Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
concerns went out like strings of soap-bubbles, and shocks of pain and
disease went round the world, and everywhere there was that hellish and
portentous thing known to the modern world only, and called a
"commercial panic": when I broadly consider these things, I am not vain
enough seriously to blame myself.
These thoughts are more than ever in my mind to-day, as I look back over
the decade of years which have elapsed since our Waterloo at the Elk
Fork trestle. I look out from the same library in which I once felt a
sense of guilt at the expense of building it, and see the solid and
prosperous town, almost as populous as we once saw it in our dreams. I
am regarded locally as one of the creators of the city; but I know that
this praise is as unmerited as was that blame of a dozen years ago. We
rode on the crest of a wave, and we weltered in the trough of the sea;
but we only seemed to create or control. I hold in my hand a letter from
Jim, received yesterday, and eloquent of the changes which have taken
place.
"I am sorry," says he, "to be unable to come to your business men's
banquet. The building of a great auditorium in Lattimore is proof that
we weren't so insane, after all. I suppose that the ebb and flow of the
tide of progress, which yearly gains upon the shore, is inevitable, as
things are hooked up; but, after the ebb, it's comforting to see your
old predictions as to gain coming true, even if you do find yourself in
the discard. It would be worth the trip only to see Captain Tolliver,
and to hear him eliminate the _r_'s from his mother tongue. Give the
dear old secesh my dearest love!
"But I can't come, Al. I must be in Washington at that time on business
of the greatest (presumptive) importance to the cattle interests of the
buffalo-grass country. I could change my own dates; but my wife has
arranged a tryst for a day certain with some specialists in her line in
New York. She's quite the queen of the cattle range--in New York: and,
to be dead truthful, she comes pretty near it out here. It is rumored
that even the sheepmen speak well of her.
"These Eastern trips are great things for her and the children. I'm
riding the range so constantly, and get so much fun out of it, that I
feel sort of undressed and embarrassed out of the saddle. In Washington
I'm pointed out as a typical cowboy, the descendant of a Spanish vaquero
and a trapper's daughter. This helps me to represent my constituents in
the sessions of the Third House, and to get Congressional attention to
the ax I want ground. I am looked upon as in line for the presidency of
the Amalgamated Association of American Ax-grinders.
"If we can make it, we'll look in on you on our way back; but we don't
promise. With cattle scattered over two counties of buttes and canyons,
we feel in a hurry when we get started home, after an absence sure to
have been longer than we intended. Then, you know how I feel;--I wish
the old town well, but I don't enjoy _every_ incident of my visits
there.
"We expect to see the Cecil Barr-Smiths in New York. Cecil is the whole
thing now with their companies--a sort of professional president in
charge of the American properties; and Mrs. Cecil is as well known in
some mighty good circles in London as she used to be in Lynhurst Park.
"I am glad to know that things are going toward the good with you.
Personally, I never expect to be a seven-figure man again, and don't
care to be. I prefer to look after my few thousands of steers, laying on
four hundred pounds each per year, far from the madding crowd. You know
Riley's man who said that the little town of Tailholt was good enough
for him? Well, that expresses my view of the 'J-Up-and-Down' Ranch as a
hermitage. It'll do quite well. But these Eastern interests of Mrs. Jim
are just now menacing to life in any hermitage. She has specifically
stated on two or three occasions lately that this is no place to bring
up a family. Think of a rough-rider like me in the wilds of New York! I
can see plenty of ways of amusing myself down there, but not such
peaceful ways as putting on my six-shooters and going out after timber
wolves or mountain lions, or our local representative of the clan of the
Hon. Maverick Brander. The future lowers dark with the multitudinous
mouths of avenues of prosperity!"
This letter was a disappointment to Mr. Giddings. His special edition of
the _Herald_ commemorative of the opening of our Auditorium must now be
deprived of its James R. Elkins feature, so far as his being the guest
of honor goes. But there will be Jim's photograph on the first page, and
a half-tone reproduction of a picture of the wreck at the Elk Fork
trestle.
"It is a matter of the deepest regret," said the _Herald_ this morning,
"that Mr. Elkins cannot be with us on this auspicious occasion. He was
the head of that most remarkable group of men who laid the foundations
of Lattimore's greatness. Only one of them, Mr. Barslow, still lives in
Lattimore, where he has devoted his life, since the crash of many years
ago, to the reorganization of the failed concerns, and especially the
Grain Belt Trust Company, and to the salving of their properties in the
interests of the creditors. His present prominence grows out of the
signal skill and ability with which he has done this work; and he must
prove a great factor in the city's future development, as he has been in
its past. Mr. Hinckley, the third member of the syndicate, now far
advanced in years, is living happily with his daughter and her husband.
The fourth, Mr. Cornish, resides in Paris, where he is well known as a
daring and successful financial operator. He, of all the syndicate,
retired from the Lattimore enterprises rich.
