Speaker 1: This is section sixty two of The Gilded Age. This
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age,
Speaker 1: A Tale of to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner,
Speaker 1: Chapter sixty two. Philip Sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. The
Speaker 1: prospect was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was
Speaker 1: beginning to tell upon his spirits. But what told still
Speaker 1: more upon them was the undeniable fact that the promise
Speaker 1: of ultimate success diminished every day. Now, that is to say,
Speaker 1: the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which
Speaker 1: was considerably beyond where the coal vein should pass according
Speaker 1: to all his calculations, if there were a coal vein there,
Speaker 1: And so every foot that the tunnel now progressed seemed
Speaker 1: to carry it further away from the object of the search.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a
Speaker 1: mistake in estimating the direction which the vein should naturally
Speaker 1: take after crossing the valley and entering the hill. Upon
Speaker 1: such occasions he would go into the nearest mine on
Speaker 1: the vein he was hunting for, and once more get
Speaker 1: the bearings of the deposit, and mark out its probable course.
Speaker 1: But the result was the same every time his tunnel
Speaker 1: had manifestly pierced beyond the natural point of junction, and
Speaker 1: then his spirits fell a little lower. His men had
Speaker 1: already lost faith, and he often overheard them saying it
Speaker 1: was perfectly plain that there was no coal in the hill.
Speaker 1: Foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no end of
Speaker 1: experienced loafers from the village visited the tunnel from time
Speaker 1: to time, and their verdicts were always the same, and
Speaker 1: always disheartening. No coal in that hill. Now and then
Speaker 1: Philip would sit down and think it all over and
Speaker 1: wonder what the mystery meant. Then he would go into
Speaker 1: the tunnel and ask the men if there were no
Speaker 1: signs yet none all was none. He would bring out
Speaker 1: a piece of rock and examine it and say to himself, limestone.
Speaker 1: It has crinoids and corals in it. The rock is right.
Speaker 1: Then he would throw it down with a sigh and say,
Speaker 1: but that is nothing. Where coal is limestone with these fossils,
Speaker 1: and it is pretty certain to lie against its foot casing.
Speaker 1: But it does not necessarily follow that where this peculiar
Speaker 1: rock is, coal must lie above it, or beyond it.
Speaker 1: This sign is not sufficient. The thought usually followed, there
Speaker 1: is one infallible sign. If I could only strike that
Speaker 1: three or four times in as many weeks, he said
Speaker 1: to himself, Am I a visionary? I must be a visionary.
Speaker 1: Everybody is in these days. Everybody chases butterflies. Everybody seeks
Speaker 1: sudden fortune and will not lay one up by slow toil.
Speaker 1: This is not right. I will discharge the men and
Speaker 1: go at some honest work. There is no coal here.
Speaker 1: What a fool I have been. I will give it up.
Speaker 1: But he never could do it. A half hour of
Speaker 1: profound thinking all was followed, and at the end of
Speaker 1: it he was sure to get up and straighten himself
Speaker 1: and say, there is coal there. I will not give
Speaker 1: it up. And coal or no coal, I will drive
Speaker 1: the tunnel clear through the hill. I will not surrender
Speaker 1: while I am alive. He never thought of asking mister
Speaker 1: Montague for more money. He said there was now but
Speaker 1: one chance of finding coal against nine hundred ninety nine
Speaker 1: that he would not find it, and so it would
Speaker 1: be wrong in him to make the request, and foolish
Speaker 1: in mister Montague to grant it. He had been working
Speaker 1: three shifts of men. Finally, the settling of a weekly
Speaker 1: account exhausted his means. He could not afford to run
Speaker 1: in debt, and therefore he gave the men their discharge.
Speaker 1: They came into his cabin presently, where he sat with
Speaker 1: his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands,
Speaker 1: the picture of discouragement. And their spokesman said, mister Sterling,
Speaker 1: when Tim was down a week with his fall, you
Speaker 1: kept him on half wages, and it was a mighty
Speaker 1: help to his family. Whenever any of us was in trouble,
Speaker 1: You've done what you could to help us out. You've
Speaker 1: acted fair and square with us every time. And I
Speaker 1: reckon we are men and know a man when we
Speaker 1: see him. We haven't got any faith in that hill,
Speaker 1: but we have a respect for a man that's got
Speaker 1: the pluck that you've showed. You've fought a good fight
Speaker 1: with everybody again you and if we had grubb to
Speaker 1: go on, I'm damned if we wouldn't stand by you
Speaker 1: till the cows come home. That is what the boys say. Now.
Speaker 1: We want to put in one parting blast for luck.
Speaker 1: We want to work three days more. If we don't
Speaker 1: find anything, we won't bring in no bill against you.
Speaker 1: That is what we've come to say. Philip was touched.
Speaker 1: If he had had money enough to buy three days grub,
Speaker 1: he would have accepted the generous offer, But as it was,
Speaker 1: he could not consent to be less magnanimous than the men,
Speaker 1: and so he declined in a manly speech, shook hands
Speaker 1: all round, and resumed his solitary communings. The men went
Speaker 1: back to the tunnel and put in a parting blast
Speaker 1: for luck. Anyhow, they did a full day's work, and
Speaker 1: then they took their leave. They called at his cabin
Speaker 1: and gave him a good bye, and were not able
Speaker 1: to tell him their day's effort had given things a
Speaker 1: mere promising look. The next day Philip sold all the
Speaker 1: tools but two or three sets. He also sold one
Speaker 1: of the now deserted cabins as old lumber, together with
Speaker 1: its domestic wares, and made up his mind that he
Speaker 1: would buy provisions with the trifle of money thus gained,
Speaker 1: and continue his work alone. About the middle of the afternoon,
Speaker 1: he put on his roughest clothes and went to the tunnel.
