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Book Review: The Dream by Gurbaksh Chahal
by Emily Giffin A novel about life, love, the choices we make, the choices we didn't make, and the 'what if?' At the age of 33, Ellen Graham seems to have it all. Her husband, Andy, is a handsome, successful lawyer and the brother of her best friend,

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Gordon Keith written by Thomas Nelson Page

T >> Thomas Nelson Page >> Gordon Keith




"Boys, learn to obey promptly," he said; "saves a sight o' trouble. It's
better in the family 'n a melojeon. It's got to come sooner or later,
and the sooner the better for you. The difference between me and most
married men around here is that they lies about it, and I don't. I know
I belongs to Eliza. She owns me, but then she treats me well. I'm sort
o' meek when she's around, but then I make up for it by bein' so durned
independent when I'm away from home. Besides, it's a good deal better to
be ordered about by somebody as keers for you than not to have anybody
in the world as keers whether you come or stay."

Besides Mrs. Rawson, there were in the family a widowed daughter, Mrs.
Tripper, a long, pale, thin woman, with sad eyes, who had once been
pretty, and her daughter Euphronia, already referred to, who, in right
of being very pretty, was the old squire's idol and was never thwarted
in anything. She was, in consequence, a spoiled little damsel,
self-willed, very vain, and as susceptible as a chameleon. The ease with
which she could turn her family around her finger gave her a certain
contempt for them. At first she was quite enamoured of the young
engineer; but Mr. Rhodes was too busy to give any thought to a girl whom
he regarded as a child, and she turned her glances on Gordon. Gordon
also was impervious to her charms. He was by no means indifferent to
girls; several little damsels who attended St. Martin's Church had at
one time or another been his load-stars for a while; but he was an
aristocrat at heart, and held himself infinitely above a girl like Miss
Euphronia.

Ferdy Wickersham had no such motives for abstaining from a flirtation
with the young girl as those which restrained Rhodes and Keith.

Euphronia had not at first taken much notice of him. She had been
inclined to regard Ferdy Wickersham with some disfavor as a Yankee; but
when the other two failed her, Wickersham fell heir to her
blandishments. Her indifference to him had piqued him and awakened an
interest which possibly he might not otherwise have felt. He had seen
much of the world for a youngster, and could make a good show with what
he knew. He could play on the piano, and though the aged instrument
which the old countryman had got at second-hand for his granddaughter
gave forth sounds which might have come from a tinkling cymbal, yet
Ferdy played with a certain dash and could bring from it tunes which the
girl thought very fine. The two soon began to be so much together that
both Rhodes and Keith fell to rallying Ferdy as to his conquest. Ferdy
accepted it with complacency.

"I think I shall stay here while you are working up in the mountains,"
he said to his chief as the time drew near for them to leave.

"You will do nothing of the kind. I promised to take you with me, and I
will take you dead or alive."

A frown began on the youngster's face, but passed away quickly, and in
its place came a look of covert complacency.

"I thought your father had offered you five thousand dollars if you
would stick it out through, the whole trip?" Keith said.

Ferdy shut one eye slowly and gazed at Gordon with the other.

"Sickness was barred. I'll tell the old man I've studied. He'd never
drop on to the game. He is a soft old bird, anyway."

"Do you mean you are going to lie to him?" asked Gordon.

"Oh, you are sappy! All fellows lie to their governors," declared Ferdy,
easily. "Why, I wouldn't have any fun at all if I did not lie. You stay
with me a bit, my son, and I'll teach you a few useful things."

"Thank you. I have no doubt you are a capable teacher," sniffed Gordon;
"but I think I won't trouble you."

That evening, as Keith was coming from his work, he took a cross-cut
through the fields and orchard, and under an overshadowing tree he came
on Ferdy and Euphronia. They were so deeply engaged that Keith hastily
withdrew and, making a detour, passed around the orchard to the house.

At supper Mrs. Tripper casually inquired of her daughter where she had
been, a remark which might have escaped Keith's observation had not
Ferdy Wickersham answered it in some haste.

"She went after the cows," he said, with a quick look at her, "and I
went fishing, but I did not catch anything."

"I thought, Phrony, I saw you in the orchard," said her mother.

Wickersham looked at her quickly again.

"No, she wasn't in the orchard," he said, "for I was there."

"No, I wasn't in the orchard this evening," said Euphronia. "I went
after the cows." She looked down in her plate.

