Gardner

“ I first met Mrs. Gardner in Nice, where I was enjoying a little vacation after a long, arduous bank robbing campaign in America. She was then traveling under the name of Lady Temple.
To make a long story short, we soon became great friends. We went everywhere together and she [Pg 105] generously shared with me the luxuries with which she was so plentifully supplied. She finally even induced me to take rooms in the hotel adjoining her own suite.
I did not know at that time that she was Mrs. Gardner, the famous English confidence swindler. ”

“ Truth compels me to say, my romantic girls, that this quiet-loving lover, to all human appearance, was not in the least disturbed. Indeed, as I listened to the painful breathings of Mary, every now and then catching, as if for life, at a breath, and then hushed into all but dead silence, I was distinctly aware of certain audible demonstrations of profound composure on the part of Mr. Gardner. In sooth, he was not a lover for a romance writer at all ”

“ Gates, Simon, moved from Westminster to Gardner without changing his residence; the town line crossing his farm, he had a right to belong to the town he chose, and being a just man, decided to come to Gardner, because he thought it his duty to go where he could do the most good. He had a good farm on what is called Beech hill, where his grandson, Horace Gates, now lives, and was one of the principal men in building up the town. ”

“ Gardner's fertile brain. Swindling was as natural to her as breathing is to normal persons. She was the most successful confidence woman who ever operated in England or on the Continent, and no rich man was safe once she got her traps set for him. ”

“ The young men had been guests of Colonel Fletcher before the war, and they had known Marian, whom they both loved, for several years. Their wooing, interrupted by the demands of the service, was at once renewed under the favorable circumstances of their meeting. Gardner was a gay, athletic, dashing young sailor,—blue-eyed, curly-haired, sunny in disposition; Mason, on the contrary, was tall and very slender, dignified and quiet, with a temper as dark as his complexion. One was impulsive, bold, impetuous; the other cool and determined, with an undercurrent of sleeping passion in his being ”

“ I am aware that it would seem to be the very height of presumption for a man at the age of eighty-six, to attempt to write a hook. My object in the first place was merely to note down some facts with regard to the early history of Gardner, recorded only in the memory of a few of the oldest inhabitants of the Town. The pleasure experienced in this employment was such as to lead me to extend it to the present time.
Some may object to the minuteness of detail, and familiarity of scene indulged by the author. Every writer has his own way of stating things ”

“ Never. And Mr. Gardner's heart did not sink when he was told the true story of Mary's indifference and aversion. Both brother and lover had deceived themselves, or rather they had not thought about it. But now that he did think about it, Mr. Gardner was not inclined to relinquish the pursuit. He knew that women were fickle and strange beings, and oft-times refused the very happiness they were dying to possess. Whether Mary were of this species he knew not, but at all events the prize was worth trying for. So he told Mr. Dunbar he would not trouble Mary more at present, but leave it to time. ”

“ The name of William Linnæus Gardner first appears in the East India Company army lists in January 1819, as a local lieutenant-colonel commanding a corps of irregular cavalry, afterwards described as Gardner's corps, as Gardner's local horse, and as the 2nd local horse, with which he was stationed at Khassgunge in 1819, at Saugor in 1821, at Bareilly in 1821–3, in Arracan in 1825, and at Khassgunge again in 1826–7. In January 1828, when the 2nd local horse was again at Bareilly, Gardner is described as on leave, and his name does not again appear in either the British or Indian army list. ”

“ Mr. Gardner was a youngish man, high-colored and with longish hair. He was absorbed so deeply in a copy of the Louisville Journal that he did not hear Harry's step or notice his coming until the boy stood beside him. Then he looked up and said dryly:
"Too many sparks make a blaze at last. If people keep on quarreling there's bound to be a fight some time or other. I suppose you've heard that South Carolina has seceded."
"Dr. Russell announced it at the school. Are you telling, Mr. Gardner, what the News will have to say about it?" ”

