Hitchcock

“ Miss Hitchcock was a full generation ahead of the others in her conception of inherited, personal rights. As the dinner dragged on, there occurred no further opportunity for talk until near the end, when suddenly the clear, even tones of Miss Hitchcock's voice brought his idle musing to an end.
"I hope you will talk with Dr. Lindsay. He is a very able man. And," she hesitated a moment and then looked frankly at him, "he can do so much for a young doctor who has his way to make."
"Don't you think that might make it harder for me to talk to him?" Sommers asked, irritated by her lack of tact. ”

“ The gaudy blue and white funnel came down-stream swiftly. They could see Hitchcock in the bows, with a pair of opera-glasses, and his face was unusually white. Then Peroo hailed, and the launch made for the tail of the island. The Rao Sahib, in tweed shooting-suit and a seven-hued turban, waved his royal hand, and Hitchcock shouted. But he need have asked no questions, for Findlayson’s first demand was for his bridge.
“All serene! Gad, I never expected to see you again, Findlayson. You’re seven koss down-stream. Yes; there’s not a stone shifted anywhere; but how are you? ”

“ The frozen lake stretched, ridged and furrowed, into the gloom. Toward it she walked,—slowly, irresistibly drawn by its limitless bosom.
She had boasted to Miss Hitchcock, "I will take myself out of his life, if need be." It was not an empty, woman's boast. She was strong enough to do what she willed. The time had come. She would not see him again. To break with words the ties between them would but dishonor them both. They must not discuss this thing. At the shore of the pool where they had put on their skates in the morning she paused, shaken with a new thought. ”

“ Miss Hitchcock's clear, mocking voice could be heard teasing her cousin Caspar on his performance that afternoon. The heavy young man, whose florid face was flushed with the champagne he had taken, made ineffective attempts to ward off the banter. Parker Hitchcock came to his rescue.
"I say, Lou, it's absurd to compare us with the teams east. We haven't the stable. Who ever heard of playing with two ponies?"
He appealed to Sommers, who happened to be seated next him.
"Steve Bayliss buys ponies by the carload and takes his pick. You can't play polo without good ponies, can you?" ”

“ Miss Hitchcock was answering Sommers's inquiries about Colonel and Mrs. Hitchcock. The latter had died over a year ago, and Colonel Hitchcock had been in poor health.
"He has some bitter disappointments," Miss Hitchcock said gravely. "His useful, honorable, unselfish life is closing sadly. We have travelled a good deal; we have just come back from Algiers. It is good to be back in Chicago!"
"I have noticed that the Chicagoan repeats that formula, no matter how much he roams. He seems to travel merely to experience the bliss of returning to the human factory." ”

“ Alexander Hitchcock to Chicago; the senior Dr. Sommers to Marion, Ohio. Alexander Hitchcock had been colonel of the regiment in which Isaac Sommers served as surgeon. Although the families had seen little of one another since the war, yet Alexander Hitchcock's greeting to the young doctor when he met the latter in Paris had been more than cordial. Something in the generous, lingering hand-shake of the Chicago merchant had made the younger man feel the strength of old ties. ”

“ Miss Hitchcock was passing, her long wrap trailing lightly behind. Her eyes glowed underneath a white mantilla.
"I am ready to go now," Sommers replied. "You are too tired for the dance."
"I must go—I can't bear to miss anything. It is stupid—but it is exciting at the same time. Good-by. Remember, Lake Forest in a fortnight. And learn to take it easily!"
She smiled and disappeared in the wake of Mrs. Porter. How easily she seemed to take it! The man she married would have to be of the world, as large a world as she could contrive to get. She would always be "going on." ”

“ Miss Hitchcock looked nonplussed.
"Life is based on getting something others haven't,—as much of it as you can and as fast as you can. I never felt that so constantly as I have the last few months. Do you think," he went on hastily, "that Lindsay, that any doctor, can earn fifty thousand a year?"
"I don't know. I hate views." Her voice sounded weary and defeated.
Sommers rose to his feet, exclaiming, "I thought there were some pretty definite ones, this evening." ”

