CHAPTER XXVI._The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Rumors of Ruth's frivolity and worldliness at Fallkill traveled to

Philadelphia in due time, and occasioned no little undertalk among the

Bolton relatives.

Hannah Shoecraft told another cousin that, for her part, she never

believed that Ruth had so much more “mind” than other people; and Cousin

Hulda added that she always thought Ruth was fond of admiration, and

that was the reason she was unwilling to wear plain clothes and attend

Meeting. The story that Ruth was “engaged” to a young gentleman of

fortune in Fallkill came with the other news, and helped to give point

to the little satirical remarks that went round about Ruth's desire to

be a doctor!

Margaret Bolton was too wise to be either surprised or alarmed by these

rumors. They might be true; she knew a woman's nature too well to

think them improbable, but she also knew how steadfast Ruth was in her

purposes, and that, as a brook breaks into ripples and eddies and dances

and sports by the way, and yet keeps on to the sea, it was in Ruth's

nature to give back cheerful answer to the solicitations of friendliness

and pleasure, to appear idly delaying even, and sporting in the

sunshine, while the current of her resolution flowed steadily on.

That Ruth had this delight in the mere surface play of life that she

could, for instance, be interested in that somewhat serious by-play

called “flirtation,” or take any delight in the exercise of those

little arts of pleasing and winning which are none the less genuine and

charming because they are not intellectual, Ruth, herself, had never

suspected until she went to Fallkill. She had believed it her duty to

subdue her gaiety of temperament, and let nothing divert her from what

are called serious pursuits: In her limited experience she brought

everything to the judgment of her own conscience, and settled the

affairs of all the world in her own serene judgment hall. Perhaps her

mother saw this, and saw also that there was nothing in the Friends'

society to prevent her from growing more and more opinionated.

When Ruth returned to Philadelphia, it must be confessed--though it

would not have been by her--that a medical career did seem a little less

necessary for her than formerly; and coming back in a glow of triumph,

as it were, and in the consciousness of the freedom and life in a lively

society and in new and sympathetic friendship, she anticipated pleasure

in an attempt to break up the stiffness and levelness of the society

at home, and infusing into it something of the motion and sparkle which

were so agreeable at Fallkill. She expected visits from her new friends,

she would have company, the new books and the periodicals about which

all the world was talking, and, in short, she would have life.

For a little while she lived in this atmosphere which she had brought

with her. Her mother was delighted with this change in her, with

the improvement in her health and the interest she exhibited in home

affairs. Her father enjoyed the society of his favorite daughter as he

did few things besides; he liked her mirthful and teasing ways, and

not less a keen battle over something she had read. He had been a great

reader all his life, and a remarkable memory had stored his mind with

encyclopaedic information. It was one of Ruth's delights to cram herself

with some out of the way subject and endeavor to catch her father; but

she almost always failed. Mr. Bolton liked company, a house full of it,

and the mirth of young people, and he would have willingly entered

into any revolutionary plans Ruth might have suggested in relation to

Friends' society.

But custom and the fixed order are stronger than the most enthusiastic

and rebellious young lady, as Ruth very soon found. In spite of all

her brave efforts, her frequent correspondence, and her determined

animation, her books and her music, she found herself settling into the

clutches of the old monotony, and as she realized the hopelessness of

her endeavors, the medical scheme took new hold of her, and seemed to

her the only method of escape.

“Mother, thee does not know how different it is in Fallkill, how much

more interesting the people are one meets, how much more life there is.”

“But thee will find the world, child, pretty much all the same, when

thee knows it better. I thought once as thee does now, and had as little

thought of being a Friend as thee has. Perhaps when thee has seen more,

thee will better appreciate a quiet life.”

“Thee married young. I shall not marry young, and perhaps not at all,”

said Ruth, with a look of vast experience.

“Perhaps thee doesn't know thee own mind; I have known persons of thy

age who did not. Did thee see anybody whom thee would like to live with

always in Fallkill?”

“Not always,” replied Ruth with a little laugh. “Mother, I think I

wouldn't say 'always' to any one until I have a profession and am as

independent as he is. Then my love would be a free act, and not in any

way a necessity.”

Margaret Bolton smiled at this new-fangled philosophy. “Thee will find

that love, Ruth, is a thing thee won't reason about, when it comes,

nor make any bargains about. Thee wrote that Philip Sterling was at

Fallkill.”

“Yes, and Henry Brierly, a friend of his; a very amusing young fellow

and not so serious-minded as Philip, but a bit of a fop maybe.”

“And thee preferred the fop to the serious-minded?”

“I didn't prefer anybody; but Henry Brierly was good company, which

Philip wasn't always.”

“Did thee know thee father had been in correspondence with Philip?”

Ruth looked up surprised and with a plain question in her eyes.

“Oh, it's not about thee.”

“What then?” and if there was any shade of disappointment in her tone,

probably Ruth herself did not know it.

“It's about some land up in the country. That man Bigler has got father

into another speculation.”

“That odious man! Why will father have anything to do with him? Is it

that railroad?”

“Yes. Father advanced money and took land as security, and whatever has

gone with the money and the bonds, he has on his hands a large tract of

wild land.”

“And what has Philip to do with that?”

“It has good timber, if it could ever be got out, and father says that

there must be coal in it; it's in a coal region. He wants Philip to

survey it, and examine it for indications of coal.”

“It's another of father's fortunes, I suppose,” said Ruth. “He has put

away so many fortunes for us that I'm afraid we never shall find them.”

Ruth was interested in it nevertheless, and perhaps mainly because

Philip was to be connected with the enterprise. Mr. Bigler came to

dinner with her father next day, and talked a great deal about Mr.

Bolton's magnificent tract of land, extolled the sagacity that led him

to secure such a property, and led the talk along to another railroad

which would open a northern communication to this very land.

“Pennybacker says it's full of coal, he's no doubt of it, and a railroad

to strike the Erie would make it a fortune.”

“Suppose you take the land and work the thing up, Mr. Bigler; you may

have the tract for three dollars an acre.”

“You'd throw it away, then,” replied Mr. Bigler, “and I'm not the man to

take advantage of a friend. But if you'll put a mortgage on it for the

northern road, I wouldn't mind taking an interest, if Pennybacker is

willing; but Pennybacker, you know, don't go much on land, he sticks to

the legislature.” And Mr. Bigler laughed.

When Mr. Bigler had gone, Ruth asked her father about Philip's

connection with the land scheme.

“There's nothing definite,” said Mr. Bolton. “Philip is showing aptitude

for his profession. I hear the best reports of him in New York, though

those sharpers don't intend to do anything but use him. I've written and

offered him employment in surveying and examining the land. We want to

know what it is. And if there is anything in it that his enterprise can

dig out, he shall have an interest. I should be glad to give the young

fellow a lift.”

All his life Eli Bolton had been giving young fellows a lift, and

shouldering the loses when things turned out unfortunately. His ledger,

take-it-altogether, would not show a balance on the right side; but

perhaps the losses on his books will turn out to be credits in a world

where accounts are kept on a different basis. The left hand of the

ledger will appear the right, looked at from the other side.

