The wonderful speculation hinted at by Col. Sellers in his letter turned out to be the raising of mules for the Southern market; and really it promised very well. The young stock cost but a trifle, the rearing but another trifle, and so Hawkins was easily persuaded to embark his slender means in the enterprise and turn over the keep and care of the animals to Sellers and Uncle Dan’l.

  All went well. Business prospered little by little. Hawkins even built a new house, made it two full stories high and put a lightning rod on it. People came two or three miles to look at it. But they knew that the rod attracted the lightning, and so they gave the place a wide berth in a storm, for they were familiar with marksmanship and doubted if the lightning could hit that small stick at a distance of a mile and a half oftener than once in a hundred and fifty times. Hawkins fitted out his house with “store” furniture2 from St. Louis, and the fame of its magnificence went abroad in the land. Even the parlor carpet was from St. Louis—though the other rooms were clothed in the “rag” carpeting3 of the country. Hawkins put up the first “paling” fence that had ever adorned the village; and he did not stop there, but whitewashed it. His oil-cloth window-curtains had noble pictures on them of castles such as had never been seen anywhere in the world but on window-curtains. Hawkins enjoyed the admiration these prodigies compelled, but he always smiled to think how poor and cheap they were, compared to what the Hawkins mansion would display in a future day after the Tennessee Land should have borne its minted fruit. Even Washington observed, once, that when the Tennessee Land was sold he would have a “store” carpet in his and Clay’s room like the one in the parlor. This pleased Hawkins, but it troubled his wife. It did not seem wise, to her, to put one’s entire earthly trust in the Tennessee Land and never think of doing any work.

  Hawkins took a weekly Philadelphia newspaper and a semi-weekly St. Louis journal—almost the only papers that came to the village, though Godey’s Lady’s Book4 found a good market there and was regarded as the perfection of polite literature by some of the ablest critics in the place. Perhaps it is only fair to explain that we are writing of a by gone age—some twenty or thirty years ago. In the two newspapers referred to lay the secret of Hawkins’s growing prosperity. They kept him informed of the condition of the crops south and east, and thus he knew which articles were likely to be in demand and which articles were likely to be unsalable, weeks and even months in advance of the simple folk about him. As the months went by he came to be regarded as a wonderfully lucky man. It did not occur to the citizens that brains were at the bottom of his luck.

  His title of “Squire” came into vogue again, but only for a season; for, as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible stages, grew up into “Judge;” indeed it bade fair to swell into “General” bye and bye. All strangers of consequence who visited the village gravitated to the Hawkins Mansion and became guests of the “Judge.”

  Hawkins had learned to like the people of his section very much. They were uncouth and not cultivated, and not particularly industrious; but they were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded respect. Their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the old-fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry. Whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless hatred. They still cursed Benedict Arnold as if he were a personal friend who had broken faith but a week gone by.

  CHAPTER 6

  Mesu eu azheâshet

  Washkebemâtizitaking,

  Nâwuj beshegandâguzé

  Manwâbegonig edush wen.

  We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record.

  Judge Hawkins and Col. Sellers have made and lost two or three moderate fortunes in the meantime and are now pinched by poverty. Sellers has two pairs of twins and four extras. In Hawkins’s family are six children of his own and two adopted ones. From time to time, as fortune smiled, the elder children got the benefit of it, spending the lucky seasons at excellent schools in St. Louis and the unlucky ones at home in the chafing discomfort of straightened circumstances.

  Neither the Hawkins children nor the world that knew them ever supposed that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage. Such difference as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which had thrown their lives together.

  And yet any one who had known the secret of Laura’s birth and had seen her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more winsome than her school companion.

  Philosophers dispute whether it is the promise of what she will be in the careless school-girl, that makes her attractive, the undeveloped maidenhood, or the mere natural, careless sweetness of childhood. If Laura at twelve was beginning to be a beauty, the thought of it had never entered her head. No, indeed. Her mind was filled with more important thoughts. To her simple school-girl dress she was beginning to add those mysterious little adornments of ribbon-knots and earrings, which were the subject of earnest consultations with her grown friends.

  When she tripped down the street on a summer’s day with her dainty hands propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows consequently more or less akimbo with her wide Leghorn hat flapping down and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her forehead the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and that sweet ignorance of care and that atmosphere of innocence and purity all about her that belong to her gracious time of life, indeed she was a vision to warm the coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest.

  Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, bewitching, in short—was Laura at this period. Could she have remained there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now come—years which had seen Judge Hawkins pass through so many trials.

  When the judge’s first bankruptcy came upon him, a homely human angel intruded upon him with an offer of $1,500 for the Tennessee Land. Mrs. Hawkins said take it. It was a grievous temptation, but the judge withstood it. He said the land was for the children—he could not rob them of their future millions for so paltry a sum. When the second blight fell upon him, another angel appeared and offered $3,000 for the land. He was in such deep distress that he allowed his wife to persuade him to let the papers be drawn; but when his children came into his presence in their poor apparel, he felt like a traitor and refused to sign.

