The Gilded Age eBook

Harry’s letter was not a long one, but it contained at least the calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation.  The Colonel found himself in a rather uncomfortable place—­no $1,200 salary forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of nearly $4,000.  Polly’s heart was nearly broken; the “blues” returned in fearful force, and she had to go out of the room to hide the tears that nothing could keep back now.

There was mourning in another quarter, too, for Louise had a letter.  Washington had refused, at the last moment, to take $40,000 for the Tennessee Land, and had demanded $150,000!  So the trade fell through, and now Washington was wailing because he had been so foolish.  But he wrote that his man might probably return to the city soon, and then he meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take $10,000.  Louise had a good cry-several of them, indeed—­and the family charitably forebore to make any comments that would increase her grief.

Spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by, and the Colonel’s spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad was making good progress.  But by and by something happened.  Hawkeye had always declined to subscribe anything toward the railway, imagining that her large business would be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now Hawkeye was frightened; and before Col.  Sellers knew what he was about, Hawkeye, in a panic, had rushed to the front and subscribed such a sum that Napoleon’s attractions suddenly sank into insignificance and the railroad concluded to follow a comparatively straight coarse instead of going miles out of its way to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert of Stone’s Landing.

The thunderbolt fell.  After all the Colonel’s deep planning; after all his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil with his hands, and running hither and thither on his busy feet; after all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their backs on him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to ruins abort him.  Hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant and rejoicing, and down went Stone’s Landing!  One by one its meagre parcel of inhabitants packed up and moved away, as the summer waned and fall approached.  Town lots were no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly lethargy fell upon the place once more, the “Weekly Telegraph” faded into an early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of yore.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Philip Sterling was on his way to Ilium, in the state of Pennsylvania.  Ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which Mr. Bolton had commissioned him to examine.