Philip, wrote to Ruth rather a comical account of the bursting up of

the city of Napoleon and the navigation improvement scheme, of Harry's

flight and the Colonel's discomfiture. Harry left in such a hurry that

he hadn't even time to bid Miss Laura Hawkins good-bye, but he had no

doubt that Harry would console himself with the next pretty face he

saw--a remark which was thrown in for Ruth's benefit. Col. Sellers

had in all probability, by this time, some other equally brilliant

speculation in his brain.

As to the railroad, Philip had made up his mind that it was merely kept

on foot for speculative purposes in Wall street, and he was about to

quit it. Would Ruth be glad to hear, he wondered, that he was coming

East? For he was coming, in spite of a letter from Harry in New York,

advising him to hold on until he had made some arrangements in regard

to contracts, he to be a little careful about Sellers, who was somewhat

visionary, Harry said.

The summer went on without much excitement for Ruth. She kept up a

correspondence with Alice, who promised a visit in the fall, she read,

she earnestly tried to interest herself in home affairs and such people

as came to the house; but she found herself falling more and more

into reveries, and growing weary of things as they were. She felt

that everybody might become in time like two relatives from a Shaker

establishment in Ohio, who visited the Boltons about this time, a father

and son, clad exactly alike, and alike in manners. The son; however, who

was not of age, was more unworldly and sanctimonious than his father;

he always addressed his parent as “Brother Plum,” and bore himself,

altogether in such a superior manner that Ruth longed to put bent

pins in his chair. Both father and son wore the long, single breasted

collarless coats of their society, without buttons, before or behind,

but with a row of hooks and eyes on either side in front. It was Ruth's

suggestion that the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye

sewed on in the small of the back where the buttons usually are.

Amusing as this Shaker caricature of the Friends was, it oppressed Ruth

beyond measure; and increased her feeling of being stifled.

It was a most unreasonable feeling. No home could be pleasanter than

Ruth's. The house, a little out of the city; was one of those elegant

country residences which so much charm visitors to the suburbs of

Philadelphia. A modern dwelling and luxurious in everything that wealth

could suggest for comfort, it stood in the midst of exquisitely kept

lawns, with groups of trees, parterres of flowers massed in colors, with

greenhouse, grapery and garden; and on one side, the garden sloped away

in undulations to a shallow brook that ran over a pebbly bottom and sang

under forest trees. The country about was the perfection of cultivated

landscape, dotted with cottages, and stately mansions of Revolutionary

date, and sweet as an English country-side, whether seen in the soft

bloom of May or in the mellow ripeness of late October.

It needed only the peace of the mind within, to make it a paradise. One

riding by on the Old Germantown road, and seeing a young girl swinging

in the hammock on the piazza and, intent upon some volume of old poetry

or the latest novel, would no doubt have envied a life so idyllic. He

could not have imagined that the young girl was reading a volume of

reports of clinics and longing to be elsewhere.

Ruth could not have been more discontented if all the wealth about her

had been as unsubstantial as a dream. Perhaps she so thought it.

“I feel,” she once said to her father, “as if I were living in a house

of cards.”

“And thee would like to turn it into a hospital?”

“No. But tell me father,” continued Ruth, not to be put off, “is thee

still going on with that Bigler and those other men who come here and

entice thee?”

Mr. Bolton smiled, as men do when they talk with women about “business”.

“Such men have their uses, Ruth. They keep the world active, and I owe a

great many of my best operations to such men. Who knows, Ruth, but this

new land purchase, which I confess I yielded a little too much to Bigler

in, may not turn out a fortune for thee and the rest of the children?”

“Ah, father, thee sees every thing in a rose-colored light. I do believe

thee wouldn't have so readily allowed me to begin the study of medicine,

if it hadn't had the novelty of an experiment to thee.”

“And is thee satisfied with it?”

“If thee means, if I have had enough of it, no. I just begin to see what

I can do in it, and what a noble profession it is for a woman. Would

thee have me sit here like a bird on a bough and wait for somebody to

come and put me in a cage?”

Mr. Bolton was not sorry to divert the talk from his own affairs, and

he did not think it worth while to tell his family of a performance that

very day which was entirely characteristic of him.

Ruth might well say that she felt as if she were living in a house of

cards, although the Bolton household had no idea of the number of perils

that hovered over them, any more than thousands of families in America

have of the business risks and contingences upon which their prosperity

and luxury hang.

A sudden call upon Mr. Bolton for a large sum of money, which must be

forthcoming at once, had found him in the midst of a dozen ventures,

from no one of which a dollar could be realized. It was in vain that he

applied to his business acquaintances and friends; it was a period

of sudden panic and no money. “A hundred thousand! Mr. Bolton,” said

Plumly. “Good God, if you should ask me for ten, I shouldn't know where

to get it.”

And yet that day Mr. Small (Pennybacker, Bigler and Small) came to Mr.

Bolton with a piteous story of ruin in a coal operation, if he could

not raise ten thousand dollars. Only ten, and he was sure of a fortune.

Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small's notes for a

large amount in his safe, labeled “doubtful;” he had helped him again

and again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a

faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant

of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton

put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping

together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar,

who had never kept a promise to him nor paid a debt.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that

this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon

human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables

a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar

newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished

speculator in lands and mines this remark:--“I wasn't worth a cent two

years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling

enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been

such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. It was hard to come

down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a General Superintendent

and the most conspicuous man in the community. It was sad to see his

name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected

at intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and

clothed on with rhetorical tar and feathers.

But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork

that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time.

He had to bolster up his wife's spirits every now and then. On one of

these occasions he said:

“It's all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little

while. There's $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again:

Harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that's to be expected--you

can't move these big operations to the tune of Fisher's Hornpipe, you

know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you'll

see! I expect the news every day now.”

“But Beriah, you've been expecting it every day, all along, haven't

you?”

“Well, yes; yes--I don't know but I have. But anyway, the longer it's

delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start--same as

every day you live brings you nearer to--nearer--”

“The grave?”

“Well, no--not that exactly; but you can't understand these things,

Polly dear--women haven't much head for business, you know. You make

yourself perfectly comfortable, old lady, and you'll see how we'll trot

this right along. Why bless you, let the appropriation lag, if it wants

to--that's no great matter--there's a bigger thing than that.”

“Bigger than $200,000, Beriah?”

“Bigger, child?--why, what's $200,000? Pocket money! Mere pocket money!

Look at the railroad! Did you forget the railroad? It ain't many months

till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming

right along behind it. Where'll it be by the middle of summer? Just stop

and fancy a moment--just think a little--don't anything suggest itself?

