Jimtown's Bride [pp. 374-386]

JIMTOWN'S BRIDE.
After that, "Teddy," as Jack came to
call him through lack of a formal christening, and everybody else adopted as a
relief from the outgrown "Baby," which
the boy had grown to resent, was a frequent visitor to Claycomb's apartments.
But he always came alone; and though
he chatted to Maud for hours about the
wonderful sights in "Papa's room," he
obtained only a smile or a " Yes, darling," for an answer.
During the quiet tragedy that was being enacted in the house on the hill, Jimtown was not an idle spectator. Jimtown
was booming. A railroad, ostentatiously
elbowing the old stage-line out of existence, daily overran the town with Eastern tourists and Eastern capitalists, and
Western speculators. J. Hopkinson
Dwight, of San Francisco, who owned
the controlling interest in the aforesaid
railroad, had also bought up two thirds
of all the available real estate in and
around Jimtown, to the great astonishment of that unsophisticated settlement,
and was daily and enthusiastically reiterating that," Jimtown was the Chicago
of the Coast, with the finest natural resources for trade and commerce, gentlemen, with its lumber and its gold, its
vineyards and its orchards, gentlemen,
-the richest investment for Eastern cap ital that the Pacific Coast had ever
offered."
And the gentlemen addressed, en thused by J. Hopkinson Dwight's elo quence, poured into Jimtown to inspect
the natural resources, and search for.the
vineyards and orchards which, for some
unaccountable reason, they failed to dis cover; but the lumber they found in pro fusion, and so astonished were they at
the size of the great trees, and the fab ulous stories of others, "just over the
hill, gentlemen, a little too far to include
in our drive of today," that they forgot
to look for the gold, and were satisfied.
With the railroad, and the tourists,
and the speculators, came the wives of
the tourists, and the daughters of the
capitalists, and Jimtown was Jimtown
no longer. Grand balls at the "Dwight
House," with orchestra from San Francisco and grandes toilettes that bore the
stamp of Worth, so dazzled the eyes of
masculine Jimtown that the house on the
hill and the mayor's wife were well-nigh
forgotten.
Until the collapse came, and with it,
as if in vengeance on the stubborn town
that refused to develop its natural resources to the proportions anticipated by
Eastern capitalists, a conflagration that
threatened to sweep Jimtown from the
map of California. It was rumored that
the disaster had some well defined connection with an insurance policy held by
one J. Hopkinson Dwight, and was not
altogether a surprise to that wealthy
speculator, but I will not vouch for the
authority of the statement. Considering
its houseless condition, Jimtown had all
it could attend tofor the next few months,
without inquiring into the affairs of J.
Hopkinson Dwight. With the exception
of the house on the hill, and "Old Sol omon's" hut under the hill, Jimtown was
homeles,s.
As the hungry flames, satiated with
devastation, slept under the charred
timbers and smoking ashes of Jimtown's
glory, Jack Claycomb burst into the
great house, which had stood through it
all like an indifferent and uninterested
spectator of its neighbors' sorrows. His
clothes were torn and fire-eaten, his face
black with smoke, his hands concealed
under rolls of dirty flannel, hastily im provised to protect their quivering flesh
from the pitiless air. Maud, who had
been watching the fire from a window,
met him in the hall.
" Is it all over, Jack?"
"Yes, nearly, but the town's gone.
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