The Honorable Jeems Bee, of Texas, sitting in his committee-room half
an hour before the convening of Congress, waiting for his negro
familiar to compound a julep, was suddenly confronted by a small boy on
crutches.
"A letter!" exclaimed Mr. Bee, "with the frank of Reybold on it--that
Yankeest of Pennsylvania Whigs! Yer's familiarity! Wants me to appoint
one U--U--U, what?"
"Uriel Basil," said the small boy on crutches, with a clear, bold, but
rather sensitive voice.
"Uriel Basil, a page in the House of Representatives, bein' an infirm,
deservin' boy, willin' to work to support his mother. Infirm boy wants
to be a page, on the recommendation of a Whig, to a Dimmycratic
committee. I say, gen'lemen, what do you think of that, heigh?"
This last addressed to some other members of the committee, who had
meantime entered.
"Infum boy will make a spry page," said the Hon. Box Izard, of
Arkansaw.
"Harder to get infum page than the Speaker's eye," said the orator,
Pontotoc Bibb, of Georgia.
"Harder to get both than a 'pintment in these crowded times on a
opposition recommendation when all ole Virginny is yaw to be tuk care
of," said Hon. Fitzchew Smy, of the Old Dominion.
The small boy standing up on crutches, with large hazel eyes swimming
and wistful, so far from being cut down by these criticisms, stood
straighter, and only his narrow little chest showed feeling, as it
breathed quickly under his brown jacket.
"I can run as fast as anybody," he said impetuously. "My sister says
so. You try me!"
"Who's yo' sister, bub?"
"Joyce."
"Who's Joyce?"
"Joyce Basil--_Miss_ Joyce Basil to you, gentlemen. My mother keeps
boarders. Mr. Reybold boards there. I think it's hard when a little boy
from the South wants to work, that the only body to help him find it is
a Northern man. Don't you?"
"Good hit!" cried Jeroboam Coffee, Esq., of Alabama. "That boy would
run, if he could!"
"Gentlemen," said another member of the committee, the youthful
abstractionist from South Carolina, who was reputed to be a great poet
on the stump, the Hon. Lowndes Cleburn--"gentlemen, that boy puts the
thing on its igeel merits and brings it home to us. I'll ju my juty in
this issue. Abe, wha's my julep?"
"Gentlemen," said the Chairman of the Committee, Jeems Bee, "it 'pears
to me that there's a social p'int right here. Reybold, bein' the only
Whig on the Lake and Bayou Committee, ought to have something if he
sees fit to ask for it. That's courtesy! We, of all men, gentlemen,
can't afford to forget it."
"No, by durn!" cried Fitzchew Smy.
"You're right, Bee!" cried Box Izard. "You give it a constitutional
set."
"Reybold," continued Jeems Bee, thus encouraged, "Reybold is (to speak
out) no genius! He never will rise to the summits of usefulness. He
lacks the air, the swing, the _pose_, as the sculptors say; he won't
treat, but he'll lend a little money, provided he knows where you goin'
with it. If he ain't open-hearted, he ain't precisely mean!"
"You're right, Bee!" (General expression.)
"Further on, it may be said that the framers of the gov'ment never
intended _all_ the patronage to go to one side. Mr. Jeff'son put _that_
on the steelyard principle: the long beam here, the big weight of being
in the minority there. Mr. Jackson only threw it considabul more on one
side, but even he, gentlemen, didn't take the whole patronage from the
Outs; he always left 'em enough to keep up the courtesy of the thing,
and we can't go behind _him_. Not and be true to our traditions. Do I
put it right?"
"Bee," said the youthful Lowndes Cleburn, extending his hand, "you put
it with the lucidity and spirituality of Kulhoon himself!"
"Thanks, Cleburn," said Bee; "this is a compliment not likely to be
forgotten, coming from you. Then it is agreed, as the Chayman of yo'
Committee, that I accede to the request of Mr. Reybold, of
Pennsylvania?"
"Aye!" from everybody.
"And now," said Mr. Bee, "as we wair all up late at the club last
night, I propose we take a second julep, and as Reybold is coming in he
will jine us."
"I won't give you a farthing!" cried Reybold at the door, speaking to
some one. "Chips, indeed! What shall I give you money to gamble away
for? A gambling beggar is worse than an impostor! No, sir! Emphatically
no!"
"A dollar for four chips for brave old Beau!" said the other voice.
"I've struck 'em all but you. By the State Arms! I've got rights in
this distreek! Everybody pays toll to brave old Beau! Come down!"
