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The captain spoke through the tube:
“What steam are you carrying?”
“A hundred and forty-two, sir! But she’s getting hotter and hotter all the time.”
The boat was straining and groaning and quivering like a monster in pain. Both pilots were at work now, one on each side of the wheel, with their coats and vests off, their bosoms and collars wide open and the perspiration flowing down heir faces. They were holding the boat so close to the shore that the willows swept the guards almost from stem to stern.
“Stand by!” whispered George.
“All ready!” said Jim, under his breath.
“Let her come!”
The boat sprang away from the bank like a deer, and darted in a long diagonal toward the other shore. She closed in again and thrashed her fierce way along the willows as before. The captain put down the glass:
“Lord how she walks up on us! I do hate to be beat!”
“Jim,” said George, looking straight ahead, watching the slightest yawing of the boat and promptly meeting it with the wheel, “how’ll it do to try Murderer’s Chute?”
“Well, it’s—it’s taking chances. How was the cottonwood stump on the false point below Boardman’s Island this morning?”
“Water just touching the roots.”
“Well it’s pretty close work. That gives six feet scant in the head of Murderer’s Chute. We can just barely rub through if we hit it exactly right. But it’s worth trying. She don’t dare tackle it!”—meaning the Amaranth.
In another instant the Boreas plunged into what seemed a crooked creek, and the Amaranth’s approaching lights were shut out in a moment. Not a whisper was uttered, now, but the three men stared ahead into the shadows and two of them spun the wheel back and forth with anxious watchfulness while the steamer tore along. The chute seemed to come to an end every fifty yards, but always opened out in time. Now the head of it was at hand. George tapped the big bell three times, two leadsmen sprang to their posts, and in a moment their weird cries rose on the night air and were caught up and repeated by two men on the upper deck:
“No-o bottom!”
“De-e-p four!”
“Half three!”
“Quarter three!”
“Mark under wa-a-ter three!”
“Half twain!”
“Quarter twain!——-”
Davis pulled a couple of ropes—there was a jingling of small bells far below, the boat’s speed slackened, and the pent steam began to whistle and the gauge-cocks to scream:
“By the mark twain!”
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“Quar—ter—her—er—less twain!”
“Eight and a half!”
“Eight feet!”
“Seven-ana-half!”
Another jingling of little bells and the wheels ceased turning altogether. The whistling of the steam was something frightful now—it almost drowned all other noises.
“Stand by to meet her!”
George had the wheel hard down and was standing on a spoke.
“All ready!”
The boat hesitated—seemed to hold her breath, as did the captain and pilots—and then she began to fall away to starboard and every eye lighted:
“Now then!—meet her! meet her! Snatch her!”
The wheel flew to port so fast that the spokes blended into a spider-web—the swing of the boat subsided—she steadied herself——
“Seven feet!”
“Sev—six and a half!”
“Six feet! Six f——”
Bang! She hit the bottom! George shouted through the tube:
“Spread her wide open! Whale it at her!”
Pow-wow-chow! The escape-pipes belched snowy pillars of steam aloft, the boat ground and surged and trembled—and slid over into——
“M-a-r-k twain!”
“Quarter-her——”
“Tap! tap! tap!” (to signify “Lay in the leads”)
And away she went, flying up the willow shore, with the whole silver sea of the Mississippi stretching abroad on every hand.
No Amaranth in sight!
“Ha-ha, boys, we took a couple of tricks that time!” said the captain.
And just at that moment a red glare appeared in the head of the chute and the Amaranth came springing after them!
“Well, I swear!”
“Jim, what is the meaning of that?”
“I’ll tell you what’s the meaning of it. That hail we had at Napoleon was Wash Hastings, wanting to come to Cairo—and we didn’t stop. He’s in that pilot house, now, showing those mud turtles how to hunt for easy water.”
“That’s it! I thought it wasn’t any slouch that was running that middle bar in Hog-eye Bend. If it’s Wash Hastings—well, what he don’t know about the river ain’t worth knowing—a regular gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond breastpin pilot Wash Hastings is. We won’t take any tricks off of him, old man!”
“I wish I’d a stopped for him, that’s all.”
