MR. BELCHER CARRIES HIS POINT AT THE TOWN-MEETING, AND THE POOR ARE
KNOCKED DOWN TO THOMAS BUFFUM.
The abrupt departure of Miss Butterworth left Mr. Belcher piqued and
surprised. Although he regarded himself as still "master of the
situation"--to use his own pet phrase,--the visit of that spirited woman
had in various ways humiliated him. To sit in his own library, with an
intruding woman who not only was not afraid of him but despised him, to
sit before her patiently and be called "Bob Belcher," and a brute, and
not to have the privilege of kicking her out of doors, was the severest
possible trial of his equanimity. She left him so suddenly that he had
not had the opportunity to insult her, for he had fully intended to do
this before she retired. He had determined, also, as a matter of course,
that in regard to the public poor of Sevenoaks he would give all his
influence toward maintaining the existing state of things. The idea of
being influenced by a woman, particularly by a woman over whom he had no
influence, to change his policy with regard to anything, public or
private, was one against which all the brute within him rebelled.
In this state of mind, angry with himself for having tolerated one who
had so boldly and ruthlessly wounded his self-love, he had but one
resort. He could not confess his humiliation to his wife; and there was
no one in the world with whom he could hold conversation on the subject,
except his old confidant who came into the mirror when wanted, and
conveniently retired when the interview closed.
Rising from his chair, and approaching his mirror, as if he had been
whipped, he stood a full minute regarding his disgraced and speechless
image. "Are you Robert Belcher, Esquire, of Sevenoaks?" he inquired, at
length. "Are you the person who has been insulted by a woman? Look at
me, sir! Turn not away! Have you any constitutional objections to
telling me how you feel? Are you, sir, the proprietor of this house? Are
you the owner of yonder mill? Are you the distinguished person who
carries Sevenoaks in his pocket? How are the mighty fallen! And you,
sir, who have been insulted by a tailoress, can stand here, and look me
in the face, and still pretend to be a man! You are a scoundrel, sir--a
low, mean-spirited scoundrel, sir. You are nicely dressed, but you are a
puppy. Dare to tell me you are not, and I will grind you under my foot,
as I would grind a worm. Don't give me a word--not a word! I am not in a
mood to bear it!"
Having vented his indignation and disgust, with the fiercest facial
expression and the most menacing gesticulations, he became calm, and
proceeded:
"Benedict at the poor-house, hopelessly insane! Tell me now, and, mark
you, no lies here! Who developed his inventions? Whose money was risked?
What did it cost Benedict? Nothing. What did it cost Robert Belcher?
More thousands than Benedict ever dreamed of. Have you done your duty,
Robert Belcher? Ay, ay, sir! I believe you. Did you turn his head? No,
sir. I believe you; it is well! I have spent money for him--first and
last, a great deal of money for him; and any man or woman who disputes
me is a liar--a base, malignant liar! Who is still master of the
situation? Whose name is Norval? Whose are these Grampian Hills? Who
intends to go to the town-meeting to-morrow, and have things fixed about
as he wants them? Who will make Keziah Butterworth weep and howl with
anguish? Let Robert Belcher alone! Alone! Far in azure depths of space
(here Mr. Belcher extended both arms heavenward, and regarded his image
admiringly), far--far away! Well, you're a pretty good-looking man,
after all, and I'll let you off this time; but don't let me catch you
playing baby to another woman! I think you'll be able to take care of
yourself [nodding slowly.] By-by! Good-night!"
Mr. Belcher retired from the glass with two or three profound bows, his
face beaming with restored self-complacency, and, taking his chair, he
resumed his cigar. At this moment, there arose in his memory a single
sentence he had read in the warrant for the meeting of the morrow: "To
see if the town will take any steps for the improvement of the condition
of the poor, now supported at the public charge."
