Chapter XVI: Farewell to Ophir

This is the story, the outlines of which I have worked out by years of incessant labor upon the tablets, assisted by the most expert antiquarians of the age. A work of historical truths interwoven with a weft of romance, but who can imagine scenes of real human life unflavored by romantic incidents and unsalted with the savor of love? All nature is fashioned in love, and all love inherent in nature.

Meanwhile Abner and I--two plain American citizens of the modern republic of America, untrammeled by the superstitions of the ancient Incas and untainted with the bestial rites of the worship of the sun were still lingering in the cool grottoes of Solomon’s treasure house. We wandered by “cool Siloam’s shady rill,” set its current gurgling and boiling at pleasure, and stilled its murmurs in a moment. We have glutted our desire for the figs and the grapes and the pomegranates of Palestine the younger, and wandered by moonlight through the gardens where the servants of Solomon dreamed of their native rose of Sharon, their lily of the valley, and cheered the tedium of their toilsome efforts in the subterranean chamber by dreaming of the coming of a ship that never sailed, of a respite which never came, and weary and worn with watching for the morning star of deliverance, drew out their existence of enforced celibacy till age and care had done their work.

But we may no longer dream of the past or ruminate on the sad edict that limits all mortal life. We may no longer indulge our fancies in a spot full of morbid suggestions and associations. We must rouse ourselves from our day-dreams, and away to love and Lena. What a thumping of the heart at the thought! Even Abner is pawing the valley in his impatience to see Chicago once more, “not having,” as he said, “sich a powerful sight of days left any more to do his goin’ around in.” We had knotted our brows for many an anxious hour over the problem of how we were to escape with our treasures to civilization, or with a reasonable amount of it, for we had no idea of losing sight of our mine, or of bidding it a final adieu.

Our plan was to make a smaller raft from parts of our old one and float down the artificial stream to the Colorado again, hoping that it would be near the end of the canyon, and then make a portage to the navigable part of the Colorado, float on down its waters to the ranch country below. Here we might find some pack horses to carry ourselves and our “specimens,” for we were to pose as two votaries of science on a prospecting trip, and so meet the Southern Pacific, and away for Chicago.

And now what tumult of emotion and exuberance of association shake us as we prepare to say farewell to the scene of our wonderful discoveries. Brief in time, but closely crowded by events, it was as if we had been in the home of King Solomon’s vassals for years instead of days. “We count our lives by experience, not years, in deeds, not days.” We bring ourselves at last to the commonplace task of lading our little craft, having built it in the dry channel of the underground river by the slippery stairway where at our will we could perfect the lading on dry land, and when ready to launch we could bring the sea to our vessel, reversing the usual order of things.

At last everything is in readiness. Our gold is in strong bags in which we brought food, securely lashed to the cross timber; provisions, for which many a traveler would gladly have given bulk for bulk in gold, equally well secured. Pickaxes, emblematical of our occupation, loved for old aquaintance sake, and our rifles, the bosom friends of backwoodsmen, and a few odd articles of apparel were encompassed by bounds much smaller than those of a Saratoga trunk, and we take a last survey of the gallery and garden, temple, and tomb, and prepare for the last act in the Comedy of Errors that has landed us in the very lap of fortune, namely, to open the floodgates and set in motion again the forces which Solomon had harnessed to do his bidding. To accomplish this is but the work of a moment; Abner standing upon our water-steed, reins in hand to guide or restrain, while I pick my way on the rocky path to the floodgate, clamber upon the shelf, seize the brazen globe, while in answer to my efforts the sullen roar of the fretted waters sounds again, and springing back down the narrow footway, descending the granite stairway, mount our raft as it begins to throb and rise like a large tropical turtle, and in a moment glides down the dark incline toward daylight and hope.