The Amaranth was within three hundred yards of the Boreas, and still gaining. The “old man” spoke through the tube:
“What is she-carrying now?”
“A hundred and sixty-five, sir!”
“How’s your wood?”
“Pine all out-cypress half gone-eating up cotton-wood like pie!”
“Break into that rosin on the main deck-pile it in, the boat can pay for it!”
Soon the boat was plunging and quivering and screaming more madly than ever. But the Amaranth’s head was almost abreast the Boreas’s stern:
“How’s your steam, now, Harry?”
“Hundred and eighty-two, sir!”
“Break up the casks of bacon in the forrard hold! Pile it in! Levy on that turpentine in the fantail-drench every stick of wood with it!”
The boat was a moving earthquake by this time:
“How is she now?”
“A hundred and ninety-six and still a-swelling!—water, below the middle gauge-cocks!—carrying every pound she can stand!—nigger roosting on the safety-valve!”
“Good! How’s your draft?”
“Bully! Every time a nigger heaves a stick of wood into the furnace he goes out the chimney, with it!”
The Amaranth drew steadily up till her jack-staff breasted the Boreas’s wheel-house—climbed along inch by inch till her chimneys breasted it—crept along, further and further, till the boats were wheel to wheel—and then they closed up with a heavy jolt and locked together tight and fast in the middle of the big river under the flooding moonlight! A roar and a hurrah went up from the crowded decks of both steamers—all hands rushed to the guards to look and shout and gesticulate—the weight careened the vessels over toward each other—officers flew hither and thither cursing and storming, trying to drive the people amidships—both captains were leaning over their railings shaking their fists, swearing and threatening—black volumes of smoke rolled up and canopied the scene,—delivering a rain of sparks upon the vessels—two pistol shots rang out, and both captains dodged unhurt and the packed masses of passengers surged back and fell apart while the shrieks of women and children soared above the intolerable din——
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And then there was a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled Amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away!
Instantly the fire-doors of the Boreas were thrown open and the men began dashing buckets of water into the furnaces—for it would have been death and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on.
As soon as possible the Boreas dropped down to the floating wreck and took off the dead, the wounded and the unhurt—at least all that could be got at, for the whole forward half of the boat was a shapeless ruin, with the great chimneys lying crossed on top of it, and underneath were a dozen victims imprisoned alive and wailing for help. While men with axes worked with might and main to free these poor fellows, the Boreas’s boats went about, picking up stragglers from the river.
And now a new horror presented itself. The wreck took fire from the dismantled furnaces! Never did men work with a heartier will than did those stalwart braves with the axes. But it was of no use. The fire ate its way steadily, despising the bucket brigade that fought it. It scorched the clothes, it singed the hair of the axemen—it drove them back, foot by foot—inch by inch—they wavered, struck a final blow in the teeth of the enemy, and surrendered. And as they fell back they heard prisoned voices saying:
“Don’t leave us! Don’t desert us! Don’t, don’t do it!”
And one poor fellow said:
“I am Henry Worley, striker of the Amaranth! My mother lives in St. Louis. Tell her a lie for a poor devil’s sake, please. Say I was killed in an instant and never knew what hurt me—though God knows I’ve neither scratch nor bruise this moment! It’s hard to burn up in a coop like this with the whole wide world so near. Good-bye boys—we’ve all got to come to it at last, anyway!”
The Boreas stood away out of danger, and the ruined steamer went drifting down the stream an island of wreathing and climbing flame that vomited clouds of smoke from time to time, and glared more fiercely and sent its luminous tongues higher and higher after each emission. A shriek at intervals told of a captive that had met his doom. The wreck lodged upon a sandbar, and when the Boreas turned the next point on her upward journey it was still burning with scarcely abated fury.
When the boys came down into the main saloon of the Boreas, they saw a pitiful sight and heard a world of pitiful sounds. Eleven poor creatures lay dead and forty more lay moaning, or pleading or screaming, while a score of Good Samaritans moved among them doing what they could to relieve their sufferings; bathing their chinless faces and bodies with linseed oil and lime water and covering the places with bulging masses of raw cotton that gave to every face and form a dreadful and unhuman aspect.
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A little wee French midshipman of fourteen lay fearfully injured, but never uttered a sound till a physician of Memphis was about to dress his hurts. Then he said:
“Can I get well? You need not be afraid to tell me.”
