PRESENTING HIRAM BAXTER
Hiram Baxter, whose hidden purposes were responsible for Betty's
sudden and momentous journey to London, was, in this year of the
first flying machine, one of the few really interesting self-made men
to be found in New York City, where such sturdy and picturesque types
are rapidly disappearing. At fifty-five Baxter was a big, grizzled
fellow, with a pair of straight shoulders, a friendly smile and a way
of using the English language that was absolutely and delightfully
his own.
"This grammar business ain't much of a trick," he would declare, with
his slow characteristic drawl. "I could swing it any time I wanted
to, but where's the sense o' wearin' high collars and patent leather
boots if yer neck and yer feet ain't comf'table in 'em? Suppose I
say to you, 'I like them peaches'? You say those peaches. I say,
no, them peaches. You say it's wrong. I say it don't make a hang o'
difference, it don't hurt you an' it don't hurt me an' it don't hurt
the peaches."
Baxter invariably dressed in simple black garments, including a
wide-brimmed soft black hat, that gave him in repose, with his ruddy,
rugged visage, somewhat the look of an English bishop, as had been
more than once remarked by his episcopal friend of Bunchester.
"It ain't because I like it that I wear black," Hiram sometimes
explained, "and it ain't because I'm sad. The fact is black's the
only safe color fer me if I want a happy home. Why, if I ever let
myself go on colored vests an' striped pants, an' fancy neckties, my
wife'd start fer a divorce the next mornin'. Yes, sir."
When Hiram laughed his blue eyes twinkled at you under shaggy black
brows and his strong teeth gleamed at you beneath his white mustache;
then, perhaps, he resembled a bluff German statesman. But as soon as
he spoke you knew he was American through and through, and, somehow,
you thought none the less of him for his quaint lapses in speech.
Not all the rules of prosody and syntax could alter the fact that
Hiram Baxter was a figure of compelling power, a strongly original
and lovable man, who inspired immediate confidence in his wonderful
resourcefulness.
It was during his recent voyage on the _Lusitania_, in the course of
a brisk walk on the upper deck, that Baxter took the Bishop of
Bunchester into his confidence regarding certain serious personal
matters. Hiram's friendship with the bishop was of long standing,
for the American some twenty-eight years before, at the outset of his
varied career, had married an English lady, a distant connection of
the prelate's, and it had long been the Baxters' custom to divide
their year between a comfortable home in Washington Square, New York,
and a country place in Surrey, about two hours out of London, where
Mrs. Baxter entertained numerous relatives and friends with lavish
hospitality.
"I tell ye, Bish," Hiram broke out abruptly, "it ain't by a man's
successes that ye can size up his character. No, sir. It's by the
mistakes he makes an' the way he faces 'em and gets out of 'em. Why,
I know a doctor up in New Hampshire--homeliest feller I ever seen--he
got rich makin' cough medicine out o' shingles."
"Bless my soul! Shingles!" the bishop exclaimed.
"Yes, sir; shingles. Good pine shingles. A whole lumber yard full
of 'em. He got 'em in foreclosure proceedings--hadn't the first
notion what to do with them shingles until he happened to think of
cough medicine. That turned the trick. Ever heard of 'Peck's
Peerless Pectoral'? It was his invention--stewed it out o' them
shingles, every bottle of it; and say, Bish, it's great stuff. Which
is what I call makin' the best of yer mistakes, for it ain't every
country doctor could see his way to snatchin' victory out of a lot o'
discredited pine shingles."
This bit of homely philosophy was received by the distinguished
churchman with amused approval.
"Very true, my dear Baxter, but I don't see how this applies to you."
"I'll show ye," chortled Hiram. "Ever hear o' the feller that used
to wear detachable cuffs and then went broke because he bought a
shirt that had cuffs sewed on? No? It's a fact. Ye see he had to
get a swell suit to match the shirt, and a swell fur overcoat to
match the suit, and a swell automobile to match the fur overcoat, and
the first thing he knew he was such a swell he blew up an' busted."
"What an extraordinary fancy!" exclaimed the bishop, laughing
immoderately.
"Fancy nothing. It's a fact," declared Baxter. "And I want to tell
you I've been a little that way myself. I've been tryin' to live up
to the standards o' my wife an' my wife's relations. That's where
I've made my mistake. Yes, sir. I'm only a rough feller, Bish,
but--well, I married Eleanor and--you know what she is. Swell
English family and--grand ideas, and--you understand. D'ye think I'm
stuck on havin' a country place in England? Asbury Park 'd suit me a
lot better, but Eleanor wanted it. She said it was the proper thing
and--so I took Ipping House, with its ancestral towers and its
dungeons and a lot o' blamed foolishness. Excuse me, Bish, but
that's what it is. And as fer relatives--" he paused with a grim
tightening of the lips.
