This is section seven of The Gilded Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age A Story of to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner, Chapter seven via Pecunia. When she's run and gone and fled and dead, then will I fetch her again with aquavita out of an old hog's head, while there are LEAs of wine or dregs of beer. I'll never want
her coin her out of cobweb's dust. But I'll have her raise wool upon egg shells, sir, and make grass grow out of marrow bones to make her come b Johnson, bearing Washington Hawkins and his fortunes. The stage coach tore out of Swansea at a fearful gait, with horn tooting gaily, and half the town admiring from doors and windows. But it did not tear any more. After it got to
the outskirts. It dragged along stupidly enough then till it came in sight of the next hamlet, And then the bugle tooted gaily again, and again the vehicle went tearing by the horses. This sort of conduct marked every entry to a station and every exit from it, And so in those days children grew up with the idea that
stage coaches all was tore and all was tootored. But they also grew up with the idea that pirates went into action in their Sunday clothes, carrying the black flag in one hand and pistoling people with the other, merely because they were so represented in the pictures. But these
illusions vanished when later years brought their disenchanting wisdom. They learned then that the stage coach is but a poor, plodding, vulgar thing in the solitudes of the highway, and that the pirate is only a unfantastic ruff when he is out of the pictures. Toward evening, the stage coach came thundering into Hawkeye with a perfectly triumphant ostentation, which was natural and proper, for Hawkeye was a pretty large town
for interior Missouri. Washington, very stiff and tired and hungry, climbed out and wondered how he was to proceed now. But his difficulty was quickly solved. Colonel Sellers came down the street on a run and arrived panting for breath. He said, Lord, bless you, I'm glad to see you. Washington, perfectly delighted to see you, my boy. I got your message, been on the lookout for you, heard the stage horn, but had a party. I couldn't shake off. A man that's got an enormous thing on hand wants me to
put some capital into it. And I tell you, my boy, I could do worse. I could do a deal worse. No, now, let that luggage alone. I'll fix that here. Jerry, got anything to do? All right, shoulder this plunder and follow me. Come along, Washington, Lord, I'm glad to see you. Wife and the children are just perishing to look at you. Bless you. They won't know you. You've grown so folks. All well, I suppose that's good. Glad to hear that. We're always
going to run down and see them. But I'm into so many operations, and they're not things a man feels like trusting to other people, And so somehow we keep putting it off. Fortunes in them. Good gracious, it's the country to pile up wealth in here we are, here's where the Seller's dynasty hangs out. Hump it on the doorstep. Jerry, the blackest negro in the state Washington, but got a good heart. Mighty likely, boy is Jerry. And now I suppose you've got to have ten cents, Jerry. That's all
right when a man works for me. When a man in the other pocket, I reckon, when a man why where the mischief is that port money? When? Well, now that's odd? Oh now I remember, must have left it at the bank. And by George, i've left my check book too, Polly says, I ought to have a nurse. Well, no matter, let me have a dime, Washington, if you've got a ah, thanks, Now clear out, Jerry. Your complexion has brought on the twilight half an hour ahead of time.
Pretty fair joke, Pretty fair. Here he is, Polly Washington's come, children, come now, don't eat him up, finish him in the house. Welcome my boy to a mansion that is proud to shelter the son of the best man that walks on the ground. Cy Hawkins has been a good friend to me, and I believe I can say that whenever I've had a chance to put him into a good thing, I've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully too. I put him into that sugar speculation. What a grand thing that was.
If we hadn't held on too long, true enough, but holding on too long had utterly ruined both of them, and the saddest part of it was that they never had had so much money to lose before. First Cellar's sale of their mule crop that year in New Orleans had been a great financial success. If he had kept out of sugar and gone back home content to stick to mules, it would have been a happy wisdom. As it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone.
That is to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that laid the golden egg, which is but a figurative expression, and will be so understood. Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty handed, and the mule business lapsed into other hands.
The sale of the Hawkins property by the sheriff had followed, and the Hawkins hearts been torn to see Uncle Danel and his wife pass from the auction block into the hands of a Negro trader and depart for the remote South, to be seen no more by the family. It had seemed like seeing their own flesh and blood sold into banishment. Washington was greatly pleased with the seller's mansion. It was a two story and a half brick and much more
stylish than any of its neighbors. He was borne to the family sitting room in Triumph by the swarm of little cellarses, the parents following with their arms about each other's waists. The whole family were poorly and cheaply dressed, and the clothing, although neat and clean, showed many evidences of having seen long service. The colonel's stovepipe hat was napless and shiny, with much polishing, but nevertheless it had an almost convincing expression about it of having been just
purchased new. The rest of his clothing was napless and shiny, too, but it had the air of being entirely satisfied with itself and blandly sorry for other people's clothes. It was growing rather dark in the house, and the evening air was chilly too. Sellers said, lay off your overcoat, Washington, and draw up to the stove and make yourself at home.
Consider yourself under your own shingles. My boy, I'll have a fire going into jiffy light the lamp, Polly, dear, and let's have things cheerful, just as glad to see you, Washington, as if you'd been lost a century and we'd found you again. By this time, the Colonel was conveying a lighted match into a poor little stove. Then he propped the stove door to its place by leaning the poker
against it, for the Hinges had retired from business. This door framed a small square of eyesnglass, which now warmed up with a faint glow. Missus Sellars lit a cheap, showy lamp, which dissipated a good deal of the gloom. And then everybody gathered into the light and took the stove into close companionship. The children climbed all over Cellars, fondled him, petted him, and were lavishly petted in return.
