The Comstock Club

"It does not seem to be rebellious or obstinate ore to manipulate either. Carlin's process seems to work like a fire assay," said Harding.

"Just by the surface showing the claim is worth a thousand dollars a share," said Ashley. "I wonder if Carlin has secured a patent yet?"

"And I wonder," said Harding, "if we are not a pair of blackguards to be talking this way. Let us go and meet them."

The friends arose and started for the platform, but were met half way by Carlin and the ladies. There were formal introductions to Mrs. and Miss Richards. Under the blushes of the young lady could be traced the lineaments of the "Susie Dick" that Carlin had shown to the Club in the photograph.

Crimson, but still smiling, the young lady said: "Gentlemen, did you see Mr. Carlin at the station, before a whole depot of giggling ninnies, too? Was ever anything half so ridiculous?" Then glancing up at Carlin with a forgiving look, but still in a delicious scolding tone, she added: "I really had hoped that the West had partly civilized him."

Harding and Ashley glanced at each other with a look which said plainly enough, "Carlin has proved up without any contest; even if the patent is not already issued, his title is secure."

The friends had the drawing room and a section outside. With a quick instinct Ashley seated the elder lady in the section, bade Harding entertain her, then swinging back the drawing room door, said: "Miss Richards, I know that you want to scold Carlin for the next hour, and he deserves it. Right in here is the best place on the car for the purpose. Please walk in." Saying which he stepped back and seated himself beside Harding.

The elder lady was a charming traveling companion. She wanted to know all about the West. She knew all about the region they were passing through, and the whole afternoon ride was a delight.

During the journey Harding and Ashley had been begging Carlin to accompany them to Massachusetts, and he had finally promised to give them a positive answer that day. After a while he emerged from the drawing room and said: "I am sorry, but I cannot go East with you. These ladies have been good enough to come out and meet me. We will all go on as far as Chicago and see you off, but we cannot very well extend the journey further. Indeed, Miss Susie intimates that I am too awkward a man to be safe east of Chicago."

The others saw how it was and did not further importune him. Next day they separated, Carlin's last words being, "If you ever come within five hundred miles of Peoria stop and stay a month."

The grand city was passed. The train swung around the end of Lake Michigan, leaving the magical city in its wake. Through the beautiful region of Southern Michigan it hurried on. Detroit was reached and passed; the arm of the Dominion was crossed, and finally, when in the early morning the train stopped, the boom of Niagara filled the air, and the enchantment of the picture which the river and the sunlight suspend there before mortals, was in full view. Next the valley of the Genesee was unfolded, and with each increasing mile more and more distinct grew the clamors of toiling millions, jubilant with life and measureless in energy. Swifter and more frequent was the rush of the chariots on which modern commerce is borne, and all the time to the eyes of the men of the desert the lovely homes which fill that region flitted by like the castles of dreamland.

Later in the day the panorama of the Mohawk Valley began to unroll and was drawn out in picture after picture of rare loveliness.

Ashley and Harding were enchanted. It was as though they had emerged into a new world.

"Think of it, Ashley," said Harding. "It is but eight days – at this very hour – since we were having that wrestle with death in the depths of the Bullion mine. Think of that and then look around upon these serene homes and the lavish loveliness of this scenery."

"I know now how Moses felt, when from the crest of Pisgah he looked down to where the Promised Land was outstretched before him," was the reply. "I feel as I fancy a soul must feel, when at last it realizes there is a second birth."

Said Harding: "I dread more and more to meet these people where we are going. How uncouth we will seem to them and to ourselves."

"Our errand will plead our excuses," said Ashley; "besides they will be too much absorbed with something else to pay much attention to us. Moreover they will know that our lives of late have been passed mostly under ground, and they will not expect us to reflect much light."

"What are your plans, Ashley, for the near future, after this business which we have in hand shall be over?" asked Harding.

"A home in old Pennsylvania is to be purchased," said Ashley, "and then a trial with my fellow men for a fortune and for such honors as may be fairly won. And you Harding, what have you marked out?"

