Kitabı oku: «Jupiter Lights», sayfa 9
XIII
IT was the afternoon of the same day.
“I shall go, grandpa,” said Cicely; “I shall go to-night. There’s a boat, somebody said.”
“But, my dear child, listen to reason; Sabrina does not say that he is in danger.”
“And she does not say that he is out of it.”
The judge took up the letter again, and, putting on his glasses, he read aloud, with a frown of attention: “‘For the first two days Dr. Daniels came over twice a day’” —
“You see? – twice a day,” said Cicely.
– “‘But as he is beginning to feel his age, the crossing so often in the row-boat tired him; so now he sends us his partner, Dr. Knox, a new man here, and a very intelligent person, I should judge. Dr. Knox comes over every afternoon and spends the night’” —
“You see? – spends the night,” said Cicely.
– “‘Going back early the following morning. He has brought us a nurse, an excellent and skilful young man, and now we can have the satisfaction of feeling that our poor Ferdie has every possible attention. As I write, the fever is going down, and the nurse tells me that by to-morrow, or day after to-morrow, he will probably be able to speak to us, to talk.’”
“I don’t know exactly how many days it will take me to get there,” said Cicely, beginning to count upon her fingers. “Four days – or is it three? – to Cleveland, where I take the train; then how many hours from there to Washington? You will have to make it out for me, grandpa; or rather Paul will; Paul knows everything.”
“My poor little girl, you haven’t had any rest; even now you have only just come out of a fainting-fit. Sabrina will write every day; wait at least until her next letter comes to-morrow morning.”
“You are all so strange! Wouldn’t you wish me to see him if he were dying?” Cicely demanded, her voice growing hard.
“Of course, of course,” replied the old man, hastily. “But there is no mention of dying, Sabrina says nothing that looks like it; Daniels, our old friend – why, Daniels would cross twenty times a day if he thought there was danger.”
“I can’t argue, grandpa. But I shall go; I shall go to-night,” Cicely responded.
She was seated on a sofa in Paul Tennant’s parlor, a large room, furnished with what the furniture dealer of Port aux Pins called a “drawing-room set.” The sofa of this set was of the pattern named tête-à-tête, very hard and slippery, upholstered in hideous green damask. Cicely was sitting on the edge of this unreposeful couch, her feet close together on a footstool, her arms tight to her sides and folded from the elbows in a horizontal position across the front of her waist. She looked very rigid and very small.
“But supposing, when you get there, that you find him up, – well?” suggested the judge.
“Shouldn’t I be glad?” answered Cicely, defiantly. “What questions you ask!”
“But we couldn’t be glad. Can’t you think a little of us? – you are all we have left now.”
“Aunt Sabrina doesn’t feel as you do – if you mean Aunt Sabrina; she would be delighted to have me come back. She likes Ferdie; it is only you who are so hard about him.”
“Sabrina doesn’t know. But supposing it were only I, is my wish nothing to you?” And the old man put out his hand in appeal.
“No,” answered Cicely, inflexibly. “I am sorry, grandpa; but for the moment it isn’t, nothing is anything to me now but Ferdie. And what is it that Aunt Sabrina doesn’t know, pray? There’s nothing to know; Ferdie had one of his attacks – he has had them before – and I came away with Jack; that is all. Eve has exaggerated everything. I told her I would come here, come to Paul, because Ferdie likes Paul; but I never intended to stay forever, and now that Ferdie is ill, do you suppose that I will wait one moment longer than I must? Of course not.”
The door opened and Eve came in. Cicely glanced at her; then she turned her eyes away, looking indifferently at the whitewashed wall.
“She is going to take the steamer back to-night,” said the judge, helplessly.
“Oh no, Cicely; surely not to-night,” Eve began. In spite of the fatigues of the journey, Eve had been a changed creature since morning; there was in her eyes an expression of deep happiness, which was almost exaltation.
“There is no use in explaining anything to Eve, and I shall not try,” replied Cicely. She unfolded her arms and rose, still standing, a rigid little figure, close to the sofa. “I love my husband, and I shall go to him; what Eve says is of no consequence, because she knows nothing about such things; but I suppose you cared for grandma once, didn’t you, grandpa, when she was young? and if she had been shot, wouldn’t you have gone to her?”
“Cicely, you are cruel,” said Eve.
“When grandpa thinks so, it will be time enough for me to trouble myself. But grandpa doesn’t think so.”
