The Rise of Silas Lapham | Page 6

rest cleared out West?"
"No o-o-o," said Lapham, with a long, loud drawl; "I cleared out West
too, first off. Went to Texas. Texas was all the cry in those days. But I
got enough of the Lone Star in about three months, and I come back
with the idea that Vermont was good enough for me."
"Fatted calf business?" queried Bartley, with his pencil poised above
his note-book.
"I presume they were glad to see me," said Lapham, with dignity.
"Mother," he added gently, "died that winter, and I stayed on with
father. I buried him in the spring; and then I came down to a little place
called Lumberville, and picked up what jobs I could get. I worked
round at the saw-mills, and I was ostler a while at the hotel--I always
DID like a good horse. Well, I WA'N'T exactly a college graduate, and
I went to school odd times. I got to driving the stage after while, and by
and by I BOUGHT the stage and run the business myself. Then I hired

the tavern-stand, and--well to make a long story short, then I got
married. Yes," said Lapham, with pride, "I married the school-teacher.
We did pretty well with the hotel, and my wife she was always at me to
paint up. Well, I put it off, and PUT it off, as a man will, till one day I
give in, and says I, 'Well, let's paint up. Why, Pert,'--m'wife's name's
Persis,--'I've got a whole paint-mine out on the farm. Let's go out and
look at it.' So we drove out. I'd let the place for seventy-five dollars a
year to a shif'less kind of a Kanuck that had come down that way; and
I'd hated to see the house with him in it; but we drove out one Saturday
afternoon, and we brought back about a bushel of the stuff in the
buggy-seat, and I tried it crude, and I tried it burnt; and I liked it.
M'wife she liked it too. There wa'n't any painter by trade in the village,
and I mixed it myself. Well, sir, that tavern's got that coat of paint on it
yet, and it hain't ever had any other, and I don't know's it ever will.
Well, you know, I felt as if it was a kind of harumscarum experiment,
all the while; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it but I kind of liked
to do it because father'd always set so much store by his paint-mine.
And when I'd got the first coat on,"--Lapham called it CUT,--"I
presume I must have set as much as half an hour; looking at it and
thinking how he would have enjoyed it. I've had my share of luck in
this world, and I ain't a-going to complain on my OWN account, but
I've noticed that most things get along too late for most people. It made
me feel bad, and it took all the pride out my success with the paint,
thinking of father. Seemed to me I might 'a taken more interest in it
when he was by to see; but we've got to live and learn. Well, I called
my wife out,--I'd tried it on the back of the house, you know,--and she
left her dishes,--I can remember she came out with her sleeves rolled up
and set down alongside of me on the trestle,-- and says I, 'What do you
think, Persis?' And says she, 'Well, you hain't got a paint-mine, Silas
Lapham; you've got a GOLD-mine.' She always was just so
enthusiastic about things. Well, it was just after two or three boats had
burnt up out West, and a lot of lives lost, and there was a great cry
about non-inflammable paint, and I guess that was what was in her
mind. 'Well, I guess it ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I; 'but I guess it
IS a paint-mine. I'm going to have it analysed, and if it turns out what I
think it is, I'm going to work it. And if father hadn't had such a long
name, I should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral Paint. But, any

rate, every barrel of it, and every keg, and every bottle, and every
package, big or little, has got to have the initials and figures N.L.f.
1835, S.L.t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835, and I tried it in 1855.'"
"'S.T.--1860--X.' business," said Bartley.
"Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of Plantation Bitters then, and I
hadn't seen any of the fellow's labels. I set to work and I got a man
down from Boston; and I carried him out to the farm, and he analysed
it--made a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we kept