About seventy-five traveling men were snowed in at Green Bay during a
late blockade, and they were pretty lively around the hotels, having
quiet fun Friday and Saturday, and passing away the time the best they
could, some playing seven up, others playing billiards, and others
looking on. Some of the truly good people in town thought the boys were
pretty tough, and they wore long faces and prayed for the blockade to
raise so the spruce looking chaps could go away.
The boys noticed that occasionally a lantern-jawed fellow would look
pious at them, as though afraid he would be contaminated, so Sunday
morning they decided to go to church in a body. Seventy-five of them
slicked up and marched to the Rev. Dr. Morgan's church, where the
reverend gentleman was going to deliver a sermon on temperance. No
minister ever had a more attentive audience, or a more intelligent one,
and when the collection plate was passed every last one of the travelers
chipped in a silver dollar.
When the sexton had received the first ten dollars the perspiration
stood out on his forehead as though he had been caught in something. It
was getting heavy, something that never occurred before in the history
of church collections at the Bay. As he passed by the boys, and dollar
after dollar was added to his burden, he felt like he was at a picnic,
and when twenty-five dollars had accumulated on the plate he had to hold
it with both hands, and finally the plate was full, and he had to go and
empty it on the table in front of the pulpit, though he was careful to
remember where he left off, so he wouldn't go twice to the same drummer.
As he poured the shekels out on the table, as still as he could, every
person in the audience almost raised up to look at the pile, and there
was a smile on every face, and every eye turned to the part of the
church where sat the seventy-five solemn looking traveling men, who
never smole a smile. The sexton looked up to the minister, who was
picking out a hymn, as much as to say, “Boss, we have struck it rich,
and I am going back to work the lead some more.” The minister looked
at the boys, and then at the sexton as though saying, “Verily, I would
rather preach to seventy-five Milwaukee and Chicago drummers than to own
a brewery. Go, thou, and reap some more trade dollars in my vineyard.”
The sexton went back and commenced where he left off. He had his
misgivings, thinking maybe some of the boys would glide out in his
absence, or think better of the affair and only put in nickels on
the second heat, but the first man the sexton held out the platter
to planked down his dollar, and all the boys followed suit, not a man
“passed” or “ra nigged,” and when the last drummer had been interviewed
the sexton carried the biggest load of silver back to the table that he
ever saw.
Some of the silver dollars rolled off on the floor, and he had to put
some in his coat pockets, but he got them all, and looked around at the
congregation with a smile and wiped the perspiration off his forehead
with a bandanna handkerchief and winked, as much as to say, “The first
man that speaks disrespectfully of a traveling man in my presence will
get thumped, and don't you forget it.”
The minister rose up in the pulpit, looked at the wealth on the table,
and read the hymn, “A charge to keep I have,” and the congregation
joined, the travelers swelling the glad anthem as though they belonged
to a Pinafore chorus. They all bowed their heads while the minister,
with one eye on the dollars, pronounced the benediction, and the
services were over.
The traveling men filed out through the smiles of the ladies and went to
the hotel, while half the congregation went forward to the anxious seat,
to “view the remains.” It is safe to say that it will be unsafe, in the
future, to speak disparagingly of traveling men in Green Bay, as long
as the memory of that blockade Sunday remains green with the good people
there.