Abner gazed back dreamily at the receding, familiar objects, as one who realizes that he is probably gazing back upon an interesting phase of his life, that was about to drop out of it forever. Satisfied in the acquisition of wealth which opened a new life to him, there was yet a tinge of sadness in leaving the old for the new that was like saying good-by and God bless you to an old friend whom we expect never to see again.

If we analyze the faculty of reverence for old age we find that it is made up in part of much the same feeling of pity with which I regarded his leave-taking, feeling that it was final.

Mine might be final, but hope intervened as a cushion to break the concussion upon the brain. Good-by to the pursuit of a project, and a greeting to the possession. The pleasures of the one are purely distinct from those of the other.

We drift very gently down a placid little stream, whose quiet current occasions our surprise, when we contrast it with that of the Colorado, and it becomes a puzzle to us when we remember that from the general trend of the country it must re-empty its waters into old Turbulence herself.

But the comfortable fact remains, and all day we drift lazily or paddle slowly southward and at night make our camp on a pleasant bit of tree-covered shore. Next day finds us pursuing our journey, which passed without any more exciting incident than the killing of another deer, for our store of food began to run low. At night when we landed and made our camp on a little rising knoll back from the water’s edge where the noises of the stream were left behind, we noticed as we prepared our sylvan bed of green boughs that a dull roaring sound seemed to come in waves from a southerly direction, which I at first supposed to mean the coming of a thunder storm. But Abner, being a better plainsman, rejected this theory as entirely unreasonable, as a thunder storm was unknown in that region, he said, and was himself inclined to the opinion that it was an earthquake; but after listening intently for some time as the sound seemed to rise and fall in regular cadences, he confessed that he was unable to offer any explanation of the phenomenon. Whatever the cause, it continued unchanged while we lay on our camp bed looking up at the over-twinkling stars, and at last lulled us to sleep and greeted us when we woke.

We had not traveled far on our way on that morning before the sound seemed to penetrate through the ripple of the current and the gentle swish-swash of the water against our craft. Louder and still louder as we advanced it became, till we were satisfied that it was caused by a cataract or some sort of volcanic action.

It was becoming apparent that our course was leading us toward the channel of the Colorado, as we could determine by the contour of the hills, and soon the current quickened its pace, warning us by our past hazardous experience that we had no time to lose in shunning the current, and seeking the quieter waters along the western shore, where we drifted along as far as we thought it safe, then drew ashore, and prepared to do some scouting before we made another decisive move.

Concealing our craft in a thicket along the bank, we took our rifles and started on an exploring expedition. As we descended the stream the banks became more precipitous, and the current more turbulent.

About a mile from our landing we climbed a series of ragged bluffs, and standing at last on the crest, we had the Colorado at our feet again, and a spectacle of superlative magnificence beside us, where Solomon’s rill flowed into the parent stream. It was no rill in appearance here as it tumbled in sheer descent over the brow of the cliffs beside us to the channel of the Colorado far below us, sending back from its depths a terrific, hoarse, bellowing roar, deadened and deflected by the deep-mouthed gorge that greedily swallowed it, and still gaped for more.

We had no means of estimating the distance through which the water plunged, but it was hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet, and in sublimity far outshone Niagara. As we stood close to the brink and watched the sheet that seemed to twist itself farther down into a huge rope, and farther still fly into infinitely small particles of spray, I reflected that here was one of the glories of Solomon’s reign for which he had never received the homage of the world; and so from remembering with a start that this was an artificial cataract, the thought electrified me, why not divert half the river into Solomon’s rill, and make the grandest spectacle of its kind in the known world? And as we went back toward our boat, we discussed the plans which we should carry out when next we came to our mine, though there was still in my mind a feeling of delicacy about trying to enlist Abner in my youthful schemes, for the same dreamy expression as before would soften his honest, rugged features, and remind me with a feeling of almost tearful sadness that youth and old age might not always abide together. In deep silence we plodded back to our raft and began preparations for a portage which we saw by the extended view obtained from the bluffs would not be very far below the cataract.

