UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 ROBERT ERNEST COWAN
 
 w.
 
 ROBERT ERNEST COWAN
 
 
 : ' 
 M SHOES' 1 
 
 /->
 
 ALMOND-EYED. 
 
 A STORY OF THE DAY. 
 
 BY 
 
 ATWELL WHITNEY. 
 
 WITH SEVENTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ' Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more." 
 
 POINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY 
 
 A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, 
 
 721 Market Street. 
 
 1878.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, 
 
 BY W. A. CHENEY, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I WOULD not apologize for my work, but simply use 
 that right which all authors have, of starting the reader 
 with correct notions of the spirit and intention of the 
 writer. 
 
 Firstly, being a firm believer in the grand old doctrines 
 
 of Christianity, I would disclaim any intention of ridiculing 
 
 'rA religion, but rather those who make of it a farce. 
 
 >r Secondly, my desire is merely to present a vexing prob- 
 
 ^lem in the simplest manner possible; therefore, I have 
 
 -' not burdened these pages with statistics, which are always 
 
 <. misleading; nor have I dressed the problem in its holiday 
 
 "^ attire, ready for an airing in the presence of Senators and 
 
 men of legal lore; but have left it in its every-day dress, 
 
 for those who wear such garments to examine it. 
 
 292861
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PACK. 
 
 I. CELESTIAL VISITANTS 7 
 
 II. YARBTOWN PATS THE CELESTIALS ON THE 
 
 BACK 10 
 
 III. YARBTOAVN MANUFACTURES 16 
 
 IV. THE CHINESE SABBATH-SCHOOL 19 
 
 V. THE ENTERING WEDGE 25 
 
 VI. JOB A MISSIONARY 29 
 
 VII. JOB'S PERFIDY 35 
 
 VIII. SIMON SPUD SECURES A WITNESS 42 
 
 IX. THE WEDGE ADVANCES 45 
 
 X. JOB BEFORE THE CHURCH 50 
 
 XI. THE TRIAL CONTINUED 59 
 
 XII. BESSIE'S COURAGE 68 
 
 XIII. THE DREAD VISITANT 72 
 
 XIV. DUTY VERSUS DUTY 77 
 
 XV. THE MIDNIGHT FUNERAL 84 
 
 XVI. PEGGY GETS VACCINATED 86 
 
 XVII. JOB RETREATS 94 
 
 XVIII. SIMON SPUD PLOTS 99 
 
 XIX. JOB SHANGHAED 104 
 
 XX. SIMON ASSAILS THE CITADEL 109 
 
 XXI. GREEK MEETS GREEK 1 1 6 
 
 XXII. THE WARNING.. . 121
 
 6 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER. PACK. 
 
 XXIII. THE OPIUM DEN 126 
 
 XXIV. OLLA PODRIDA 134 
 
 XXV. BESSIE'S CONFESSION 144 
 
 XXVI. SIMON HAS HIS EYES OPENED 148 
 
 XXVII. FIRE ! FIRE ! 153 
 
 XXVIII. THE WEDDING 163 
 
 XXIX. THE WIND-UP 167 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 DEACON SPUD IO 
 
 PEGGY SPROUL ". 13 
 
 JOB STEARNS 7 
 
 PEGGY SPROUL AND HER CLASS 23 
 
 BESSIE'S PROMISING PUPIL 26 
 
 JOB ON THE WAR-PATH 31 
 
 SIMON SPUD 36 
 
 SIMON SECURES A WITNESS 43 
 
 BESSIE REMONSTRATES WITH SIMON 65 
 
 BESSIE CALDWELL 69 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT BURIAL 85 
 
 PEGGY'S TRIBULATION 87 
 
 PEGGY PUTS OUT THE YELLOW FLAG 90 
 
 SIMON SPUD Woos 112 
 
 THE PROFESSIONAL VISIT 129 
 
 THE END. . .168
 
 JOB STEARN$
 
 ALMOND-EYED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CELESTIAL VISITANTS. 
 
 THERE was considerable excitement among the relig- 
 iously-inclined in Yarbtown, for they were in a few days 
 to receive their first importation of Celestial beings; not 
 the angel visitations so often prayed for by them in their 
 earnest prayer-meetings, but the. almond-eyed, flat-nosed 
 Celestials from over the seas of their own sin-cursed 
 world. 
 
 Why Yarbtown had been so fortunate as to remain so 
 long as it had free from actual habitation by the Chinese 
 is easily explained. One of the old Mexican ranches 
 being for sale, and offering extra inducements for a colony 
 of hard-working men, a number of young farmers, with 
 likewise a fair sprinkling of staid old plowmen, gathered up 
 their household goods, joined to themselves a schoolmaster 
 and minister, and journeying to the Land of Gold, planted 
 themselves and their crops on this promising ranch. 
 
 A goodly town, savoring somewhat of New England in 
 its cosy cottages and intelligent residenters, soon sprung 
 into existence. Not merely a home for the farmers was
 
 8 Angel Visitants. 
 
 it, but as time went by the town began gradually to ad- 
 vance in manufacturing interests. A starch-factory of fair 
 proportions enlivened the main street, and the nucleus of 
 a prospective manufactory of brooms was started. Indeed, 
 the town of Yarbtown bade fair to bring wealth and hap- 
 piness to the honest ranchers of its immediate neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 Here was a home market for their potatoes; here was 
 an incentive given to plant their fair fields and trust to 
 the God of the harvest for prosperity. Young in its 
 growth, it was yet occupied by few others than the sturdy, 
 willing men and women who had given their time and 
 money to its development. 
 
 There had been small inducement offered to the mon- 
 grel herd of Chinese who flooded even fairer portions of 
 the State. There were plenty to cultivate the soil, plenty 
 to turn the potatoes into starch, plenty to do the market- 
 ing, willing daughters to do the neighborhood household 
 work, and a number of sad-hearted widows to earn their 
 scanty-enough living at the wash-tub and ironing-board. 
 
 One morning, however, the outliving farmers, as they 
 came into town with their produce, rubbed their eyes in 
 amazement to see, in front of several dilapidated sheds,' 
 the lobster-signs of "Ling Poo, Washing and Ironing," 
 " Lee Chung, Chinese Doctor," and a jabbering crowd of 
 the "foreign citizens" themselves, arranging excitedly 
 for their residence among them.
 
 Angel Visitants. 9 
 
 I said the farmers were amazed; they were not dis- 
 pleased good, simple souls for they were not worldly- 
 wise nor hard-hearted. They considered, too, the amount 
 of work of which these busy hands would relieve them. 
 
 Here, too, were more mouths to feed with their pro- 
 duce; therefore, they received them with open arms, and 
 even assisted them in arranging homes for themselves and 
 settling comfortably among them. As though the locust 
 needed assistance in scenting the grain-fields, or the buz- 
 zard the carrion! 
 
 Thus, Yarbtown placed itself under the yoke.
 
 io Yarbtown Encourages the. Celestials. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 YARBTOWN PATS THE CELESTIALS OX THE BACK. 
 
 I HAVE referred to the fact that the people of Yarbtown 
 were simple-minded; they also boasted a fair number of 
 pious people. They were of the good, old-fashioned 
 Presbyterian stock, too, and, consistently with their prin- 
 ciples, could not fail to perceive the guiding hand of Prov- 
 idence in this wholesale gathering of heathen in their very 
 midst. 
 
 Old Deacon Spud, the first and only deacon of the 
 church, appreciated the situation, and took a move in the 
 right direction upon the very first Sunday following their 
 arrival. By his advice, a church meeting was called for 
 that very evening; all who felt interested in the welfare of 
 the town, and were moved by religious feeling, were in- 
 vited to be present. 
 
 At the appointed hour, the little church was filled. 
 Parson Smudgins was in the chair, duly installed as mod- 
 erator. After the usual opening exercises of such occa- 
 sions, to bring the object of the meeting promptly before 
 them, Deacon Spud offered the following concise resolu- 
 tion: 
 
 " Whereas, we as a Christian people have ever thirsted 
 for the spread of the Gospel among the heathen tribes of 
 earth; and whereas, God has permitted them to come to 
 our very doors and dwell among us, be it
 
 DEACON SPUD.
 
 Yarbtown Encourages the Celestials. n 
 
 " Resolved, That we will do all in our power to urge 
 upon them the teachings of Christ and bring them to a 
 knowledge of their darkness." 
 
 Deacon Spud paused after reading this brief but pointed 
 resolution, and wiped an indefinite amount of moisture 
 from his glasses. 
 
 No one ever doubted Deacon Spud's honesty of purpose 
 and purity of heart, and public opinion granted that he 
 expressed his sincere convictions in this resolution; there- 
 fore, whatever remarks he might have to make upon the 
 subject were looked for with interest by the people. 
 
 Hitching up his collar behind, and spreading his horny 
 hands for support upon the moderator's table, he pro- 
 ceeded: 
 
 "Mr. Moderator and Brethering: For twenty odd year 
 hev I been int'rested in the convarshun of the heathen. I 
 hev wrastled in prayer, and guv uv my airthly sub'sance. 
 I don't bleeve in shoutin' 'the Gospil-ship is a sailin' on/ 
 'thout greasin' the riggin' an' fillin' the locker. Now, 
 brethering, we all hev felt kinder down-sperited at times 
 when we've heerd that it cost nigh onto a dollar fer to 
 git twenty-five cents to furrin' parts to put the Gospil into 
 their hands. Now, tez clar, here is a opportunity to do 
 the Lord's work in a ekernomicle way. Here ez be- 
 nighted heathen right among us. No need fer to go to 
 the expense of shoddin' the feet of messingers to send to 
 'em they are here, right here, brethering; an' shell we
 
 12 Yarbtown Encourages the Celestials, 
 
 let 'em sot up their idles of wood an' stun an' stubble in 
 the light of the Gospil ? No! Let us be up and doin', 
 fer the night ez a comin' when we must shet off 'm our 
 work." 
 
 Deacon Spud's remarks produced a profound sensation 
 among his auditors. Brought up in the hallowed light of 
 the puritanical society of old New England, where the 
 missionary box was a regular institution, and where their 
 good souls devoured with avidity the accounts of benighted 
 races whose frugal repast was incomplete without a joint 
 or so from some stray missionary, the thought that they 
 had them right at their doors, begging for light, was enough 
 for the moment to astound them. 
 
 There was much whispering among the people for 
 awhile; good brethren rubbed their bald heads in perplex- 
 ity of thought, and saintly sisters held confused converse 
 with each other. There was a general glancing around to 
 see who would speak next. 
 
 Finally, like Poe's " Raven," good Sister Peggy Sproul, 
 a saintly maiden lady, whose tongue was ever cocked and 
 primed, " with many a flirt and flutter," arose to her feet. 
 She wrinkled up her forehead and closed her eyes, as she 
 commenced : 
 
 " Bruthren, northin' but a general uprisin' on the part 
 uv the hull church shell prevent me from a goin' right 
 among 'em myself. We've plead fer misshunneries to go 
 among 'em to the ends uv the airth, and now we hev 'em
 
 PEQGY
 
 Yarbtown Encourages the Celestials. 13 
 
 to hum, where our prayers can be heerd by 'em, where the 
 light uv our example can be seen by 'em, an' where the 
 sweetest songs uv Z ion can be forever a ringin' in their 
 ears. Why, jess think uv it, bruthren I seed 'em to-day 
 a eatin' with knittin' needles, an' a spittin' on the gownds 
 they was i'ning. Oh, the darkness of such doin's! I 
 think the least we can do ez to oggernize a Sunday skule 
 right off, an' go to work. I'll be one among yer." 
 
 If Deacon Spud's speech had produced an effect, doubly 
 so had Sister Sprouls', for the busy heads and tongues were 
 at it again in more confusion and more earnestly than 
 before. 
 
 Probably the good church members of Yarbtown would 
 have considered the matter of a Sabbath school for the 
 Chinese as settled without putting it to vote, if they had 
 not been shocked almost out of their seven senses by the 
 remarks which followed from Brother Job Stearns, a prom- 
 ising young man of the community. Mr. Stearns was 
 possessed of a frank, fine, open face; honesty was written 
 on every feature. Large brown eyes, always widely 
 opened with an unconcealing, wondering expression, told 
 of the trusty soul behind them. Large, heavily built, his 
 body was almost as big as his heart. Rising to his feet 
 quietly, he addressed the moderator respectfully, and with- 
 out any attempt at speech-making, simply and with a total 
 absence of affectation, he proceeded as follows: 
 
 "Friends: You all know me, that I have the Christian
 
 14 Yarbtown Encourages the Celestials. 
 
 work as much at heart as any among you; and far be it from 
 me to throw unreflectingly a damper upon your feelings in 
 this matter. I am young, and perhaps presuming in ad- 
 dressing you, but I am also dependent upon my labor for 
 my daily bread, and have therefore a right to speak upon 
 any subject which has a tendency to take from me the 
 chance, the privilege of earning a fair, honest living by 
 the sweat of my brow. I have traveled some in this State, 
 and from observation have, I must confess, come to a 
 different conclusion from what you seem to. I can't find 
 it in my heart to give such a cordial greeting to these Chi- 
 nese as you wish me in common with the rest, for I am 
 confident they will never add to the present prosperity or 
 the future welfare of our town. It is scarcely just to say 
 God has purposely sent them. Shall we lay to Him all 
 the misfortunes which spring from greed of gain ? Money 
 is at the bottom of it ! Slavery is at the bottom of it ! The 
 desire to get something for nothing is at the bottom of it. 
 If God had intended to make of California a Bethel for 
 the conversion of the heathen, undoubtedly He would 
 have corraled in our valleys and canyons the thousands of 
 poor heathen redskins, whom our Christian race have con- 
 verted by slaughtering them. We must convert the heathen 
 on their own soil, surrounded by the influences they are to 
 contend with, and while they are living under their own 
 institutions. The conversion of one Chinaman in five 
 hundred will not counterbalance the evil which the pres-
 
 Yarbtown Encourages the Celestials. 1 5 
 
 ence of the other four hundred and ninety-nine have 
 done. I will give money to send missionaries to the 
 heathen. I will not sacrifice my prospects, and those of my 
 countrymen, in the trial of an experiment which has failed 
 and always will fail. These men do not come here to 
 stay; their connections are at home. They will carry our 
 capital away. They will steal the bread from mouths 
 already strangers to delicacies. Mark my words, brethren; 
 the end of this thing, unless wise counsels prevail, will be 
 sorrow, suffering and blood, instead of the conversion of 
 all China to the standard of Christ." 
 
 Never were the people of Yarbtown so nearly thunder- 
 struck. 
 
 " The Lud save him !" 
 
 "Bruther Starns fallin' from grace how sudding!" 
 Good Peggy Sproul threw her scrawny arms high in the 
 air and shook the forefinger of each hand at Job, while 
 she rolled her eyes in horror at such blasphemy and irre- 
 ligion. 
 
 But Job's common sense was lack of spiritual power; 
 Job's calm judgment and wise forethought were impious 
 to the astonished brethren and sisters, and therefore his / 
 arguments were thrown away. 
 
 The Sabbath school was a settled fact, for the meeting,/'' 
 immediately proceeded to appoint a committee whose work 
 should be that of collecting the heathen in next Sunday.
 
 j 6 YarltviLTi ^lanufactures. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 YARBTOWX MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Deacon Spud was a Christian man; that is, if the fact 
 that he was in good and regular standing in the church, 
 and never failed in attendance upon divine service, was 
 any evidence. Phrenology said his brain had not been 
 dealt with any too liberally; his head was heavy and broad 
 about the ears, and his forehead was narrow and extremely 
 inclined backwards. His eyes were small and gray, and 
 his hair was brushed sleekly forward over small ears. 
 
 And yet Deacon Spud was the autocrat of the village. 
 He had been, at home hi the East, and continued his lead- 
 ership in the new land. 
 
 When, after a couple of years' trial of the new lands, 
 the farmers found that an enormous crop of potatoes could 
 be raised in the soil, they began to cast about for a market 
 for this produce. No railroads had as yet reached them, 
 and the little village could not possibly devour all the po- 
 tatoes hauled into it by the farmers. 
 
 Some long-headed ones among them proposed the 
 building of a starch-factory. This would give them a 
 chance to turn their tubers into a marketable production 
 which would keep untainted until such time as it could be 
 shipped. 
 
 Deacon Spud, after much figuring, decided to invest his 
 capital in this manner. The deacon had money, but he
 
 Yarbtown Manufactures. 17 
 
 had no knowledge of starch-making. Job Stearns had 
 been a hand in a Vermont establishment, and to him the 
 deacon looked for assistance. 
 
 Mr. Stearns had served a term of two years in the fac- 
 tory of Josiah Caldwell, of whom the Widow Caldwell was 
 the relict, and up to the time of Mr. Caldwell's failure and 
 subsequent death had been the constant friend and ally of 
 the family. Indeed, common report made him deeply 
 interested in the lively daughter of the aforesaid widow. 
 Anyhow, Job understood the process of turning potatoes 
 into starch, and was therefore the man for the deacon's 
 purpose. 
 
 " Must hev some one who can boss the job while I tend 
 he bizniss part, Job," he said. 
 
 " But, deacon," answered Job, " I have just taken a 
 fine piece of ground, and am som ;what behindhand in 
 payment. I can't see how I can pay my installments to 
 the company if I leave the ranch and superintend for 
 you." 
 
 " Wai, Job," said the deacon, winking his little ferret 
 eyes; " ef I pay you well for the job, can't you 'ford to do 
 it ?" 
 
 "That depends, deacon, upon what you call paying 
 well, and whether it is to be a continuous job or not," re- 
 plied Job. 
 
 " Wai, I'll tell you what I'll do, Job, and you won't find 
 any better show. I'll give you eighty dollars a month, an'
 
 1 8 Yarbtown Rfanufac lures. 
 
 you may hev the job as long as you like, ef the thing 
 pays." 
 
 " It's likely to pay in your hands, deacon. Reckon I'll 
 be safe in taking your offer, if it only depends on your 
 success," said Job; "fact, I don't know a man here who 
 can handle money to better advantage." 
 
 "Sho! Why, Brother Starns, you make me ashamed 
 of myself to consider me as jined to airthly idles," sniv- 
 eled the deacon through his tobacco-juice, while a knowing 
 look lighted up his bead-like eyes. 
 
 "Don't fret about that, deacon; nobody ever was fool- 
 X ish enough to suspect you of worshiping anything idle." 
 
 Deacon Spud was wise to secure the sendees of such a 
 man as Job. Job could run the mill; he could keep the 
 books; besides, he was a popular man among the people. 
 The building occupied by the deacon in his manufacturing 
 was unpretentious, simply framed, sided with single boards, 
 and covered with shakes. It was large enough for the 
 infancy of the factory, and it was not long until the store- 
 room was full of the well-soiled sacks of potatoes. 
 
 The deacon made a good article, and it had a ready 
 sale. A little box-factory sprung up alongside of the creek, 
 and both the deacon and Job were on the fair road to 
 success. All this, of course, had occurred long before 
 John Chinaman took it into his head to migrate to Yarb- 
 town. As the town grew, the business grew also, and the 
 deacon's capital with them
 
 Chinese Sabbath School. 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHINESE SABBATH SCHOOL. 
 
 JOB STEARNS met Bessie Caldwell in front of the little 
 village church on the Sunday following the preliminary 
 meeting, and took advantage of the half hour before 
 school to have a walk and chat among the spreading live- 
 oaks on the roadside. 
 
 " So, Bessie, you are going to tackle the Chinamen to- 
 day, are you ?" 
 
 " I suppose I shall take a class of them, Job, if they ask 
 me to." 
 
 "Good for you, Bessie; you show them how to read, 
 and make them tell you how to do your hair up." 
 
 "Now, Job, you must not talk so; you know it's 
 naughty," pouted Bessie. 
 
 "Well, I declare! Naughty to do up your hair? Jusi 
 think how cool and comfortable I should be in that hot 
 factory if I had my head shaved like John. But seriously, 
 Bessie, I wish these fellows had never come among us. 
 You can't understand it, but I do. It's all right to teach 
 them how to be Christians, but we can't afford to give our 
 daily bread for it. And it will come to that, and before 
 long, too, Bessie." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense, Job; they are a poor ignorant set, and 
 do work that you men would never think of doing," re- 
 plied Bessie.
 
 2O Chinese Sabbath School. 
 
 "That's all very well to call them scavengers of work; 
 but the very crows steal our corn, and so these fellows will 
 gradually steal our work and do it for a quarter of what we 
 can; and the more you educate them, the better they do 
 it," sadly responded Job. 
 
 " Isn't there enough for all to do, Job ? And if they do 
 it as well as the rest, why should they not have their 
 share ?" 
 
 "That's it, Bessie that's what the money-kings say: 
 'They do their work as well and cheaper than others, 
 and who's to hinder us from employing them ?' What are 
 the poor fellows to do whose places these foreigners 
 take ?" 
 
 "Goods will be cheaper, they say, the cheaper the 
 labor," remarked Bessie, thoughtfully. 
 
 " That is small comfort. Can I pay even low prices for 
 my bread if I cannot get work fit for a decent man to 
 do?" 
 
 " It seems to me, though," said Bessie, " that we ought 
 to teach the poor creatures all we can; it seems as though 
 God had sent them to us for that purpose." 
 
 "Yes," said Job, bitterly, "send your ammunition of 
 learning over to the ignorant enemy for their use against 
 us. I believe in America for Americans or those who 
 intend to become Americans, or else spend their money 
 among us." 
 
 Just then the bell in the church-tower began to ring out
 
 Chinese Sabbath School. 21 
 
 noisily. Bessie hugged her little Testament up to her 
 heart and went into the porch. Job Stearns had made her 
 feel a little down-spirited by his conversation, and for a 
 moment she hesitated, as she saw him walking slowly 
 down the street away from the church at whose services he 
 had always hitherto been punctual in attendance. 
 
 The jabbering crowd of Chinamen who had now begun 
 to assemble in the vestry absorbed all her attention. 
 
 Peggy Sproul had been out all the week drumming them 
 up. The good creature had entered into it with all her 
 soul, and here they were, fresh-shaven and clean. Peggy 
 was hopping about eagerly, finding seats for them. 
 
 " Here you, John, you set down right here, poor creeturs; 
 you've come at last to a knowledge of your sinful state ! 
 No, no, what's name, don't set thar, that's the female side 
 o' the meetin' hus. Poor fellow," said she, patting a be- 
 wildered Chinaman on the back, "you'll soon know all 
 about Dan'l en the lion's den, an' all o' them things. Oh, 
 ter think I should ever live ter see this day, when they 
 come a flockin' from Greenland's Icee Mountings." 
 
 Quiet and order were soon secured. Bessie seated her- 
 self at the little cabinet organ, and the brethren and sisters 
 sung the grand old missionary hymn. 
 
 Deacon Spud was elected superintendent of the school, 
 and proceeded for once without a speech, to the task of 
 arranging them in classes. Volunteer teachers were called 
 for, and Bessie, after giving Job a thought of pity, went
 
 22 Chinese Sabbath School. 
 
 nobly to her work. There they were before her, five won- 
 dering Johns; wondering first of all what it meant, and 
 wondering again what the little woman sitting there so 
 modestly was going to do. Bessie had undertaken to 
 teach these heathen. How should she begin ? She knew 
 but little of Chinamen. Did they know what they had 
 come there for ? She would find out. 
 
 So she commenced in a low, sweet, abashed voice with 
 the first pair of almond-eyes looking so amazedly at her. 
 
 "You know, John, this is God's house" the China- 
 man raised his head and stared all about the room "You 
 have come here to learn to be a Christian, you under- 
 stand ?" 
 
 John opened his mouth with a broad grin fora moment, 
 then shook his head vigorously in the affirmative, saying 
 at the same time, "Yeah yeah me sabe. You teachee 
 me, me be good Clistian allee same white man. Make 
 heap money allee same Deekum Tater." 
 
 Bessie had hard work to keep from laughing, but she 
 only bit her lip and glanced around to see if the deacon 
 had heard. She saw nothing but the amused face of Mr. 
 Job Stearns, who had stolen in and taken up a station a 
 seat or two behind her. Bessie flushed with vexation. 
 
 "He's promising material, Bessie. Go ahead, you can 
 make something out of him." 
 
 She gave Job a little frown and changed her tactics. 
 She determined to begin at the foundation, by teaching
 
 BESSIE'S PROMISING PUPIL.
 
 Chinese Sabbath School. 23 
 
 them the alphabet. She found them adepts at learning, 
 for before the hour was half out they had the letters nearly 
 committed to memory. 
 
 Job did not interrupt her again, but felt all the while that 
 every letter they learned was a loaf of bread stolen from 
 the mouths of his prospective decendants. Perhaps Job 
 was at fault; perhaps he should have entered heartily into 
 the work and instructed these men in the art of Christian 
 living. His heart failed him. He was a sincere man, 
 and would do nothing which his judgment did not approve. 
 His money he would give freely, and always had, to any 
 man who would go to China, and make it a life-purpose 
 and work to save these men; but in the world, he wished 
 to have a fair share of it, and fair play for his muscles and 
 brain, and he felt keenly the mistake of elevating a no- 
 madic race which should prove to be a stone on the track of 
 social progress. 
 
 Peggy Sproul had exercised less judgment than Bessie, 
 and instead of instructing her class in such a manner as 
 would prove a lasting benefit to them, she kept them in a 
 perpetual state of excitement by relating, in her expressive 
 way, the stories of Gideon, Moses in the bulrushes, and 
 David and Goliath. She told them of Satan, who goes 
 about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. 
 They looked at one another in astonishment a moment, 
 when one of them said, "Me no 'flaid. Bymbyburnee/ 
 heap fire-clacker, scare 'em 'way."
 
 24 Chinese Sabbath School. 
 
 The rest of the teachers pursued substantially the same 
 course as Bessie Caldwell, and upon the whole the school 
 proved to be a successful institution so far. After they 
 were dismissed, Job sat so long brooding over his evil fore- 
 bodings that he had the doubtful pleasure of seeing Simon 
 Spud, the son of the deacon, walking home with Bessie. 
 
 "Another Chinaman," he muttered; "why can't the 
 girl stick to white folks ?"
 
 PEGGY SPROULAND HER CLASS.
 
 The Entering Wedge. 25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE. 
 
