Heart's Desire by Emerson Hough (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

He wandered over to the little boiler which drove the engine, and took inventory of the pile of crooked piñon wood that lay heaped up near by. He sounded the tank on top of the engine house, and found that it was half full. Then, calmly and methodically, he took off his coat, folded it, and laid it across a bench. He picked up a piece of board, whittled a little pile of shavings, thrust them into the ashy grate, and piled some wood above them. Then he scraped a match, and turning a cock or so to satisfy himself that the boiler would not go out through the roof in case he did get up steam, sat down to await developments. "She'll steam for sure," he ruminated. "She'll steam as much as wud do for a peanut wagon, av ye give her time."

Before the morning was gone the little boiler began to thump and churn and threaten. McGinnis ran the belt on to the stamp shaft. He went up and connected the crusher and shovelled a few barrows of ore into the hopper. Not long afterwards there was a dull and creaking rumble. The shaft of the stamps turned half around, slipped and stopped with a rusty squeak. Then came further creaks, groans, and rumbles. McGinnis walked calmly from place to place, tightening, loosening, shaking, testing, shovelling, and watching.

"It's wonderful," said he to himself, softly. "It's just wonderful what human bein's can do! If I, hadn't ever seen this mill, I wuddn't have believed it! But I'll say at this point meself, that I'm not looking a gift mill in the mouth. Moreover, this runnin' of your own mill, not bein' beholden to any sordid capitalist, nor yet depindent on anny inefficient labor, is what I may call a truly ijeel situation in life. I'll stay here till the wood runs out. Not that I'll cut wood for annybody. Capital must draw the line somewhere!"

No one noticed the smoke from the abandoned gold mill. McGinnis ran it by himself and undisturbed until his woodpile waned. Then he disconnected, blew off, and set to work to scrape his plates, whereon to his experienced eye there now appeared a gratifying roughness in the coating. He got off a lump of amalgam as big as his fist, and was content. "It's ojus there's no retort here," said he, "but like enough I'll find some way to vollituize this mercury."

He crossed the arroyo, and went to the cabin which had once been the office of the assayer. The latter was now an emigré, but he had left his crucibles and his furnace behind him; because it is not convenient to carry such things when one is afoot. McGinnis found a retort, adjusted it, set it going, volatilized the mercury from his amalgam, and in time had his button of dirty but quite valid gold. It lay heavy in his hand and rested heavy in his pocket. "As a captain of industhry," said he, "I must see what I can do for poor sufferin' humanity." He chuckled, and passed out into the street.

"As capital," said McGinnis to himself, walking on in the moonlight, "I am entitled to the first drink meself, and after that to one or two as a laborer. Then, if there's anny left, after treatin' all round, I'll buy the town a public liberry, pervidin' the town'll make it sufficiently and generally understood that I'm a leadin' and public-minded citizen that has reached success by the grace of God and a extraordinary brain."

But McGinnis in his philanthropic intentions met difficulty. He wandered into the Lone Star, and placing his crude bullion upon the counter, swept about him a comprehensive hand. To his wonder there was no response. A few of the assembled populace shifted uneasily in their seats, but none arose. "Do you take this for a low-down placer camp?" asked Billy Hudgens, with a dull show of pride, when McGinnis demanded the gold scales.

"No," said McGinnis, "it's a quartz camp right enough, and all it needs is developin'. At this speakin', I'm capital and labor both, and crew of the Nancy Brig. What's the matter?"

A sigh escaped from the audience, as Billy Hudgens made reply. "Not a drop," said he; "all gone. Nothing till Tom Osby gets back from Vegas, and maybe not then. I owe Gross & Blackwell over two hundred now."

McGinnis's voice dropped into a low, intent whisper. "Do you mean to tell me that?" he said. "Me, with my thirst?" He laid a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Friend," said he, "I've walked two hundred miles. I've developed your place. I'm in a position to give this town a public liberry worth maybe forty dollars. Now, do you mean to say to me—do you mean—" He gulped, unable to proceed. Hudgens nodded. McGinnis let fall his hand from the counter, turned and silently left the place.

He moved up the street to the adobe where the barber had his shop. The barber was gloomily sitting inside, waiting. McGinnis entered, and looked about him with the ease of one revisiting familiar scenes.

In a case upon the wall were rows of shaving mugs, now dusty and abandoned, mute witnesses of a former era of glory. Indeed, they remained an historical record of earlier life in Heart's Desire.

