leaves
"WELL, Philip," said Caleb, as the two men met on the piazza before sunrise Monday morning, "as Sunday's gone an' as there's no one here but you an' I, let's talk business a little bit. You mustn't think that my having taken a wife is going to make me an extra drag on you, an' right after a cyclone, too. My salary's enough to support two on the best that Claybanks can provide, an' if you're hard pushed, I can get along without drawin' anythin' for a year, for I've always kept a few hundred ahead against a time when I might break down entirely. I've told Mary how your wife's been in the store a great part of the time, an' there's nothin' that Mary'd like better than to do the same thing, if agreeable to you an' Mrs. Somerton. She's had practical trainin' at it, you know."
"She'll be worth her weight in gold to us," Philip replied, "for I foresee a busy future, about which I've much to say to you. The cyclone, instead of depressing the people, seems to have nerved them to new hope, for the town has received much free advertising; a lot of city newspapers sent men down here to describe the horrors of the affair, and as there were no actual horrors, and the men wanted something of which to make stories, that brother-in-law of yours, who is about as quick-witted a young chap as I ever met, filled their heads with the natural resources of Claybanks,—rich soil, drained swamps, plenty of valuable commercial timber, water-power available at short notice, whenever manufacturers might demand it, and, of course, the great deposit of brick clay from which the town got its name. I predict that there will be a lot of chances to make money outside of the store, so the more help we can have in the store, the better. By the way, I wonder what Truett has been up to this morning. I heard hammering awhile ago, in the direction of the warehouse. Ah! I remember—putting upthe old sign over the door—uncle's old sign; it was carried about a mile from town by the cyclone and brought back by a man who thought, and very correctly, that I'd like to preserve it. Let's go around a moment and see how it looks, and remind ourselves of old times."
As they reached the front of the warehouse, Caleb lost the end of a partly uttered sentence, for over the old sign he saw a long board on which was painted, in large, black letters:—
SOMERTON & WRIGHT,SUCCESSORS TO
"Who did that?" Caleb gasped.
"Truett," Philip replied. "He did it by special request, and I'm afraid he worked a little on Sunday, but Mrs. Somerton and I thought it a work of necessity. You see," Philip continued, in a matter-of-fact manner, and ignoring Caleb's astonished look, "by the terms of Uncle Jethro's will I was to provide for you for life and to your own satisfaction, and 'tis quite as easy to do it this way ason the salary basis. Besides, 'twill put those benevolent societies out of their misery, and put an end to their questions, every two or three months, as to the likelihood of the property reverting to them. You'll have me in your power as to terms, but I know you'll do nothing unfair. Let's have articles of co-partnership drawn up, on the basis of equal division of profits in the entire business—store, farms, houses, etc. I wrote you of the lump of money I got for my father's old mining stock. That, of course, is my own; but if the firm runs short of ready cash at any time I will lend to it at the legal rate of interest, so nothing but a very bad crop year can cripple us. Besides, I shall want to operate a little on the outside, so the store will need an additional manager who shall also be an owner—not a clerk, as you've insisted on being."
"But, Philip," said Caleb, who had collapsed on an empty box in front of the store, "I've never had any experience as a boss."
"Nor as a married man, either," Philip replied, "yet you've suddenly taken to thepart quite naturally and creditably! The main facts are these: I'm satisfied that the past success of the store business has been due quite as much to you as to Uncle Jethro, and all the people agree with me. I couldn't possibly get along without you, nor feel honest if I continued to take more than half of the proceeds. Why not go tell the story to your wife, as an eye-opener? I think it might give her a good appetite for breakfast, and improve her opinion of Claybanks and the general outlook. It might cheer her farther to be told that her brother is the right man in the right place, and bids fair to become the busiest man in the county."
"I'll tell her, an' I don't doubt that 'twill set her up amazingly. But, Philip—" here Caleb looked embarrassed, "you haven't—don't you think you could make out to say somethin' to me about her?"
"You dear old chap,—'young chap' would be the proper expression,—where are your eyes, that you haven't seen me admiring her ever since you brought her to us yesterday morning? She's a beauty with a lot of soul,and she's a wonderfully clever, charming woman besides, and I never saw a bride who seemed deeper in love. I can't ever thank you enough for finding such capital company for my wife. I expected to be impressed, for Grace has raved about her ever since you first wrote of meeting her, but Grace left much untold."
"I was afraid you might think she took up with me too easily," said Caleb; "but when, after we were married, I told her I never would forgive myself if I did not make her life very happy, she said she had no fears for the future, and that I mustn't think she took me only on my own say-so, for she'd had a lot of letters from your wife about me, all to the effect that I was the honestest, kindliest, most thoughtful, most unselfish man in the world, except you. Mary had great confidence in the judgment of your wife, whom she remembered as a very discreet young woman and a good judge of human nature. Her brother, too, unloaded on her a lot of complimentary things that he'd managed to pick up out here about me. Now, as a married man,an' a good friend of mine, what do you honestly think of my future?"
"Nothing but what is good. You've still half of your life before you, and if you're really rid of malaria, and if that Confederate bullet will cease troubling you, you ought to tread on air and live on sunshine for the remainder of your days."
"Speakin' of bullets," said Caleb, tugging at one end of a double watch-chain, and extracting from his pocket something which resembled a battered button, "how's that, for the wicked ceasin' from troublin' an' the weary bein' at rest? For my first two or three days at sea I couldn't see any good in sea-sickness, except perhaps that it had a tendency to make a man willin' to die, an' even that view of it didn't appeal very strongly to me, circumstances bein' what they were. One day when I was racked almost to death, I felt an awful stitch in my side. I was weak an' scared enough to b'lieve almost anythin' awful, so I made up my mind that I must have broken a rib durin' my struggles with my interior department, an' that the free end of it wastryin' to punch its way through to daylight. So I sent for the ship's surgeon, an' he, after fussin' over me two or three minutes, and doin' a little job of carvin', brought us face to face—I an' my old acquaintance from the South. I was so glad that I could 'a' hugged the Johnny Reb that fired that bullet, an' I never was seasick after that. But that's enough about me. Tell me somethin' about business. Do you think the cyclone has hurt you a lot, for the present?"
