The Gilded Age, Complete

M >> Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner >> The Gilded Age, Complete


"Lord, lord, but it's so! Time and again my wife--"

"I depended on it all through my boyhood and never tried to do an honest
stroke of work for my living--"

"Right again--but then you--"

"I have chased it years and years as children chase butterflies. We
might all have been prosperous, now; we might all have been happy, all
these heart-breaking years, if we had accepted our poverty at first and
gone contentedly to work and built up our own wealth by our own toil and
sweat--"

"It's so, it's so; bless my soul, how often I've told Si Hawkins--"

"Instead of that, we have suffered more than the damned themselves
suffer! I loved my father, and I honor his memory and recognize his good
intentions; but I grieve for his mistaken ideas of conferring happiness
upon his children. I am going to begin my life over again, and begin it
and end it with good solid work! I'll leave my children no Tennessee
Land!"

"Spoken like a man, sir, spoken like a man! Your hand, again my boy!
And always remember that when a word of advice from Beriah Sellers can
help, it is at your service. I'm going to begin again, too!"

"Indeed!"

"Yes, sir. I've seen enough to show me where my mistake was. The law is
what I was born for. I shall begin the study of the law. Heavens and
earth, but that Brabant's a wonderful man--a wonderful man sir! Such a
head! And such a way with him! But I could see that he was jealous of
me. The little licks I got in in the course of my argument before the
jury--"

"Your argument! Why, you were a witness."

"Oh, yes, to the popular eye, to the popular eye--but I knew when I was
dropping information and when I was letting drive at the court with an
insidious argument. But the court knew it, bless you, and weakened every
time! And Brabant knew it. I just reminded him of it in a quiet way,
and its final result, and he said in a whisper, 'You did it, Colonel, you
did it, sir--but keep it mum for my sake; and I'll tell you what you do,'
says he, 'you go into the law, Col. Sellers--go into the law, sir; that's
your native element!' And into the law the subscriber is going. There's
worlds of money in it!--whole worlds of money! Practice first in
Hawkeye, then in Jefferson, then in St. Louis, then in New York! In the
metropolis of the western world! Climb, and climb, and climb--and wind
up on the Supreme bench. Beriah Sellers, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States, sir! A made man for all time and eternity!
That's the way I block it out, sir--and it's as clear as day--clear as
the rosy-morn!"

Washington had heard little of this. The first reference to Laura's
trial had brought the old dejection to his face again, and he stood
gazing out of the window at nothing, lost in reverie.

There was a knock-the postman handed in a letter. It was from Obedstown.
East Tennessee, and was for Washington. He opened it. There was a note
saying that enclosed he would please find a bill for the current year's
taxes on the 75,000 acres of Tennessee Land belonging to the estate of
Silas Hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within
sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes, as
provided by law. The bill was for $180--something more than twice the
market value of the land, perhaps.

Washington hesitated. Doubts flitted through his mind. The old instinct
came upon him to cling to the land just a little longer and give it one
more chance. He walked the floor feverishly, his mind tortured by
indecision. Presently he stopped, took out his pocket book and counted
his money. Two hundred and thirty dollars--it was all he had in the
world.

"One hundred and eighty . . . . . . . from two hundred and
thirty," he said to himself. "Fifty left . . . . . . It is enough
to get me home . . . . . . . Shall I do it, or shall I not?
. . . . . . . I wish I had somebody to decide for me."

The pocket book lay open in his hand, with Louise's small letter in view.
His eye fell upon that, and it decided him.

"It shall go for taxes," he said, "and never tempt me or mine any more!"

He opened the window and stood there tearing the tax bill to bits and
watching the breeze waft them away, till all were gone.

"The spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!" he said. "Let us
go."

The baggage wagon had arrived; five minutes later the two friends were
mounted upon their luggage in it, and rattling off toward the station,
the Colonel endeavoring to sing "Homeward Bound," a song whose words he
knew, but whose tune, as he rendered it, was a trial to auditors.





CHAPTER LXII


Philip Sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. The prospect
was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell
upon his spirits; but what told still more upon them was the undeniable
fact that the promise of ultimate success diminished every day, now.
That is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which was
considerably beyond where the coal vein should pass (according to all his
calculations) if there were a coal vein there; and so, every foot that
the tunnel now progressed seemed to carry it further away from the object
of the search.

Sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a mistake in estimating
the direction which the vein should naturally take after crossing the
valley and entering the hill. Upon such occasions he would go into the
nearest mine on the vein he was hunting for, and once more get the
bearings of the deposit and mark out its probable course; but the result
was the same every time; his tunnel had manifestly pierced beyond the
natural point of junction; and then his, spirits fell a little lower.
His men had already lost faith, and he often overheard them saying it was
perfectly plain that there was no coal in the hill.

Foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no end of experienced
loafers from the village, visited the tunnel from time to time, and their
verdicts were always the same and always disheartening--"No coal in that
hill." Now and then Philip would sit down and think it all over and
wonder what the mystery meant; then he would go into the tunnel and ask
the men if there were no signs yet? None--always "none."

He would bring out a piece of rock and examine it, and say to himself,
"It is limestone--it has crinoids and corals in it--the rock is right"
Then he would throw it down with a sigh, and say, "But that is nothing;
where coal is, limestone with these fossils in it is pretty certain to
lie against its foot casing; but it does not necessarily follow that
where this peculiar rock is coal must lie above it or beyond it; this
sign is not sufficient."

The thought usually followed:--"There is one infallible sign--if I could
only strike that!"

Three or four tines in as many weeks he said to himself, "Am I a
visionary? I must be a visionary; everybody is in these days; everybody
chases butterflies: everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one
up by slow toil. This is not right, I will discharge the men and go at
some honest work. There is no coal here. What a fool I have been; I
will give it up."

But he never could do it. A half hour of profound thinking always
followed; and at the end of it he was sure to get up and straighten
himself and say: "There is coal there; I will not give it up; and coal
or no coal I will drive the tunnel clear through the hill; I will not
surrender while I am alive."

He never thought of asking Mr. Montague for more money. He said there
was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety
nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make
the request and foolish in Mr. Montague to grant it.

He had been working three shifts of men. Finally, the settling of a
weekly account exhausted his means. He could not afford to run in debt,
and therefore he gave the men their discharge. They came into his cabin
presently, where he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his
hands--the picture of discouragement and their spokesman said:

"Mr. Sterling, when Tim was down a week with his fall you kept him on
half-wages and it was a mighty help to his family; whenever any of us was
in trouble you've done what you could to help us out; you've acted fair
and square with us every time, and I reckon we are men and know a man
when we see him. We haven't got any faith in that hill, but we have a
respect for a man that's got the pluck that you've showed; you've fought
a good fight, with everybody agin you and if we had grub to go on, I'm
d---d if we wouldn't stand by you till the cows come home! That is what
the boys say. Now we want to put in one parting blast for luck. We want
to work three days more; if we don't find anything, we won't bring in no
bill against you. That is what we've come to say."

Philip was touched. If he had had money enough to buy three days' "grub"
he would have accepted the generous offer, but as it was, he could not
consent to be less magnanimous than the men, and so he declined in a
manly speech; shook hands all around and resumed his solitary communings.
The men went back to the tunnel and "put in a parting blast for luck"
anyhow. They did a full day's work and then took their leave. They
called at his cabin and gave him good-bye, but were not able to tell him
their day's effort had given things a mere promising look.

The next day Philip sold all the tools but two or three sets; he also
sold one of the now deserted cabins as old, lumber, together with its
domestic wares; and made up his mind that he would buy, provisions with
the trifle of money thus gained and continue his work alone. About the
middle of the after noon he put on his roughest clothes and went to the
tunnel. He lit a candle and groped his way in. Presently he heard the
sound of a pick or a drill, and wondered, what it meant. A spark of light
now appeared in the far end of the tunnel, and when he arrived there he
found the man Tim at work. Tim said:

"I'm to have a job in the Golden Brier mine by and by--in a week or ten
days--and I'm going to work here till then. A man might as well be at
some thing, and besides I consider that I owe you what you paid me when I
was laid up."

