Benjamin F. Wade

“ WADE, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1800–1878) , American statesman, was born near Springfield, Massachusetts, on the 27th of October 1800, of Puritan ancestry. He was reared on a farm, receiving little systematic education, and in 1821 he removed with his family to Andover, in the Western Reserve of Ohio. Here he spent two more years on a farm, and then, securing employment as a drover, worked his way to Philadelphia and finally to Albany, New York, where for two years he taught school, studied medicine, and was a labourer on the Erie Canal. ”

“ Ben Wade approved of my plan. He says Belllounds can be brought to reason. He says he can make him see the ruin for everybody were you forced to marry Jack. Strange, Collie, how Wade included himself with, you, me, Jack, and the old man, in the foreshadowed ruin! Wade is as deep as the cañon there. Sometimes when he's thoughtful he gives me a creepy feeling. At others, when he comes out with one of his easy, cool assurances that we are all right--that we will get each other--why, then something grim takes possession of me. ”

“ It was no wonder, he reflected, in that almost womanless land, that many a cowpuncher rode the range by night, seeing her image in every star. The thought that each single man, and many a married one, in Crawling Water, would ride into the Pit itself to win one of her smiles, had been Wade's comfort, even when he was thinking of the possibility of bloodshed between the two hostile factions. ”

“ Nobly the boy struggled: they who are not fastidious as to the means, seldom fail of securing the result they aim at. John Wade’s pride never stood like a lion in his path; he heeded not the supercilious glance or careless tone of his employers, so that he received the hard-earned reward of his toil. At length, from loving money for what it would bring, he learned to love it for its own sake; and when death removed from him those for whom he toiled, he toiled on for love of the shining dross. Pity that gold should always bring with it the canker—covetousness. ”

“ When we'd patched him up I found he had nowhere to go, and not a dollar in his pocket, and I sent him down to our place at Portchester to re-build.”
The opening roused his hearer's attention. Bob Wade had an instinctive sense of values that Bernald had learned to trust.
“What sort of chap? Young or old?”
“Oh, every age—full of years, and yet with a lot left. He called himself sixty on the books.”
“Sixty's a good age for some kinds of living. And age is of course purely subjective. How has he used his sixty years?” ”

“ On his return to Dublin he is said to have acquired considerable skill as an anatomist and surgeon in the Irish capital. Surgery was, however, soon abandoned, and Wade became a poet-musician. Sir John Andrew Stevenson [q. v.] , recognising his great gift of melody, advised Wade to apply for the university chair of music, dormant since 1774 after the resignation of Lord Mornington, but the matter fell through. Wade migrated to London, where he became conductor of the opera during Monck Mason's régime. ”

“ Such stories thrive along old roads, even as the Mayweed, and the thistles, that nobody ever cuts, and on whose pink tops the yellow-birds rock up and down, like little boats at anchor, till the Fall winds whistle away the golden birds and the white down. ”

“ All Nat's strove to dissuade him. "Your life is so precious, sir—the advancement of science!" But the Professor was adamantine.
"Science can only be advanced if men of science will take their lives in their hands," he answered, sternly. "Besides, Nurse Wade has tried. Am I to lag behind a woman in my devotion to the cause of physiological knowledge?"
"Let him try," Hilda Wade murmured to me. "He is quite right. It will not hurt him. I have told him already he has just the proper temperament to stand the drug. Such people are rare: he is one of them."
We administered the dose, trembling. ”

“ If you ever are--no! when you are, then I will owe it to Bent Wade. No man ever owed another for so precious a gift. But, Collie, I can't help a little vague dread--of what, I don't know, unless it's a sense of the possibilities of Hell--Bent Wade.... Dearest, I don't want to worry you or frighten you, and I can't follow out my own gloomy fancies. Don't you mind too much what I think. Only you must realize that Wade is the greatest factor in our hopes of the future. ”

“ Behold the two couples, as they stand upon the green-tufted bank—overlooking the sports—pleased spectators of the people’s enjoyment.
For a short while your eyes will rest upon the more youthful pair—the pretty Lora Lovelace, and her cousin-husband Walter.
’Tis well you have first looked upon them: for your eye will scarce care to return to them. Once bent upon Marion Wade, it will not wish to wander away. There you will behold all those hues most distinguished in nature—the blue of the sky—the gold scattered by the sun—the radiance of the rose. ”