"It destroyed the store and its contents, and I don't expect to get any insurance, but I haven't lost any customers. On the other hand, some farmers are so sorry for me, I being the only merchant that was entirely cleaned out, that they are going to trade with us next year. Besides, much of our stock was old, and never would have sold at any price, while an entirely new stock is a great attraction to all classes of customers. We'll have a new store building up pretty soon, if Truett is as able as he thinks himself and as I think him. Let's go back to the wreck a moment; he generally has some men at work by sunrise, clearing away, so asto get at the foundations and ascertain their condition."
Apparently the young engineer was amusing himself, for they found him hammering a brick into small bits and examining the fractured surfaces. As Philip and Caleb joined him, he said:—
"This is a mystery. How on earth do you suppose this kind of brick got into Claybanks?"
"Easiest way in the world," Caleb replied, "seein' 'twas made here. 'Tisn't a good color, but, gentlemen, I saw whole houses on some o' the best streets in New York made of brick of about this color. They were better shaped, an' fancy-laid, but—"
"Excuse me, Caleb," said Truett, excitedly, "but do you mean to say that this brick was made here, in Claybanks, of Claybanks clay?"
"That's the English of it," Caleb replied, "an' all the bricks of all the chimneys an' fireplaces in the town are of the same clay."
"Oh, no; they're red."
"Yes, but that's because of one of Jethro's smartnesses. Wonderful man, Jethro Somerton was. The way of it was this: a newcomerhere that wanted to put on some style, like he'd been used to in Pennsylvany, got your uncle to order enough red paint for him to cover a big new barn. Just 'fore the paint got here the barn was struck by lightnin', an' the new barn had to be of rough slabs, an' the man was glad enough to get 'em, too. Meanwhile Jethro was stuck with a big lot o' red paint, for nobody else felt forehanded enough to paint a barn. Jethro cogitated a spell, an' then he said quite frequent an' wherever he got a chance, that Claybanks was a sad, sombre-lookin' place; needed color, specially in winter, to make it look kind o' spruce-like. That set some few people to white-washin' their houses, an' when them that couldn't afford to do that much kind o' felt that some o' their neighbors were takin' the shine off of 'em, Jethro up an' said, 'Any man can afford to paint his chimney red, anyhow, an' a red chimney'll brighten up any house.' So, little by little at first, but afterwards all at a jump, he got rid o' that lot o' red paint, an' had to order more, an' in the course o' time it got to be the fashion, quite as much as wearin' hats out o' doors."
"That explains," said Truett, apparently relieved at mind, "why I've not noticed the brick before. I've seen two or three foundation walls, but I supposed, from their color, that they were merely mud-stained. Now let me give you two men a great secret, on condition that you let me in on the ground floor of the business end of it. Brick of this quality and color, properly moulded and baked, is worth about three times as much as ordinary red brick: I'll get the exact figures within a few days. I know that there is money in sending it to New York, from no matter what distance. Some of it is used even in indoor decoration."
"Whe—e—e—ew!" whistled Philip.
"Je—ru—salem!" ejaculated Caleb. "To think that the clay has been here all these years without anybody knowing its real value!"
"How could any one be expected to know about anything that existed in an out-of-the-way hole-in-the-ground like Claybanks?"
"Sh—not so loud!" said Philip. "Such talk in any Western town is worse than treason."
"'Tis reason, nevertheless. There might bea vein of gold here, but how could the world ever learn of it? Who owns the clay banks? Can't we get an option on them?"
"They belong to the town, which charges a royalty of twenty-five cents per thousand bricks," said Caleb. "They've brought less than a hundred dollars, thus far."
"Oh, this is dreadful!—splendid, I mean! A brick-making outfit isn't expensive, and fuel with which to burn the bricks is cheap. Can't we three organize a company, right here, in our hats or pockets, and get the start of any and all others in the business? 'Twill cost us about two dollars per thousand, I suppose, to haul the bricks to the railway station, but even then there will be a lot of money in the business. If we could have a railway—pshaw, men—Claybanksmusthave a railway! I've selected several routes, in off-hand fashion, over the three miles of country between here and the nearest railway station; there would be absolutely no bridging to do, nor any grading worth mentioning, so the three miles could be built for thirty thousand dollars. Let's do it!"
"Truett," said Philip, impressively, "go slow—very slow, or you'll have inflammation of the brain. Worse still, I shall have it. Caleb may escape, for he has the native Westerner's serene self-confidence in his own town and section; but I'm a Claybanker by adoption merely. First, you open a mine of wealth before our eyes, in the claybanks. Then you tempt us to make bricks for rich New Yorkers and others. Then you offer us a railway for thirty thousand dollars,—more money, to be sure, than could be raised here in thirty years,—and you do all this before breakfast on Monday morning. Come into the house with us; I shall faint with excitement if I don't get a cup of coffee at once."
"Make light of it, if you like," said Truett, "but will you look at the brick-making figures,—cost of plant, manufacture, and freight, also the selling price,—if I can get them from trustworthy sources?"
"Indeed I will—our firm will; won't we, Caleb?"
"I've been wantin' for years to see such a lot of figures," said Caleb, placidly, "an' to seethe railroad figures we could touch. I've seen some of the other kind, once in a while."
"I hope too many cooks haven't spoiled the broth," said Mary, at the breakfast table, from behind a large breast-knot of roses. "I found in the garden what Grace pronounces a lot of weeds; but I've made a salad of them, and I shall feel greatly mortified if all of you don't enjoy it."
"We are prepared to expect almost anything delightful from what has been accounted worthless," said Philip, "after having listened to some of your brother's disclosures this morning. Eh, Caleb?"
