Chapter 1

by William Dean Howells

　　"No," said Lapham, somewhat absently. He put out his huge foot andpushed the ground-glass door shut between his little den and thebook-keepers, in their larger den outside."In personal appearance," wrote Bartley in the sketch for which he nowstudied his subject, while he waited patiently for him to continue,"Silas Lapham is a fine type of the successful American. He has asquare, bold chin, only partially concealed by the short reddish-greybeard, growing to the edges of his firmly closing lips. His nose isshort and straight; his forehead good, but broad rather than high; hiseyes blue, and with a light in them that is kindly or sharp accordingto his mood. He is of medium height, and fills an average arm-chairwith a solid bulk, which on the day of our interview wasunpretentiously clad in a business suit of blue serge. His head droopssomewhat from a short neck, which does not trouble itself to rise farfrom a pair of massive shoulders.""I don't know as I know just where you want me to begin," said Lapham."Might begin with your birth; that's where most of us begin," repliedBartley.A gleam of humorous appreciation shot into Lapham's blue eyes."I didn't know whether you wanted me to go quite so far back as that,"he said. "But there's no disgrace in having been born, and I was bornin the State of Vermont, pretty well up under the Canada line--so wellup, in fact, that I came very near being an adoptive citizen; for I wasbound to be an American of SOME sort, from the word Go! That wasabout--well, let me see!--pretty near sixty years ago: this is '75, andthat was '20. Well, say I'm fifty-five years old; and I've LIVED 'em,too; not an hour of waste time about ME, anywheres! I was born on afarm, and----""Worked in the fields summers and went to school winters: regulationthing?" Bartley cut in."Regulation thing," said Lapham, accepting this irreverent version ofhis history somewhat dryly."Parents poor, of course," suggested the journalist. "Any barefootbusiness? Early deprivations of any kind, that would encourage theyouthful reader to go and do likewise? Orphan myself, you know," saidBartley, with a smile of cynical good-comradery.Lapham looked at him silently, and then said with quiet self-respect,"I guess if you see these things as a joke, my life won't interest you.""Oh yes, it will," returned Bartley, unabashed. "You'll see; it'llcome out all right." And in fact it did so, in the interview whichBartley printed."Mr. Lapham," he wrote, "passed rapidly over the story of his earlylife, its poverty and its hardships, sweetened, however, by therecollections of a devoted mother, and a father who, if somewhat herinferior in education, was no less ambitious for the advancement of hischildren. They were quiet, unpretentious people, religious, after thefashion of that time, and of sterling morality, and they taught theirchildren the simple virtues of the Old Testament and Poor Richard'sAlmanac."Bartley could not deny himself this gibe; but he trusted to Lapham'sunliterary habit of mind for his security in making it, and most otherpeople would consider it sincere reporter's rhetoric."You know," he explained to Lapham, "that we have to look at all thesefacts as material, and we get the habit of classifying them. Sometimesa leading question will draw out a whole line of facts that a manhimself would never think of." He went on to put several queries, andit was from Lapham's answers that he generalised the history of hischildhood. "Mr. Lapham, although he did not dwell on his boyish trialsand struggles, spoke of them with deep feeling and an abiding sense oftheir reality." This was what he added in the interview, and by thetime he had got Lapham past the period where risen Americans are allpathetically alike in their narrow circumstances, their sufferings, andtheir aspirations, he had beguiled him into forgetfulness of the checkhe had received, and had him talking again in perfect enjoyment of hisautobiography."Yes, sir," said Lapham, in a strain which Bartley was careful not tointerrupt again, "a man never sees all that his mother has been to himtill it's too late to let her know that he sees it. Why, my mother--"he stopped. "It gives me a lump in the throat," he saidapologetically, with an attempt at a laugh. Then he went on: "She wasa little frail thing, not bigger than a good-sized intermediateschool-girl; but she did the whole work of a family of boys, andboarded the hired men besides. She cooked, swept, washed, ironed, madeand mended from daylight till dark--and from dark till daylight, I wasgoing to say; for I don't know how she got any time for sleep. But Isuppose she did. She got time to go to church, and to teach us to readthe Bible, and to misunderstand it in the old way. She was GOOD. Butit ain't her on her knees in church that comes back to me so much likethe sight of an angel as her on her knees before me at night, washingmy poor, dirty little feet, that I'd run bare