When he read this article of the warrant, posted in the public places of
the village, it had not impressed him particularly. Now, he saw Miss
Butterworth's hand in it. Evidently, Mr. Belcher was not the only man
who had been honored by a call from that philanthropic woman. As he
thought the matter over, he regretted that, for the sake of giving form
and force to his spite against her, he should be obliged to relinquish
the popularity he might have won by favoring a reformative measure. He
saw something in it, also, that might be made to add to Tom Buffum's
profits, but even this consideration weighed nothing against his desire
for personal revenge, to be exhibited in the form of triumphant personal
power.
He rose from his chair, walked his room, swinging his hands backward and
forward, casting furtive glances into his mirror, and then rang his
bell. He had arrived at a conclusion. He had fixed upon his scheme, and
was ready for work.
"Tell Phipps to come here," he said to the maid who responded to the
summons.
Phipps was his coachman, body-servant, table-waiter, pet, butt for his
jests, tool, man of all occasions. He considered himself a part of Mr.
Belcher's personal property. To be the object of his clumsy badinage,
when visitors were present and his master was particularly amiable, was
equivalent to an honorable public notice. He took Mr. Belcher's cast-off
clothes, and had them reduced in their dimensions for his own wearing,
and was thus always able to be nearly as well dressed and foppish as the
man for whom they were originally made. He was as insolent to others as
he was obsequious to his master--a flunky by nature and long education.
Phipps appeared.
"Well, Phipps, what are you here for?" inquired Mr. Belcher.
"I was told you wanted me, sir," looking doubtfully with his cunning
eyes into Mr. Belcher's face, as if questioning his mood.
"How is your health? You look feeble. Overwhelmed by your tremendous
duties? Been sitting up late along back? Eh? You rascal! Who's the happy
woman?"
Phipps laughed, and twiddled his fingers.
"You're a precious fellow, and I've got to get rid of you. You are
altogether too many for me. Where did you get that coat? It seems to me
I've seen something like that before. Just tell me how you do it, man. I
can't dress the way you do. Yes, Phipps, you're too many for me!"
Phipps smiled, aware that he was expected to make no reply.
"Phipps, do you expect to get up to-morrow morning?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, you do! Very well! See that you do."
"Yes, sir."
"And Phipps--"
"Yes, sir."
"Bring the grays and the light wagon to the door to-morrow morning at
seven o'clock."
"Yes, sir."
"And Phipps, gather all the old clothes about the house that you can't
use yourself, and tie 'em up in a bundle, and put 'em into the back of
the wagon. Mum is the word, and if Mrs. Belcher asks you any questions,
tell her I think of turning Sister of Charity."
Phipps snickered.
"And Phipps, make a basket of cold meat and goodies, and put in with the
clothes."
"Yes, sir."
"And Phipps, remember:--seven o'clock, sharp, and no soldiering."
"Yes, sir."
"And Phipps, here is a cigar that cost twenty-five cents. Do it up in a
paper, and lay it away. Keep it to remember me by."
This joke was too good to be passed over lightly, and so Phipps giggled,
took the cigar, put it caressingly to his nose, and then slipped it into
his pocket.
"Now make yourself scarce," said his master, and the man retired,
entirely conscious that the person he served had some rascally scheme on
foot, and heartily sympathetic with him in the project of its execution.
Promptly at seven the next morning, the rakish pair of trotters stood
before the door, with a basket and a large bundle in the back of the
rakish little wagon. Almost at the same moment, the proprietor came out,
buttoning his overcoat. Phipps leaped out, then followed his master into
the wagon, who, taking the reins, drove off at a rattling pace up the
long hill toward Tom Buffum's boarding-house. The road lay entirely
outside of the village, so that the unusual drive was not observed.
Arriving at the poor-house, Mr. Belcher gave the reins to his servant,
and, with a sharp rap upon the door with the butt of his whip, summoned
to the latch the red-faced and stuffy keeper. What passed between them,
Phipps did not hear, although he tried very hard to do so. At the close
of a half hour's buzzing conversation, Tom Buffum took the bundle from
the wagon, and pitched it into his doorway. Then, with the basket on his
arm, he and Mr. Belcher made their way across the street to the
dormitories and cells occupied by the paupers of both sexes and all ages
and conditions. Even the hard-hearted proprietor saw that which wounded
his blunted sensibilities; but he looked on with a bland face, and
witnessed the greedy consumption of the stale dainties of his own table.
