landing--Everything

Booming--A Grand Smash Up

CHAPTER XXVI The Boltons--Ruth at Home--Visitors and Speculations

CHAPTER XXVII Col Sellers Comforts His Wife With His Views on the

Prospects

ILLUSTRATIONS

64.  NOT EASILY REFERRED 65.  ORDER, GENTLEMEN 66.  THE SENATOR'S WALK

67.  RESIDENCE OF SQUIRE MONTAGUE 68.  INSIDE THE MANSION 69.  RUTH

DISSIPATING 70.  TAIL PIECE 71.  ANTICIPATION 72.  REALITY 73.  PHILIP

HEARS HARRY ENTERTAINING RUTH 74.  AN ENTERTAINING FELLOW 75.  HARRY

EXPLAINS BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE 76.  PHILIP STUDYING 77.  “KEEP OUT

OF HERE, SIR!” 78.  AN OLD ONE 79.  A PROMENADE OUTFIT 80.  REARED BY

A GRATEFUL COUNTRY 81.  BENEFIT OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE 82.  TAIL PIECE

83.  VISIONS OF A HAPPY MAN 84.  EXODUS OF THE NATIVES 85.  HARRY

BRIERLY FLIES FROM THE MOB 86.  ENJOYING THE BONFIRE 87.  BROTHER PLUM

88.  RUTH AT HOME 89.  MAP OF THE SALT LICK BRANCH OF THE PACIFIC R. R.

90.  RESULT OF A STRAIGHT LINE

CHAPTER XIX.

Mr. Harry Brierly drew his pay as an engineer while he was living at the

City Hotel in Hawkeye. Mr. Thompson had been kind enough to say that

it didn't make any difference whether he was with the corps or not; and

although Harry protested to the Colonel daily and to Washington Hawkins

that he must go back at once to the line and superintend the lay-out

with reference to his contract, yet he did not go, but wrote instead

long letters to Philip, instructing him to keep his eye out, and to let

him know when any difficulty occurred that required his presence.

Meantime Harry blossomed out in the society of Hawkeye, as he did in any

society where fortune cast him and he had the slightest opportunity to

expand. Indeed the talents of a rich and accomplished young fellow

like Harry were not likely to go unappreciated in such a place. A land

operator, engaged in vast speculations, a favorite in the select circles

of New York, in correspondence with brokers and bankers, intimate with

public men at Washington, one who could play the guitar and touch

the banjo lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the

language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye. Even Miss Laura

Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and

to endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the meshes of her

attractions.

“Gad,” says Harry to the Colonel, “she's a superb creature, she'd make a

stir in New York, money or no money. There are men I know would give her

a railroad or an opera house, or whatever she wanted--at least they'd

promise.”

Harry had a way of looking at women as he looked at anything else in the

world he wanted, and he half resolved to appropriate Miss Laura, during

his stay in Hawkeye. Perhaps the Colonel divined his thoughts, or was

offended at Harry's talk, for he replied,

“No nonsense, Mr. Brierly. Nonsense won't do in Hawkeye, not with my

friends. The Hawkins' blood is good blood, all the way from Tennessee.

The Hawkinses are under the weather now, but their Tennessee property is

millions when it comes into market.”

“Of course, Colonel. Not the least offense intended. But you can see she

is a fascinating woman. I was only thinking, as to this appropriation,

now, what such a woman could do in Washington. All correct, too,

all correct. Common thing, I assure you in Washington; the wives of

senators, representatives, cabinet officers, all sorts of wives, and

some who are not wives, use their influence. You want an appointment? Do

you go to Senator X? Not much. You get on the right side of his wife.

Is it an appropriation? You'd go straight to the Committee, or to the

Interior office, I suppose? You'd learn better than that. It takes a

woman to get any thing through the Land Office: I tell you, Miss Laura

would fascinate an appropriation right through the Senate and the House

of Representatives in one session, if she was in Washington, as your

friend, Colonel, of course as your friend.”

“Would you have her sign our petition?” asked the Colonel, innocently.

Harry laughed. “Women don't get anything by petitioning Congress; nobody

does, that's for form. Petitions are referred somewhere, and that's the

last of them; you can't refer a handsome woman so easily, when she is

present. They prefer 'em mostly.”

The petition however was elaborately drawn up, with a glowing

description of Napoleon and the adjacent country, and a statement of the

absolute necessity to the prosperity of that region and of one of the

stations on the great through route to the Pacific, of the immediate

improvement of Columbus River; to this was appended a map of the city

and a survey of the river. It was signed by all the people at Stone's

Landing who could write their names, by Col. Beriah Sellers, and

the Colonel agreed to have the names headed by all the senators and

representatives from the state and by a sprinkling of ex-governors and

ex-members of congress. When completed it was a formidable document. Its

preparation and that of more minute plots of the new city consumed the

valuable time of Sellers and Harry for many weeks, and served to keep

them both in the highest spirits.

In the eyes of Washington Hawkins, Harry was a superior being, a man who

was able to bring things to pass in a way that excited his enthusiasm.

He never tired of listening to his stories of what he had done and of

what he was going to do. As for Washington, Harry thought he was a man

of ability and comprehension, but “too visionary,” he told the Colonel.

The Colonel said he might be right, but he had never noticed anything

visionary about him.

“He's got his plans, sir. God bless my soul, at his age, I was full of

plans. But experience sobers a man, I never touch any thing now that

hasn't been weighed in my judgment; and when Beriah Sellers puts his

judgment on a thing, there it is.”

Whatever might have been Harry's intentions with regard to Laura, he saw

more and more of her every day, until he got to be restless and nervous

when he was not with her.

That consummate artist in passion allowed him to believe that the

fascination was mainly on his side, and so worked upon his vanity,

while inflaming his ardor, that he scarcely knew what he was about. Her

coolness and coyness were even made to appear the simple precautions

of a modest timidity, and attracted him even more than the little

tendernesses into which she was occasionally surprised. He could

never be away from her long, day or evening; and in a short time their

intimacy was the town talk. She played with him so adroitly that Harry

thought she was absorbed in love for him, and yet he was amazed that he

did not get on faster in his conquest.

And when he thought of it, he was piqued as well. A country girl, poor

enough, that was evident; living with her family in a cheap and most

unattractive frame house, such as carpenters build in America, scantily

furnished and unadorned; without the adventitious aids of dress or

jewels or the fine manners of society--Harry couldn't understand it.

But she fascinated him, and held him just beyond the line of absolute

familiarity at the same time. While he was with her she made him forget

that the Hawkins' house was nothing but a wooden tenement, with four

small square rooms on the ground floor and a half story; it might have

been a palace for aught he knew.

Perhaps Laura was older than Harry. She was, at any rate, at that ripe

age when beauty in woman seems more solid than in the budding period of

girlhood, and she had come to understand her powers perfectly, and to

know exactly how much of the susceptibility and archness of the girl

it was profitable to retain. She saw that many women, with the best

intentions, make a mistake of carrying too much girlishness into

womanhood. Such a woman would have attracted Harry at any time, but only

a woman with a cool brain and exquisite art could have made him lose

his head in this way; for Harry thought himself a man of the world. The

young fellow never dreamed that he was merely being experimented on; he

was to her a man of another society and another culture, different from

that she had any knowledge of except in books, and she was not unwilling

to try on him the fascinations of her mind and person.

For Laura had her dreams. She detested the narrow limits in which her

lot was cast, she hated poverty. Much of her reading had been of modern

works of fiction, written by her own sex, which had revealed to her

something of her own powers and given her indeed, an exaggerated notion

of the influence, the wealth, the position a woman may attain who has

beauty and talent and ambition and a little culture, and is not too

scrupulous in the use of them. She wanted to be rich, she wanted luxury,

she wanted men at her feet, her slaves, and she had not--thanks to some

of the novels she had read--the nicest discrimination between notoriety

and reputation; perhaps she did not know how fatal notoriety usually is

to the bloom of womanhood.

With the other Hawkins children Laura had been brought up in the belief

that they had inherited a fortune in the Tennessee Lands. She did not

by any means share all the delusion of the family; but her brain was

not seldom busy with schemes about it. Washington seemed to her only to

dream of it and to be willing to wait for its riches to fall upon him

in a golden shower; but she was impatient, and wished she were a man to

take hold of the business.

“You men must enjoy your schemes and your activity and liberty to go

about the world,” she said to Harry one day, when he had been talking of

New York and Washington and his incessant engagements.

“Oh, yes,” replied that martyr to business, “it's all well enough, if

you don't have too much of it, but it only has one object.”

“What is that?”

“If a woman doesn't know, it's useless to tell her. What do you suppose

I am staying in Hawkeye for, week after week, when I ought to be with my

corps?”

“I suppose it's your business with Col. Sellers about Napoleon, you've

always told me so,” answered Laura, with a look intended to contradict

her words.

“And now I tell you that is all arranged, I suppose you'll tell me I

ought to go?”

“Harry!” exclaimed Laura, touching his arm and letting her pretty hand

rest there a moment. “Why should I want you to go away? The only person

in Hawkeye who understands me.”

“But you refuse to understand me,” replied Harry, flattered but still

petulant. “You are like an iceberg, when we are alone.”

