Preserve this Numbor for the First Chapter of "The Bead Line." Written for thio Paper.
TOPEKA, KANSAS, JANUARY 17, 1894. OFFICIAL STATE PAPER.
The Dead LinCo
By GIDEON LAINE, D. D.
Whether in the next world a great gulf shall yawn
Tween Dives In torment and Lazarus in bli.sa,
'Tis certain that fashion a dead 11. has drawn
'Twixt Lazarus and Dives in this.
PREFACE 1 have never written a novel, and, at my time of life, busied with the active du
ties which fall to the lot of a western clergyman, it would be useless for me to attempt
such a task. I am about to write of real occurrences in the lives of living people, and oc
currences of very recent date; and the reader must, therefore, pardon me if the places referred
to in the following narrative are not, by the names I have given them, to be found on reliable
maps of Kansas. Fictitious names of persons and places must be excused as but a proper con
cession to the feelings of the persons who were actors in the scenes I am about to describe.
Gideon Laine.
of coloring with misery or hapi
naining current of his life." Ore-
CHAPTER 1.
KATE COTTEKELL's NEW ACQUAINT
ANCE. ' Surely no man can reflect, without wonder,
upon the vicissitudes of human life arising
from causes in the highest degree accidental
and trilling. If you trace the necessary con
catenation of human events a very little way
rnuk. rnu mav nerhans discover that a per
son's very going in or out of a door has been
the means u
ness the rem
ville.
Cobden, the county seat of a certain
county in Kansas, is a "city" of about
2,000 souls. Like many another Kan
' sas town, it is so much of a village that
everybody knows everybody else, and
knows, or tries to know, all about
everybody else, but is, at the same time,
so much of a city that social caste is
severe, and Mrs. Flotsam "would not
be seen on the street" in the afternoon
with Mrs. Jetsam, whose flat-irons and
gossip she has gone over to borrow in
the morning.
Next to Mrs. Haddy, whose husband
kept the ''Palace store," the leading
lady of Cobden society in 18W was Mrs.
Dr. Carlington, w ho lived in the linest
residence in the city, and whose hus
band not only enjoyed the most fashion
able, and therefore, the most lucrative
practice in the county, but owned the
opera house and held the controlling
interest in the Congregational church
and dictated the policy of its pulpit.
Mrs. Dr. Carlington kept a carriage
and a coachman; the latter an "Afro
American" with a strong predilection
for statesmanship of the convention
delegate and worker-at-the-polls va
riety. This colored gentleman's name
was "Columbus Washington Hlack
burn;" but, in the sphere of political
and practical activity, this ambitious
cognomen wastransformed intoSlick"
iJlackburn, perhaps on account of his
disposition to imitate too closely the
"practical politics" of better known
statesmen. Mrs. Dr. Carlington was a
thorough society woman. Her time
was altogether devoted to the labor of
calling and receiving calls, entertain
ing and being entertained, doing
I "church work," managing an orphan
asylum and dispensing the sort of cheap
, charity indulged in by the class known
to the rural press as "our charitable
ladies." She thoroughly believed the
social dogma that heaven invented
poverty for the ediiication, not to say
glorification, of the "upper classes;"
and, regarding the scriptural remark -"The
poor ye have always with you"
as a positive command, it was, in her
opinion, the rankest blasphemy to talk
of abolishing poverty. She had a good
heart as society hearts go, but conven
tionality had rendered it rudimentary.
She would have been an inlidel had she
supposed for a moment that the Al
mighty considered himself the father of
the lovyer classes in the same sense as
of people in good society. She was
neither beautiful nor young; but he
would have been a daring wretch in
deed who would have allowed her to
suspect he doubted she was both. Mrs.
Dr. Carlington was as dignified as dull
people usually are, and with frigid
smiles "gave her little senate laws"
w hich it did not dare disregard.
Dr. Carlington himself was rather
handsome. lie was also a man of good
intellect, was well educated, and had a
cordial manner and a frank, good-
hearted air about him which did his
patients more good than his prescrip
tions, and made everybody in the city
his friend. lie went but rarely into so
ciety, and never entered the opera
house to witness a theatrical perform
ance, except when Mrs. Carlington was
out of the city. Although naturally
liberal minded and tolerant in religion,
he had never thought on theological
subjects, and so believed his church
creed, as does many a busy man, be
cause he had been brought up that way
and it had never occurred to him that
church creeds could be debated. lie
had heard in a general way of the ex
istence of such persons as Ingersolland
Bradlaugh, and his preacher had some
times alluded to Paine and Voltaire;
but beyond the vague notion that they
were "intldels," he had not the slight
est apprehension of their views. Nor
did he care to inquire about such mat
ters. He was too busy making money
and gathering it in to waste any time
on tritles. In short, he was an average
good-natured, seltlsh man; physically
vigorous and industrious, but mentally
'and morally indolent.
