Bill Breakstone

“ Miners still tell how, during the first great rush in '52, a blustering ruffian, relying upon some similar remark of the pioneer's, had tried to establish a reputation by an unprovoked assault upon him; and the narrators then glide imperceptibly into an account of Bill's handsome conduct towards the widow—how he had given her his week's clean-up to start her in a drinking shanty. Braxton thought of this as he smiled at Chicago's remarks, and glanced at the massive limbs and weather-beaten face.
"We'd best see where we are before it grows darker," he said ”

“ There was a light in Braxton's blue eyes, and a flush on the pale cheek.
"Bill," he said, putting his hand on his comrade's shoulder, "it's about time you made tracks for the settlements."
"What d'ye mean?" said Chicago.
"Why, I mean that the murderers are within a league of us, and that I intend going for them. There, don't be huffed, old man," he added; "of course I knew you were only joking. But they are there, Bill; I saw smoke on the top of that hill, and it wasn't good, honest smoke, mind you; it was dry-wood smoke, and meant to be hid. I thought it was mist at first ”

“ Brisket Bill is a low-sized, compact, thick witted brute in corduroys and heavy hob-nailed shoes, who has been probably "starring" in the provinces, and the Hackney Cove is a tall, well-made, fresh-faced-looking young fellow, who is quite lively on his feet, and seems to rather like the punishment which Brisket gives him every now and then in the chest and face. ”

“ I've got no friends and no message, and nothing in the world but this pack of cards. Keep them, Bill; they were a fine pack in '51. If you see a smoke on the hill in the morning you'll know all's well, and you'll bring up the horses at once. If you don't, you'll ride to Fallen Pine, where we were to meet,—ride day and night, Bill,—tell Inspector Burton that you know where the rangers [Pg 39] are, that Private Braxton is dead, and that he said he was to bring up his men, else he'd come back from the grave and lead them up himself. Do that, Bill. ”

“ What a difference there is in men I and even more in the way we regard them at different times. Bressant, simply by being himself, had annihilated all such small claims to social life as Bill Reynolds ever possessed.
"I'm not dancing to-night, thank you," said Cornelia; but she smiled so as wellnigh to heal the wound her words inflicted. "What makes you so late?"
Now, the fact was that Mr. Reynolds had been weak enough to allow himself to be drawn into conversation with some friends near the entrance of the hotel possessing the bar-room with the spittoons and colored prints already alluded to ”

“ I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bull-fighters, separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while I was praying for myself I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn’t seen him since that night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time; ”

“ No one came. I vowed I wouldn’t bleed to death for Braxton. I rang again. At last a very tall powdered footman appeared—more reproachful-looking than sympathetic, as though I hadn’t ordered that dressing-case specially on his behalf. He said he thought one of the housemaids would have some sticking-plaster. He was very sorry he was needed downstairs, but he would tell one of the housemaids. I continued to dab and to curse. The blood flowed less. I showed great spirit. I vowed Braxton should not prevent me from going down to dinner. ”

“ Death hath conquered thee, whom none but death could conquer; and who shall now teach thy son to be brave as thou wast brave; to be good as thou wast good; to fight the foe of thy people and acquaint thy chosen ones with the war-song of triumph; to deck his lodge with the scalps of the slain, and bid the feet of the young move swiftly in the dance? And who shall teach Etespa-huska to follow the chase and plunge his arrows into the yielding sides of the tired bull? ”

“ Braxton turned in his sleep.
‘I resumed my seat, and... and... sat up staring and blinking, at a tall man with red hair. “I must have fallen asleep,” I said. “Yessir,” he replied; and his toneless voice touched in me one or two springs of memory: I was at Keeb; this was the footman who looked after me. But—why wasn’t I in bed? Had I—no, surely it had been no nightmare. Surely I had SEEN Braxton on that white bed.
‘The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. ”

“ Mr. Offord said when he reappeared; and then I recognised what a note of change that would be—for he had never tolerated anything so provincial. We "ran" to each other's health as little as to the daily weather. The talk became ours, in a word—not his; and as ours, even when HE talked, it could only be inferior. In this form it was a distress to Brooksmith, whose attention now wandered from it altogether: he had so much closer a vision of his master's intimate conditions than our superficialities represented. ”

“ "Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If [25] I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right."
We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon it instantly. ”

“ Brokenshire for help, but her eyes were fixed on the floor, on which she was drawing what seemed like a design with the tip of her parasol. The greyhounds were stretched at her feet. I could do nothing but speak for myself, which I did with a calmness that surprised me.
"Mr. Brokenshire," I interrupted, "you are a man and I'm a woman. What's more, you're a strong man, while I'm a woman with no protection at all. I ask you—do you think you're playing a man's part in insulting me?" ”

“ A man of stronger nerve than mine, and of greater resourcefulness, might have coped successfully with Braxton from first to last--might have stayed on till Monday, making a very favourable impression on every one all the while. ”

“ The time isn't up, you see, and you know the absurdity of the thing is that a man can issue a writ like that! Why, bless you, you can go and buy a pair of boots on credit and find the writ waiting for you when you get home! It 's ridiculous, but it 's the law."
Jimmy's face was hot and his eyes were too bright.
"It was not a forgery, Mr. Kirby!" he said.
"Not a what?" said Mr. Kirby, looking up with a fine affectation of confusion. "I 'm not talking about that, Mr. McAuley. Really, poor Brassington's loss is none of our business. ”

