Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1907-09-28
CHAPTER XXI.
(Continuedl

first bit of business inspiration, in
which the boy showed himself as
father to the man. A letter from
Peter O'Mara, his mothers brother,
whe worked in the Dundee Mines, in
Pennsylvania, had limited at one
Of those early difficulties between
miner and employer which were after
wards organized into strikes. julius
Murray told during all the rest Of
his life, how Paul had rushed into
his Office breathless with the news.
He was fond of describing the lad,
as he stood there, straight and erect,
In all the dignity of his thirteen
years, his hands behind his back, and
his blue eyes flashing wouldn't it
be well, Mr.. Murray, to buy up all
the Dundee coal you can get be-
tween today and tomorrow? BY the
day after that everybody else will
know the news as we'll as we." julius
Murray, unaccustomed to wisdom
from the mouth of babies and suck
iings, laughed at the boys ardor and
pooh-poohed his advice. When he
awoke next day to the fact that he
was letting a great opportunity slip
by, he had only twenty-four hours in
which to do the work of forty-eight.
The money he made when, in the
! following winter Dundee coal went I'D
the price. unheard of in those days
of eleven dollars ton, was that which
gave Miss Julia Murray the claim to
be considered an heiress when she
eloped with Paul Trafford in 1870.
In subsequent numbers Paula read
me history of the Trafford rise, step
by step, scheme by scheme, million
by million, lawsuit by lawsuit, fight
by fight a great sordid epic Of f.
nance in which regulations were ru-.
lned, homes wrecked, lives blasted.
and whole countrys commercial, le-
gal, political and moral honor brought
painfully into question.
Paula read with no more than q
vague comprehension. There were SO
many characters in the play-lawyers,
bankers, merchants, capitalists, specu-
lators, senators, governors, engineers,
journalists, and politicians of everv
sort-that she grew: confused among
them. The scene shifted so often
now to San Francisco, now to Chicago
now to Washington, now to st. Louis,
now to New York - that her mind
could not keep pace with the action.
There We're so many questions in
volved-legal, legislative, geological,
and economical-that her simule in
telligence reeled in the effort to un-
derstand --f
Where there were dramatic PEI
sonal events she grasped the sub
jects more fully. She could follow
the story Of the ruin of the Winships
from beginning to end. She could do
the same with those of the Marshalls,
II Turtonville, of the Brewers, Of
bany, and of poor Jackson Of Ohio.
ut whether details were clear to
sr or not, one great fact surged up
Jut of this weltering mass of testi-
mony-that the father she adored.
had fought his way to success by
means which made her shudder. Moth
ing she had guessed at, nothing she
had ever imagined of Russian ty-
ranny or Turkish misrule could be
more merciless than the despotism
with which her father and his asso-
ciates. in country considered free,
had been able to club and crush and
gag and grind into helplessness what
ever lifted itself against them. And
he was her father? She was his
child! She was bone Of his bone and
flesh of his flesh. She could no more
associate herself from him and his
work than she could from the line
OF, laborers and servants from whom
she sprang. However confused she
might be about facts, she had ITO
doubt as to her duty here: it was
to stand by the man who depended
upon her; to stand by him all the
more now, when, in his old age the
storm of popular wrath was gather
ing and breaking about him.
All through July, August and Sep
TEMPER she had been reading these
articles secretly. That her father was
reading them secretly too. she knew
from seeing in the New York Herald
or the Times an occasional state
ment from his legal sentatives,
In which this or that accusation was
denied. How deeply he resented this
history of himself she could see from
his increased depression as each new
number of the series appeared Now,
on one of the last days of September
the October issue was in her hands.
She had just finished reading it, in
her favorite corner of the English gar
den. 1t had been especially pitiless
TO her father in the piling up OF
charges against him. She closed the
volume. and with her hands claspad
upon 1T gazed vaguely across the
lawn. Indifferent to It's sunlit spaces,
as well as tosthe masses of dablia and
Gamma, gorgeous with autumn bloom
mo, no." she kept saying to he--
self. Roger couldn't take tn It
money. It's blood-money. And l
must keep it. There's no way by
which could give it up If I did 1t
would kill papa. l must go on, all my
life clothed in the ruin of beggared
men and of hungry women and chill
dren. Roger said that, and it's quite
true. My pearls are their tears and
my rubies are their sweat of blool
And yet | must wear them, for papa's
sake, whatever the world may think
whatever ltoger himself may believe
of me. o Roger! v my love! How
can go on all through the years
without you? oh, God help mel"
she prayed, with a sudden lifting Of
her eyes. ooh God, help me. I'm
so weak. I'm so tired. I've so little
strength left to keep the struggle