It proved to be at least a mile and a half, however, from our landing place, and with our budget of heavy metal it took two days to accomplish the portage and re-embark on the river to begin the last stage of our river voyage.

We had heard that a band of cattle men held the country to the southward in the teeth of Piutes and Comanches, and on this knowledge we based our hopes of deliverance.

Another day’s journey down the stream, and we noticed cattle in scattered groups feeding along the river or winding down by the deeply worn trails to drink at the water’s edge, and in three or four hours more we were in sight of a long rambling “doby” house with small windows set high in the wall, and with its outlying sheds and corrals bespoke the southern ranch.

We hailed the sight with delight, and drawing our raft upon the sand we approached this house of the Mexican air, and found two or three cowboys in the characteristic and picturesque attire of the semi-American vaquero, who were amusing themselves at target practice with heavy caliber revolvers and piercing the center which was the size of a dime with perfect ease and moderate certainty at fifty yards.

They seemed to adopt a covert posture of defense toward us, but when we addressed them in English and told them our story, and showed them a number of specimens which we considered very valuable from a scientific point of view, their sentiments toward us underwent an instant change. To these practical roamers of the Western range such specimens might amuse boys for a moment; but to see men absorbed in collecting and preserving such gewgaws relieved them of all apprehension on our account, and enabled them at once to classify us as of the harmless type of idiot entitled to pity rather than any other sentiment.

We were received, when once we were properly catalogued in their minds, very hospitably, and treated, at evening, to a sumptuous repast of slapjacks and beefsteak, accompanied by strong black coffee. We were assigned sleeping apartments in the middle of the one room, while our entertainers plunged into trough-like bunks on the walls, and lulled by the wailing cry of the coyote and the barking of the wolfish-looking half-Spanish dogs, we slept.

In the morning after a hearty breakfast of baking powder biscuit, breakfast bacon and black coffee, for your cattle ranch can seldom afford the luxuries of butter and milk, we soon made a bargain with our hosts to escort us to the railroad. On pretext of reassorting and washing our specimens, we conveyed them to a little brook flowing by the ranch, and making a sort of paint of a tough clay we had noticed there, we immersed each piece of gold in this mixture of clay and water effectively veiling the glittering color of our treasure, which excited nothing more dangerous than an expression of contempt in our caravan drivers.

The chief source of our feeling of security lay in this estimate put upon us by our cowboy escort, and we did not try to dispel the illusion in their minds. The only other source of danger that caused us much anxiety was that of the Comanches, or other warlike Indians who roved over this region, and never let slip an opportunity to prove themselves covetous, bloodthirsty poltroons as ever dogged an emigrant caravan or mining outfit, till they had them in a position that made resistance on the white man’s part utterly useless, and the attack on the part of the reds simply a cold-blooded murder, involving no personal risk to themselves.

The long and tedious days of heat, hardship, and weariness were forgotten by us when we at last rode into the little rude, temporary-looking town that stood for the present terminus of the Southern Railway and the future metropolis of the southwest.

Here we found a hotel where there were actually private rooms for guests, and appliances for cleansing and laving that aroused queer, thumping sensations at my heart as though they were messengers whispering to me of home. We shipped our specimens by express, or expressed our desire to do so, to a dreamy agent who stood by the window of the bare station house looking out over the prairie, and who was far too much preoccupied with his day-dreams of a future metropolitan city that was to cover all this plain, and convert the sand atoms of his homestead on the edge of the town into gold, to mind us.

We respected the greatness of the vision seen by his mental eye, and patiently waited till he should return to the earth from his airy flight which he did in the course of an hour or so, and turning to us, inquired if we wished to send the stuff East. We replied that such was indeed our earnest desire, and heaving a great sigh to denote how burdensome were his official duties, he proceeded deliberately to wait upon us, and informed us that in one hour and twenty minutes we should have an opportunity to proceed on our way eastward.

