And the die was cast!



CHAPTER VII.

We make our Landing.

Had I known how cordially our neighbors would greet our return, or how many of them would view our departure with apparently sincere regret, I might have been slower in giving Jim my promise. I proceeded, however, to carry it out; but it was nearly six months before I could pull myself and my little fortune out of the place into which we had grown.

Mr. Elkins kept me well informed regarding Lattimore affairs; and the Herald followed me home. Jim's letters were long typewritten communications, dictated at speed, and mailed, sometimes one a day, at other times at intervals of weeks.

"This is a sure-enough 'winter of our discontent,'" one of these letters runs, "but the scope of our operations will widen as the frost comes out of the ground. We're now confined to the psychical field. Subjectively speaking, though, the plot thickens. Captain Tolliver is in the secondary stages of real-estate dementia, and spreads the contagion daily. There's no quarantine regulation to cover the case, and Lattimore seems doomed to the acme of prosperity. This is the age of great cities, saith the Captain, and that Lattimore is not already a town of 150,000 people is one of the strangest, one of the most inexplicable things in the world, in view of the distance we are lag of the country about us, so far as development is concerned. And as our beginning has been tardy, so will our progress be rapid, even as waters long dammed up rush out to devour the plains, etc., etc.

"In this we are all agreed. We want a good, steady, natural growth—and no boom.

"When a boom recognizes itself as such, it's all over, and the stuff off. The time for letting go of a great wheel is when it starts down hill. But our wheels are all going up—even if they are all in our heads, as yet.

"You will remember the railway connection of which I spoke to you? Well, that thing has assumed, all of a sudden, a concreteness as welcome as it is unexpected. Ballard showed me a telegram yesterday from lower Broadway (the heart of Darkest N. Y.) which tends to prove that people there are ready to finance the deal. It would have amused you to see the horizontality of the coat-tails of the management of the Lattimore & Great Western, as they flaxed round getting up a directors' meeting, so as to have a real, live directorate of this great transcontinental line for the wolves of Wall Street to do business with! Things like this are what you miss by hibernating there, instead of dropping everything and applying here for your pro rata share of the gayety of nations and the concomitant scads.

"I was elected president of the road, and as soon as we get a little track, and an engine, I expect to obtain an exchange of passes with all my fellow monopolists in North America. I at once fired back an answer to Ballard's telegram, which must have produced an impression upon the Gould and Vanderbilt interests—if they got wind of it. If the L. & G. W. should pass the paper stage next summer, it will do a whole lot towards carrying this burg beyond the hypnotic period of development.

"The Angus Falls branch is going to build in next summer, I am confident, and that means another division headquarters and, probably, machine-shops. I'm working with some of the trilobites here to form a pool, and offer the company grounds for additional yards and a roundhouse and shops. Captain Tolliver interviewed General Lattimore about it, and got turned down.

"'He told me, suh,' reported the Captain, in a fine white passion, 'that if any railway system desiahs to come to Lattimore, it has his puhmission! That the Injuns didn't give him any bonus when he came; and that he had to build his own houses and yahds, by gad, at his own expense, and defend 'em, too, and that if any railroad was thinkin' of comin' hyah, it was doubtless because it was good business fo' 'em to come; and that if they wanted any of his land, were willing to pay him his price, there wouldn't be any difficulty about theiah getting it. And that if there should arise any difference, which he should deeply regret, but would try to live through, the powah of eminent domain with which railways ah clothed will enable the company to get what land is necessary by legal means.

"'I could take these observations,' said the Captain, 'as nothing except a gratuitous insult to one who approached him, suh, in a spirit of pure benevolence and civic patriotism. It shows the kind of tyrants who commanded the oppressors of the South, suh! Only his gray hairs protected him, suh, only his gray hairs!'"

"It's a little hard to separate the General from the Captain, in this report of the committee on railway extensions," said my wife.

"The only thing that's clear about it," said I, "is that Jim is having a good deal of fun with the Captain."

This became clearer as the correspondence went on.

"Tolliver thinks," said he, in another letter, "that the Angus Falls extension can be pulled through. However, I recall that only yesterday the Captain, in private, denounced the citizens of Lattimore as beneath the contempt of gentlemen of breadth of view. 'I shall dispose of my holdin's hyah,' said he, with a stately sweep indicative of their extent, 'at any sacrifice, and depaht, cuhsin' the day I devoted myself to the redemption of such cattle.'

"But, at that particular moment, he had just failed in an attempt to sell Bill Trescott a bunch of choice outlying gold bricks, and was somewhat heated with wine. This to the haughty Southron was ample excuse for confiding to me the round, unvarnished truth about us mudsills.

"Josie and I often talk of you and your wife. I don't know what I'd do out here if it weren't for Josie. She refuses to enthuse over our 'natural, healthy growth,' which we look for; but I guess that's because she doesn't care for the things that the rest of us are striving for. But she's the only person here with whom one can really converse. You'd be astonished to see how pretty she is in her furs, and set like a jewel in my new sleigh; but I'm becoming keenly aware of the fact."

We were afterwards told that the trilobites had shaken off their fossilhood, and that the Angus Falls extension, with the engine-house and machine-shops, had been "landed."

"This," he wrote, "means enough new families to make a noticeable increase in our population. Things will be popping here soon. Come on and help shake the popper; hurry up with your moving, or it will all be over, including the shouting."

We were not entirely dependent upon Jim's letters for Lattimore news. Mrs. Barslow kept up a desultory correspondence with Miss Trescott, begun upon some pretext and continued upon none at all. In one of these letters Josie (for so we soon learned to call her) wrote:

"Our little town is changing so that it no longer seems familiar. Not that the change is visible. Beyond an unusual number of strangers or recent comers, there is nothing new to strike the eye. But the talk everywhere is of a new railroad and other improvements. One needs only to shut one's eyes and listen, to imagine that the town is already a real city. Mr. Elkins seems to be the center of this new civic self-esteem. The air is full of it, and I admit that I am affected by it. I have

"'A feeling, as when eager crowds await, Before a palace gate, Some wondrous pageant.'

"You are indebted to Captain Tolliver for the quotation, and to Mr. Elkins for the idea. The Captain induced me to read the book in which I found the lines. He stigmatizes the preference given to the Northern poets—Longfellow, for instance—over Timrod as 'the crowning infamy of American letters.' He has taken the trouble to lay out a course of study for me, the object of which is to place me right in my appreciation of the literary men of the South. It includes Pollard's 'Lost Cause' and the works of W. G. Simms. I have not fully promised to follow it to the end. Timrod, however, is a treat."

That last quiet winter will always be set apart in my memory, as a time like no other. It was a sitting down on a milestone to rest. Back of us lay the busy past—busy with trivial things, it seemed to me, but full of varied activity nevertheless. A boy will desire mightily to finish a cob-house; and when it is done he will smilingly knock it about the barn floor. So I was tearing down and leaving the fabric of relationship which I had once prized so highly.

The life upon which I expected to enter promised well. In fact, to a man of medium ability, only, and no training in large affairs, it promised exceedingly well. I knew that Jim was strong, and that his old regard for me had taken new life and a firm hold upon him. But when, removed from his immediate influence, I looked the situation in the face, the future loomed so mysteriously bizarre that I shrank from it. All his skimble-skamble talk about psychology and hypnotism, and that other rambling discourse of pirate caves and buccaneering cruises, made me feel sometimes as if I were about to form a partnership with Aladdin, or the King of the Golden Mountain. If he had asked me, merely, to come to Lattimore and go into the real estate and insurance business with him, I am sure I should have had none of this mental vertigo. Yet what more had he done?

As to the boom, I had, as yet, not a particle of objective confidence in it; but, subconsciously, I felt, as did the town "doomed to prosperity," a sense of impending events. In spite of some presentiments and doubts, it was, on the whole, with high hopes that we, on an aguish spring day, reached Lattimore with our stuff (as the Scriptures term it), and knew that, for weal or woe, it was our home.

Jim was again at the station to meet us, and seemed delighted at our arrival. I thought I saw some sort of absent-mindedness or absorbedness in his manner, so that he seemed hardly like himself. Josie was there with him, and while she and Alice were greeting each other, I saw Jim scanning the little crowd at the station as if for some other arrival. At last, his eye told me that whatever it was for which he was looking, he had found it; and I followed his glance. It rested on the last person to alight from the train—a tall, sinewy, soldierly-built youngish man, who wore an overcoat of black, falling away in front, so as to reveal a black frock coat tightly buttoned up and a snowy shirt-front with a glittering gem sparkling from the center of it. On his head was a shining silk hat—a thing so rare in that community as to be noticeable, and to stamp the wearer as an outsider. His beard was clipped close, and at the chin ran out into a pronounced Vandyke point. His mustaches were black, heavy, and waxed. His whole external appearance betokened wealth, and he exuded mystery. He had not taken two steps from the car before the people on the platform were standing on tiptoe to see him.

"Bus to the Centropolis?" queried the driver of the omnibus.

The stranger looked at the conveyance, filled as it was with a load of traveling men and casuals; and, frowning darkly, turned to the negro who accompanied him, saying, "Haven't you any carriage here, Pearson?"

"Yes, sah," responded the servant, pointing to a closed vehicle. "Right hyah, sah."

My wife stood looking, with a little amused smile, at the picturesque group, so out of the ordinary at the time and place. Miss Trescott was gazing intently at the stranger, and at the moment when he spoke she clutched my wife's arm so tightly as to startle her. I heard Alice make some inquiry as to the cause of her agitation, and as I looked at her, I could see in the one glance her face, gone suddenly white as death, and the dark visage of the tall stranger. And it seemed to me as if I had seen the same thing before.