“ It were vain attempting to describe the conflict of Brixton’s feelings as they once more bound his arms securely behind him and led him back to Paul Bevan’s hut. The thought of death while fighting with man or beast had never given him much concern, but to be done to death by the rope as a petty thief was dreadful to contemplate, while to appear before the girl he loved, humiliated and bound, was in itself a sort of preliminary death. ”

“ Years of careful training and right living were concentrated into that supreme moment. Another might have sought personal safety by plunging overboard and diving deep into the river. Glen and Winn might have followed such an example. Binney and Solon, being unable to swim, could not. But Billy Brackett was too true an American to consider such a thing for an instant. Generations of Yankee ancestors had taught him never to desert a friend nor yield to a foe; never to court a danger nor to fear one; to fight in a righteous cause with his latest breath; to snatch victory from defeat. ”

“ Today," Franklin said, "I have the happiness to know it's a rising sun." Today, because each succeeding generation of Americans has kept the fire of freedom burning brightly, lighting those frontiers of possibility, we all still bask in the glow and the warmth of Mr. Franklin's rising sun.
After 224 years, the American revolution continues. We remain a new nation. And as long as our dreams outweigh our memories, America will be forever young. ”

“ I looked at her in a way that I think Brooksmith himself would have approved, and then I answered: "Yes, the Offord Arms." What I had meant of course was that for the love of art itself we ought to look to it that such a peculiar faculty and so much acquired experience shouldn't be wasted. I really think that if we had caused a few black-edged cards to be struck off and circulated—"Mr. Brooksmith will continue to receive on the old premises from four to seven; business carried on as usual during the alterations"—the greater number of us would have rallied. ”

“ It's true that the subject of my meditation was ever the same—ever "It's all very well, but what will become of Brooksmith?" Even my private answer to this question left me still unsatisfied. No doubt Mr. Offord would provide for him, but what would he provide?—that was the great point. He couldn't provide society; and society had become a necessity of Brooksmith's nature. ”

“ On this occasion young Billy Breckenbridge was the only man who brought the facts back to Tombstone; and he arrived there long after Buckskin Frank.
For the two-gun man had seen his opportunity to make men forget that incident wherein he had figured so poorly against Nigger Jim, and had spurred his pony all the way to the county seat, where he told his story—how he had seen the desperado sitting under the dwarf live-oaks, had stalked him as a man stalks big game, and shot him through the head. ”

“ Every man put on this earth is put here for a purpose. He is put here to work, to struggle, to interest himself in his fellows, to share the pleasures and disappointments of others. The wise laws ruling the universe fill us with a DESIRE to do that which we were meant to do. It is intended that we should be active here, and, therefore, although we often fail to realize it, our happiness lies in activity.
Bresci is to be tortured beyond the power of imagination because he will be forbidden to follow nature's law. He will be forbidden to fulfill man's destiny here. ”

“ Our generation and future generations must heed these words. In a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom, but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues, the United States of America must stand as a beacon of liberty and justice. ”

“ He stretched out his right hand, laughing.
"Hello, Braxfield!" he said cheerily, in the tone of one who greets an ancient acquaintance. "That you? Still going it as strong as ever, eh? You don't look a day older."
"Men don't alter much at my age, sir," replied Braxfield, shaking the offered hand respectfully. "That comes a bit later, Mr. Harborough. But—you're really back, sir? I hadn't heard of it—still, we don't hear very much our way, now—quieter than ever at Markenmore Court, sir."
"I only got home this afternoon, Braxfield," answered Harborough. ”

“ Brackenhurst prided itself, indeed, on being a most well-bred and distinguished neighbourhood; people of note grew as thick there as heather or whortleberries. What puzzled him more was the abstruser question, where on earth the stranger could have come from so suddenly. Philip had glanced up the road and down the road just two minutes before, and was prepared to swear when he withdrew his eyes not a soul loomed in sight in either direction. Whence, then, could the man in the grey suit have emerged? ”

“ Our most solemn obligation to our children cannot be merely that we hold a torch to guide their way around every dark and treacherous corner. Rather, we must strive to kindle a spark within each child-a spark that will become the flame of knowledge and imagination, the fire of justice and compassion. ”

“ Braxton, for all his arrogance, assiduous.
‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ had no more eager eulogist than the author of ‘Ariel in Mayfair.’ When any one praised his work, Maltby would lightly disparage it in comparison with Braxton’s--‘Ah, if I could write like THAT!’ Maltby won golden opinions in this way. Braxton, on the other hand, would let slip no opportunity for sneering at Maltby’s work--‘gimcrack,’ as he called it. This was not good for Maltby. Different men, different methods. ”

“ There is nothing more devastating to a family than the death of a child. Each year, thousands of America's families face this tragedy, losing their children to illness, injury, or accident. Our whole society experiences this loss as well, for we are all diminished by the death of every one of our young people, whose love, laughter, talents, and achievements bring so much joy to our lives and so much promise to our future. ”