Book: The Crisis, Complete

W >> Winston Churchill >> The Crisis, Complete







CHAPTER VIII

THE COLONEL IS WARNED

It is difficult to refrain from mention of the leave-taking of Miss
Virginia Carvel from the Monticello "Female Seminary," so called in the
'Democrat'. Most young ladies did not graduate in those days. There were
exercises. Stephen chanced to read in the 'Republican' about these
ceremonies, which mentioned that Miss Virginia Carvel, "Daughter of
Colonel Comyn Carvel, was without doubt the beauty of the day. She wore
--" but why destroy the picture? I have the costumes under my hand. The
words are meaningless to all males, and young women might laugh at a
critical time. Miss Emily Russell performed upon "that most superb of all
musical instruments the human voice." Was it 'Auld Robin Gray' that she
sang? I am sure it was Miss Maude Catherwood who recited 'To My Mother',
with such effect. Miss Carvel, so Stephen learned with alarm, was to read
a poem by Mrs. Browning, but was "unavoidably prevented." The truth was,
as he heard afterward from Miss Puss Russell, that Miss Jinny had refused
point blank. So the Lady Principal, to save her reputation for
discipline, had been forced to deceive the press.

There was another who read the account of the exercises with intense
interest, a gentleman of whom we have lately forborne to speak. This is
Mr. Eliphalet Hopper. Eliphalet has prospered. It is to be doubted if
that somewhat easy-going gentleman, Colonel Carvel, realized the full
importance of Eliphalet to Carvel & Company. Mr. Hood had been
superseded. Ephum still opened the store in the mornings, but Mr. Hopper
was within the ground-glass office before the place was warm, and through
warerooms and shipping rooms, rubbing his hands, to see if any were late.
Many of the old force were missed, and a new and greater force were come
in. These feared Eliphalet as they did the devil, and worked the harder
to please him, because Eliphalet had hired that kind. To them the Colonel
was lifted high above the sordid affairs of the world. He was at the
store every day in the winter, and Mr. Hopper always followed him
obsequiously into the ground-glass office, called in the book-keeper, and
showed him the books and the increased earnings.

The Colonel thought of Mr. Hood and his slovenly management, and sighed,
in spite of his doubled income. Mr. Hopper had added to the Company's
list of customers whole districts in the growing Southwest, and yet the
honest Colonel did not like him. Mr. Hopper, by a gradual process, had
taken upon his own shoulders, and consequently off the Colonel's,
responsibility after responsibility. There were some painful scenes, of
course, such as the departure of Mr. Hood, which never would have
occurred had not Eliphalet proved without question the incapacity of the
ancient manager. Mr. Hopper only narrowed his lids when the Colonel
pensioned Mr. Hood. But the Colonel had a will before which, when roused,
even Mr. Hopper trembled. So that Eliphalet was always polite to Ephum,
and careful never to say anything in the darkey's presence against
incompetent clerks or favorite customers, who, by the charity of the
Colonel, remained on his books.

One spring day, after the sober home-coming of Colonel Carvel from the
Democratic Convention at Charleston, Ephum accosted his master as he came
into the store of a morning. Ephum's face was working with excitement.

"What's the matter with you, Ephum?" asked the Colonel, kindly. "You
haven't been yourself lately."

"No, Marsa, I ain't 'zactly."

Ephum put down the duster, peered out of the door of the private office,
and closed it softly.

"Marse Comyn?"

"Yes?"

"Marse Comyn, I ain't got no use fo' dat Misteh Hoppa', Ise kinder
sup'stitious 'bout him, Marsa."

The Colonel put down his newspaper.

"Has he treated you badly, Ephum?" he asked quietly.

The faithful negro saw another question in his master's face. He well
knew that Colonel Carvel would not descend to ask an inferior concerning
the conduct of a superior.

"Oh no, suh. And I ain't sayin' nuthin' gin his honesty. He straight, but
he powerful sharp, Marse Comyn. An' he jus' mussiless down to a cent."

The Colonel sighed. He realized that which was beyond the grasp of the
negro's mind. New and thriftier methods of trade from New England were
fast replacing the old open-handedness of the large houses. Competition
had begun, and competition is cruel. Edwards, James, & Company had taken
a Yankee into the firm. They were now Edwards, James, & Doddington, and
Mr. Edwards's coolness towards the Colonel was manifest since the rise of
Eliphalet. They were rivals now instead of friends. But Colonel Carvel
did not know until after years that Mr. Hopper had been offered the place
which Mr. Doddington filled later.