Keith ate the rest of his supper in silence. He could not tell on Ferdy;
that would not be "square." He consulted his mentor, his chief, who
simply laughed at him.

"Leave 'em alone," he counselled. "I guess she knew how to lie before he
came. Ferdy has some sense. And we are going to leave for the mountains
in a little while. I am only waiting to bring the old squire around."

Gordon shook his head.

"My father says you mistake his hospitality for yielding," he said. "You
will never get him to consent to your plan."

Rhodes laughed.

"Oh, won't I! I have had these old countrymen to deal with before. Just
give them time and show them the greenbacks. He will come around. Wait
until I dangle the shekels before him."

But Mr. Rhodes found that in that provincial field there were some
things stronger than shekels. And among these were prejudices. The more
the young engineer talked, the more obstinate appeared the old
countryman.

"I raise cattle," he said in final answer to all his eloquence.

"Raise cattle! You can make more by raising coal in one year than you
can by raising cattle all your life. Why, you have the richest mineral
country back here almost in the world," said the young diplomat,
persuasively.

"And that's the reason I want to keep the railroads out," said the
squire, puffing quietly. "I don't want the Yankees to come down and take
it away from us."

Rhodes laughed. "I'd like to see any one take anything from you. They
will develop it for you."

"I never seen anybody develop anything for another man, leastways a
Yankee," said Squire Rawson, reflectively.

Just then Ferdy chipped in. He was tired of being left out.

"My father'll come down here and show you old mossbacks a thing or two,"
he laughed.

The old man turned his eyes on him slowly. Ferdy was not a favorite with
him. For one thing, he played on the piano. But there were
other reasons.

"Who is your father, son?" The squire drew a long whiff from his pipe.

"Aaron Wickersham of Wickersham & Company, who is setting up the chips
for this railroad. We are going to run through here and make it one of
the greatest lines of the country."

"Oh, you're _goin'_ to run it! From the way you talked I thought maybe
you _had_ run it. Was a man named Aaron once thought he knew more 'bout
runnin' a' expedition than his brother did. Ever heard what became
of him?"

"No," said Ferdy.

"Well, he run some of 'em in the ground. He didn't have sense to know
the difference between a calf and God."

Ferdy flushed.

"Well, my old man knows enough to run this railroad. He has run bigger
things than this."

"If he knows as much as his son, he knows a lot. He ought to be able to
run the world." And the squire turned back to Rhodes:

"What are you goin' to do, my son, when you've done all you say you're
goin' to do for us? You will be too good to live among them Yankees; you
will have to come back here, I reckon."

"No; I'm going to marry and settle down," said Rhodes, jestingly. "Maybe
I'll come back here sometime just to receive your thanks for showing you
how benighted you were before I came, and for the advice I gave you."

"He is trying to marry a rich woman," said Ferdy, at which Rhodes
flushed a little.

The old man took no notice of the interruption.

"Well, you must," he said to Rhodes, his eyes resting on him
benevolently. "You must come back sometime and see me. I love to hear a
young man talk who knows it all. But you take my advice, my son; don't
marry no rich man's daughter. They will always think they have done you
a favor, and they will try to make you think so too, even if your wife
don't do it. You take warnin' by me. When I married, I had just sixteen
dollars and my wife she had seventeen, and I give you my word I have
never heard the last of that one dollar from that day to this."

Rhodes laughed and said he would remember his advice.

"Sometimes I think," said the old man, "I have mistaken my callin'. I
was built to give advice to other folks, and instid of that they have
been givin' me advice all my life. It's in and about the only thing I
ever had given me, except physic."

The night before the party left, Ferdy packed his kit with the rest; but
the next morning he was sick in his bed. His pulse was not quick, but he
complained of pains in every limb. Dr. Balsam came over to see him, but
could find nothing serious the matter. He, however, advised Rhodes to
leave him behind. So, Ferdy stayed at Squire Rawson's all the time that
the party was in the mountains. But he wrote his father that he
was studying.

During the time that Rhodes's party was in the mountains Squire Rawson
rode about with them examining lands, inspecting coal-beds, and adding
much to the success of the undertaking.

He appeared to be interested mainly in hunting up cattle, and after he
had introduced the engineers and secured the tardy consent of the
landowners for them to make a survey, he would spend hours haggling over
a few head of mountain cattle, or riding around through the mountains
looking for others.

Many a farmer who met the first advances of the stranger with stony
opposition yielded amicably enough after old Rawson had spent an hour or
two looking at his "cattle," or had conversed with him and his
weather-beaten wife about the "craps" and the "child'en."

