Hollister

“ It was a protesting acceptance of a stark philosophy, Hollister thought, a cry against some weight that bore him down, the momentary revealing of some conflict in which Mills foresaw defeat, or had already suffered defeat. It was a statement wrung out of him, requiring no comment, for he at once resumed the steady pull on the six-foot, cross-cut saw.
"Why don't you take it easier?" Hollister said to him. "You work as if the devil was driving you." ”

“ As literally as his hired woodsmen, he earned his bread in the sweat of his brow, spurred on by a vision of what he sought to create,—a home and so much comfort as he could grasp for himself and a woman.
The house arose as if by magic,—the simple magic of stout arms and skilled hands working with axe and saw and iron wedges. One of Hollister's men was a lean, saturnine logger, past fifty, whose life had been spent in the woods of the Pacific Coast. ”

“ A Chinaman was fair game. Hollister would be leader of a crowd inhuman in their desire to torture, to hurt, to send a half-crazed screaming thing that had been a man to a loathsome death. And Metzal, while it might not universally approve, would be apathetic, would neither interfere nor punish. The feat would restore Hollister to that bullying supremacy that he loved and had lost.
The horses had made forty miles that day. They had rested well between stretches but they were tired and the clogging dust of the mesa pulled at their strength. Sheridan did not dare to gaze at the east. ”

“ Hollister, while noting her new and splendid health, was appalled at the change. From an obedient child, easily convinced that no matter what her mother said was right, she had become a girl of great character with ideas of her own. Mrs. Hollister angrily denounced her mother-in-law and Aunt Susan, saying that it was their work and that her child, for whom she had slaved all of her life, had become wilful, stubborn and disobedient. “She even refuses to go into Society this winter. ”

“ Life was very full for the Hollisters in those days, and those who went to the city for the day could hardly bear to tear themselves away from the many delights of the country. The puppy was getting bigger and wiser every day, tagging Doris and Harley wherever they went, or sitting adoringly at Mrs. Hollister's feet; always bounding out to meet the evening trolley on which George and Shirley came, and always attending them to the trolley in the morning. ”

“ The wilderness is a destroyer of conventions. The passer-by needs to observe no ceremony. He comes from nowhere and passes into the unknown, unquestioned as to his name, his purpose, or his destination. That is the way of all frontiers.
But Hollister wished to see without being seen. He did not know why. He did not attempt to fathom his reluctance for open approach. In the social isolation which his disfigurement had inflicted upon him, Hollister had become as much guided by instinct in his actions and impulses as by any coldly reasoned process. ”

“ Hollister found himself jammed in, sandwiched between the roan and the sorrel; he felt the knee of Sheridan against the hollow of his own, the same on Jackson's side. For all the fire of the whisky he was suddenly a little chill.
"Hollister," said Sheridan, "you are a parasite, a predatory parasite. I'll translate that into a word of one syllable so you can't mistake what I mean. You're a louse. You live in dirt and, when you happen to be where it is clean, you show up all the stronger for the vermin you are. ”

“ Hollister frowned for a second, then her face cleared, and she said quietly: “Your father and I have put you in a position to establish yourself well in life. [87] You have engaged yourself to an honourable man, who has something to offer you, who can assure you a position that will be a satisfaction to you all your life and to your children after you. I know I have not brought you up so badly that you would throw away your career, would disregard the interests of those you may bring into the world, all for a mere whim.” ”

“ It was also an unprecedented experience for Miss Katharine Hollister, but one could not live twenty-four hours on board the Fearless without losing one’s grip on conventions, even though they were made in New England. She halted at the brass-bound threshold of the little room, and peered curiously at the recumbent figure of the chief engineer with his gray mustache and mop of grizzled hair.
“Come in and take the chair by my desk, ma’am. What on earth made you want to see me?” ”