As for Mr. Hopper, increase of salary had not changed him. He still lived
in the same humble way, in a single room in Miss Crane's boarding-house,
and he paid very little more for his board than he had that first week in
which he swept out Colonel Carvel's store. He was superintendent, now, of
Mr. Davitt's Sunday School, and a church officer. At night, when he came
home from business, he would read the widow's evening paper, and the
Colonel's morning paper at the office. Of true Puritan abstemiousness,
his only indulgence was chewing tobacco. It was as early as 1859 that the
teller of the Boatman's Bank began to point out Mr. Hopper's back to
casual customers, and he was more than once seen to enter the president's
room, which had carpet on the floor.

Eliphalet's suavity with certain delinquent customers from the Southwest
was A wording to Scripture. When they were profane, and invited him into
the street, he reminded them that the city had a police force and a jail.
While still a young man, he had a manner of folding his hands and smiling
which is peculiar to capitalists, and he knew the laws concerning
mortgages in several different states.

But Eliphalet was content still to remain in the sphere in which
Providence had placed him, and so to be an example for many of us. He did
not buy, or even hire, an evening suit. He was pleased to superintend
some of the details for a dance at Christmas-time before Virginia left
Monticello, but he sat as usual on the stair-landing. There Mr. Jacob
Cluyme (who had been that day in conversation with the teller of the
Boatman's Bank) chanced upon him. Mr. Cluyme was so charmed at the
facility with which Eliphalet recounted the rise and fall of sugar and
cotton and wheat that he invited Mr. Hopper to dinner. And from this meal
may be reckoned the first appearance of the family of which Eliphalet
Hopper was the head into polite society. If the Cluyme household was not
polite, it was nothing. Eliphalet sat next to Miss Belle, and heard the
private history of many old families, which he cherished for future use.
Mrs. Cluyme apologized for the dinner, which (if the truth were told)
needed an apology. All of which is significant, but sordid and
uninteresting. Jacob Cluyme usually bought stocks before a rise.

There was only one person who really bothered Eliphalet as he rose into
prominence, and that person was Captain Elijah Brent. If, upon entering
the ground-glass office, he found Eliphalet without the Colonel, Captain
Lige would walk out again just as if the office were empty. The inquiries
he made were addressed always to Ephum. Once, when Mr. Hopper had bidden
him good morning and pushed a chair toward him, the honest Captain had
turned his back and marched straight to the house or Tenth Street, where
he found the Colonel alone at breakfast. The Captain sat down opposite.

"Colonel," said he, without an introduction. "I don't like this here
business of letting Hopper run your store. He's a fish, I tell you."

The Colonel drank his coffee in silence.

"Lige," he said gently, "he's nearly doubled my income. It isn't the old
times, when we all went our own way and kept our old customers year in
and year out. You know that."

The Captain took a deep draught of the coffee which Jackson had laid
before him.

"Colonel Carvel," he said emphatically, "the fellow's a damned rascal,
and will ruin you yet if you don't take advice."

The Colonel shifted uneasily.

"The books show that he's honest, Lige."

"Yes," cried Lige, with his fist on the table. "Honest to a mill. But if
that fellow ever gets on top of you, or any one else, he'll grind you
into dust."

"He isn't likely to get on top of me, Lige. I know the business, and keep
watch. And now that Jinny's coming home from Monticello, I feel that I
can pay more attention to her--kind of take her mother's place," said the
Colonel, putting on his felt hat and tipping his chair. "Lige, I want
that girl to have every advantage. She ought to go to Europe and see the
world. That trip East last summer did her a heap of good. When we were at
Calvert House, Dan read her something that my grandfather had written
about London, and she was regularly fired. First I must take her to the
Eastern Shore to see Carvel Hall. Dan still owns it. Now it's London and
Paris."

The Captain walked over to the window, and said nothing. He did not see
the searching gray eyes of his old friend upon him.

"Lige!" said the Colonel.

The Captain turned.

"Lige, why don't you give up steamboating and come along to Europe?
You're not forty yet, and you have a heap of money laid by."

The Captain shook his head with the vigor that characterized him.

"This ain't no time for me to leave," he said. "Colonel; I tell you
there's a storm comin'."

The Colonel pulled his goatee uneasily. Here, at last, was a man in whom
there was no guile.

"Lige," he said, "isn't it about time you got married?"

Upon which the Captain shook his head again, even with more vigor. He
could not trust himself to speak. After the Christmas holidays he had
driven Virginia across the frozen river, all the way to Monticello, in a
sleigh. It was night when they had reached the school, the light of its
many windows casting long streaks on the snow under the trees. He had
helped her out, and had taken her hand as she stood on the step.

