This is section forty eight of The Gilded Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age, A Tale of to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner, Chapter forty eight. It had been a bad winter somehow for the firm of Pennybacker, Bigler and Small. These celebrated contractors usually made more money during the session of the legislature at Harrisburg than upon all their summer work. And
this winter had been unfruitful. It was unaccountable to Biggler, you see, mister Bolton, he said, and Philip was present at the conversation. It puts us all out. It looks as if politics was played out. We'd counted on the year of Simon's re election, and well now he's re elected, and I've yet to see the first man. Who's the better for it? You don't mean to say, asked Philip, that he went in without paying anything, not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear, repeated mister
Bigiler indignantly. I call it a swindle on the state. How it was done gets me. I never saw such a tight time for money in Harrisburg. Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put through in connection with the election. Not that I knew, said Biggler, shaking his head in disgust. In fact, it was openly said that there was no money in the election. It's perfectly
unheard of, perhaps, suggested Philip. It was effected on what the insurance companies call the endowment or the paid up plan, by which a policy is secured after a certain time without further payment. Where you think, then, said mister Bolton, smiling. Not a liberal and sagacious politician might own the legislature after a time and not be bothered with keeping up his payments. Whatever it is, interrupted mister Biggler. It's devilish
and genius and goes ahead of my calculations. It's cleaned me out when I thought we had a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for the reform. Things got pretty mixed up when a legislature will give away a United States senatorship. It was melancholy, But mister Bigler was not a man to be crushed by one misfortune or to lose his confidence
in human nature on one exhibition of apparent honesty. He was already on his feet again, or would be if mister Bolton could tide him over shoal water for ninety days. We've got something with money in it, he explained to mister Bolton. Got hold of it. My good luck. We've got the entire contract for Dobson's patent pavement for the city of Mobile. See here, mister Bigler made some figures, contracts so much, cost of work and materials, so much profits,
so much. At the end of three months, the city would owe the company three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. Two hundred thousand of that would be profits. The whole job was worth at least a million to the company. It might be more. There could be no mistake in these figures. Here was the contract. Mister Bolton knew what
material were worth and what the labor would cost. Mister Bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that there was always a mistake in figures when Biggler or Small made them, and he knew that he ought to send the fellow about his business. Instead of that he let him talk. They only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry on the contract that expended. They would have city bonds. Mister Bolton said he hadn't the money, but Biggler could
raise it on his name. Mister Bolton said he had no right to put his family to that risk, but the entire contract could be assigned to him. The security was ample. It was a fortune to him if it was forfeited. Besides, mister Bigler had been unfortunate. He didn't know where to look for the necessaries of life for his family. If he could only have one more chance, he was sure he could right himself. He begged for it, and mister Bolton yielded. He could never refuse such appeals.
If he had befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have a claim upon him forever. He shrank, however, from telling his wife what he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more odious than small to his family, it was Biggler. Philip tells me, Missus Bolton said that evening that the man Biggler has been with THEE again to day, I hope THEE will have nothing more to
do with him. He has been very unfortunate, replied mister Bolton, uneasily he is always unfortunate, and he is always getting THEE into trouble. But THEE didn't listen to him. Again. Well, mother, his family is in want, and I lent him my name, but I took ample security. The worst that can happen will be a little inconvenience. Missus Bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain or remonstrate. She knew what a little convenience meant, but she knew there was no
help for it. If mister Bolton had been on his way to market to buy a dinner for his family with the only dollar he had in the world in his pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked him for it. Missus Bolton only asked, and the question showed that she was no mere provident than her husband where her heart was interested. But has the provided money for Philip to use in opening the coal mine? Yes, I have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open the mine, as much
as we can afford to lose. If no coal is found, Philip has control of it as equal partner in the venture, deducting the capital invested. He has great confidence in his success and I hope for his sake he won't be disappointed. Philip could not but feel that he was treated very much like one of the Bolton family by all except Ruth.