in all day, and making medecent for bed. There were six of us boys; it seems to me we were allof a size; and she was just so careful with all of us. I can feel herhands on my feet yet!" Bartley looked at Lapham's No. 10 boots, andsoftly whistled through his teeth. "We were patched all over; but wewa'n't ragged. I don't know how she got through it. She didn't seemto think it was anything; and I guess it was no more than my fatherexpected of her. HE worked like a horse in doors and out--up atdaylight, feeding the stock, and groaning round all day with hisrheumatism, but not stopping."Bartley hid a yawn over his note-book, and probably, if he could havespoken his mind, he would have suggested to Lapham that he was notthere for the purpose of interviewing his ancestry. But Bartley hadlearned to practise a patience with his victims which he did not alwaysfeel, and to feign an interest in their digressions till he could bringthem up with a round turn."I tell you," said Lapham, jabbing the point of his penknife into thewriting-pad on the desk before him, "when I hear women complainingnowadays that their lives are stunted and empty, I want to tell 'emabout my MOTHER'S life. I could paint it out for 'em."Bartley saw his opportunity at the word paint, and cut in. "And yousay, Mr. Lapham, that you discovered this mineral paint on the old farmyourself?"Lapham acquiesced in the return to business. "I didn't discover it,"he said scrupulously. "My father found it one day, in a hole made by atree blowing down. There it was, lying loose in the pit, and stickingto the roots that had pulled up a big, cake of dirt with 'em. I don'tknow what give him the idea that there was money in it, but he didthink so from the start. I guess, if they'd had the word in thosedays, they'd considered him pretty much of a crank about it. He wastrying as long as he lived to get that paint introduced; but hecouldn't make it go. The country was so poor they couldn't paint theirhouses with anything; and father hadn't any facilities. It got to be akind of joke with us; and I guess that paint-mine did as much as anyone thing to make us boys clear out as soon as we got old enough. Allmy brothers went West, and took up land; but I hung on to New Englandand I hung on to the old farm, not because the paint-mine was on it,but because the old house was--and the graves. Well," said Lapham, asif unwilling to give himself too much credit, "there wouldn't been anymarket for it, anyway. You can go through that part of the State andbuy more farms than you can shake a stick at for less money than itcost to build the barns on 'em. Of course, it's turned out a goodthing. I keep the old house up in good shape, and we spend a month orso there every summer. M' wife kind of likes it, and the girls.Pretty place; sightly all round it. I've got a force of men at workthere the whole time, and I've got a man and his wife in the house.Had a family meeting there last year; the whole connection from outWest. There!" Lapham rose from his seat and took down a large warped,unframed photograph from the top of his desk, passing his hand over it,and then blowing vigorously upon it, to clear it of the dust. "Therewe are, ALL of us.""I don't need to look twice at YOU," said Bartley, putting his fingeron one of the heads."Well, that's Bill," said Lapham, with a gratified laugh. "He's aboutas brainy as any of us, I guess. He's one of their leading lawyers,out Dubuque way; been judge of the Common Pleas once or twice. That'shis son--just graduated at Yale--alongside of my youngest girl.Good-looking chap, ain't he?""SHE'S a good-looking chap," said Bartley, with prompt irreverence. Hehastened to add, at the frown which gathered between Lapham's eyes,"What a beautiful creature she is! What a lovely, refined, sensitiveface! And she looks GOOD, too.""She is good," said the father, relenting."And, after all, that's about the best thing in a woman," said thepotential reprobate. "If my wife wasn't good enough to keep both of usstraight, I don't know what would become of me." "My other daughter,"said Lapham, indicating a girl with eyes that showed large, and a faceof singular gravity. "Mis' Lapham," he continued, touching his wife'seffigy with his little finger. "My brother Willard and hisfamily--farm at Kankakee. Hazard Lapham and his wife--Baptist preacherin Kansas. Jim and his three girls--milling business at Minneapolis.Ben and his family--practising medicine in Fort Wayne."The figures were clustered in an irregular group in front of an oldfarm-house, whose original ugliness had been smartened up with a coatof Lapham's own paint, and heightened with an incongruous piazza. Thephotographer had not been able to conceal the fact that they were alldecent, honest-looking, sensible people, with a very fair share ofbeauty among the young girls; some of these were extremely pretty, infact. He had put them into awkward and constrained attitudes, ofcourse; and they all looked as if they had