Back Aa

Gilded Age, A Tale of Today, The

<h1> THE GILDED AGE </h1> <h3> A Tale of Today </h3> <h2> By Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner </h2> <h3> 1873 </h3> <h3> Part 1. </h3> <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="cover.jpg (118K)" src="images/cover.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="Frontpiece.jpg (96K)" src="images/Frontispiece.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> <h2> CONTENTS </h2> CHAPTER I. Squire Hawkins and His Tennessee Land—He Decides to Remove to Missouri CHAPTER II. He Meets With and Adopts the Boy Clay CHAPTER III Uncle Daniel's Apparition and PrayeR CHAPTER IV The Steamboat Explosion CHAPTER V Adoption of the Little Girl Laura—Arrival at Missouri—Reception by Colonel Beriah Sellers CHAPTER VI Trouble and Darkness in the Hawkins Family—Proposed Sale of the Tennessee Land CHAPTER VII Colonel Sellers at Home—His Wonderful Clock and Cure for Rheumatism CHAPTER VIII Colonel Sellers Makes Known His Magnificent Speculation Schemes and Astonishes Washington Hawkins CHAPTER IX Death of Judge Hawkins CHAPTER X Laura Hawkins Discovers a Mystery in Her Parentage and Grows Morbid Under the Village Gossip CHAPTER XI A Dinner with Col Sellers—Wonderful Effects of Raw Turnips CHAPTER XII Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly—Arrangements to Go West as Engineers CHAPTER XIII Rail—Road Contractors and Party Traveling—Philip and Harry form the Acquaintance of Col Sellers CHAPTER XIV Ruth Bolton and Her Parents CHAPTER XV Visitors of the Boltons—Mr Bigler "Sees the Legislature"—Ruth Bolton Commences Medical Studies CHAPTER XVI The Engineers Detained at St Louis—Off for Camp—Reception by Jeff CHAPTER XVII The Engineer Corps Arrive at Stone's Landing CHAPTER XVIII Laura and Her Marriage to Colonel Selby—Deserted and Returns to Hawkeye CHAPTER XIX Harry Brierly Infatuated With Laura and Proposes She Visit Washington CHAPTER XX Senator Abner Dilwortliy Visits Hawkeye—Addresses the People and Makes the Acquaintance of Laura 186 CHAPTER XXI Ruth Bolton at Fallkill Seminary—The Montagues—Ruth Becomes Quite Gay—Alice Montague CHAPTER XXII Philip and Harry Visit Fallkill—Harry Does the Agreeable to Ruth CHAPTER XXIII Harry at Washington Lobbying For An Appropriation For Stone's Landing —Philip in New York Studying Engineering CHAPTER XXIV Washington and Its Sights—The Appropriation Bill Reported From the Committee and Passed CHAPTER XXV Energetic Movements at Stone's Landing—Everything Booming—A Grand Smash Up CHAPTER XXVI The Boltons—Ruth at Home—Visitors and Speculations CHAPTER XXVII Col Sellers Comforts His Wife With His Views on the Prospects CHAPTER XXVIII Visit to Headquarters in Wall Street—How Appropriations Are Obtained and Their Cost CHAPTER XXIX Philip's Experience With the Rail—Road Conductor—Surveys His Mining Property CHAPTER XXX Laura and Col Sellers Go To Washington On Invitation of Senator Dilworthy CHAPTER XXXI Philip and Harry at the Boltons'—Philip Seriously Injured—Ruth's First Case of Surgery CHAPTER XXXII Laura Becomes a Famous Belle at Washington CHAPTER XXXIII Society in Washington—The Antiques, the Parvenus, and the Middle Aristocracy CHAPTER XXXIV Grand Scheme For Disposing of the Tennessee Land—Laura and Washington Hawkins Enjoying the Reputation of Being Millionaires CHAPTER XXXV About Senators—Their Privileges and Habits CHAPTER XXXVI An Hour in a Book Store CHAPTER XXXVII Representative Buckstone and Laura's Strategic Coquetry CHAPTER XXXVIII Reception Day in Washington—Laura Again Meets Col. Selby and the Effect Upon Her CHAPTER XXXIX Col. Selby Visits Laura and Effects a Reconciliation CHAPTER XL Col. Sellers' Career in Washington—Laura's Intimacy With Col. Selby is Talked About CHAPTER XLI Harry Brierly Becomes Entirely Infatuated With Laura—Declares His Love and Gets Laughed At CHAPTER XLII How The Hon Mr Trollop Was Induced to Vote For Laura's Bill CHAPTER XLIII Progress of the Bill in the House CHAPTER XLIV Philip in Washington—Visits Laura CHAPTER XLV The Passage of the Bill in the House of Representatives CHAPTER XLVI Disappearance of Laura, and Murder of Col. Selby in New York CHAPTER XLVII Laura in the Tombs and Her Visitors CHAPTER XLVIII Mr Bolton Says Yes Again—Philip Returns to the Mines CHAPTER XLIX The Coal Vein Found and Lost Again—Philip and the Boltons—Elated and Then Cruelly Disappointed 443 CHAPTER L Philip Visits Fallkill and Proposes Studying Law With Mr Montague—The Squire Invests in the Mine—Ruth Declares Her Love for Philip CHAPTER LI Col Sellers Enlightens Washington Hawkins on the Customs of Congress CHAPTER LII How Senator Dilworthy Advanced Washington's Interests CHAPTER LIII Senator Dilworthy Goes West to See About His Re—election—He Becomes a Shining Light CHAPTER LIV The Trial of Laura for Murder CHAPTER LV The Trial Continued—Evidence of Harry Brierly CHAPTER LVI The Trial Continued—Col Sellers on the Stand and Takes Advantage of the Situation CHAPTER LVII The Momentous Day—Startling News—Dilworthy Denounced as a Briber and Defeated—The Bill Lost in the Senate CHAPTER LVIII Verdict, Not Guilty !—Laura Free and Receives Propositions to Lecture—Philip back at the Mines CHAPTER LIX The Investigation of the Dilworthy Bribery Case and Its Results CHAPTER LX Laura Decides on her Course—Attempts to Lecture and Fails—Found Dead in her Chair CHAPTER LXI Col Sellers and Washington Hawkins Review the Situation and Leave Washington CHAPTER LXII Philip Discouraged—One More Effort—Finds Coal at Last CHAPTER LXIII Philip Leaves Ilium to see Ruth—Ruth Convalescent—Alice APPENDIX <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p017.jpg (58K)" src="images/p017.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> <h2> CHAPTER I. </h2> June 18—. Squire Hawkins sat upon the pyramid of large blocks, called the "stile," in front of his house, contemplating the morning. The locality was Obedstown, East Tennessee. You would not know that Obedstown 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 "Knobs 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 gaunt hounds 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 soft-soap-boiling, near it. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p018.jpg (48K)" src="images/p018.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> This dwelling constituted one-fifteenth of Obedstown; the other fourteen houses were scattered about among the tall pine trees and among the corn-fields 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 Obedstown—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. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p019.jpg (17K)" src="images/p019.