"Yes, indeed," replied Caleb, with an "I-told-you-so" air. "I never doubted that a lot of good things would be developed at Claybanks, when the right person came along to develop 'em."
"Think of it, Mary!" said Truett. "You remember that magnificent house of old Billion's, on Madison Avenue—a house of yellowish brown brick? Well, the foundation of Somerton's old store is of just such brick, andit was made here, years ago, of the clay for which the town was named."
Mary's eyes opened wide as she replied:—
"What a marvellous country! Why, Grace, one of our firm, at the old store, boasted of having a chimney breast of that same brick, as if it were something quite rare and costly."
"Why don't you build the new store of it, Phil?" Grace asked.
"That's a happy thought!" said Truett. "Now, Somerton, what do you say to my brickyard plan? Put up the first solid building in Claybanks—set the fashion. Think of how 'twould advertise your business and make your competitors look small by comparison."
"Very well. See how quickly it can be done, if at all, and then we will talk business. We must have the warehouse clear by the beginning of the pork-packing season, less than four months distant." Then he smiled provokingly, and continued, "Perhaps, however, it will be better to build the new store of wood, as already planned, so you can give most of your time to building a railroad, so that we may get our golden bricks, and other goods, to market."
"There's sense in that," said Truett, taking the remark seriously. "As to the road, you may rest assured that my figures are within the extreme cost."
"My dear boy," said Philip, "far be it from me to dispute an engineer's estimates; but for some years in New York I was clerk and correspondent for a firm of private bankers who dabbled in railways, and I assure you that they never found any that cost but ten thousand dollars per mile."
"Perhaps not, for most railways are built on credit—generally on speculation, and largely for the special benefit of the builders, but our road—"
"What are these men talking about?" Mary asked of Grace.
"A railway from Claybanks to the nearest station we now have," said Philip. "Women love imaginative creations, Truett, so tell them all about it."
"There is no imagination in this," Truett retorted, "but perhaps they will condescend to listen to facts. Most companies are obliged to average the cost of their lines over a greatstretch of territory. They have bridges and trestles to build, cuts to make, low ground to fill, and they must pay high prices, at portions of their line, for right of way, and they stock and bond their companies at ruinous rates to get the necessary money. As I've already said, none of the routes I have selected requires a single bridge, trestle, or filling, and the right of way, at the highest prices of farm land in this county, won't exceed a thousand dollars per mile."
"'Twon't cost a cent a mile," said Caleb. "Any farmer in these parts will give a railroad free right of way through his land, and say 'Thank you' for the privilege of doing it. If his house or barn is in the way, he will move it; he'll even let the line run over his well, and dig himself a new one, for the sake of having railroad trains for him and his family to stare at, for the trains kind o' bring farmers in touch with the big world of which they never see anything. If everything else can be arranged, you may safely count on me to coax right of way for the entire line."
"Score one for Truett!" said Philip; "proceed, Mr. Engineer."
"Thank you, and thanks to Caleb. The items of cost will be only road-bed, ties, and metal. A single track, with heavy rails, can be metalled out here for less than three thousand dollars per mile: that means nine thousand dollars for the three miles, and that should be the total cash outlay, for the road-bed and ties can be provided, by local enterprise, without money."
"Pardon my thick head," said Philip, "but how?"
"By organizing a stock company with shares so small that any farmer can subscribe, his subscription being payable in ties, which he can cut from his own woodland, or in labor with pick, shovel, horses, plough, scraper—whatever he and we can best use. Fix a valuation on ties, and on each class of labor, and pay in stock. 'Tis simply applying our drainage-ditch plan to a larger operation, though not very much larger, and one that will be attractive to a far greater number of men. Do this, and you merchants and other men ofmoney supply the cash to buy the metal, and I'll guarantee to have that road completed in time to haul to market your wheat, pork, corn, and other produce on any day of the coming winter, regardless of the weather. Caleb tells me that you merchants have often lost good chances of the market because the roads between here and the station were so soft or so rough that a loaded wagon couldn't get over them. There are tens of thousands of cords of firewood still standing here, on land that ought to be under cultivation, but the farmers have no incentive to cut it, for there is no market but this little town. The railroad would get it to market, and at good cash prices, and thus doubly benefit the farmers. I'm told that the water-power of the creek has been holding up the Claybanks heart for years; and I know that there are enough varieties of commercial timber here to occupy several mills a long time, but no one is going to haul machinery in, and his output away, over three miles of mud or frozen clods."
"True as Gospel—every word of it," said Caleb. "I've heard Jethro, an' Doc Taggess,an' ev'ry other level-headed man in town say the same thing for years."
"I fully agree with them," said Philip, "but let's go back to figures a moment. I've heard nothing yet about the cost of locomotives, and other rolling stock—mere trifles, of course,—yet necessary."
"We should not be expected to supply them," Truett explained. "The road which ours will feed will be glad to supply them, as all roads do for short spurs on which anything is to be handled. It would be idiotic to buy rolling stock for a road which at first won't have enough business to justify one train a day. When there's anything to do, the old company will send down a short train from the nearest siding; the run wouldn't require fifteen minutes. You Eastern people who are accustomed to a thickly populated country, with many through trains daily, don't know anything about the business methods of the sparsely settled portions of the West, especially on spurs of a railway line."
"He's right about rolling stock," said Caleb. "Ten years ago the railroad company, overyonder, told Jethro an' a committee that went from here to see 'em that if we'd build the spur, they'd do the rest. But they stood out for a solid road-bed, as good as their own, an' for heavy steel rails, like their own, for they said their rollin' stock was very heavy, and they wa'n't goin' to take the risk of accidents. The price of the rails knocked us."
"Naturally," said Truett, "for steel rails were four or six times as costly then as they are now."