Bless your heart, you dear women live right in the present all the

time--but a man, why a man lives----

“In the future, Beriah? But don't we live in the future most too much,

Beriah? We do somehow seem to manage to live on next year's crop of corn

and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along,

but sometimes it's not a robust diet,--Beriah. But don't look that

way, dear--don't mind what I say. I don't mean to fret, I don't mean to

worry; and I don't, once a month, do I, dear? But when I get a little

low and feel bad, I get a bit troubled and worrisome, but it don't mean

anything in the world. It passes right away. I know you're doing all

you can, and I don't want to seem repining and ungrateful--for I'm not,

Beriah--you know I'm not, don't you?”

“Lord bless you, child, I know you are the very best little woman that

ever lived--that ever lived on the whole face of the Earth! And I know

that I would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and

scheme for you with all my might. And I'll bring things all right yet,

honey--cheer up and don't you fear. The railroad----”

“Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a

body forgets everything. Yes, the railroad--tell me about the railroad.”

“Aha, my girl, don't you see? Things ain't so dark, are they? Now I

didn't forget the railroad. Now just think for a moment--just figure up

a little on the future dead moral certainties. For instance, call this

waiter St. Louis.

“And we'll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from St. Louis to

this potato, which is Slouchburg:

“Then with this carving knife we'll continue the railroad from

Slouchburg to Doodleville, shown by the black pepper:

“Then we run along the--yes--the comb--to the tumbler that's Brimstone:

“Thence by the pipe to Belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar:

“Thence to, to--that quill--Catfish--hand me the pincushion, Marie

Antoinette:

“Thence right along these shears to this horse, Babylon:

“Then by the spoon to Bloody Run--thank you, the ink:

“Thence to Hail Columbia--snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and

saucer close up, that's Hail Columbia:

“Then--let me open my knife--to Hark-from-the-Tomb, where we'll put

the candle-stick--only a little distance from Hail Columbia to

Hark-from-the-Tomb--down-grade all the way.

“And there we strike Columbus River--pass me two or three skeins of

thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and

the rat trap for Stone's Landing--Napoleon, I mean--and you can see how

much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your

railroad complete, and showing its continuation to Hallelujah and thence

to Corruptionville.

“Now then--there you are! It's a beautiful road, beautiful. Jeff

Thompson can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through

an aneroid, or a theodolite, or whatever they call it--he calls it

sometimes one and sometimes the other just whichever levels off his

sentence neatest, I reckon. But ain't it a ripping road, though? I tell

you, it'll make a stir when it gets along. Just see what a country it

goes through. There's your onions at Slouchburg--noblest onion country

that graces God's footstool; and there's your turnip country all around

Doodleville--bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there

when they get that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of

turnips--if there's any in them; and I reckon there is, because Congress

has made an appropriation of money to test the thing, and they wouldn't

have done that just on conjecture, of course. And now we come to the

Brimstone region--cattle raised there till you can't rest--and corn, and

all that sort of thing. Then you've got a little stretch along through

Belshazzar that don't produce anything now--at least nothing but

rocks--but irrigation will fetch it. Then from Catfish to Babylon it's

a little swampy, but there's dead loads of peat down under there

somewhere. Next is the Bloody Run and Hail Columbia country--tobacco

enough can be raised there to support two such railroads. Next is the

sassparilla region. I reckon there's enough of that truck along in there

on the line of the pocket-knife, from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the

Tomb to fat up all the consumptives in all the hospitals from Halifax

to the Holy Land. It just grows like weeds! I've got a little belt of

sassparilla land in there just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my

little Universal Expectorant to get into shape in my head. And I'll fix

that, you know. One of these days I'll have all the nations of the earth

expecto--”

“But Beriah, dear--”

“Don't interrupt me; Polly--I don't want you to lose the run of the

map--well, take your toy-horse, James Fitz-James, if you must have

it--and run along with you. Here, now--the soap will do for Babylon.

Let me see--where was I? Oh yes--now we run down to Stone's

Lan--Napoleon--now we run down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at

that, now. Perfectly straight line-straight as the way to the grave.

And see where it leaves Hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear

out in the cold. That town's as bound to die as--well if I owned it I'd

get its obituary ready, now, and notify the mourners. Polly, mark my

words--in three years from this, Hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness.

You'll see. And just look at that river--noblest stream that meanders

over the thirsty earth!--calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her

weary bosom! Railroad goes all over it and all through it--wades right

along on stilts. Seventeen bridges in three miles and a half--forty-nine

bridges from Hark-from-the-Tomb to Stone's Landing altogether--forty

nine bridges, and culverts enough to culvert creation itself!

Hadn't skeins of thread enough to represent them all--but you get

an idea--perfect trestle-work of bridges for seventy two miles: Jeff

Thompson and I fixed all that, you know; he's to get the contracts and

I'm to put them through on the divide. Just oceans of money in those

bridges. It's the only part of the railroad I'm interested in,--down

along the line--and it's all I want, too. It's enough, I should judge.

Now here we are at Napoleon. Good enough country plenty good enough--all

it wants is population. That's all right--that will come. And it's

no bad country now for calmness and solitude, I can tell you--though

there's no money in that, of course. No money, but a man wants rest, a

man wants peace--a man don't want to rip and tear around all the time.

And here we go, now, just as straight as a string for Hallelujah--it's a

beautiful angle--handsome up grade all the way--and then away you go to

Corruptionville, the gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers

that ever--good missionary field, too. There ain't such another

missionary field outside the jungles of Central Africa. And

patriotic?--why they named it after Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my

dear, there's a good time coming, and it'll be right along before you

know what you're about, too. That railroad's fetching it. You see what

it is as far as I've got, and if I had enough bottles and soap and

boot-jacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins onto the

Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, I should exhibit to

you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of inconceivable

sublimity. So, don't you see? We've got the rail road to fall back

on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that $200,000

appropriation for? That's all right. I'd be willing to bet anything that

the very next letter that comes from Harry will--”

The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter,

warm from the post-office.

“Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I'm sorry I was blue, but it

did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open

the letter--open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir

out of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says.”

The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay.

Part 4.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXVIII Visit to Headquarters in Wall Street--How Appropriations

