Whitcomb

“ Temple was still shaking with sympathetic laughter, never dreaming what her husband was laughing at. She turned to Mrs. Whitcomb, but Mrs. Whitcomb was still glaring at Mrs. Wellington, who was still writing with flying fingers and underscoring every other word.
"Some people seem to think they own the train," Mrs. Whitcomb raged. "That creature has been at the writing desk an hour. The worst of it is, I'm sure she's writing to my husband."
Mrs. Temple looked shocked, but another peal of laughter came through the partition between the male and female sections of the car, and she beamed again. ”

“ JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY—A SKETCH On Sunday morning, October seventh, 1849, Reuben A. Riley and his wife, Elizabeth Marine Riley, rejoiced over the birth of their second son. They called him James Whitcomb. This was in a shady little street in the shady little town of Greenfield, which is in the county of Hancock and the state of Indiana. The young James found a brother and a sister waiting to greet him—John Andrew and Martha Celestia, and afterward came Elva May—Mrs. Henry Eitel— Alexander Humbolt and Mary Elizabeth, who, of all, alone lives to see this collection of her brother's poems. ”

“ Kathleen, finding herself banished from Mallory's protection, ran to Mrs. Whitcomb, who had given Ashton up as a hopeless task.
"What shall we do, oh, what, oh what shall we do, dear Mrs. Wellington?" she cried.
"Don't you dare call me Mrs. Wellington!" Mrs. Whitcomb screamed; then she began to flutter. "But we'd better hide what we can. I hope the rah-rah-robbers are ge-gentlemen-men."
She pushed a diamond locket containing a small portrait of Sammy into her back hair, leaving part of the chain dangling. Then she tried to stuff a large handbag into her stocking. ”

“ Whitcomb. “Have I not told you he carries a genie in his pocket?”
“Then that is why his eyes are so deep and bright,” said the lady, turning to peruse Northcote [102] again with an unfathomable coquetry; “and would you not say, Witty, that the genie is in some sort responsible for his mouth?”
“Is this public laying of one another upon the dissecting-table a new parlor-game that has been brought into vogue by the long winter evenings, may I ask?” said Mr. Whitcomb, concealing a yawn.
“Pray do not be insolent, Witty. The proper study of mankind is Man.” ”

“ The accession of somewhat strenuous solemnity to a manner which a minute ago had been grossly, carelessly genial, filled Northcote with a heavy mocking laughter.
“I don’t like it at all; oughtn’t to have been put,” Mr. Whitcomb reaffirmed, with a curious admixture of nervousness and sternness.
“I wonder if I shall ever acquire the most valuable of all the arts,” said the young man, with an arch smile; “the art of knowing where not to look.”
“That art comprises the first law of success,” said the solicitor sententiously. ”

“ Parkinson's face was still invisible to Darrell, but the latter heard a long, low whistle of surprise. Young Whitcomb looked jubilant.
"They say figures won't lie," he added, in tones of boyish enthusiasm, "but if you don't believe those figures, I've got the cash right here to show for it," accompanying the words with a significant gesture. ”

“ Whitcomb. When at last she rose, Mrs. Whitcomb was in the seat almost before Mrs. Wellington was out of it.
Mrs. Wellington paused at another wave of laughter from the men's room. She commented petulantly:
"What good times men have. They've formed 134 a club in there already. We women can only sit around and hate each other."
"Why, I don't hate anybody, do you?" Mrs. Temple exclaimed, looking up from the novel she had found on the book shelves. Mrs. Wellington dropped into the next chair:
"On a long railroad journey I hate everybody. Don't you hate long journeys?" ”

“ I made a cross-bow out of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without him. We had reached that exciting scene where Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son's head. Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its russet cheek fairly towards me. ”

“ A few days later Darrell heard from Walcott the story of Harry Whitcomb's love for his cousin. It had been reported, Walcott said, in low tones, as though imparting a secret, that young Whitcomb was hopelessly in love with Miss Underwood, but that she seemed rather indifferent to his attentions. It was thought, however, that the old gentleman had favored the match, [Pg 146] as he had given his nephew an interest in his mining business, and had the latter lived and proved himself a good financier, it was believed that Mr. Underwood would in time have bestowed his daughter upon him. ”