Laura looked up with wonder in her great eyes, and something like a

blush suffusing her face, followed by a look of langour that penetrated

Harry's heart as if it had been longing.

“Did I ever show any want of confidence in you, Harry?” And she gave

him her hand, which Harry pressed with effusion--something in her manner

told him that he must be content with that favor.

It was always so. She excited his hopes and denied him, inflamed his

passion and restrained it, and wound him in her toils day by day. To

what purpose? It was keen delight to Laura to prove that she had power

over men.

Laura liked to hear about life at the east, and especially about the

luxurious society in which Mr. Brierly moved when he was at home. It

pleased her imagination to fancy herself a queen in it.

“You should be a winter in Washington,” Harry said.

“But I have no acquaintances there.”

“Don't know any of the families of the congressmen? They like to have a

pretty woman staying with them.”

“Not one.”

“Suppose Col. Sellers should, have business there; say, about this

Columbus River appropriation?”

“Sellers!” and Laura laughed.

“You needn't laugh. Queerer things have happened. Sellers knows

everybody from Missouri, and from the West, too, for that matter. He'd

introduce you to Washington life quick enough. It doesn't need a crowbar

to break your way into society there as it does in Philadelphia. It's

democratic, Washington is. Money or beauty will open any door. If I were

a handsome woman, I shouldn't want any better place than the capital to

pick up a prince or a fortune.”

“Thank you,” replied Laura. “But I prefer the quiet of home, and the

love of those I know;” and her face wore a look of sweet contentment and

unworldliness that finished Mr. Harry Brierly for the day.

Nevertheless, the hint that Harry had dropped fell upon good ground, and

bore fruit an hundred fold; it worked in her mind until she had built

up a plan on it, and almost a career for herself. Why not, she said, why

shouldn't I do as other women have done? She took the first opportunity

to see Col. Sellers, and to sound him about the Washington visit. How

was he getting on with his navigation scheme, would it be likely to take

him from home to Jefferson City; or to Washington, perhaps?

“Well, maybe. If the people of Napoleon want me to go to Washington,

and look after that matter, I might tear myself from my home. It's been

suggested to me, but--not a word of it to Mrs. Sellers and the children.

Maybe they wouldn't like to think of their father in Washington. But

Dilworthy, Senator Dilworthy, says to me, 'Colonel, you are the man, you

could influence more votes than any one else on such a measure, an old

settler, a man of the people, you know the wants of Missouri; you've a

respect for religion too, says he, and know how the cause of the gospel

goes with improvements: Which is true enough, Miss Laura, and hasn't

been enough thought of in connection with Napoleon. He's an able man,

Dilworthy, and a good man. A man has got to be good to succeed as he

has. He's only been in Congress a few years, and he must be worth a

million. First thing in the morning when he stayed with me he asked

about family prayers, whether we had 'em before or after breakfast. I

hated to disappoint the Senator, but I had to out with it, tell him

we didn't have 'em, not steady. He said he understood, business

interruptions and all that, some men were well enough without, but as

for him he never neglected the ordinances of religion. He doubted if

the Columbus River appropriation would succeed if we did not invoke the

Divine Blessing on it.”

Perhaps it is unnecessary to say to the reader that Senator Dilworthy

had not stayed with Col. Sellers while he was in Hawkeye; this visit to

his house being only one of the Colonel's hallucinations--one of those

instant creations of his fertile fancy, which were always flashing into

his brain and out of his mouth in the course of any conversation and

without interrupting the flow of it.

During the summer Philip rode across the country and made a short visit

in Hawkeye, giving Harry an opportunity to show him the progress that

he and the Colonel had made in their operation at Stone's Landing,

to introduce him also to Laura, and to borrow a little money when he

departed. Harry bragged about his conquest, as was his habit, and took

Philip round to see his western prize.

Laura received Mr. Philip with a courtesy and a slight hauteur that

rather surprised and not a little interested him. He saw at once that

she was older than Harry, and soon made up his mind that she was leading

his friend a country dance to which he was unaccustomed. At least he

thought he saw that, and half hinted as much to Harry, who flared up at

once; but on a second visit Philip was not so sure, the young lady was

certainly kind and friendly and almost confiding with Harry, and treated

Philip with the greatest consideration. She deferred to his opinions,

and listened attentively when he talked, and in time met his frank

manner with an equal frankness, so that he was quite convinced that

whatever she might feel towards Harry, she was sincere with him. Perhaps

his manly way did win her liking. Perhaps in her mind, she compared him

with Harry, and recognized in him a man to whom a woman might give her

whole soul, recklessly and with little care if she lost it. Philip

was not invincible to her beauty nor to the intellectual charm of her

presence.

The week seemed very short that he passed in Hawkeye, and when he bade

Laura good by, he seemed to have known her a year.

“We shall see you again, Mr. Sterling,” she said as she gave him her

hand, with just a shade of sadness in her handsome eyes.

And when he turned away she followed him with a look that might have

disturbed his serenity, if he had not at the moment had a little square

letter in his breast pocket, dated at Philadelphia, and signed “Ruth.”

CHAPTER XX.

The visit of Senator Abner Dilworthy was an event in Hawkeye. When a

Senator, whose place is in Washington moving among the Great and guiding

the destinies of the nation, condescends to mingle among the people and

accept the hospitalities of such a place as Hawkeye, the honor is not

considered a light one. All parties are flattered by it and politics are

forgotten in the presence of one so distinguished among his fellows.

Senator Dilworthy, who was from a neighboring state, had been a Unionist

in the darkest days of his country, and had thriven by it, but was that

any reason why Col. Sellers, who had been a confederate and had not

thriven by it, should give him the cold shoulder?

The Senator was the guest of his old friend Gen. Boswell, but it

almost appeared that he was indebted to Col. Sellers for the unreserved

hospitalities of the town. It was the large hearted Colonel who, in a

manner, gave him the freedom of the city.

“You are known here, sir,” said the Colonel, “and Hawkeye is proud of

you. You will find every door open, and a welcome at every hearthstone.

I should insist upon your going to my house, if you were not claimed by

your older friend Gen. Boswell. But you will mingle with our people, and

you will see here developments that will surprise you.”

The Colonel was so profuse in his hospitality that he must have made the

impression upon himself that he had entertained the Senator at his own

mansion during his stay; at any rate, he afterwards always spoke of him

as his guest, and not seldom referred to the Senator's relish of certain

viands on his table. He did, in fact, press him to dine upon the morning

of the day the Senator was going away.

Senator Dilworthy was large and portly, though not tall--a pleasant

spoken man, a popular man with the people.

He took a lively interest in the town and all the surrounding country,

and made many inquiries as to the progress of agriculture, of education,

and of religion, and especially as to the condition of the emancipated

race.

“Providence,” he said, “has placed them in our hands, and although you

and I, General, might have chosen a different destiny for them, under

the Constitution, yet Providence knows best.”

“You can't do much with 'em,” interrupted Col. Sellers. “They are a

speculating race, sir, disinclined to work for white folks without

security, planning how to live by only working for themselves. Idle,

sir, there's my garden just a ruin of weeds. Nothing practical in 'em.”

“There is some truth in your observation, Colonel, but you must educate

them.”

“You educate the niggro and you make him more speculating than he was

before. If he won't stick to any industry except for himself now, what

will he do then?”

“But, Colonel, the negro when educated will be more able to make his

speculations fruitful.”

“Never, sir, never. He would only have a wider scope to injure himself.

A niggro has no grasp, sir. Now, a white man can conceive great

operations, and carry them out; a niggro can't.”

“Still,” replied the Senator, “granting that he might injure himself in

a worldly point of view, his elevation through education would multiply

his chances for the hereafter--which is the important thing after all,

Colonel. And no matter what the result is, we must fulfill our duty by

this being.”

“I'd elevate his soul,” promptly responded the Colonel; “that's just it;

you can't make his soul too immortal, but I wouldn't touch him, himself.

Yes, sir! make his soul immortal, but don't disturb the niggro as he

is.”

Of course one of the entertainments offered the Senator was a public

reception, held in the court house, at which he made a speech to his

fellow citizens. Col. Sellers was master of ceremonies. He escorted the

band from the city hotel to Gen. Boswell's; he marshalled the procession

of Masons, of Odd Fellows, and of Firemen, the Good Templars, the Sons

of Temperance, the Cadets of Temperance, the Daughters of Rebecca,

the Sunday School children, and citizens generally, which followed the

Senator to the court house; he bustled about the room long after every

one else was seated, and loudly cried “Order!” in the dead silence which

preceded the introduction of the Senator by Gen. Boswell. The occasion

was one to call out his finest powers of personal appearance, and one he

long dwelt on with pleasure.

This not being an edition of the Congressional Globe it is impossible to

give Senator Dilworthy's speech in full. He began somewhat as follows:

“Fellow citizens: It gives me great pleasure to thus meet and mingle

with you, to lay aside for a moment the heavy duties of an official and

burdensome station, and confer in familiar converse with my friends in

your great state. The good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections

is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. I look forward with longing

to the time when I can lay aside the cares of office--” [“dam sight,”

shouted a tipsy fellow near the door. Cries of “put him out.”]

