"Oh, Mary Truett!" exclaimed Grace, when the reading ended. "What fun you've had!"
"As she seems to be the spirit of the letter," said Philip, "tell me something more about her."
"I don't know what more to say. I wasn't familiar with her, for she was a department head, and not of my department, but she had a way of saying kind and merry things to some girls in other parts of the store. She is about thirty; she has parents and brothers, and works merely because she is overflowing with energy, and has no taste for the trivialities of mere society life. Yet her manners are charming, and genuine, too. 'Twas the fashion of the store to worship her, and no one ever tired of it."
"All this, yet unmarried at thirty? How did it happen?"
"I don't know. Perhaps 'twas because she never met you when you were a bachelor. It hasn't been for lack of admirers. Probably she is waiting for a man who is worthy of her. I know she saved many girls in her department and in some others from making foolish marriages, and I committed some of her warnings and arguments to memory—though I got them at second-hand—and I used them on other girls."
"I suppose we couldn't persuade her to come out here, to assist you in the store?"
"Scarcely. She is very well paid where she is. Besides, what would there be for her in other ways?"
"As much as there is for you, poor girl."
"Oh, no—for I have my husband."
"And you feel sure that she isn't trifling with Caleb?"
"The idea! If you could see them together—dear, poor Caleb, with his thin figure, ragged beard, tired face, and stooping pose—Mary rather short, but erect, with broad shoulders, brilliant eyes, rosy cheeks, the reddish brown hair that delights your artistic eye, and as quick in her motions as if she never knew weariness. She's of the kind that never grows old; there are such women. Oh, the comparison is ridiculous—'tis unkind to Caleb to make it. Besides, she is not the only clever business woman to whom I gave him letters."
"H'm! He's startlingly silent about the others. What troubles me is this: Caleb is so honest and earnest, and so unaccustomed to brilliant women, that he may lose his heart, and the more impossible the affair, the more he'll suffer. 'Twould be bad business to have him go abroad to be cured of malaria, only to return and die of heartache."
"Phil, Caleb isn't a fool."
"No, but he's a man."
FARMER WEEFER and his wife appeared at the store early on the morning after the deal in walnut land, and the farmer said:—
"Well, want to back out o' the trade?"
"Did you ever hear of me backing out of anything, Mr. Weefer?"
"Can't say I did, but I alluz b'lieve in givin' a man a chance so he can't have no excuse for grumblin' afterwards. Well, we come in early, so's to git our stuff an' git out 'fore a lot of other customers comes in. My wife, she thinks she ort to have some little present or other, as a satisfaction piece for signin' the deed, it bein' the custom in these parts."
"All right, Mrs. Weefer," said Philip, who had heard of several real estate transactions being hampered by refractory wives, and who thought he saw a good opportunity to prevent any troubles of that kind befalling him in the future, "I think I have some silk dress goods that will please you."
Silk dress goods! No such "satisfaction piece" had ever been heard of in Claybanks or vicinity. Mrs. Weefer saw the goods, accepted it in haste, and did her subsequent trading so rapidly that she and her husband and their two hundred dollars' worth of goods were on the way to the Weefer farm within an hour, and Philip, with the new deed of the "wannut land," was at the County Clerk's office.
"Yes," said the clerk, scrutinizing the paper through his very convex glasses. "My son told me you were in yesterday, inquiring about this. Oh, yes, this property is all clear; there was no reason why any one should lend on it."
"No reason? Why, Squire, what's the matter with good standing black walnut as security?"
"Nothing at all, but I thought all the walnut on Weefer's ground had been cut."
"Not unless 'twas done since yesterday afternoon."
The official removed his glasses, leaned back in his chair, put both feet upon his desk, and looked so long and provokingly at Philip that the latter said:—
"Has it been cut over-night?"
"Oh, no. Take a chair. Are you sure that you saw this property?"
"Entirely sure, unless I was dreaming by daylight. He and I rode over it. I was brought up in the West, so I know walnut trees when I see them."
"Of course, but—did you make sure of the line-marks—the boundaries?"
"Yes. That is, he showed me two blazed trees, which he said marked his line."
"Just so. Did he say which side of the line his own property was?"
"Yes—no—that is, he took me over a lot of ground that contained many fine large walnut trees. See here, Squire, have I been swindled?"
