The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 46

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE END

_The senatorial party--Mrs. Jenks's pearls--Gossip--One good deed--The d.u.c.h.ess brand--I take my seat in the Senate--Red roses_

When it came time to go to Washington to take my seat, my friend Major Frederickson, of the Atlantic and Great Western road, placed his private car at my disposal and made up a special train for my party. Sarah and the girls had come back from Paris in time to accompany me to Washington. The girls were crazy over going; they saw ahead a lot of parties and sights, and I suppose had their ideas about making foreign matches some day. The boy was to meet us there, and he was rather pleased, too, to be the son of a Senator.

Among those who made the trip with us there were Sloc.u.m and his wife, of course, John Carmichael, young Jenks and his pretty little wife, and a dozen or more other friends. We had a very pleasant and successful journey. A good deal of merriment was occasioned by a string of pearls that young Mrs. Jenks wore, which had lately been the talk of the city.

The stones were of unusual size and quality, and had been purchased through a London dealer from some t.i.tled person. Jenks had given them as a present to his wife because of the success of the beef merger, which had more than doubled the fortune old Randolph Jenks left him when he died. The pearls, being so perfect and well known in London, caused a lot of newspaper talk. They were said to be the finest string in the United States; there were articles even in the magazines about Mrs.

Jenks and her string of pearls. Finally, some reporter started the story that there was a stone for every million dollars Jenks had "screwed out of the public by the merger"--twenty-seven in all. (For these days there was beginning to be heard all over the clamor about the price of food, and how the new combination of packers was forcing up prices--mere guesswork on the part of cheap socialistic agitators that was being taken seriously by people who ought to know better.) One paper even had it that pretty little Mrs. Jenks "flaunted around her neck the blood-bought price of a million lives!"

So it had come to be a sort of joke among us, that string of pearls.

Whenever I saw it, I would pretend to count the stones and ask Mrs.

Jenks how many more million lives she was wearing around her neck to-night. She would laugh back in her pretty little Southern drawl:--

"The papers do say such dreadful things! Pretty soon I shan't dare to wear a single jewel in public. Ralph says it's dangerous to do it now, there are so many cranks around. Don't you think it's horrid of them to talk so?"

Sarah had her string of pearls, too, but it was much smaller than the famous one of Mrs. Jenks. Sarah didn't altogether like Mrs. Jenks, and used to say that she plastered herself with jewels to show who she was.

Well, the pearls went to Washington with us on this trip, and made quite a splendid show, though we used to joke Ralph Jenks about sitting up nights to watch his wife's necklace. The fame of the pearls had got to Washington ahead of us, and the Washington _Eagle_ had a piece in about the arrival at the Arlington of the new Senator from Illinois and the "packers' contingent" with their pearls! People used to turn around in the corridors and stare at us--not so much at the new Senator as at Mrs.

Jenks's pearls!

I had already taken a house in Washington for the winter, and Sarah soon was busy in having it done over for us. We had shut up the Chicago house, and after discussing the matter with Sarah I concluded to turn over the Vermilion County property to a society, to be used for a reform school. Sarah talked it over with the young fellow I met on the train, who first put the idea into my head, and she seemed to take great pleasure in the plan, wanting me to give an endowment for the inst.i.tution, which I promised as soon as my packing-company stock was straightened out. Now that I had failed to put Will and his family down there, as I had set my heart on doing, I had no more wish to go back to the place than Sarah had. And as a home to take boys to who hadn't a fair chance in life, it might do some good in the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_It was good sausage, Slo! At least it was when we made it._"]

It was a pleasant, warm day when my colleague, Senator Drummond, came to escort me to the Senate. My secretary and Sloc.u.m accompanied us up the broad steps toward the Senate chamber. As we turned in from the street with the Capitol rising before us, my eye fell upon a broad advertising board beside the walk, on a vacant piece of property. One of the conspicuous advertis.e.m.e.nts caught my attention:--

THE d.u.c.h.eSS BRAND STRICTLY FARM-MADE SAUSAGE BEST IN THE WORLD

It was one of Strauss's "ads." Sloc.u.m pointed to it with a wave of his hand and glanced at me; and I thought I caught a smile on the lips of my colleague, which might have been scornful. So I paused before we pa.s.sed beyond sight of the sign of the d.u.c.h.ess brand.

"It was good sausage, Slo! At least it was when we made it."

"And it did pretty well by you!" he laughed.

Senator Drummond had moved forward with my secretary. "Yes! The d.u.c.h.ess was all right." Then we followed the others slowly up the great steps....

In the Senate chamber, in one of the galleries, a group of women were sitting about Sarah, waiting to see me take the oath. One of them waved a handkerchief at me, and as I looked up I caught sight of Mrs. Jenks's pearls when she leaned forward over the rail.

On my desk there was a bunch of American Beauty roses: I did not have to look for the card to know that they had come from Jane.

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By ROBERT HERRICK,

_Author of "The Real World," "The Web of Life," etc._

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