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Man for the Ages: A Story of the Builders of Democracy, a fiction by Irving Bacheller |
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Book 3 - Chapter 19 |
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_ BOOK THREE CHAPTER XIX WHEREIN IS ONE OF THE MANY PRIVATE PANICS WHICH FOLLOWED THE BURSTING OF THE BUBBLE OF SPECULATION. Samson and Harry saw the bursting of the great bubble of '37. Late that night Disaster, loathsome and thousand legged, crept into the little city. It came on a steamer from the East and hastened from home to home, from tavern to tavern. It bit as it traveled. Great banks had suspended payment; New York had suffered a panic; many large business enterprises in the East had failed; certain agents for the bonds of Illinois had absconded with the state's money; in the big cities there had been an ominous closing of doors and turning of locks; a great army of men were out of employment. Those of sound judgment in Chicago knew that all the grand schemes of the statesmen and speculators of Illinois were as the visions of an ended dream. The local banks did not open their doors next day. The little city was in a frenzy of excitement. The streets were filled with a shouting, half crazed throng. New fortunes had shrunk to nothing and less than nothing in a night. Lots in the city were offered for a tithe of what their market value had been. Davis had known that the storm would arrive with the first steamer and in the slang of business had put on a life-preserver. Samson knew that the time to buy was when every one wanted to sell. He wore a belt with some two thousand dollars of gold coin tucked away in its pockets. He bought two corner lots for himself in the city and two acres for Mrs. Lukins on the prairie half a mile from town. They got their deeds and went to the Kelsos to bid them good-by. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Samson asked. "Just give us a friendly thought now and then," said Kelso. "You can have my horse or my wallet or the strength of my two hands." "I have heard you called a damned Yankee but I can think of no greater blessing than to be damned in a like manner," Kelso answered. "Keep your largess for those who need it more, good friend." After these hearty farewells Samson and Harry set out for their home. They were not again to see the gentle face and hear the pleasant talk of Jack Kelso. He had once said, in the presence of the writer, that it is well to remember, always, that things can not go on with us as they are. Changes come--slowly and quite according to our calculations or so swiftly and Unexpectedly that they fill us with confusion. Learned and wise in the weighty problems of humanity he had little prudence in regulating the affairs of his own family. Kelso had put every dollar he had and some that he hoped to have into land. Bim, who had been teaching in one of the schools, had invested all her savings in a dream city on the shore of an unconstructed canal. Like many who had had no experience with such phenomena they underestimated the seriousness of the panic. They thought that, in a week or so, its effect would pass and that Illinois would then resume its triumphal march toward its high destiny. Not even Samson Traylor had a correct notion of the slowness of Time. The effect of the panic paralyzed the city. Men whose "red dog money" was in every one's pocket closed their shops and ran away. The wild adventurers cleared out. Their character may be judged by the words of one of them reported by the editor of _The Democrat_. "I failed for a hundred thousand dollars and could have failed for a million if Jackson had kept his hands off." Hard times hung like a cloud over the city. Its population suffered some diminishment in the next two years in spite of its position on the main highway of trade. Dream cities, canals and railroads built without hands became a part of the poetry of American commerce. Indeed they had come of the prophetic vision and were therefore entitled to respect in spite of the fact that they had been smirched and polluted by speculators. That autumn men and women who had come to Mrs. Kinzie's party in jewels and in purple and fine linen had left or turned their hands to hard labor. The Kelsos suffered real distress, the schools being closed and the head of the house having taken to his bed with illness. Bim went to work as a seamstress and with the help of Mrs. Kinzie and Mrs. Hubbard was able to keep the family from want. The nursing and the care of the baby soon broke the health of Mrs. Kelso, never a strong woman. Bim came home from her work one evening and found her mother ill. "Cheer up, my daughter," said Jack. "An old friend of ours has returned to the city. He is a rich man--an oasis in the desert of poverty. He has loaned me a hundred dollars in good coin." "Who has done this?" Bim asked. "Mr. Lionel Davis. He has just come from New Orleans. He is a successful speculator in grain." "We must not take his money," said Bim. "I had a long talk with him," Kelso went on. "He has explained that unfortunate incident of the horse. It was a bit of offhand folly born of an anxious moment." "But the man wants to marry me." "He said nothing of such a purpose." "He will be in no hurry about that," said Bim. "He is a shrewd operator. Every one hates him. They say that he knew what was coming when he sold out." That evening Bim wrote a long letter to Samson Traylor telling of the evil days which had come to them. This letter, now in the possession of a great grandson of Samson and Sarah Traylor, had a singular history. It reached the man to whom it was addressed in the summer of 1844. It was found with many others that summer in Tazewell County under a barn which its owner was removing. It brought to mind the robbery of the stage from Chicago, south of the sycamore woods, in the autumn of '37, by a man who had ridden with the driver from Chicago and who, it was thought, had been in collusion with him. A curious feature of the robbery had been revealed by the discovery of the mail sack. It was unopened, its contents undisturbed, its rusty padlock still in place. The perpetrator of the crime had not soiled his person with any visible evidence of guilt and so was never apprehended. Then for a time Bim entered upon great trials. Jack Kelso weakened. Burning with fever, his mind wandered in the pleasant paths he loved and saw in its fancy the deeds of Ajax and Achilles and the topless towers of Illium and came not back again to the vulgar