Henry Higgins

“ Higgins, you must oblige us by recalling something of your experience."
"Ah!" replied Higgins, "if I could tell in words a small part of what I know of the war, I'm sure I could interest you."
"We are not critical," said old Harmar. "Jackson may think of his bookish notions sometimes; but he knows what kind of old men we are. Narrate anything that comes uppermost."
"Well," commenced Higgins, "I'll tell you about an adventure of a friend of mine, named Humphries, with a half-breed—that's horribly interesting—if I can only recollect it." ”

“ But, as I explained when you called up, I simply had to tear around all day in the car myself to get an extra accommodating waitress, and of course I would have sent the car to meet you at the station out here, but Henry is due from Chicago at six in town, and if he's met he'll have just time to dress. Dinner is at eight. I'm having fourteen, and am just about crazy! . . . Dear me, Martha didn't light that stove after all! She's growing more careless every day!"
They were in the sewing-room now. Lucretia lifted her suit-case onto the only empty chair, and began unbuckling the straps. ”

“ Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Henry Higgins. Now I am worrited; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for money. It's a fine thing for you, says my solicitor. Is it? says I. You mean it's a good thing for you, I says. When I was a poor man and had a solicitor once when they found a pram in the dust cart, he got me off, and got shut of me and got me shut of him as quick as he could. Same with the doctors: ”

“ Higgins rose, stripped off his coat and vest, rolled up his shirt-sleeve, stuffed a quarter-paper of tobacco into his cheek, and "ascended the platform." He said he was a humble citizen, and warn't com'd of rich or larned folks—he had tended lime-kiln—he had doctor'd hosses—he had druv stage; and he was goin' to drive and doctor [Pg 123] a jackass. (Much cheering.) He had always worked for his living. He'd give five dollars to any man who'd tell him where Wiggins was born, or show that he ever did anything. He lived on the sweat, and the blood, and the brains of the people. ”

“ Payne and Higgins slipped swiftly through the jungle to the farther side of the key where the Cormorant lay moored. A rush into the water and they were on the starboard side of the boat and hidden from the shore. In another moment they were over the low rail onto the deck and crawling into the lower cabin and forward beneath the wheelhouse.
"Whew!" Higgins sniffed at the strange odor that greeted them. "What is it—arsenic?"
"Shut the door. Good! Things are working fine."
"It's a darn funny way to go looking at land." ”

“ It is interesting to study a man's life in terms of those early scuffles. In Pilgrim's Progress the fight of Christian and Apollyon was the kernel of the story. Henry Higginson, "Bully Hig," a business man of remarkable success in Boston, was the leader of the Latin school forces and engagements which were as fiercely fought as some in which the same boys later took part on the battle fields of the South. A boy's anger and a boy's pain pass away like clouds on a summer morning and leave the sky purer and fairer than before. ”

“ The scarred man turned and stared sullenly into the barrel of Higgins' revolver.
"Go ahead and shoot. That's the only way I'll go up there."
"Don't want to go alive, eh?"
"Ain't—allowed—to go—at all."
"Hold on, Hig," repeated Roger. "Don't be unreasonable."
"Unreasonable, hell! We're on our way, aren't we? Going to let 'em stop us?"
"We've got no quarrel with these men. We'll use a little reason."
"Go ahead, you're the boss." Higgins retired to the starboard rail, but he did not sheath Old Betsy.
"Can you tell me the reason you are afraid to go on?" asked Roger. ”

“ Harmar. "That
Humphries must have been a very disagreeable fellow."
"And why so?" enquired Higgins. "The men in those parts of the country were forced to be as fierce as their foes. Humphries was one of the cleverest fellows I ever knew."
"A man after your own heart," remarked Smith. "A warm friend and a warm foe. I know you, Higgins."
"You should know me, Smith, or no man should," replied Higgins, evidently profoundly satisfied with himself.
"Many a time have we messed together," added Smith; "ay, and many a time have we hunted in company for the food we made a mess of." ”

