Polktown

“ All the maternal instincts of Janice Day's nature went out to the young fellow. "Nelson! Nelson!" she cried, under her breath. "You poor, poor boy! I'm so sorry for you."
"Janice—you——" He stammered, and could not finish the phrase.
She cried, emphatically: "Of course I believe in you, Nelson. We all do! You must not take it so to heart. You will not bear it all alone, Nelson. Every friend you have in Polktown will help you." ”

“ Janice replied with a sigh.
"Of course, Hopewell went right over to tell the schoolmaster what he thought about it as soon as the story reached us. Hopewell thinks highly of the young man, you know."
"Until this thing happened, I thought almost everybody thought highly of him," said Janice, with a sob.
"Oh, my dear!" cried 'Rill, tearful herself, "there is such gossip in Polktown. So many people are ready to make ill-natured and untruthful remarks about one——"
Janice knew to what secret trouble the storekeeper's wife referred. "I know!" she exclaimed, wiping away her own tears. ”

“ Pollock stood up by the fire and drew his revolver. Fighting, at least, he was not afraid of. But a man in the dark is in the best of armour. Realising the wisdom of Waterhouse’s advice, Pollock went into the tent and lay down there.
What little sleep he had was disturbed by dreams, variegated dreams, but chiefly of the Porroh man’s face, upside down, as he went out of the hut, and looked up under his arm. It was odd that this transitory impression should have stuck so firmly in Pollock’s memory. ”

“ He went to the open window to breathe, and on the dim gallery he perceived Henry Power, his feet on the railing, a pipe in his mouth. A little farther away he saw the gleam of a white dress in the faintly sweet darkness.
He went quietly around to the door and upon the gallery. It was a hot, dark evening, with the moon not yet risen. Overhead the stars glowed like white fires, and low in the south, over the vast pine forests, there was a rapid intermittence of distance, silent lightning.
“May I come out?” he asked, feeling for a chair. “Aren’t you a poker player, either, Mr. Power?” ”

“ Polk accompanied her husband to Washington every winter and occupied a prominent position in society. Her influence was not only social, but political. She took great pains to inform herself on political affairs, and was deeply interested in all the discussions of the day which in any way affected the welfare of her country. She had lived all her life in the atmosphere of politics and had extensive acquaintance with the public men of the time, and often counseled with her husband on national subjects. They resided at Columbia, Tennessee. ”

“ Polcher passionately cried:
“The white man lies. Echota is the white town. Ayuhwasi Egwahi is a red town and the path to it is red.”
“Dog of a mixed-breed!” thundered Sevier, levelling a finger at him. “Your soul shall curl up and become as nothing. Killer of great war-eagle out of season, your bones shall rattle in blackness! You dare deny the law of the Cherokees!”
The one shaman present shivered, his eyes glistening with fear, and, unable to witness the blazing scorn the blue eyes were pouring into Polcher, drew his blanket over his head. ”

“ That night, as they were sitting at their fire, Pollock again tried to draw Waterhouse out on the subject of Porroh methods. “Better get to sleep,” said Waterhouse, when Pollock’s bent became apparent; “we start early to-morrow. You may want all your nerve about you.”
“But what line will he take?”
“Can’t say. They’re versatile people. They know a lot of rum dodges. You’d better get that copper-devil, Shakespear, to talk.”
There was a flash and a heavy bang out of the darkness behind the huts, and a clay bullet came whistling close to Pollock’s head. ”

“ Marvin Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen, were in the line of a monologue.
"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first sight of Boston—and the mud—and the Common and Public Library,—and the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again.
"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in Poketown! ”

“ Pollock is the confidential repository of all their secrets: nothing in their lives is hidden from him; he knows all of comic and tragic in their lowly careers. Along with his wife, he visits every house in the place, and from intimate knowledge can tell you, nodding his head to this or that house as he walks along, the worth or worthlessness of every native of the village. ”

“ Nope. Cities know how to hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its best foot forward, as the sayin' is.
"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad all shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High Street, stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones' drygoods an' groceries—an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin' of the two."
"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's got so dirty—around his shop I mean—that I hate to buy a piece of meat there." ”

