Aladdin and Company Part 12

Jim sprang to the abutment with Josie, and Cecil Barr-Smith half carried and half led Antonia to the sh.o.r.e. 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 ill.u.s.trative 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, p.r.o.nounced 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 b.u.mpers, 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 a.s.sured 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 n.o.b 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. .h.i.therto 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 cla.s.ses 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 seash.o.r.e 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 pa.s.senger 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, a.s.sociated 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?"