Then, the negro pointing the way to the closed carriage, the group separated to left and right, the stranger passed through to the carriage, and the picture, and with it my odd mental impression, dissolved. The negro lifted two or three heavy bags to the coachman, gave the transfer man some baggage-checks, and the equipage moved away toward the hotel. All this took place in a moment, during which the usual transactions on the platform were suspended. The conductor failed to give the usual signal for the departure of the train. The engineer leaned from the cab and gazed.

Jim's eye rested on the stranger and his servant for an instant only; but during that time he seemed to take an observation, come to a conclusion, and dismiss the whole matter.

"Here, John," said he to the drayman, "take these trunks to the Centropolis. We'd like 'em this week, too. None of that old trick of yours of dumping 'em in the crick, you know!"

"They'll be up there in five minutes all right, Mr. Elkins," said John, grinning at Jim's allusion to some accident, the knowledge of which appeared to be confined to himself and Mr. Elkins, and to constitute a bond of sympathy between them. Jim turned to us with redoubled heartiness, all his absent-mindedness gone.

"I'll drive you to the hotel," said Jim. "You'll—"

"Miss Trescott is ill—" said Alice.

"Not at all," said Josie; "it has passed entirely! Only, when you have taken Mr. and Mrs. Barslow to the hotel, will you please take me home? Our little supper-party—I don't feel quite equal to it, if you will excuse me!"



CHAPTER VIII.

A Welcome to Wall Street and Us.

"Welcome!" intoned Captain Tolliver, with his hat in his hand, bowing low to Mrs. Barslow. "Welcome, Madam and suh, in the capacity of Lattimoreans! That we shall be the bettah fo' yo' residence among us the' can be no doubt. That you will be prospahed beyond yo' wildest dreams I believe equally cehtain. Welcome!"

This address was delivered within thirty seconds of the time of our arrival at our old rooms in the Centropolis. The Captain saluted us in a manner extravagantly polite, mysteriously enthusiastic. The air of mystery was deepened when he called again to see Mr. Elkins in the evening and was invited in.

"Did you-all notice that distinguished and opulent-looking gentleman who got off the train this evening?" said he in a stage whisper. "Mahk my words, the coming of such men, his coming, is fraught with the deepest significance to us all. All my holdin's ah withdrawn from mahket until fu'the' developments!"

"Seems to travel in style," said Jim; "all sorts of good clothes, colored body-servant, closed carriage ordered by wire—it does look juicy, don't it, now?"

"He has the entiah second flo' front suite. The niggah has already sent out fo' a bahbah," said the Captain. "Lattimore has at last attracted the notice of adequate capital, and will now assume huh true place in the bright galaxy of American cities. Mr. Barslow, I shall ask puhmission to call upon you in the mo'nin' with reference to a project which will make the fo'tunes of a dozen men, and that within the next ninety days. Good evenin', suh; good evenin', Madam. I feel that you have come among us at a propitious moment!"

"The Captain merely hints at the truth which struggles in him for utterance," said Jim. "I prove this by informing you that I couldn't get you a house. This shows, too, that the census returns are a calumny upon Lattimore. You'll have to stay at the Centropolis until something turns up or you can build."

"Oh, dear!" said Alice. "Hotel life isn't living at all. I hope it won't be long."

"It will have its advantages for Al," said Mr. Elkins. "This financial maelstrom, which will draw everything to Lattimore, will have its core right in this hotel—a mighty good place to be. Things of all kinds have been floating about in the air for months; the precipitation is beginning now. The psychological moment has arrived—you have brought it with you, Mrs. Barslow. The moon-flower of Lattimore's 'gradual, healthy growth' is going to burst, and that right soon."

"Has Captain Tolliver infected you?" inquired Alice. "He told us the same thing, with less of tropes and figures."

"On any still morning," said Jim, "you can hear the wheels go round in the Captain's head; but his instinct for real-estate conditions is as accurate as a pocket-gopher's. The Captain, in a hysterical sort of way, is right: I consider that a cinch. Good-night, friends, and pleasant dreams. I expect to see you at breakfast; but if I shouldn't, Al, you'll come aboard at nine, won't you, and help run up the Jolly Roger? I think I smell pieces-of-eight in the air! And, by the way, Miss Trescott says for me to assure you that her vertigo, which she had for the first time in her life, is gone, and she never felt better."

As Mr. Elkins passed from our parlor, he let in a bell-boy with the card of Mr. Clifford Giddings, representing the Lattimore Morning Herald.

"See him down in the lobby," said Alice.

"I want a story," said he as we met, "on the city and its future. The Herald readers will be glad of anything from Mr. Barslow, whose coming they have so long looked forward to, as intimately connected with the city's development."

"My dear sir," I replied, somewhat astonished at the importance which he was pleased to attach to my arrival, "abstractly, my removal to Lattimore is my best testimony on that; concretely, I ought to ask information of you."

We sat down in a corner of the lobby, our chairs side by side, facing opposite ways. He lighted a cigar, and gave me one. In looks he was young; in behavior he had the self-possession and poise of maturity. He wore a long mackintosh which sparkled with mist. His slouch hat looked new and was carefully dinted. His dress was almost natty in an unconventional way, and his manners accorded with his garb. He acted as if for years we had casually met daily. His tone and attitude evinced respect, was entirely free from presumption, equally devoid of reserve, carried with it no hint of familiarity, but assumed a perfect understanding. The barrier which usually keeps strangers apart he neither broke down, which must have been offensive, nor overleaped, which would have been presumptuous. He covered it with that demeanor of his, and together we sat down upon it.

"I thought the Herald was an evening paper," said I.

"It was, in the days of yore," he replied; "but Mr. Elkins happened to see me in Chicago one day, and advised me to come out and look the old thing over with a view to purchasing the plant. You observe the result. As fellow immigrants, I hope there will be a bond of sympathy between us. You think, of course, that Lattimore is a coming city?"

"Yes."

"Its geographical situation seems to render its development inevitable, doesn't it? And," he went on, "the railway conditions seem peculiarly promising just now?"

"Yes," said I, "but the natural resources of the city and the surrounding country appeal most strongly to me."

"They are certainly very exceptional, aren't they?" said he, as if the matter had never occurred to him before. Then he went on telling me things, more than asking questions, about the jobbing trades, the brick and tile and associated industries, the cement factory, which he spoke of as if actually in esse, the projected elevators, the flouring-mills, and finally returned to railway matters.

"What is your opinion of the Lattimore & Great Western, Mr. Barslow?" he asked.

"I cannot say that I have any," I answered, "except that its construction would bring great good to Lattimore."

"It could scarcely fail," said he, "to bring in two or three systems which we now lack, could it?"

I very sincerely said that I did not know. After a few more questions concerning our plans for the future, Mr. Giddings vanished into the night, silently, as an autumn leaf parting from its bough. I thought of him no more until I unfolded the Herald in the morning as we sat at breakfast, and saw that my interview was made a feature of the day's news.

"Mr. Albert F. Barslow," it read, "of the firm of Elkins & Barslow, is stopping at the Centropolis. He arrived by the 6:15 train last evening, and with his family has taken a suite of rooms pending the erection of a residence. They have not definitely decided as to the location of their new home; but it may confidently be stated that they will build something which will be a notable addition to the architectural beauties of Lattimore—already proud of her title, the City of Homes."

"I am very glad to know about this," said Alice.

"Your man Giddings has nerve, whatever else he may lack," said I to the smiling Elkins across the table. "Am I obliged to make good all these representations? I ask, that I may know the rules of the game, merely."

"One rule is that you mustn't deny any accusations of future magnificence, for two reasons: they may come true, and they help things on. You are supposed to have left your modesty in cold storage somewhere. Read on."

"Mr. Barslow," I read, "has long been a most potent political factor in his native state, but is, first of all, a business man. He brings his charming young wife—"

"Really, a most discriminating journalist," interjected Alice.

"—and social circles, as well as the business world, will find them a most desirable accession to Lattimore's population."

"Why this is absolute, slavish devotion to facts," said Jim; "where does the word-painting come in?"

"Here it is," said I.

"Mr. Barslow is some years under middle age, and looks the intense modern business man in every feature. His mind seems to have already become saturated with the conception of the enormous possibilities of Lattimore. He impresses those who have met him as one of the few men capable of pulling his share in double harness with James R. Elkins."

"The fellow piles it on a little strong at times, doesn't he, Mrs. Barslow?" said Jim.

"He brings to our city," I read on, "his vigorous mind, his fortune, and a determination never to rest until the city passes the 100,000 mark. To a Herald representative, last night, he spoke strongly and eloquently of our great natural resources."

Then followed a skillfully handled expansion of our tete-a-tete talk in the lobby.

"Mr. Barslow," the report went on, "very courteously declined to discuss the L. & G. W. situation. It seems evident, however, from remarks dropped by him, that he regards the construction of this road as inevitable, and as a project which, successfully carried out, cannot fail to make Lattimore the point to which all the Western and Southwestern systems of railways must converge."

"You're doing it like a veteran!" cried Jim. "Admirable! Just the proper infusion of mystery; I couldn't have done better myself."

"Credit it all to Giddings," I protested. "And note that the center of the stage is reserved to our mysterious fellow lodger and co-arrival."

"Yes, I saw that," said Jim. "Isn't Giddings a peach? Let Mrs. Barslow hear it."

"She ought to be able to hear these headlines," said I, "without any reading: 'J. Bedford Cornish arrives! Wall Street's Millions On the Ground in the Person of One of Her Great Financiers! Bull Movement in Real Estate Noted Last Night! Does He Represent the Great Railway Interests?'"

