 Preface of The Gilded Age This book was not written for private circulation among friends. It was not written to cheer and instruct a diseased relative of the authors. It was not thrown off during intervals of wearing labour to amuse an idle hour. It was not written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is submitted without the usual apologies. It will be seen that it deals with an entirely ideal state of society, and the chief embarrassment of the writers in this realm of the imagination has been the want of illustrative examples. In a state where there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed desire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all honest and generous, where society is in a condition of primitive purity and politics is the occupation of only the capable and the patriotic, there are necessarily no materials for such a history as we have constructed out of an ideal common wealth. No apology is needed for following the learned custom of placing attractive scraps of literature at the heads of our chapters. It has been truly observed by Wagner that such headings, with their vague suggestions of the matter which is to follow them, pleasantly inflame the reader's interest without wholly satisfying his curiosity, and we will hope that it may be found to be so in the present case. Our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues. This is done for the reason that very few foreign nations among whom the book will circulate can read in any language but their own, whereas we do not write for a particular class, or sect, or nation, but to take in the whole world. We do not object to criticism, and we do not expect that the critic will read the book before writing a notice of it. We do not even expect the reviewer of the book will say that he has not read it. No, we have no anticipations of anything unusual in this age of criticism. But if the Jupiter, who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to peruse it in some weary moment of his subsequent life, we hope that he will not be the victim of a remorse bitter but too late. One word more. This is what it pretends to be a joint production in the conception of the story, the exposition of the characters, and in its literal composition. There is scarcely a chapter that does not bear the marks of the two writers of the book. S. L. C. C. D. W. End of Preface Chapter 1 Of The Gilded Age This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, Chapter 1 June 18-something. Squire Hawkins sat upon the pyramid of large blocks, called the style, in front of his house, contemplating the morning. The locality was Obidstown, East Tennessee. You would not know that Obidstown stood on the top of a mountain, for there was nothing about the landscape to indicate it, but it did, a mountain that stretched abroad over whole counties, and rose very gradually. The district was called the Nobs of East Tennessee, and had a reputation like Nazareth, as far as turning out any good thing was concerned. The Squire's house was a double log cabin in a state of decay. Two or three gone towns lay asleep about the threshold, and lifted their heads sadly whenever Mrs. Hawkins or the children stepped in and out over their bodies. Rubbish was scattered about the grassless yard. A bench stood near the door, with a tin wash basin on it, and a pail of water and a gourd. A cat had begun to drink from the pail, but the exertion was overtaxing her energies, and she had stopped to rest. There was an ash hopper by the fence, and an iron pot, for soap-boiling near it. This dwelling constituted one-fifteenth of Obidstown. The other fourteen houses were scattered about among the tall pine trees, and among the cornfields, in such a way that a man might stand in the midst of the city, and not know but that he was in the country if he only depended on his eyes for information. Squire Hawkins got his title from being postmaster of Obidstown. Not that the title properly belonged to the office, but because in those regions the chief citizens always must have titles of some sort, and so the usual courtesy had been extended to Hawkins. The mail was monthly, and sometimes amounted to as much as three or four letters at a single delivery. Even a rush like this did not fill up the postmaster's whole month, though, and therefore he kept store in the intervals. The squire was contemplating the morning. It was balmy and tranquil. The vagrant breezes were laden with the odor of flowers. The murmur of bees was in the air. There was everywhere that suggestion of repose that summer woodlands bring to the senses, and the vague pleasurable melancholy that such a time and such surroundings inspire. Presently the United States mail arrived on horseback. There was but one letter, and it was for the postmaster. The long-legged youth who carried the mail teared an hour to talk, for there was no hurry, and in a little while the mail population of the village had assembled to help. As a general thing they were dressed in homespun jeans, blue or yellow. Here were no other varieties of it. All wore one suspender, and sometimes two yarn ones knitted at home. Some wore vests, but few wore coats. Such coats and vests as did appear, however, were rather picturesque than otherwise, for they were made of tolerably fanciful patterns of calico, a fashion which prevails there too this day among those of the community who have tastes above the common level and are able to afford style. Every individual arrived with his hands in his pockets. A hand came out occasionally for a purpose, but it always went back again after service. And if it was the head that was served, just the cant that the dilapidated straw hat got by being uplifted and rooted under was retained until the next call altered the inclination. Many hats were present, but none were erect, and no two were canted just alike. We are speaking impartially of men, youths, and boys, and we are also speaking of these three estates when we say that every individual was either chewing natural leaf tobacco prepared on his own premises or smoking the same in a corn cob pipe. Few of the men wore whiskers, none wore mustaches, some had a thick jungle of hair under the chin and hiding the throat, the only pattern recognized there as being the correct thing in whiskers, but no part of any individual's face had seen a razor for a week. These neighbors stood a few moments looking at the male carrier reflectively while he talked, but fatigue soon began to show itself, and one after another they climbed up and occupied the top rail of the fence, hump-shouldered and grave, like a company of buzzards assembled for supper and listening for the death rattle. Old Damrell said, The haint no news about the judge hid ain't likely. Can't tell for Sarton, some thinks he's gone to be along directly, and some thinks he ain't. Russ Mosley, he told all hanks he might get to obids tomorrow or the next day he reckoned. Well, I wished I knowed, I got a prime sow and pigs in the coat house, and I haint got no place for to put them. If the judges are going to hold coat, I got to rouse them out, I reckon. But tomorrow or do, I suspect. The speaker bunched his thick lips together like a stem end of a tomato, and shot a bumblebee dead that had lit on a weed seven feet away. One after another the several chewers expressed a charge of tobacco juice and delivered it at the deceased with steady aim and faultless accuracy. What's a stirring down about the forks, continued Old Damrell? Well, I don't know, Zackley. Old Drake Higgins, he's been down to Shelby last week. Tuck his crap down, couldn't get shed a most of it. It wasn't no time to sell, he say, so he'd fetch it back again, allowing to wait till fall. Talks about going to Missouri. Lots of them's talking that way down there, Old Higgins say. Can't make a living here no more, such times as these. Cy Higgins, he's been over to Cane Tuck and married a high-toned gal there, out in the Fust families. And he's come back to the forks with just a hell's meant to whoop jamboree notions, folks says. He's tucking fixed up the old house like they does in Cane Tuck, he say. And there's been folks come clear from Terpentine for to see it. He's tucking gomed it all over on the inside with Plarster in. What's Plarster in? I don't know, it's what he calls it. Oh, ma'am Higgins, she told me. She say she wasn't going to hang out in no such a darn hole like a hog. Says it's mud or some such kind of nastiness that sticks on and covers up everything. Plarster in Cy calls it. This marvel was discussed at considerable length, and almost with animation. But presently there was a dogfight over in the neighborhood of the Blacksmith Shop and the visitors slid off their perch like so many turtles and strode to the battlefield with an interest bordering on eagerness. The squire remained and read his letter. Then he sighed and sat long in meditation. At intervals he said, Missouri, Missouri. Well, well, well, everything is so uncertain. At last he said, I believe I'll do it. A man will just rot here. My house, my yard, everything around me, in fact, shows that I am becoming one of these cattle, and I used to be thrifty in other times. He was not more than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him seem older. He left the style, entered that part of his house which was the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coon skin and a cake of beeswax to an old daemon Lindsey Woolsey, put his letter away and went into the kitchen. His wife was there constructing some dried apple pies. A slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather vane of his own contriving. His small sister, close upon four years of age, was sopping cornbread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying