— calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom! Railroad goes all over it and all through it — wades right along on stilts. Seventeen bridges in three miles and a half — forty-nine bridges from Hark-from-the-Tomb to Stone’s Landing altogether — forty nine bridges, and culverts enough to culvert creation itself! Hadn’t skeins of thread enough to represent them all — but you get an idea — perfect trestle-work of bridges for seventy two miles: Jeff Thompson and I fixed all that, you know; he’s to get the contracts and I’m to put them through on the divide. Just oceans of money in those bridges. It’s the only part of the railroad I’m interested in, — down along the line — and it’s all I want, too. It’s enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon. Good enough country plenty good enough — all it wants is population. That’s all right — that will come. And it’s no bad country now for calmness and solitude, I can tell you — though there’s no money in that, of course. No money, but a man wants rest, a man wants peace — a man don’t want to rip and tear around all the time. And here we go, now, just as straight as a string for Hallelujah — it’s a beautiful angle — handsome up grade all the way — and then away you go to Corruptionville, the gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever — good missionary field, too. There ain’t such another missionary field outside the jungles of Central Africa. And patriotic? — why they named it after Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my dear, there’s a good time coming, and it’ll be right along before you know what you’re about, too. That railroad’s fetching it. You see what it is as far as I’ve got, and if I had enough bottles and soap and bootjacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, I should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. So, don’t you see? We’ve got the rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that $200,000 appropriation for? That’s all right. I’d be willing to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will — ”
The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter, warm from the postoffice.
“Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I’m sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open the letter — open it quick, and let’s know all about it before we stir out of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says.”
The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Whatever may have been the language of Harry’s letter to the Colonel, the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other, from the following episode of his visit to New York:
He called, with official importance in his mien, at No. — Wall street, where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the headquarters of the “Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company.” He entered and gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort of anteroom. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he would like to see?
“The president of the company, of course.”
“He is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done with them directly.”
That a copperplate card with “Engineerin-Chief” on it should be received with such tranquility as this, annoyed Mr. Brierly not a little. But he had to submit. Indeed his annoyance had time to augment a good deal; for he was allowed to cool his heels a full half hour in the anteroom before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the presence. He found a stately dignitary occupying a very official chair behind a long green morocco-covered table, in a room sumptuously carpeted and furnished, and well garnished with pictures.
“Good morning, sir; take a seat — take a seat.”
“Thank you sir,” said Harry, throwing as much chill into his manner as his ruffled dignity prompted.
“We perceive by your reports and the reports of the Chief Superintendent, that you have been making gratifying progress with the work. — We are all very much pleased.”
“Indeed? We did not discover it from your letters — which we have not received; nor by the treatment our drafts have met with — which were not honored; nor by the reception of any part of the appropriation, no part of it having come to hand.”
“Why, my dear Mr. Brierly, there must be some mistake, I am sure we wrote you and also Mr. Sellers, recently — when my clerk comes he will show copies — letters informing you of the ten per cent. assessment.”
“Oh, certainly, we got those letters. But what we wanted was money to carry on the work — money to pay the men.”
“Certainly, certainly — true enough — but we credited you both for a large part of your assessments — I am sure that was in our letters.”
“Of course that was in — I remember that.”
“Ah, very well then. Now we begin to understand each other.”
“Well, I don’t see that we do. There’s two months’ wages due the men, and — — ”
“How? Haven’t you paid the men?”
“Paid them! How are we going to pay them when you don’t honor our drafts?”
“Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any fault with us. I am sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way. — Now let us look at the thing a moment. You subscribed for 100 shares of the capital stock, at $1,000 a share, I believe?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. No concern can get along without money. We levied a ten per cent. assessment. It was the original understanding that you and Mr. Sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600 a month each, while in active service. You were duly elected to these places, and you accepted them. Am I right?”
“Certainly.”
“Very well. You were given your instructions and put to work. By your reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the said work. Two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to $2,400 — about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see; which leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths of the assessment — viz, something over $8,000 apiece. Now instead of requiring you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to New York, the company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the contractors, laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the books for it. And they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with the progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that little compliment — and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure. The work you did fell short of $10,000, a trifle. Let me see — $9,640 from $20,000 — salary $2,400 added — ah yes, the balance due the company from yourself and Mr. Sellers is $7,960, which I will take the responsibility of allowing to stand for the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now, and thus — — ”
“Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us $2,400, we owe the