"Real estate and financial circles," ran the article under these headlines, "are thrown into something of a fever by the arrival, on the 6:15 express last evening, of a gentleman of distinguished appearance, who took five rooms en suite on the second floor of the Centropolis, and registered in a bold hand as J. Bedford Cornish, of New York. Mr. Cornish consented to see a Herald representative last night, but was very reticent as to his plans and the objects of his visit. He simply says that he represents capital seeking investment. He would not admit that he is connected with any of the great railway interests, or that his visit has any relation to the building of the Lattimore & Great Western. The Herald is able to say, however, that its New York correspondent informs it that Mr. Cornish is a member of the firm of Lusch, Carskaddan & Mayer, of Wall Street. This firm is well known as one of the concerns handling large amounts of European capital, and said to be intimately associated with the Rothschilds. Financial journals have recently noted the fact that these concerns are becoming embarrassed by the plethora of funds seeking investment, and are turning their attention to the development of railway systems and cities in the United States. Their South American and Australian investments have not proven satisfactory, especially the former, owing to the character of the people of Latin America. It has been pointed out that no real-estate investment can be more than moderately profitable in climates which render the people content with a mere living, and that the restless and unsatisfied vigor of the Anglo-Saxon alone can make lands and railways permanently remunerative. Mr. Cornish admitted these facts when they were pointed out to him, and immediately changed the subject.

"Mr. Cornish is a very handsome and opulent-looking gentleman, and seems to live in a style somewhat luxurious for the Occident. He has a colored body-servant, who seems to reflect the mystery of his master; but if he has any other reflections, the Herald is none the wiser for them. Admittance to the suite of rooms was obtained by sending in the reporter's card, which vanished into a sybaritic gloom, borne on a golden salver. Mr. Cornish seems to be very exclusive, his meals being served in his rooms; and even his barber has instructions to call upon him each morning. One wonders why the barber is called in so frequently, until one marks the smooth-shaven cheeks above the close-clipped, pointed, black, Vandyke beard. He is withal very cordial and courtly in his manners.

"James R. Elkins, when seen last evening, refused to talk, except to say that, in financial circles, it has been known for some days that important developments may be now momently expected, and that some such thing as the visit of Mr. Cornish was imminent. Captain Marion Tolliver expressed himself freely, and to the effect that this mysterious visit is of the utmost importance to Lattimore, and a thing of national if not world-wide importance."

"Now, that justifies my confidence in Giddings," said Mr. Elkins, "fulfilling at the same time the requirements of journalism and hypnotism. Come, Al, our bark is on the sea, our boat is on the shore. The Spanish galleons are even now hiding in the tall grass, in expectation of our cruise. Let us hence to the office!"



CHAPTER IX.

I Go Aboard and We Unfurl the Jolly Roger.

"We must act, and act at once!" said the Captain, his voice thrilling with intensity. "This piece of property will be gone befo' night! All it takes is a paltry three thousand dolla's, and within ninety days—no man can say what its value will be. We can plat it, and within ten days we may have ouah money back. Allow me to draw on you fo' three thou—"

"But," said I, "I can make no move in such a matter at this time without conference with Mr.—"

"Very well, suh, very well!" said the Captain, regarding me with a look that showed how much better things he had expected of me. "Opportunity, suh, knocks once—By the way, excuse me, suh!"

And he darted from the office, took the trail of Mr. Macdonald, whom he had seen passing, brought him to bay in front of the post-office, and dragged him away to some doom, the nature of which I could only surmise.

This took place on the morning of my first day with Elkins & Barslow. I was to take up the office work.

"That will be easy for you from the first," said Jim. "Your experience as rob-ee down there in Posey County makes you a sort of specialist in that sort of thing; and pretty soon all other things shall be added unto it."

The Captain's onslaught in the first half-hour admonished me that a good deal was already added to it. On that very day, too, we had our first conference with Mr. Hinckley. We wanted to handle securities, said Mr. Elkins, and should have a great many of them, and that was quite in Mr. Hinckley's line. To carry them ourselves would soon absorb all our capital. We must liberate it by floating the commercial paper which we took in. Mr. Hinckley's bank was known to be strong, his standing was of the highest, and a trust company in alliance with him could not fail to find a good market for its paper. With an old banker's timidity, Hinckley seemed to hesitate; yet the prospects seemed so good that I felt that this consent was sure to be given. Jim courted him assiduously, and the intimacy between him and the Hinckley family became noticeable.

"Jim," said I, one day, "you have an unerring eye for the pleasant things of life. I couldn't help thinking of this to-day when I saw you for the twentieth time spinning along the street in Miss Hinckley's carriage, beside its owner. She's one of the handsomest girls, in her flaxen-haired way, that I know of."

"Isn't she a study in curves and pink and white?" said Jim. "And she understands this trust company business as well as her father."

The trust company's stock, he went on to explain, ignoring Antonia, seemed to be already oversubscribed. Our firm, Hinckley, and Jim's Chicago and New York friends, including Harper, all stood ready to take blocks of it, and there was no reason for requiring Hinckley to put much actual money in for this. He could pay for it out of his profits soon, and make a fortune without any outlay. Good credit was the prime necessity, and that Mr. Hinckley certainly had. So the celebrated Grain Belt Trust Company was begun—a name about which such mighty interests were to cluster, that I know I should have shrunk from the responsibility had I known what a gigantic thing we were creating.

As the days wore on, Captain Tolliver's dementia spread and raged virulently. The dark-visaged Cornish, with his air of mystery, his habits so at odds with the society of Lattimore, was in the very focus of attention.

For a day or so, the effect which Mr. Giddings's report attributed to his invasion failed to disclose itself to me. Then the delirium became manifest, and swept over the town like a were-wolf delusion through a medieval village.

Its immediate occasion seemed to be a group of real-estate conveyances, announced in the Herald one morning, surpassing in importance anything in the history of the town. Some of the lands transferred were acreage; some were waste and vacant tracts along Brushy Creek and the river; one piece was a suburban farm; but the mass of it was along Main Street and in the business district. The grantees were for the most part strange names in Lattimore, some individuals, some corporations. All the sales were at prices hitherto unknown. It was to be remarked, too, that in most cases the property had been purchased not long before, by some of the group of newer comers and at the old modest prices. Our firm seemed to have profited heavily in these transactions, as had Captain Tolliver also. We of the "new crowd" had begun our mock-trading to "establish the market." Prices were going up, up; and all one had to do was to buy to-day and sell to-morrow. Real values, for actual use, seemed to be forgotten.

The most memorable moment in this first, acutest stage in our development was one bright day, within a week or so of our coming. The lawns were taking on their summer emerald, robins were piping in the maples, and down in the cottonwoods and lindens on the river front crows and jays were jargoning their immemorial and cheery lingo. Surveyors were running lines and making plats in the suburbs, peeped at by gophers, and greeted by the roundelays of meadow-larks. But on the street-corners, in the offices of lawyers and real-estate agents, and in the lobbies of the hotels, the trading was lively.

Then for the first time the influx of real buyers from the outside became noticeable. The landlord of the Centropolis could scarcely care for his guests. They talked of blocks, quarter-blocks, and the choice acreage they had bought, and of the profits they had made in this and other cities and towns (where this same speculative fever was epidemic), until Alice fled to the Trescott farm—as she said, to avoid the mixture of real estate with her meals. The telegraph offices were gorged with messages to non-resident property owners, begging for prices on good inside lots. Staid, slow-going lot-owners, who had grown old in patiently paying taxes on patches of dog-fennel and sand-burrs, dazedly vacillated between acceptance and rejection of tempting propositions, dreading the missing of the chance so long awaited, fearing misjudgment as to the height of the wave, dreading a future of regret at having sold too low.

One of these, an old woman, toothless and bent, hobbled to our office and asked for Mr. Elkins. He was busy, and so I received her.

"It's about that quarter-block with the Donegal ruin on it," said Jim; "the one I showed you yesterday. Offer her five thousand, one-fourth down, balance in one, two, and three years, eight per cent."

"I wanted to ask Mr. Elkins about me home," said she. "I tuk in washin' to buy it, an' me son, poor Patsy, God rist 'is soul, he helped wid th' bit of money from the Brotherhood, whin he was kilt betune the cars. It was sivin hundred an' fifty dollars, an' now Thronson offers me four thousan'. I told him I'd sell, fer it's a fortune for a workin' woman; but befure I signed papers, I wanted to ask Mr. Elkins; he's such a fair-spoken man, an' knowin' to me min-folks in Peoria."

"If you want to sell, Mrs. Collins," said I, "we will take your property at five thousand dollars."

She started, and regarded me, first in amazement, then with distrust, shading off into hostility.

"Thank ye kindly, sir," said she; "I'll be goin' now. I've med up me moind, if that bit of land is wort all that money t' yees, it's wort more to me. Thank ye kindly!" and she fled from the presence of the tempter.

"The town is full of Biddy Collinses," commented Jim. "Well, we can't land everything, and couldn't handle the catch if we did. In fact, for present purposes, isn't it better to have her refuse?"

This incident was the hint upon which our "Syndicate," as it came to be called, acted from time to time, in making fabulous offers to every Biddy Collins in town. "Offer twenty thousand," Jim would say. "The more you bid the less apt is he to accept; he's a Biddy Collins." And whatever Mr. Elkins advised was done.

There were eight or ten of us in the "Syndicate," dubbed by Jim "The Crew," among whom were Tolliver, Macdonald, and Will Lattimore. But the inner circle, now drawing closer and closer together, were Elkins, our ruling spirit; Hinckley, our great force in the banking world; and myself. Soon, I was given to understand, Mr. Cornish was to take his place as one of us. He and Jim had long known each other, and Mr. Elkins had the utmost confidence in Mr. Cornish's usefulness in what he called "the thought-transference department."