"You've made me too excited to eat," said Philip, leaving the table, "and I'm afraid that the trouble will continue until this road is moved from the air to the ground. The main offices of the old company are only about a hundred miles away; suppose, Truett, that you and the most truly representative merchant of Claybanks—I mean Caleb—run up there? I'll look after the men at work on the store. Tell the president, or whoever is in authority, that we think of building a spur at once from here to their main track, see what they'll do, and persuade them to say it in black and white. If they talk favorably, we'llhold a public meeting, and try to do something. Mrs. Wright, we owe you an apology. I assure you that business talk is not the rule at our breakfast table."
"I wish it were!" said Mary, who, with Grace, had listened excitedly until both women were radiant with enthusiasm. "I wish railways could be planned at breakfast every day—if my brother were to be the builder."
"Now, Mary," said Caleb, "perhaps you begin to understand the Western fever of which I've told you something from time to time."
"Understand it?" said Mary, dashing impulsively at her husband. "I already have it—madly! I'm willing to bid you good-by at once for your trip, though I haven't been married a week. My husband a possible railway director—and yours also, Grace! How do you feel?"
"Prouder than ever," Grace replied. "Just as you will feel, week by week, as the wife of a clever husband."
leaves
TRUETT and Caleb were on their way before noon, but not until Truett had first packed several bricks and fragments of bricks, from the foundations of the old store, for shipment to New York, accompanied by a request for probable selling figures of brick of the same natural quality and properly made. He also wrote for an estimate of cost of a modest brick-making outfit.
The two men returned within forty-eight hours with a written promise from the trunk line company to lay the rails, if these and a proper road-bed were provided, and take stock in payment for the work; also to take a lease of the road, when completed, by guaranteeing a six per cent dividend on the stock, which was not to exceed thirty thousand dollars. The company also imparted the verbal reminderthat a six per cent stock, guaranteed by a sound company, would always be good security on which to borrow money from any bank between the Missouri River and the Atlantic Ocean.
"That being the case," said Philip, "I will subscribe all the cash necessary to purchase the rails, if the road-bed and ties can be provided according to Truett's plan."
"Don't, Philip!" said Caleb.
"Why not?"
"Because there's such a thing as bein' too big a man in a poor country, especially if you're a newcomer. Other merchants will become jealous of you, an' 'twill cause bad feelin' in many ways. Work public spirit for all it's worth; give ev'rybody a chance; then, if toward the end there shows up a deficiency, they'll be grateful to you for makin' it up. Do you want the earth? Quite likely; so remember what the Bible says, 'The meek shall inherit the earth,' by which I reckon it doesn't mean the small-spirited, but the men who don't set their feller-men agin 'em by pushin' themselves too far to the front. Iffolks here don't know that you've a lot of money in the bank in New York, where's the sense of lettin' 'em know it?"
"Right—as usual, Caleb," said Philip, after some impatient pursing of his lips. "I begin to see, however, in this guaranteed stock—provided, of course, that the farmers subscribe as freely as Truett's plan will allow—a way of relieving the stringency of ready money in this county. We may be able to start a small bank here in the course of time, especially if any manufacturers can be attracted by the hard woods, the railway, and the water-power."
"That would realize one o' my oldest an' dearest dreams," said Caleb, "for 'twould put an end to the farmers' everlastin' grumblin' about how much worse off they are than the people who have banks nigh at hand. I don't expect 'em to be much better off—perhaps not any, for I've noticed that almost any man that can borrow will go on borrowin' an' spendin', wisely or otherwise, clean up to his limit, an' then want money just as much as he did at first; but I'd like our farmers to have the chance to learn it for 'emselves, forI'm very tired of askin' 'em, for years, to take an honest man's word for it."
Before sunset Philip had called in person on his brother merchants, Doctor Taggess, the owner of the saw-mill, the county clerk, and the hotel-keeper, and invited them to meet at his warehouse-store that evening, immediately after the closing hour, for a private and confidential talk on a business subject of general interest to the community. Caleb went into the farming district and invited a flour miller and several of the more intelligent farmers to attend the meeting. At the appointed hour every one was present, the door was locked, Philip briefly outlined the railway scheme, told of the main line company's offer, and called upon Truett to detail his plan of construction.
The young engineer responded promptly with facts and figures, and made much of his proposed stock subscriptions to be paid for in labor and ties, and the farmers present declared it entirely feasible. Most of the merchants were frightened at the amount of cash that would be required for rails, etc., as almost all of it would have to be subscribed by them; butPhilip, backed by the consciousness of his own bank deposit in the East, assured them that through some Eastern acquaintances he could get merchants' short notes discounted for a large part of their subscriptions, and that the guaranteed stock could be sold or borrowed on as soon as issued; if the cutting and delivery of ties could begin at once, the road could be completed soon enough to get the autumn and winter produce to market almost as rapidly as it could be brought in.
At this stage of the proceedings the owner of the saw-mill promised to expedite matters by subscribing five hundred dollars' worth of stock, payable in ties at a fair price. The town's last railway excitement, several years before, had caused him to buy in a lot of small timber and saw it into ties, which had been dead stock ever since; he had even tried to sell them for firewood. Doctor Taggess thought so highly of the project that he said he would take a thousand dollars' worth of stock; he had very little ready money, but through family connections in the East he could raise the money by mortgaging hishome. The county clerk said he would take five hundred dollars' worth, the hotel-keeper promised to take a similar amount, and the flour miller asked to be "put down" for two hundred and fifty. By this time the merchants lifted up their hearts and pledged enough more to secure the purchase of the metal. It was then resolved that a public meeting should be held within a week, at the court-house, roofless though it still was, and all participators in the private consultation agreed to "boom" the enterprise in the meantime to the best of their ability.