“No, no,” said the old man; “never.” And for the moment he and his grandchild made common cause against the intruder.
Eve felt this, she stood looking at them in silence. Then she said, “And Jack?”
“I shall take him with me, of course. That reminds me that I must speak to Porley about his frocks; Porley is so stupid.” And Cicely turned towards the door.
Eve followed her. “Another long journey so soon will be bad for Jack.”
“There you go again! But I shall not leave him with you, no matter what you say; useless, your constant asking.” She opened the door. On the threshold she met Paul Tennant coming in.
He took her hand and led her back. “I was looking for you; I have found a little bed for Jack; but I don’t know that it will do.”
“You are very good, Paul, but Jack will not need it. I am going away to-night; I have only just learned that there is a boat.”
“We don’t want to hear any talk of boats,” Paul answered. He drew her towards the sofa and placed her upon it. “Sit down; you look so tired!”
“I’m not tired; at least I do not feel it. And I have a great deal to do, Paul; I must see about Jack’s frocks.”
“Jack’s frocks can wait. There’s to be no journey to-night.”
“Yes, there is,” said Cicely, with a mutinous little smile. Her glance turned towards her grandfather and Eve; then it came back to Paul, who was standing before her. “None of you shall keep me,” she announced.
“You will obey your grandfather, won’t you?” Paul began, seriously.
The judge got up, rubbing his hands round each other.
“No,” Cicely answered; “not about this. Grandpa knows it; we have already talked it over.”
“You are wrong; you ought not to be willing to make him so unhappy.”
“Never mind about that, Tennant; I’ll see to that,” said the judge. He spoke in a thin old voice which sounded far away.
Paul looked at him, surprised. Then his glance turned towards Eve. “Miss Bruce too; I am sure she does not approve of your going?”
“Oh, if I should wait for Eve’s approval!” said Cicely. “Eve doesn’t approve of anything in the world except that she should have Jack, and take him away with her, Heaven knows where. She hasn’t any feelings as other people have; she has never cared for anybody excepting herself, and her brother, and I dare say that when she had him she tried to rule him, as she tries now to rule me and every one. She is jealous about him, and that makes her hate Ferdie: perhaps you don’t know that she hates Ferdie? She does; she was sorry this morning, absolutely sorry, when she heard that, though he was dreadfully hurt, he wasn’t dead.”
“Oh, Cicely!” said Eve. She turned away and walked towards one of the windows, her face covered by her hands.
Paul’s eyes followed her. Then they came back to Cicely. “Very well, then, since it appears to be left to me, I must tell you plainly that you cannot go to-night; we shall not allow it.”
“We!” ejaculated Cicely. “Who are we?”
“I, then, if you like – I alone.”
“What can you do? I am free; no one has any authority over me except Ferdie.” Paul did not reply. “You will scarcely attempt to keep me by force, I suppose?” she went on.
“If necessary, yes. But it will not be necessary.”
“Grandpa would never permit it. Grandpa?” She summoned him to her side with an imperious gesture.
The old man came towards her a step or two. Then he left the room hurriedly.
Cicely watched him go, with startled eyes. But she recovered herself, and looked at Paul undaunted.
“Why do you treat me so, Cicely?” he said. “I care about Ferdie as much as you do; I have always cared about him, – hasn’t he ever told you? There never were two boys such chums; and although, since he has grown up, he has had others, I have never had any one but him; I haven’t wanted any one. Is it likely, then, that I should try to set you against him? – that I should turn against him myself? – I ask you that.”
“It is setting me against him not to let me go to him. How do we know that he is not dying?” Her voice was quiet and hard.
“We know because the letters do not speak of danger; on the contrary, they tell us that the ball has been extracted, and that the fever is going down. He will get well. And then some measures must be taken before you can go back to him; otherwise it would not be safe.”
“And do I care about safe? I should like to die if he did!” cried Cicely, passionately. She looked like a hunted creature at bay.
“And your child; what is your idea about him?”
“That’s it; take up Eve’s cry – do! You know I will never give up baby, and so you both say that.” She sank down on the sofa, her head on her arms, her face hidden.
Her little figure lying there looked so desolate that Eve hurried forward from the window. Then she stopped, she felt that Cicely hated her.
