Two or three days after Christmas John was sitting in his room in the
evening when there came a knock at the door, and to his "Come in" there
entered Mr. Harum, who was warmly welcomed and entreated to take the big
chair, which, after a cursory survey of the apartment and its
furnishings, he did, saying, "Wa'al, I thought I'd come in an' see how
Polly'd got you fixed; whether the baskit [casket?] was worthy of the
jew'l, as I heard a feller say in a theater once."
"I was never more comfortable in my life," said John. "Mrs. Bixbee has
been kindness itself, and even permits me to smoke in the room. Let me
give you a cigar."
"Heh! You got putty well 'round Polly, I reckon," said David, looking
around the room as he lighted the cigar, "an' I'm glad you're
comf'table--I reckon 't is a shade better 'n the Eagle," he remarked,
with his characteristic chuckle.
"I should say so," said John emphatically, "and I am more obliged than I
can tell you."
"All Polly's doin's," asserted David, holding the end of his cigar
critically under his nose. "That's a trifle better article 'n I'm in the
habit of smokin'," he remarked.
"I think it's my one extravagance," said John semi-apologetically, "but
I don't smoke them exclusively. I am very fond of good tobacco, and--"
"I understand," said David, "an' if I had my life to live over agin,
knowin' what I do now, I'd do diff'rent in a number o' ways. I often
think," he proceeded, as he took a pull at the cigar and emitted the
smoke with a chewing movement of his mouth, "of what Andy Brown used to
say. Andy was a curious kind of a customer 't I used to know up to
Syrchester. He liked good things, Andy did, an' didn't scrimp himself
when they was to be had--that is, when he had the go-an'-fetch-it to git
'em with. He used to say, 'Boys, whenever you git holt of a ten-dollar
note you want to git it _into_ ye or _onto_ ye jest 's quick 's you kin.
We're here to-day an' gone to-morrer,' he'd say, 'an' the' ain't no
pocket in a shroud,' an' I'm dum'd if I don't think sometimes," declared
Mr. Harum, "that he wa'n't very fur off neither. 'T any rate," he added
with a philosophy unexpected by his hearer, "'s I look back, it ain't
the money 't I've spent fer the good times 't I've had 't I regret; it's
the good times 't I might 's well 've had an' didn't. I'm inclined to
think," he remarked with an air of having given the matter
consideration, "that after Adam an' Eve got bounced out of the gard'n
they kicked themselves as much as anythin' fer not havin' cleaned up the
hull tree while they was about it."
John laughed and said that that was very likely among their regrets.
"Trouble with me was," said David, "that till I was consid'able older 'n
you be I had to scratch grav'l like all possessed, an' it's hard work
now sometimes to git the idee out of my head but what the money's wuth
more 'n the things. I guess," he remarked, looking at the ivory-backed
brushes and the various toilet knick-knacks of cut-glass and silver
which adorned John's bureau, and indicating them with a motion of his
hand, "that up to about now you ben in the habit of figurin' the other
way mostly."
"Too much so, perhaps," said John; "but yet, after all, I don't think I
am sorry. I wouldn't spend the money for those things now, but I am glad
I bought them when I did."
"Jess so, jess so," said David appreciatively. He reached over to the
table and laid his cigar on the edge of a book, and, reaching for his
hip pocket, produced a silver tobacco box, at which he looked
contemplatively for a moment, opening and shutting the lid with a snap.
"There," he said, holding it out on his palm, "I was twenty years makin'
up my mind to buy that box, an' to this day I can't bring myself to
carry it all the time. Yes, sir, I wanted that box fer twenty years. I
don't mean to say that I didn't spend the wuth of it foolishly times
over an' agin, but I couldn't never make up my mind to put that amount
o' money into that pertic'ler thing. I was alwus figurin' that some day
I'd have a silver tobacco box, an' I sometimes think the reason it
seemed so extrav'gant, an' I put it off so long, was because I wanted it
so much. Now I s'pose you couldn't understand that, could ye?"
"Yes," said John, nodding his head thoughtfully, "I think I can
understand it perfectly," and indeed it spoke pages of David's
biography.
"Yes, sir," said David, "I never spent a small amount o' money but one
other time an' got so much value, only I alwus ben kickin' myself to
think I didn't do it sooner."