Philip said, Oh, no, he didn't owe anything; but Tim persisted, and then
Philip said he had a little provision now, and would share. So for
several days Philip held the drill and Tim did the striking. At first
Philip was impatient to see the result of every blast, and was always
back and peering among the smoke the moment after the explosion. But
there was never any encouraging result; and therefore he finally lost
almost all interest, and hardly troubled himself to inspect results at
all. He simply labored on, stubbornly and with little hope.

Tim staid with him till the last moment, and then took up his job at the
Golden Brier, apparently as depressed by the continued barrenness of
their mutual labors as Philip was himself. After that, Philip fought his
battle alone, day after day, and slow work it was; he could scarcely see
that he made any progress.

Late one afternoon he finished drilling a hole which he had been at work
at for more than two hours; he swabbed it out, and poured in the powder
and inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and
small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to
the fuse, and ran. By and by the I dull report came, and he was about to
walk back mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted;
presently turned on his heel and thought, rather than said:

"No, this is useless, this is absurd. If I found anything it would only
be one of those little aggravating seams of coal which doesn't mean
anything, and--"

By this time he was walking out of the tunnel. His thought ran on:

"I am conquered . . . . . . I am out of provisions, out of money.
. . . . . I have got to give it up . . . . . . All this hard work
lost! But I am not conquered! I will go and work for money, and come
back and have another fight with fate. Ah me, it may be years, it may,
be years."

Arrived at the mouth of the tunnel, he threw his coat upon the ground,
sat down on, a stone, and his eye sought the westering sun and dwelt upon
the charming landscape which stretched its woody ridges, wave upon wave,
to the golden horizon.

Something was taking place at his feet which did not attract his
attention.

His reverie continued, and its burden grew more and more gloomy.
Presently he rose up and, cast a look far away toward the valley, and his
thoughts took a new direction:

"There it is! How good it looks! But down there is not up here. Well,
I will go home and pack up--there is nothing else to do."

He moved off moodily toward his cabin. He had gone some distance before
he thought of his coat; then he was about to turn back, but he smiled at
the thought, and continued his journey--such a coat as that could be of
little use in a civilized land; a little further on, he remembered that
there were some papers of value in one of the pockets of the relic, and
then with a penitent ejaculation he turned back picked up the coat and
put it on.

He made a dozen steps, and then stopped very suddenly. He stood still a
moment, as one who is trying to believe something and cannot. He put a
hand up over his shoulder and felt his back, and a great thrill shot
through him. He grasped the skirt of the coat impulsively and another
thrill followed. He snatched the coat from his back, glanced at it,
threw it from him and flew back to the tunnel. He sought the spot where
the coat had lain--he had to look close, for the light was waning--then
to make sure, he put his hand to the ground and a little stream of water
swept against his fingers:

"Thank God, I've struck it at last!"

He lit a candle and ran into the tunnel; he picked up a piece of rubbish
cast out by the last blast, and said:

"This clayey stuff is what I've longed for--I know what is behind it."

He swung his pick with hearty good will till long after the darkness had
gathered upon the earth, and when he trudged home at length he knew he
had a coal vein and that it was seven feet thick from wall to wall.

He found a yellow envelope lying on his rickety table, and recognized
that it was of a family sacred to the transmission of telegrams.

He opened it, read it, crushed it in his hand and threw it down. It
simply said:

"Ruth is very ill."




CHAPTER LXIII.

It was evening when Philip took the cars at the Ilium station. The news
of, his success had preceded him, and while he waited for the train, he
was the center of a group of eager questioners, who asked him a hundred
things about the mine, and magnified his good fortune. There was no
mistake this time.

Philip, in luck, had become suddenly a person of consideration, whose
speech was freighted with meaning, whose looks were all significant.
The words of the proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound,
and his common sayings are repeated as if they were solid wisdom.

Philip wished to be alone; his good fortune at this moment seemed an
empty mockery, one of those sarcasms of fate, such as that which spreads
a dainty banquet for the man who has no appetite. He had longed for
success principally for Ruth's sake; and perhaps now, at this very moment
of his triumph, she was dying.

"Shust what I said, Mister Sederling," the landlord of the Ilium hotel
kept repeating. "I dold Jake Schmidt he find him dere shust so sure as
noting."

