Tompkins

“ They left the others and went out on the dim lawns with the lighted club-house at their backs, and Tompkins, drawing his arm through Stover's, began to speak:
"Dink, we're in for a licking."
"Oh, I say!" said Stover, overwhelmed. "But we have come on; we've come fast."
"Stover, that's a great Princeton team," said Tompkins quietly, "and we're a weak Yale one. We're going to get well licked. Now, boy, I'm telling you this because I think you're the stuff to stand it; because you'll play better for knowing what's up to you." ”

“ This was uttered almost involuntarily, but it had the effect to give his thoughts a new direction. After thinking intensely for some time, he took a long inspiration, compressed his lips tightly as he breathed out again, and then said, half aloud, and in a tone of decision—
"I will not suffer myself to be made a fool of any longer, by wife or usurer. Mrs. John Tompkins will have to lay aside a portion of her dignity, or get some other means of supporting it. I am called a man, and I will be a man." ”

“ Tompkins knew was that armies were marching and counter-marching daily, and filling the country with alarm.
Communication north and south was cut off, and it was almost impossible for any letter to cross the line.
It was evening, three or four weeks after the battle of Bull Run. Mr. Tompkins had, as usual, been to Snagtown, and returned; the Summer sun was sinking, battling in golden glory, a thick, dark bank of clouds gathering in the northwest. Mr. Tompkins sat in a rustic seat on the lawn, [Pg 160] beneath the spreading branches of a maple, which had of late become his favorite resort. ”

“ Tompkins.
"The house servants have no children," answered Mrs. Tompkins, "and I have cautioned the field women not to [Pg 24] allow their children to come here especially in the early morning, to annoy us."
Mr. Tompkins, whose morning nap was not yet over, closed his eyes again. The melodious horn of the overseer, calling the slaves to the labors of the day, sounded musical in the early morning air, and seemed only to soothe the wearied master to sleep again. ”

“ Tompkins was a somewhat eccentric man and had some rather odd fads—possibly the best known of which was his large flock of goats, which was a prominent feature of the Washington avenue landscape for many years. Another, which was possibly not so well known, was a fondness for choice toilet soaps, of which he is said to have kept a large quantity in his house. We all know that cleanliness is next to Godliness. ”

“ See here, Mr. Tompkins, you know your own business but this Von Bieberstein guy is nobody to monkey around with. He's plenty tough and he'd as soon kill as sneeze. Can't you give me a hint? I'm trained to take those risks and know how to take care of myself, and anyhow the Bureau is back of me."
I leaned back in my chair and laughed and laughed and laughed until I noticed that both Arthurjean and Harcourt were staring at me without smiling.
"Sorry," I apologized. "It's just that something struck me as rather funny. Well, Arthurjean, I'll be catching the train back to Westchester. ”

“ Mr Tompkins showed himself the coward he was, as Tom had anticipated; for, after hammering on the top of the cabin skylight to rouse those below, with a belaying pin he had grasped hold of at the sight of the struggle in the waist, he incontinently scuttled up the mizzen shrouds, displaying an agility of which one would have never thought him capable. The steersman followed his example ”

“ Sagebrush stood up. His bent figure straightened a trifle, and a sudden savage expression showed in his eyes, half masked behind the hairy growth of whiskers. In a flash all his dirt and squalor, all his unkempt and sun-bleached appearance, was gone in the eyes of Tompkins; he saw there a desert man who cared nothing for externals, but who could cope daily with the bitterest and most fearful forces of nature—and who was now ready to turn his inward strength against men. ”

“ Tompkins was in a blaze of fury.
"Hold up! What do you think this is? I didn't ask you to hug your grandmother; I told you to tackle that dummy! Hit it hard—break it in two! If you can't tackle, we don't want you around. Tackle to throw your man back! Tackle as if the whole game depended on it. Come on, now. Next man. Jump at it! Rotten! Rotten! Oh, squeeze it. Don't try to butt it over—you're not a goat! Half the game's the tackling! Next man. Oh, girls—girls! What is this bunch, anyhow—a young ladies' seminary? Here! Stop—stop! You're up at Yale now. I'll show you how we tackle!" ”

