026 - The Gilded Age a Tale of Today Chapter 25

it through, Colonel, but it was a tough job. There is no question about that. There was not a friend to the measure in the House Committee when I began, and not a friend in the Senate Committee except Old Dill himself, But they were all fixed for a majority report when I hauled off my forces. Everybody here says, you can't get a thing like this through Congress without buying committees for straight out cash on delivery. But I think I've taught them a thing or two, if I

could only make them believe it. When I tell the old Residenters that this thing went through without buying a vote or making a promise. They say that's rather too thin. And when I say thin or not thin, it's a fact anyway, they say, come now, but do you really believe that? And when I say I don't believe anything about it, I know it, they smile and say, well, you are pretty innocent or pretty blind, one or the other. There's no getting round that. Why they really do believe

that votes have been bought? They do, indeed, but let them keep on thinking. So I have found out that if a man knows how to talk to women, and has a little gift in the way of argument with men, he can afford to play for an appropriation against a money bag and give the money bag odds in the game. We've raked in two hundred thousand dollars of Uncle Sam's money.

Say what they will, and there is more. So this came from when we wanted, and I rather fancy I am the person that can go in and occupy it too. If I do say it myself, that shouldn't. Perhaps I'll be with you within a week. Scare up all the men you can and put them to work at once. When I get there, I propose to make things hum The great news lifted sellers into the clouds. He went to work on the instant. He flew hither and thither, making contracts, engaging men, and steeping his soul in the

ecstasies of business. He was the happiest man in Missouri, and Louise was the happiest woman. For presently came a letter from Washington which said, rejoice with me, for the long agony is over. We have waited patiently and faithfully all these years, and now at last the reward is at hand. A man is to pay our family forty thousand dollars for the Tennessee land. It is but a little sum compared to what we could get by waiting.

But I do so long to say, see the day when I can call you my own that I have said to myself, better take this and enjoy life in a humble way, than wear out our best days in this miserable separation. Besides, I can put this money into operations here that will increase it a hundredfold, yes, a thousandfold, in a few months. The air is full of such chances, and I know our family would consent in a moment

that I should put in their shares with mine. Without a doubt, we shall be worth half a million dollars in a year from this time. I put it at the very lowest figure, because it is always best to be on the safe side. Half a million at the very lowest calculation. And then your father will give his consent and we can marry at last. Oh, that will be a glorious day. Tell our friends the good news. I want all to share it. And she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be

kept still for the present. A careful father also told her to write Washington, and war earned him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a little and advise with one or two wise old heads. She did this, and she managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the most careless observer might have seen, by her springing step and her radiant countenance, that some fine piece of good fortune had descended upon her. Harry joined the Colonel at Stone's Landing, and that dead

place sprang into sudden life. A swarm of men were hard at work, and a dull air was filled with a cheery music of labor. Harry had been constituted engineer in general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into his work. He moved among his hirelings like a king. Authority seemed to invest him with a new splendor. Colonel Sellers, as General Superintendent of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could be and more.

These two grandees went at their imposing improvement with the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the foundations of the globe. They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above the landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans showed that the process of straightening would not

only shorten distance but increase the fall. They started a cut off canal across the peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth and sloping around in the mud. As followed the order to the men had never been seen in that region before. There was such a panic among the turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be

found within three miles of stones landing. They took the young and the aged, the decrepid and the sick upon their backs, and left for tide water in disorderly procession. The tadpoles following and the bullfrogs bringing up the rear. Saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait because the appropriation had not come. Harry said he had written to hurry up the money and it would be

along presently. So the work continued. On Monday. Stone's landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity by this time. Sellers threw a lot or two on the market as a feeler, and they sold well. He reclosed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and still had money left. He started a bank account in a small way, and mentioned the deposit casually to friends and to strangers too, to everybody in fact, but not as a new thing.

On the contrary, as a matter of life long standing, he could not keep from buying trifles every day that were not wholly necessary. It was such a gaudy thing to get out his bank book and draw a check instead of using his old customary formula charge it. Harry sold a lot or two also, and had a dinner party or two at Hawkeye, and a general good time with the money. Both men held on pretty strenuously for the coming big prices. However, at the end of a

month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slackwater Navigation Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no purpose. The appropriation did not come. The letters were not even answered. The workmen were clamorous. Now the Colonel and Harry retired to consult. What's to be done, said the colonel, hanged, if I know, companies say anything? Not a word you telegraphed yesterday, Yes, and the day before too. No answer,

none confound them. Then there was a long pause. Finally both spoke at once. I've got it. I've got it. What's yours? Said Harry. Give the boys thirty day orders on the company for the back pay. That's it, that's my own idea to a dot. But then, but then, yes, I know, said the colonel. I know. So they can't wait for the orders to go to New York and be cashed. But what's the reason they can't get them discounted in Hawkeye? Of course they can. That solves the difficulty.

Everybody knows the appropriation's been made and the company's perfectly good. So the orders were given and the man appeased, though they grumbled a little at first. The orders went well enough for groceries and such things at a fair discount,

and the work danced along gaily for a time. Two or three purchasers put up frame houses at the landing and moved in, And of course, a far sighted but easy going journeyman printer wandered along and started the Napoleon Weekly Telegraph and Literary Repository, a paper with a Latin motto from the Unabridged Dictionary and plenty of fat conversational tales and double leaded poetry, all for two dollars a year,

strictly in advance. Of course, the merchants forwarded the orders at once to New York and never heard of them again. At the end of some weeks, Harry's orders were a drug in the market. Nobody would take them at any discount whatever. The second month closed with a riot. Sellars was absent at the time, and Harry began an active absence himself, with the mob at his heels. But being

on horseback, he had the advantage. He did not tarry in Hawkeye, but went on, thus missing several appointments with creditors. He was far on his flight eastward and well out of danger. When the next morning dawned, he telegraphed the colonel to go down and quiet the laborers. He was bound east for money. Everything would be right in a week. Tell the men so, tell them to rely on him and not be afraid. Sellers found the mob quiet enough

when he reached the landing. They had gutted the navigation office, then piled the beautiful engraved stock books and things in the middle of the floor and enjoyed the bonfire while it lasted. They had a liking for the colonel, but still they had some idea of hanging him as a sort of makeshift that might answer after a fashion, in place of more satisfactory game. But they made the mistake of waiting to hear what he had to say first. Within fifteen minutes, his tongue had done its work, and

they were all rich men. He gave every one of them a lot in the suburbs of the city of Stones Landing, within a mile and a half of the future post office and railway station, and they promised to resume work as soon as Harry got east and started the money along. Now things were blooming and pleasant again, but the men had no money. And nothing to live on.

The colonel divided with them the money he still had in bank, an act which had nothing surprising about it, because he was generally ready to divide whatever he had with anybody that wanted it. And it was owing to this very trait that his family spent their days in poverty, and at times were pinched with famine. When the men's minds had cooled and Sellers was gone, they hated themselves for letting him beguile them with fine speeches, but it

was too late now. They agreed to hang him another time, such time as providence should appoint. End of Chapter twenty five