Life ran smoothly in some ways for Lambert Girtin, for he became uniformly successful as a business man. The oil excitement was at its height, and he was sent by a large general supply house in Pittsburg to open a store in Pithole City, “the Magic City,” to the success of which he contributed so much that he was given an interest in the concern.
At heart he was not happy. He could never focus his attentions on any woman for long, as in the background he always saw the slender form, the blushing face, the pansy-like eyes and the copper-brown, wavy hair of his mountain sweetheart, Elsie Vanneman. Her loveliness haunted him, and all others paled beside her. He was in easy circumstances to marry; friends less opulent were taking wives and building showy homes with Mansard roofs, along the outskirts of the muddy main thoroughfare of Pithole City, where landscape gardening often consisted of charred, blackened pine stumps and abandoned oil derricks.
Sometimes, in his spiritual[spiritual] loneliness, he betook himself to strange companions. One of these was a Chinese laundryman, a prototype of Bret Harte’s then popular “Heathen Chinee,” who seemed to be a learned individual, despite his odd appearance. Girtin, who had read of the exploits of the Fox sisters and other exponents of early spiritualism, was unprepared for the learning and insight possessed by this undistinguished Celestial.
Drawn to him at first because he could possibly tell about conditions in China, where Elsie was supposed to be, he became gradually more and more absorbed by the laundryman’s philosophic speculations. The fellow confided at length that he was married, and had five children at Tien-Tsin, to whom he was deeply attached. He would have died of a broken heart to be so far away from them but for the power he had developed by concentrating on the image of his native mountains, which yearning was reciprocated, and at night he claimed that his spirit was drawn out of his body and “hopped” half the span of the globe to the side of his loved ones. There must be something after all in the old Scotch quotation, “Oh, for my strength, once more to see the hills.”
Girtin expressed a strong desire to be initiated into these compelling mysteries. In order to cultivate his psychic sense, the Chinaman induced him to smoke opium, which, while repellent to Girtin, he undertook in order to reach his desired object. If he had been a man of any mental equilibrium, he would have secured a leave of absence from business and gone to China and claimed the fair Elsie, if she was still unmarried. He would not do that because he was still tortured by the memory of her preferring another at the moment when his hopes had been highest, yet he wanted to see her, hoping that he could do so without her knowing it.
The results attained were beyond his expectations. He quickly mastered his soul and “hopped” to the interior of China. Elsie was there, surrounded by her classes; at twenty-one more wondrously lovely and beautiful than when he had parted from her that frosty night, with the Dipper and Jacob’s Rake shining so clearly in the heavens.
Though there were many missionaries and foreign officials who would have courted her, her dignity and quiet reserve were impenetrable. Was she so because of the love for the youth who was to escort her home from church that night, or did she cherish the memory of her whilom schoolmaster admirer? These were the thoughts that annoyed him by day, the “hang over” of his spiritual adventures at night.
The opium and the intense mental concentration were taking a lot out of him. He became sallow and irritable, and neglected many business opportunities. One of the head partners of the firm in Pittsburg was going to Pithole City “to have it out with him,” as the mountain folks would say. Before he could reach the scene word was telegraphed that Lambert Girtin, frightfully altered in appearance, was found dead one morning in a bunk back of the Charley Wah Laundry at Pithole.
He had no relatives in the town, and his sisters, who could not come on, telegraphed to bury him in the new Mount Moriah Cemetery, now all overgrown and abandoned, like Pithole itself! There could be no doubt as to his death, as Bill Brewer, just coming into fame as the “Hick Preacher,” officiated at the obsequies. So Lambert Girtin was quickly forgotten in most all quarters. If he was remembered for a time, it was in the remote valley in which he had taught school, and where news of his early demise occasioned profound regret.
Years passed[passed], and Elsie Vanneman, after giving some of the best years of her life to missionary activities in various parts of China, resigned her position, in consequence of a shattered nervous system, caused by overwork during a great earthquake, where she ministered to thousands of refugees, and started for home. Her parents had died while she was in the “Celestial Kingdom,” but she had a number of brothers and sisters who were glad to welcome her, and with whom she planned a round of visits.