the instrument of torturewhich photographers call a head-rest under their occiputs. Here andthere an elderly lady's face was a mere blur; and some of the youngerchildren had twitched themselves into wavering shadows, and might havepassed for spirit-photographs of their own little ghosts. It was thestandard family-group photograph, in which most Americans have figuredat some time or other; and Lapham exhibited a just satisfaction in it."I presume," he mused aloud, as he put it back on top of his desk,"that we sha'n't soon get together again, all of us.""And you say," suggested Bartley, "that you stayed right along on theold place, when the rest cleared out West?""No o-o-o," said Lapham, with a long, loud drawl; "I cleared out Westtoo, first off. Went to Texas. Texas was all the cry in those days.But I got enough of the Lone Star in about three months, and I comeback with the idea that Vermont was good enough for me.""Fatted calf business?" queried Bartley, with his pencil poised abovehis note-book."I presume they were glad to see me," said Lapham, with dignity."Mother," he added gently, "died that winter, and I stayed on withfather. I buried him in the spring; and then I came down to a littleplace called Lumberville, and picked up what jobs I could get. Iworked round at the saw-mills, and I was ostler a while at the hotel--Ialways DID like a good horse. Well, I WA'N'T exactly a collegegraduate, and I went to school odd times. I got to driving the stageafter while, and by and by I BOUGHT the stage and run the businessmyself. Then I hired the tavern-stand, and--well to make a long storyshort, then I got married. Yes," said Lapham, with pride, "I marriedthe school-teacher. We did pretty well with the hotel, and my wife shewas always at me to paint up. Well, I put it off, and PUT it off, as aman will, till one day I give in, and says I, 'Well, let's paint up.Why, Pert,'--m'wife's name's Persis,--'I've got a whole paint-mine outon the farm. Let's go out and look at it.' So we drove out. I'd letthe place for seventy-five dollars a year to a shif'less kind of aKanuck that had come down that way; and I'd hated to see the house withhim in it; but we drove out one Saturday afternoon, and we brought backabout a bushel of the stuff in the buggy-seat, and I tried it crude,and I tried it burnt; and I liked it. M'wife she liked it too. Therewa'n't any painter by trade in the village, and I mixed it myself.Well, sir, that tavern's got that coat of paint on it yet, and ithain't ever had any other, and I don't know's it ever will. Well, youknow, I felt as if it was a kind of harumscarum experiment, all thewhile; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it but I kind of liked todo it because father'd always set so much store by his paint-mine. Andwhen I'd got the first coat on,"--Lapham called it CUT,--"I presume Imust have set as much as half an hour; looking at it and thinking howhe would have enjoyed it. I've had my share of luck in this world, andI ain't a-going to complain on my OWN account, but I've noticed thatmost things get along too late for most people. It made me feel bad,and it took all the pride out my success with the paint, thinking offather. Seemed to me I might 'a taken more interest in it when he wasby to see; but we've got to live and learn. Well, I called my wifeout,--I'd tried it on the back of the house, you know,--and she lefther dishes,--I can remember she came out with her sleeves rolled up andset down alongside of me on the trestle,--and says I, 'What do youthink, Persis?' And says she, 'Well, you hain't got a paint-mine, SilasLapham; you've got a GOLD-mine.' She always was just so enthusiasticabout things. Well, it was just after two or three boats had burnt upout West, and a lot of lives lost, and there was a great cry aboutnon-inflammable paint, and I guess that was what was in her mind.'Well, I guess it ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I; 'but I guess itIS a paint-mine. I'm going to have it analysed, and if it turns outwhat I think it is, I'm going to work it. And if father hadn't hadsuch a long name, I should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral Paint.But, any rate, every barrel of it, and every keg, and every bottle, andevery package, big or little, has got to have the initials and figuresN.L.f. 1835, S.L.t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835, and I triedit in 1855.'""'S.T.--1860--X.' business," said Bartley."Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of Plantation Bitters then, andI hadn't seen any of the fellow's labels. I set to work and I got aman down from Boston; and I carried him out to the farm, and heanalysed it--made a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, andwe kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours; kept theKanuck and his family up, firing. The presence of iron in the oreshowed with the magnet from the start; and when he came to test it, hefound out that it contained about seventy-five per cent. of theperoxide of iron."Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with a sort of reverentsatisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingeringuncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it werepurr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get him to spell it."Well, and what then?" he asked, when he had made a note of thepercentage."What then?" echoed Lapham. "Well, then, the fellow set down and toldme, 'You've got a paint here,' says he, 'that's going to drive everyother mineral paint out of the market. Why' says he, 'it'll drive 'emright into the Back Bay!' Of course, I didn't know what the Back Baywas then, but I begun to open my eyes; thought I'd had 'em open before,but I guess I hadn't. Says he, 'That paint has got hydraulic cement init, and it can stand fire and water and acids;' he named over a lot ofthings. Says he, 'It'll mix easily with linseed oil, whether you wantto use it boiled or raw; and it ain't a-going to crack nor fade any;and it ain't a-going to scale. When you've got your arrangements forburning it properly, you're going to have a paint that will stand likethe everlasting hills, in every climate under the sun.' Then he wentinto a lot of particulars, and I begun to think he was drawing along-bow, and meant to make his bill accordingly. So I kept prettycool; but the fellow's bill didn't amount to anything hardly--said Imight pay him after I got going; young chap, and pretty easy; but everyword he said was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up my paint; Idon't suppose you came here to hear me blow.""Oh yes, I did," said Bartley. "That's what I want. Tell all there isto tell, and I can boil it down afterward. A man can't make a greatermistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. Itmay be the very thing we want to know. What we want is the wholetruth; and more; we've got so much modesty of our own that we cantemper almost any statement."Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this tone, and he resumed alittle more quietly. "Oh, there isn't really very much more to sayabout the paint itself. But you can use it for almost anything where apaint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay, and it'll stopit, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint the inside of acistern or a bath-tub with it, and water won't hurt it; and you canpaint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't. You can cover a brickwall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steamboat, and youcan't do a better thing for either.""Never tried it on the human conscience, I suppose," suggested Bartley."No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. "I guess you want to keep that asfree from paint as you can, if you want much use of it. I never caredto try any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his bulk up out ofhis swivel-chair, and led the way out into the wareroom beyond theoffice partitions, where rows and ranks of casks, barrels, and kegsstretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and diffused anhonest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint. They were labelledand branded as containing each so many pounds of Lapham's MineralPaint, and each bore the mystic devices, N.L.f. 1835--S.L.t. 1855."There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest casks with the toe ofhis boot, "that's about our biggest package; and here," he added,laying his hand affectionately on the head of a very small keg, as ifit were the head of a child, which it resembled in size, "this is thesmallest. We used to put the paint on the market dry, but now we grindevery ounce of it in oil--very best quality of linseed oil--and warrantit. We find it gives more satisfaction. Now, come back to the office,and I'll show you our fancy brands."It was very cool and pleasant in that dim wareroom, with the raftersshowing overhead in a cloudy perspective, and darkening away into theperpetual twilight at the rear of the building; and Bartley had foundan agreeable seat on the head of a half-barrel of the paint, which hewas reluctant to leave. But he rose and followed the vigorous lead ofLapham back to the office, where the sun of a long summer afternoon wasjust beginning to glare in at the window. On shelves opposite Lapham'sdesk were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders,and showing, in a pattern diminishing toward the top, the same labelborne by the casks and barrels in the wareroom. Lapham merely wavedhis hand toward these; but when Bartley, after a comprehensive glanceat them, gave his whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars, wheredifferent tints of the paint showed through flawless glass, Laphamsmiled, and waited in pleased expectation."Hello!" said Bartley. "That's pretty!""Yes," assented Lapham, "it is rather nice. It's our latest thing, andwe find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, takingdown one of the jars, and pointing to the first line of the label.Bartley read, "THE PERSIS BRAND," and then he looked at Lapham andsmiled."After HER, of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first ofit on the market her last birthday. She was pleased.""I should think she might have been," said Bartley, while he made anote of the appearance of the jars."I don't know about your mentioning it in your interview," said Laphamdubiously."That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham, if nothing else does.Got a wife myself, and I know just how you feel." It was in the dawn ofBartley's prosperity on the Boston Events, before his troubles withMarcia had seriously begun."Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a smile another of the vastmajority of married Americans; a few underrate their wives, but therest think them supernal in intelligence and capability. "Well," headded, "we must see about that. Where'd you say you lived?""We don't live; we board. Mrs. Nash, 13 Canary Place.""Well, we've all got to commence that way," suggested Laphamconsolingly."Yes; but we've about got to the end of our string. I expect to beunder a roof of my own on Clover Street before long. I suppose," saidBartley, returning to business, "that you didn't let the grass growunder your feet much after you found out what was in your paint-mine?""No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his eyes from a long stare atBartley, in which he had been seeing himself a young man again, in thefirst days of his married life. "I went right back to Lumberville andsold out everything, and put all I could rake and scrape together intopaint. And Mis' Lapham was with me every time. No hang back aboutHER. I tell you she was a WOMAN!"Bartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us marry.""No, we don't," said Lapham. "Most of us marry silly little girlsgrown up to LOOK like women.""Well, I guess that's about so," assented Bartley, as if upon secondthought."If it hadn't been for her," resumed Lapham, "the paint wouldn't havecome to anything. I used to tell her it wa'n't the seventy-five percent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in the ORE that made that paint go; itwas the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in HER.""Good!" cried Bartley. "I'll tell Marcia that.""In less'n six months there wa'n't a board-fence, nor a bridge-girder,nor a dead wall, nor a barn, nor a face of rock in that whole regionthat didn't have 'Lapham's Mineral Paint--Specimen' on it in the threecolours we begun by making." Bartley had taken his seat on thewindow-sill, and Lapham, standing before him, now put up his huge footclose to Bartley's thigh; neither of them minded that."I've heard a good deal of talk about that S.T.--1860--X. man, and thestove-blacking man, and the kidney-cure man, because they advertised inthat way; and I've read articles about it in the papers; but I don'tsee where the joke comes in, exactly. So long as the people that ownthe barns and fences don't object, I don't see what the public has gotto do with it. And I never saw anything so very sacred about a bigrock, along a river or in a pasture, that it wouldn't do to put mineralpaint on it in three colours. I wish some of the people that talkabout the landscape, and WRITE about it, had to bu'st one of them rocksOUT of the landscape with powder, or dig a hole to bury it in, as weused to have to do up on the farm; I guess they'd sing a littledifferent tune about the profanation of scenery. There ain't any manenjoys a sightly bit of nature--a smooth piece of interval with half adozen good-sized wine-glass elms in it--more than I do. But I ain'ta-going to stand up for every big ugly rock I come across, as if wewere all a set of dumn Druids. I say the landscape was made for man,and not man for the landscape.""Yes," said Bartley carelessly; "it was made for the stove-polish manand the kidney-cure man.""It was made for any man that knows how to use it," Lapham returned,insensible to Bartley's irony. "Let 'em go and live with nature in theWINTER, up there along the Canada line, and I guess they'll get enoughof her for one while. Well--where was I?""Decorating the landscape," said Bartley."Yes, sir; I started right there at Lumberville, and it give the placea start too. You won't find it on the map now; and you won't find itin the gazetteer. I give a pretty good lump of money to build atown-hall, about five years back, and the first meeting they held in itthey voted to change the name,--Lumberville WA'N'T a name,--and it'sLapham now.""Isn't it somewhere up in that region that they get the old Brandonred?" asked Bartley."We're about ninety miles from Brandon. The Brandon's a good paint,"said Lapham conscientiously. "Like to show you round up at our placesome odd time, if you get off.""Thanks. I should like it first-rate. WORKS there?""Yes; works there. Well, sir, just about the time I got started, thewar broke out; and it knocked my paint higher than a kite. The thingdropped perfectly dead. I presume that if I'd had any sort ofinfluence, I might have got it into Government hands, for gun-carriagesand army wagons, and may be on board Government vessels. But I hadn't,and we had to face the music. I was about broken-hearted, but m'wifeshe looked at it another way. 