Are Obtained and Their Cost

CHAPTER XXIX Philip's Experience With the Rail--Road Conductor--Surveys

His Mining Property

CHAPTER XXX Laura and Col Sellers Go To Washington On Invitation of

Senator Dilworthy

CHAPTER XXXI Philip and Harry at the Boltons'--Philip Seriously

Injured--Ruth's First Case of Surgery

CHAPTER XXXII Laura Becomes a Famous Belle at Washington

CHAPTER XXXIII Society in Washington--The Antiques, the Parvenus, and

the Middle Aristocracy

CHAPTER XXXIV Grand Scheme For Disposing of the Tennessee Land--Laura

and Washington Hawkins Enjoying the Reputation of Being Millionaires

CHAPTER XXXV About Senators--Their Privileges and Habits

CHAPTER XXXVI An Hour in a Book Store

ILLUSTRATIONS

91. AT HEADQUARTERS 92. TOUCHING A WEAK SPOT 93. CHAIRMAN OF

COMMITTEE, $10,000, 94. MALE LOBBYIST, $3,000 255 95. FEMALE LOBBYIST,

$3,000 96. HIGH MORAL SENATOR, $3,000 97. COUNTRY MEMBER, $500

98. DOCUMENTARY PROOF 99. COLONEL SELLERS DESPONDENT 100. TAIL PIECE

101. THE MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYS 102. PHILIP THRUST FROM THE R.

R. CAR 103. THE JUSTICE 104. “MINE INN” 105. A PLEASING LANDLORD

106. PHILIP HIRED THREE WOODSMEN 107. TAIL PIECE 108. TAIL PIECE

109. BRO. BALAAM 110. THE FIRE PANIC 111. RUTH ASSISTS IN DRESSING

PHILIP'S ARM 112. THE FIRST RECEPTION 113. VANITY COLLAPSED 114. THE

ATTACHES OF THE ANTIQUES 115. HON. OLIVER HIGGINS 116. PAT O'RILEY AND

THE “OULD WOMAN” 117. HON. P. OREILLE AND LADY 118. AN UNMISTAKABLE

POTATO MOUTH 119. THE THREE PATIENTS 120. TAIL PIECE 121. DELIBERATE

PERSECUTION 122. “IT IS ONLY ME” 123. “ALL CONGRESSMEN DO THAT”

124. A TRICK WORTH KNOWING 125. COL. SELLERS ENLIGHTENING THE

BOHEMIANS 126. LAURA IN THE BOOK STORE 127. VERY AGREEABLE

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Whatever may have been the language of Harry's letter to the Colonel,

the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other,

from the following episode of his visit to New York:

He called, with official importance in his mien, at No.-- Wall street,

where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of

the “Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company.” He entered and gave

a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort

of ante-room. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he would

like to see?

“The president of the company, of course.”

“He is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done with them

directly.”

That a copper-plate card with “Engineer-in-Chief” on it should be

received with such tranquility as this, annoyed Mr. Brierly not a

little. But he had to submit. Indeed his annoyance had time to augment a

good deal; for he was allowed to cool his heels a full half hour in the

ante-room before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the

presence. He found a stately dignitary occupying a very official

chair behind a long green morocco-covered table, in a room sumptuously

carpeted and furnished, and well garnished with pictures.

“Good morning, sir; take a seat--take a seat.”

“Thank you sir,” said Harry, throwing as much chill into his manner as

his ruffled dignity prompted.

“We perceive by your reports and the reports of the Chief

Superintendent, that you have been making gratifying progress with the

work.--We are all very much pleased.”

“Indeed? We did not discover it from your letters--which we have not

received; nor by the treatment our drafts have met with--which were not

honored; nor by the reception of any part of the appropriation, no part

of it having come to hand.”

“Why, my dear Mr. Brierly, there must be some mistake, I am sure we

wrote you and also Mr. Sellers, recently--when my clerk comes he will

show copies--letters informing you of the ten per cent. assessment.”

“Oh, certainly, we got those letters. But what we wanted was money to

carry on the work--money to pay the men.”

“Certainly, certainly--true enough--but we credited you both for a large

part of your assessments--I am sure that was in our letters.”

“Of course that was in--I remember that.”

“Ah, very well then. Now we begin to understand each other.”

“Well, I don't see that we do. There's two months' wages due the men,

and----”

“How? Haven't you paid the men?”

“Paid them! How are we going to pay them when you don't honor our

drafts?”

“Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any fault with us. I

am sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way.--Now

let us look at the thing a moment. You subscribed for 100 shares of the

capital stock, at $1,000 a share, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. No concern can get along without money. We levied a ten per

cent. assessment. It was the original understanding that you and Mr.

Sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600

a month each, while in active service. You were duly elected to these

places, and you accepted them. Am I right?”

“Certainly.”

“Very well. You were given your instructions and put to work. By your

reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the

said work. Two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether

to $2,400--about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see;

which leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths

of the assessment--viz, something over $8,000 apiece. Now instead of

requiring you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to New

York, the company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the

contractors, laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the

books for it. And they did it without a murmur, too, for they were

pleased with the progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that

little compliment--and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure. The

work you did fell short of $10,000, a trifle. Let me see--$9,640 from

$20,000--salary $2,400 added--ah yes, the balance due the company from

yourself and Mr. Sellers is $7,960, which I will take the responsibility

of allowing to stand for the present, unless you prefer to draw a check

now, and thus----”

“Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us

$2,400, we owe the company $7,960?”

“Well, yes.”

“And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars

besides?”

“Owe them! Oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you have not paid these

people?”

“But I do mean it!”

The president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain. His

brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept

saying, “Oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad! Oh, it is bound to be

found out--nothing can prevent it--nothing!”

Then he threw himself into his chair and said:

“My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful--perfectly dreadful. It will

be found out. It is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our

credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired. How could you be so

thoughtless--the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!”

“They ought, ought they? Then why the devil--my name is not Bryerson, by

the way--why the mischief didn't the compa--why what in the nation

ever became of the appropriation? Where is that appropriation?--if a

stockholder may make so bold as to ask.”

“The appropriation?--that paltry $200,000, do you mean?”

“Of course--but I didn't know that $200,000 was so very paltry. Though

I grant, of course, that it is not a large sum, strictly speaking. But

where is it?”

“My dear sir, you surprise me. You surely cannot have had a large

acquaintance with this sort of thing. Otherwise you would not have

expected much of a result from a mere INITIAL appropriation like that.

It was never intended for anything but a mere nest egg for the future

and real appropriations to cluster around.”

“Indeed? Well, was it a myth, or was it a reality? Whatever become of

it?”

“Why the--matter is simple enough. A Congressional appropriation costs

money. Just reflect, for instance--a majority of the House Committee,

say $10,000 apiece--$40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the

same each--say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairman of one or

two such committees, say $10,000 each--$20,000; and there's $100,000

of the money gone, to begin with. Then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000

each--$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral Congressman

or Senator here and there--the high moral ones cost more, because they.

give tone to a measure--say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000;

then a lot of small-fry country members who won't vote for anything

whatever without pay--say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot

of dinners to members--say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for

Congressmen's wives and children--those go a long way--you can't spend

too much money in that line--well, those things cost in a lump,

say $10,000--along there somewhere; and then comes your printed

documents--your maps, your tinted engravings, your pamphlets, your

illuminated show cards, your advertisements in a hundred and fifty

papers at ever so much a line--because you've got to keep the papers all

right or you are gone up, you know. Oh, my dear sir, printing bills

are destruction itself. Ours so far amount to--let me see--10; 52; 22;

13;--and then there's 11; 14; 33--well, never mind the details, the

total in clean numbers foots up $118,254.42 thus far!”

“What!”

“Oh, yes indeed. Printing's no bagatelle, I can tell you. And then

there's your contributions, as a company, to Chicago fires and Boston

fires, and orphan asylums and all that sort of thing--head the list,

you see, with the company's full name and a thousand dollars set

opposite--great card, sir--one of the finest advertisements in the

world--the preachers mention it in the pulpit when it's a religious

charity--one of the happiest advertisements in the world is your

benevolent donation. Ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars and

some cents up to this time.”

