MR. DANIEL WEBSTER SMEAD had five children and a wife, who did all the
work of the household. He was an auctioneer, a musician, and a horseman.
When I went to begin my life in his house, it was he who opened the
door. He was coatless, collarless, and in dirty linen.
“I am Uriel Havelock,” I said.
“Havelock of Stillwater,” said he. “I salute you. How is your health?”
“Pretty good,” I said.
“Walk right into the drawin'-room, an' draw yer jade knife an' go to
whittlin' if ye want to.”
The drawing-room wrung a smile from my sad face. It was the plainest of
rooms, decorated with chromos, mottos in colored yams, and with faded
wall paper. On the floor was a worn and shabby carpet; and some plain,
wooden chairs; a haircloth sofa, with its antimacassar and crocheted
cushion, completed the furnishings. The woodwork, the windows, and all
the appointments of the room were noticeably dean. A ragged-looking
Newfoundland dog came roaring in upon me.
“Leo, Leo, be still, or I'll subject you to punishment,” said Mr. Smead.
“Is He full-blooded?” I asked.
“As full-blooded as Col. Sile Buckstone, an' that's sayin' a good deal.”
“Good watch dog?”
“Sets an' watches the scenery all day.” He opened the stairway door
and called: “Mrs. Smead! Oh, Mrs. Smead! A noble guest is under our
battlements.”
There was a sound of footsteps on the floor above, and in a moment a
pale, weary woman, followed by three boys from seven to twelve years of
age, each in patched trousers, came down the stairway. The woman shook
my hand and said that she was glad to see me, although I had never
beheld a face so utterly joyless.
The master of the household kept up a running fire of talk. Addressing
the children, he said:
“Dan'l, Rufus, Edward, salute the young gentleman.” They had been named
after the great orators Webster, Choate, and Everett.
As they timidly shook my hand their father observed: “These boys have
ascended from Roger Williams, Remember Baker, an' General Winfield
Scott. If they look tired, excuse them; it's quite a climb.”
The eldest boy showed me to my room, and so began my life at Smead's.
Distressed with loneliness, I walked about the village for hours that
afternoon, and on my return had time only to wash my face and comb my
hair, when a bell summoned me to supper.
Mr. Smead was considerably dressed up in clean linen, a prodigious
necktie, and a coat of black broadcloth. His wife wore a dean calico
dress, with a gold-plated brooch at her throat.
“I wish the girls were here,” said Smead.
“They are out in the country teaching school,” Mrs. Smead explained;
“they want to help their father.”
“Beautiful girls,” said their father--“tall, queenly, magnificent,
talented. By force of habit I was about to ask, 'How much am I bid?'”
“How do you like Griggsby?” Mrs. Smead inquired of me, as though wishing
to change the subject.
“I do not call it a very pretty place,” I said, still loyal to
Stillwater.
“An' you wouldn't be a pretty place if you were the mother of so many
orators an' statesmen,” said Smead. “You would be a proud but a worn
an' weary place. There would be dust an' scratched-up gravel in your
immediate vicinity, an' you wouldn't care. Don't expect too much o'
Griggsby. It is a Vesuvius of oratory, sir. It is full of high an' grand
emotions, mingled with smoke an' fire an' thunder an' other accessories,
includin' Smeads. It is the home an' birthplace of the Griggses. There
was the Hon. John Henry Griggs, once the Speaker of our Lower House an'
a great orator. By pure eloquence one day he established the reputation
of an honest man, his greatest accomplishment, for as an honest man
there were obstacles in his way. It didn't last long, that reputation;
it had so much to contend with. He never gave it a fair chance. By an'
by it tottered an' fell. Then he established another with some more
eloquence. He was the first Dan'l Webster of Griggsby--looked like him,
dressed like him, spoke like him, drank like him. Always took a tumbler
of brandy before he made a speech, an' say, wa'n't he a swayer? The way
he handled an audience was like swingin' a cat by the tail. He kep' 'em
goin'; didn't give 'em time to think. It wouldn't have been safe. As
a thought-preventer John Henry beats the world! The result was both
humorous an' pathetic.”
Mr. Smead, with the voice of Stentor at the gates of Troy, delivered a
playful imitation of the late John Henry.
“You're quite an orator,” I said.
“Oh, I can swing the cat a little,” said he. “Ye ought to hear me talk
hoss or tackle the old armchair at an auction sale. It would break a
drought. So much for the Smeads. As to the other great folks, Senator
John Griggs, a distinguished member of our Upper House, is also a son of
Griggsby, not so great as his father, but a high-headed, hard-workin',
hand-engraved, full-tinted orator. He has a scar on his face three
inches long that he got in a political argument. Flowers of rhetoric
grow on him as naturally as moss on a log.
“Years ago he convicted a man of murder here with oratory--made the jury
weep till they longed for blood an' got it. Bill Smithers loaded himself
to the muzzle with rum an' oratory for the defense. Nobody did any
work on the case. The oratory of Griggs was keener than the oratory
of Smithers--more flowery, more movin'. It fetched the tears, an'
conviction came with them. Of course, Griggs had the body of the victim
on his side. Smithers roared an' wept for half a day. The jury had been
swung until it was tired. It clung to the ground with tooth an' nail.