"Perhaps," suggested John, "you enjoyed it all the more for waiting so
long."
"No," said David, "it wa'n't that--I dunno--'t was the feelin' 't I'd
got there at last, I guess. Fur's waitin' fer things is concerned, the'
is such a thing as waitin' too long. Your appetite 'll change mebbe. I
used to think when I was a youngster that if ever I got where I c'd have
all the custard pie I c'd eat that'd be all 't I'd ask fer. I used to
imagine bein' baked into one an' eatin' my way out. Nowdays the's a good
many things I'd sooner have than custard pie, though," he said with a
wink, "I gen'ally do eat two pieces jest to please Polly."
John laughed. "What was the other thing?" he asked.
"Other thing I once bought?" queried David. "Oh, yes, it was the fust
hoss I ever owned. I give fifteen dollars fer him, an' if he wa'n't a
dandy you needn't pay me a cent. Crowbait wa'n't no name fer him. He was
stun blind on the off side, an' couldn't see anythin' in pertic'ler on
the nigh side--couldn't get nigh 'nough, I reckon--an' had most
ev'rythin' wrong with him that c'd ail a hoss; but I thought he was a
thoroughbred. I was 'bout seventeen year old then, an' was helpin'
lock-tender on the Erie Canal, an' when the' wa'n't no boat goin'
through I put in most o' my time cleanin' that hoss. If he got through
'th less 'n six times a day he got off cheap, an' once I got up an' give
him a little attention at night. Yes, sir, if I got big money's wuth out
o' that box it was mostly a matter of feelin'; but as fur 's that old
plugamore of a hoss was concerned, I got it both ways, for I got my
fust real start out of his old carkiss."
"Yes?" said John encouragingly.
"Yes, sir," affirmed David, "I cleaned him up, an' fed him up, an'
almost got 'im so'st he c'd see enough out of his left eye to shy at a
load of hay close by; an' fin'ly traded him off fer another
record-breaker an' fifteen dollars to boot."
"Were you as enthusiastic over the next one as the first?" asked John,
laughing.
"Wa'al," replied David, relighting his temporarily abandoned cigar
against a protest and proffer of a fresh one--"wa'al, he didn't lay holt
on my affections to quite the same extent. I done my duty by him, but I
didn't set up with him nights. You see," he added with a grin, "I'd got
some used to bein' a hoss owner, an' the edge had wore off some." He
smoked for a minute or two in silence, with as much apparent relish as
if the cigar had not been stale.
"Aren't you going on?" asked John at last
"Wa'al," he replied, pleased with his audience, "I c'd go on, I s'pose,
fast enough an' fur enough, but I don't want to tire ye out. I reckon
you never had much to do with canals?"
"No," said John, smiling, "I can't say that I have, but I know something
about the subject in a general way, and there is no fear of your tiring
me out."
"All right," proceeded David. "As I was sayin', I got another equine
wonder an' fifteen dollars to boot fer my old plug, an' it wa'n't a
great while before I was in the hoss bus'nis to stay. After between two
an' three years I had fifty or sixty hosses an' mules, an' took all
sorts of towin' jobs. Then a big towin' concern quit bus'nis, an' I
bought their hull stock an' got my money back three four times over, an'
by the time I was about twenty-one I had got ahead enough to quit the
canal an' all its works fer good, an' go into other things. But there
was where I got my livin' after I run away f'm Buxton Hill. Before I got
the job of lock-tendin' I had made the trip to Albany an' back
twice--'walkin' my passage,' as they used to call it, an' I made one
trip helpin' steer, so 't my canal experience was putty thorough, take
it all 'round."
"It must have been a pretty hard life," remarked John.
David took out his penknife and proceeded to impale his cigar upon the
blade thereof. "No," he said, to John's proffer of the box, "this 'll
last quite a spell yet. Wa'al," he resumed after a moment, in reply to
John's remark, "viewin' it all by itself, it _was_ a hard life. A thing
is hard though, I reckon, because it's harder 'n somethin' else, or you
think so. Most things go by comparin'. I s'pose if the gen'ral run of
trotters never got better 'n three 'n a half that a hoss that c'd do it
in three 'd be fast, but we don't call 'em so nowdays. I s'pose if at
that same age you'd had to tackle the life you'd 'a' found it hard, an'
the' was hard things about it--trampin' all night in the rain, fer
instance; sleepin' in barns at times, an' all that; an' once the cap'n
o' the boat got mad at somethin' an' pitched me head over heels into the
canal. It was about the close of navigation an' the' was a scum of ice.