It was by accident that he was led out by a side passage, and there he
caught glimpses of the cells to which Miss Butterworth had alluded, and
inhaled an atmosphere which sickened him to paleness, and brought to his
lips the exclamation: "For God's sake let's get out of this."
"Ay! ay!" came tremblingly from behind the bars of a cell, "let's get
out of this."
Mr. Belcher pushed toward the light, but not so quickly that a pair of
eyes, glaring from the straw, failed to recognize him.
"Robert Belcher! Oh, for God's sake! Robert Belcher!"
It was a call of wild distress--a whine, a howl, an objurgation, all
combined. It was repeated as long as he could hear it. It sounded in his
ears as he descended the hill. It came again and again to him as he was
seated at his comfortable breakfast. It rang in the chambers of his
consciousness for hours, and only a firm and despotic will expelled it
at last. He knew the voice, and he never wished to hear it again.
What he had seen that morning, and what he had done, where he had been,
and why he had gone, were secrets to which his wife and children were
not admitted. The relations between himself and his wife were not new in
the world. He wished to retain her respect, so he never revealed to her
his iniquities. She wished as far as possible to respect him, so she
never made uncomfortable inquiries. He was bountiful to her. He had been
bountiful to many others. She clothed and informed all his acts of
beneficence with the motives which became them. If she was ever shocked
by his vulgarity, he never knew it by any word of hers, in disapproval.
If she had suspicions, she did not betray them. Her children were
trained to respect their father, and among them she found the
satisfactions of her life. He had long ceased to be her companion. As
an associate, friend, lover, she had given him up, and, burying in her
heart all her griefs and all her loneliness, had determined to make the
best of her life, and to bring her children to believe that their father
was a man of honor, of whom they had no reason to be ashamed. If she was
proud, hers was an amiable pride, and to Mr. Belcher's credit let it be
said that he respected her as much as he wished her to honor him.
For an hour after breakfast, Mr. Belcher was occupied in his library,
with his agent, in the transaction of his daily business. Then, just as
the church bell rang its preliminary summons for the assembling of the
town-meeting, Phipps came to the door again with the rakish grays and
the rakish wagon, and Mr. Belcher drove down the steep hill into the
village, exchanging pleasant words with the farmers whom he encountered
on the way, and stopping at various shops, to speak with those upon whom
he depended for voting through whatever public schemes he found it
desirable to favor.
The old town-hall was thronged for half-an-hour before the time
designated in the warrant. Finally, the bell ceased to ring, at the
exact moment when Mr. Belcher drove to the door and ascended the steps.
There was a buzz all over the house when he entered, and he was
surrounded at once.
"Have it just as you want it," shaking his head ostentatiously and
motioning them away, "don't mind anything about me. I'm a passenger," he
said aloud, and with a laugh, as the meeting was called to order and the
warrant read, and a nomination for moderator demanded.
"Peter Vernol," shouted a dozen voices in unison.
Peter Vernol had represented the district in the Legislature, and was
supposed to be familiar with parliamentary usage. He was one of Mr.
Belcher's men, of course--as truly owned and controlled by him as Phipps
himself.
Peter Vernol became moderator by acclamation. He was a young man, and,
ascending the platform very red in the face, and looking out upon the
assembled voters of Sevenoaks, he asked with a trembling voice:
"What is the further pleasure of the meeting?"
"I move you," said Mr. Belcher, rising, and throwing open his overcoat,
"that the Rev. Solomon Snow, whom I am exceedingly glad to see present,
open our deliberations with prayer."
The moderator, forgetting apparently that the motion had not been put,
thereupon invited the reverend gentleman to the platform, from which,
when his service had been completed, he with dignity retired--but with
the painful consciousness that in some way Mr. Belcher had become aware
of the philanthropic task he had undertaken. He knew he was beaten, at
the very threshold of his enterprise--that his conversations of the
morning among his neighbors had been reported, and that Paul Benedict
and his fellow-sufferers would be none the better for him.
