Bascom

“ He decided it would be better not to let Bascom have a gun on board, and while the Mystery was taking her cargo at Martinez's pier, he had all of them that looked as if they might be used loaded upon a schooner that had come into the bay since dark.
ONE OF THE MEN JUMPED ON BOARD AND GRAPPLED WITH THE CAPTAIN.
Toward three in the morning Bascom found his eyelids growing so heavy that he could scarcely keep from drowsing against the mast in the snug warm lee of the sail. The Mystery was just about to round the Horn when a row-boat load of men swished past her bows. ”

“ During the hour, Narcisse Fontaine, big Noel Roget, Rubier Peer, who came to look for Peter, and Patrice Rodriguez, with his pointed beard and his reputation for duelling, added themselves to Bascom's force behind the Captain's house, and the figs were fairly charmed from the trees. Bascom did not think it safe to leave the melon pile for more than a moment at a time, and he was sitting alone beside it, and had just cleaved open the crack of a long striped "rattlesnake," when a [Pg 960] strange schooner passed by a length or two, then came about, and anchored off the point. ”

“ This is Jesse behind me? Stand out there, Jesse, and let me look at you. Ah, yes, a likely negro; a very likely negro indeed. And what Bascom did you belong to, Jesse? Merriwether Bascom! Why, to be sure; why, certainly!” [236] the Judge continued with as much animation as his feebleness would admit of. “Why, of course, Merriwether Bascom. Well, well, I remember him distinctly. A rough-and-tumble sort of man he was, fighting, gambling, horse-racing, always on the wing. A good man at bottom, but wild. And so you belonged to Merriwether Bascom? Well, boy, once a Bascom always a Bascom. ”

“ To this humble home Floy made her way without accident of any kind, and was welcomed by Ruth Bascom, the spinster lace-mender. That night the restless little golden head was pillowed on straw instead of down, the luxury of yesterday exchanged for the poverty of to-day.
She sat upon the side of the hard cot looking about her with a bitter smile, wondering why fortune was so unequally [182] divided in this world, and if the Beresfords deserved wealth and happiness any more than she and the Bascoms did poverty and pain. ”

“ It was the desire of Bolling Bascom that his son should study law and make that profession a stepping-stone to a political career. He had been ambitious himself, and he hoped his son would also be ambitious. Besides, was not politics the most respectable of all the professions? This was certainly the view in Bolling Bascom’s day and time, and much might be said to support it. Of all the professions, politics opened up the one career best calculated to tickle the fancy of the rich young men. ”

“ Pray what else could it be called?”
“Well, it might have been called Grasslands, you know, or The Poplars, but somehow the old name seemed to suit it best. I like to think of it as the Bascom Place.”
“You are right, sir,” said the Judge with emphasis; “you are right, sir. It is the Bascom Place. All the powers of earth cannot strip us of our name.”
Again Underwood looked at the young girl, and again he read in her shining but apprehensive eyes the answer he should make. ”

“ Lord! You needn’t tell me a thing about old Judge Bascom. Show me a man that’s been wrapped up with the Radicals, and I’ll show you a man that ain’t got no better sense than to try to chousel somebody. I’d just as lief see Underwood have the Bascom Place as the old Judge, every bit and grain.”
“Well, I hadn’t,” said the major emphatically.
“No, ner me nuther,” said Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom. “Hit may be right, but hit don’t look right. Pap used to say he’d never be happy ontel the Bascoms come back inter the’r prop’ty.” ”

“ This acid business may be all your own; but there are other things. You've had plenty of help in the drink-fest and the demoralization game, Bascom."
The big master mechanic's lips shut like the jaws of a steel trap. But after a time he said: "What do I get if I spout on the others?"
"A chance to get out of the country—eh, Maxwell?"
The superintendent nodded. "Yes; if he can get away before I can find a gun to kill him with."
Bascom reached into his desk, found a scratch-pad and tossed it over to Starbuck. "Take 'em down," he said briefly ”