 Sister Peggy Sproul was one whose good labors for 
 those in whom she took an interest did not cease with 
 the efforts to save their souls; but understanding that other 
 things are needful in this wicked world besides grace, she 
 had been, for the six months they had been residing in 
 Yarbtown, earnestly exerting herself in behalf of the tem- 
 poral welfare of John Chinaman of Yarbtown. 
 
 Widow Caldwell, and two or three other lone ones of 
 the community, had heretofore enjoyed a fair share of the 
 washing and ironing business. There had been some fall- 
 ing off, but little, in the number of her customers since 
 the Chinamen came. She was not at all alarmed by the 
 colored signs of John, indicating the dirty holes in which 
 washing and ironing might be done at reasonable rates. 
 
 " Surely, Bessie," she remarked, when her daughter 
 suggested that there might be opposition to their business; 
 "surely my old neighbors and friends of my husband 
 would not desert me for these strangers; and then they are 
 foreigners. I would give my custom always to my own 
 people." 
 
 " But, ma, Mr. Stearns says our folks love the 'almighty 
 dollar' as much as anybody, and when these Chinamen 
 underbid us they will all give them their work to do." 
 
 "Job is worried beyond all reason. He is showing
 
 2 6 The Entering Wedge. 
 
 more of an evil disposition than I supposed him to pos- 
 sess. He will have to be careful. I'm afraid the church 
 will bring him to task for his outspoken contempt for these 
 poor heathen." 
 
 Upon the very day on which the widow thus expressed 
 her confidence in her neighbors, Bill Ferguson came 
 saunteiing in. 
 
 " Mother says you needn't send up for our clothes next 
 Monday." 
 
 "Why not, Billy?" inquired the widow; "is there any- 
 thing the matter, that she don't like my work ?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess not," replied Bill; "but then she says she 
 can get them fricaseed, fussed and frilled up to the China- 
 man's for what you wash an' iron them for." 
 
 "Yes, and spit on, too," indignantly cried Bessie. 
 
 "And starve a good woman while she stuffs a cussed 
 foreign pig," interposed Job Stearns, as he came swinging 
 into the room and heard the explanation of Bill. " You 
 see, Mrs. Caldwell," continued he, turning to her, "the 
 contest is commencing just as I said it would. Next 
 thing I will have to submit to a lowering of my wages or 
 wear a pig-tail." 
 
 "See here, Job," said Bill, turning on him, "you quit 
 insulting my marm. You'd better look out how you talk. 
 Miss Sproul says she has recommended to Deacon Spud 
 to discharge such an ungodly man as you are, and take in 
 some of these promising heathen."
 
 The Entering Wedge. 27 
 
 "Yes, and I'll bet a sack of potatoes that Peggy has 
 whined and canted your mother into sending them her 
 washing, too," said Job. 
 
 "Sister Caldwell, Sister Caldwell," called a whining 
 voice out at the back-door. 
 
 Widow Caldwell went sadly out of the entry into the 
 kitchen, where Peggy Sproul had seated herself in a chair, 
 and was fanning herself vigorously with her big sun-bon- 
 net. 
 
 "Sister Caldwell," she began, in a voice suggestive of 
 machine oil, "the people whose washin' an' ireningyou 
 do hev asked me to visit you en a sisterly way, 'nask you 
 to take off twenty-five cents a dozen. Them air China- 
 men is a-doin' it fer that much less 'n you." 
 
 "Well, I suppose I'll have to, if they can get it done 
 for that elsewhere." 
 
 "An' you must get a pair of them ar tongs to crimp 
 'em with, sech as the Chinamen use " 
 
 "But won't my crimping machine do? They never x 
 have complained of that before," said the bewildered 
 widow. 
 
 " No; for you see them ar tongs put two or three inches 
 more crimping on the things. You'll hev to do things up 
 scrimp an' stiff now, I can tell you, if you want ter keep 
 the bizness in your hands," replied Peggy. 
 
 "But, Sister Sproul, I can't use those tongs; they re- 
 quire skill," said the poor woman. 
 
 "Wall, I declar! Now, do you mean to say them
 
 28 The Entering Wedge. 
 
 heathens hev more skill nor you do ? How do you ex- 
 pect your friends can send their work to you if you can't 
 do it ?" 
 
 " Sister Sproul, I have only my washing to depend on. 
 My neighbors have let me do it for some years, and have 
 found no fault; and if they now will take it from me and 
 send it to heathen foreigners, simply because they can 
 crimp two or three inches more on their underclothing, 
 why the good Lord must look out for me and all poor 
 folks, that's all." 
 
 " Sister Caldwell, Sister Ca-1-d-well ! don't dare to lay it 
 ter the Lord. If them ar benighted heathen can do it, 
 an' you can't, then you must take the fault to hum. Good 
 day, Sister Caldwell," and Peggy flouted out of the room. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Caldwell dragged herself, tired and worn out 
 with work and the fret of her conversation with Peggy, 
 back to the sitting-room, where Job and Bessie had re- 
 mained, interested listeners to the confab. 
 
 "Oh, Job! oh, Bessie! what shall I do? They won't 
 let me do the work they don't mean to." 
 
 "That's Christianity, that is," said Job, sneeringly; 
 " selling the bodies of their own kith and kin to save the 
 souls of the heathen. But never mind, Mother Caldwell; 
 Job Stearns has muscle and health, and he'll see that you 
 don't come to want." 
 
 Widow Caldwell looked up in surprise at the word "moth- 
 er," and then glanced at Bessie, who hid her blushing face 
 in her hands.
 
 Job a Missionary. 29 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JOB A MISSIONARY. 
 
 DESPONDENCY would be no word to express the state of 
 Job Steam's feelings as he left the house of Mrs. Caldwell 
 desperation would be a far better word. 
 
 The hen will fly with feathers erect at the dog to protect 
 her brood, the mother forgets self and self-interests when her 
 loved ones are in danger; and so Job felt as he saw those 
 who were dearer than life to him dispossessed of their 
 means of earning an honest living, and foresaw in the near 
 future the furling of his own useless sails, all because of 
 what appeared to him to be the veriest fanaticism and Jr 
 cant. 
 
 What should he do? Should he burn down the filthy 
 wash-houses of John ? No, that would be but the fighting 
 of a gross evil with a grosser sin. Job in his present tem- 
 per was capable of it, aye, capable of anything desperate. 
 But Job's heart was not. He would watch, that is what he 
 would do. 
 
 Watch Chinatown like a cerberus; he would note every 
 objectionable feature, watch every overt act on the part of 
 the detestable John. He would pry into their secrets, he 
 would unearth all their deviltry, he would persevere until 
 he possessed facts enough to convince the most stubborn 
 defender of them. 
 
 Job's feet kept pace with his thoughts; they turned from
 
 30 Job a Missionary. 
 
 the impulse of his mind toward Chinatown, and before he 
 was aware of that fact, the contemptible little sign of Hop 
 Ling was swinging over his head. 
 
 "And they would persuade me that these people have 
 but to imbibe Christian ideas to become equal to the best 
 of us. Humph ! So has a Shoshone, so has a Piute, so 
 has a mud-turtle, so has a rotten stick of timber. Look 
 into that door there, now, Job; room, ten feet square, six 
 Johns smudging it with nasty smoke, and as I live, there 
 are seven bunks in it. Great Caesar's ghost! How do 
 they sleep? Yes, there's a woman, too. I wonder if Peggy 
 Sproul ever looked in here ?" 
 
 Job's comments to himself were interrupted by a fierce 
 jabbering and scolding in the house. Never did Billings- 
 gate Market make such a hubbub on its busiest morning. 
 The shrill voices of the fisherwomen of London were dul- 
 cet strains to the loud babble which came forth from John's 
 at that moment. The woman's voice seemed the loudest; 
 she was berating one of the Chinamen roundly for some- 
 thing. In a moment she came running into the street, 
 followed by three Chinamen. Up and down the sidewalk 
 they chased her, she jabbering like an insane parrot the 
 while. The woman made a sudden turn and darted into 
 a dark doorway, the valiant Johns following immediately 
 on her footsteps. Pretty soon sounds of blows falling on 
 something with a dull thud came out of the darkness. 
 Job rushed in.
 
 JOB ONTHE WARPATH.
 
 Job a Missionary. 31 
 
 "You helpee me! You helpee me!" screamed the 
 woman. Job's eyes were soon accustomed to the dark- 
 ness, and they saw a sight that would have been instruct- 
 ive to even good Peggy Sproul. 
 
 The two Chinamen had the woman pressed down to the 
 floor, and one of them was engaged in the elevating, Chris- 
 tianizing operation of decapitating her with a pick handle. 
 Job seized him by the throat and hurled him backwards to 
 the floor. He shook him as a cat would a mouse while 
 he inculcated some instructive missionary teaching. As 
 soon as the Chinaman regained his feet, Job recognized 
 him as Bessie's promising Sabbath-school scholar. Mr. 
 Job Stearns was a gallant man, and he felt called upon to 
 see that the woman regained her home without further 
 injury, so he escorted her down to Hop Ling's, and fearing 
 a continuation of the outbreak should he leave immediately, 
 sat down and politely informed Mr. Hop Ling's attendants 
 that he would gladly break the head of any one of them 
 who should presume to take vengeance upon Mrs. What- 
 ever-her-name-was. 
 
 There was a peculiar game going on in the room, and 
 Job, thinking perhaps that here was a good chance to in- 
 form himself as to their habits as he would ever have, 
 remained to watch its progress. 
 
 Job had refused to interest himself in the Mission School, 
 simply because of the fact that it was equivalent to giving 
 the undesired enemy possession of his kinsman's best am- 
 munition.
 
 32 Job a Missionary. 
 
 But was not Job a missionary of the first water? Cer- 
 tainly he bore strong contrast to one of the tract distributors 
 of a flourishing city in the east, who found a poor family in 
 the sixth story of a crowded house, starving and freezing to 
 death, and complacently sat down with his comfortable 
 overcoat on to read a chapter on humble submission to 
 Providence. When he returned to tfie general office he 
 told his story, and while he was telling it a poor laboring 
 man shot out of the room, found the sufferers, and left his 
 overcoat and a basket of provisions. 
 
 A strange diversion from my story ! No, it is not. A 
 great principle which Job appreciated underlies it. Sub- 
 stantial, practical instruction and elevation of the human 
 race in its ignorance and suffering is better than theoretical. 
 Job's jist was practical the mission encouragement of a 
 people separated from us by thousands of years of con- 
 trary teaching and living, and that encouragement given 
 on our own ground, in our own suffering cities, is theoret- 
 ical. If a man is to fight grizzlies he must learn to do it 
 where grizzlies exist. We don't want his knife and rifle 
 practice in our parlors nor in our peaceful grain fields. 
 
 Job stayed, and he saw hundreds of dollars which ought 
 to have been turned into flour and tea for Widow Cald- 
 well and her like pass from hand to hand until a good share 
 of it was gracefully gathered by the winsome-looking rep- 
 resentative of Hop Ling, never, alas! to touch fair hands 
 again, never to feed hungry mouths again here until it had
 
 Job a Missionary. 33 
 
 crossed the great Pacific and strayed back in the pockets 
 of a new importation of the almond-eyed. 
 
 Job arose heart-sick and disgusted, not so much by what 
 he had seen as by the foolish, short-sightedness and stub- 
 bornness of the whole cla,ss of Peggy Sprouls scattered all 
 over the land. As he went out the door he met Simon 
 Spud. 
 
 "Aha, my fine boy," said Simon, "I've caught you this 
 time." 
 
 "Well, what of it?" responded Job. 
 
 "Ho! what of it? Didn't I see you walking down 
 street with that Chinawoman, and didn't I see you in the 
 gambling hell for over an hour ?" 
 
 "Well, you did; and what of it again?" said Job. 
 
 " You are a deep one. Don't I intend to tell Bessie 
 Caldwell, aha! And won't the governor raise his eyes in 
 church-meeting when Peggy Sproul prefers charges, eh ? 
 What of it now, my boy ?" 
 
 " Sime, it's none of your business, anyhow. I protected 
 a defenseless woman from a set of devilish Chinamen." 
 
 " Yes, ye-s, you did, and then walked home with her to 
 a gambling-house and stayed an hour. I saw yer, I did." 
 
 " It isn't worth while to waste words with you, Sime. If 
 you want to lie about it, I don't know who can hinder 
 you." And upon that, Job turned on his heel and walked 
 off. 
 
 Simon Spud doubled up his fist for a moment, but a
 
 34 Job a Missionary. 
 
 glance at the back of Job's broad-shouldered retreating 
 figure undoubled it again. 
 
 " No, that won't do," muttered Simon; " I can do bet- 
 ter than that. Oh, I have it! Witnesses yes, that's it; 
 witnesses, that's what I want. I'll prove him a rascal and 
 a whining hypocrite, and then the field's clear. ' My dear 
 Bessie/ yes, that's what he called her. Guess we'll swap 
 tongues after this. We'll let him cuss awhile, and I'll 
 'dear Bessie.' " 
 
 Simon Spud was a second edition of Spud Sr., without 
 the added grace, and partaking of a similarly crafty dispo- 
 sition, was fully capable of carrying out the programme he 
 had in mind. Part first of that programme was to get a 
 witness to Job's perfidy. Simon looked around to see that 
 nobody was in sight, then darted into the den which Job 
 had just quit.
 
 JoVs Perfidy. 35 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JOB'S PERFIDY. 
 
 JOB STEARNS had it in mind to do another missionary 
 act that day, so he started down to Mrs. Caldwell's. His 
 good purpose was to comfort the poor widow in her afflic- 
 tion. 
 
 "Mr. Stearns," said the widow, "have you seen Deacon 
 Spud to-day?" 
 
 "No, I have not; he has not been in the office all day, 
 and this evening I have been busy. Does he want to see 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes, he has been down here in a terrible flurry to find 
 you. There's something wrong up at the office ! " 
 
 " Did he tell you what the matter was ? " inquired Job. 
 
 " No, he only seemed anxious to find you." 
 
 "Well, I'll go up to the house and see him. But, Mrs. 
 Caldwell, I came in to see if you could board me awhile, 
 I am tired of my present quarters; and then they have a 
 China cook, and that I won't stand." 
 
 "Oh, Job," cried Bessie, "that will be nice, for mother 
 don't know really what to do, and a boarder will help her 
 so much." 
 
 " Hush, child," said the mother. "Certainly, Job, I wiH 
 be glad to have you come, but I'm afraid my table won't 
 suit you." 
 
 "Oh, pine-wood will do for that," laughed Job, as he 
 went out.
 
 36 Job's Perfidy. 
 
 " Now for the old man. I wonder what has happened? I 
 believe I was born into trouble as the sparks fly upward," 
 soliloquized he, as he bent his footsteps toward the dea- 
 con's house. 
 
 Deacon Spud met him on the threshold, and bade him 
 good-evening' in a tone so constrained that it informed Job 
 that whatever was the matter, he was somehow mixed up 
 with it in the deacon's mind. He thought of a dozen 
 things in a moment, trying to recall some overt act on his 
 part, some forgotten task, some neglected business; but he 
 had been faithful to his work, there was nothing for which 
 his conscience troubled him, so he gave him a cordial, 
 hearty "good-evening." 
 
 "I hev been hunting fer ye, Job; there's something 
 wrong down ter the office. Mebbe you ken tell me what 
 'tis," suggested the deacon, peering cautiously into Job's 
 face as he spoke. 
 
 " I don't understand what you mean, deacon," replied 
 Job. 
 
 " You don't? Mebbe you can't tell me 'thout thinkin' 
 a long spell, whar thet ar' money's gone ter." 
 
 " What money? Gone to? What do you mean? " 
 
 "Wai, I mean thet'some one 'thout grace or mussy hez 
 bin a takin' what don't rightfully belong to them down to 
 the office." 
 
 " Stealing the factory money, do you mean that ?" in- 
 quired Job, in astonishment.
 
 Job's Perfidy. 37 
 
 "Yes, thet's it,, bein' a goin' on fer some time first a 
 dollar, then two, then ten, and now twenty all ter once." 
 
 Job Stearns listened to this statement of theft in mingled 
 amazement and dread. He and the deacon only had the 
 key to the money drawer; he alone kept the accounts. 
 The key of the drawer was that moment in his pocket. 
 Who could have done such an act ? Why had the old man 
 been inspecting the accounts so carefully ? Had the dea- 
 con become suspicious, suspicious of him, Job Stearns, who 
 never knew what it was to have aught breathed against his 
 honor ? 
 
 "Job," said the deacon, "I'm afeared some one hez bin 
 trusted too much, eh ?" 
 
 "Who have you trusted, deacon? Have you trusted 
 anybody with your key ? Mine has never been out of my 
 hands." 
 
 " 'Zactly," said the deacon, "jess what I was a comin' at. 
 Who could a done it 'thout was you or I, an' ez it's my 
 money, 'taint likely I stole my own." 
 
 " That, I presume is equivalent to saying I took it," 
 commented Job, sarcastically. 
 
 "I really don't like to suspicion on yer, Job; but, yer 
 see, I've marked consid'able change in yer during the 
 last few months. Yer don't cum ter church much. Yer 
 don't int'rest yerself in the good work like yer used ter. 
 Now, I calclate a man who makes sech changes en his 
 crackter en so short a time would be likely to be untruth- 
 ful an' thievious." 
 
 292861
 
 38 Job's Perfidy. 
 
 "Deacon Spud," shouted Job, scarcely able to retain 
 his temper, " I indignantly deny the truth of such a charge. 
 I consider you a sniveling, sneaking hypocrite, without 
 one grain of honor in you. I steal your money your 
 paltry fifty or sixty dollars ! Heavens! If I was going to 
 sell my honor I would charge higher than that for it. No, 
 no, Deacon Spud, your meanness is on the surface, like 
 grease on water. You wish to worry me out of the mill, 
 save yourself the trouble of discharging me, goad me out 
 of it in order that you may fill up the places of honest 
 men with Chinamen. I understand it. I have expected 
 it. I've seen the same thing in ,the mines. Knock off 
 first four bits, then a dollar, and then, if the poor fellows 
 won't leave, put Chinamen in alongside of them. Go 
 ahead, Deacon Spud; such a course may bring you bless- 
 ing, but I don't believe it." 
 
 The deacon's face was a sight to see during Job's lec- 
 ture. First it turned red with anger, then a gray pallor 
 spread over it, and finally settled upon a white heat. 
 
 "Job Starns, Job Starns," he commenced, with a com- 
 ical attempt at dignified severity, " I could fergive the loss 
 o' my money, but these aspussions you cast up agin my 
 good name I must not fergive. . Ez it any wonder these 
 poor but honest heathen, thusting fer nollidge, should be 
 employed to fill the places of such vipers ez you, whom 
 I've nurrished en my buzzum, whose hands I've upheld, 
 an' fer whose int' rests I've daily prayed fer !" 
 
 The deacon ended with a whine and sniffle, and
 
 Job's Perfidy. 39 
 
 screwed his face up until it resembled that of a child in 
 anticipation of a good spanking. 
 
 Before Job had gathered wits enough to reply to this 
 pathetic eloquence of the good deacon, the door swung 
 open, a hat was flung into the room, and Simon Spud en- 
 tered behind it. 
 
 " Good evening, guv'ner. What's the rumpus now ? 
 What are you bawling about and what in thunder are 
 you here for, Job ? Cheeky, by George, to come right 
 from where I saw you to the guv'ner's. Been wheedling 
 and coddling him, I s'pose." 
 
 Job made no reply to this impudent speech, but the old 
 deacon caught an inference from the knowing look on his 
 promising scion's features. 
 
 "Eh! what! Whar's he bin now, Simon? What's he 
 bin adoin' ?" 
 
 " Oh, nowheres and nothing. I s'pose he will say," 
 grinned Simon. 
 
 "I will save him the trouble of telling you, Deacon 
 Spud. I've been down in Chinatown, protecting an 
 abused woman," quietly remarked Job. 
 
 "Hear him, guv'ner he's been down to Chinatown 
 protecting an abused woman! Now, that's good. Give 
 us a rest !" shouted Sime, punching Job in the ribs with 
 his forefinger. 
 
 " Quit that ar slang, Simon, an' tell me what yer mean," 
 said Spud Senior.
 
 4O Job's Perfidy. 
 
 "Well, s'pose I must, seeing he called me a liar when 
 I told him I saw it all. Don't know as I should have 
 blowed on him, but for that," answered Simon, with a 
 leer. 
 
 "L you tell him what you told me, connecting' it with 
 the same inference, I will take great pleasure in repeating 
 that assertion about your truthfulness," said Job. 
 
 "Oh, you will, will ye? Well, guv'ner, I don't know 
 anything about his inference; but I saw him walking 
 own Chinatown with Ah Chung's woman. She's a good 
 woman, pa," sneeringly. " He walked down street with 
 her, and went into the gambling hell down near Hop 
 Ling's, and stayed there over an hour." 
 
 " Job Starns, ez this true ? " piously inquired the 
 deacon. 
 
 " True, every word of, as I guess Ah Chung can vouch," 
 said Job, smiling, as he thought of Ah Chung's discom- 
 fiture. 
 
 " Wall, I s'pose yer won't deny now thet yer took thet 
 ar money, for this shows whar 'twent ter ?" 
 
 "Deacon, I still deny any knowledge of the where- 
 abouts of your money. I am not a child, that I should 
 account to you for everything I do. It's none of your 
 business what I did in Chinatown." 
 
 "-Money! What money, pa?" inquired Simon, with 
 great apparent astonishment. 
 
 " Why, some one hez been astealin' money from the 
 office," replied Deacon Spud.
 
 Job's Perfidy. 41 
 
 "That accounts for it, then. I wondered where Job 
 got so much as Ah Chung says he lost there to-night,"' 
 said Simon. 
 
 Job's temper was just rising, and he was afraid he 
 should be compelled to treat Simon as he did Ah Chung, 
 so he hastily put on his hat, and darted out of the house.
 
 42 Simon Spud Secures a Witness. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SIMON SPUD SECURES A WITNESS. 
 
 IT did not take as long for Sime Spud to familiarize his 
 eyes with the darkness, nor his nose with the smells of the 
 black hole into which he darted, as it did Job Stearns. It 
 was an old story to him ; he had been there before. The 
 Chinaman to whom Job had just imparted some civilizing 
 information, was sitting with an angry scowl upon his face 
 brooding over the thorough whipping he had just received. 
 
 A Chinaman, like the redskin, never forgets either a 
 real or a fancied injury. Revenge is strongly ingrafted in 
 their nature. Their revenge is usually as mean and treach- 
 erous as that of the meanest Digger Indian. They can 
 smile in your face while they pour poison into your cup. 
 So Ah Chung for such was the name of Bessie's prom- 
 ising pupil was at this moment meditating revenge upon 
 Job Stearns. 
 
 One could see that some pleasing imaginations of his 
 enemy's discomfort were flitting through his brain, by the 
 strange contortions of his facial muscles. Whether his 
 dreams of revenge consisted of plans for the use of the 
 silent knife, or whether he simply meditated upon the plan 
 of requesting Ling Yung, the washman, to cut off the shirt- 
 buttons of all the friends of Job, would be a difficult thing 
 for a white man to decide. Anyway, he meditated re- 
 venge; and the more he meditated the fiercer became his 
 scowl, the tighter the clasp of his doubled-up fist.
 
 Simon Spud Secures a Witness. 43 
 
 Simon Spud came in at this opportune moment. 
 
 "Hello, Chung! how you do, eh?" 
 
 " Oh, me feel bad, me killee some one," replied Ah 
 Chung. 
 
 " Oh, guess-not. What's the matter ?" inquired Simon. 
 
 " You sabe big man, he mashee taters, eh ?" 
 
 " Yes, me know him." 
 . " All light well, he catchee me, he putee head on me." 
 
 " You foolee me," said Simon. 
 
 "You lie, me no foolee you. He come here, he 
 knockee me down, he battee my eye you see, look 
 you see /" screamed Ah Chung, and he got up and walked 
 furiously round the room shaking his fist at an imaginary 
 Job Stearns. 
 
 " Why you no killee him ?" laughed Simon, with a 
 wicked look in his eyes. 
 
 " Me killee him, shelliffkillee me," responded Ah Chung. 
 
 "You bet, that's so, Chung; but see here, me show you 
 how you pay him back, you do it ?" 
 
 " You show me, you tellee me, me do it." 
 
 "Job he knocked you down, he takee your woman 
 here, he stay long time, he play gamble game, you sabe ?" 
 inquired the wily Simon. 
 
 "Yeah," nodded Chung. 
 
 "You comee bymeby, you tellee lot men so, you swear 
 to it ?" 
 
 " Yeah, me tellee, me sweree.' 
 
 " All right, me payee you ten dollar."
 
 44 Simon Spud Secures a Witness. 
 
 " Me sabe," grinned Chung, and Simon had secured his 
 witness. 
 
 "Now we have game cards, and I beatee you," said 
 Simon. 
 
 " No, me beatee you, you see." 
 
 Ah Chung brought out the cards, and seated at the 
 greasy table, they began to play. In a few minutes a little 
 pile of money began to accumulate in the center. Ah 
 Chung won it. Again they went at it, and again Ah 
 Chung won. Simon Spud showed no concern; either he 
 was used to losing, or he was playing for higher stakes, not 
 on the table. Perhaps he wished to conciliate the venge- 
 ful Chung, to win him the more thoroughly to his plans. 
 
 They played until Simon had emptied his purse, still 
 without expressing any disapprobation then he took his 
 hat to leave, playfully pulling Chung's ear as he said : " You 
 no forget, Job he stay long time, he gamble, you swear." 
 
 "All light, good bye," said Chung. 
 
 Ah Chung stopped for a moment after Simon Spud had 
 gone, to place the money carefully in his purse, and then, 
 with a satisfied smile, walked out the door. He had 
 scarcely reached the street, when the little figure of the 
 Chinawoman dropped quietly out of one of the bunks 
 where she had been ensconced, a quiet listener to the 
 parley. 
 
 " He beatee me with pickee handle; me no forget. Me 
 play game card, now," she muttered, as she watched the 
 retreating forms of Chung and Simon.
 
 SIMON SECURES A WITNESS
 
 The Wedge Advances. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WEDGE ADVANCES. 
 
 THE next morning after Job had made known his wish 
 to board there, the Widow Caldwell and her daughter be- 
 gan to make preparations for him. 
 