“My friends, do not remove him. Let the misguided man stay. I see that

he is a victim of that evil which is swallowing up public virtue and

sapping the foundation of society. As I was saying, when I can lay down

the cares of office and retire to the sweets of private life in some

such sweet, peaceful, intelligent, wide-awake and patriotic place as

Hawkeye (applause). I have traveled much, I have seen all parts of our

glorious union, but I have never seen a lovelier village than yours,

or one that has more signs of commercial and industrial and religious

prosperity--(more applause).”

The Senator then launched into a sketch of our great country, and dwelt

for an hour or more upon its prosperity and the dangers which threatened

it.

He then touched reverently upon the institutions of religion, and upon

the necessity of private purity, if we were to have any public morality.

“I trust,” he said, “that there are children within the sound of my

voice,” and after some remarks to them, the Senator closed with an

apostrophe to “the genius of American Liberty, walking with the Sunday

School in one hand and Temperance in the other up the glorified steps of

the National Capitol.”

Col. Sellers did not of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so

influential a person as the Senator the desirability of improving the

navigation of Columbus river. He and Mr. Brierly took the Senator over

to Napoleon and opened to him their plan. It was a plan that the Senator

could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to

be familiar with the like improvements elsewhere. When, however, they

reached Stone's Landing the Senator looked about him and inquired,

“Is this Napoleon?”

“This is the nucleus, the nucleus,” said the Colonel, unrolling his map.

“Here is the deepo, the church, the City Hall and so on.”

“Ah, I see. How far from here is Columbus River? Does that stream

empty----”

“That, why, that's Goose Run. Thar ain't no Columbus, thout'n it's over

to Hawkeye,” interrupted one of the citizens, who had come out to stare

at the strangers. “A railroad come here last summer, but it haint been

here no mo'.”

“Yes, sir,” the Colonel hastened to explain, “in the old records

Columbus River is called Goose Run. You see how it sweeps round the

town--forty-nine miles to the Missouri; sloop navigation all the way

pretty much drains this whole country; when it's improved steamboats

will run right up here. It's got to be enlarged, deepened. You see by

the map. Columbus River. This country must have water communication!”

“You'll want a considerable appropriation, Col. Sellers.

“I should say a million; is that your figure Mr. Brierly.”

“According to our surveys,” said Harry, “a million would do it; a

million spent on the river would make Napoleon worth two millions at

least.”

“I see,” nodded the Senator. “But you'd better begin by asking only for

two or three hundred thousand, the usual way. You can begin to sell town

lots on that appropriation you know.”

The Senator, himself, to do him justice, was not very much interested in

the country or the stream, but he favored the appropriation, and he gave

the Colonel and Mr. Brierly to understand that he would endeavor to get

it through. Harry, who thought he was shrewd and understood Washington,

suggested an interest.

But he saw that the Senator was wounded by the suggestion.

“You will offend me by repeating such an observation,” he said.

“Whatever I do will be for the public interest. It will require a

portion of the appropriation for necessary expenses, and I am sorry to

say that there are members who will have to be seen. But you can reckon

upon my humble services.”

This aspect of the subject was not again alluded to. The Senator

possessed himself of the facts, not from his observation of the ground,

but from the lips of Col. Sellers, and laid the appropriation scheme

away among his other plans for benefiting the public.

It was on this visit also that the Senator made the acquaintance of

Mr. Washington Hawkins, and was greatly taken with his innocence, his

guileless manner and perhaps with his ready adaptability to enter upon

any plan proposed.

Col. Sellers was pleased to see this interest that Washington had

awakened, especially since it was likely to further his expectations

with regard to the Tennessee lands; the Senator having remarked to the

Colonel, that he delighted to help any deserving young man, when the

promotion of a private advantage could at the same time be made to

contribute to the general good. And he did not doubt that this was an

opportunity of that kind.

The result of several conferences with Washington was that the Senator

proposed that he should go to Washington with him and become his private

secretary and the secretary of his committee; a proposal which was

eagerly accepted.

The Senator spent Sunday in Hawkeye and attended church. He cheered

the heart of the worthy and zealous minister by an expression of his

sympathy in his labors, and by many inquiries in regard to the religious

state of the region. It was not a very promising state, and the good man

felt how much lighter his task would be, if he had the aid of such a man

as Senator Dilworthy.

“I am glad to see, my dear sir,” said the Senator, “that you give them

the doctrines. It is owing to a neglect of the doctrines, that there is

such a fearful falling away in the country. I wish that we might have

you in Washington--as chaplain, now, in the senate.”

The good man could not but be a little flattered, and if sometimes,

thereafter, in his discouraging work, he allowed the thought that he

might perhaps be called to Washington as chaplain of the Senate, to

cheer him, who can wonder. The Senator's commendation at least did one

service for him, it elevated him in the opinion of Hawkeye.

Laura was at church alone that day, and Mr. Brierly walked home with

her. A part of their way lay with that of General Boswell and Senator

Dilworthy, and introductions were made. Laura had her own reasons for

wishing to know the Senator, and the Senator was not a man who could

be called indifferent to charms such as hers. That meek young lady

so commended herself to him in the short walk, that he announced his

intentions of paying his respects to her the next day, an intention

which Harry received glumly; and when the Senator was out of hearing he

called him “an old fool.”

“Fie,” said Laura, “I do believe you are jealous, Harry. He is a very

pleasant man. He said you were a young man of great promise.”

The Senator did call next day, and the result of his visit was that he

was confirmed in his impression that there was something about him very

attractive to ladies. He saw Laura again and again during his stay, and

felt more and more the subtle influence of her feminine beauty, which

every man felt who came near her.

Harry was beside himself with rage while the Senator remained in town;

he declared that women were always ready to drop any man for higher

game; and he attributed his own ill-luck to the Senator's appearance.

The fellow was in fact crazy about her beauty and ready to beat his

brains out in chagrin. Perhaps Laura enjoyed his torment, but she

soothed him with blandishments that increased his ardor, and she smiled

to herself to think that he had, with all his protestations of love,

never spoken of marriage. Probably the vivacious fellow never had

thought of it. At any rate when he at length went away from Hawkeye he

was no nearer it. But there was no telling to what desperate lengths his

passion might not carry him.

Laura bade him good bye with tender regret, which, however, did not

disturb her peace or interfere with her plans. The visit of Senator

Dilworthy had become of more importance to her, and it by and by bore

the fruit she longed for, in an invitation to visit his family in the

National Capital during the winter session of Congress.

CHAPTER XXI.

O lift your natures up:

Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls,

Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed;

Drink deep until the habits of the slave,

The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite

And slander, die.

The Princess.

Whether medicine is a science, or only an empirical method of getting

a living out of the ignorance of the human race, Ruth found before her

first term was over at the medical school that there were other things

she needed to know quite as much as that which is taught in medical

books, and that she could never satisfy her aspirations without more

general culture.

“Does your doctor know any thing--I don't mean about medicine, but about

things in general, is he a man of information and good sense?” once

asked an old practitioner. “If he doesn't know anything but medicine the

chance is he doesn't know that.”

The close application to her special study was beginning to tell

upon Ruth's delicate health also, and the summer brought with it only

weariness and indisposition for any mental effort.

In this condition of mind and body the quiet of her home and the

unexciting companionship of those about her were more than ever

tiresome.

She followed with more interest Philip's sparkling account of his life

in the west, and longed for his experiences, and to know some of those

people of a world so different from here, who alternately amused and

displeased him. He at least was learning the world, the good and the bad

of it, as must happen to every one who accomplishes anything in it.

But what, Ruth wrote, could a woman do, tied up by custom, and cast

into particular circumstances out of which it was almost impossible

to extricate herself? Philip thought that he would go some day and

extricate Ruth, but he did not write that, for he had the instinct to

know that this was not the extrication she dreamed of, and that she must

find out by her own experience what her heart really wanted.

Philip was not a philosopher, to be sure, but he had the old fashioned

notion, that whatever a woman's theories of life might be, she would

come round to matrimony, only give her time. He could indeed recall to

mind one woman--and he never knew a nobler--whose whole soul was devoted

and who believed that her life was consecrated to a certain benevolent

project in singleness of life, who yielded to the touch of matrimony, as

an icicle yields to a sunbeam.

Neither at home nor elsewhere did Ruth utter any complaint, or admit any

weariness or doubt of her ability to pursue the path she had marked

out for herself. But her mother saw clearly enough her struggle with

infirmity, and was not deceived by either her gaiety or by the cheerful

composure which she carried into all the ordinary duties that fell to

her. She saw plainly enough that Ruth needed an entire change of scene

and of occupation, and perhaps she believed that such a change, with the

knowledge of the world it would bring, would divert Ruth from a course

for which she felt she was physically entirely unfitted.

It therefore suited the wishes of all concerned, when autumn came,

that Ruth should go away to school. She selected a large New England

Seminary, of which she had often heard Philip speak, which was attended

by both sexes and offered almost collegiate advantages of education.

Thither she went in September, and began for the second time in the year

a life new to her.

The Seminary was the chief feature of Fallkill, a village of two to

three thousand inhabitants. It was a prosperous school, with three

hundred students, a large corps of teachers, men and women, and with a

venerable rusty row of academic buildings on the shaded square of the

town. The students lodged and boarded in private families in the place,

and so it came about that while the school did a great deal to support

the town, the town gave the students society and the sweet influences of

home life. It is at least respectful to say that the influences of home

life are sweet.