“ Father could never abide the sight o’ one since.”
Rhys looked encouragingly at Johnny. He was nothing loth to change the subject. “What was that?” he asked.
“It were when old Hitchcock were parson down at Crishowell. He and his lady had a great notion o’ each other, an’ when each fifth of August come round—bein’ their marriage-day—any one as did go to the Vicarage with a ‘good luck to ye, sir and madam,’ or ‘many happy returns o’ the day,’ got a bottle o’ beer from Madam Hitchcock to take home an’ drink their good health in. ”

“ From this vantage point the younger generation planned an extended attack upon the irregular household gods.
Sommers realized for the first time how the Aurora and the Queen Louise must worry Miss Hitchcock; how the neat Swedish maids and the hat-stand in the hall must offend young Hitchcock. ”

“ Hitchcock married Miss Orra White, daughter of Jarib White, of Amherst, Mass., and they lived together for forty-two years. Mrs. Hitchcock was an artist, and prepared many of the illustrations of her husband's reports. Six of their children, two sons and four daughters, reached maturity. The oldest son is the Professor of Hygiene and Physical Education at Amherst College; the youngest is the Professor of Geology at Dartmouth College. ”

“ We are such simple people that we don't expect—"
Miss Hitchcock blushed at the challenge, and interrupted to save the speech from its final ungraciousness.
"Of course, but we are different. We have always been so interested in Dr.
Sommers. He was such a promising man."
Alves made no effort to reply. She resented Miss Hitchcock's efforts to reach her, and withdrew into her shell. This young woman with her attendant brougham belonged to the world that she liked to feel Sommers had renounced for her sake. She disliked the world for that reason.
"Is he doing well?" Miss Hitchcock asked bluntly. ”

“ Sommers answered hotly, "fit only for clergymen and beggars for charities. I am not sure, anyway, that I want 'to do for' people. I think no fine theories about social service and all that settlement stuff. I want to be a man, and have a man's right to start with the crowd at the scratch, not given a handicap. There are too many handicaps in the crowd I have seen!"
Miss Hitchcock pressed her lips together, as if to restrain a hot reply. She had grown white from the fatigue and excitement and heat. They were almost at her father's house, walking along the steaming asphalt of the quiet avenue. ”

“ Dr. Hitchcock has moved into his new house, and Mr. Tyler across the way from our house has moved into President Hitchcock's old house. Mr. C. is going to move into Mr. T.'s former house, but the worst thing old Time has done here is he has walked so fast as to overtake H. M. and carry her to Hartford on last week Saturday. I was so vexed with him for it that I ran after him and made out to get near enough to him to put some salt on his tail, when he fled and left me to run home alone.... Viny went to Boston this morning with father, to be gone a fortnight, and I am left alone in all my glory. ”

“ Miss Hitchcock exclaimed behind Sommers.
"Too good," he muttered. "I shouldn't have dared to hang it."
The girl's smooth brow contracted.
"Don't you think it was fine, though, his making up his mind out there in Sioux Falls that what he wanted was pictures, and the best pictures, and that he'd have Sargent do his portrait?"
"No more than it's fine for all the rest of these well-dressed men and women to make up their minds that they want to be rich and luxurious and important and all that." ”

“ They had stopped at the club to finish their talk, and while Colonel Hitchcock was writing some letters, Sommers drove to his rooms for his bag. It was nearly midnight before he returned. As they drove over to the station, Colonel Hitchcock said:
"I have told him the whole thing: how hard pressed I am; how his mother is worrying and ill—well, I don't feel it will make much difference. He could see all that."
"You must remember that he has always had every inducement to enjoy himself," the young doctor ventured. "He doesn't understand your life. ”

