Babcock

“ Babcock was not looking at the sky. His soul was tuned to lower things—to lumber, for instance, heaps of it, piles of it, rows of it, stretched for hundreds of yards along the river, and across the peninsula, and along the edge of the harbour. The mills were silent; the watchmen were not to be seen; the only sign of life was the smoke curling from the funnels of the Number One, where Robbie MacGregor was dozing on the engine-room bench and hourly growing fatter. Six million feet of lumber greeted the eye of the man from Chicago, as he looked—and looked. ”

“ Behind him, soldierly, stiff, stalked MacLean. Marshall’s entrance released the tongues. There was an interval of confusion on the stage. Babcock, like a restless terrier, was snapping at the heels of the party. At last, they were all fussily seated. De la Vega was given the place of honor. Marshall, Babcock put on his left, MacLean on the right.
Babcock raised his staccate gavel. A hush fell on the house. His words were clipped and sharp.
“You have left your plowing to come here. You are anxious to hear what we have to say to you. You can not afford to be indifferent to it. ”

“ Babcock rose hurriedly, as this anxiety again took possession of him, and leaned over the deck-rail, scanning the sky. He did not like the drift of the low clouds off to the west; southeasters began that way. It looked as though the wind might change.
Some men would not have worried over these possibilities. Babcock did. He was that kind of man.
When the boat touched the shore, he sprang over the chains, and hurried through the ferry-slip.
“Keep an eye out, sir,” the bridge-tender called after him,—he had been directing him to Grogan's house,—“perhaps Tom may be on the road.” ”

“ Her profile in her exalted mood had suggested a beautiful, but worried archangel; her full face seemed less this and wore much of the seductive embarrassment of sex. To Babcock she seemed the most entrancing being he had ever seen. "Would you really like to have me come?"
He gave a hoarse ejaculation, and encircling her eagerly with his strong grasp pressed his lips upon her cheek. "Selma! darling! angel! I'm the happiest man alive." ”

“ Babcock; a very well dressed man with a shrewd, somewhat incredulous eye; a man who speaks cautiously, is even inclined to mumble in a low voice; and who finds his worth and caution recognized as a useful, if secondary, part of the importance of Bigelow & Company. Lacking in the audacious qualities of his senior, it would seem, but shrewd, very shrewd—not a man given to unnecessary promises or straight-out declarations. And if Mr. Babcock had a phrase, a creed, locked securely away in the depths behind that quiet face, it was “Business is Business.” Business was business to Mr. Babcock ”

“ But I knew one, Babcock," and here Higginson's voice fell (as his trick had grown to be during these recitals) to a deeper tone. "Do you know who it was? ... It was poor Morris!"
Babcock rose again and came and stood over the wretched Philosopher. The Philosopher looked up like a child, an erring child.
"Good Heavens!" sighed Babcock. "What extraordinary ideas you have! That 's not what people notice. Why, men can do that in their sleep." Then with sudden vigour, "What else did you see, Higginson? ”

“ He has hit upon a new plan this time. He says he is somebody else, and sticks to it. But you know him and I know him, even if Babcock doesn't; so it's all right. Now get underway. It must be all right, although I confess that Babcock frightened me by talking and acting as he did," said Willis, as the master of the yacht hastened forward to take his place at the wheel. ”

“ It was his boast that he could make and unmake men, and every politician in turn had blacked his boots, and he had made judges, and had at times decided upon peace and war. A powerful man; known to his gutter (before he bought his peerage) as Mr. Cake; a flabby man—and vulgar? Oh! my word!
This man at the other end of the wire knew much, too much, about George Babcock, and George Babcock knew that he knew it. ”

“ From wandering rather blindly about the streets for a while, he started for the new church, remembering that he had an engagement with a committee of ladies, who had taken in charge the furnishing of it. But when he reached there, no one had arrived but the widow Babcock. She was very beautiful; and looking at womankind from behind his veil of unfamiliarity, the parson, despite his logic, had always felt a desire to lift that veil when standing in her presence. ”

