Mitchell

“ In Mrs. Mitchell's mind a man had much better be a section hand on the Great Southwestern than a fixed star on the drama's milky way.
"By the way, mother," remarked Mr. Mitchell, with the air of one who makes an important revelation, "John is just going out to dine with William N. Scofield."
Mrs. Mitchell turned quickly, and her dark eyes shot a meaningful glance at her husband, while the line of her lower lip first grew full and then protruded. A squeeze of that lip at the moment, Hampstead reflected, would extract something at least as sour as very sour lemon juice. ”

“ But if would be vain for me to try to tell just what it was in Miss Mitchell that attracted us who loved her. It was this combination of great strength and independence, of deep affection and tenderness, breathed through and through with the sentiment of a perfectly genuine life, which has made for us one of the pilgrim-shrines of life the study in the observatory of Vassar College where we have known her at home, surrounded by the evidences of her honorable professional career. She has been an impressive figure in our time, and one whose influence lives. ”

“ These plans and hours being clearly understood, and Leonard having advanced Mitchell a sovereign to help pay for the move, he took his leave, his scarf-pin safe in his waistcoat-pocket. He left the whole family in a state of wonder and delight, which would have been even greater had they guessed what further surprises were in store for them.
No week ever seemed so short and so long to people as that week appeared to the Mitchells. There was not time enough to finish up everything that ought to be finished, and to say good-bye to every one who had been kind and friendly to them in London. ”

“ Mitchell smiled apologetically. “It just occurred to me that he might have mentioned the Holt will contest to you.”
“To me?” in genuine surprise. “Why should he speak about Uncle Marcus and the contest over his will?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mitchell whirled his hat about. “Mr. Rodgers was called in as a handwriting expert. ”

“ Mitchell has made a pronounced success of all that he has attempted in mercantile, political, civil and military life, and his friends are reasonably proud of the career of one who has filled so acceptably the many offices of honor and trust conferred upon him. ”

“ John C. Mitchell was always a hard working man and while he did his best to contribute the comforts to his family, his children were reared in comparatively humble circumstances and became inured at an early age to hard work and some privations.
These were the early circumstances of Charles L. Mitchell's career. He grew up in Kenosha, and received his education in the public schools and at Kenosha College. There was an element of willingness and energy in his makeup which undoubtedly accounts for his success in life. He paid his own way both through school and college. ”

“ ANOTHER OF MITCHELL'S PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
'I'll get down among the cookies along the Lachlan or some of those rivers,' said Mitchell, throwing down his swag beneath a big tree. 'A man stands a better show down there. It's a mistake to come out back. I knocked around a good, deal down there among the farms. Could always get plenty of tucker, and a job if I wanted it. ”

“ But Little Mitchell slept on,—he was so very, very tired, you see, and then the lady had managed somehow to keep him dry and warm.
You can see the whole world from the top of Mount Mitchell,—well, no, not really the whole world, but you know what I mean,—you can see so much it seems as if it must be the whole world; and that is why the lady had wanted to go there. ”

“ And so, when Bill Mitchell sang out, “Tally Ho!” and started his power dive on Billy Moffett’s tail, he suddenly found himself in a dogfight with an opponent quite as wiley as the famous German Baron von Richthofen. Even this was a calculated risk and might not have brought Mitchell down. It was Mitchell’s attack on the Army that made him vulnerable. For while the Army might view with tolerant amusement Mitchell’s assault on the Navy, it could not countenance insubordination in its own ranks; mutiny is inherently an unpardonable sin. ”

“ Mitchell has deserved success because he has earned it. He was born at Kenosha, Wisconsin, February 12, 1873, a son of John C. and Sallie Ann (Connell) Mitchell. His father saw four years of active service in the Civil war and died in 1898, while the mother is still residing in Wisconsin. John C. Mitchell was a native of Scotland, being brought to America at the age of five years. The family spent five weeks on board the sailing vessel that brought them to the New World. The Mitchells took up a homestead in southwest Wisconsin, at what was then known as Southport, now Kenosha. ”

