Part 6 (2/2)
”Well,” said Albert, ”if Whisky Jim will sell out, why not get him to hold it for me for three weeks until I am of age?”
”He wouldn't sell, but he has forfeited it. He neglected to stay on it.
Has been away from it more than thirty days. You have a perfect right to jump it and pre-empt it. I am well acquainted with Mr. Shamberson, the brother-in-law of the receiver. Very well acquainted. He is a land-office lawyer, and they do say that a fee of fifty dollars to him will put the case through, right or wrong. But in this case we should have right on our side, and should make a nice thing. A very nice thing, indeed. And the town would be relieved of a dissipated man, and you could then carry out your plan of establis.h.i.+ng a village library here.”
”But,” said Albert between his teeth, ”I hear that the reason Jim didn't come back to take possession of his claim at the end of his thirty days is his sickness. He's sick at the Sod Tavern.”
”Well, you see, he oughtn't to have neglected his claim so long before he was taken sick. Not at all. Besides, he doesn't add anything to the moral character of a town. I value the moral character of a settler above all I do, indeed. The moral character. If he gets that claim, he'll get rich off my labors, and be one of our leading citizens. Quite a leading citizen. It is better that you should have it. A great deal better.
Better all round. The depot will be on one corner of the east forty of that claim, probably. Now, you shouldn't neglect your chance to get on.
You shouldn't, really. This is the road to wealth and influence. The road to wealth. And influence. You can found your school there. You'll have money and land. Money to build with. Land on which to build. You will have both.”
”You want me to swear that I am twenty-one when I am not, to bribe the receiver, and to take a claim and all the improvements on it from a sick man?” said Albert with heat.
”You put things wrong. Quite so. I want to help you to start. The claim is now open. It belongs to Government, with all improvements.
Improvements go with the claim. If you don't take it, somebody will. It is a pity for you to throw away your chances.”
”My chances of being a perjured villain and a thief! No, thank you, sir,”
said the choleric Charlton, getting very red in the face, and stalking out of the room.
”Such notions!” cried his mother. ”Just like his father over again. His father threw away all his chances just for notions. I tell you, Plausaby, he never got any of those notions from me. Not one.”
”No, I don't think he did,” said Plausaby. ”I don't think he did. Not at all. Not in the least.”
CHAPTER XI
ABOUT SEVERAL THINGS.
Albert Charlton, like many other very conscientious men at his time of life, was quarrelsomely honest. He disliked Mr. Plausaby's way of doing business, and he therefore determined to satisfy his conscience by having a row with his step-father. And so he startled his sister and shocked his mother, and made the house generally uncomfortable, by making, in season and out of season, severe remarks on the subject of land speculation, and particularly of land-sharks. It was only Albert's very disagreeable way of being honest. Even Isabel Marlay looked with terror at what she regarded as signs of an approaching quarrel between the two men of the house.
But there was no such thing as a quarrel with Plausaby. Moses may have been the meekest of men, but that was in the ages before Plausaby, Esq.
No manner of abuse could stir him. He had suffered many things of many men in his life, many things of outraged creditors, and the victims of his somewhat remarkable way of dealing; his air of patient long-suffering and quiet forbearance under injury had grown chronic. It was, indeed, part of his stock in trade, an element of character that redounded to his credit, while it cost nothing and was in every way profitable. It was as though the whole catalogue of Christian virtues had been presented to Plausaby to select from, and he, with characteristic shrewdness, had taken the one trait that was cheapest and most remunerative.
In these contests Albert was generally sure to sacrifice by his extravagance whatever sympathy he might otherwise have had from the rest of the family. When he denounced dishonest trading, Isabel knew that he was right, and that Mr. Plausaby deserved the censure, and even Mrs.