Said Harding: "My father's estate is to be redeemed; after that, whatever a strong right arm backing an honest purpose, can win. But one thing we must not forget. We must be the semi-guardians of those children of Brewster, until they shall pass beyond our care."

"You are very right, my boy," said Ashley. "Brewster was altogether grand and his children must ever be our concernment."

In the early night the Hudson was crossed and the train plunged on through the hills beyond. At Walpole early next morning the train was boarded by three gentlemen who searched out Harding and Ashley and introduced themselves as old friends of Brewster and his family. They had come out to escort the body of Brewster to Taunton, now only a few miles off. The names of these men were respectively Hartwell, Hill and Burroughs.

Hartwell explained that the remains would be taken to an undertaker, and examined to see if it would be possible for the children and Mrs. Wolcott, the sister of Brewster, to look upon their father's and brother's face. He also said the funeral would be on the succeeding day. Then the particulars of the accident were asked.

A full and graphic account of the whole affair had been published in the Virginia City papers.

Copies of these were produced and handed over as giving a full idea of the calamity.

The statement made by the superintendent of the Bullion including the smaller certificate of deposit, also the other effects of Brewster, all but the money obtained from Miller, were transferred to Mr. Hartwell.

On reaching Taunton a great number of sympathizing friends were in waiting, for Brewster had lived there all his life until he went West three years before, and he was much esteemed. The manner of his death added to the general sympathy.

A hearse in waiting, at once took the body away. The young men were taken to his home by Mr. Hartwell. They begged to be permitted to go to a hotel, but the request would not be listened to.

On examination it was found that the work of the embalmer had been most thorough. The face of Brewster was quite natural and placid, as though in sleep.

Breakfast was in waiting for the young men, and when it was disposed of they were shown again to the parlors and introduced to a score of people who had gathered in to hear the story of Brewster's death from the lips of the men who had taken his body from the deep pit and brought it home for burial.

In the conversation which followed two or three hours were consumed.

When the callers had gone, Hartwell said:

"Gentlemen, I advise you to go to your rooms and try and get some rest. In two or three hours I shall want you to go and make a call with me, if the poor family of my friend can bear it."

Late that afternoon Hartwell knocked on the door of the sitting room, which, with sleeping apartments on either side, had been given Harding and Ashley, and when the door was opened, he said:

"Gentlemen, please come with me, the children of James Brewster desire to see you!"

The young men arose and followed their host. Brewster had always referred to his daughters as his "little girls;" the man who had the young men to go and meet them, spoke of them as "the children of James Brewster." Both Harding and Ashley, as they followed Hartwell, were mentally framing words of comfort to speak to school misses just entering their teens, who were in sorrow.

When then, they were ushered into the presence of two thoroughly accomplished young women, and when these ladies, with tears streaming down their faces, came forward, shook their hands, and, in broken words of warmest gratitude, thanked them for all they had done and were doing, and for all they had been to their father in life and in death, the men from the desert were lost in surprise and astonishment.

As Harding said later: "I felt as though I was in a drift on the 2,800-foot level, into which no air pipe had been carried."

This apparition was all the more startling to them, because during the two or three years that they had been at work on the Comstock, the very nature of their occupation forbade their mingling in the society of refined women to any but a most limited extent.

From the papers given the family by Hartwell that day, matters were fully understood by the sister of Brewster and the young ladies, so no explanations were asked. At first the conversation was little more than warm thanks on the part of the young ladies and modest and half incoherent replies.

The ladies were in the humble home of their father's widowed sister, Mrs. Wolcott. That they were all poor was apparent from all the surroundings. This fact at length forced its way through the bewildered brain of Harding and furnished him a happy expedient to say something without advertising himself the idiot that he, in that hour, would have been willing to make an affidavit that he was. Said he:

"Ladies, amid all the sorrows that we bring to you, we have, what but for your grief would be good news. Tell them, Ashley!"