 "This will help us amazingly, Bessie," said the happy 
 woman. " His board will at least keep us from debt." 
 
 "Yes, mother; and then, you know, we can buy our 
 vegetables of Mr. Carrot. He comes every other day, and 
 he will let us have them cheap," said Bessie. 
 
 The best room was cleaned, swept and dusted, the 
 prettiest counterpane put on the bed, and Bessie secretly 
 transferred considerable finery for the walls from her own 
 room. 
 
 While they were engaged in arranging his room, there 
 came a knock at the kitchen-door. 
 
 Bessie went down. There stood a Chinaman with two 
 huge baskets slung upon a pole over his shoulder. 
 
 "How do!" 
 
 " How do you do, John!" said Bessie. 
 
 " You sabe Ah Chung ?" 
 
 "Yes, I know him," said Bessie. 
 
 " Ah Chung, he my cousin. I sellee you 'taters, gleen 
 con, eh ?" 
 
 "Oh, you've got vegetables!" said Bessie. 
 
 " Yeah; me sellee him cheap," said the Chinaman,
 
 46 The Wedge Advances, 
 
 holding up a bunch of onions, and displaying his green 
 corn and potatoes at the same time. 
 
 " How cheap ?" asked Bessie. 
 
 " Oh, heap cheapee. Other man he takee two bittee, 
 I sellee him one bittee." 
 
 Just then a ranch wagon drove up to the gate. 
 
 " Hold on, Bessie, don't buy of him, I want to supply 
 my neighbors myself." 
 
 It was Mr. Carrot with his market wagon. 
 
 " But he says he can undersell you," laughed Bessie. 
 
 "The d ab I beg pardon, miss, but these fellows 
 don't give a man a chance to live. What was he going to 
 sell you ?" 
 
 " A bunch of onions for a bit," said Bessie, laughing 
 again. 
 
 " A bunch of onions for a bit I Here, I'll sell you a sack 
 for two bits. How you likee that, John, eh ?" said Car- 
 rot, turning angrily to John. 
 
 " All light; you sellee for two bittee one sack to-day, 
 to-mollow you come, you takee two bittee one bunch. 
 Me sabe," said the John. 
 
 "No, I'll be d excuse me get out of this! git!" he 
 cried, as he gave the Chinaman a little help with- his big 
 farm-boots. 
 
 " But, Mr. Carrot, why should not he sell for much less 
 than you, if he wants to ?" inquired Bessie. 
 
 " Bessie, it's a long story to tell, but let me explain.
 
 The Wedge Advances. 47 
 
 We came here and worked hard to make our land pro- 
 duce, Ave built this town up, we created the factories, and 
 we deserve the profit to come from it. These men sell 
 cheaper, but don't they cheapen wages also ? Why, if 
 you get three dollars a day, can't you afford to pay two 
 bits for a bunch of onions ? But if these heathen, by 
 underselling their labor, lower your wages, you can't do 
 it. They can live for three days on what won't keep you 
 or me one. This is a white man's country. Let's keep 
 wages up and get a fair price for our provisions." 
 
 " But what's the difference, Mr. Carrot ? I don't under- 
 stand. If Chinamen bring down wages, they bring down 
 prices also." 
 
 " Yes," answered Carrot, " bring wages down to their 
 level. I tell you, again, a white man cannot live on their f . 
 level. God help us if we must herd like Chinamen to 
 please the moneyed men of California!" 
 
 " It's a deeper question than I can comprehend," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 "Yes," replied Carrot, "and it will be too deep for the 
 laboring class to understand so long as our capitalists hedge 
 it about with so much sophistry. Anyhow, you tell 
 mother to buy of me, and she shan't lose by it." 
 
 This matter of peddling ranch produce had indeed be- 
 come serious in Yarbtown. The price of everything in/' 
 the farm line had been so lowered by the Chinese that any
 
 48 The Wedge Advances, 
 
 man who wished to make a respectable living at that busi- 
 ness, found it up-hill work. 
 
 " Well, isn't that all right ?" asks a Peggy Sproul, from 
 his counting-room in San Francisco. " If they can do it 
 and our people won't, why not encourage them, hey?" 
 
 Ay! ay! but the Chinamen are not confined to one 
 kind of work; if they were, then our working people could 
 quit that and turn to something else. They can do any- 
 thing. They follow our hard-working people close on 
 their heels, steal their trades, cheapen labor, and then sit 
 down to a dinner of rice and potato sprouts, such as a 
 hearty white would starve on. 
 
 The natural result of such a course of things will be to 
 degrade the working classes of the United States to the 
 level of the Chinese, in their manner of living, in dress, 
 in food, in morals, in even-thing, and will bring into being 
 a marked separation of the people into castes. 
 
 Here was Mrs. Caldwell, for instance. She had made 
 only such charges for her work as gave her a decent living. 
 John Chinaman does it for just one-half this amount. 
 What shall she do ? She cannot live on as little as John. 
 Sew ? She never could do that, and besides, the sewing- 
 machine is beyond her reach at present. Take boarders ? 
 Exactly; she was intending to do exactly that thing, for, 
 thank God, we have hardly yet fallen so low as to patron- 
 ize a Chinese boarding-house. 
 
 This outcry against the cheap labor of the Chinese has
 
 The Wedge Advances. 49 
 
 been compared to the opposition raised by English me- 
 chanics to the labor-saving machinery introduced among 
 them. There is no comparison. Men and muscle must 
 be had to make and run these machines, but Chinamen, 
 pshaw ! they are ready-made by millions.
 
 50 Job before the Church. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 JOB BEFORE THE CHURCH. 
 
 Deacon Spud was not quite so bad a man as Job had 
 supposed him to be. Crafty he was; grasping, mean and 
 stingy he certainly gave evidence of being. 
 
 Job had seen pretty clearly the wily deacon's plans for the 
 future. The starch-manufacturing business had been de- 
 veloped shrewdly, until it had attained to what the Yarb- 
 town people considered collossal. Fruit-drying and can- 
 ning, broom-making, and box-manufacturing were all car- 
 ried on under the deacon's supervision, and by his capi- 
 tal. The wages of the workmen under Job had formerly 
 been two dollars and a half per day; the deacon, after 
 much whining about hard*- times, had cut off the half-dol- 
 lar. Several times the agent for the Chinese company had 
 been in and over the works. Once he had brought with 
 him several of his countrymen. 
 
 Job had noticed all this, and the suspicion was a natural 
 one that the old game of freezing out the white men was 
 to be played over by Deacon Spud. 
 
 That Spud had, however, willfully and maliciously 
 charged Job with the theft of money for the purpose of 
 disgracing him, is too grave a suspicion to entertain for a 
 moment. That he gladly hailed the advent of any pretext 
 for discharging Job, there can be no doubt. 
 
 Deacon Spud's conscience was not a tender one; it was
 
 Job before the Church. 51 
 
 very elastic; a great many bright tints enlivened its out- 
 ward show, but there was no leading color. There were 
 ditches, with mud-settlers attached, running down the foot- 
 hills above the valley of Yarbtown, and perhaps the deacon 
 had learned a lesson from them. The ditches run for 
 miles full of mud from the diggings, and then pause at the 
 mud-settler, deposit a little mud, and go on to the next, 
 going through the same operation at intervals. The deacon 
 collected a good bit of mud in the course of the week in 
 his heart, and paused on Sunday to settle a little then run 
 on to the next Sabbath, and so on. The good man flat- 
 tered himself that in this way he kept his conscience clear. 
 Since Job's visit to his house, the deacon had met Sister 
 Peggy Sproul and several of the good people of ultra views 
 connected with the society, and" they determined to bring 
 the sinful Job to an account before the church. 
 
 Charges had been preferred against him, and a notice of 
 them duly served upon him. These charges were various. 
 Failure to interest himself in the welfare of Zion, yielding 
 to a passionate temper, gambling and being in a low state 
 of morals generally, all were presented as sufficient to ex- 
 clude him from God's family. The good, pious Brother 
 Smudgins, and be it said he loved Job and believed in 
 him, had appointed an afternoon to try the case. A com- 
 mittee had been selected to act as jury, some bitterly 
 prejudiced against Job, and some favorably disposed. 
 
 Job was popular, and his openly-expressed distrust of
 
 52 Job before the Church. 
 
 the Chinamen had bound the working people closely to 
 him. 
 
 Job Stearns had chosen to conduct his own defense. 
 Brother Slowly had been selected to conduct the prosecu- 
 tion. "It gave him much pain," he said, "to be placed 
 in such a position as to seem instrumental in destroying 
 the Christian character of one whom they had long known; 
 but he owed his first duty to God, and, under the cir- 
 cumstances, he should waive all affection, and adhere 
 dutifully to the task assigned him." He then read the 
 charges for the pastor, and the reverend gentleman smiled 
 in a friendly way upon Job, as he asked what he had to 
 say to them. 
 
 Job simply answered: "The charges are false, abso- 
 lutely false." 
 
 Peggy Sproul closed her eyes in meek submission, for 
 the present, to the perfidy of the man. 
 
 Mr. Slowly then presented a sketch of what he proposed 
 to prove, and gave way for Job's turn. 
 
 Mr. Stearns begged to be excused until such time as the 
 apparent facts presented should demand his attention. 
 Mr. Slowly then called Simon Spud to the stand. 
 
 " You are a member of this church, Mr. Spud ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I am not," answered Sime. 
 
 "Are you willing to make a solemn affirmation that 
 what you are to say shall be the truth, and the whole 
 truth ? "
 
 Job before the Church. 53 
 
 "You b , yes, sic, I mean." 
 
 " Tell what you know of a certain visit of Brother Job 
 Stearns to Chinatown." 
 
 Simon then went through his story, still adhering to the 
 statements made to his father. 
 
 " Who was this woman ? " 
 
 " She was a woman who is the property of Ah Chung." 
 
 "Has she a good character ? " 
 
 " No, sir; she is a bad woman." 
 
 " Did Brother Stearns stay in the gambling h house 
 long enough to play a game ? " 
 
 " Yes, over an hour." 
 
 " That'll do, Mr. Spud. Brother Stearns, you can ques- 
 tion him." 
 
 "Sime, you've told the truth so far," said Job, "let us 
 see if you can stick to it. You saw me walk down street 
 with the Chinawoman; did you see the contemptible fight 
 which preceded it ? " 
 
 " I saw Ah Chung trying to get her from you, and you 
 nearly killed him," answered Simon, boldly. 
 
 "Did you not know that Ah Chung had beaten her 
 with a pick-handle, and .that I went down with her to pro- 
 tect her ? " 
 
 "No, didn't see anything of the sort," replied Simon 
 Spud. 
 
 " You said the woman is a bad one; how do you know ? " 
 
 " Why, I I should say everybody says so," stammered 
 Simon.
 
 54 Job before the Church. 
 
 " Oh, everybody says so ! Do you know what her 
 character is ? " asked Job, fiercely. 
 
 " No, only by what people say." 
 
 " Did you see me play a game of cards ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did," asserted Spud. 
 
 "That's all," said Job. 
 
 Ah Chung was the next witness called. He came up 
 with a vacant stare on his face, and turned to Mr. Slowly. 
 
 "Ah Chung, will you affirm, on your honor, that you will 
 tell the truth and the whole truth ?" asked Slowly. 
 " Me no got him honor," replied Chung. 
 
 "No, I guess not," muttered Job. 
 
 After the committee had repossessed themselves of the 
 proper gravity, Slowly tried again. 
 
 " Will you promise faithfully to tell the truth ? " 
 
 " Where 'um Facefullee, me no see him ? " said Chung, 
 looking around with a wondering, imbecile look. 
 
 "Hold on, Mr. Slowly," shouted Simon Spud, in the 
 midst of the laughter which followed this sally, " let me 
 try." 
 
 "If Brother Stearns don't object," mildly interposed 
 the pastor. 
 
 "Oh, go ahead; we can all hear him," said Job. 
 
 With this permission, Simon proceeded'. 
 
 " You sabe, you Chung, you swearee ? " 
 
 "Yeah, me sabe," grinned the rascal. 
 
 " You sabe what 'um swearee is ? "
 
 Job before the Church. 55 
 
 " Yeah," said Chung, grinning until all his teeth shone 
 out from his projecting lips. " Yeah, him one bigee G d 
 d ee." 
 
 This brought down the moderator, attorneys, jury, and 
 all. Simon did not give up the attempt though. 
 
 " You sabe Mellican man Josh ? " 
 
 "Yeah." 
 
 "You sabe what he do to you if you tellee lie now ?" 
 
 "Yeah; Melican man Josh gimme h 1 if I tellee lie." 
 
 "There, there, Brother Slowly, that ought to satisfy the 
 most particular jurist," laughed the pastor. 
 
 " Now, friends, I don't feel satisfied with such a witness; 
 that is no expression of an understanding of the nature of 
 an oath," said Job. " Is this the kind of testimony you 
 are about to try my character on ? A Chinaman, a heathen, / 
 who has no notions of accountability; no comprehension 
 of a good and just God ? It's insulting to the good sense 
 of the people of Yarbtown to think, for a moment, of bal- 
 ancing his word against mine." 
 
 Sister Sproul had been fidgeting about in her chair for 
 some time, on the alert to fly to the defense of her pet 
 hobby. When Job expressed his opinion of the value of 
 Ah Chung's testimony in so open a manner, the good 
 woman flew to her feet and screamed : 
 
 "Brother Chung hez bin teached by Sister Bessie Cald- 
 well fer a long time. He will tell the truth. He hez fer 
 some time bin free from the bonds o' Satan. You ken 
 trust him, brethering."
 
 5 6 Job before the Church. 
 
 " I believe Sister Sproul is only a witness in this case, 
 and I object to her interference in the defense," remarked 
 Job; " I wish to see some evidence on the part of Chung 
 that he will not deliberately lie all through his testimony. 
 I know he will beat a woman, and a man who will do that 
 will lie." 
 
 " Job, suppose you question him," said the moderator; 
 "perhaps you can get something out of him." 
 
 " I've no objections," said Job. " Chung, what you 
 mean by ' gimme h 1 ?' " 
 
 " Oh, you sabe ! You gimme h 1 one day." 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it; you think Melican man Josh will 
 pound you, eh?" 
 
 "Yeah, that so." 
 
 " Where is Melican man Josh ? " 
 
 "Oh, I dunno; him keep him, hey?" inquired Chung, 
 pointing to the pastor. 
 
 This was more than even the Rev. Brother Smudgins 
 could bear; he forgot the dignity of the occasion; he for- 
 got the sanctity of the place, and hailed this remark with 
 a hearty guffaw. 
 
 " I really think, brethren, that this witness is hardly com- 
 petent/' he suggested, after the laugh subsided a little. 
 
 Brother Slowly thought differently. 
 
 " If we refuse to right this man's wrongs by refusing to 
 take his account of the affair, we might as well bid fare- 
 well to all hopes of influence over them."
 
 Job before the Church. 57 
 
 Parson Smudgins objected to him, Job strenuously put 
 in his objection, and several of the committee sided with 
 them; but the majority carried the day, and Mr. Slowly 
 proceeded with the examination. 
 
 " Mr. Chung, did you ever see this man before ? " point- 
 ing to Job. 
 
 ''Yeah; me see him, me feelee him." 
 
 " Where did you see him ? " 
 
 "You sabe, down Chinatown." 
 
 "What did he do?" 
 
 " He takee my woman, he beatee me, he go gamble; 
 Ah Sing he catchee lot money; I got him allee here," pat- 
 ting his pocket vigorously. 
 
 " You have the money he gambled with ? Well, give 
 it to the moderator." 
 
 "Oh, no! I keepee him. He my money. You no 
 catchee him so. You come play card; you catchee him 
 then, maybe," said Chung, grinning like a pleased mon- 
 key. 
 
 " He'll give it back to you." 
 
 "Oh, no; you sabe; you wantee see him, well you 
 lookee bymby." 
 
 " How much money was there ? " 
 
 " Oh, maybe thirtee dar." 
 
 "How long did Job stay in the gambling-house ?" 
 
 "Job? Me no sabe he allee same man scratchee self 
 with possheld, eh ? Missee Colwel she tellee me."
 
 58 Job before the Church. 
 
 "No, no! not that Job. I mean this man; how long 
 did he stay ? '' 
 
 " Long time; maybe two hour." 
 
 " I don't know as I have anything more to ask the wit- 
 ness. All I wished was to prove that Brother Stearns did 
 go there, and stay and gamble," said Mr. Slowly. 
 
 " \Vell, sir, / have some questions to ask him," said Job, 
 contemptuously.
 
 The Trial Continued. 59 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE TRIAL CONTINUED. 
 
 " Will you tell these men why I took your -woman from 
 you. Ah Chung ? " said Job. 
 
 "Idunno; you wantee her, you takee her," replied 
 Chung. 
 
 " Were you not beating her ? " 
 
 " Me ? oh, no! She comee to me; she bringee pickee- 
 handle; she tellee me, ' you sclatchee back,' so me sclatchee; 
 you come in, you beatee me." 
 
 " He lie! he lie! " screamed a female voice in the back 
 of the vestry. Everybody turned to see whose it was. 
 The head of Ah Chung's woman poked itself up from be- 
 hind a settee, where she was hiding. 
 
 " 'A Daniel come to judgment/ perhaps," suggested the 
 moderator, with a smile. 
 
 Ah Chung was about to rush back to the woman, when 
 Job Stearns caught him by the queue. 
 
 " No, sir, you don't go until you've unsaid some things 
 you've said here," he muttered, through his clenched teeth. 
 
 "He beatee me; this man he come, he savee me. Ah 
 Chung he big liar! " screamed the woman again. 
 
 " Bring her forward, Job, if you wish to," said the mod- 
 erator. 
 
 " No, sir, not I. If I can't prove my innocence without
 
 60 The Trial Continued. 
 
 the testimony of a Chinawoman, you may believe what 
 you like about me." 
 
 "Littlee man young Spudee he play my man game; 
 he leavee lot money!" screamed the irrepressible China- 
 woman again. 
 
 "She's bound to testify anyhow, Job; you had better 
 bring her forward, and let us hear her," said the pastor 
 again. 
 
 " My word, sir, I claim, is worth that of a dozen China- 
 men, and if these brethren will not take it, I shall not 
 bolster it up with the word of a heathen." 
 
 " Me see him, Spudee, gamble. He leavee lot money. 
 This man he no play. Spudee he pay my man ten dar, 
 he comee here, he tellee lie," squealed the little China- 
 woman again. 
 
 " Brother Stearns, you must either bring that woman up 
 here in the regular way or put her out." 
 
 "Put her out then," said Job carelessly. 
 
 Deacon Spud was on his feet in a moment. He grasped 
 the woman by the shoulder, and marched her toward the 
 door, she shouting all the time: "Yeah me heapee sabe 
 you no wantee me he your boy you no wantee me 
 tellee allee I know all light, bym-by. He big liar! He 
 big liar!" she yelled, as the vestry door closed upon her. 
 
 "Was that your woman, Chung?" asked Job, as she 
 went out. 
 
 "Yeah; she mine."
 
 The Trial Continued. 61 
 
 " What do you mean ! Is she your slave ? " 
 
 " She mine. I payee for seven year." 
 
 " I've nothing more to say," said Job. "A Chinaman, 
 a liar, a beater of women, and an owner of slaves held for 
 immoral purposes; he's your witness, not mine." 
 
 Deacon Spud was called and gave his account of the 
 missing money. Job would make no more defense. He 
 was disheartened, disgusted, and in fact, he cared but little 
 how the case went, so bigoted and determined were his 
 enemies. The charges were read to the committee, one 
 by one, and upon all of them a great majority voted / 
 "guilty." Great indignation was expressed about town 
 when the news reached the people that Job Stearns was 
 expelled from the church, for such was the result of the 
 trial. Job was a general favorite, and as he was a martyr 
 in the cause of the people, he became a hero, doubly a 
 hero when it became known that he might have saved 
 himself by accepting the testimony of the Chinawoman. 
 
 Everybody was surprised that any sensible man should 
 have considered Job guilty after such revelations as were 
 made by Ah Chung's woman, and yet surprised as they 
 were, they could not fail to perceive that it was one victory 
 for the Chinese. Should they allow them to score an- 
 other ? Should they keep still until the pick, the shovel, 
 ihe plow were taken from their hands ? Of course the ex- 
 pulsion of Job from the church meant his discharge from 
 the superintendency of the factories, if it meant anything,
 
 62 The Trial Continued. 
 
 and of course the dismissal of Job was to be only the fore- 
 runner of a gradual discharging of the workmen and the 
 employment of Chinese. Deacon Spud soon relieved them 
 of all doubt on that subject, by politely informing Job that 
 " of course his services at the mill were at an end." 
 
 The tide of popular excitement ran high. Dire threats 
 were made against the Chinamen. It was not considered 
 a church matter at all; it was a high-handed outrage upon 
 all decent people. The word of a Chinaman had been 
 x x taken in lieu of that of a respectable, laboring white man, 
 and therefore all laboring white men were indignant. 
 
 The champion of the laboring class had become a mar- 
 tyr, therefore the laboring class was furious. The matter 
 of the stolen money was not again referred to. Deacon 
 Spud was not anxious for a legal investigation of the matter 
 in a place where the Chinese were handled without fear 
 or favor. The revelations given, so inopportunely for him, 
 by the Chinese woman, opened his eyes a trifle, and per- 
 haps it was well for Simon Spud that it was so. 
 
 Job's friends were not disposed to let the matter drop, 
 and urged him to compel the deacon to retract the charge 
 of theft. Job, however, declared that he should do noth- 
 ing about it unless the deacon continued to adhere to such 
 an outrageous course, or tried to shield his son Simon by 
 casting the odium on him. There was a harder trial in 
 store for Job, however, than he had yet undergone. Peggy 
 Sproul hastened, the moment the trial of Job was over,
 
 The Trial Continued. 63 
 
 to Mrs. Caldwcll's. She found that lady sitting, disconso- 
 lately brooding over the rumors which had come to her 
 concerning Job, and wondering, in her fond mother's 
 heart, how she should treat the matter so far as it affected 
 the happiness of her daughter Bessie. 
 
 The good lady had had her lesson from the Chinese, 
 and she sympathized with Job in that matter, but she had, 
 nevertheless, great confidence in the wisdom and justice 
 of the brethren of the church, and she could not believe 
 they would, without sufficient cause, sever the connection 
 between Job and the society. 
 
 What should she do ? Certainly her daughter must no 
 longer receive the attentions of a man who could so basely 
 lower himself in the moral scale. Peggy Sproul threw 
 her arms about Sister Caldwell, and a few hard-pressed, 
 perhaps earnest, tears rolled down upon the widow's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " 'Tez all come out ez I 'spected, Sister Caldwell. Down, 
 down, down, thet mistaken young man hez gone, till now, 
 the last Angul uv Merssy hez a left him." 
 
 " What does it all mean, Sister Sproul ? Can it be that 
 Job has done this wicked thing ? I have known him from 
 boyhood up, and I can't believe it," replied the weeping 
 widow. 
 
 " Why, how ken it be thet he didn't do it," said Peggy. 
 " Brother Spud's unly son sez he saw him. Simon hez 
 bin teeched by pius parents, he never hez telled a lie, he
 
 64 The Trial Continued. 
 
 is 'zemplary en all things. Then thet good, promising 
 young brother from Chiny the one, you know, your darter 
 hez so int'rested herself in he sez he saw him. Brother 
 Stearns hez northing ter say. His conshunse troubles him. 
 Ah, my sister, he's clean gone. Thar's no hope." 
 
 " Did he have a fair trial ? " asked Mrs. Caldwell. 
 
 " Oh-h-h, yes. He seemed a kinder tryin' to work on 
 their symp'thies by hidin' that 'ar wicked Chinawoman in 
 the vestry, so'st she cud speak out when he wanted on her; 
 but la ! 'twan't no airthly use, they saw through it in a mo- 
 ment, an' Brother Spud he jest yanked her out'n thet in 
 the twinklin' uv.an eye," responded Peggy. 
 
 " Oh, how could Job do such treacherous, such mean 
 things ?" said the widow. 
 
 "Of course that's an end ter all his courtin' on your 
 gal, I s'pose ? " suggested Peggy. 
 
 " I hardly think it ever had gone so far as to amount tc 
 courting, Sister Sproul," said the widow, stiffly. 
 
 " They say he hez bin payin' on her attentions fer a long 
 time." 
 
 " Tis true he has been intimate with us, but I fancy I 
 have been too careful to permit it to go to any serious 
 lengths. Anyway, my daughter will not break her hean. 
 over such a man as Job Stearns has proved himself to be." 
 
 Carefully, carefully, Mrs. Caldwell ! That flinty-hearted 
 young damsel is this moment vigorously defending Job, to 
 the confusion of Simon Spud, out at the back-gate. That
 
 The Trial Continued. 65 
 
 miscreant had taken no chances upon the possibility of 
 Job seeing Bessie first, and had called at the back-gate to 
 retail his budget of news, 
 
 " They've done for him at last, Bessie/' said he; " he put 
 the last straw on the camel's back when he played the gal- 
 lant to that woman of Chung's." 
 
 "Simon Spud," asserted Bessie, "if Job Stearns was / 
 seen in places where a good man ought not to be, he had 
 good reasons for it. You can't say as much for yourself. 
 What were you doing in Chinatown that you were on hand 
 to witness all this ? " 
 
 " Me ? Oh, perhaps I had good reasons, too, Miss Bes- 
 sie," replied Simon. 
 
 " I don't believe anything good took you down there, 
 and I don't believe anything bad took Job there." 
 
 "No; of course not. You will believe anything bad of 
 me, and nothing of the man you've set your heart on," 
 sneered Simon. 
 
 "Simon Spud! How dare you talk so? Job Stearns 
 is an honorable man, and I and all honest people will 
 trust him before you, a sneaking eavesdropper and liar." 
 
 " I wouldn't stand up for a man who leaves me for a 
 Chinawoman," cried Simon, in anger. 
 
