TWO YOUNG MEN
The young engineer, on his return to New York, made a report to his
employer. He said that the mineral resources were simply enormous, and
were lying in sight for any one to pick up who knew how to deal with the
people to whom they belonged. They could be had almost for the asking.
But he added this statement: that the legislative charters would hardly
hold, and even if they did, it would take an army to maintain what they
gave against the will of the people. He advised securing the services of
Squire Rawson and a few other local magnates.
Mr. Wickersham frowned at this plain speaking, and dashed his pen
through this part of the report. "I am much obliged to you for the
report on the minerals. The rest of it is trash. You were not paid for
your advice on that. When I want law I go to a lawyer."
Mr. Rhodes rose angrily.
"Well, you have for nothing an opinion that is worth more than that of
every rascally politician that has sold you his opinion and himself, and
you will find it out."
Mr. Wickersham did find it out. However much was published about it, the
road was not built for years. The legislative charters, gotten through
by Mr. J. Quincy Plume and his confrères, which were to turn that region
into a modern Golconda, were swept away with the legislatures that
created them, and new charters had to be obtained.
Squire Rawson, however, went on buying cattle and, report said, mineral
rights, and Gordon Keith still followed doggedly the track along which
Mr. Rhodes had passed, sure that sometime he should find him a great
man, building bridges and cutting tunnels, commanding others and sending
them to right or left with a swift wave of his arm as of old. Where
before Gordon studied as a task, he now worked for ambition, and that
key unlocked unknown treasures.
Mr. Rhodes fell in with Norman just after his interview with Mr.
Wickersham. He was still feeling sore over Mr. Wickersham's treatment of
his report. He had worked hard over it. He attributed it in part to
Ferdy's complaint of him. He now gave Norman an account of his trip, and
casually mentioned his meeting Gordon Keith.
"He's a good boy," he said, "a nice kid. He licked Ferdy-a very pretty
little piece of work. Ferdy had both the weight and the reach on him."
"Licked Ferdy! It's an old grudge, I guess?" said Norman.
"No. They started in pretty good friends. It was about you."
"About me?" Norman's face took on new interest.
"Yes; Ferdy said something, and Keith took it up. He seems pretty fond
of you. I think he had it in for Ferdy, for Ferdy had been bedevilling
him about the place. You know old Wickersham owns it. Ferdy's strong
point is not taste. So I think Gordon was feeling a bit sore, and when
Ferdy lit into you, Keith slapped him."
Norman was all alert now.
"Well? Which licked?"
"Oh, that was all. Keith won at the end of the first round. He'd have
been fighting now if he had not licked him."
The rest of the talk was of General Keith and of the hardship of his
position.
"They are as poor as death," said Rhodes. He told of his surroundings.
When Norman got home, he went to his mother. Her eye lighted up as it
rested on the alert, vigorous figure and fresh, manly, eager face. She
knew he had something on his mind.
"Mother, I have a plan," he said. "You remember Gordon Keith, the boy
whose boat I sank over in England--'Keith the rebel'?"
Mrs. Wentworth remembered well. She remembered an older fight than that,
between a Keith and a Wentworth.
"Well, I have just heard of him. Rhodes--you remember Rhodes? Grinnell
Rhodes? Used to be stroke, the greatest stroke ever was. Well, Rhodes
has been down South and stayed at Keith's father's home. He says it's a
beautiful old place, and now belongs to Mr. Wickersham, Ferdy's father,
and the old gentleman, General Keith, who used to own it farms it for
him. Think of that! It's as if father had to be a bookkeeper in the
bank! Rhodes says he's a fine old fellow, and that Gordon is one of the
best. He was down there running a railway line for Mr. Wickersham, and
took Gordon with him. And he says he's the finest sort of a fellow, and
wants to go to college dreadfully, but hasn't a cent nor any way to get
anything. Rhodes says it's awful down there. They are so poor."
Mrs. Wentworth smiled. "Well?"
Norman blushed and stammered a little, as he often did when he was
embarrassed.
"Well, you know I have some money of my own, and I thought if you don't
mind it I'd like to lend him a little. I feel rather piggish just
spending it right and left for nothing, when a fellow like that would
give his eyes for the chance to go to college. Grinnell Rhodes says that
he is ever so fond of me; that Ferdy was blowing once and said something
against me, and Gordon jumped right into him--said I was a friend of
his, and that Ferdy should not say anything against me in his presence.
He knocked Ferdy down. I tell you, when a fellow is ready to fight for
another years after he has seen him, he is a good friend."
Mrs. Wentworth's face showed that she too appreciated such a friend.
"How do you know he needs it, or would accept it if he did?"
"Why, Rhodes says we have no idea of the poverty down there. He says our
poorest clerks are rich compared with those people. And I'll write him a
letter and offer to lend it to him. I'll tell him it's mine."