"You are a miracle!" declared young Rhodes, with sincere admiration.
"How do you manage it?"

The old countryman accepted the compliment with becoming modesty.

"Oh, no; ain't no miracle about it. All I know I learned at the Ridge
College, and from an old uncle of mine, and in the war. He used to say,
'Adam, don't be a fool; learn the difference between cattle.' Now,
before you come, I didn't know nothin' about all them fureign
countries--they was sort of vague, like the New Jerusalem--or about
coal. You've told me all about that. I had an idea that it was all made
jest so,--jest as we find it,--as the Bible says 'twas; but you know a
lot--more than Moses knowed, and he was 'skilled in all the learnin' of
the Egyptians.' You haven't taken to cattle quite as kindly as I'd 'a'
liked, but you know a lot about coal. Learn the difference between
cattle, my son. There's a sight o' difference between 'em."

Rhodes declared that he would remember his advice, and the two parted
with mutual esteem.



CHAPTER IV

TWO YOUNG MEN

The young engineer, on his return to New York, made a report to his
employer. He said that the mineral resources were simply enormous, and
were lying in sight for any one to pick up who knew how to deal with the
people to whom they belonged. They could be had almost for the asking.
But he added this statement: that the legislative charters would hardly
hold, and even if they did, it would take an army to maintain what they
gave against the will of the people. He advised securing the services of
Squire Rawson and a few other local magnates.

Mr. Wickersham frowned at this plain speaking, and dashed his pen
through this part of the report. "I am much obliged to you for the
report on the minerals. The rest of it is trash. You were not paid for
your advice on that. When I want law I go to a lawyer."

Mr. Rhodes rose angrily.

"Well, you have for nothing an opinion that is worth more than that of
every rascally politician that has sold you his opinion and himself, and
you will find it out."

Mr. Wickersham did find it out. However much was published about it, the
road was not built for years. The legislative charters, gotten through
by Mr. J. Quincy Plume and his confreres, which were to turn that region
into a modern Golconda, were swept away with the legislatures that
created them, and new charters had to be obtained.

Squire Rawson, however, went on buying cattle and, report said, mineral
rights, and Gordon Keith still followed doggedly the track along which
Mr. Rhodes had passed, sure that sometime he should find him a great
man, building bridges and cutting tunnels, commanding others and sending
them to right or left with a swift wave of his arm as of old. Where
before Gordon studied as a task, he now worked for ambition, and that
key unlocked unknown treasures.

Mr. Rhodes fell in with Norman just after his interview with Mr.
Wickersham. He was still feeling sore over Mr. Wickersham's treatment of
his report. He had worked hard over it. He attributed it in part to
Ferdy's complaint of him. He now gave Norman an account of his trip, and
casually mentioned his meeting Gordon Keith.

"He's a good boy," he said, "a nice kid. He licked Ferdy-a very pretty
little piece of work. Ferdy had both the weight and the reach on him."

"Licked Ferdy! It's an old grudge, I guess?" said Norman.

"No. They started in pretty good friends. It was about you."

"About me?" Norman's face took on new interest.

"Yes; Ferdy said something, and Keith took it up. He seems pretty fond
of you. I think he had it in for Ferdy, for Ferdy had been bedevilling
him about the place. You know old Wickersham owns it. Ferdy's strong
point is not taste. So I think Gordon was feeling a bit sore, and when
Ferdy lit into you, Keith slapped him."

Norman was all alert now.

"Well? Which licked?"

"Oh, that was all. Keith won at the end of the first round. He'd have
been fighting now if he had not licked him."

The rest of the talk was of General Keith and of the hardship of his
position.

"They are as poor as death," said Rhodes. He told of his surroundings.

When Norman got home, he went to his mother. Her eye lighted up as it
rested on the alert, vigorous figure and fresh, manly, eager face. She
knew he had something on his mind.

"Mother, I have a plan," he said. "You remember Gordon Keith, the boy
whose boat I sank over in England--'Keith the rebel'?"

Mrs. Wentworth remembered well. She remembered an older fight than that,
between a Keith and a Wentworth.

