The Jucklins Part 27

"You told him--told him that I did. And I am so thankful to you; I would do anything for you. I dream of him all the time, and I see you with him. How terrible it is, shut up there and the sun is so bright for everyone else. Sometimes I go into the closet and stay there in the dark, for then I am nearer him. When will you see him again?"

"I am going back to town to-morrow."

"Will you please give him this?"

I reached forth my hand and upon my palm she placed a locket.

"I know that if you study law, Mr. Hawes, you will get him out. You are so strong that you can do most anything. Good-bye, and when you write to Guinea, send her my love."

CHAPTER XIX.

Four weeks pa.s.sed and heavy were the days with anxiety, for I had received no word from Guinea. I thought of a hundred causes that must have kept her from writing, but, worst of all, I feared that she had written and that the letter had gone astray.

One afternoon, having thrown my book aside, weary of causes, reasonings and developments of law, I sat on a rock near the spring, musing, wondering, when suddenly I sprang to my feet, with Guinea in my mind, with Guinea before me, I thought. But this was only for an instant. A young deer came down the path, gracefully leaping, and my mind flew back to the time when I had first seen her running down that shining strip of hard-beat earth. Yes, it was a deer, and it ran down the brook, and presently I heard the hounds yelping in the woods. I returned to my room and again I strove to study, but the logical phrasing was harsh to me, and I threw down the book. I would fish in the pools that lay along the stream toward the mill. The ground in the yard and about the barn was so dry that I could find no angle worms, and I decided to dig in the damp moss-land near the spring. The hoe struck a hard substance and out came something bright. I stooped to examine it, and at first I thought that it was silver, but it was not--it was mica. I sc.r.a.ped off the moss and the thin strata of earth, and there I found a great bed of the ore. I dug deeper and it came up in chunks, and it was fine and flawless. My reading taught me that it was valuable, and I was rejoiced to find that it was on my own land. I got out as much as I could carry--indeed, I filled a trunk with it, and then carefully replaced the moss, smoothed it down and made it look as if it had not been displaced. My blood tingled with excitement and I was afraid that some one might have seen me. I took the trunk to my room and split off thin sheets of the mica, and the more I looked at it the more I was thrilled at the prospect that now lay, not in the future, but under my touch. And I was not long in resolving upon a course to pursue. I remembered that into our neighborhood had come from Nashville, Tenn., a large stove with mica in the doors, and I thought it would be wise to take my trunk to that city and by exhibiting its contents induce some one to buy the mine. I hastened to town, after hiding the trunk, and told Conkwright and Alf that unexpected business called me away for a few days, and then I returned home and hired a man to drive me to the railway station. I was afraid to trust the trunk out of my sight, but I had to let the baggage man take it, but I charged him to be particular with it, telling him that it was full of iron ore. He gave it a jerk and declared that it must be full of lead. When I had come into that community I fancied that the train was on wings, but now it appeared to be crawling. Night came and I was afraid that robbers might a.s.sail the train and expose my secret; but at last I reached Nashville, and then came a worry. How was I to find the man who had made the stove? I took my trunk to a hotel, wrapped a chunk of the mica in a handkerchief and set out to look for a stove dealer. I soon found a hardware establishment, and in I walked with the hardened air of business, and asked for the proprietor. A pleasant-looking man came forward, and I asked him what mica was worth.

He looked at me sharply and answered that he was not thoroughly informed as to the state of the market, but that he thought it was worth all the way from five to twenty-five dollars a pound. "But mica of the first quality is scarce," said he, and then he asked if I wanted to buy mica.

"No, sir, I want to sell it. Is this of good quality?"

I unwrapped the handkerchief and his eyes stuck out in astonishment.

"Where did you get it?" he asked.

"Off my land in North Carolina."

"Have you very much of it?" he asked, scaling off thin sheets with his knife.

"Tons of it."

"You don't say so! Then you've got a fortune. We are not very large manufacturers and don't use a great deal. How much did you bring with you?"

"Only a trunk full."

"Well, I guess we can take that much. Bring it around."

I did so, and I could scarcely believe that I had correctly caught his words when he offered me five hundred dollars, though now I know that he paid me much less than it was worth. He talked a long time with his partner, and then came back to me with the money, asked my name and a number of other questions. "Young man," said he, "if we had the ready means we would buy that mine, but we haven't. Now, I tell you what you do: Take a sample--this piece--and go at once to Chicago. I know of some capitalists there who are making large investments in the South, and I have no doubt that they will be pleased to make you an offer for your property. Here, I'll write their names on a card. To tell you the truth, we are to some extent interested with them. Now, don't show this sample to anyone else, but go straight to Clarm & Ging, Rookery building, Chicago. Anybody can tell you where it is. Here's the card. We'll telegraph them that you are coming, so you are somewhat in honor bound, you understand, not to go elsewhere--we have in some degree sealed the transaction with a part purchase, you see."

I walked out of that house, dazed, bewildered with my own luck. And I took pa.s.sage on the first train for Chicago. If money could clear Alf, he would now be cleared, and proudly I mused over the great difference that I would make between his first and his last trial. But during all this time I was conscious of a heaviness--the silence of Guinea.