“No—I—I am afraid you can not.”
“Then do not waste your time with me—help those that can get well.”
“But——”
“Help those that can get well! It is, not for me to be a girl. I carry the blood of eleven generations of soldiers in my veins!”
The physician—himself a man who had seen service in the navy in his time—touched his hat to this little hero, and passed on.
The head engineer of the Amaranth, a grand specimen of physical manhood, struggled to his feet a ghastly spectacle and strode toward his brother, the second engineer, who was unhurt. He said:
“You were on watch. You were boss. You would not listen to me when I begged you to reduce your steam. Take that!—take it to my wife and tell her it comes from me by the hand of my murderer! Take it—and take my curse with it to blister your heart a hundred years—and may you live so long!”
And he tore a ring from his finger, stripping flesh and skin with it, threw it down and fell dead!
But these things must not be dwelt upon. The Boreas landed her dreadful cargo at the next large town and delivered it over to a multitude of eager hands and warm southern hearts—a cargo amounting by this time to 39 wounded persons and 22 dead bodies. And with these she delivered a list of 96 missing persons that had drowned or otherwise perished at the scene of the disaster.
A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives—“NOBODY TO BLAME.”
**[The incidents of the explosion are not invented. They happened just as they are told.—The Authors.]
**[The incidents of the explosion are not invented. They happened just as they are told.—The Authors.]
Il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc.
Il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc.
When the Boreas backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the river, the Hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard work how to relieve it. And they were richer in another way also. In the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling through the throng in the Boreas’ saloon calling her mother and father, but no one answered. Something in the face of Mr. Hawkins attracted her and she came and looked up at him; was satisfied, and took refuge with him. He petted her, listened to her troubles, and said he would find her friends for her. Then he put her in a state-room with his children and told them to be kind to her (the adults of his party were all busy with the wounded) and straightway began his search.
It was fruitless. But all day he and his wife made inquiries, and hoped against hope. All that they could learn was that the child and her parents came on board at New Orleans, where they had just arrived in a vessel from Cuba; that they looked like people from the Atlantic States; that the family name was Van Brunt and the child’s name Laura. This was all. The parents had not been seen since the explosion. The child’s manners were those of a little lady, and her clothes were daintier and finer than any Mrs. Hawkins had ever seen before.
As the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for her mother that it seemed to the Hawkinses that the moanings and the wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain at their heart-strings as the sufferings of this little desolate creature. They tried hard to comfort her; and in trying, learned to love her; they could not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her arms about their necks and found no solace but in their kind eyes and comforting words: There was a question in both their hearts—a question that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the hours wore on—but both hesitated to give it voice—both kept silence—and—waited. But a time came at last when the matter would bear delay no longer. The boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being conveyed to the shore. The tired child was asleep in the arms of Mrs. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins came into their presence and stood without speaking. His eyes met his wife’s; then both looked at the child—and as they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer; an expression of contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the mother-heart; and when the eyes of husband and wife met again, the question was asked and answered.
When the Boreas had journeyed some four hundred miles from the time the Hawkinses joined her, a long rank of steamboats was sighted, packed side by side at a wharf like sardines, in a box, and above and beyond them rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a city—a city with an imposing umbrella of black smoke spread over it. This was St. Louis. The children of the Hawkins family were playing about the hurricane deck, and the father and mother were sitting in the lee of the pilot house essaying to keep order and not greatly grieved that they were not succeeding.
“They’re worth all the trouble they are, Nancy.”
“Yes, and more, Si.”
“I believe you! You wouldn’t sell one of them at a good round figure?”
“Not for all the money in the bank, Si.”
“My own sentiments every time. It is true we are not rich—but still you are not sorry—-you haven’t any misgivings about the additions?”
“No. God will provide”
“Amen. And so you wouldn’t even part with Clay? Or Laura!”
“Not for anything in the world. I love them just the same as I love my own: They pet me and spoil me even more than the others do, I think. I reckon we’ll get along, Si.”