“ J. C. Paine preached from the text found in Proverbs, 4th, 27th.
"Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy feet from evil."
The subjects of this murder were daughters of Timothy Kneeland, whose name has been mentioned among the early settlers of Gardner. ”

“ Frequently they passed close to a slumbering Indian. But for the grave necessity which imposed every precaution upon him to avoid detection, Gardner said more than once, he was tempted to knife some of the red devils, who had reduced him and the rest of us to so sore a strait. However, feeling that if he did so the struggle he might possibly cause would rouse the camp, he had wisely enough refrained from doing so. ”

“ Gardner’s qualities is the capacity for making enduring friendships, not too common a trait in our restless age when people are continually on the move. Her circle has always included the talented and brilliant people of the day, and most distinguished visitors to{380} Boston pay their court at Fenway Court. With all the pressure of her busy and interesting life, she always finds time for her old friends, among whom I am happily numbered. In our family she is best known as Kepoura, the Greek word for gardener, a nickname given her by my brother-in-law Anagnos, who greatly admired her. ”

“ Mr. and Mrs. Gardner had but one child—it was Margaret. When about seventeen, chance led to an acquaintance with Richard Lelland, employed by an eminent firm at the South upon business connected with the sale of lands in Ohio. Among other letters of introduction he brought one to Mr. Gardner, who, favorably impressed with his appearance, invited him to pass a few days at Willow Bank.
Upon what slight chances does our happiness or misery rest. A few days—how simple their signification; and yet from their brief circle how many hours of bitter anguish may take their rise. ”

“ Gardner had made a good shot this time. Before the echoes of the report had died out, the calf lay still, and then very slowly began to sink. There was stillness for a few seconds, broken only by the excited barking of the brown retriever. The orca swam slowly half around the body of her young, and apparently assured herself that it was dead. Then she turned her small eyes upon the boat. It was only for an instant, but in that instant Gardner realized that he had made a hideous mistake. Instinctively he headed the boat for the rocky islet. ”

“ This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world. Of his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but the things and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses by the waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business quarters of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a Gardner or a Patteson in the firm. ”

“ William, from Beading, bought a tract of land on the great road to Royalston: he put up a saw and grist-mill,—the first that were built in Gardner,—where E. C. J. & O. A. Travers' chair-shop now stands. He was instrumental in building up the town; was chosen Captain of the first Militia company formed here. He served a period in the French war at Nova Scotia, and would have been a pensioner had he lived until the act was passed. He m. Tabitha Parker: their ch. were:—1. Tabitha, m. Nathan Howard; whose ch. were:—Amos and William. 2. ”

“ Then to Nathan, “Miss Gardner has recently come from Ohio to visit her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Cuttner.”
Nathan bowed stiffly again. It was characteristic of him, a habit he had acquired the last few years, to turn his mutilated ear away from those with whom he might be conversing. But his eyes had met the roguish, laughing face of the Gardner girl. And he had seen—enough. She was very easy to gaze upon.
“If you’re leavin’,” suggested Caleb to Miss Gardner, “Nat better hoof it along with you to see you don’t up-end on the ice. The walk is slippery to-night.” ”

“ Then, for the first time, some of those in the room recognized him as Gardner, a cowman lately settled in the Three Corners, famous in a degree because of the good-looking wife he had brought with him. Women who were both good looking and good were rarities. ”

“ Joseph Boyden was probably the first physician in Gardner. Soon after he came into town, Rev. J. Osgood united the medical to his clerical office; there not being practice enough for both, Dr. Boyden left the place. Mr. Osgood was the only physician in town for nearly thirty years. ”

“ So Miss Gardner was left to infer.
“Very interesting!” the girl commented. “And how many employees have you in your factory?”
Nathan was suddenly ashamed of his factory, the size of it. Oh, to be able to describe it in hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands!
“Twenty-nine,” he said truthfully, with difficulty.
“I’m sure we’re going to be awful good friends,” remarked Miss Gardner quickly. “I’m so lonesome here, you know, a new place and all.” Being a stranger in a new place was hard, hard. ”