Elkins & Barslow kept their offices open night and day, almost, and the number of typewriters and bookkeepers grew astoundingly. I became almost a stranger to my wife. I got hurried glimpses of Miss Trescott and her mother at the hotel, and knew that she and Alice were becoming fast friends; but so far the social prominence which the Herald had predicted for us had failed to arrive.

This, to be sure, was our own fault. Miss Addison soon gave us up as not available for the church and Sunday-school functions to which she devoted herself. Her family connections would have made her the social leader had it not been for the severity of her views and her assumption of the character of the devotee—in spite of which she protestingly went almost everywhere. Antonia Hinckley, however, was frankly fond of a good time, and with her dashing and almost hoydenish character easily took the leadership from Miss Addison; and Miss Hinckley sought diligently for means by which we could be properly launched. As I left the office one day, a voice from the curb called my name. It was Miss Hinckley in a smart trap, to which was harnessed a beautiful horse, standard bred, one could see at a glance. I obeyed the summons, and stepped beside the equipage.

"I want to scold you," said she. "Society is being defrauded of the good things which your coming promised. Have you taken a vow of seclusion, or what?"

"I've been spinning about in the maelstrom of business," I replied. "But do not be uneasy; some time we shall take up the matter of inflicting ourselves, and pursue it as vigorously as we now follow our vocation."

"Wouldn't you like to get into the trap, and take a spin of another sort?" said she. "I'll deposit you safely with Mrs. Barslow in time for tea."

I got in, glad of the drive, and for ten minutes her horse was sent at such a pace that conversation was difficult. Then he was slowed down to a walk, his head toward home. We chatted of casual things—the scenery, the horse, the splendid color of the sunset. I was becoming interested in her.

"I had almost forgotten that there were such things in Lattimore," said I, referring to the topics of our talk. "I have become so saturated with lands and lots."

"I don't know much about business," said she, "and I think I'll improve my opportunity by learning something. And, first, aren't men sometimes losers by the dishonesty of those who act for them—agents, they are called, aren't they?"

Such, I admitted, was unfortunately the case.

"I should be sorry for—any one I liked—to be injured in such a way.... Now you must understand how the things you men are interested in permeate the society of us women. Why, mamma has almost forgotten the enslavement of our sex, in these new things which have changed our old town so much; so you mustn't wonder if I have heard something of a purely business nature. I heard that Captain Tolliver was about to sell Mr. Elkins the land where the old foundry is, over there, for twenty thousand dollars. Now, papa says it isn't worth it; and I know—Sadie Allen and I were in school together, and she comes over from Fairchild several times a year to see me, and I go there, you know; and that land is in her father's estate—I know that the executor has told Captain Tolliver to sell it for ever so much less than that. And it seemed so funny, as the Captain was doing the business for both sides—isn't it odd, now?"

"It does seem so," said I, "and it is very kind of you. I'll talk with Mr. Elkins about it. Please be careful, Miss Hinckley, or you'll drop the wheel in that washout!"

She reined up her horse and began speeding him again. I could see that this conversation had embarrassed her somehow. Her color was high, and her grip of the reins not so steady as at starting. This attempt to do Jim a favor was something she considered as of a good deal of consequence. I began to note more and more what a really splendid woman she was—tall, fair, her tailor-made gown rounding to the full, firm curves of her figure, her fearless horsemanship hinting at the possession of large and positive traits of character.

"We women," said she, "might as well abandon all the things commonly known as feminine. What good do they do us?"

"They gratify your sense of the beautiful," suggested I.

"You know, Mr. Barslow," said she, "that it's not our own sense of the beautiful, mainly, that we seek to gratify; and if the eyes for which they are intended are looking into ledgers and blind to everything except dollar-signs, what's the use?"

"Go down to the seashore," said I, "where the people congregate who have nothing to do."

"Not I," said she; "I'll go into real estate, and become as blind as the rest!"

Jim paid no attention to my chaffing when I spoke of his conquest, as I called Antonia. In fact, he seemed annoyed, and for a long time said nothing.

"You can see how the Allen estate proposition stands," said he, at last. "To let that sell for less than twenty thousand might cost us ten times that amount in lowering the prevailing standard of values. The old rule that we should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest is suspended. Base is the slave who pays—less than the necessary and proper increase."



CHAPTER X.

We Dedicate Lynhurst Park.

The Hindu adept sometimes suspends before the eyes of his subject a bright ball of carnelian or crystal, in the steady contemplation of which the sensitive swims off into the realms of subjectivity—that mysterious bourn from whence no traveler brings anything back. J. Bedford Cornish was Mr. Elkins's glittering ball; his psychic subject was the world in general and Lattimore in particular. Scientific principles, confirmed by experience, led us to the conclusion that the attitude of fixed contemplation carried with it some nervous strain, ought to be of limited duration, and hence that Mr. Cornish should remove from our midst the glittering mystery of his presence, lest familiarity should breed contempt. So in about ten days he went away, giving to the Herald a parting interview, in which he expressed unbounded delight with Lattimore, and hinted that he might return for a longer stay. Editorially, the Herald expressed the hope that this characteristically veiled allusion to a longer sojourn might mean that Mr. Cornish had some idea of becoming a citizen of Lattimore. This would denote, the editorial continued, that men like Mr. Cornish, accustomed to the mighty world-pulse of New York, could find objects of pursuit equally worthy in Lattimore.

"Which is mixed metaphor," Mr. Giddings admitted in confidence; "but," he continued, "if metaphors, like drinks, happen to be more potent mixed, the Herald proposes to mix 'em."

All these things consumed time, and still our life was one devoted to business exclusively. At last Mr. Elkins himself, urged, I feel sure, by Antonia Hinckley, gave evidence of weariness.

"Al," said he one day, "don't you think it's about time to go ashore for a carouse?"

"Unless something in the way of a let-up comes soon," said I, "the position of lieutenant, or first mate, or whatever my job is piratically termed, will become vacant. The pace is pretty rapid. Last night I dreamed that the new Hotel Elkins was founded on my chest; and I have had troubles enough of the same kind before to show me that my nervous system is slowly ravelling out."

"I have arrangements made, in my mind, for a sort of al fresco function, to come off about the time Cornish gets back with our London visitor," he replied, "which ought to knit up the ravelled sleeve better than new. I'm going to dedicate Lynhurst Park to the nymphs and deities of sport—which wrinkled care derides."

"I hadn't heard of Lynhurst Park," I was forced to say. "I'm curious to know, first, who named it, and, second, where it is."

"Didn't I show you those blueprints?" he asked. "An oversight I assure you. As for the scheme, you suggested it yourself that night we first drove out to Trescott's. Don't you remember saying something about 'breathing space for the populace'? Well, I had the surveys made at once; contracted for the land, all but what Bill owns of it, which we'll have to get later; and had a landscapist out from Chicago to direct us as to what we ought to admire in improving the place. As for the name, I'm indebted to kind nature, which planted the valley in basswood, and to Josie, who contributed the philological knowledge and the taste. That's the street-car line," said he, unrolling an elaborate plat and pointing. "We may throw it over to the west to develop section seven, if we close for it. Otherwise, that line is the very thing."

Our street-railway franchise had been granted by the Lattimore city council—they would have granted the public square, had we asked for it in the potent name of "progress"—and Cornish was even now making arrangements for placing our bonds. The impossible of less than a year ago was now included in the next season's program, as an inconsiderable feature of a great project for a street-railway system, and the "development" of hundreds of acres of land.

The place so to be named Lynhurst Park was most agreeably reached by a walk up Brushy Creek from Lattimore. Such a stroll took one into the gorge, where the rocks shelved toward each other, until their crowning fringes of cedar almost interlocked, like the eyelashes of drowsiness. Down there in the twilight one felt a sense of being defrauded, in contemplation of the fact that the stream was troutless: it was such an ideal place for trout. The quiet and mellow gloom made the gorge a favorite trysting-place, and perhaps the cool-blooded stream-folk had fled from the presence of the more fervid dwellers on the banks. In the crevices of the rocks were the nests of the village pigeons. The combined effects of all these causes was to make this a spot devoted to billing and cooing.

Farther up the stream the rock walls grew lower and parted wider, islanding a rich bottom of lush grass-plot, alternating with groves of walnut, linden, and elm. This was the Lynhurst Park of the blueprints and plats. Trescott's farm lay on the right bank, and others on either side; but the houses were none of them near the stream, and the entire walk was wild and woodsy-looking. None but nature-lovers came that way. Others drove out by the road past Trescott's, seeing more of corn and barn, but less of rock, moss, and fern.

Mr. Cornish was to return on Friday with the Honorable De Forest Barr-Smith, who lived in London and "represented English capital." To us Westerners the very hyphen of his name spoke eloquently of L s. d. Through him we hoped to get the money to build that street railway. Cornish had written that Mr. Barr-Smith wanted to look the thing over personally; and that, given the element of safety, his people would much prefer an investment of a million to one of ten thousand. Cornish further hinted that the London gentleman acted like a man who wanted a side interest in the construction company; as to which he would sound him further by the way.

"He'll expect something in the way of birds and bottles," observed Elkins; "but they won't mix with the general society of this town, where the worm of the still is popularly supposed to be the original Edenic tempter. And he'll want to inspect Lynhurst Park. I want him to see our beauty and our chivalry,—meaning the ladies and Captain Tolliver,—and the rest of our best people. I guess we'll have to make it a temperate sort of orgy, making up in the spectacular what it lacks in spirituousness."

