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The Jamestown people, in making a pariah of Myron Holder, were not urged to the step by any imperative feeling of hurt honor or pained surprise.
Such faults as hers were not uncommon there; but never before had the odium rested upon one only. Besides, there had always been some "goings on" and some "talk" indicative of the affair. In Myron Holder's case, the Jamestown people had been caught napping. In such cases a marriage and reinstatement into public favor was the usual sequel, arrived at after much exhilarating and spicy gossip, much enjoyable speculation, much mediation upon the part of the matrons, and much congratulation that all had ended so well.
For another thing, Myron Holder was an outsider, and there was no danger that a word spoken against her would provoke any one else to anger. The Jamestown people were all the descendants of some half-dozen families, the original settlers of the country. They had stagnated year after year, generation after generation marrying and intermarrying. The Jamestown people of Myron Holder's day bore a strange resemblance to one another. The descendants of the same families, subjected to the same mental influences, the same conditions of life, the same climate, the same religion—it was not to be wondered at that every prominent or individualized feature of mind and body had been obliterated and averaged down to a commonplace uniformity.
Distinct physical types were rare here, very dark or very fair people being seldom seen. The features were coarse and ill-defined, the nostrils merging into the cheeks, the chins into the necks, the pale lips into the dull-colored faces, with no clear line of demarcation, no pure curve to define form.
Certain peculiarities appertained to certain families, however. When one of the few—very few—Jamestown men who had gone forth to the outside world returned, he had not much difficulty in approximating at least the parentage of the children he encountered in the streets; for one had the Deans nose, a pinched-in, miserly, censorious feature, given to the smelling out of scandal; another had the Warner walk, a gait that in a horse would be termed racking; a third might have the Wilson scowl, a peculiar expression that seemed to emanate from sulkiness; a fourth was evidently a scion of the Disney stock, for he gazed out of the Disney eyes, always rheumy and without lashes.
There appeared in Jamestown families every now and then an imbecile, presenting, as in a terrible composite picture, the mental and moral weaknesses of his related ancestors.
Nearly every family counted, in some of its branches, one or more of these unfortunates.
Jamestown's attitude towards these maimed souls was characteristically utilitarian; they were fed and clothed until they arrived at an age when, if they were harmless, they became useful, or if they were violent, their mania became dangerous. In the former case they were given a full quota of work, and kept out of sight so far as possible, toiling early and late, horrible brownies, working unseen, unpaid, unthanked, unpitied. If they were violent, they were sent as paupers to the governmental institutions and forgotten.
Jamestown was stirred by no noble ambition, thrilled by no eager hope, excited by no generous impulse, moved by no patriotic enthusiasm, undisturbed by visions, unmoved by wars,—craved neither glory nor fame—