 A dash of cold water from the well-dipper was his only 
 answer. It sleeked his hair down nicely back of his ears, 
 and sent a cold shiver along his spinal column. Bessie 
 turned with flaming cheeks and ran into the house, leav-
 
 66 The Trial Continued. 
 
 ing the defeated Simon standing dripping by the gate. 
 Miss Bessie found Peggy Sproul in the house with her 
 mother. She took up a book and sat down with it wrong 
 end up to read no, to listen no, to think. Yes, that was 
 it, to think. All her heart was on fire; her sense of jus- 
 tice was outraged; she believed in Job; she wouldn't for 
 a moment lend an ear to the contemptible things they 
 were saying about him. Why hadn't he told her all about 
 it ? What was the reason he kept it all to himself? No, 
 she would not let any suspicions prejudice her against him ; 
 he was a good, true, pure man, and, and here she burst 
 into a flood of tears. Peggy stole up behind her and 
 rested her sharp chin on top of her head. 
 
 "Poor gal poor gal! I'm sorry for yer, but the Lud 
 doith all things well," she whispered. 
 
 " Go away," said Bessie, giving the chin a shove with 
 her fist, "the Lord did not do it, it was you and that mean 
 old Simon Spud." 
 
 " Bessie ! Bessie ! " said her mother, mildly. 
 
 "It's true, mother," sobbed Bessie, "she has been after 
 him ever since he talked against the Chinamen. She has 
 put Deacon Spud up to distrusting him, and now she comes 
 here to set you against him. Let her go away, I don't 
 want to see her." 
 
 " But Bes ," commenced Peggy. 
 
 " I won't hear you; go away." 
 
 "The good cause de ," recommenced Peggy.
 
 BESSIE DEMONSTRATES WITH
 
 The Trial Continued. 67 
 
 " I tell you I won't hear you say one word about it. It's 
 a crying shame, and you'll get no blessings by it, I can tell 
 you, Peggy Sproul. Don't you ever come whining and 
 pawing around me again, ugh ! " said Bessie, with a shrug. 
 She flew out of the room and banged the door after her. 
 
 Sister Sproul looked at the widow for a moment in 
 amazement. 
 
 " Didn't think she had so much temper," said she. 
 
 " She does not act like my Bessie," said the widow, 
 sadly. 
 
 " How hard she is a takin' it! What can you do, Sister 
 Caldwell ? " 
 
 " I shall have to put my foot down, I suppose," said the 
 widow, with a sigh. 
 
 " Ter think uv her layin' it ter me ! " said Peggy, as she 
 went out.
 
 68 Bessie's Courage. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 BESSIE'S COURAGE. 
 
 MRS. CALDWELL went in search of Bessie as soon as 
 Peggy Sproul had gone. She found, rolled up in a heap 
 on her bed, a mass of clothes. Hands, feet, and face 
 were not to be seen. Mrs. Caldwell touched the heap of 
 clothes gently, and said softly, "Bessie?" The bunch 
 shook itself in an impatient way. " Bessie ? " said the 
 mother again. 
 
 " What, ma ? " said a smothered voice. 
 
 "Get up, child; I want to talk to you." 
 
 Bessie unrolled herself, and exhibited a face red as the 
 rose, and streaked with tear-marks. Mrs. Caldwell put 
 her two hands upon Bessie's shoulders, and said, sadly: 
 " Has it gone so far as this, my child ? " 
 
 "Oh, mother!" sobbed Bessie, as she buried her face 
 in her mother's bosom. 
 
 "Bessie, I pity you; but, my child, you must hide this 
 from all eyes but mine. He is not worthy of you." 
 
 " Oh, mother, why will you not trust him until you know 
 all about it ? " asked Bessie. 
 
 "Because, my dear, it is evident he has done wrong; and 
 .such wrong as renders him unfit to be suitor for my 
 daughter's hand." 
 
 " But, ma, he never has been suitor for my hand."
 
 BE$SIE CALDWELL.
 
 Bessie's Courage. 69 
 
 " I know, my child, but this little, red face tells its own 
 story. You must have a brave heart, and live it all down." 
 
 " Mother," said Bessie, as her teeth set themselves firmly 
 together, " I know you want to do what is right; but so do 
 I, and I mean to stand by Job Stearns until I know he is, 
 unworthy of my friendship." 
 
 " My daughter will do nothing unbecoming a lady, I 
 trust," said the widow. 
 
 "I shall do something becoming a friend, mother," 
 firmly. 
 
 And she did, too. She sat down and wrote a kind little 
 note to Job, blotted with tears, sympathizing with him, and 
 declaring her confidence in his honor and honesty. She 
 sent the little boy living next door down to Chinatown for 
 Ah Chung's woman. She came. Bessie was closeted 
 with her over an hour. She found out all the facts. She 
 then went to her mother with these facts, but the widow 
 simply expressed surprise at what her daughter had done, 
 and set her heart more firmly than ever against Job. That 
 evening Job called. Mrs. Caldwell received him coldly, 
 and intimated that Bessie was not at home to him, and 
 would not be in future. Bessie heard it all from the back 
 entry, and when Job went out sadly, he felt a little, soft 
 hand touch his arm. He swept the arm around, and 
 gathered a warm little figure close to him. 
 
 "Oh, Bessie, dare I tell you now how much I love 
 you ? "
 
 yo Bessie's Courage. 
 
 "Why not, Job?" asked a smothered voice from his 
 shoulder. 
 
 We will not break into the sweet confidences of that 
 moment; let them say the things others have said thou- 
 sands of times before; let them have the same sweet pri- 
 vacy. 
 
 "Bessie! Bessie!" called the shrill voice of the widow, 
 in the house. 
 
 But no Bessie answered. 
 
 "Where is the child?" said the mother; "where can 
 she be ? Bessie ! " 
 
 "Coming, ma!" replied a voice out at the back-door, 
 and in a moment Bessie came in. The keen-eyed mother 
 detected the change in her daughter's face. 
 
 " Did you meet Job, Bessie ? " she asked. 
 
 "Yes, ma." 
 
 "After all I said to you, my daughter! How could you 
 do such a thing ? " 
 
 " I did right, ma," responded Bessie, flushing. 
 - "Right to disobey your mother! Has that been the 
 kind of teaching you have had ? " 
 
 " My conscience told me to see him, ma, and my heart 
 says I have done right," said Bessie, flushing deeply. 
 
 " Your heart! Have you presumed to receive his atten- 
 tions after I told you not to, Bessie ? " 
 
 " I can have no secrets from you, mother," said Bessie, 
 looking the widow in the face with a clear eye; " I have 
 pledged my heart to Job Stearns."
 
 Bessie's Courage. 71 
 
 Mrs. Caldwell was deeply grieved at this confession. 
 Her daughter, her Bessie, pledged to the man so Decently 
 disgraced and ostracized by the church! Could it be pos- 
 sible! This was not her simple, obedient, docile child. 
 It was a woman's eyes she saw looking so calmly at her. 
 
 " Well, my child, you have done what you thought was 
 your duty; I shall do what I think is mine," she said, after 
 a few moments' thought; "Job Stearns must not come to 
 my house. If you have any further confidences with him 
 it will be without your mother's consent."
 
 72 The Dread Visitant. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE DREAD VISITANT. 
 
 ARISTOCRACY street. It was a neat avenue among the 
 oaks, and lined on either side with the dwellings of the 
 well-to-do citizens of Yarbtown. Deacon Spud's mansion 
 was a low one-story house* with broad-spreading- wings. 
 It stood on a little hill, back of which was a pleasant little 
 canyon, which the deacon and his neighbors meditated 
 turning to account in shape of a rustic garden. 
 
 Ben Levi, the dealer in clothing, cloths, boots and shoes, 
 also added beauty to Aristocracy street with his pleasant 
 semi-Gothic dwelling. Giles, the carpenter, Ghelt, the 
 jeweler, and sundry other moneyed men lived under the 
 shadow of the oaks, and their own vines and fig-trees, on 
 Aristocracy street. The modest house of the Widow Cald- 
 well stood somewhat back of the street, higher on the hill. 
 
 This street, with the pasturage hill at one end and the 
 little run behind it, was the pride of Yarbtown; they had 
 macadamized the roadway and filled in the walk with as- 
 phaltum, and were proud of every inch of it, from the hill 
 down to where it ended by the little church and school- 
 house. 
 
 Chinamen live in communities and never intrude upon 
 the rest of the village. That is true, they do live in com- 
 munities, and their houses huddle together like sheep in. a
 
 The Dread Visitant. 73 
 
 sleety storm. John Chinaman seldom intrudes with his 
 hideous houses among the dwellings of the white men; but 
 John likes sightly quarters and elevated places as well as 
 the rest of human kind, and while he does not often in- 
 trude with his dwelling, yet we cannot say as much of 
 John's emptyings. 
 
 John Chinaman of Yarbtown pitched upon the pasturage 
 hill surmounting Aristocracy street, as a desirable spot 
 upon which to locate. Ready money on one side and 
 obstinate blindness on the other, secured the land for the 
 companies, and one of the most beautiful spots in Yarb- 
 town became John's. Had the people of Yarbtown been 
 sufficiently long-headed, they would have held this land 
 until, under honest white labor, the town had grown up to 
 demand its settlement; but John now had possession of 
 it, so good-by to future improvements in that direction. 
 
 "They won't harm us any," said Aristocracy street; 
 "they cling to their own quarters, and as they live higher 
 up the hill than the street runs, we shall suffer no incon- 
 venience from them." 
 
 Chinatown began to show it characteristic deference to 
 the hygienic notions of civilized communities. A dark, 
 greasy, nasty, little stream of distilled odds and ends began 
 to steal its way down from the hill through the little canyon 
 behind Aristocracy street. Similar, indeed, was this stream 
 to that which shows itself in their moral influence on so- 
 ciety. This foul stream gradually enlarged its borders
 
 7-j. The Dread Visitant. 
 
 \ until a filthy, putrid pool settled upon the rear of Aristoc- 
 racy street, as its permanent abiding place. 
 
 The denizens of that neighborhood tried first to turn its 
 course into some other direction; then they tried to keep 
 a sewer open; then in vain they dug an open ditch; like 
 the scum in our big cities it obstinately refused to move 
 on. There it remained, generating poisonous gases, ex- 
 uding obnoxious vapors and defiling the fair face of nature. 
 
 Old Dr. Gratiot made frequent visits to Aristocracy 
 street now. Fevers were on the increase; sudden and 
 alarming they were, in their attacks, too. Dr. Gratiot in- 
 sisted that it was caused by the emptyings from China- 
 town. 
 
 This was not to be the worst of their troubles, however. 
 A new and dreadful disease showed its horrid visage at 
 Yarbtown; aye, and in Aristocracy street, at that. Small- 
 pox. How awfully it sounded to the good people of Yarb- 
 town. Where did it come from? Who brought it? 
 
 Dr. Gratiot investigated. It had been existing in the 
 China dens for over a month. No report had ever come, 
 to that effect, from those honorable heathen; they had 
 harbored the dread visitor in their crowded houses, giving 
 neither sign nor warning to others. 
 
 Deacon Spud, strange fate, was the first to be stricken 
 down. The yellow flag was flying at his gate, and all 
 Yarbtown gave it and him a wide berth. That precious 
 boy, Simon, was seized with a sudden desire to go to the
 
 The Dread Visitant. 75 
 
 bay. Sister Peggy Sproul prized her parchment skin too 
 highly to volunteer to nurse him. 
 
 Send for a Chinaman, deacon. They have been your 
 chief resort. Bribe one to come and cook for you now. 
 Pay one to stand over you and oil your scabbed face. 
 Aha! They are not quite so readily obtained now. But 
 who is that who goes in at the gate ? Job Stearns ! Yes, ' 
 the noble fellow has seen his opportunity, and he seizes 
 upon it. 
 
 "Good Lord!" cried the deacon, when Job strode into 
 the pestilential room, "what ar you a doin' here, Job 
 Starns ? " "Visiting the afflicted, deacon," said Job, cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 "Who'd a thought it who'd a thought it!" murmured 
 the deacon, burying his head under the bedclothes. 
 Suddenly he pulled the quilt-down again and asked, " Ever 
 hed it, Job ! " 
 
 " No, Deacon Spud." 
 
 "Why do you come here then?" asked the deacon, 
 picking the lint off the white coverlid nervously. 
 
 "Who else would come, Deacon Spud?" 
 
 "Ay! ay! Who else, indeed!" snarled the deacon. 
 
 "I don't fear the small-pox, deacon; so rest easy on my 
 account," said Job. 
 
 Job busied himself in making some broth at the stove. 
 He hunted about for the cream-tartar; he tucked the 
 deacon up carefully under the bedclothes.
 
 7 6 The Dread Visitant. 
 
 "Job Starns, take yer hat an' go away from here," 
 cried the deacon. 
 
 "Won't do it," answered Job, shortly. 
 
 "Coin' to pizon me, eh?" asked the deacon, raising 
 himself up quickly on his elbows. 
 
 Job turned as quick as a flash to the bedside. 
 
 "See here, Deacon Spud, you have injured me as no 
 man ever did before. I might have retaliated; I might 
 have done a hundred things before this to injure you. I 
 am not a coward, that I waited until you were sick and 
 then came to destroy you. My religion teaches me to do 
 good to my enemies. I have, come here to save your life, 
 if possible. I will nurse you, and you shall have every 
 comfort; but you must trust me, deacon." 
 
 Deacon Spud slowly sank down from his elbows and 
 crawled under the bedclothes again.
 
 Duty versus Duty. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DUTY VERSUS DUTY. 
 
 STRANGE that duty should issue such contradictor}' com- 
 mands to different minds concerning the same subject in 
 question. Duty commanded Peggy Sproul to stand by the 
 Chinaman, and Peggy obeyed. Duty commanded Job 
 Stearns to contest their right to intrude upon the inherited 
 hunting-grounds of the whites, and Job obeyed. Duty 
 persuaded Mrs. Caldwell that she ought to interfere with 
 Job Stearns and Bessie, her daughter, and prevent them 
 from making an ill-advised match; on the other hand, 
 Bessie was persuaded that duty demanded that she should 
 be the balm of Job's wounded heart, and she nobly did 
 her duty. A mother's pride had something to do with the 
 anxiety Mrs. Caldwell felt; pride in her daughter's good 
 name; pride in the untainted family honor. 
 
 "If Job is not a guilty man," she reasoned, "he is at 
 least under a dark cloud, and grave suspicions are enter- 
 tained of him." 
 
 Bessie, on the other hand, reasoned: "If Job is under 
 a dark cloud, and grave suspicions are entertained of him, 
 he is at least not guilty, and needs my sympathy." 
 
 Bessie wondered why Job did not call. Mrs. Caldwell 
 did not wonder; she thought she knew why. Probably 
 the plain truths she had so bluntly told him the last time
 
 78 Duty versus Duty 
 
 he presumed to call, had shamed him into absenting him- 
 self. 
 
 Bessie was patient, and made no complaints; and yet 
 her heart ached when day after day went by, and no Job 
 came. She had heard of the small-pox in town; but that 
 Job, her Job, had buckled on his armor and gone forth to 
 battle the Apollyon for his enemy, she had not heard. 
 
 The bulletin-board of the town, however, Peggy Sproul, 
 soon made her appearance with the news. 
 
 "Jest think uv it," said Peggy, as she entered the house, 
 her eyes as big as saucers, and her forehead marked into 
 latitudinal lines; "jest think uv it; thet 'ar repperbate, Job 
 Starns, hez gone inter the deacon's house, to ' nuss him/ 
 the doctor says. More like to kerwheedle the dear, good 
 man inter leavin' uv his property to him." 
 
 " What's that you say," asked the widow, aghast at the 
 idea; "Job Stearns gone to nurse Deacon Spud ? Why 
 you must be mistaken, Sister Sproul; Job has never had 
 the small-pox." 
 
 "No mustake about it," replied Peggy; "he's thar. 
 Dr. Gratiot told me so. He's never hed it, I know, an' 
 it's onnatral thet he should go thar 'less he hed some idee 
 uv gettin' the better uv the poor de-a-r soul," sniveled 
 
 Bessie had been turning all colors during this conversa- 
 tion. First, she felt that she should faint; then indignation 
 roused her, and she turned on Peggy Sproul, with eyes 
 bright as stars, her little hands clenched tightly together.
 
 Duty versus Duty. 79 
 
 " You talk of Job Stearns' motives; you ascribe mean, 
 low reasons for his going to Deacon Spud, in his trouble, 
 when no one else would ! You I you ! Why you have no 
 more comprehension of a noble man's or woman's heart 
 than that chair has, you cruel woman. You whine about 
 the de-ar, go-od man as though you loved him as I love 
 Job Stearns, and yet you dare not enter his house to see 
 him in his trouble. You, with your whining and canting, 
 have broken poor Job's heart, and crushed him, and now 
 you are mean enough to trample on him when he is down. 
 You a Christian ! You I Shame 1 " 
 
 " 'Possess thyself with pashunse, ' possess thyself with 
 .ishunse," murmured Peggy to herself. 
 
 "Do! Yes, do I" cried Bessie; "possess yourself, and 
 let other people alone." 
 
 "Bessie! Bessie, dear!" interposed Mrs. Caldwell, "re- 
 member Sister Sproul is older than you; you shouldn't 
 talk so to one of her years and experience." 
 
 All Bessie's combativeness was aroused; there was no 
 curbing her now; she was under full headway; they must 
 fight the fire they have kindled. 
 
 " Her years and experience/ Has she lived long enough 
 to know how contemptible it is to strike a foe when he is 
 prostrate ? Has she lived long enough to learn that to have 
 a contrary opinion is no crime ? You needn't frown at 
 me, ma, and Peggy needn't wrinkle up her forehead, 
 either; she'll have to have more wrinkles before she out- 
 grows her mean, petty spirit."
 
 So Duty versus Duty. 
 
 Mrs. Caldwell rose to her feet, and pointed to the door. 
 
 " You had better go, Bessie, and think a little while in 
 your own room," she said, firmly. 
 
 Bessie went, and there was a look in her eyes that said 
 she would think, and think as she pleased, too. 
 
 " How the dear gal hez changed," said Peggy; "why I 
 thought fer sartin she was agoin' to be one uv our stan'- 
 bys in the werk; but la! she ar' teetotally under the in- 
 fuence uv Job Starns." 
 
 " Sister Sproul, I can't believe that Job is as bad as you 
 seem to think. Perhaps we have all misjudged him," said 
 the widow, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Misjedged him ? Why, Sister Ca-1-d-w-e-ll ! he hed 
 ev'ry show to prove himself innocent," said the astonished 
 Peggy. 
 
 " But is it fair to expect a man to prove his innocence ? 
 Ought it not to devolve upon us to prove his guilt ?" 
 
 "Deareeme! Sakes alive! I do b'leeve thet gal is a 
 turnin' you agin' us, too," said Peggy. 
 
 " I am turned against nobody, Sister Sproul; I only don't 
 wish to do injustice to an innocent man," answered Mrs. 
 Caldwell. 
 
 " Oh, wall, ef yer think him innercent, that ends it all. 
 I've nothing more ter say;" and Peggy flounced out of the 
 room. 
 
 All this while the much-abused Job Stearns was sitting 
 like a picket in a dangerous position, watching the enemy.
 
 Duty versus Duty. 81 
 
 The deacon had been fussy; and who is not in such a 
 position? A nervous, restless, active man; flat on his 
 back; covered with itching scabs, and near, it may be, to 
 the portals of the great unknown. Now he was enjoying 
 a few moments' of rest, under the influence of the power- 
 ful narcotic given him. Job was thinking. Why had he 
 come here ? Had he not been very foolish, very unwise 
 to risk his life in this way ? Why had he not hired some 
 one to come in his place ? No, he would not do a kindy' 
 act and then repent it. He had fought the battle over in 
 in his own mind before coming. He had come; he would 
 stay. 
 
 The form of disease which had attacked Deacon Spud 
 was of the most fearful character. It was confluent small- 
 pox. He might die; probably to-day if at all, and then 
 what would become of him of Job Stearns. He might 
 take the disease and die too. Die! No, he couldn't do 
 that. He must not die. 
 
 Visions of Bessie's sweet, trusting face came up before 
 him, and visions of the grave the cold, dreary, lonesome 
 grave. 
 
 Death! He wasn't afraid to die; but Bessie ah, there 
 was the anchor which held him. Great beads of cold 
 sweat stood out all over him; he was fainting he, big, 
 strong Job Stearns was fainting at the thought of death. 
 Shame! 
 
 "Water! water!" murmured the deacon, turning rest- 
 lessly in his bed.
 
 82 Duty versus Duty. 
 
 Job shook himself, and crowded the hideous picture 
 back out of sight in his mind, and was ready for his work 
 again, a strong, self-reliant man. The deacon rolled his 
 eyes in his head piteously toward where Job stood. 
 
 " You here yet ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes, deacon, I'm here," replied Job, cheerfully. 
 
 " Thought you'd a gone 'fore this. Aint yer most afeer'd, 
 Job Starns ? " 
 
 " No ! no ! Deacon, don't worry about me." 
 
 The old man groaned and turned restlessly from side to 
 side; presently he stretched out his hands towards Job. 
 
 "Job Starns, ez it night ? " 
 
 " No, deacon, it's not dark yet," replied Job. 
 
 "Job," he said faintly, " I think I'm a sinkin'; it's dark 
 and my mind ain't jest clar." 
 
 "You must look to Him who leads us in the dark, 
 Deacon Spud," counseled Job, as he bathed the old man's 
 face to refresh him. 
 
 The somber shades of the evening of delirium were fast 
 gathering around the deacon, to be followed by the dark 
 and more terrible night of death. 
 
 " Oh, Job what hev I done ter yer? Ken yer hi, thar 
 they come, fire-crackers, pigtails,' ketch him, Simon ken 
 yer forgive me, Job ? " he cried, piteously; then his eyes 
 rolled wildly as he seemed to catch sight of Simon Spud. 
 " You stole it, yer know yer did, Simon yes, yes, I know, 
 Job wants the gal, but yer shouldn't let yer old father do 
 this thing Job Starns ! pray ! pray !"
 
 Duty versus Duty. 83 
 
 Job dropped upon his knees, sobbing like a child 
 "Great God, wilt thou forgive this man; he has sinned, but 
 he knew not what he did. Have mercy, Lord, for Jesus 
 sake " 
 
 "Amen," cried the deacon. 
 
 "Job Job quick here, bend down, I can't talk loud. 
 I never ment to harm yer, Job I didn't it was the cursed 
 money. Ay, money, money that hez been my sin. Tell 
 Simon I say di divide it brethering, he must be 
 guilty. Job, take it one-half give me paper paper 
 will." The old deacon clutched the bedclothes wildly; 
 for a moment his eyes started fearfully from their sockets 
 he seemed to be looking far, far away; then they melted 
 suddenly into a sweetness of expression they never had 
 worn in all his life before; then, like the sunset, they went 
 out out to open in the glorious morning of the new, new 
 world. 
 
 Deacon Spud was dead. The mistaken man was at 
 rest. In that last moment the better nature, the faith of 
 the old man crushed the serpent with its heel. 
 
 Job had conquered. Himself the deacon. He had 
 saved his own manhood; he had saved a soul.
 
 84 The Midnight Funeral. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT FUNERAL. 
 
 DEATH is a terrible visitor at any time. When he comes 
 to the father, surrounded by wife and children, he is 
 terrible. When he steals away the patter of the little feet 
 and the prattle of the little tongue, and stills the little, 
 loving heart, he is terrible. In the lone watches of the 
 sea, in the trackless desert, everywhere he is terrible; but 
 how awful he is when clad in his most fearful garb; he 
 comes and drives those most dear to us away, sets the seal 
 of pestilence upon our doorposts, and bears us away un- 
 blest by loving hands, unwatched by loving eyes. 
 
 Sad, indeed, is the casket when gilded, velveted, and 
 borne by saddened friends. Sadder is the lone, wild, 
 dreary night, when the silent form is hastily shrouded and 
 borne away unmourned, unwept, unsung. 
 
 It was midnight; all Yarbtown slept. Cold the winds 
 blew. Dark, the clouds drifted one upon another. A 
 cold drizzling rain was falling. An old dilapidated cart 
 had drawn up at Deacon Spud's gate. Two men silently 
 entered the house. Presently they came out bearing a 
 long black box covered with canvass. They pushed it 
 rudely into the cart and hastily spread the canvass over all. 
 One walked before with a pitch torch, the other mounted 
 the wagon and drove behind. No carriages followed. 
 No long procession wended its way behind it. The horse
 
 THE MIDNIGHT BURIAL.
 
 The Midnight Funeral 85 
 
 shumbled along in the mud and darkness, guided by the 
 curses of his driver. They reached the grave-yard and 
 halted beside a newly made grave, and dropped the box 
 roughly upon the ground. 
 
 " Tumble the old chap in, Bill ! " said the driver coarsely 
 to his companion. . 
 
 " 'Sh, Joe; see there," the sexton replied, pointing up to 
 the sky. 
 
 The drizzling rain had ceased suddenly, the clouds had 
 parted like a grand curtain, and as they lowered the box 
 down a meteor shot across the clear space above, then the 
 black clouds rolled together again, and the storm recom- 
 menced. Deacon Spud was buried. No priest, no parson, 
 no mourner. 
 
 Yes, one. Out from behind a tall oak darted a dark 
 figure. It came to the grave-side and threw in a handful 
 of earth, and a voice repeated, "I heard a voice from 
 heaven, saying unto me, ' Write, from henceforth blessed 
 are the dead who die in the Lord; ever so, saith the Spirit; 
 for they rest from their labors." 
 
 The sexton seized the shovel, and the clods fell upon 
 the coffin. Job Stearns turned and fled into the darkness 
 again.
 
 86 Peggy S ets Vaccinated. 
 
 CHAPTER IVX. 
 
 PEGGY GETS VACCINATED. 
 
 SICKNESS is always a serious thing; but to all serious 
 things there is a humorous side. A man suffering with an 
 enlargement of the liver, probably considers himself an 
 object of commiseration; but when that man is a high dig- 
 nitary of Church or State, and his friends are introduced 
 to his presence while he is swathed in a sheet, and his 
 three hundred pounds of adipose tissue are slopping over 
 the sides of a sitz bath-tub, while he, in the endeavor to 
 preserve his dignity, resembles a good motherly hen setting 
 on her eggs; that is the humorous side of trouble. 
 
 Small-pox is no joke. Its presence in a community is 
 anything but a funny affair. But when people lose their 
 balance of reason, and their common sense runs riot; when 
 dignified men and women en'deavor to combat it in their 
 several widely-differing ways, then the grim humor of the 
 thing is seen. 
 
