The of scenery visible to the eye looked poor. As far as we could see was red hills all washed down with gullies and over with patches of piny woods. Blackberry bushes was all that kept the rail fences from falling down. About fifteen miles over to the north was a little range of well-timbered mountains.
That town of Mountain Valley wasn't going. About a dozen people along the sidewalks; but what you saw mostly was rain-barrels and roosters, and boys around with sticks in piles of ashes made by burning the scenery of Uncle Tom shows.
And just then there passes down on the other side of the street a high man in a long black coat and a hat. All the people in sight bowed, and some crossed the street to shake hands with him; folks came out of stores and houses to holler at him; women leaned out of windows and smiled; and all the kids stopped playing to look at him. Our landlord stepped out on the porch and himself double like a carpenter's rule, and sung out, "Good-morning, Colonel," when he was a dozen yards gone by.
"And is that Alexander, pa?" says Caligula to the landlord; "and why is he called great?"
"That, gentlemen," says the landlord, "is no less than Colonel Jackson T. Rockingham, the president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, mayor of Mountain Valley, and chairman of the Perry County board of immigration and public improvements."
"Been away a good many years, hasn't he?" I asked.
"No, sir; Colonel Rockingham is going down to the post-office for his mail. His fellow-citizens take pleasure in greeting him thus every morning. The colonel is our most prominent citizen. Besides the height of the stock of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, he owns a thousand acres of that land across the . Mountain Valley delights, sir, to honor a citizen of such worth and public spirit."
For an hour that afternoon Caligula sat on the back of his neck on the porch and studied a newspaper, which was unusual in a man who despised print. When he was through he took me to the end of the porch among the sunlight and drying dish-towels. I knew that Caligula had invented a new . For he chewed the ends of his mustache and ran the left catch of his suspenders up and down, which was his way.
"What is it now?" I asks. "Just so it ain't floating mining stocks or raising Pennsylvania pinks, we'll talk it over."
"Pennsylvania pinks? Oh, that refers to a coin-raising scheme of the Keystoners. They burn the soles of old women's feet to make them tell where their money's hid."
Caligula's words in business was always few and bitter.
"You see them mountains," said he, pointing. "And you seen that colonel man that owns railroads and cuts more ice when he goes to the post-office than Roosevelt does when he cleans 'em out. What we're going to do is to kidnap the latter into the former, and a of ten thousand dollars."
"Illegality," says I, shaking my head.
"I knew you'd say that," says Caligula. "At first sight it does seem to jar peace and dignity. But it don't. I got the idea out of that newspaper. Would you commit aspersions on a
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