The Gentleman from Everywhere Part 15

at our expense. I accomplished my task of raising funds very successfully, and the next winter moved with my family to A----, taking with us a competent engineer, a Mr. H----, to survey and stake the lands.

Here I unearthed the rascality of the superintendent, who, beside taking our salary and commission for buying lands, had extorted large commissions and bonuses from the sellers, which came out of our funds in increasing the prices for which the lands were charged to our company. In addition to this he had hired a large force of negroes at high wages, on which he drew a secret commission, opened a store, selling so called canned peaches,--which really contained much whiskey and few peaches--to his workmen, and thus getting all their wages.

I at once discharged all the superfluous negroes, built a fine hotel which was soon filled with a superior cla.s.s of people from the north, set out orange groves for non-resident stockholders, and all would have been well, had it not been for the extraordinary action at the annual meeting of the stockholders.

While I was engrossed with my many duties, the superintendent cunningly went north and secured proxies in his name, and returning, beat me by two votes, secured for himself my position as general manager, and then proceeded to wreck the whole enterprise, much to his own pecuniary benefit, while my friends who had invested on my representations, blamed me for their losses though I was entirely innocent of any wrong whatever.

To cap the climax, this superintendent refused to make an accounting for several thousand dollars with which I had entrusted him to make purchases of lands on my personal account. I secured a warrant for his arrest, chased him half over the county with a sheriff, and brought him to the city for trial. On our way to the hotel, I was set upon by a crowd of roughs who had been dined and wined by said W----, and who threatened to lynch me. I backed up into a corner of the hotel piazza, laid my hand on an imaginary revolver, threatening to shoot, and was defending myself with a whirling chair, when the sheriff's posse rushed to my deliverance in the nick of time, and W---- was forced to hand over my money.

He then made life unbearable by sending negroes at night in my absence to annoy my family, who escaped injury only by the vigorous use of a revolver by my wife who defended the little ones by numerous shots which sent the tormentors flying to the woods. This unscrupulous superintendent secured by his cunning a large amount of our funds; but it was a curse to him for he squandered it in riotous living.

When he married he chartered a large steamer and bra.s.s band, took on board a crowd of guests, champagne flowed like water, every luxury was furnished liberally, and the excursion was a prolonged debauch.

To-day this fellow is a fugitive from justice, forsaken by wife and fair weather friends, and thus really, if not literally, is fulfilled the prophecy of the poet,

"Her dark wing shall the raven flap O'er the false-hearted, His warm blood the wolf shall lap E'er life be parted, Shame and dishonor sit O'er his grave ever, Blessing shall hallow it Never, no never."

CHAPTER XXI.

A MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS WITH A ONE DOLLAR CAPITAL.

Soon after my encounter at S---- with the unspeakable W----, I met Major St. A----, who gave a cordial invitation to myself and family to become his guests in his new town of T----, with a view to securing our cooperation in the development of his mult.i.tudinous schemes. This invitation we accepted, and very early one beautiful morning in March, my wife, four children and myself, with driver and guide, embarked on a "prairie schooner," drawn by three horses, for the promised land.

It was an ideal drive through many miles of fragrant, towering pine trees, fording beautiful lakes, catching fish, shooting game, camping for refreshment on the banks of crystal clear brooks. The oldest girls would ride on the horses' backs, chase quails, pluck the wayside flowers, occasionally watching the flight of paroquettes flashing like diamonds through the air, listening to the mockingbirds filling the woods with their exquisite songs, and inhaling as it were the ether of the immortal G.o.ds, the matchless, perfumed, life-giving Florida air.

All at once, with little warning, as is usual in semi-tropical lands, the night fell, and our learned guide suddenly found that he had lost the trail. The owls hooted, the wild-cats screamed, likewise the "kids," with overpowering fear. We plunged ahead at random, when we suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner."

The horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near approach of some water snake or alligator.

We might have been all drowned, had we not discovered a lantern hung in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our course to dry land. By the aid of the light we found the trail, and at length reached the Major's hotel, hungry and tired. Here we found our embarra.s.sed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who refused to leave the goods until he received his payment therefor.

