I reckon there’s enough of that truck along in there on the line of the
pocket-knife, from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the Tomb to fat up all the
consumptives in all the hospitals from Halifax to the Holy Land. It just
grows like weeds! I’ve got a little belt of sassparilla land in there
just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my little Universal
Expectorant to get into shape in my head. And I’ll fix that, you know.
One of these days I’ll have all the nations of the earth expecto–”
“But Beriah, dear–”
“Don’t interrupt me; Polly–I don’t want you to lose the run of the map–
well, take your toy-horse, James Fitz-James, if you must have it–and run
along with you. Here, now –the soap will do for Babylon. Let me see–
where was I? Oh yes–now we run down to Stone’s Lan–Napoleon–now we
run down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at that, now. Perfectly
straight line-straight as the way to the grave. And see where it leaves
Hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear out in the cold. That
town’s as bound to die as–well if I owned it I’d get its obituary ready,
now, and notify the mourners. Polly, mark my words–in three years from
this, Hawkeye’ll be a howling wilderness. You’ll see. And just look at
that river–noblest stream that meanders over the thirsty earth!–
calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom! Railroad goes
all over it and all through it–wades right along on stilts. Seventeen
bridges in three miles and a half-forty-nine bridges from Hark-from-the-
Tomb to Stone’s Landing altogether–forty nine bridges, and culverts
enough to culvert creation itself! Hadn’t skeins of thread enough to
represent them all–but you get an idea–perfect trestle-work of bridges
for seventy two miles: Jeff Thompson and I fixed all that, you know; he’s
to get the contracts and I’m to put them through on the divide. Just
oceans of money in those bridges. It’s the only part of the railroad I’m
interested in,–down along the line–and it’s all I want, too. It’s
enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon. Good enough country
plenty good enough–all it wants is population. That’s all right–that
will come. And it’s no bad country now for calmness and solitude, I can
tell you–though there’s no money in that, of course. No money, but a
man wants rest, a man wants peace–a man don’t want to rip and tear
around all the time. And here we go, now, just as straight as a string
for Hallelujah–it’s a beautiful angle–handsome up grade all the way–
and then away you go to Corruptionville, the gaudiest country for early
carrots and cauliflowers that ever–good missionary field, too. There
ain’t such another missionary field outside the jungles of Central
Africa. And patriotic?–why they named it after Congress itself. Oh,
I warn you, my dear, there’s a good time coming, and it’ll be right along
before you know what you’re about, too. That railroad’s fetching it.
You see what it is as far as I’ve got, and if I had enough bottles and
soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins
onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, I should
exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of
inconceivable sublimity. So, don’t you see? We’ve got the rail road to
fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that
$200,000 appropriation for? That’s all right. I’d be willing to bet
anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will–”
The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter,
warm from the post-office.
“Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I’m sorry I was blue, but it
did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open
the letter–open it quick, and let’s know all about it before we stir out
of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says.”
The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Whatever may have been the language of Harry’s letter to the Colonel,
the information it conveyed wars condensed or expanded, one or the other,