THAT was the end of the interview, and of the Websterian age in
Griggsby. It still lives, the Websterian impulse; but, like many other
things, it has gone West, although there are certain relics of it in
every part of the land. Imaginary greatness now expresses itself in
luxury instead of eloquence here in the East, and every community is in
sore need of a Florence Dunbar.
Our citizens had begun to fear and respect _The Little Corporal_.
Special officers with a commission from its editor paroled the streets.
Our leading lights ceased to enter the public bar-rooms. Midnight brawls
and revels were discontinued. The poker-players conducted their
game with the utmost secrecy and good order. The Young Men's Social
Improvement League was organized. New justices of the peace were
elected. The first time that Thurst Giles got drunk and beat his wife
he was promptly put in jail at hard labor for a long term, while the
man who had sold the whisky lost his license. A well-known and highly
respected inn-keeper, at whose bar a minor had bought drinks, was
compelled to give a bond against any repetition of the offense or take a
bitter and ruinous draft of publicity.
Every week _The Little Corporal_ swept over the town like a wholesome
rain cloud, and refreshing showers of wit and lightning shafts of
ridicule fell out of it, and the people laughed and thought and
applauded. The poker sharp and the ten-dollar man were praised as
philanthropists, while the “trottin'-hoss” and the rum-scented brand of
Websterian dignity were riddled with good-natured wit, and people began
to look askance at them. The perennial springs of maudlin blasphemy and
obscenity had begun to dry up, and their greatness had departed. The
common drunkards moved out of the village. The resounding Websterian
coterie took their grog in wholesome fear and the strictest privacy.
“How are you?” one was heard to ask another on the street.
“Sir, I am well, but distressfully sober,” said the man addressed.
At fair-time the half-mile track was used only for a big athletic meet,
in which every large school in the county was represented. A company
of the best metropolitan players amused the people in a large, open
amphitheater, for which money had been raised by subscription. A
quartette from Boston sang between the acts. The grounds were well
policed; everything was done decently and in order.. The citizens of
Griggsby and its countryside found enlightenment and inspiration at the
fair. Every exhibit of drunkenness went to jail as swiftly as a team
of horses and ample help could take him there. The trotting farce was
abolished, and the ten-dollar man was out of employment, and no longer
the observed of all observers. That living fountain of blasphemy and
tobacco juice wandered among the cattle sheds and said the fair was a
failure, and went home heartsick and robbed of adulation. And a mere
slip of a girl had accomplished all this!
Ralph Buckstone returned by and by, the harbinger of a new era. He
was like the wooden horse of the Greeks. He came full of enemies that
hastened the fall of Griggsby. He brought in the cigarette. Through him
the cocktail, the liqueur, and the cordial entered the gates and leading
citizens of the village. They were welcomed without suspicion and with
every evidence of regard.
In a short time the flowers of rhetoric began to wither and die.
Compliments turned to groans. The leading citizens were in trouble. One
retired to Poland Springs, one to Arkansas, two to the old cemetery, and
one to a nearer hell of indigestion in his own bed. Dan'l W. Smead had
long since gone to his rest, with a name honored above all others in his
own county; for, having accomplished our purpose, we sold the _Corporal_
to the man who had done much to make it. I qualified for the bar, and
we settled in New York, and our lives have been blessed with children,
great happiness, and a fair degree of success.
Ralph left Griggsby, and broke down, and went a fast pace. I heard of
him, now and then, in the next few years. He had gone into journalism in
Boston, and it was rumored that he had made a handsome success. One day
a friend of us both said to me:
“Ralph? Oh, he's getting on famously. He is a typical journalist; talks
like the first deputy of the Creator, and regards all things with a
knowing and indulgent tolerance.”
Well, on a day in June twenty years after my marriage, I was in court
in New York, conducting the defense of a millionaire in trouble. I
was examining a witness when the proceedings were interrupted by the
arraignment of a prisoner. The clerk read the charge; it was forgery,
and the man was Ralph Buckstone. An officer explained that he was a
gambler, and had never been arraigned before. Evidently, the prisoner
had no defense, and pleaded guilty, as I expected.
Then the recorder said to him: “You understand, I presume, what is
involved in the step you are taking? Have you consulted counsel?”
“There is no occasion for it,” said Ralph. “At last I have decided to
speak and live the truth. I am guilty. I have been a weak and foolish
man, but what I have been, and what I am to be henceforth, all the world
is welcome to know. In my life hereafter there shall be no concealment,
and I hope never again to be ashamed of the truth about me.”
It was a great moment, and those were great words, simply and modestly
spoken, and they were the very words of old Appleton Hall.
Deep under the weeds, in the neglected soil of his spirit, the good
seed had been lying all this long time. Now it had burst, and was taking
root, as though it had needed only the heat of his trouble. The face of
the old recorder shone with kindness; and I, remembering my promise and
the teaching of the old schoolmaster, was on my feet in a second.
“Your Honor,” I said, “I appear for the prisoner. There was a time long
ago when he and I were boys together. In the battles of our youth I
defended him, as I shall again. Since that far day I fear we have both
erred and strayed from the paths we had hoped to follow, for I do not
need to remind your Honor that life is full of things that trip and turn
one from his course, or how easy it is for men to lose their reckoning.
But we are going to do better; we are firmly resolved, and to-day we ask
you to help us. I promise full reparation to any who have suffered loss,
through his conduct, in the matter charged, and a bond in any reasonable
amount for his good behavior.”
Then the tide turned for Ralph Buck-stone. It is enough for me to say
that he faced about and became an able and successful author.
Yes, there are still Daniel Websters in America, many of them; there are
Griggses and Griggsbys; but our Griggsby is a changed town. The seats
of leisure are now occupied by the ladies. They have suffered from
the angel theory, and it is their own fault. They look like birds of
paradise. I should like to see them give up sweetmeats and idleness,
jewels and ethereal raiment, and rejoin the human ranks, not as slaves,
but as real women, with a work to do and with all the rights they may
desire.
In a recent humorous account of the old Cadets of Temperance Ralph
concluded with these words:
“My subsequent career is well known, but, alas, poor Havelock!”
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Turning of Griggsby, by Irving Bacheller