General stores -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Ye--es, as far as you've gone, but I wouldn't have known there was
such a person as Mary--bless her!--if you hadn't sent me East, an'
your wife--bless her too--hadn't given me a letter of introduction to
Mary, so I don't see but that honors are about even. You might as well
go back a little further, though, and say that you wouldn't have been
here to send me East if your Uncle Jethro hadn't loved your father,
an' made up his mind that your father's son shouldn't fool away his
life in pleasin' his eyes an' fancies in New York, but should get the
disciplinin' that makes a man out of a youngster that's got the real
stuff born in him."
"Caleb, what are you saying?"
"Exactly what your Uncle Jethro said to me--an' to nobody else. Mebbe
I hadn't ought to have let it out; mebbe, on the other hand, it may
make you feel kindlier to your Uncle Jethro. But, to go on backward,
there wouldn't have been any Jethro to lay up a business start for you
if the Somerton family hadn't begun somewhere back in the history of
the world, an' when you get that far back you might as well go farther
an' say that if Noah hadn't built the ark, or if he'd been in too big
a hurry to get out of it, there wouldn't have been any of us to do
anythin'. I tell you, Philip, an' just you keep it in mind against
anythin' that may turn up anywhere or at any time, that when there's
any glory or credit to be given out, an' you want to do the square
thing, you'll have to spread it so thin that nobody'll get enough of it
to make him feel over an' above cocky."
* * * * *
People, like nations, usually become happy in prosperity, but through
prosperity their lives become less eventful, and consequently less
interesting to other people. The water-power of Claybanks' "crik" was
soon developed, and the mills that were erected, and the people who
came to them, made new demands and prices for real estate, as well as
for certain farm products. But before all this had come to pass Grace
made haste to gratify a consuming desire to spend the springtime at her
birthplace in the East. While she was there, Caleb one day received the
following despatch from Philip:--
"Caleb Wright Somerton born last night. May he become
as good a man as you."
Caleb showed the despatch to his wife, and then started to put it
between the leaves of his Bible; but Mary made haste to put it in a
frame, under glass, and affix it to the front of the store, to the
great interest of the people of Claybanks and vicinity and to the great
benefit of the business of Somerton & Wright.
D'ri and I
By IRVING BACHELLER, author of "EBEN HOLDEN." Bound in red silk cloth,
illustrated cover, gilt top, rough edges. Eight drawings by F. C. Yohn.
Size, 5 x 7¾. Price, $1.50
[Illustration]
A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the British. Being the
Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U.S.A. And a Romance of Sturdy Americans
and Dainty French Demoiselles.
PHILADELPHIA PRESS:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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