“ From the outside breast-pocket of her ulster protruded a time-book, from which dangled a pencil fastened to a hempen string. Every movement indicated great physical strength, perfect health, and a thorough control of herself and her surroundings. Coupled with this was a dignity and repose unmistakable to those who have watched the handling of large bodies of workingmen by some one leading spirit, master in every tone of the voice and every gesture of the body. The woman gave Babcock a quick glance of interrogation as he entered, and, receiving no answer, forgot him instantly. ”

“ Unfortunately for civilisation, the superstitions of the Hypnotists, as we know, prevailed, and European science has grown ashamed since that day of its earlier and manlier standpoint. It has learnt to talk of auto-suggestion. It has fallen so low as to be interested in Lourdes.
Long before 1890 George Babcock's book was ruined abroad. But George Babcock was a man with a knowledge of the road, and while his reputation, dead upon the Continent, was at its height in England, he suddenly appeared, no longer as a theorist, but as a practising doctor in London. ”

“ Got a telephone?"
"No—yes—no," said Professor Higginson as he reached his door.
"You ought to have—a man of your position," said Babcock. They had reached the door. "I 'll come in and help you," he added.
He did so. He set to work at once did Babcock—strongly and well. He reproved his unhappy colleague again for not having a telephone, sent out a servant in a cab with the address of a shorthand writer and of a typist, newspaper people obtainable of a Sunday, and he ordered a machine. Then he proceeded with tremendous rapidity to slice open the great heap of envelopes with a butter knife. ”

“ John S. Babcock was not only a wealthy man himself, with a controlling interest in several good companies and a directorship in several more, but he held various positions of trust and was the custodian of sundry large funds of one sort and another, so that his legal business was not a matter to be lightly awarded; and on the way to the station Ford's mind was full of queries concerning the remote probability of his obtaining at least a share of it, and he temporarily forgot his quandary about Stella's birthday gift. ”

“ But nevertheless in his secret soul he detested Europe and felt an irritated need to protest against Newman's easy homage to so compromised a charmer, mistress of a cynicism that appeared at times to have made him cynical. Mr. Babcock's moral malaise, I am afraid, lay deeper than where any definition of mine can reach it. He mistrusted the "European" temperament, he suffered from the "European" climate, he hated the "European" dinner hour; "European" life seemed to him unscrupulous and impure. ”

“ MacLean looked to Tod Marshall to answer.
“I think it will arrange itself,” his voice was silken. “It is to be a discussion, a conference. You can’t slate that.”
“We could program,” began Babcock, looking at his watch again.
“I don’t think we’ll have to.” Marshall smiled across the table. “You’ll find this meeting will run itself. There is not a man here who is not burning to speak. Look at them now! Drop a paper in that crowd, and see the blaze you’d get! You can open the meeting, Mr. Babcock, and I would suggest that you call on Mr. de la Vega first.” ”

“ Babcock glared at him, then at the river. His eye caught the approaching wreckage. Men came running with their poles. The caving bank was too far gone. The instant the drifting mass struck it, there was a shudder of falling earth, the car toppled toward the flood waters, the waves breaking into clouds of spray.
Human responsibility fell to a cipher. The river’s might was magnificent. Even Babcock, come to carp, [206] caught the excitement. “Come, MacLean,” he cried. “Watch this! The station’s going!” He joined Estrada by the adobe wall.
“Have a cigarette?” murmured Eduardo. ”

“ He read an invitation to deliver an address for the Research Club.
"No—yes," said Professor Higginson.
"Just like your telephone," sneered Babcock. "You don't know. Well, I 'll tell you. Leonard Barclay 's the private secretary of Mrs. Camp, and he 's the man who started the Connoisseurs in Bond Street, and who wrote the book about Colombo. Now do you understand? "
Professor Higginson dared not say he didn't. But he still looked helpless.
"Good God, man!" Babcock went at him again, "he 's in the very middle of it. ”