Mr. Cornish came, gradually moulting his mystery; but still far above the Lattimore standard in dress and style of living. In truth, he always had a good deal of the swell in his make-up, and can almost be acquitted of deceit in the impressions conveyed at his coming. The Honorable De Forest Barr-Smith fraternized with Cornish, as he could with no one else. No one looking at Mr. Cornish could harbor a doubt as to his morning tub; and his evening dress was always correct. With Jim, Mr. Barr-Smith went into the discussion of business propositions freely and confidentially. I feel sure that had he greatly desired a candid statement of the very truth as to local views, or the exact judgment of one on the spot, he would have come to me. But between him and Cornish there was the stronger sympathy of a common understanding of the occult intricacies of clothes, and a view-point as to the surface of things, embracing manifold points of agreement. Cornish's unerring conformity of vogue in the manner and as to the occasion of wearing the tuxedo or the claw-hammer coat was clearly restful to Mr. Barr-Smith, in this new and strange country, where, if danger was to be avoided, things had to be approached with distended nostril and many preliminary snuffings of the wind.

There came with these two a younger brother of Mr. Barr-Smith, Cecil—a big young civil engineer, just out of college, and as like his brother in accent and dress as could be expected of one of his years; but national characteristics are matters of growth, and college boys all over the world are a good deal alike. Cecil Barr-Smith, with his red mustache, his dark eyes, and his six feet of British brawn, was nearer in touch with our younger people that first day than his honorable brother ever became. To Antonia, especially, he took kindly, and respectfully devoted himself.

"At this distance," said Mr. Barr-Smith, as he saw his brother sitting on the grass at Miss Hinckley's feet, "I'd think them brother and sister. She resembles sister Gritty remarkably; the same complexion and the same style, you know. Quite so!"

The Lynhurst function was the real introduction of these three gentlemen to Lattimore society. I knew nothing of the arrangements, except what I could deduce from Jim's volume of business with caterers and other handicraftsmen; and I looked forward to the fete with much curiosity. The weather, that afternoon, made an outing quite the natural thing; for it was hot. The ladies in their most summery gowns fluttered like white dryads from shade to shade, uttering bird-like pipings of surprise at the preparations made for their entertainment.

The ravine had been transformed. At an available point in its bed Jim had thrown a dam across the stream, and a beautiful little lake rippled in the breeze, bearing on its bosom a bright-colored boat, which in our ignorance of things Venetian we mistakenly dubbed a gondola. At the upper end of this water the canvas of a large pavilion gleamed whitely through the greenery, displaying from its top the British and American flags, their color reflected in a particolored streak on the wimpling face of the lake. The groves, in the tops of which the woodpeckers, warblers, and vireos disturbedly carried on the imperatively necessary work of rearing their broods, were gay with festoons of Chinese lanterns in readiness for the evening. Hammocks were slung from tree to tree, cushions and seats were arranged in cosy nooks; and when my wife and I stepped from our carriage, all these appliances for the utilization of shade and leisure were in full use. The "gondola" was making, trips from the cascade (as the dam was already called) to the pavilion, carrying loads of young people from whom came to our ears those peals of merriment which have everywhere but one meaning, and that a part of the world-old mystery of the way of a man with a maid.

Jim was on the ground early, to receive the guests and keep the management in hand. Josie Trescott and her mother walked down through the Trescott pasture, and joined Alice and me under one of the splendid lindens, where, as we lounged in the shade, the sound of the little waterfall filled the spaces in our talk. Long before any one else had seen them coming through the trees, Mr. Elkins had spied them, and went forward to meet them with something more than the hospitable solicitude with which he had met the others. In fact, the principal guests of the day had alighted from their carriage before Jim, ensconced in a hammock with Josie, was made aware of their arrival. I am not quick to see such things; but to my eyes, even, the affair had assumed interest as a sort of public flirtation. I had not thought that Josie would so easily fall into deportment so distinctly encouraging. She was altogether in a surprising mood,—her eyes shining as with some stimulant, her cheeks a little flushed, her lips scarlet, her whole appearance suggesting suppressed excitement. And when Jim rose to meet his guests, she dismissed him with one of those charmingly inviting glances and gestures with which such an adorable woman spins the thread by which the banished one is drawn back,—and then she disappeared until the dinner was served.

The green crown of the western hill was throwing its shadow across the valley, when Mr. Hinckley came with Mr. Cornish and Mr. Barr-Smith in a barouche; followed by Antonia, who brought Mr. Cecil in her trap—and a concomitant thrill to the company. Mr. Cornish, in his dress, had struck a happy medium between the habiliments of business and those of sylvan recreation. Mr. Barr-Smith on the other hand, was garbed cap-a-pie for an outing, presenting an appearance with which the racket, the bat, or even the alpenstock might have been conjoined in perfect harmony. As for the men of Lattimore, any one of them would as soon have been seen in the war-dress of a Sioux chief as in this entirely correct costume of our British visitor. We walked about in the every-day vestments of the shops, banks, and offices, illustrating the difference between a state of society in which apparel is regarded as an incident in life, and one rising to the height of realizing its true significance as a religion. Mr. Barr-Smith bowed not the knee to the Baal of western clothes-monotone, but daily sent out his sartorial orisons, keeping his windows open toward the Jerusalem of his London tailor, in a manner which would have delighted a Teufelsdroeckh.

He was a short man, with protruding cheeks, and a nose ending in an amorphous flare of purple and scarlet. His mustache, red like that of his brother, and constituting the only point of physical resemblance between them, grew down over a receding chin, being forced thereto by the bulbous overhang of the nose. He had rufous side-whiskers, clipped moderately close, and carroty hair mixed with gray. His erect shoulders and straight back were a little out of keeping with the rotundity of his figure in other respects; but the combination, hinting, as it did, of affairs both gastronomic and martial, taken with a manner at once dignified, formal, and suave, constituted the most intensely respectable appearance I ever saw. To the imagination of Lattimore he represented everything of which, Cornish fell short, piling Lombard upon Wall Street.

The arrival of these gentlemen was the signal for gathering in the pavilion where dinner was served. The tables were arranged in a great L, at the apex of which sat Jim and the distinguished guests. On one side of him sat Mr. Barr-Smith, who listened absorbedly to the conversation of Mrs. Hinckley, filling every pause with a husky "Quite so!" On the other sat Josie Trescott, who was smiling upon a very tall and spare old man who wore a beautiful white mustache and imperial. I had never met him, but I knew him for General Lattimore. His fondness for Josie was well known; and to him Jim attributed that young lady's lack of enthusiasm over our schemes for city-building. His presence at this gathering was somewhat of a surprise to me.

Antonia and Cecil Barr-Smith, the Tollivers, Mr. Hinckley and Alice, myself, Mr. Giddings, and Miss Addison sat across the table from the host. Mrs. Trescott, after expressing wonder at the changes wrought in the ravine, and confiding to me her disapproval of the useless expense, had returned to the farm, impelled by that habitual feeling that something was wrong there. Mr. Giddings was exceedingly attentive to Miss Addison.

"I know why you're trying to look severe," said he to her, as the consomme was served; "and it's the only thing I can imagine you making a failure of, unless it would be looking anything but pretty. But you are trying it, and I know why. You think they ought to have had some one say grace before pulling this thing off."

"I'm not trying to look—anyhow," she answered. "But you are right in thinking that I believe such duties should not be transgressed, for fear that the world may call us provincial or old-fashioned."

And she shot a glance at Cornish and Barr-Smith as the visible representatives of the "world."

"Don't listen to that age-old clash between fervor and unregeneracy," said Josie across the narrow table, her remarks made possible by the music of the orchestra, "but tell us about Mr. Barr-Smith and—the other gentlemen."

"I wanted to ask you about the Britons," said I; "are they good specimens of the men you saw in England?"

"An art-student, with a consciousness of guilt in slowly eating up the year's shipment of steers, isn't likely to know much more of the Barr-Smiths' London than she can see from the street. But I think them fine examples of not very rare types. I should like to try drawing the elder brother!"

"Before he goes away, I predict—" I began, when my villainous pun was arrested in mid-utterance by the voice of Captain Tolliver, suddenly becoming the culminating peak in the table-talk.

"The Anglo-Saxon, suh," he was saying, "is found in his greatest purity of blood in ouah Southe'n states. It is thah, suh, that those qualities of virility and capacity fo' rulership which make the race what is ah found in theiah highest development—on this side of the watah, suh, on this side!"

"Quite so! I dare say, quite so!" responded Mr. Barr-Smith. "I hope to know the people of the South better. In fact, I may say, really, you know, an occasion like this gives one the desire to become acquainted with the whole American people."

General Lattimore, whose nostrils flared as he leaned forward listening, like an opponent in a debate, to the remarks of Captain Tolliver, subsided as he heard the Englishman's diplomatic reply.

"What's the use?" said he to Josie. "He may be nearer right than I can understand."

"We hope," said Mr. Elkins, "that this desire may be focalized locally, and grow to anything short of a disease. I assure you, Lattimore will congratulate herself."

Mr. Barr-Smith's fingers sought his glass, as if the impulse were on him to propose a toast; but the liquid facilities being absent, he relapsed into a conversation with Mrs. Hinckley.

"I'd say those things, too, if I were in his place," came the words of Giddings, overshooting their mark, the ear of Miss Addison; "but it's all rot. He's disgusted with the whole barbarous outfit of us."

"I am becoming curious," was the sotto voce reply, "to know upon what model you found your conduct, Mr. Giddings."

"I know what you mean," said Mr. Giddings. "But I have adopted Iago."

