“I don’t take any thing on his recommendation. I look at facts and figures, and they cannot lie.”
There was something unanswerable in this; yet it did not satisfy the mind of Clara.
When Ellison talked to others of what was in his mind, some listened to what he said in silence; some shrugged their shoulders, and some said it wouldn’t do. He had been forewarned of this skepticism by Claxton, and was therefore prepared for it. He well understood that the people lacked true, far-seeing enterprise; were, in fact, half asleep! All objections, therefore, that were urged, rebounded from his mind without producing any rational impression.
He had already picked out a spot for the location of his mill, and was obtaining estimates for its construction, when Claxton called on him one day, with a letter in his hand, which he said he had just received from Cincinnati. It was from a brother who was engaged in the river trading business, and who owned three large steamboats. He had already made a fortune. But ill health had come upon him, and he found it necessary to retire in part from the active duties which had absorbed his attention for years. To his brother he offered most tempting inducements to give up his saw-mill scheme, unite with him, and take the active control of every thing. “If,” said the letter, “you have any difficulty in finding a person in your stupid place with enterprise enough to take your mill off of your hands, I know a man here who will relieve you; but he will want time on nearly the whole amount of the purchase. He is perfectly safe, however, possessing a large amount of property.”
Of course, Mr. Claxton, having taken a particular fancy to Ellison, and being anxious to put him fairly in the road to fortune, offered him the mill at cost; and Ellison, without asking the advice of any one—being fully impressed with the belief that he knew his own business, and had sense enough to understand a plain proposition when presented, immediately closed with the offer. The price asked was exactly cost, and to determine what this was, the bills for every thing were exhibited and taken as the basis of valuation. According to these the mill had cost six thousand dollars. And for this sum, Claxton generously consented to sell the entire concern, with all prospective benefits, to his young friend. The amount of cash to be paid down was three thousand dollars, and for the balance, notes of six, nine, and twelve months were to be given, secured by mortgage on the four hundred acres of land.
When matters assumed this aspect, Clara, who, strangely enough to the mind of Alfred, appeared to like Claxton less and less every day, suggested many doubts, and proposed that the matter should be submitted to three old residents of the place, and their advice taken as conclusive. But Alfred objected to this. They were plodders, he said, in an old beaten track, where, like horses in a mill, they had gone round and round until they were blind. They would, of course, suggest a thousand doubts and difficulties, all of which he had already solved. There was no aspect of the case in which he had not viewed it, and he understood all the bearings better than any one else.
“He is a poor sort of a man who cannot lay his course in life, and steer safely by force of his own intelligence,” said the young man, proudly.
Clara, however, was not satisfied; but having had some experience in regard to her husband’s sensitiveness when any question touching their property came up, she was afraid to say a great deal in opposition to a purpose that was so fully formed as to admit of no check without painful disturbance. So she permitted him to take his own way, neither approving nor objecting.
Alfred understood, however, from his wife’s manner, that she had little confidence in the new business upon which he was about entering.
“Happily, I will disappoint her fears,” was his consoling and strengthening reflection. “When her little property has swelled in value to fifty or sixty thousand dollars, how different will be her feelings! She will then understand the character of her husband better—will know that he is no common man.”