"I know all about that. She reproaches herself for having neglected Fisbee
while a stranger took care of him, and saved him from starving--and worse.
She's unreasonable about it; she didn't know he was in want till long
after. That's just like Fisbee, to tell her, afterwards. He didn't tell
her how low he got; but he hinted at it to her, and I guess she
understood; I gathered that much from him. Of course she's grateful, but
gratefulness don't account for everything."
"Yes it does."
"Well, I never expected to have the last word with a woman."
"Well, you needn't," said Minnie.
"I don't. I never do," he retorted. She did not answer, but hummed a
little tune and looked up at the tree-tops.
Warren Smith appeared in the doorway. "Judge," he said, "will you step
inside? We need you."
Briscoe nodded and rose at once. As he reached the door, Minnie said in a
piercing whisper: "It's hard to be sure about her, but I'm right; it's gratitude."
"There," he replied, chuckling, "I thought I shouldn't have the last
word." Minnie began to sing, and the judge, after standing in the doorway
till he was again summoned from within, slowly retired.
Briscoe had persisted in his own explanation of Helen's gaiety;
nevertheless he did not question his daughter's assumption that the young
lady was enjoying her career in Carlow. She was free as a bird to go and
come, and her duties and pleasures ran together in a happy excitement. Her
hands were full of work, but she sought and increased new tasks, and
performed them also. She came to Carlow as unused to the soil as was
Harkless on his arrival, and her educational equipment for the work was
far less than his; her experience, nothing. But both were native to the
State; and the genius of the American is adaptability, and both were
sprung from pioneers whose means of life depended on that quality.
There are, here and there, excrescent individuals who, through stock
decadence, or their inability to comprehend republican conditions, are not
assimilated by the body of the country; but many of these are imports,
while some are exports. Our foreign-born agitators now and then find
themselves removed by the police to institutions of routine, while the
romantic innocents who set up crests in the face of an unimpressionable
democracy are apt to be lured by their own curious ambitions, or those of
their women-folk, to spend a great part of their time in or about the
villas of Albion, thus paid for its perfidy; and, although the anarchists
and the bubble-hunters make a noise, it is enormously out of proportion to
their number, which is relatively very small, and neither the imported nor
the exported article can be taken as characteristic of our country. For
the American is one who soon fits any place, or into any shaped hole in
America, where you can set him down. It may be that without going so far
as to suggest the halls of the great and good and rich, one might mention
a number of houses of entertainment for man and beast in this country, in
which Mr. Martin of the Plattville Dry Goods Emporium would find himself
little at ease. But even in the extreme case, if Mr. Martin were given his
choice of being burned to death, or drowned, or of spending a month at the
most stupendously embellished tavern located in our possessions, and
supposing him to have chosen the third alternate, it is probable that he
would have grown almost accustomed to his surroundings before he died; and
if he survived the month, we may even fancy him really enjoying moments of
conversation with the night-clerks.