“ It will take a win'lass an' grapplin'-irons an' mo' men. It will be de question if it pay."
"Couldn't us'es do it by ourselves?" Bascom pleaded. His whole little self-dependent life had strengthened his tendency to look out for himself. The more there were to work for the treasure the more there would be to share it.
"No," said the Captain. "Tek a pile of men to raise dose cannon."
"Then," put in Bascom, eagerly—"then le's ask Captain Lazaré an' Narcisse to help. ”

“ He was a young man with straightforward clear eyes that commanded the same frankness they expressed, and had been very uncomfortable to meet until this open subject was reached. The Lieutenant saw Bascom's face light up with responsive enthusiasm, and he ran on: "It may have belonged to one of the old discoverers. Why, I can just see the old chaps that manned it when the ship went down, standing on tiptoe round it, with their swords clanking and their queer old clothes flapping in this very wind perhaps! You know I believe they would like it if we had the old veteran fire a salute." ”

“ But Hiram Strong, Sr., was not a man to be refused.
208
When Miss Bascom came in I introduced her and was about to explain what was wanted, when I stopped in amazement. The moment I mentioned the name "Mr. Strong" her face became white as marble, she raised her hand as though to advance and greet him, but it fell and she stood as though petrified, while I explained what he desired.
"I—I hope I will be able to serve you," she managed to say, while she gazed fixedly at him. I could not guess whether it was fear or other excitement. ”

“ Miss Bascom says they’re the Austin girl’s.”
“Esther!” Old Saltonstall Adams rose in his wrath, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself to let that girl’s name get into the Waring matter at all. Even if she did go out Sunday night, if Miss Bascom did see her, you keep still about it. If that girl’s wrong, it’ll be discovered without our help. If she isn’t, we must not be the ones to bring her into notice.” ”

“ Miss Bascom shrugged impatiently. “I don’t mean insane or demented. I only mean sly and secretive. She never speaks to anybody at the table—and though she makes eyes at Gordon Lockwood, she snubs Mr. Tyler, who is just as good a young man. They both admire her—anybody can see that, but she treats them like the dust under her feet.”
“Not an adventuress, then?”
“I don’t know. But I do know she’s a thief—or how did she get that money and the ruby?”
“Perhaps Doctor Waring gave them to her?”
“Then she is a wrong one! Why should he give a strange girl such things?” ”

“ It would take two good hours to get the melons in, and the people on the bay would be only too glad to help in the rescuing as soon as they woke up. "Folkses is always so interested in what I find," Bascom grumbled; but for once no one troubled him. He roused Captain Tony, and they hitched the net between two boats and, rowing apart, circled around the melons with it, gathering them in, until they were fairly rafting them before it toward the shore. The net bulged in a great crescent, and Bascom could hardly keep his boat abreast of the Captain's. ”

“ When Bascom paused, Sprague began again.
"What was the plan, Bascom, as it was outlined to these others?"
The master mechanic's smile showed his fine even teeth.
"To make this jerk-water railroad a little easier to work for," he sneered. "When we found the right kind of a man we made him believe that the discipline was keyed up too damned tight and showed him how he could loosen up a little, if he felt like it. ”

“ Bascom rose once more. “Seth Bascom,” she declared, “if all you wanted me to stay here for is to be one of a pair of katydids, hollerin' at each other, I'm goin'. I'm no bug; I'm a woman.”
“Emeline, you set down. You've hove out a whole lot of hints about my not bein' a man because I run away from your house. Do you think I'd have been more of a man if I'd stayed in it? ”

“ As for the bridge which knit together the two tiny villages, nobody could pass over that without being seen from the Bascoms'. The rumble of wheels generally brought a family party to the window,—Jot Bascom's wife (she that was Diadema Dennett) , Jot himself, if he were in the house, little Jot, and Grandpa Bascom, who looked at the passersby with a vacant smile parting his thin lips. Old Mrs. ”

“ You speak quite as if you belonged to the legal profession yourself, Mr. Maxwell. However, I am afraid that you will have to get off the lot just the same. You must remember that I am simply carrying out Mr. Bascom’s instructions.”
“Very well; please give my compliments to Mr. Bascom and tell him that he is welcome to come here and put me out as soon as he thinks best. Moreover, you might remind him that he is not an autocrat, and that he cannot take any legal action in the matter without a formal meeting of the vestry, which I will call and at which I will preside. ”