"My dear Baxter," put in the prelate, "you surely do not regret the
old-fashioned English hospitality that you and your excellent wife
have been practicing?"
"Well," drawled Hiram, "if old-fashioned English hospitality consists
in bein' worked in every conceivable way by a lot of impecunious
third cousins that never did a day's work in their lives, then I say
it's time old-fashioned English hospitality got inoculated with some
new-fashioned American common sense. Why, with Lionel Fitz Brown, my
wife's third cousin, and Kate Clendennin, the Countess Kate, and the
two Merles and various others, my house is about as much like a home
as a Narragansett hotel. Now take Merle."
"Horatio Merle?" interjected the bishop. "You don't mean----"
"Yes, I do," continued Baxter, "the Rev. Horatio Merle, my wife's
second cousin once removed. As good a man as ever thumped a
Bible--you know what I mean, Bish," Hiram added quickly, mistaking
for a sign of disapproval the cough which the reverend auditor had
substituted for a chuckle. "Yes, sir, for a downright, pure-hearted
Christian you might go through the British Isles with a fine-tooth
comb and not find another like Horatio Merle; but what good does that
do him? He's lost five preachin' jobs in three years, and for the
last six months the only flocks that have had the benefit of his
pulpit oratory have been the birds and butterflies at Bainbridge
Manor. I tell you, Bish, he missed his vocation. He ought to have
been one of them nature sharps."
"I believe you are right," assented the bishop. "Horatio Merle would
have made his mark as a naturalist. I never knew a man in whom the
love of nature was more beautifully developed. He is a sort of
modern St. Francis."
"Modern St. Francis," snorted Hiram. "I don't know who he was, but
if he could beat Horatio Merle----"
he broke off with a broad grin. "Say, Bish, did ye hear how Horatio
lost his last preachin' job?"
"Why, no. How was that?"
"Seems he was goin' to church one Sunday mornin', and passin' by the
canal he saw some boys tryin' to drown a kitten. They'd just hitched
a stone around its neck when Merle caught sight of 'em.
"'You young rascals,' he called out, but he was too late, and the
next minute the poor little thing splashed into the water. Well,
sir, that was too much for Horatio. He knew the church folks were
waitin' for him, but he couldn't help it. He just waded into that
canal, black clothes and all, and fished out the kitten. Then he
went ahead with his religious duties while the water dripped down
under his robes and the congregation made up their minds that he was
plumb crazy."
"Poor Merle!" reflected the bishop. "And what became of the kitten?"
"Why, he's got him yet. A big black cat now. Martin Luther's his
name, and wherever Merle goes there's Martin Luther taggin' after him
like Mary's little lamb. Understand, Bish, I like Merle; I like to
have him 'round. As far as that goes I like the rest of 'em,
but----" Here his face clouded.
"My dear Baxter," said the bishop sympathetically, "I understand
these little family annoyances, but after all you're a rich man
and----"
"Yes," cut in Hiram, "I'm a rich man, and if I don't look out I'll
wake up some fine morning and find myself"--here the fighting spirit
flashed in Hiram's honest blue eyes, and with a swing of his powerful
shoulders--"no, I won't, either," he added. "I'll beat those Wall
Street devils yet; I'll beat 'em at their own game."
Then Baxter, in strict confidence, explained to the bishop the nature
of the difficulties in which he innocently found himself,
difficulties that put in jeopardy every dollar of his fortune and
with it the happiness and welfare of his family.
The prelate followed this narrative with sympathetic interest and
concern, and then listened with growing astonishment while Baxter
outlined briefly his programme, which, after all, was based on a very
simple idea, yet was so unusual that the average person would have at
once rejected it as impossible.
Thus the bishop at once objected: "But, my good friend, this is out
of the question, quite out of the question."
"Why is it?" persisted Hiram.
"For one thing your wife will never consent."
"Won't she? You wait and see."
"For another thing I feel obliged to say----"
"You feel obliged to say," chuckled Baxter, "that it's a crazy
notion. Bet ye four dollars and a quarter that's what ye think. But
listen to me, Bish. I've made my fortune doin' crazy things. Once I
bought three thousand plug hats at auction in Chicago fer eight
hundred dollars, an' I sold 'em at dollar apiece in Denver for a
political parade. I've bought busted railroads and watched 'em come
up to par. I've bought played-out oil wells an' made 'em spout gold.
Why, I even bought an old church once with a haunted graveyard and
got square on the marble in it, with all the land as velvet."
"Dear, dear, dear! A haunted graveyard?" murmured the bishop.
"Yes, sir; and I'll put this thing through the same as I did that,
because it's a good idea. A big, sound, American idea. Now you just
watch me."