The public meeting was as enthusiastic and successful as could have been desired. Caleb had already secured the right of way, as promised, and a statement of this fact, added to those narrated above and repeated at the meeting, elicited great applause. Truett announced the valuations, estimated after much consultation, of the various kinds of labor to be received in payment of stock; also, the price of ties, and the length, breadth, thickness, and general quality of the ties desired. As the required number of ties was apparently inexcess of the producing capacity of the local saw-mill and the farmers tributary to Claybanks, it was resolved that tie subscriptions should be solicited from the part of the county on the other side of the trunk line, and thus expand the blessings of stockholdership. Then a list of conditional subscriptions was opened, and it filled so rapidly, that before the meeting adjourned there appeared to be secured as much labor, money, and ties as would be needed; so a committee was appointed to organize the Claybanks Railway Company according to the laws of the state.
"Is it done—really done?" asked Grace and Mary, like two excitable schoolgirls, when Philip, Caleb, and Truett returned to the store, which was almost full of expectant farmers' wives.
"It is an accomplished fact—on paper," said Philip. "To that extent it is done."
"Your own work, you mean," said Truett. "Mine has merely begun."
"When do you really begin?" asked Mary of her brother.
"To-day—this instant," was the reply, "ifI can get a couple of well-grown boys to assist me, while I go over the route with an instrument and a lot of stakes."
Several farmers' wives at once offered the services of their own sons, and went in search of them, while two of the women, more "advanced" than the others, themselves volunteered to carry stakes, chains, etc.,—anything to hurry that blessed railroad into existence. Fortunately the arrival of several boys made the services of these patriotic ladies unnecessary.
"The sooner I am able to avail myself of any labor that may offer, the sooner I shall be ready for some of the ties. Oh, those ties! I wonder how many farmers and their sons I shall have to instruct in hewing!" said Truett.
"I wouldn't waste any time in thought on that subject, if I were you," said Caleb; "for what our farmers don't know about hewin' would take you or any other man a long time to find out. How do you s'pose all the beams an' standin' timbers of all the houses an' barns built in this county was made in the daysbefore there were any saw-mills nearer than twenty miles? How do you s'pose some of the log houses here are so tight in the joints that they need no chinkin'? I've heard of some Eastern people bein' born with gold spoons in their mouths; well, it's just as true that hundreds of thousands of Westerners were born with axes in their hands. The axe was their only tool for years, an' they got handy enough with it to do 'most anythin', from buildin' a house to sharpenin' a lead-pencil!"
"Good for Caleb!" shouted a farmer's wife, and Truett made haste to say:—
"I apologize to the entire West, and will put my mind at ease about the ties."
The subject of conversation was changed by an irruption of farmers and citizens, who wished to talk more about the new railroad, and who rightly thought that the place where the engineer could be found was the most likely source of information. The questions were almost innumerable, and Truett, who was quite as excited as any of them, told all he knew about what certain specified spur roadshad done for farming and wooded districts no more promising than Claybanks; so the informal meeting became even more enthusiastic than the gathering at the court-house had been, for the farmers' wives added fuel to the flame. The spectacle impressed Grace deeply, well though she knew the people; for from most of the faces was banished, for the time being, the weary, resigned expression peculiar to a large portion of the farming population of the newer states. Caleb, too, long though he had known all the men and women in the throng, had his heart so entirely in his face that Grace whispered to Mary:—
"Do look at your husband! Did you ever see him look so handsome, until to-day?"
A strong, warm, nervous hand-clasp was the only reply for a moment; then Mary whispered:—
"All the men here are fine-looking!—their faces are so expressive! I've not noticed it until to-day. Where did Claybanks get such people?"
"Say all that to your husband, if you wish to fill his heart to overflowing," said Grace,"and then, to please me, repeat it to Doctor Taggess, or tell both of them at once." To share in the enjoyment, she succeeded in getting Caleb and the Doctor close to her and Mary, and quoted to them:—
"'Listen, my children, and you shall hear'—now, Mary!"
"I don't wonder that you're impressed," the Doctor replied, when Mary's outburst concluded. His own eyes were gleaming, and Mary said afterward that his face was her ideal of a hero at the moment of victory.
"Now, Mrs. Somerton, can you again wonder, as you've wondered aloud to my wife and me, that I, whom you've kindly called a man of high quality, have been content to pass my adult years among these backwoods people? Do see their hearts and souls come into their faces! I know they are not always so, but we never heard of any one remaining all the while on the Mount of Transfiguration. It isn't the railway alone that they're thinking of, but of what it will mean to themselves and their hard-working wives, and to their children,—closer touch with the great world ofwhich they've read and wondered, better prices for their yield, which means more creature comforts at home, better educational facilities for their children, and less temptation for the children to escape from the farm to the city. They know that all this must be the work of time, but they've never before seen the beginning of it, so now they're building air-castles as rapidly as a lot of magicians in dream-land. I can't blame them, for I'm doing it myself, old and cautious though I am. They can wait for the end, so can I; for all of us, out here, have had long training in the art of waiting. At present the beginning is joy enough, for I can't imagine how any one about us could look happier."
The formal survey of the railway route began that afternoon, for the people would listen to no suggestions of delay. It was completed quickly, and that the company was not yet organized according to law did not prevent the immediate offer and acceptance of a large working force of men, boys, horses, etc., from the village itself. The young engineer was his own entire staff, and alsotemporary secretary and accountant of the enterprise; but as it was his first great job, he enjoyed the irregularity of everything. From that time forward, for several months, the village stores ceased to be lounging places. Any villager or farmer with time to spare made his way to the line of the new road, and feasted his eyes, apparently never to fulness, on the promise of what was to be.
As the work progressed farther from the town, the farmers of the vicinity, with their families, would saunter toward the line on Sunday afternoons and linger for hours, talking of the good times that were coming, and some of them actually moved their houses as near to the track as possible, so that the inmates might be able to have the best possible view of the trains when they began to run. When the road-bed was made and the ties were placed, and the laying of the rails began, entire families picnicked for a day at a time beside the track, although the weather had become cold, merely to see a shabby locomotive push backward some platform cars loaded with rails, and to see the rails unloaded,and listen to the musical clamor of track-laying; for did not each detail of the work bring nearer to them the hope of Claybanks for a third of a century,—a completed railway?
