Roughing It by Mark Twain

and the sale dragged. At nightfall only five thousand dollars had been

secured, and there was a crestfallen feeling in the community. However,

there was no disposition to let the matter rest here and acknowledge

vanquishment at the hands of the village of Austin. Till late in the

night the principal citizens were at work arranging the morrow’s

campaign, and when they went to bed they had no fears for the result.

At eleven the next morning a procession of open carriages, attended by

clamorous bands of music and adorned with a moving display of flags,

filed along C street and was soon in danger of blockade by a huzzaing

multitude of citizens. In the first carriage sat Gridley, with the flour

sack in prominent view, the latter splendid with bright paint and gilt

lettering; also in the same carriage sat the mayor and the recorder.

The other carriages contained the Common Council, the editors and

reporters, and other people of imposing consequence. The crowd pressed

to the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting the sale to begin there,

but they were disappointed, and also unspeakably surprised; for the

cavalcade moved on as if Virginia had ceased to be of importance, and

took its way over the “divide,” toward the small town of Gold Hill.

Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill, Silver City and Dayton, and those

communities were at fever heat and rife for the conflict. It was a very

hot day, and wonderfully dusty. At the end of a short half hour we

descended into Gold Hill with drums beating and colors flying, and

enveloped in imposing clouds of dust. The whole population–men, women

and children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in the main street, all

the flags in town were at the mast head, and the blare of the bands was

drowned in cheers. Gridley stood up and asked who would make the first

bid for the National Sanitary Flour Sack. Gen. W. said:

“The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thousand dollars,

coin!”

A tempest of applause followed. A telegram carried the news to Virginia,

and fifteen minutes afterward that city’s population was massed in the

streets devouring the tidings–for it was part of the programme that the

bulletin boards should do a good work that day. Every few minutes a new

dispatch was bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excitement grew.

Telegrams began to return to us from Virginia beseeching Gridley to bring

back the flour sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign. At the

end of an hour Gold Hill’s small population had paid a figure for the

flour sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand total

was displayed upon the bulletin boards. Then the Gridley cavalcade moved

on, a giant refreshed with new lager beer and plenty of it–for the

people brought it to the carriages without waiting to measure it–and

within three hours more the expedition had carried Silver City and Dayton

by storm and was on its way back covered with glory. Every move had been

telegraphed and bulletined, and as the procession entered Virginia and

filed down C street at half past eight in the evening the town was abroad

in the thoroughfares, torches were glaring, flags flying, bands playing,

cheer on cheer cleaving the air, and the city ready to surrender at

discretion. The auction began, every bid was greeted with bursts of

applause, and at the end of two hours and a half a population of fifteen

thousand souls had paid in coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sum

equal to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks! It was at a rate in the

neighborhood of three dollars for each man, woman and child of the

population. The grand total would have been twice as large, but the

streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to bid could not get

within a block of the stand, and could not make themselves heard. These

grew tired of waiting and many of them went home long before the auction

was over. This was the greatest day Virginia ever saw, perhaps.

Gridley sold the sack in Carson city and several California towns; also