 Yarbtown was frightened out of its wits during the prev- 
 alence of small-pox among the Chinamen. The atmos- 
 phere of the village was no longer laden with the odor of 
 blossoming flower-beds, even Aristocracy street no longer 
 drank in the exhilarating effluvia of the China styx. 
 German cologne, Lubin, Florida water all, all were 
 dreams and essences of the past. 
 
 Yarbtown smelled bad. Everybody closed the car
 
 PEQQY'S TRIBULATION
 
 Peggy gets Vaccinated. 87 
 
 windows when the train passed through it. The tax col- 
 lector avoided the place. He wasn't afraid of the small- 
 pox, but the smell, you know, ugh! Carbolic acid, cam- 
 phor and assafetida were the favorite odors wherewith the 
 good people perfumed themselves. 
 
 The doctor said tobacco was a preventative, and every- 
 body took to smoking. It was the millennial to young 
 Yarbtown. Even Parson Smudgins winked at it, and took 
 an occasional public whiff himself; People passed each 
 other on the street under the old boarding-school law of 
 ten feet apart. The hard-working doctor reaped a rich 
 harvest from the sale of vaccine matter. His office was 
 crowded during his business hours. 
 
 Peggy Sproul came among the rest. She came in flus- 
 trated and red, and charged upon the doctor, with her eyes 
 starting from her head. 
 
 " I dew believe, I dew believe I'm a 'goin ter hev 'em, 
 doctor," she cried as she bounced into the room. 
 
 " Have them ? Have what ? " asked the doctor. 
 
 " Why, them small-peeks." 
 
 " Oh, I guess not, Peggy," responded the doctor, coolly. 
 
 " But, oh, doctor, I hev sech a headache when I bend 
 over en this way," said Peggy, suiting her actions to her 
 words, as she nearly rubbed her nose on the worthy doctor's 
 boot bending over. 
 
 "And why the d do you bend over that way?" in- 
 quired the astonished M. D.
 
 88 Peggy gets Vaccinated. 
 
 " An' sech a backache ez I hev em a-ooh-a ! " screamed 
 Peggy. 
 
 " Great Napoleon ! I should think you would have the 
 backache if you twist your spinal column about so." 
 
 "What jvfo//I dew?" 
 
 "Get vaccinated, of course." 
 
 "Will it hurt, doctor?" 
 
 " Of course; a little, but ain't you woman enough to stand 
 that," asked the doctor. 
 
 "Can't I take kerlorerform ? " piteously whined Peggy. 
 
 "Chloroform ! Why, I should think you were going to 
 have an arm sawed off." 
 
 Peggy bared an arm about as big as a broom-handle, 
 and took out her smelling-bottle. 
 
 " Aho-o-o-o ! " she screamed, jumping out of her 
 chair as the doctor opened his lancet. 
 
 "Sit still, sit still, I won't hurt you." 
 
 Doctor Gratiot took Peggy's arm between his thumb 
 and ringer and began to scrape. Then ensued a series of 
 shrieks and groans. 
 
 " Peggy, Peggy, I'm ashamed of you. Can't you keep 
 still ?" said the doctor as he chased her arm about her head. 
 
 "There, it's all done," said he; "it didn't hurt you 
 much, did it ? " 
 
 But Peggy had fainted. 
 
 "Jim, Jim !" shouted the doctor, "fetch in a pail of 
 water."
 
 Peggv gets Vaccinated 89 
 
 His boy came in with a big bucket of it. 
 
 "Throw a basin of it on her face," said the doctor, 
 winking at Jim. 
 
 " No ! no ! Never mind, I'm all right," squealed 
 Peggy, faintly. 
 
 " I thought that would bring her round," he muttered. 
 
 Peggy Sproul fanned herself a few minutes, and after a 
 proper time had elapsed, she came to. 
 
 "Now, Miss Sproul," said the doctor, "don't be afraid 
 of small-pox and you won't have it. 
 
 Miss Sproul straightened out her gown, and tying her 
 sponge of carbolic acid under her chin, started for home. 
 The lesson and instruction which the doctor had given her 
 seemed not to benefit Ler much, for, although she climbed 
 fences and waded ditches to avoid Chinatown on her way 
 home, yet she was convinced that some plague-smitten 
 Celestial must have put his hand on that very last fence she 
 climbed. She got down her hand-glass the moment she 
 reached home, and peering anxiously into it, discovered 
 three or four minute pimples on her forehead. 
 
 "Oh! " she groaned, as she saw them, " I knew I had 
 ketched it. Thar it is fer sure." 
 
 She rubbed carbolic acid furiously all over her face and 
 hands. 
 
 " Oh, he needn't tell me I hevn't it. My back, oh, how't 
 does ache! Ef 'twan't for the conslations uv religion 
 what'd I dew ? "
 
 90 Peggy gets Vaccinated. 
 
 Poor Peggy, she suffered all the horrors at least of small- 
 pox, in imagination. 
 
 " My neck ! The back uv it! Aow!" 
 
 Peggy pinched and strained that part of herperson to 
 see if she could discover any unusual feeling in that 
 quarter. 
 
 "Et'sthar! I knew it. Oh, dearee, dearee an' must 
 I foller the deekun so soon! I must put out a flag ter 
 onct, les some poor creeter come an' ketch it/' 
 
 She pulled from a cupboard, the bag in which she kept 
 the soiled clothes and picked out of it a dirty, yellow silk 
 handkerchief. She smoothed its wrinkles out on her lap, 
 and some little glittering tear-drops fell down upon it. 
 Poor woman, her sorrows and fears were real to her, and 
 that same tenderness in her nature that made her some- 
 times, in her impetuosity, weep for others, now brought 
 tears to her eyes for her own griefs. 
 
 Alas, Peggy, if you had only felt as deeply for the sor- 
 rows of the manly Job! She took the yellow handkerchief 
 and walked like a martyr to the front-gate and pinned it up. 
 
 " Thar," she said, as she shut the door with a sigh, "I've 
 done my dooty, anyhow." 
 
 Peggy lived alone. She went to her bed aching from 
 head to foot, with no one to take care of her, no kind hand 
 to cool her now almost bursting head. She dare not go 
 out, she might catch cold, she might give the disease to 
 some of her neighbors; so she took a dose of cream of
 
 
 SlBI 
 
 PEQQY PUTS OUT THE YELLOW
 
 Peggy gets Vaccinated. 91 
 
 tartar, and patiently awaited events, trusting in Providence 
 and her yellow flag. 
 
 Fortunately for Peggy, events soon shaped themselves 
 for her. Mr. Smudgins was out making pastoral calls, 
 and as he opened Miss Sproul's front-gate the yellow sen- 
 tinel fluttered under his hand. 
 
 "Wh-a-t! Small-pox here?" He pulled a phial of 
 carbolic acid out of his vest-pocket and washed the hand 
 that touched the dread silk, and hastily lighting a cigar, 
 rushed down-town towards the doctor's office. Dr. Gratiot 
 was busy with his books, and turned round in surprise as 
 the minister rushed in with the cigar still in his mouth. 
 
 "Hoi-toi-ti! What's this mean, parson? Smoking? 
 Phew what next ? " 
 
 " Has Sister Sproul got the small-pox ? he gasped 
 between the puffs of smoke. 
 
 " Sister Sproul got the small-pox ! Measles ! Itch ! 
 No / " thundered the doctor. 
 
 " She's got a flag out," said the parson. 
 
 " Got a flag out ? Why, the woman's crazy," cried the 
 astonished doctor. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " said the minister, puzzled. 
 
 " Mean ! Why, she came here to get vaccinated a little 
 while ago, and was scared out of her senses with the notion 
 that she had the small-pox, and I suppose the foolish 
 woman has put the flag out with that idea." 
 
 " Well, it strikes me we had better go down and see the
 
 92 Peggy g^ Vaccinated. 
 
 poor woman, and quiet her fears," said the parson medita- 
 tively, dropping his cigar into the grate. 
 
 "I'll quiet her fears," said Dr. Gratiot, sarcastically, 
 " she'll scare the whole neighborhood." The two profes- 
 sionals walked arm in arm to Peggy's house. 
 
 " There it is, sure enough," said the doctor, with a laugh. 
 He pulled the flag off the fence and put it in his pocket. 
 
 They knocked at the door. " Who's thar ? " said a 
 faint voice inside. 
 
 " I the doctor." 
 
 "Come in," said the voice again. 
 
 Dr. Gratiot pushed the door open and walked in very 
 softly. 
 
 There lay Peggy Sproul on the bed with a load of blank- 
 ets piled upon her, the sweat rolling down her woe-begone 
 face. A little table stood beside her with a whole apothe- 
 cary shop on it. 
 
 "Humph, that's right, sweat yourself freely." 
 
 He took up one bottle after another and smelled the 
 contents. 
 
 "Ah, yes; chloride of potash to relieve the nervous- 
 ness laudanum pain sweet oil itching cream-tartar 
 small-pox. Yes, yes, all right, just the thing. Feel bet- 
 ter?" he asked as he felt her pulse. 
 
 " No, no ! But the parson, send him out'n here." 
 
 " He's all right. Had it all, havn't you, parson ? " said 
 the doctor.
 
 Peggy gets Vaccinated. 93 
 
 " Oh, ter think I'd hev the small-pocks. That's it, ain't 
 it, doctor?" inquired Peggy, mournfully. 
 
 " Yes. Confluent. Worst kind. Sores all run together. 
 See here and here," said the doctor, pointing to some old 
 scabs on Peggy's head, " terrible, terrible," he said shak- 
 ing his head; " headache, backache, legs ache, hair all com- 
 ing out," pointing to Peggy's bald front; "fever, rash, 
 small-pox, small wit, small sense, fool! " screamed the 
 doctor. 
 
 Peggy sat right up in bed, her eyes snapping fire. " Dew 
 yer mean ter tell me I hain't got it, doctor Grashut ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do ! And more than that, you are making a 
 big fool of yourself besides ! " thundered the doctor. 
 
 " After all I've borne ter be treated so," snivelled Peggy. 
 
 Doctor Gratiot, disgusted, put on his hat and retired, 
 leaving the minister to finish his pastoral call.
 
 94 Job Retreats. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 JOB RETREATS. 
 
 THERE was a quaint old fashioned nobility about Job 
 Stearns. He was a frank, open, honest man, with a bluff 
 humor, characteristics which rendered him a general favorite 
 with all who knew him intimately. Job was a fine speci- 
 s> men of the kind of men America can make out of the 
 common stock; thoroughly in love with his country's 
 institutions, believing in the freedom of the American soil 
 to all who can and will assimilate with its offspring. 
 
 He thought; and having thought, he based his opin- 
 ions upon what he decided was the truth. Cant, hollow 
 philosophy, bigotry and maudlin sentimentalism never 
 stirred him one inch from the position he might assume 
 concerning any question. Persecution had failed to do 
 what sentiment could not. Loved by the people, hated by 
 the capitalists, feared by Simon Spud, distrusted by Mrs. 
 Caldwell, and now fresh from a plague-tainted house, Job 
 was in an uncomfortable position. 
 
 After he left the grave of Deacon Spud and returned 
 through the driving rain to the house, he felt as though the 
 curse of the leper rested upon him. He must enter no 
 man's house, he must hail no passing friend, he must cool 
 his tongue at no man's well-curb. Job was an outcast. 
 The church closed her doors upon him. The guardian 
 of his love folded her wings around his idol and warned
 
 Job Retreats. 95 
 
 him off. And now, with the suspicion of possible varioloid 
 resting- upon him, he would be shunned by all. 
 
 No work, no home; he had better go go out of the 
 old life into a new. But could he go and not first see 
 Bessie ? Yes, he must not risk an interview. 
 
 When a suitable time had passed, and all possible danger 
 was gone, he would write to her. Job went out into the 
 deacon's wood-shed and changed his clothes. He took 
 the old ones and made a bon-fire of them. The little 
 tongues of fire, in the deacon's garden had speech in them, 
 for they told a tale to a pair of tearful eyes looking out 
 from Bessie Caldwell's window; and, in the light, these 
 same eyes saw the outlined figure of Job standing with 
 folded arms watching the fire. Love is quick to apprehend 
 the truth. 
 
 "Ah, he is done with his work. He will go now. 
 Where ? Not here. No, no. He will leave town. Brave 
 fellow, he has shown them what courage and man- 
 liness he had, and now he will leave, that they may 
 not say he spread the disease. He shall not go without 
 seeing me. I will see him ? " 
 
 The face withdrew from the window, the curtain was 
 pulled down, and Bessie carefully changed all her garments 
 and wrapped an old sheet about her, first sprinkling it with 
 carbolic acid. 
 
 "He'll think I'm a ghost!" she laughed to herself. 
 
 Job had put a change of linen into a big handkerchief,
 
 9 6 Job Retreats. 
 
 and knotted the bundle to the end of a walking-stick. 
 He carefully closed all the doors and windows, and started 
 forth again into the stormy night. He could not go with- 
 out taking one last glimpse at the home of the object most 
 dear to him, so he paused a moment in front of Mrs. 
 Caldwell's house. He heard a latc^h lift and fall again into 
 its place, and hastily started on. 
 
 " Fleeing like a thief in the night," he muttered as he 
 swung out on to the broad road leading through the woods 
 toward Stockton. 
 
 Just as he was passing under the spreading branches of 
 a huge oak, he saw a white figure standing behind the 
 trunk. 
 
 " Am I dreaming," he said to himself, passing his hand 
 over his forehead, " or has confinement so unnerved me 
 that I see spirits ? " 
 
 "Job," called a low voice from the figure. 
 
 "What -you, Bessie?" 
 
 " Yes, it's I, Job. May I come to you ? " 
 
 "No, no, not for the world, Bessie," he cried, moving 
 his hand as though he would push her back, " don't, don't 
 come near me." 
 
 " But I will, Job. I am not afraid of small-pox; and if 
 you've got it, I want it too." 
 
 She ran to him, and in a moment the big arms were 
 clasping the dripping little figure in the- sheet. 
 
 " Oh, Bessie, what made you come out here to see me ? 
 Don't you know the danger of it ? "
 
 Job Retreats. <jj 
 
 " Why, Job," Bessie sobbed, " did you think I would let 
 you leave and not see you first ? " 
 
 " It would have been better," replied he, though he held 
 her tightly while he spoke; "but how did you know? I 
 did not tell any one." 
 
 "Yes, you did; you told me," pouted -Bessie. 
 
 "Told you? When?" 
 
 "Why, I saw you watching the fire in the deacon's 
 garden, and I knew you were getting ready to go away." 
 
 We will not intrude upon the scene which followed. 
 The vows, the promises, the sacred interchange of hearts; 
 let them be the secret of Bessie and Job, and the wild 
 storm. At length Job said, with an effort, " But I must go 
 now, Bessie, I really must," he emphasized as she clung to 
 him still more. closely. 
 
 " But, oh, Job, if you should have the horrid disease 
 away in the city all alone ? " sobbed Bessie, hysterically. 
 
 " Why, then the great God who has ever cared for us 
 will take care of me," he replied. 
 
 "You will be sure to write me?" said she, timidly. 
 
 " Indeed I will," he responded. 
 
 The parting ? Ah, let the great heart of the big, noble 
 oak under which they stood tell if it dare. What right 
 have I to tell of the long clinging embrace, the kiss, strained 
 through the falling tears. 
 
 Job was gone. There he was, like a brave soldier, 
 marching to new conquests for duty, and Bessie was alone.
 
 98 Job Retreats. 
 
 No, not alone; for, as she retraced her steps homeward, 
 Job turned and followed at a distance. He watched her 
 until the little latch rose and fell again, and then stoically 
 put out on his journey.
 
 Simon Spud Plots. 99 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SIMON SPUD PLOTS. 
 
 WHILE Deacon Spud was being watched and cared for 
 by his enemy, or rather his victim, his affectionate and 
 promising son Simon was spending the parental money, 
 and forgetting the parental admonitions, in the city of San 
 Francisco. He had neither written to, nor heard from his 
 father, since indirectly he had learned that Job Stearns was 
 in attendance upon him. 
 
 Simon was by nature incapable of affection ; selfish, self- 
 asserting, without conscience, unscrupulous and ignorant, 
 he constituted a dangerous enemy to Job. He was pos- 
 sessed of no affection for his father, he had no love for 
 Bessie Caldwell, other than that animal passion aroused by 
 her fair face and form. 
 
 It is doubtful if he would have persevered in that direc- 
 tion long, had it not been for the opposition of Job, and 
 the self-conscious inferiority he felt, morally, physically and 
 mentally, to his rival. He was determined to out-general 
 his foe. Possess the girl he would. What right had the 
 common foreman of his father's factories to step in between 
 him and the accomplishment of his desires ? 
 
 Fair means he, Simon, had not skill enough to employ ; 
 foul, he had tried and would try again. 
 
 Simon put up at the Lick House. He had used up the 
 city, though it is doubtful if the metropolis felt any the
 
 ioo Simon Spud Plots. 
 
 worse for its using; up, and now he was wearied of sight- 
 seeing, and was waiting for some new sensation. San 
 Francisco is a good city to enjoy one's self in ; amuse- 
 ments and places of resort suited to all dispositions are to 
 be found there ; but Simon Spud's mind was not cast in a 
 large mold, it was narrow, petty, trifling ; bed-rock run 
 near the surface. 
 
 Two days after Job left Yarbtown, Simon was airing 
 himself and toothpick on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. 
 
 " Mighty dull in this confounded city," he said to him- 
 self ; " if the governor don't get well pretty soon or put 
 out for new diggings, I must have a run down the coast. 
 Wish something would turn up to amuse a fellow. Ought 
 to have a fire or something of the sort once in a while. 
 By Jove, if that isn't Job Stearns over there, I'll be ! " 
 
 It was Job, swinging along like an honest farmer, on the 
 other side of Montgomery street. Simon dropped his 
 toothpick and stared at him a moment, then darted across 
 the street and followed behind Job. 
 
 " See where he hangs out to-night, watch him and per- 
 haps he'll play into my hands," said Simon to himself. 
 
 Job threaded his way among the crowd to Market street 
 and went into a cheap, respectable lodging-house. 
 
 "Spotted," said Simon, as he saw the door close on Job; 
 "and if he sees Yarbtown for another year, my name is 
 not Simon Spud." 
 
 Simon had read all the yellow-covered trash of the day,
 
 Simon Spud Plots, 101 
 
 and his mind was full of the expedients used by the heroes 
 to rid themselves of obnoxious rivals. He was too cow- 
 ardly to do what his heart was mean enough to do, although 
 he would have been glad to have seen Job's form lying 
 among the stark figures in the Morgue ; more than that, he 
 was too much afraid of the muscularity of Job to under- 
 take individually any physical interference with his move- 
 ments. Simon walked along the streets, wondering how 
 he could, the most securely to himself, remove his rival 
 out of his path. 
 
 Whether it was the instinct of the man, or his evil gen- 
 ius, or mere fate, which guided him, cannot be easily as- 
 certained ; but certainly his footsteps turned very naturally 
 toward the Barbary Coast, and in a little while Simon 
 found himself on Front street, with the towering masts of 
 the forest of vessels before him. These and the knots of 
 half-drunken sailors around him suggested a means to 
 gratify his desires. 
 
 "That's it, I'll be if I don't get him whangdoodled, 
 
 or whatever they call it." 
 
 To think was to act with Simon Spud. He seldom 
 thought enough to look ahead to consequences ; to have a 
 desire and see before him a way of satisfying it was suffi- 
 cient. He had wit enough to feel his way a little carefully, 
 however. 
 
 Simon walked along the wharves, looking at the ships, 
 until he saw one which seemed about ready to put to sea, 
 and he boarded her.
 
 IO2 Simon Spud Plots. 
 
 "Captain aboard?" he asked of one of the foremast 
 hands leaning on the taffrail. 
 
 "No, but there's the mate over there," replied the sailor, 
 jerking his thumb over his shoulder, toward the other side 
 of the vessel. 
 
 Simon walked across the deck and accosted the man desig- 
 nated as the mate. He asked him if he was about to sail 
 soon. 
 
 " Yes, as soon as we get our complement of hands," re- 
 plied the mate. 
 
 " Oh, you are taking in men ? Would you like a good 
 stout hand before the mast ? " 
 
 " Why. do you want to ship, lad ? " 
 
 The mate scanned Simon's dandy figure from top to 
 bottom. 
 
 " Oh no, / don't ; but I have a man whose constitution 
 would be benefited by a sea voyage," replied Simon. 
 
 " H ! We don't want any sick men aboard this craft; 
 why, man, she's bound for Australia. Hands will have to 
 be up and at it on this voyage." 
 
 "That suits me; the farther off she goes, the better for 
 me. The fellow isn't sick, he's a strong, healthy lands- 
 man," said Simon. 
 
 "Oho! You want to ship him whether or no, eh? 
 Dangerous business in San Francisco, my lad," said the 
 mate, shaking his head at Simon as he spoke. 
 
 " Pshaw, man, you won't be back for a twelve-months, 
 and you can easily leave him behind."
 
 Simon Spud Plots. 103 
 
 "Ain't coming back in twelve months. We ship from 
 there to Liverpool," said the mate. 
 
 " Then what are you afraid of? " said Simon, "you want 
 hands, and he's a good one." 
 
 " Can't do it," replied the mate; " too much risk." 
 
 " I'll give you a hundred dollars to get him off for me," 
 said Simon, looking around to see that nobody heard him. 
 
 " Now you talk business," said the mate, grinning; " per- 
 haps I can get some of the boys to persuade him to ship." 
 
 " You do it and I'll pay you and the men." 
 
 " Hand over the shiners, lad, and show us the man." 
 
 Simon pulled out his purse and counted out the money 
 and passed it over to the mate. 
 
 " Send your men up to the corner of Market and Mont- 
 gomery to-night at six, and I'll spot him for them; but 
 they must do the rest. I don't want to mix in the matter," 
 he said, as he turned to leave the ship. 
 
 " D coward," said the mate to himself, " wants a dirty 
 job done for him because his coward hands are afraid to 
 touch the fellow; but a hundred dollars ain't to be sneered 
 at"
 
 IO4 Job Shanghaed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 JOB SHANGHAED. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO was a novelty to Job Stearns, although he 
 had been there several times before. 
 
 Rip Van Winkle slept twenty years and came back to 
 find his wife dead, his daughter married and all his old 
 cronies in the grave-yard. The San Franciscan leaves his 
 pet city for one-quarter of that time, and .comes back to 
 find his wife gone off with some other man, his old cronies 
 sporting diamond pins and among the fortunate bulls of 
 California street, and the city spread out like an encroach- 
 ing sea. It makes wonderful strides in a year. 
 
 Civilization pushes to new conquests, new fields; bar- 
 barism, heathenism, takes the old fields and pushes close 
 on its heels, driving out the lingering remnants of refine- 
 ment, and forming an impassable barrier against the 
 returning tide of civilization. 
 
 Plant tobacco in your field and it destroys the soil for 
 aught else. There must be patient waiting and a thorough 
 renovation of the land before it can again yield the fair 
 and juicy fruit. On some of the best soil of America are 
 Chinese institutions planted. 
 
 They poison the earth, they suck the richness, the nour- 
 ishment out, and leave the impoverished dust, while they 
 return to China to jingle their pockets and laugh in their 
 sleeves at us like Yankee clock-peddlers.
 
 Job Shanghaed. 105 
 
 " Marvelous ! " exclaimed Job, as he mentally con- 
 trasted the city with what it was ten years before. " Mar- 
 velous!" as he gazed at the Grand Hotel, the Mint. 
 
 Everything had changed. Changed so far as the first 
 few hours' inspection were concerned. 
 
 "Wonderful race of men, these Californians." 
 
 Yes, it is the men, not circumstances, who have made 
 San Francisco what it is to-day. The brave, enduring, 
 pushing men of the world have congregated there, and 
 their work has been grand. But Job Stearns was destined 
 to take a new view of affairs before another day had gone 
 over his head. 
 
 "Chinamen; Chinese influence; Chinese labor; " these 
 were constantly intruding into his thoughts. He would 
 see the Chinatown of the city. He would find out whether 
 he was mistaken in his estimate of their value to California 
 or not. He chose an hour late in the afternoon for his 
 investigation. Disdaining the protection of a policeman, 
 and trusting in his own muscle for protection, he entered 
 Chinese San Francisco. It was like leaving the sunshine 
 and entering the darkest night, as he left the quiet streets 
 and peaceful dwellings of his own race and plunged into 
 the Chinese quarters. Rubbish, garbage of all kinds 
 strewed the walks, and his eyes were saluted by chicken 
 coops, his ears by grunting, filthy hogs. 
 
 The very sidewalks sent up their heathenish odors as the 
 planks gave way under his tread. Crowded, teeming full,
 
 io6 Job Shanghaed. 
 
 were the houses everywhere. Not a doorway, not a win- 
 dow did he see, but that a grinning Chinaman occupied it. 
 
 "Well, here is one landmark left," he said, as he caught 
 sight of an old hotel. 
 
 He entered the doorway. It was swarming, lousy, with 
 pig- tails. 
 
 " Sixty rooms, and a regiment of Chinamen in it," 
 
 He went into the temples of worship. Red -faced, long- 
 whiskered, imbecile gods stared at him. He caught 
 glimpses of white boys entering the lowest, vilest haunts, 
 where vice is dealt out for the fractional part of a dollar. 
 
 "Phew! Horrors! I suffocate! Let me get down to the 
 Bay and get a breath of fresh air." 
 
 He hurried out of Chinatown. He found himself on 
 the " Barbary Coast." Here was white rot. Courtesans, 
 hoodlums, drunkards, swarmed the streets. Job rubbed 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Where's the choice ? " said he to himself; " is it possi- 
 ble our young men take their first lessons here, as Mr 
 
 says, and then graduate in Chinatown ? " 
 
 Hold on, Job, don't believe that; poor men generally 
 take their first steps at the cheapest place. Children's 
 spending money will not buy vice here. There's sophistry, 
 to say the least, in that sentence of Mr. 's. 
 
 Is Barbary Coast all of white San Francisco ? Thank 
 God, No ! This is but a small proportion of the civilized 
 inhabitants of San Francisco. But all Chinatown reeks.
 
