Fathers read up on Nevada, and cultivated the three ex-miners; mothers ransacked cook-books and old trunks; Ladies' Companions were industriously searched for pleasing patterns; crimping-irons and curling-tongs were extemporized, and the demand for ribbons and trimmings became so great that the storekeeper hurried to the city for a fresh supply.
Then began that season of mad hilarity and reckless dissipation, which seemed almost a dream to the actors themselves, and to which patriotic Hardhackians have since referred to with feelings like those of the devout Jew as he recalls the glorious deeds of his forefathers, or of the modern Roman as, from the crumbling arches of the Coliseum, he conjures up the mighty shade of the Cæsarian period.
The fragrant bohea flowed as freely as champagne would have done in a less pious locality; ethereal sponge-cakes and transparent currant-jellies became too common to excite comment; the surrounding country was heavily drawn upon for fatted calves, chickens and turkeys, and mince-pies were so plenty, that observing children wondered if the Governor had not decreed a whole year of special Thanksgiving.
Bravely the three great catches accepted every invitation, and, though it was a very unusual addition to his regular duties, the Reverend Abednego Choker faithfully attended all the evening festivities, to the end that they might be decorously closed with prayer, as had from time immemorial been the custom of Hardhack.
And the causes of all these efforts on the part of Hardhack society enjoyed themselves intensely. Young men of respectable inclinations, who have lived for several years in a society composed principally of scoundrels, and modified only by the occasional presence of an honest miner or a respectable mule-driver, would have considered as Elysium a place far less proper and agreeable than Hardhack. In fact, the trio was so delighted, that its eligibility soon became diminished in quantity.
Faxton, at one of the first parties, made an unconditional surrender to a queenly damsel, while Nathan, having found his old schoolday sweetheart still unmarried, whispered something in her ear (probably the secret of some rare cosmetic), which filled her cheeks with roses from that time forth.
But Crewne, the handsomest and most brilliant of the three, still remained, and over him the fight was far more intense than in the opening of the campaign, when weapons were either rusty or untried, and the chances of success were seemingly more numerous.
But to designate any particular lady as surest of success seemed impossible. Even Nathan and Faxton, when besought for an opinion by the two ladies who now claimed their innermost thoughts, could only say that no one but Crewne knew, and perhaps even he didn't.
Crewne was a very odd boy, they said—excellent company, the best of good fellows, the staunchest of friends, and the very soul of honor; but there were some things about him they never could understand. In fact, he was something like that sum of all impossibilities, a schoolgirl's hero.
"But, Harry," said the prospective Mrs. Faxton, with rather an angry pout for a Church-member in full communion, "just see what splendid girls are dying for him! I'm sure there are no nicer girls anywhere than in Hardhack, and he needn't be so stuck up—"