Speaker 1: This is section twenty seven of The Gilded Age. This
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age,
Speaker 1: A Story of to Day by Mark Twain and Seed Warner,
Speaker 1: Chapter twenty seven. It was a hard blow to poor
Speaker 1: Sellers to see the work on his darling enterprise stop,
Speaker 1: and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been
Speaker 1: such refreshment to his soul sicken and die out. It
Speaker 1: was hard to come down to humdrum ordinary life again,
Speaker 1: after being a general superintendent and the most conspicuous man
Speaker 1: in the community. It was sad to see his name
Speaker 1: disappear from the newspapers, sadder still to see it resurrected
Speaker 1: at intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments,
Speaker 1: and clothed on with rhetorical tar and feathers. But his
Speaker 1: friends suffered more on his account than he did. He
Speaker 1: was a cork that could not be kept under the water.
Speaker 1: Many moments at a time he had to bolt stir
Speaker 1: up his wife's spirits every now and then. On one
Speaker 1: of these occasions he said, it is all right, my dear,
Speaker 1: all right, it will all come right in a little while.
Speaker 1: There's two hundred thousand dollars coming, and that will set
Speaker 1: things booming again. Harry seems to be having some difficulty,
Speaker 1: but that's to be expected. You can't move these big
Speaker 1: operations to the tune of Fisher's hornpipe, you know. But
Speaker 1: Harry will get it started along presently, and then you'll see,
Speaker 1: I expect the news every day now. But Riah, you've
Speaker 1: been expecting it every day all along, haven't you. Well, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I have. But anyway, the longer
Speaker 1: it's delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when
Speaker 1: it will start, same as every day you live brings
Speaker 1: you nearer to nearer the grave. Well, no, not that exactly.
Speaker 1: But you can't understand these things, Polly, Dear women haven't
Speaker 1: much head for business, you know. You make yourself perfectly comfortable,
Speaker 1: old lady. And you'll see how we'll trot this right along.
Speaker 1: Why bless you let the appropriation lag if it wants to,
Speaker 1: that's no great matter. There's a bigger thing than that,
Speaker 1: Bigger than two hundred thousand dollars, Baryah, bigger child. Why
Speaker 1: what's two hundred thousand dollars? Pocket money? Mere? Pocket money?
Speaker 1: Look at the railroad, did you forget the railroad. It
Speaker 1: ain't many months till spring. It will be coming right along,
Speaker 1: and the railroad swimming right along with it. Where'll it
Speaker 1: be by the middle of summer? Just stop and fancy
Speaker 1: a moment, Just think a little, don't anything suggest itself.
Speaker 1: Bless your heart, you, dear. Women live right in the
Speaker 1: present all the time. But a man, why a man
Speaker 1: lives in the future, Bariah. But don't we live in
Speaker 1: the future most too much? Barriah. We do somehow seem
Speaker 1: to manage to live on next year's crop of corn
Speaker 1: and potatoes. That's a general thing, while this year is
Speaker 1: still dragging along. But sometimes it's not a robust diet, Priah.
Speaker 1: But don't look that way, dear. Don't mind what I say.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to fret. I don't mean to worry,
Speaker 1: and I don't once a month, do I, Dear. But
Speaker 1: when I get a little low and feel bad, I
Speaker 1: get a bit troubled and worrisome. But I don't mean
Speaker 1: anything in the world. It passes right away. I know
Speaker 1: you're doing all you can, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: seem repining and ungrateful, for I'm not Priah. You know
Speaker 1: I'm not don't you lord, bless you child. I know
Speaker 1: you are the very best little woman that ever lived,
Speaker 1: that ever lived on the whole face of the earth.
Speaker 1: And I know that I would be a dog not
Speaker 1: to work for you and think for you and scheme
Speaker 1: for you with all my might, and I'll bring things
Speaker 1: all right. Yet, honey, cheer up. And don't you fear
Speaker 1: the railroad. Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear. But
Speaker 1: when a body he gets blue, a body forgets everything. Yes,
Speaker 1: the railroad, Tell me about the railroad. Aha, my girl,
Speaker 1: don't you see? Things ain't so dark, are they now?
Speaker 1: I didn't forget the railroad. Now, just think for a moment,
Speaker 1: just figure up a little on the future dead moral certainties.
Speaker 1: For instance, call this waiter Saint Louis, and we'll lay
Speaker 1: this fork representing the railroad from Saint Louis to this potato,
Speaker 1: which is Slouchburg. Then with this little carving knife, we'll
Speaker 1: continue the railroad from Slousburg to Doodleville, shown by the
Speaker 1: black pepper. Then we run along the yes, uh, the
Speaker 1: comb to the tumbler that's brimstone, thence by the pipe
Speaker 1: to Belshazzar, which is the salt cellar. Thence to to
Speaker 1: that quill catfish, hand me the pincushion marine toodett. Thence
Speaker 1: right along these shears to this horse Babylon, and then
Speaker 1: by the spoon to bloody run. Thank you the ink.
Speaker 1: Thence Hail Columbia, snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and
Speaker 1: saucer close up. That's Hail Columbia. Then let me open
Speaker 1: my knife to hark from the tomb, where we'll put
Speaker 1: the candlestick. Only a little distance from Hail Columbia. To
Speaker 1: hark from the tomb, downgrade all the way, and there
Speaker 1: we strike Columbus River. Pass me two or three skeins
Speaker 1: of thread to stand for the river. The sugar bowl
Speaker 1: will do for Hawkeye, and the rat trap for Stone's landing. Napoleon,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you can see how much better Napoleon
Speaker 1: is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your
Speaker 1: railroad complete and showing its continuation to Hallelujah, and thence
Speaker 1: to corruption billnll. Then there you are. It's a beautiful road.