“ At the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, Mitchell, with his colleagues in India, joined the Free church and bore a leading part in organising the Free church mission. He succeeded in inaugurating a flourishing mission in the British cantonment at Poona, where Scottish missionaries had previously been forbidden, and began work among the Mangs and Mahars of Jalna and North Haidarabad. ”

“ John looked up timidly. The Mitchell brow was ridged and thoughtful.
"Hampstead," he declared with an air of grave reluctance, "I guess I'll have to lose you, after all."
"What, sir," gasped John, guilty terror shaking him somewhere inside.
At the change in John's face, Mitchell threw back his head and laughed; one of those huge, hearty, bellowing laughs at his own humor, from which he extracted so much enjoyment.
"Yes," he specified, "I am going to put you in the rate department. You have the making of a great railroad man in you. What you need now is the fundamentals. ”

“ Mitchell hated red tape, and he knew that John's idea was the right one; but tradition was god on the S.F. & E.P. They would fight the innovation and fight it hard; they might win, too, and Mr. Mitchell had no stomach for tilting at windmills. However, it might be a good thing for John, this fight; might make him forget that foolish stage ambition of his; and if he won, might crown him so lustrously that of itself it would save him to a future already assuredly brilliant in the railroad business. ”

“ Miss Mitchell had a stock of conundrums on hand, and was a good guesser. She told her stories at all times when they happened to come into her mind. She would arrive at her sister's house, just from Poughkeepsie on a vacation, and after the threshold was crossed and she had said "Good morning," in a clear voice to be heard by all within her sight, she would, perhaps, say, "Well, I have a capital story which I must tell before I take my bonnet off, or I shall forget it!" ”

“ Just think of that, Fred., and ask yourself the question: What will your millionaire friends do for you then? What will Mitchell do? You, as a convicted criminal, will not be worthy of their consideration. Besides, Mitchell, with one-half, or more, of the State of Oregon back of him, together with his influential political friends elsewhere, is plenty able to take care of himself. ”

“ Well, when I told him that, Mitchell said, "He offered you a box, did he? Very nice of him. You know who he is, don't you? He's a man who has come to see about the electric lighting for the footlights. I've never seen him before." Now, you know, Edith, it was a most infernal shame of Mitchell to let me make the mistake with his eyes open. Here was I talking about acting and plays, deferentially consulting him, asking for artistic hints and boxes from an electrical engineer! ”

“ The teacher, used to Miss Mitchell's way, showed no confusion, carried out the joke by saying, "I have hardly had a chance to tell you yet," and laughingly made her escape. A student who had just entered college met her shortly after arrival. Miss Mitchell stopped her. "You have a dimple in your chin. Well, so has George William Curtis, but still it is a deformity."
Another time to an officer whose parents had visited her at the college came this:—"Such a handsome father and mother as you've got! Aren't any of you children good looking?" ”

“ HIS LIFE Donald Grant Mitchell, who won literary reputation under the name of ‘Ik Marvel,’ was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on April 12, 1822. He is a son of the Reverend Alfred Mitchell, formerly pastor of the Second Congregational Church of Norwich, and a grandson of Stephen Mix Mitchell, an eminent jurist and member of the Continental Congress. He prepared for college at John Hall’s school at Ellington, and was graduated at Yale in 1841.
Three years of life on a farm for his health gave him a bent towards rural pleasures and occupations. ”

“ As Mitchell hurried to the side of the automobile, its owner stepped on the running board and faced him.
“Mr. Potter!” exclaimed Mitchell. “Did they tell you at Headquarters that I was here?”
Potter peered at him in uncertainty for a second. “Oh, Inspector,” he said. “I’m glad to see you, but I had no idea you were here. The fact is,” lowering his voice as Allen, tired of waiting in Mitchell’s car, climbed out on the sidewalk and drew near the two men. “My wife called up Miss Baird and couldn’t get an answer. ”

“ One day the lady took Little Mitchell down town with her. He was in his little box, you know, because she could not quite trust him to go without it. She was afraid he would [164] jump on somebody’s back, or do something dreadful on the electric car; so she shut him up in his box, and took him along. ”

