John Goodwin

“ A hearty voice boomed greeting. "Well, John!"
Dr. Goodwin, head of the Nelson Foundation, thought it part of his duties to boom heartily. He was a plump man in morning coat and striped trousers with the inevitable pince-nez on a black ribbon. ”

“ He was a quiet man, peaceable and peace-loving, and I marveled, often, that he should be Goodwin the Rich. But so it was. And his automobiles flashed past my front gate, as they had done before, covering my hedge with dust and enveloping my house in nauseous smells; also as they had done before. But I like automobiles better than I did. I even ride in them sometimes, with Eve, on the back seat; and Old Goodwin [95] rides on the front seat, and drives as though the Devil were after him; which I think he is not, for Old Goodwin is a lovable man, and a good man I believe, as men go. ”

“ There were Old Goodwin and that Rich man, of course, and my friends; but there, too, were Judson and Burdon and my [254] other neighbors. And there was Mrs. Goodwin, looking—but I did not look at her, after the first, so I know not how she looked. And when it was all done, I lingered, for a reason of my own, and walked with Judson, and Burdon walked with us. An old man walks but slowly. So it came to pass that we were the last. And, having entered my own house, I found Eve and Old Goodwin and that other Rich man sitting in a half circle ”

“ I marveled somewhat that Eve had had no word more from her father; but I must plant my corn. And my first planting of corn was done; and as I straightened up from it, sighing with weariness, I heard a low chuckling laugh. I turned quickly, and behold, [221] there was Old Goodwin watching me; and beside him Eve. He was still laughing.
I hurried across my garden, the earth sticking to my boots; and made some apologies for my hands. The hands of a delver in the earth are not fit for contact with the Rich.
But what did Old Goodwin care for that? “It is clean dirt, Adam,” said he, “and honest. ”

“ If the accusers of Goody Glover were typical of the credulity and superstition of their age, Margaret Goodwin, with her shrewd ability to make use of the most salient tendencies and prejudices of her benefactor in order to deceive him, was a type of a certain other aspect of Puritanism which has not yet entirely died away--and never will as long as New England possesses individuality of human product. ”

“ The influence exerted by Perkins and other Puritan teachers and friends in the University of Cambridge upon the mind of Goodwin when a student, his remarkable conversion, the effect of his residence in Holland, and of his association there, with Dutch Divines, and with “English Dissenting brethren,” are visible in his opinions. Three main stand-points come out sharply in the phases of Goodwin’s theology. ”

“ When Goody Glover, in 1688, was accused of having bewitched a child named Margaret Goodwin, in revenge for an accusation of theft, she was visited in prison by Cotton Mather, and to him she confessed that she had made a compact with the Evil One and was in the habit of frequenting Sabbats held by him. She had been sentenced, and the confession could do her no possible good or harm; it and all of its kind must have been dictated by a sheer hysterical nervousness or else by a fanatical craze for notoriety. ”

“ But Judson and Old Goodwin met and enjoyed the meeting mightily; and sat upon their boxes and talked until I thought they would never have done. So Eve and I left them there, sitting upon their boxes. And presently they rose and wandered [231] over into Judson’s place and I saw Old Goodwin no more that day.
And, again, we went to the woods, and saw them breaking forth into leaf. For the leafing of the woods is a little later than the leafing of a tree which grows in the open. And I saw the seed-pods lifting on their dry stems, but they were few and the pods were empty ”

“ The horses were tired; but their riders had no notion of sparing them, and rode as fast as the roughness of the trail permitted. Mr. Bingham’s ill-timed words had jarred upon their companionship, and the horses’ hoofs alone broke the silence which had fallen between them.
It was eleven o’clock when they reached Quentin, and Mr. Cameron was pacing the porch impatiently, peering out into the blackness where the moonlight pierced it, as they rode up to the shack.
“We are all safe, father; we merely took a wrong turning,” Jean called aloud as they drew rein. ”

