"Tough—wasn't it?" said Hendricks. "What did you do? Why didn't you go to Carnine or Barclay?"
"That's just what I'm a-comin' to,—the Priest or the Levite?" said Jake. "Well, Mart said, 'Where're the men they caught—won't they help?' and I says, 'They paid their tine and skipped.' 'Fine?' asks Mart, 'fine? I thought you said it was jail sentence.' 'Well,' says I, 'it amounts to the same thing; she can't pay her fine, and that damn reform judge, wanting to make a record as a Spartan, has committed her to jail till it is paid!' 'So they go free, and she goes to jail, because she is poor,' says Mart.' That's what your reform means,' says I, 'or I let her and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,' says I, 'the screams of that little boy at the disgrace of it and the terror of the jail—man—I can't stand it!' 'How much is it?' sighs Mart. 'An even hundred fine and seventeen dollars and fifty cents costs,' says I. Mart's eyes was leaking, and he gets up and goes to the vault, and comes back with the cash and says, blubbering like a calf: 'Here, Jake Dolan, you old scoundrel, take this. I'll pass a paper and get it to-morrow—now get out of here.' And he handed me the money all cried over where he'd been slow counting it out, and said when he'd got hold of his wobbly jaw: 'Don't you tell her where you got it—I don't want her around here. I'll see her to-morrow when I'm down that way and talk to her for old Cap Lee—' And then he laughs as he stands in the door and says: 'Well, Jim,' and he points up, 'your bread cast upon the waters was a long time a-coming—but here she is;' and he says, 'Do you suppose the old villain knows?' And I turned and hunted up the justice and went around to the office, and told Trixie to 'go sin no more,' and she laughs and says, 'Well, hardly ever!' and I kissed the kid, and he fought my whiskers, and we all live happy ever after."
But the colonel, after Dolan left the office, went into the darkening room, and spread out the harsh letter from the Vermont banker demanding money long past due, and read and reread it and took up his burden, and got into the weary treadmill of his life. It rained the next day, and he did not go out with his subscription paper; he had learned that people subscribe better on bright days; and as Hendricks and Barclay were both out of town, he wrote a dilatory letter to the Vermont people—the fifth he had written about that particular transaction—and waited another rainy day and still another before starting out with his paper. But the event was past; the cry of the child was not in the people's ears; they knew that the colonel had put up the money; so it was not until Hendricks came back and heard the story from Dolan that the colonel was repaid. Then because he actually had the money—at least half of it due on that particular debt, which was one of scores of its kind—the colonel delayed another day and another, and while he was musing the fire burned. And events started in Vermont which greatly changed the course of this story.
"I wonder," he has written in that portion of the McHurdie Biography devoted to "The Press of the Years," "why, as we go farther and farther into life, invariably it grows dingier and dingier. The 'large white plumes' that dance before the eyes of youth soil, and are bedraggled. And out of the inexplicable tangle of the mesh of life come dark threads from God knows where and colour the woof of it gray and dreary. Ah for the days of the large white plumes—for the days when life's woof was bright!"
CHAPTER XX
If the reader of this tale should feel drawn to visit Sycamore Ridge, he will find a number of interesting things there, and the trip may be made by the transcontinental traveller with the loss of but half a dozen hours from his journey. The Golden Belt Railroad, fifteen years ago, used to print a guide-book called "California and Back," in which were set down the places of interest to the traveller. In that book Sycamore Ridge was described thus:—
"Sycamore Ridge, pop. 22,345, census 1890; large water-power, main industry milling; also manufacturing; five wholesale houses. Seat Ward University, 1300 students; also Garrison County High School, also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the Daily Banner and the Index; fifty miles of paved streets; largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, famous as writer of war-songs, best known of which is—" etc., etc.
But excepting Watts, who may be gone before you get there,—for he is an old man now, and is alone and probably does not always have the best of care,—the things above annotated will not interest the traveller. At the Thayer House they will tell you that three things in the town give it distinction: the Barclay home, a rambling gray brick structure which the natives call Barclay Castle, with a great sycamore tree held together by iron bands on the terraced lawn before the house—that is number one; the second thing they will advise the traveller to see is Mary Barclay Park, ten acres of transplanted elm trees, most tastefully laid out, between Main Street and the Barclay home; and the third thing that will be pointed out to the traveller is the Schnitzler fountain, in the cemetery gateway, done by St. Gaudens; it represents a soldier pouring water from his canteen into his hand, as he bathes the brow of a dying comrade.