His mother. When he went home after his recovery from his accident, had affected to be very jealous of Missus Bolton, about whom and Ruth she asked a thousand questions, an affectation of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the world and forms new ties. And to Missus Sterling, a widow living on a small income in a remote
Massachusetts village, Philadelphia was a city of many splendors. All its inhabitants seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease and surrounded by superior advantages. Some of her neighbors had relations living in Philadelphia, and it seemed to them, somehow a guarantee of respectability to have relations in Philadelphia. Missus Sterling was not sorry to have Philip make his way among such well to do people, and she was sure that no good fortune could be too good for his deserts. So, Sir,
said Ruth. When Philip came from New York. You have been assisting in a pretty tragedy. I saw your name in the papers. Is this woman a specimen of your Western friends? My only assistance, replied Philip, a little annoyed, was in trying to keep Harry out of a bad scrape, and I failed. After all, he walked into her trap, and he has been punished for it. I'm going to take him up to Ilium to see if he won't work steadily at one thing and quit his nonsense. Is
she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is? I don't know. She has a kind of beauty. She is not like not like Alice. Well, she is brilliant. She was called the handsomest woman in Washington, dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty ruth. Do you believe a woman ever becomes a devil? Men do, and I don't know why women shouldn't, but I never saw one. Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is dreadful to think of her fate. Why do you suppose they will
hang a woman? Do you suppose they will be so barbarous as that? I wasn't thinking of that. It's doubtful if a new York jury would find a woman guilty of any such crime. But to think of her life if she is acquitted, it is dreadful, said Ruth thoughtfully. But the worst of it is that you men do not want women educated to do anything to be able to earn an honest living by their own exertions. They are educated as if they were always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any such
thing as misfortune. I suppose now that you would all choose to have me stay idly at home and give up my profession. Oh no, said Philip earnestly. I respect your resolution, But Ruth, do you think you would be happier or do more good in following your profession than in having a home of your own. What is to hinder having a home of my own? Nothing? Perhaps? Only you never would be in it. You would be away
day and night if you had any practice. And what sort of a home would that make for your husband? What sort of a home is it for the wife whose husband is always away riding about in his doctor's gig? Ah, you know that is not fair. The woman makes the home. Philip and Ruth often had this sort of discussion, to which Philhilip was always trying to give a personal turn.
He was now about to go to Ilium for the season, and he did not like to go without some assurance from Ruth that she might perhaps love him some day when he was worthy of it, and when he could offer her something better than a partnership in his poverty. I should work with a great deal better, heart, Ruth, he said, the morning he was taking his leave, If I knew you cared for me a little. Ruth was looking down. The collar came faintly to her cheeks, and
she hesitated. She needn't be looking down, he thought, for she was ever so much shorter than tall Philip. It's not much of a place Ilium. Philip went on, as if a little geographical remark would fit in here as well as anything else. And I shall have plenty of time to think over the responsibility I have taken. And his observation did not seem to be coming out anywhere. But Ruth looked up, and there was a light in
her eyes that quickened Phil's pulse. She took his hand and said, with serious sweetness, THEE mustn't lose heart, Philip. And then she added in another mood. THEE knows I graduate in the summer and shall have my diploma. And if anything happens mines explode, sometimes THEE can send for me farewell. The opening of the Ilium coal mine was
begun with energy, but without many omens of success. Philip was running a tunnel into the breast of the mountain, in faith that the coal stratum ran there as it ought to how far he must go in he believed he knew, but no one could tell exactly. Some of the miners said that they should probably go through the mountain, and that the whole could be used for a railway tunnel. The mining camp was a busy place at any rate.
Quite a settlement of board and log shanties had gone up, with a blacksmith's shop, a small machine shop, and a temporary store for supplying the wants of the workmen. Philip and Harry pitched a commodious tent and lived in a full enjoyment of the free life. There is no difficulty in digging a hole in the ground if you have money enough to pay for the digging. But those who try this sort of work are always surprised at the large amount of money necessary to make a small hole.
The earth is never willing to yield one product hidden in her bosom without an equivalent for it, and when a person asks of her coal, she is quite apt to require gold in exchange. It was exciting work for all concerned in it. As the tunnel advanced into the rock, every day promised to be the golden day. This very blast might disclose the treasure. The work went on week after week, and at length during the night as well
as the daytime. Gangs relieved each other, and the tunnel was every hour, inch by inch and foot by foot crawling into the mountain. Philip was on the stretch of hope and excitement. Every pay day he saw his funds melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of what the mind call signs. The life suited Harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was never disturbed. He made endless calculations which nobody could understand, of the probable position of the vane.
He stood about among the workmen with the busiest air. When he was down at Ilium. He called himself the engineer of the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe with a Dutch landlord on the hotel porch and astonishing the idlers there with the stories of his railroad operations in Missouri. He talked with the landlord too, about enlarging his hotel and about buying some village lots in the prospect of a rise when the mine was opened.
He taught the Dutchman how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer time, and had a bill at the hotel the growing length of which mister Dusenheimer contemplated with pleasant anticipations. Mister Brierly was a very useful and cheering person wherever he went. Midsummer arrived, Philip could report to mister Bolton only progress, and this was not a cheerful message for him to send to Philadelphia in reply to inquiries that he thought became more and more anxious.
Philip himself was a prey to the constant fear that the money would give out before the coal was struck. At this time, Harry was summoned to New York to attend the trial of Laura Hawkins. It was possible that Philip would have to go also, her lawyer wrote, but they hoped for a postponement. There was important evidence that they could not yet obtain, and he hoped the judge
would not force them to a trial unprepared. There were many reasons for a delay, reasons which, of course are never mentioned, but which it would seem that a New York judge sometimes must understand when he grants a postponement upon emotion that seems to the public altogether inadequate. Harry went, but he soon came back the trial. It was put off every week we can gain, said they learned. Counsul Braham improves our chances. The popular rage never lasts long end of Chapter forty eight.