“ Miss Hollister
HOPEFIELD MANOR
"Oh!" I exclaimed, bowing. "Any further introduction is unnecessary, Miss Hollister."
"The name is familiar? I recall that General Glendenning mentioned that you were related to the Ames family of Hartford, and your mother was a Farquhar of Charlottesville, Virginia. If you bear your father's name, I dare say it was he whom I met ten years ago in Paris. There is no reason, therefore, why we should not be the best of friends." ”

“ Hollister stared at his companion. “We don’t need the police, Curtis. Say, are you ill?” noticing for the first time the blind surgeon’s pallor.
“I’m beginning to feel a bit faint.” Curtis pushed his hair off his forehead and unloosened his collar.
“Here, Herman, nip into my room and get the flask out of my bureau drawer,” directed Hollister. “Hurry!”
As the servant hastened on his errand Hollister half guided, half pushed Curtis to a hall chair and propped him in it. Not pausing to dilute the fiery liqueur, he snatched the flask from the breathless servant and tilted it against Curtis’ lips. ”

“ In this wilderness, this vast region of forest and streams and wild mountain ranges, men were infinitesimal specks hurrying here and there about their self-appointed tasks. Those like himself and Doris, who did not mind the privations inseparable from that remoteness, fared well enough. The land held out to them manifold promises. Hollister looked at the red-brown shingle bolts accumulating behind the boom-sticks and felt that inner satisfaction which comes of success achieved by plan and labor. ”

“ My own time is as valuable as yours. You have sneered at my attainments as a philosopher; but I will pass that for the present. I am disposed to treat you magnanimously. You have an excellent opinion of yourself; you have come here as an intruder upon the rights of those of us who followed Cecilia Hollister across Europe and home to America; but in spite of this I waive my rights in your favor. I had intended to offer myself to Miss Hollister this afternoon, with every hope of success, but I yield to you. ”

“ Very likely he would have to accept the commonest sort of labor, in a mill yard, or on a booming ground, among workers not too sensitive to a man's appearance.
Staring through the streaming window, Hollister looked down on the traffic flow in the street, the hurrying figures that braved the storm in pursuit of pleasure or of necessity, and while that desperate loneliness gnawed at him, he felt once more a sense of utter defeat, of hopeless isolation—and for the first time he wished to hide, to get away out of sight and hearing of men. ”

“ Hollister stowed his pack in the smoking room and stood outside by the rail, watching the Toba Valley fall astern, a green fissure in the white rampart of the Coast Range. Chance, the inscrutable arbiter of human destinies, had directed him that morning to a man cutting wood on the bank of the river close by that cluster of houses where other men stirred about various tasks, where there must have been wives and mothers, for he saw a dozen children at play by a snow fort. ”

“ Hollister soon perceived that if he were not to lose ground he must have labor. Men would not come seeking work so far out of the beaten track. In addition, there were matters afoot that required attention. So he took Doris with him and went down to Vancouver. Almost the first man he met on Cordova Street, when he went about in search of bolt cutters, was Bill Hayes, sober and unshaven and a little crestfallen. ”

“ The ultimate consequences were as nothing.
This plan was scarcely formed in Hollister's brain before he modified it. He could not wait for that happy conjunction of circumstances which favored action. He must create his own circumstances. This he readily perceived as the better plan. When he sought a way it was revealed to him.
A few hundred yards above the eastern limit of the flat where his canoe was cached, there jutted into the river a low, rocky point. From the river back to the woods the wind had swept the bald surface of this little ridge clear of snow. ”

“ Evidently he expected more trouble but he looked quietly at Sheridan as the latter questioned the agent. Jackson and the other cowboy dismounted and came up on the platform to join the group.
"Hollister tries to make him dance," said the agent. "After he fires clean through the wall into the freight house and tells me he'll plug me if I kick. Then the Chink outs with a gat and cuts loose. You should have seen Hollister soarin' off that bronc' of his, like a spread-eagle with a busted wing in a gale. Gawd! Served him right. An' the Chink is game if his skin is yeller." ”