Ruth's home, by the intervention of Philip, was in a family--one of the

rare exceptions in life or in fiction--that had never known better days.

The Montagues, it is perhaps well to say, had intended to come over

in the Mayflower, but were detained at Delft Haven by the illness of a

child. They came over to Massachusetts Bay in another vessel, and thus

escaped the onus of that brevet nobility under which the successors of

the Mayflower Pilgrims have descended. Having no factitious weight of

dignity to carry, the Montagues steadily improved their condition from

the day they landed, and they were never more vigorous or prosperous

than at the date of this narrative. With character compacted by the

rigid Puritan discipline of more than two centuries, they had retained

its strength and purity and thrown off its narrowness, and were now

blossoming under the generous modern influences. Squire Oliver Montague,

a lawyer who had retired from the practice of his profession except

in rare cases, dwelt in a square old fashioned New England mansion a

quarter of a mile away from the green.

It was called a mansion because it stood alone with ample fields about

it, and had an avenue of trees leading to it from the road, and on the

west commanded a view of a pretty little lake with gentle slopes and

nodding were now blossoming under the generous modern influences. But

it was just a plain, roomy house, capable of extending to many guests an

unpretending hospitality.

The family consisted of the Squire and his wife, a son and a daughter

married and not at home, a son in college at Cambridge, another son at

the Seminary, and a daughter Alice, who was a year or more older

than Ruth. Having only riches enough to be able to gratify reasonable

desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a

pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely

attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent.

If Ruth did not find so much luxury in the house as in her own home,

there were evidences of culture, of intellectual activity and of a zest

in the affairs of all the world, which greatly impressed her. Every room

had its book-cases or book-shelves, and was more or less a library; upon

every table was liable to be a litter of new books, fresh periodicals

and daily newspapers.

There were plants in the sunny windows and some choice engravings on the

walls, with bits of color in oil or water-colors; the piano was sure

to be open and strewn with music; and there were photographs and

little souvenirs here and there of foreign travel. An absence of any

“what-pots” in the corners with rows of cheerful shells, and Hindoo

gods, and Chinese idols, and nests of useless boxes of lacquered wood,

might be taken as denoting a languidness in the family concerning

foreign missions, but perhaps unjustly.

At any rate the life of the world flowed freely into this hospitable

house, and there was always so much talk there of the news of the day,

of the new books and of authors, of Boston radicalism and New York

civilization, and the virtue of Congress, that small gossip stood a very

poor chance.

All this was in many ways so new to Ruth that she seemed to have passed

into another world, in which she experienced a freedom and a mental

exhilaration unknown to her before. Under this influence she entered

upon her studies with keen enjoyment, finding for a time all the

relaxation she needed, in the charming social life at the Montague

house.

It is strange, she wrote to Philip, in one of her occasional letters,

that you never told me more about this delightful family, and scarcely

mentioned Alice who is the life of it, just the noblest girl, unselfish,

knows how to do so many things, with lots of talent, with a dry humor,

and an odd way of looking at things, and yet quiet and even serious

often--one of your “capable” New England girls. We shall be great

friends. It had never occurred to Philip that there was any thing

extraordinary about the family that needed mention. He knew dozens of

girls like Alice, he thought to himself, but only one like Ruth.

Good friends the two girls were from the beginning. Ruth was a study to

Alice; the product of a culture entirely foreign to her experience,

so much a child in some things, so much a woman in others; and Ruth in

turn, it must be confessed, probing Alice sometimes with her serious

grey eyes, wondered what her object in life was, and whether she had

any purpose beyond living as she now saw her. For she could scarcely

conceive of a life that should not be devoted to the accomplishment of

some definite work, and she had no doubt that in her own case everything

else would yield to the professional career she had marked out.

“So you know Philip Sterling,” said Ruth one day as the girls sat at

their sewing. Ruth never embroidered, and never sewed when she could

avoid it. Bless her.

“Oh yes, we are old friends. Philip used to come to Fallkill often while

he was in college. He was once rusticated here for a term.”

“Rusticated?”

“Suspended for some College scrape. He was a great favorite here.

Father and he were famous friends. Father said that Philip had no end of

nonsense in him and was always blundering into something, but he was a

royal good fellow and would come out all right.”

“Did you think he was fickle?”

“Why, I never thought whether he was or not,” replied Alice looking up.

“I suppose he was always in love with some girl or another, as college

boys are. He used to make me his confidant now and then, and be terribly

in the dumps.”

“Why did he come to you?” pursued Ruth, “you were younger than he.”

“I'm sure I don't know. He was at our house a good deal. Once at a

picnic by the lake, at the risk of his own life, he saved sister Millie

from drowning, and we all liked to have him here. Perhaps he thought

as he had saved one sister, the other ought to help him when he was in

trouble. I don't know.”

The fact was that Alice was a person who invited confidences, because

she never betrayed them, and gave abundant sympathy in return. There

are persons, whom we all know, to whom human confidences, troubles and

heart-aches flow as naturally as streams to a placid lake.

This is not a history of Fallkill, nor of the Montague family, worthy as

both are of that honor, and this narrative cannot be diverted into long

loitering with them. If the reader visits the village to-day, he will

doubtless be pointed out the Montague dwelling, where Ruth lived, the

cross-lots path she traversed to the Seminary, and the venerable chapel

with its cracked bell.

In the little society of the place, the Quaker girl was a favorite, and

no considerable social gathering or pleasure party was thought complete

without her. There was something in this seemingly transparent and yet

deep character, in her childlike gaiety and enjoyment of the society

about her, and in her not seldom absorption in herself, that would have

made her long remembered there if no events had subsequently occurred to

recall her to mind.

To the surprise of Alice, Ruth took to the small gaieties of the village

with a zest of enjoyment that seemed foreign to one who had devoted

her life to a serious profession from the highest motives. Alice liked

society well enough, she thought, but there was nothing exciting in that

of Fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young

gentlemen one met in it. It must have worn a different aspect to Ruth,

for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then

with interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one

would have deemed possible for her. Parties, picnics, rowing-matches,

moonlight strolls, nutting expeditions in the October woods,--Alice

declared that it was a whirl of dissipation. The fondness of Ruth, which

was scarcely disguised, for the company of agreeable young fellows, who

talked nothings, gave Alice opportunity for no end of banter.

“Do you look upon them as I subjects, dear?” she would ask.

And Ruth laughed her merriest laugh, and then looked sober again.

Perhaps she was thinking, after all, whether she knew herself.

If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would

swim if you brought it to the Nile.

Surely no one would have predicted when Ruth left Philadelphia that she

would become absorbed to this extent, and so happy, in a life so unlike

that she thought she desired. But no one can tell how a woman will act

under any circumstances. The reason novelists nearly always fail in

depicting women when they make them act, is that they let them do what

they have observed some woman has done at sometime or another. And that

is where they make a mistake; for a woman will never do again what has

been done before. It is this uncertainty that causes women, considered

as materials for fiction, to be so interesting to themselves and to

others.

As the fall went on and the winter, Ruth did not distinguish herself

greatly at the Fallkill Seminary as a student, a fact that apparently

gave her no anxiety, and did not diminish her enjoyment of a new sort of

power which had awakened within her.

CHAPTER XXII.

In mid-winter, an event occurred of unusual interest to the inhabitants

of the Montague house, and to the friends of the young ladies who sought

their society.

This was the arrival at the Sassacua Hotel of two young gentlemen from

the west.

It is the fashion in New England to give Indian names to the public

houses, not that the late lamented savage knew how to keep a hotel, but

that his warlike name may impress the traveler who humbly craves shelter

there, and make him grateful to the noble and gentlemanly clerk if he is

allowed to depart with his scalp safe.

The two young gentlemen were neither students for the Fallkill Seminary,

nor lecturers on physiology, nor yet life assurance solicitors, three

suppositions that almost exhausted the guessing power of the people at

the hotel in respect to the names of “Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly,

Missouri,” on the register. They were handsome enough fellows, that was

evident, browned by out-door exposure, and with a free and lordly way

about them that almost awed the hotel clerk himself. Indeed, he very

soon set down Mr. Brierly as a gentleman of large fortune, with enormous

interests on his shoulders. Harry had a way of casually mentioning

western investments, through lines, the freighting business, and the

route through the Indian territory to Lower California, which was

calculated to give an importance to his lightest word.

“You've a pleasant town here, sir, and the most comfortable looking

hotel I've seen out of New York,” said Harry to the clerk; “we shall

stay here a few days if you can give us a roomy suite of apartments.”

Harry usually had the best of everything, wherever he went, as such

fellows always do have in this accommodating world. Philip would have

been quite content with less expensive quarters, but there was no

resisting Harry's generosity in such matters.