"That depends. Weefer is about as smart as they make 'em, so I don't think he'd be fool enough to swindle any one—not, at least, so that the law could take hold of him. Did he say the land he showed you was his? Tell me exactly what he said; for if he over-reached himself, my old law partner would like to handle the case for you. To win a case against Weefer would be a great feather in his cap. The fact is that all the walnut on Weefer's land consists of stumps, for the trees were cut off two or three years ago. There's a fine lot of standing walnut adjoining it, but it belongs to Doctor Taggess."
"Then I am swindled."
"I hope so—that is, I hope, for the sake of our old firm, which I'll have to go back into if I'm not reëlected, that you've a good case against Weefer. Now tell me—carefully—exactly what he said. Did he say that Taggess's land was his?"
"No—o—o," said Philip, after a moment of thought, "I can't say that he did. We rode out there on horseback, stopped at the edge of some wooded ground, and he said, 'Did you ever see finer walnut land than that?' Those were his very words—I'll swear to them—the old scoundrel!"
"Quite likely, but did he say that those trees—that land—was his?"
"No; not in so many words, but he certainly gave me that impression."
"With what exact words?" Again Philip searched his memory, but was compelled to reply:—
"With no words that I can recall. He talked rapturously about the beauty of a lot of walnut trees, from the money point of view."
"But didn't say, in any way, that they belonged to him?"
"Confound him, no! But he handed me a deed—"
"That's no evidence, unless it was Taggess's deed he showed you, which evidently it wasn't. Well, Mr. Somerton, you've got no case. Morally 'twas a swindle—not a new one, either. He wouldn't have tried it on you if Caleb hadn't been away; for Caleb knows the lay and condition of every tract of land in this county—just as you'll know when you've been here long enough. You've bought forty acres that won't bring you anything but taxes, unless you can find some use for walnut stumps—and they're harder to get out than any other kind but oak, unless some day the land-owners along the creek combine to put up a levee that'll prevent overflow, so that the land can be farmed, but even then the stumps will be a nuisance. Hope you got it cheap."
"Five dollars an acre," Philip growled.
"Cash?"
"No; trade."
"Trade, eh? Well, that's not so bad, though it's bad enough." The old man's eyes twinkled, for what man of affairs is there who does not enjoy the details of a smart trade—at some other man's expense? Philip noticed the clerk's amused expression and frowned; the clerk quickly continued, "Let me give you some professional advice—no charge for it. Keep entirely quiet about this affair; you may be sure that Weefer won't talk until you do. If the story gets out, you'll never hear the end of it, and 'twon't do your reputation as a business man any good. We don't publish records of transfers in this county, and of course I won't mention it, and I'll see that my son doesn't either; he's the only other man who has access to the books."
"Thank you very much, Squire. You may count on my vote and influence if you're renominated."
"Much obliged. Whew! Five dollars an acre for a lot of walnut stumps!"
"Five dollars an acre, and a silk dress for Mrs. Weefer's waiver of dower-right," said Philip, so humiliated that he wished to make his confession complete.
"What? Well, Weefer won't talk, but whether he can harness his wife's tongue when she's ready to show off that silk dress is another matter."
Philip started to go, and the clerk made haste to hide his face behind the deed, and silently chuckle himself towards a fit of apoplexy.
"You're absolutely sure that I've no way out of it?" Philip said, pausing for an instant.
"Absolutely," the clerk replied, with some difficulty, his face still behind the deed, "unless—you can find—a market—for—walnut stumps." Then the clerk coughed alarmingly, and Philip pulled his hat over his eyes and hurried away, with a consuming desire to mount his horse, overtake Weefer, shoot him to death, recover the wagon-load of goods, and particularly the silk dress given to Mrs. Weefer. When he reached the store, he found his wife looking pale and troubled; there were present also three men with very serious countenances, and one of them said:—
"Mr. Somerton, I s'pose?"
"Yes, sir. What can I do for you?"
"You can shell out my colt that's in your barn. I was goin' to take him whether or no, but your wife said you was a square man, an' would do what was right. Well, there's only one right thing in this case, an' that's to gimme back my colt."
"There are but two horses in my stable," said Philip. "One of them I've owned several months, and the other I bought yesterday."
"Who from?"
"From—" Philip took from his pocket the bill of sale and read from it the signature:—
"James Marney."