“ Right and left galloped the riders, beating the mob over the heads with their Winchesters, or cutting them with their quirts, riding down [252] men beneath the weight of their horses. The mob scattered and fled in every direction. The leader of the horsemen swung out of the saddle in front of the steps, and Winchester in hand, walked up to Loring.
“Are you Mr. Loring?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Stephen.
“Well, it seems as if we were just in time—not much too early, are we? We just got your telegram in Dominion in time to raise a big posse, and pack them onto the evening train. ”

“ Stephen, a bit uneasy as to the newcomer, wheeled his horse sharply to meet him, and slipped his riding gauntlet from his right hand, prepared to shoot or to shake as the occasion might necessitate. He was greatly surprised, when the stranger drew abreast of them, to hear him exclaim in a cheerful bass voice: “Miss Cameron! How did you come here?”
[95]
“That is just what we want to know. The only thing we want to know more is how to get out by any other way than past the cliff which we almost rode over in the darkness. This is Mr. Loring, Mr. Bingham, one of the hoist engineers at Quentin. ”

“ There is no kindness in it in the end.”
“Perhaps,” said her father, “there would prove to be no kindness in the end in what you wish to do for Loring.”
“Very well. There is no use in arguing with a Scotchman; but I warn you that I shall make it [78] up to him in friendliness. The other men can scarcely object to that.”
With these words Jean rose from the steps and, passing through the door, entered the little living-room where she picked up a guitar from the window-seat, and to its accompaniment began to sing in a low voice. What was the song she chose? Why, it was “Jock o’ Hazeldean.” ”

“ During the next two months, with a concentration of which he had never before thought himself capable, Stephen slaved at learning his task. To feel that in his hands lay the lives of the sixteen [73] men of the shift gave him a sense of responsibility, which in all his former work had been completely lacking. He was so faithful in the performance of his duties that even the critical Mr. Cameron was secretly pleased, while Jean watched with growing interest her father’s experiment, and felt that at last Loring had ceased to drift. ”

“ At the door of the rear room stood a short, bald-headed man with a patient expression on his face, as of one who had spent a large share of his life waiting for his wife. He glanced with some surprise at the swift reappearance of the girl whom he had watched as she came up the stairs so short a time before.
"That girl beats the ticker," he said to himself as she passed him; "she'll make some man happy if she keeps it up."
The clock was striking eight as Winifred entered the drawing-room. "It is quite a feat to be on time in this city of long distances," said her hostess. ”

“ At length the lips parted over a row of baby teeth with a gap in the centre, through which the little tongue showed blood-red, as the boy laughed long and loud.
"Thee, Knut!" he lisped, with that occasional slip of the letter s which was a lingering trick of babyhood and cost him much shame, [2] "is not that broad-shouldered shadow like Couthin Giles? And the tall one,—why, 'tis the very image of Father Mohl! And the short one ith Couthin Mary. Look how she bows as she goes before the father! And what a fine cowl I have made of my kerchief!" ”

“ Goodwin laid down her brush and sighed.
“I am so sorry, Frank,” she said, “that they are giving you so much trouble about the money. But we can’t let them know about it, can we?”
“Not without doing our intelligence a great injustice,” said Goodwin, with a smile and a shrug that he had picked up from the natives. “Americano, though I am, they would have me in the calaboza in half an hour if they knew we had appropriated that valise. No; we must appear as ignorant about the money as the other ignoramuses in Coralio.” ”

“ Loring crushed between his fingers a piece of the soft ore and let the fragments trickle to the ground before he spoke. “It is more than [308] year now, Jean. Must the shadow last forever? Is what I have done to remain forever unpardoned?” He spoke with the slowness of an advocate who knows his case is lost, yet fights to the end.
“It is not that, Stephen. I could forgive almost anything that you have done. But there is one thing that you have done, that try as I would, I could never forget. Stephen, let me ask it of you. What is the most essential quality of all in a—a—friend?” ”

“ One evening the stage, after depositing at the office its load of mail and newcomers, lurched jerkily up the incline that led to Mr. Cameron’s house, instead of being driven to the corral as usual. Loring watched it and his spirits dropped like a barometer. An incident may easily depress high spirits, though it takes an event to raise low ones. The event which had raised his spirits to-day was a meeting with Jean Cameron while Mr. Cameron was inspecting Number Three shaft. Jean had accompanied her father to the hoist and Loring had been able to talk with her [102] for a longer time than usual. ”