“Oh yes, it will all come out right, old mother. I wouldn’t be afraid to adopt a thousand children if I wanted to, for there’s that Tennessee Land, you know—enough to make an army of them rich. A whole army, Nancy! You and I will never see the day, but these little chaps will. Indeed they will. One of these days it will be the rich Miss Emily Hawkins—and the wealthy Miss Laura Van Brunt Hawkins—and the Hon. George Washington Hawkins, millionaire—and Gov. Henry Clay Hawkins, millionaire! That is the way the world will word it! Don’t let’s ever fret about the children, Nancy—never in the world. They’re all right. Nancy, there’s oceans and oceans of money in that land—mark my words!”
The children had stopped playing, for the moment, and drawn near to listen. Hawkins said:
“Washington, my boy, what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world?”
“I don’t know, father. Sometimes I think I’ll have a balloon and go up in the air; and sometimes I think I’ll have ever so many books; and sometimes I think I’ll have ever so many weathercocks and water-wheels; or have a machine like that one you and Colonel Sellers bought; and sometimes I think I’ll have—well, somehow I don’t know—somehow I ain’t certain; maybe I’ll get a steamboat first.”
“The same old chap!—always just a little bit divided about things.—And what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world, Clay?”
“I don’t know, sir. My mother—my other mother that’s gone away—she always told me to work along and not be much expecting to get rich, and then I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t get rich. And so I reckon it’s better for me to wait till I get rich, and then by that time maybe I’ll know what I’ll want—but I don’t now, sir.”
“Careful old head!—Governor Henry Clay Hawkins!—that’s what you’ll be, Clay, one of these days. Wise old head! weighty old head! Go on, now, and play—all of you. It’s a prime lot, Nancy; as the Obedstown folk say about their hogs.”
A smaller steamboat received the Hawkinses and their fortunes, and bore them a hundred and thirty miles still higher up the Mississippi, and landed them at a little tumble-down village on the Missouri shore in the twilight of a mellow October day.
The next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they wended slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited forest solitudes. And when for the last time they pitched their tents, metaphorically speaking, it was at the goal of their hopes, their new home.
By the muddy roadside stood a new log cabin, one story high—the store; clustered in the neighborhood were ten or twelve more cabins, some new, some old.
In the sad light of the departing day the place looked homeless enough. Two or three coatless young men sat in front of the store on a dry-goods box, and whittled it with their knives, kicked it with their vast boots, and shot tobacco-juice at various marks. Several ragged negroes leaned comfortably against the posts of the awning and contemplated the arrival of the wayfarers with lazy curiosity. All these people presently managed to drag themselves to the vicinity of the Hawkins’ wagon, and there they took up permanent positions, hands in pockets and resting on one leg; and thus anchored they proceeded to look and enjoy. Vagrant dogs came wagging around and making inquiries of Hawkins’s dog, which were not satisfactory and they made war on him in concert. This would have interested the citizens but it was too many on one to amount to anything as a fight, and so they commanded the peace and the foreign dog coiled his tail and took sanctuary under the wagon. Slatternly negro girls and women slouched along with pails deftly balanced on their heads, and joined the group and stared. Little half dressed white boys, and little negro boys with nothing whatever on but tow-linen shirts with a fine southern exposure, came from various directions and stood with their hands locked together behind them and aided in the inspection. The rest of the population were laying down their employments and getting ready to come, when a man burst through the assemblage and seized the new-comers by the hands in a frenzy of welcome, and exclaimed—indeed almost shouted:
“Well who could have believed it! Now is it you sure enough—turn around! hold up your heads! I want to look at you good! Well, well, well, it does seem most too good to be true, I declare! Lord, I’m so glad to see you! Does a body’s whole soul good to look at you! Shake hands again! Keep on shaking hands! Goodness gracious alive. What will my wife say?—Oh yes indeed, it’s so!—married only last week—lovely, perfectly lovely creature, the noblest woman that ever—you’ll like her, Nancy! Like her? Lord bless me you’ll love her—you’ll dote on her—you’ll be twins! Well, well, well, let me look at you again! Same old—why bless my life it was only jest this very morning that my wife says, ‘Colonel’—she will call me Colonel spite of everything I can do—she says ‘Colonel, something tells me somebody’s coming!’ and sure enough here you are, the last people on earth a body could have expected. Why she’ll think she’s a prophetess—and hanged if I don’t think so too—and you know there ain’t any country but what a prophet’s an honor to, as the proverb says. Lord bless me and here’s the children, too! Washington, Emily, don’t you know me? Come, give us a kiss. Won’t I fix you, though!—ponies, cows, dogs, everything you can think of that’ll delight a child’s heart—and—Why how’s this? Little strangers? Well you won’t be any strangers here, I can tell you. Bless your souls we’ll make you think you never was at home before—’deed and ’deed we will, I can tell you! Come, now, bundle right along with me. You can’t glorify any hearth stone but mine in this camp, you know—can’t eat anybody’s bread but mine—can’t do anything but just make yourselves perfectly at home and comfortable, and spread yourselves out and rest! You hear me! Here—Jim, Tom, Pete, Jake, fly around! Take that team to my place—put the wagon in my lot—put the horses under the shed, and get out hay and oats and fill them up! Ain’t any hay and oats? Well get some—have it charged to me—come, spin around, now! Now, Hawkins, the procession’s ready; mark time, by the left flank, forward-march!”