pan and trying hard not to sop over a finger mark that divided the pan through the middle. For the other side belonged to the brother, whose musings made him forget his stomach for the moment. A negro woman was busy cooking at a vast fireplace. Shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the place. Nancy, I've made up my mind. The world is done with me, and perhaps I ought to be done with it. But no matter, I can wait. I am going to Missouri. I won't stay in this dead country and decay with it. I've had it on my mind some time. I'm going to sell out here for whatever I can get, and buy a wagon and team, and put you and the children in it, and start. Anywhere that suits you suits me, Psy, and the children can't be any worse off in Missouri than they are here, I reckon. Motioning his wife to a private conference in their own room, Hawkins said, No, they'll be better off. I've looked out for them, Nancy, and his face lighted. Do you see these papers? Well, they are evidence that I have taken up 75,000 acres of land in this county. Think what an enormous fortune it will be some day. Why, Nancy, enormous don't express it. The words too tame. I tell you, Nancy, for goodness sakes, Psy. Wait, Nancy, wait, let me finish. I've been secretly bailing and fuming with this grand inspiration for weeks, and I must talk, or I'll burst. I haven't whispered to a soul, not a word, have had my countenance under lock and key, for fear it might drop something that would tell even these animals here how to discern the goldmine that's glaring under their noses. Now all that is necessary to hold this land and keep it in the family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly, five or ten dollars. The whole tract would not sell for over a third of a cent an acre now, but someday people will be glad to get it for twenty dollars, fifty dollars, a hundred dollars an acre. What should you say to? Here he dropped his voice to a whisper and looked anxiously around to see that there were no eavesdroppers, a thousand dollars an acre. Well you may open your eyes and stare, but it's so. You and I may not see the day, but they'll see it. Mind I tell you, they'll see it. Nancy, you've heard of steamboats and maybe you believed in them. Of course you did. You've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call them lies and humbugs, but they're not lies and humbugs. They're a reality and they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day than they are now. They're going to make a revolution in this world's affairs that will make men dizzy to contemplate. I've been watching, I've been watching while some people slept and I know what's coming. Even you and I will see the day that steamboats will come up that little turkey river to within twenty miles of this land of ours, and in high water they'll come right to it. And this is not all Nancy, it isn't even half. There's a bigger wonder, the railroad. These worms here have never even heard of it, and when they do they'll not believe in it. But it's another fact. Coaches that fly over the ground twenty miles an hour. Heavens and earth, think of that Nancy, twenty miles an hour. It makes a man's brain whirl. Someday, when you and I are in our graves, there'll be a railroad stretching hundreds of miles, all the way down from the cities of the northern states to New Orleans. And it's got to run within thirty miles of this land. Maybe even touch a corner of it. Well, do you know they've quit burning wood in some places in the eastern states? And what do you suppose they burn? Coal. He bent over and whispered again. There's world, worlds of it on this land. You know that black stuff that crops out of the bank of the branch? Well, that's it. You've taken it for rocks, so has everybody here. And they've built little dams and such things with it. One man was going to build a chimney out of it. Nancy, I expect I turned as white as a sheet. Why, it might have caught fire and told everything. I showed him it was too crumbly. Then he was going to build it of copper ore, splendid yellow forty percent ore. There's fortunes upon fortunes of copper ore on our land. It scared me to death, the idea of this fool starting a smelting furnace in his house without knowing it, and getting his dull eyes opened. And then he was going to build it of iron ore. There's mountains of iron ore here, Nancy, whole mountains of it. I wouldn't take any chances. I just stuck by him. I haunted him. I never let him alone till he built it of mud and sticks, like all the rest of the chimneys in this dismal country. Pine forests, wheatland, corn land, iron, copper, coal, wait till the railroads come and the steam boats. We'll never see the day, Nancy, never in the world, never, never, never, child. I've got to drag along, drag along, and eat crusts in toil and poverty, all hopeless and forlorn. But they'll ride in coaches, Nancy. They'll live like the princes of the earth. They'll be courted and worshiped. Their names will be known from ocean to ocean. Ah, well a day. Will they ever come back here on the railroad and the steamboat and say, This one little spot shall not be touched. This hovel shall be sacred. For here our father and our mother suffered for us, thought for us, laid the foundations of our future as solid as the hills. You are a great, good noble soul, Cy Hawkins, and I am an honored woman to be the wife of such a man. And the tears stood in her eyes when she said it. We will go to Missouri. You are out of your place here among these groping dumb creatures. We will find a higher place where you can walk with your own kind and be understood when you speak, not stared at as if you were talking some foreign tongue. I would go anywhere, anywhere in the wide world with you. I would rather my body would starve and die than your mind should hunger and wither away in this lonely land. Spoken like yourself, my child, but will not starve Nancy far from it. I have a letter from Bariah Sellars just came this day. A letter that I'll read you a line from it. He flew out of the room. A shadow blurred the sunlight in Nancy's face. There was uneasiness in it and disappointment. A procession of disturbing thoughts began to troop through her mind. Saying nothing aloud, she sat with her hands in her lap. Now and then she clasped them, then unclasped them, then tapped the ends of the fingers together. Side nodded, smiled. Occasionally paused, shook her head. This pantomime was the elocutionary expression of an unspoken soliloquy which had something of this shape. I was afraid of it, was afraid of it. Trying to make our fortune in Virginia, Bariah Sellars nearly ruined us and we had to settle in Kentucky and start over again. Trying to make our fortune in Kentucky, he crippled us again and we had to move here. Trying to make our fortune here, he brought us clear down to the ground nearly. He's an honest soul and means the very best in the world but I'm afraid, I'm afraid he's too flighty. He has splendid ideas and he'll divide his chances with his friends with a free hand the good generous soul but something does seem to always interfere and spoil everything. I never did think he was right well balanced but I don't blame my husband for I do think that when that man gets his head full of a new notion he can out talk a machine. He'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll listen to him ten minutes. Why I do believe he would make a deaf and dumb man believe in it and get beside himself if you only set him where he could see his eyes tally and watch his hands explain. What a head he has got. When he got up that idea there in Virginia of buying up whole loads of Negroes and Delaware in Virginia and Tennessee very quiet having papers drawn to have them delivered at a place in Alabama and take them and pay for them away yonder at a certain time and then in the meantime get a law made stopping everybody from selling Negroes to the south after a certain day it was somehow that way mercy how the man could have made money Negroes would have gone up to four prices but after he'd spent money and worked hard and traveled hard and had heaps of Negroes all contracted for and everything going along just right he couldn't get the laws passed and down the whole thing tumbled and there in Kentucky when he raked up that old numbskull that had been inventing away at a perpetual motion machine for 22 years and Bariah Sellars saw at a glance where just one more little cogwheel would settle the business why I could see it as plain as day when he came in wild at midnight and hammered us out of bed and told the whole thing in a whisper with the doors bolted and the candle in an empty barrel oceans of money in it anybody could see that but it did cost a deal to buy the old numbskull out and then when they put the new cogwheel in they'd overlooked something somewhere and it wasn't any use the troublesome thing wouldn't go that notion he got up here did look as handy as anything in the world and how him and sigh did sit up nights working at it with the curtains drawn and me watching to see if any neighbors were about the man did honestly believe that there was a fortune in that black gummy oil that's dues out of the bank sigh says his coal and he refined it himself till it was like water nearly and it did burn there's no two ways about that and I reckon he'd have been all right in Cincinnati with his lamp that he got made that time he got a house full of rich speculators to see him exhibit only in the middle of his speech it let go and almost blew the heads off the whole crowd I haven't got over grieving for the money that cost yet I am sorry enough baria sellers is in Missouri now but I was glad when he went I wonder what his letter says but of