Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
Those ah the debentures of the Trescott Development Company, fawmed to
build up Trescott's Addition. We sold those lands on credit, except fo'
a cash payment of one foath the purchase-price. This brought to us, as
you can see, Madam, a lahge amount of notes, secured by fuhst mortgages
on the Trescott's Addition properties. These notes and mortgages we
deposited with the Grain Belt Trust Company, and issued against them the
bonds of the Trescott Development Company--debentures--and the G. B. T.
people floated these bonds in the East and elsewhah. This interest
mattah was an ovahsight; I should have looked out fo' it, and not put
the G. B. T. to the trouble of advancing it; but as we have this mawnin'
on deposit with them several thousand dollahs from the sale of the
Tolliver's Subdivision papah, the thing becomes a mattah of no
impo'tance whatevah!"
"But," went on Josie, "how shall we be able to pay the next installment
of interest, and the principal, when it falls due?"
"Amply provided foh, my deah Madam," said the Captain, waving his arm;
"the defe'ed payments and the interest on them will create an ample
sinking fund!"
"But if they don't?" she inquired.
"That such a contingency can possibly arise, Madam," said the Captain in
his most impressive orotund, and with his hand thrust into the bosom of
his Prince Albert coat, "is something which my loyalty to Lattimore, my
faith in my fellow citizens, my confidence in Mr. Elkins and Mr.
Barslow, and my regahd fo' my own honah, pledged as it is to those to
whom I have sold these properties on the representations I have made as
to the prospects of the city, will not puhmit me to admit!"
This seemed to him entirely conclusive, and cut off the investigation.
Conversation like this, in which Josie questioned the Captain and seemed
ever convinced by his answers, gave her high rank in the Captain's
estimation.
"Like most ladies," said he, "Miss Trescott is a little inclined to
ovah-conservatism; but unlike most people of both sexes, she is quite
able to grasp the lahgest views when explained to huh, and huh mental
processes ah unerring. I have nevah failed to make the most complicated
situation cleah to huh--nevah!"
And all this time Mr. Trescott was safeguarded at home, looking after
his horses, carriages, and grounds, and at last permitted to come over
to our house and pass the evening with me occasionally. It was on one of
these visits that he spread out the map on the table and explained to me
the advantages of his ranch on Wolf Nose Creek. The very thought of the
open range and the roaming herds seemed to strengthen him.
"You talk," said I, "as if it were all settled. Are you really going out
there?"
"Wal," said he, after some hesitation, "it kind o' makes me feel good to
lay plans f'r goin'. I've made the deal with Aleck Macdonald f'r the
water front--it's a good spec if I never go near it--an' I guess I'll
send a bunch o' steers out to please Josie an' her ma. They're
purtendin' to be stuck on goin', an' I've made the bargain to pacify
'em; but, say, do you know what kind of a place it is out on one o' them
ranches?"
"In a general way, yes," said I.
"W'l, a general way wun't do," said he. "You've got to git right down to
p'ticklers t' know about it, so's to know. It's seventy-five miles from
a post-office an' twenty-five to the nearest house. How would you like
to hev a girl o' yourn thet you'd sent t' Chicago an' New York and the
ol' country, an' spent all colors o' money on so's t' give her all the
chanst in the world, go out to a place like that to spend her life?"
"I don't know," said I, for I was in doubt; "it might be all right."
"You wouldn't say that if it was up to you to decide the thing," said
he. "W'y it would mean that this girl o' mine, that's fit for to
be--wal, you know Josie--would hev to leave this home we've built--that
she's built--here, an' go out where there hain't nobody to be seen from
week's end to week's end but cowboys, an' once in a while one o' the
greasy women o' the dugouts. Do you know what happens to the nicest
girls when they don't see the right sort o' men--at all, y' know?"
I nodded. I knew what he meant. Then I shook my head in denial of the
danger.
"I don't b'lieve it nuther," said he; "but is it any cinch, now? An'
anyhow, she'll be where she wun't ever hear a bit o' music, 'r see a
picter, 'r see a friend. She'll swelter in the burnin' sun an' parch in
the hot winds in the summer, an' in the winter she'll be shet in by
blizzards an' cold weather. She'll see nothin' but kioats, prairie-dogs,
sage-brush, an' cactus. An' what fer! Jest for nothin' but me! To git me
away from things she's afraid've got more of a pull with me than what
she's got. An' I say, by the livin' Lord, I'll go under before I'll give
up, an' say I've got as fur down as that!"
It is something rending and tearing to a man like Bill, totally
unaccustomed to the expression of sentiment, to give utterance to such
depths of feeling. Weak and trembling as he was, the sight of his
agitation was painful. I hastened to say to him that I hoped there was
no necessity for such a step as the one he so strongly deprecated.
"I d' know," said he dubiously. "I thought one while that I'd never want
to go near town, 'r touch the stuff agin. But I'll tell yeh something
that happened yisterday!"