"Oh, yes," said Ashley, "we have something which is yours, and which, while no balm for sorrow like yours, will, we sincerely hope, be the means of driving some cares from your lives."

Taking a memorandum from his pocket, he continued:

"Your father left more property than he himself knew of. How it was Harding and myself will explain at some other time, if you desire. At present it is only necessary to say that the amount is forty-two thousand and six hundred dollars, for which we have brought you a bill of exchange." With that he extended the paper to Miss Brewster. Then these brave girls began to tremble and quake indeed. "It can not be," said Mabel. "There must be some mistake," said Mildred.

"Indeed, there is no mistake," said Harding. "See, it is a banker's order on a Boston bank, and is payable to your joint order. No one can draw it until you have both endorsed it, for it is yours."

Then these girls fell into each others arms and sobbed afresh.

As soon as they could the miners retired.

Mabel Brewster was tall, of slender form and severely classic face. She had blue eyes, inherited from her mother, and that shade of hair which is dusky in a faint light, but which turns to gold in sunlight. Her complexion was very fair, her hands and arms were exquisite and her manners most winsome.

Mildred, her sister, was of quite another type. A year and a half younger than Mabel, she looked older than her sister. She had her father's black eyes, and like him, a prominent nose and resolute mouth. She was lower of statue and fuller of form than her sister. She had also a larger hand and stronger arm. Over all was poised a superb head, crowned with masses of tawny hair.

Standing in their simple mourning robes, with the afternoon sun shining around them, they looked as Helen and Cassandra might have looked, while yet the innocence and splendor of early womanhood were upon them.

Mabel was such a woman as men dream of and struggle to possess; Mildred was such an one as men die for when necessary, and do not count it a sacrifice.

From the house the young men walked rapidly away, and so busy were they with their own thoughts that neither spoke until they entered a wooded park or common, and finding a rustic bench sat down.

Harding was the first to speak. "After all his mighty toil; after his self-sacrificing life; after all his struggles, Brewster died and was not permitted to see his children. It is most pitiable."

"May be he sees them now," said Ashley, softly. "It can not be far from here to Heaven."

"I wish I had never seen her," said Harding, impetuously. And then all his reserve breaking down he arose, stretched out his arms and cried:

"I wish I had died in Brewster's stead."

"Is she not divine?" said Ashley. "A very Iris, goddess of the rainbow, bringing divine commands to man, his guide and his adviser."

"Say not so," said Harding. "Rather she is Ceres, in her original purity returned to earth; flowers bloom under the soft light of her divine eyes, and all bountifulness rests in the heaven of her white arms. I tell you, Ashley, the man who could have that woman's eyes to smile up approvingly upon him, would have to move on from conquest to conquest so long as life lasted."

An anxious look came over the face of Ashley. "Which lady do you mean?" he asked.

"Mean!" echoed Harding. "I mean she of the royal brow and starry eyes, Mildred Brewster."

"Thank God," said Ashley with a great sigh of relief.

"And why do you thank God?" asked Harding.

"Because," said Ashley, "to me Mabel is the dainty, the divine one. She comes upon the eye as a perfect soprano voice smites on a musical ear."

"You are growing musical, are you?" said Harding. "Well then, the other is a celestial contralto, deep-toned and full and sweet, materialized."

After this both were silent for a moment and then Ashley began to laugh low to himself.

"What is your hilarity occasioned by?" asked Harding.

"I was thinking what fools we have been making of ourselves," said Ashley.

"And how did you reach that estimate, pray?" asked Harding.

"Why, Harding," was the answer, "an hour ago we met two ladies. They were not what we expected to find, and they brought a sort of enchantment to us. We saw them first an hour ago; we will to-morrow see them once more, and that will be all; and still we have been raving like two lunatics for the past half hour about them."

"You are right," was the sad reply. "See yonder on the street corner."

Just then a dainty carriage and a set of heavy trucks met on the corner and passed each other, the carriage turning to the east, the trucks to the west.

"Typical, is it not?" said Ashley. "The trucks go west – at least they will to-morrow night."

