Tom Gordon

“ You encourage theft, and robbery, and adultery, and you know it! You are worse than the villains themselves, who don't pretend to justify what they do. Now, go, tell Tom Gordon—go! I shall fight it out to the last! I've nothing to hope, and nothing to lose. Let him look out! They made sport of Samson,—they put out his eyes,—but he pulled down the temple over their heads, after all. Look out!"
There is something awful in an outburst of violent passion. The veins in Harry's forehead were swollen, his lips were livid, his eyes glittered like lightning; and Mr. Jekyl cowered before him. ”

“ Much the same may be said of Farmer Pitcairn and his wife. Possibly there is an additional wrinkle or two on their homely faces, but their hearts are as genial and as kindly as ever. They love Tom Gordon as if he were their own son, and he fully returns the affection they feel for him. ”

“ It was at this juncture that the two tramps rose to their feet, and slouched down the road in the direction of Tom Gordon's home. In the flurry of the moment no one noticed their departure, which indeed might not have attracted attention at any time.
"You've got a loaded gun in your house?" was the inquiring remark of the same gentleman.
"Yes, sir; we always keep one. I fired at the tiger with it, but I didn't hurt him much," remarked Tom with a laugh. ”

“ The men looked at Tom Gordon as if doubting his words.
"Are you in earnest?" asked one of them.
"Look for yourselves."
The horseman was out of the saddle in a twinkling, and walked quickly to the woodshed, whose cracks were so numerous that it was easy to see every part of the interior. Placing his eyes at one of these openings, he peered through.
"By George, boys!" he exclaimed, turning about, "the youngster's right; Tippo is in there." ”

“ Then from an inner drawer he drew the merchant's bank-book, in which were clasped several hundred dollars in bills. Two of the largest denomination--fifty each--were withdrawn, and the book returned to its place.
No veteran could have been cooler than Catherwood. He looked and acted no more like the exquisite on the steamboat than did Tom Gordon himself. He was the sleek, cunning, hypocritical villain he had always been, stealing, not because he was in need of money, but because it was his nature to do so. ”

“ Now, Tom Gordon became what I call a healthy, sensible Christian youth. He was not the good boy we used to read about in the Sunday-school books, who mopes around, forever preaching a sermon whenever he opens his lips, and finding a "lesson" in everything, even the leap of a grasshopper. When those boys become so good that they can be no better, they generally lie down, call all their playmates around them, deliver a farewell sermon, and then depart. The mistake of that sort of life is that it makes religion unattractive. ”

“ Tired from his flight and filled to satiety, he had lain down to rest in the woodshed, so satisfied with his quarters that he offered no objection when Tom Gordon slipped up and fastened the door. So powerful and active an animal, had he chosen, could have broken out of the place in a twinkling ”

“ I said nothing but what everybody knows."
"But, don't you know, Clayton," said Russel, "that if a fellow has an enemy—anybody bearing him the least ill-will—that he puts a tremendous power in his hands by making such remarks? Why, our common people are so ignorant that they are in the hands of anybody who wants to use them. They are just like a swarm of bees; you can manage them by beating on a tin pan. And Tom Gordon has got the tin pan now, I fancy. Tom intends to be a swell. He is a born bully, and he'll lead a rabble. ”

“ Mr. Gordon, don't! how can you? My boys, you ought to consider!"
Clayton, meanwhile, had thrown himself off his horse, and cut the cords which bound Father Dickson to the tree. The sudden reaction of feeling overcame him. He fell, fainting.
"Are you not ashamed of yourselves?" said Clayton, indignantly glancing round. "Isn't this pretty business for great, [Pg 512] strong men like you, abusing ministers that you know won't fight, and women and children that you know can't!"
"Do you mean to apply that language to me?" said Tom Gordon. ”

“ Tom Gordon came here and put in a suit for the estate, and attached me and my children as slaves. He is a dreadful man. The case has been tried and gone against us. The judge said that both deeds of emancipation—both the one executed in Ohio, and the one here—were of no effect; that my boy was a slave, and could no more hold property than a mule before a plough. I had some good friends here, and people pitied me very much; but nobody could help me. Tom Gordon is a bad man—a very bad man. ”