“ Tompkins had speedily discovered both that her lodger really had money, and that the gentleman of large fortune whom she had lost was the apothecary of Silverton. The respect obtained by the first quite obliterated, in Mrs. Tompkins' eyes, any contempt that might have been generated by the falsehoods which the second brought to light, and on the whole nothing could be more friendly than their intercourse.
"There can be no use, Mrs. Tompkins," said the doleful widow, "do you think there can ... in my going on wearing this dismal dress, that almost breaks my heart every time I look at myself?... ”

“ Captain Abner Tompkins stood there, sword in hand. Behind him were twenty or more of his men, all armed, while the others were scattered in different portions of the yard.
"What will you have, gentlemen?" asked the widow, holding the lamp above her head and looking fearlessly down into their faces.
[Pg 142]
"Pardon me, madam," said the young captain, bowing, "but we have been informed that some rebels are quartering here, and have come for them."
"Your informant was both meddlesome and ignorant. There are no rebel soldiers in the house," was the widow's reply. ”

“ There was not a man among us—except perhaps the Company Sergeant-Major, whose ankle was swelling up—who would not have welcomed a German attack.
We got back to the golf pavilion, and found the whole place in an uproar. Women, all of them very wet, were rushing about. Tompkins was giving confused and contradictory orders to the twelve stretcher bearers, who looked cowed and miserable. Mrs. Cotter was sitting on the floor in a corner of the room crying bitterly. We got the explanation out of Tompkins at last. ”

“ You kin keep your stuff and I'll keep my beef.' The peddler loaded up and druv off. Then old Bill went in and pulled Lizzie out from behind the pianner, and put up the steps so Mrs. Tompkins could come down from the corn barn, and fished Tommy out of the pig-sty, and threw a bucket of water over him, and put up the ladder so George could git down from the haymow, and they all got round poor old Jinnie and stood as hard as they could and laughed." Here Professor Strout pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. "That's how old Bill Tompkins got his beef." ”

“ It will be recalled that two civilian experts in the Bureau of Engineering, Tompkins and Rand by name, were the men whom Evans had charged Mortimer to keep ever on the job to apprise him of such messages as Evans might send. On this particular evening in Washington, Tompkins had the duty. At a late hour that night, the following message came into his hands:
We have evidence suggesting that the man I warned you against last spring is involved in treason. ”

“ Then we should be face to face with want, and with the winter coming on, too. Don't look at me so reproachfully, Mavis."
"Mother, how can you leave me?" cried the little girl. "I don't mind living with Miss Tompkins for a few weeks, but for months, perhaps years—" She completed the sentence with a sob.
"It is not my intention to leave you with Miss Tompkins, my dear. I am thinking of sending you to your father's relations, if they will have you, and I expect they will. You know you've an uncle and aunt living at W—, near Oxford, and they have children about your age, a girl and a boy. ”

“ Tompkins’ hair-raising odyssey from Edson’s CP to Green Beach took nearly three hours, during which time he was nearly shot on several occasions by nervous Japanese and American sentries. By35 quirk, the radio nets started working again just before Tompkins reached LT 1/6. ”

“ Tompkins, he was called a rich man, was one of sad perplexity and anxious deliberation upon what it was best for him to do. He had great difficulty in raising sufficient money to meet his payments, independent of the ten thousand dollars demanded by Wolford. ”

“ Mr. Thornton said, "in the East, which would render you liable. It can do no harm to give the human monster a taste of the whip, however, and then turn him over to the rigor of the law."
"Perhaps you are right," Tompkins agreed. "Come along, boys! We'll teach the wretch that he must be civilized, if he will live in a civilized country!"
And the sturdy villager led off, the whole crowd following in his rear with indignant faces.
There was indeed a dark look-out for Captain Gregg. ”