The train reached Chicago at morning. And now I was in the midst of a whirl and a roar--a confused babbling at the base of Babel's tower. And as I walked up a street I thought that a tornado had broken loose and that I was in the center of it. I called a hackman, for my reading taught me what to do, and I told him to drive me to the Rookery. He rattled away and came within one of being upset by other vehicles, and I yelled at him to be more particular, but on he went, paying no attention to me. After a while he drew up in front of a building as big as a lopped-off spur of a mountain range; and when I got out I found that the vitals of the hurricane had shifted with me, for the roar and the confusion was worse, was gathering new forces. But no one laughed at me, no one pointed me out, and I really felt quite pleased with myself--a school-teacher, a lawyer's a.s.sistant, expected by a capitalist! I went under a marble arch-way, and asked a man if he knew Clarm & Ging, and he pointed to an elevator--I knew what it was--and shouted a number. I got in and was shot to the eighth floor. I knocked at a door, but no one opened it. There was no bell to ring, so I knocked louder and still no one opened the door. This was hardly the courtesy that I expected. But while I was standing there a man came along and went in without knocking. I thought that he must be one of the men I was looking for, and I followed him, but he simply looked round after going in and then went out again without saying anything. I saw a man sitting at a desk, and I handed him the card which the hardware dealer had given me. He looked at it and said: "Yes, you are Hawes, eh? Where's your mica."

I gave it to him, and he looked at it closely through a microscope. "How deep have you gone?"

"Not more than six inches."

"That so? Much of this size?"

"Train loads, I should think."

"Ah, hah. How much land does it cover?"

"Don't know exactly. Haven't investigated."

And this question set me to thinking. The mine was well on my land, but it might spread out beyond my lines. It was important that I should buy several acres surrounding the stretch of moss, and I decided to do this immediately upon my return home.

"Let's see," said the capitalist. "This is Friday. Mr. Clarm is out of town and will not be back until Monday--has a summer home in St. Jo, Mich., and is over there. It's just across the lake. Suppose we go over there to-morrow morning. Boat leaves at nine. Be a pleasant trip. All right."

He resumed his work as if my acceptance of his proposition was a foreshadowed necessity. "How did you happen to find it?" he asked, without looking up from his work.

"I was digging for angle worms."

He grunted. "Didn't find any worms, did you?"

"No, I don't think I did."

"I know you didn't. Worms and mica don't exist in the same soil. Very rugged?"

"Rocks on each side."

I was determined to be business-like, not to give him information unless he asked for it; and I sat there, studying him. He was direct and this pleased me, for it bespoke a quick decision. But after a time I grew tired of looking upon his absorption, for his mood was unvarying, and he held one position almost without change, so I began to walk about, looking at the pictures of factories and of mines, hung on the walls.

The day was hot and the windows were up, and I looked down on the ant-working industry in the street. How different from the view that lay out of my window in the old log house; but I was resolved to draw no long bow of astonishment, for in a man's surprise is a reflex of his ignorance.

"What business?" the capitalist asked, still without looking up.

"None, you might say. Have taught school, but of late I have employed my time with studying law."

He looked round at me and then resumed his work. A long time pa.s.sed. I heard his watch snap and then he got up.

"We'll go out and get a bite to eat," he said. "Any particular place?"

"No," I answered, pleased that he should presume that I was acquainted with the eating houses of the town.

We stepped out into the hall and he yelled: "Down!" He shoved me into an elevator among a number of men and women, and though we were all jammed together no one appeared to notice me; but when we got out a boy whistled at a companion and yelled: "Hi, Samson!" Mr. Ging darted out under the arch, and I almost ran over him, when he halted on the sidewalk to talk to a man. They walked along together for quite a distance, nodding and making gestures, and when they separated Ging said to me that he had just bought a subdivision of real estate. At this I appeared to be pleased, but I was not; I was afraid that before the close of the deal he might entangle himself in so many transactions that he could not afford to pay cash for the mica mine. The further we went the faster he walked, and suddenly he darted through a wall, and the swinging doors came back and slapped me in the face. We sat down to a table and Mr. Ging said that I might take whatever I desired, but that he wanted only a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie. I was hungry, had eaten no breakfast and felt as if I could devour a beef steak as big as a saddle skirt, but I said that coffee and apple pie would do me. He asked me a number of questions concerning the mine, its distance from a railway, condition of the wagon roads, and especially did he want to know whether the local tax a.s.sessor made it a point to discriminate against the non-resident property owner. I caught the spirit of his quick utterances, and blew out my words in a splutter, striving to be business-like, but before I could cover all his points he had eaten his pie and was impatiently waiting for me.

"Want to go round to-night?" he asked, and before I could tell him that I did want to go round, having but a vague idea as to what he meant, he added: "And if I can get off this afternoon I'll take you out to the stock-yards."

"I would much rather see your finest library," I replied.

"I guess you've got me there; don't know where it is, but I suppose we can find it in the directory."

"I have read of the Art Inst.i.tute here. You know where that is, I presume."

"Y-e-s--low building over on the lake front. But I've never had time to go into it. Well, suppose we get back to the office."

I raced with him, but he beat me by a neck, being more accustomed to the track; and he shouted "Up!" as he darted under the marble arch. I grabbed him and held him for a moment, told him that I did not care to go up again so soon, that I would stroll about for a time and see him after a while.