Our landlord appeared to be "dead broke," but finally persuaded the reluctant provision-dealer to go away with his pockets filled with "I.O.U.'s" instead of cash, and about midnight on the verge of starvation we fully appreciated an abundant feast. We soon found that our, enthusiastic friend was trying to do a million dollar business on a one dollar capital. He was building two railroads, running a steamboat line, a hotel, a sawmill, building a town and a fifty thousand dollar opera house for a one hundred population town, with not a dollar in his pocket.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flight of the Governor and Staff.]

The next day we sailed on his steamer to meet the governor of the state, and his staff who were invited to attend a ball in his honor.

The crew was mutinous on account of receiving no pay, the antiquated machinery broke down every few minutes, and the Major had a fierce quarrel with a negro minister who had paid first-cla.s.s fare and refused to take second-cla.s.s quarters, to which all colored folks were forced at the muzzle of the revolver, and a b.l.o.o.d.y race battle was only avoided by the fact that the negroes were entirely unarmed.

At length, loading the deck with wild ducks, and fish that fairly jumped into the little boat to avoid their enemies, the ferocious gar-fish, we took the governor and staff on board, and floundered back at a snail's pace to T----. At the landing, we boarded a dilapidated street car drawn by mules, for the hotel.

Soon--crash! bang, a rail gave way, sending the dignified governor,--stove-pipe hat flying in the air, coat-tails covering his head,--into a ditch, his long legs kicking frantically to extricate his head from the mud. We rescued him and staff with difficulty from the filth, looking like a bedraggled pack of half-drowned rats.

Finally we reached the hotel, when the colored orchestra from Jacksonville rushed upon our host demanding their pay in advance, with furious oaths and uncla.s.sical imprecations. In some way, the embarra.s.sed diplomat silenced their clamors; then the colored waiters struck for their pay, and "razors were flying in the air." The furious landlord at last quieted their clamor with a shotgun, and at about midnight the grand march was sounded, and a nearly famished crowd made desperate efforts to look cheerful and "trip the light fantastic toe."

All earthly horrors have an end, and in the wee small hours a starving mult.i.tude was treated to a barbacue by our half-crazed host.

Almost every white man in this town sold chain-lightning whiskey, and in our short walk from dance hall to hotel we were obliged to jump over the prostrate forms of drunken darkies.

As in the lowlands, bordering upon large bodies of water, in all tropical and semi-tropical countries, we found, to our horror and dismay, the mosquitoes in ferocious, bloodthirsty swarms which rendered life not worth the living; so, as soon as we could, without seriously offending our host, we took our flight, at least what little there was left of us, to the delightful highlands of Marion County.

Here, free from the horrors of mosquitoes, we recruited our attenuated bodies at the elegant Ocala House, thence by rail to Jacksonville where we took the steamer for home. Off Hatteras we encountered a wild storm which sent our great boat well-nigh to the stars, then with an almost perpendicular plunge, almost to Davy Jones' locker, until, with the nauseating sea-sickness, we were afraid, first that we should die and later we only feared lest we should not die.

At last the young cyclone subsided, and we sailed over a tranquil sea into Boston harbor, thence by rail to our Bay state home. At Jacksonville, by the way, we had an experience quite characteristic of those ante-free-delivery days of old. I went to the post-office for our mail, having but a few minutes to spare before the departure of the north-bound train. To my disgust, I found a line of negroes nearly half a mile in length waiting their turns for calling for letters. One would step to the window and in an exasperatingly in-no-hurry way, say: "Anything for Andrew Jackson, sah?" After a long delay--"no!"

"Do yer 'spect dere may be soon, sah?"

"Did you expect any?" came the reply.

"No sah, but sumbudy might write, sah."

"Gwan, next!" Then some white man in a hurry would step up to next--"here's a quarter for your place, git aout!" The darky would pocket his money with a broad grin, and but for his ears, the top of his head would be an island.

I could not wait, and would not bribe, so went to the door of the office, and kicked and banged furiously. "G'way fum de doo'! What de h.e.l.l you do on de doo'?" came from the inside.

