Dawson City

“ Being none too well balanced themselves, it was only natural that the exuberance of these new arrivals should prove infectious and that a sort of general auto-intoxication should result. That is precisely what happened at Dawson. Men lost all caution, all common sense; they lived in a land of rosy imaginings; hard-bought lessons of experience were forgotten; reality disappeared; fancy took wing and left fact behind; expectations were capitalized and no exaggeration was too wild to challenge acceptance. It became a City of Frenzy.
It was all very fine for an ardent youth like Pierce Phillips ”

“ By way of making his question clear, Freddy pointed at the towering heaps of stone that formed the Wall Street and midtown sections of the city. Dave squinted down and grunted.
"Those little shacks?" he echoed. "Why, those are just the little huts where the poor people live. Wait until you see the real buildings. How high are we, anyway? Hope the pilot of this thing stays over three thousand feet. Be tough to smack into a skyscraper, you know."
Freddy Farmer snorted and dug an elbow into Dawson's ribs. ”

“ The Mounted Police rule with a firm hand, and life and property are safer in Dawson than in London." A gentleman who spent eleven years in Dawson, interviewed in 1907 in an Eastern city said, "I have seen more trouble and immorality here in a week than I saw all the years I was in Dawson." And Wood winds up by the strong admonition of a man who will not allow his corps to be slandered for laxity in law enforcement: "Let those who are so anxious to redeem the people of this Territory commence their crusade in their own city or town. ”

“ It's only third, you know, in population. The last town annexed was Buffalo. The trouble with New York is that it has reached the limits of the State on every side. We'd make it bigger if we could, but Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey won't give up an inch; and Canada is very jealous of her old boundaries."
"Wisely," said Dawson. And then he chose to be sarcastic. "Why don't they fill in the ocean with ashes and extend the city over the Atlantic, James? In an age [Pg 125] of such marvellous growth so much waste space should be utilized," he said.
"Oh, it is," returned the valet. ”

“ CHAPTER ONE The Man in Gray
The four-faced clock over the information booth on the Upper Level of the Grand Central Station in New York City showed exactly twenty-five minutes after three. Dave Dawson paused in his restless pacing up and down to look at it for the hundredth time in the last half hour. He glared at it, sighed heavily, and made noises deep in his throat.
"Where is that Freddy Farmer guy, anyway?" he grated to himself. "For half an hour I've been pounding shoe leather here waiting for him. Darned if he isn't worse than a woman, not being at a place on time. ”

“ The artisan would thus work within sight of his house, and that entire dislocation of home-life, involved by present conditions of labour, would disappear. And each of these townships would have its baths, libraries, and technical schools, not dependent on local enterprise or generosity, but administered by a central body, composed of men of wide views and experience, who should deserve the great title of the City Fathers; and each would be saved from the narrow spirit of suburbanism by the proud sense of its corporate unity with London. ”

“ A long chain of parks and gardens would unite the West and East, taking the place of a host of rotten rabbit-warrens, which are a disgrace to any civilised community. There would be no quarter of the town relinquished to the absolutely poor; Poplar would have its palaces of wealthy merchants as well as Kensington, St. Albans on the north, Reigate on the south, would mark the limits of the city, and all the intervening space would be filled with thriving colonies of Londoners, living in well-built houses with ample gardens. ”

“ At their glance every pulse beat faster, every brain grew more alert, and the great wheel of business revolved with electric speed, humming, throbbing, tumultuous, till the very walls shook with its reverberations, and the whole city became clamorous as a cave into which a fierce sea thunders. ”

“ I would stare out of the train windows, on my way back from Weybridge, at the countless lights, the endless huddled roofs of London; and, seeing in these a representation of the huge populace of the city, I would stretch out my arms in an impotent embrace, muttering:
"Yes, indeed, you are real; you are more important than any other consideration; you are not the mere shadows she thinks you; your service is of more moment than any miracle, or than any nursing of one's own soul!" ”

“ And when other subjects failed there was always Portie to fall back upon. Her interest in all that pertained to her old home and its inhabitants was inexhaustible.
“Oh! we are never at a loss,” she told Mrs Manners, when she asked her how they had got through the day.
It might have come to that, however, if Mrs Manners had not judiciously suggested a change. When one morning Mr Dawson said he must go into the city, his daughter suggested that business and pleasure might be united for once, and he might take Marion. ”

“ XII MR. WILBUR MEREDITH LEGION
Were a man never so lonely, there is something in a first introduction to a strange city which communicates a spirit of elation. The mere strangeness of what he sees, the novel aspect of things, the touch of the original and unexpected in the buildings, the conformation of the streets, the faces of the hurrying throngs—this new note of life, everywhere audible, is itself so surprising and absorbing that the mind is insensibly withdrawn from the contemplation of private griefs and memories. ”

“ Meadows were turning from green to ash-color. Virginia-creeper flared like scarlet flame against pale walls. The contented melancholy of the austere city was healing. It cured feverishness by turning one’s thoughts away from the present. In its stoic calm it was like an old man—one who had grown indifferent to the world’s changefulness. In healthy contrast to its ancientness was the exuberant youth of the undergrads.
Most grief arises from a thwarted sense of one’s own importance. ”

“ That was the beginnin' o' the Johntown gold-rush, an' I, for the second time, was one o' the discoverers. At first we named the place Pleasant Hill Camp, an' I can tell you it was mighty pleasant to be takin' out a thousand dollars a day per man. But later, when a city commenced t' spring up, it was necessary t' find some other name. We quarrelled a good deal about what we'd call it; but one night, when Old Virginia was goin' home with the boys drunk, carryin' a bottle o' whisky in 'is hand, he stumbled as he reached his cabin, an' the bottle fell an' was broke. ”