course it's cheerful he's never downhearted never had any trouble in his life didn't know it if he had it's always sunrise with that man and fine and blazing at that never gets noon though leaves off and rises again nobody can help liking the creature he means so well but I do dread to come across him again he's bound to set us all crazy of course well there goes old widow hopkins it always takes her a week to buy a spool of thread and trade a hank of yarn maybe sigh can come with the letter now and he did widow hopkins kept me I haven't any patience with such tedious people now listen Nancy just listen at this come right along to Missouri don't wait and worry about a good price but sell out for whatever you can get and come along or you might be too late throw away your traps if necessary and come empty-handed you'll never regret it it's the grandest country the loveliest land the purest atmosphere I can't describe it no pen can do it justice and it's filling up every day people coming from everywhere I've got the biggest scheme on earth and I'll take you in I'll take in every friend I've got that's ever stood by me for there's enough for all and to spare mum's the word don't whisper keep yourself to yourself you'll see come rush hurry don't wait for anything it's the same old boy Nancy just the same old boy ain't he yes I think there's a little of the old sound about his voice yet I suppose you you'll still go sigh go well I should think so Nancy it's all a chance of course and chances haven't been kind to us I'll admit but whatever comes old wife they're provided for thank god for that amen came low and earnestly and with an activity and a suddenness that bewildered obit's town and almost took its breath away the Hawkins is hurried through with their arrangements in four short months and flitted out into the great mysterious blank that lay beyond the knobs of Tennessee end of chapter one chapter two of the Gilded Age this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dave Dwight the Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner chapter two toward the close of the third day's journey the Wayfarers were just beginning to think of camping when they came upon a log cabin in the woods Hawkins drew rain and entered the yard a boy about ten years old was sitting in the cabin door with his face bowed in his hands Hawkins approached expecting his footfall to attract attention but it did not he halted a moment and then said come come little chap you mustn't be going to sleep before sundown with a tired expression the small face came up out of the hands a face down which tears were flowing ah i'm sorry i spoke so my boy tell me is anything the matter the boy signified with a scarcely perceptible gesture that the trouble was in the house and made room for Hawkins to pass then he put his face in his hands again and rocked himself about as one suffering a grief that is too deep to find help in moan or groan or outcry Hawkins stepped within it was a poverty stricken place six or eight middle-aged country people of both sexes were grouped about an object in the middle of the room they were noiselessly busy and they talked in whispers when they spoke Hawkins uncovered and approached a coffin stood upon two backless chairs these neighbors had just finished disposing the body of a woman in it a woman with a care-worn gentle face that had more the look of sleep about it than of death an old lady motioned toward the door and said to Hawkins in a whisper his mother paw thing died of the fever last night there weren't no such thing as saving of her but it's better for her better for her husband and the two other children died in spring and she ain't ever hilt up her head since she just went around broken hearted like and never took no entrust in anything but clay that's the boy there she just worshiped clay and clay he worshiped her they done paired to live at all only when they was together looking at each other loving one another she'd been sick three weeks and if you believe me that child has worked and kept the run of the medicine and the tons of giving it and set up nights and nuster and try to keep up her spirits the same as a grown-up person last night when she kept it sinking and sinking and turned away her head and didn't know him no more it was fitting to make a body's heart break to see him climb onto the bed and lay his cheek again her and call her so pitiful and she not answered but by me by she roused up like and looked around wild and then she see him and she made a great cry and snatched him to her breast and hilt him close and kissed him over and over again but it took the last pull strength she had and so her eyelids began to close down and her arms sort of dropped away and then we see she was gone pull creature and clay he oh the poem motherless thing i can't talk about it i can't bear to talk about it clay had disappeared from the door but he came in now and the neighbors reverently fell apart and made way for him he leaned upon the open coffin and let his tears course silently then he put out his small hand and smoothed the hair and stroke the dead face lovingly after a bit he brought his other hand up from behind and laid three or four fresh wildflowers upon the breast bent over and kissed the unresponsive lips time and time again and then turned away and went out of the house without looking at any of the company the old lady said to hawkins she always loved that kind of flowers he fetched him for her every morning and she always kissed him they was from away no summers and she kept school when she first come goodness knows what's to become of that boy no father no mother no kin folks and no kind nobody to go to nobody the cares for him and all of us is so put to it for to get along and family so large hawkins understood all eyes were turned inquiringly upon him he said friends i'm not very well provided for myself but still i would not turn my back on a homeless orphan if he will go with me i will give him a home and loving regard i will do for him as i would have another do for a child of my own in misfortune one after another the people stepped forward and rung the stranger's hand with cordial goodwill and their eyes looked all that their hands could not express or their lips speak said like a true man said one you was a stranger to me a minute ago but you ain't now said another it's bread cast upon the waters it'll return after many days said the old lady whom we've heard speak before you've got to camp in my house as long as you hang out here said one if the haint room for you and urin my tribe will turn out and camp in the hay loft a few minutes afterward while the preparations for the funeral were being concluded mr. hawkins arrived at his wagon leading his little waif by the hand and told his wife all that had happened and asked her if he had done right in giving to her and to himself this new care she said if you've done wrong sigh hawkins it's a wrong that will shine brighter at the judgment day than the rights that many a man has done before you and there isn't any compliment you can pay me equal to doing a thing like this and finishing it up just taking it for granted that I'll be willing to it willing come to me you poor motherless boy and let me take your grief and help you carry it when the child awoke in the morning it was as if from a troubled dream but slowly the confusion in his mind took form and he remembered his great loss the beloved form in the coffin his talk with a generous stranger who offered him a home the funeral where the stranger's wife held him by the hand at the grave and cried with him and comforted him and he remembered how this new mother tucked him in his bed in the neighboring farmhouse and coaxed him to talk about his troubles and then heard him say his prayers and kissed him good night and left him with the soreness in his heart almost healed and his bruised spirit at rest and now the new mother came again and helped him to dress and combed his hair and drew his mind away by degrees from the dismal yesterday by telling him about the wonderful journey he was going to take and the strange things he was going to see and after breakfast they too went alone to the grave and his heart went out to his new friend and his untaught eloquence poured the praises of his buried idol into her ears without let or hindrance together they planted roses by the headboard and strewed wild flowers upon the grave and then together they went away hand in hand and left the dead to the long sleep the heals all heartaches and ends all sorrows. End of chapter 2 Recording by Dave Dwight Southern Illinois Chapter 3 of The Gilded Age This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dave Dwight The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner Chapter 3 Whatever the lagging dragging journey may have been to the rest of the emigrants it was a wonder and delight to the children a world of enchantment and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales the negro slaves were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuttering light of the kitchen fire. At the end of nearly a week of travel the party went into camp near a shabby village which was caving house by house into the hungry Mississippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its mild breath of water seemed an ocean to them. In the shadowy twilight and the vague rebound of trees on the further shore the verge of a continent which surely none but they had ever seen before. Uncle Donald Cullard, aged 40, his wife Aunt Jenny, aged 30, young Miss Emily Hawkins, young Mars Washington Hawkins, and young Mars Clay, the new member of the family, arranged themselves on a log after supper and contemplated the marvellous river and discussed