Truett had been better than his word. He had promised to finish the work by Christmas, but the formal opening ceremonies took place on Thanksgiving Day; and more than half the people of the county took part in it. With an eye to business the principal stockholders—the Claybanks merchants—hired a passenger train for the day, and gave the natives free rides to and from the nearest station that had a siding and switch by which the train could be sent back. The station had not a great town to support it,—merely five thousand people,—but as the Claybankers roamed through the place and saw many houses finer than any house in Claybanks, several streets that were paved with wooden blocks and many that had sidewalks, saw the telegraph and telephone wires, and a bank, and a fire-engine house, and horse-troughs into which fresh water flowed steadily from pipes whichwere part of a general service, their hearts were filled with the conviction that all these comforts and conveniences had come through the possession of a railway. Claybanks was in a fair way to become like unto that town, and they made haste, each after his kind, to rejoice. Then all of them who were farmers began to lay out, on their mental tablets, the appearance of their own farms as they would be when divided into building lots, and also to count the pleasing sums of money that would be paid by the purchasers of the lots, and also the many creature comforts which the money would buy.
The first freight car that left Claybanks for business purposes was loaded with yellowish brown brick for New York, and all Claybanks was present to wave hats, handkerchiefs, hands, and aprons, as it moved slowly off. Claybanks wheat had gone East in times past, so had Claybanks pork, and undoubtedly these products had entered into the physical constitution of New York to some extent, but they could not afterward be identified. Claybanks bricks, however, were very different. They would be seen by every one, and theywould make Claybanks literally a part of the metropolis itself.
The meaning of all this was felt by the people of all classes; even Pastor Grateway was so impressed by it that he preached a sermon from the text, "They shall speak with the enemy in the gates," and that there should be no doubt as to who "they" were, a brown brick was at each side of the pulpit for the sides of the open Bible to rest upon. The pastor, being a man of spiritual insight, did not neglect to enlarge upon the fact that the bricks themselves were originally clay—mere earth—that had been trampled underfoot for years, seemingly useless, until it had been conformed in shape and quality to the uses for which it had been designed from the foundation of the world, and that each brick was a reminder that the most insensate lump of human clay had in it the possibilities for which it had been created.
Nevertheless, the majority of the hearers only carried home with them the conviction that the Claybanks brick-yard must become one of the great things of the world—otherwise, why did the minister preach about it?
leaves
"CALEB," said Philip one evening, as the partners and their wives sat in the parlor of the Somerton home and enjoyed the leisure hour that came between store-closing and bed-time, "so much important business has been crowded into the past few months that some smaller ventures have almost escaped my mind. What ever came of that car-load of walnut stumps that I sent East last summer?"
"I couldn't have told you much about it if you'd asked me a day earlier," Caleb replied. "I turned it over to a man in the fine-woods business—a Grand Army comrade that I met at my old chum Jim's post. He said at the time that the stumps would undoubtedly pay expenses of diggin' and shipment, an' maybe a lot more, but 'twould depend entirely on the stumps themselves. He'd have each of 'emsawed lengthwise an' a surface section dressed, to show the markings of the grain o' the wood. It seems that they were so water-soaked that 'twas months after sawin' before the wood of any of 'em was dry enough to dress, but he got at some of 'em a few weeks ago, an' though most of 'em wa'n't above the ordinary, there were two or three that made the furniture an' decoration men bid against each other at a lively rate. One of 'em panned out over sixty dollars."
"What? One walnut stump? Sixty dollars?"
"Oh, that's nothing. To work me up, he told me of one, picked up in the country a few years ago, that brought more than a thousand dollars to the buyer. The markings were so fine that it was sawn into thin veneers that were sold for more than their weight in silver. Still, to come to the point, your entire lot brought about two hundred and seventy dollars net, an' I've got the check in my pocket to prove it."
"And the land from which they were taken cost me only two hundred dollars in goods!And there are still hundreds of stumps in it! And I felt so ashamed and babyish when I learned that I'd been tricked into buying cleared land, that I almost resolved to recall you by wire, so that I should be kept from being tricked again in some similar manner! I shall have to drive out to old Weefer's farm, tell him the story, and ask him if he has any more walnut clearings for sale."
"Hadn't you better keep quiet about it? Where's the use in killin' the goose that lays the golden egg? Pick up all the walnut clearin's that are for sale, an' make what you can out of 'em, before you go to talkin'; but if you feel that you must say somethin' on the subject to somebody, an' jubilate a little, go tell Doc Taggess, who owns the lot you thought you were buyin'. If anybody deserves to make money in the boom that's comin', Doc does, an' if he could clear his land, now that he can railroad the logs to market, an' then get out his stumps, he might get cash enough ahead to pick up a lot of real estate, or take stock in millin' enterprises, when the water-power ditch is made, an' so lay up somethin' to keep himout of the poor-house in old age; for as long as he can practise, he'll give to the poor all that he can collect from patients that are better off. The chap that handled the stumps for you asked me a lot of questions about the kind an' quantity of standin' timber out here, and said he didn't see why we didn't start mills to turn out furniture lumber an' dimension-stuff, like some that have made fortunes for men in the backwoods of Indiana and Michigan an' some other states."
"Let's try it, if our cash and credit aren't already used as far as they should be. By the way, how is Claybanks corn-flour, Somerton's brand, going in England?"
