Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 1897)
T H E TORCH OF REASON, S IL V E R T O N , OREGON, T H U R SD A Y , MAY 20, 1897 GOLDEN THRONE [ a ROMANCE BY SAMUEL p. PUTNAM.] “ Moreover, one does want to obey his conscience now and then; and th a t’s a bother to a thorough-going politician. So, G rubbins, I don’t envy you, though you m arch into the W hite House. Pilkins, Judge Pilkins, I hope you’ll keep the place. All you have to do is to sit down on the law-breaker, and he will succumb. Tim, 1 want a little of your best old rye before I go. It will rem ind me of Gooch, who, as you remember, was very fond of th a t article. Jennie, be good to yourself; and the rest of you, fare well.” “ C harlie is my spokesm an, I jo in in,” said Bill. “ Of course, you’ll come back again,” said Pilkins. “ Golden T hrone will be the hub of the u n i verse. 1 shall issue my new paper, The Golden Eagle, next week. W e’ll have a railroad next year, and a big hotel. You won’t know the place when you re tu rn .” C harlie was full of hope as he set his face toward the great city. He had worked with steady purpose fo i the last few m onths, and now he had accum ulated w hat m ight be term ed a small fortune. H is de term ination was to rem ain in the city. He was still haunted by the lovely face of the unknown woman. He wanted to find her; and he m eant to, if she was anyw here in San Francisco. W ill B urnham was full of the same adventurous and restless spirit. He was also desirous of a change. He wished to see more of the great world, and try his luck in th e crowded thoroughfare. He had for the present experienced enough of solitude. He wanted now to plunge into life. Paddie John leaped out of his chair alm ost as they clattered into his sanctum sanctorum , where he was busily engaged 1n w riting. “ Come for good? H urrah! I ’ve been homesick for you. I’m on th e rack all the time, work day and night, can’t stop. I sometimes th in k I’ll b e a pauper again, and loaf and dream and m editate. T his tussle don’t give me any chance to be a philosopher.” “ You grow fat on it, at any rate,” said W ill: “ you are as round and rosy as a bishop.” “ Oh, yes! it agrees with me carnally speaking,” said Paddie, ‘ and so I can stand it. 1 eat a porter-house steak every day, and spend a couple of hours digesting it with a bottle of wine. If I d id n ’t do th at, I should certainly die.” “ W hat do you do, anyw ay,” said C harlie. “ I w rite the London and Paris and New York correspondence, and review all the books, no m atter in w hat language they are w ritten, and the less I know of them the better. I criticise to suit the public; and I study the public, not I went under. Good enough for them . So, if I had a love, it seems the book. I write the news of the me! I was a fool. We are noth to me th at it would ever grow day, tell what is going on in m atters ing but flies. T he spiders spread dearer. I could not change it for of science, and announce every new their nets, and we tum ble in. a new.” “ Love,” said W ill, “dwells both discovery. I keep people informed H ere’s my wife, Polly. She's going of the movem ents of society, post to take care of the cash after this. in the new and old; and the old is as fresh as the new. Do we not them in the latest fashion, and I’m going to stick to w ork.” Polly was a sm art little woman, live in the past a s much as we do describe every new dress th a t is worn. I write articles on history, no m istake. She kept th e house in the present, even as the tree painting, sculpture, sociology, bi as neat as a pin. She could talk lives not in the sky, but in the ology, physiology, ami psychology, well, and was full of fun. She earth? He is not a man who does as they are dem anded. Luckily, loved Big Dick, and he fairly wor not live over and over again the people don’t want to know a n y shiped her. She had the better precious m om ents th a t have fled, thing about theology, so I let that head of the two, and it was but am i take th eir sweetness as if they were im m ortal.” natural th a t she should rule. alone.” “ We must live our n atu re,” said The m om ents Hew by while the “ How do you find tim e for all com pany talked of m any an excit Paddie. “ I like to fly, to roam th is?” over new lands. I ca n ’t be bound.” “ I don’t know. It has to be ing adventure. “ Nor I except by my own “ By the way,” said Charlie, done, I do it, and th a t’s the end of said Charlie. “ But it. If an editor doen’t know every “ have you seen anything of little th o u g h ts,” w hat’s the use? I c a n ’t evoke this Pete?” thing, he m ust give up.” “ No, I haven’t,” said Big Dick. lady bv any magic, as she has, n<» “ I should th in k you’d be a “ Nor I,” said Paddie. “ I ’ve doubt forgotten me. I presume it ghost.” “On the contrary, the only way looked for him , but never came would be wise to forget her; but, to acquire universal know’ledge is to across him. I wonder if he’s v a n alas! Inn image is as bright as on be fat, and there is no subject th a t ished like a shadow, as he seemed the evening th a t I first glanced at her, and when she