Railroad surveying and real-estate operations were at a standstill

during the winter in Missouri, and the young men had taken advantage of

the lull to come east, Philip to see if there was any disposition in his

friends, the railway contractors, to give him a share in the Salt

Lick Union Pacific Extension, and Harry to open out to his uncle

the prospects of the new city at Stone's Landing, and to procure

congressional appropriations for the harbor and for making Goose Run

navigable. Harry had with him a map of that noble stream and of the

harbor, with a perfect net-work of railroads centering in it, pictures

of wharves, crowded with steamboats, and of huge grain-elevators on the

bank, all of which grew out of the combined imaginations of Col. Sellers

and Mr. Brierly. The Colonel had entire confidence in Harry's influence

with Wall street, and with congressmen, to bring about the consummation

of their scheme, and he waited his return in the empty house at Hawkeye,

feeding his pinched family upon the most gorgeous expectations with a

reckless prodigality.

“Don't let 'em into the thing more than is necessary,” says the Colonel

to Harry; “give 'em a small interest; a lot apiece in the suburbs of the

Landing ought to do a congressman, but I reckon you'll have to mortgage

a part of the city itself to the brokers.”

Harry did not find that eagerness to lend money on Stone's Landing in

Wall street which Col. Sellers had expected, (it had seen too many such

maps as he exhibited), although his uncle and some of the brokers looked

with more favor on the appropriation for improving the navigation of

Columbus River, and were not disinclined to form a company for that

purpose. An appropriation was a tangible thing, if you could get hold of

it, and it made little difference what it was appropriated for, so long

as you got hold of it.

Pending these weighty negotiations, Philip has persuaded Harry to take

a little run up to Fallkill, a not difficult task, for that young man

would at any time have turned his back upon all the land in the West

at sight of a new and pretty face, and he had, it must be confessed, a

facility in love making which made it not at all an interference with

the more serious business of life. He could not, to be sure, conceive

how Philip could be interested in a young lady who was studying

medicine, but he had no objection to going, for he did not doubt that

there were other girls in Fallkill who were worth a week's attention.

The young men were received at the house of the Montagues with the

hospitality which never failed there.

“We are glad to see you again,” exclaimed the Squire heartily, “you are

welcome Mr. Brierly, any friend of Phil's is welcome at our house.”

“It's more like home to me, than any place except my own home,” cried

Philip, as he looked about the cheerful house and went through a general

hand-shaking.

“It's a long time, though, since you have been here to say so,” Alice

said, with her father's frankness of manner; “and I suspect we owe the

visit now to your sudden interest in the Fallkill Seminary.”

Philip's color came, as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale

face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry came in with,

“That accounts for Phil's wish to build a Seminary at Stone's Landing,

our place in Missouri, when Col. Sellers insisted it should be a

University. Phil appears to have a weakness for Seminaries.”

“It would have been better for your friend Sellers,” retorted Philip,

“if he had had a weakness for district schools. Col. Sellers, Miss

Alice, is a great friend of Harry's, who is always trying to build a

house by beginning at the top.”

“I suppose it's as easy to build a University on paper as a Seminary,

and it looks better,” was Harry's reflection; at which the Squire

laughed, and said he quite agreed with him. The old gentleman understood

Stone's Landing a good deal better than he would have done after an

hour's talk with either of it's expectant proprietors.

At this moment, and while Philip was trying to frame a question that

he found it exceedingly difficult to put into words, the door opened

quietly, and Ruth entered. Taking in the group with a quick glance, her

eye lighted up, and with a merry smile she advanced and shook hands with

Philip. She was so unconstrained and sincerely cordial, that it made

that hero of the west feel somehow young, and very ill at ease.

For months and months he had thought of this meeting and pictured it

to himself a hundred times, but he had never imagined it would be like

this. He should meet Ruth unexpectedly, as she was walking alone from

the school, perhaps, or entering the room where he was waiting for her,

and she would cry “Oh! Phil,” and then check herself, and perhaps blush,

and Philip calm but eager and enthusiastic, would reassure her by his

warm manner, and he would take her hand impressively, and she would look

up timidly, and, after his long absence, perhaps he would be permitted

to-- Good heavens, how many times he had come to this point, and

wondered if it could happen so. Well, well; he had never supposed that

he should be the one embarrassed, and above all by a sincere and cordial

welcome.

“We heard you were at the Sassacus House,” were Ruth's first words; “and

this I suppose is your friend?”

“I beg your pardon,” Philip at length blundered out, “this is Mr.

Brierly of whom I have written you.”

And Ruth welcomed Harry with a friendliness that Philip thought was due

to his friend, to be sure, but which seemed to him too level with her

reception of himself, but which Harry received as his due from the other

sex.

Questions were asked about the journey and about the West, and the

conversation became a general one, until Philip at length found himself

talking with the Squire in relation to land and railroads and things he

couldn't keep his mind on especially as he heard Ruth and Harry in an

animated discourse, and caught the words “New York,” and “opera,” and

“reception,” and knew that Harry was giving his imagination full range

in the world of fashion.

Harry knew all about the opera, green room and all (at least he said

so) and knew a good many of the operas and could make very entertaining

stories of their plots, telling how the soprano came in here, and

the basso here, humming the beginning of their

airs--tum-ti-tum-ti-ti--suggesting the profound dissatisfaction of the

basso recitative--down-among-the-dead-men--and touching off the whole

with an airy grace quite captivating; though he couldn't have sung a

single air through to save himself, and he hadn't an ear to know whether

it was sung correctly. All the same he doted on the opera, and kept a

box there, into which he lounged occasionally to hear a favorite scene

and meet his society friends.

If Ruth was ever in the city he should be happy to place his box at the

disposal of Ruth and her friends. Needless to say that she was delighted

with the offer.

When she told Philip of it, that discreet young fellow only smiled, and

said that he hoped she would be fortunate enough to be in New York some

evening when Harry had not already given the use of his private box to

some other friend.

The Squire pressed the visitors to let him send for their trunks and

urged them to stay at his house, and Alice joined in the invitation, but

Philip had reasons for declining. They staid to supper however, and in

the evening Philip had a long talk apart with Ruth, a delightful hour to

him, in which she spoke freely of herself as of old, of her studies at

Philadelphia and of her plans, and she entered into his adventures and

prospects in the West with a genuine and almost sisterly interest; an

interest, however, which did not exactly satisfy Philip--it was too

general and not personal enough to suit him. And with all her freedom

in speaking of her own hopes, Philip could not, detect any reference

to himself in them; whereas he never undertook anything that he did not

think of Ruth in connection with it, he never made a plan that had not

reference to her, and he never thought of anything as complete if she

could not share it. Fortune, reputation these had no value to him except

in Ruth's eyes, and there were times when it seemed to him that if Ruth

was not on this earth, he should plunge off into some remote wilderness

and live in a purposeless seclusion.

“I hoped,” said Philip; “to get a little start in connection with this

new railroad, and make a little money, so that I could come east and

engage in something more suited to my tastes. I shouldn't like to live

in the West. Would you?

“It never occurred to me whether I would or not,” was the unembarrassed

reply. “One of our graduates went to Chicago, and has a nice practice

there. I don't know where I shall go. It would mortify mother dreadfully

to have me driving about Philadelphia in a doctor's gig.”

Philip laughed at the idea of it. “And does it seem as necessary to you

to do it as it did before you came to Fallkill?”

It was a home question, and went deeper than Philip knew, for Ruth at

once thought of practicing her profession among the young gentlemen

and ladies of her acquaintance in the village; but she was reluctant to

admit to herself that her notions of a career had undergone any change.

“Oh, I don't think I should come to Fallkill to practice, but I must do

something when I am through school; and why not medicine?”

Philip would like to have explained why not, but the explanation would

be of no use if it were not already obvious to Ruth.

Harry was equally in his element whether instructing Squire Montague

about the investment of capital in Missouri, the improvement of Columbus

River, the project he and some gentlemen in New York had for making a

shorter Pacific connection with the Mississippi than the present one;

or diverting Mrs. Montague with his experience in cooking in camp; or

drawing for Miss Alice an amusing picture of the social contrasts of New

England and the border where he had been. Harry was a very entertaining

fellow, having his imagination to help his memory, and telling his

stories as if he believed them--as perhaps he did. Alice was greatly

amused with Harry and listened so seriously to his romancing that

he exceeded his usual limits. Chance allusions to his bachelor

establishment in town and the place of his family on the Hudson, could

not have been made by a millionaire, more naturally.

“I should think,” queried Alice, “you would rather stay in New York than

to try the rough life at the West you have been speaking of.”

“Oh, adventure,” says Harry, “I get tired of New York. And besides I got

involved in some operations that I had to see through. Parties in New

York only last week wanted me to go down into Arizona in a big diamond

interest. I told them, no, no speculation for me. I've got my interests

in Missouri; and I wouldn't leave Philip, as long as he stays there.”

When the young gentlemen were on their way back to the hotel, Mr.

Philip, who was not in very good humor, broke out,

“What the deuce, Harry, did you go on in that style to the Montagues

for?”

“Go on?” cried Harry. “Why shouldn't I try to make a pleasant evening?

And besides, ain't I going to do those things? What difference does it

make about the mood and tense of a mere verb? Didn't uncle tell me only

last Saturday, that I might as well go down to Arizona and hunt for

diamonds? A fellow might as well make a good impression as a poor one.”

“Nonsense. You'll get to believing your own romancing by and by.”

“Well, you'll see. When Sellers and I get that appropriation, I'll show

you an establishment in town and another on the Hudson and a box at the

opera.”

