were likely to be in demand and which articles were likely to be
unsalable, weeks and even months in advance of the simple folk about him.
As the months went by he came to be regarded as a wonderfully lucky man.
It did not occur to the citizens that brains were at the bottom of his
luck.
His title of “Squire” came into vogue again, but only for a season; for,
as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible
stages, grew up into “Judge;” indeed’ it bade fair to swell into
“General” bye and bye. All strangers of consequence who visited the
village gravitated to the Hawkins Mansion and became guests of the
“Judge.”
Hawkins had learned to like the people of his section very much. They
were uncouth and not cultivated, and not particularly industrious; but
they were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded
respect. Their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the
old fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry.
Whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless
hatred. They still cursed Benedict Arnold as if he were a personal
friend who had broken faith–but a week gone by.
CHAPTER VI.
We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record.
Judge Hawkins and Col. Sellers have made and lost two or three moderate
fortunes in the meantime and are now pinched by poverty. Sellers has two
pairs of twins and four extras. In Hawkins’s family are six children of
his own and two adopted ones. From time to time, as fortune smiled, the
elder children got the benefit of it, spending the lucky seasons at
excellent schools in St. Louis and the unlucky ones at home in the
chafing discomfort of straightened circumstances.
Neither the Hawkins children nor the world that knew them ever supposed
that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: Such difference
as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The
girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time
of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which
had thrown their lives together.
And yet any one who had known the secret of Laura’s birth and had seen
her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or
thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more
winsome than her school companion.
Philosophers dispute whether it is the promise of what she will be in
the careless school-girl, that makes her attractive, the undeveloped
maidenhood, or the mere natural, careless sweetness of childhood.
If Laura at twelve was beginning to be a beauty, the thought of it had
never entered her head. No, indeed. Her mind wad filled with more
important thoughts. To her simple school-girl dress she was beginning to
add those mysterious little adornments of ribbon-knots and ear-rings,
which were the subject of earnest consultations with her grown friends.
When she tripped down the street on a summer’s day with her dainty hands
propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows
consequently more or less akimbo with her wide Leghorn hat flapping down
and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her fore
head the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all
her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and that sweet ignorance
of care and that atmosphere of innocence and purity all about her that
belong to her gracious time of life, indeed she was a vision to warm the
coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest.
Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident,
bewitching, in short–was Laura at this period. Could she have remained
there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to
be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now
come–years which had seen Judge Hawkins pass through so many trials.
When the judge’s first bankruptcy came upon him, a homely human angel
intruded upon him with an offer of $1,500 for the Tennessee Land. Mrs.