"Why, Mr. Giddings! How shocking! Iago—"

"Now, don't be horrified," said Giddings, with an air of candor, "but look at it from a practical standpoint. If Othello hadn't been such a fool, Iago would have made his point all right. He had a right to be sore at Othello for promoting Cassio over his head, and his scheme was a good one, if Othello hadn't gone crazy. Iago is dominated by reason and the principle of the survival of the fittest. He is an agreeable fellow—"

Miss Addison, with a charming mixture of tragedy and archness, suppressed this blasphemy by a gesture suggestive of placing her hand over the editor's mouth.

"Ah, Mrs. Hinckley, you shouldn't do us such an injustice!" It was Mr. Cornish, who took the center of the stage now. "You seem to fail to realize the fact that, in any given gathering, the influence of woman is dominant; and as the entire life of the nation is the sum total of such gatherings, woman is already in control. Now how can you fail to admit this?"

I missed the rather extended reply of Mrs. Hinckley, in noting the evident impression made upon the company by this first utterance of the mysterious Cornish. It was not what he said: that was not important. It was the dark, bearded face, the jetty eyes, and above all, I think, the voice, with its clear, carrying quality, combining penetrativeness with a repression of force which gave one the feeling of being addressed in confidence. Every man, and especially every woman, in the company, looked fixedly upon him, until he ceased to speak—all except Josie. She darted at him one look, a mere momentary scrutiny, and as he discoursed of woman and her power, she seemed to lose herself in contemplation of her plate. The blush upon her cheek became more rosy, and a little smile, with something in it which was not of pleasure, played about the corners of her mouth. I was about to offer her the traditional bargain-counter price for her thoughts, when my attention was commanded by Jim's voice, answering some remark of Antonia's.

"This is the merest curtain-riser, just a sort of kick-off," he was saying. "In a year or two this valley will be the pleasure-ground of all the countryside, a hundred miles around. This tent will be replaced by a restaurant and auditorium. The conventions and public gatherings of the state will be held here—there is no other place for 'em; and our railway will bring the folks out from town. There will be baseball grounds, and facilities for all sorts of sports; and outings and games will center here. I promise you the next regatta of the State Rowing Association, and a street-car line landing passengers where we now sit."

"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Barr-Smith, and the company clapped hands in applause.

Mr. Hinckley was introduced by Jim as "one who had seen Lynhurst Park when it was Indian hunting-ground"; and made a speech in which he welcomed Mr. Cornish as a new citizen who was already prominent. Dining in this valley, he said, reminded him of the time when he and two other guests now present had, on almost the identical spot, dined on venison dressed and cooked where it fell. Then Lattimore was a trading-post on the frontier, surrounded by the tepees of Indians, and uncertain as to its lease of life. General Lattimore, who shot the deer, or Mr. Macdonald, who helped eat it, could either of them tell more about it. Mr. Barr-Smith and our other British guest might judge of the rapidity of development in this country, where a man may see in his lifetime progress which in the older states and countries could be discerned by the student of history only.

Mr. Cornish very briefly thanked Mr. Hinckley for his words of welcome; but begged to be excused from making any extended remarks. Deeds were rather more in his line than words.

"Title-deeds," said Giddings under his breath, "as the real-estate transfers show!"

General Lattimore verified Mr. Hinckley's statement concerning the meal of venison; and, politely expressing pleasure at being present at a function which seemed to be regarded as of so much importance to the welfare of the town in which he had always taken the pride of a godfather, resumed his seat without adding anything to the oratory of the boom.

"In fact," said Captain Tolliver to me, "I wahned Mr. Elkins against having him hyah. In any mattah of progress he's a wet blanket, and has proved himself such by these remahks."

Mr. Barr-Smith, in response to the allusions to him, assured us that the presence of people such as he had had the pleasure of meeting in Lattimore was sufficient in itself to account for the forward movement in the community, which the visitor could not fail to observe.

"In a state of society where people are not averse to changing their abodes," he said, "and where the social atom, if I may so express myself, is in a state of mobility, the presence of such magnets as our toastmaster, and the other gentlemen to whose courteous remarks I am responding, must draw 'em to themselves, you may be jolly well assured of that! And if the gentlemen should fail, the thing which should resist the attractive power of the American ladies must be more fixed in its habits than even the conservative English gentleman, who prides himself upon his stability, er—ah—his taking a position and sticking by it, in spite of the—of anything, you know."

As his only contribution to the speechmaking, Mr. Cecil Barr-Smith greeted this sentiment with a hearty "Hear, hear!" He fell into step with Antonia as we left the pavilion. Then he went back as if to look for something; and I saw Antonia summon Mr. Elkins to her side so that she might congratulate him on the success of this "carouse."

Everything seemed going well. There was, however, in that gathering, as in the day, material for a storm, and I, of all those in attendance, ought to have seen it, had my memory been as unerring as I thought it.



CHAPTER XI.

The Empress and Sir John Meet Again.

The company emerged from the tent into the enchanted outdoors of the star-dotted valley. The moon rode high, and flooded the glades with silvery effulgency. The heat of the day had bred a summer storm-cloud, which, all quivery with lightning, seemed sweeping around from the northwest to the north, giving us the delicious experience of enjoying calm, in view of storm.

The music of the orchestra soon told that the pavilion had been cleared for dancing. I heard Giddings urging upon Miss Addison that it would be much better for them to walk in the moonlight than to encourage by their presence such a worldly amusement, and one in which he had never been able to do anything better than fail, anyhow. Sighing her pain at the frivolity of the world, she took his arm and strolled away. I noticed that she clung closely to him, frightened, I suppose, at the mysterious rustlings in the trees, or something.

They made up the dances in such a way as to leave me out. I rather wanted to dance with Antonia; but Mr. Cecil was just leaving her in disappointment, in the possession of Mr. Elkins, when I went for her. I decided that a cigar and solitude were rather to be chosen than anything else which presented itself, and accordingly I took possession of one of the hammocks, in which I lay and smoked, and watched the towering thunder-head, as it stood like a mighty and marvelous mountain in the northern sky, its rounded and convoluted summits serenely white in the moonlight, its mysterious caves palpitant with incessant lightning. The soothing of the cigar; the new-made lake reflecting the gleam of hundreds of lanterns; the illuminated pavilion, its whirling company of dancers seen under the uprolled walls; the night, with its strange contrast of a calm southern sky on the one hand pouring down its flood of moonlight, and in the north the great mother-of-pearl dome with its core of vibrant fire; the dance-music throbbing through the lindens; and all this growing out of the unwonted and curious life of the past few months, bore to me again that feeling of being yoked with some thaumaturge of wondrous power for the working of enchantments. Again I seemed in a partnership with Aladdin; and fairy pavilions, sylvan paradises, bevies of dancing girls, and princes bearing gifts of gold and jewels, had all obeyed our conjuration. I could have walked down to the naphtha pleasure-boat and bidden the engineer put me down at Khorassan, or some dreamful port of far Cathay, with no sense of incongruity.

Two figures came from the tent and walked toward me. As I looked at them, myself in darkness, they in the light, I had again that feeling of having seen them in some similar way before. That same old sensation, thought I, that the analytic novelist made trite ages ago. Then I saw that it was Mr. Cornish and Miss Trescott. I could hear them talking; but lay still, because I was loth to have my reveries disturbed. And besides, to speak would seem an unwarranted assumption of confidential relations on their part. They stopped near me.

"Your memory is not so good as mine," said he. "I knew you at once. Knew you! Why—"

"I'm not very good at keeping names and faces in mind," she replied, "unless they belong to people I have known very well."

"Indeed!" his voice dropped to the 'cello-like undertone now; "isn't that a little unkind? I fancied that we knew each other very well! My conceit is not to be pandered to, I perceive."

"Ye-e-s—does it seem that way?" said she, ignoring the last remark. "Well, you know it was only for a few days, and you kept calling yourself by some ridiculous alias, and scarcely used your surname at all, and I believe they called you Johnny—and you can't think what a disguise such a beard is! But I remember you now perfectly. It quite brings back those short months, when I was so young—and was finding things out! I can see the vine-covered porch, and Madame Lamoreaux's boarding-house on the South Side—"

"And the old art gallery?"

"Why, there was one, wasn't there?" said she, "somewhere along the lake front, wasn't it?... Such a pleasant meeting, and so odd!"

I sat up in the hammock, and stared at them as they went on their promenade. The old art gallery, the vine-covered porch, the young man with the smooth-shaven dark face and the thrilling, vibrant voice, and the young, young girl with the ruddy hair, and the little, round form! She seemed taller now, and there was more of maturity in the figure; but it was the same lissome waist and petite gracefulness which had so fully explained to me the avid eyes of her lover on that day when I had fled from the report of the Committee on Permanent Organization. It was the Empress Josephine, I had known that—and her Sir John!

Then I thought of her flying from him into the street, and the little bowed head on the street-car; and the old pity for her, the old bitterness toward him, returned upon me. I wondered how he could speak to her in this nonchalant way; what they were saying to each other; whether they would ever refer to that night at Auriccio's; what Alice would think of him if she ever found it out; whether he was a villain, or only erred passionately; what was actually said in that palm alcove that night so long ago; whether this man, with the eyes and voice so fascinating to women, would renew his suit in this new life of ours; what Jim would think about it; and, more than all, how Josie herself would regard him.

"She ought never to have spoken to him again!" I hear some one say.

Ah, Madam, very true. But do you remember any authentic case of a woman who failed to forgive the man whose error or offense had for its excuse the irresistible attraction of her own charms?

They were coming back now, still talking.