“ Polk had really been the ablest man in the land, a creator and an organizer, his death would have been a public calamity, and the whole nation would have felt it, as Boston or New York would feel the loss of one of its ablest manufacturers or merchants, lawyers or doctors. That would deprive us of the services of a man which could not be supplied. We have always spare men of routine, but not spare men of genius. ”

“ He looked more closely at his new acquaintance as they sat down at a table in the stuffy cubby-hole that passes for a smoking-room on the Indian mail-steamers. Sevier was a boyish-looking fellow of perhaps thirty, short, slight, and dark, with a small dark moustache, and a manner that was inexpressibly candid and ingratiating. In time it might come to seem smooth to the point of nausea; at present it appeared offhand enough, and yet courteous—a manner of which the South alone has preserved the secret—and Elliott in his growing loneliness was delighted to find so agreeable a fellow traveller. ”

“ Polk still lives at “Polk Place,” Nashville, Tennessee, a stately and noble home, like the Hermitage in this respect, that the mortal remains of its master, amid verdure and flowers, beneath the shadow of its trees, await the final call. The inscription on the monument, to the memory of President Polk, is in Mrs. Polk’s own words; and here, in this home, consecrated by his death, the venerable widow of the eleventh President of the United States peacefully awaits the summons which will recall her to the Soul whose life and name it has been her chief earthly glory to embellish and to represent. ”

“ She is sending Surly Brown from Soda Creek with a cable, to build a new scow, and start the ferry again. Ransome Pollock's to manage the Trevor ranch. Iron's to reopen the Sky-line while she makes his peace with the owners—O'Flynn wants to run the packing. She is finding a doctor to take McGee's practise. Tearful George is to buy an imported stallion, and drift him with a bunch of East Oregon mares to stock my empty pastures. The dead settlement is to live again as though there had been no Polly to rob, ruin, and murder among our pioneers. ”

“ Westward, one hour away now, was the Potwell Inn. Already things might be happening there. . . .
Eastward was the wise man’s course, a road dipping between hedges to a hop garden and a wood and presently no doubt reaching an inn, a picturesque church, perhaps, a village and fresh company. The wise man’s course. Mr. Polly saw himself going along it, and tried to see himself going along it with all the self-applause a wise man feels. But somehow it wouldn’t come like that. The wise man fell short of happiness for all his wisdom. ”

“ Pocklington believed in mingling the sexes thoroughly: it taught girls not to whisper and giggle, and gave boys ease of manner in the presence of females,—and at the stroke of nine-thirty, to the accompaniment of an ear-splitting fantasia on the bell, the animals marched arm-in-arm into the ark (as represented by the large schoolroom) , where Noah (Mr. Pocklington) , supported by Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Amazonian Miss Mary, shy and retiring Miss Arabella, and pretty and frivolous Miss Amelia) stood ready to take roll-call.
Roll-call at Wentworth House was an all-embracing function. ”

“ Pollock, conclusively.
"He has in some way failed to show you his best side. He has the biggest, tenderest heart! I wish there was a woman fit for him, somewhere. But Stephen will never marry, now, I fear. She who gets him will be lucky—he is a very tower of strength to those who lean on him."
"As far as strength goes, Max, you could pick him up with your right hand. It may be silly, but I do love your size and vigor; when I see you in a crowd of average men, I exult in you. Imagine 168 any woman who could get you wanting a thin, sallow person like Cranbrooke!" ”

“ And I have hated Preston Station with a perfect hatred ever since. I suppose all the fraternity are like that—have their special likes and dislikes among stations as amongst people.
Pocklington is a name branded upon my memory, not because of its school, of which I have heard many excellent reports, but know nothing, but because I have made two visits there to lecture and each time have been filled with wonder and laughter. The secretary and mainstay of the lecture society was (and is for all I know) a genial eccentric doctor, a widower living with his daughter. ”