“ Gratefully he crawled in between the Chinaman’s blankets. Wah looked at him curiously. “La la boom boom,” he crooned to himself. “Heap lot whisky.” Then he turned over and went peacefully to sleep.
Loring lay rigidly upon his back. Conscience, remorse, and a rock beneath his fourth rib, all kept him awake. The stars did not answer his half-framed questions, so he shut his eyes. It is hard to think when the eyes are closed, so he opened them again. It was a very simple question that he reiterated to the shadows, to the embers of the fire, and to the drone of the Gila river. ”

“ Loring, not from altruism, but because [24] he did not know the difference which well chosen tools make in a long day’s toil, made no effort to grab. In consequence he emerged from the shed supplied with a split shovel, and a dull, loose-headed pick. A foreman beckoned him to a place on the grade, opposite to the cook tent. He immediately started to swing his pick.
“Don’t be in such a hell of a hurry!” called Sullivan, “you’ll have plenty to do later.”
The seven o’clock whistle blew sharply. “Lope her, boys!” ”

“ At twenty-six, it was Goodwin's age, one should be very much a man. One's moustache is confirmed in its place; one has the stature and muscle of a man, a man's tenacity and resistance, while the heart of boyishness still pulses in one's body. It is the age at which capacity is the ally of impulse, when heart and hand go paired in a perfect fraternity. One is as sure of oneself as a woman of thirty, and with as much and as little reason. Goodwin, when he announced that he, at any rate, would not be one of the crew of the Etna, spoke out of a serene confidence in himself. ”

“ In fourteen years from his death only one of his brave band of sons survived, and he was a miserable captive, who spent his whole existence in the dungeons of his chief enemy. It seemed as if nothing that Godwin had acquired could be enduring, for the very lands he left behind him no longer exist, his chief estate on the coast of Kent was swallowed by the sea, and now forms the dangerous shoal called the Goodwin Sands.
“Wise men also die and perish together, as well as the ignorant and foolish, and leave their riches for other. ”

“ As soon as it was clear of the shaft and swung onto the waiting ore car, Stephen turned for his long-desired glance. Tied to the fence in front of Mr. Cameron’s house was another horse beside Jean’s pony, which he knew so well. As he looked, the door opened and Jean appeared. She was too far away for him to distinguish her features and yet she seemed to him to have an air of buoyancy which he had not before remarked. A man stepped out of the doorway behind her. His tan riding-boots were brilliant with a gloss that is unknown in [104] a world where men shine their own shoes. ”

“ More than one of the men working in the factory took notice of the blue eyes and the red cheeks, and would have been glad to secure their owner for a wife; but she was not for any of them. Before she had been in the village six months, she had given her faithful heart to Michael Davitt, the young New England fisherman whose boat lay below the bridge which she crossed every morning on her way to her work in the factory. Many a time on bright spring mornings she loitered on the bridge, leaning over its wooden railing to watch Michael as he washed out his boat, and made ready for the day's sail. ”

“ Jean paused and seemed to choose her words carefully, “of your victory.”
“Oh,” answered Stephen, with an attempt at ease, while all the time his heart was beating like a trip-hammer, “I suppose Baird has been talking about me; but you must not take him too literally. There is no libel law against flattery, and so men speak their minds about their friends as freely as they would like to do about their enemies. Miss Cameron,” he said suddenly, “I have never thanked you for the note which you sent me when I left Quentin. ”

“ In a moment the little “nipper” appeared with his armful of drills, and with a ringing clatter dropped them into the bottom of the bucket.
“I think we had better take Mr. Cameron to the four hundred level right away,” said Stephen to Burns. “I want him to see that new stope. The air isn’t very bad there, is it?”
“No, it’s pretty fair.”
“All right. Lower away, four hundred!” called Loring to the hoist engineer, at the same time swinging himself onto the bucket beside the others. ”