Mrs. Wentworth went over and kissed the boy. The picture rose to her
mind of a young man fresh from fields where he had won renown, honored
by his State, with everything that wealth and rank could give, laying
his honors at the feet of a poor young girl.
"All right, my son."
That night Norman sat down and wrote a letter.
A few days later than this, Gordon Keith received a letter with the
post-mark "New York." Who was there in New York who could know him? Not
his young engineer. He knew his hand. He was now abroad. As he read the
letter he wondered yet more. It was from Norman Wentworth. He had met an
old friend, he said, who had told him about Gordon and about his
father's misfortunes. He himself, he said, was at college, and he found
himself in a position to be able to help a friend. He did not know to
what extent aid might be of service; but he had some means of his own,
and he asked that Gordon would allow him to make him a loan of whatever
might be necessary to relieve his father and himself.
When Gordon finished reading the letter there were tears in his eyes.
He laid the letter in his father's lap, and the old gentleman read it
through slowly. He sat lost in reflection for a few moments and then
handed the letter back to Gordon.
"Write to him and thank him, my son--thank him warmly for both of us. I
will never forget his kindness. He is a gentleman."
This was all; but he too showed in his face that that far-off shaft of
light had reached his heart and rested there.
The General afterwards meditated deeply as to the wisdom of this action.
Just then, however, Providence seemed to come to his aid.
Old Adam Rawson, hearing that he was hard up, or moved by some kindly
impulse, offered to make him a loan. He "happened to have," he wrote, "a
little pile lying by that he didn't have any particular use for just
then, and it had come to him that, maybe, the General might be able to
use it to advantage. He didn't care anything about security or
interest."
The General was perplexed. He did not need it himself, but he was glad
to borrow enough to send Gordon to college for a year. He sent Gordon up
to old Rawson's with a letter.
The old man read the letter and then looked Gordon over; he read it and
looked him over again, much as if he were appraising a young steer.
"Well, I didn't say I'd lend it to you," he said; "but, maybe, I'll do
it if 'twill help the General. Investin' in a young man is kind of
hazardous; it's like puttin' your money in a harry-dick--you don't know
what he's goin' to be. All you has to go on is the frame and your
jedgment."
Fortunately for Keith, the old cattle-dealer had a good opinion of his
"jedgment." He went on: "But I admit blood counts for somethin', and I'm
half minded to adventure some on your blood."
Gordon laughed. He would be glad to be tried on any account, he said,
and would certainly repay the money.
"Well, I b'lieve you will if you can," said the squire. "And that's more
than I can say of everybody. I'll invest a leetle money in your future,
and I want to say this to you, that your future will depend on whether
you pay it back or not. I never seen a young man as didn't pay his debts
come to any good in my life, and I never seen one as did as didn't.
I've seen many a man'd shoot you if you dared to question his honor, an'
wouldn't pay you a dollar if he was lousy with 'em." He took out his
wallet, and untying the strings carefully, began to count out the
greenbacks.
"I have to carry a pretty good pile to buy calves with," he chuckled;
"but I reckon you'll be a fair substitute for one or two. How much do
you want--I mean, how little can you git along with?"
Gordon told him the amount his father had suggested. It was not a great
sum.
"That seems a heap of money to put in book-learnin'," said the old man,
thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on Gordon. "My whole edication didn't cost
twenty-five dollars. With all that learnin', you'd know enough to teach
the Ridge College."
Gordon, who had figured it out, began to give his necessary expenses.
When he had finished, the old man counted out his bills. Gordon said he
would give him his note for it, and his father would indorse it. The
other shook his head.
"No; I don't want any bond. I'll remember it and you'll remember it.
I've known too many men think they'd paid a debt when they'd given their
bond. I don't want you to think that. If you're goin' to pay me, you'll
do it without a bond, and if you ain't, I ain't goin' to sue you; I'm
jest goin' to think what a' o'nery cuss you are."
So Gordon returned home, and a few weeks later was delving deep into new
mysteries.
Gordon's college life may be passed over. He worked well, for he felt
that it was necessary to work.
Looking around when he left college, the only thing that appeared in
sight for Gordon Keith was to teach school. To be sure, the business;
"the universal refuge of educated indigents," as his father quoted with
a smile, was already overcrowded. But Gordon heard of a school which up
to this time had not been overwhelmed with applicants. There was a
vacancy at the Ridge College. Finally poor Gunn, after holding out as
long as he could, had laid down his arms, as all soldiers must do sooner
or later, and Gordon applied for the position. The old squire remembered
the straight, broad-shouldered boy with his father's eyes and also
remembered the debt he owed him, and with the vision of a stern-faced
man with eyes of flame riding quietly at the head of his men across a
shell-ploughed field, he wrote to Gordon to come.