“ He climbed on a seat, pulled down an upper berth, and, scrambling into it, tried to shut it on himself. Mrs. Whitcomb was so frightened that she assailed Ashton with fury and seizing his feet, dragged him back into the aisle, and beat him with her fists, demanding that he protect her and save her for Sammy's sake.
Mrs. Fosdick, rushing out of her stateroom and not finding her luscious-eyed husband, laid hold of Jimmie Wellington and ordered him to go to the rescue of her spouse. Mrs. Wellington tore her hands loose, crying: "Let him go, madam. He has a wife of his own to defend." ”

“ This quaint figure, whose life and thoughts and writings were racy of the soil whence he sprang—he was born in the Vale of Blackmore—was for many years a quite inadequately rewarded schoolmaster, and only late in life was given, first the living of Whitcomb, and then that of Winterborne Came, near Dorchester. His poems in the Dorsetshire vernacular, long known and admired, were not pecuniarily successful. “What a mockery is life!” ”

“ To divert the conversation from himself, Darrell, by a judicious question or two, led Whitcomb to speak of the expert.
"Parkinson?" he said with a merry laugh. "Oh, yes, he's one of those eastern know-it-alls who come out here occasionally to give us fellows a few points on mines. They're all right, of course, for the men who employ them, who want to invest their money and wouldn't know a mine if they saw one; but when they undertake to air their knowledge among these old fellows who have spent a lifetime in the business, why, they're likely to get left, that's all. ”

“ Really, one is surprised at Whitcomb and Whitcomb.”
[218] “They saw the futility of fighting, and are doing it on the cheap.”
“Poor brute! But I don’t altogether agree with you. Something might have been done by a man of ability. I should like to have seen Tobin in it.”
“I don’t think Tobin would have attempted to touch their witnesses. We must wait till he calls his own to see what he is worth.”
At this moment, however, those who had conducted this secret conversation had their curiosity gratified by the spectacle of Northcote rising for the first time. ”

“ Northcote; I like all men who are clever.”
“Is it that you have so little to fear?”
Northcote was now returning her frank look of inquiry with a gaze of equal candor.
“Yes, there is truth in that,” she said sagely.
“Are not the powerful among us the most vulnerable to your sex?” said Northcote gently.
“Yes, that is true also,” she exclaimed, in a sort of glee. “Why has it not occurred to one before?”
“If you speak much with this gentleman,” said Mr. Whitcomb, “he will tell you a large number of things that you will be surprised to think have not occurred to you before.” ”

“ Mrs. Whitcomb's eyes filled with tears as she remembered the happy Christmas of a few years previous, when the children's father was alive. Just then an excited ejaculation from Madge in the doorway startled her.
"Mother, dear!" she cried, running in, followed by Billy, "I've just been thinking of that story you read to us last year about the money that was stored away behind the old family portrait over the mantelpiece. Don't you remember how it fell down when the little boy, who was locked in the closet for being naughty, kicked the closet door till everything shook and shook ”

“ In March, George Whitcomb laid out Glendora, naming it (with the use of a couple of additional letters) after his wife, Ledora; and at the first day's sale, he auctioned off three hundred lots. In December, the old-established town of Pomona was incorporated. Whittier, started by Quakers from Indiana, Iowa and Illinois, and christened in honor of the New England poet, began at this time with a boom, two hundred thousand dollars' worth of property having been sold there in four months. This prosperity led one newspaper to say with extreme modesty:
Whittier is the coming place! ”

“ Having crossed when the tide was out the going on the beach was good and shortly after midnight they reached their objective. The next morning they could see the pa on the opposite side, but no sign of life. After waiting for some time, hoping against hope that the Maoris would put in an appearance, Whitcombe said: “You perceive, Jacob, there is no one to give us any assistance; we must get across somehow, or we will starve to death.”
Lauper stated that the river was not fordable, but Whitcombe insisted on attempting to cross. ”