And the journey--when it was at last begun--how impossible to describe my feelings or even give a guess at those of my friend of the red flannel shirt and the big loyal heart! The only thing that remains to me of that journey is the recollection of the impatience to arrive at our destination that so filled my thoughts that all notice of commonplace things was swallowed up.

Less than a year’s absence from my native city had been so filled with strange fortunes and shifting adventures that it seemed as though years had flown. Abner himself could not be more surprised at the transformation in Chicago than I expected to be. And when at last we rolled into the Garden City of the West, it was hard to tell which, Abner or I, was the more completely lost in wonder; Abner at the stupendous change that had taken place since his departure from the city, and I that it had changed so little. We kept our precious freight in sight while it was being transferred to a safe deposit vault in the city, and that weight rolled away, our spirits rose to exuberance as we journeyed by horse car toward my uncle’s residence. Abner seemed a little depressed by the change in his surroundings and muttered once, as he noticed that he was the center of attraction, that “he’d rather face an old bear and her cubs than such a parcel of precious gaping idiots.” I gave him all the comfort in my power, which was not much, for my habiliments were not much better; but I despised the vapid, sneering crowd, who regarded him as a rare specimen, knowing as I did that Abner was every vein and fiber a hero in the world he had just left behind, and as such, quite independent of the adulation or ridicule of this modern beehive of humanity.

Arrived at the familiar street and number we were soon in my old home, exchanging greetings with my aged uncle, whose joy at my return, all unconscious as he was of my good fortune, added a hundred-fold to the pleasant anticipation on which I had fondly dwelt of gladdening his remaining days, and freeing them from all care.

He warmly seconded my desire to make Abner feel that this was a home in which he was entirely welcome, in a fashion to suit his own fancy, not a social straight-jacket into which he was invited to thrust himself, but a home which “vindicated the name and fulfilled the praise of home.”

Only waiting long enough to satisfy the claims of consanguinity that bound me to my dear uncle, I hastened to renovate and transform the greasy miner and traveler into a respectable Chicagoan, and ransacked my wardrobe left behind for the best it would afford. Then followed an expedition to the barber, the furnisher, and the hatter. Arrayed in my best, I stood before Abner, who did not for several seconds recognize his companion of the Mountain Spring Mine.

Leaving him to the mercies of my foster-father, from whom I had already learned that Lena was well, I hastened away to announce my right to claim her as my reward for having endured, as a good soldier, all the trials of a genuine backwoodsman. I rang the bell, as I had so often done before, and expected to meet the familiar face of the same faithful domestic that used to admit me, but presently the door opened, and I stood looking down into the startled eyes of Lena herself. My vanity could not have desired a prettier softening of the surprised expression in her lovely face into one of delighted recognition. Barber and tailor alike were powerless to erase the effects of sun and exposure on my countenance, but it took my gazelle but a moment to pierce the disguise, to give me such a welcome as relegated the painful experiences of my mountain life far into the background of memory. There was in Lena’s expressive features a new and more womanly charm that puzzled me, a new fountain of tenderness welling from her soft eyes, and dropping from her lips with every word of her soft, gentle speech. I had gone away hopelessly, forlornly in love, and now I had returned to fall into a still greater depth of distraction.

She questioned me so closely and rapidly as to my life and surroundings in the West, chided so energetically that I had not communicated in some way with her during the long period during which I was buried alive in the mountains, and beamed upon me with such evident satisfaction at beholding me again, that I could not doubt for a moment that her affection was of that type found in true womanhood, that time cannot efface or circumstances change.