"Be good, Jinny," he had said. "Remember what a short time it will be
until June. And your Pa will come over to see you."

She had seized him by the buttons of his great coat, and said tearfully:
"O Captain Lige! I shall be so lonely when you are away. Aren't you going
to kiss me?"

He had put his lips to her forehead, driven madly back to Alton, and
spent the night. The first thing he did the next day when he reached St.
Louis was to go straight to the Colonel and tell him bluntly of the
circumstance.

"Lige, I'd hate to give her up," Mr. Carvel said; "but I'd rather you'd
marry her than any man I can think of."




CHAPTER IX

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

In that spring of 1860 the time was come for the South to make her final
stand. And as the noise of gathering conventions shook the ground,
Stephen Brice was not the only one who thought of the Question at
Freeport. The hour was now at hand for it to bear fruit.

Meanwhile, his hero, the hewer of rails and forger of homely speech,
Abraham Lincoln, had made a little tour eastward the year before, and had
startled Cooper Union with a new logic and a new eloquence. They were the
same logic and the same eloquence which had startled Stephen.

Even as he predicted who had given it birth, the Question destroyed the
great Democratic Party. Colonel Carvel travelled to the convention in
historic Charleston soberly and fearing God, as many another Southern
gentleman. In old Saint Michael's they knelt to pray for harmony, for
peace; for a front bold and undismayed toward those who wronged them. All
through the week chosen orators wrestled in vain. Judge Douglas, you
flattered yourself that you had evaded the Question. Do you see the
Southern delegates rising in their seats? Alabama leaves the hall,
followed by her sister stakes. The South has not forgotten your Freeport
Heresy. Once she loved you now she will have none of you.

Gloomily, indeed, did Colonel Carvel return home. He loved the Union and
the flag for which his grandfather Richard had fought so bravely. That
flag was his inheritance. So the Judge, laying his hand upon the knee of
his friend, reminded him gravely. But the Colonel shook his head. The
very calmness of their argument had been portentous.

"No, Whipple," said he. "You are a straightforward man. You can't
disguise it. You of the North are bent upon taking away from us the
rights we had when our fathers framed the Constitution. However the
nigger got to this country, sir, in your Bristol and Newport traders, as
well as in our Virginia and Maryland ships, he is here, and he was here
when the Constitution was written. He is happier in slavery than are your
factory hands in New England; and he is no more fit to exercise the
solemn rights of citizenship, I say, than the halfbreeds in the South
American states."

The Judge attempted to interrupt, but Mr. Carvel stopped him.

"Suppose you deprive me of my few slaves, you do not ruin me. Yet you do
me as great a wrong as you do my friend Samuels, of Louisiana, who
depends on the labor of five hundred. Shall I stand by selfishly and see
him ruined, and thousands of others like him?"

Profoundly depressed, Colonel Carvel did not attend the adjourned
Convention at Baltimore, which split once more on Mason and Dixon's line.
The Democrats of the young Northwest stood for Douglas and Johnson, and
the solid South, in another hall, nominated Breckenridge and Lane. This,
of course, became the Colonel's ticket.

What a Babel of voices was raised that summer! Each with its cure for
existing ills. Between the extremes of the Black Republican Negro
Worshippers and the Southern Rights party of Breckenridge, your
conservative had the choice of two candidates,--of Judge Douglas or
Senator Bell. A most respectable but practically extinct body of
gentlemen in ruffled shirts, the Old Line Whigs, had likewise met in
Baltimore. A new name being necessary, they called themselves
Constitutional Unionists Senator Bell was their candidate, and they
proposed to give the Nation soothing-syrup. So said Judge Whipple, with a
grunt of contempt, to Mr. Cluyme, who was then a prominent Constitutional
Unionist. Other and most estimable gentlemen were also Constitutional
Unionists, notably Mr. Calvin Brinsmade. Far be it from any one to cast
disrespect upon the reputable members of this party, whose broad wings
sheltered likewise so many weak brethren.

One Sunday evening in May, the Judge was taking tea with Mrs. Brice. The
occasion was memorable for more than one event--which was that he
addressed Stephen by his first name for the first time.

"You're an admirer of Abraham Lincoln," he had said.

Stephen, used to Mr. Whipple's ways, smiled quietly at his mother. He had
never dared mention to the Judge his suspicions concerning his journey to
Springfield and Freeport.

"Stephen," said the Judge (here the surprise came in), "Stephen, what do
you think of Mr. Lincoln's chances for the Republican nomination?"