  But now he was down again, and deeper in the mire than ever. He paced the floor all day, he scarcely slept at night. He blushed even to acknowledge it to himself, but treason was in his mind—he was meditating, at last, the sale of the land. Mrs. Hawkins stepped into the room. He had not spoken a word, but he felt as guilty as if she had caught him in some shameful act. She said:

  “Si, I do not know what we are going to do. The children are not fit to be seen, their clothes are in such a state. But there’s something more serious still.—There is scarcely a bite in the house to eat.”

  “Why, Nancy, go to Johnson———.”

  “Johnson indeed! You took that man’s part when he hadn’t a friend in the world, and you built him up and made him rich. And here’s the result of it: He lives in our fine house, and we live in his miserable log cabin. He has hinted to our children that he would rather they wouldn’t come about his yard to play with his children,—which I can bear, and bear easy enough, for they’re not a sort we want to associate with much—but what I can’t bear with any quietness at all, is his telling Franky our bill was running pretty high this morning when I sent him for some meal—and that was all he said, too—didn’t give him the meal—turned off and went to talking with the Hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to cheapen.”1

  “Nancy, this is astounding!”

  “And so it is, I warrant you. I’ve kept still, Si, as long as ever I could. Things have been getting worse and worse, and worse and worse, every single day; I don’t go out of the house, I feel so down; but you had trouble enough, and I wouldn’t say a word—and I wouldn’t say a word now, only things have got so bad that I don’t know what to do, nor where to turn.” And she gave way and put her face in her hands and cried.

  “Poor child, don’t grieve so. I never thought that of Johnson. I am clear at my wit’s end. I don’t know what in the world to do. Now if somebody would come along and offer $3,000—Oh, if somebody only would come along and offer $3,000 for that Tennessee Land———”

  “You’d sell it, Si?” said Mrs. Hawkins excitedly.

  “Try me!”

  Mrs. Hawkins was out of the room in a moment. Within a minute she was back again with a business-looking stranger, whom she seated, and then she took her leave again. Hawkins said to himself, “How can a man ever lose faith? When the blackest hour comes, Providence always comes with it—ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; if this blessed man offers but a thousand I’ll embrace him like a brother!”

  The stranger said:

  “I am aware that you own 75,000 acres of land in East Tennessee, and without sacrificing your time, I will come to the point at once. I am agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you ten thousand dollars for that land.”

  Hawkins’s heart bounded within him. His whole frame was racked and wrenched with fettered hurrahs. His first impulse was to shout— “Done! and God bless the iron company, too!”

  But a something flitted through his mind, and his opened lips uttered nothing. The enthusiasm faded away from his eyes, and the look of a man who is thinking took its place. Presently, in a hesitating, undecided way, he said:

  “Well, I—it don’t seem quite enough. That—that is a very valuable property—very valuable. It’s brim full of iron ore, sir—brim full of it! And copper, coal,—everything—everything you can think of ! Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll reserve everything except the iron, and I’ll sell them the iron property for $15,000 cash, I to go in with them and own an undivided interest of one-half the concern,—or the stock, as you may say. I’m out of business, and I’d just as soon help run the thing as not. Now how does that strike you?”

  “Well, I am only an agent of these people, who are friends of mine, and I am not even paid for my services. To tell you the truth, I have tried to persuade them not to go into the thing; and I have come square out with their offer, without throwing out any feelers—and I did it in the hope that you would refuse. A man pretty much always refuses another man’s first offer, no matter what it is. But I have performed my duty, and will take pleasure in telling them what you say.”

  He was about to rise. Hawkins said,

  “Wait a bit.”

  Hawkins thought again. And the substance of his thought was: “This is a deep man;2 this is a very deep man; I don’t like his candor; your ostentatiously candid business man’s a deep fox—always a deep fox; this man’s that iron company himself—that’s what he is; he wants that property, too; I am not so blind but I can see that; he don’t want the company to go into this thing—O, that’s very good; yes, that’s very good indeed—stuff ! he’ll be back here to-morrow, sure, and take my offer; take it? I’ll risk anything he is suffering to take it now; here— I must mind what I’m about. What has started this sudden excitement about iron? I wonder what is in the wind? just as sure as I’m alive this moment, there’s something tremendous stirring in iron speculation” [here Hawkins got up and began to pace the floor with excited eyes and with gesturing hands]—“something enormous going on in iron, without the shadow of a doubt, and here I sit mousing in the dark and never knowing anything about it; great heaven, what an escape I’ve made! this underhanded mercenary creature might have taken me up—and ruined me! but I have escaped, and I warrant me I’ll not put my foot into—

  He stopped and turned toward the stranger, saying:

  “I have made you a proposition,—you have not accepted it, and I desire that you will consider that I have made none. At the same time my conscience will not allow me to—. Please alter the figures I named to thirty thousand dollars, if you will, and let the proposition go to the company—I will stick to it if it breaks my heart!”

