' Charge It ': Keeping Up With Harry Part 14

"'It might be William the Conqueror,' Lizzie remarked.

"'I deny it,' said Delance, in perfect good nature. 'We have resigned from William's family. As a matter of fact, I never joined it.'

"I congratulated him.

"'It has always seemed like the merest poppyc.o.c.k to me--this genealogical craze of the ladies,' said Henry. 'When our London solicitor wrote that it would take another hundred pounds to establish the connection beyond a doubt, he gave away the whole scheme, and I resigned. It was too silly. In these days of t.i.tled chambermaids I think we shall worry along pretty well without William.'

"Then Betsey said: 'I was reading in the county history to-day that old Zebulon Delance, who was killed in a fight with Indians in 1750, was buried in a meadow back of his house.'

"'It may be the skull of old Zeb,' said Henry.

"'Now there's an ancestor worth having,' I suggested.

"'I wonder if it can belong to old Zeb,' Henry mused.

"At last we got to my plan. I pictured the condition of the community as I saw it, and the inefficiency of the church and the need of a new and active power in Pointview.

"I proposed that we buy the old skating-rink and remodel it, employ the best talent in America, and start a new center of power in the community--a power that should, first of all, keep us sane, and then as decent as possible. The mathematics of the enterprise were at my fingers' ends:

"Initial Expenses $15,000 "Annual Outlay for Instruction 8,000 "For Music 3,500 "For Maintenance 1,000 "For Management 3,500

"It was no small matter, but the initial expense and the first year's outlay were subscribed in ten minutes. Betsey set the ball rolling with an offer of ten thousand dollars, and then it was like shaking ripe apples off a tree.

"'Who is to be the manager?' Delance wanted to know. 'It's a big job.'

"'I propose that we try Harry,' I said; 'in my opinion it will interest him. I've had him in training for a year or so, and he's about ready for big work.'

"'I don't believe Harry can do it,' his father declared.

"'I should think it might not be to his taste,' said Bill Warburton.

"'But I have later and better information than the rest of you,' I said. 'If you will leave the matter in my hands you may hold me responsible for the results.'

"They gave me the white card. I could do as I liked. The fact is, I had just had a letter from Harry which filled me with new hope. I have it here."

The Honorable Socrates Potter took the letter from his pocket and said:

"You see, Harry has been discovering America. He is the Columbus of our heiristocracy. His mental map has been filled with great cities and splendid hotels, and thrifty towns and enormous areas of wheat and corn, and astonishing distances and sublime mountain scenes. Moreover, he has learned the joys of a simple life; he had to. Of course, he knew of these things, but feebly and without pride, as one knows the Tetons who has never seen them. Leaving in May, he stopped in all the big cities, and finished his journey from the railroad with a stage-ride of some ninety miles. Of the stage-ride and other matters, he writes thus:

"'On the front seat with the driver sat a lady smoking a cigar, who, now and then, offered us a drink from a bottle. At her side was a lady with a wooden leg, and a hen in her hand. You know every woman is a lady out here. The driver swore at the horses, the hen swore at the lady, and several of the pa.s.sengers swore at each other, and it was all done in the most amiable spirit. Two rough-necks sat beside me who kept shooting with revolvers at sage-hens as they--the men, not the hens--irrigated the tires with tobacco-juice. At the next stop I got into a row with a one-eyed professor of elocution, because he said I carried too much for the size of my mule, an' didn't speak proper. He objected to my p.r.o.nunciation, and I to his choice of words. In the argument his revolver took sides with him. I got one of my toes lopped with a bullet, and the lady who carried the cigar and the bottle took me to her home and nursed me like a mother, and the lady with the wooden leg brought me strawberries every day and sang to me and told me some good stories. I had thought it was a G.o.d-forsaken country, but, you see, I was wrong. There's more real practical Christianity among these people than I ever saw before, and it's hard work to be an a.s.s here. The way of the a.s.s is full of trouble, and I begin to understand why you wanted me to come out to Wyoming. The people are rough, but as kind as angels. Felt like turning back, but these women put new heart in me, especially the wooden-legged one.

"'"We don't like parlor talk out here," she said; "it ain't considered good ettikit. Folks don't mind a little, but if it goes too fur it's considered insultin' an' everybody begins to speak to ye like he was talkin' to a balky mule."