“ He came forward.
"Unless you are known you had better go elsewhere," he murmured.
"Really?" said Payne.
"Don't bother to be polite to him," growled Higgins. "Can't you see he's a greaser? Get out of the way, hombre; we want to talk to some one with brains."
Payne caught the engineer by the shoulder and held him back.
"We just want directions for getting up to the headwaters," he said.
"I still repeat: unless you are known, you had better go elsewhere."
"That's what we want to do. We're going up to the headwaters. This place happens to be on our way." ”

“ Harmar said she was interested, but didn't like it much; her husband remarked, however, that it would make a thrilling sketch.
"I suppose that Nathaniel Collins was very much the same sort of a Quaker as General Green," said Morton. "They were peaceable men, as long as peace and quiet were not inconsistent with self-defence. To be peaceable when a foe is wasting your fields and slaughtering your brethren, is cowardly and against nature."
"That's truth," replied Higgins. "We must look upon a merciless invader in the same light as upon a cruel beast, whom it is saving life to slay." ”

“ The creation of the world—Adam and Eve—Cain—Jerusalem—Greece and Rome—the revolution, and the last war, were dragged into speeches, and made material for electioneering.
In the fall, subsequently to my settlement, Higgins ran against Wiggins for member of the legislature. It was said that this was one of the most exciting contests that Puddleford ever experienced. Every man, woman, and child were enlisted. The "Higgins" men didn't speak to the "Wiggins" men, nor the "Wiggins" men to the "Higgins" men, for more than two months, and the opposing families absolutely refused to visit. ”

“ Many of those who are glorified as great men have possessed the same unscrupulous disposition. The only difference between them and Lewis lies in this—they fixed their minds on greater objects," said old Harmar.
"What's that for?" inquired Higgins, starting up as the sound of drum and fife broke on his ear. Mrs. Harmar went to the front window, and reported that a Volunteer company of soldiers was coming down the street. The old men instantly crowded round the window, and expressed their gratification at the sight that presented itself. ”

“ What in the devil are they waiting for? Put your glasses on those palms and see what you can see."
"Can't see a thing," reported Payne after a careful scrutiny of the hammock. "The palms shut out the sun and hide them."
"They knew what they were doing when they went there, didn't they?" said Higgins. "Nice, dark hiding place where they can lay safe and have their targets out in the sun. You can do what you please, Payne, but the first shot out of there I start for the hammock. There's a big bunch of palmetto scrub south of it. ”

“ Hide it. Get up and go to work, men. Hustle. It's all right. Get a-going!"
He hid his rifle hurriedly, picked up a digger and set to work, grimly ignoring Higgins' frantic demands for an explanation. He was working furiously and the crew was following his example, when the three riders, who were Garman, Mrs. Livingstone and the girl, came cantering up to the fence line.
It was a different Garman than had faced Roger across the camp fire on Deer Hammock; and it was a different girl than had ridden away from Flower Prairie. Only Mrs. Livingstone seemed to be as Roger recalled her, cold, affected ”

“ Roger agreed.
"And we've got to pretend to go along to Flora City," he added. "I don't like to sneak. It goes against my grain; but business is business. Come on, Higgins. Next trip in a week, Mr. Granger? Good enough. We're going to our stateroom and catch up some sleep. Wake us at peril of your life."
He led the way swiftly to the stateroom, grasped his bag and Higgins', locked the door and hurried aft out of sight of the people gathered forward. ”

“ Those cheap toughs. They're nothing but tools. There's probably been a false transfer made to their names, but that's all; they were picked because they were fighters. Well, whoever picked them hasn't got the least suspicion of what he's started."
"Land titles are rotten things," growled Higgins. "Specially when land sharks are juggling them."
"They waited until the ditches were dug," mused Roger. "They didn't know it would make good land. And then they struck! Higgins, I'm going right down to Garman's and have a little talk with Senator Fairclothe." ”

