Part 16 (1/2)

”Out of the ranks came millers, and ground the grain the foragers brought in; came woodmen, and cut the trees; came sawyers, and sawed the lumber. We asked for blacksmiths; and they stepped from the ranks, and made their own tools and the tools of the machinists. We called for machinists; and out of the ranks they stepped, and rebuilt the engines, and made the cars ready for the carpenters. When we wanted carpenters, out of the same ranks of common soldiers they walked, and made the cars.

From the ranks came other men, who took the twisted rails, unwound them from the stumps and unsnarled them from one another, as women unwind yarn, and laid them down fit to carry our trains. And in forty days our message went back to Grant that we had 'stopped and built the road,' and that our engines were even then drawing supplies to his hungry army.

Such was the incomparable army which was commanded by that silent genius of war; and to have been one of such an army is to have lived!”

The withered old hand trembled, as the great past surged back through his mind. We all sat in silence; and I looked at Captain Tolliver, doubtful as to how he would take the old Union general's speech. What the Captain's history had been none of us knew, except that he was a Southerner. When the general ceased, Tolliver was sitting still, with no indication of being conscious of anything special in the conversation, except that a red spot burned in each dark cheek. As the necessity for speech grew with the lengthening silence, he rose and faced General Lattimore.

”Suh,” said he, ”puhmit a man who was with the victohs of Mana.s.ses; who chahged with mo' sand than sense at Franklin; and who cried like a child aftah Nashville, and isn't ashamed of it, by gad! to offah his hand, and to say that he agrees with you, suh, in youah tribute to the soldiers of the wah, and honahs you, suh, as a fohmah foe, and a worthy one, and he hopes, a future friend!”

Somehow, the Captain's swelling phrases, his sonorous allusions to himself in the third person, had for the moment ceased to be ridiculous.

The environment fitted the expression. The general grasped his hand and shook it. Then Ballard claimed the right, as one of the survivors of Franklin, to a share in the reunion, and they at once removed the strain which had fallen upon us with the General's first speech, by relating stories and fraternizing soldierwise, until Conductor Corcoran called in at the door, ”Mystery Number One! All out for the christening!”

As we gathered on the platform, we saw that the signboard on the station-building, for the name of the town, had been put up, but was veiled by a banner draped over it. Tents were pitched near, in which people lived waiting for the lot-auction, that they might buy sites for shops and homes. The waters of the lake shone through the trees a few rods away; and in imagination I could see the village of the future, sprinkled about over the beautiful sh.o.r.e. The future villagers gathered near the platform; and when Jim stepped forward to make the speech of the occasion, he had a considerable audience.

”Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, ”our visit is for the purpose of showing the interest which the Lattimore & Great Western takes and will continue to take in the towns on its line, and to add a name to what, I notice, has already become a local habitation. In conferring that name, we are aware that the future citizens of the place have claims upon us.

So one has been selected which, as time pa.s.ses, will grow more and more pleasant to your ears; and one which the person bestowing it regards as an honor to the town as high as could be conferred in a name. No station on our lines could have greater claims upon our regard than the possession of this name. And now, gentlemen--”

Mr. Elkins removed his hat, and we all followed his example. Some one pulled a cord, the banner fell away, and the name was revealed. It was ”JOSEPHINE.” The women looked at it, and turned their eyes on Josie, who blushed rosily, and shrank back behind her father, who burst into a loud laugh of unalloyed pleasure.

”I propose three cheers for the town of Josephine,” went on Mr. Elkins, ”and for the lady for whom it is named!”

They were real cheers--good hearty ones; followed by an address, in the name of the town, by a bright young man who pushed forward and with surprising volubility thanked President Elkins for his selection of the name, and closed with flowery compliments to the blus.h.i.+ng Miss Trescott, whose ident.i.ty Jim had disclosed by a bow. He was afterwards a thorn in our flesh in his practice as a personal-injury lawyer. At the time, however, we warmed to him, as under his leaders.h.i.+p the dwellers in the tents and round about the waters of Mirror Lake all shook hands with Jim and Josie.

Cornish stood with a saturnine smile on his face, and glared at some of the more pointed hits of the young lawyer. Cecil Barr-Smith beamed radiant pleasure, as he saw the evident linking in this public way of Jim's name and Josie's. Antonia stood close to Cecil's side, and chatted vivaciously to him--not with him; for her words seemed to have no correlation with his.

”Quite like the going away of a bridal party!” said she with exaggerated gayety, and with a little spitefulness, I thought. ”Has any one any rice?”

”All aboard!” said Corcoran; and the joyful and triumphant party, with their outward intimacy and their inward warfare of pa.s.sions and desires, rolled on toward ”Mystery Number Two,” which was duly christened ”Cornish,” and celebrated in champagne furnished by its G.o.dfather.

”Don't you ever drink champagne?” said Cornish, as Josie declined to partake.

”Never,” said she.

”What, _never_?” he went on, Pinaforically.

”My G.o.d!” thought I, ”the a.s.surance of the man!” And the palm-encircled alcove at Auriccio's, as it was wont so often to do, came across my vision, and shut out everything but the Psyche face in its ruddy halo, speeding by me into the street, and the vexed young man in the faultless attire slowly following.

Mystery Number Three was ”Antonia,” a lovely little place in embryo; ”Barslow” came next, followed by ”Giddings” and ”Tolliver.” We were tired of it when we reached ”Hinckley,” platted on a farm owned by Antonia's father, and where we ceased to perform the ceremony of unveiling. It was a memorable trip, ending with sunset and home. Captain Tolliver a.s.sisted General Lattimore to alight from the train, and they went arm in arm up to the old General's home.

That night, according to his wont, Jim came to smoke with me in the late evening. ”Let's take a car,” said he, ”and go up and have a look at the houses.”

These were our new mansions up in Lynhurst Park Addition, now in process of erection. In the moonlight we could see them dimly, and at a little distance they looked like ma.s.ses of ruins--the second childhood of houses. A stranger could have seen, from the polished columns and the piles of carved stone, that they were to be expensive and probably beautiful structures.

”What do you think of the General in the role of Ca.s.sandra?” asked Jim, as we sat in the skeleton room which was to be his library.

”It struck me,” said I, ”as a particularly artistic bit of croaking!”

”The Captain says frequently,” said Jim, his cigar glowing like a variable star, ”that opportunity knocks once. The General, I'm afraid, knocks all the time. But if it should turn out that he's right about the--the--dervish-dance ... it would be ... to put it mildly ... a horse on us, Al, wouldn't it?”