The three men exchanged grim grins, and the complainant said:—
"His name ain't Marney, an' 'tain't James, neither. He's a no 'count cousin o' mine, an' his name's Bill Tewks. An' he never had no right of any sort or kind to the colt. The colt's mine, an' never was any one else's, an' I can prove it by these two men, an' one of 'em's depitty sheriff of our county, an' he's got a warrant for Bill's arrest for stealin' the hoss. My name's James Marney; I can prove it by any storekeeper in this town, or by Doc Taggess, or your county clerk, or—"
"I'll take your word for it," Philip said hastily, for the thought of exposing a second business blunder to the county clerk in a single day—a single hour, indeed—was unendurable.
"I don't see," continued the claimant of the horse, looking greatly aggrieved, "how a man buys one man's hoss off of another man anyway, leastways of a no 'count shack like Bill Tewks."
"Perhaps not," said Philip, "but I may be able to enlighten you. Do you know a man named Caleb Wright?"
"Know Caleb? Who don't? That ain't all; he's the honestest man I ever did know. I wish he was here right now, instead of off to York, as your wife says, for he knows me an' he knows the hoss. Why, a spell ago, not long after old Jethro died, an' I needed some money pooty bad, I writ to Caleb an' ast him what he could git me in cash for the colt, here in town, prices of hosses here bein' some better'n what they be in our county, where there ain't never city buyers lookin' aroun', and Caleb writ back that—"
"One moment, please," said Philip. "He wrote that any one ought to be glad to give you seventy-five dollars, but that you would be foolish to sell, because you could get far more a year later, but that if you really must sell, he wished you would give me the first chance."
The claimant, whose eyes by this time were bulging, exclaimed:—
"You've got a pooty long mem'ry, an' it's as good as it is long."
"As to that, I never saw the letter until yesterday. The man who brought the horse showed me the letter; otherwise I shouldn't have purchased."
The claimant and his companions exchanged looks of astonishment, and the deputy drawled:—
"How'd he git it, Jim?"
"It beats me," was the reply. "Onless he went through the house like he did the barn. That letter was in the Bible, where I keep some papers o' one kind an' another, cal'latin' that's as safe a place as any, not gettin' much rummagin'. He must 'a' knowed I had it. Oh, he's a slick un, Bill is, when he gits dead broke an' wants to go on a spree. You see, Mr. Somerton, the way of it was this: the wife was off visitin', an' I was ploughin' corn, an' took some snack with me, an' some stuff for the hosses, so's to have a longer rest at noon-time, not havin' to go back all the way to the house. The colt was in the barn, so I didn't miss him till I got home, long about dusk. Bill must 'a' knowed, some way, my wife wa'n't home, an' I could see by the lot o' hay in the colt's rack that he'd been took out 'fore the middle o' the day. I was so knocked by missin' him that I've been on the track ever sence, an' didn't think to look to see ef anythin' was gone from the house, but the cuss must 'a' prowled 'roun' consid'able ef he got that letter. Didn't bring in my rifle an' shotgun to sell, did he, nor flat-irons, nor cook-stove?"
"No, although he did sell me a saddle and bridle. I hope you'll succeed in catching the scamp."
"Oh, I ain't got no use for him. The furder away he gits, the better satisfied I'll be. We ain't never had no other thief 'mong our relations. I reckon it's you that ought to want him. What I want is my colt, an' I'm goin' to have him—peaceful, ef I kin, or by law, ef I must. He's thar—in your barn; I seen him through the door; so did my frien's here, so there's no good beatin' about the bush an'—"
"Stop!" said Philip. "There's no sense in insinuating that I would knowingly retain stolen property—unless you wish to have your tongue knocked down your throat."
"That's fair talk, Jim, an' I don't blame him for givin' it to you," suggested the deputy. "Now you chaw yerself for a while, an' let me say somethin'. It don't stan' to reason that any business man is goin' to try to keep a stolen hoss. On 'tother han', he'd be a fool to give up on the word o' three men he never seen till just now. You, Jim, ain't such a fool as to want to air the family skunk so fur from home, an' Mr. Somerton here ain't likely to be over'n above anxious to have a fuss that'll let ev'rybody in town know that he was took in by an amatoor hoss-thief. Now, Jim, jest sa'nter out an' get some square man, an' not a storekeeper that knows ye, to come in an' speak for ye, as if ye wanted to buy some goods on credit. Thet'll prove who ye be, an' like enough he'll know me, too, 'specially if it's—"
"Why not Doctor Taggess?" Philip suggested.