"You dropped out of sight, like a partridge into a thicket," said he. "Some of them said you had gone back to—to—"

"To the farm," she prompted.

"Well, yes," he conceded; "and others said you had left Chicago for New York; and some, even Paris."

"I fail to see the warrant," said Josie, as they approached the limit of earshot, "for any of the people at Madame Lamoreux's giving themselves the trouble to investigate."

"So far as that is concerned," said he, "I should think that I—" and his voice quite lost intelligibility.

My cigar had gone out, and the cessation of the music ought to have apprised me of the breaking up of the dance, and still I lay looking at the sky and filled with my thoughts.

"Here he is," said Alice, "asleep in the hammock! For shame, Albert! This would not have occurred, once!"

"I am free to admit that," said I, "but why am I now disturbed?"

"We're going on a cruise in the gondola," said Antonia, "and Mr. Elkins says you are lieutenant, and we can't sail without you. Come, it's perfectly beautiful out there."

"We're going to the head of navigation and back," said Jim, "and then our revels will be ended. —Hang it!" to me, "they left the skull and crossbones off all the flags!"

Mr. Barr-Smith at once engaged the engineer in conversation, and seemed worming from him all his knowledge of the construction of the boat. The rest of us lounged on cushions and seats. We threaded our way up the new pond, winding between clumps of trees, now in broad moonlight, now in deepest shade. The shower had swept over to the northeast, just one dark flounce of its skirt reaching to the zenith. A cool breeze suddenly sprang up from the west, stirred by the suction of the receding storm, and a roar came from the trees on the hilltops.

"Better run for port," said Jim; "I'd hate to have Mr. Barr-Smith suffer shipwreck where the charts don't show any water!"

As we ran down the open way, the remark seemed less and less of a joke. The gale poured over the hills, and struck the boat like the buffet of a great hand. She heeled over alarmingly, bumped upon a submerged stump, righted, heeled again, this time shipping a little sea, and then the sharp end of a hidden oak-limb thrust up through the bottom, and ripped its way out again, leaving us afloat in the deepest part of the lake, with a spouting fountain in the middle of the vessel, and the chopping waves breaking over the gunwale. All at once, I noticed Cecil Barr-Smith, with his coat off, standing near Antonia, who sat as cool as if she had been out on some quiet road driving her pacers. The boat sank lower in the water, and I had no doubt that she was sinking. Antonia rose, and stretched her hands towards Jim. I do not see how he could avoid seeing this; but he did, and, as if abandoning her to her fate, he leaped to Josie's side. Cornish had seized her by the arm, and seemed about to devote himself to her safety, when Jim, without a word, lifted her in his arms, and leaped lightly upon the forward deck, the highest and driest place on the sinking craft. Then, as everything pointed to a speedy baptism in the lake for all of us, we saw that the very speed of the wind had saved us, and felt the gondola bump broadside upon the dam. Jim sprang to the abutment with Josie, and Cecil Barr-Smith half carried and half led Antonia to the shore. Alice and I sat calmly on the windward rail; and Barr-Smith, laughing with delight, helped us across, one at a time, to the masonry.

"I'm glad it turned out no worse," said Jim. "I hope you will all excuse me if I leave you now. I must see Miss Trescott to a safe and dry place. Here's the carriage, Josie!"

"Are you quite uninjured?" said Cecil to Antonia, as Mr. Elkins and Josie drove away.

"Oh, quite so!" said Antonia, unwittingly adopting Barr-Smith's phrase. "But for a moment I was awfully frightened!"

"It looked a little damp, at one time, for farce-comedy," said Cornish. "I wonder how deep it was out there!"

"Miss Trescott was quite drenched," said Mr. Barr-Smith, as we got into the carriages. "Too bad, by Jove!"

"You may write home," said Antonia, "an account of being shipwrecked in the top of a tree!"

"Good, good!" said Cecil, and we all joined in the laugh, until we were suddenly sobered by the fact that Antonia had bowed her head on Alice's lap, and was sobbing as if her heart was broken.



CHAPTER XII.

In which the Burdens of wealth begin to fall upon Us.

If the town be considered as a quiescent body pursuing its unluminous way in space, Mr. Elkins may stand for the impinging planet which shocked it into vibrant life. I suggested this nebular-hypothesis simile to Mr. Giddings, one day, as the germ of an editorial.

"It's rather seductive," said he, "but it won't do. Carry your interplanetary collision business to its logical end, and what do you come to? Gaseousness. And that's just what the Angus Falls Times, the Fairchild Star, and the other loathsome sheets printed in prairie-dog towns around here accuse us of, now. No; much obliged; but as a field for comparisons the tried old solar system is good enough for the Herald."

I couldn't help thinking, however, that the thing had some illustrative merit. There was Jim's first impact, felt locally, and jarring things loose. Then came the atomic vivification, the heat and motion, which appeared in the developments which we have seen taking form. After the visit of the Barr-Smiths, and the immigration of Cornish, the new star Lattimore began to blaze in the commercial firmament, the focus of innumerable monetary telescopes, pointed from the observatories of counting-rooms, banks, and offices, far and wide.

There was a shifting of the investment and speculative equilibrium, and things began coming to us spontaneously. The Angus Falls railway extension was won only by strenuous endeavor. Captain Tolliver's interviews with General Lattimore, in which he was so ruthlessly "turned down," he always regarded as a sort of creative agony, marking the origin of the roundhouse and machine-shops, and our connection with the great Halliday railway system of which it made us a part. The street-car project went more easily; and, during the autumn, the geological and manufacturing experts sent out to report on the cement-works enterprise, pronounced favorably, and gangs of men, during the winter, were to be seen at work on the foundations of the great buildings by the scarped chalk-hill.

The tension of my mind just after the Lynhurst Park affair was such as to attune it to no impulses but the financial vibrations which pulsated through our atmosphere. True, I sometimes felt the wonder return upon me at the finding of the lovers of the art-gallery together once more, in Josie and Cornish; and at other times Antonia's agitation after our escape from shipwreck recurred to me in contrast with her smiling self-possession while the boat was drifting and filling; but mostly I thought of nothing, dreamed of nothing, but trust companies, additions, bonds and mortgages.

Mr. Barr-Smith returned to London soon, giving a parting luncheon in his rooms, where wine flowed freely, and toasts of many colors were pushed into the atmosphere. There was one to the President and the Queen, proposed by the host and drunk in bumpers, and others to Mr. Barr-Smith, his brother, and the members of the "Syndicate." The enthusiasm grew steadily in intensity as the affair progressed. Finally Mr. Cecil solemnly proposed "The American Woman." In offering this toast, he said, he was taking long odds, as it was a sport for which he hadn't had the least training; but he couldn't forego the pleasure of paying a tribute where tribute was due. The ladies of America needed no encomiums from him, and yet he was sure that he should give no offense by saying that they were of a type unknown in history. They were up to anything, you know, in the way of intellectuality, and he was sure that in a certain queenly, blonde way they were—

"Hear, hear!" said his brother, and burst into a laugh in which we all joined, while Cecil went on talking, in an uproar which drowned his words, though one could see that he was trying to explain something, and growing very hot in the process.

Pearson announced that their train would soon arrive, and we all went down to see them off. Barr-Smith assured us at parting that the tram-road transaction might be considered settled. He believed, too, that his clients might come into the cement project. We were all the more hopeful of this, for the knowledge that he carried somewhere in his luggage a bond for a deed to a considerable interest in the cement lands. Things were coming on beautifully; and it seemed as if Elkins and Cornish, working together, were invincible.

We still lived at the hotel, but our architect, "little Ed. Smith, who lived over on the Hayes place" when we were boys, and who was once at Garden City with Jim, was busy with plans for a mansion which we were to build in the new Lynhurst Park Addition the next spring. Mr. Elkins was preparing to erect a splendid house in the same neighborhood.

"Can I afford it?" said I, in discussing estimates.

"Afford it!" he replied, turning on me in astonishment. "My dear boy, don't you see we are up against a situation that calls on us to bluff to the limit, or lay down? In such a case, luxury becomes a duty, and lavishness the truest economy. Not to spend is to go broke. Lay your Poor Richard on the shelf, and put a weight on him. Stimulate the outgo, and the income'll take care of itself. A thousand spent is five figures to the good. No, while we've as many boom-irons in the fire as we're heating now, to be modest is to be lost."

"Perhaps," said I, "you may be right, and no doubt are. We'll talk it over again some time. And your remark about irons in the fire brings up another matter which bothers me. It's something unusual when we don't open up a set of books for some new corporation, during the working day. Aren't we getting too many?"

"Do you remember Mule Jones, who lived down near Hickory Grove?" said he, after a long pause. "Well, you know, in our old neighborhood, the mule was regarded with a mixture of contempt, suspicion, and fear, the folks not understanding him very well, and being especially uninformed as to his merits. Therefore, Mule Jones, who dealt in mules, bought, sold, and broke 'em, was a man of mark, and identified in name with his trade, as most people used to be before our time. I was down there one Sunday, and asked him how he managed to break the brutes. 'It's easy,' said he, 'when you know how. I never hook up less'n six of 'em at a time. Then they sort o' neutralize one another. Some on 'em'll be r'arin' an' pitchin', an' some tryin' to run; but they'll be enough of 'em down an' a-draggin' all the time, to keep the enthusiastic ones kind o' suppressed, and give me the castin' vote. It's the only right way to git the bulge on mules.' Whenever you get to worrying about our various companies, think of the Mule Jones system and be calm."

"I'm a little shy of being ruled by one case, even though so exactly in point," said I.