And the Colonel took the lead, with Laura astride his neck, and the newly-inspired and very grateful immigrants picked up their tired limbs with quite a spring in them and dropped into his wake.
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Presently they were ranged about an old-time fire-place whose blazing logs sent out rather an unnecessary amount of heat, but that was no matter—supper was needed, and to have it, it had to be cooked. This apartment was the family bedroom, parlor, library and kitchen, all in one. The matronly little wife of the Colonel moved hither and thither and in and out with her pots and pans in her hands, happiness in her heart and a world of admiration of her husband in her eyes.
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And when at last she had spread the cloth and loaded it with hot corn bread, fried chickens, bacon, buttermilk, coffee, and all manner of country luxuries, Col. Sellers modified his harangue and for a moment throttled it down to the orthodox pitch for a blessing, and then instantly burst forth again as from a parenthesis and clattered on with might and main till every stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry. And when the new-comers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather beds on the second floor—to wit the garret—Mrs. Hawkins was obliged to say:
“Hang the fellow, I do believe he has gone wilder than ever, but still a body can’t help liking him if they would—and what is more, they don’t ever want to try when they see his eyes and hear him talk.”
Within a week or two the Hawkinses were comfortably domiciled in a new log house, and were beginning to feel at home. The children were put to school; at least it was what passed for a school in those days: a place where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell the words or take breath. Hawkins bought out the village store for a song and proceeded to reap the profits, which amounted to but little more than another song.
The wonderful speculation hinted at by Col. Sellers in his letter turned out to be the raising of mules for the Southern market; and really it promised very well. The young stock cost but a trifle, the rearing but another trifle, and so Hawkins was easily persuaded to embark his slender means in the enterprise and turn over the keep and care of the animals to Sellers and Uncle Dan’l.
All went well: Business prospered little by little. Hawkins even built a new house, made it two full stories high and put a lightning rod on it. People came two or three miles to look at it. But they knew that the rod attracted the lightning, and so they gave the place a wide berth in a storm, for they were familiar with marksmanship and doubted if the lightning could hit that small stick at a distance of a mile and a half oftener than once in a hundred and fifty times. Hawkins fitted out his house with “store” furniture from St. Louis, and the fame of its magnificence went abroad in the land. Even the parlor carpet was from St. Louis—though the other rooms were clothed in the “rag” carpeting of the country. Hawkins put up the first “paling” fence that had ever adorned the village; and he did not stop there, but whitewashed it. His oil-cloth window-curtains had noble pictures on them of castles such as had never been seen anywhere in the world but on window-curtains. Hawkins enjoyed the admiration these prodigies compelled, but he always smiled to think how poor and cheap they were, compared to what the Hawkins mansion would display in a future day after the Tennessee Land should have borne its minted fruit. Even Washington observed, once, that when the Tennessee Land was sold he would have a “store” carpet in his and Clay’s room like the one in the parlor. This pleased Hawkins, but it troubled his wife. It did not seem wise, to her, to put one’s entire earthly trust in the Tennessee Land and never think of doing any work.