About six months previous to the
'opening of our narrative, Kate Cotter
ell, a farmer's daughter, had entered
the Carlington household as a domes
tic. Her business was to help in the
kitchen, wait on the table and act as
nurse for the infant Carlington heir.
During that six months her mistress'
conversation with her new servant had
been limited to giving orders and find
ing fault. Mrs. Carlington acted to
'ward her help on the theory that
"familiarity breeds contempt") .in which
there was in her case deep wisdom, per
haps), and was firmly of the opinion
that "servants must be made to know
their place." However, she paid fairly
good wages and her help was well
housed and fed. One point which sht
had frequent occasion to impress upon
Kate was that a servant was not ex
pected to have literary leanings but
inis expected to let the books in the
library alone, as well as the periodicals
which sometimes found their way into
the house. Mrs. Carlington herself ob
served this precept. Hltf did not med
dle with books, nor with any but
"fashion" periodicals. She had not the
slightest knowledge, nor had the doc
tor, what the library contained. A
book seller had "supplied" it in gross,
and not a single accession had been
made to it since. Hut the bindings
were all line, and a library helps "set
off" a house. Why should a mere ser
vant, and she a common farmer's
daughter only sixteen years old, wish
to meddle with books? She rnightruin
the bindings, or worse still, might lose
a valuable volume and be unable to re
place it. Hut Kate had an insatiable
thirst for knowledge which had never
been gratified at home; and the prox
imity of "a whole library," which
really contained an excellent selection,
was a temptation too great for effective
resistance. Hooks were stealthily taken
up stairs in day time and concealed un
der her pillow for use at night. They
were not missed, of course, but Kate
would get incautious at times and be
caught in the very act of taking a book
out; then the "touch not" prohibition
would be sternly reiterated.
"Sam Cotterell," as his neighbors
called him, lived on a farm about nine
miles out of town. Kate was his only
daughter. She longed to go to college, i
and as he was too poor to send her
there, he had reluctantly consented
that she might go to the city and "work
out" in order to earn enough to enable
her to study the common branches and
become a country school teacher, with
the hope of saving, in the latter occu
pation, money sufficient to carry out
her ambitious project' of acquiring a
college education. This distant hope
was very real to Kate, and enabled her
to bear the mortilications she had to
endure in the Carlington home. Not,
however, without much smothered in
dignation and many a tear; for she was
not only sensitive, as people of mental
temperament are wont to be, but she
instinctively felt her natural superior
ity to the woman whose submissive
slave she was forced to be.
Kate had a warm, loving, girlish
heart, as well as a bright mind, and,
wit h her intelligent, gentle and mobile
face, her jet black hair and eyes, rich
complexion, full red lips and perfect
figure, she was the most beautiful girl,
in or out of society, to be met with in
Cobden. Whether she was aware of
this 1, of course, am unable to say; but
she was a young girl, and there were
mirrors in the Carlington house. Her
manners, too, were lady like and win
ning in uch more so than those of the
society young women who ignored her
existence. There were times, when she
had grown very weary, that she was
disposed to give up her project, for the
way seemed so long, the struggle so
hard; but she always conquered the
weakness and persevered toward the
college goal by the country school
house route.
One day an event occurred which
changed this program somewhat. As
she was on her knees scrubbing the
lloor of the front porch (for Mrs. Dr.
Carlington was an almost fiendishly
clean house-keeper) a run-away team
came tearing down the street, and all
Cobden was out seeking to calm the
frightened horses by running before
them and behind them with a multi
plicity of yells and insane gesticula
tions. Kvery dog in the town was hav
ing his day, and the "hoodlums" were
in ecstacy. In point of exciting inter
est and of a general diffusion of per
sonal importance, nothing but a fire
can compare with a runaway. If the
reader has never been present at such
an entertainment in a city like Cobden,
no amount of description could give
him a just conception of the spectacle.
Kate grew faint with horror, as, hear
ing the clatter, she looked up and be
held the terrible sight which greeted
her sympathetic eyes. An old man was
being dragged face downward over the
street, his right leg having become