it. The moon rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud wreaths. The somber river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light. A deep silence pervaded the air and was emphasized at intervals rather than broken by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled crash of a raving bank in the distance. The little company assembled on the log were all children, at least in simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance, and the remarks they made about the river were in keeping with the character, and so awed were they by the grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before them and by their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits and that the faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings that all their talk took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued to a low and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Donald exclaimed, Chilling, that's something a coming! All crowded close together and every heart beat faster. Uncle Donald pointed down the river with his bony finger. A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape that jetted into the stream a mild distant. All in an instant a fierce eye of fire shot out froth behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway quivering a thwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder, a huge shape developed itself out of the gloom and from its tall, duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke starred and spangled with sparks poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came till its long sides began to glow with spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster like a torchlight procession. What is it? Oh, what is it, Uncle Donald? With a deep solemnity the answer came. It's the Almighty, get down on your knees. It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment, and then, while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger, and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice lifted up its supplications. Oh Lord, we've been mighty wicked, and we know as though we deserved to go to the bad place, but good Lord, dear Lord, we ain't ready yet, we ain't ready. Let these poor children have one more chance, just one more chance. Take their own niggas if you've got to help somebody. Good Lord, good dear Lord, we don't know what you's going to do, and we don't know who you's got your eye on, but we know by the way you's are coming. We know by the way you's are tilting along in your chair to fight at some post center, so go on and catch it. But good Lord, those children don't belong here. They's from Oberstam, where they don't know nothing, and you know your own self that they ain't responsible. And dear Lord, good Lord, it ain't like your mercy. It ain't like your pity. It ain't like your long suffering, loving kindness, for to take this kind of advantage of sick little children as those is, when there's so many ordinary grown folks chuck full of cussiness that wants roasting down there. Oh Lord, sped a little children. Don't tire the little children from this. Friends, just let them off this once. And take it out on the old nigga. Here I is, Lord, here I is. The old nigga's ready, Lord. The old, the flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party. And now twenty steps away, the awful thunder of a mud valve suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Donald snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at his heels, and then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness and shouted, but rather feebly, Here I is, Lord, here I is. There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and the comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Donald headed a cautious reconnaissance in the direction of the log. Sure enough, the Lord was just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked, the lights winked out, and the coughing diminished by degrees, and presently ceased altogether. Hush. Well, nowadays some folks say there ain't no efficiency in prayer. This child would like to know what we'd have been now if it weren't for that prayer. That's it, that's it. Uncle Donald, do you reckon it was that prayer that saved us, said Clay? Does it reckon? Don't I know it? What was your eyes? Weren't the Lord just a coming child, child, child, and a going on terrible? And do the Lord carry on that way that there's something don't suit him? And weren't he looking right at this gang here? And weren't he just a ration for him? And just speckey, he's going to let him off, doubt somebody, ask him to do it? No, we indeedy. Do you reckon he saw us, Uncle Donald? The Lord says, child, didn't I see him looking at us? Did you feel scared, Uncle Donald? No, sir. When a man is gauged in prayer, he ain't afraid of nothing. They can't nothing touch him. Well, what did you run for? Well, I, I, Mars Clay, when a man is under the influence of the spirit, he don't know what he's about. No, sir, that man don't know what he's about. You might take and tie the head off of that man, and he wouldn't scarcely find it out. That's the Hebrew children that went through the fire. They was burnt considerable. Of course, there was, but they didn't know nothing about it. He'll write up again. If they've been gaussed, they must have had long hair. Maybe, but they wouldn't felt they burned. I don't know about what they were girls. I think they were. Now, Mars Clay, you know better than that. Sometimes a body can't tell whether you's a saying what you means or whether you're a said saying what you don't mean, because you says them both the same way. But how should I know whether they were boys or girls? Goodness sakes, Mars Clay. Don't the good books say? Sides, don't they call them the Hebrew children? If they was gauss, wouldn't they be the Hebrew children? Some people that can read don't appear to take no notice when they do read. Wonka-down. I think that, my, here comes another one up the river. There can't be two. We gone this time. We gone this time show. They ain't two, Mars Clay. They's the same one. The lord can appear everywhere in a second. Goodness, how do fire and smoke do belch up? That mean business, honey. He coming now like he forgot something. Come long, chilling. Time use a Gwennah. Rousse, go long. Why, you old uncle Gwennah, out in the woods to write some prayer. Don't niggas Gwennah do what he can to save you again. He did go to the woods and pray, but he went so far that he doubted himself if the Lord heard him when he went by. Dudley Warner. Seventhly, before his voyage, he should make his peace with God, satisfy his creditors if he be in debt, pray earnestly to God to prosper him in his voyage and to keep him from danger, and if he be sweet jurists, he should make his last will and wisely order all his affairs, since many that go far abroad return not home. This good and Christian council is given by Martinez Zeileris in his epidemical cannons before his itinerary of Spain and Portugal. Early in the morning, Squire Hawkins took passage in a small steamboat with his family and his two slaves, and presently the bell rang, the stage plank was hauled in, and the vessel proceeded up the river. The children and the slaves were not much more at ease after finding out that this monster was a creature of human contrivance than they were the night before when they thought at the Lord of Heaven and Earth. They started in fright every time the gauge cocks sent out an angry hiss, and they quaked from head to foot when the mud valves thundered. The shivering of the boat under the beating of the wheels was sheer misery to them. But of course, familiarity with these things soon took away their terrors, and then the voyage at once became a glorious adventure, a royal progress through the very heart and home of romance, a realization of their rosiest wonder dreams. They sat by the hour in the shade of the pilot house on the hurricane deck and looked out over the curving expanses of the river sparkling in the sunlight. Sometimes the boat fought the midstream current with a verdant world on either hand and remote from both. Sometimes she closed in under a point where the dead water and the helping eddies were, and shaved the bank so closely that the decks were swept by the jungle of overhanging willows and littered with a spoil of leaves. Departing from these points, she regularly crossed the river every five miles, avoiding the bite of the great binds and thus escaping the strong current. Sometimes she went out and skirted a high bluff sandbar in the middle of the stream and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head. And then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground but smelt the bar and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her boughs vanished. A great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under way and in this instant she leaned far over on her side, shied from the bar and fled square away from the danger like a frightened thing. And the pilot was lucky if he managed to straighten her up before she drove her nose into the opposite bank. Sometimes she approached a solid wall of tall trees as if she meant to break through it but all of a sudden a little crack would open just enough to admit her and away she would go plowing through the chute with just barely room enough between the island on one side and the mainland on the other. In this sluggish water she seemed to go like a racehorse. Now and then small log cabins appeared in little clearings with the never-failing frowsy women and girls ensoiled and faded Lindsey Woolsey leaning in the doors or against wood piles and rail fences, gazing sleepily at the passing show. Sometimes she found shoal