But when I began to tell her that I had removed the ban that her father had placed upon our intercourse, she started as though she had forgotten a very painful phase of our past in the joy of our meeting. Red and white, blushed and paled alternately on her cheeks, and a glistening teardrop in the eye hinted of some secret cause of trouble that impended over our future. I tried to comfort her by telling her that the wealth of myself and gallant old partner was uncounted and practically unlimited in amount. Instead of being comforted, as I had hoped, she grew still more distressed, and put out her little hand in a gesture imploring me to stop, and in a voice unsteady with feeling, she exclaimed: “Oh, don’t, don’t. Please don’t say anything more about it. Oh, you don’t know what a wide chasm you are opening between us by your words, nor how they sting me to the heart.”

I looked at her in unfeigned and extreme astonishment. “Why, Lena dear,” I said, “what is it? I meant that every nugget should add luster to your happiness, and every ounce of the gold we gathered from the mine of Ophir should solace instead of pain you. I cannot understand you.”

“But have you not heard,” she rejoined, “how our affairs have gone since your going away? Our fortune is all gone, and of all our former wealth and grandeur, this home alone is left to us.”

“Oh, if that is all,” I said, laughing, “don’t shed another tear over it, for it makes not the least difference to me, I have plenty for all.”

“Ah, yes,” she pleaded very gently but very earnestly, “it does make a vast difference to me, as you must known upon reflecting a little.” I perceived that her sensitive little soul was racked with the thought that since her parents had in so mercenary a spirit forbidden me her presence, on account of my poverty, she should be equally mercenary, in my estimation, should she accept, now that I had fortune and she had none.

Cold logic failed to make any impression upon her mind, but when I brought to bear the weapon of Love’s logic, she blushingly yielded, and the crowning joy of my home-coming was complete.

The meeting with Lena’s parents was somewhat awkward, and Mr. Upton’s manners somewhat constrained. He listened quietly to the story of my adventures, and grew mournful in proportion as I enlarged upon the incidents of my good fortune, complained brokenly and bitterly of the injustice and hardness of the world that would not come to the rescue of an old business man whose whole life had been governed by the strictest rules of integrity, when a few thousands would have saved him from ruin.

“And would a few thousands save you yet?” I asked.

“Certainly,” said he, “this crisis has only come on during the last ten days.”

“My dear sir,” said I, “if that is all that stands in the way of your continued prosperity, have no further uneasiness on that subject; you can have the money to-morrow morning to the extent of one hundred thousand dollars.”

Had my mind been spiteful, I could have wished for no greater revenge than that which my words inflicted upon him; he started and colored and squirmed in his chair as though he had been stung by an adder, but necessity is a cruel teacher, and he could not afford to refuse even from me, under circumstances the most painful, to accept such an offer, and he therefore said in a tone of manly resolve: “I will accept it as a loan in the spirit in which it is offered, and I hope you will feel that I have been sufficiently punished for the heartless conduct of which I was guilty toward you.”

It was not for me to keep him upon the rack, for his gray hairs were a sufficient title to my respect; and hastily dismissing the subject, I sought Lena’s congenial presence, more happy in the outcome of the last-mentioned incident than I could express, though my beaming countenance was a telltale message to her eyes, and my tongue was obliged to confirm what my features had confessed.

Who need attempt to describe the overflowing happiness of the days that followed?

Together Abner and I roamed the city, I acting as guide and interpreter of many things which of needs must be mysterious to him, but I am obliged to confess that even to Abner I begrudged the time spent away from the center around which, in my eyes, Chicago revolved.

I would be more than human did I not feel gratified by the honor bestowed upon me by my fellow-men.

While it seemed to me that in the closing year of my school life I had suffered a culmination of woes almost unbearable it seemed now that events conspired to make me a thoroughly happy and successful man. The story of my strange discoveries in the cliffs of the Colorado spread like wildfire throughout the civilized world, beginning at my home university, my Alma Mater, at whose feet I had laid my trophies on coming home. She had responded generously by bestowing the honors of the institution upon me. I have been accorded like distinctions by several Eastern colleges, and have received decorations from several of the ancient and honorable orders of Europe. Doubtless the story of the fabulous wealth, which accompanied the scientific discovery, added a romantic tinge to the whole in the public mind, but to the credit of mankind and to my great gratification the world seemed to regard, as I did, the mine of knowledge unearthed as being of vastly more real worth to humanity than all the gold of Ophir.