"We hear of no name but Seward's, sir," said Stephen, When he had
recovered.

The Judge grunted.

"Do you think that Lincoln would make a good President?" he added.

"I have thought so, sir, ever since you were good enough to give me the
opportunity of knowing him."

It was a bold speech--the Judge drew his great eyebrows together, but he
spoke to Mrs. Brice.

"I'm not as strong as I was once, ma'am," said he. "And yet I am going to
that Chicago convention."

Mrs. Brice remonstrated mildly, to the effect that he had done his share
of political work. He scarcely waited for her to finish.

"I shall take a younger man with me, in case anything happens. In fact,
ma'am, I had thought of taking your son, if you can spare him."

And so it was that Stephen went to that most dramatic of political
gatherings,--in the historic Wigwam. It was so that his eyes were opened
to the view of the monster which maims the vitality of the Republic,
--the political machine. Mr. Seward had brought his machine from New York,
--a legion prepared to fill the Wigwam with their bodies, and to drown
with their cries all names save that of their master.

Stephen indeed had his eyes opened. Through the kindness of Judge Whipple
he heard many quiet talks between that gentleman and delegates from other
states--Pennsylvania and Illinois and Indiana and elsewhere. He perceived
that the Judge was no nonentity in this new party. Mr. Whipple sat in his
own room, and the delegates came and ranged themselves along the bed.
Late one night, when the delegates were gone, Stephen ventured to speak
what was in his mind.

"Mr. Lincoln did not strike me as the kind of man, sir; who would permit
a bargain."

"Mr. Lincoln's at home playing barn-ball," said the Judge, curtly. "He
doesn't expect the nomination."

"Then," said Stephen, rather hotly, "I think you are unfair to him."

You are expecting the Judge to thunder. Sometimes he liked this kind of
speech.

"Stephen, I hope that politics may be a little cleaner when you become a
delegate," he answered, with just the suspicion of a smile. "Supposing
you are convinced that Abraham Lincoln is the only man who can save the
Union, and supposing that the one way to get him nominated is to meet
Seward's gang with their own methods, what would you do, sir? I want a
practical proposition, sir," said Mr. Whipple, "one that we can use
to-night. It is now one 'clock."

As Stephen was silent, the Judge advised him to go to bed. And the next
morning, while Mr. Seward's henchmen, confident and uproarious, were
parading the streets of Chicago with their bands and their bunting, the
vast Wigwam was quietly filling up with bony Westerners whose ally was
none other than the state of Pennsylvania. These gentlemen possessed wind
which they had not wasted in processions. And the Lord delivered Seward
and all that was his into their hands.

How the light of Mr. Seward's hope went out after the first ballot, and
how some of the gentlemen attached to his person wept; and how the voices
shook the Wigwam, and the thunder of the guns rolled over the tossing
water of the lake, many now living remember. That day a name was
delivered to the world through the mouths political schemers which was
destined to enter history that of the saviour of the Nation.

Down in little Springfield, on a vacant lot near the station, a tall man
in his shirt sleeves was playing barn-ball with some boys. The game
finished, he had put on his black coat and was starting homeward under
the tree--when a fleet youngster darted after him with a telegram. The
tall man read it, and continued on his walk his head bent and his feet
taking long strides, Later in the day he was met by a friend.

"Abe," said the friend, "I'm almighty glad there somebody in this town's
got notorious at last."

In the early morning of their return from Chicago Judge Whipple and
Stephen were standing in the front of a ferry-boat crossing the
Mississippi. The sun was behind them. The Judge had taken off his hat,
and his gray hair was stirred by the river breeze. Illness had set a
yellow seal on the face, but the younger man remarked it not. For
Stephen, staring at the black blur of the city outline, was filled with a
strange exaltation which might have belonged to his Puritan forefathers.
Now at length was come his chance to be of use in life,--to dedicate the
labor of his hands and of his brains to Abraham Lincoln uncouth prophet
of the West. With all his might he would work to save the city for the
man who was the hope of the Union.

The bell rang. The great paddles scattered the brow waters with white
foam, and the Judge voiced his thoughts.

"Stephen," said he, "I guess we'll have to put on shoulders to the wheel
this summer. If Lincoln is not elected I have lived my sixty-five years
for nothing."

As he descended the plank, he laid a hand on Stephen's arm, and tottered.
The big Louisiana, Captain Brent's boat, just in from New Orleans, was
blowing off her steam as with slow steps they climbed the levee and the
steep pitch of the street beyond it. The clatter of hooves and the crack
of whips reached their ears, and, like many others before them and since,
they stepped into Carvel & Company's. On the inside of the glass
partition of the private office, a voice of great suavity was heard. It
was Eliphalet Hopper's.

