Copper Streak Trail

by Eugene Manlove Rhodes

  CHAPTER VIII

  The hills send down a buttress to the north; against it the Susquehannaflows swift and straight for a little space, vainly chafing. Just wherethe high ridge breaks sharp and steep to the river's edge there is agrassy level, lulled by the sound of pleasant waters; there sleep thedead of Abingdon.

  Here is a fair and noble prospect, which in Italy or in California hadbeen world-famed; a beauty generous and gracious--valley, upland andhill and curving river. The hills are checkered to squares, clearedfields and green-black woods; inevitably the mind goes out to those whowrought here when the forest was unbroken, and so comes back to read onthe headstones the names of the quiet dead: Hill, Barton, Clark, Green,Camp, Hunt, Catlin, Giles, Sherwood, Tracy, Jewett, Lane, Gibson, Holmes,Yates, Hopkins, Goodenow, Griswold, Steele. Something stirs at yourhair-roots--these are the names of the English. A few sturdy Dutchnames--Boyce, Steenburg, Van Lear--and a lonely French Mercereau; therest are unmixed English.

  Not unnaturally you look next for an Episcopalian Church, finding none inAbingdon; Abingdon is given over to fiery Dissenters--the Old-World wordcomes unbidden into your mouth. But you were not so far wrong; inprosperous Vesper, to westward, every one who pretends to be any oneattends services at Saint Adalbert's, a church noted for its graciousand satisfying architecture. In Vesper the name of Henry VIII is reveredand his example followed.

  But the inquiring mind, seeking among the living bearers of these oldnames, suffers check and disillusion. There are no traditions. Theirtitle deeds trace back to Coxe's Manor, Nichols Patent, the Barton Tract,the Flint Purchase, Boston Ten Townships; but in-dwellers of the landknow nothing of who or why was Coxe, or where stood his Manor House; haveno memory of the Bostonians.

  In Vesper there are genealogists who might tell you such things; oldrecords that might prove them; old families, enjoying wealth anddistinction without perceptible cause, with others of the ruling castewho may have some knowledge of these matters. Such grants were notuncommon in the Duke of York, his Province. In that good duke's day, andlater, following the pleasant fashion set by that Pope who divided hisworld equally between Spain and Portugal, valleys and mountains weretossed to supple courtiers by men named Charles, James, William, orGeorge, kings by the grace of God; the goodly land, the common wealth andbirth-right of the unborn, was granted in princedom parcels to king'sfavorites, king's minions, to favorites of king's minions, for servicesoften enough unspecified.

  The toilers of Abingdon--of other Abingdons, perhaps--know none of thesethings. Winter has pushed them hard, summer been all too brief; life hasbeen crowded with a feverish instancy of work. There is a vague memoryof the Sullivan Expedition; once a year the early settlers, as acommunity enterprise, had brought salt from Syracuse; the forest hadbeen rafted down the river; the rest is silence.

  Perhaps this good old English stock, familiar for a thousand years withoppression and gentility, wonted to immemorial fraud, schooled bygenerations of cheerful teachers to speak no evil of dignities, to seeeverything for the best in the best of possible worlds, found noinjustice in the granting of these broad manors--or, at least, no noveltyworthy of mention to their sons. There is no whisper of ancient wrong; nohint or rankling of any irrevocable injustice.

  Doubtless some of these land grants were made, at a later day, tosoldiers of the Revolution. But the children of the Revolution maintain anot unbecoming unreticence as to all things Revolutionary; from theirsilence in this regard, as from the name of Manor, we may make safeinference. Doubtless many of the royalist estates were confiscated atthat time. Doubtless, again, our Government, to encourage settlement,sold land in such large parcels in early days. Incurious Abingdon caresfor none of these things. Singular Abingdon! And yet are these folk,indeed, so singular among citizens? So unseeing a people? Consider that,within the memory of men living, the wisdom of America has made free giftto the railroads, to encourage their building, of so much land as goes tothe making of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; a notable encouragement!

  History does not remark upon this little transaction, however. In somepiecemeal fashion, a sentence here, a phrase elsewhere, with scores orhundreds of pages intervening, History does, indeed, make yawningallusion to some such trivial circumstance; refraining from comment inthe most well-bred manner imaginable. It is only the ill-affected, themalcontents, who dwell upon such details. Is this not, indeed, a mostbeautiful world, and ours the land of opportunity, progress, education?Let our faces, then, be ever glad and shining. Let us tune ourselves withthe Infinite; let a golden thread run through all our days; no frowns, nogrouches, no scolding--no, no! No ingratitude for all the bounties ofProvidence. Let us, then, be up and doing.--Doing, certainly; but why notthink a little too?

