Thomas Nelson Page

“ It is astonishing how one man can create a public sentiment. One woman can ruin a reputation as effectually as a churchful. One bullet can kill a man as dead as a bushel, if it hits him right. So Dick Rail injured Jim. For Dick was an authority. He swore the biggest oaths, wore the largest watch-chain, knew his engine better and sat it steadier than any man on the road. He had had a passenger train again and again, but he was too fond of whiskey. ”

“ The announcement was astonishing to the old soldier; it had never occurred to him that as long as a man remained they could not hold the hill, and he was half-way down the slope before he took it in. He had brought his gun with him, and he clutched it convulsively as if he could withstand alone the whole Prussian army. "He might have taken a younger man to do his trotting," he muttered to himself as he stalked along, not knowing that his wound had occasioned his selection. "Pierre—" but, no, Pierre must stay where he would have the opportunity to distinguish himself. ”

“ She and Kitty had walked over to see them, to show Kitty's new dress. She had promised that Mr. Wagoner would do what he could for him (Jim) on the road.
Next month Jim went back to the freight service. He preferred Dick Rail to Mrs. Wagoner. He got him. Dick was worse than ever, his appetite was whetted by abstinence; he returned to his attack with renewed zest. He never tired—never flagged. He was perpetual: he was remorseless. He made Jim's life a wilderness. Jim said nothing, just slouched along silenter than ever, quieter than ever, closer than ever. ”

“ There were people who said Betty Duval had been a beauty. She was careful in her limitations, Mrs. Wagoner was. Some women will not admit others are pretty, no matter what the difference in their ages: they feel as if they were making admissions against themselves.
Once when Jim was a boy Mrs. Wagoner had the good taste to refer in his presence to his "homeliness," a term with which she sugar-coated her insult. Jim grinned and shuffled his feet, and then said, "Kitty's pretty." It was true: Kitty was pretty: she had eyes and hair. ”

“ Pierre lay dead on his face, shot in the back. The back of his head was shattered by a fragment of shell. The countenance of the living man was more pallid than that of the dead. No word escaped him, except that refrain, "For France, for France," which he repeated mechanically.
Although this had occupied but a few minutes, momentous changes had taken place on the ridge above. The sound of the battle had somewhat altered, and with the roar of artillery were mingled now the continuous rattle of the musketry and the shouts and cheers of the contending troops. ”

“ The reply evoked cheers, and that regiment that day stood its ground until a fourth of its men fell. The old soldier's enthusiasm infected the new recruits, who were pale and nervous under the strain of waiting. His eye rested on Pierre, who was standing down near the other end of the company, and the father's face beamed as he thought he saw there resolution and impatience for the fight. Ha! France should ring with his name; the Quarter should go wild with delight. ”

“ Wagoner seldom omitted. Mrs. Upton never thought of blaming her, or any one else. Not all her poverty ever drew one complaint from her sad lips. She simply sat down under it, that was all. She did not expect anything else. She had given her Jim to the South as gladly as any woman ever gave her heart to her love. ”

“ The Major's eye lit up.
"Yes, madam," he said, taking up one of the pistols, "and I rejoice that you are here to witness its successful termination. George Washington has been selected as the victim this year; his monstrous lies, his habitual drunken worthlessness, his roguery, culminating in the open theft to-day of my best coat and waistcoat, marked him naturally as the proper sacrifice. I had not the heart to cheat any one by selling him to him. ”

“ The Major looked at his watch and up at the trees, the tops of which were still brightened with the reflection from the sunset sky, and muttered an objurgation at the failure of the principals to appear, vowing that he never before knew of a similar case, and that at least he had not expected Jeff to fail to come to time. George Washington again proudly announced that he represented Jeff and that it was "that urr gent'man what had done fly de track, that urr gent'man what you ripresents, Marse Nat." ”

“ Sometimes they told him that they could hardly believe him so old, could hardly believe him much older than some of those in the ranks, and although at first he used to declare he was like a rusty flint-lock, too old and useless for service, their flattery soothed his vanity, and after a while, instead of shaking his head and replying as he did at first that France had no use for old men, he would smile doubtfully and say that when they let Pierre go, maybe he would go too, "just to show the children how they fought then." ”