“I say what I think will influence you,” Paul was answering. “Ferdie has already thrown the boy about once; he may do it again. Of course at such times he is not responsible; but these times are increasing, and he must be brought up short; he must be brought to his senses.” He went to the sofa, sat down beside her, and lifted her in his arms. “My poor little sister, do trust me. Ferdie does; he wrote to me himself about that dreadful time, that first time when he hurt you; isn’t that a proof? I will show you the letter if you like.”
“I don’t want to see it. Ferdie and I never speak of those things; there has never been an allusion to them between us,” replied Cicely, proudly.
“I can understand that. You are his wife, and I am only his big brother, to whom he has always told everything.” He placed her beside him on the sofa, with his arm still round her. “Didn’t you know that we still tell each other everything, – have all in common? I have been the slow member of the firm, as one may say, and so I’ve stayed along here; but I have always known what Ferdie was about, and have been interested in his schemes as much as he was.”
“Yes, he told me that you gave him the money for South America,” said Cicely, doubtfully.
“That South American investment was his own idea, and he deserves all the credit of it; he will make it a success yet. See here, Cicely: at the first intimation that he is worse, I should go down there myself as fast as boat and train could carry me; I’ve telegraphed to that Dr. Knox to keep me informed exactly, and, if there should be any real danger, I will take you to him instantly. But I feel certain that he will recover. And then we must cure him in another way. The trouble with Ferdie is that he is sure that he can stop at any moment, and, being so sure, he has never really tried. The thing has been on him almost from a boy, he inherits it from his father. But he has such a will, he is so brilliant – ”
“Oh, yes! isn’t he?” said Cicely, breathlessly.
– “That he has never considered himself in danger, in spite of these lapses. Now there is where we must get hold of him – we must open his eyes; and that is going to be the hard point, the hard work, in which, first of all, you must help. But once he is convinced, once the thing is done, then, Cicely, then” —
“Yes, then?”
– “He will be about as perfect a fellow as the world holds, I think,” said Paul, with quiet enthusiasm. He stooped and kissed her cheek. “I want you to believe that I love him,” he added, simply.
He got up, smiling down upon her, – “Now will you be a good girl?” he said, as though she were a child.
“I will wait until to-morrow,” Cicely answered, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Come, that’s a concession,” said Paul, applaudingly. “And now won’t you do something else that will please me very much? – won’t you go straight to bed?”
“A small thing to please you with,” Cicely answered, without a smile; “I will go if you wish. I should like to have you know, Paul, that I came to you of my own choice,” she went on; “I came to you when I would not go anywhere else; Eve will tell you so.”
“Yes,” assented Eve from her place by the window.
“Well, I’m glad you had some confidence,” Paul responded; “I must try to give you more. And now who will – who will see to you? Does that wool-headed girl of yours know anything?”
He looked so anxious as he said this that Cicely broke into a faint laugh. “I haven’t lost my mind; I can see to myself.”
“But I thought you Southerners – However, Miss Bruce will help you.” He looked at Eve.
“I am afraid Cicely is tired of me,” Eve answered, coming forward. “All the same, I know how to take care of her.”
“Yes, she took care of me all the way here,” remarked Cicely, looking at Eve coldly. “She needs to be taken care of herself,” she went on, in a dispassionate voice; “she has hardly closed her eyes since we started.”
“I feel perfectly well,” Eve answered, the color rushing to her face in a brilliant flush.
“I don’t think we need borrow any trouble about Miss Bruce, she looks the image of health,” observed Paul (but not as though he admired the image). “I am afraid your bedrooms are not very large,” he went on, again perturbed. “There are two, side by side.”
“Cicely shall have one to herself; Jack and I will take the other,” said Eve.
“Where is Jack?” demanded Cicely, suddenly. “What have you done with him, Eve?”
Paul opened the door. “Polly!” he cried, in a voice that could have been heard from garret to cellar. Porley, amazed by the sound, came running in, with Jack in her arms. Paul looked at her dubiously, shook his head, and went out.
Cicely took her child, and began to play all his games with him feverishly, one after the other.
Jack was delighted; he played with all his little heart.
XIV
FOUR days had passed slowly by. “What do you think, judge, of this theory about the shooting, – the one they believe at Romney?” said Paul, on the fifth morning.
“It’s probable enough. Niggers are constitutionally timid, and they always have pistols nowadays; these two boys, it seems, had come over from the mainland to hide; they had escaped from a lock-up, got a boat somewhere and crossed; that much is known. Your brother, perhaps, went wandering about the island; if he came upon them suddenly, with that knife in his hand, like as not they fired.”