'I guess it's a providence,' says she.'Silas, I guess you've got a country that's worth fighting for. Anyrate, you better go out and give it a chance.' Well, sir, I went. Iknew she meant business. It might kill her to have me go, but it wouldkill her sure if I stayed. She was one of that kind. I went. Herlast words was, 'I'll look after the paint, Si.' We hadn't but just onelittle girl then,--boy'd died,--and Mis' Lapham's mother was livin'with us; and I knew if times DID anyways come up again, m'wife'd knowjust what to do. So I went. I got through; and you can call meColonel, if you want to. Feel there!" Lapham took Bartley's thumb andforefinger and put them on a bunch in his leg, just above the knee."Anything hard?""Ball?"Lapham nodded. "Gettysburg. That's my thermometer. If it wa'n't forthat, I shouldn't know enough to come in when it rains."Bartley laughed at a joke which betrayed some evidences of wear. "Andwhen you came back, you took hold of the paint and rushed it.""I took hold of the paint and rushed it--all I could," said Lapham,with less satisfaction than he had hitherto shown in his autobiography."But I found that I had got back to another world. The day of smallthings was past, and I don't suppose it will ever come again in thiscountry. My wife was at me all the time to take a partner--somebodywith capital; but I couldn't seem to bear the idea. That paint waslike my own blood to me. To have anybody else concerned in it waslike--well, I don't know what. I saw it was the thing to do; but Itried to fight it off, and I tried to joke it off. I used to say, 'Whydidn't you take a partner yourself, Persis, while I was away?' Andshe'd say, 'Well, if you hadn't come back, I should, Si.' Always DIDlike a joke about as well as any woman I ever saw. Well, I had to cometo it. I took a partner." Lapham dropped the bold blue eyes with whichhe had been till now staring into Bartley's face, and the reporter knewthat here was a place for asterisks in his interview, if interviewswere faithful. "He had money enough," continued Lapham, with asuppressed sigh; "but he didn't know anything about paint. We hung ontogether for a year or two. And then we quit.""And he had the experience," suggested Bartley, with companionable ease."I had some of the experience too," said Lapham, with a scowl; andBartley divined, through the freemasonry of all who have sore places intheir memories, that this was a point which he must not touch again."And since that, I suppose, you've played it alone.""I've played it alone.""You must ship some of this paint of yours to foreign countries,Colonel?" suggested Bartley, putting on a professional air."We ship it to all parts of the world. It goes to South America, lotsof it. It goes to Australia, and it goes to India, and it goes toChina, and it goes to the Cape of Good Hope. It'll stand any climate.Of course, we don't export these fancy brands much. They're for homeuse. But we're introducing them elsewhere. Here." Lapham pulled opena drawer, and showed Bartley a lot of labels in differentlanguages--Spanish, French, German, and Italian. "We expect to do agood business in all those countries. We've got our agencies in Cadiznow, and in Paris, and in Hamburg, and in Leghorn. It's a thing that'sbound to make its way. Yes, sir. Wherever a man has got a ship, or abridge, or a lock, or a house, or a car, or a fence, or a pig-penanywhere in God's universe to paint, that's the paint for him, and he'sbound to find it out sooner or later. You pass a ton of that paint drythrough a blast-furnace, and you'll get a quarter of a ton of pig-iron.I believe in my paint. I believe it's a blessing to the world. Whenfolks come in, and kind of smell round, and ask me what I mix it with,I always say, 'Well, in the first place, I mix it with FAITH, and afterthat I grind it up with the best quality of boiled linseed oil thatmoney will buy.'"Lapham took out his watch and looked at it, and Bartley perceived thathis audience was drawing to a close. "'F you ever want to run down andtake a look at our works, pass you over the road,"--he called itRUD--"and it sha'n't cost you a cent." "Well, may be I shall,sometime," said Bartley. "Good afternoon, Colonel.""Good afternoon. Or--hold on! My horse down there yet, William?" hecalled to the young man in the counting-room who had taken his letterat the beginning of the interview. "Oh! All right!" he added, inresponse to something the young man said."Can't I set you down somewhere, Mr. Hubbard? I've got my horse at thedoor, and I can drop you on my way home. I'm going to take Mis' Laphamto look at