“ All the way across the continent of North America Hollister grew more and more restive under the accumulating knowledge that the horrible devastation of his features made a No Man's Land about him which few had the courage to cross. ”

“ When they came back to the Toba, Hollister brought in a woman to relieve Doris of housework and help her take care of the baby, although Doris was jealous of that privilege. She was a typical mother in so far as she held the conviction that no one could attend so well as herself the needs of that small, red-faced, lusty-lunged morsel of humanity. ”

“ Hollister looked at her. He knew by the glow [Pg 150] on her face that she spoke as she felt, that she was happy, that he had made her so. And he was proud of himself for a minute, as a man becomes when he is conscious of having achieved greatness, however briefly.
Only he was aware of a shadow. Doris leaned against him talking of things they would do, of days to come. He looked over her shoulder through the west window and his eye rested on Bland's cabin, where another woman lived who had once nestled in his arms and talked of happiness. ”

“ Hollister speaks highly of the mother and I need just such a young man with me in Columbus. I think I can find an opening for him in my office; if not, in the office of some of my friends. There are too many young men in New York; there are not enough places for them all. Now wid me they have a chance to advance, and when I’m gone they’ll take my place. I’ve no son.”
“Yes,” said Grandmother, “this young musician supports his mother. My daughter-in-law says that the mother comes from a good old family. She and Mrs. Hollister were at school together in Elmira, New York state. ”

“ It's a HOLLISTER PERAMBULATOR!
"If it's a Hollister," I remarked as a second of these flew by the window, "it's perfect."
"Oh, those things!" she exclaimed.
"I was n't referring to the perambulator necessarily. Anything that's Hollister must be good."
"We're out of the business, except that Aunt Octavia gets a dollar for every one that's made; but the trust keeps the name."
"The trust could hardly change your name. You will have to do that yourself."
"You've been talking to Hezekiah. That's the way people always talk to her." ”

“ Hollister, sir," replied Dick.
The cashier started as if he had been shot, and turned red; he had apparently quite forgotten that [136] little point, which, after all, might have some bearing on the explanation of the puzzle.
"Mr. Hollister, you say—one of our best customers, and a man of unimpeachable honesty; in fact, a director in this bank; surely we cannot imagine for a moment that he could have anything to do with the disappearance of these securities!" exclaimed the president, frowning at Dick. ”

“ And he started to run at a zigzag towards his companions, who had captured his pony and were holding it for him, still roaring at what they regarded as the primest joke that had struck Metzal. Hollister pleaded with them for a gun but they refused him with jeers and he spurred up his horse and streaked towards town in a cloud of dust, passing on his way the returning Jackson and his comrade, who stopped to inquire the cause of the rumpus, retailed them by the pair, who slapped their thighs and doubled themselves in mirth before they followed Hollister. ”

“ Bland haunted the [Pg 230] creeks where the trout lurked, tramped the woods gun in hand, a dog at his heels, oblivious to everything but his own primitive, purposeless pleasures.
"I shouldn't care to settle here for good," he once said to Hollister. "But really, you know, it's not half bad. If money wasn't so dashed scarce. It's positively cruel for an estate to be so tied up that a man can't get enough to live decently on."
Bland irritated Hollister sometimes, but often amused him by his calm assurance that everything was always well in the world of J. Carrington Bland. ”

“ Curtis paused almost at Hollister’s back and gently struck his cane against the side of a mahogany card table. Armstrong swept a startled glance behind him and then resumed his nonchalant pose, while Hollister stepped to one side and laid his hand on a chair back.
“Hello, Curtis!” Hollister pushed the chair he had grasped toward the blind surgeon. “Sit down and be comfortable. Here comes Herman with the cocktails.”
“Thanks, but I won’t have any,” Curtis said, as the butler stopped before him, silver tray in hand. “Cocktails and brain work don’t go together successfully.” ”