“Ferdie was found lying very near the point where your boat was kept.”
“And the niggers might have been hidden just there. But I don’t think we can tell exactly where our boat was; Cicely doesn’t remember – I have asked her.”
“Miss Bruce may have clearer ideas.”
“No; Eve seems to have a greater confusion about it than Cicely even; she cannot speak of it clearly at all.”
“Yes, I have noticed that,” said Paul.
“I suppose it is because, at the last, she had it all to do; she is a brave woman.”
Paul was silent.
“Don’t you think so?” said the judge.
“I wasn’t there. I don’t know what she did.”
“You’re all alike, you young men; she’s too much for you,” said the judge, with a chuckle.
“Why too much? She seems to me very glum and shy. When you say that we are all alike, do you mean that Ferdie didn’t admire her, either? Yet Ferdie is liberal in his tastes,” said the elder brother, smiling.
But the judge did not want to talk about Ferdie. “So you find her shy? She did not strike us so at Romney. Quiet enough – yes. But very decidedly liking to have her own way.”
Paul dismissed the subject. “I suppose those two scamps, who shot him, got safely away?”
“Yes, they were sure to have run off on the instant; they had the boat they came over in, and before daylight they were miles to the southward probably; I dare say they made for one of the swamps. In the old days we could have tracked them; but it’s not so easy now. And even if we got them we couldn’t string them up.”
“You wouldn’t hang them?”
“By all the gods, I would!” said the planter, bringing his fist down upon the table with a force that belonged to his youth.
“Ferdie may have attacked them first, you know.”
“What difference does that make? Damnation, sir! are they to be allowed to fire upon their masters?”
“They did not fire very well, these two; according to Dr. Knox, the wound is not serious; his despatch this morning says that Ferdie is coming on admirably.”
“Yes, I suppose he is,” said the old man, relapsing into gloom.
“As soon as he is up and about, I am going down there,” Paul went on; “I must see him and have a serious talk. Some new measures must be taken. I don’t think it will be difficult when I have once made him see his danger; he is so extraordinarily intelligent.”
“I wish he were dull, then, – dull as an owl!” said the judge, with a long sigh.
“Yes, regarded simply as husbands, I dare say the dull may be safer,” responded Paul. “But you must excuse me if I cannot look upon Ferdie merely as the husband of your daughter; I expect great things of him yet.”
“Granddaughter. If her father had lived – my boy Duke – it would have been another story; Duke wouldn’t have been a broken old man like me.” And the judge leaned his head upon his hand.
“I beg your pardon, sir; don’t mind my roughness. It’s only that I’m fond of Ferdie, and proud of him; he has but that one fault. But I appreciate how you feel about Cicely; we must work together for them both.”
Paul had risen, and was standing before him with outstretched hand. “Thank you; you mean well,” said the judge. He had let his hand be taken, but he did not look up. He felt that he could never really like this man – never.
“I am to understand, then, that you approve of my plan?” Paul went on, after a short silence. “Cicely to stay here for the present – the house, I hope, is fairly comfortable – and then, when Ferdie is better, I to go down there and see what I can do; I have every hope of doing a great deal! Oh, yes, there’s one more thing; you needn’t feel obliged to stay here any longer than you want to, you know; I can see to Cicely. Apparently, too, Miss Bruce has no intention of leaving her.”
“I shall stay, sir – I shall stay.”
“On my own account, I hope you will; I only meant that you needn’t feel that you must; I thought perhaps there was something that called you home.”
“Calls me home? Do you suppose we do anything down there nowadays with the whole coast ruined? As for the house, Sabrina is there, and women like illness; they absolutely dote on medicines, and doctors, and ghastly talking in whispers.”
“Very well; I only hope you won’t find it dull, that’s all. The mine isn’t bad; you might come out there occasionally. And the steamers stop two or three times a day. There’s a good deal going on in the town, too; building’s lively.”
“I am much obliged to you.”
“But you don’t care for liveliness,” pursued Paul, with a smile. “I am afraid there isn’t much else. I haven’t many books, but Kit Hollis has; he is the man for you. Queer; never can decide anything; always beating round the bush; still, in his way, tremendously well read and clever.”
“He appears to be a kind of dry-nurse to you,” said the judge, rising.
Paul laughed, showing his white teeth. He was very good-natured, his guest had already discovered that.
