Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
ought to be a thousand men employed right now in those cement works. Oh,
I tell you, things'll hum here when we get these schemes working!"
We laughed at him: his visualization of the cement works was so
complete.
"I suppose you know where all the capital is coming from," said I, "to
do all these things? For my part, I see no way of getting it except our
old plan of buccaneering."
"Exactly my idea!" said he. "Didn't I write you that I'd enroll you as a
member of the band? Has Al ever told you, Mrs. Barslow, of our old
times, when we, as individuals, were passing through our
sixteenth-century stage?"
"Often," Alice replied. "He looks back upon his pirate days as a time of
Arcadian simplicity, 'Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin.'"
"I can easily understand," said Jim reflectively, "how piracy might
appear in that roseate light after a few years of practical politics.
Now from the moral heights of a life-insurance man's point of view it's
different."
So we rode on chatting and chaffing, now of the old time, now of the
new; and all the time I felt more and more impressed by the dissolving
views which Jim gave us of different parts of his program for making
Lattimore the metropolis of "the world's granary," as he called the
surrounding country. As we topped a low hill on our way back, he pulled
up, to give us a general view of the town and suburbs, and of the great
expanse of farming country beyond. Between us and Lattimore was a mile
stretch of gently descending road, with grain-fields and farm-houses on
each side.
"By the way," said he, "do you see that white house and red barn in the
maple grove off to the right? Well, you remember Bill Trescott?"
Neither of us could call such a person to mind.
"Well, it's all right, I suppose," he went on in a tone implying injury
forgiven, "but you mustn't let Bill know you've forgotten him. The
Trescotts used to live over by the Whitney schoolhouse in Greenwood
Township,--right on the Pleasant Valley line, you know. He remembers you
folks, Al. I'll drive over that way."
There were beds of petunias and four-o'clocks to be seen dimly
glimmering in the dusk, as we drove through the broad gate. Men and
women were gathered in a group about the base of the windmill, as Jim's
loud "whoa" announced our arrival. The women melted away in the
direction of the house. The men stood at gaze.
"Hello, Bill!" shouted Jim. "Come out here!"
"Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. Elkins," said a deep voice. "I didn't know
yeh."
"Thought it was the sheriff with a summons, eh? Well, I guess hardly!"
said Jim. "Mr. Trescott, I want you to shake hands with our old friend
Mr. Barslow."
A heavy figure detached itself from the group, and, as it approached,
developed indistinctly the features of a brawny farmer, with a short,
heavy, dark beard.
"Wal, I declare, I'm glad to see yeh!" said he, as he grasped my hand.
"I'd a'most forgot yeh, till Mr. Elkins told me you remembered my
whalin' them Dutch boys at a scale onct."
I had had no recollection of him; yet form and voice seemed vaguely
familiar. I assured him that my memory for names and faces was
excellent. After being duly presented to Mrs. Barslow, he urged us to
alight and come in. We offered as an excuse the lateness of the hour.
"Why, you hain't seen my family yet, Mr. Barslow," said he. "They'll be
disappointed if yeh don't come in."
I suggested that we were staying for a few days at the Centropolis; and
Alice added that we should be glad to see himself and Mrs. Trescott
there at any time during our stay. Elkins promised that we should all
drive out again.
"Wal, now, you must," said Mr. Trescott. "We must talk over ol' times
and--"
"Fight over old battles," replied Jim. "All the battles were yours,
though, eh, Bill?"
"Huh, huh!" chuckled Bill; "fightin's no credit to any man; but I 'spose
I fit my sheer when I was a boy--when I was a boy, y' know, Mrs.
Barslow, and had more sand than sense. Here, Josie, here's Mr. Elkins
and some old friends of mine. Mr. and Mrs. Barslow, my daughter."
She was a little slim slip of a thing, in white, and emerged from the
shrubbery at Mr. Trescott's call. She bowed to us, and said she was
sorry that we could not stop. Her voice was sweet, and there was
something unexpectedly cool and self-possessed in her intonation. It was
not in the least the speech of the ordinary neat-handed Phyllis or
Neaera; nor was her attitude at all countrified as she stood with her
hand on her father's arm. The increasing darkness kept us from seeing
her features.
"Josie's my right-hand man," said her father. "Half the business of the
farm stops when Josie goes away."
My wife expressed her admiration for Lattimore and its environs, and
especially for so much of the Trescott farm as could be seen in the
deepening gloaming. The flowers, she said, took her back to her
childhood's home.
"Let me give you these," said the girl, handing Alice a great bunch of
blossoms which she had been cutting when her father called, and had held
in her hands as we talked. My wife thanked her, and buried her face in
them, as we bade the Trescotts good-night and drove home.
"That girl," said Jim, as we spun along the road in the light of the
rising moon, "is a crackerjack. Bill thinks the world of her, and she
certainly gives him a mother's care!"
"She seems nice," said Alice, "and so refined, apparently."
"Been well educated," said Jim, "and got a head, besides. You'll like
her; she knows Europe better than some folks know their own front
yard."
"I was surprised at the vividness of my memory of Bill's youthful
combats," said I.
Jim's laugh rang out heartily through the Brushy Creek gorge.
