The Cruise of the Violetta

IN the history of Zionville the dates of the Discovery of the Eureka Mine, of the Reformation, and of the Burial of Hannah Atkins, are like 1492 and 1776 in the history of this country. Whether those foreseeing statesmen, William C. Jones and Louisa, had reasoned the whole thing out or not, is now the question. For Sadler claimed that the statesmanship was all his, and that Louisa and W. C. were trying to jump his claim. He and Louisa and W. C. Jones used to sit on the veranda of Babbitt's, and argue which of them ought to be pensioned, and have a bronze statue, and brass band to play for him at meals. Sadler's argument was that he came down on the heels of his Letter to the Magistrates, with the whole menu cooked in his own mind. He saw to it himself that Hannah stopped over. Louisa and W. C. Jones argued that the menu developed in the cooking, that is, under discussion, to say nothing of the delicate handling which lay to their credit. Moreover, they argued that Sadler had mostly in mind the private need that lay in his nature to get even with the Ulswaters for shanghaiing him off Lua. That was one of W. C. Jones' strong arguments against him, whereby there fell a shadow of suspicion on his (Sadler's) purity of motive. He had wanted to draw Dr. Ulswater to, and get him interested in Zionville, where he, Sadler, had lived when he was younger, and before he went over to Asia, and got the gray ashes of Asia on his head. He had a sentiment for Zionville, as have all who breathe her air.

"I used to sit," he said once, "in that there monastery in Rangoon, in Burmah, with a yeller robe on, and I'd contemplate the same idea for hours and days, same as Ram Nad is doing out there in the dust, which I don't see why Ram Nad can't do his meditating somewhere else besides up against that hitching post to employ one able-bodied man on detail to see nobody's horse don't step on him -- Here, Bobby Lee! You call your dog off the prophet, or I'll come around and spank the fattest side of your trousers! -- Well, by and by, what with turning that idea over and over, it'd get smooth and round like a billiard ball, and by and by I'd get into a condition where I'd begin to see things running round the ball, like the colours on a soap bubble, and them visions got mixed up with the daylight. But about once in three times when I'd got a vision pinned down so I could make it give its name, it was nothing but Main Street from the station to Babbitt's Hotel. That was the peculiar thing in the cultivation of my soul's garden. I guess their wasn't another garden like it in Burmah. When I started after Nirvana, about once in three I fetched up at Babbitt's."