The Gilded Age | Page 5

chances with his friends with a free hand, the good generous soul, but
something does seem to always interfere and spoil everything. I never
did think he was right well balanced. But I don't blame my husband, for
I do think that when that man gets his head full of a new notion, he can
out-talk a machine. He'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll
listen to him ten minutes--why I do believe he would make a deaf and
dumb man believe in it and get beside himself, if you only set him
where he could see his eyes tally and watch his hands explain. What a
head he has got! When he got up that idea there in Virginia of buying
up whole loads of negroes in Delaware and Virginia and Tennessee,
very quiet, having papers drawn to have them delivered at a place in
Alabama and take them and pay for them, away yonder at a certain
time, and then in the meantime get a law made stopping everybody
from selling negroes to the south after a certain day --it was somehow
that way--mercy how the man would have made money! Negroes
would have gone up to four prices. But after he'd spent money and
worked hard, and traveled hard, and had heaps of negroes all contracted
for, and everything going along just right, he couldn't get the laws
passed and down the whole thing tumbled. And there in Kentucky,
when he raked up that old numskull that had been inventing away at a
perpetual motion machine for twenty-two years, and Beriah Sellers saw
at a glance where just one more little cog-wheel would settle the
business, why I could see it as plain as day when he came in wild at
midnight and hammered us out of bed and told the whole thing in a
whisper with the doors bolted and the candle in an empty barrel.
Oceans of money in it --anybody could see that. But it did cost a deal to
buy the old numskull out--and then when they put the new cog wheel in
they'd overlooked something somewhere and it wasn't any use--the
troublesome thing wouldn't go. That notion he got up here did look as
handy as anything in the world; and how him and Si did sit up nights
working at it with the curtains down and me watching to see if any
neighbors were about. The man did honestly believe there was a
fortune in that black gummy oil that stews out of the bank Si says is

coal; and he refined it himself till it was like water, nearly, and it did
burn, there's no two ways about that; and I reckon he'd have been all
right in Cincinnati with his lamp that he got made, that time he got a
house full of rich speculators to see him exhibit only in the middle of
his speech it let go and almost blew the heads off the whole crowd. I
haven't got over grieving for the money that cost yet. I am sorry enough
Beriah Sellers is in Missouri, now, but I was glad when he went. I
wonder what his letter says. But of course it's cheerful; he's never
down-hearted--never had any trouble in his life--didn't know it if he
had. It's always sunrise with that man, and fine and blazing, at
that--never gets noon; though--leaves off and rises again. Nobody can
help liking the creature, he means so well--but I do dread to come
across him again; he's bound to set us all crazy, of coarse. Well, there
goes old widow Hopkins--it always takes her a week to buy a spool of
thread and trade a hank of yarn. Maybe Si can come with the letter,
now."
And he did:
"Widow Hopkins kept me--I haven't any patience with such tedious
people. Now listen, Nancy--just listen at this:
"'Come right along to Missouri! Don't wait and worry about a good
price but sell out for whatever you can get, and come along, or you
might be too late. Throw away your traps, if necessary, and come
empty-handed. You'll never regret it. It's the grandest country --the
loveliest land--the purest atmosphere--I can't describe it; no pen can do
it justice. And it's filling up, every day--people coming from
everywhere. I've got the biggest scheme on earth--and I'll take you in;
I'll take in every friend I've got that's ever stood by me, for there's
enough for all, and to spare. Mum's the word--don't whisper--keep
yourself to yourself. You'll see! Come! --rush!--hurry!--don't wait for
anything!'
"It's the same old boy, Nancy, jest the same old boy--ain't he?"
"Yes, I think there's a little of the old sound about his voice yet. I
suppose you--you'll still go, Si?"

"Go! Well, I should think