“ An infant staring with its ruthless curiosity into the human soul could have hardly dealt less in implication. Yet the act itself seemed to acquire for the young man the nature of a feat so meaningless, yet so charged with meaning did it appear. Only the support of a confident personal beauty rendered it possible; yet it was nothing at all, not even a comment, nor the formation of an opinion, hardly the faint awakening of an interest; all the same the blood had invaded Northcote’s ears.
“You mustn’t look at him so long,” said Mr. Whitcomb, laughing. “You are making him shy.” ”

“ Mr. Whitcomb felt himself to be even a little disconcerted by the feverish manner in which the young advocate tossed about the pages of his brief. As he came to note the vivid pallor of the face before him, the burning of the eyes, the twitching of the lips, he felt a qualm of uneasiness. Perchance it had been neither wise nor kind to be so lavish of the Château Margaux. Blood which had been deteriorated by a course of insufficient food was only too likely to be over-charged [60] by an unaccustomed accession of heat. Already it had seemed to be waxing too high.
“Here is your liqueur,” said Mr. ”

“ As for the brief that I hold, unless a whim should cause you to obtain a postponement of the trial, you will find it in my custody at the Old Bailey on Friday morning.”
“Not so fast, my friend,” said Mr. Whitcomb, as Northcote turned on his heel. “You had better come in and have a drink before you start. It will be a dreadfully cold and wearisome tramp back to town through this slush in the small hours of the morning.”
“My own foible is to walk the streets at night,” said Northcote. “That is the only taste of real freedom one enjoys in a city. ”

“ Whitcombe paced the room, his hands clenched, his brows contracted. He presented the picture of a man driven, by mistakes in Latin prose, to the verge of murder. And poor Dickon was not aware that Whitcombe did not care one brass farthing about it and was merely doing his best to help Willis.
Dickon breathed hard over the prose. "I'm afraid there's a wrong gender here, sir," he said.
"Afraid? You know. You knew it when you did it. You can't help your want of natural abilities, but you can help mistakes of that kind. ”

“ She had another trait not rare among her sex. She liked the attentions of young gentlemen, while the society of girls bored her. She would drag them, sulkily, in the cart; but as for permitting one of them in the saddle, the idea was preposterous. Once when Pepper Whitcomb's sister, in spite of our remonstrances, ventured to mount her, Gypsy gave a little indignant neigh, and tossed the gentle Emma heels over head in no time. But with any of the boys the mare was as docile as a lamb. ”

“ Northcote followed his companion into one of the smaller and quieter but not the less gilded and luxurious rooms. Mr. Whitcomb, who even in his own person did not disdain the panoply of fashion, had the unconquerable nonchalance of bearing which is the first credential to the public respect.
“I want Jools,” he said to the first waiter he met.
The waiter bowed low and said ingratiatingly, “Yes, sare.” He darted away in quest of that personage without an attempt to maintain the few rags of dignity that attend his calling. There was, indeed, a strain of the magician in this wonderful Mr. ”

“ Suddenly, Darrell's incisive tones rang through the sleeper.
"For God's sake, see if there is a surgeon aboard! Here is a man stabbed, dying; don't stop to talk of money when a life is at stake!"
Instantly all thought of personal loss was for the time forgotten, and half a dozen men responded to Darrell's appeal. When it became known throughout the train what had occurred, the greatest excitement followed. Train officials, hurrying back and forth, stopped, hushed and horror-stricken, beside the section where Darrell sat holding Whitcomb in his arms. ”

“ And I would love to say of our advocate that his genie enables him to fear nothing.”
[111] “Yes,” said Northcote, “you shall say that.”
“A man must have fear of some kind,” said the solicitor, “if he is to succeed against enormous odds.”
“There may be a place for it in his reflections, but never in his resolves. Hence you will discern how our reticence has its basis in our cowardice.”
“Subtle brute,” said Mr. Whitcomb, giving his mustache a tug of perplexity. “He is entering upon his special function of turning black into white.” ”