University of Virginia Library

48. CHAPTER XLVIII.

IT had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of Pennybacker,
Bigler and Small. These celebrated contractors
usually made more money during the session of the legislature
at Harrisburg than upon all their summer work, and this
winter had been unfruitful. It was unaccountable to Bigler.

“You see, Mr. Bolton,” he said, and Philip was present at
the conversation, “it puts us all out. It looks as if politics
was played out. We'd counted on the year of Simon's
re-election. And, now, he's re-elected, and I've yet to see
the first man who's the better for it.”

“You don't mean to say,” asked Philip, “that he went in
without paying anything?”

“Not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear,” repeated Mr.
Bigler, indignantly. “I call it a swindle on the state. How
it was done gets me. I never saw such a tight time for
money in Harrisburg.”

“Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining
schemes put through in connection with the election?”

“Not that I know,” said Bigler, shaking his head in disgust.
“In fact it was openly said, that there was no money
in the election. It's perfectly unheard of.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Philip, “it was effected on what the
insurance companies call the `endowment,' or the `paid up'
plan, by which a policy is secured after a certain time without
further payment.”

“You think then,” said Mr. Bolton smiling, “that a liberal
and sagacious politician might own a legislature after a time,
and not be bothered with keeping up his payments?”

“Whatever it is,” interrupted Mr. Bigler, “it's devilish
ingenious, and goes ahead of my calculations; it's cleaned me
out, when I thought we had a dead sure thing. I tell you
what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for reform. Things have
got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a United
States senatorship.”

It was melancholy, but Mr. Bigler was not a man to be
crushed by one misfortune, or to lose his confidence in
human nature, on one exhibition of apparent honesty. He
was already on his feet again, or would be if Mr. Bolton
could tide him over shoal water for ninety days.

“We've got something with money in it,” he explained to
Mr. Bolton, “got hold of it by good luck. We've got the
entire contract for Dobson's Patent Pavement for the city of
Mobile. See here.”

Mr. Bigler made some figures; contract so much, cost of

work and materials so much, profits so much. At the end of
three months the city would owe the company three hundred
and seventy-five thousand dollars—two hundred thousand of
that would be profits. The whole job was worth at least a
million to the company—it might be more. There could be
no mistake in these figures; here was the contract, Mr. Bolton
knew what materials were worth and what the labor would
cost.

Mr. Bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that
there was always a mistake in figures when Bigler or Small
made them, and he knew that he ought to send the fellow
about his business. Instead of that, he let him talk.

They only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry
on the contract—that expended they would have city bonds.
Mr. Bolton said he hadn't the money. But Bigler could
raise it on his name. Mr. Bolton said he had no right to put
his family to that risk. But the entire contract could be
assigned to him—the security was ample—it was a fortune to
him if it was forfeited. Besides Mr. Bigler had been unfortunate,
he didn't know where to look for the necessaries of
life for his family. If he could only have one more chance,
he was sure he could right himself. He begged for it.

And Mr. Bolton yielded. He could never refuse such
appeals. If he had befriended a man once and been cheated
by him, that man appeared to have a claim upon him forever.
He shrank, however, from telling his wife what he had done
on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more
odious than Small to his family it was Bigler.

“Philip tells me,” Mrs. Bolton said that evening, “that the
man Bigler has been with thee again to-day. I hope thee
will have nothing more to do with him.”

“He has been very unfortunate,” replied Mr. Bolton,
uneasily.

“He is always unfortunate, and he is always getting thee
into trouble. But thee didn't listen to him again?”

“Well, mother, his family is in want, and I lent him my

name—but I took ample security. The worst that can
happen will be a little inconvenience.”

Mrs. Bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain
or remonstrate; she knew what a “little inconvenience”
meant, but she knew there was no help for it. If Mr.
Bolton had been on his way to market to buy a dinner for
his family with the only dollar he had in the world in his
pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked
him for it. Mrs. Bolton only asked (and the question showed
that she was no more provident than her husband where
her heart was interested),

“But has thee provided money for Philip to use in opening
the coal mine?”

“Yes, I have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open
the mine, as much as we can afford to lose if no coal is found.
Philip has the control of it, as equal partner in the venture,
deducting the capital invested. He has great confidence in
his success, and I hope for his sake he won't be disappointed.”

Philip could not but feel that he was treated very much
like one of the Bolton family—by all except Ruth. His
mother, when he went home after his recovery from his accident,
had affected to be very jealous of Mrs. Bolton, about
whom and Ruth she asked a thousand questions—an affectation
of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache,
which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the
world and forms new ties. And to Mrs. Sterling, a widow,
living on a small income in a remote Massachusetts village,
Philadelphia was a city of many splendors. All its inhabitants
seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease and surrounded
by superior advantages. Some of her neighbors had relations
living in Philadelphia, and it seemed to them somehow a
guarantee of respectability to have relations in Philadelphia.
Mrs. Sterling was not sorry to have Philip make his way
among such well-to-do people, and she was sure that no good
fortune could be too good for his deserts.

“So, sir,” said Ruth, when Philip came from New York,

“you have been assisting in a pretty tragedy. I saw your
name in the papers. Is this woman a specimen of your western
friends?”

“My only assistance,” replied Philip, a little annoyed,
“was in trying to keep Harry out of a bad scrape, and I failed
after all. He walked into her trap, and he has been punished
for it. I'm going to take him up to Ilium to se if he
won't work steadily at one thing, and quit his nonsense.”