He drew up his chair and looked behind him like a child preparing to
relate some fearsome tale of goblin or fiend, and went on:
"Josie had the team hitched up to go out ridin', an' I druv around the
block to git to the front step. An' somethin' seemed to pull the nigh
line when I got to the cawner! It wa'n't that I wanted to go--and don't
you say anything about this thing, Mr. Barslow; but somethin' seemed to
pull the nigh line an' turn me toward Main Street; an' fust thing I
knew, I was a-drivin' hell-bent for O'Brien's place! Somethin' was
a-whisperin' to me, 'Go down an' see the boys, an' show 'em that yeh can
drink 'r let it alone, jest as yeh see fit!' And the thought come over
me o' Josie a-standin' there at the gate waitin' f'r me, an' I set my
teeth, an' jerked the hosses' heads around, an' like to upset the buggy
a-turnin'. 'You look pale, pa,' says Josie. 'Maybe we'd better not go.'
'No,' says I, 'I'm all right.' But what ... gits me ... is thinkin'
that, if I'll be hauled around like that when I'm two miles away, how
long would I last ... if onst I was to git right down in the midst of
it!"
I could not endure the subject any longer; it was so unutterably fearful
to see him making this despairing struggle against the foe so strongly
lodged within his citadel. I talked to him of old times and places known
to us both, and incidentally called to his mind instances of the
recovery of men afflicted as he was. Soon Josie came after him, and Jim
dropped in, as he was quite in the habit of doing, making one of those
casual and informal little companies which constituted a most
distinctive feature of life in our compact little Belgravia.
Josie insisted that life in the cow country was what she had been
longing for. She had never shot any one, and had never painted a cowboy,
an Indian, or a coyote--things she had always longed to do.
"You must take me out there, pa," said she. "It's the only way to
utilize the capital we've foolishly tied up in the department of the
fine arts!"
"I reckon we'll hev to do it, then, little gal," said Bill.
"My mind," said Jim, "is divided between your place up on the headwaters
of Bitter Creek and Paris. Paris seems to promise pretty well, when this
fitful fever of business is over and we've cleaned up the mill run."
Art, he went on, seemed to be a career for which he was really fitted.
In the foreground, as a cowboy, or in the middle distance, in his
proper person as a tenderfoot, it seemed as if there was a vocation for
him. Josie made no reply to this, and Jim went away downcast.
The Addison-Giddings wedding drew on out of the future, and seemed to
loom portentously like doom for the devoted Clifford. It may have
suggested itself to the reader that Mr. Giddings was an abnormally timid
lover. The eternal feminine at this time seemed personified in Laura,
and worked upon him like an obsession. I have never seen a case quite
like his. The manner in which the marriage was regarded, and the extent
to which it was discussed, may have had something to do with this.
The boom period anywhere is essentially an era in which public events
dominate those of a private character, and publicity and promotion, hand
in hand, occupy the center of the stage. Giddings, as editor and
proprietor of the _Herald_, was one of the actors on whom the lime-light
was pretty constantly focussed. Miss Addison, belonging to the Lattimore
family, and prominent in good works, was more widely known than he among
Lattimoreans of the old days, sometimes referred to by Mr. Elkins as the
trilobites, who constituted a sort of ancient and exclusive caste among
us, priding themselves on having become rich by the only dignified and
purely automatic mode, that of sitting heroically still, and allowing
their lands to rise in value. These regarded Laura as one of themselves,
and her marriage as a sacrament of no ordinary character.
Giddings, on the other hand, as the type of the new crowd who had done
such wonders, and as the embodiment of its spirit, was dimly sensed by
all classes as a sort of hero of obscure origin, who by strong blows had
hewed his way to the possession of a princess of the blood. So the
interest was really absorbing. Even the _Herald's_ rival, the _Evening
Times_, dropped for a time the normal acrimony of its references to the
_Herald_, and sent a reporter to make a laudatory write-up of the
wedding.
On the night before the event, deep in the evening, Giddings and a
bibulous friend insisted on having refreshments served to them in the
parlor of the clubhouse. This was a violation of rules. Moreover, they
had involuntarily assumed sitting postures on the carpet, rendering
waiting upon them a breach of decorum as well. At least this was the
view of Pearson, who was now attached to the club.
"You must excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but Ah'm bound to obey
rules."
"Bring us," said Giddings, "two cocktails."
"Can't do it, sah," said Pearson, "not hyah, sah!"
"Bring us paper to write resignations on!" said Giddings. "We won't
belong to a club where we are bullied by niggers."
Pearson brought the paper.
"They's no rule, suh," said he, "again' suhvin' resignation papah
anywhah in the house. But let me say, Mistah Giddings, that Ah wouldn't
be hasty: it's a heap hahder to get inter this club now than what it was
when you-all come in!"
This suggestion of Pearson's was in every one's mouth as the most
amusing story of the time. Even Giddings laughed about it. But all his
laughter was hollow.
Some bets were offered that one of two things would happen on the
wedding-day: either Giddings (who had formerly been of abstemious
habits) would overdo the attempt to nerve himself up to the occasion and
go into a vinous collapse, or he would stay sober and take to his heels.
Thus, in fear and trembling, did the inexplicable disciple of Iago
approach his happiness; but, like most soldiers, when the battle was
actually on, he went to the fighting-line dazed into bravery.
It was quite a spectacular affair. The church was a floral grotto, and
there were, in great abundance, the adjuncts of ribbon barriers, special
electric illuminations, special music, full ritual, ushers, bridesmaids,
and millinery. Antonia was chief bridesmaid, and Cornish best man. The
severe conformity to vogue, and preservation of good form, were
generally attributed to his management. It was a great success.