“Yes, it will be like Col. Sellers' plantation at Hawkeye. Did you ever

see that?”

“Now, don't be cross, Phil. She's just superb, that little woman. You

never told me.”

“Who's just superb?” growled Philip, fancying this turn of the

conversation less than the other.

“Well, Mrs. Montague, if you must know.” And Harry stopped to light a

cigar, and then puffed on in silence. The little quarrel didn't last

over night, for Harry never appeared to cherish any ill-will half a

second, and Philip was too sensible to continue a row about nothing; and

he had invited Harry to come with him.

The young gentlemen stayed in Fallkill a week, and were every day at the

Montagues, and took part in the winter gaieties of the village. There

were parties here and there to which the friends of Ruth and the

Montagues were of course invited, and Harry in the generosity of his

nature, gave in return a little supper at the hotel, very simple indeed,

with dancing in the hall, and some refreshments passed round. And Philip

found the whole thing in the bill when he came to pay it.

Before the week was over Philip thought he had a new light on the

character of Ruth. Her absorption in the small gaieties of the society

there surprised him. He had few opportunities for serious conversation

with her. There was always some butterfly or another flitting about, and

when Philip showed by his manner that he was not pleased, Ruth laughed

merrily enough and rallied him on his soberness--she declared he was

getting to be grim and unsocial. He talked indeed more with Alice than

with Ruth, and scarcely concealed from her the trouble that was in his

mind. It needed, in fact, no word from him, for she saw clearly enough

what was going forward, and knew her sex well enough to know there was

no remedy for it but time.

“Ruth is a dear girl, Philip, and has as much firmness of purpose as

ever, but don't you see she has just discovered that she is fond of

society? Don't you let her see you are selfish about it, is my advice.”

The last evening they were to spend in Fallkill, they were at the

Montagues, and Philip hoped that he would find Ruth in a different mood.

But she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her

eye and in her laugh. “Confound it,” said Philip to himself, “she's in a

perfect twitter.”

He would have liked to quarrel with her, and fling himself out of the

house in tragedy style, going perhaps so far as to blindly wander off

miles into the country and bathe his throbbing brow in the chilling rain

of the stars, as people do in novels; but he had no opportunity. For

Ruth was as serenely unconscious of mischief as women can be at times,

and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and

half-confidences. She even said “Thee” to him once in reproach for a

cutting speech he began. And the sweet little word made his heart beat

like a trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said “thee” to him

before.

Was she fascinated with Harry's careless 'bon homie' and gay assurance?

Both chatted away in high spirits, and made the evening whirl along in

the most mirthful manner. Ruth sang for Harry, and that young gentleman

turned the leaves for her at the piano, and put in a bass note now and

then where he thought it would tell.

Yes, it was a merry evening, and Philip was heartily glad when it was

over, and the long leave-taking with the family was through with.

“Farewell Philip. Good night Mr. Brierly,” Ruth's clear voice sounded

after them as they went down the walk.

And she spoke Harry's name last, thought Philip.

CHAPTER XXIII.

“O see ye not yon narrow road

So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?

That is the Path of Righteousness,

Though after it but few inquires.

“And see ye not yon braid, braid road,

That lies across the lily leven?

That is the Path of Wickedness,

Though some call it the road to Heaven.”

Thomas the Rhymer.

Phillip and Harry reached New York in very different states of mind.

Harry was buoyant. He found a letter from Col. Sellers urging him to go

to Washington and confer with Senator Dilworthy. The petition was in his

hands.

It had been signed by everybody of any importance in Missouri, and would

be presented immediately.

“I should go on myself,” wrote the Colonel, “but I am engaged in the

invention of a process for lighting such a city as St. Louis by means

of water; just attach my machine to the water-pipes anywhere and the

decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for

the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I

want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing

apparatus. It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this

appropriation going while I am perfecting it.”

Harry took letters to several congressmen from his uncle and from Mr.

Duff Brown, each of whom had an extensive acquaintance in both houses

where they were well known as men engaged in large private operations

for the public good and men, besides, who, in the slang of the day,

understood the virtues of “addition, division and silence.”

Senator Dilworthy introduced the petition into the Senate with the

remark that he knew, personally, the signers of it, that they were

men interested, it was true, in the improvement of the country, but

he believed without any selfish motive, and that so far as he knew the

signers were loyal. It pleased him to see upon the roll the names of

many colored citizens, and it must rejoice every friend of humanity to

know that this lately emancipated race were intelligently taking part

in the development of the resources of their native land. He moved the

reference of the petition to the proper committee.

Senator Dilworthy introduced his young friend to influential members, as

a person who was very well informed about the Salt Lick Extension of the

Pacific, and was one of the Engineers who had made a careful survey of

Columbus River; and left him to exhibit his maps and plans and to show

the connection between the public treasury, the city of Napoleon and

legislation for the benefit off the whole country.

Harry was the guest of Senator Dilworthy. There was scarcely any good

movement in which the Senator was not interested. His house was open to

all the laborers in the field of total abstinence, and much of his time

was taken up in attending the meetings of this cause. He had a Bible

class in the Sunday school of the church which he attended, and he

suggested to Harry that he might take a class during the time he

remained in Washington. Mr. Washington Hawkins had a class. Harry asked

the Senator if there was a class of young ladies for him to teach, and

after that the Senator did not press the subject.

Philip, if the truth must be told, was not well satisfied with his

western prospects, nor altogether with the people he had fallen in with.

The railroad contractors held out large but rather indefinite promises.

Opportunities for a fortune he did not doubt existed in Missouri, but

for himself he saw no better means for livelihood than the mastery of

the profession he had rather thoughtlessly entered upon. During the

summer he had made considerable practical advance in the science of

engineering; he had been diligent, and made himself to a certain extent

necessary to the work he was engaged on. The contractors called him into

their consultations frequently, as to the character of the country he

had been over, and the cost of constructing the road, the nature of the

work, etc.

Still Philip felt that if he was going to make either reputation or

money as an engineer, he had a great deal of hard study before him, and

it is to his credit that he did not shrink from it. While Harry was in

Washington dancing attendance upon the national legislature and making

the acquaintance of the vast lobby that encircled it, Philip devoted

himself day and night, with an energy and a concentration he was capable

of, to the learning and theory of his profession, and to the science of

railroad building. He wrote some papers at this time for the “Plow, the

Loom and the Anvil,” upon the strength of materials, and especially upon

bridge-building, which attracted considerable attention, and were copied

into the English “Practical Magazine.” They served at any rate to raise

Philip in the opinion of his friends the contractors, for practical men

have a certain superstitious estimation of ability with the pen, and

though they may a little despise the talent, they are quite ready to

make use of it.

Philip sent copies of his performances to Ruth's father and to other

gentlemen whose good opinion he coveted, but he did not rest upon his

laurels. Indeed, so diligently had he applied himself, that when it came

time for him to return to the West, he felt himself, at least in theory,

competent to take charge of a division in the field.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The capital of the Great Republic was a new world to country-bred

Washington Hawkins. St. Louis was a greater city, but its floating

population did not hail from great distances, and so it had the general

family aspect of the permanent population; but Washington gathered its

people from the four winds of heaven, and so the manners, the faces and

the fashions there, presented a variety that was infinite. Washington

had never been in “society” in St. Louis, and he knew nothing of the

ways of its wealthier citizens and had never inspected one of their

dwellings. Consequently, everything in the nature of modern fashion and

grandeur was a new and wonderful revelation to him.

Washington is an interesting city to any of us. It seems to become more

and more interesting the oftener we visit it. Perhaps the reader has

never been there? Very well. You arrive either at night, rather too late

to do anything or see anything until morning, or you arrive so early in

the morning that you consider it best to go to your hotel and sleep an

hour or two while the sun bothers along over the Atlantic. You cannot

well arrive at a pleasant intermediate hour, because the railway

corporation that keeps the keys of the only door that leads into the

town or out of it take care of that. You arrive in tolerably good

spirits, because it is only thirty-eight miles from Baltimore to the

capital, and so you have only been insulted three times (provided you

are not in a sleeping car--the average is higher there): once when you

renewed your ticket after stopping over in Baltimore; once when you were

about to enter the “ladies' car” without knowing it was a lady's car;

and once when you asked the conductor at what hour you would reach

Washington.

You are assailed by a long rank of hackmen who shake their whips in your

face as you step out upon the sidewalk; you enter what they regard as a

“carriage,” in the capital, and you wonder why they do not take it out

of service and put it in the museum: we have few enough antiquities, and

it is little to our credit that we make scarcely any effort to preserve

the few we have.

You reach your hotel, presently--and here let us draw the curtain of

charity--because of course you have gone to the wrong one. You being a

stranger, how could you do otherwise? There are a hundred and eighteen

bad hotels, and only one good one. The most renowned and popular hotel

of them all is perhaps the worst one known to history.

It is winter, and night. When you arrived, it was snowing. When you

reached the hotel, it was sleeting. When you went to bed, it was

raining. During the night it froze hard, and the wind blew some chimneys

down. When you got up in the morning, it was foggy. When you finished

your breakfast at ten o'clock and went out, the sunshine was brilliant,

the weather balmy and delicious, and the mud and slush deep and

all-pervading. You will like the climate when you get used to it.