“ But the church isn’t supported by tight-fisted wealthy people. It’s the hard-workin’ middle class who are willin’ to turn in and spend their last cent for the church. And don’t you get me started on Bascom as you value your life. Maybe I’ll swear a blue streak before I get through: not but what I suppose that even Bascom has his good points—like a porcupine. But a little emery paper on Bascom’s good points wouldn’t hurt ’em very much. They’re awful rusty.”
“Oh well! Money isn’t all there is in life,” soothed Maxwell, smiling. ”

“ It wuz here, ez it wuz in all strikly Dimekratic communities, the grocery keepers absorb all the floatin capital, and—
He wuz not allowed to proceed. Bascom flung a chair at him, and four or five uv his constitooents fell on him. He wuz carried out for dead. Bascom remarked that he wuz for the utmost freedom uv speech, but in the discussion uv a grate Constooshnel question, no Illinoy Ablishnist shood put in his yawp. The patriotic remark wuz cheered, but when Bascom ask’t the whole meetin out to drink, the applause wuz uproarious. Bascom alluz gets applause; he knows how to move an audience. ”

“ As she slowly walked out of the barn, the two cows followed her, and it was at the barn-door that an inspiration came to Ma’ Jane Barnard.
Her face paled a moment, and then flushed crimson. She put her hand to her throat—“them cows lead like dogs,” she whispered.
Bascom Barnard’s work at the corners was over in less time than he had contemplated. In fact, he met Bink Denny coming out of the “First and Last Chance” in such a state of intoxication that Bascom was glad to tear himself away and set forth on the homeward road. ”

“ As Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom passed the Bascom Place on his way home, after gathering from Major Jimmy Bass all the news and gossip of the town, he heard Mr. Francis Underwood, the owner of the Place, walking up and down the piazza, singing. Mr. Underwood appeared to be in a cheerful mood, and he had a right to be. He was young,—not more than thirty,—full of life, and the world was going on very well with him. Mr. Grissom paused a moment and listened; then he made up his mind to go in and have a chat with the young man. He opened the gate and went up the avenue under the cedars and Lombardy poplars. ”

“ Like most of the troubles in this world, particularly when they are those of others, the sadness of Bascom’s fate soon lost its poignancy.
“I’m sorry fer Bascom,” remarked Sipes, “an’ I hate to lose the boat an’ all the stuff wot’s on it, but Gosh, I wish I had that wad! He made a lot o’ money in ’is business, an’ money’s all ’e ever wanted to git, an’ ’e’s got plenty of it right with ’im, so he ain’t got no kick comin’. He was a hard citizen. All they was that was good about ’im was ’is cash-money, an’ it’s like that with a lot o’ people. ”

“ Ideal office assistants try to make themselves into humanized machines. Miss Bascom had accomplished this so well that I had to inquire about her name even after a week's service.
My desk was near the hall entrance, while hers was over near the window, partially obscured by stacks of records. She was, on closer inspection, more than comely, and the way she punched the keys of the typewriter indicated she was purposeful—not an accident. That she could allow a greasy, uncouth man like Becker to make up to her seemed absurd. More to amuse Hiram, I mentioned the matter to him that night. ”

“ The practical man—anyway, the practical woman—sees both the 93 bad and the good, and says we can make things a whole lot better if we try; let’s take off our coats and hustle to beat the cars, and see what happens. The real pessimists are your Bascoms, and that kind: and I guess I pity him more than blame him: he seems as lonesome as a tooth-pick in a cider-barrel.”
“But I thought that Bascom was a wealthy man. He ought to be able to help out, and raise money enough so that the town could keep a parson and his wife comfortably.” ”

“ When I reached my office, my clerk, Miss Bascom, was out to luncheon, but I had not been there long before Superintendent Kitchell came in and formally introduced Mr. Hiram Strong, Sr., whom he had mentioned as being in transit over the system in his private car, and asked me to extend any possible courtesy, after which he bowed himself out obsequiously.
I knew I was in the presence of a man. He was tall and his full chest and very broad shoulders impressed me as they had impressed Hiram. ”