"Most true," said Harding, "and still I think I would like to kiss the carpet that has been sanctified by the footfalls of Mildred Brewster."

Ashley reached out, seized Harding's wrist and felt his pulse.

"You have got it bad, Harding," said he, "and I don't feel very well myself. If poor Corrigan were alive again and here we would get him to tell us about Maggie Murphy."

"We have had a mirage, Ashley. Let us pray that it will soon pass by," said Harding.

And then without another word being spoken, they returned to the hospitable house of Hartwell.

CHAPTER XX

The following is the copy of a letter written by Mrs. Wolcott to the widow of her deceased husband's brother, Mrs. Abby Roberts, of Eastport, Maine:

Taunton, Sept. 20th, 1878.

My Dear Sister: – I wrote you briefly of the dispatch announcing the death of my brother James, in a Nevada mine, and that his embalmed body was being brought home by two miners. Since then events have crowded upon me so swiftly that I have not had composure enough to think of writing.

The remains of my brother reached here on the 29th ultimo. Mr. Hartwell, Mr. Hill and Mr. Burroughs went out as far as Walpole on the railroad to meet the train on which the body was being brought.

The miners were taken home by Mr. Hartwell. On examination my poor brother's face was found to look quite natural, and it wore an expression so restful that I could not help but feel as though it was an indictation that after his hard physical toil and fierce mental troubles, he was at peace at last.

Mabel, you know, has been with me since she graduated in June. On receiving the dispatch we telegraphed to Mildred at Mt. Holyoke to come home at once, so both girls were with me when the remains arrived.

From the two miners who came with the body Mr. Hartwell received the Nevada papers giving an account of the accident in which James was killed; also a letter from the superintendent of the mine, stating that after all expenses were paid my poor brother left eight hundred and forty dollars to his children. This we all thought was most wonderful, considering the amount regularly sent the children. It shows that poor James lived a most economical life in the West and that the wages paid there are generous.

The letter of the superintendent stated that the two miners who were to accompany the remains home had risked their lives in trying to rescue James, and the published account showed that one of them had fainted in the dreadful chamber of the mine while the exhaustion of the other was so extreme that he was entirely prostrated and seized with chills and vomiting upon being brought out into the open air.

Of course myself and the girls were anxious to meet and thank these men, but I confess that at the same time we all dreaded the interview awfully. Good land! You know what we have been reading about Western miners for the last twenty-five years, and we could not help but feel that if they should prove to be quiet men it would only at best be a case of wild beast with a collar and chain on. And what to do with them at the funeral was something which had been troubling us ever since the receipt of the dispatch. It was to be in church and on Sunday and it was certain that there would be a church full of people. How to be polite, and at the same time how to get those men in and out of a church without their doing something dreadful was a question which I confess had worried me and I could see that it was worrying Mabel, too. Mildred did not seem to think much about it.

Mr. Hartwell called upon us and told us he was going to bring them over at once and we sat down in fear and trembling to wait their arrival.

You can never imagine our surprise when Mr. Hartwell showed them into our parlor and we saw them for the first time. Both were young men, one not more than thirty, and the other not more than twenty-four years of age; both were dressed with perfect taste, in dark business suits of fashionable clothes, and though slightly confused – I guess startled is a better word – both, with considerate gentleness, and with a grave courtesy, in low voices, addressed me first and then the children.

They expected to find school children, they met young ladies – I may say beautiful young ladies if I am their aunt – and I think the surprise for a moment threw them off their guard.

But they certainly were not more astonished than were we. Mabel well nigh broke down, but Mildred, with her more matter-of-fact nature, bore the ordeal nobly.

While the girls were talking I stole the opportunity to look more closely at the men. My surprise increased every moment. Instead of a pair of bronzed bruisers, they stood there with faces that were as free from tan as the face of a closely-housed woman. They were each of about medium height, but with broad shoulders, tremendous chests and powerful arms. The younger one had a firm foot and large hand and the frankest open face you ever looked into. The other had smaller hands, feet and features, but their heads were both superb, and the first words they spoke revealed that both were fairly educated. The younger one was light with auburn hair. He wore a heavy mustache; the rest of his face was clean shaven. The other was darker with gray eyes, brown hair, with full beard, but neatly trimmed, and the hair of both was of fashionable cut. I tell you, sister, as they stood there they would have borne inspection even in Boston.