"Good idee," the officer replied, "for he knows both of us."
"An' he knows the colt, too," said the claimant.
"Better and better," Philip declared, for anything would have been preferable, at Claybanks or any other Western town, to being known as a merchant to whom a thief could sell anything.
Fortunately the Doctor was at home; he came to the store, identified the claimant, vouched for his honesty and truthfulness, and then identified the colt as the claimant's property. Philip told the entire story to the Doctor, who said there was nothing to do but surrender the horse—or repurchase him.
"How much do you want for him, Mr. Marney?"
"Ye ain't said what ye give a'ready."
"No; that's a different matter. What is your price?"
"Cash, note, or trade?"
"Whichever you like, if the figures are right."
"Well, seein' you've been put to expense a'ready, an' I don't need money for a couple o' months yet, an' you'll most likely give more on time than in cash, I'd rather take your sixty-day note for a hundred back home with me than take the colt back. No other man could have him so cheap."
"You shall have it—on condition, written and signed, that neither of you three shall tell the story of the thief's sale. No one else can tell it."
"You'll stand by me, boys?" said the claimant, appealingly.
"Sure!"
"Then I'll take the note, Mr. Somerton, an' you've done the square thing. But say, I'll throw off five dollar ef ye'll tell me what ye paid fer him."
"No," said Philip, beginning to draw a bill of sale to include the condition already specified.
"I'll make it ten."
"No."
"Ah, say! I cayn't sleep peaceful without knowin', but this is rubbin' it in. Fifteen!"
"Sign this, please," said Philip, showing the bill of sale. Then he passed over his own note for eighty-five dollars, and said:—
"I paid seventy-five dollars, cash."
"Well," sighed Marney, "that's a comfort—for besides knowin' how much 'twas, it shows what I wanted to b'lieve, that Bill was as much fool as scoundrel, else he'd 'a' ast more. Good-by, Mr. Somerton an' Doc."
The trio departed. The Doctor remained to condole with the victim, who could not help telling of his real-estate trade. The Doctor laughed,—but not too long,—then he said:—
"There ought to be finer grainings and markings, and, therefore, more money, in walnut roots than in the average of trees. I've been intending to experiment in that direction. As to that colt, let me drive him for you a few days; he may have the making of both prices in him."
When the Doctor departed, Philip got out his own horse and buggy, and insisted that his wife should drive, but Grace was reluctant to go. Something seemed to be troubling her. Philip asked what it was. "I wish Caleb were back," she said.
"Et tu, Brute? Now is my humiliation complete; but as Caleb is where he is, let us make the best of it." So saying, he indited the following telegram to Caleb, for Grace to send from the railway station, three miles distant:—
"Look up a buyer for big walnut stumps.
"Philip."
"THIS," said Philip, as he returned one morning from the post-office to the store, with an open letter in his hand, "is about the twelfth letter I've had from old acquaintances in New York, and all are as like unto one another as if written by the same hand. The writers imagine that the West is bursting with opportunities for men whose wits are abler than their hands. What a chance I would have to avenge myself on mine enemy—if I had one!"
"And this," Grace said, after opening a letter addressed to herself that Philip had given her, "is from Mary Truett. I wonder if she has caught the Western fever from Caleb? Oh—I declare!"
"Your slave awaits the declaration."
"She, too, wants to know if there isn't a place here for a clever young man—her brother; it seems he is a civil engineer and landscape architect."
"Imagine it! A landscape architect—at Claybanks! Ask her if he can live on air, and sleep on the ground with a tree-top for roof. Doesn't she say anything about Caleb?"
"I'm skipping her brother and looking for it, as fast as I can. Yes; here it is. There! Didn't I tell you how sensible she always was? She thanks me for introducing Caleb, and says he's the most interesting and genial man she has met in a long time, though, she says, she wonders whose grammar was in vogue when Caleb went to school. And—dear me!—this is becoming serious!"
"My dear girl," said Philip, "there are different ways of reading a letter aloud. Won't you choose a new one or let me have the letter itself, when you've read it, provided it contains no secrets?"
"Do wait a moment, Phil! You're as curious as women are said to be. It seems that Caleb has persuaded her to accompany him to a prayer-meeting; and as she has also been to a theatre with him, I'm afraid the persuading, or a hint to that effect, must have been on her part. She says he has completely changed in appearance—and by what means, do you suppose?"
"I can't imagine."