water going out at the head of those chutes or crossing the river and then a deck hand stood on the bow and hoved the lead while the boat slowed down and moved cautiously. Sometimes she stopped a moment at a landing and took on some freight or a passenger while a crowd of slouchy white men and negroes stood on the bank and looked sleepily on with their hands in their pantaloons' pockets, of course, for they never took them out except to stretch and when they did this they squirmed about and reached their fists up into the air and lifted themselves on tiptoe in an ecstasy of enjoyment. When the sun went down it turned all the broad river to a national banner laid in gleaming bars of gold and purple and crimson and in time these glories faded out in the twilight and left the ferry archipelagos reflecting their fringing foliage in the steely mirror of the stream. At night the boat forged on through the deep solitudes of the river, hardly ever discovering a light to testify to a human presence. Mile after mile and league after league the vast bends were guarded by unbroken walls of forest that had never been disturbed by the voice or the footfall of man or felt the edge of his sacrilegious acts. An hour after supper the moon came up and clay and Washington ascended to the hurricane deck to revel again in their new realm of enchantment. They ran races up and down the deck, climbed about the bell, made friends with the passenger dogs chained under the lifeboat, tried to make friends with the passenger bear fastened to the verge staff but were not encouraged, skinned the cat on the hog chains in a word exhausted the amusement possibilities of the deck. Then they looked wistfully up at the pilot house and finally little by little clay ventured up there followed diffidently by Washington. The pilot turned presently to get his stern marks, saw the lads and invited them in. Now their happiness was complete. This cozy little house built entirely of glass and commanding a marvelous prospect in every direction was a magician's throne to them and their enjoyment of the place was simply boundless. They sat them down on a high bench and looked miles ahead and saw the wooded capes fold back and reveal the bends beyond and they looked miles to the rear and saw the silvery highway diminish its breadth by degrees and close itself together in the distance. Presently the pilot said by George yonder comes the Amaranth. A spark appeared close to the water several miles down the river. The pilot took his glass and looked at it steadily for a moment and said chiefly to himself it can't be the blue wing she couldn't pick us up this way it's the Amaranth sure. He bent over speaking tube and said who's on watch down there a hollow unhuman voice rumbled up through the tube and answer I am second engineer good you want to stir your stomps now harry the Amaranth's just turned the point and she's just a hump in herself too. The pilot took hold of a rope that stretched out forward jerked it twice and two mellow strokes of the big bell responded a voice out on the deck shouted stand by down there with that labored lead no I don't want the lead said the pilot I want you roust out the old man tell him the Amaranth's coming and go and call Jim tell him aye aye sir the old man was the captain he's always called so on steamboats and ships Jim was the other pilot within two minutes both of these men were flying up the pilot house stairway three steps at a jump Jim was in his shirt sleeves with his coat and vest on his arm he said I was just turning in where's the glass he took it and looked don't appear to be any nighthawk on the jack staff it's the Amaranth dead sure the captain took a good long look and only said damnation George Davis the pilot on watch shouted to the night watchman on deck how she loaded two inches by the head sir taint enough the captain shouted now call the mate tell him to call all hands and get a lot of that sugar for it put her ten inches by the head lively now aye aye sir a riot of shouting and trampling floated up from below presently and the uneasy steering of the boat soon showed that she was getting down by the head the three men in the pilot house began to talk in short sharp sentences low and earnestly as their excitement rose their voices went down as fast as one of them put down the spyglass another took it up but always with a studied air of calmness each time the verdict was she's a gainan the captain spoke through the tube what steam are you carrying 142 sir but she's getting a hotter and hotter all the time the boat was straining and groaning and quivering like a monster in pain both pilots were at work now one on each side of the wheel with their coats and vests off their bosoms and collars wide open and the perspiration flowing down their faces they were holding the boat so close to the shore that the willow swept the guards almost from stem to stern stand by whispered george already said jim under his breath let her come the boat sprang away from the bank like a deer and darted in a long diagonal toward the other shore she closed in again and thrashed her fierce way along the willows as before the captain put down the glass lord how she walks up on us i do hate to be beat jim said george looking straight ahead watching the slightest yawing of the boat and promptly meeting it with the wheel how will it do to try murderer's chute well it's it's taking chances how was the cottonwood stump on the false point below boardman's island this morning water just touching the roots well it's pretty close work that gives six feet scant in the head of murderer's chute we can just barely rub through if we hit it exactly right but it's worth trying she don't dare tackle it meaning the amaranth in another instant the boreus plunged into what seemed a crooked creek and the amaranth's approaching lights were shut out in a moment not a whisper was uttered now but the three men stared ahead into the shadows and two of them spun the wheel back and forth with anxious watchfulness while the steamer door along the chute seemed to come to an end every fifty yards but always opened out in time now the head of it was at hand george tapped the big bell three times two ledsmen sprang to their posts and in a moment their weird cries rose on the night air and were caught up and repeated by two men on the upper deck no bottom deep four half three quarter three mark underwater three half twain quarter twain davis pulled a couple of ropes there was a jingling of small bells far below the boat's speed slackened and the pent steam began to whistle and the gauge cocks to scream by the mark twain quarter here less twain eight and a half eight feet seven and a half another jingling of little bells and the wheels ceased turning altogether the whistling of the steam was something frightful now it almost drowned all other noises stand by to meet her george had the wheel hard down and was standing on a spoke already the boat hesitated seemed to hold her breath as did the captain and pilots and then she began to fall away to starboard and every eye lighted now then meet her meet her snatch her the wheel flew to port so fast that the spokes blended into a spider web the swing of the boat subsided she steadied herself seven feet seven six and a half six feet six bang she hit the bottom george shouted through the tube spread her wide open whale it at her pow wow ciao the escape pipes belched snowy pillars of steam aloft the boat ground and surged and trembled and slid over in two mark twain quarter her tap tap tap to signify lay in the leads and away she went flying up the willow shore with the whole silver sea of the mississippi stretching abroad on every hand no amaranth in sight ha ha boys we took a couple of tricks that time said the captain and just at that moment a red glare appeared in the head of the chute and the amaranth came springing after them well i swear jim what is the meaning of that i'll tell you what's the meaning of it that hail we had at napoleon was wash hastings wanting to come to chiro and we didn't stop he's in that pilot house now showing those mud turtles how to hunt for easy water that's it i thought it wasn't any slouch that was running that middle bar on hog i bend if it's wash hastings well what he don't know about the river ain't worth no one a regular gold leaf kid glove diamond breast pin pilot wash hastings is we won't take any tricks off of him old man i wish i had to stop for him that's all the amaranth was within 300 yards of the boreus and still gaming the old man spoke through the tube what's she carrying now 165 sir how's your wood pine all out cypress half gone eating up gotten wood like pie break into that rosin on the main deck pilot in the boat can pay for it soon the boat was plunging and quivering and screaming more madly than ever but the amaranth's head was almost abreast the boreus' stern how's your steam now harry 182 sir break up the casks of bacon in the forehead hold pilot in levy on that turpentine in the fantail drench every stick of wood with it the boat was a moving earthquake by this time how is she now 196 and still a swelling water below the middle gauge cocks carrying every pound she can stand nigger roosting on the safety valve good how's your draft bully every time a nigger heaves a stick of wood into the furnace he goes out the chimney with it the amaranth drew steadily up till her jack staff breasted the boreus' wheelhouse climbed along inch by inch till her chimneys breasted it crept along further and further till the boats were wheel to wheel and then they closed up with a heavy jolt and locked together tight and fast in the middle of the big river under the flooding moonlight a roar and a hurrah went up from the crowded decks of both