The Gilded Age | Page 3

says.
He's tuck an' fixed up the ole house like they does in Kaintuck, he say,
an' tha's ben folks come cler from Turpentine for to see it. He's tuck an
gawmed it all over on the inside with plarsterin'."
"What's plasterin'?"
"I dono. Hit's what he calls it. 'Ole Mam Higgins, she tole me. She say
she wasn't gwyne to hang out in no sich a dern hole like a hog. Says it's
mud, or some sich kind o' nastiness that sticks on n' covers up
everything. Plarsterin', Si calls it."
This marvel was discussed at considerable length; and almost with
animation. But presently there was a dog-fight over in the
neighborhood of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their
perch like so many turtles and strode to the battle-field with an interest
bordering on eagerness. The Squire remained, and read his letter. Then
he sighed, and sat long in meditation. At intervals he said:
"Missouri. Missouri. Well, well, well, everything is so uncertain."
At last he said:
"I believe I'll do it.--A man will just rot, here. My house my yard,
everything around me, in fact, shows' that I am becoming one of these
cattle--and I used to be thrifty in other times."
He was not more than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him
seem older. He left the stile, entered that part of his house which was
the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of
beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-woolsey, put his letter away, an went
into the kitchen. His wife was there, constructing some dried apple pies;
a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of his
own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was
sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying-pan and

trying hard not to sop over a finger-mark that divided the pan through
the middle--for the other side belonged to the brother, whose musings
made him forget his stomach for the moment; a negro woman was busy
cooking, at a vast fire-place. Shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the
place.
"Nancy, I've made up my mind. The world is done with me, and
perhaps I ought to be done with it. But no matter--I can wait. I am
going to Missouri. I won't stay in this dead country and decay with it.
I've had it on my mind sometime. I'm going to sell out here for
whatever I can get, and buy a wagon and team and put you and the
children in it and start."
"Anywhere that suits you, suits me, Si. And the children can't be any
worse off in Missouri than, they are here, I reckon."
Motioning his wife to a private conference in their own room, Hawkins
said: "No, they'll be better off. I've looked out for them, Nancy," and
his face lighted. "Do you see these papers? Well, they are evidence that
I have taken up Seventy-five Thousand Acres of Land in this county
--think what an enormous fortune it will be some day! Why, Nancy,
enormous don't express it--the word's too tame! I tell your Nancy----"
"For goodness sake, Si----"
"Wait, Nancy, wait--let me finish--I've been secretly bailing and
fuming with this grand inspiration for weeks, and I must talk or I'll
burst! I haven't whispered to a soul--not a word--have had my
countenance under lock and key, for fear it might drop something that
would tell even these animals here how to discern the gold mine that's
glaring under their noses. Now all that is necessary to hold this land
and keep it in the family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly--five or
ten dollars --the whole tract would not sell for over a third of a cent an
acre now, but some day people wild be glad to get it for twenty dollars,
fifty dollars, a hundred dollars an acre! What should you say to" [here
he dropped his voice to a whisper and looked anxiously around to see
that there were no eavesdroppers,] "a thousand dollars an acre!

"Well you may open your eyes and stare! But it's so. You and I may not
see the day, but they'll see it. Mind I tell you; they'll see it. Nancy,
you've heard of steamboats, and maybe you believed in them--of course
you did. You've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call them lies
and humbugs,--but they're not lies and humbugs, they're a reality and
they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day than they are now.
They're going to make a revolution in this world's affairs that will make
men dizzy to contemplate. I've been watching--I've been watching
while some people slept, and I