The fountain of its tears had gone dry. The prisoner was convicted,
slain by oratory--pure oratory, undefiled by intelligence; an' years
after he was put in his grave a woman confessed that she had committed
the crime. Oh, Griggs is a wonder. He's another D. W., but he's a
good-hearted man. I heard him say that he had rebuilt the church of
his parish with his earnings at poker. That's the kind of man he
is--reckless, but charitable. Everybody calls him John. They say that
whisky has no effect on him. It is like water pouring on a rock. It only
moistens the surface.
“Then there is Col. Silas Buckstone, our Congressman, whose home is
also in Griggs--by, another D. W., a man of quality an' quantity, great
length, breadth, an' thickness, with a mustache eight inches long an'
a voice that can travel like a trottin'-hoss. A man of a distinguished
presence an' several distinguished absences.
“Yes, I regret to say that he goes on a spree now an' then. It's a pity,
but so often the case with men o' talent--so awfully often. About twice
a year the Colonel slides off his eminence, an' down he goes into the
valley o' the common herd with loud yells o' joy. Once he slid across a
corner o' the valley o' death, but that didn't matter. What's the use o'
havin' an eminence unless you're to enjoy the privilege of slidin'
down it when ye want to? It was his eminence. While his spree lasts the
Colonel buys everything in sight until his money is gone. Then some one
has to go an' tow him back to us. Once he returned the proud owner of a
carload of goats an' a millinery store.”
Mr. Smead also told me of the two judges, Warner and Brooks, the ablest
members of the county bar, who, it seems, were always wandering toward
the dewy, meadowy path of dalliance. He said that sometimes they hit
the path, and sometimes the path hit them and left some bruises. They
enjoyed the distinctions of being looked up to and of being looked down
upon.
“Of course, there are able men in the village who are addicted to
sobriety,” he went on. “Some of them have tried to reform, but, alas!
the habit of sobriety has become fixed upon them--weak stomachs, maybe.
They have to worry along without the stamp o' genius, just commonplace,
every-day-alike men. Nobody takes any notice of 'em. Once a prominent
citizen denounced one o' them on the street as a damn little-souled,
conscientious Christian who could get drunk on a thimble o' whisky. It
was one o' the first indictments against virtue on record.
“'Ha! I see that you are sober,' said John Griggs to a constituent
whom he met in the street one day. I will forgive you, but don't let it
happen again. Think of the obscurity that awaits you and of the example
you are setting to the young. Think of Deacon Bradley and Priscilla
Perkins. Sir, if you keep on you will be wrecked on the hidden reefs of
hopeless sobriety.'”
Dan'l Webster laughed for a minute and continued: “Griggsby is the home
and Paradise of the rural hoss-trader, whose word is as good as his
hoss, and who never fools anybody except when he is telling the truth.
One of 'em was sued for sellin' a worthless hoss. His defense was that a
man who traded with him took his life in his hands, an' everybody ought
to know it; an' the justice ruled that there were certain men that it
was a crime to believe, an' that he who did it received a natural and
deserved punishment.”
So in his curious way, which was not to be forgotten, he described
this heroism of the human stomach, this adventurous defiance of God and
nature. In those callow days that view appealed to my sporting instinct.
“You see, the stamp of genius is on all our public men,” Mr. Smead
continued. “They all wear the scarlet blossom of capacity on their
noses. The scarlet blossom an' the silver tongue go hand in hand, as it
were.”
Mr. Daniel Webster Smead was, indeed, a singular man. He had little
learning, but was a keen observer. Ever since his boyhood he had browsed
in good books, notably those of Artemus Ward and Charles Dickens. The
Websterian thunder did not appeal to him, but he had cultivated certain
of the weaknesses which he had vividly described. He had a massive
indolence and a great fondness for horses. He was drunk with hope all
the time, and now and then sought the stimulation of beer. Hopes and
hops were his worst enemies. When he talked people were wont to laugh,
but every one said that Smead did not amount to anything. However, if
all the other leading lights of the village had conferred their brains
jointly on one man, he would not have been more than knee-high to the
mental stature of Smead. He was a man of wide talent--a kind of human
what-not. He could do many things well, but accomplished little.
In fact, Mr. Smead was an ass, and he knew enough to know that he was
an ass, which of itself distinguished him above all the citizens of
Griggsby. He was drifting along in the bondage of custom; and he knew
it, and laughed at his own folly.
As we rose from the table he said, in a little aside to me: “In the
morning I'll show you a hoss an' a fool, an' both standard-bred an' in
the two-thirty list.”
I spent the evening in my own room with a book, and when I came down in
the morning I saw Mr. Smead entering the gate in a shining red road cart
behind a horse blanketed to his nose, and in knee and ankle boots. I
hurried to the stable, where Mr. Smead stood proudly, with a short whip
in his hand, while the boys were removing the harness and boots from a
big, steaming stallion.
