Part 16 (1/2)
As June burned itself gloriously into July, Robert Hendricks no longer counted the weeks until Molly Culpepper should be married, but counted the days. So three weeks and two days, from the first of July, became three weeks, then two weeks and six days, and then one week and six days, and then six days, five days, four days, three days; and then it became seventy-two hours. And the three thres.h.i.+ng machines of the Golden Belt Wheat Company were pouring their ceaseless stream into the company's great bins. The railroad was only five miles away, and Hendricks was sitting in his office in the bank going over and over his estimates of the year's crop which was still lying in the field,--save the crop from less than two thousand acres that was harvested and threshed. From that he judged that there would be enough to redeem his share of the farmers' mortgages, which in Hendricks'
mind could be nothing but rent for the land, and to pay his share of the bank's fraudulent loans to the company--and leave nothing more.
The fact that John expected to buy back the mortgages from Eastern investors who had bought them, and then squeeze the farmers out of their land by the option to buy hidden in the contract, did not move Hendricks. He saw his duty in the matter, but as the golden flood rose higher in the bins, and as hour after hour rolled by bringing him nearer and nearer to the time when Molly Culpepper should marry Adrian Brownwell, a temptation came to him, and he dallied with it as he sat figuring at his desk. The bank was a husk. Its real resources had been sold, and a lot of bogus notes--accommodation paper, they called it--had taken the place of real a.s.sets. For Hendricks to borrow money of any other inst.i.tution as the officer of the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge would be a crime. And yet he knew that ten thousand dollars would save her, and his brain was wrought with a madness. And so he sat figuring while the hours slipped by, trying to discount his future income from the wheat to justify himself in taking the money from the bank's vaults. His figures did not encourage him. They showed him that to be honest with the farmers he might hope for no profit from that year's crop, and with two years of failure behind him, he knew that to discount the next year's crop would be nothing less than stealing. Then, strong and compelling, came the temptation to let the farmers fight it out with the Eastern investors. The temptation rocked the foundations of his soul. He knew it was wrong; he knew he would be a thief, if he did it, no matter what the law might say, no matter what the courts might adjudge. To Barclay what was legal was right, and what the courts had pa.s.sed upon--that was legal. But Hendricks sat with his pencil in his hand, going over and over his figures, trying to silence his conscience.
It was a hot afternoon that he sat there, and idly through his mind went the computation that he had but sixty-six more hours of hope, and as he looked at the clock he added, ”and thirty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” when Martin Culpepper came ambling into the back room of the bank.
”Robert,” began the colonel, with his eyes on the floor and his hands deep in his trousers pockets, ”I've just been talking to John.” The colonel rubbed his neck absent-mindedly and went on, ”John's a Yankee, Robert--the blue stripe on his belly is fast blue, sir; it won't fade, change colour, or crock, in point of fact, not a d.a.m.ned bit, sir, not till the devil covers it with a griddle stripe, sir, I may say.” The colonel slouched into a chair and looked into Hendricks'
face with a troubled expression and continued, ”That John certainly is Yankee, Robert, and he's too many for me. Yes, sir, certainly he's got me up in the air, sir--up in the air, and as I may say a mile west, on that wheat deal.” Hendricks leaned forward unconsciously, and the colonel dropped both hands to his knees and leaned toward Hendricks.
”Robert Hendricks,” asked the colonel, as he bored his deep black eyes into the younger man, ”did you know about that option in the wheat land mortgage? Answer me, sir!”
”Not at the time, Colonel,” returned Hendricks, and began, ”but I--”
”Well, neither did I. And I got half of those mortgages myself. Lige and I did it all, sir. And Lige knew--Lige, he says it's legal, but I say it's just common stealing.” Hendricks moistened his lips and sat with mute face gazing at the colonel. The colonel went on, ”And now the farmers have found it out, and the devil's to pay, sir, with no pitch hot!”
Hendricks cleared his throat and began, ”Well, Colonel--I don't know; of course I--”
The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the younger, and cried, ”Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the mountain, snakes in the gra.s.s--you do know--you do know, sir. You know that to hold up the farmers of this county in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not to let them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging mortgage, and then to slip into that mortgage a blind option to sell for ten dollars an acre land that is worth three times that, is stealing, and so does John Barclay know that, and, worst of all, so does Martin Culpepper know that, and the farmers are finding it out--my neighbours and comrades that I helped to swindle, sir--to rob, I may say--they know what it is.”
The colonel's voice was rising, and he stood glaring and puffing before the young man, shaking his head furiously. Young Hendricks was engaged in swallowing his Adam's apple and blinking unsteadily, and just as he started to reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by the horn and was shaking it into submission, cried: ”Yes, sir, Robert, that's what I said, sir; those were my very words in point of fact.