The business connected with the various articles of the warrant was
transacted without notable discussion or difference. Mr. Belcher's
ticket for town officers, which he took pains to show to those around
him, was unanimously adopted. When it came to the question of schools,
Mr. Belcher indulged in a few flights of oratory. He thought it
impossible for a town like Sevenoaks to spend too much money for
schools. He felt himself indebted to the public school for all that he
was, and all that he had won. The glory of America, in his view--its
pre-eminence above all the exhausted and decayed civilizations of the
Old World--was to be found in popular education. It was the
distinguishing feature of our new and abounding national life. Drop it,
falter, recede, and the darkness that now hangs over England, and the
thick darkness that envelops the degenerating hordes of the Continent,
would settle down upon fair America, and blot her out forever from the
list of the earth's teeming nations. He would pay good wages to
teachers. He would improve school-houses, and he would do it as a matter
of economy. It was, in his view, the only safeguard against the
encroachments of a destructive pauperism. "We are soon," said Mr.
Belcher, "to consider whether we will take any steps for the improvement
of the condition of the poor, now supported at the public charge. Here
is our first step. Let us endow our children with such a degree of
intelligence that pauperism shall be impossible. In this thing I go hand
in hand with the clergy. On many points I do not agree with them, but on
this matter of popular education, I will do them the honor to say that
they have uniformly been in advance of the rest of us. I join hands with
them here to-day, and, as any advance in our rate of taxation for
schools will bear more heavily upon me than upon any other citizen--I do
not say it boastingly, gentlemen--I pledge myself to support and stand
by it."
Mr. Belcher's speech, delivered with majestic swellings of his broad
chest, the ostentatious removal of his overcoat, and brilliant passages
of oratorical action, but most imperfectly summarized in this report,
was received with cheers. Mr. Snow himself feebly joined in the
approval, although he knew it was intended to disarm him. His strength,
his resolution, his courage, ebbed away with sickening rapidity; and he
was not reassured by a glance toward the door, where he saw, sitting
quite alone, Miss Butterworth herself, who had come in for the purpose
partly of strengthening him, and partly of informing herself concerning
the progress of a reform which had taken such strong hold upon her
sympathies.
At length the article in the warrant which most interested that good
lady was taken up, and Mr. Snow rose to speak upon it. He spoke of the
reports he had heard concerning the bad treatment that the paupers, and
especially those who were hopelessly insane, had received in the
alms-house, enlarged upon the duties of humanity and Christianity, and
expressed the conviction that the enlightened people of Sevenoaks should
spend more money for the comfort of the unfortunate whom Heaven had
thrown upon their charge, and particularly that they should institute a
more searching and competent inspection of their pauper establishment.
As he took his seat, all eyes were turned upon Mr. Belcher, and that
gentleman rose for a second exhibition of his characteristic eloquence.
"I do not forget," said Mr. Belcher, "that we have present here to-day
an old and well-tried public servant. I see before me Mr. Thomas Buffum,
who, for years, has had in charge the poor, not only of this town, but
of this county. I do not forget that his task has been one of great
delicacy, with the problem constantly before him how to maintain in
comfort our most unfortunate class of population, and at the same time
to reduce to its minimum the burden of our taxpayers. That he has solved
this problem and served the public well, I most firmly believe. He has
been for many years my trusted personal friend, and I cannot sit here
and hear his administration questioned, and his integrity and humanity
doubted, without entering my protest. [Cheers, during which Mr. Buffum
grew very red in the face.] He has had a task to perform before which
the bravest of us would shrink. We, who sit in our peaceful homes, know
little of the hardships to which this faithful public servant has been
subjected. Pauperism is ungrateful. Pauperism is naturally filthy.
Pauperism is noisy. It consists of humanity in its most repulsive forms,
and if we have among us a man who can--who can--stand it, let us stand
by him." [Tremendous cheers.]