"'I went on as soon as I was able, and spent the whole summer on the back of a cayuse. Got lost in the mountains; went hungry and cold like the wolf, as Garland puts it, for three days; had to think my way back to camp. It was the best schooling in geography and logic and American humanity that I ever had. Every man at the ranch, and the women, had been out hunting for me. I offered them money, but they woudn't take a cent--the joy of seeing me was enough. They haven't a smitch of the revolting money-hunger of the average European. With all its faults I am proud of my country. I want you to find a good, big American job for me.

"'I have been reading the Bishop of St. Clare, who says: "There hath been more energy expended in swaggering about with full bellies and a burden of needless fat than would move the island to the main sh.o.r.e.

If thy purse be used to buy immunity from work, it secureth immunity from manhood; and what is a man without manhood?"

"'There is the American idea for you.

"'Deacon Joe has got to change his mind about me. Marie has only written me one letter, and that was a frost. If you have any influence with the girl, don't let her get engaged to that parson.'

Socrates laughed as he put the letter away, and went on:

"Well, Harry came back, browned and brawny, with his cayuse, saddle, and sombrero, and a shooting-iron half as long as my arm.

"He came here for a talk with me the day after his arrival. The subject of a lifework was pressing on him.

"'Have you seen Zeb?' was his first query.

"'Zeb?' I asked. 'Who is Zeb?'

"'That dear old, irrepressible bishop,' said Harry. 'They have dug him up and named him Zeb, and put him on a top shelf in the library. They think he is one of our great-grandfathers.'

"'Oh, he has been promoted,' I remarked.

"Harry went on:

"'My dog is responsible for the reappearance of the bishop. I took him with me that night, and he knew where to find it. Father is sure that it's the head of old Zeb Delance.'

"'Let the Bishop rest where he is,' I suggested. 'Now that he has converted you, he will probably let up. At least, let us hope that he will not worry you. Of course he will remind you of past follies every time you look at him, but that will do you no harm.'

"'Oh, I couldn't forget him! Father has been reading up on Zeb, and he does nothing but talk about him. He has learned that the Indians buried the head and burned the body of a victim.'

"'He symbolizes the change in your taste. Zeb was a man of action--a worker. What do you propose to do now?'

"'Well, I have thought some of following Dan into agriculture.'

"'Don't,' was my answer. 'You're not the type for that kind of a job.

Dan was brought up to work with his hands. I fear that you would be a Fifth Avenue farmer.'

"'Well, what would you say to a plant for the manufacture of aeroplanes? I stopped at Dayton and looked into the matter, and learned to fly. I have ordered a biplane, and it will be delivered in the spring.'

"I vetoed that plan, and asked where he proposed to settle.

"'Right here--if possible,' said Harry.

"'Good! There's one thing about your family tree that I like, and you ought to be proud of it. Your forebears, having been treated with shameless oppression, came to these inhospitable sh.o.r.es in 1630. They needn't have done it if they had been willing to knuckle down and say they liked crow when they didn't. They wouldn't do that, so they left the old sod and ventured forth in a little sailing-vessel on the mighty deep. It required some courage to do that. They landed safely, and for nearly three hundred years their descendants have lived and worked and suffered all manner of hardships in New England. It's a proper thing, Harry, that you should do your work where, mostly, they did their work--in dear old Connecticut.'

"'And besides, it's the home of Marie,' he said.

"'And let us consider what there is to be done in the home of Marie,'

I went on. 'Here in the very town where so many of your fathers have lived and worked we find a singular parade of folly. The idle rich from a near city are closing in upon us. Many of the Yankees have acquired property and ceased to work. Back in the distant hills they toil not, but live from hand to mouth in a pitiful state of degeneration. The work of the hand is almost entirely that of Italians, Poles, Hungarians, and Greeks.

"'Our tradesmen have a low code of honor. They overcharge us for the necessities of life. Many of them have been caught cheating. Our wives and sons and daughters are living beyond their means, as if ignorant of the fact that it is the beginning of dishonesty. Our poverty is mostly that of the soul. The churches are dying, and the sabbath is dead. What we need is a return to the honor, sanity, and common sense of old New England, which gave of its fullness to the land we love.

Let's start a school of old-fashioned decency and Americanism. Let's call it the Church of All Faiths and make it a center of power.'

"I laid the scheme before him in all its details, and then--