 Job Shanghaed. 107 
 
 One hundred and fifty thousand Chinamen, out of which 
 perhaps three hundred have been converted to Christianity ! 
 Have not more than three hundred white souls paid a 
 price for them ? Ay, ten times three hundred ! 
 
 Away with such fallacy! Shall we flood a whole city/ 
 with rottenness, in order that we may extract a few valua- 
 ble gases from it ? Ah, Job, you are right. Go ahead 
 fight fanaticism, fight bigotry, fight the wrong use of capital, 
 and God bless the right. 
 
 Job walked through the streets with his head down, 
 thinking, weighing, and thinking and weighing again. 
 
 Three men suddenly stepped up to him and hailed him: 
 
 " Hallo, mate, let's have a drink." 
 
 Job paid no attention to them, but walked on. 
 
 One of them stepped in front of him and leering in his 
 face, said : " Guess we'd better take a wet, hadn't we, eh ? " 
 
 Job pushed him away with a sniff of contempt, and 
 started to leave them at a brisk walk. The fellow ran up 
 behind him, and with a sudden blow drew a long bag of 
 sand across the back of Job's head. 
 
 Stearns fell like a stunned bullock. 
 
 " G , Bill, you've killed him," said one of the men. 
 
 " Well, d him, he needn't have been so d obstinate." 
 
 " What'll we do? " said the other, anxiously, "you know 
 we were to get him drunk an' not hurt him." 
 
 The other man was bending over Job, feeling his pulse 
 and heart.
 
 io8 Job Shanghaed. 
 
 "Hold on, mates, no need to run, he's only stunned. 
 Let's rush him down to the boat before a star comes 
 along." 
 
 The men took Job up, and keeping close to the houses, 
 carried him down to the wharf and putting him into the 
 boat in waiting, pulled off to the ship, now lying out in the 
 Bay.
 
 Simon Assails the Citadel. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SIMON ASSAILS THE CITADEL. 
 
 WHEN Bessie returned to the house after parting from 
 Job, her heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She 
 had seen Job, and he had sealed their affection with re- 
 newed promises; she had seen Job, and he had gone away 
 from her with the sword of Damocles hanging over him. 
 The one remembrance produced the keenest sensation of 
 joy; the other, acute grief and anxiety. 
 
 Bessie was a brave girl though, and her courageous 
 heart doubled its fists in determination to suffer and endure, 
 and to await patiently the decrees of Providence. She stole 
 softly into the house, and quietly entering her chamber to 
 avoid awakening her mother, she threw herself upon the 
 bed and gave way to her feelings in a burst of tears. So 
 patient was she as the days went by, that the Widow Cald- 
 well flattered herself the worst was over, and her daughter 
 had by a great effort conquered herself. 
 
 Bessie was only waiting; waiting with a heart full of 
 faith in Job; waiting the promised letter. A. week had 
 gone, however, and no word had come. Every day the 
 post-office was visited in anxiety. 
 
 Simon Spud had returned meanwhile, since all danger 
 was gone, and had assumed control cf his father's business. 
 The contemptible whelp presumed upon the absence of 
 Job to begin again his attempts to worm his way into
 
 no Simon Assails the Citadel. 
 
 Bessie's affections. Bouquets and gewgaws began to come 
 . to her from unknown sources, followed at last by the 
 presence of Simon himself. 
 
 Bessie was a wise little body, and while her whole nature 
 revolted at the approaches of Simon, she remembered that 
 he had come from the great city, and it was just possible 
 that he might have met Job in his wanderings. She de- 
 termined to play upon the silly fellow's fascination, and 
 work his secret, if he had any, out of him. She was the 
 more decided to pursue this plan, from some hints which 
 the shallow-brained Simon had thrown out since his re- 
 turn, concerning Job. These hints consisted in remarks 
 to the effect that if he told all he knew of the doings of Job 
 Stearns, some people would alter their opinion of him 
 materially. 
 
 Simon parted his hair behind, pomaded his goatee and 
 mustache, perfumed himself and called upon Bessie one 
 day, decided upon a direct charge upon her heart. Bessie 
 played the hypocrite well, and received him with marked 
 cordiality. 
 
 "Why, Simon, what a stranger you are! I'm so glad 
 to see you. Are you not afraid to catch the small-pox at 
 your house ? " 
 
 "I don't stay there, you bet, Bessie. I've too much 
 sense to do such a foolish thing," replied Simon. 
 
 " How lonesome you must be since your father died," 
 said Bessie, sympathetically.
 
 Simon Assails the Citadel. in 
 
 " Well, 'tis kind of lonesome, but then I'm rich now, 
 Bessie. I've got over a hundred thousand dollars now/' 
 said Simon, running his thumb through the button-hole of 
 his lappel. 
 
 " Oh my, Simon! You ought to get married now," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 " Well, yes, I think I could afford it now, don't you ? *' 
 
 Simon hitched his chair up close to Bessie and crossed 
 one leg over the other. Bessie's heart fluttered anxiously. 
 She anticipated what was coming, but it was too soon; 
 she wanted some information first, so she hastily said: 
 
 "Job Stearns took good care of your father, Simon. I 
 wonder where the poor fellow is? " 
 
 " I suppose I could tell you if I wanted to." 
 
 Simon had a knowing look on his face, as if he had 
 great news to tell. 
 
 " I guess he is all right," said Bessie; " he went away to 
 avoid giving the disease to any one." 
 
 " The h he did I beg pardon, Miss Bessie, but Job 
 is a dissipated fellow," said Simon. 
 
 Bessie was on the point of answering the fool according 
 to his folly, but the desire to get news of Job kept her in 
 restraint, so she simply said: 
 
 " Why, what new thing has he been doing, Simon ? " 
 
 "Nothing new," replied Simon, "its the old story. I 
 saw him cavorting around among the Chinese on Dupont 
 street. Job is mighty fond of the Chinese, you know."
 
 112 Simon Assails the Citadel. 
 
 " Oh dear, is that so ? Did you really see him, and he 
 didn't have the small-pox after all ? " said Bessie. 
 
 "He? No, not he. Job's a hypocrite, Bessie; all his 
 former friends say so." 
 
 Bessie was sure Simon had seen Job, but the rest of the 
 tale went in at one ear and out at the other. The relief to 
 her mind was such, however, that she buried her face in 
 her hands, whjle the tears of joy streamed through her 
 fingers. Simon attributed these evidences of feeling to a 
 vastly different cause, and put his arm gradually about her 
 waist. Bessie didn't resist; she knew that Job was alive, 
 that's all she wanted of Simon Spud; but the devil in her, 
 and she had one as big as a woodchuck in her eye this 
 moment, tempted her to take revenge upon the man whose 
 perfidy had done so much to destroy Job. 
 
 Simon pressed close up to her and whispered: 
 
 " Don't you know how much / love you, Bessie." 
 
 " Oh, yes," murmured the hypocrite. 
 
 A thrill ran all through Simon, and his face glowed until 
 the pomade melted on his mustache; he threw himself 
 on his knees in the position he had practiced a hundred 
 times in his own room, and kissed the braid of her dress; 
 then he shoved his fist into his bosom and beating his 
 stomach with the other, said: 
 
 " My adorable Bessie, all my heart palpitates with love 
 for you; the angel of my father smiles upon my suit. Oh, 
 be mine, Bessie! I lay my heart, my property, at your 
 feet!"
 
 - - T> ^> 
 
 - 
 
 SlMON SPUDWOOS.
 
 Simon Assails the Citadel, 113 
 
 Bessie sighed. 
 
 " Won't you answer me, adorable one ? " he cried, after 
 waiting a moment; "I pause in agitation. 'Forget the lost 
 Lenore/ and receive me to your bosom!" 
 
 " Oh ! " sighed Bessie. 
 
 She was shaking with suppressed emotion; it was amuse- 
 ment; Simon augured victory. He sprung to his feet and 
 throwing both arms around her neck, tried to implant a 
 kiss on her buried face. Bessie slily closed her fingers 
 tightly over her face, and murmured, with a voice trem- 
 bling with the laugh which she with difficulty restrained, 
 ' Simon, you must not do so, you know." 
 
 The artful girl played her cards well; she led him on 
 until his lips were just about to quaff the nectar, and then 
 by a flank movement utterly disconcerted him. Simon 
 was still pursuing her with his endearments when the widow 
 came into the room. She suspected nothing, however, for 
 Simon and Bessie were sitting demurely six feet apart. 
 
 When Simon arose to go, Bessie said, " You'll come 
 again to-morrow, Simon, and then you can finish telling 
 me the news about Job Stearns." 
 
 Bessie was on a new tack; she had determined to draw 
 Simon out, and see how far he would carry what she knew 
 in her heart to be slanders about Job, and to what lengths 
 he would permit his own folly to lead him. Such a course 
 promised ample revenge upon the scamp. 
 
 Simon went out from the presence of Bessie drunk with
 
 114 Simon Assails the Citadel. 
 
 happiness, that is, with the kind of happiness such men 
 usually enjoy. 
 
 " She had encouraged him. She had virtually accepted 
 him; only the inopportune interruption had prevented her 
 from throwing herself, a free and entire gift, plump into 
 his arms/' 
 
 Such were the thoughts of Simon Spud as he passed out 
 of the radiance of his shrine; thoughts which sent a vig- 
 orous thrill along his backbone, and turned the houses and 
 trees bottom-side up. 
 
 He was so full of exuberance that, to keep himself from 
 mounting the steeple of the Presbyterian Church and pro- 
 claiming his joy to all the village, he went into the saloon 
 on his way home and drank one glass after another of 
 brlndy straight. His tongue loosened itself more and 
 more as he drank, and in half an hour after he left Bessie 
 he was boasting to the crowd of his associates of his feat 
 in out-flanking Job Stearns. 
 
 " D it boys, I knew the girl would accept me. I had 
 only to recall to her mind the estate my father left me, 
 and then, you know, appeal a little to the dear girl's real 
 affection for me she's dead in love, fellers and the job 
 was done. Job will have to shine himself up a little 'fore 
 he tries to run that little game against me." Simon 
 scanned his own figure complacently as he spoke. 
 
 " You'd better make yourself scarce, Sime, when Job 
 comes back; he'll make mince-meat out'n you," remarked 
 one of the men in response to Simon's boasting.
 
 Simon Assails the Citadel. 115 
 
 " Ye-as ivhen he comes back," said Simon, in a maud- 
 lin voice. 
 
 He continued to drink, and before he left, he recounted 
 the whole story of his call on Bessie. It was not just pleasant 
 to Bessie to hear the next day that she was engaged to Simon 
 Spud. If she had heard also how he had coupled her name 
 with his in a drunken revel at the saloon, she would have 
 hidden her face in shame; but hearing only what she did, 
 she determined to pursue her present course until the con- 
 ceited, mean-spirited puppy was completely in her toils. 
 
 Job had refused to clear himself from the base charges 
 brought against him at the church trial, by using the testi- 
 mony of Ah Chung's woman; "Perhaps," thought Bessie, 
 " he will use mine, if I can work it out of Simon Spud."
 
 n6 Greek Meets Greek. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 GREEK MEETS GREEK. 
 
 THE possessions of Deacon Spud had reverted, by 
 his death, to Simon, his son and only heir. The prop- 
 erty had increased rapidly with the growth of the town; 
 good buildings had supplanted the shanties formerly used 
 by the deacon, and he had added new industries, one after 
 another, to the original potato factory. Canning and dry- 
 ing of fruits employed, with the other industries, a large 
 number of men and girls at all seasons of the year. Dea- 
 con Spud had intended introducing Chinamen into his 
 buildings, hoping thereby to increase his earthly store; but 
 he possessed great keenness of foresight, and proposed 
 making this change as gradually and quietly as possible. 
 
 Simon Spud, while he was possessed of the same itch- 
 ing palm, had little of his father's real sharpness. He 
 flattered himself he was sharp, but his sharpness showed 
 its edge too plainly. His plans were shallow, like his 
 mind. In short, Simon Spud was a foolish, blundering, 
 self-conceited, overbearing, incapable man of business. 
 The general plan of his father was known to him, but of 
 its minutiae he was in ignorance. There is a way of let- 
 ting men down easily. Deacon Spud understood it; 
 Simon did not. 
 
 Government can impose the most obnoxious laws upon 
 a people by a gradual process; but let the Legislature sud-
 
 Greek Meets Greek. 117 
 
 denly attempt to give such laws to the people and they are 
 in arms in a moment. We can break the unruly bullock 
 to the yoke by a gradual, careful approach, and he be- 
 comes used to its touch and resents it but little; approach 
 him, however, suddenly the first time, and cast the yoke 
 about his neck, then we must look out for his horns. 
 
 Simon had no knowledge of human nature. One of 
 his first steps, upon assuming control of his father's prop- 
 erty, was to suddenly pay off all the white hands and 
 notify them to leave at the end of the week. Before they 
 had left, even, he brought in a horde of Chinamen and 
 placed them under the factory tuition of the Celestials 
 whom his father had before employed. There was an in- 
 stantaneous rebellion. 
 
 The white laborers refused to finish their week's labor. 
 Mutterings, like the growl of the approaching thunder- 
 storm, were heard. The men loitered in groups about the 
 doors and stoned the almond-eyed as they went in and out. 
 A general hue and cry was raised, and the very school- 
 children joined the rebelling army, and pelted the China- 
 men on the streets. It was not owing to their natural 
 depravity, altogether; they imbibed the notion that their 
 rights were being taken from them, and took this unchris- 
 tian way of retaliating. 
 
 Acts like those of Simon Spud always produce such re- 
 sults as these among the class of laborers, who, after all, 
 are the backbone of society. Vain attempts were made to
 
 nS Greek Meets Greek. 
 
 compel the Chinese to relinquish the field; but John Chi- 
 naman is grand in his obstinate patience. Openly, they are 
 unresisting. They mutter and shake their fists, but all the 
 while hold tenaciously to the ground. Once in possession 
 of the field of any labor, they are there forever, or until 
 the great arm of the law removes them. They burn all 
 bridges, they never voluntarily retreat. 
 
 While these events were transpiring in his business 
 affairs, Simon continued his wooing. Day after day Bessie 
 received him in the most flattering manner. One evening 
 he called after nerving himself with a few glasses of wine. 
 Bessie's nostrils caught the odor; Bessie's eyes saw the 
 glisten of the eye; Bessie's ears detected the volubility of 
 his tongue, and she perceived her opportunity. She per- 
 mitted his approaches, she allowed him to draw his chair 
 close to her. 
 
 "You are in fine spirits to-day, Simon," she said. 
 
 " Why shouldn't I be, my darling, with the angel of my 
 heart beside me ? Ah, how delightful are these moments, 
 how sweet ! " Here he essayed a kiss. She repelled him 
 with: 
 
 "No, not now, Simon; perhaps, you know, sometime." 
 
 "Bessie," he continued, "did you hear that I have em- 
 ployed Chinamen to work my factories ? They cost me 
 only one-half of the former expense. Won't I be rich, 
 now ? Won't we know how to spend the shiners, though ? " 
 
 Bessie curbed her rising indignation and only said: 
 
 " Why yes, Simon, you will be rich now."
 
 Greek Meets Greek. 119 
 
 "You bet!" 
 
 "After all, Job Stearns was mistaken in thinking they 
 would only bring trouble, wasn't he ? " inquired the sly 
 plotter. 
 
 " Now do you think so ? I knew so a long time ago, 
 and between you and me, he would have done a sight of 
 injury to the business if it hadn't been for me," replied 
 Simon, 
 
 "Shol l?id you prevent all this mischief? How did 
 you do it, dear?" 
 
 " Well, of course you won't tell, since my interests are 
 yours, you know," said Simon, with a knowing wink at 
 her; " I just invested a few dollars in Chinatown and com- 
 pletely kerflummerated him." 
 
 "Why, do tell! How did you invest it, Simon?" said 
 Bessie, running her fingers through his hair until they each 
 and separately quivered with electricity. 
 
 "Sh let me whisper it, my darling. I paid Ah Chung 
 to go to the church trial and blow on Job," whispered 
 Simon, confidentially. 
 
 " Why, how cute," said the outward Bessie, while the 
 inward Bessie ached to lay him on the floor in a different 
 position from the one he assumed a few days before. 
 
 " Yes, 'twas cute, though he nearly upset it, all through 
 that blamed woman. She was going to blab the whole 
 affair, but dad saved her that trouble." 
 
 " You did outwit him and prevent him from doing lots 
 of harm, didn't you ? "
 
 12O Greek Meets Greek. 
 
 "Bet! Why, you see, such men are dangerous to a 
 community; they rouse the people with their never-ending 
 talk. I did what was fair in war. I had to lose or else 
 he, and as he begun it, why h-e m-u-st t-a-k-e the c-o-n- 
 5-e " 
 
 Simon was fast getting the worst of his potations, and 
 Bessie saw it. She hurriedly said : 
 
 " Oh, I must see mother; she's up stairs. ^Good-night, 
 Simon." 
 
 "Go-o-d n-ight, angel," stuttered Simon, and the front 
 door shut behind him. 
 
 " Goody ! goody ! I have it all now. How brilliant to 
 tell it all to me, to me of all others. Oh, how I ached to 
 tell him what I thought of him ! But wait, only wait." 
 
 Bessie's little fists were doubled up, and in her brave 
 little heart she was pommeling the contemptible fellow 
 who had just left her.
 
 The Warning. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE WARNING. 
 
 SIMON SPUD made the great mistake of his life by em- 
 ploying the Chinese in preference to men of his own race. 
 No man can prosper who squares off and makes fight 
 against the country which gave him birth, the institutions 
 which are the foundations of his business. It takes longer 
 for a man to find this out in a large mercantile pursuit 
 than in the petty business of a neighborhood. The re- 
 turns of retribution come in more slowly, but they come. 
 
 Even the denizens of Yarbtown who had withdrawn 
 their patronage in the laundry line from Mrs. Caldwell, 
 felt, in their small way, some of the results. The first few 
 times the garments came back in excellent order, but when 
 John monopolized the business, controlled the prices, and 
 had contaminated the reputation of it until .no white 
 woman would do such work, then bosoms were scorched, 
 buttons cut off, collars fringed at the edge, and so forth. 
 
 Mrs. Caldwell suffered severely from the loss of her 
 business, but she thanked heaven that her people had not 
 yet sunk so low as to patronize boarding-houses kept by 
 Chinamen. She was a willing woman to work, and she 
 set an excellent table, and the Father in whose hands are 
 the lines of the widow and orphan sent her abundance to 
 do. The men of the town, however, were not so for- 
 tunate. Their labor taken from them, they found it dim-
 
 122 The Warning. 
 
 cult to find a lasting substitute. Simon's day was to come. 
 Money for lawsuits, his foes had none. They were not 
 moved by the thought that unlawful deeds of violence 
 might rebound upon them, they thought only of revenge. 
 No man or woman of good sense or judgment favors the 
 taking of the law into one's own hands. 
 
 The abuse of Chinamen, the burning and destroying of 
 works in which they are employed, are not only to be 
 deprecated, but vigorously frowned upon. But men have 
 done such things, and as long as human nature remains 
 the same as it is, as long as the provoking cause remains 
 unremedied and unassailed by those in authority, so long 
 will they undoubtedly continue to do, to the sorrow of all 
 good people. 
 
 Simon Spud received several letters from unknown 
 sources, sent not through the mail, but under the crack of 
 his door, and containing such implied threats as these: 
 
 " The sword of Damocles hangs over you. Discharge 
 the pig-tails, or we will have a dish of roast potatoes." 
 
 "Your starch is cold starch, it needs warming." 
 
 "Canned fruit is better cooked; keep the yallers and 
 the boys will 'tend to that fer you." 
 
 Simon Spud was a coward; these silly threats filled him 
 with alarm, and he slept with a couple of loaded revolvers 
 under his pillow, and bought his whisky by the gallon to 
 avoid the barrooms. Simon was fast becoming a sot; 
 money was too much for him. He dare not stand watch
 
 The Warning. 123 
 
 himself, so he sent out of town and imported a watchman 
 to parade around the factories. 
 
 One night Simon was sitting in his room, guzzling his 
 whisky and dreaming maudlin dreams of his future with 
 Bessie, when there came a knock at the door. He 
 roused himself and opened it, when four men came in. 
 
 "Good evening, gents; have chairs." 
 
 "We can say what we've got to say standing," said one 
 of the men. 
 
 "What can I do for you, Bill ? " inquired Simon. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Spud, there's only one thing we want, and 
 I rather think you'll let us have it, don't you, boys ? " he 
 said, turning to the other three. 
 
 " You bet," replied the men. 
 
 Simon was shaking from head to foot. How foolish a 
 man looks when he is angry and afraid at the same time. 
 Simon was both scared and angry, so he stood trembling 
 with both feelings. He knew what they wanted, and was 
 trying to conjure up some way of escape. At last he 
 asked: 
 
 "What is it you want ?" 
 
 "Well, Sime, to come right straight to the point, we 
 want the pig-tails turned off, and us turned in." 
 
 " Not by a ," he was commencing, when he was inter- 
 rupted by the spokesman of the party. 
 
 " We didn't come here to be sworn at, we come like 
 gentlemen, and want a gentleman's answer. We don't
 
 124 The Warning. 
 
 intend to argue the question at all. We are friendly, and 
 wish to save you and ourselves from trouble. Will you, or 
 will you not employ us again ? " 
 
 "Let me have time to think about it," said Simon; 
 " come here again to-morrow, and I'll let you know." 
 
 "Won't do," replied the man; "we want an answer to- 
 night." 
 
 " Oh, you are the fellows who sent me the letters, are 
 you ? Going to burn me out, are you ? Mighty cute to 
 come here and let me see who you are. Go ahead; I've 
 spotted you now," said Simon, gathering courage from the 
 thought. 
 
 " We've written you no letters, we never thought of burn- 
 ing you out," replied the man again; "but I'll tell you 
 what we have done and intend to do. We have pledged 
 three-fourths of the farmers and dealers of this neighbor- 
 hood to sell their produce to us at the same rates at which 
 you buy them, and we have secured capital enough to 
 start us. We intend to go ahead. Now do you under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 Simon did understand, but he remembered the cash he 
 had laid away in the bank, and having the same foolish 
 notion as many others, that money can do anything, he 
 laughed in their faces and answered: 
 
 " Do you think you can run me out with borrowed cap- 
 ital, when I can count a thousand to your one dollar ? 
 Pshaw!"
 
 The Warning, 125 
 
 " We have no borrowed money, but we have capital to 
 back us up. Now, Simon, we give you one more chance 
 to find us honest work in your establishments in the place 
 of your Chinamen. If you don't, we shall go on as we 
 have begun." 
 
 Simon breathed more easily when he found that no 
 violence was offered, and he grew bolder; he turned to the 
 men and pointing to the door, said: "No\v you git, for 
 I'll be dogoned if I will be browbeat by any man in this 
 town." 
 
 The men did not wait for a second invitation to leave, 
 but walked quietly out of the room. 
 
 "If they had really meant to burn me out, I might have 
 hired a few to quiet them, but h , you know, I won't be 
 driven in money matters," muttered Simon, as he sat 
 down to his whisky again. 
 
 Simon's fancied security was a dream, for these men did 
 not express the minds and will of the majority. The 
 sword of Damocles was indeed hanging over him. These 
 four men had taken a wise course, and the only one which 
 suggested itself as the most feasible plan. It was strictly 
 legal, it was perfectly fair, and had it been carried out un- 
 hindered by the after actions of the excitable element 
 found in all communities, would have brought Simon 
 Spud to terms, without disgracing the neighborhood.
 
 126 The Opium Den. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE OPIUM DEX. 
 
 IT would seem as though Providence intended, concern- 
 ing the people of Yarbtown. that the measure of their 
 woes should be filled. 
 
 Scarcely had the last odors of carbolic acid been dis- 
 pelled, and while the excitement aroused by the action of 
 Simon Spud was still at high tide, a new matter came to 
 light, which fanned the already increasing flame into a 
 general conflagration. Troubles are gregarious. They 
 seldom come singly and alone. They are energetic pugi- 
 lists. They never give the heaviest blow first, but feel 
 around a man, until by little touches of the fist here and 
 there they detect the tender spot, then they' lay out their 
 strength in one tremendous, crushing blow. 
 
 Yarbtown is not an individual, but then troubles treat 
 communities the same collectively as individually. A fam- 
 ine in the land is usually accompanied by great gales, 
 drouths, disasters and grief of various kinds. The first 
 complaint which drew the attention of the people of Yarb- 
 town once more to Chinatown came from the school- 
 master. The boys and girls had been of late uncommonly 
 drowsy and stupid in school. The same enervation had 
 been noticed at home, but was little thought of, or attrib- 
 uted to some simple ailment. 
 
 The master, however, was surprised to find numbers of
 
 The Opium Den. 127 
 
 his scholars in the same condition. He quietly called 
 upon Dr. Gratiot and consulted him as to the possible 
 cause. There seemed to be no epidemic prevailing, and 
 if there were, the symptoms were not those of any disease 
 known to the worthy doctor. The physiciap was puzzled ; 
 he saw no way to get at the difficulty without watching and 
 waiting. The scholars, each and all, denied their sickness, . 
 though the signs of their illness were evident to the keen 
 eye of the doctor. 
 
 One of the boys of the school was an especial favorite 
 with Dr. Gratiot, and to him the physician applied for as- 
 sistance. The lad knew nothing as to the cause of the 
 sickness of his playmates, but he promised to watch and 
 report. His report came soon, indeed, and its substance 
 led the doctor to enlist the services of Rev. Mr. Smudgins 
 one evening, and the twain proceeded to Chinatown. 
 
 Along the sidewalk they felt their way in the dark, peer- 
 ing into the little windows of the Chinese houses, until 
 they paused in front of one with a dim Chinese lantern 
 hanging over the door. Dr. Gratiot stole up to the win- 
 dosv and peeked in. 
 
 "Do you see anything?" whispered the minister. 
 
 "Phew, no; the atmosphere is blue with smoke; but 
 come here yourself, Smudgins, and look in." 
 
 The parson crept up alongside the doctor and pressed 
 his face close to the dirty window-pane. It was a small 
 room into which they looked, resembling the forecastle of a
 
 128 The Opium Den. 
 
 merchant vessel. Rows of bunks lined two sides. One 
 large one ran along under the little ones on one side. 
 Several Chinamen were lying in the little bunks, while 
 through the floating clouds of smoke, upon the wide one, 
 the two professionals discovered a group of dim figures, 
 not very artistically arranged, either as regards sex or age. 
 