"If he's got half of his daddy in him he'll straighten 'em out," he
said.
So, Gordon became a school-teacher.
"I know no better advice to give you," said General Keith to Gordon, on
bidding him good-by, "than to tell you to govern yourself, and you will
be able to govern them. 'He that is slow to anger is better than the
mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.'"
During the years in which Gordon Keith was striving to obtain an
education as best he might, Ferdy Wickersham had gone to one of the
first colleges of the land. It was the same college which Norman
Wentworth was attending. Indeed, Norman's being there was the main
reason that Ferdy was sent there. Mr. Wickersham wished his son to have
the best advantages. Mrs. Wickersham desired this too, but she also had
a further motive. She wished her son to eclipse Norman Wentworth. Both
were young men of parts, and as both had unlimited means at their
disposal, neither was obliged to study.
Norman Wentworth, however, had applied himself to secure one of the high
class-honors, and as he was universally respected and very popular, he
was regarded as certain to have it, until an unexpected claimant
suddenly appeared as a rival.
Ferdy Wickersham never took the trouble to compete for anything until he
discovered that some one else valued it. It was a trait he had
inherited from his mother, who could never see any one possessing a
thing without coveting it.
The young man was soon known at college as one of the leaders of the gay
set. His luxuriously furnished rooms, his expensive suppers and his
acquaintance with dancing-girls were talked about, and he soon had a
reputation for being one of the wildest youngsters of his class.
"Your son will spend all the money you can make for him," said one of
his friends to Mr. Wickersham.
"Well," said the father, "I hope he will have as much pleasure in
spending it as I have had in making it, that's all."
He not only gave Ferdy all the money he suggested a need for, but he
offered him large bonuses in case he should secure any of the honors he
had heard of as the prizes of the collegiate work.
Mrs. Wickersham was very eager for him to win this particular prize.
Apart from her natural ambition, she had a special reason. The firm of
Norman Wentworth & Son was one of the oldest and best-known houses in
the country. The home of Norman Wentworth was known to be one of the
most elegant in the city, as it was the most exclusive, and both Mr. and
Mrs. Wentworth were recognized as representatives of the old-time
gentry. Mrs. Wickersham might have endured the praise of the elegance of
the mansion. She had her own ideas as to house-furnishing, and the
Wentworth mansion was furnished in a style too quiet and antiquated to
suit her more modern tastes. If it was filled with old mahogany and hung
with damask-satin, Mrs. Wickersham had carved walnut and gorgeous
hangings. And as to those white marble busts, and those books that were
everywhere, she much preferred her brilliant figures which she "had
bought in Europe," and books were "a nuisance about a house." They ought
to be kept in a library, as she kept hers--in a carved-walnut case with
glass doors.
The real cause of Mrs. Wickersham's dislike of Mrs. Wentworth lay
deeper.
The elder lady had always been gracious to Mrs. Wickersham when they
met, as she was gracious to every one, and when a very large
entertainment was given by her, had invited Mrs. Wickersham to it. But
Mrs. Wickersham felt that Mrs. Wentworth lived within a charmed circle.
And Mrs. Wickersham was envious.
It must be said that Ferdy needed no instigation to supersede Norman in
any way that did not require too much work. He and Norman were very good
friends; certainly Norman thought so; but at bottom Ferdy was envious of
Norman's position and prestige, and deep in his heart lurked a
long-standing grudge against the older boy, to which was added of late a
greater one. Norman and he fancied the same girl, and Louise Caldwell
was beginning to favor Norman.
Ferdy announced to his father that the class-honor would be won if he
would give him money enough, and the elder Wickersham, delighted, told
him to draw on him for all the money he wanted. This Ferdy did promptly.
He suddenly gave up running away from college, applied himself to
cultivating the acquaintance of his fellow-students, spent his money
lavishly in entertainments, and for a time it appeared that he might
wrest the prize from Norman's grasp.
College boys, however, are a curious folk. The mind of youth is
virtuous. It is later on in life that it becomes sordid. Ferdy wrote his
father that he had the prize, and that Norman, his only rival, had given
up the fight. Mrs. Wickersham openly boasted of her son's success and of
her motive, and sent him money lavishly. Young Wickersham's ambition,
however, like that of many another man, o'erleaped itself. Wickersham
drew about him many companions, but they were mainly men of light
weight, roisterers and loafers, whilst the better class of his
fellow-students quickly awoke to a true realization of the case. A new
element was being introduced into college politics. The recognition of
danger was enough to set the best element in the college to meet it. At
the moment when Ferdy Wickersham felt himself victor, and abandoned
himself to fresh pleasures, a new and irresistible force unexpectedly
arose which changed the fate of the day. Wickersham tried to stem the
current, but in vain. It was a tidal wave. Ferdy Wickersham faced
defeat, and he could not stand it. He suddenly abandoned college, and
went off, it was said, with a coryphée. His father and mother did not
know of it for some time after he had left.