"Well, I have just heard of him. Rhodes--you remember Rhodes? Grinnell
Rhodes? Used to be stroke, the greatest stroke ever was. Well, Rhodes
has been down South and stayed at Keith's father's home. He says it's a
beautiful old place, and now belongs to Mr. Wickersham, Ferdy's father,
and the old gentleman, General Keith, who used to own it farms it for
him. Think of that! It's as if father had to be a bookkeeper in the
bank! Rhodes says he's a fine old fellow, and that Gordon is one of the
best. He was down there running a railway line for Mr. Wickersham, and
took Gordon with him. And he says he's the finest sort of a fellow, and
wants to go to college dreadfully, but hasn't a cent nor any way to get
anything. Rhodes says it's awful down there. They are so poor."

Mrs. Wentworth smiled. "Well?"

Norman blushed and stammered a little, as he often did when he was
embarrassed.

"Well, you know I have some money of my own, and I thought if you don't
mind it I'd like to lend him a little. I feel rather piggish just
spending it right and left for nothing, when a fellow like that would
give his eyes for the chance to go to college. Grinnell Rhodes says that
he is ever so fond of me; that Ferdy was blowing once and said something
against me, and Gordon jumped right into him--said I was a friend of
his, and that Ferdy should not say anything against me in his presence.
He knocked Ferdy down. I tell you, when a fellow is ready to fight for
another years after he has seen him, he is a good friend."

Mrs. Wentworth's face showed that she too appreciated such a friend.

"How do you know he needs it, or would accept it if he did?"

"Why, Rhodes says we have no idea of the poverty down there. He says our
poorest clerks are rich compared with those people. And I'll write him a
letter and offer to lend it to him. I'll tell him it's mine."

Mrs. Wentworth went over and kissed the boy. The picture rose to her
mind of a young man fresh from fields where he had won renown, honored
by his State, with everything that wealth and rank could give, laying
his honors at the feet of a poor young girl.

"All right, my son."

That night Norman sat down and wrote a letter.

A few days later than this, Gordon Keith received a letter with the
post-mark "New York." Who was there in New York who could know him? Not
his young engineer. He knew his hand. He was now abroad. As he read the
letter he wondered yet more. It was from Norman Wentworth. He had met an
old friend, he said, who had told him about Gordon and about his
father's misfortunes. He himself, he said, was at college, and he found
himself in a position to be able to help a friend. He did not know to
what extent aid might be of service; but he had some means of his own,
and he asked that Gordon would allow him to make him a loan of whatever
might be necessary to relieve his father and himself.

When Gordon finished reading the letter there were tears in his eyes.

He laid the letter in his father's lap, and the old gentleman read it
through slowly. He sat lost in reflection for a few moments and then
handed the letter back to Gordon.

"Write to him and thank him, my son--thank him warmly for both of us. I
will never forget his kindness. He is a gentleman."

This was all; but he too showed in his face that that far-off shaft of
light had reached his heart and rested there.

The General afterwards meditated deeply as to the wisdom of this action.
Just then, however, Providence seemed to come to his aid.

Old Adam Rawson, hearing that he was hard up, or moved by some kindly
impulse, offered to make him a loan. He "happened to have," he wrote, "a
little pile lying by that he didn't have any particular use for just
then, and it had come to him that, maybe, the General might be able to
use it to advantage. He didn't care anything about security or
interest."

The General was perplexed. He did not need it himself, but he was glad
to borrow enough to send Gordon to college for a year. He sent Gordon up
to old Rawson's with a letter.

The old man read the letter and then looked Gordon over; he read it and
looked him over again, much as if he were appraising a young steer.

"Well, I didn't say I'd lend it to you," he said; "but, maybe, I'll do
it if 'twill help the General. Investin' in a young man is kind of
hazardous; it's like puttin' your money in a harry-dick--you don't know
what he's goin' to be. All you has to go on is the frame and your
jedgment."

Fortunately for Keith, the old cattle-dealer had a good opinion of his
"jedgment." He went on: "But I admit blood counts for somethin', and I'm
half minded to adventure some on your blood."

Gordon laughed. He would be glad to be tried on any account, he said,
and would certainly repay the money.

"Well, I b'lieve you will if you can," said the squire. "And that's more
than I can say of everybody. I'll invest a leetle money in your future,
and I want to say this to you, that your future will depend on whether
you pay it back or not. I never seen a young man as didn't pay his debts
come to any good in my life, and I never seen one as did as didn't.
I've seen many a man'd shoot you if you dared to question his honor, an'
wouldn't pay you a dollar if he was lousy with 'em." He took out his
wallet, and untying the strings carefully, began to count out the
greenbacks.

"I have to carry a pretty good pile to buy calves with," he chuckled;
"but I reckon you'll be a fair substitute for one or two. How much do
you want--I mean, how little can you git along with?"