“There is Montravers--mark of two twenty-nine an' a half,” said he,
glibly. “By Bald Eagle out of Clara Belle, she by George Wilkes, he by
Hambletonian X.; his dam was Queen Bess by Wanderer, out of Crazy Jane,
she by Meteor. I expect him to transport me to the goal of affluence.”
[Illustration: 0055]
Two of the boys were deftly scraping Montravers's sides, while the
third sponged his mouth and legs. Then the youthful band fell to with
rubbing-cloths, backed by terrible energy, on the body of the big horse.
“The fathers of this village all have to be helped,” said Mr. Smead;
“they're so busy with one thing or another, mostly another. Ye can't be
a Dan'l Webster an' do anything else.”
This matter of “helpin' father” seemed to me to be rather arduous. As
the horse grew dry the boys grew wet. Perspiration had begun to roll
down their faces.
“The trottin'-hoss is the natural ally of the orator an' the
conversationalist,” said Mr. Smead. “He stimulates the mind an'
furnishes food for thought. A man who has owned a trotter is capable
of any feat of the imagination, an' some of our deepest thinkers have
graduated from the grand stand an' the sulky. Everybody goes in for
trotters here.
“John Griggs an' Colonel Sile an' Horace Brooks an' Bill Warner, all
have their trotters. If a farmer gets some money ahead he buys a trotter
an' begins to train for speed an' bankruptcy. It helps him to a sense o'
grandeur an' distinction. If there's anything else that can be done with
money, he don't know it. His boys look like beggars, an' his hoss looks
like a prince; just like mine. I told ye I'd show ye a fool, an' here
I am--a direct descendant of Thankful Smead by Remember Baker. But I
really have a prize in this animal. I expect to sell him for big money.”
Soon we heard the voice of Mrs. Smead at the back door.
“Boys, where are you?” she called.
“Helpin' father,” answered Daniel, the eldest of them.
“Well, breakfast is waiting,” said she, with a touch of impatience in
her tone. “You must be getting ready for school.”
“He'll do now,” said Smead. “Put on the coolin' sheet an' walk him for
ten minutes.”
A big, spotless sheet blanket was thrown over the shiny, silken coat of
the horse, and Rufus began to walk him up and down the yard while the
rest of us went in to breakfast.
There was a pathetic contrast which I did not fail to observe, young as
I was, between the silken coat of the beast and the faded calico dress
of the woman; between his lustrous, flashing eyes and hers, dull and
sad; between his bounding feet and hers, which moved about heavily;
between the whole spirit of Montravers and that of Mrs. Smead. I saw,
too, the contrast between the splendid trappings of the stallion and the
patched trousers of the boys. I wondered how the boys were going to be
cooled off. They simply took a hurried wash in a tin basin at the back
door and sat down at the table in damp clothes. We could hear timid
remarks in the kitchen about a worthless horse, about boys who would be
late to school, and the delayed work of the day.
“If that hoss could only keep up with my imagination!” said Smead,
mournfully.
“Dan'l, you must take care of the horse yourself in the morning,” said
Mrs. Smead.
“But my imagination keeps me so busy, mother,” said he. “Montravers
works it night an' day. It don't give me any sleep, thinkin' o' the
wealth that's just ahead of us. It pants with weariness. Almost every
night I dream of tossin' a whole basket of gold into my wife's lap an'
sayin', 'There, mother, it's yours; do as you like with it.'”
She made no reply. That gold-tossing had revived her hope a little and
pacified her for the moment.
Such was a sample day in the life of the Smeads when Dan'l Webster was
at home. Every night and morning the boys were helping father by rubbing
the legs and body of the stallion. I soon acquired the habit, partly
because I admired the splendid animal, partly to help the boys. I had
never rubbed a horse's legs before, and it appealed to me as a new form
of dissipation.
We were all helping father while the mother worked along from dawn till
we had all gone to our beds--all save the head of the house. He spent
his evenings reading, or in the company of the horsemen at the Palace
Hotel.
I was now deeply interested in my school work. One night I had sat late
with my problems in algebra, and lay awake for hours after I went to
bed. The clock struck twelve, and still I could hear Mrs. Smead rocking
as she sewed downstairs. By and by there were sounds of Mr. Smead
entering the front door. Then I heard her say: “Dan'l, you promised me
not to do this again. The boys are growing up, and you must set them a
better example.”
She spoke kindly, but with feeling. “Mother, don't wake me up,” he
pleaded. “I've enjoyed an evening of great pride an' immeasurable
wealth. They've been praisin' my hoss, an' two men from New York are
comin' to buy him. I'm a Croesus. For the Lord's sake, lemme go to bed
with the money!”
I lay awake thinking what a singular sort of slavery was going on in
that house.
What a faithful, weary, plodding creature the slave was! She reminded me
of those wonderful words which my mother had asked me and my sister to
commit to memory:
“Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee:
for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge:
thy people shall be my people and thy God my God. Where thou diest will
I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me and more, also,
if aught but death part thee and me.”
Thy God shall be my God, indeed, even though He be nothing better than a
highbred stallion!