Part 6

Presently, vagrant white clouds came drifting along, high over the sea and the valley; then they came in couples and groups; then in imposing squadrons; gradually joining their forces, they banked themselves solidly together, a thousand feet under us, and _totally shut out land and ocean_—not a vestige of _anything_ was left in view, but just a little of the rim of the crater, circling away from the pinnacle whereon we sat (for a ghostly procession of wanderers from the filmy hosts without had drifted through a chasm in the crater wall and filed round and round, and gathered and sunk and blended together till the abyss was stored to the brim with a fleecy fog). Thus banked, motion ceased, and silence reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy floor stretched without a break—not level, but in rounded folds, with shallow creases between, and here and there stately piles of vapory architecture lifting themselves aloft out of the common plain—some near at hand, some in the middle distances, and others relieving the monotony of the remote solitudes. There was little conversation, for the impressive scene overawed speech. I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.

_FROM_ “THE GILDED AGE” (1873)

COLONEL SELLER’S GREAT IDEA

Washington was not able to ignore the cold entirely. He was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, and yet he could not persuade himself that he felt the slightest heat, notwithstanding the isinglass door was still gently and serenely glowing. He tried to get a trifle closer to the stove, and the consequence was he tripped the supporting poker and the stove-door tumbled to the floor. And then there was a revelation—there was nothing in the stove but a lighted tallow candle!

The poor youth blushed and felt as if he must die with shame. But the Colonel was only disconcerted for a moment—he straightaway found his voice again:

“A little idea of my own, Washington—one of the greatest things in the world! You must write and tell your father about it—don’t forget that, now. I have been reading up some European scientific reports—friend of mine, Count Fugier sent them to me—sends me all sorts of things from Paris—he thinks the world of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came to the conclusion that it was a non-conductor or something like that, and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you, I saw in a moment what was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your fires!—no more slow torture and certain death for me, sir. What you want is the _appearance_ of heat, not the heat itself—that’s the idea. Well, how to do it was the next thing. I just put my head to work, pegged away a couple of days, and here you are! Rheumatism? Why a man can’t any more start a case of rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy! Stove with a candle in it and transparent door—that’s it—it has been the salvation of this family. Don’t you fail to write your father about it, Washington. And tell him the idea is mine—I’m no more conceited than most people, I reckon, but you know it is human nature for a man to want credit for a thing like that.”

COLONEL SELLERS LETS HIMSELF OUT

The supper at Colonel Sellers’s was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but it improved on acquaintance. That is to say, that what Washington regarded at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became awe-inspiring agricultural productions that had been reared in some ducal garden beyond the sea, under the sacred eye of the duke himself, who had sent them to Sellers; the bread was from corn which could be grown in only one favored locality in the earth and only a favored few could get it; the Rio coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the taste, took to itself an improved flavor when Washington was told to drink it slowly and not hurry what should be a lingering luxury in order to be fully appreciated—it was from the private stores of a Brazilian nobleman with an unrememberable name. The Colonel’s tongue was a magician’s wand that turned dried apples into figs and water into wine as easily as it could change a hovel into a palace and present poverty into imminent future riches.

Washington slept in a cold bed in a carpetless room and woke up in a palace in the morning; at least the palace lingered during the moment that he was rubbing his eyes and getting his bearings—and then it disappeared and he recognized that the Colonel’s inspiring talk had been influencing his dreams. Fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered the sitting-room he noticed that the old haircloth sofa was absent; when he sat down to breakfast the Colonel tossed six or seven dollars in bills on the table, counted them over, said he was a little short and must call upon his banker; then returned the bills to his wallet with the indifferent air of a man who is used to money. The breakfast was not an improvement upon the supper, but the Colonel talked it up and transformed it into an oriental feast. By and by, he said:

“I intend to look out for you, Washington, my boy. I hunted up a place for you yesterday, but I am not referring to that, now—that is a mere livelihood—mere bread and butter; but when I say I mean to look out for you I mean something very different. I mean to put things in your way that will make a mere livelihood a trifling thing. I’ll put you in a way to make more money than you’ll ever know what to do with. You’ll be right here where I can put my hand on you when anything turns up. I’ve got some prodigious operations on foot; but I’m keeping quiet; mum’s the word; your old hand don’t go around pow-wowing and letting everybody see his k’yards and find out his little game. But all in good time, Washington, all in good time. You’ll see. Now, there’s an operation in corn that looks well. Some New York men are trying to get me to go into it—buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they mature—ah, I tell you, it’s a great thing. And it only costs a trifle; two millions or two and a half will do it. I haven’t exactly promised yet—there’s no hurry—the more indifferent I seem, you know, the more anxious those fellows will get. And then there is the hog speculation—that’s bigger still. We’ve got quiet men at work” (he was very impressive here), “mousing around, to get propositions out of all the farmers in the whole West and Northwest for the hog crop, and other agents quietly getting propositions and terms out of all the manufactories—and don’t you see, if we can get all the hogs and all the slaughter-houses into our hands on the dead quiet—whew! it would take three ships to carry the money. I’ve looked into the thing—calculated all the chances for and all the chances against, and though I shake my head and hesitate and keep on thinking, apparently, I’ve got my mind made up that if the thing can be done on a capital of six millions, that’s the horse to put up money on! Why, Washington—but what’s the use of talking about it—any man can see that there’s whole Atlantic oceans of cash in it, gulfs and bays thrown in. But there’s a bigger thing than that, yet—a bigger——”