"His beard has gone, and his hair has been cut Eastern fashion, and his mustache turned up at the ends, and he dresses well,—Mary says so,—and that the contrast is startling. Oh, Phil! What if he should—"
"Should what? Fall in love with your paragon of women? Well, I suppose men are never too old to make fools of themselves, and Caleb is only forty, but I beg that you'll at once remind Miss Truett that Caleb is too good a man to be hurt at heart for a woman's amusement. Why are you looking at nothing in that vague manner?"
"I'm trying to imagine Caleb's new appearance."
"Spare yourself the effort. I'll telegraph him for a photograph."
"But I want to know—at once, to see whether he's really impressed Mary more seriously than she admits."
"Oh, you women! You can start a possible romance on less basis than would serve for a dream. Do go backward in that letter, to the lady's brother, if only to suppress your imagination."
"I suppose I must," sighed Grace, "for I've reached the end. The brother, it seems, can secure a railroad pass to visit this country, if there is any possible business opening for him here."
"I wish there were, I'm sure, for I don't know of a place more in need of services such as a landscape architect could render, but you know that he couldn't earn a dollar."
"But it seems that he knows something of road-making and grading."
"Which also are accomplishments that might be put to good use here, if there were any one to pay for the work."
"I have it!" Grace said. "The very thing! Don't you dare laugh at me until I tell it all. You know—or I do—that Doctor Taggess thinks Claybanks would be far less malarious if the swamp lands could be drained. He says the malarious exhalation, whatever it is, seems to be heavier than the air, and is therefore comparatively local in its effects, for he has known certain towns and other small localities to be entirely free from it, though the surrounding country was full of it. Now, if some surveyor and engineer—say Mary Truett's brother—could find out how to drain our Claybanks swamps, it might make this a healthy town. Is that a very silly notion?"
"Silly? Not a bit of it! But, my dear girl, do you know what such an enterprise would cost?"
"No, but I do know what I suffered on the day of my awful malarial attack and that I shall never forget the spectacle of a poor, dear, little, helpless, innocent baby shaking with a chill!"
"Poor girl! Poor baby! But don't you suppose that our swamp lands have been studied for years by the men most interested in them—the farmers and other owners?—studied and worked at?"
"Perhaps they have, but Doctor Taggess says farmers always do things in the hardest way; they've not time and money to try any other. Besides, since I began to think of it I've often recalled a case somewhat similar. In our town in western New York the railway station was very inconvenient; it was on a bridge crossing the track, and everything and everybody had to go up and down stairs or up and down hill to get to or from it. It was talked of at town meetings and the post-office and other places, and public-spirited citizens roamed the line from one end of town to the other, looking for a spot where the station could be placed near the level of the track.
"At last they subscribed money to pay for a new site, if the company would move its station to the level, and one day a surveyor and his men came up, and he looked about with an instrument, and a few days afterward a little cutting at one place and a little filling just back of it did the business, and all the village wiseacres called themselves names for not thinking of the same thing, but Grandpa said, 'It takes a shoemaker to make shoes.' You know the swamps are almost dry now, because of the hot weather; don't you suppose a surveyor and engineer, or even a sensible man who's studied physical geography in school, might be able to go over the ground and learn where and what retains the water? Now laugh, if you like."
"Grace, you ought to have been a man!"
"No, thank you—not unless you had been a woman. But you really think my plan isn't foolish?"
"As one of the owners of swamp land, I am so impressed with your wisdom that I suggest that we invite Miss Truett's brother to visit us; tell him the outlook is bad, but say we'll guarantee him—well, a hundred-dollar fee to look into a matter in which we personally are interested. If your plan is practicable, I'll recover the money easily. I'll write him this afternoon—or you may do it, through his sister. Let us see what else is in the mail. Why, I didn't suspect it, the address being typewritten!—Ah, young woman, now for my revenge, for here's a letter from Caleb, and if 'tis anything like the last—yes, here it is—Miss Truett, Miss Truett, Miss Truett."
"Oh, Phil!"
"I'll be merciful, and read every word, without stopping to sentimentalize:—
"'Dear Philip: I'm in it, as Jonah thought when the whale shut his mouth. When I say "it" I mean all of New York that I can pervade while waiting for the corn-meal to come. I've been to a New York prayer-meeting and I can't say that it was any better than the Claybanks kind, except that Miss Truett went with me and joined in all the hymns as natural as if brought up on them. You ought to hear her voice. 'Tain't as loud as some, but it goes right to the heart of a hymn. Next day I went to a museum in a big park and saw more things than I can ever get straightened out in my head: I wish I could have had your wife's camera for company.