  The stranger looked amused, and there was a pretty well defined touch of surprise in his expression, too, but Hawkins never noticed it. Indeed he scarcely noticed anything or knew what he was about. The man left; Hawkins flung himself into a chair; thought a few moments, then glanced around, looked frightened, sprang to the door———

  “Too late—too late! He’s gone! Fool that I am!—always a fool! Thirty thousand—ass that I am! Oh, why didn’t I say fifty thousand!”

  He plunged his hands into his hair and leaned his elbows on his knees, and fell to rocking himself back and forth in anguish. Mrs. Hawkins sprang in, beaming:

  “Well, Si?”

  “Oh, con-found the con-founded—con-found it, Nancy. I’ve gone and done it, now!”

  “Done what, Si, for mercy’s sake!”

  “Done everything! Ruined everything!”

  “Tell me, tell me, tell me! Don’t keep a body in such suspense. Didn’t he buy, after all? Didn’t he make an offer?”

  “Offer? He offered $10,000 for our land, and———”

  “Thank the good providence from the very bottom of my heart of hearts! What sort of ruin do you call that, Si!”

  “Nancy, do you suppose I listened to such a preposterous proposition? No! Thank fortune I’m not a simpleton! I saw through the pretty scheme in a second. It’s a vast iron speculation!—millions upon millions in it! But fool as I am told him he could have half the iron property for thirty thousand—and if I only had him back here he couldn’t touch it for a cent less than a quarter of a million!”

  Mrs. Hawkins looked up white and despairing:

  “You threw away this chance, you let this man go, and we in this awful trouble? You don’t mean it, you can’t mean it!”

  “Throw it away? Catch me at it! Why woman, do you suppose that man don’t know what he is about? Bless you, he’ll be back fast enough to-morrow.”

  “Never, never, never. He never will come back. I don’t know what is to become of us. I don’t know what in the world is to become of us.”

  A shade of uneasiness came into Hawkins’s face. He said:

  “Why, Nancy, you—you can’t believe what you are saying.”

  “Believe it, indeed? I know it, Si. And I know that we haven’t a cent in the world, and we’ve sent ten thousand dollars a-begging.”

  “Nancy, you frighten me. Now could that man—is it possible that I—hanged if I don’t believe I have missed a chance! Don’t grieve, Nancy, don’t grieve. I’ll go right after him. I’ll take—I’ll take—what a fool I am!—I’ll take anything he’ll give!”

  The next instant he left the house on a run. But the man was no longer in the town. Nobody knew where he belonged or whither he had gone. Hawkins came slowly back, watching wistfully but hopelessly for the stranger, and lowering his price steadily with his sinking heart. And when his foot finally pressed his own threshold, the value he held the entire Tennessee property at was five hundred dollars— two hundred down and the rest in three equal annual payments, without interest.

  There was a sad gathering at the Hawkins fireside the next night. All the children were present but Clay. Mr. Hawkins said:

  “Washington, we seem to be hopelessly fallen, hopelessly involved. I am ready to give up. I do not know where to turn—I never have been down so low before, I never have seen things so dismal. There are many mouths to feed; Clay is at work; we must lose you, also, for a little while, my boy. But it will not be long—the Tennessee land———”

  He stopped, and was conscious of a blush. There was silence for a moment, and then Washington—now a lank, dreamy-eyed stripling between twenty-two and twenty-three years of age—said:

  “If Col. Sellers would come for me, I would go and stay with him a while, till the Tennessee land is sold. He has often wanted me to come, ever since he moved to Hawkeye.”

  “I’m afraid he can’t well come for you, Washington. From what I can hear—not from him of course, but from others—he is not far from as bad off as we are—and his family is as large, too. He might find something for you to do, maybe, but you’d better try to get to him yourself, Washington—it’s only thirty miles.”

  “But how can I, father? There’s no stage or anything.”

  “And if there were, stages require money. A stage goes from Swansea, five miles from here. But it would be cheaper to walk.”

  “Father, they must know you there, and no doubt they would credit you in a moment, for a little stage ride like that. Couldn’t you write and ask them?”

  “Couldn’t you, Washington—seeing it’s you that wants the ride? And what do you think you’ll do, Washington, when you get to Hawkeye? Finish your invention for making window-glass opaque?”

  “No, sir, I have given that up. I almost knew I could do it, but it was so tedious and troublesome I quit it.”

  “I was afraid of it, my boy. Then I suppose you’ll finish your plan of coloring hen’s eggs by feeding a peculiar diet to the hen?”

  “No, sir. I believe I have found out the stuff that will do it, but it kills the hen; so I have dropped that for the present, though I can take it up again some day when I learn how to manage the mixture better.”

  “Well, what have you got on hand—anything?”

  “Yes, sir, three or four things. I think they are all good and can all be done, but they are tiresome, and besides they require money. But as soon as the land is sold———”

  “Emily, were you about to say something?” said Hawkins.

  “Yes, sir. If you are willing, I will go to St. Louis. That will make another mouth less to feed. Mrs. Buckner has always wanted me to come.”