“Why, Colonel, you can’t want anything bigger!” said Washington, his eyes blazing. “Oh, I wish I could go into either of those speculations—I only wish I had money—I wish I wasn’t cramped and kept down and fettered with poverty, and such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! Oh, it is a fearful thing to be poor. But don’t throw away those things—they are so splendid that I can see how sure they are. Don’t throw them away for something still better and maybe fail in it! I wouldn’t, Colonel. I would stick to these. I wish father were here and were his old self again. Oh, he never in his life had such chances as these are. Colonel, you _can’t_ improve on these—no man can improve on them!”

A sweet, compassionate smile played about the Colonel’s features, and he leaned over the table with the air of a man who is “going to show you” and do it without the least trouble:

“Why Washington, my boy, these things are nothing. They _look_ large—of course they look large to a novice—but to a man who has been all his life accustomed to large operations—pshaw! They’re well enough to while away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting for something to _do_, but—now just listen a moment—just let me give you an idea of what we old veterans of commerce call ‘business.’ Here’s the Rothschilds’ proposition—this is between you and me, you understand——”

Washington nodded three or four times impatiently, and his glowing eyes said, “Yes, yes—hurry—I understand——”

“——for I wouldn’t have it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the sly” (voice down to an impressive whisper, now) “and buy up a hundred and thirteen wildcat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri—notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now—average discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent.—buy them all up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! Whiz! the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a tremendous premium before you could turn a handspring—profit on the speculation not a dollar less than forty millions!” (An eloquent pause while the marvelous vision settled into W.’s focus.) “Where’s your hogs now! Why, my dear innocent boy, we would just sit down on the front doorsteps and peddle banks like lucifer matches!”

Washington finally got his breath and said:

“Oh, it is perfectly wonderful! Why couldn’t these things have happened in father’s day. And I—it’s of no use—they simply lie before my face and mock me. There is nothing for me to do but to stand helpless and see other people reap the astonishing harvest.”

“Never mind, Washington, don’t you worry. I’ll fix you. There’s plenty of chances. How much money have you got?”

In the presence of so many millions, Washington could not keep from blushing when he had to confess that he had but eighteen dollars in the world.

“Well, all right—don’t despair. Other people had been obliged to begin with less. I have a small idea that may develop into something for us both, all in good time. Keep your money close and add to it. I’ll make it breed. I’ve been experimenting (to pass away the time) on a little preparation for curing sore eyes—a kind of decoction nine-tenths water and the other tenth drugs that don’t cost more than a dollar a barrel; I’m still experimenting; there’s one ingredient wanted yet to perfect the thing, and somehow I can’t just manage to hit upon the thing that’s necessary, and I don’t dare talk with a chemist, of course. But I’m progressing, and before many weeks I wager the country will ring with the fame of Beriah Sellers’ Infallible Imperial Oriental Optic Liniment and Salvation for Sore Eyes—the Medical Wonder of the Age! Small bottles fifty cents, large ones a dollar. Average cost, five and seven cents for the two sizes. The first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in Missouri, seven thousand in Iowa, three thousand in Arkansas, four thousand in Kentucky, six thousand in Illinois, and say twenty-five thousand in the rest of the country. Total, fifty-five thousand bottles; profit clear of all expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest calculation. All the capital needed is to manufacture the first two thousand bottles—say a hundred and fifty dollars—then the money would begin to flow in. The second year, sales would reach 200,000 bottles—clear profit, say, $75,000—and in the meantime the great factory would be building in St. Louis, to cost, say, $100,000. The third year we could easily sell 1,000,000 bottles in the United States and——”

“Oh, splendid!” said Washington. “Let’s commence right away—let’s——”

“——1,000,000 bottles in the United States—profit at least $350,000—and _then_ it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the _real_ idea of the business.”