"'I went to a theatre, too. I had no more idea of doing it than you have of selling liquor, but I got into a sort of argument with Miss Truett, without meaning to, about the great amount of that kind of sin that was going on; and when she said that she didn't think it was always sinful, I felt like the man that cussed somebody in the dark for stepping on his toes, and then found it was the preacher that done the stepping. She said she really thought that some kinds of theatre would do a sight of good to a hard-working man like me, and that she'd like to see me under the influence of a good comedy for a spell; so I told her there was one way of doing it, and that was to name the comedy and then go along with me, so as to give her observing powers a fair chance. She did it, and I ain't sorry I went; though if you don't mind keeping it to yourself, there won't be some Claybanks prayers wasted on me that might be more useful if kept nearer home.
"'Who should I run against on Broadway one day but an old chum of mine in the army? He'd got a commission, after the war, in the regulars, and got retired for a bad wound he got in the Indian country, yet, for all that, he didn't look any older than he used to. He took me visiting to his post of the Grand Army of the Republic one night, and there I saw a lot of vets that looked as spruce and chipper as if they was beaus just going to see their sweethearts. "What's the matter with you fellows here, that you don't grow old?" says I to my old chum. He didn't understand me at first, but when he saw what I was driving at, he said many of the members of the post were older than I, but 'twasn't thought good sense in New York for a fellow to look older than he was, and he didn't see why 'twas good sense anywhere. I felt sort of riled, and he nagged me awhile, good-natured like, about trying to pass for my own grandfather, till I said: "Look here, Jim, if you've got any fountain of youth around New York, I'm the man that ain't afraid to take a dip." "Good boy!" says he. "I'd like the job of reconstructing you, for old times' sake." "No fooling?" says I; for in old times Jim wouldn't let anything stand in the way of a joke. "Honor bright, Cale," said he, "for I want you to look like yourself, and you can do it." Remembering some advertisements I've seen in newspapers, I says, "What do you do it with—pills or powders?" Jim coughed up a laugh from the bottom of his boots, and says he: "Neither. Come along!"
"'Well, I was skittisher than I've been since Gettysburg, not knowing what new-fangled treatment he had in his mind, and how it would agree with me; but he took me into a barber shop where he appeared to know a man, and he did some whispering, and,—well, when that barber got through, first giving me a hair-cut and then a shave, and fussing over my mustache for a spell, and I got a sight of my face in the glass, I thought 'twas somebody else I was looking at, and somebody that I'd seen before, a long time ago, and it wasn't until I tried to brush a fly off my nose that I found 'twas I. Maybe you think I was a fool, but I was so tickled that I yelled, "Whoop—ee!" right out in meeting. "There!" says Jim, when we got outside. "Don't you ever wear long hair and a beard again—not while I'm around."
"'Then he took me to a tailor shop about forty times as big as your store, and picked out a suit of clothes for me, and a hat and shirt, and the whole business. 'Twas the Hawk Howlaway business over again, with Jim instead of Jethro, only there was more of it, for he stuck a flower in the buttonhole of my new coat. I couldn't kick, for he was wearing one too, but I just tell you that if I'd met any Claybanks neighbor about then, I'd have slid down a side street like running to a fire. After that he took me to the hotel where he lived, and up in his room, and looked me over, as if I was a horse, and says he, "There's one thing more. You need a setting-up." "Not for me, Jim," says I "I keep regular hours, though I don't mind swapping yarns with you till I get sleepy to-night!" Then he let off another big laugh, and says he, "That isn't what I mean. It's something we do in the regulars, and ought to have done in the volunteers." So he made me stand up, and lift my shoulders, and hold my head high, and breathe full, at the same time making me look at myself in the glass. "There!" says he, after a spell, "you do that a few times a day, till it comes natural to you, and you'll feel better for it, all your life."
"'Well, Philip, I don't mind owning up to you that I was so stuck up for the next few hours that at night I thought it necessary to put up a special prayer against sinful vanity. Next morning I went down to your wife's old store to ask Miss Truett something, and she didn't know me. No, sir, she didn't, till I spoke to her. She didn't say anything about it, but she looked like your wife sometimes does when she's mighty pleased about something, and I needn't tell you that looks like them are mighty pleasant to take.