“ The second incident that took place came to Tom Gordon in the summer-time while away on his fortnight's vacation. He had grown to be tall, and more attractive than when younger. He was fond of good clothes; and when he took the steamer at the landing, and went down the Hudson to New York, it would have been hard to find a better looking or more correctly costumed young man than Tom. ”

“ Tom Gordon, a fine young man worthy of his great father who has lately entered India from Eton in quest of police post, the beautiful Miss Gordon, and many others of European renown, including natives of high official positions, who have honoured the Reverends Freemantle and Smith with attendance at their mission-school prizegiving."
They sat in a semicircle on the dais. A quaint company. Mr. Commissioner Gordon, with a painstakingly pious expression on his grizzly red-bearded face, inwardly rehearsing the speech he would have to make in his turn ”

“ If we show talent and smartness, we hear some one say, aside, 'It's rather a pity, isn't it?' or, 'He is too smart for his place.' Then, we have all the family blood and the family pride; and what to do with it? I feel that I am a Gordon. I feel in my very heart that I'm like Colonel Gordon [Pg 63] —I know I am, and, sometimes, I know I look like him, and that's one reason why Tom Gordon always hated me; and, then, there's another thing, the hardest of all, to have a sister like Miss Nina, to feel she is my sister, and never dare to say a word of it! ”

“ Master Tom may have a thousand dollars to pay down on the spot. I never knew him to want money when his will was up. Great God! haven't I borne this yoke long enough?"
"Well, Harry," said Nina, "I'll sell everything I've got—my jewels—everything. I'll mortgage the plantation, before Tom Gordon shall do this thing! I'm not quite so selfish as I've always seemed to be. I know you've made the sacrifice of body and soul to my interest ”

“ When Jim Travers was reminded that Tom's modest account did not agree with his flamboyant yarn, he said he feared he had got things a little mixed, but that was the way he or Tom would have conducted the recapture had the chance been given them.
"Are you the young man that caught the runaway tiger?" asked a pleasant looking gentleman, somewhat loudly dressed, as he laid his hand on the shoulder of Tom Gordon, while he was standing among a group of his friends on the porch of the hotel. ”

“ Others, after years of straightforward life, have fallen. So it might be that, though he had given full trust to Tom Gordon, he was not worthy to receive that trust. This half-belief caused the chill in his treatment of the young man, so different from that to which he had been accustomed. Before making up his final judgment, however, Mr. Warmore resolved that every vestige of doubt should be removed. ”

“ It was a surprise to every employee of Mr. Warmore. To Tom Gordon it was also a keen disappointment. He had never doubted that the plum would fall to him. He did not dream that the dudish young man would ever demean himself by manual labor ”

“ The sectarian school paid as little attention to the social as to the athletic side of its youth; and Tom Gordon at fifteen past was as helpless conventionally as if he had never set foot outside of Paradise. ”

“ Then followed an interval of silence, and we heard from other sources that Tom Gordon, though still keeping his place and performing his duties to his employer faithfully, was growing fast into a reckless, daring, dissipated man, such as no sister would like her brother to be. ”

“ Gordon, this mark will never be forgotten!"
There are moments of high excitement, when all that is in a human being seems to be roused, and to concentrate itself in the eye and the voice. And, in such moments, any man, apparently by virtue of his mere humanity, by the mere awfulness of the human soul that is in him, gains power to overawe those who in other hours scorn him. There was a minute's pause, in which neither spoke; and Mr. Jekyl, who was a man of peace, took occasion to touch Tom's elbow, and say:—
"It seems to me this isn't worth while—we shall miss the stage." ”

“ Tom complained. “I knew Uncle David had such a hole as this, but I never thought I’d be locked up in it!”
“How do you think King found out about it?” asked Clay.
“There must have been papers Don didn’t get with the handbag,” was the reply. “I don’t know! He found out, anyway, and so did we! I suppose we are about nine thousand feet under the surface of the earth!”
“Make it a good one while you are at it,” chuckled Clay.
“How are we ever going to get out?” asked Tom. “I’m afraid down here in this musty hole! I always was afraid in the dark. I see ghosts in every shadow! ”