The judge was glad that their conversation had come to an end. He could no longer endure dwelling upon sorrow. Trouble was not over for them by any means; their road looked long and dark before them. But for the moment Cicely and her child were safe under this roof; let them enjoy that and have a respite. As for himself, he could – well, he could enjoy the view.
The view consisted of the broad lake in front, and the deep forest which stretched unbroken towards the east and the west. The water of the lake was fresh, the great forest was primeval; this made the effect very unlike that of the narrow salt-water sounds, and the chain of islands, large and small, with their gardens and old fields. The South had forgotten her beginnings; but here one could see what all the new world had once been, here one could see traces of the first struggle for human existence with the inert forces of nature. With other forces, too, for Indians still lived here. They were few in number, harmless; but they carried the mind back to the time of sudden alarms and the musket laid ready to the hand; the days of the block-house and the guarded well, the high stockade. The old planter as he walked about did not think of these things. The rough forest was fit only for rough-living pioneers; the Indians were but another species of nigger; the virgin air was thin and raw, – he preferred something more thick, more civilized; the great fresh-water sea was abominably tame, no one could possibly admire it; Port aux Pins itself was simply hideous; it was a place composed entirely of beginnings and mud, talk and ambition, the sort of place which the Yankees produced wherever they went, and which they loved; that in itself described it; how could a Southern gentleman like what they loved?
And Port aux Pins was ugly. Its outlying quarters were still in the freshly plucked state, deplumed, scarred, with roadways half laid out, with shanties and wandering pigs, discarded tin cans and other refuse, and everywhere stumps, stumps. Within the town there were one or two streets where stood smart wooden houses with Mansard-roofs. But these were elbowed by others much less smart, and they were hustled by the scaffolding of the new mansions which were rising on all sides, and, with republican freedom, taking whatever room they found convenient during the process. Even those abodes which were completed as to their exteriors had a look of not being fully furnished, a blank, wide-eyed, unwinking expression across their façades which told of bare floors and echoing spaces within. Always they had temporary fences. Often paths of movable planks led up to the entrance. Day after day a building of some sort was voyaging through Port aux Pins streets by means of a rope and windlass, a horse, and men with boards; when it rained, the house stopped and remained where it was, waiting for the mud to dry; meanwhile the roadway was blocked. But nobody minded that. All these things, the all-pervading beginnings, the jokes and slang, the smell of paint, and always the breathless constant hurry, were hateful to the old Georgian. It might have been said, perhaps, that between houses and a society uncomfortable from age, falling to pieces from want of repairs, and houses and a society uncomfortable from youth, unfurnished, and encumbered with scaffolding, there was not much to choose. But the judge did not think so; to his mind there was a great deal to choose.
As the days passed, Christopher Hollis became more and more his companion; the judge grew into the habit of expecting to see his high head, topped with a silk hat, put stealthily through the crevice of the half-open door of Paul’s dining-room (Hollis never opened a door widely; whether coming in or going out, he always squeezed himself through), with the query, “Hello! What’s up?” There was never anything up; but the judge, sitting there forlornly, with no companion but the local newspaper (which he loathed), was glad to welcome his queer guest. Generally they went out together; Port aux Pins people grew accustomed to seeing them walking down to the end first of one pier, then of the other, strolling among the stumps in the suburbs, or sitting on the pile of planks which adorned one corner of the Public Square, the long-legged, loose-jointed Kit an amusing contrast to the small, precise figure by his side.
“I say, he’s pretty hard up for entertainment, that old gentleman of yours,” announced Hollis one day, peering in through the crevice of the door of Paul Tennant’s office in the town.
“I depended on you to entertain him,” answered Paul without lifting his head, which was bent over a ledger.
“Well, I’ve taken him all over the place, I’ve pretty nearly trotted his legs off,” Hollis responded, edging farther in, the door scraping the buttons of his waistcoat as he did so. “And I’ve shot off all my Latin at him too – all I can remember. I read up on purpose.”
“Is he such a scholar, then?”
“No, he ain’t. But it does him good to hear a little Horace in such an early-in-the-morning, ten-minutes-ago place as this. See here, Paul; if you keep him on here long he won’t stand it – he’ll mizzle out. He’ll simply die of Potterpins.”
“I’m not keeping him. He stays of his own accord.”
“I don’t believe it. But, I say, ain’t he a regular old despot though! You ought to hear him hold forth sometimes.”
“I don’t want to hear him.”
“Well, I guess he don’t talk that way to you, on the whole. Not much,” said Hollis, jocularly.