And,” he began as he sat down and sighed, ”what galls me most of all, Robert, is that John laughs at me. Here you've been gagging and gulping and sputtering, boy, to keep down your conscience, and so I know--yes, Robert, I'm dead sure, I may say, that you're all right; but John giggles--giggles, sir, snickers in point of fact, as though he had done something smart in getting me to go out among my old soldier friends and rob 'em of their homesteads. He doesn't care for my good name any more than for his own.”
Hendricks drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. His blue eyes looked into nothing, and his mind's eye saw the house of cards he had been dallying with totter and fall. He drew a deep breath before he looked up at the colonel, and said rather sadly: ”Well, Colonel, you're right. I told John the day after I came home that I wouldn't stand it.” He drummed with his fingers for a moment before continuing, ”I suppose you got about half of those contracts, didn't you?”
The colonel pulled from his pocket a crumpled paper and handed it to Hendricks, ”Here they are, sir--and every one from a soldier or a soldier's widow, every one a homestead, sir.”
Hendricks walked to the window, and stood looking out with his eyes cast down. He fumbled his Masonic watch-charm a moment, and then glancing at it, caught the colonel's eye and smiled as he said: ”I'm on the square, Colonel, in this matter. I'll protect you.” He went to the elder man and put his hands on his shoulder as he said: ”You go to your comrades and tell them this, Colonel, that between now and snowfall every man will have his land clear. But,” he added, picking up the list of the colonel's contracts, ”don't mention me in the matter.” He paused and continued, ”It might hurt the bank. Just tell them you'll see that it's taken care of.”
The colonel put out his hand as he rose. When their hands met he was saying: ”Blood tells, Robert Hendricks, blood tells. Wasn't your sainted father a Democrat, boy, a Democrat like me, sir,--a Union Democrat in point of fact?” The colonel squeezed the younger man's hand as he cried: ”A Union Democrat, sir, who could shoot at his party, sir, but never could bring himself to vote against it--not once, sir--not once. And Robert Hendricks, when I see you acting as you've acted just now, sir, this very minute in point of fact, I may say, sir, that you're almost honest enough to be a Democrat, sir--like your sainted father.” The colonel held the young man's hand affectionately for a time and then dropped it, sighing, ”Ah, sir--if it wasn't for your d.a.m.ned Yankee free schools and your d.a.m.ned Yankee surroundings, what a Democrat you would have made, Robert--what a grand Democrat!” The colonel waved his silver tobacco box proudly and made for the door and left Hendricks sitting at his desk, drumming on the board with one hand, and resting his head in the other, looking longingly into the abyss from which he had escaped; for the lure of the danger still fluttered his soul.
Strength had come to him in that hour to resist the temptation. But the temptation still was there. For he was a young man, giving up for an intangible thing called justice the dearest thing in his life. He had opened the door of his life's despair and had walked in, as much like a man as he could, but he kept looking back with a heavy heart, hungering with his whole body and most of his soul for all that he had renounced. And so, staring at the light of other days, and across the shadow of what might have been, he let ten long minutes tick past toward the inevitable hour, and then he rose and put his hand to the plough for the long furrow.
They are all off the stage now, as Bob Hendricks is standing in the front door of the bank that August night with his watch in his hand reckoning the minutes--some four thousand three hundred of them--until Molly Culpepper will pa.s.s from him forever, and as the stage is almost deserted, we may peep under the rear curtain for a minute. Observe Sycamore Ridge in the eighties, with Hendricks its moving spirit, controlling its politics, dominating its business,--for John Barclay's business has moved to the City and Bob Hendricks has become the material embodiment of the town. And the town there on the canvas is a busy town of twenty thousand people. Just back of that scene we find a convention spread on the canvas, a political convention wherein Robert Hendricks is struggling for good government and clean politics. Observe him a taciturn, forceful man, with his hands on the machinery of his party in the state, shaping its destinies, directing its politics, seeking no office, keeping himself in the background, desiring only to serve, and not to advertise his power. So more and more power comes to him, greater and wider opportunities to serve his state. His business grows and multiplies, and he becomes a strong man among men; always reserved, always cautious, a man whose self-poise makes people take him for a cynic, though his heart is full of hope and of the joy of life to the very last. Let us lift up one more rag--one more painted rag in the scenery of his life--and see him a reformer of national fame; see him with an unflinching hand pull the wires that control a great national policy of his party, and watch in that scene wherein he names a president--even against the power and the money and the organization of rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay. Hendricks' thin hair is growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no longer fresh and white; but his eyes have a twinkle in them, and the ardour of his soul glows in a glad countenance. And as he sits alone in his room long after midnight while the bands are roaring and the processions cheering and the great city is ablaze with excitement, Robert Hendricks, turning fifty, winds his watch--the same watch that he holds in his hand here while we pause to peek under the canvas behind the scenes--and wonders if Molly will be glad that his side won. He has not seen her for months, nor talked with her for years, and yet as he sits there winding his watch after his great strategic victory in national politics, he hopes fondly that perhaps Molly will know that he played a clean hand and won a fair game.