"I'm a government officer from Washington," I shouted. "Open the door or I'll knock it down." Out popped the "cullud pusson" profuse in apologies. I grabbed my mail and rushed for the train in the very nick of time.

CHAPTER XXII.

PENDULUM 'TWIXT SMILES AND TEARS.

In many particulars this year of our Lord, 1883, was a sad one for us all. The pecuniary loss, resultant upon the town-building disaster, was severe; but the revelation which came to me of the innate meanness of human nature in matters of money, was the more depressing by far.

It was amazing to hear wealthy people, who had bought of me a few hundred dollars' worth of stock, and who really felt the loss of it much less than they would suffer from a fly bite, whine as if this had reduced them to the direst poverty, and insinuate that I, who had lost manifold more than they, should refund, though the loss was entirely the result of their own stupidity in failing to send me the proxies I had asked for by mail.

We consoled ourselves, as usual, with the knowledge that we had acted honestly and conscientiously towards all, and that the miseries of this short life are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us in the near future of the life eternal."

The blue arch above us, ever changing like the sea, has always possessed a peculiar fascination for me, and I never let slip a convenient opportunity to feast my eyes upon it. I was pursuing this favorite occupation one day this year, when an unusually beautiful cloud attracted my attention, and as I watched its rapidly changing forms, there was slowly evolved from it the kindly loving face of my mother. It was no fancy, no distorted figment of a dream. The dear face smiled upon me with angelic sweetness, glanced upward, and was gone; then I knew that I had another guardian angel in heaven.

In a short time, news came from R---- that she who had gladly devoted her life to self-sacrifice for her children, had been relieved from the always weak and suffering body.

Dear, good mother! Her highest and only ambition was to do good; not a selfish thought ever even flitted across her horizon. Frank as the day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew; like our Lord himself, she sacrificed herself for the good of others. Her sons, Richard and Mark, welcomed her at the gates ajar, and she was at rest.

What is death but a journey home?

A perfect rest when the work is done, A gentle sleep for earth-weary eyes, And the soul ascends to the azure skies.

We in the earth life went on as best we could. My only brother Joshua sold the old homestead with its burdens, too heavy for him to bear alone, bought our former home for one-half it had cost us, which was much more than any other would pay for it; while we sold our castle and farm which had become a mountain on our shoulders, and went to live with my wife's parents in Boston, where I continued my work of introducing the school text-books which had been sold, and myself with them, to a New York publishing firm.

When the winter winds and snows began to blow, I longed for the balmy zephyrs of fair Florida, and like the summer birds, I once more journeyed southward; there, after a long search for the best throughout the land of flowers, journeying in steam yachts, row-boats, on horseback, and sometimes hand over hand on the branches of trees, over tracks inaccessible in any other manner, I formed another stock company consisting of several financiers who had spent all their lives in Florida, and secured many thousands of acres of excellent lands in the highlands of Marion County, hoping to do good and get good by inducing the surplus population of our cities to go back to the bosom of Mother Earth, where a moderate amount of labor will give them an independent livelihood free from the snow and cold which infest the wintry north, free from the heart-breaking demoralization of begging for work in our overcrowded cities where scores of the poverty-stricken are tumbling over each other in the frantic grabbing for every job of work and every crumb of charity.

Were a mere modic.u.m of the vast sums now worse than wasted in pauperizing the unemployed; a t.i.the of the money squandered on building palaces for our numberless, ever-begging colleges, devoted to settling the poor upon the unimproved lands in Florida, the dangerous flood of ever-increasing crime, and physical and mental suffering which now threatens the very existence of our republic, would soon vanish from our cities, and thousands of the dangerous cla.s.ses would become self-supporting, self-respecting, independent men and women.

Were a t.i.the of the vast sums lavished by our millionaires upon the pictured walls, gorgeously embellished ceilings, overcrowded book shelves of our numerous libraries, and upon the unchristlike towers of unfrequented cathedrals, be even loaned to those who would gladly cultivate the thousands of acres of untilled soil in fair Florida, all the suffering hangers-on for jobs would become successful agriculturists, owning their own farms, buying their own books, and sufficiently educating their own children.