“Good heavens!”

“Oh, yes. Perhaps the biggest thing we've done in the advertising line

was to get an officer of the U. S. government, of perfectly Himmalayan

official altitude, to write up our little internal improvement for a

religious paper of enormous circulation--I tell you that makes our bonds

go handsomely among the pious poor. Your religious paper is by far

the best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because they'll 'lead' your

article and put it right in the midst of the reading matter; and if it's

got a few Scripture quotations in it, and some temperance platitudes

and a bit of gush here and there about Sunday Schools, and a sentimental

snuffle now and then about 'God's precious ones, the honest hard-handed

poor,' it works the nation like a charm, my dear sir, and never a man

suspects that it is an advertisement; but your secular paper sticks you

right into the advertising columns and of course you don't take a trick.

Give me a religious paper to advertise in, every time; and if you'll

just look at their advertising pages, you'll observe that other people

think a good deal as I do--especially people who have got little

financial schemes to make everybody rich with. Of course I mean your

great big metropolitan religious papers that know how to serve God and

make money at the same time--that's your sort, sir, that's your sort--a

religious paper that isn't run to make money is no use to us, sir, as an

advertising medium--no use to anybody--in our line of business. I guess

our next best dodge was sending a pleasure trip of newspaper reporters

out to Napoleon. Never paid them a cent; just filled them up with

champagne and the fat of the land, put pen, ink and paper before them

while they were red-hot, and bless your soul when you come to read their

letters you'd have supposed they'd been to heaven. And if a sentimental

squeamishness held one or two of them back from taking a less rosy view

of Napoleon, our hospitalities tied his tongue, at least, and he said

nothing at all and so did us no harm. Let me see--have I stated all

the expenses I've been at? No, I was near forgetting one or two items.

There's your official salaries--you can't get good men for nothing.

Salaries cost pretty lively. And then there's your big

high-sounding millionaire names stuck into your advertisements as

stockholders--another card, that--and they are stockholders, too, but

you have to give them the stock and non-assessable at that--so they're

an expensive lot. Very, very expensive thing, take it all around, is

a big internal improvement concern--but you see that yourself, Mr.

Bryerman--you see that, yourself, sir.”

“But look here. I think you are a little mistaken about it's ever having

cost anything for Congressional votes. I happen to know something about

that. I've let you say your say--now let me say mine. I don't wish to

seem to throw any suspicion on anybody's statements, because we are all

liable to be mistaken. But how would it strike you if I were to say that

I was in Washington all the time this bill was pending? and what if I

added that I put the measure through myself? Yes, sir, I did that little

thing. And moreover, I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never

promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as

others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the

knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. My dear sir,

I am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head--for never a

cent was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part of this Navigation

Company.”

The president smiled blandly, even sweetly, all through this harangue,

and then said:

“Is that so?”

“Every word of it.”

“Well it does seem to alter the complexion of things a little. You are

acquainted with the members down there, of course, else you could not

have worked to such advantage?”

“I know them all, sir. I know their wives, their children, their

babies--I even made it a point to be on good terms with their lackeys. I

know every Congressman well--even familiarly.”

“Very good. Do you know any of their signatures? Do you know their

handwriting?”

“Why I know their handwriting as well as I know my own--have

had correspondence enough with them, I should think. And their

signatures--why I can tell their initials, even.”

The president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got out some

letters and certain slips of paper. Then he said:

“Now here, for instance; do you believe that that is a genuine letter?

Do you know this signature here?--and this one? Do you know who those

initials represent--and are they forgeries?”

Harry was stupefied. There were things there that made his brain swim.

Presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that

restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of a smile to his

face.

The president said:

“That one amuses you. You never suspected him?”

“Of course I ought to have suspected him, but I don't believe it ever

really occurred to me. Well, well, well--how did you ever have the nerve

to approach him, of all others?”

“Why my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything without his

help. He is our mainstay. But how do those letters strike you?”

“They strike me dumb! What a stone-blind idiot I have been!”

“Well, take it all around, I suppose you had a pleasant time in

Washington,” said the president, gathering up the letters; “of course

you must have had. Very few men could go there and get a money bill

through without buying a single--”

“Come, now, Mr. President, that's plenty of that! I take back everything

I said on that head. I'm a wiser man to-day than I was yesterday, I can

tell you.”

“I think you are. In fact I am satisfied you are. But now I showed you

these things in confidence, you understand. Mention facts as much as

you want to, but don't mention names to anybody. I can depend on you for

that, can't I?”

“Oh, of course. I understand the necessity of that. I will not betray

the names. But to go back a bit, it begins to look as if you never saw

any of that appropriation at all?”

“We saw nearly ten thousand dollars of it--and that was all. Several

of us took turns at log-rolling in Washington, and if we had charged

anything for that service, none of that $10,000 would ever have reached

New York.”

“If you hadn't levied the assessment you would have been in a close

place I judge?”

“Close? Have you figured up the total of the disbursements I told you

of?”

“No, I didn't think of that.”

“Well, lets see:

Spent in Washington, say, $191,000 Printing, advertising, etc, say

$118,000 Charity, say, $16,000

Total, $325,000

The money to do that with, comes from-- Appropriation, $200,000

Ten per cent assessment on capital of $1,000,000 $100,000

Total, $300,000

“Which leaves us in debt some $25,000 at this moment. Salaries of home

officers are still going on; also printing and advertising. Next month

will show a state of things!”

“And then--burst up, I suppose?”

“By no means. Levy another assessment”

“Oh, I see. That's dismal.”

“By no means.”

“Why isn't it? What's the road out?”

“Another appropriation, don't you see?”

“Bother the appropriations. They cost more than they come to.”

“Not the next one. We'll call for half a million--get it and go for a

million the very next month.”

“Yes, but the cost of it!”

The president smiled, and patted his secret letters affectionately. He

said:

“All these people are in the next Congress. We shan't have to pay them

a cent. And what is more, they will work like beavers for us--perhaps it

might be to their advantage.”

Harry reflected profoundly a while. Then he said:

“We send many missionaries to lift up the benighted races of other

lands. How much cheaper and better it would be if those people could

only come here and drink of our civilization at its fountain head.”

“I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Beverly. Must you go? Well, good

morning. Look in, when you are passing; and whenever I can give you any

information about our affairs and prospects, I shall be glad to do it.”

Harry's letter was not a long one, but it contained at least the

calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation. The

Colonel found himself in a rather uncomfortable place--no $1,200 salary

forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the

workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of

nearly $4,000. Polly's heart was nearly broken; the “blues” returned in

fearful force, and she had to go out of the room to hide the tears that

nothing could keep back now.

There was mourning in another quarter, too, for Louise had a letter.

Washington had refused, at the last moment, to take $40,000 for the

Tennessee Land, and had demanded $150,000! So the trade fell through,

and now Washington was wailing because he had been so foolish. But he

wrote that his man might probably return to the city soon, and then he

meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take $10,000. Louise had a

good cry--several of them, indeed--and the family charitably forebore to

make any comments that would increase her grief.

Spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by, and the

Colonel's spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad was making good

progress. But by and by something happened. Hawkeye had always declined

to subscribe anything toward the railway, imagining that her large

business would be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now Hawkeye was

frightened; and before Col. Sellers knew what he was about, Hawkeye,

in a panic, had rushed to the front and subscribed such a sum that

Napoleon's attractions suddenly sank into insignificance and the

railroad concluded to follow a comparatively straight coarse instead of

going miles out of its way to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert

of Stone's Landing.

The thunderbolt fell. After all the Colonel's deep planning; after all

his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet

project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil

with his hands, and running hither and thither on his busy feet; after

all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their

backs on him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to

ruins about him. Hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant and rejoicing,

and down went Stone's Landing! One by one its meagre parcel of

inhabitants packed up and moved away, as the summer waned and fall

approached. Town lots were no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly

lethargy fell upon the place once more, the “Weekly Telegraph” faded

into an early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog

resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank

and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of

yore.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Philip Sterling was on his way to Ilium, in the state of Pennsylvania.

Ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which

Mr. Bolton had commissioned him to examine.

On the last day of the journey as the railway train Philip was on was

leaving a large city, a lady timidly entered the drawing-room car, and

hesitatingly took a chair that was at the moment unoccupied. Philip saw

from the window that a gentleman had put her upon the car just as it was

starting. In a few moments the conductor entered, and without waiting an

explanation, said roughly to the lady,

“Now you can't sit there. That seat's taken. Go into the other car.”

“I did not intend to take the seat,” said the lady rising, “I only sat

down a moment till the conductor should come and give me a seat.”

“There aint any. Car's full. You'll have to leave.”

“But, sir,” said the lady, appealingly, “I thought--”

“Can't help what you thought--you must go into the other car.”

“The train is going very fast, let me stand here till we stop.”

“The lady can have my seat,” cried Philip, springing up.

The conductor turned towards Philip, and coolly and deliberately

surveyed him from head to foot, with contempt in every line of his face,

turned his back upon him without a word, and said to the lady,

“Come, I've got no time to talk. You must go now.”

The lady, entirely disconcerted by such rudeness, and frightened, moved

towards the door, opened it and stepped out. The train was swinging

along at a rapid rate, jarring from side to side; the step was a long

one between the cars and there was no protecting grating. The lady

attempted it, but lost her balance, in the wind and the motion of the

car, and fell! She would inevitably have gone down under the wheels, if

Philip, who had swiftly followed her, had not caught her arm and drawn

her up. He then assisted her across, found her a seat, received her

bewildered thanks, and returned to his car.

The conductor was still there, taking his tickets, and growling

something about imposition. Philip marched up to him, and burst out

with,

“You are a brute, an infernal brute, to treat a woman that way.”

“Perhaps you'd like to make a fuss about it,” sneered the conductor.

Philip's reply was a blow, given so suddenly and planted so squarely in

the conductor's face, that it sent him reeling over a fat passenger, who

was looking up in mild wonder that any one should dare to dispute with a

conductor, and against the side of the car.

He recovered himself, reached the bell rope, “Damn you, I'll learn you,”

stepped to the door and called a couple of brakemen, and then, as the

speed slackened; roared out,

“Get off this train.”

“I shall not get off. I have as much right here as you.”

“We'll see,” said the conductor, advancing with the brakemen. The

passengers protested, and some of them said to each other, “That's too

bad,” as they always do in such cases, but none of them offered to take

a hand with Philip. The men seized him, wrenched him from his seat,

dragged him along the aisle, tearing his clothes, thrust him from the

car, and, then flung his carpet-bag, overcoat and umbrella after him.

And the train went on.

The conductor, red in the face and puffing from his exertion, swaggered

through the car, muttering “Puppy, I'll learn him.” The passengers, when

he had gone, were loud in their indignation, and talked about signing a

protest, but they did nothing more than talk.

The next morning the Hooverville Patriot and Clarion had this “item”:--

SLIGHTUALLY OVERBOARD.

“We learn that as the down noon express was leaving H---- yesterday a

lady! (God save the mark) attempted to force herself into the already

full palatial car. Conductor Slum, who is too old a bird to be caught

with chaff, courteously informed her that the car was full, and when

she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go into the car where

she belonged. Thereupon a young sprig, from the East, blustered like a

Shanghai rooster, and began to sass the conductor with his chin music.

That gentleman delivered the young aspirant for a muss one of his

elegant little left-handers, which so astonished him that he began

to feel for his shooter. Whereupon Mr. Slum gently raised the youth,

carried him forth, and set him down just outside the car to cool off.

Whether the young blood has yet made his way out of Bascom's swamp,

we have not learned. Conductor Slum is one of the most gentlemanly and

efficient officers on the road; but he ain't trifled with, not much. We

learn that the company have put a new engine on the seven o'clock train,

and newly upholstered the drawing-room car throughout. It spares no

effort for the comfort of the traveling public.”

Philip never had been before in Bascom's swamp, and there was nothing

inviting in it to detain him. After the train got out of the way he

crawled out of the briars and the mud, and got upon the track. He was

somewhat bruised, but he was too angry to mind that. He plodded along

over the ties in a very hot condition of mind and body. In the scuffle,

his railway check had disappeared, and he grimly wondered, as he noticed

the loss, if the company would permit him to walk over their track if

they should know he hadn't a ticket.

Philip had to walk some five miles before he reached a little station,

where he could wait for a train, and he had ample time for reflection.

At first he was full of vengeance on the company. He would sue it. He

would make it pay roundly. But then it occurred to him that he did not

know the name of a witness he could summon, and that a personal fight

against a railway corporation was about the most hopeless in the world.

He then thought he would seek out that conductor, lie in wait for him at

some station, and thrash him, or get thrashed himself.

But as he got cooler, that did not seem to him a project worthy of a

gentleman exactly. Was it possible for a gentleman to get even with such

a fellow as that conductor on the letter's own plane? And when he came

to this point, he began to ask himself, if he had not acted very much

like a fool. He didn't regret striking the fellow--he hoped he had

left a mark on him. But, after all, was that the best way? Here was he,

Philip Sterling, calling himself a gentleman, in a brawl with a vulgar

conductor, about a woman he had never seen before. Why should he have

put himself in such a ridiculous position? Wasn't it enough to have

offered the lady his seat, to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps

from death? Suppose he had simply said to the conductor, “Sir, your

conduct is brutal, I shall report you.” The passengers, who saw the

affair, might have joined in a report against the conductor, and he

might really have accomplished something. And, now! Philip looked at his

torn clothes, and thought with disgust of his haste in getting into a

fight with such an autocrat.

At the little station where Philip waited for the next train, he met a

man--who turned out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood,

and told him his adventure. He was a kindly sort of man, and seemed very

much interested.

“Dum 'em,” said he, when he had heard the story.

“Do you think any thing can be done, sir?”