“ George vowed that no reward could induce him to be guilty of such an enormity, and followed it up by so skillful an allusion to the progressing youth of his master that the latter swore he was right, and that he could dance better than he could at thirty, and to prove it executed, with extraordinary agility for a man who rode at twenty stone, a pas seul which made the floor rock and set the windows and ornaments to rattling as if there had been an earthquake. ”

“ The Major had just walked up to the duellists, and, relieving them of their weapons, had with a comprehensive wave of the hand congratulated them on their courage and urged them to shake hands, which they were in the act of doing, when the shrubbery parted and Margaret, followed closely by Rose and by Miss Jemima panting behind, rushed in upon them, crying at the tops of their voices, "Stop! Stop!"
The two young ladies addressed themselves respectively to Jeff and Lawrence, and both were employing all their eloquence when Miss Jemima appeared. ”

“ He [Pg 67] is no slave. I am the slave, not only of him but of three hundred more as arrogant and exacting as the Czar, and as lazy as the devil!"
Miss Jemima threw up her hands in astonishment, and the Major, who was on a favorite theme, proceeded:
"Why, madam, the very coat on my back belongs to that rascal George Washington, and I do not know when he may take a fancy to order me out of it. My soul is not my own. He drinks my whiskey, steals my tobacco, and takes my clothes before my face. As likely as not he will have on this very waistcoat before the week is out." ”

“ Jeff suggested that perhaps she might be impregnable, but the old fellow affirmed that no woman was this; that no fortress was too strong to be carried; that it all depended on the assailant and the vehemence of the assault; and if one did not succeed, another would. The young man brightened. His mentor, however, dashed his rising hopes by saying: "But mark this, sir, no coward can succeed. Women are rank cowards themselves, and they demand courage in their conquerors. ”

“ His beaver hat was cocked on the side of his head, with an air supposed to be impressive. He wore the Major's coat and flowered velvet waistcoat respecting which he had won so signal a victory in the morning, and he flaunted a large bandanna handkerchief, the ownership of which he had transferred still more recently. The Major's orders to George Washington were to convey the box to the garden in a secret manner, but George Washington was far too much impressed with the importance of the part he bore in the affair to lose the opportunity of impressing the other servants. ”

“ Thus, although as Margaret grew up she had any other friends she desired to visit her as often as she chose, her wish being the supreme law at Rock Towers, she had never even thought of inviting one of the class against whom her uncle's ruddy face was so steadfastly set. The first time it ever occurred to her to invite any one among the proscribed was when she asked Rose Endicott to pay her a visit. ”

“ As soon as George Washington recognized that the voice was not supernatural, he recovered his courage and at once disarmed the Major, who, watch in hand, was demanding if he supposed he had nothing else to do than to wait for him all night, by falling into his vein and acquiescing in all that he said in abuse of the yet absent duellists, or at least of one of them. ”

“ There are few living American writers who can reproduce for us more perfectly than Mr. Cable does, in his best moments, the speech, the manners, the whole social atmosphere of a remote time and a peculiar people. ”

“ Like his master, he had a natural antipathy to "old women," and as the Major's threat for years had varied between "setting him free next morning" and giving him "a mistress to make him walk straight," George Washington felt that prudence demanded some vigilance on his part.
One day, under cover of the hilarity incident to the presence at dinner of Jeff and of his guest, Mr. Lawrence, Miss Jemima had pushed her inquisition even further than usual. ”

“ I thought of the speech I had heard: "No one goes over the mountain except at night," and the ominous conclusion, "Who goes over the mountain comes no more." My strange host, however, diverted my thoughts.
"A stranger cannot go except at night," [Pg 12] he said, gravely; and then added, "I must get back to watch over Elsket." ”

“ Next thing they'll be wanting to abolish hell!"
The Major was so impressed with his peril that when Jeff, who had galloped over "for a little while," entered, announced with great ceremony by George Washington, he poured out all his apprehensions into his sympathetic ear, and it was only when he began to rally Jeff on the chance of his becoming a victim to Miss Endicott's charms, that Margaret interfered so far as to say, that Rose had any number of lovers, and one of them was "an awfully nice fellow, handsome and rich and all that." ”

“ After that Jim wore what clothes he chose: no one ever troubled him.
So he went on in the same way: slow, sleepy, stuttering, thin, stingy, ill-dressed, lame.
He was made a fireman; preferred it to being a conductor, it led to being an engineer, which paid more. He ran extra trips whenever he could, up and double straight back. He could stand an immense amount of work. If he got sleepy he put tobacco in his eyes to keep them open. It was bad for the eyes, but waked him up. Kitty was going to take music next year, and that cost money. ”