“ Since his marriage he has been engaged in the real estate business, it having no connection with that of Mrs. Mitchell. He makes a specialty of looking up titles to real estate. He is a member of the Y. M. C. A. and of the Harvard Improvement Association of Dorchester; and he is Prelate in the Cross and Crown Commandery of the Knights of Malta.
In religion Mrs. Mitchell is an Episcopalian. She was a member of the Girls' Friendly Society of Boston and of the Athene Club of Dorchester. ”

“ Hardly a day has passed since my conviction but he has had something mean to say about me in the newspapers, and as Mitchell and Mays are so closely identified with each other, I look upon them as one person, determined to force me to the wall, and to effect. if within their power, my complete ruination. ”

“ Mitchell, the painter, suggested. Mitchell was a man who had bid fair for fame as an artist at one time, only he could never keep sober for more than a week at a time. He had a fine, cynical humour of his own, a keen eye for character-study, and Gipsy, with his dramatic instincts, fairly fascinated him. "You've got the chance of becoming a great force here, old man." ”

“ As Little Mitchell became weaker, he would often lie in his little hammock in the closet half a day at a time. And when, finally, he got to be too weak to climb even the woolly wrapper, the lady would lift him up and put him into the sleeve, and he would stay there until he wanted to come out, when he would get up on the hook from which the wrapper hung, and wait for the lady to take him down. ”

“ When she came back with [72] a cup of warm milk for him, she took up the little roll of blanket, and what do you think!
It was empty. No Baby Mitchell there!
The lady thought of the cats; but the door was tight shut, and there were screens in the windows. She looked on the bed and on the floor, but saw no Baby Mitchell. Then she began, as well as she could, to make the little noise that Baby Mitchell made when he was hungry; and presently, if you will believe it, she heard something answer her. So she kept calling, and Baby Mitchell kept answering, until at last she found him ”

“ I count Maria Mitchell's services to Vassar and her pupils infinitely valuable, and her character and attainments great beyond anything that has yet been told.... I was one of the pupils upon whom her freedom from all the shams and self-deceptions made an impression that elevated my whole standard, mental and moral.... The influence of her own personal character sustains its supreme test in the evidence constantly accumulating, that it strengthens rather than weakens with the lapse of time. ”

“ Mitchell entered with another doctor. Peter went over to the window, and whilst they made their examination, stared through the glass at the fretwork of trees, the golden haze of London beyond, two stars that now, when the storm had spent itself, showed in a dark dim sky. Very faintly the clanging note of trams, the clatter of a hansom cab, the imperative call of some bell came to him.
The world could thus go on! Mitchell crossed to him and put his hand on his shoulder—
“He's pretty bad, Westcott. An operation's out of the question I'm afraid. ”

“ Mitchell shook his head in disbelief. Whoever perpetrated so cold-blooded and premeditated a crime was not [Pg 233] apt to overlook getting rid of the poison at the first opportunity.
With Wallace eliminated, Mitchell turned his thoughts to Kitty’s other callers—Ben Potter and his pretty wife, and Charles Craige, the brilliant lawyer and popular clubman. Mitchell smiled broadly—no possible motive linked them in any way, shape or manner with the crime. Edward Rodgers—Mitchell frowned as Mrs. Parsons’ confidences recurred to him. ”

“ The gentleman and the gentleman’s wife said good-bye to Little Mitchell; but Peterkin, Jack, Hallet, and Goliah did not, for they were not allowed to. The lady gave Peterkin a kiss on the top of his head between his ears, because she liked him very much and felt sorry that he was offended with her.
Then the man who was to drive her [101] and Little Mitchell away in the carriage snapped his whip, the two mules started off at a trot down the driveway, and Little Mitchell and the lady were off,—not exactly for Boston, because they had to go to a good many places before they could get there. ”

“ Hanging up, he announced, "Your Consul will be here shortly and take care of you." A hand waved the lanky Westerner to a chair.
"Now you, Mr. Mitchell. Where were you born and what do you do?"
Mitchell glared at him a moment, then replied, "I was born in the good old American city of New Orleans and have lived for the past twenty years right here in New York City."
The Immigration Officer frowned. "Have you ever been naturalized?"
Congreve thought Mitchell was going to burst an artery. "What! Naturalized! What do you think I am? I'm a citizen of the U. S. A. and was in the war. ”