“ Of course, Pupkin would never have thought of considering himself on an intellectual par with Mallory Tompkins. That would have been ridiculous. Mallory Tompkins had read all sorts of things and had half a mind to write a novel himself—either that or a play. All he needed, he said, was to have a chance to get away somewhere by himself and think. Every time he went away to the city Pupkin expected that he might return with the novel all finished; but though he often came back with his eyes red from thinking, the novel as yet remained incomplete. ”

“ And Wolford retired; not altogether satisfied that he had gained all he had hoped to gain by the visit.
"Ah me!" sighed Tompkins, turning to his desk as soon as this man had departed. "Here comes more trouble. That miserly wretch has no more use for his money than the man in the moon. It seems to give him delight to make every one feel his power. It is for no other reason than this, that I am now to be harassed half out of my life in order to raise ten thousand dollars in a week, besides meeting my other payments. I must try and get some one to take the mortgage he is about releasing." ”

“ THE CONCERT AT EASTHAM “Had a hot time at your class meeting, I understand,” said Tompkins, who was killing a quarter of an hour in Wolcott’s room. “I wish I’d been there. Which side were you on, the kickers or the kicked?”
“I voted for Butler,” replied Wolcott, with dignity.
“Oh, you belong to that bunch! What’s the matter with Laughlin? Isn’t he good enough for you?”
“He’s all right in his place. I don’t think he ought to be president of the class. He isn’t enough of a gentleman.”
“Oh, isn’t he? Who is, then? Marchmont?” ”

“ As Dick, prompted by Varrell’s shrewd questions, launched out on a detailed account of yesterday’s interview, Tompkins passed quickly from assumed indifference to open interest, and from open interest to self-forgetfulness. With the end of the story he burst into a shout.
“Well, that’s what I call rubbing it in! and the poor chap hadn’t a cent to his name!”
Varrell rose with solemnity. “Look here, Tommy, that requires explanation. Whatever he is, the man isn’t a poor chap in any good sense. ”

“ It has been arranged that Oleah and Irene are to live on her father's plantation in North Carolina, while Abner and Olivia remain on the old homestead.
The good minister, whose saving prayer had proved so effective in Diggs' case, is seated at the head of the table. Mrs. Tompkins, in widow's weeds, is at the foot. She has lost her brilliant beauty and her political ambition; she thinks that the happiness of the world depends on domestic peace, and that this can be secured only by perfect unanimity of feeling between husband and wife. ”

“ Wolcott could repress his curiosity no longer.
“I think I’ll go out and see what’s up,” he said. “If there’s anything doing, I should like a sight of it.”
In front of Tompkins’s door was a group of four, bending over several pairs of rubbers. Tompkins on his knees was laboring with a screw-driver to loosen one from the floor.
“Can I help you?” asked Lindsay, with mock politeness. The contribution trick still rankled in his memory.
“Yes, go and drown those two Pecks!” 58growled the irate Tompkins, as he freed one rubber from the floor and attacked another. “They’ve screwed down the whole lot. ”

“ No means were spared to poll every possible vote. Lincoln was the Republican candidate, Douglas a Northern, and Breckinridge a Southern Democrat, and Bell the Whig and "Know-Nothing" candidate, and all four parties worked vigorously.
Mr. Tompkins and his sons reached Snagtown early in the morning. The village was already alive with the stir and excitement. The polls opened at sunrise, and men were soon crowding around them, quarreling, disputing, joking. The morning air was crisp and frosty, and the people were compelled to walk about briskly to keep from being chilled. ”

“ Tompkins merely shrugged his shoulders and frowned a bit.
“Is it likely?” he asked, with a touch of bitterness. “Even if I’d had the chance, I’m too thick to–”
“Rot!” cut in Court, swiftly. As they went up the steps he flung an arm impulsively around the other’s shoulders. “Don’t you worry about anything Ranny Phelps says. Nobody ever pays any attention to him, anyhow. I do wish I knew who that plucky chap was, though. It was a corking thing to do. You haven’t heard any one say, have you, Tommy?”
Tompkins hesitated an instant, an odd indecision in his face. ”

“ And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.
CHAPTER III Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia City. "He may never return again," sighed the young girl as she glanced at the frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering horses,—"at least, with unbroken bones. Should he meet with an accident! ”