and prosaic details of life. The girl knew not what to do. A funeral was a costly thing. She had no money. The Kinzies had gone on a hunting trip in Wisconsin. Mrs. Hubbard was ill and the Kelsos already much in her debt. Mr. Lionel Davis came. He was a good-looking young man of twenty-nine, those days, rather stout and of middle stature with dark hair and eyes. He was dressed in the height of fashion. He used to boast that he had only one vice--diamonds. But he had ceased to display them on his shirt-front or his fingers. He carried them in his pockets and showed them by the glittering handful to his friends. They had come to him through trading in land where they were the accepted symbol of success and money was none too plentiful. He had melted their settings and turned them into coin. The stones he kept as a kind of surplus--a half hidden evidence of wealth and of superiority to the temptation to vulgar display. Mr. Davis was a calculating, masterful, keen-minded man, with a rather heavy jaw. In his presence Bim was afraid for her soul that night. He was gentle and sympathetic. He offered to lend her any amount she needed. She made no answer but sat trying to think what she would best do. The Traylors had paid no attention to her letter although a month had passed since it was written. In a moment she rose and gave him her hand. "It is very kind of you," said she. "If you can spare me five hundred dollars for an indefinite time I will take it." "Let me lend you a thousand," he urged. "I can do it without a bit of inconvenience." "I think that five hundred will be enough," she said. It carried her through that trouble and into others of which her woman's heart had found abundant signs in the attitude of Mr. Davis. He gave the most assiduous attention to the comfort of Bim and her mother. He had had a celebrated physician come down from Milwaukee to see Mrs. Kelso and had paid the bill in advance. He bought a new and wonderful swinging crib of burnished steel for the baby. "I can not let you be doing these things for us," Bim said one evening when he had called to see them. "And I can not help loving you and doing the little I can to express it," he answered. "There is no use in my trying to keep it from you when I find myself lying awake nights planning for your comfort. I would like to make every dollar I have tell you in some way that I love you. That's how I feel and you might as well know it." "You have been kind to us," Bim answered. "We feel it very deeply but I can not let you talk to me like that. I am a married woman." "We can fix that all right. It will be easy for you to get a divorce." "But I do not love you, Mr. Davis." "Let me try to make you love me," he pleaded. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't?" "Yes. If there were no other reason, I love a young soldier who is fighting in the Seminole War in Florida under Colonel Taylor." "Well, at least, you can let me take the place of your father and shield you from trouble when I can." "You are a most generous and kindly man!" Bim exclaimed with tears in her eyes. So he seemed to be, but he was one of those men who weave a spell like that of an able actor. He excited temporary convictions that began to change as soon as the curtain fell. He was in fact a performer. That little midnight scene at the City Hotel had sounded the keynote of his character. He was no reckless villain of romance. If he instigated the robbery of the south-bound mail wagon, of which the writer of this little history has no shadow of doubt, he was so careful about it that no evidence which would satisfy a jury has been discovered to this day. On account of the continued illness of her mother Bim was unable to resume her work in the academy. She took what sewing she could do at home and earned enough to solve the problems of each day. But the payment coming due on the house in December loomed ahead of them. It was natural, in the circumstances, that Mrs. Kelso should like Mr. Davis and favor his aims. Now and then he came and sat with her of an evening while Bim went out to the shops--an act of accommodation which various neighbor women were ever ready to perform. Mrs. Kelso's health had improved slowly so that she was able then to spend most of each day in her chair. One evening when Davis sat alone with her, she told him the story of Bim and Harry Needles--a bit of knowledge he was glad to have. Their talk was interrupted by the return of Bim. She was in a cheerful mood. When Mr. Davis had gone she said to her mother: "I think our luck has turned. Here's a letter from John T. Stuart. The divorce has been granted." "Thank the Lord," Mrs. Kelso exclaimed. "Long ago I knew bad luck was coming; since the day your father carried an axe through the house." "Pshaw! I don't believe in that kind of nonsense." "My father would sooner break his leg than carry an edged tool through the house," Mrs. Kelso affirmed. "Three times I have known it to bring sickness. I hope a change has come." "No. Bad luck comes when you carry all your money through the house and spend it for land. I am going to write to Harry and tell him to hurry home and marry me if he wants to. Don't say a word about the divorce to our friend Davis. I want to make him keep his distance. It is hard enough now." Before she went to bed that night she wrote a long letter to Harry and one to Abe Lincoln thanking him for his part in the matter and telling him of her father's death, of the payment coming due and of the hard times they were suffering. Two weeks passed and brought no answer from Mr. Lincoln. The day before the payment came due in December, a historic letter from Tampa, Fla., was published in _The Democrat_. It was signed "Robert Deming, private, Tenth Cavalry." It gave many details of the campaign in the Everglades in which the famous scout Harry Needles and seven of his comrades had been surrounded and slain. When Mr. Davis called at the little home in La Salle Street that evening he found Bim in great distress. "I throw up my hands," she said. "I can not stand any more. We shall be homeless to-morrow." "No, not that--so long as I live," he answered. "I have bought the claim. You can pay me when you get ready." He was very tender and sympathetic. When he had left them Bim said to her mother: "Our old friends do not seem to care what becomes of us. I have no thought now save for you and the baby. I'll do whatever you think best for you two. I don't care for myself. My heart is as dead as Harry's." _ |
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