Speaker 1: He lit a candle and groped his way in. Presently
Speaker 1: he heard the sound of a pick or a drill,
Speaker 1: and wondered what it meant. A spark of light now
Speaker 1: appeared in the far end of the tunnel, and when
Speaker 1: he arrived there he found the man Tim at work.
Speaker 1: Tim said, I'm to have a job in the Golden
Speaker 1: Briar mind by and by in a week or ten days,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to work here till then. A man
Speaker 1: might as well be at something. And besides, I consider
Speaker 1: that I owe you what you paid me when I
Speaker 1: was laid up. Philip said, no, no, he didn't owe anything,
Speaker 1: but Tim persisted, and then Philip said he had a
Speaker 1: little provision now and would share. So for several days
Speaker 1: Philip held the drill and Tim did the striking. At first,
Speaker 1: Philip was impatient to see the result of every blast,
Speaker 1: and was always back and peering among the smoke the
Speaker 1: moment after the explosion. But there was never any encouraging result,
Speaker 1: and therefore he finally lost almost all interest and hardly
Speaker 1: troubled himself to inspect results at all. He simply labored
Speaker 1: on stubbornly and with little hope. Tim stayed with him
Speaker 1: till the last moment, and then took up his job
Speaker 1: at the Golden Briar apparently as depressed by the continued
Speaker 1: barrenness of their mutual labors as Philip was himself. After that,
Speaker 1: Philip fought his battle alone, day after day, and slow
Speaker 1: work it was he could scarcely see that he made
Speaker 1: any progress. Late one afternoon, he finished drilling a hole
Speaker 1: which he had been at work at for more than
Speaker 1: two hours. He swabbed it out and poured in the
Speaker 1: powder and inserted the fuse. Then he filled up the
Speaker 1: rest of the hole with dirt and small fragments of stone,
Speaker 1: tamped it down, firmly, touched his candle to the fuse,
Speaker 1: and ran by and bye. The dull report came, and
Speaker 1: he was about to walk back mechanically and see what
Speaker 1: was accomplished, but he halted presently, turned on his heel
Speaker 1: and thought, rather than said, no, this is useless, this
Speaker 1: is absurd. If I found anything, it would only be
Speaker 1: one of those little aggravating seams of coal, which doesn't
Speaker 1: mean anything. And by this time he was walking out
Speaker 1: of the tunnel. His thought ran on, I am conquered.
Speaker 1: I am out of provisions, out of money. I have
Speaker 1: got to give it up, all this hard work lost.
Speaker 1: But I am not conquered. I will go and work
Speaker 1: for money and come back and have another fight with fate. Ah,
Speaker 1: it may be years, it may be years. Arrived at
Speaker 1: the mouth of the tunnel, he threw his coat upon
Speaker 1: the ground, sat down on a stone, and his eyes
Speaker 1: sought the westering sun, and dwelt upon the charming landscape,
Speaker 1: which stretched its woody ridges, wave upon wave to the
Speaker 1: golden horizon. Something was taking place at his feet which
Speaker 1: did not attract his attention. His reverie continued, and its
Speaker 1: burden grew more and more gloomy. Presently he rose up
Speaker 1: and cast a look far away toward the valley, and
Speaker 1: his thoughts took a new direction. There it is, how
Speaker 1: good it looks, but down there is not up here. Well,
Speaker 1: I will go home and pack up. There is nothing
Speaker 1: else to do. He moved off, moodily toward his cabin.
Speaker 1: He had gone some distance before he thought of his coat.
Speaker 1: Then he was about to turn back, but he smiled
Speaker 1: at the thought and continued his journey. Such a coat
Speaker 1: as that could be of little use in a civilized land.
Speaker 1: A little further on he remembered that there were some
Speaker 1: papers of value in one of the pockets of the relic,
Speaker 1: and then, with a penitent ejaculation, he turned back, picked
Speaker 1: up the coat and put it on. He made a
Speaker 1: dozen steps, and then he stopped very suddenly. He stood
Speaker 1: still a moment, as one who is trying to believe
Speaker 1: something and cannot. He put a hand up over his
Speaker 1: shoulder and felt his back, and a great thrill shot
Speaker 1: through him. He grasped the skirt of the coat impulsively,
Speaker 1: and another thrill followed. He snatched the coat from his
Speaker 1: back and glanced at it, threw it from him, and
Speaker 1: flew back to the tunnel. He sought the spot where
Speaker 1: the coat had lain. He had to look close, for
Speaker 1: the light was waning. Then, to make sure, he put
Speaker 1: his hand to the ground, and a little stream of
Speaker 1: water swept against his Thank god, I've struck it. At last,
Speaker 1: He lit a candle and ran into the tunnel. He
Speaker 1: picked up a piece of rubbish cast out by the
Speaker 1: last blast, and said, this clayey stuff is what I've
Speaker 1: longed for. I know what is behind it. He swung
Speaker 1: his pick with hearty good will till long after the
Speaker 1: darkness had gathered upon the earth, and when he trudged
Speaker 1: home at length, he knew he had a coal vein
Speaker 1: and that it was seven feet thick from wall to wall.
Speaker 1: He found a yellow envelope lying on his rickety table,
Speaker 1: and recognized that it was of a family sacred to
Speaker 1: the transmission of telegrams. He opened it, read it, crushed
Speaker 1: it in his hand, and threw it down. It simply said,
Speaker 1: Ruth is very ill. End of Chapter sixty two.