 "See that, Smudgins, do you? I fancy that room will 
 reveal secrets that ought by good rights to be ours. Let's 
 go in." 
 
 "Ah, do you think would it be just prudent ? " inquired 
 the minister, anxiously. 
 
 "Prudent! Why, man, don't you see that those over 
 there are not Chinamen ? Indeed, unless my eyes deceive 
 me, they are children." 
 
 "Is it possible? The youth of our town inveigled 
 into such a den! What is this? Is it a saloon ?" asked 
 the minister. 
 
 "Worse than that, worse than that! Come in and we 
 will see what it is." 
 
 Opening the door, the two men walked in. 
 
 " What a smell ! " ciied the parson; " what in the world 
 is this hole, doctor ? " 
 
 Just then two Chinamen came forward to see what they 
 wanted. 
 
 " How now, Chow," cried the doctor, " whom have you 
 here ? " - 
 
 He was walking toward the shadows seen through the
 
 THE PROFESSIONALVlSlT.
 
 The Opium Den. 129 
 
 smoke, when Chow hurriedly stepped between him and 
 the group. 
 
 " No, no ! You no wakee up. Lot Chinamen, all sleepee. 
 Heapee mad you go there." 
 
 "Get out!" shouted the doctor, shaking his fist at Chow. 
 " Do you call them Chinamen ? Not much you don't." 
 
 He walked on as he spoke, shoving Chow out of the 
 way. 
 
 "Great mercy!" cried the minister, as his eyes became 
 more accustomed to the dingy darkness. 
 
 " There," said the doctor, pointing to the scene before 
 them, " that's what's the matter with the children." 
 
 The two professionals stood in silence and looked at the 
 sleeping group. There, scattered promiscuously on the 
 wide couch, with heads and feet intermingling, were young 
 men, boys, and even girls, with also one or two aged men. 
 They were lying in a stupid intoxication, disheveled and 
 in disorder. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " asked the astonished, con- 
 founded minister. 
 
 "Opium!" said Dr. Gratiot, with astern look in his 
 face. He turned and seized Ah Chow by the throat, shov- 
 ing him along until he held his head over the bench. " Is 
 this your work ? What have you been giving them ? 
 Opium ? 
 
 "Yeah; all smokee opium." 
 
 " Scoundrel !" shouted the irate physician. " Do you 
 know what I can do to you for this ?"
 
 130 The Opium Den. 
 
 " Me no care," said the Chinaman, doggedly, " payee 
 me all light, I gim opium, they smokee who care !" 
 
 " How many times have they been here in this fix ?" 
 
 " Oh, lot time." 
 
 " Do they stay all night ? " asked the parson. 
 
 " Oh, no; bym by all wakee up, then go home." 
 
 The doctor tightened his grasp on the throat of Chow a 
 moment, as though he deliberated about strangling him 
 on the spot, but after a moment's reflection he let him 
 go. There were the sons of respectable citizens all stupified 
 by the fumes of opium. 
 
 " No wonder they are dull and stupid in school," said 
 the doctor. 
 
 On a table in one corner lay an assortment of pipes for 
 opium and tobacco, some lamps and confections. Mr. 
 Smudgins took up one of the pipes and examined it. 
 The stem was about eighteen inches in length and one 
 inch in diameter. The bowl was a broad, flat piece of 
 hard wood, two to three inches across the top, and per- 
 forated with a single hole in the center. A little pill as 
 large as a pea is placed on a needle, and the needle thrust 
 into the hole on the bowl. A small lamp is used to ignite 
 the opium, it being a difficult thing to fire. This lamp is 
 applied continually until the requisite number of whiffs 
 have been inhaled. 
 
 Rude benches are supplied, upon which the smokers 
 recline during the fumigation, and upon which they remain
 
 The Opium Den. 131 
 
 undisturbed until the unnatural stupor shall have exhausted 
 itself. All the votaries in the den which the doctor and 
 minister visited were at that time so stupified as to be 
 utterly unconscious of their presence. 
 
 " Doctor, this is horrible," said the parson, putting up 
 his hands as if to shut out the dreadful sight. 
 
 "Horrible! That is no word for it, Smudgins, its dam- 
 nable ! Between you and me, I am almost afraid to tell 
 the people of this. What will they do ? Such a thing as 
 this is not to be borne with, though; I must tell." 
 
 " Tell 1 Of course you will tell. We owe a duty to our 
 fellow-citizens to see that this is carried on no longer," 
 
 "lam so in the habit of keeping secrets, professional 
 secrets you know, that I was on the point of considering 
 this one," said Gratiot. 
 
 " Here," he continued, "I don't know but what I ought 
 to tell you something else which has a bearing upon this 
 matter." 
 
 Mr. Smudgins opened his eyes at this, and intimated 
 his willingness to hear all which might with propriety be 
 told him. 
 
 " Well," said Dr. Gratiot," it is strange our people are 
 so blind to the moral influence of these conscienceless 
 heathen, upon the young of our growing State. You are 
 in the habit of preaching, Smudgins, I am not; but if 
 I had your power I could tell them some things which 
 would pull their eyes wide open. Immorality, you know,
 
 132 The Opium Den. 
 
 is supposed to be beyond the reach of the very young 
 children I mean. It costs something in our older States 
 to be immoral, and only men can afford to undermine 
 their constitutions by base courses of life; but do you 
 know that these Chinese have done something besides 
 cheapen labor; they have cheapened immorality; brought 
 its evils within reach of the merest child. Among our out- 
 casts of the while race there is a species of honor; they 
 shudder at the thought of dragging a pure child down to 
 their level, and the easiest way to reach their better nature 
 is through a child. No such honor is found among the 
 Chinese. All is fish which comes to their net. The 
 moral principles of our whole State will be undermined. 
 Gad, they are undermined, and our children to-day know 
 more evil, are more familiar with immoral sin than you 
 and I pardon, parson, I will speak only of myself, more 
 than I did at thirty. This town is no exception. I am 
 under promise at present not to speak further; indeed I 
 never will but to the parents who have a right to know 
 what I know about some of their children, and so help me 
 Aladdin's genii, shall know!" 
 
 The two men had left the opium den while talking, and 
 were now on their way home. It will not serve us any 
 purpose to follow either of them. The information which 
 we have obtained by peeping over their shoulders is suf- 
 ficient. Any one who has lived in California with his eyes 
 and ears- open will accept the doctor's statement as a
 
 The Opium Den. 133 
 
 fair one of facts.' It is as though the devil who hitherto 
 has held his fair price for his wares, had suddenly adopted 
 the plan of scattering them broadcast with a free hand. 
 
 It is not satisfactory to reply, as some have, that we have an 
 immorality of our own and therefore have no right to criti- 
 cise that of the Chinese. Our immorality is out of reach 
 of the young; theirs is of a different stamp, cheap easily 
 indulged in and unhedged by any remains of honor and 
 conscientious scruples. Ours is hidden in gilded temples 
 at whose doors one must knock and pay to enter; theirs is 
 an open pool of filth in whose putrid waters the child may 
 dabble his feet. 
 
 Parson Smudgins made no secret of what he had seen and 
 heard, but retailed it as he should have done freely among 
 his friends and parishioners, who in turn were filled with in- 
 dignation and horror.
 
 \ 
 
 134 Olla Podri^a. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 OLLA PODRIDA. 
 
 YARBTO\VN was a scene of confusion and excitement on 
 the day following 1 the discovery in the opium den. People 
 who were ordinarily quiet and even-tempered, were gath- 
 ered in groups on the street corners, discussing earnestly 
 and vehemently the event. 
 
 That portion of the community who were ever on the 
 alert for excitement, together with the hoodlums, recom- 
 mended the taking of extreme and violent measures. Men, 
 whose lives were several removes from rectitude and 
 morality, were astounded at the abyss which opened be- 
 neath the feet of their own children. Christians who had 
 hoped great things, expected great things of the Chinamen, 
 stood aghast to think of the great evil which seemed to 
 stand forth as a giant, as compared with the little good 
 they had accomplished. Mothers, who would faint at the 
 sight of blood, and who would plead like a Pocahontas for 
 a condemned man, were loud in their execrations of the 
 Celestials, and in their demands for justice. Justice ! What 
 justice can reach men whose tongues are oily with lies, 
 whose consciences can be seen through a needle's eye, 
 and who have no fear of punishment or even death. Yarb- 
 town was determined to do something. Wise counsels 
 prevailed for the present to stay the course of immediate 
 retaliation.
 
 Olla Podrida. 135 
 
 An indignation meeting was announced for the even- 
 ing. The town hall was filled to overflowing. All Yarb- 
 town turned out; all except the Chinamen. It was with 
 difficulty that the gathering was handled. Noise and con- 
 fusion prevailed, and dire threats were made of what ought 
 to and should be done very soon. 
 
 A strong party of the men whose employment had been 
 taken from them when the Chinese were set at work by 
 Simon Spud, was there ready for anything which should 
 give them a chance to revenge themselves. A great many 
 speeches were made, some cool, calm and deliberate; 
 others hot, earnest and incendiary. 
 
 Dr. Gratiot addressed the meeting in a judicious man- 
 ner, telling of what he saw, and hinted at what he knew, 
 but counseled moderation and an appeal to the law. Rev. 
 Mr. Smudgins also took a similar course; but the head- 
 long, blundering, bloodthirsty class seemed to be in the 
 ascendency, and several rash, heedless speeches were made 
 by them. 
 
 Solomon Williams, a hard-working man, who had lost 
 his employment through the insidious development of the 
 cheap labor system, heated and fired the assembly by an 
 impetuous speech, in which he hinted at immediate re- 
 venge upon the interloping heathen, as the best method to 
 settle the difficulty. This kind of talk seemed to please 
 the people, for they cheered him vociferously. They 
 seemed in their excitement to have forgotten that this
 
 136 Olla Podrida. 
 
 method would in justice bring down upon themselves the 
 weight of the strong arm of the law. 
 
 In the midst of the excitement a man leaped upon the 
 stage and commenced speaking. His face was pale and 
 thin, and covered with a full growth of beard. At first he 
 was taken for a stranger; but a few words from his lips 
 told the assembly that the wanderer, Job Stearns, had re- 
 turned. He had come into the town that evening, and 
 seeing the lighted hall, went in. 
 
 The speech of Sol. Williams had so worked upon his 
 conscienciousness, that before he was aware what he was 
 doing, he was on the platform commencing a speech him- 
 self. 
 
 " Fellow townsmen: I am not a public speaker, I make 
 no pretensions to eloquence; but I feel impressed with the 
 full import of any measure you may adopt here to-night. 
 There is no need of striving to see who can arouse the 
 most excitement; let us rather try and see who can pre- 
 sent his thoughts in the calmest manner. I have suffered 
 as much as most of you, and am entitled to a hearing. 
 Shall I go on ? " 
 
 "Go ahead, Job!" 
 
 " Let 'em have it, Stearns ! " 
 
 "Pitch in!" shouted the crowd. 
 
 " Well, I wish," continued Job, " to present a fair state- 
 ment of our situation. What are we here for to-night ? 
 To see how we can best escape from a net which we have 
 in a measure spread for our own feet."
 
 Otta Podrida. 
 
 137 
 
 " No, no, Job; that won't do," shouted a man from the 
 crowd. 
 
 "Why not?" said Job; "we want the truth. Our 
 country opened her doors freely for the coming of 
 the Chinese. Thousands came, and still the jiren of 
 capital spread out her arms and cried for more. Like 
 a creek they have come down our hillsides, widening 
 and deepening the channel for more to follow. They 
 have covered our fair, verdant plains with the mud and 
 tailings of depravity. Have we ever, as a nation, taken 
 any reasonable, wise course to prevent them ? No ! Pro- 
 testations have been made by you and me, and others like 
 us in opinion, but the country whose laws we abide by has 
 encouraged their coming. The dwellers of the East smile 
 at our urgent requests for some restrictive laws. Wait un- 
 til the miasmatic marsh of Chinese corruption shall have 
 spread into their midst, and then they will open their eyes 
 a trifle. Selfish, greedy men, whose country is bounded 
 by the circumference of a twenty-dollar gold piece have 
 opposed us. Do you think that with such influences to 
 back them, our puny strength can avail if we resort to vio- 
 lence, to force ? I say, no ! " 
 
 "You bet 'twill," cried the excited men. 
 
 " There is a wiser course," continued Job; "when we 
 cannot force a man from a claim, we ' freeze him out.' Let 
 us freeze the Chinese out." 
 
 " How ? " asked some one from the audience.
 
 138 Olla Podrida. 
 
 " Don't patronize them; don't patronize their industries; 
 don't patronize men who employ them. I call that freez- 
 ing them out. Let us encourage all firms who banish 
 them from the workshop and machines. If our own fac- 
 tories use our produce to further the interests of this class, 
 let us combine and stop their supplies." 
 
 "Jest you look out, Job Steams," shouted Simon Spud 
 from the crowd. 
 
 " Free speech is my born right," replied Job, whereat 
 ^ the audience cheered him lustily. "I love my fellow beings 
 \ of whatever color, but I love my country more. Where I 
 see whole blocks which once were the habitations of citi- 
 zens whose future was their country's, given over to a 
 horde of miscreants who crowd them to suffocation, who 
 breed disease and contagion, and then hide its results that 
 they may remain unmolested in possession of the field; 
 when I behold a moral whirlpool created by them which 
 sucks in our young blood, then I say it is time to inter- 
 fere. Either we sink to their level as laborers, or they 
 must rise to ours. The latter is improbable if not impos- 
 sible. They leave their stains on all they touch. The 
 pride which is born in us revolts at the thought of doing 
 work which has once been given over to them. Let them 
 once be employed to run the cars in our mines, and who 
 among our miners will afterward touch that work? Folly, 
 do you call-it ? Folly let it be then. It is a fact, and facts 
 are commonly supposed to be stubborn things. If our
 
 Otta Podrida. 
 
 139 
 
 workmen will not do such work after it has been contam- 
 inated by Chinese hands, let them starve until they will; 
 they must take the consequences of their own folly, sneer- 
 ingly say our capitalists. I reply that we cannot expect 
 the mass of mankind to be moved by the reason of the few; 
 they are led by feeling. We must treat humanity as 
 we find it. America must concede something to the feel- 
 ings of her people, her common people, I mean. Is it 
 easier to remodel the American workingman's mind than 
 it is to rid ourselves of the necessity to do so ? Are we to 
 destroy his native pride to please the Chinese ? The mus- 
 cles, the united muscles of America's workmen, are in 
 their strength a slumbering volcano. These Chinese feed 
 the rich who have abundance, and starve the poor out of 
 even their poverty." 
 
 " Burn 'em out !" 
 
 " Cut off their pigtails," shouted the crowd. 
 
 "No!" replied Job; "that indeed brings us down to 
 their level. I have no sympathy with such ideas of retri- 
 bution. They are not to be blamed. It is back of them 
 we must look for the prime cause of our trouble. Commit 
 no crime, I beg of you. I should be one among the first 
 to resent such a course and bring the perpetrators to jus- 
 tice. Let us pursue the slower but more certain plan 
 appeal and continue to appeal to the law-makers of our 
 land. Agitate the question all the time; never let up. 
 Keep the question always before the nation. Meanwhile 
 freeze them out."
 
 I4O Olla Podrida. 
 
 Job quietly left the platform after these remarks, and took 
 a seat in the audience. Many of the gathering did not 
 fully appreciate Job's logic, but they admired Job, and 
 when he moved off the stage three rousing cheers were 
 given for him. There were many mutterings still from 
 the rough, unthinking men present, but the greater number 
 thought Job had taken a sensible view of the matter. 
 
 Some strong resolutions were passed and a general com- 
 mittee of ways and means appointed, and the meeting 
 adjourned. As the people passed out, Job fell in with 
 Sol. Williams. 
 
 " Sol, I was a little surprised to hear a man of your calm- 
 ness and good sense advocate such measures as you did to- 
 night." 
 
 "Well," said Sol, " has not the question been before the 
 public for the last fifteen years, and are we not further from 
 a solution than ever ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Job in an uncertain tone. " But there will be 
 organizations yet bands of earnest, determined men, 
 pledged and sworn to employ and patronize only their 
 brother countrymen. I see ahead the little stream of op- 
 position just starting from its source, grown into a mighty 
 river too strong to be resisted, too wide, too broad to be 
 stayed in its course. I see my own beautiful State, tilled 
 and served by her own rightful sons. I see happy homes 
 and plenty. I see falling from the clouds of tribulation 
 showers of blessings upon California. Aye, even now I be-
 
 Olla Podnda. 141 
 
 gin to feel a few drops on my face." Job paused suddenly, 
 the moon burst forth from a pile of black clouds, bathing 
 him in light. Sol. Williams saw that the man beside him 
 was inspired he walked reverently, humbly, feeling a 
 vast gulf between them. Suddenly Job turned, and with 
 a warmth of feeling so common to him, burst out: 
 
 "Sol, from my heart I pity you," This broke Sol 
 down. They were just then passing the factory. Sol 
 caught Job by the shoulder and made him face the building. 
 
 " You remember how I worked in that place, Job 
 Stearns, under the old deacon; of course I hadn't the 
 education, and couldn't get up as you did, but I came out 
 square and above board, every year; yes, more than 
 square. You remember the year I was married you was 
 a boy, but you haven't forgotten well, Jennie and I made 
 a good start. We had a little nest-egg, and Jennie had so 
 much courage and was so smart at anything she put her 
 hand to" here Sol drew his coat-sleeve across his eyes 
 " when the boy came, we both just put our shoulders to 
 the wheel and worked, God knows how we worked, and 
 hoped and prayed for that boy. Jennie said of course she 
 was proud, poor thing but she said that he should have 
 the same chance as the deacon's son; and just a little after 
 the girl came. Of course then it was uphill work. I 
 suppose we, poor people, had no business, but somehow 
 Jennie would have the children dressed well, and she 
 would send them to the best school, and all that. Well,
 
 142 Olla Podrida. 
 
 she was shrewd, and we saved every year a little toward 
 the boy and college, and the girl and a piano. Yes, you 
 laugh, Job; I suppose we'd no business with aspirations; 
 we'd never had any chance ourselves, you know. Of 
 course it was foolish, and it all looks ridiculous to me 
 now. Well, you know the rest; we've used it all up, and 
 the old dresses are wearing out, and the flour barrel is 
 getting low. Maybe I could have borne it better if Jennie 
 hadn't taken it so hard. She fought like a tiger to save 
 that money. She worked herself at everything, night and 
 day, sewing and washing, but at last somehow the work 
 didn't come, and then the money went to keep the 
 children from starving, and Jennie's completely broken 
 down " 
 
 Here Job broke in. 
 
 " Sol, I can't stand this. God pity us all," and wring- 
 ing his hand, he darted round the street corner and left Sol 
 in the moonlight. Job made a bee-line for Bessie Cald- 
 well's. There was sympathy, rest, sunshine after darkness. 
 A few turns more and the house would be reached. His 
 heart was beating wildly, when plump he came upon Uncle 
 Caleb Green, one of the oracles of the place. 
 
 " Well, Job, so ye's back, are ye, but a little too late in 
 the day, I reckun." 
 
 " What now ? " replied Job, rather crustily. 
 
 " Why, Sime Spud has jest taken a seat in your chair, 
 cut you out jest the slickest. I did think the gal had more
 
 Olla Podrida. 143 
 
 strength of character, but them shiners of his'n are kinder 
 dazzling, you know." 
 
 Job was turned into a pillar of stone; his tongue was 
 paralyzed; he just stood and stared at Caleb Green with 
 eyes that were incapable of moving in his head. 
 
 " Now, now, old boy, don't take it so hard; there's 
 more fish in the pond, you know;" and Caleb moved off, 
 a little conscience-stricken, leaving Job frozen into ice on 
 the street corner.
 
 144 Bessie's Confession. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 BESSIE'S CONFESSION. 
 
 JOB was almost a broken man after his conversation 
 with Sol. Williams and Caleb Green. He avoided Mrs. 
 Caldwell's, of course, striving all the time to learn to hate 
 Bessie. " Fine girl," he said, " to follow a man out into the 
 rain and night, and then to take advantage of his absence 
 to go over to the enemy." Poor Bessie. She couldn't hate 
 Job, try as she might; but she was bitter toward him and 
 proud. So the two were miserable; but fate took the matter 
 in hand, and brought them face to face on the street. 
 Bessie was the weaker vessel, and she yielded first. " O 
 Job! " The little red under-lip pouted like that of an in- 
 jured child, and the big blue eyes were running over with 
 tears. Had Bessie been as false as she was fair, the plead- 
 ing baby-face would have been too much for Job. Pride 
 melted like ice in the sun; he just drew the little white 
 hand through his arm, and walked silently by her side out 
 of the town, under the shadow of the great hills and trees. 
 Then Job open his lips for the first time. " Well, Bessie." 
 A. stifled sob was the only answer. Job was driven to the 
 wall, and he burst forth. "O, Bessie, what have I done; 
 why have you rejected a good man's love for the money 
 of his enemy ? " Then it all flashed over Bessie. Job 
 had reason. to doubt her, so they sat down under a big 
 pine tree and talked it all over. Bessie told Job with sobs
 
 Bessie's Confession. 145 
 
 and tears, how true she had been to him, that she had 
 even sacrificed self-respect for his sake. Before she was 
 half through her story, Job stopped her mouth with kisses; 
 winds from the south were blowing through his brown 
 hair once more; sunlight danced on the leaves; the sky 
 had the blue of Italy. His manhood had returned to him; 
 he fairly lifted Bessie in his arms, and would have carried 
 her like a fairy queen, so light she seemed. 
 
 Bessie had told him of the secrets that Simon Spud had 
 revealed to her, and Job felt that his little heroine had 
 furnished and equipped him with arms for the contest a 
 musket, pistol and sword, with which to successfully fight 
 the enemy. Then Bessie impatiently begged Job to tell 
 her the story of his wanderings, and the reason of his long 
 silence. In a few words he told of his meeting with the 
 strange men in San Francisco. "And then," said he, "Bes- 
 sie, I remembered nothing more for hours, it might have 
 been days. I was conscious first of a bursting feeling in 
 my head, and a desire for air; opening my eyes, I found 
 myself in the cabin of a ship. Then it flashed across my 
 mind that I had been 'shanghaed,' as they call it. I knew 
 by the motion of the vessel that I was far out at sea, and 
 with this thought came a vision of you, Bessie the whole 
 past, the bitter past, rushed over me like a flood; I grew 
 desperate with thinking; this last blow was too heavy. I 
 would end all my troubles now and forever; a long quiet 
 sleep way down among the sea-weeds ad corals of the
 
 146 Bessie's Confession. 
 
 blue Pacific; the thought was balm. I turned the idea 
 over and over in my mind; the longer I meditated upon 
 it, the pleasanter it seemed; I even planned just when and 
 how I should commit the deed. I was intoxicated with 
 the thought, when, dear, for the second time in my life, I 
 saw a ghost. Now, don't start. It was the ghost of your- 
 self, Bessie, but as real as your little soft hand is to me 
 now. You had the same sheet about you that you wore 
 the night I bade you good-bye, and your face was swollen 
 with crying. You were not a pale ghost, Bessie, only so 
 sad and woe-begone and forsaken like. You stayed with 
 me but a moment, but you electrified me like a shock 
 from a galvanic battery; I was a well, strong man in an 
 instant. Coward, I said to myself, springing to my feet, 
 you mean, contemptible coward, you are unworthy of the 
 girl. Well, darling, I was the shrewdest, sharpest man on 
 board the Clyde after that, I reckon. I just worked myself 
 into the affections and good graces of the captain, mates, 
 sailors and cook. I worked, sang, told stories, smoked 
 tobacco, and became a regular salt" here Bessie looked 
 Job all over with curiosity. " There was one fellow on 
 board, Pete Smith; I worked into that chap's sympathies 
 somehow. Well, one night, when we were off the Sand- 
 wich Islands, under the influence of a good smoke and 
 plenty of whisky, he told me all about my capture, and 
 described the dandy fellow with the little legs, who made 
 the bargain; he did not know his name, he said; but I did,
 
 Bessie's Confession. 147 
 
 Bessie. Well, I worked on after that, but kept dark as to 
 my intentions. When our ship's crew put out from port 
 at the Sandwich Islands, I was among the missing. You 
 can guess the rest. I worked my passage back to San 
 Francisco on a returning ship. O, Bessie, did you wonder 
 why you never received that letter I promised ? " 
 
 Bessie's lip was trembling again. " The worst of it was, 
 Job, I had no one to confide in. I felt that you were true, 
 and had some good reason for keeping silent, but I couldn't 
 tell mother, and God seemed to have forgotten me; per 
 haps it was because I was a wicked girl then; I was play- 
 ing hypocrite with Simon." 
 
 " Well," said Job, " it is all over now, darling. So let 
 us have done with deception forever."
 
 148 Simon Has His Eyes Opened. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 SIMON HAS HIS EYES OPENED. 
 
 SIMON SPUD must have been blind indeed had he failed 
 to perceive the cordial welcome given the returned wan- 
 derer by Miss Bessie Caldwell. He was too conceited to 
 imagine at first that he had been supplanted by the man 
 who had been so disgraced. Had he not revealed Job's 
 character to her in the clearest manner ? It could not be 
 that Job suspected him of being the originator of the 
 scheme for his forcible shipment. Job had returned con- 
 siderably sooner than he had expected ; that alarmed him 
 some. Perhaps the mate had betrayed him to Stearns. 
 He could not for a moment think that Bessie, after such 
 encouragement as she had given him, could be in earnest 
 in her friendly greeting of Job. Probably she had some 
 motive in thus acting; some plan for assisting him, Simon, 
 in his warfare against Job. Anyway he would call upon 
 her and ascertain; so one evening he spruced up and 
 called at the house of the widow. Bessie received him 
 alone in the parlor. Simon was nervous and vaulted im- 
 mediately upon his war-horse. 
 
 " Bessie, do you think it fair to me, for you to receive 
 calls from Job Stearns after all I have told you ?" 
 
 There was a dangerous look in Bessie's eyes, as she re- 
 plied, "And why not, pray ?" 
 