“Wal, I guess tain't no use. I hain't a mite of doubt of every word you

say. But suin's no use. The railroad company owns all these people along

here, and the judges on the bench too. Spiled your clothes! Wal, 'least

said's soonest mended.' You haint no chance with the company.”

When next morning, he read the humorous account in the Patriot and

Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before

the public in a fight with the railroad company.

Still Philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty to carry

the matter into the courts, even with the certainty of defeat. He

confessed that neither he nor any citizen had a right to consult his

own feelings or conscience in a case where a law of the land had been

violated before his own eyes. He confessed that every citizen's first

duty in such case is to put aside his own business and devote his time

and his best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished;

and he knew that no country can be well governed unless its citizens as

a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians

of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its

execution, nothing more. As a finality he was obliged to confess that he

was a bad citizen, and also that the general laxity of the time, and

the absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the

individual himself were ingrained in him, and he was no better than the

rest of the people.

The result of this little adventure was that Philip did not reach Ilium

till daylight the next morning, when he descended sleepy and sore, from

a way train, and looked about him. Ilium was in a narrow mountain gorge,

through which a rapid stream ran. It consisted of the plank platform

on which he stood, a wooden house, half painted, with a dirty piazza

(unroofed) in front, and a sign board hung on a slanting pole--bearing

the legend, “Hotel. P. Dusenheimer,” a sawmill further down the stream,

a blacksmith-shop, and a store, and three or four unpainted dwellings of

the slab variety.

As Philip approached the hotel he saw what appeared to be a wild beast

crouching on the piazza. It did not stir, however, and he soon found

that it was only a stuffed skin. This cheerful invitation to the tavern

was the remains of a huge panther which had been killed in the region

a few weeks before. Philip examined his ugly visage and strong crooked

fore-arm, as he was waiting admittance, having pounded upon the door.

“Yait a bit. I'll shoost--put on my trowsers,” shouted a voice from the

window, and the door was soon opened by the yawning landlord.

“Morgen! Didn't hear d' drain oncet. Dem boys geeps me up zo spate. Gom

right in.”

Philip was shown into a dirty bar-room. It was a small room, with a

stove in the middle, set in a long shallow box of sand, for the benefit

of the “spitters,” a bar across one end--a mere counter with a sliding

glass-case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels,

and a wash-sink in one corner. On the walls were the bright yellow and

black handbills of a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats

in human pyramids, horses flying in long leaps through the air, and

sylph-like women in a paradisaic costume, balancing themselves upon the

tips of their toes on the bare backs of frantic and plunging steeds, and

kissing their hands to the spectators meanwhile.

As Philip did not desire a room at that hour, he was invited to wash

himself at the nasty sink, a feat somewhat easier than drying his face,

for the towel that hung in a roller over the sink was evidently as much

a fixture as the sink itself, and belonged, like the suspended brush and

comb, to the traveling public. Philip managed to complete his toilet by

the use of his pocket-handkerchief, and declining the hospitality of the

landlord, implied in the remark, “You won'd dake notin'?” he went into

the open air to wait for breakfast.

The country he saw was wild but not picturesque. The mountain before

him might be eight hundred feet high, and was only a portion of a long

unbroken range, savagely wooded, which followed the stream. Behind the

hotel, and across the brawling brook, was another level-topped, wooded

range exactly like it. Ilium itself, seen at a glance, was old enough to

be dilapidated, and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and

water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime

and rawness. P. Dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting

groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from

the traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his

personal appearance. Perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark,

“Ilium fuit,” followed in most instances by a hail to himself as

“AEneas,” with the inquiry “Where is old Anchises?” At first he had

replied, “Dere ain't no such man;” but irritated by its senseless

repetition, he had latterly dropped into the formula of, “You be dam.”

Philip was recalled from the contemplation of Ilium by the rolling and

growling of the gong within the hotel, the din and clamor increasing

till the house was apparently unable to contain it; when it burst out of

the front door and informed the world that breakfast was on the table.

The dining room was long, low and narrow, and a narrow table extended

its whole length. Upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance

might have been as long in use as the towel in the barroom. Upon the

table was the usual service, the heavy, much nicked stone ware, the row

of plated and rusty castors, the sugar bowls with the zinc

tea-spoons sticking up in them, the piles of yellow biscuits, the

discouraged-looking plates of butter. The landlord waited, and Philip

was pleased to observe the change in his manner. In the barroom he was

the conciliatory landlord. Standing behind his guests at table, he had

an air of peremptory patronage, and the voice in which he shot out the

inquiry, as he seized Philip's plate, “Beefsteak or liver?” quite took

away Philip's power of choice. He begged for a glass of milk, after

trying that green hued compound called coffee, and made his breakfast

out of that and some hard crackers which seemed to have been imported

into Ilium before the introduction of the iron horse, and to have

withstood a ten years siege of regular boarders, Greeks and others.

The land that Philip had come to look at was at least five miles distant

from Ilium station. A corner of it touched the railroad, but the rest

was pretty much an unbroken wilderness, eight or ten thousand acres of

rough country, most of it such a mountain range as he saw at Ilium.

His first step was to hire three woodsmen to accompany him. By their

help he built a log hut, and established a camp on the land, and then

began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along, noting

the timber, and the lay of the land, and making superficial observations

as to the prospect of coal.

The landlord at Ilium endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services

of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land

with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and

exactly where the strata ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his own

study of the country, and his knowledge of the geological formation. He

spent a month in traveling over the land and making calculations; and

made up his mind that a fine vein of coal ran through the mountain about

a mile from the railroad, and that the place to run in a tunnel was half

way towards its summit.

Acting with his usual promptness, Philip, with the consent of Mr.

Bolton, broke ground there at once, and, before snow came, had some rude

buildings up, and was ready for active operations in the spring. It

was true that there were no outcroppings of coal at the place, and the

people at Ilium said he “mought as well dig for plug terbaccer there;”

but Philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's operations in

ages past, and he had no doubt that he should strike at this spot the

rich vein that had made the fortune of the Golden Briar Company.

CHAPTER XXX.

Once more Louise had good news from her Washington--Senator Dilworthy

was going to sell the Tennessee Land to the government! Louise told

Laura in confidence. She had told her parents, too, and also several

bosom friends; but all of these people had simply looked sad when they

heard the news, except Laura. Laura's face suddenly brightened under

it--only for an instant, it is true, but poor Louise was grateful for

even that fleeting ray of encouragement. When next Laura was alone, she

fell into a train of thought something like this:

“If the Senator has really taken hold of this matter, I may look for

that invitation to his house at any moment. I am perishing to go! I do

long to know whether I am only simply a large-sized pigmy among these

pigmies here, who tumble over so easily when one strikes them, or

whether I am really--.” Her thoughts drifted into other channels, for

a season. Then she continued:--“He said I could be useful in the great

cause of philanthropy, and help in the blessed work of uplifting the

poor and the ignorant, if he found it feasible to take hold of our

Land. Well, that is neither here nor there; what I want, is to go to

Washington and find out what I am. I want money, too; and if one

may judge by what she hears, there are chances there for a--.” For a

fascinating woman, she was going to say, perhaps, but she did not.