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> 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 tarried an hour to talk, for there was no hurry; and in a little while the male 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 thereto 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 moustaches; 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. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p020.jpg (57K)" src="images/p020.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> These neighbors stood a few moments looking at the mail 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: "Tha hain't no news 'bout the jedge, hit ain't likely?" "Cain't tell for sartin; some thinks he's gwyne to be 'long toreckly, and some thinks 'e hain't. Russ Mosely he tote ole Hanks he mought git to Obeds tomorrer or nex' day he reckoned." "Well, I wisht I knowed. I got a 'prime sow and pigs in the cote-house, and I hain't got no place for to put 'em. If the jedge is a gwyne to hold cote, I got to roust 'em out, I reckon. But tomorrer'll do, I 'spect." The speaker bunched his thick lips together like the stem-end of a tomato and shot a bumble-bee 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 stirrin', down 'bout the Forks?" continued Old Damrell. "Well, I dunno, skasely. Ole Drake Higgins he's ben down to Shelby las' week. Tuck his crap down; couldn't git shet o' the most uv it; hit wasn't no time for to sell, he say, so he 'fotch it back agin, 'lowin' to wait tell fall. Talks 'bout goin' to Mozouri—lots uv 'ems talkin' that—away down thar, Ole Higgins say. Cain't make a livin' here no mo', sich times as these. Si Higgins he's ben over to Kaintuck n' married a high-toned gal thar, outen the fust families, an' he's come back to the Forks with jist a hell's-mint o' whoop-jamboree notions, folks says. He's tuck an' fixed up the ole house like they does in Kaintuck, he say, an' tha's ben folks come cler from Turpentine for to see it. He's tuck an gawmed it all over on the inside with plarsterin'." "What's plasterin'?" "I dono. Hit's what he calls it. Ole Mam Higgins, she tole me. She say she wasn't gwyne to hang out in no sich a dern hole like a hog. Says it's mud, or some sich kind o' nastiness that sticks on n' covers up everything. Plarsterin', Si calls it." This marvel was discussed at considerable length; and almost with animation. But presently there was a dog-fight over in the neighborhood of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their perch like so many turtles and strode to the battle-field with an interest bordering on eagerness. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p022.jpg (30K)" src="images/p022.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> 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 stile, entered that part of his house which was the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-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 corn-bread 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 fire-place. Shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the place. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p023.jpg (34K)" src="images/p023.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> "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 sometime. 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, Si. 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 Seventy-five Thousand Acres of Land in this county—think what an enormous fortune it will be some day! Why, Nancy, enormous don't express it—the word's too tame! I tell your Nancy——" "For goodness sake, Si——" "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 gold mine 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 some day 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! <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p024.jpg (40K)" src="images/p024.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> "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. Some day, 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 its got to run within thirty miles of this land—may be 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 every body 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-per-cent. 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, wheat land, corn land, iron, copper, coal—wait till the railroads come, and the steamboats! We'll never see the day, Nancy—never in the world—never, never, never, child. We'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, Si 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 we'll not starve, Nancy. Far from it. I have a letter from Beriah Sellers—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; sighed, 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, Beriah Sellers 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 in Delaware and 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 would 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 numskull that had been inventing away at a perpetual motion machine for twenty-two years, and Beriah Sellers saw at a glance where just one more little cog-wheel 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. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p028.jpg (24K)" src="images/p028.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> Oceans of money in it—anybody could see that. But it did cost a deal to buy the old numskull out—and then when they put the new cog wheel 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 Si did sit up nights working at it with the curtains down and me watching to see if any neighbors were about. The man did honestly believe there was a fortune in that black gummy oil that stews out of the bank Si says is 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. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p029.jpg (20K)" src="images/p029.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> I haven't got over grieving for the money that cost yet. I am sorry enough Beriah 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 down-hearted—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 Si 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: <blockquote> "'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!' </blockquote> "It's the same old boy, Nancy, jest 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, Si?" "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 Obedstown and almost took its breath away, the Hawkinses hurried through with their arrangements in four short months and flitted out into the great mysterious blank that lay beyond the Knobs of Tennessee. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="p030 (14K)" src="images/p030.jpg" width-obs="100%" /> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.