Speaker 1: Beautiful Jeff Thompson can out engineer any civil engineer that
Speaker 1: ever sighted through an aneroid or theodolite or whatever they
Speaker 1: call it. He calls it, sometimes one and sometimes the other,
Speaker 1: just whichever levels off his sentence need as iron. But
Speaker 1: it ain't it a ripping road, though, I tell you
Speaker 1: it'll make us stir when it gets along. Just see
Speaker 1: what a country it goes through. There's your onions at Slousburg,
Speaker 1: noblest onion country that graces God's footstool. And there's your
Speaker 1: turnip country all around Doodleville. Bless my life, What fortunes
Speaker 1: are going to be made there when they get that
Speaker 1: contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips, if
Speaker 1: there's any in them, And I reckon there is, because
Speaker 1: Congress has made an appropriation of money to test the thing,
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't have done that just on conjecture, of course.
Speaker 1: And now we come to the Brimstone region, cattle raised
Speaker 1: there till you can't rest, and corn and all that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Then you've got a little stretch along
Speaker 1: through Belshazzar that don't produce anything now, at least nothing
Speaker 1: but rocks, but irrigation will fetch it. Then from Catfish
Speaker 1: to Babylon, it's a little swampy, but there's dead loads
Speaker 1: of peat down under there. Somewhere. Next is the Bloody
Speaker 1: Run and Hailed Columbia country. Tobacco enough can be raised
Speaker 1: there to support two such railroads. Next is the Sasparilla region.
Speaker 1: I reckon there's enough of that truck along in there
Speaker 1: on the line of the pocket knife, from Hail Columbia
Speaker 1: to Hark, from the tomb to fat up, all the
Speaker 1: consumptives in all the hospitals, from Halifax to the Holy Land.
Speaker 1: It just grows like weeds. I've got a little belt
Speaker 1: of Sasparilla land in there, just tucked away, unobtrusively, waiting
Speaker 1: for my little universal expectorant to get into shape in
Speaker 1: my head. And I'll fix that. You know, one of
Speaker 1: these days I'll have all the nations of the earth expector.
Speaker 1: But Beriah dear, don't interrupt me. Polly, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to lose the run of the map. Well, take
Speaker 1: your toy horse, James Fitzjames, if you must have it,
Speaker 1: and run along with you here. Now the soap will
Speaker 1: do for Babylon. Let me see where was I? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: Now we run down to Stone Napoleon. Now we run
Speaker 1: down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at that now, perfectly
Speaker 1: straight line as the way to the grave. And see
Speaker 1: where it leaves Hawkeye, clear out in the cold, my dear,
Speaker 1: clear out in the cold. That town's as bound to
Speaker 1: die as well. If I owned it, I'd get its
Speaker 1: obituary ready now and notify the mourners, Polly mark my words.
Speaker 1: In three years from this, Hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness
Speaker 1: you'll see. And just look at that river, noblest stream
Speaker 1: that meanders over the thirsty earth, calmst gentlest artery that
Speaker 1: refreshes her weary Bosom railroad goes all over it, and
Speaker 1: all through it, wades right along on Stilt's seventeen bridges
Speaker 1: in three miles and a half, forty nine bridges from
Speaker 1: Hark from the tomb to stones Landing, altogether forty nine bridges,
Speaker 1: and culvert's enough to culvert creation itself, hadn't skeins are
Speaker 1: thread enough to represent them all. But you get an
Speaker 1: idea perfect trestle work of bridges for seventy two miles.
Speaker 1: Jeff Thompson and I fixed all that. You know, He's
Speaker 1: to get the contracts and I'm to put them through
Speaker 1: on the divide. Just oceans of money in those bridges
Speaker 1: it's the only part of the railroad I'm interested in,
Speaker 1: down along the line, and it's all I want too.
Speaker 1: It's enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon.
Speaker 1: Good enough country, plenty, good enough. All it wants is population.
Speaker 1: That's all right. That will come. And it's no bad
Speaker 1: country now for calmness and solitude, I can tell you, though.
Speaker 1: There's no money in that, of course, no money. But
Speaker 1: a man wants rest, a man wants peace, a man
Speaker 1: don't want to rip and tear around all the time.
Speaker 1: And here we go now, just as straight as a
Speaker 1: string for hallelujah. It's a beautiful angle, handsome upgrade all
Speaker 1: the way. And then away you go to Corruptionville, the
Speaker 1: gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever could
Speaker 1: missionary field too. There ain't such another missionary field outside
Speaker 1: the jungles of Central Africa. And patriotic why they aimed
Speaker 1: it after Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my dear,
Speaker 1: there's a good time coming, and it'll be right along
Speaker 1: before you know what you're about too. That railroad's fetching it.
Speaker 1: You see what it is. As far as I've got,
Speaker 1: and if I had enough bottles and soap, and boot
Speaker 1: jacks and such things to carry it along to where
Speaker 1: it joins on to the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles
Speaker 1: from here. I should exhibit to you in that little
Speaker 1: internal improvement a spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. So don't you see,
Speaker 1: we've got the railroad to fall back on. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime, what are we worrying about that two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars appropriation? For that's all right. I'd be willing
Speaker 1: to bet anything that the very next letter that comes
Speaker 1: from Harry Will, the eldest boy entered just in the
Speaker 1: nick of time and brought a letter warm from the
Speaker 1: post office. Things do look bright after all, Briah. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if
Speaker 1: everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open
Speaker 1: the letter, Open it quick, and let's know all about
Speaker 1: it before we stir out of our places. I am
Speaker 1: all in a fidget to know what it says. The
Speaker 1: letter was opened without any unnecessary delay. End of Chapter
Speaker 1: twenty seven