“ The shutters of all the windows were never more carefully barred than before the three inmates retired to their beds.
Tom Gordon, being a rugged, healthy boy, generally passed the night in refreshing slumber. Not a trace of the ague which kept him from the circus showed itself in his system when he went up-stairs to his room ”

“ It has been truly said, however, that no person in the enjoyment of health and vigor of body can long be crushed by affliction. He will rally sooner or later. Thus it proved in the case of Tom Gordon. ”

“ Tom went on, “what do you know about fifty thousand dollars in treasury notes? Ever hear of such a wad as that?”
Clay imagined the truth would have to be told then, but he thought best to put off the evil hour as long as possible, so he said:
“We saw Don down the river, but a deputy chased him away into the mountains. Probably he’ll manage to find us again before long.”
“He was hungry, wasn’t he?” asked Tom, with a wink. “He gets awful hungry sometimes! He’s been out in the desert a long time.” ”

“ So he tried to provide the neighbors with everything they could need, such as dry goods, groceries, hardware, farmers' implements, and, as I said, about all that a large and growing family are likely to require. I have followed in his footsteps, expanding the business, until now my clerks and assistants number nearly a dozen. I am in need of a large, strong, wide awake, active boy, who can write a good hand, and who is willing to begin at the lowest round of the ladder and work his way up."
It was the personality of the man, rather than the business, which attracted Tom Gordon. ”

“ THE CAPTURE—CONCLUSION
"The mischief!" cried Bob.
"Schoolhouse burning up!" echoed Sammy. "That's big news."
"Come on, fellows!" ordered Frank, making a rush down the road.
"Don't wait for me," said Tom. "I'm too fat to run fast."
"Say, I don't see any blaze," spoke Bob.
"No, but look—everybody is putting for the schoolhouse!" cried Sammy.
This was true. In the dim dusk they could see men, women and children rushing in the direction of the schoolhouse. They could hear the man who had told the news, and others, shouting nearer to the center of the village. ”

“ Naturally a tremendous excitement set in among the boys, who began hoarding their pennies and behaving with supernatural propriety, so that nothing should interfere with the treat, which in exquisite enjoyment can never be equaled by anything that could come to them in after-life.
Tom Gordon had never yet seen the inside of a circus and menagerie ”

“ He’s kind of clumsy, like. He worked after school all winter and he must have got a lot of money saved up, but when Roy asked him if he wasn’t going to get a suit and things, he said he wasn’t going to bother—he was more comfortable that way. We all got new outfits this year. Mr. Ellsworth says Tom’s a kind of a law inside himself—or something like that.”
It troubled Gordon that a boy who could do the things Tom had done should eschew the khaki regalia, the hanging jack knife, the belt axe and the scarf, and he spoke to Roy about it. ”

“ As soon as we are out of the building——”
“But how am I going to get out?” interrupted Don. “You forget the sentry who has charge of our floor.”
“No, I don’t. Here he is,” said Tom, taking by the arm a boy who had been introduced as Charley Porter. “You won’t stop him, will you, Charley?”
“I shall not know when he goes out,” was the 91ready answer. “I can be both blind and deaf when circumstances require that I should be so.”
“You see what kind of fellows we are,” said Tom. “You will never be reported for having a light after taps, or for any other offence, by one of us.” ”

“ Then he thrust the papers into an inside pocket and looked Tom in the face, his own eyes staring with amazement.
“What is it?” asked Tom. “What did you find?”
“Government bonds!” Clay almost shouted. “There are thousands of dollars’ worth in that package! Think of drowning with all that wealth in sight! Buck up, young fellow! You’ll soon be a rich man!”
“I was in hopes the lever opened the door!” Tom muttered. “I’m not interested in government bonds just now! What good would a million do us if they found us dead here on this floor?” ”