"Fairly. We've sent, in all, about four hundred barrels; that's an average of a hundred a month, with a net profit to us of about thirty per cent, which is better, I reckon, than any of the big flour shippers ever dreamed o' makin'. I've been hopin' that the good tidin's of good food-stuff at about half the price o' bad would work its way into other parts of London an' out into the country, too; but English people don't seem to move about an' swapstories an' prices, like us Americans. I reckon I came home too soon, for the good o' that deal, for I had a lot o' things in mind to do in London to make corn-meal popular. It seems to be the English way to let things alone until some of the upper classes take to 'em, so I was goin' to try the meal on some o' the swells; but the more I thought of it, the more it seemed that they too belonged to the follow-my-leader class. So I made up my mind to begin way up at the tip-top, an' so I wrote a letter to Queen Victoria, sayin' I'd come all the way from America to make the English people practically acquainted with the cheapest and most nutritious food known in the temperate zone, an' that I was catchin' on fairly, but the common people seemed to think it was common stuff, which it wasn't, as I would be glad to prove to her. Besides, I knew of Americans richer than any nobleman in England who had it on their tables every day. I said I could make six kinds o' bread an' three kinds o' puddin' out o' corn-meal, an' I'd like a chance to do it some day for her own table; if she'd let me do it in the palace kitchen, I'd bring myown pans an' things, so's not to put the help to any trouble,—an' I'd—"
"You—wrote—to—the Queen—of England," Philip exclaimed, "offering to make corn-bread and meal-pudding for the royal table!"
"That's what I did, an' I took pains to specify that 'twould be made of Claybanks corn-flour, Somerton's brand, too—not the common meal that again an' again has let down American corn in foreign minds to the level of the hog-trough. But it didn't work. Though I put in an addressed postal card for reply, the good lady never answered my letter. Too busy, I s'pose."
Philip stared at Grace, who pressed one hand closely to her lips, while Mary looked at her husband as if wondering in what entirely original and unexpected manner, and where, he might next break out. Then Philip said gravely:—
"How strange! Besides, I doubt whether any other man was ever so thoughtful as to enclose a reply-card to her Majesty."
"Well, after waitin' a spell I made up mymind that that particular cake was all dough. One day when I was in the shop, turnin' sample cakes an' bread out o' the pans, up drove a carriage, an' a couple o' well-dressed men, one of 'em short an' stout, an' the other kind o' tallish, came in an' looked about, kind o' cur'us. 'Try some samples, gentlemen?' said I, thinkin' they looked as if they was used enough to good feedin' to know it when they saw it. They nodded, stiffish-like, an' I set 'em down to a little table with a white cloth on it, an' I set before 'em dodgers, an' muffins, an' cracklin' bread, an' pan-cakes, all as hot as red pepper, an' some A 1 English butter to try 'em with—an' they do know how to make butter over in England!
"Well, they sampled 'em all, takin' two or three mouthfuls of each, an' exchanged opinions, which seemed to be favorable, with their eyes an' heads. While they were eatin', the shop began to get dark, an' when I looked around to see if a fog had come up all of a-sudden, as it sometimes does over there, I saw that the street was packed with people, an' they were jammed up to the doors an'windows. 'It's plain that gentlemen are not often on exhibition in this part of the town,' said I to myself. Suddenly the two got up, an' both said 'Thanks,' an' went out, an' when their carriage started, the crowd set up a cheer. 'Who are they?' I said to a man at the door. He looked at me as if I had tried to run a counterfeit on him, an' he said, 'Ah, me eye!' but another chap said:—
"'It's the Prince, an' the Duke o' Somethinorother.'"
"H'm! Yet you never got a reply on that postal card!"
"Never. I meant to try again, an' register the letter, so as to be sure that it got into the right hands, but somethin' kept tellin' me 'twas time to get back home. But if you'll let me make a trip again next fall, at my own expense, I'll try for better luck. Anyway, I'll work the corn-meal plan on Liverpool an' other cities, an' if it takes as well as it's done in London, 'twon't be long before a good many thousan's of bushels of Claybanks corn'll be saved from the distilleries, in the course of a year."
"Phil," Grace remarked, "Caleb's wish to go abroad in the fall reminds me that I want you to take me East for a few weeks in the spring, and we ought to begin our preparations at once. As 'tis near Christmas, Mary and I have been talking of presents, and particularly of one which you and Caleb can join in giving us and at the same time secure to yourselves more of the business and social companionship of your wives. We want a housekeeper."
"Sensible women!" Philip replied. "As to your husbands, they will be delighted—eh, Caleb? If it weren't that servants can't be had in this part of the country, and help, after the Claybanks manner, would have banished all sense of privacy, I should think myself a villain of deepest dye for having allowed the wife of the principal merchant of Claybanks to cook my meals and do all the remaining work of the house, and I don't doubt that Caleb feels similarly about Mary."
"Well," said Caleb, "work that wa'n't degradin' to my dear mother oughtn't to seem too mean for my wife; but, on the other hand, mymother shouldn't have done it if I could have helped it, 'specially if she'd have tried also to do a full day's clerk-work in a store once in ev'ry twenty-four hours."
"That explains our position," Grace added. "You two men are so full of new business of various kinds that Mary and I should be in the store all the while. Soon that dreadful pork-house must open for the season, and then we shall see less of you than ever. A good housekeeper will cost no more than a good clerk, and we must have one or the other. We don't want a clerk, if we can avoid it; at present we have the business entirely in our own hands, and when there are no customers in the store, we have as much privacy and freedom as if we were in the house. Mary knows a good woman in New York who will be glad to come here as maid-of-all-work, if she may be called housekeeper instead of servant; she has a grown son who wishes to be a farmer and to begin where land is cheaper and richer than it is in the vicinity of New York. With such a woman to care for the house we can spend most of our time in the store, hold the trade of such womenfolkas deal with us, and try to get the remainder; for where women and their daughters buy, the husband and brothers will also go."
"That's as sure as shootin'," said Caleb. "Do you know that in spite of the cyclone the store has done twice as much business since you came as it ever did before in the same months? I'd be downright sorry for the other merchants in town if I didn't believe that we're soon goin' to have a big increase of population, and there'll be business enough for all. Philip deserves credit for a lot of the new business, an' his wife for more, which isn't Philip's fault, but his fortune in havin' married just that sort of woman. If nobody else'll say it, I s'pose it won't be presumin' for me to say that a small percentage of the increase o' the last two or three months has come through a young woman whose name used to be Mary Truett."