Gordon told him the amount his father had suggested. It was not a great
sum.

"That seems a heap of money to put in book-learnin'," said the old man,
thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on Gordon. "My whole edication didn't cost
twenty-five dollars. With all that learnin', you'd know enough to teach
the Ridge College."

Gordon, who had figured it out, began to give his necessary expenses.
When he had finished, the old man counted out his bills. Gordon said he
would give him his note for it, and his father would indorse it. The
other shook his head.

"No; I don't want any bond. I'll remember it and you'll remember it.
I've known too many men think they'd paid a debt when they'd given their
bond. I don't want you to think that. If you're goin' to pay me, you'll
do it without a bond, and if you ain't, I ain't goin' to sue you; I'm
jest goin' to think what a' o'nery cuss you are."

So Gordon returned home, and a few weeks later was delving deep into new
mysteries.

Gordon's college life may be passed over. He worked well, for he felt
that it was necessary to work.

Looking around when he left college, the only thing that appeared in
sight for Gordon Keith was to teach school. To be sure, the business;
"the universal refuge of educated indigents," as his father quoted with
a smile, was already overcrowded. But Gordon heard of a school which up
to this time had not been overwhelmed with applicants. There was a
vacancy at the Ridge College. Finally poor Gunn, after holding out as
long as he could, had laid down his arms, as all soldiers must do sooner
or later, and Gordon applied for the position. The old squire remembered
the straight, broad-shouldered boy with his father's eyes and also
remembered the debt he owed him, and with the vision of a stern-faced
man with eyes of flame riding quietly at the head of his men across a
shell-ploughed field, he wrote to Gordon to come.

"If he's got half of his daddy in him he'll straighten 'em out," he
said.

So, Gordon became a school-teacher.

"I know no better advice to give you," said General Keith to Gordon, on
bidding him good-by, "than to tell you to govern yourself, and you will
be able to govern them. 'He that is slow to anger is better than the
mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.'"

During the years in which Gordon Keith was striving to obtain an
education as best he might, Ferdy Wickersham had gone to one of the
first colleges of the land. It was the same college which Norman
Wentworth was attending. Indeed, Norman's being there was the main
reason that Ferdy was sent there. Mr. Wickersham wished his son to have
the best advantages. Mrs. Wickersham desired this too, but she also had
a further motive. She wished her son to eclipse Norman Wentworth. Both
were young men of parts, and as both had unlimited means at their
disposal, neither was obliged to study.

Norman Wentworth, however, had applied himself to secure one of the high
class-honors, and as he was universally respected and very popular, he
was regarded as certain to have it, until an unexpected claimant
suddenly appeared as a rival.

Ferdy Wickersham never took the trouble to compete for anything until he
discovered that some one else valued it. It was a trait he had
inherited from his mother, who could never see any one possessing a
thing without coveting it.

The young man was soon known at college as one of the leaders of the gay
set. His luxuriously furnished rooms, his expensive suppers and his
acquaintance with dancing-girls were talked about, and he soon had a
reputation for being one of the wildest youngsters of his class.

"Your son will spend all the money you can make for him," said one of
his friends to Mr. Wickersham.

"Well," said the father, "I hope he will have as much pleasure in
spending it as I have had in making it, that's all."

He not only gave Ferdy all the money he suggested a need for, but he
offered him large bonuses in case he should secure any of the honors he
had heard of as the prizes of the collegiate work.

Mrs. Wickersham was very eager for him to win this particular prize.
Apart from her natural ambition, she had a special reason. The firm of
Norman Wentworth & Son was one of the oldest and best-known houses in
the country. The home of Norman Wentworth was known to be one of the
most elegant in the city, as it was the most exclusive, and both Mr. and
Mrs. Wentworth were recognized as representatives of the old-time
gentry. Mrs. Wickersham might have endured the praise of the elegance of
the mansion. She had her own ideas as to house-furnishing, and the
Wentworth mansion was furnished in a style too quiet and antiquated to
suit her more modern tastes. If it was filled with old mahogany and hung
with damask-satin, Mrs. Wickersham had carved walnut and gorgeous
hangings. And as to those white marble busts, and those books that were
everywhere, she much preferred her brilliant figures which she "had
bought in Europe," and books were "a nuisance about a house." They ought
to be kept in a library, as she kept hers--in a carved-walnut case with
glass doors.

The real cause of Mrs. Wickersham's dislike of Mrs. Wentworth lay
deeper.