You naturally wish to view the city; so you take an umbrella, an

overcoat, and a fan, and go forth. The prominent features you soon

locate and get familiar with; first you glimpse the ornamental upper

works of a long, snowy palace projecting above a grove of trees, and a

tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and

pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. That building is

the capitol; gossips will tell you that by the original estimates it was

to cost $12,000,000, and that the government did come within $21,200,000

of building it for that sum.

You stand at the back of the capitol to treat yourself to a view, and it

is a very noble one. You understand, the capitol stands upon the verge

of a high piece of table land, a fine commanding position, and its front

looks out over this noble situation for a city--but it don't see it,

for the reason that when the capitol extension was decided upon, the

property owners at once advanced their prices to such inhuman figures

that the people went down and built the city in the muddy low marsh

behind the temple of liberty; so now the lordly front of the building,

with, its imposing colonades, its projecting graceful wings, its

picturesque groups of statuary, and its long terraced ranges of steps,

flowing down in white marble waves to the ground, merely looks out upon

a sorrowful little desert of cheap boarding houses.

So you observe, that you take your view from the back of the capitol.

And yet not from the airy outlooks of the dome, by the way, because to

get there you must pass through the great rotunda: and to do that, you

would have to see the marvelous Historical Paintings that hang there,

and the bas-reliefs--and what have you done that you should suffer

thus? And besides, you might have to pass through the old part of the

building, and you could not help seeing Mr. Lincoln, as petrified by

a young lady artist for $10,000--and you might take his marble

emancipation proclamation, which he holds out in his hand and

contemplates, for a folded napkin; and you might conceive from his

expression and his attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing.

Which is not the case. Nobody knows what is the matter with him; but

everybody feels for him. Well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow,

because it would be utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the

frescoes in it--and why should you be interested in the delirium tremens

of art?

The capitol is a very noble and a very beautiful building, both within

and without, but you need not examine it now. Still, if you greatly

prefer going into the dome, go. Now your general glance gives you

picturesque stretches of gleaming water, on your left, with a sail here

and there and a lunatic asylum on shore; over beyond the water, on a

distant elevation, you see a squat yellow temple which your eye dwells

upon lovingly through a blur of unmanly moisture, for it recalls your

lost boyhood and the Parthenons done in molasses candy which made it

blest and beautiful. Still in the distance, but on this side of the

water and close to its edge, the Monument to the Father of his Country

towers out of the mud--sacred soil is the customary term. It has the

aspect of a factory chimney with the top broken off. The skeleton of a

decaying scaffolding lingers about its summit, and tradition says that

the spirit of Washington often comes down and sits on those rafters to

enjoy this tribute of respect which the nation has reared as the symbol

of its unappeasable gratitude.

The Monument is to be finished, some day, and at that time our

Washington will have risen still higher in the nation's veneration,

and will be known as the Great-Great-Grandfather of his Country. The

memorial Chimney stands in a quiet pastoral locality that is full of

reposeful expression. With a glass you can see the cow-sheds about its

base, and the contented sheep nimbling pebbles in the desert solitudes

that surround it, and the tired pigs dozing in the holy calm of its

protecting shadow.

Now you wrench your gaze loose, and you look down in front of you and

see the broad Pennsylvania Avenue stretching straight ahead for a mile

or more till it brings up against the iron fence in front of a pillared

granite pile, the Treasury building-an edifice that would command

respect in any capital. The stores and hotels that wall in this broad

avenue are mean, and cheap, and dingy, and are better left without

comment. Beyond the Treasury is a fine large white barn, with wide

unhandsome grounds about it. The President lives there. It is ugly

enough outside, but that is nothing to what it is inside. Dreariness,

flimsiness, bad taste reduced to mathematical completeness is what the

inside offers to the eye, if it remains yet what it always has been.

The front and right hand views give you the city at large. It is a

wide stretch of cheap little brick houses, with here and there a

noble architectural pile lifting itself out of the midst--government

buildings, these. If the thaw is still going on when you come down and

go about town, you will wonder at the short-sightedness of the city

fathers, when you come to inspect the streets, in that they do not

dilute the mud a little more and use them for canals.

If you inquire around a little, you will find that there are more

boardinghouses to the square acre in Washington than there are in any

other city in the land, perhaps. If you apply for a home in one of them,

it will seem odd to you to have the landlady inspect you with a severe

eye and then ask you if you are a member of Congress. Perhaps, just as

a pleasantry, you will say yes. And then she will tell you that she is

“full.” Then you show her her advertisement in the morning paper, and

there she stands, convicted and ashamed. She will try to blush, and it

will be only polite in you to take the effort for the deed. She shows

you her rooms, now, and lets you take one--but she makes you pay in

advance for it. That is what you will get for pretending to be a member

of Congress. If you had been content to be merely a private citizen,

your trunk would have been sufficient security for your board. If you

are curious and inquire into this thing, the chances are that your

landlady will be ill-natured enough to say that the person and property

of a Congressman are exempt from arrest or detention, and that with the

tears in her eyes she has seen several of the people's representatives

walk off to their several States and Territories carrying her

unreceipted board bills in their pockets for keepsakes. And before you

have been in Washington many weeks you will be mean enough to believe

her, too.

Of course you contrive to see everything and find out everything. And

one of the first and most startling things you find out is, that every

individual you encounter in the City of Washington almost--and certainly

every separate and distinct individual in the public employment, from

the highest bureau chief, clear down to the maid who scrubs Department

halls, the night watchmen of the public buildings and the darkey boy

who purifies the Department spittoons--represents Political Influence.

Unless you can get the ear of a Senator, or a Congressman, or a Chief of

a Bureau or Department, and persuade him to use his “influence” in

your behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in

Washington. Mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to

you without “influence.” The population of Washington consists pretty

much entirely of government employees and the people who board them.

There are thousands of these employees, and they have gathered there

from every corner of the Union and got their berths through the

intercession (command is nearer the word) of the Senators and

Representatives of their respective States. It would be an odd

circumstance to see a girl get employment at three or four dollars a

week in one of the great public cribs without any political grandee to

back her, but merely because she was worthy, and competent, and a good

citizen of a free country that “treats all persons alike.” Washington

would be mildly thunderstruck at such a thing as that. If you are a

member of Congress, (no offence,) and one of your constituents who

doesn't know anything, and does not want to go into the bother of

learning something, and has no money, and no employment, and can't earn

a living, comes besieging you for help, do you say, “Come, my friend,

if your services were valuable you could get employment elsewhere--don't

want you here?” Oh, no: You take him to a Department and say, “Here,

give this person something to pass away the time at--and a salary”--and

the thing is done. You throw him on his country. He is his country's

child, let his country support him. There is something good and motherly

about Washington, the grand old benevolent National Asylum for the

Helpless.

The wages received by this great hive of employees are placed at the

liberal figure meet and just for skilled and competent labor. Such of

them as are immediately employed about the two Houses of Congress, are

not only liberally paid also, but are remembered in the customary

Extra Compensation bill which slides neatly through, annually, with

the general grab that signalizes the last night of a session, and thus

twenty per cent. is added to their wages, for--for fun, no doubt.

Washington Hawkins' new life was an unceasing delight to him.

Senator Dilworthy lived sumptuously, and Washington's quarters were

charming--gas; running water, hot and cold; bath-room, coal-fires, rich

carpets, beautiful pictures on the walls; books on religion, temperance,

public charities and financial schemes; trim colored servants, dainty

food--everything a body could wish for. And as for stationery, there

was no end to it; the government furnished it; postage stamps were not

needed--the Senator's frank could convey a horse through the mails, if

necessary.

And then he saw such dazzling company. Renowned generals and admirals

who had seemed but colossal myths when he was in the far west, went

in and out before him or sat at the Senator's table, solidified into

palpable flesh and blood; famous statesmen crossed his path daily; that

once rare and awe-inspiring being, a Congressman, was become a common

spectacle--a spectacle so common, indeed, that he could contemplate it

without excitement, even without embarrassment; foreign ministers were

visible to the naked eye at happy intervals; he had looked upon the

President himself, and lived. And more; this world of enchantment teemed

with speculation--the whole atmosphere was thick with it--and that

indeed was Washington Hawkins' native air; none other refreshed his

lungs so gratefully. He had found paradise at last.

The more he saw of his chief the Senator, the more he honored him, and

the more conspicuously the moral grandeur of his character appeared to

stand out. To possess the friendship and the kindly interest of such a

man, Washington said in a letter to Louise, was a happy fortune for a

young man whose career had been so impeded and so clouded as his.

The weeks drifted by;--Harry Brierly flirted, danced, added lustre

to the brilliant Senatorial receptions, and diligently “buzzed” and

“button-holed” Congressmen in the interest of the Columbus River scheme;

meantime Senator Dilworthy labored hard in the same interest--and in

others of equal national importance. Harry wrote frequently to Sellers,

and always encouragingly; and from these letters it was easy to see that

Harry was a pet with all Washington, and was likely to carry the thing

through; that the assistance rendered him by “old Dilworthy” was pretty

fair--pretty fair; “and every little helps, you know,” said Harry.