“ Sommers remarked good-humoredly, "that I was thick enough with the bloodsuckers to get you that letter from Hitchcock. One of us will have to stand in with the 'swilling, fat-fed capitalist.'"
"Are those Hitchcocks rich?" Dresser asked, his eye resting wistfully on a square note that the young doctor had laid aside. ”

“ After breakfast Mrs. Hitchcock came in, and your mother said: "Only think, how fortunate I am; Mary did all the house-cleaning while I was away. Every room is in perfect order; all the woollen clothes are put away for the summer. Poor pussy, here, was frightened out of the house, and I suppose we should all have been if we had been at home"
Can you imagine how ashamed I felt? I ran under the table and did not come out again until after Mrs. Hitchcock had gone. But now
comes the saddest part of my story. ”

“ Could you care for a man who will have no career, who has no 'future'?"
Sommers's voice had taken a new tone of earnestness, unlike the sober speculation in which they had been indulging. Miss Hitchcock turned her face to the faded landscape of the suburban fields, and failed to reply.
"I have lived out my egotism," he continued earnestly. "What you would call ambition has been dead for long months. I haven't any lofty ambition even for scientific work. Good results, even there, it seems to me, are not born of personal desire, of pride. ”

“ Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain farther expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care during a sentence of rustication from —— College, where he had distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in the more regular studies of the place. ”

“ They had been tried many times in sudden crises—by slipping of booms, by breaking of tackle, failure of cranes, and the wrath of the river—but no stress had brought to light any man among men whom Findlayson and Hitchcock would have honoured by working as remorselessly as they worked them-selves. ”

“ Authorities seem to vary upon dates when the Hitchcocks made spinets. Mr. A. J. Hipkins of London, the well-known authority upon pianos, harpsichords, and spinets, writes me that he [284] dates the Thomas Hitchcock spinets from 1664 to 1703, and those of John Hitchcock, the son of Thomas, from 1676 to about 1715. Mr. ”

“ Hitchcock’s “style” and to his planned determination to “put it over” on those pestiferous periodicals—weekly and monthly—in spite of constitutional prohibitions, Senate rules or publishers’ opposition.
Stay! I have another reason for italicizing. I want the reader to read those italicized phrasings of Mr. Hitchcock’s unstitched brochure a second time, and to read them more carefully the second time than he did the first. If the reader will kindly do this we will be better acquainted, also be mutually better acquainted with Mr. ”

“ He's propitiating his own Gods now, and he wants to know what Mother Gunga will think of a bridge being run across her. Who's there?" A shadow darkened the doorway, and a telegram was put into Hitchcock's hand.
"She ought to be pretty well used to it by this time. Only a tar.
It ought to be Ralli's answer about the new rivets. . . . Great
Heavens!" Hitchcock jumped to his feet.
"What is it?" said the senior, and took the form. "that's what Mother Gunga thinks, is it," he said, reading. "Keep cool, young 'un. We've got all our work cut out for us. Let's see. ”

“ Roll up everything you can lay hands on. We’ll give the gang fifteen minutes more to eat their grub.”
Close to the verandah stood a big night-gong, never used except for flood, or fire in the village. Hitchcock had called for a fresh horse, and was off to his side of the bridge when Findlayson took the cloth-bound stick and smote with the rubbing stroke that brings out the full thunder of the metal. ”

“ Hitchcock's great-grandfather who erected the first silk-mill in America to run by water-power. He also made the first cannon carried by the Connecticut artillery into the battles in which many of the family gave their lives for their country. For the United States army and navy during the Revolution the Hanks inventions in almost every department were manifold. ”

“ Sommers locked the door, putting the key in the usual hiding-place, and together they crossed the park to the railroad station. There they separated.
"I shall not come out to-morrow," Miss Hitchcock said, as if she had arrived at the decision after some wavering.
He did not urge her to come, and they shook hands.
"Remember," she said hesitatingly, "that ideas don't separate people. You must trust people, those who understand and care."
"I shan't forget," he answered humbly.
On the train he remembered Webber's business, and as soon as he reached the city he went to the brokers' office. ”