steamers all hands rushed to the guards to look and shout and gesticulate the weight careened the vessels over toward each other officers flew hither and thither cursing and storming trying to drive the people amid ships both captains were leaning over their railing shaking their fists swearing and threatening black volumes of smoke rolled up and canopied the scene delivering a rain of sparks upon the vessels two pistol shots rang out and both captains dodged unhurt and the packed masses of passengers surged back and fell apart while the shrieks of women and children soared above the intolerable din and then there was a booming roar a thundering crash and the riddled amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away instantly the fire doors of the boreus were thrown open and the men began dashing buckets of water into the furnaces for it would have been death and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on as soon as possible the boreus dropped down to the floating wreck and took off the dead the wounded and the unhurt at least all it could be got at for the whole forward half of the boat was a shapeless ruin with the great chimneys lying crossed on top of it and underneath were a dozen victims imprisoned alive and wailing for help while men with axes worked with might and main to free these poor fellows the boreus's boats went about picking up stragglers from the river and now a new horror presented itself the wreck took fire from the dismantled furnaces never did men work with a heartier will than did those stalwart braves with the axes but it was of no use the fire ate its way steadily despising the bucket brigade that fought it it scorched the clothes it singed the hair of the axemen it drove them back foot by foot inch by inch they wavered struck a final blow in the teeth of the enemy and surrendered and as they fell back they heard prisoned voices saying don't leave us don't desert us don't don't do it and one poor fellow said i am henry warley striker of the amaranth my mother lives in st louis tell her a lie for a poor devil's sake please say i was killed in an instant and never knew what hurt me though god knows i've neither scratched nor bruised this moment it's hard to burn up in a coop like this with the whole wide world so near goodbye boys we've all got to come to it at last anyway the boreus stood away out of danger and the ruined steamer went drifting down the stream an island of wreathing and climbing flame that vomited clouds of smoke from time to time and glared more fiercely and sent its luminous tongues higher and higher after each emission a shriek at intervals told of a captive that had met his doom the wreck lodged upon a sandbar and when the boreus turned the next point on her upward journey it was still burning with scarcely abated fury when the boys came down into the main saloon of the boreus they saw a pitiful sight and heard a world of pitiful sounds 11 poor creatures lay dead and 40 more lay moaning or pleading or screaming while a score of good samaritans moved among them doing what they could to relieve their sufferings bathing their chinless faces and bodies with linseed oil and lime water and covering the places with bulging masses of raw cotton that gave to every face and form a dreadful and unhuman aspect a little wee french midshipmen of 14 lay fearfully injured but never uttered a sound till a physician of memphis was about to dress his hurts then he said can i get well you need not be afraid to tell me no i i am afraid you cannot then do not waste your time with me help those that can get well but help those that can get well it is not for me to be a girl i carry the blood of 11 generations of soldiers in my veins the physician himself a man who had seen service in the navy in his time touched his hat to this little hero and passed on the head engineer of the amaranth a grand specimen of physical manhood struggled to his feet a ghastly spectacle and strode toward his brother the second engineer who was unheard he said you were on watch you were boss you would not listen to me when i begged you to reduce your steam take that take it to my wife and tell her it comes from me by the hand of my murderer take it and take my curse with it to blister your heart a hundred years and may you live so long and he tore a ring from his finger stripping flesh and skin with it threw it down and fell dead but these things must not be dwelt upon the boreus landed her dreadful cargo at the next large town and delivered it over to a multitude of eager hands and warm southern hearts a cargo amounting by this time to 39 wounded persons and 22 dead bodies and with these she delivered a list of 96 missing persons that had drowned or otherwise perished at the scene of the disaster a jury of inquest was impaneled and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable american verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives nobody to blame the incidents of the explosion are not invented they happened just as they are told the authors end of chapter four recording by charles ru boulder creek california chapter five of the gilded age this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by richard kilmer the gilded age by mark twain and charles dudley warner chapter five when the boreus backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the river the hawkins's were richer by 24 hours of experience in the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard work how to relieve it and they were richer in another way also in the early turmoil an hour after the explosion a little black eyed girl of five years frightened and crying bitterly was struggling through the throng in the boreus's saloon calling for her mother and father but no one answered something in the face of mr hawkins attracted her and she came and looked up at him was satisfied and took refuge with him he petted her listened to her troubles and said he would find her friends for her then he put her in a state room with his children and told them to be kind to her the adults of his party were all busy with the wounded and straight away began his search it was fruitless but all day he and his wife made inquiries and hoped against hope all that they could learn was that the child and her parents came on board at new orleans where they had just arrived in a vessel from cuba that they looked like people from the atlantic states that the family name was van brunt and the child's name was laura this was all the parents had not been seen since the explosion the child's manners were those of a little lady and her clothes were daintier and finer than any mrs hawkins had ever seen before as the hours dragged on the child lost heart and cried so piteously for her mother that it seemed to the hawkins's that the moanings and whalings of the mutilated men and women in the salon did not so strain at their heartstrings as the suffering of this little desolate creature they tried hard to comfort her and in trying learn to love her they could not help it see in how she clung to them and put her arms about their necks and found no solace but in their kind eyes and comforting words there was a question in both their hearts a question that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the hours wore on but both hesitated to give it voice both kept silence and waited but a time came at last when the matter would bear delay no longer the boat had landed and the dead and the wounded were being conveyed to the shore the tired child was asleep in the arms of mrs hawkins mr hawkins came into their presence and stood without speaking his eyes met his wife's then both looked at the child and as they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer an expression of contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the mother heart and when the eyes of husband and wife met again the question was asked and answered when the boreus had journeyed some 400 miles from the time the hawkins's joined her a long rank of steamboats was sited packed side by side at a wharf like sardines in a box and above and beyond them rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a city a city with an imposing umbrella of black smoke spread over it this was st louis the children of the hawkins family were playing about the hurricane deck and the father and mother were sitting in the lee of the pilot house essaying to keep order and not greatly grieved that they were not succeeding they're worth all the trouble they are nancy yes and more sigh i believe you you wouldn't sell one of them at a good round figure not for all the money in the bank sigh my own sentiments every time it is true we are not rich but still you are not sorry you haven't any misgivings about the additions no god will provide amen and so you wouldn't even part with clay or laura not for anything in the world i love them just the same as i love my own they pet me and spoil me even more than the others do i think i reckon we'll get alongside oh yes it will all come out right old mother i wouldn't be afraid to adopt a thousand children if i wanted to for there's that tennessee land you know enough to make an army of them rich a whole army nancy you and i will never see the day but these little champs will indeed they will one of these days it will be the rich miss emily hawkins and the wealthy miss laura van brunt hawkins and the honorable george washington hawkins millionaire and governor henry clay hawkins millionaire that is the way the world will word it don't let's ever fret about the children nancy never in the world they're all right nancy there's oceans and oceans of money in that land mark my words the children had stopped playing for the moment and drawn near to listen hawkins said washington