alm ost sm iled I am not at hom e with. By the to be.” “ I m ust find him. He has an upon me, as I thought. Good-by way, did you know’ th a t Jim m y was in the city, or, to speak mure uncle in the city,” said Charlie. for a spell, boys. I m ust h u n t up respectfully, the Rev. Jam es Demor “ He had som ething in him , after little Pete this evening. I hope no ! ill has happened to him .” all.” est?” C harlie sauntered forth into the “ I couldn’t m ake him out,” said “ Is it possible?” b rillian tly lighted city. The “ Yes, and he’s the most popular Dick; “ he was queer.” “ We all of us would be queer, if strange and wonderful panoram a of m inister in the city. He draw s crowds. I go to hear him, and we were placed in certain circum its life passed b e fo re him — so many report him now’ and then. He does stances,” said Charlie. “ Our su r happy, so m any wofui faces. He it up in style, I assure you- He roundings help to make us decent was not in a very hopeful mood. preaches right to the heart. He and agreeable. L ittle Pete w asn’t He was pressed upon by the infinite makes ’em weep and sometimes where he belonged. Put him in the m ystery of our hum an existence, laugh; and sometimes they alm ost right place, and we m ight be su r by th a t deepest m ystery of all, the m ystery of love. W hy did he care applaud, he’s so eloquent. You prised a t the change.” C harlie spent the next day in so passionately for this woman m ust see him .” “ Perhaps be w on't w ant to see search of his fanciful love. He th a t had flashed but for an in stan t roamed through alm ost every street in his life? He could not banish us, now th at he’s respectable.” “ Yes, he will. H e’s an honest and gazed at every passing counte her image. It was with him a l fellow, and don’t put on airs. I nance; but he did not see the wom ways, and touched him a m arv el ous reminiscence, like some strain don’t understand how he can an of his dream s. “ I m ight as well search for a of m usic th a t we th in k we have preach the nonsense he does; but th a t’s his business, not mine. H e’s bubble in the ocean,” said Charlie. heard for the first time; and yet it a man, anyw ay; and he has the “ She has flashed away into the vibrates through all the cham bers loveliest wife in the world. She’s great deep, and I shall not see her of the memory like a fam iliar sound, and evokes m any a forgotten again.” a gem of a w om an.” “Such is life,” said Paddie, “ and dream ’, as if it and the dream “ We m ust see him , sure. And we are fools to b o th er about w hat were mingled in their birth, both how’s Big Dick?” bursting in the same h ap p y “ Come along and call with me. is past.” “ I suppose you were never in m om ent of the long ago. I promised to go dow n there this Charlie had a certain ideality in evening. H»*’s doing splendidly in love,” said Charlie. “Oh, yes, a thousand limes. I his disposition, and his scepticism the tire departm ent. He’s the boss hero, isn’t afraid of anything. love a pretty face as well as I love was, to a certain extent, the result, H e’s m arried too, and to the lb tle st the stars and the sea and the flow of his ideality; for his ideality brok»* bit of a woman; but she’s spunky. ers, But I d o n ’t linger over one in m any waves of dissapointm ent She’s cute about it though, always flower. Why should I, when there upon the rugged masses of real life, sm iling and sweet; but she never as m illions in the world? I ’m a l and fell back upon his heart with backs down. ways in love, but not with the sam e desolate reaction. H e could not In a few m om ents, they were in face. Today it’s a blonde, to- square his bright idealism with the morrow its a brunette. Now it’s a world th a t was around about him. the nice, cosy home of Big Dick. “ Why, pardners, how are you?” blue eye, and then a black eye, and His early train in g had tended to he cried. “J u s t from the m ines? then a m elancholy gray. Now j disenchant the outw ard world, All right, I hope. I heard good adm ire a fragile, delica’e form, m aking it still more gloomy; and news from your way. Lots of then I like a buxom lass. So the thus the discordance was far waves come and go, and the lights bitterer. Still, in any circum stances gold ” “ E nough,” said C harlie, to change, and the new continually a t the most favorable, it is painful to speculate with. By the way, w hat tracts.” surrender the ideal as we have it «lid you do w ith the thousand I “ T h at may suit you, but it in our soul, and harmonize it with sent you? You said you were go doesn’t me,” said C harlie. “ I like the law and the facts about us, ing to try your luck on ‘change.’” the old as 1 like an old song th at, finding eventually in these laws “I did and lost every lieing sung a thousand times, is and facts a finer ideal than cent,” said Big Dick. I expected a precious to my m em ory. So old we had ever dream ed of. C harlie, tu rn , and we all expected a tu rn ;' I friends grow sweet as day by day through his hard and terrible ex but it cam e th e other wav, and so new associations d u s te r about periences, had come to this wise