After the first greetings were over and we had all gained a little composure, the men explained to us that James was possessed of more property than he himself was aware of, and one of them handed to Mabel a paper which he called "a bill of exchange" on a Boston bank for forty two thousand six hundred dollars. Since then they have explained that the money was made by a friend of my brother, and that it was accomplished by buying stocks when they were low and selling them when they were high, which seems to me to be a most profitable business. You see it makes the girls rich when they thought they were so poor, and were counting only on lives of hard work.

The visit of the young men was only a very brief one, not five minutes in duration it seemed to me, but they were moments of great excitement to our little household as you may well believe. When they were gone Mabel said: "Are they not perfectly splendid?" and I said: "Indeed, they are," but Mildred merely said: "They seem to be real gentlemen." That Mildred is the strangest girl.

The funeral was to be the next day, and in anticipation of it we had bought cheap mourning hats and plain bombazine mourning habits, such as I thought would be becoming to people in our circumstances. But when I learned that the girls were no longer poor, I thought it would be only proper that they should have more expensive dresses. So as soon as the young men had gone, I sent a message to Mrs. Buffets, the dressmaker, and Mrs. Tibbetts, the milliner, asking them to do me the favor to call upon me at once, if possible. They both called within a few minutes. Before they came, however, I explained to the girls what I had done, at which Mabel was very glad, but Mildred seemed perfectly indifferent. She hardly spoke after the young men went away for several minutes. I think their coming had turned her thoughts back more intently upon her father. Mrs. Tibbetts came first and from her Mabel ordered three expensive hats. I expostulated against her buying a hat for me but she would have it so. When we explained what was wanted to Mrs. Buffets, she declared at first that it was impossible without working after twelve o'clock on Saturday night which she did not like to do as she was a member in good standing in the First Baptist church, but she finally agreed that she would try, provided we would pay what would be extra for her sewing girls. This she estimated would amount on three dresses to at least seven dollars and a half. I have no idea that the girls got more than half a dollar apiece extra and there were but seven of them, and that the rest was clear gain to Mrs. Buffets, but that is the advantage which is always taken of people when there is a funeral.

We had a hard time with Mildred. She insisted that two dresses and hats were all that were required, one for Mabel and one for aunty; that as yet she was a school girl and the cheap raiment was good enough for her. I think she would have refused to yield had I not told her that unless she did I would not accept either hat or habit; then she consented.

Of course, it may seem like vanity to speak of such a thing in so sad a connection, but the dresses were most lovely. The girls' were of rich and soft cashmere, mine was of Henrietta cloth. I must say that in the new clothes the girls did look beautiful at the funeral, and I was as proud of them as I could be on so sad an occasion.

That Saturday evening after we talked the matter over, the girls sent an invitation over to Mr. Hartwell's house to the miners to attend the funeral with us. The invitation was answered by the younger miner, Harding. He accepted the invitation for himself and his friend, stating that Ashley (the other one) was temporarily absent in the city. The note was beautifully written and every word was spelled correctly.

Next morning, a few minutes before it was time to proceed to the church, the young men came in.

They were scrupulously dressed in black and their attire even to their hats and gloves was in perfect taste.

Mildred betrayed more agitation than on the first meeting. She is a strange girl and the loss of her father almost crushed her. Mabel, however, received them with a grace which was queenly and in her new robes she looked like a queen indeed.

When it came time to go to the church, I supposed, of course, the young men would offer to escort the girls. Besides Mildred, Mabel and myself, Aunt Abigail, James' wife's grandmother had come down to the funeral. You know she is old now – past 73; she never was very pretty and coming down from the country her dress and bonnet – good land, she was a sight.