“ Lieutenant Gardner, already mentioned, had received six or eight hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in Scripture he was now in a far country, and had wasted his substance in what he called "righteous" living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that corner of the lower room, and he began to be in want. And he would fain have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or spoiled black beans, or the little potatoes which the swine didn't eat. And no man gave him enough. And he determined to go to hospital. ”

“ Kneeland, Timothy, from Harvard, was the third inhabitant of the town; (Samuel Cook was the second inhabitant of Gardner, and lived where Aaron L. Greenwood now resides; nothing more can be ascertained concerning him, as he moved from town in the early part of its history.) He located about one and one-half miles west of the center of the town, (which was then Winchendon,) was a carpenter, had a good education and was much employed in town affairs. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war three years and three months. There are none of his descendants now residing in Gardner. ”

“ But John Gardner could not speak, for his eyes were dim with happy pride in remembrance of that superb specimen of [291] perfect manhood six feet high—his Jack, to whom he had given the "eddication."
They watched the rest of the race with little interest, for the best of it all had gone by.
When the last rider crossed the tape, the multitude stirred to go. "We better stand right here, Hannah, till some of these folks gets away," he said. So they stood perfectly still and let the crowd surge around them. ”

“ Gardner,—the wife of a missionary, who asked us to go to lunch with her, and promised she would show us something of the work among the women. So on Friday we set off in a tikka-gharry.
We left the Calcutta we knew—the European shops, the big, cool houses, the Maidan—and drove through native streets, airless, treeless, drab-coloured places, until we despaired of ever reaching anywhere. When at last our man did stop, we found Mrs. Gardner's cool, English-looking drawing-room a welcome refuge from the glare and the dust ”

“ Meantime, Gardner, the eternal journalist, fostering a plan of his own, was gathering material from Guy Mallory who had come in late.
“What gets me,” he said, looking over at the host, “is how he can do a day’s work with all this social powwow going on.”
“A day’s? He does three days’ work in every one. He’s the hardest trained mind in the business. Why, he could sit down here this minute, in the middle of this room, and dictate an editorial while keeping up his end in the general talk. ”

“ Gardner, you've been in Richmond, and I've no doubt you used your eyes while you were there, for you look to me like a keen, observant man. I suspect that you could tell some interesting things about their earthworks, forts and so forth."
Prescott held up his hands in mock consternation. [Pg 168]
"I ain't no soldier," he replied in his drawling tone. "I wouldn't know a fort if I saw one, and I never get near such things if I know it."
"Then perhaps Mrs. Gardner took notice," continued the Lieutenant in a wheedling tone. "Women are always observant."
Miss Catherwood shook her head. ”

“ Gardner was absent. Un [Pg 273] doubtedly, could he have been at home, his fortitude and calmness would have been of the greatest service to her; but he did not return until long after her maternal agonies had sunk into a sort of stupor of wretchedness, which looked like a resigned grief outwardly. Far enough was her spirit from the enforced composure of her manner. By degrees she came to look upon herself as born only to make others unhappy. ”

“ His part in the civil war was conspicuous for the sacrifices he made in time, money, eloquence and the services of three of his sons then on the threshold of vigorous manhood — Edward Gardner fell at Cedar Mountain, Va., Aug. ”

“ Jasper had followed a small creek for some distance, and then struck across the rock and shale of the mountains until he reached Boice City. His body was scratched and cut by the brush he had stricken against in the commencement of the route, while the flesh had been actually torn from his feet by the jagged shale he [Pg 239] had passed over. When he arrived in the city, those who first saw him fancied he had just made his escape from the Indians, who had been amusing themselves by torturing him. Gardner had struck in a more northerly direction for Idaho City. ”