I am a quiet man, and hate fuss and noise. I enjoyed in a quiet way the respect and admiration accorded me on all hands, on account of my valuable contributions to science, but I also squirmed under the would-be admiring terms showered upon me by a certain class of sickly sentimental sycophants who follow the public scent and strive to bask in a little cheap popularity by association with those who are supposed to have a stock of that commodity on hand.

I was pursued by a few such characters steadily and relentlessly, was obliged to listen with what courtesy I could summon to extravagant tributes to the splendor of my mental equipment, while I was forced to admit to myself that my abilities were of a very ordinary kind and could not therefore believe in their sincerity and their discrimination both at once.

However much I enjoyed the hearty congratulations of my real friends, I felt that I was far too young a man to think of retiring upon the strength of one or two chance achievements, and my ambition was stimulated to greater efforts in the direction of archæology.

Lena grew as enthusiastic as I in her loyalty to me and all that could interest me, and the upshot of it all was that dear, loving little Lena promised that an early day next June should be named for our wedding, provided I should make her my companion on my next exploring expedition, and turn it into a wedding tour.

Who could refuse such a companion to beguile the long hours of banishment such as I had endured at the Garden of Ophir, and to chase the hard lines of care and weariness from my workaday brow? In fact who could be unselfish enough to refuse to ratify a bargain whose terms were all in one’s favor?

Misgivings as to the hardships to which Lena should be subjected were lightly brushed aside as straws by Lena herself who stoutly maintained that no hardships of the frontier could be so trying as the period of waiting for tidings of me through which she had passed, that no solitude of the wilderness where we two might roam could ever impress her with the spirit of utter loneliness that had weighed down upon her in my absence, and consulting my own preferences I could but admit with a thrill of delight that her logic was that of a true, affectionate, womanly woman, and so everything was settled.

Abner, domiciled cosily in my uncle’s house, fell easily into the new mode of life like the true philosopher that he was, and his enjoyment of everything relating to our great city enhances every day. He is enjoying himself far too well, he announces, to think of giving up his present comforts for the pleasure of shooting the rapids of the Colorado, or “liftin’ the har offin’ a Piute Injun. No more of that for me, thankee,” said our hero of many a wild fracas in the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, or the valleys of the Sierras.

As for myself, I am happy in the loving favor of Lena, and comfortably secure in the possession of enough wealth to smooth my path through life. Beyond this my desire for wealth ceases.

Naturally my mind turns to thoughts of benevolent schemes to better the condition of my fellows.

I shall build and endow no colleges. I shall lay no hand in oppression upon the wages of the poor that I may rear a splendid monument to my memory like the Pullman Satire upon benevolence. I shall not present my native city with a Carnegie library whose shelves are packed with quartos, folios, and octavos, and the exterior of whose resting place is a dream of lovely architecture, wall and portico and arch, vieing with each other for the palm of costliness and beauty, and whose surmounting graceful spire points to heaven in mocking apostrophe to the Goddess of Charity, while the men who have produced all this wealth swelter and toil in the melting heat of furnace and forge, accompanied in their work by the clamor of iron, the din of labor, forming a weird scenic effect, powerfully reminding the workers of Plutonian fires, while their wages decline, and cares increase, that the cool index finger of the great library may be reared toward heaven.

My investigations into the cause of humanity have brought me, now that I have leisure to devote to the subject, nausea and disgust at the so-called benevolence of the world. Do the coal barons hold a splendid feast at Delmonico’s? The price of coal must needs go up, and the poor shivering tenant of the rookeries of our city must shiver a little harder and burn a little less coal.