Hawkins took a weekly Philadelphia newspaper and a semi-weekly St. Louis journal—almost the only papers that came to the village, though Godey’s Lady’s Book found a good market there and was regarded as the perfection of polite literature by some of the ablest critics in the place. Perhaps it is only fair to explain that we are writing of a by gone age—some twenty or thirty years ago. In the two newspapers referred to lay the secret of Hawkins’s growing prosperity. They kept him informed of the condition of the crops south and east, and thus he knew which articles were likely to be in demand and which articles were likely to be unsalable, weeks and even months in advance of the simple folk about him. As the months went by he came to be regarded as a wonderfully lucky man. It did not occur to the citizens that brains were at the bottom of his luck.
His title of “Squire” came into vogue again, but only for a season; for, as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible stages, grew up into “Judge;” indeed it bade fair to swell into “General” bye and bye. All strangers of consequence who visited the village gravitated to the Hawkins Mansion and became guests of the “Judge.”
Hawkins had learned to like the people of his section very much. They were uncouth and not cultivated, and not particularly industrious; but they were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded respect. Their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the old fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry. Whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless hatred. They still cursed Benedict Arnold as if he were a personal friend who had broken faith—but a week gone by.
We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record.
We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record.
Judge Hawkins and Col. Sellers have made and lost two or three moderate fortunes in the meantime and are now pinched by poverty. Sellers has two pairs of twins and four extras. In Hawkins’s family are six children of his own and two adopted ones. From time to time, as fortune smiled, the elder children got the benefit of it, spending the lucky seasons at excellent schools in St. Louis and the unlucky ones at home in the chafing discomfort of straightened circumstances.
Neither the Hawkins children nor the world that knew them ever supposed that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: Such difference as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which had thrown their lives together.
And yet any one who had known the secret of Laura’s birth and had seen her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more winsome than her school companion.
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Philosophers dispute whether it is the promise of what she will be in the careless school-girl, that makes her attractive, the undeveloped maidenhood, or the mere natural, careless sweetness of childhood. If Laura at twelve was beginning to be a beauty, the thought of it had never entered her head. No, indeed. Her mind was filled with more important thoughts. To her simple school-girl dress she was beginning to add those mysterious little adornments of ribbon-knots and ear-rings, which were the subject of earnest consultations with her grown friends.
When she tripped down the street on a summer’s day with her dainty hands propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows consequently more or less akimbo with her wide Leghorn hat flapping down and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her fore head the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and that sweet ignorance of care and that atmosphere of innocence and purity all about her that belong to her gracious time of life, indeed she was a vision to warm the coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest.
Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, bewitching, in short—was Laura at this period. Could she have remained there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now come—years which had seen Judge Hawkins pass through so many trials.
When the judge’s first bankruptcy came upon him, a homely human angel intruded upon him with an offer of $1,500 for the Tennessee Land. Mrs. Hawkins said take it. It was a grievous temptation, but the judge withstood it. He said the land was for the children—he could not rob them of their future millions for so paltry a sum. When the second blight fell upon him, another angel appeared and offered $3,000 for the land. He was in such deep distress that he allowed his wife to persuade him to let the papers be drawn; but when his children came into his presence in their poor apparel, he felt like a traitor and refused to sign.
But now he was down again, and deeper in the mire than ever. He paced the floor all day, he scarcely slept at night. He blushed even to acknowledge it to himself, but treason was in his mind—he was meditating, at last, the sale of the land. Mrs. Hawkins stepped into the room. He had not spoken a word, but he felt as guilty as if she had caught him in some shameful act. She said:
“Si, I do not know what we are going to do. The children are not fit to be seen, their clothes are in such a state. But there’s something more serious still.—There is scarcely a bite in the house to eat.”
“Why, Nancy, go to Johnson——.”
“Johnson indeed! You took that man’s part when he hadn’t a friend in the world, and you built him up and made him rich. And here’s the result of it: He lives in our fine house, and we live in his miserable log cabin. He has hinted to our children that he would rather they wouldn’t come about his yard to play with his children,—which I can bear, and bear easy enough, for they’re not a sort we want to associate with much—but what I can’t bear with any quietness at all, is his telling Franky our bill was running pretty high this morning when I sent him for some meal—and that was all he said, too—didn’t give him the meal—turned off and went to talking with the Hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to cheapen.”