"You ought to have taken a share, Mr. Dusenheimer," said Philip.

"Yaas, I know. But d'old woman, she say 'You sticks to your pisiness.
So I sticks to 'em. Und I makes noting. Dat Mister Prierly, he don't
never come back here no more, ain't it?"

"Why?" asked Philip.

"Vell, dere is so many peers, and so many oder dhrinks, I got 'em all set
down, ven he coomes back."

It was a long night for Philip, and a restless one. At any other time
the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and
clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only
been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. Now they were voices
of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed to
crawl at a snail's pace. And it not only crawled, but it frequently
stopped; and when it stopped it stood dead still and there was an ominous
silence. Was anything the matter, he wondered. Only a station probably.
Perhaps, he thought, a telegraphic station. And then he listened
eagerly. Would the conductor open the door and ask for Philip Sterling,
and hand him a fatal dispatch?

How long they seemed to wait. And then slowly beginning to move, they
were off again, shaking, pounding, screaming through the night. He drew
his curtain from time to time and looked out. There was the lurid sky
line of the wooded range along the base of which they were crawling.
There was the Susquehannah, gleaming in the moon-light. There was a
stretch of level valley with silent farm houses, the occupants all at
rest, without trouble, without anxiety. There was a church, a graveyard,
a mill, a village; and now, without pause or fear, the train had mounted
a trestle-work high in air and was creeping along the top of it while a
swift torrent foamed a hundred feet below.

What would the morning bring? Even while he was flying to her, her gentle
spirit might have gone on another flight, whither he could not follow
her. He was full of foreboding. He fell at length into a restless doze.
There was a noise in his ears as of a rushing torrent when a stream is
swollen by a freshet in the spring. It was like the breaking up of life;
he was struggling in the consciousness of coming death: when Ruth stood
by his side, clothed in white, with a face like that of an angel,
radiant, smiling, pointing to the sky, and saying, "Come." He awoke with
a cry--the train was roaring through a bridge, and it shot out into
daylight.

When morning came the train was industriously toiling along through the
fat lands of Lancaster, with its broad farms of corn and wheat, its mean
houses of stone, its vast barns and granaries, built as if, for storing
the riches of Heliogabalus. Then came the smiling fields of Chester,
with their English green, and soon the county of Philadelphia itself, and
the increasing signs of the approach to a great city. Long trains of
coal cars, laden and unladen, stood upon sidings; the tracks of other
roads were crossed; the smoke of other locomotives was seen on parallel
lines; factories multiplied; streets appeared; the noise of a busy city
began to fill the air;--and with a slower and slower clank on the
connecting rails and interlacing switches the train rolled into the
station and stood still.

It was a hot August morning. The broad streets glowed in the sun, and
the white-shuttered houses stared at the hot thoroughfares like closed
bakers' ovens set along the highway. Philip was oppressed with the heavy
air; the sweltering city lay as in a swoon. Taking a street car, he rode
away to the northern part of the city, the newer portion, formerly the
district of Spring Garden, for in this the Boltons now lived, in a small
brick house, befitting their altered fortunes.

He could scarcely restrain his impatience when he came in sight of the
house. The window shutters were not "bowed"; thank God, for that. Ruth
was still living, then. He ran up the steps and rang. Mrs. Bolton met
him at the door.

"Thee is very welcome, Philip."

"And Ruth?"

"She is very ill, but quieter than, she has been, and the fever is a
little abating. The most dangerous time will be when the fever leaves
her. The doctor fears she will not have strength enough to rally from
it. Yes, thee can see her."

Mrs. Bolton led the way to the little chamber where Ruth lay. "Oh,"
said her mother, "if she were only in her cool and spacious room in our
old home. She says that seems like heaven."

Mr. Bolton sat by Ruth's bedside, and he rose and silently pressed
Philip's hand. The room had but one window; that was wide open to admit
the air, but the air that came in was hot and lifeless. Upon the table
stood a vase of flowers. Ruth's eyes were closed; her cheeks were
flushed with fever, and she moved her head restlessly as if in pain.

"Ruth," said her mother, bending over her, "Philip is here."