my boy what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world i don't know father sometimes i think i'll have a balloon and go up in the air and sometimes i think i'll have ever so many books and sometimes i think i'll have ever so many weather cocks and water wheels or have a machine like that one you and colonel cellars bought and sometimes i think i'll have well somehow i don't know somehow i ain't certain and maybe i'll get a steamboat first the same old chap always just a little bit divided about things and what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world clay i don't know sir my mother my other mother that's gone away she always told me to work along and not be much expecting to get rich and then i wouldn't be disappointed if i didn't get rich and so i reckon it's better for me to wait till i get rich and then by that time maybe i'll know what i'll want but i don't know now sir careful old head governor henry clay hawkins that's what you'll be clay one of these days wise old head weighty old head go on now and play all of you it's a prime lot nancy has the obit's town folk say about their hogs the smaller steamboat received the hawkins' and their fortunes and bore them 130 miles still higher up the mississippi and landed them at a little tumble down village on the missouri shore in the twilight of a mellow october day the next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they went it slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited forest solitudes and when for the last time they pitched their tents metaphorically speaking it was at the goal of their hopes their new home by the muddy roadside stood a new log cabin one story high the store clustered in the neighborhood were ten or twelve more cabins some new some old in the sad light of the departing day the place look homeless enough two or three coatless young men sat in front of the store on a dry goods box and whittled it with their knives kicked it with their vast boots and shot tobacco juice at various marks several ragged negroes lean comfortably against the posts of the awning and contemplated the arrival of the wayfarers with lazy curiosity all these people presently managed to drag themselves to the vicinity of the hawkins wagon and there they took up permanent positions hands and pockets and resting on one leg and thus anchored they proceeded to look and enjoy vagrant dogs came wagging around and making inquiries of hawkins dog which were not satisfactory and they made war on him in concert this would have interested the citizens but it was too many on one to amount to anything as a fight and so they commanded the peace and the foreign dog coiled his tail and took sanctuary under the wagon slatteringly negro girls and women slouched along with pales definitely balanced on their heads and joined the group and stared little half dressed white boys and little negro boys with nothing whatever on but toe linen shirts and a fine southern exposure came from various directions and stood with their hands locked together behind them and ate it in the inspection the rest of the population were laying down their employments and getting ready to come when a man burst through the assemblage and seized the newcomers by the hands in a frenzy of welcome and exclaimed indeed almost shouted well who could have believed it now it is you sure enough turn around hold up your heads I want to look at you good well well well it does seem most too good to be true I declare lord I'm so glad to see you does a body's whole soul good to look at you shake hands again keep on shaking hands goodness gracious alive what will my wife say oh yes indeed it's so married only last week lovely perfectly lovely creature the noblest woman that ever you'll like her Nancy like her lord bless me you'll love her you'll doubt on her you'll be twins well well well let me look at you again same old well bless my life it was only just this very morning that my wife says colonel she will call me colonel spite of everything I can do she says colonel something tells me somebody's coming and sure enough here you are the last people on earth a body could have expected why she'll think she's a prophetess and hanged if I don't think so too and you know there ain't any country but what a prophet's an honor to has the proverb says Lord bless me and here's the children to Washington Emily don't you know me come give us a kiss won't I fix you though ponies cows dogs everything you can think of that will delight a child's heart and why house this little strangers well you won't be any strangers here I can tell you bless your souls will make you think you never was at home before deed indeed we will I can tell you come now bundle right along with me you can't glorify any hearthstone but mine in this camp you know can't eat anybody's bread but mine can't do anything but just make yourselves perfectly at home and comfortable and spread yourselves out and rest you hear me here Jim Tom Pete Jake fly around take that team to my place and put the wagon in my lot put the horses under the shed and get out hay and oats and fill them up ain't any hay and oats we'll get some have it charged to me come spin around now now Hawkins the processions ready mark time by the left flank forward march and the Colonel took the lead with Laura astride his neck and the newly inspired and very grateful immigrants picked up their tired limbs with quite a spring in them and dropped into his weight presently they were ranged about an old-time fireplace whose blazing logs sent out rather an unnecessary amount of heat but that was no matter supper was needed and to have it it had to be cooked this apartment was the family bedroom parlor library and kitchen all in one the matronly little wife of the colonel moved hither and thither and in and out with her pots and pans in her hands happiness in her heart and a world of admiration of her husband in her eyes and when at last she had spread the cloth and loaded it with hot cornbread fried chicken bacon buttermilk coffee and all manner of country luxuries colonel sellers modified his harangue and for a moment throttled it down to the orthodox pitch for a blessing and then instantly birthed forth again has from a parentheses and clattered on with might and main till every stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry and when the newcomers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather beds on the second floor to wit the garret mrs. Hawkins was obliged to say hang the fellow i do believe he has gone wilder than ever but still a body can't help liking him if they would and what is more they don't ever want to try when they see his eyes and hear him talk within a week or two the hawkins's were comfortably domiciled in a new log house and were beginning to feel at home the children were put to school at least it was what passed for a school in those days a place where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting it by rote like parrots so that a finished education consisted simply of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell the words or take breath hawkins bought out the village store for a song and proceeded to reap the profits which amounted to but little more than another song the wonderful speculation hinted at by colonel cellars 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 dannel 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 furniture 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 carpeting of the country hawkins put up the first pailing fence that had ever adorned a village and he did not stop there but whitewashed it his oilcloth 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 of 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 goody's lady book found a good market there and was regarded as the perfection of polite literature by some of the ablest citizens in the place perhaps it is only fair to explain that we are writing of a bygone age some 20 or 30 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 unsaleable 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 four has his wealth and popularity augmented that title by imperceptible stages grew up into judge indeed it bade fair to swell into general by and by 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 end of chapter five recording by Richard Kilmer real Medina texas chapter six of the gilded age this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Richard Kilmer the gilded age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner chapter six we skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record Judge Hawkins and Colonel 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 family are six children of his own and two adopted ones from time to time his 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 has 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 anyone who had known the secret of Laura's birth and had seen her during these passing years say at the happy age of 12 or 13 would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more winsome than her school companions 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 12 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 prompt into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron and elbows consequently more or less a kimbo with her wide leghorn hat flopping down and hiding her face at one moment and blowing straight up against her forehead the next 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 the 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 in provident 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 many trials when the judge's first bankruptcy came upon him a homely human angel interrupted upon him with an offer of fifteen