"'Well, I suppose all this sounds like fool-talk, for of course I can't get my birthdays back, but, coming at a time when the malaria appears to be loosening its grip, this looking like I used to before I got broke up is doing me a mighty sight of good.
"'When is that corn-meal coming?
"Phil," exclaimed Grace, "'twould be a sin to hurry that meal East, until—until we hear further from Caleb."
"And from Miss Truett?" said Philip, with a quizzical grin. "Fortunately for both of them, the meal probably reached New York soon after the date of this letter, which was written four days ago, and Caleb is probably now on the ocean, or about to sail."
"I think 'tis real cruel," Grace sighed, "just as—"
"Just as two mature people began daydreaming about each other? I think 'tis the best that could befall them, for it will put their sentiment to a practical test. Cupid has struck greater obstacles than the Atlantic Ocean and barrelled corn-meal without breaking his wings."
"Phil, you talk as coldly as if—oh, as if you weren't my husband."
"'Tis because I am your husband, dear girl, and realize what miserable wretches we would be if we weren't, above all else, hearty lovers. What else have I to live for, out here, but you? Suppose any other woman were my wife, brought from everything she was accustomed to, and out to this place where she could find absolutely nothing as a substitute for the past!"
"Or suppose I had married some other man—ugh!—and come here!"
"You would have done just as you have done—seen your duty, done it, and smiled even if you were dying of loneliness. But not all women are like you."
"Because not all men are like you, bless you!—and always ready and eager to make love first and foremost."
"How can I help it, when I've you to love? But tell me now,—frankly,—don't you ever long for the past? Don't you get absolutely, savagely, heart-hungry for it?"
"No—no—!" Grace exclaimed. "Besides, I'm easier pleased and interested than you think. I've learned to like some of our people very much, since I've ceased judging them by their clothes and manner of speech. There are some real jewels among the women, old and young."
"H'm! I'm glad to hear you say so, for I've wanted to confess, for some time, that I am fast becoming countrified, and without any sense of shame, either. I'm becoming so deeply interested in human nature that I've little thought for anything else, aside from business. When I first arrived, I imagined myself a superior being, from another sphere; now that I know much about the people and their burdens and struggles, there are some men and women to whom I mentally raise my hat. At first I wondered why Taggess, who really is head and shoulders above every one else here, didn't procure a substitute and abandon the town; now I can believe that nothing could drag him away. I can't learn that he ever wrote verses or made pictures or preached sermons, nevertheless he's artist, poet, and prophet all in one. I should like to become his equal, or Caleb's equal—I may as well say both, while I'm wishing; still, I don't like to lose what I used to have and be."
"You're not losing it, you dear boy, nor am I really losing anything. The truth is, that in New York both of us, hard though we worked, were longing for an entirely luxurious, self-indulgent future, and your uncle's will was all that saved us from ourselves. You always were perfection, to my eyes, but I wish you could see for yourself what improvements half a year of this new life have made for you."
"Allow me to return the compliment, though no one could imagine a more adorable woman than you were when I married you. So long as I am you and you are me—" Then words became inadequate to further estimate and appreciation of the changes wrought by half a year of life at "the fag-end of nowhere—the jumping-off place of the world," as Philip had called Claybanks the first time he saw it by daylight.
CALEB and the corn-meal sailed for Europe, but first Caleb wired the address of a firm that would do the fair thing with a car-load of walnut stumps. Miss Truett's brother Harold arrived at Claybanks soon afterward, and when he learned accidentally that Philip wished some walnut stumps extracted and that the land was stoneless, he offered to do the work quickly and cheaply, and his devices so impressed occasional beholders, accustomed to burning and digging as the only means of removing stumps, that the young man soon made several stump-extracting contracts, for which he was to be paid—in land. Meanwhile, from the back of Philip's horse he studied the swamp lands near the town; then he went over the ground with a level, and afterward reported to Philip that for the trifling sum of three thousand dollars, added to right of way for a main ditch, which the farmers should be glad to give free of cost, the swamp lands might be converted into dry, rich farming land.
"This county couldn't raise three thousand dollars in cash," Philip replied, "even if you could guarantee that the main ditch would flow liquid gold."