“ I should say they were extraordinarily delicate conductors of sensation. And his eye—his eye too. He hasn’t used it to dominate people: he didn’t care to. He simply looks through ‘em all like windows. Makes me feel like the fellows who think they’re made of glass. The mitigating circumstance is that he seems to see such a glorious landscape through me.” Wade grinned at the thought of serving such a purpose.
“I see. I’ll come on Sunday and be looked through!” Bernald cried. ”

“ Now, Lucy is pretty square-cornered mentally, but she comes of a stock on the mother's side somewhat given to dreaming. That mother of hers—she is seventy-six if she is a day—will see as much beauty in the sky and breathe the fragrance of the apple-blossoms with as fresh a pleasure as if the world were only sixteen years old, and world and woman were born twins. ”

“ Already the jaws of the Hulling Machine were gulping down the gobbets of splintered logs.
“How soon can you replace those booms, Mr. Ide?” Wade edged the words through his teeth, as a man stricken with lockjaw might have spoken. And without waiting for reply, he hurried on. “Put ’em in, Mr. Ide, because you’re going to need ’em. And put along this shore all the men in Castonia who can handle guns. Winchesters and dynamite, with ‘Hell on law’ for a battle-cry! That’s what he’s given us. It’s good enough for me. Will you put those booms in, Mr. Ide?” ”

“ Then, with the warble of bugle and much clatter, clang and ring of hoofs and spurs and scabbards, the old-fashioned troopers rode by with eagles in their eyes; their holsters, small packages of thunder and lightning, at the saddle-bow; their shiny cylinders of portmanteaus snugly strapped behind; the terrible frown of a bear-skin cap lowering on every brow, its jaunty feather, tipped with emblematic blood, springing out of the fur like the blossom of a magnified and glorified bull-thistle—and the flare of the red-coats set the scene and your heart on fire together! ”

“ I faced him in turn, erect and unflinching. "Professor Sebastian," I answered, in my coldest and calmest tone, "you say what is not true. If you consult the list of passengers by the Vindhya, now posted near the companion-ladder, you will find the names of Hilda Wade and Hubert Cumberledge duly entered. We took our passage after you inspected the list at the office to see whether our names were there—in order to avoid us. But you cannot avoid us. We do not mean that you shall avoid us. We will dog you now through life—not by lies or subterfuges, as you say, but openly and honestly. ”

“ And year after year the old road grows dimmer, and the grass gets green across the track, and it is rechristened "the long pasture," and is surrendered to the lowing herds and the singing birds. In the midst of a region humming with life, it alone is silent, and almost awakens human sympathy, so wandering and lost and desolate it is. ”

“ We like to think that the dripping cup was borne to bearded lips that were eloquent and true of old, and lips, maybe, of beauty, that are dusty and dumb to-day; that bees from the shimmering fields came bugling thither, and crept, with dainty feet, along the trough's damp edge; that birds sat there, and drank and rendered their little thanks, and rode away upon the billowy air; that now and then a squirrel, red and sleek, with snowy throat, flashed chattering along the zigzag rails, and flashed away again ”

“ The East and the West have kissed each other across the Continent, and every body and thing between is brisk as a flea, and breathless as a king's trumpeter. Even Consumption has whipped up its pale horse to a gallop, and dashed into the steeple-chase of the Age. ”

“ We must get rid of her, Cumberledge; we must get rid of her. She is a dangerous woman!"
"She is the most intelligent nurse we have ever had in the place, sir," I objected, stoutly.
He nodded his head twice. "Intelligent—je vous l'accorde; but dangerous—dangerous!"
Then he turned to his papers, sorting them out one by one with a preoccupied face and twitching fingers. I recognised that he desired to be left alone, so I quitted the laboratory.
I cannot quite say why, but ever since Hilda Wade first came to Nathaniel's my enthusiasm for Sebastian had been cooling continuously. ”