hundred dollars 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 as some when the second blight fell upon him another angel appeared and offered three thousand dollars for the land he wasn't 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 sigh 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 long 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 this telling Frankie our bill was running pretty high this morning when I sent him for some meal and that was all he said to didn't give him the meal turned off and went to talking with the Hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to cheapen Nancy this is astounding and so it is I warned you I've kept still sigh 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 wits end I don't know what in the world to do now if somebody would come along and offer three thousand dollars if somebody would only come along and offer three thousand dollars for the Tennessee land you'd sell it sigh 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 harry devil had if this blessed man offers but a thousand I'll embrace him like a brother the stranger said I'm aware that you own seventy five thousand acres of land in east Tennessee and without sacrificing your time I will come to the point at once I am an agent of an iron manufacturing company and they empower me to offer you ten thousand dollars for that land Hawkins heart bound it 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 something flitted through his mind and his open 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 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 fifteen thousand dollars in cash I too go in with them and own an undivided interest of one half of the concern or the stock as you may say I'm out of business and I just as soon help run the thing as not now how does that strike you well I'm only an agent for these people who are friends of mine and I'm not even paid for my services to tell you the truth I have tried to persuade them not to go into this 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 this is a very deep man I don't like his candor you're 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 oh that's very good yes that's very good indeed stuff and he'll be back here tomorrow 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 is started the sudden excitement about iron I wonder what is in the wind just assure as I'm alive this moment there's something tremendous stirring in iron speculation here Hawkins got up and began the pace the floor with excited eyes 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 in turn towards 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 the 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 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 asks 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 sigh oh confound the confound it confound it Nancy I've gone and done it now done what sigh for mercy's sake done everything ruined everything tell me tell me don't keep a body in such suspense did he buy after all didn't he make an offer offer he offered ten thousand dollars for our land and thank the good providence from the very bottom of my heart of hearts what sort of rune do you call that sigh Nancy do you suppose that 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 speculations millions upon millions in it but fool as I am I told him he could have half the iron property for thirty thousand and if I had 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's about bless you he'll be back fast enough tomorrow 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 the shade of uneasiness came into Hawkins face he said why Nancy you you can't believe what you are saying believe it indeed I know it's I and I know that we have an assent in the world and we've sent ten thousand dollars a begging Nancy you frightened 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 whether 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 was at 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'm 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 22 and 23 years of age said if Colonel 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 welcome 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 find something for you to do maybe but you'd better try to get to them yourself Washington it's only 30 miles but how can I father there's no stage or anything and if there were stages require money the 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 sin it's you that wants to ride and what do you think you'll do Washington when you get the 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've dropped that for the present though I can take it up again someday 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're 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 the feed mrs. Buckner has always wanted me to come but the money child why I think she would send it if you would write her and I know she would wait for her pay till come Laura let's hear from you my girl Emily and Laura were about the same age between 17 and 18 Emily was fair and pretty girlish and diffident blue eyes and light hair Laura had a proud bearing and a somewhat mature look she had fine clean cut features her complexion was pure white and contrasted vividly with her black hair and eyes she was not what one calls pretty she was beautiful she said I will go to st. Louis too sir I will find a way to get there I will make a way and I will find a way to help myself along and do what I can to help the rest too she spoke it like a princess mrs. Hawkins smiled proudly and kissed her saying in a tone of fond reproof so one of my girls is going to turn out and work for her living it's like your pluck and spirit child but we will hope that we haven't got quite down to that yet the girl's eyes beamed affection under her mother's caresses then she straightened up folded her white hands in her lap and became a splendid iceberg clay's dog put up his brown nose for a little attention and got it he retired under the table with an apologetic yelp which did not affect the iceberg judge Hawkins had written and asked clay to return home and consult with him upon family affairs he arrived the evening after this conversation and the whole household gave him a rapturous welcome he brought sadly needed help with him consisting of the savings of a year and a half of work nearly two hundred dollars in money it was a ray of sunshine which to this easy household was the earnest of a clearing sky bright and early in the morning the family were a stir and all were busy preparing washington for his journey at least all but washington himself who sat apart steeped in reverie when the time for his departure came it was easy to see how fondly all loved him and how hard it was to let him go notwithstanding they had often seen him go before in his st louis schooling days in the most matter of course way they had borne the burden of getting him ready for his trip never seeming to think of his helping in the matter in the same manner of course way clay hired a horse and cart and now that the goodbyes were ended he bundled washington's baggage in and drove away with the exile at swan sea clay paid a stage fair stowed him away in the vehicle and saw him off then he returned home and reported progress like a committee of the whole clay remained at home several days he held many consultations with his mother upon the financial condition of the family and talked once with his father upon the same subject but only once he found a change in that quarter which was distressing years of fluctuating fortune had done their work each reverse had weakened the father's spirit and impaired his energies his last misfortune seemed to have left hope and ambition dead within him he had no projects formed no plans evidently he was a vanquished man he looked worn and tired he inquired in the clays affairs and prospects and when he found that clay was doing pretty well and was likely to do better still it was plain that he resigned himself with easy facility to look to the sun for a support and he said keep yourself informed of poor washington's condition and movements and help him along all you can play the younger children also seemed relieved of all fears and distresses and very ready and willing to look to clay for a livelihood within three days a general tranquility and satisfaction reigned in the household clays hundred and eighty or ninety dollars had worked a wonder the family were as contented now and as free from care as they could have been with a fortune it was well that mrs. Hawkins held the purse otherwise the treasure would have lasted but a very little while it took but a trifle to pay Hawkins outstanding obligations for he had always had a horror of debt when clay made his home goodbye and set out to return to the field of his labors he was conscious that henceforth he was to have his father's family on his hands as pensioners but he did not allow himself to chafe at the thought for he reasoned that his father had dealt by him with a free hand and a loving one all his life and now that hard fortune had broken his spirit it ought to be a pleasure not a pain to work for him the younger children were born in educated dependence they had never been taught to do anything for themselves and it did not seem to occur to them to make an attempt now the girls would not have been permitted to work for a living under any circumstances whatever it was a southern family and of good blood and for any person except Laura either within or without the household to have suggested such an idea would have brought upon the suggester the suspicion of being a lunatic end of chapter six recording by Richard Kilmer real Medina Texas