Washington wrote Sellers officially, now and then. In one of his letters

it appeared that whereas no member of the House committee favored the

scheme at first, there was now needed but one more vote to compass a

majority report. Closing sentence:

“Providence seems to further our efforts.” (Signed,) “ABNER DILWORTHY,

U. S. S.,

per WASHINGTON HAWKINS, P. S.”

At the end of a week, Washington was able to send the happy news,

officially, as usual,--that the needed vote had been added and the bill

favorably reported from the Committee. Other letters recorded its perils

in Committee of the whole, and by and by its victory, by just the skin

of its teeth, on third reading and final passage. Then came letters

telling of Mr. Dilworthy's struggles with a stubborn majority in his own

Committee in the Senate; of how these gentlemen succumbed, one by one,

till a majority was secured.

Then there was a hiatus. Washington watched every move on the board,

and he was in a good position to do this, for he was clerk of this

committee, and also one other. He received no salary as private

secretary, but these two clerkships, procured by his benefactor, paid

him an aggregate of twelve dollars a day, without counting the twenty

percent extra compensation which would of course be voted to him on the

last night of the session.

He saw the bill go into Committee of the whole and struggle for its life

again, and finally worry through. In the fullness of time he noted its

second reading, and by and by the day arrived when the grand ordeal

came, and it was put upon its final passage. Washington listened with

bated breath to the “Aye!” “No!” “No!” “Aye!” of the voters, for a few

dread minutes, and then could bear the suspense no longer. He ran down

from the gallery and hurried home to wait.

At the end of two or three hours the Senator arrived in the bosom of

his family, and dinner was waiting. Washington sprang forward, with the

eager question on his lips, and the Senator said:

“We may rejoice freely, now, my son--Providence has crowned our efforts

with success.”

CHAPTER XXV.

Washington sent grand good news to Col. Sellers that night. To Louise he

wrote:

“It is beautiful to hear him talk when his heart is full of thankfulness

for some manifestation of the Divine favor. You shall know him, some day

my Louise, and knowing him you will honor him, as I do.”

Harry wrote:

“I pulled it through, Colonel, but it was a tough job, there is no

question about that. There was not a friend to the measure in the House

committee when I began, and not a friend in the Senate committee except

old Dil himself, but they were all fixed for a majority report when I

hauled off my forces. Everybody here says you can't get a thing like

this through Congress without buying committees for straight-out cash on

delivery, but I think I've taught them a thing or two--if I could only

make them believe it. When I tell the old residenters that this thing

went through without buying a vote or making a promise, they say,

'That's rather too thin.' And when I say thin or not thin it's a fact,

anyway, they say, 'Come, now, but do you really believe that?' and when

I say I don't believe anything about it, I know it, they smile and

say, 'Well, you are pretty innocent, or pretty blind, one or the

other--there's no getting around that.' Why they really do believe that

votes have been bought--they do indeed. But let them keep on thinking

so. I have found out that if a man knows how to talk to women, and has

a little gift in the way of argument with men, he can afford to play for

an appropriation against a money bag and give the money bag odds in

the game. We've raked in $200,000 of Uncle Sam's money, say what they

will--and there is more where this came from, when we want it, and I

rather fancy I am the person that can go in and occupy it, too, if I do

say it myself, that shouldn't, perhaps. I'll be with you within a week.

Scare up all the men you can, and put them to work at once. When I get

there I propose to make things hum.”

The great news lifted Sellers into the clouds. He went to work on the

instant. He flew hither and thither making contracts, engaging men, and

steeping his soul in the ecstasies of business. He was the happiest man

in Missouri. And Louise was the happiest woman; for presently came a

letter from Washington which said:

“Rejoice with me, for the long agony is over! We have waited patiently

and faithfully, all these years, and now at last the reward is at hand.

A man is to pay our family $40,000 for the Tennessee Land! It is but a

little sum compared to what we could get by waiting, but I do so long

to see the day when I can call you my own, that I have said to myself,

better take this and enjoy life in a humble way than wear out our best

days in this miserable separation. Besides, I can put this money into

operations here that will increase it a hundred fold, yes, a thousand

fold, in a few months. The air is full of such chances, and I know our

family would consent in a moment that I should put in their shares with

mine. Without a doubt we shall be worth half a million dollars in a year

from this time--I put it at the very lowest figure, because it is

always best to be on the safe side--half a million at the very lowest

calculation, and then your father will give his consent and we can marry

at last. Oh, that will be a glorious day. Tell our friends the good

news--I want all to share it.”

And she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be

kept still for the present. The careful father also told her to write

Washington and warn him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a

little and advise with one or two wise old heads. She did this. And she

managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the

most careless observer might have seen by her springing step and her

radiant countenance that some fine piece of good fortune had descended

upon her.

Harry joined the Colonel at Stone's Landing, and that dead place sprang

into sudden life. A swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air

was filled with the cheery music of labor. Harry had been constituted

engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into

his work. He moved among his hirelings like a king. Authority seemed to

invest him with a new splendor. Col. Sellers, as general superintendent

of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could

be--and more. These two grandees went at their imposing “improvement”

with the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the

foundations of the globe.

They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above

the Landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans

showed that the process of straightening would not only shorten distance

but increase the “fall.” They started a cut-off canal across the

peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth

and slopping around in the mud as followed the order to the men, had

never been seen in that region before. There was such a panic among

the turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be found

within three miles of Stone's Landing. They took the young and the aged,

the decrepit and the sick upon their backs and left for tide-water

in disorderly procession, the tadpoles following and the bull-frogs

bringing up the rear.

Saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait, because the

appropriation had not come. Harry said he had written to hurry up the

money and it would be along presently. So the work continued, on Monday.

Stone's Landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time.

Sellers threw a lot or two on the market, “as a feeler,” and they sold

well. He re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and

still had money left. He started a bank account, in a small way--and

mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to

everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing--on the contrary, as a matter

of life-long standing. He could not keep from buying trifles every day

that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his

bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula,

“Charge it!” Harry sold a lot or two, also--and had a dinner party or

two at Hawkeye and a general good time with the money. Both men held on

pretty strenuously for the coming big prices, however.

At the end of a month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the

New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation

Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no

purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even

answered. The workmen were clamorous, now. The Colonel and Harry retired

to consult.

“What's to be done?” said the Colonel.

“Hang'd if I know.”

“Company say anything?”

“Not a word.”

“You telegraphed yesterday?”

“Yes, and the day before, too.”

“No answer?”

“None-confound them!”

Then there was a long pause. Finally both spoke at once:

“I've got it!”

“I've got it!”

“What's yours?” said Harry.

“Give the boys thirty-day orders on the Company for the back pay.”

“That's it-that's my own idea to a dot. But then--but then----”

“Yes, I know,” said the Colonel; “I know they can't wait for the orders

to go to New York and be cashed, but what's the reason they can't get

them discounted in Hawkeye?”

“Of course they can. That solves the difficulty. Everybody knows the

appropriation's been made and the Company's perfectly good.”

So the orders were given and the men appeased, though they grumbled

a little at first. The orders went well enough for groceries and such

things at a fair discount, and the work danced along gaily for a time.

Two or three purchasers put up frame houses at the Landing and moved in,

and of course a far-sighted but easy-going journeyman printer

wandered along and started the “Napoleon Weekly Telegraph and Literary

Repository”--a paper with a Latin motto from the Unabridged dictionary,

and plenty of “fat” conversational tales and double-leaded poetry--all

for two dollars a year, strictly in advance. Of course the merchants

forwarded the orders at once to New York--and never heard of them again.

At the end of some weeks Harry's orders were a drug in the

market--nobody would take them at any discount whatever. The second

month closed with a riot.--Sellers was absent at the time, and Harry

began an active absence himself with the mob at his heels. But being on

horseback, he had the advantage. He did not tarry in Hawkeye, but went

on, thus missing several appointments with creditors. He was far on his

flight eastward, and well out of danger when the next morning dawned. He

telegraphed the Colonel to go down and quiet the laborers--he was

bound east for money--everything would be right in a week--tell the men

so--tell them to rely on him and not be afraid.

Sellers found the mob quiet enough when he reached the Landing. They

had gutted the Navigation office, then piled the beautiful engraved

stock-books and things in the middle of the floor and enjoyed the

bonfire while it lasted. They had a liking for the Colonel, but still

they had some idea of hanging him, as a sort of make-shift that might

answer, after a fashion, in place of more satisfactory game.

But they made the mistake of waiting to hear what he had to say first.

Within fifteen minutes his tongue had done its work and they were all

rich men.--He gave every one of them a lot in the suburbs of the city of

Stone's Landing, within a mile and a half of the future post office and

railway station, and they promised to resume work as soon as Harry got

east and started the money along. Now things were blooming and pleasant

again, but the men had no money, and nothing to live on. The Colonel

divided with them the money he still had in bank--an act which had

nothing surprising about it because he was generally ready to divide

whatever he had with anybody that wanted it, and it was owing to this

very trait that his family spent their days in poverty and at times were

pinched with famine.

When the men's minds had cooled and Sellers was gone, they hated

themselves for letting him beguile them with fine speeches, but it

was too late, now--they agreed to hang him another time--such time as

Providence should appoint.