“ And, after a short pause, to let his old memory bring up the incidents from the far past, Higgins told the following story of revenge.
"In the country around Saratoga, when General Gates lay encamped there, lived a half-breed Indian, called Blonay. He was well known in the neighborhood as a fierce and outlawed character, who wandered and skulked from place to place, sometimes pretending to be for the Americans, and, at others, for the tories. He went anywhere, and did everything to serve his own ends ”

“ To Bill Higgins there was nothing to differentiate between them. They were all the same,—huge, frowning monuments to the glory of an ill-gotten wealth—and inside were the same people, bloated, slothful, slave-driving plutocrats. In his hunger of body and bitterness of spirit he would willingly have blown them all to their well-merited deserts—had he possessed the power. Not having the power he chose instead a propitious moment to slip down the area steps of one of the most pompous-looking dwellings, there to wait until, the special policeman having made his rounds, the coast would be clear. ”

“ Higgins, gazing earnestly at the Patriarch. "Well, 'tain't no surprise to me—always calc'lated he must have folks somewheres. An' I'm right glad now he needs 'em he's made up his mind to have 'em come. Wants me to write, does he?"
"He can't write any more himself," said Madison. "He seems to think that you, as the postmaster, as well as the town police official, are the proper person to do it—and I quite agree with him."
"So I be," declared Mr. Higgins importantly. ”

“ They welcomed him; they were always glad to see him–and with great delight they sang Jesus, Lover of My Soul and Throw Out the Life-Line. Nobody else preached to them in those days; a great body of men–almost a multitude in all those woods: the Church had quite forgotten them.
“Boys,” said Higgins, “you’ve always treated me right, here. Come in to see me when you’re in town. The wife ’ll be glad to have you.”
They took him at his word. Without warning, one day, thirty lumber-jacks crowded into the little parlor. ”

“ As if pretty, soft, little Ada had a brain of that sort!
The proof of her last offense he now carried in his inner pocket. As he entered the room where the girls and their mother, as usual, were gathered at this time of day, he gave them no greeting.
"Hello, dad," said Beatrice, the oldest daughter. She was a ripe thirty-two or three. She was like a piece of fruit grown for an exhibition.
"Home, puppa?" inquired Mary, from her rocking-chair in the bay-window. Mary was Marcus's wife. She was a drab, docile woman. She always sat in the bay-window. She liked to watch the people pass. ”

“ And you know it! And when I get you in the snake-room of Jake Boore’s saloon in Deer River next spring,” he continued, in righteous anger, “I’ll rub it into you! Understand me, Jones? When I haul you out of the snake-room, and wash you, and get you sobered up, I’ll rub it into you that what you need is the grace of God in your heart to give you the first splinter of a man’s backbone.”
29“I’ll be humble–then,” said Jones.
“You’ll have to be a good deal more than humble, friend,” Higgins retorted, “before there’ll be a man in the skin that you wear.” ”

“ Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor on the rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend found an open note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated that he could no longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear Creek. The friend ran down there and discovered Higgins wading back to shore! He had concluded he wouldn't. The village was full of it for several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. ”

“ Really the blue dress was rather nice. And now that it was dark enough to draw the shades, and flood the room with artificial light she wasn't so bad after all.
Seven o'clock already! She must hurry. The Outsiders were all dining together to-night, in the grill. It was Judith's birthday. There were to be cocktails in Roger's room at seven-fifteen. Oh, ought she to be having so good a time? The mother of four children? And one of them dead? Ought she to be so happy away from her children? ”

“ I added, gravely. “I think I had better mention the matter to Major Toppleton when I see him.”
“Oh, no; don’t do that,” pleaded Higgins, plaintively. “Between you and me and the smoke-stack of the dummy, I am as well as you are.”
“Precisely so; and I think the major understands your malady, if the principal does not.”
“Don’t say a word this time, and I won’t ‘soger’ any more.”
“It’s none of my business, Higgins, but you are sawing off your own nose, and playing the trick upon yourself. I would be a man and face the music like one, if I were you.” ”