And Paul Tennant did not look like a man who would be a comfortable companion for persons of the aggressive temperament. He was tall and broad-shouldered; not graceful like Ferdie, but powerful. His neck was rather short; the lower part of his face was strong and firm. His features were good; his eyes, keen, gray in hue. His hair was yellow and thick, and he had a moustache and short beard of the same yellow hue. No one would have called him handsome exactly. There was something of the Scandinavian in his appearance; nothing of the German. His manner, compared with Ferdie’s quick, light brilliancy, was quiet, his speech slow.
“Have you been thinking about that proposition – that sale?” Hollis went on.
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s done. I’ve declined.”
“What! not already? That’s sudden, ain’t it?”
Paul did not answer; he was adding figures.
“Have you been over the reasons? – weighed ’em?”
“Oh, I leave the reasons to you,” said Paul, turning a page.
Hollis gave his almost silent laugh. But he gave it uneasily. “Positively declined? Letter gone?”
“Yes.”
“Oh; well!” He waited a moment; then, as Paul did not speak, he opened the door and edged himself out without a sound.
Ten minutes later his head reappeared with the same stealth. “Oh, I thought I’d just tell you – perhaps you don’t know – the mail doesn’t go out to-day until five o’clock: you can get that letter back if you like.”
“I don’t want it back.”
“Oh; well.” He was gone again.
Outside in the street he saw the judge wandering by, and stopped him. “That there son-in-law of yours – ” he began.
“Son-in-law?” inquired the judge, stiffly.
“Whatever pleases you; step-sister.”
“Mr. Tennant is the half-brother of the husband of my granddaughter.”
“’T any rate, that man in there, that Paul, he’s so tremendously rash there’s no counting on him; if there’s anything to do he goes and does it right spang off without a why or a wherefore. He absolutely seems to have no reasons! – not a rease!”
“I cannot agree with you. To me Mr. Tennant seems to have a great many.”
“But you haven’t heard about this. Come along out to the Park for a walk, and I’ll tell you.”
He moved on. But the judge did not accompany him. A hurrying mulatto, a waiter from one of the steamers, had jostled him off the narrow plank sidewalk; at the same moment a buggy which was passing, driven at a reckless speed, spattered him with mud from shoulder to shoe.
“Never mind, come on; it’ll dry while you’re walking,” suggested Hollis from the corner where he was waiting.
The judge stepped back to the planks; he surveyed his befouled person; then he brought out a resounding expletive – half a dozen of them.
“Do it again – if it’ll ease you off,” called Kit, grinning. “When you’re blessing Potterpins, I’m with you every time.”
The judge rapped the planks with his cane. “Go on, sir! go on!” he said, violently.
Hollis went loafing on. And presently the judge caught up with him, and trotted beside him in silence.
“Well, that Paul now, as I was telling you, I don’t know what to make of him,” said Hollis, returning to his topic. “I think I know him, and then, suddenly he stumps me. Once he has made up his mind to anything – and it does not take long – off he goes and does it, I tell you! He does it.”
“I don’t know what he does; his conversation has a good deal of the sledge-hammer about it,” remarked the judge.
“So it has,” responded Hollis, delighted with the comparison; he was so delighted that he stopped and slapped his thigh. “So it has, by George! – convincing and knock-you-down.” The judge walked on. He had intended no compliment. “To-day, now, that fellow has gone and sent off a letter that he ought to have taken six months to think over,” Hollis continued. “Told you about his Clay County iron?”
“No.”
“Well, he was down there on business – in Clay County. It was several years ago. He had to go across the country, and the roads were awful – full of slew-holes. At last, tired of being joggled to pieces, he got out and walked along the fields, leaving the horse to bring the buggy through the mud as well as he could. By-and-by he saw a stone that didn’t look quite like the others, and he gave it a kick. Still it didn’t look quite like, so he picked it up. The long and short of it was that it turned out to be hematite iron, and off he went to the county-seat and entered as much of the land as he could afford to buy. He hasn’t any capital, so he has never been able to work it himself; all his savings he has invested in something or other in South America. But the other day he had a tip-top offer from a company; they wanted to buy the whole thing in a lump. And that’s the chance he has refused this identical morning!” The judge did not reply. “More iron may be discovered near by, you know,” Hollis went on, warningly, his forefinger out. His companion still remained silent. “He may never have half so good an offer in his whole life again!”