  Why is thinking in such disfavor? Why is thinking, about subjects andthings, the one crime never forgiven by respectability? We have givenaway our resources, what should have been our common wealth; we havesquandered our land, wasted our forests. "Such trifles are not mybusiness," interrupts History, rather feverish of manner; "my duty torecord and magnify the affairs of the great."--Allow me, madam; we havegiven away our coal, the wealth of the past; our oil, the wealth ofto-day; except we do presently think to some purpose, we shall give awayour stored electricity, the wealth of the future--our water power whichshould, which must, remain ours and our children's. "_Socialist_!"shrieks History.

  The youth of Abingdon speak glibly of Shepherd Kings, Constitution ofLycurgus, Thermopylae, Consul Duilius, or the Licinian Laws; the moreadvanced are even as far down as Elizabeth. For the rich and unmatchedhistory of their own land, they have but a shallow patter of that; noguess at its high meaning, no hint of a possible destiny apart from gloryand greed and war, a future and opportunity "too high for hate, too greatfor rivalry." The history of America is the story of the pioneer and thestory of the immigrant. The students are taught nothing of the one orthe other--except for the case of certain immigrant pioneers, enskiedand sainted, who never left the hearing of the sea; a sturdy andstout-hearted folk enough, but something press-agented.

  Outside of school the student hears no mention of living immigrant orpioneer save in terms of gibe and sneer and taunt. The color and highromance of his own township is a thing undreamed of, as vague andshapeless as the foundations of Enoch, the city of Cain. And for his ownfarmstead, though for the first time on earth a man made here a home;though valor blazed the path; though he laid the foundation of that housein hope and in love set up the gates of it, none knows the name of thatman or of his bolder mate. There are no traditions--and no ballads.

  A seven-mile stretch of the river follows the outlines of a sickle, or,if you are not familiar with sickles, of a handmade figure five. Abingdonlies at the sickle point, prosperous Vesper at the end of the handle;Vesper, the county seat, abode of lawyers and doctors--some bankers, too.Home also of retired business men, of retired farmers; home of oldfamilies, hereditary county officials, legislators.

  Overarched with maples, the old road parallels the river bend, a mileaway. The broad and fertile bottom land within the loop of this figurefive is divided into three great farms--"gentlemen's estates." Thegentlemen are absentees all.

  A most desirable neighborhood; the only traces of democracy on the riverroad are the schoolhouse and the cemetery. Malvern and Brookfield wereowned respectively by two generals, gallant soldiers of the Civil War,successful lawyers, since, of New York City. Stately, high-columnedColonial houses, far back from the road; the clustered tenant houses, thevast barns, long red tobacco sheds--all are eloquent of a time whenlumber was the cheapest factor of living.

  The one description serves for the two farms. These men had been boystogether, their careers the same; they had married sisters. But the redtobacco sheds of Malvern were only three hundred feet long--this generalhad left a leg at Malvern Hill--while the Brookfield sheds stretched fullfive hundred feet. At Brookfield, too, were the great racing-stables,of fabulous acr
eage; disused now and falling to decay. One hundred andsixty thoroughbreds had sheltered here of old, with an army of groomsand trainers. There had been a race-track--an oval mile at first, akite-shaped mile in later days. Year by year now sees the stables torndown and carted away for other uses, but the strong-built paddocksremain to witness the greatness of days departed.

  Nearest to Vesper, on the smallest of the three farms, stood the largestof the three houses--The Meadows; better known as the Mitchell House.

  McClintock, a foreigner from Philadelphia, married a Mitchell in '67. Agood family, highly connected, the Mitchells; brilliant, free-handed,great travelers; something wildish, the younger men--boys will be boys.

  In a silent, undemonstrative manner of his own McClintock gathered theloose money in and about Vesper; a shrewd bargainer, ungiven tomerrymakings; one who knew how to keep dollars at work. It is worthy ofnote that no after hint of ill dealing attached to these years. In hisown bleak way the man dealt justly; not without a prudent liberality aswell. For debtors deserving, industrious, and honest, he observed acareful and exact kindness, passing by his dues cheerfully, to takethem at a more convenient season. Where death had been, long sickness,unmerited misfortune--he did not stop there; advancing further sums for atiding-over, after careful consideration of needs and opportunities,coupled with a reasonable expectation of repayment; cheerfully taking anysecurity at hand, taking the security of character as cheerfully when hefelt himself justified; in good time exacting his dues to the lastpenny--still cheerfully. Not heartless, either; in cases of extremedistress--more than once or twice--McClintock had both written off theobligation and added to it something for the day's need, in a grim butnot unkindly fashion; always under seal of secrecy. No extortioner, this;a dry, passionless, pertinacious man.