Out from this tugging, laughing, chattering disguise of legs and arms and little faces, the colonel's voice worked its way, and his tireless tongue ran blithely on without interrupt option. And the purring little wife, diligent with her knitting, sat near at hand and looked happy and proud and grateful. And she listened as one who listens to oracles and gospels, and whose grateful soul is being refreshed with the bread
of life. By and bye. The children quieted down to listen, Clustered about their father, and resting their elbows on his legs, they hung upon his words as if he were uttering the music of the spheres. A dreary, old haircloth sofa against the wall, a few damaged chairs, the small table, the lamp stood on the crippled stove. These things constituted the furniture of the room. There was no carpet on
the floor. On the wall were occasional square shaped interruptions of the general tint of the plaster, which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the house, but there were none now. There were no mantle ornaments, unless one might bring himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came within fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands all was hitched together at twenty two minutes past anything, and traveled in company the rest of
the way home. Remarkable clock, said Cellars, and got up and wound it. I've been offered, well, I wouldn't expect you to believe what I've been offered for that clock. Old Governor Hager never sees me, but he says, come now, Colonel, name your price. I must have that clock, but by goodness, i'd as soon think of selling my wife. As I was saying to silence in the court, now she's begun to strike. You can't talk against her. You have to
just be patient and hold up till she's said her say. Ah, well, as I was saying, when she's beginning again nineteen twenty twenty one, twenty two, twenty, ah, that's all. Yes, as I was saying to old judge, got it, old girl, don't mind me? Now, how is that yat? Isn't that a good spirited tone? She can wake the dead sleep? Ha ha, Why you might as well try to sleep in a thunder factory. Now just listen at that. She'll strike a hundred and fifty now without stopping. You'll see
there ain't another clock like that in Christendom. Washington hoped that this might be true, for the din was distracting, though the family one and all seemed filled with joy. And the more the clock buckled down to her work as the colonel expressed it, and the more insupportable the clatter became, the more enchanted, they all appeared to be. When there was silence, missus Sellers lifted upon Washington a face that beamed with a childlike pride and said it
belonged to his grandmother. The look and the tone were a plain call for admiring surprise, and therefore Washington said it was the only thing that offered itself at the moment. Indeed, yes, it did, didn't it? Father, exclaimed one of the twins. She was my great grandmother, and George's too, wasn't she? Father? You never saw her, But Sis has seen her when Sis was a baby, didn't you? Sis? Sis has seen her most a hundred times. She was awful deef. She's
dead now, ain't she? Father? All the children chimed in now with one general babble of information about deceased, nobody offering to read the ride Act or seeming to discountenance the insurrection or disapprove of it in any way. But the head twin drowned all the turmoil and held his own against the field. It's our clock now, and it's got wheels inside of it, and the thing that flutters every time she strikes, don't it? Father? Great grandmother died before hardly any of us was born. She was an
old school Baptist and had warts all over her. You ask father if she didn't. She had an uncle once that was bald headed and used to have fits. He wasn't our uncle. I don't know what he was to us, some kin or another. I reckon, Father's seen him a thousand times, ain't you Father. We used to have a calf that at Apple's and just chawed up dis rags like nothing. And if you stay here you'll see lots of funerals, won't he says? Did you ever see a house afire? I have once, me and Jimmy Terry. But
sellers began to speak now, and the storm ceased. He began to tell about an enormous speculation he was thinking of embarking some capital in, a speculation which some London bankers had been over to consult with him about. And soon he was building glittering pyramids of coin, and Washington was presently growing opulent under the magic of his eloquence. But at the same time, Washington was not able to
ignore the cold entirely. He was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, and yet he could not persuade himself that he felt the slightest heat, notwithstanding the englass door was still gently and serenely glowing. He tried to get a trifle closer to the stove, and the consequence was he tripped the supporting poker, and the stove bore tumbled to the floor. And then there was a revelation there was nothing in the stove but a lighted, tallow candle. The poor youth blushed and felt as if
he must die with shame. But the colonel was only disconcerted for a moment. He straightway found his voice again. A little idea of my own, Washington, one of the greatest things in the world. You must write and tell your father about it. Don't forget that. Now. I have been reading up some European scientific reports. Friend of mine, Colonel Fougier sent them to me. Sends me all sorts of things from Paris. He thinks the world of me,
Fugie does well. I saw that the Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came to the conclusion that it was a non conductor or something like that, and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly In nervous organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any ten and see toward rheumatic affections. Bless you. I saw in a moment what was the matter with us? And says I, out goes your fires. No more slow
torture and certain death for me, sir. What you want is the appearance of heat, not the heat itself. That's the idea. Well, how to do it was the next thing. I just put my head to work, pegged away a couple of days, and here you are rheumatism. Why a man can't any more start a case of rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy stove with a candle in it and a transparent door. That's it. It has been the salvation of
this family. Don't you fail to write your father about it, Washington, and tell him the idea is mine. I'm no more conceited than most people, I reckon, But you know it is human nature for a man to want credit for a thing like that. Washington said with his blue lips that he would, But he said in his secret heart that he would promote no such iniquity. He tried to believe in the healthfulness of the invention, and succeeded tolerably well.
But after all he could not feel that good health in a frozen body was any real improvement on the rheumatism. End of Chapter seven