a house I'm driving piles for, down on the New Land.""Don't care if I do," said Bartley.Lapham put on a straw hat, gathered up some papers lying on his desk,pulled down its rolling cover, turned the key in it, and gave thepapers to an extremely handsome young woman at one of the desks in theouter office. She was stylishly dressed, as Bartley saw, and hersmooth, yellow hair was sculpturesquely waved over a low, whiteforehead. "Here," said Lapham, with the same prompt gruff kindnessthat he had used in addressing the young man, "I want you should putthese in shape, and give me a type-writer copy to-morrow.""What an uncommonly pretty girl!" said Bartley, as they descended therough stairway and found their way out to the street, past the danglingrope of a block and tackle wandering up into the cavernous darknessoverhead."She does her work," said Lapham shortly.Bartley mounted to the left side of the open buggy standing at thecurb-stone, and Lapham, gathering up the hitching-weight, slid it underthe buggy-seat and mounted beside him."No chance to speed a horse here, of course," said Lapham, while thehorse with a spirited gentleness picked her way, with a high, longaction, over the pavement of the street. The streets were all narrow,and most of them crooked, in that quarter of the town; but at the endof one the spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately againstthe cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smellpleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of oil. It was not thebusy season, and they met only two or three trucks heavily stragglingtoward the wharf with their long string teams; but the cobble-stones ofthe pavement were worn with the dint of ponderous wheels, anddiscoloured with iron-rust from them; here and there, in wanderingstreaks over its surface, was the grey stain of the salt water withwhich the street had been sprinkled.After an interval of some minutes, which both men spent in lookinground the dash-board from opposite sides to watch the stride of thehorse, Bartley said, with a light sigh, "I had a colt once down inMaine that stepped just like that mare.""Well!" said Lapham, sympathetically recognising the bond that thisfact created between them. "Well, now, I tell you what you do. Youlet me come for you 'most any afternoon, now, and take you out over theMilldam, and speed this mare a little. I'd like to show you what thismare can do. Yes, I would.""All right," answered Bartley; "I'll let you know my first day off.""Good," cried Lapham."Kentucky?" queried Bartley."No, sir. I don't ride behind anything but Vermont; never did. Touchof Morgan, of course; but you can't have much Morgan in a horse if youwant speed. Hambletonian mostly. Where'd you say you wanted to getout?""I guess you may put me down at the Events Office, just round thecorner here. I've got to write up this interview while it's fresh.""All right," said Lapham, impersonally assenting to Bartley's use ofhim as material.He had not much to complain of in Bartley's treatment, unless it wasthe strain of extravagant compliment which it involved. But theflattery was mainly for the paint, whose virtues Lapham did not believecould be overstated, and himself and his history had been treated withas much respect as Bartley was capable of showing any one. He made avery picturesque thing of the discovery of the paint-mine. "Deep in theheart of the virgin forests of Vermont, far up toward the line of theCanadian snows, on a desolate mountain-side, where an autumnal stormhad done its wild work, and the great trees, strewn hither and thither,bore witness to its violence, Nehemiah Lapham discovered, just fortyyears ago, the mineral which the alchemy of his son's enterprise andenergy has transmuted into solid ingots of the most precious of metals.The colossal fortune of Colonel Silas Lapham lay at the bottom of ahole which an uprooted tree had dug for him, and which for many yearsremained a paint-mine of no more appreciable value than a soap-mine."Here Bartley had not been able to forego another grin; but hecompensated for it by the high reverence with which he spoke of ColonelLapham's record during the war of the rebellion, and of the motiveswhich impelled him to turn aside from an enterprise in which his wholeheart was engaged, and take part in the struggle. "The Colonel bearsembedded in the muscle of his right leg a little memento of the periodin the shape of a minie-ball, which he jocularly referred to as histhermometer, and which relieves him from the necessity of reading 'TheProbabilities' in his morning paper. This saves him just so much time;and for a man who, as he said, has not a moment of waste time on himanywhere, five minutes a day are something in the course of a year.Simple, clear, bold, and straightforward in mind and action, ColonelSilas Lapham, with a prompt comprehensiveness and a never-failingbusiness sagacity, is, in the best sense of that much-abused term, oneof nature's