I scrambled out somehow, but he wouldn't 'a' cared if I'd ben drownded.
He was an exception, though. The canalers was a rough set in gen'ral,
but they averaged fer disposition 'bout like the ord'nary run o' folks;
the' was mean ones an' clever ones; them that would put upon ye, an'
them that would treat ye decent. The work was hard an' the grub wasn't
alwus much better 'n what you--he, he, he!--what you ben gettin' at the
Eagle" (John was now by the way of rather relishing jokes on that
subject); "but I hadn't ben raised in the lap o' luxury--not to any
consid'able extent--not enough to stick my nose up much. The men I
worked fer was rough, an' I got my share of cusses an' cuffs, an' once
in a while a kick to keep up my spirit of perseverance; but, on the
hull, I think I got more kindness 'n I did at home (leavin' Polly out),
an' as fer gen'ral treatment, none on 'em c'd come up to my father, an'
wuss yet, my oldest brother 'Lish. The cap'n that throwed me overboard
was the wust, but alongside o' 'Lish he was a forty hosspower angil with
a hull music store o' harps; an' even my father c'd 'a' given him cards
an' spades; an' as fer the victuals" (here David dropped his cigar end
and pulled from his pocket the silver tobacco box)--"as fer the
victuals," he repeated, "they mostly averaged up putty high after what
I'd ben used to. Why, I don't believe I ever tasted a piece of beefsteak
or roast beef in my life till after I left home. When we had meat at all
it was pork--boiled pork, fried pork, pigs' liver, an' all that, enough
to make you 'shamed to look a pig in the face--an' fer the rest,
potatoes, an' duff, an' johnny-cake, an' meal mush, an' milk emptins
bread that you c'd smell a mile after it got cold. With 'leven folks on
a small farm nuthin' c'd afford to be eat that c'd be sold, an'
ev'rythin' that couldn't be sold had to be eat. Once in a while the' 'd
be pie of some kind, or gingerbread; but with 'leven to eat 'em I didn't
ever git more 'n enough to set me hankerin'."
"I must say that I think I should have liked the canal better," remarked
John as David paused. "You were, at any rate, more or less free--that
is, comparatively, I should say."
"Yes, sir, I did," said David, "an' I never see the time, no matter how
rough things was, that I wished I was back on Buxton Hill. I used to
want to see Polly putty bad once in a while, an' used to figure that if
I ever growed up to be a man, an' had money enough, I'd buy her a new
pair o' shoes an' the stuff fer a dress, an' sometimes my cal'lations
went as fur 's a gold breastpin; but I never wanted to see none o' the
rest on 'em, an' fer that matter, I never did. Yes, sir, the old ditch
was better to me than the place I was borned in, an', as you say, I
wa'n't nobody's slave, an' I wa'n't scairt to death the hull time. Some
o' the men was rough, but they wa'n't cruel, as a rule, an' as I growed
up a little I was putty well able to look out fer myself--wa'al, wa'al
(looking at his watch), I guess you must 'a' had enough o' my meemores
fer one sittin'."
"No, really," John protested, "don't go yet. I have a little proposal to
make to you," and he got up and brought a bottle from the bottom of the
washstand.
"Wa'al," said David, "fire it out."
"That you take another cigar and a little of this," holding up the
bottle.
"Got any glasses?" asked David with practical mind.
"One and a tooth mug," replied John, laughing. "Glass for you, tooth
mug for me. Tastes just as good out of a tooth mug."
"Wa'al," said David, with a comical air of yielding as he took the glass
and held it out to John, "under protest, stric'ly under protest--sooner
than have my clo'es torn. I shall tell Polly--if I should happen to
mention it--that you threatened me with vi'lence. Wa'al, here's lookin'
at ye," which toast was drunk with the solemnity which befitted it.