Mr. Belcher paused until the wave of applause had subsided, and then
went on:
"An open-hand, free competition: this has been my policy, in a business
of whose prosperity you are the best judges. I say an open-hand and free
competition in everything. How shall we dispose of our poor? Shall they
be disposed of by private arrangement--sold out to favorites, of whose
responsibility we know nothing? [Cries of no, no, no!] If anybody who is
responsible--and now he is attacked, mark you, I propose to stand behind
and be responsible for Mr. Buffum myself--can do the work cheaper and
better than Mr. Buffum, let him enter at once upon the task. But let the
competition be free, nothing covered up. Let us have clean hands in this
business, if nowhere else. If we cannot have impartial dealing, where
the interests of humanity are concerned, we are unworthy of the trust we
have assumed. I give the Rev. Mr. Snow credit for motives that are
unimpeachable--unimpeachable, sir. I do not think him capable of
intentional wrong, and I wish to ask him, here and now, whether, within
a recent period, he has visited the pauper establishment of Sevenoaks."
Mr. Snow rose and acknowledged that it was a long time since he had
entered Mr. Buffum's establishment.
"I thought so. He has listened to the voice of rumor. Very well. I have
to say that I have been there recently, and have walked through the
establishment. I should do injustice to myself, and fail to hint to the
reverend gentleman, and all those who sympathize with him, what I regard
as one of their neglected duties, if I should omit to mention that I did
not go empty-handed. [Loud cheers.] It is easy for those who neglect
their own duties to suspect that others do the same. I know our paupers
are not supported in luxury. We cannot afford to support them in luxury;
but I wash my hands of all responsibility for inhumanity and inattention
to their reasonable wants. The reverend gentleman himself knows, I
think, whether any man ever came to me for assistance on behalf of any
humane or religious object, and went away without aid, I cannot consent
to be placed in a position that reflects upon my benevolence, and, least
of all, by the reverend gentleman who has reflected upon that
administration of public charity which has had, and still retains, my
approval. I therefore move that the usual sum be appropriated for the
support of the poor, and that at the close of this meeting the care of
the poor for the ensuing year be disposed of at public auction to the
lowest bidder."
Mr. Snow was silent, for he knew that he was impotent.
Then there jumped up a little man with tumbled hair, weazened face, and
the general look of a broken-down gentleman, who was recognized by the
moderator as "Dr. Radcliffe."
"Mr. Moderator," said he, in a screaming voice, "as I am the medical
attendant and inspector of our pauper establishment, it becomes proper
for me, in seconding the motion of Mr. Belcher, as I heartily do, to say
a few words, and submit my report for the past year."
Dr. Radcliffe was armed with a large document, and the assembled voters
of Sevenoaks were getting tired.
"I move," said Mr. Belcher, "that, as the hour is late, the reading of
the report be dispensed with." The motion was seconded, and carried
_nem. con_.
The Doctor was wounded in a sensitive spot, and was determined not to be
put down.
"I may at least say," he went on, "that I have made some discoveries
during the past year that ought to be in the possession of the
scientific world. It takes less food to support a pauper than it does
any other man, and I believe the reason is that he hasn't any mind. If I
take two potatoes, one goes to the elaboration of mental processes, the
other to the support of the physical economy. The pauper has only a
physical economy, and he needs but one potato. Anemia is the normal
condition of the pauper. He breathes comfortably an atmosphere which
would give a healthy man asphyxia. Hearty food produces inflammatory
diseases and a general condition of hypertrophy. The character of the
diseases at the poor-house, during the past year, has been typhoid. I
have suggested to Mr. Buffum better ventilation, a change from
farinaceous to nitrogenous food as conducive to a better condition of
the mucous surfaces and a more perfect oxydation of the vital fluids.
Mr. Buffum--"
"Oh, git out!" shouted a voice at the rear.
"Question! question!" called a dozen voices.
The moderator caught a wink and a nod from Mr. Belcher, and put the
question, amid the protests of Dr. Radcliffe; and it was triumphantly
carried.
And now, as the town-meeting drops out of this story, let us leave it,
and leave Mr. Thomas Buffum at its close to underbid all contestants for
the privilege of feeding the paupers of Sevenoaks for another year.