Burbank

“ Burbank is of medium stature and rather slender form; light eyes and dark hair, now rapidly running to silver. His countenance is very mobile, lighting up quickly and as quickly receding to the seriousness of earnest attention, only to rekindle with a smile or relax into a laugh, if the subject be in the lighter vein. He is exceedingly quick in apprehension, seeming to anticipate the speaker, but never intruding upon his speech. There is always a suggestion of shyness in his manner, and there is ever present a deep respectfulness. ”

“ The major looked at him sternly. "See here, sir! If you attempt for a moment to hint that—"
"My dear Major Burbank," Astro replied amiably, "I hint at nothing. All I wish is to be able to distinguish between the astral emanations of those who frequent your place. It is possible that Mrs. Burbank was most affected by a woman; but it is not likely."
The major, still frowning, replied: "We lead a very quiet life. My friend Colonel Trevellian is the only close friend of the family. But I must tell you, sir, that my wife has of late confessed to me that she did not like him. ”

“ The Women's Christian Temperance Union in Santa Rosa, of which he was an honorary life member, held a meeting of prayer (which only ten women attended!) for the misguided scientist—a meeting that became not so much a time of prayer as an indignation council—yet Burbank refused either to have his soul saved or to recant. They could pillory him for the leering stares of a morbid public. They could burn him, figuratively, at the stake. They could unroll eternal thunder to peal out threats of everlasting damnation, but Burbank remained inflexible on his original platform. ”

“ As the train slowed down, he became alert again, and when it stopped he waited only long enough to ask for directions, then walked briskly to Burbank's apartment.
The note insured a grudging admittance, and he was taken up-stairs by an officer into a little flat. The place was meagerly furnished as a bachelor's quarters. A look into the kitchen revealed a few utensils and packages of food strewn about in a disorderly manner. The sitting-room was scantily furnished, but in better order. Astro gave it a glance. The chamber where Burbank had died next engrossed his attention. ”

“ Burbank had grown like a fungus in his own esteem.
The adulation of the free excursionists I had poured in upon him, the eulogies in the newspapers, the flatteries of those about him, eager to make themselves "solid" with the man who might soon have the shaking of the huge, richly laden presidential boughs of the plum tree—this combination of assaults upon sanity was too strong for a man with such vanity as his, a traitor within. ”

“ Burbank is the only man I ever saw in the tropics who does not play the part of a blustering demi-god, a White Man, with the accent on the White. He actually observes the etiquette of the natives. Quite incredible, isn't it? He never disparages their customs nor pours contempt on their sanitary atrocities ... and you must remember that he is a doctor. He has tried to learn the standpoint from which these simple children of the tropics regard things and men, and then gradually, softly, to suggest his own standpoint for their consideration. ”

“ A few years ago every one who went to California tried to see Luther Burbank, for the newspapers and magazines were filled with stories of the wonderful things he was doing. Plenty of men make houses, automobiles, ships to go on the water, and ships that sail through the air, clothing, and toys, but this man makes new fruits and flowers. It is not an easy thing to do, and Mr. Burbank has found that he needs all his strength and time for his work. ”

“ Valeska smiled and folded her hands.
"But now what am I to tell my husband?" Mrs. Burbank exclaimed. "If he knows everything he'll want to kill Colonel Trevellian!"
"The colonel will take himself out of harm's way, I'm sure," said Astro. "He has had his warning. There is only one possible way that I know of plausibly explaining your absence."
Valeska looked up swiftly, as if to anticipate his explanation.
"What can I say?" Mrs. Burbank said doubtfully.
"The truth—a woman's last resort." And Astro favored her with a rather cynical smile. ”

“ The Moro looked at the American as though he would read his very heart. Ancient prejudice and bigotry fought hard with his anxiety for the boy's welfare which called on him not to lose a chance. His love won, and he held forth the fever-worn scrap of humanity to the doctor.
Carefully and tenderly Burbank examined the child. ”

“ He's a reformed character, just like in a novel. That Filipino boy whom he beat so brutally ... I'm sure you must have heard the story, my dear ... well, somehow or other he found ... him and now he's with him again ... and they do say that he simply worships his master...”
Rockway cut into the conversation.
“Burbank a reformed character! Funny, isn't it? I guess there's some woman at the other end of it, some fool girl he's trying to impress with his new-found goodness. I tell you, Miss Montgomery, old Burbank uses his reform only as a fork to scratch his back with.” ”

“ Astro looked up at him suddenly, with a keen searching gaze, and for a moment a startled expression passed over the man's face.
"So Mrs. Burbank has gone to her aunt's?" he said deliberately.
"That's what she said, sir."
"Do you believe it?"
The butler shifted his feet uneasily. "It's hardly for me to say, sir."
"See here!" Astro rose and took the fellow by the lapel of his coat. "You're quite right, my man. It isn't for you to suspect anything, of course. But if I know anything about human nature, you are devoted to the major, and you're to be trusted. Now see here! ”

“ Luther Burbank is a handsome, courteous gentleman, fond of fun, of young people and children, but you can see how busy he has been in the odd science of making new plants and trees, and as he has plans for a great many more, you will also understand why he really has to have those signs put up around his farm at Santa Rosa. ”

“ Burbank and thank him for inventing the coreless apple——"
"You don't means the Corliss Engine, do you?" asked the White Knight.
"Well, I'm sorry," said the Hatter, "but Mr. Burbank wouldn't come unless we'd pay him real money, which, although we don't publish the fact broadcast, is not in strict accord with the highest principles of Municipal Ownership. We contend that when people work for the common weal they ought to be satisfied to receive their pay in the common wealth, and under the M. O. system the most common kind of wealth is represented by Bonds. ”