"If that is the case," said the young man, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, "and as labor and farm tools are almost the only requirements,—except some cash for my services,—why not form an association of all the owners of swamp lands, determine the share of each in the cost, according to the amount of benefit he'll get, and let all, if they wish, pay in labor at a specified day-price per man, team, plough, or scraper, and go to work at once? Such things have been done. A farmer who hasn't enough working force on his place can generally hire a helper or two, on credit, against crop-selling time. This is just the time to do it, too; for a lot of farmers in the vicinity who have swamp land will have nothing especial to do, now that their winter wheat is cut, till the thrashing machine comes to them, and others are through with heavy work until corn ripens."
"I begin to see daylight," said Philip. "But, young man, how did you get all these practical wrinkles in New York?"
"By listening to men who've been in the business many years. Most of them have had to take scrub jobs once in a while. But please secure the right of way at once for the main ditch; that's where the work should begin. I shouldn't wonder if you could get a lot of volunteer labor from the villagers, if you go about it rightly; for your Doctor Taggess believes that to drain the swamps would be to greatly lessen the number and violence of malarial attacks,—perhaps banish malaria entirely,—and I suppose you know what it means for a town, in certain parts of the West, to have a no-malaria reputation. It means manufactures, and better prices for building sites, and perhaps the beginnings of a city."
"Mr. Truett, I shouldn't wonder if you've struck just the place to exercise your professional wits."
"I hope so. I'll soon find out, if you'll arrange that combination of land-owners, and secure that right of way. Now is the golden time, while the swamp land has least water and the earth is easiest handled."
Doctor Taggess, summoned for consultation on the drainage subject, promised to make an earnest speech at any general meeting that might be called; so Philip hurried about among the merchants, town and county officials, and other local magnates, and arranged for an anti-malaria, city-compelling mass-meeting at the court-house at an early date.
Political jealousies and personal dog-in-the-manger feeling are quite as common in small towns as in great ones, but the possibility of a village becoming a city, and farm property being cut up into building-lots at high prices, is the one darling hope of every little village in the far West, and at the right time—or even at the wrong one—it may be depended upon to weld all discordant elements into one great enthusiastic force. When the meeting was held, Doctor Taggess made a strong plea for the proposed improvement, from the standpoint of the public health; the young engineer read a mass of statistics on the amazing fertility of drained swamp lands, and announced his willingness to wait for his own pay until his work proved itself effective; and the county clerk told of scores of Western villages, settled no longer ago than Claybanks, that had become cities. The upshot was that the improvement plan was adopted without a dissenting voice, and the right of way was secured at the meeting itself, as was also a volunteer force to begin work at once on the main ditch.
"Truett," said Philip, after the meeting adjourned, and he, the engineer, and Doctor Taggess walked away together, "unless you've made some mistake in your figures, this enterprise will make you a great man in this section of country."
"That's what I wish it to do," was the reply, "for I must make a permanent start somewhere."
"Your offer to defer asking for pay till the drainage should prove successful," said the Doctor, "helped the movement amazingly, and it also made everybody think you a very fair man."
"Yes? Well, that's why I made it"
"H'm!" said Philip, "you've the stuff that'll make a successful Westerner of you."
"That's what I want to be."
"I don't think you'll regret it," said the Doctor; "for much though I sometimes long to return to the East, and plainly though I see the poverty and limitations of this part of the country, the West is the proper starting-place for a young man, unless he chances to have abundant capital. Even then he might do worse; for, of course, the newer the country, the greater the number of natural resources to be discovered and developed. The people, too, are interested in everything new, and stand together, to a degree unknown at the East, in favor of any improvements that are possible. They do their full share of grumbling and complaining, to say nothing of their full share of suffering, but there's scarcely one of them who doesn't secretly hope and expect to become rich some day, or at least to be part of a rich community; and they're not more than half wrong, for railways and manufactures must reach us, in the ordinary course of events, and all our people expect to see them. Let me give you an illustration. A year or two ago I drove out one Sunday to see a family of my acquaintance, living in a specially malarious part of the county, who were out of quinine—a common matter of forgetfulness, strange though it may seem. As I neared the house, I heard singing, of a peculiar, irregular kind. As 'twas Sunday, I supposed a neighborhood meeting was in progress. But there wasn't. One of the hundreds of projected Pacific railways had been surveyed through the farm a few months before. On the day of my call three of the seven members of the family were shaking with chills; so to keep up their spirits they were singing, to the music of a hymn-tune, some verses written and printed in the West long ago, and beginning:—