“ Only when some vital cause impends is a young man likely to distinguish between the impulses of his body and the cravings of his soul, and no such vital exigency had as yet appeared in Wade's life. He wondered if she was as beautiful as ever, and began to reproach himself for lack of ardor in his recent letters to her, lest he should now be repaid in kind. ”

“ But, first, I'm askin' you--an' if this talk hurts, I'm sorry--why don't you give some of your love for your no-good Buster Jack to Collie?"
Belllounds clenched his huge fists and glared. Anger leaped within him. He recognized in Wade an outspoken, bitter adversary to his cherished hopes for his son and his stubborn, precious pride.
"By Heaven! Wade, I'll--"
"Belllounds, I can make you swallow that kind of talk," interrupted Wade. "It's man to man now. An' I'm a match for you any day. Savvy?... ”

“ Now I'm hard put fer hands. Jest speak out now fer yourself. No one else can speak fer you, thet's sure. An' this is bizness."
"Any work with stock, from punchin' steers to doctorin' horses," replied Wade, quietly. "Am fair carpenter an' mason. Good packer. Know farmin'. Can milk cows an' make butter. I've been cook in many outfits. Read an' write an' not bad at figures. Can do work on saddles an' harness, an-"
"Hold on!" yelled Belllounds, with a hearty laugh. "I ain't imposin' on no man, no matter how I need help. You're sure a jack of all range trades. An' I wish you was a hunter." ”

“ Summer sends the bees thither to bugle among the thistle-blows, and the ground-sparrows build in its margins, and the faded ribbon of yellow sand grows bright in its glowing sun. The winds waft the breath of the morning over its desolate way, and the rains long ago beat out the old footprints it used to bear. Autumn sighs as it follows it through the ravine and among the hemlocks, and the drifts that Winter heaps are unbroken and stainless. ”

“ I cried, feeling suddenly aware how much I thought of her. "Oh, not you, please, Nurse Wade. Some other life, less valuable!"
Sebastian stared at me coldly. "Nurse Wade volunteers," he said. "It is in the cause of science. Who dares dissuade her? That tooth of yours? Ah, yes. Quite sufficient excuse. You wanted it out, Nurse Wade. Wells-Dinton shall operate."
Without a moment's hesitation, Hilda Wade sat down in an easy chair and took a measured dose of the new anæsthetic, proportioned to the average difference in weight between raccoons and humanity. ”

“ No bolder feet, old Road, ever left their impress on other pathways; no truer hearts than hastened on thy rugged way, have ever turned beautiful in the "better land." If there were ever those whose laugh was music, then thy woods have heard it. The daughters of the West are passing fair, but those young brows of old, whose white flashed white again from thy singing streams, and eyes glanced back to eyes—no brighter and no purer were ever bent above a classic wave. ”

“ From the internal evidence of his writings, Wade would seem to have been a sensitive enthusiast of strong domestic affections, but at the same time manly and independent. He was an advanced liberal in politics and religion. No author of his time has left less tangible biographic memorial. The only anecdote preserved is Fanny Kemble's testimony to the fortitude with which he bore the failure of his tragedy. As a poet he is interesting but disappointing. ”

“ Wade gasped.
“Not much else. Afraid of the dark, of shadows, and women mostly. Strange women! Once a woman scared him in Castonia and he ran away like a hoss, draggin’ the jumper. Old Jule hitched him to a post after that.”
Cretinism in any form had always shocked Dwight Wade inexpressibly. He turned away, but the old woman was in his path, begging.
The next moment a tall, lithe girl ran swiftly out of a hut, seized the whimpering old woman, tossed her over her shoulder as a miller would up-end a bag of meal, and staggered back into the hut, kicking the frail door shut with angry heel. ”

“ I hope by that time we'll be able to drink a toast, sir, to you and Miss Eve."
"You don't hope so any more than I do," said Wade gravely. "I only wish—" He stopped, frowned at his pipe and went on. "The devil of it is, Doctor, I feel so confoundedly cheeky."
"Eh?"
"I mean about asking her to marry a fellow like me."
"What's the matter with you? You're of sound body and mind, aren't you?"
"Yes, I reckon so. But I'm such a useless sort, in a way. I've never done anything except make some money."
"Some women would think you'd done quite enough," replied the Doctor, dryly. ”