Ruth's eyes unclosed, there was a gleam of recognition in them, there was
an attempt at a smile upon her face, and she tried to raise her thin
hand, as Philip touched her forehead with his lips; and he heard her
murmur,

"Dear Phil."

There was nothing to be done but to watch and wait for the cruel fever to
burn itself out. Dr. Longstreet told Philip that the fever had
undoubtedly been contracted in the hospital, but it was not malignant,
and would be little dangerous if Ruth were not so worn down with work,
or if she had a less delicate constitution.

"It is only her indomitable will that has kept her up for weeks. And if
that should leave her now, there will be no hope. You can do more for
her now, sir, than I can?"

"How?" asked Philip eagerly.

"Your presence, more than anything else, will inspire her with the desire
to live."

When the fever turned, Ruth was in a very critical condition. For two
days her life was like the fluttering of a lighted candle in the wind.
Philip was constantly by her side, and she seemed to be conscious of his
presence, and to cling to him, as one borne away by a swift stream clings
to a stretched-out hand from the shore. If he was absent a moment her
restless eyes sought something they were disappointed not to find.

Philip so yearned to bring her back to life, he willed it so strongly and
passionately, that his will appeared to affect hers and she seemed slowly
to draw life from his.

After two days of this struggle with the grasping enemy, it was evident
to Dr. Longstreet that Ruth's will was beginning to issue its orders to
her body with some force, and that strength was slowly coming back.
In another day there was a decided improvement. As Philip sat holding
her weak hand and watching the least sign of resolution in her face, Ruth
was able to whisper,

"I so want to live, for you, Phil!"

"You will; darling, you must," said Philip in a tone of faith and courage
that carried a thrill of determination--of command--along all her nerves.

Slowly Philip drew her back to life. Slowly she came back, as one
willing but well nigh helpless. It was new for Ruth to feel this
dependence on another's nature, to consciously draw strength of will from
the will of another. It was a new but a dear joy, to be lifted up and
carried back into the happy world, which was now all aglow with the light
of love; to be lifted and carried by the one she loved more than her own
life.

"Sweetheart," she said to Philip, "I would not have cared to come back
but for thy love."

"Not for thy profession?"

"Oh, thee may be glad enough of that some day, when thy coal bed is dug
out and thee and father are in the air again."

When Ruth was able to ride she was taken into the country, for the pure
air was necessary to her speedy recovery. The family went with her.
Philip could not be spared from her side, and Mr. Bolton had gone up to
Ilium to look into that wonderful coal mine and to make arrangements for
developing it, and bringing its wealth to market. Philip had insisted on
re-conveying the Ilium property to Mr. Bolton, retaining only the share
originally contemplated for himself, and Mr. Bolton, therefore, once
more found himself engaged in business and a person of some consequence
in Third street. The mine turned out even better than was at first
hoped, and would, if judiciously managed, be a fortune to them all.
This also seemed to be the opinion of Mr. Bigler, who heard of it as soon
as anybody, and, with the impudence of his class called upon Mr. Bolton
for a little aid in a patent car-wheel he had bought an interest in.
That rascal, Small, he said, had swindled him out of all he had.

Mr. Bolton told him he was very sorry, and recommended him to sue Small.

Mr. Small also came with a similar story about Mr. Bigler; and Mr.
Bolton had the grace to give him like advice. And he added, "If you and
Bigler will procure the indictment of each other, you may have the
satisfaction of putting each other in the penitentiary for the forgery of
my acceptances."

Bigler and Small did not quarrel however. They both attacked Mr. Bolton
behind his back as a swindler, and circulated the story that he had made
a fortune by failing.

In the pure air of the highlands, amid the golden glories of ripening
September, Ruth rapidly came back to health. How beautiful the world is
to an invalid, whose senses are all clarified, who has been so near the
world of spirits that she is sensitive to the finest influences, and
whose frame responds with a thrill to the subtlest ministrations of
soothing nature. Mere life is a luxury, and the color of the grass, of
the flowers, of the sky, the wind in the trees, the outlines of the
horizon, the forms of clouds, all give a pleasure as exquisite as the
sweetest music to the ear famishing for it. The world was all new and
fresh to Ruth, as if it had just been created for her, and love filled
it, till her heart was overflowing with happiness.