Mr. Wickersham received the first intimation of it in the shape of a
draft which came to him from some distant point. When Mrs. Wickersham
learned of it, she fell into a consuming rage, and then took to her bed.
The downfall of her hopes and of her ambition had come through the
person she loved best on earth. Finally she became so ill that Mr.
Wickersham telegraphed a peremptory order to his son to come home, and
after a reasonable time the young man appeared.
His mother's joy at meeting him overshadowed everything else with her,
and the prodigal was received by her with that forgiveness which is both
the weakness and the strength of a mother's heart. The father, however,
had been struck as deeply as the mother. His ambition, if of a different
kind, had been quite as great as that of Mrs. Wickersham, and the
hard-headed, keen-sighted man, who had spent his life fighting his way
to the front, often with little consideration for the rights of others,
felt that one of his motives and one of his rewards had
perished together.
The interview that took place in his office between him and his son was
one which left its visible stamp on the older man, and for a time
appeared to have had an effect even on the younger, with all his
insolence and impervious selfishness. When Aaron Wickersham unlocked his
private door and allowed his son and heir to go out, the clerks in the
outer office knew by the young man's face, quite as well as by the
rumbles of thunder which had come through the fast-closed door, that
the "old man" had been giving the young one a piece of his mind.
At first the younger man had been inclined to rebel; but for once in his
life he found that he had passed the limit of license, and his father,
whom he had rather despised as foolishly pliable, was unexpectedly his
master. He laid before Ferdy, with a power which the latter could not
but acknowledge, the selfishness and brutality of his conduct since he
was a boy. He told him of his own earlier privations, of his labors, of
his ambitions.
"I have worked my heart out," he said, "for your mother and for you. I
have never known a moment of rest or of what you call 'fun.' I set it
before me when your mother promised to marry me that I would make her as
good as the first lady in the land--that is, in New York. She should
have as big a house and as fine a carriage and as handsome frocks as any
one of them--as old Mrs. Wentworth or old Mrs. Brooke of Brookford, who
were the biggest people I ever knew. And I have spent my life for it. I
have grown old before my time. I have gotten so that things have lost
their taste to me; I have done things that I never dreamed I would do to
accomplish it. I have lost the power to sleep working for it, and when
you came I thought I would have my reward in you. I have not only never
stinted you, but I have lavished money on you as if I was the richest
man in New York. I wanted you to have advantages that I never had: as
good as Norman Wentworth or any one else. I have given you things, and
seen you throw them away, that I would have crawled on my knees from my
old home to this office to get when I was a boy. And I thought you were
going to be my pride and my stay and my reward. And you said you were
doing it, and your mother and I had staked our hearts on you. And all
the time you were running away and lying to me and to her, and not doing
one honest lick of work."
The young man interrupted him. "That is not so," he said surlily.
His father pulled out a drawer and took from it a letter. Spreading it
open on his desk, he laid the palm of his open hand on it. "Not so? I
have got the proof of it here." He looked at the young man with level
eyes, eyes in which was such a cold gleam that Ferdy's gaze fell.
"I did not expect you to do it for _me_," Aaron Wickersham went on
slowly, never taking his eyes from his son's face, "for I had discovered
that you did not care a button for my wishes; but I did think you would
do it for your mother. For she thought you were a god and worshipped
you. She has been talking for ten years of the time when she would go to
see you come out at the head of your class. She was going to Paris to
get the clothes to wear if you won, and you--" His voice broke--"you
won't even graduate! What will you think next summer when Mrs. Wentworth
is there to see her son, and all the other men and women I know who have
sons who graduate there, and your mother--?" The father's voice broke
completely, and he looked away. Even Ferdy for a moment seemed grave and
regretful. Then after a glance at his father he recovered his composure.
"I'm not to blame," he said surlily, "if she did. It was her fault."
Aaron Wickersham turned on him.
"Stop," he said in a quiet voice. "Not another word. One other word,
and, by God! I'll box your head off your shoulders. Say what you please
about me, but not one word against her. I will take you from college and
put you to sweeping the floor of this office at twenty dollars a month,
and make you live on your salary, too, or starve, if you say one
other word."
Ferdy's face blanched at the implacable anger that blazed in his
father's eyes, but even more at the coldness of the gleam. It made
him shiver.
A little later young Wickersham entered his father's office, and though
he was not much liked by the older clerks, it soon appeared that he had
found a congenial occupation and one for which he had a natural gift.
For the first time in his life he appeared inclined to work.