"Small percentage, indeed!" Grace exclaimed. "Mary has secured more new business than I did in the same number of weeks, and she has done it so easily, too. She never seems to be thinking of business when she's talking to a customer, yet she instinctivelyknows what each woman wants, and places the proper goods before her, while I, very likely, would be thinking more of the woman than of the business."
"That's merely a result of experience," said Mary. "I'm nearly thirty, with a business experience of ten years; you were a mere chit of twenty-three when you married. Still, I don't believe any hired clerk, of no matter how many years' experience, could do half as well as either of us."
"For the very good reason," said Philip, "that both of you are practically owners of the business. No clerk can be as useful in any business as one of the proprietors."
"That remark would 'a' hurt my feelin's, a year ago," said Caleb; "but since my name went on that sign over the door, I've been lookin' backward at my old self a lot, an' lookin' down on my old self, too. Perhaps the difference has come o' gettin' rid o' malaria, perhaps o' takin' a wife; but I'm goin' to make b'lieve, after makin' full allowance for ev'rythin' else, that nobody can bring out the best that's in him until he begins to work for himself."
"No other person would dare criticise your old self in my presence, Caleb," said Philip, "but you've certainly acquired a new manner in business, and it's extremely fetching in more senses than one. One of the best things about it is that the natives notice it, and talk of it to one another, and are pleased by it, for you're one of them, you know. I'm a mere outsider."
"Do they really notice it?" asked Caleb, with a suggestion of the old-time pathos in his face and voice, "an' are they really pleased? Because, as you say, I'm really one of 'em, an' I'm proud of it. I've gone through pretty much ev'rythin' they have—'specially the malaria, an' now that their good times are comin', I'm glad I'm with 'em. But to think—" here he walked deliberately to a mirror and studied his own face for a moment—"to think that only so little time ago as when you came here I felt like an old, used-up man, an' I'd put my house in order, so to speak, against the time when I should have my last tussle with malaria, an' go under, with the hope o' goin' upward."
"That was before you met Mary," Grace suggested.
"Yes; that's so."
"And he must get rid of Mary before he can ever have an opportunity to feel that way again," said the lady referred to, as she looked proudly at her husband. "Old! Used up! The most spirited, active, hopeful, cheerful man I ever met! But, really, you were different, Caleb, when I first saw you; it doesn't seem possible that you're the same man. From what I've seen of the people here, I believe it is one of the ways of the West for men to try to look older than they are; you must use your influence—and example—to make them stop it. In New York a man seldom looks old until he is very near the grave; the most active and fine-looking business men are beyond threescore, as a rule—about twenty years older than you, Caleb."
"Ye—es, but they weren't brought up on malaria, pork, plough-handles, an' saleratus biscuit," said Caleb. "There's hope for a change here, though. Doc Taggess says there's nothin' like as much malaria in town as there was before the swamps were drained, and the good times comin', because o' the railroad, 'll makesome more changes for the better, for all of us."
For a few moments each member of the quartet seemed to have dropped into revery. The silence was broken by Philip, who said:—
"Caleb, a year ago even you would not have dared to prophesy the changes that have been made, and those which are within sight, yet to you belongs the credit for all of them."
"To me? Well, I've heard and seen so many amazin' calculations in the past three months that I'm prepared to stand up under almost anythin', but I'd like to know how you figure it out that I've done anythin' in particular."
"'Tis easily told. If you hadn't fallen in love with Miss Truett, and she with you, her brother wouldn't have come out here, and the malaria wouldn't have been drained from the swamps, and the railway wouldn't have been projected, and the farmers wouldn't have become owners of guaranteed stocks, which has put new life into many of them, and there'd have been no inducement for manufacturersto use our water-power and our hard woods, and no bank would have been possible, nor any of the public improvements,—paving, water service, and others that will soon be under way. Don't you see?"
"Ye—es, as far as you've gone, but I wouldn't have known there was such a person as Mary—bless her!—if you hadn't sent me East, an' your wife—bless her too—hadn't given me a letter of introduction to Mary, so I don't see but that honors are about even. You might as well go back a little further, though, and say that you wouldn't have been here to send me East if your Uncle Jethro hadn't loved your father, an' made up his mind that your father's son shouldn't fool away his life in pleasin' his eyes an' fancies in New York, but should get the disciplinin' that makes a man out of a youngster that's got the real stuff born in him."
"Caleb, what are you saying?"
"Exactly what your Uncle Jethro said to me—an' to nobody else. Mebbe I hadn't ought to have let it out; mebbe, on the other hand, it may make you feel kindlier to yourUncle Jethro. But, to go on backward, there wouldn't have been any Jethro to lay up a business start for you if the Somerton family hadn't begun somewhere back in the history of the world, an' when you get that far back you might as well go farther an' say that if Noah hadn't built the ark, or if he'd been in too big a hurry to get out of it, there wouldn't have been any of us to do anythin'. I tell you, Philip, an' just you keep it in mind against anythin' that may turn up anywhere or at any time, that when there's any glory or credit to be given out, an' you want to do the square thing, you'll have to spread it so thin that nobody'll get enough of it to make him feel over an' above cocky."
People, like nations, usually become happy in prosperity, but through prosperity their lives become less eventful, and consequently less interesting to other people. The water-power of Claybanks' "crik" was soon developed, and the mills that were erected, and the people who came to them, made new demands and prices for real estate, as well as for certainfarm products. But before all this had come to pass Grace made haste to gratify a consuming desire to spend the springtime at her birthplace in the East. While she was there, Caleb one day received the following despatch from Philip:—
"Caleb Wright Somerton born last night. May he become as good a man as you."
"Caleb Wright Somerton born last night. May he become as good a man as you."
Caleb showed the despatch to his wife, and then started to put it between the leaves of his Bible; but Mary made haste to put it in a frame, under glass, and affix it to the front of the store, to the great interest of the people of Claybanks and vicinity and to the great benefit of the business of Somerton & Wright.