Now let us crawl out from under this rubbish of the coming years, back into Sycamore Ridge. And while the street is deserted, let us turn the film of events forward, letting them flit by unnoticed past the wedding of Molly Culpepper and Adrian Brownwell until we come to the August day when the railroad came to Sycamore Ridge.
Jacob Dolan, sheriff in and for Garrison County for four years, beginning with 1873, remembered the summer of 1875 to his dying day, as the year when he tore his blue soldier coat, and for twenty-five years, after the fight in which the coat was torn, Dolan never put it on for a funeral or a state occasion, that he did not smooth out the seam that Nellie Logan McHurdie made in mending the rent place, and recall the exigencies of the public service which made it necessary to tear one's clothes to keep the peace.
”You may state to the court in your own way,” said the judge at the trial of the sheriff for a.s.sault, ”just how the difficulty began.”
”Well, sir,” answered Dolan, ”there was a bit of a celebration in town, on August 30, it being the day the railroad came in, and in honour of the occasion I put on my regimentals, and along about--say eleven o'clock--as the crowd began to thicken up around the bank corner, and in front of the hardware store, I was walking along, kind of shoving the way clear for the ladies to pa.s.s, when some one behind me says, 'General Hendricks was an old thief, and his son is no better,' and I turned around and clapt my eye on this gentleman here.
I'd never seen him before in my whole life, but I knew by the bold free gay way he had with his tongue that he was from Minneola and bent on trouble. 'Keep still,' says I, calm and dignified like, bent on preserving the peace, as was my duty. 'I'll not,' says he. 'You will,'
says I. 'Tis a free country,' says he, coming toward me with one shoulder wiggling. 'But not for cowards who malign the dead,' says I.
'Well, they were thieves,' says he, shaking his fist and getting more and more into contempt of court every minute. 'You're a liar,' says I, maintaining the dignity of my office. 'And you're a thief too,' says he. 'A what?' says I. 'A thief,' says he. 'Whack,' says I, with my stick across his head, upholding the dignity of the court. 'Biff,'
says he, with a brick that was handy, more and more contemptuous. 'You dirty, mangy cur,' says I, grabbing him by the ears and pounding his head against the wall as I spoke, hoping to get some idea of the dignity of the court into his rebellious head. 'Whoop,' says he, and, as he tore my coat, 'Yip yip,' says I, and may it please the court it was shortly thereafter that the real trouble started, though I misremember just how at this time.” And as there were three ”E”
Company men on the jury, they acquitted Dolan and advised the court to a.s.sess a fine on the prosecuting witness for contributory negligence in resisting an officer.
But the coat--the blue coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, with the straps of a lieutenant on the shoulders, was mended and even in that same summer did active service many times. For that was a busy summer for Sycamore Ridge, and holidays came faster than the months. When the supreme court decided the Minneola suit to enjoin the building of the court-house, in favour of Syeamore Ridge, there was another holiday, and men drew John Barclay around in the new hack with the top down, and there were fireworks in the evening. For it was John Barclay's lawsuit. Lige Bemis, who was county attorney, did not try to claim credit for the work, and when the last acre of the great wheat crop of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was cut, and threshed, there was a big celebration and the elevator of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was formally turned over to the company, and John Barclay was the hero of another happy occasion. For the elevator, standing on a switch by the railroad track, was his ”proposition.” And every one in town knew that the railroad company had made a rate of wheat to Barclay and his a.s.sociates, so low that Minneola could not compete, even if she hauled her wheat to another station on the road, so Minneola teams lined up at Barclay's elevator. That autumn Minneola, without a railroad, without a chance for the county-seat, and without a grain market, began to f.a.g, and during the last of September, the Mason House came moving out over the hill road, from Minneola to Sycamore Ridge, surrounded by a great crowd of enthusiastic men from the Ridge. Every evening, of the two weeks in which the house was moving, people drove out from Sycamore Ridge to see it, and Lycurgus Mason, sitting on the back step smoking,--he could not get into the habit of using the front steps even in his day of triumph,--was a person of considerable importance.