The Award of Justice; Or, Told in the Rockies: A Pen Picture of the WestBarbour, A. Maynard (Anna Maynard)
General
The Award of Justice; Or, Told in the Rockies: A Pen Picture of the West
Barbour, A. Maynard (Anna Maynard)
Mountain life -- Fiction; Rocky Mountains -- Fiction
In the foreground was the low, dingy depot, and on the platform,
leaning against the building as though their spinal columns were
unable to support them, were two specimens of the genus homo, which
were entirely new to the young Bostonian. He gazed at them with
undisguised interest, being unable to determine whether they were
cow-boys or miners, these being the two classes into which, as he
imagined, the western population was about evenly divided. That they
immediately classified him, in their western vernacular, as a
"tenderfoot," and a remarkably verdant specimen at that, was not owing
to their superior penetration, as it was a self-evident fact.
Mr. Edward B. Rutherford, Jr., prided himself upon being a
resident of Boston, a son of one of her best families, and a
graduate of Harvard, and it is scarcely to be wondered at if he
felt himself slightly superior to ordinary mortals who had not been
blessed with these advantages. Nevertheless, the fact remained that
Mr. Rutherford's personal appearance could not be considered
especially prepossessing, even when moving in his own sphere where
he felt himself, as he would have expressed it, "en rapport" with his
surroundings; under other circumstances, as at the present time, it
very nearly approached the ludicrous. He was small in stature, but
his bump of self-esteem was developed in an inverse ratio to his
size. He seemed to be making a constant effort to maintain his
dignity at the proper level, in which direction he was greatly
assisted by a pair of eye-glasses, perched on a very large and
decidedly Roman nose. It had been claimed by his college chums
that the eye-glasses were worn for this especial purpose; be that
as it may, without their assistance, his task would certainly have
been a difficult one, as his eyes, which were very full and round,
and surmounted by a pair of extremely high-arched eyebrows, gave him
always an expression of exaggerated surprise and bewilderment,
which, when intensified as on the present occasion, rendered his
appearance very far from the otium cum dignitate to which he aspired.
But upon very few is the "giftie" bestowed, "to see oursel's as
ithers see us," and to many besides the junior Mr. Rutherford, such
a vision would be anything but satisfactory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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