“Nancy, this is astounding!”
“And so it is, I warrant you. I’ve kept still, Si, as long as ever I could. Things have been getting worse and worse, and worse and worse, every single day; I don’t go out of the house, I feel so down; but you had trouble enough, and I wouldn’t say a word—and I wouldn’t say a word now, only things have got so bad that I don’t know what to do, nor where to turn.” And she gave way and put her face in her hands and cried.
“Poor child, don’t grieve so. I never thought that of Johnson. I am clear at my wit’s end. I don’t know what in the world to do. Now if somebody would come along and offer $3,000—Uh, if somebody only would come along and offer $3,000 for that Tennessee Land.”
“You’d sell it, Si!” said Mrs. Hawkins excitedly.
“Try me!”
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Mrs. Hawkins was out of the room in a moment. Within a minute she was back again with a business-looking stranger, whom she seated, and then she took her leave again. Hawkins said to himself, “How can a man ever lose faith? When the blackest hour comes, Providence always comes with it—ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; if this blessed man offers but a thousand I’ll embrace him like a brother!”
The stranger said:
“I am aware that you own 75,000 acres, of land in East Tennessee, and without sacrificing your time, I will come to the point at once. I am agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you ten thousand dollars for that land.”
Hawkins’s heart bounded within him. His whole frame was racked and wrenched with fettered hurrahs. His first impulse was to shout “Done! and God bless the iron company, too!”
But a something flitted through his mind, and his opened lips uttered nothing. The enthusiasm faded away from his eyes, and the look of a man who is thinking took its place. Presently, in a hesitating, undecided way, he said:
“Well, I—it don’t seem quite enough. That—that is a very valuable property—very valuable. It’s brim full of iron-ore, sir—brim full of it! And copper, coal,—everything—everything you can think of! Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll reserve everything except the iron, and I’ll sell them the iron property for $15,000 cash, I to go in with them and own an undivided interest of one-half the concern—or the stock, as you may say. I’m out of business, and I’d just as soon help run the thing as not. Now how does that strike you?”
“Well, I am only an agent of these people, who are friends of mine, and I am not even paid for my services. To tell you the truth, I have tried to persuade them not to go into the thing; and I have come square out with their offer, without throwing out any feelers—and I did it in the hope that you would refuse. A man pretty much always refuses another man’s first offer, no matter what it is. But I have performed my duty, and will take pleasure in telling them what you say.”
He was about to rise. Hawkins said,
“Wait a bit.”
Hawkins thought again. And the substance of his thought was: “This is a deep man; this is a very deep man; I don’t like his candor; your ostentatiously candid business man’s a deep fox—always a deep fox; this man’s that iron company himself—that’s what he is; he wants that property, too; I am not so blind but I can see that; he don’t want the company to go into this thing—O, that’s very good; yes, that’s very good indeed—stuff! he’ll be back here tomorrow, sure, and take my offer; take it? I’ll risk anything he is suffering to take it now; here—I must mind what I’m about. What has started this sudden excitement about iron? I wonder what is in the wind? just as sure as I’m alive this moment, there’s something tremendous stirring in iron speculation” [here Hawkins got up and began to pace the floor with excited eyes and with gesturing hands]—“something enormous going on in iron, without the shadow of a doubt, and here I sit mousing in the dark and never knowing anything about it; great heaven, what an escape I’ve made! this underhanded mercenary creature might have taken me up—and ruined me! but I have escaped, and I warrant me I’ll not put my foot into—”
He stopped and turned toward the stranger; saying:
“I have made you a proposition, you have not accepted it, and I desire that you will consider that I have made none. At the same time my conscience will not allow me to—. Please alter the figures I named to thirty thousand dollars, if you will, and let the proposition go to the company—I will stick to it if it breaks my heart!” The stranger looked amused, and there was a pretty well defined touch of surprise in his expression, too, but Hawkins never noticed it. Indeed he scarcely noticed anything or knew what he was about. The man left; Hawkins flung himself into a chair; thought a few moments, then glanced around, looked frightened, sprang to the door——
“Too late—too late! He’s gone! Fool that I am! always a fool! Thirty thousand—ass that I am! Oh, why didn’t I say fifty thousand!”