Along in the fall the invitation came, sure enough. It came officially

through brother Washington, the private Secretary, who appended a

postscript that was brimming with delight over the prospect of seeing

the Duchess again. He said it would be happiness enough to look upon

her face once more--it would be almost too much happiness when to it was

added the fact that she would bring messages with her that were fresh

from Louise's lips.

In Washington's letter were several important enclosures. For instance,

there was the Senator's check for $2,000--“to buy suitable clothing in

New York with!” It was a loan to be refunded when the Land was sold.

Two thousand--this was fine indeed. Louise's father was called rich, but

Laura doubted if Louise had ever had $400 worth of new clothing at one

time in her life. With the check came two through tickets--good on

the railroad from Hawkeye to Washington via New York--and they were

“dead-head” tickets, too, which had been given to Senator Dilworthy by

the railway companies. Senators and representatives were paid thousands

of dollars by the government for traveling expenses, but they

always traveled “deadhead” both ways, and then did as any honorable,

high-minded men would naturally do--declined to receive the mileage

tendered them by the government. The Senator had plenty of railway

passes, and could easily spare two to Laura--one for herself and one for

a male escort. Washington suggested that she get some old friend of the

family to come with her, and said the Senator would “deadhead” him home

again as soon as he had grown tired of the sights of the capital. Laura

thought the thing over. At first she was pleased with the idea, but

presently she began to feel differently about it. Finally she said, “No,

our staid, steady-going Hawkeye friends' notions and mine differ about

some things--they respect me, now, and I respect them--better leave

it so--I will go alone; I am not afraid to travel by myself.” And so

communing with herself, she left the house for an afternoon walk.

Almost at the door she met Col. Sellers. She told him about her

invitation to Washington.

“Bless me!” said the Colonel. “I have about made up my mind to go there

myself. You see we've got to get another appropriation through, and the

Company want me to come east and put it through Congress. Harry's there,

and he'll do what he can, of course; and Harry's a good fellow and

always does the very best he knows how, but then he's young--rather

young for some parts of such work, you know--and besides he talks too

much, talks a good deal too much; and sometimes he appears to be a

little bit visionary, too, I think the worst thing in the world for a

business man. A man like that always exposes his cards, sooner or later.

This sort of thing wants an old, quiet, steady hand--wants an old cool

head, you know, that knows men, through and through, and is used to

large operations. I'm expecting my salary, and also some dividends

from the company, and if they get along in time, I'll go along with you

Laura--take you under my wing--you mustn't travel alone. Lord I wish I

had the money right now. --But there'll be plenty soon--plenty.”

Laura reasoned with herself that if the kindly, simple-hearted Colonel

was going anyhow, what could she gain by traveling alone and throwing

away his company? So she told him she accepted his offer gladly,

gratefully. She said it would be the greatest of favors if he would go

with her and protect her--not at his own expense as far as railway fares

were concerned, of course; she could not expect him to put himself to so

much trouble for her and pay his fare besides. But he wouldn't hear of

her paying his fare--it would be only a pleasure to him to serve her.

Laura insisted on furnishing the tickets; and finally, when argument

failed, she said the tickets cost neither her nor any one else a

cent--she had two of them--she needed but one--and if he would not take

the other she would not go with him. That settled the matter. He took

the ticket. Laura was glad that she had the check for new clothing,

for she felt very certain of being able to get the Colonel to borrow a

little of the money to pay hotel bills with, here and there.

She wrote Washington to look for her and Col. Sellers toward the end of

November; and at about the time set the two travelers arrived safe in

the capital of the nation, sure enough.

CHAPTER XXXI.

She, the gracious lady, yet no paines did spare

To doe him ease, or doe him remedy:

Many restoratives of vertues rare

And costly cordialles she did apply,

To mitigate his stubborne malady.

Spenser's Faerie Queens.

Mr. Henry Brierly was exceedingly busy in New York, so he wrote Col.

Sellers, but he would drop everything and go to Washington.

The Colonel believed that Harry was the prince of lobbyists, a little

too sanguine, may be, and given to speculation, but, then, he knew

everybody; the Columbus River navigation scheme was got through almost

entirely by his aid. He was needed now to help through another scheme,

a benevolent scheme in which Col. Sellers, through the Hawkinses, had a

deep interest.

“I don't care, you know,” he wrote to Harry, “so much about the

niggroes. But if the government will buy this land, it will set up the

Hawkins family--make Laura an heiress--and I shouldn't wonder if

Beriah Sellers would set up his carriage again. Dilworthy looks at it

different, of course. He's all for philanthropy, for benefiting the

colored race. There's old Balsam, was in the Interior--used to be the

Rev. Orson Balsam of Iowa--he's made the riffle on the Injun; great

Injun pacificator and land dealer. Balaam'a got the Injun to himself,

and I suppose that Senator Dilworthy feels that there is nothing left

him but the colored man. I do reckon he is the best friend the colored

man has got in Washington.”

Though Harry was in a hurry to reach Washington, he stopped in

Philadelphia; and prolonged his visit day after day, greatly to the

detriment of his business both in New York and Washington. The society

at the Bolton's might have been a valid excuse for neglecting business

much more important than his. Philip was there; he was a partner with

Mr. Bolton now in the new coal venture, concerning which there was much

to be arranged in preparation for the Spring work, and Philip lingered

week after week in the hospitable house. Alice was making a winter

visit. Ruth only went to town twice a week to attend lectures, and the

household was quite to Mr. Bolton's taste, for he liked the cheer of

company and something going on evenings. Harry was cordially asked to

bring his traveling-bag there, and he did not need urging to do so. Not

even the thought of seeing Laura at the capital made him restless in the

society of the two young ladies; two birds in hand are worth one in the

bush certainly.

Philip was at home--he sometimes wished he were not so much so. He felt

that too much or not enough was taken for granted. Ruth had met him,

when he first came, with a cordial frankness, and her manner continued

entirely unrestrained. She neither sought his company nor avoided it,

and this perfectly level treatment irritated him more than any other

could have done. It was impossible to advance much in love-making with

one who offered no obstacles, had no concealments and no embarrassments,

and whom any approach to sentimentality would be quite likely to set

into a fit of laughter.

“Why, Phil,” she would say, “what puts you in the dumps to day? You are

as solemn as the upper bench in Meeting. I shall have to call Alice to

raise your spirits; my presence seems to depress you.”

“It's not your presence, but your absence when you are present,” began

Philip, dolefully, with the idea that he was saying a rather deep thing.

“But you won't understand me.”

“No, I confess I cannot. If you really are so low, as to think I am

absent when I am present, it's a frightful case of aberration; I shall

ask father to bring out Dr. Jackson. Does Alice appear to be present

when she is absent?”

“Alice has some human feeling, anyway. She cares for something besides

musty books and dry bones. I think, Ruth, when I die,” said Philip,

intending to be very grim and sarcastic, “I'll leave you my skeleton.