“ Babcock has written a novel, which embodies many distinctive features of the oil country. Her husband's profession turned her attention to educational subjects, and she has published many articles in the technical journals on those subjects. She is interested in home mission work and is president of a literary club which is known throughout western Pennsylvania, and which has founded a public library. ”

“ The following morning at the breakfast table in the Babcock home Mr. Babcock remarked, "You know that the more I see of that Mr. King the more favorably I am impressed with him. He strikes me as a man who has good stuff in him."
"Looks to me like he's kind of run-down at the heel—as mother used to say," said Aunt Clara. "He sure isn't prosperous looking like that Mr. Golter. In this day and age it's mighty essential that a man have money or a good income when he gets married or his wife can't have a place of any consequence in society."
Ruth blushed but made no reply. ”

“ Babcock Breakfasts Late The thirteenth was a storm-centre at Wauchung. At six in the morning, while Mr. William H. Babcock was sleeping peacefully in a Grand Rapids hotel, dreaming sweet dreams and smiling childlike smiles, conscious even in slumberland that his work was accomplished; while the Martin L. Higginson No. 1 was lying at the Higginson wharves with two hundred and fifteen thousand feet of lumber aboard, Halloran was up and tumbling into his clothes. Captain Craig, master of the Higginson No. 1, was sitting grimly on the corner of the bed.
“Do you know the man?” ”

“ Babcock, a young business man who seemed to be going in heartily for charity work at this time. Le Duc was talking earnestly with Halloran. Apparently a momentous question had arisen in his life, and the young man beside him, who had had plenty of experience in earning his own living, who could steer a life-boat in a boiling sea, whose generalship alone, it was conceded by one party in college, had won the Chicago game that fall, was, he felt sure, the best counselor to be found in the difficult task of guiding a life straight toward its destiny. ”

“ We find his illustrations in the toy-books printed in Boston and Philadelphia; and for Sidney Babcock, a New Haven publisher of juvenile literature, he supplied many of the numerous woodcuts required. The best of Anderson’s work as an engraver coincided with the years of Babcock’s very extensive business of issuing children’s books, between 1805 and 1840. His cuts adorned the [168] juvenile duodecimos that this printer’s widely extended trade demanded; and even as far south as Charleston, South Carolina, Babcock, like Isaiah Thomas, found it profitable to open a branch shop. ”

“ Babcock clinched his palms in his distress and walked up and down. She stood pale and determined looking into space. Presently he turned to her and asked with quiet but intense solicitude, "You don't mean that you're going to leave me for one fault, we being husband and wife and the little girl in her grave? I said you don't understand and you don't. A man's a man, and there are times when he's been drinking when he's liable to yield to temptation, and that though he's so fond of his wife that life without her would be misery. ”

“ Dunstan's brown face was long, and his ears just a trifle pointed like a faun's; his voice was young and crackling, like a tongue of young flame trying to push up through heaped-up brush. He smoked silently, staring down at his sister. "It's good-bye for him," he said slowly, "good-bye to green trees and swimming in the pools and climbing mountains and hearing a girl's voice. Oh! to just being a man! Good-bye forever to everything but smells and rats and the minds of decayed men and we—you, Sard, and my father are doing this thing." ”

“ There floated through the mind of the lawyer the pictures of Minga, with her vivid capricious demands on him, her unwitting tempting of him; what would another man have done? Of what worth were his hesitations and restraints, Sard, with her high compulsions and swift fires? Why should he, Shipman, have let these fresh wonders of womanhood flit by like shadows? He groaned, knowing why—because do what he would, think what he would, Eleanor Ledyard held him. ”

“ Stand near a mill-race and watch the “boys” racing down, each balanced on a single careening log, and you will have a glimpse of the sort of men G. Hyde Bigelow & Company were fighting.
Mr. Babcock passed the last straggling buildings of Wauchung's main street and found himself in full view of the bridge, the river and the lumber-yards. The sight did not please him, apparently, for he paused with knit brows to take it in. Beyond, showing here and there, lay the harbour, glistening in the cool light—and beyond the harbour the bald dunes and the lake. ”