 " Ain't it settled that my interests are your'n ? 'Tain't
 
 Simon Has His Eyes Opened. 149 
 
 for my interest that that man's name should again be as- 
 sociated with your'n. Probably you have some plan in 
 view which you think will assist me in curbing that scoun- 
 drel, and thinking so, you let him come so as you can 
 work his plans out of him; but it won't help me any, 
 though I'm much obliged." 
 
 Bessie had tried to be cool and collected, but her nat- 
 ural feelings were too strong for her and she showed her 
 hand in the game rather sooner than she intended. 
 
 "I'd like to know, Simon Spud, how long your interests 
 have been mine ? I'd like to know how long since I gave 
 you a right to dictate to me ?" she cried, with flashing eyes. 
 
 " Why, since you accepted my offer, of course," said the 
 astonished Simon. 
 
 " What offer have I accepted ?" screamed Bessie. 
 
 " Didn't you promise to marry me ?" asked Simon. 
 
 " Marry you ! No not if you were the last man in the 
 world, I wouldn't !" 
 
 " You promised to," said the now angry Simon. 
 
 " I didn't." 
 
 " You implied as much. Haven't you let me come to 
 see you ? Haven't you listened to my vows and offers, and 
 never said 'no ?' " 
 
 "Because I did not say 'no,' that does not imply 'yes'. 
 Yes, I have let you come to see me, and I have listened to 
 your vows of love, but I've listened to something else, too. 
 I've heard how you betrayed poor Job, and I've encour-
 
 150 Simon Has His Eyes Opened. 
 
 aged you on so that I would fathom your mean, contempt- 
 ible spirit, and it did not take long either, it's so absurdly 
 shallow. I know you now, Simon Spud." 
 
 Simon was immeasurably wrathy, he choked and turned 
 alternately red and white; he sprang forward toward Bes- 
 sie, screaming: 
 
 "You shall marry me ! I have you in my power. I'll 
 ruin your good name; I'll sue you for breach of promise, 
 I'll " 
 
 "That will do, Simon," shouted the manly voice of Job 
 Stearns, as he came bounding into the room. " You've 
 said enough. You can commence a suit for breach of 
 promise just as soon as you please, and I will match it with 
 two suits; one for having me shanghaed, and one for slan- 
 der. Now, sir, with Bessie's permission, I will show you 
 the way out." 
 
 " Do, Job, but don't hurt him," said Bessie. 
 
 Simon Spud was dumbfounded, completely at his wit's 
 end ; he made no reply, but took his hat mechanically and 
 walked out. 
 
 " Wasn't that rich ?" said Bessie, laughing hysterically; 
 then she immediately fell to crying with all her might. 
 
 " What have I done ? How I have lowered myself ! 
 But I did do it, Job, to save your name. I never meant to 
 go so far. What will mamma say," she sobbed ? 
 
 " She will say her little daughter did just right," said 
 Job gathering her into his arms, and cramming his hand- 
 kerchief into her face.
 
 Simon Has His Eyes Opened. 151 
 
 " But, Job, if he should sue me for breach of p-r-o-m-i-s-e, 
 just think of the publicity of it," she sobbed, with a smoth- 
 ered voice between Job's intermittent hugs. Job laughed. 
 
 " The puppy ! No lawyer would undertake such a case, 
 you need not fear; besides he knows that I have him in my 
 power now." 
 
 Mrs. Caldwell did say her daughter had acted right, 
 when the whole story of Simon's perfidy was told her, 
 though she could have wished her daughter had placed 
 more confidence in her. 
 
 " I did try to, ma, but you would not listen to me," re- 
 plied Bessie. 
 
 Simon was in a bad strait; enemies all around him, his 
 crimes exposed, and the prospect before him of an oppo- 
 sition to his business. A mean man is always conscious of 
 the superiority of an honest one. Simon felt his inferiority 
 to Job Stearns. He was afraid of him. He knew that if 
 Job should press the matter in the courts, he, Simon, would 
 without question be defeated. Job was not a hard man, 
 but he felt that he had been pushed to extremities; he did 
 not wish to revenge himself upon Simon, but he was de- 
 termined to have a fair settlement of the matter, right him- 
 self in the estimation of such as had mistrusted him, and 
 receive fair compensation for the time he had unjustly lost 
 by Simon's treachery and crime. He put his case into the 
 hands of a lawyer, and Simon forthwith received a letter 
 asking for damages. Simon squirmed. He dare not con-
 
 152 Simon Has His Eyes Opened. 
 
 suit an attorney; he was too cowardly to tell honestly all 
 the facts, so he waited and continued to squirm. He 
 finally, upon receipt of another letter rather more peremp- 
 tory in its demands, called upon the lawyer. He begged, 
 threatened, whined, crawled, apologised, but Job's lawyer 
 stood his ground firmly. At last, rather than to have the 
 V matter ventilated in court, Simon compromised with 
 Job, by paying over to the attorney the sum of five thou- 
 sand dollars. linearly killed him with vexation to squeeze 
 out of his pocket so much to his enemy, but it had to be 
 done. 
 
 Job was now enabled, by means of the failure of his 
 enemy's plans, to unite his means with those of the four 
 men who proposed to start the opposition in Yarbtown. 
 
 The buildings were already in process of erection, and Job 
 was chosen superintendent. Public opinion and patronage 
 favored them, and Simon's capital was insufficient to 
 combat their prosperity. Job was now on the road to 
 wealth. One of the stipulations which his attorney had 
 made in the settlement with Simon Spud, required that a 
 public statement of the compromise and its causes should 
 be made by the lawyer. It was done, and Peggy Sproul 
 and all the church people came down from their high 
 horses and greeted Job with friendliness.
 
 Fire! Fire/ 153 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 FIRE! FIRE! 
 
 A MONTH had passed since the indignation meeting in 
 Yarbtown, and nothing had been done by the committee, 
 beyond making some mild remonstrances with the China- 
 men. Great heat as long as the bellows are blowed, and 
 ashes when they are not. 
 
 Nobody wished to move in the matter, and nobody did. 
 The mass of the people had suffered their ardor to cool 
 off, and imagined poor mistaken souls that the scare 
 had been sufficient to deter the Celestials from any further 
 open digressions from the moral law; but "For ways that 
 are dark and tricks that are vain, the heathen Chinee is 
 peculiar." 
 
 They had been permitted so long to carry on their 
 nefarious business without serious interference, that when 
 the wrath of the people had apparently spent itself, they 
 smiled quietly at each other, and went on as before, doing 
 as they pleased. 
 
 There were some others in Yarbtown who, sometimes, 
 indulged in the practice of doing as they pleased also. 
 There were men whose wrath rose within them every time 
 they saw the peaceful, bland, contented face of John; men-' 
 who instinctively stooped to pick up a stone every time 
 one of these industrious heathen passed with his baskets 
 teeming with clothes, a shovel over his shoulder, or hurry-
 
 154 Fire! Fire! 
 
 ing to and from his work at the factory. The nonchalant^ 
 self-satisfied air of John, his mincing, half-trotting, half- 
 shuffling gait, contrasted with their own miser}', provoked 
 them to efforts to bring some of their own suffering down 
 L upon poor John's head. They stoned them, pestered and 
 N bothered them, insulted them with vile language, and made 
 the streets of Yarbtown a perfect hell upon earth to John 
 Chinaman. 
 
 All this finally reached a climax, fearful and grievous to 
 the celestials. It was China New Year. The heathen 
 were out in gala costume. 
 
 A stranger passing through the town might have imag- 
 ined a great battle in progress. The atmosphere was filled 
 with the smell of gunpowder, and the noise of constant 
 explosion of fire-crackers was distracting to the sleepers on 
 Aristocracy street. A procession marched and counter- 
 marched, clad in robes and fancy dress, and bearing aloft 
 transparencies and banners. In the various houses of the 
 Chinese, some were prognosticating their future from the 
 sweet smelling blossoms and stalks of the narcissus; others 
 were feasting upon sweetmeats, condiments and preserved 
 ginger, and still others were staking the savings of months 
 at the various gaming tables. 
 
 " Makee big noisee, scarce way heap debbils," said one 
 of them to an inquiring white man. 
 
 There were some devils, however, in Yarbtown, who 
 were not so easily scared; they needed an application of
 
 Fire! Fire! 
 
 155 
 
 gunpowder after a different fashion from the fire-crackers, 
 to accomplish their ejection. While John was at work 
 with his devils in front, these devils were at work in the 
 rear of Chinatown. They had chosen an auspicious time 
 for their exploit. Amid the noise, confusion and smell, 
 their presence was not perceived, the odor of kerosene was 
 not noticed, and the consequent smoke of the fire was 
 unheeded, until one-third of Chinatown was in flames 
 among the sheds of the rear. 
 
 John Chinaman is noisy and demonstrative in his fun; 
 he is fearfully so in his grief. Such jabbering, such yell- 
 ing, never was heard in Yarbtown. They fought, stumbled 
 over each other, and made no effort to stay the flames. 
 Little Chinese women, never seen by the eyes of civilized 
 Yarbtown before, came running into the streets, with 
 minute celestials clinging to them. The penates and 
 Josh were brought out of the flames; but Chinatown was 
 doomed. In less than two hours it was for the most part 
 in ashes. 
 
 Job Stearns was among the crowd gathered in Chinatown, 
 and many were the valuable articles he saved from the 
 flames. He came nearer to swearing that night than ever 
 before in his life; not at the terrible suffering which he 
 witnessed, but at the reckless, headstrong causes of it. 
 
 While nearly the whole population was gathered in 
 Chinatown, the cry of "Fire !" came from the other end 
 of the village. The buildings belonging to Simon Spud
 
 156 Fire! Fir el 
 
 were in flames. Despite their hatred of Simon, a great 
 many made efforts to save the stock in store; but the 
 buildings were of combustible material and burned so rap- 
 idly as to give them no opportunity. Simon was out in the 
 crowd, howling and dancing about like a madman. His 
 accounts, books, government bonds and valuables were all 
 in the office. He had been either too parsimonious or too 
 careless to secure a good safe, and they were therefore pro- 
 tected by nothing save the old iron box used by his father. 
 It was worse than nothing so far as fire was concerned. 
 
 " O, do somebody go up and get my iron box in the 
 office," he cried to the men about him. 
 
 " Go yourself, Sime, you know where it is," they re- 
 plied, jeeringly.- 
 
 " One hundred dollars to the man who will save it for 
 me," cried Simon, again. 
 
 " Be all your bonds, papers and books in that thar 
 office, Simon ? All ? " asked one man, peering into his 
 face. 
 
 " Yes, yes, all of them. Do go up and get them," an- 
 swered Simon, nervously. 
 
 " Be you sure you haven't saved some of your bonds 
 out ? " asked the man again. 
 
 " No, no, they are all there. I must save them." 
 
 " Then, by , I'll put a head on the first man who 
 
 goes up to get them. You bet I mean it too, fellows. 
 Don't none o' you uns try me," shouted the man who had
 
 Fire! Fire! 157 
 
 interrogated him. "You've had your play, Sime, and 
 now we'll cry quits." 
 
 Job Stearns was standing close by in the crowd which 
 had gathered, and he overheard Simon's lament, and 
 started immediately for the building. He darted into the 
 hall, and finding the smoke stifling, he seized a potato 
 sack, pulled it over his head, and rushed up stairs. With 
 one kick from his muscular legs, he burst in the door of 
 the office. He found the box. It was locked. He felt 
 the floor giving way under him, so he bent all his energy, 
 balanced the box on the sill of the window, and dropped 
 it out. 
 
 It fell upon the ground beneath. Simon Spud saw it, 
 and in a moment had the papers and books in his posses- 
 sion. Job started to go back, but the stairs had fallen in. 
 He must follow the strong box. He felt his way to the 
 window and looked out. It was twenty feet to the ground. 
 He looked once more down into the raging, red, glowing 
 furnace where the stairs had been, and then swung himself 
 out on the window-sill. For one moment he glanced 
 down into the darkness, then shut his eyes and dropped. 
 
 The crowd rushed forward. Job lay senseless under 
 the window. 
 
 " All for that confounded rascal! " 
 
 "I said I'd put a head on to any man who went up; 
 but dogon me if I thought 'twould be Job Stearns." 
 
 " What the did he go up for, I'd like to know ?
 
 158 Fire I Fire! 
 
 I'd have seen the whole shebang to blazes before I would 
 risk my life for the skunk who had treated me as he has 
 Stearns." 
 
 Such were the comments of the men, as they lifted Job 
 up and placed him on an unhinged door. 
 
 " Whar's Sime ? " asked one. " Why don't the pup 
 come and see what's the matter ? " 
 
 But Simon was off to his room to put his valuables in 
 safe lodgment. 
 
 While these events were transpiring, poor Peggy Sproul 
 was in an agony of fear. She had been all the afternoon, 
 while Chinatown scared away its devils, alternately reading 
 of Elijah and the Priests of Baal, and looking out her 
 window to see the abominations of the heathen; and now, 
 while the whole town was lighted up with fire, the poor, 
 lone woman knew not what to do. She ran back and 
 forth between her neighbor's houses, trying in vain to find 
 some one to condole with; they were gone to see the 
 display. 
 
 "Oh-ooh-ah!" she cried, wringing her hands in agony, 
 " my house will go, an' I shall be a lone an' humless 
 woman. Oh, why don't somebody come an' help me! I 
 must git my things out'n thar ter onct." 
 
 Peggy run into the house again, and bustled excitedly 
 about, but where to begin, she knew not. Looking around, 
 she saw the end of the rag-bag sticking out of the open 
 closet.
 
 Fir el Fir el 
 
 '59 
 
 " Oh, my rags; all of them is wooling things I'd a saved 
 to make inter rugs." 
 
 She bundled the rag-bag out of the front door, and 
 rushed back again. 
 
 " Thar's my fiat-irons !" 
 
 Out they went after the rags. 
 
 "An' thar's my books; I never could kerplace them 
 agin. I must save 'em." 
 
 She did the books up in a paper, a copy of Fox's Book 
 of Martyrs, Baxter, Life of Washington, and the good 
 Book, and set them on the gate-post. 
 
 " An' thar's my presarve tins; they cost me three dollars; 
 they must go. Oh, dearee me ! why was I left all alone 
 ter see everything burned teetotally down right under my 
 nose. An' thar's my ironing-board, an' the pictur of the 
 Lord's Supper." 
 
 She put them all out into the street, and rushed in again. 
 Peggy had her savings all put into a stocking, and the 
 stocking hid in the mattress; she also had some silverware; 
 but in her excitement, the memory of them faded from 
 her mind. She seized the rolling-pin, nutmeg-grater and 
 pie-pans, and threw them out of the window. 
 
 " Them ar winder curlings; I paid two bits a yard fer 
 'em, six uv 'em; hum, one dollar'n'arf. I must save 'em; 
 they'll go like tinder." 
 
 She rolled them up and laid them carefully on the 
 sidewalk. As she looked up, she saw the flames on the 
 other side of her house, but across the town.
 
 160 Fire! Fire! 
 
 " Oh, thar's tother side ! I must git back inter the bed- 
 room 'fore it gits a holt thar." 
 
 She hastened through the house and pushed open the 
 bedroom door. The first thing she saw was her night-cap 
 sticking out from under the pillow. 
 
 " That ar ez raal lace. Oh, when shall I ever sleep in 
 peace agin with it on ?" 
 
 She took it out, and to keep it out of the dirt, put it on 
 the unoccupied gate-post. Two China vases, the looking- 
 glass, comb and hair-brush, went out to get an airing next. 
 About this time the neighbors began to come home. As 
 they came up toward Peggy's with their lanterns, one of 
 them spied what he thought was a figure with a night- 
 cap on. 
 
 " I declare if there isn't Peggy Sproul with her cap on." 
 
 Just then his foot caught in a flat-iron, and he sprawled 
 out on the rag-bag. 
 
 " What under the " 
 
 " It's only " began another, as he executed a graceful 
 bow on the ironing-board, and put his elbow through the 
 looking-glass, while the hair-brush dug into his ear. They 
 both got up, and swung their lanterns around to discover 
 the cause of their downfall. 
 
 "Whew! who's been robbing Peggy?" 
 
 Just then Peggy herself came out with an armful of 
 stove-pipe. 
 
 " What in the world are you doing, Peggy Sproul ? " 
 asked one of the men.
 
 Fire! Fire! 161 
 
 "Yes, you come back when thar's no more to be did, 
 an' ask a poor woman what she's a doin' uv when she's 
 emptied her whole house alone ter save it." 
 
 " I should say you had. Have you brought out your 
 toothpicks yet ? Why, what are you pulling all this rub- 
 bish out here for ? " 
 
 "Rubbish! I'd hev you know them things is valable; I 
 don't want 'em burned." 
 
 "Who's going to burn them ? " asked one of the neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 "Why," said Peggy, "don't you see the fire all around 
 us?" 
 
 " I want to know if it is because you were afraid of being 
 burned out, that you packed all this stuff out?" 
 
 " Sartin' ; uv course," said Peggy. 
 
 " Well, you'd better pack 'em straight in again before the 
 rest of them get smashed." 
 
 " Smashed ! Thar aint none uv 'em smashed." 
 
 " Well, I guess you'll find your looking-glass a goner; I 
 smashed that." 
 
 "My lookin'-glass broken! My lookin'-glass ! " cried 
 Peggy, lifting her hands in horror; "then I shall die. Oh, 
 dearee, dearee." Peggy sat down on the rag-bag and 
 rocked to and fro. "Ter hev a lookin'-glass smashed 
 vhen thar's a fire in town. Oh, I know I shall die. I 
 never broke one 'thout 'thout well, some one a dyin'." 
 
 " There, there, Peggy, if any one dies for it, it will be I, 
 for I smashed it," said her neighbor, soothingly.
 
 1 62 Fire I Fire/ 
 
 " Well, the Lud's will be done," said Peggy, rising re- 
 signedly to meet her fate. 
 
 " Now, you don't think the Lord descends to such petty 
 signs as that, do you, Peggy ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don' know, I don' know; thar's no fathoming 
 o' his ways/' 
 
 " Well, Peggy, I'm a Christian, I hope, and if that's a 
 sign of my death, I'm ready; but let's put these things in 
 before the rest of the town is doomed to die." 
 
 " Ain't thar no danger, now, raally ? " 
 
 " Of course not; don't you see it's all at the other side of 
 the town ? " 
 
 " Well, well, I hev the consolation of hevin' done all I 
 could." 
 
 The three went to work immediately to undo all that 
 Peggy had done. 
 
 Job was carried to the hotel, and Dr. Gratiot called in. 
 He found one leg broken below the knee, but no bruises 
 or wounds of a serious character. People wondered if 
 Simon Spud would do anything to repay Job for his suffer- 
 ing in his cause; but he did nothing beyond sending him 
 a check for the hundred dollars promised, which Job 
 quietly returned to him. Those who knew the mean, 
 petty nature of Simon Spud, did not wonder much at his 
 lack of gratitude.
 
 The Wedding. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE WEDDING. 
 
 I AM aware that there is no more old-fashioned method 
 of disposing of heroes and heroines who have served the 
 purposes for which they were introduced, than to marry 
 them off ; I do not wish, however, to present so much of 
 the shadow in the life of Job or Bessie, without adding a 
 little of the sunshine. 
 
 Of course it might safely be left to the imagination of 
 the reader to picture the wedding, the cottage and the 
 triumph of these much-abused characters of my story, but I 
 prefer to be a little old-fashioned, and tell it myself. 
 There was no chime in the steeple of the Presbyterian 
 church, but the " mellow wedding-bells " were ringing in 
 Job's heart all the while. 
 
 He swung his arms six inches further, and stepped more 
 firmly than ever before. He was a proud man. There 
 was no rejoicing over the moral defeat of his enemies; no 
 chuckling over the discomfiture of Sime; no unkind, re- 
 vengeful feeling toward Peggy. The mantle of charity 
 stretched with the rebound from despair to hope. And yet 
 Job could not help indulging his pride a trifle. 
 
 He was proud of winning Bessie against tremendous 
 odds; proud because his prognostications of the future of 
 the Chinese in Yarbtown had been proven to be correct, 
 and proud because his great disgrace had brought him
 
 1 64 The Wedding. 
 
 greater honor. Job was to be married. The widow, with 
 tears in her eyes, had confessed her error in opposing him, 
 and had given a hearty consent to an early union. 
 
 Parson Smudgins insisted that the wedding should take 
 place in the church. 
 
 " You know, Job, there is a different feeling now from 
 what there was when you went away. Everybody wants to 
 come. You'd better please them in that, I think." 
 
 " No, parson ; I cannot be married there, nor can I ever 
 go there again until righted formally and completely by the 
 society. I am going to be married under the old oak, the 
 only stanch, true friend, next to Bessie, I had the night I 
 left." 
 
 So the old, friendly oak was chosen as the spot for the 
 completion of his happiness. 
 
 The evening arrived. Everything was in readiness. Mrs. 
 Caldwell had prepared a great feast for the neighborhood. 
 The tables were spread out under the great arms of the oak, 
 and they groaned under the weight of the homely, old-time 
 fare. 
 
 Turkeys, chickens, plum-puddings, and the ever present 
 wedding-cake, formed but a portion of the good things spread 
 for jubilant Yarbtown. Chinese lanterns swung from the 
 trees, and a huge bonfire brightened up the groves. It was 
 a grand affair. The mistaken leaders of the church were 
 there, and showed their repentance by their warm congrat- 
 ulations to the proud and happy couple.
 
 The Wedding, 165 
 
 Peggy Sproul was everywhere, cutting, carving, dishing 
 out, finding good places for the crowds at the tables, stop- 
 ping now and then to draw the comer of her apron up to 
 her eyes to wipe away a tear, while she said to herself: "Oh, 
 ter think that I should ha' ben the means uv puttin' off this 
 happy day ! Wai, wal we all uv us make mustakes." 
 
 Job and Bessie were married just the same as all the 
 rest of us. Under the old oak they repledged their love. 
 The faithful old tree seemed to quiver with delight as a 
 breeze swayed its branches, just as Bessie gave the modest 
 "yes." It had the proud pleasure of witnessing the sealing 
 of the secret contract, which it alone had been conscious of. 
 When the happy couple stepped to the carriage in wait- 
 ing to convey them to the widow's, they found the horses 
 taken out, and a crowd of men in front and behind. 
 
 " It's all right, old fellow, get in," said Sol. Williams, 
 stepping up to Job. 
 
 They stepped in, and with a shout the procession started, 
 shouting and singing the two hearts into their new life. 
 
 At the house the tables and chairs were full of the gifts 
 from a friendly people. Peggy came in with a box. She 
 set it down on the floor and throwing her arms around 
 Bessie's neck, said : 
 
 " Can yer forgive me, child ? An old woman's heart ez 
 glad ter night ter see that her error hain't quite wrecked 
 ycr life. I wuz a gal onct, an' hed my day, too. I wuz all 
 ready when the good Lud tuk him away f me." Then the
 
 1 66 The Wedding. 
 
 poor woman broke down. " Here," she said, handing the 
 box to Bessie, " here's all I've left uv all I got for my day; 
 take it for your'n, an' think kindly uv poor Peggy." Bessie 
 kissed Peggy, and opened the box. 
 
 It revealed an old-style tea set. Cups, saucers and 
 plates, all colored and pictured, worthless for modern use, 
 but Bessie felt the sacrifice the good old lady had made, 
 and understood the motive. She leaned over Peggy's 
 shoulder as she sat with her face buried in her hands, and 
 whispered : 
 
 " You dear, good woman, I'll keep it ever to remember 
 you by." 
 
 And so the bells went on ringing their merry chimes of 
 love in Job's and Bessie's heart. They were on the borders 
 of the golden land.
 
 The Wind-up. 167" 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE WIND-UP. 
 
 JOB was confined to his room in the hotel for several 
 weeks. The fracture of his limb at this time was a sore 
 trial. Everything was auguring success. They needed 
 his advice and assistance at the new buildings. The fac- 
 tories were to be under his charge, and he wished to be 
 on hand to see that everything was arranged properly for 
 the commencement of business. He was almost tempted 
 to doubt the sweetness of that revenge which " heaps coals 
 of fire " on the enemy's head. 
 
 Simon Spud revealed the selfishness and meanness of 
 his character, in a marvelous degree, in this affair. He 
 quieted what little conscience he had, by paying to Job 
 the smallest sum promised by him as a reward for saving 
 the vouchers of his property; beyond that, he never 
 troubled himself about Mr. Stearns. Job was not in need 
 of any financial assistance; but it is rather pleasant to feel 
 that one you have served has some sensation of gratitude. 
 
 Job recovered, however, and uniting himself, with all 
 his capital and brains, to the new enterprise, made it a 
 success. His poverty, sickness, and at one time, disgrace, 
 are all forgotten now in the many cares of a prosperous 
 business. Simon found himself one too many in Yarb- 
 town, so he disposed of what little estate remained to him, 
 and removed to a distant mining town in Nevada, where 
 he now runs a whisky mill and poker game.
 
 1 68 The Wind-up. 
 
 Peggy Sproul still lives, holding fast to her contracted, 
 bigoted views, but with a good heart for all that. 
 
 Mrs. Caldwell runs the boarding-house now attached to 
 the mill. She is a strong friend to Job, and has long ago 
 atoned for her mistrust of his character. 
 
 Chinatown has been rebuilt, and smells worse than 
 ever. The great question has never been satisfactorily 
 settled by the Yarbtownites. They are still cursed with 
 Chinese labor, Chinese morals, and probably will remain 
 so until the great wheel of justice and law makes its revo- 
 lution toward disposing of the question at issue. 
 
 A visitor to Yarbtown may still find the moral tone of 
 young Yarbtown to be of rather a poor quality. He may 
 still see scores of men sitting lazily in the bar-rooms, and 
 wise men still ascribing their inactivity to their native in- 
 dolence. 
 
 My story is told. 
 
 Yarbtown is a poorly represented type of many villages 
 in California. 
 
 The stream of heathen men and women still comes 
 pouring in, filling the places which should be occupied by 
 the Caucasian race, poisoning the moral atmosphere, 
 tainting society, undermining the free institutions of the 
 country, degrading labor, and resisting quietly, but wisely 
 and successfully, all efforts to remove them, or prevent 
 their coming. Good people, what shall be done ?

 
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