Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-07-22
By CHARLES TENNEY JACKSON
CHAPTER VII
Pics and Politics
Copyright 1912. The Bobbs-Merrin Company

well; when he has had money without
moiling and honor without envy; has
received and amplified to the full
heritage of the best without effort and
without price; when youth and ma
turity have chastened and nodded by
that fine, rugged American tradition
which began with the founding OF
Harvard and the Jamestown planters,
and followed easily the fighting line OF
pioneers as the frontiers Of the repub-
lie were lengthened-when one has,
indeed, had, righteously and whole
somely, all there is to be had, there Is
apt to come an arrest Of development.
There comes a GOODNESS Of blood, re-
serve Of faiths, caution of more than
age and the finer usage. One will dis
cover at least one family Of this sort
in every small town of the midwest
which is of and yet apart from the To-
cal aristocracy of the soil-enriched,
the banker, the grocer, the lawyer and
landholder; a family with an eastern
tradition Of the best-New England or
pAClCiioioA ~ sAS S~So~~~-~~
of culture; a group which, while easi-
ly the leaders, sits in state Of cor
rect isolation lest their honorable in
dividualism be trampled by the newer
needs of newer blood.
The Van Harts, migrating leisurely
behind the star Of empire had beheld
afar the dust and shouting; they had
been formed by social forces that had
run their fire Of youth, that Of New
England state of mind Of ante-slavery
days which had once been the nation
al conscience, but was now vestigial
and static. The inpouring Of hungrier
races to the midwest, who mad
scratched the bleak prairies, finding
the fat and virgin lands now gone; the
surge of the political revolts Of the
trans Mississippi settlers, time and
again from the days of populism to the
present; the pathos and the idealism
of all this eager building, had not
touched them. Their county, one OF
the Iowa Reserve, had felt family the
thunder of the awakening; the dingy
Offices of the Rome court house had
been filled by group Of the best
people" so long that they seemed the
hereditament Of class and leader
ship.
There were younger men who grew
up to feel vaguely the lapse between
what was best in the days OF their
fathers and the needs Of today. Har-
Ian Van Hart, himself, had discerned
curiously the rift between the fine
spiritual environ of his fathers ex-
ample and the new, troublous, social
conscience. In his debates of high
school, his loungings about Wiley Cur
rams news shop, his friendship with
Arne Vance, son of Old Jake, the 'po-
litical farmer" the county's first in
surgent, he had wondered at It, The
new movement was no hunger-rebel-
lion of the cities, the midwest was
enriched-why, then, the outcry?
Harlan was packing for his depar-
ture. He thought rather grimly Of the
Journey east. Elise would be on the
train on her way to school, also, and
he would have to talk to her. Elise
and all the town were curious with
some story concerning him and Aure-
lie Lindstrom,-nothing definite, but
all the more perplexing for that. Har-
Ian had slowly famed since last night
with a resentment new in the genial
complacence of his life. When the
H4 hNy hn yUi NJ
dow where he could see the red and
gold filigree Of the sugar naples thin
ly covering the rock face of Eagle
Point back of the town. Today blue
haze enveloped the highest pinnacle
Somewhere, out of this lazy freedom
a cow-bell tinkled. 1t was Saturday
and he knew the boys were gathering
wild crab-apples up along Sinsinawa
in the hills and routing rabbits out OF
the fence corners. He felt immeasur-
ably old some way, and cut Of all this
kindly prosiness. He had an inclina'
ton to climb to the hills and ther
checked ii with a bitter refusal-ths
hills and all this autumn glory were
a part of her and the inextricable con-
fusion of wrong and right, duty anc
honor, into which he was plunged. He
was angered at his mother; he was
enraged at Aurelie. He had asked hel
to give up this silly business Of hel
prize-winning, and she had sturdily
refused at the last. His mother, hi:
class, his tradition, career, Harvard
and the laval had to do with hi:
intolerable sense of rebellion and de-
feat. Something was inevitably wrong
perhaps with himself. Perhaps, he die
not even love Aurelie so much-it wa!
a summer madness as his mother haC
said; but he felt shame that N
would allow this A man, he told him
self, would smash his way through t
win, if he greatly desired; but he wa
a Van Hart and they were not giVel
to that sort of thing. They woul'
coolly consider a great many things
before they struck blow.
He had intended to go down to tn
drugstore corner where the fellow
usually met to smoke and chaff AM
grind out airs on Playter's phonograpl
while groups of girls came in from
school or shopping to buy sodas. H
would meet them all in the franl
comradeship of the towns way, wall
home with one, or loiter at the high
school football practise. There wer
any number of ways to spend one
last afternoon in the old town wher
one was so pleasantly favored sor
His father was at court and his moth
er at her club. But he had curiou
disInclination to idle around tn
square. He took q notion to dress 10
dinner, although there were to be n
guests. His father did so occasionally
in their home life; it was understood
by the Van Harts as an assertion Q
old and real standards. There Wer
but nine families in Rome who eve
dined at night, and these nine definite
ly fixed the social life. People wh