"If you will give me the numbers of the bales, Captain Brent, I'll send a
dray down to your boat and get them."

It was a very decisive voice that answered.

"No, sir, I prefer to do business with my friend, Colonel Carvel. I guess
I can wait."

"I could sell the goods to Texas buyers who are here in the store right
now."

"Until I get instructions from one of the concern," vowed Captain Lige,
"I shall do as I always have done, sir. What is your position here, Mr.
Hopper?"

"I am manager, I callate."

The Captain's fist was heard to come down on the desk.

"You don't manage me," he said, "and I reckon you don't manage the
Colonel."

Mr. Hopper's face was not pleasant to see as he emerged. But at sight of
Judge Whipple on the steps his suavity returned.

"The Colonel will be in any minute, sir," said he.

But the Judge walked past him without reply, and into the office. Captain
Brent, seeing him; sprang to his feet.

"Well, well, Judge," said he, heartily, "you fellows have done it now,
sure. I'll say this for you, you've picked a smart man."

"Better vote for him, Lige," said the Judge, setting down.

The Captain smiled at Stephen.

"A man's got a lot of choice this year;" said he. "Two governments,
thirty-three governments, one government patched up for a year ox two."

"Or no government," finished the Judge. "Lige, you're not such a fool as
to vote against the Union?"

"Judge," said the Captain, instantly, "I'm not the only one in this town
who will have to decide whether my sympathies are wrong. My sympathies
are with the South."

"It's not a question of sympathy, Captain," answered the Judge, dryly.
"Abraham Lincoln himself was born in Kentucky."

They had not heard a step without.

"Gentlemen, mark my words. If Abraham Lincoln is elected, the South
leaves this Union."

The Judge started, and looked up. The speaker was Colonel Carvel himself.

"Then, sir," Mr. Whipple cried hotly, "then you will be chastised and
brought back. For at last we have chosen a man who is strong enough,
--who does not fear your fire-eaters,--whose electors depend on Northern
votes alone."

Stephen rose apprehensively, So did Captain Lige The Colonel had taken a
step forward, and a fire was quick to kindle in his gray eyes. It was as
quick to die. Judge Whipple, deathly pale, staggered and fell into
Stephen' arms. But it was the Colonel who laid him on the horsehair sofa.

"Silas!" he said, "Silas!"

Nor could the two who listened sound the depth of the pathos the Colonel
put into those two words.

But the Judge had not fainted. And the brusqueness in his weakened voice
was even more pathetic-- "Tut, tut," said he. "A little heat, and no
breakfast."

The Colonel already had a bottle of the famous Bourbon day his hand, and
Captain Lige brought a glass of muddy iced water. Mr. Carvel made an
injudicious mixture of the two, and held it to the lips of his friend. He
was pushed away.

"Come, Silas," he said.

"No!" cried the Judge, and with this effort he slipped back again. Those
who stood there thought that the stamp of death was already on Judge
Whipple's face.

But the lips were firmly closed, bidding defiance, as ever, to the world.
The Colonel, stroking his goatee, regarded him curiously.

"Silas," he said slowly, "if you won't drink it for me, perhaps you will
drink it--for--Abraham--Lincoln."

The two who watched that scene have never forgotten it. Outside, in the
great cool store, the rattle of the trucks was heard, and Mr. Hopper
giving commands. Within was silence. The straight figure of the Colonel
towered above the sofa while he waited. A full minute passed. Once Judge
Whipple's bony hand opened and shut, and once his features worked. Then,
without warning, he sat up.

"Colonel," said he, "I reckon I wouldn't be much use to Abe if I took
that. But if you'll send Ephum after, cup of coffee--"

Mr. Carvel set the glass down. In two strides he had reached the door and
given the order. Then he came hack and seated himself on the sofa.

Stephen found his mother at breakfast. He had forgotten the convention He
told her what had happened at Mr. Carvel's store, and how the Colonel had
tried to persuade Judge Whipple to take the Glencoe house while he was in
Europe, and how the Judge had refused. Tears were in the widow's eyes
when Stephen finished.

"And he means to stay here in the heat and go through, the campaign?" she
asked.

"He says that he will not stir."

"It will kill him, Stephen," Mrs. Brice faltered.

"So the Colonel told him. And he said that he would die willingly--after
Abraham Lincoln was elected. He had nothing to live for but to fight for
that. He had never understood the world, and had quarrelled with at all
his life."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.