Once there had been rivalry between McGinnis and Tom Redmond for the affections of a widow who kept a boarding-house in Heart's Desire, the same long since departed. There came by express one day, addressed to Tom Redmond, a shaving mug of great beauty and considerable size, whereon the name of Tom Redmond, handsomely emblazoned, led all the rest. The fame of this work of art so spread abroad that Tom Redmond, as befitted one who had attained social distinction, became the recipient of increased smiles from the widow aforesaid. McGinnis bided his time. Thirty days later, there arrived by stage for him a shaving mug of such stature and such exceeding art as cast that of Tom Redmond completely in the shade! Thenceforth the widow smiled upon McGinnis. Tom Redmond, unable to endure this humiliation, and in the limitation of things wholly unable to raise the McGinnis ante in shaving mugs, was obliged to leave the town. McGinnis hung upon the handle of the Redmond mug a goodly card bearing the legend, "Gone, but not forgotten." Shortly after that McGinnis himself left town. Alas! at the instance of the widow the barber hung upon the McGinnis mug a similar card; it having appeared that McGinnis had emigrated without paying either his board bill or his barber's bill.

This evidence of his early delinquency now confronted McGinnis as he stepped into the shop for the first time in these years. He regarded it with displeasure. "Take it off," said he to the barber, sternly. "I paid the widdy in Butte, two years ago. As for yourself, I have come six hundred miles to pay my bill to you. Take it out of that." He presented his heavy button of gold.

The barber protested that he could not make change on this basis, but cheerfully extended the credit. He was glad to see McGinnis back again, for he was most promisingly hairy.

"I am back, but I'll not be stayin' long," said McGinnis. "Have ye annything to drink?"

The barber mournfully shook his head, even as had Billy Hudgens. McGinnis, refusing to believe such heavy news, walked up to the mantle, picked up a tall bottle labelled "Hair tonic," smelled of it, and without asking leave, raised it to his lips and drained it to the bottom.

"For industhrial purposes, friend," said he. In twenty minutes he was lying in a deep and dreamless sleep.

"In some ways this fellow has talent," said Billy Hudgens, as he looked in on McGinnis later; "but like enough he's come to a show-down now."

Until noon the next day McGinnis slept soundly. Then he sat up on the floor. "How're you feelin' now, man?" asked Billy Hudgens.

"Friend," said McGinnis, "I'm feelin' some dark and hairy inwardly; but I'm a livin' example of how a man can thriumph over circumstances." Wherewith he smiled gently, sank back, and slept again till dark.

"It wud have been too bad," said McGinnis to the barber when he awoke, "if you had left this town before I came. What ye've all been needin' is some one to give ye a lesson in not gettin' discouraged.

"As for combinin' hair tonic and strong drink into one ingradyint, if anny one tells you it's a good thing, you may say for me the report lacks confirmashun. But we'll not despair. Aside from the proverb about the will and the way, 'tis well known that no disgrace can come to a real captain of industhry through a timporary change in the industhrial conditions. I'm sayin' to you, get in a new chair, and get ready for the boom."

Even as the stouter-hearted captains of Heart's Desire began to voice their confidence, a sudden sense of helplessness, of personal inadequacy, came upon Porter Barkley, erstwhile leader of the forces of the A. P. and S. E. Railway Company. With emotions of chagrin and humiliation he found himself obliged wholly to readjust his estimate of himself and his powers. He had come hither full of confidence, accustomed to success, animated by a genial condescension toward these benighted men; and now, how quickly had the situation been reversed! Nay, worse than reversed. He, Porter Barkley, a man who had bought a legislature in his time, was ignored, forgotten by these strangers, as though he did not exist! More than that, Ellsworth was reticent with him; and worst of all, when he met Constance at the table she gave him no more than a curt nod and a polite forgetfulness of his presence.

Porter Barkley wished nothing so much as speedily to get away from the scene of his twofold defeat, although he knew that farewell meant dismissal. He knew also that he could restore himself to the respect of Heart's Desire in only one way; but he did not go out on the street in search of that way, although the Socorro stage was a full day late in its departure, and he was obliged to remain a prisoner indoors.

Indeed, Constance and her father were little better than prisoners as well, for no possible means of locomotion offered whereby they could get out of town; and all Heart's Desire remained aloof from them, not even the Littlest Girl coming across the arroyo to call on Constance at the hotel.

"I'd like to have her come over to see the twins," said Curly to his spouse, "but I reckon like enough she's sore."

"I'd be mighty glad to have a good square talk with some woman from the States," rejoined the Littlest Girl, hesitatingly. "I'd sort of like to know what folks is wearin' back there now. Besides that—"

"Besides what?"

"I don't more'n half believe her and Dan Anderson is gettin' along very well, someway."

"That so? Well, I don't see how they can, the way he throwed the spurs into her pa the other night."

"He just worships the ground that girl walks on."

"You oughtn't to talk so much. That ain't our business—but how do you know?"

"Well, because I do know," responded the Littlest Girl, warmly. "Don't you suppose I can see? I've talked with Dan every time he come up here to buy a pie—talked about that girl. He buys more pies now than he used