“Is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?”

“I don't know, she has a kind of beauty—she is not
like—'

“Not like Alice?”

“Well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest
woman in Washington—dashing, you know, and sarcastic and
witty. Ruth, do you believe a woman ever becomes a
devil?”

“Men do, and I don't know why women shouldn't. But
I never saw one.”

“Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is
dreadful to think of her fate.”

“Why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? Do you
suppose they will be so barbarous as that?”

“I wasn't thinking of that—it's doubtful if a New York
jury would find a woman guilty of any such crime. But to
think of her life if she is acquitted.”

“It is dreadful,” said Ruth, thoughtfully, “but the worst
of it is that you men do not want women educated to do anything,
to be able to earn an honest living by their own exertions.
They are educated as if they were always to be petted
and supported, and there was never to be any such thing as
misfortune. I suppose, now, that you would all choose to
have me stay idly at home, and give up my profession.”

“Oh, no,” said Philip, earnestly, “I respect your resolution.
But, Ruth, do you think you would be happier or do
more good in following your profession than in having a
home of your own?”

“What is to hinder having a home of my own?”

“Nothing, perhaps, only you never would be in it—you
would be away day and night, if you had any practice; and
what sort of a home would that make for your husband?”

“What sort of a home is it for the wife whose husband
is always away riding about in his doctor's gig?”

“Ah, you know that is not fair. The woman makes the
home.”

Philip and Ruth often had this sort of discussion, to which
Philip was always trying to give a personal turn. He was
now about to go to Ilium for the season, and he did not like
to go without some assurance from Ruth that she might perhaps
love him some day, when he was worthy of it, and when
he could offer her something better than a partnership in his
poverty.

“I should work with a great deal better heart, Ruth,” he
said the morning he was taking leave, “if I knew you cared
for me a little.”

Ruth was looking down; the color came faintly to her
cheeks, and she hesitated. She needn't be looking down, he
thought, for she was ever so much shorter than tall Philip.

“It's not much of a place, Ilium,” Philip went on, as if a
little geographical remark would fit in here as well as anything
else, “and I shall have plenty of time to think over the
responsibility I have taken, and—” his observation did not
seem to be coming out any where.

But Ruth looked up, and there was a light in her eyes that
quickened Phil's pulse. She took his hand, and said with
serious sweetness:

“Thee mustn't lose heart, Philip.” And then she added,
in another mood, “Thee knows I graduate in the summer and
shall have my diploma. And if any thing happens—mines
explode sometimes—thee can send for me. Farewell.”

The opening of the Ilium coal mine was begun with energy,
but without many omens of success. Philip was running
a tunnel into the breast of the mountain, in faith that the

coal stratum ran there as it ought to. How far he must go in
he believed he knew, but no one could tell exactly. Some of
the miners said that they should probably go through the
mountain, and that the hole could be used for a railway tunnel.
The mining camp was a busy place at any rate. Quite
a settlement of board and log shanties had gone up, with a
blacksmith shop, a small machine shop, and a temporary store
for supplying the wants of the workmen. Philip and Harry
pitched a commodious tent, and lived in the full enjoyment
of the free life.

There is no difficulty in digging a hole in the ground, if
you have money enough to pay for the digging, but those
who try this sort of work are always surprised at the
large amount of money necessary to make a small hole. The
earth is never willing to yield one product, hidden in her
bosom, without an equivalent for it. And when a person
asks of her coal, she is quite apt to require gold in exchange.

It was exciting work for all concerned in it. As the tunnel
advanced into the rock every day promised to be the
golden day. This very blast might disclose the treasure.

The work went on week after week, and at length during
the night as well as the daytime. Gangs relieved each other,
and the tunnel was every hour, inch by inch and foot by foot,
crawling into the mountain. Philip was on the stretch of
hope and excitement. Every pay day he saw his funds
melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of
what the miners call “signs.”

The life suited Harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was
never disturbed. He made endless calculations, which
nobody could understand, of the probable position of the
vein. He stood about among the workmen with the busiest air.
When he was down at Ilium he called himself the engineer
of the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe
with the Dutch landlord on the hotel porch, and astonishing
the idlers there with the stories of his railroad operations in
Missouri. He talked with the landlord, too, about enlarging

his hotel, and about buying some village lots, in the prospect
of a rise, when the mine was opened. He taught the Dutchman
how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer
time, and had a bill at the hotel, the growing length of which
Mr. Dusenheimer contemplated with pleasant anticipations.
Mr. Brierly was a very useful and cheering person wherever
he went.

Midsummer arrived. Philip could report to Mr. Bolton
only progress, and this was not a cheerful message for him to
send to Philadelphia in reply to inquiries that he thought became
more and more anxious. Philip himself was a prey to
the constant fear that the money would give out before the
coal was struck.

At this time Harry was summoned to New York, to attend
the trial of Laura Hawkins. It was possible that Philip
would have to go also, her lawyer wrote, but they hoped for
a postponement. There was important evidence that they

could not yet obtain, and he hoped the judge would not
force them to a trial unprepared. There were many reasons
for a delay, reasons which of course are never mentioned,
but which it would seem that a New York judge sometimes
must understand, when he grants a postponement upon a motion
that seems to the public altogether inadequate.

Harry went, but he soon came back. The trial was put off.
Every week we can gain, said the learned counsel, Braham,
improves our chances. The popular rage never lasts long.