  McClintock bought the Mitchell House in the seventies--boys stillcontinuing to be boyish--and there, a decade later, his wife died,childless.

  McClintock disposed of his takings unobserved, holding Mitchell Houseonly, and slipped away to New York or elsewhere. The rents of MitchellHouse were absorbed by a shadowy, almost mythical agent, whose nameyou always forgot until you hunted up the spidery signature on thereceipts given by the bank for your rent money.

  Except for a curious circumstance connected with Mitchell House,McClintock had been quite forgotten of Vesper and Abingdon. The greathouse was much in demand as a summer residence; those old oak-walledrooms were spacious and comfortable, if not artistic; the house wasadmirably kept up. It was in the most desirable neighborhood; there wasfishing and boating; the situation was "sightly." We borrow the last wordfrom the hill folk, the presentee landlords; the producers, or, to putit quite bluntly, the workers.

  As the years slipped by, it crept into common knowledge that not everyone could obtain a lease of Mitchell House. Applicants, Vesperian or"foreigners," were kept waiting; almost as if the invisible agent wereexamining into their eligibility. And it began to be observed thatleaseholders were invariably light, frivolous, pleasure-loving people,such as kept the big house crowded with youth and folly, to company youthof its own. Such lessees were like to make agriculture a mockery; theMitchell Place, as a farm, became a hissing, and a proverb, and anastonishment: a circumstance so singularly at variance with rememberedthrift of the reputed owner as to keep green that owner's name. Nor wasthat all. As youth became mature and wise, in the sad heartrendingfashion youth has, or flitted to new hearths, in that other heartbreakingway of youth, it was noted that leases were not to be renewed on anyterms; and the new tenants, in turn, were ever such light and unthriftfolk as the old, always with tall sons and gay daughters--as if themythical agent or his ghostly principal had set apart that old houseto mirth and joy and laughter, to youth and love. It was remembered then,on certain struggling hill farms, that old McClintock had been childless;and certain hill babies were cuddled the closer for that.

  Then, thirty years later, or forty--some such matter--McClintock slippedback to Vesper unheralded--very many times a millionaire; incidentally ahopeless invalid, sentenced for life to a wheeled chair; Vesper's mostsuccessful citizen.

  Silent, uncomplaining, unapproachable, and grim, he kept to his rooms inthe Iroquois, oldest of Vesper's highly modern hotels; or was wheeledabroad by his one attendant, who was valet, confidant, factotum, andfriend--Cornelius Van Lear, withered, parchment-faced, and brown,strikingly like Rameses II as to appearance and garrulity. It was to VanLear that Vesper owed the known history of those forty years ofMcClintock's. Closely questioned, the trusted confidant had once yieldedto cajolery.

  "We've been away," said Van Lear.

  It was remarked that the inexplicable Mitchell House policy remained inforce in the years since McClintock's return; witness the presentincumbent, frivolous Thompson, foreigner from Buffalo--him and his houseparties! It was Mitchell House still, mauger the McClintock millions anda half-century of possession. Whether this clinging to the old name wastribute to the free-handed Mitchells or evidence of fine old Englishfirmness is a matter not yet determined.

  The free-handed Mitchells themselves, as a family, were no more. They hadscattered, married or died, lost their money, gone to work, or otherwisedisappeared. Vesper kept knowledge of but two of them: Lawyer Oscar,solid, steady, highly respectable, already in the way of becoming SquireMitchell, and like to better the Mitchell tradition of prosperity--a warmman, a getting-on man, not to mention that he was the older nephew andprobable heir to the McClintock millions; and Oscar's cousin, Stanley,youngest nephew of the millions, who, three years ago, had defiedMcClintock to his face. Stan Mitchell had always been wild, even as aboy, they said; they remembered now.

  It seemed that McClintock had commanded young Stan to break hisengagement to that Selden girl--the schoolma'am at Brookfield,my dear--one of the hill people. There had been a terrible scene.Earl Dawson was staying at the Iroquois and his door happened to beopen a little.

  "Then you'll get none of my money!" said the old gentleman.

  "To hell with your money!" Stan said, and slammed the door.

  He was always a dreadful boy, my dear! So violent and headstrong! Alwayspicking on my poor Johnny at school; Johnny came home once with the mostdreadful bruise over his eye--Stanley's work.

  So young Stan flung away to the West three years ago. The Selden girlstill teaches the Brookfield District; Stan Mitchell writes to her, themail carrier says. No-o; not so bad-looking, exactly--in that common sortof way!