"Well, it's all right," he continued, "and about these houses. Why, we'd have to build them, even if we preferred to live in tents. Put the cost in the advertising account of Lynhurst Park Addition, if it worries you. Let me ask you, now, as a reasonable man, how can we expect the rest of the world to come out here and spring themselves for humble dwellings with stationary washtubs, conservatories, and porte cocheres, if we ourselves haven't any more confidence in the deal than to put up Jim Crow wickiups costing not more than ten or fifteen thousand dollars apiece? That addition has got to be the Nob Hill of Lattimore. Nothing in the 'poor but honest' line will do for Lynhurst; and we've got to set the pace. When you see my modest bachelor quarters going up, you'll cease to think of yours in the light of an extravagance. By next fall you'll be infested with money, anyhow, and that house will be the least of your troubles."

Alice and I made up our minds that Jim was right, and went on with our plans on a scale which sometimes brought back the Aladdin idea to my mind, accustomed as I was to rural simplicity. But Alice, notwithstanding that she was the daughter of a country physician of not very lucrative practice, rose to the occasion, and spent money with a spontaneous largeness of execution which revealed a genius hitherto unsuspected by either of us. Jim was thoroughly delighted with it.

"The Republic," he argued, "cannot be in any real danger when the modest middle classes produce characters of such strength in meeting great emergencies!"

Jim was at his best this summer. He revelled in the work of filling the morning paper with scare-heads detailing our operations. He enjoyed being It, he said. Cornish, after the first few days, during which, in spite of inside information as to his history, I felt that he would make good the predictions of the Herald, ceased to be, in my mind, anything more than I was—a trusted aide of Jim, the general. Both men went rather frequently out to the Trescott farm—Jim with the bluff freedom of a brother, Cornish with his rather ceremonious deference. I distrusted the dark Sir John where women were concerned, noting how they seemed charmed by him; but I could not see that he had made any headway in regaining Josie's regard, though I had a lurking feeling that he meant to do so. I saw at times in his eyes the old look which I remembered so well.

Josie, more than ever this season, was earning her father's commendation as his "right-hand man." She insisted on driving the four horses which drew the binder in the harvest. In the haying she operated the horse-rake, and helped man the hay-fork in filling the barns. She grew as tanned as if she had spent the time at the seashore or on the links; and with every month she added to her charm. The scarlet of her lips, the ruddy luxuriance of her hair, the arrowy straightness of her carriage, the pulsing health which beamed from her eye, and dyed cheek and neck, made their appeal to the women, even.

"How sweet she is!" said Alice, as she came to greet us one day when we drove to the farm, and waited for her to come to us. "How sweet she is, Albert!"

Her father came up, and explained to us that he didn't ask any of his women folks to do any work except what there was in the house. He was able to hire the outdoors work done, but Josie he couldn't keep out of the fields.

"Why, pa," said she, "don't you see you would spoil my chances of marrying a fairy prince? They absolutely never come into the house; and my straw hat is the only really becoming thing I've got to wear!"

"Don't give a dum if yeh never marry," said Bill. "Hain't seen the man yit that was good enough fer yeh, from my standpoint."

Bill's reputation was pretty well known to me by this time. He had been for years a successful breeder and shipper of live-stock, in which vocation he had become well-to-do. On his farm he was forceful and efficient, treading his fields like an admiral his quarter-deck. About town he was given to talking horses and cattle with the groups which frequented the stables and blacksmith-shops, and sometimes grew a little noisy and boisterous with them. Whenever her father went with a shipment of cattle to Chicago or other market, Josie went too, taking a regular passenger train in time to be waiting when Bill's stock train arrived; and after the beeves were disposed of, Bill became her escort to opera and art-gallery; on such a visit I had seen her at the Stock Yards. She was fond of her father; but this alone did not explain her constant attendance upon him. I soon came to understand that his prompt return from the city, in good condition, was apt to be dependent upon her influence. It was one of those cases of weakness, associated with strength, the real mystery of which does not often occur to us because they are so common.

He came into our office one day with a tremor in his hand and a hunted look in his eye. He took a chair at my invitation, but rose at once, went to the door, and looked up and down the street, as if for pursuers. I saw Captain Tolliver across the street, and Bill's air of excitement was explained. I was relieved, for at first I had thought him intoxicated.

"What's the matter, Bill?" said I, after he had looked at me earnestly, almost pantingly, for a few moments. "You look nervous."

"They're after me," he answered in repressed tones, "to sell; and I'll be blasted if I know what to do! Wha' d'ye' 'spose they're offerin' me for my land?"

"The fact is, Bill," said I, "that I know all about it. I'm interested in the deal, somewhat."

"Then you know they've bid right around a thousand dollars an acre?"

"Yes," said I, "or at least that they intended to offer that."

"An' you're one o' the company," he queried, "that's doin' it?"

"Yes," I admitted.

"Wal," said he, "I'm kinder sorry you're in it, becuz I've about concluded to sell; an' it seems to me that any concern that buys at that figger is a-goin' to bust, sure. W'y, I bought that land fer two dollars and a haff an acre. But, see here, now; I 'xpect you know your business, an' see some way of gittin' out in the deal, 'r you wouldn't pay that. But if I sell, I've got to have help with my folks."

"Ah," said I, scenting the usual obstacle in such cases, "Mrs. Trescott a little unwilling to sign the deeds?"

"No," answered he, "strange as it may seem, ma's kinder stuck on comin' to town to live. How she'll feel after she's tried it fer a month 'r so, with no chickens 'r turkeys 'r milk to look after, I'm dubious; but jest now she seems to be all right."

"Well, what's the matter then?" said I.

"Wal, it's Josie, to tell the truth," said he. "She's sort o' hangin' back. An' it's for her sake that I want to make the deal! I've told her an' told her that there's no dum sense in raisin' corn on thousand-dollar land; but it's no use, so fur; an' here's the only chanst I'll ever hev, mebbe, a-slippin' by. She ortn't to live her life out on a farm, educated as she is. W'y, did you ever hear how she's been educated?"

I told him that in a general way I knew, but not in detail.

"W'l, I want yeh to know all about it, so's yeh c'n see this movin' business as it is," said he. "You know I was allus a rough cuss. Herded cattle over there by yer father's south place, an' never went to school. Ma, Josie's ma, y' know, kep' the Greenwood school, an' crossed the prairie there where I was a-herdin', an' I used to look at her mighty longin' as she went by, when the cattle happened to be clost along the track, which they right often done. You know how them things go. An' fin'ly one morning a blue racer chased her, as the little whelps will, an' got his dummed little teeth fastened in her dress, an' she a-hyperin' around haff crazy, and a-screamin' every jump, so's't I hed to just grab her, an' hold her till I could get the blasted snake off,—harmless, y' know, but got hooked teeth, an' not a lick o' sense,—an' he kinder quirled around my arm, an' I nacherally tore him to ribbins a-gittin' of him off. An' then she sort o' dropped off, an' when she come to, I was a-rubbin' her hands an' temples. Wa'n't that a funny interduction?"

"It's very interesting," said I; "go on."

"W'l you remember ol' Doc Maxfield?" said Bill, well started on a reminiscence. "Wal, he come along, an' said it was the worst case of collapse, whatever that means, that he ever see—her lips an' hands an' chin all a-tremblin', an' flighty as a loon. Wal, after that I used to take her around some, an' her folks objected becuz I was ignorant, an' she learnt me some things, an' bein' strong an' a good dancer an' purty good-lookin' she kind o' forgot about my failin's, an' we was married. Her folks said she'd throwed herself away; but I could buy an' sell the hull set of 'em now!"

This seemed conclusive as to the merits of the case, and I told him as much.

"W'l Josie was born an' growed up," continued Bill, "an' it's her I started to tell about, wa'n't it? She was allus a cute little thing, an' early she got this art business in her head. She'd read about fellers that had got to be great by paintin' an' carvin', an' it made her wild to do the same thing. Wa'n't there a feller that pulled hair outer the cat to paint Injuns with? Yes, I thought they was; I allus thought they could paint theirselves good enough; but that story an' some others she read an' read when she was a little gal, an' she was allus a-paintin' an' makin' things with clay. She took a prize at the county fair when she was fourteen, with a picter of Washin'ton crossin' the Delaware—three dollars, by gum! An' then we hed to give her lessons; an' they wasn't any one thet knew anything around here, she said, an' she went to Chicago. An' I went in to visit her when she hedn't ben there more'n six weeks, on an excursion one convention time, an' I found her all tore up, a good deal as her ma was with the blue racer,—I don't think she's ever ben the same light-hearted little gal sence,—an' from there I took her to New York; an' there she fell in with a nice woman that was awful good to her, an' they went to Europe, an' it cost a heap. An' you may've noticed thet Josie knows a pile more'n the other women here?"

I admitted that this had occurred to me.

"W'l, she was allus apt to take her head with her," said Bill, "but this travelin' has fixed her like a hoss thet's ben druv in Chicago: nothin' feazes her, street-cars, brass bands, circuses, overhead trains—it's all the same to her, she's seen 'em all. Sometimes I git the notion that she'd enjoy things more if she hadn't seen so dum many of 'em an' so much better ones, y' know! Wal, after she'd ben over there a long time, she wrote she was a-comin' home; an' we was tickled to death. Only I was surprised by her writin' that she wanted us to take all them old picters of hern, and put 'em out of sight! An' if you'll b'lieve it, she won't talk picters nor make any sence she got back—only, jest after she got back, she said she didn't see any use o' her goin' on dobbin' good canvas up with good paint, an' makin' nothin' but poor picters; an' she cried some.... I thought it was sing'lar that this art business that she thought was the only thing thet'd ever make her happy was the only thing I ever see her cry about."