“ They were first steps toward an administration that would make Scarborough's triumph inevitable, in spite of his handicap of idealism.
I sent Woodruff west to find out what Burbank was doing about the places I had pledged—all of them less "honorable" but more lucrative offices which party workers covet. He returned in a few days with the news that, according to the315 best information he could get through his spies in Burbank's entourage, all our pledges would be broken; the Sayler-Burbank machine was to be made over into a Goodrich-Burbank. ”

“ Not until late in the spring of his second year did Burbank find a trace of gall in his wine.
From the night of his election parasites and plunderers and agents of plunderers had imprisoned him in the usual presidential fool's paradise. The organs of the interests and their Congressional henchmen praised everything he did; I and my group of Congressmen and my newspapers, as loyal partizans, bent first of all upon regularity, were silent where we did not praise also. But the second year of a President's first term is the beginning of frank, if guarded, criticism of him from his own side. ”

“ While Luther Burbank loved beautiful thoughts from books, like his father, the flowers, trees, and plants that his mother loved, attracted him to the fields and orchards. All the time he longed to help nature. ”

“ In January we had our big battery loaded, aimed and primed. We unmasked it, and Ferguson fired. I had expected the other side to act stupidly, but I had not hoped for such stupidity as they exhibited. Burbank's year of bathing in presidential flatteries and of fawning on and cringing to the multi-millionaires and their agents hedging him around, had so wrought upon him that he had wholly lost his point of view. And he let his Attorney General pooh-pooh the proceedings,—this in face of the great popular excitement and enthusiasm. ”

“ Burbank’s work have been as great or greater than those secured by any other person in plant-breeding, yet they have been magnified out of all bounds in the popular press and his work has been caricatured by calling the man a wizard and ascribing to him occult knowledge. ”

“ In outward appearance Burbank is a very plain man, more a gardener than a savant, with clear blue sparkling eyes, full of life and fun, appreciating humor in others, telling us stories that kept us constantly laughing. He lives in a small house with his mother and sister, and has but one servant on the place, as he does most of the work personally. ”

“ Burbank has improved the wheat, the blackberry, the strawberry, the peach, and the cactus, so he has increased the yield and improved the quality of practically every cereal, fruit, and vegetable.
True, he has not made a great fortune for himself, but a knowledge that tens of thousands who otherwise might go hungry are, because of his efforts, fed, must give him a satisfaction that is far greater than money could give. And, after all, doesn’t true greatness lie in giving to others rather than in gathering to one’s self? ”

“ But the campaign, politics in general, life itself, filled me with disgust, a paralyzing disgust that made me almost lose confidence in my theory of practical life.
"What's the use?" I said to myself. "Let Burbank keep his adder. Let it sting him. If it so much as shoots a fang at me, I can crush it."
And so, Burbank lifted up Goodrich and gave hostages to him; and Goodrich, warned that I would not deal with him, made some excuse or other to his masters for sending Senator Revell to286 me. "See Woodruff," said I to Revell, for I was in no mood for such business. "He knows best what we need." ”

“ Not for Burbank's position and opportunity, as in that hour of emotion they appeared even to us who knew politics from behind the scenes, not for the reality of what the sounding title of President seems to mean, would I have changed with him, would I have paid the degrading price he had295 paid. I preferred my own position—if I had bowed the knee, at least it was not to men. As for hisses, I saw in them a certain instinctive tribute to my power. The mob cheers its servant, hisses its master.
"Doc," said I, "do you want to go to the Senate instead of Croffut?" ”

“ Jamaica has Mr. Burbank to thank for their present excellent condition. Remember that."
"We are going by the Burbank plantation now. He has a place in Kingston, too, and a summer home in the mountains."
"If we beat that newspaper libel law, you'll have a chance to write all the funny things and rhymes you want about the mean sneaks who are trying to push it through."
Even during the long drive through the green country I had been insensibly affected by the ever-growing heat. In the long chamber of Government House, where the session was to be held, there seemed not a breath of air stirring. ”

“ Further,191 he and three assistants wrote each week many columns of "boom" matter, all of which was carefully revised by Burbank himself before it went out as "syndicate letters." If Goodrich hadn't been ignorant of conditions west of the Alleghanies and confident that his will was law, he would have scented out this department of publicity of mine and so would have seen into my "flotation." But he knew nothing beyond his routine. I once asked him how many country newspapers there were in the United States, and he said: "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps three or four thousand." ”

“ Burbank showed that he preferred fooling with such futile things as pineapples and hollyhocks, to the really up lifting work of providing the people with gas that was redolent of the spices of Araby, I resolved to do the thing myself."
"He is a man of real inventive genius," said the March Hare, anxious, apparently, to square himself with the Hatter again.
"Thank you, Alderman," said the Hatter. "It is a real pleasure to find myself strictly in accord with your views once more. But to resume, Miss Alice—as I say I resolved to tackle the problem myself." ”

“ Burbank says: “One day I heard that a man was building a house. I went to him and asked him for the job of shingling it. He asked me what I would do it for. The regular price was two dollars and a half a thousand, but I was so anxious for the work that I offered to do it for one dollar and seventy-five cents. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘come and begin tomorrow.’ But I had no shingling hammer and all the cash I had in the world was seventy-five cents, 60 which I at once expended in purchasing the necessary hammer. ”

“ Woodruff interrupted himself to laugh. "A friend of mine," he resumed, "was on the train with Scarborough when he went East to the meeting of Congress last month. He tells me it was like a President-elect on the way to be inaugurated. The people turned out at every cross-roads, even beyond the Alleghanies. And Burbank knows it. If he wasn't clean daft about himself he'd realize that if it hadn't been for you—well, I'd hate to say how badly he'd have got left. But then, if it hadn't been for you, he'd never have been governor. ”