"There have been years when the names of these men were not held in the
respect and esteem they deserve. The town was going backward. People who
had been rich were, many of them, in absolute distress for the
necessaries of life. And these men, in a vague sort of way, were blamed
for it. Now, however, we can begin to see the wisdom of their plans and
the vastness of the scope of their combinations. Nothing but the element
of time was wanting, abundantly to vindicate their judgment and
sagacity. The industries they founded succeeded as soon as they were
divorced from the real-estate speculation which unavoidably entered into
their management at the outset. It is regrettable that their founders
could not share in their success."
"Nothing but the element of time," said I to Captain Tolliver, who sat
by me in the car as I read this editorial, "prevents the hot-air balloon
from carrying its load over the Rockies."
"Nothing but luck," said the Captain, "evah could have beaten us. It was
the Fleischmann failure, and it was nothing else. As to the great
qualities of Mr. Elkins, suh, the editorial puts it too mild by fah. He
was a Titan, suh, a Titan, and we shall not look upon his like again.
This town at this moment is vegetating fo' the want of some fo'ceful
Elkins to put life into it. The trilobites, as he so well dubbed them,
ah in control again. What's this Auditorium we've built? A good thing
fo' the city, cehtainly, a ve'y good thing: but see the difficulty, the
humiliatin' difficulty we had, in gettin' togethah the paltry and
trivial hundred and fifty thousand dolla's! Why in that elder day, in
such a cause, we'd have called a meetin' in that old office of Elkins &
Barslow's, and made it up out of ouah own funds in fifteen minutes. It's
the so't of cattle we've got hyah as citizens that's handicappin' us;
but in spite of this, suh, ouah unsuhpassed strategical position is
winnin' fo' us. We ah just now on the eve of great developments,
Barslow, great developments! All my holdin's ah withdrawn from mahket
until fu'theh notice. Foh, as we ah so much behind the surroundin'
country in growth, we must soon take a great leap fo'wahd. We ah past
the boom stage, I thank God, and what we ah now goin' to get is a rathah
brisk but entiahly healthy growth. A good, healthy growth, Barslow, and
no boom!"
The disposition to moralize comes on with advancing middle age, and I
could not help philosophizing on this perennial optimism of the
Captain's. He had used these very words when, so long ago, we had begun
our "cruise." The financial cycle was complete. The world had passed
from hope to intoxication, from intoxication to panic, from panic to the
depths, from this depression, ascending the long slope of gradual
recovery, to the uplands of hope once more. Now, as twenty years ago,
this feeling covered the whole world, was most pronounced in the newer
and more progressive lands, and was voiced by Captain Tolliver, the
grizzled swashbuckler of the land market. In it I recognized the ripple
on the sands heralding the approach of another wave of speculation,
which must roll shoreward in splendor and might, and, like its
predecessors, must spend itself in thunderous ruin.
I often think of what General Lattimore was accustomed to say about
these matters, and how Josie echoed his words as to the evil of fortunes
coming to those who never earned them. Some time, I hope, we shall grow
wise enough to--
I humbly beg your pardon, Madam, and thank you. That charming gesture of
impatience was the one thing needful to admonish me that lectures are
dull, and that the time has come to write _finis_. The rest of the
story? Cornish--Jim--Josie--Antonia? Oh, this proneness of the business
man to talk shop! Left to myself, I should have allowed their history to
remain to the end of time, unresolved as to entanglements, and them
unhealed as to bruises, bodily and sentimental. And, yet, those were the
things which most filled our minds in the dark days after we missed
connection with the Pendleton special.
In the first spasm of the crisis I was more concerned for Jim's safety
than with the long-feared monetary cataclysm. _That_ was upon us in such
power as to make us helpless; but Jim, wounded and prostrated as he was,
his very life in danger, was a concrete subject of anxiety and a
comfortingly promising object of care.
"If we can keep this from assuming the character of true pneumonia,"
said Dr. Aylesbury, "there's no reason why he shouldn't recover."
He had been unconscious and then delirious from the time when he and I
had been picked up there by the railroad-dump, until we were well on our
way home on Kittrick's relief-train. At last he looked about him, and
his eyes rested on Corcoran.
"Hello, Jack!" said he weakly; and as his glance took in Ole, he smiled
and said: "A hellufa notion, you tank, do you? Ole, where's Schwartz?"
Ole twisted and squirmed, but found no words.
"We couldn't find Schwartz," said Kittrick. "He was so cold, he went
right down with the cab."
"I see," said Jim. "It was bitter cold!"
He said no more. I wondered at this, and almost blamed him, even in his
stricken state, for not feeling the peculiar poignancy of our regret for
the loss of Schwartz. And then, his face being turned away, I peeped
over to see if he slept, and saw where his tears had dropped silently on
the piled-up cushions of his couch.
* * * * *
Mrs. Trescott came several times a day to inquire as to Mr. Elkins's
welfare; but Josie not at all. Antonia's carriage stopped often at the
door; and somebody stood always at the telephone, answering the stream
of questions. But when, on that third evening, it became known that the
last "battle in the west" had gone against us, that all our great Round
Table was dissolved, and that Jim's was a sinking and not a rising sun,
public interest suddenly fell off. And the poor fellow whose word but
yesterday might have stood against the world, now lay there fighting for