“The _real_ idea of it! Ain’t $350,000 a year pretty real——”

“Stuff! Why, what an infant you are, Washington—what a guileless, shortsighted, easily-contented innocent you are, my poor little country-bred know-nothing! Would I go to all that trouble and bother for the poor crumbs a body might pick up in _this_ country? Now do I look like a man who—does my history suggest that I am a man who deals in trifles, contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the common herd, sees no further than the end of his nose? Now, _you_ know that that is not me. Couldn’t be me. _You_ ought to know that if I throw my time and abilities into a patent medicine, it’s a patent medicine whose field of operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming nations that inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an eye-water country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway that you’ve got to cross to get _to_ the true eye-water market! Why, Washington, in the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the desert; every square mile of land upholds its thousands upon thousands of struggling human creatures—and every separate and individual devil of them’s got the ophthalmia! It’s as natural to them as noses are, and sin. It’s born with them, it stays with them, that’s all that some of them have left when they die. Three years of introductory trade in the Orient and what will be the result? Why, our headquarters would be in Constantinople and our hindquarters in Further India! Factories and warehouses in Cairo, Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yedo, Peking, Bangkok, Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta! Annual income—well, God only knows how many millions and millions apiece!”

Washington was so dazed, so bewildered—his heart and his eyes had wandered so far away among the strange lands beyond the seas, and such avalanches of coin and currency had fluttered and jingled confusedly down before him, that he was now as one who had been whirling round and round for a time, and stopping all at once, finds his surroundings still whirling and all objects a dancing chaos. However, little by little the Sellers family cooled down and crystallized into shape, and the poor room lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. Then the youth found his voice and begged Sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water; and he got out his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the Colonel—pleaded with him to take it—implored him to do it. But the Colonel would not; said he would not need the capital (in his native magnificent way he called that eighteen dollars capital) till the eye-water was an accomplished fact. He made Washington easy in his mind, though, by promising that he would call for it just as soon as the invention was finished, and he added the glad tidings that nobody but just they two should be admitted to a share in the speculation.

When Washington left the breakfast table he worshiped that man.

_FROM_ “ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER” (1874–5)

A SPECULATION IN WHITEWASH

Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing “Buffalo Gals.” Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom’s eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarreling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour—and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:

“Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.”

Jim shook his head and said:

“Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’ not stop foolin’ ’roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ’long an’ ’tend to my own business—she ’lowed _she’d_ ’tend to de whitewashin’.”

“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket—I won’t be gone only a minute. _She_ won’t ever know.”

“Oh, I dasn’t Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me. ’Deed she would.”

“_She!_ She never licks anybody—whacks ’em over the head with her thimble—and who cares for that, I’d like to know. She talks awful, but talk don’t hurt—anyway it don’t if she don’t cry. Jim, I’ll give you a marvel. I’ll give you a white alley!”

Jim began to waver.

“White alley, Jim! And it’s a bully taw.”

“My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel, _I_ tell you! But Mars Tom I’s powerful afraid ole missis——”

“And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.”

Jim was only human—this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.

But Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of _work_, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.

He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently—the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben’s gait was the hop-skip-and-jump—proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard and rounded to, ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance—for he was personating the “Big Missouri,” and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was the boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane deck; giving the orders and executing them: “Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!” The headway ran almost out and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

“Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!” His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.

“Set her back on the starboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!” His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles—for it was representing a forty-foot wheel.

“Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow chow!” The left hand began to describe circles.

“Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! _Lively_ now! Come—out with your spring-line—what’re you about there! Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now—let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! _Sh’t! sh’t! sh’t!”_ (trying the gauge-cocks).

Tom went on whitewashing—paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said:

“Hi-_yi. You’re_ up a stump, ain’t you!”

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom’s mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said—

“Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?”

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

“Why, it’s you Ben! I warn’t noticing.”

“Say—_I’m_ going in a swimming, _I_ am. Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d ruther _work_—wouldn’t you? Course you would!”

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:

“What do you call work?”

“Why, ain’t _that_ work?”

Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:

“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”

“Oh, come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you _like_ it?”

The brush continued to move.

“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily—added a touch here and there—criticised the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

“Say, Tom, let _me_ whitewash a little.”

Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:

“No—no—I reckon it wouldn’t hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly’s awful particular about this fence—right here on the street, you know—but if it was the back fence I wouldn’t mind and _she_ wouldn’t. Yes, she’s awful particular about this fence; it’s got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain’t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do the way it’s got to be done.”

“No—is that so? Oh come, now—lemme just try. Only just a little—I’d let _you_, if you was me, Tom.”

“Ben, I’d like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly—well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn’t let him. Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn’t let Sid. Now don’t you see how I’m fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it——”

“Oh, shucks, I’ll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say—I’ll give you the core of my apple.”

“Well, here—— No, Ben, now don’t. I’m afeard——”

“I’ll give you _all_ of it!”