Plausaby and the sweet, unreasoning Katy felt something of the justice of what he said. But Charlton was never satisfied to stop here. He always went further, and made a clean sweep of the whole system of town-site speculation, which unreasonable invective forced those who would have been his friends into opposition. And the beautiful meekness with which Plausaby, Esq., bore his step-son's denunciations never failed to excite the sympathy and admiration of all beholders. By never speaking an unkind word, by treating Albert with gentle courtesy, by never seeming to feel his innuendoes, Plausaby heaped coals of fire on his enemies' head, and had faith to believe that the coals were very hot. Mrs. Ferret, who once witnessed one of the contests between the two, or rather one of these attacks of Albert, for there could be no contest with embodied meekness, gave her verdict for Plausaby. He showed such a ”Chrischen” spirit. She really thought he must have felt the power of grace. He seemed to hold schripcherral views, and show such a spirit of Chrischen forbearance, that she for her part thought he deserved the sympathy of good people.
Mr. Charlton was severe, he was unchar-it-able--really unchar-it-able in his spirit. He pretended to a great deal of honesty, but people of unsound views generally whitened the outside of the sep-ul-cher. And Mrs.
Ferret closed the sentence by jerking her face into an astringed smile, which, with the rising inflection of her voice, demanded the a.s.sent of her hearers.
The evidences of disapproval which Albert detected in the countenances of those about him did not at all decrease his irritation. His irritation did not tend to modify the severity of his moral judgments. And the fact that Smith Westcott had jumped the claim of Whisky Jim, of course at Plausaby's suggestion, led Albert into a strain of furious talk that must have produced a violent rupture in the family, had it not been for the admirable composure of Plausaby, Esq., under the extremest provocation.
For Charlton openly embraced the cause of Jim; and much as he disliked all manner of rascality, he was secretly delighted to hear that Jim had employed Shamberson, the lawyer, who was brother-in-law to the receiver of the land-office, and whose retention in those days of mercenary lawlessness was a guarantee of his client's success. Westcott had offered the lawyer a fee of fifty dollars, but Jim's letter, tendering him a contingent fee of half the claim, reached him in the same mail, and the prudent lawyer, after talking the matter over with the receiver who was to decide the case, concluded to take half of the claim. Jim would have given him all rather than stand a defeat.
Katy, with more love than logic, took sides of course with her lover in this contest. Westcott showed her where he meant to build the most perfect little dove-house for her, by George, he! he! and she listened to his side of the story, and became eloquent in her denunciation of the drunken driver who wanted to cheat poor, dear Smith--she had got to the stage in which she called him by his Christian name now--to cheat poor, dear Smith out of his beautiful claim.
If I were writing a History instead of a Mystery of Metropolisville, I should have felt under obligation to begin with the founding of the town, in the year preceding the events of this story. Not that there were any mysterious rites or solemn ceremonies. Neither Plausaby nor the silent partners interested with him cared for such cla.s.sic customs. They sought first to guess out the line of a railroad; they examined corner-stakes; they planned for a future county-seat; they selected a high-sounding name, regardless of etymologies and tautologies; they built shanties, ”filed” according to law, laid off a town-site, put up a hotel, published a beautiful colored map, and began to give away lots to men who would build on them. Such, in brief, is the unromantic history of the founding of the village of Metropolisville.
And if this were a history, I should feel bound to tell of all the maneuvers resorted to by Metropolisville, party of the second part, to get the county-seat removed from Perritaut, party of the first part, party in possession. But about the time that Smith Westcott's contest about the claim was ripening to a trial, the war between the two villages was becoming more and more interesting. A special election was approaching, and Albert of course took sides against Metropolisville, partly because of his disgust at the means Plausaby was using, partly because he thought the possession of the county-seat would only enable Plausaby to swindle more people and to swindle them more effectually, partly because he knew that Perritaut was more nearly central in the county, and partly because he made it a rule to oppose Plausaby on general principles. Albert was an enthusiastic and effective talker, and it was for this reason that Plausaby had wished to interest him by getting him to ”jump” Whisky Jim's claim, which lay alongside the town.
And it was because he was an enthusiastic talker, and because his entire disinterestedness and his relations to Plausaby gave his utterances peculiar weight, that the Squire planned to get him out of the county until after the election.
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