"Well, I supposed you remembered those things, of course," said he, "and
so I insinuated some impression of the delight with which you dwell upon
the stories of his prowess. It made him feel good.... I'm spoiling Bill,
I guess, with these tales. He'll claim to have a private graveyard next.
As harmless a fellow as you ever saw, and the best cattle-feeder
hereabouts. Got a good farm out there, Bill has; we may need it for
stock yards or something, later on."
"Why not hire a corps of landscape-gardeners, and make a park of it?" I
inquired sarcastically. "We'll certainly need breathing-spaces for the
populace."
"Good idea!" he returned gravely. And as he halted the equipage at the
hotel, he repeated meditatively: "A mighty good idea, Al; we must figure
on that a little."
We were tired to silence when we reached our rooms; so much so that
nothing seemed to make a defined and sharp impression upon my mind. I
kept thinking all the time that I must have been mistaken in my first
thought that I had never known the Trescotts.
"Their voices seem familiar to me," said I, "and yet I can't associate
them with the old home at all. It's very odd!"
As Alice stood before the mirror shaking down and brushing her hair, she
said: "Do you suppose he thought you in earnest about that absurd park?"
"No," I answered, "he understood me well enough; but what puzzles me is
the question, was _he_ in earnest?"
* * * * *
In the middle of the night I woke with a perfectly clear idea as to the
identity of the Trescotts! Prescott, Trescott! Josie, Josephine the
"Empress"! And then the voice and figure!
"Why are you sitting up in bed?" inquired Alice.
"I have made a discovery," said I. "That man at the Stock Yards meant
Trescott, not Prescott."
"I don't understand," said she sleepily.
"In a word," said I, "the girl who gave you the flowers is the Empress!"
"Albert Barslow!" said Alice. "Why--"
My wife was silent for a long time.
"I knew we'd meet her," she said at last. "It is fate."
CHAPTER VI.
I am Inducted into the Cave, and Enlist.
"Here's the cave," said Jim, at the door of his office, next morning.
"As prospective joint-proprietor and co-malefactor, I bid you welcome."
The smiles with which the employees resumed their work indicated that
the extraordinary character of this welcome was not lost upon them. The
office was on the ground-floor of one of the more pretentious buildings
of Lattimore's main street. The post-office was on one side of it, and
the First National Bank on the other. Over it were the offices of
lawyers and physicians. It was quite expensively fitted up; and the
plate-glass front glittered with gold-and-black sign-lettering. The
chairs and sofas were upholstered in black leather. On the walls hung
several decorative advertisements of fire-insurance companies, and maps
of the town, county, and state. Rolls of tracing-paper and blueprints
lay on the flat-topped tables, reminding one of the office of an
architect or civil engineer. A thin young man worked at books, standing
at a high desk; and a plump young woman busily clicked off typewritten
matter with an up-to-date machine.
"You'll find some books and papers on the table in the next room," said
Jim, as I finished my first look about. "I'll ask you to amuse yourself
with 'em for a little while, until I can dispose of my morning's mail;
after which we'll resume our hunt for resources. We haven't any morning
paper yet, and the evening _Herald_ is shipped in by freight and edited
with a saw. But it's the best we've got--yet."
He read his letters, ran his eyes over his newspapers and a magazine or
two, and dictated some correspondence, interrupted occasionally by
callers, some of whom he brought into the room where I was whiling away
the time, examining maps, and looking over out-of-date copies of the
local papers. One of these callers was Mr. Hinckley, the cashier of the
bank, who came to see about some insurance matters. He was spare,
aquiline, and white-mustached; and very courteously wished Lattimore the
good fortune of securing so valuable an acquisition as ourselves. It
would place Lattimore under additional obligations to Mr. Elkins, who
was proving himself such an effective worker in all public matters.
"Mr. Elkins," said he, "has to a wonderful degree identified himself
with the material progress of the city. He is constantly bringing here
enterprising and energetic business men; and we could better afford to
lose many an older citizen."
I asked Mr. Hinckley as to the length of his own residence in Lattimore.
"I helped to plat the town, sir," said he. "I carried the chain when
these streets were surveyed,--a boy just out of Bowdoin College. That
was in '55. I staged it for four hundred miles to get here. Aleck
Macdonald and I came together, and we've both staid from that day. The
Indians were camped at the mouth of Brushy Creek; and except for old
Pierre Lacroix, a squaw-man, we were for a month the only white men in
these parts. Then General Lattimore came with a party of surveyors, and
by the fall there was quite a village here."
Jim came in with another gentleman, whom he introduced as Captain
Tolliver. The Captain shook my hand with profuse politeness.
"I am delighted to see you, suh," said he. "Any friend of Mr. Elkins I
shall be proud to know. I heah that Mrs. Barslow is with you. I trust,
suh, that she is well?"
I informed him that my wife was in excellent health, being completely
recovered from the fatigue of her journey.
"Ah! this aiah, this aiah, Mr. Barslow! It is like wine in its
invigorating qualities, like wine, suh. Look at Mr. Hinckley, hyah,
doing the work of two men fo' a lifetime; and younge' now than any of
us. Come, suh, and make yo' home with us. You nevah can regret it.
Delighted to have you call at my office, suh. I am proud to have met
you, and hope to become better acquainted with you. I hope Mrs. Tulliver
and Mrs. Barslow may soon meet. Good-morning, gentlemen." And he hurried