Is the tariff upon garments slightly reduced? Immediately the miserable price of three pennies that were paid our sweaters for making a shirt must go down to two, and the dry loaf that kept the breath of life within the starving body must be reduced correspondingly in size, lest the fat margin of the clothier should suffer, or the luxurious plans of his fashionable lady be curtailed.

Hard times from all these causes make many applicants for clerkships, and down goes the salary of the frail girls who stand behind the counter till one swoons away, and is carried home only to find that her place is supplied when she returns, at a reduced salary, “for competition is the life of trade, and business is business, you know.”

Yes, we know business is business, and we begin to know that hardness is hardness, and that the heart and life of business is the adamantine monster, self.

Our faculties, at first feebly stirred by these considerations, become powerfully alive to the fact that “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn,” and with the knowledge comes the desire to counteract these direful effects in the world, to the limit of our power.

Here again we bless the quiet, tactful, uplifting hand of woman; for I found that Lena’s invariable habit of life had been, when her fortunes were smiling, to spend many hours of every week ministering to the afflicted and poverty-stricken creatures around her, and when she was no longer sure that her own daily bread would be forthcoming on the morrow, she still bestowed her gentle ministrations upon these poor mortals from whose hearts hope had fled.

Not till I knew this chapter in Lena’s life could I understand the new well-spring of tenderness in her bonnie blue eyes, or fully appreciate the broader human sympathy that swayed her actions. She began at once the work of enlisting my sympathies in the work of restoring “these defaced images of the Creator,” as she was pleased to call them, and no spectacle of wretchedness, poverty, and filth, could disguise in her eyes the fact that they were his images, warped and wrecked though they might be, but still bearing the imprint of a benevolent, all-pitying Over-soul.

Some of the tales of suffering she related to me seemed incredible, even from Lena’s lips, and so, as much from curiosity as from any better motive, I began to accompany her in her capacity as ministering angel, and the sly Lena knew that my tender susceptibilities all unused to such scenes of utter woe among the children of men, would do the rest. I soon adopted the plan of acting as sort of private detective, and asking all sorts of questions and recording them together with the answers in my memorandum. The result arrived at was startling in its industrial significance.

“Poverty, hunger, and rags; suffering, sorrow, and sin.”

Can the Christian womanhood of my native city revel in luxury and wealth, while within sound of their gay laughter and gleeful converse, “A woman sits in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread?” Does she believe vitally that God is no respecter of persons, or is it a sort of hazy abstract truth in the moral job-lot delivered to her weekly by her sleek, well-groomed pastor?

I am perfecting an industrial project by which I hope to reach a helping hand to my unfortunate brother. I propose to build large factories for the production of articles necessary to the world in its plain, everyday requirements.

No day-dreams as to methods and management are to be indulged, but stern men of experience will conduct the business on conservative business principles.

The work done will range from that which taxes the strength of the strongest man to that which is suitable for feeble women, not physically capable of enduring heavy work, and yet compelled to work for a livelihood. The wages paid for all classes of work will be liberal for satisfactory service, enabling all the operatives and their families to live in wholesome plenty, and build a snug fortification against the encroachments of old age. In addition to this a premium wage rate will be paid each operative at the end of the month for those whose industry has been unflagging and have not lost a day during the month unnecessarily, and a regular physician attached to the concern will dictate as to what is necessary in sickness.

This latter will not be paid in cash, however, but in stock in the concern at its actual par value; and thus every operative may, in time, become a partner in the business, the plan being so drawn as to preclude all possibility of any individual’s owning an undue share of the whole.

Thus while ministering to their self-respect, by inducing honest effort, and rousing their highest ability as skilled operatives, their interest in the prosperity of the whole project will be intensified by the sense of partial ownership.

Into all my plans for bettering humanity Lena enters with the heartiest enthusiasm; and if my scheme is successful, I have no doubt, it will owe much to her valuable suggestions as a result of her lifelong devotion to the cause of the

“Lowly and humble, the weary and broken in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate
part.”