“ The crush of the crowd had elbowed him into a corner beside a tiny second-hand clothes-stall near the landing-place of the coasting steamers, and he gazed idly at the foul-looking seamen’s clothing—caps, oilskins, sea boots, cotton trousers—that almost filled the recess in the wall that served for a shop. In the centre lounged the shopman, apparently half Eurasian and half English Jew, who looked as if he clothed himself from his own stock in trade.
As Elliott was trying to disengage himself from the crowd, he knocked down a suit of oilskins, and stooped to pick it up. ”

“ Polkenhorne resided at this time in Kennington; he was married—or said that he was—to a young lady in the theatrical profession, known to the public as Miss Grace Danver. To Mrs. Polkenhorne, or Miss Danver, Joseph soon had the honour of being presented, for she was just then playing at a London theatre; he found her a pretty but consumptive-looking girl, not at all likely to achieve great successes, earning enough, however, to support Mr. Polkenhorne during this time of his misfortunes,—a most pleasant and natural arrangement. ”

“ But Pollock, using his revolver to parry the lightning stab which was aimed at his deltoid muscle, sent the iron dagger flying, and, firing, hit the man in the hand.
He fired again and missed, knocking a sudden window out of the wall of the hut. The Porroh man stooped in the doorway, glancing under his arm at Pollock. Pollock caught a glimpse of his inverted face in the sunlight, and then the Englishman [143] was alone, sick and trembling with the excitement of the affair, in the twilight of the place. It had all happened in less time than it takes to read about it. ”

“ Lockwood wrenched away Tom’s grip on his neck.
“What’s the matter?” he began chokingly. “I came to tell you—Jackson’s shot. I came to raise a posse.”
“The nerve he had to come back here!” somebody said at the edge of the crowd.
“Saves us a heap of trouble,” was the reply.
“We’ve got the posse,” said Tom grimly. “You needn’t bother about no posse. All you need’s a rope.”
“Here’s the rope,” some one called out. Old Henry Power pushed his way in, also belted with a gun. His eyes were bloodshot; he looked wrinkled and aged, but as deadly inflexible as fate. ”

“ There had never been a break in 158 their friendship. The society of Cranbrooke, after that of his own wife, was to Pollock ever the most refreshing, the most inspiring to high and manly thought. They talked, now, upon topics grave and gay, without hinting at the shadow overlying all. Pollock was at his best; and his friend's heart went out to him anew in a wave of that sturdy affection "passing the love of woman"—rare, perhaps, in our material money-getting community, but, happily, still existing among true men. ”

“ The village was pitch-dark; not a light burned about the station except the steady switch-lamps; not a freight-car stood upon the siding. There was not even a roof over the platform, and, too tired to look for shelter, Elliott dropped upon a pile of lumber by the track, and went heavily to sleep in the rain.
The hideous clangour of a passing express-train awoke him; he was growing accustomed to such awakenings. It was an hour from sunrise. Close to him stood the little red station and a great water-tank. The village was still asleep among the dripping trees. Not a smoke arose from any chimney. ”

“ Walky Dexter hit it off characteristically when he said:
"Hi tunket! does seem as though that air reading-room's startin' up has put the sperit of unrest in ter this here village. People never took much int'rest in books and noospapers before in Poketown. Look at 'em, now. I snum! they buzz around that readin'-room for chances to read the papers like bees around a honey-pot.
"An' that ain't all—no, sir! 'Most ev'rybody seems ter be discontented—that's right! Even folks that git their 'three squares' a day and what they want to wear, ain't satisfied with things as they is, no more. ”

“ Pollock is—-er—-a most estimable citizen, and a useful man in the community. Yet Mr. Pollock is—-er—-Cantwell—-er—-that is, a bit 'touchy.' No matter if Pollock's reporter is a schoolboy, if we treated the boy with any lack of consideration, then Pollock would most certainly take umbrage at what he would choose to consider a slight upon himself, received through his representative. So at these Board meetings, young Prescott will have to be treated with as much courtesy as though he were really a man, for Pollock's hostility would be most disastrous to us—-er—-to some of us, possibly, I mean. ”