George Weston

“ And then somehow he began to think of the life he had given up—the sunny wind-swept days and starry nights, the clean, sweet distances which were his to command, that intoxicating feeling of imminent discovery which sometimes fell upon him just before finding a rare specimen—Cape Eternity on the Saguenay, Mount Washington from Crawford Notch, and, finally, Aurora herself, rising crest on crest and crown on crown, a monument to those stupendous forces compared to which mankind is such an insignificant nincompoop and all his works are dust. ”

“ A break in the side of the mountain formed a bay in the road, and in this shelter the car ahead came to a tremulous stop. The professor almost came to a stop, about to offer his services, but it only needed a single glance to see the cause of the trouble. On the back seat of the other car was a pair of suitcases, shining with newness, and on the front seat was a pair of newly weds, shining with newness, too, and acting quite in the immemorial manner.
"Poor things—it's all they know!" thought the young Petrified Man as he hastily stepped upon his accelerator. "Well, after all, that's his life. ”

“ I am not a rich man, Mr. Peterson, as you business men of Fairfield would describe a rich man. The utmost that I could scrape together was twenty-four thousand dollars. But every last cent of that went into shares of the Porfirio Gold and Rubber Company, of Mexico; and when I tell you, Mr. Peterson, the names of some of the men who are our largest stockholders, I think you can begin to appreciate one of the sources of my enthusiasm."
"If I could only talk business like that!" thought Herbert. "Did you buy any?" he asked, turning to Egbert. ”

“ It was nearly an hour later when he stopped his car at the brink of Hell Hollow—a low-lying, flat piece of land, roughly bordered by a circle of hills. Outside of this circle the grass grew green and the farms were prosperous; but in the Hollow itself the vegetation had a sickly look, and the neighbors had already told him that the water there had such a brackish taste that even some of the calves that were born in the Hollow wouldn't drink it but had to be sold as soon as they were old enough to be turned out to grass. ”

“ Fiery flames and molten masses, volcanoes and earthquakes, glaciers, tides and primal ooze—even the terms fascinated him and made him hunger and thirst for more.
In the first week he sprang to the head of his class and stayed there, inviolable, invulnerable. Indeed, carried high upon the crest of this geological wave, he won the Chapman Scholarship, which entitled him to four years in Old Buckeye, and after that there is only one word which will describe Herbert Peterson's frame of mind. He considered himself predestined. ”

“ Egbert indignantly asked on the last occasion, when he was offered a full half interest in the company for a thousand dollars. "Do I look like a bonehead who would put good money into a joke?"
For that was what the Hell Hollow Company had become—the town joke—and it wasn't long before Herbert Peterson was included with the company. When he had first returned to Fairfield to make his fortune he had tried to look as businesslike as possible, but since his first visit to the Hollow he had let his hair grow and resumed his horn spectacles. ”

“ Car after car swirled by and, busy as he was, he continued to give each one a look, half fearing that the newly weds might stop in that same grove.
"Poor things, it's all they know," he said again. "Still," he reflected, "if some men didn't fall that way it would be harder for the rest of us to make our marks in the world." Quite a procession of cars went by then, afraid to pass each other because of the twists of the road. "Upon further study, it would almost seem that most men fall that way," he added more thoughtfully. "Every one of those cars had a female in it—of some age or other." ”

“ Tommy Baxter had gone into partnership with his father in the wholesale produce business, and had a car with such a long wheel base that when it turned a corner it reminded Herbert of a hook-and-ladder truck, and he half expected to see a fireman perched on the rear end to steer the back wheels.
"It certainly seems easy enough to get along in the world of commerce," thought the young professor. "I am sure I ought to find something—somewhere."
He did. Marion's father, Major Hubbard, was not only the largest real-estate owner in Fairfield ”

“ They looked at each other as they used to look in the old letter-fly days, and when they left the office together a few minutes later you might almost have thought that they had gone for the water.
"Quick worker, all right," said Fatty as they reached the street. "He's got a customer already."
This first client of Herbert's was a querulous old boy with a piping voice who wanted to sell his farm in Hell Hollow. For reasons of his own he didn't say that for years he had haunted the real-estate offices of Fairfield without success. ”

“ The major hadn't been gone long when three other visitors entered. The first was Egbert, the second was Fatty and the third shall speak for himself.
IX IT MAY indeed be true, as the ancient writers had it, that man is the noblest work of creation. But so far as modern records go, it would sometimes seem that the claim is not yet proved. A man may be nobler than a mountain, but who shall stand before Mount McKinley and claim a greater measure of nobility? Shall any of the three, for instance, who called on Herbert Peterson that afternoon? ”

“ If you make out well you'll soon have all the business you can handle. But if you fail in that too——"
He bristled his mane, and Herbert knew very well what failure meant. When he reached home he found Aurora's picture and placed it on his bureau opposite Marion's photograph.
"I've noticed that nearly everyone has a mascot," he told himself. "Egbert has that silver-mounted rabbit's foot on his desk, and the president of the bank used to think that his paper weight was lucky—that queer little image with the large feet. Yes, even the major has a horseshoe in the top drawer of his desk. ”

“ Major Hubbard nearly reared up on his hind legs at the sight of him.
Even Marion began to look worried at the tales she heard. Along toward the end of the month one might have thought that the scholarly Herbert had some vague idea of trying to stampede the public into an orgy of buying.
"Buy Now—To-day," he added to his sign. "To-morrow May be Too Late."
The next evening Egbert was sitting with his feet at ease on the veranda rail of the Fairfield House when a car came rushing down the street.
"Great guns! Who's this wild Indian?" thought Egbert. "He'll be pinched if he isn't careful." ”

“ His class started the study of geology, and right from the first there was a quality in it that seemed to stir him—as a note of the piano will sometimes set one vase vibrating and leave everything else in the room alone.
"The history of the earth is written in its rocks." ”

“ He hopped on and stayed on for two years—chafing always to get away and make real friends of the mountains—and then his Uncle Andrew died and left him twenty-five thousand dollars invested in securities which netted just twenty-five dollars a week. After he had studied the question with the same care with which he studied everything else, young Professor Peterson resigned from the faculty and did a most peculiar thing. He bought a secondhand car, and though of course this was only chance, the car was a sporting model. ”

“ Twenty-five dollars a week! I wonder, indeed, if a sum so small would even buy clothes for the one I passed on the hill! Half an hour of daylight left," he broke off, noticing the shadows. "I think it would be wise to find that water before it grows too dark."
Putting a collapsible pail over his arm, he followed the slope of the land to the gully which he was sure he would find not far away. The farther he went the closer grew the trees and the thicker the brush.
"It cannot be much farther," he told himself. "The land rises immediately ahead. Hello! ”

“ As soon as he left her Herbert found a barber shop; and while the artist there was lathering him and scraping him and trimming him he closed his eyes and had it out with himself.
"Twenty-five dollars a week," thought he. "That's all I've got. By camping out and living the way I do I just manage to make it suffice. But as for getting married or buying a ring or doing anything—er—of a foolish nature like that, it is ab-so-lute-ly out of the question. I will call for Miss Marion to-night, because I promised her I would do so ”