noblemen, to the last inch of his five eleven and a half.His life affords an example of single-minded application and unwaveringperseverance which our young business men would do well to emulate.There is nothing showy or meretricious about the man. He believes inmineral paint, and he puts his heart and soul into it. He makes it areligion; though we would not imply that it IS his religion. ColonelLapham is a regular attendant at the Rev. Dr. Langworthy's church. Hesubscribes liberally to the Associated Charities, and no good object orworthy public enterprise fails to receive his support. He is not nowactively in politics, and his paint is not partisan; but it is an opensecret that he is, and always has been, a staunch Republican. Withoutviolating the sanctities of private life, we cannot speak fully ofvarious details which came out in the free and unembarrassed interviewwhich Colonel Lapham accorded our representative. But we may say thatthe success of which he is justly proud he is also proud to attributein great measure to the sympathy and energy of his wife--one of thosewomen who, in whatever walk of life, seem born to honour the name ofAmerican Woman, and to redeem it from the national reproach of DaisyMillerism. Of Colonel Lapham's family, we will simply add that itconsists of two young lady daughters."The subject of this very inadequate sketch is building a house on thewater side of Beacon Street, after designs by one of our leadingarchitectural firms, which, when complete, will be one of the finestornaments of that exclusive avenue. It will, we believe, be ready forthe occupancy of the family sometime in the spring."When Bartley had finished his article, which he did with a good deal ofinward derision, he went home to Marcia, still smiling over the thoughtof Lapham, whose burly simplicity had peculiarly amused him. "Heregularly turned himself inside out to me," he said, as he satdescribing his interview to Marcia."Then I know you could make something nice out of it," said his wife;"and that will please Mr. Witherby.""Oh yes, I've done pretty well; but I couldn't let myself loose on himthe way I wanted to. Confound the limitations of decency, anyway! Ishould like to have told just what Colonel Lapham thought of landscapeadvertising in Colonel Lapham's own words. I'll tell you one thing,Marsh: he had a girl there at one of the desks that you wouldn't let MEhave within gunshot of MY office. Pretty? It ain't any name for it!"Marcia's eyes began to blaze, and Bartley broke out into a laugh, inwhich he arrested himself at sight of a formidable parcel in the cornerof the room."Hello! What's that?""Why, I don't know what it is," replied Marcia tremulously. "A manbrought it just before you came in, and I didn't like to open it.""Think it was some kind of infernal machine?" asked Bartley, gettingdown on his knees to examine the package. "MRS. B. Hubbard, heigh?" Hecut the heavy hemp string with his penknife. "We must look into thisthing. I should like to know who's sending packages to Mrs. Hubbard inmy absence." He unfolded the wrappings of paper, growing softer andfiner inward, and presently pulled out a handsome square glass jar,through which a crimson mass showed richly. "The Persis Brand!" heyelled. "I knew it!""Oh, what is it, Bartley?" quavered Marcia. Then, courageously drawinga little nearer: "Is it some kind of jam?" she implored. "Jam? No!"roared Bartley. "It's PAINT! It's mineral paint--Lapham's paint!""Paint?" echoed Marcia, as she stood over him while he stripped theirwrappings from the jars which showed the dark blue, dark green, lightbrown, dark brown, and black, with the dark crimson, forming the gamutof colour of the Lapham paint. "Don't TELL me it's paint that I canuse, Bartley!""Well, I shouldn't advise you to use much of it--all at once," repliedher husband. "But it's paint that you can use in moderation."Marcia cast her arms round his neck and kissed him. "O Bartley, Ithink I'm the happiest girl in the world! I was just wondering what Ishould do. There are places in that Clover Street house that needtouching up so dreadfully. I shall be very careful. You needn't beafraid I shall overdo. But, this just saves my life. Did you BUY it,Bartley? You know we couldn't afford it, and you oughtn't to have doneit! And what does the Persis Brand mean?""Buy it?" cried Bartley. "No! The old fool's sent it to you as apresent. You'd better wait for the facts before you pitch into me forextravagance, Marcia. Persis is the name of his wife; and he named itafter her because it's his finest brand. You'll see it in myinterview. Put it on the market her last birthday for a surprise toher.""What old fool?" faltered Marcia."Why, Lapham--the mineral paint man.""Oh, what a good man!" sighed Marcia from the bottom of her soul."Bartley! you WON'T make fun of him as you do of some of those people?WILL you?""Nothing that HE'LL ever find out," said Bartley, getting up andbrushing off the carpet-lint from his knees.