“ Against the cold melancholy of the London sky, like silhouettes crayoned on a wall of ice, roofs and chimneys stood smudged. In flickering pin-points of incandescence street-lamps wakened; night came drifting like a ship into harbour under shrouded sails.
She had been sitting listening for a long time, haunted by childish fears that he would not come. At seven promptly a taxi panted into the square and drew up wheezing and coughing before the little house. Seizing her evening-wrap, she ran down the stairs and had her hand on the door before his knock had sounded. ”

“ The hillside land had but a prairie value. It had never been cultivated. A few sheep strayed over it; but for months together no human foot trod its heather, or wandered by its vociferous cascades. One would have supposed that had any one offered to build a house on these solitary hillsides, the owner of the land would have been only too glad to have fostered a folly that would have proved remunerative to himself. On the contrary, the two great landowners of the district stuck to every inch of soil as if it had been sown with gold. ”

“ Streets were gilded with sunlight The sky was a smooth shell-like blue, without a cloud. It seemed much more distant than any sky he had seen in London. Over London the sky broods companionably; from London streets, even at their merriest the hint of melancholy is never absent But here, in New York, he was conscious of an invigorating reckless valor, a magnificent and lonely daring. It was every man for himself. ”

“ I never found any one who shared my feelings; on the contrary, I found that whatever primitive instincts toward country life my friends may have had once, London had made an effectual end of them. The country means for most Londoners, not the blessed solitude of open spaces, but Margate or Brighton. When the annual summer exodus arrives he does but exchange one kind of town for another kind. He carries with him all the aptitudes and artificial instincts of the town; he loves the bustle of a crowd; he wants boarding-houses full of company, and streets brilliant with electric light ”

“ I have since met the person referred to, an Englishman living in Washington, and well known at the Legation and elsewhere. Mr. Dawson came to tell me that he had seen a letter in an American journal, which was copied extensively all over the Union, in which the writer stated he accompanied me on my return to Fairfax Court-house, and that the incident I related in my account of Bull Run did not occur, but that he was the individual referred to, and could swear with his assistant that every word I wrote was true. ”

“ Those were the days when Dawson might fitly have been called the dissolute. It was the régime of the dance-hall girl, and the taint of the tenderloin was over the town. So far there were few decent women to be seen on the streets. Respectable homes were being established, but even there social evils were discussed with an astonishing frankness and indifference. In the best society men were welcomed who were known to be living in open infamy. A general callousness to social corruption prevailed.
For Dawson was at this time the Mecca of the gambler and the courtesan. ”

“ Such a London no doubt bears the aspect of a futile dream; yet it is worth while pointing out that in a dim and feeble way this has been the ideal after which London has been groping ever since the day when the population first overflowed its normal boundaries. The mischief has been that nothing has been done upon a grand scale and by organised effort. A bit of open space has been bought for a park here and there, while a much larger bit has passed into the builder's hands through local indifference or apathy. ”

“ I kept thinking of my air-raid visitors, wondering where they were and hoping that the American officer had re-found the little lady. If he had, I felt sure he would be good to her. I told myself a foolish fairy-story, as old houses will, of how, when the war was ended, they would drive up to my door together, as if by accident, and exclaim, “Why, it's the little house where we first met!” Then the TO LET sign would be taken down and, having fetched Joan and Robbie, we would all live together forever. With luck and love we might have smaller feet to toddle up and down my stairs. ”

“ Cocks were crowing and on the thatch, like flakes of snow, white fan-tails fluttered. At the sound of wheels, an old lady, in a large sunbonnet, came out and shaded her eyes, peering through her spectacles.
“Hulloa, Sarie!” cried the farmer. “Where’s the missie? We’ve brought ’er a young man.”
Sarie folded her hands beneath her apron. “She’s in the garden, as she always is, Joseph.”
Teddy entered the cool farmhouse, with its low rafters and spotlessness. Everything was old-fashioned, even the vague perfume of roses which hung about it.
Hal touched him on the arm. “Let’s go to her. ”

“ New suburbs have arisen in a day, not because any central power willed it, but simply by the combined greed, energy, and enterprise of the speculative builder, who invariably builds rotten houses, which he sells as fast as he can to guileless people with a passion for owning house-property. The result has been confusion, waste, and disappointment. The new township rises without any adequate provision for roads or railway accommodation. It is filled by a migratory population who do not realise these inconveniences or ignore them, as long as the novelty of the thing charms them ”

“ Every morning, the moment breakfast was ended, he climbed the many stairs to his room to work. From his window he could see his father in the studio, and the pigeons springing up like dreams from the garden and growing small above the battlements of house-tops. If he watched long enough, he might see Mr. Yaflfon come out on his steps, like an old tortoise that had wakened too early, thrusting its bewildered head out of its shell.
He wanted to work; he wanted to do something splendid. He longed more than he had ever longed before to make himself famous—famous that she might share his glory. ”

“ Miss Jean found her soft flowing talk pleasant to listen to, and all the more that she did not need very often to reply. Mr Dawson was charmed with her, and it was not, as a general thing, his way to be charmed with strangers. But she was not altogether a stranger. Her husband’s name—Eastwood, the London banker—had long been familiar to Mr Dawson. He knew him to be a “responsible” man, and that was more than could be said of all the fine English folk, who found it convenient to pass a part of the summer or autumn at Blackford House. ”

“ Life is uncertain, though mine may be no more so than that of other men. But no man should put off settling his affairs, for the sake of those that are to come after him. I wish to do justly, but I will not divide the land, and I will not burden it.”
“No, it wouldna be weel to divide the land nor to burden it,” said Miss Jean.
There was a long silence and then Mr Dawson said gravely, felling into the Scottish tongue as he and the rest of them were apt to do when much moved. ”