“ Kitty was fifteen—two years younger than Jim in 187-.
Jim never went to school. They were too poor. All he knew his mother taught him and he got out of the few old books in the book-case left by the war,—odd volumes of the Waverley novels, and the Spectator, "Don Quixote," and a few others, stained and battered. He could not have gone to school if there had been a school to go to: he had to [Pg 154] work: work, as Mrs. Wagoner had truthfully said, "like a common nigger." He did not mind it; a bird born in a cage cannot mind it much. The pitiful part is, it does not know anything else. ”

“ Why, I had once an affair with an intimate and valued friend, Judge Carrington. You may have heard of him, a very distinguished man! and I was indiscreet enough to carry that rascal George Washington to the field, thinking, [Pg 68] of course, that I ought to go like a gentleman, and although the affair was arranged after we had taken our positions, and I did not have the pleasure of shooting at him,——"
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Miss Jemima. "The pleasure of shooting at your friend! Monstrous!" ”

“ Kitty sat and gazed at him with speechless admiration; hung on his words, which were few; watched for his smile, which was rare. He repaid it to her by being—Jim. He slaved for her; waited for her (when a boy waits for his little sister it is something) ; played with her when he had [Pg 155] time (this also was something) ; made traps for her; caught her young squirrels,—was at once her slave and her idol. As he grew up he did not have time to play. He had to plough: "just like a common nigger," Mrs. Wagoner said with an unclouded face. ”

“ Sullivan's style is at once easy and refined, conveying most happily that atmosphere of good breeding and polite society which is indispensable to the novel of manners, but which so many of them lamentably fail of."—The Nation. ”

“ Unquestionably he deserves death; but what can one do! The law, kept feeble by politicians, does not permit one to kill them, however worthless they are (he observed Miss Jemima's start,) —except, of course, by way of example, under certain peculiar circumstances, as I have stated to you." He bowed blandly.
[Pg 69]
Miss Jemima was speechless, so he pursued.
"I have sometimes been tempted to make a break for liberty, and have thought that if I could once get the rascal on the field, with my old pistols, I would settle with him which of us is the master." ”

“ The engine stopped on the track. The officers never knew of it; but Wray and his fireman both changed to another road. When a man even got shaky and began to run easy, the superintendent might not mind it; but the men did: he had to go. A man had to have not only courage but nerve.
Jim was not especially popular among men. He was reserved, slow, awkward. He was "pious" (that is, did not swear) . He was "stuck up" (did not tell "funny things," by which was meant vulgar stories; nor laugh at them either) . And according to Dick Rail, he was "stingy as h—l." ”

“ The [Pg 194] men, having been marching in the dark, were tired, and most of them lay down, when they were halted, to rest. Some went to sleep; others, like Pierre, set to work and with their bayonets dug little trenches and threw up a slight earthwork before them, behind which they could lie; for the skirmishers had been thrown out, looking vague and ghostly as they trotted forward in the dim twilight, and they supposed that the battle would be fought right there. ”

“ If their dominions were stolen from them they found here a truer wealth, content; if they had not power, they had what was better, independence. For centuries they held this last remnant of the dominion which Harold Haarfager had conquered by land, and Eric of the Bloody Axe had won by sea, sending out their sons and daughters to people the lands ”

“ As he stood balancing himself, and took in the solemn significance of the matter, his whole air changed; he raised his head, struck a new attitude, and immediately assumed the position of one whose approval of the affair was of the utmost moment.
The Major stated that he was glad that they had decided to use the regular duelling pistols, not only as they were more convenient—he having a very fine, accurate pair—but as they were smooth bore and carried a good, large ball, which made a clean, pretty hole, without tearing. ”

“ The ocular demonstration of a man's arm around a girl's waist is difficult to explain on more than one hypothesis.
After this Margaret treated Jeff with a rigor which came near destroying the friendship of a lifetime; and Jeff became so desperate that inside of a week he had had his first quarrel with Lawrence, who had begun to pay very devoted attention to Margaret, and as that young man was in no mood to [Pg 86] lay balm on a bruised wound, mischief might have been done had not the Major arrived opportunely on the scene just as the quarrel came to a white-heat. ”