The Northern Congressman retreated before this pertinacious mendicant
into his committee-room, and his pesterer followed him closely, nothing
abashed, even into the privileged cloisters of the committee. The
Southern members enjoyed the situation.
"Chips, Right Honorable! Chips for old Beau. Nobody this ten-year has
run as long as you. I've laid for you, and now I've fell on you. Judge
Bee, the fust business befo' yo' committee this mornin' is a assessment
for old Beau, who's 'way down! Rheu-matiz, bettin' on the black,
failure of remittances from Fauqueeah, and other casualties by wind an'
flood, have put ole Beau away down. He's a institution of his country
and must be sustained!"
The laughter was general and cordial among the Southerners, while the
intruder pressed hard upon Mr. Reybold. He was a singular object; tall,
grim, half-comical, with a leer of low familiarity in his eyes, but his
waxed mustache of military proportions, his patch of goatee just above
the chin, his elaborately oiled hair and flaming necktie, set off his
faded face with an odd gear of finery and impressiveness. His skin was
that of an old _roue's,_ patched up and chalked, but the features were
those of a once handsome man of style and carriage.
He wore what appeared to be a cast-off spring overcoat, out of season
and color on this blustering winter day, a rich buff waistcoat of an
embossed pattern, such as few persons would care to assume, save,
perhaps, a gambler, negro buyer, or fine "buck" barber. The assumption
of a large and flashy pin stood in his frilled shirt-bosom. He wore
watch-seals without the accompanying watch, and his pantaloons, though
faded and threadbare, were once of fine material and cut in a style of
extravagant elegance, and they covered his long, shrunken, but
aristocratic limbs, and were strapped beneath his boots to keep them
shapely. The boots themselves had been once of varnished kid or fine
calf, but they were cracked and cut, partly by use, partly for comfort;
for it was plain that their wearer had the gout, by his aristocratic
hobble upon a gold-mounted cane, which was not the least inconsistent
garniture of mendicancy.
"Boys," said Fitzchew Smy, "I s'pose we better come down early. There's
a shillin', Beau. If I had one more such constituent as you, I should
resign or die premachorely!"
"There's a piece o' tobacker," said Jeems Bee languidly, "all I can
afford, Beau, this mornin'. I went to a chicken-fight yesterday and
lost all my change."
"Mine," said Box Izard, "is a regulation pen-knife, contributed by the
United States, with the regret, Beau, that I can't 'commodate you with
a pine coffin for you to git into and git away down lower than you ever
been."
"Yaw's a dollar," said Pontotoc Bibb; "it'll do for me an' Lowndes
Cleburn, who's a poet and genius, and never has no money. This buys me
off, Beau, for a month."
The gorgeous old mendicant took them all grimly and leering, and then
pounced upon the Northern man, assured by their twinkles and winks that
the rest expected some sport.
"And now, Right Honorable from the banks of the Susquehanna, Colonel
Reybold--you see, I got your name; I ben a layin' for you!--come down
handsome for the Uncle and ornament of this capital and country. What's
yore's?"
"Nothing," said Reybold in a quiet way. "I can not give a man like you
anything, even to get rid of him."
"You're mean," said the stylish beggar, winking to the rest. "You hate
to put your hand down in yer pocket, mightily. I'd rather be ole Beau,
and live on suppers at the faro banks, than love a dollar like you!"
"I'll make it a V for Beau," said Pontotoc Bibb, "if he gives him a rub
on the raw like that another lick. Durn a mean man, Cleburn!"
"Come down, Northerner," pressed the incorrigible loafer again; "it
don't become a Right Honorable to be so mean with old Beau."
The little boy on crutches, who had been looking at this scene in a
state of suspense and interest for some time, here cried hotly:
"If you say Mr. Reybold is a mean man, you tell a story, you nasty
beggar! He often gives things to me and Joyce, my sister. He's just got
me work, which is the best thing to give; don't you think so,
gentlemen?"
"Work," said Lowndes Cleburn, "is the best thing to give away, and the
most onhandy thing to keep. I like play the best--Beau's kind o' play!"
"Yes," said Jeroboam Coffee; "I think I prefer to make the chips fly
out of a table more than out of a log."
"I like to work!" cried the little boy, his hazel eyes shining, and his
poor, narrow body beating with unconscious fervor, half suspended on
his crutches, as if he were of that good descent and natural spirit
which could assert itself without bashfulness in the presence of older
people. "I like to work for my mother. If I was strong, like other
little boys, I would make money for her, so that she shouldn't keep any
boarders--except Mr. Reybold. Oh! she has to work a lot; but she's
proud and won't tell anybody. All the money I get I mean to give her;
but I wouldn't have it if I had to beg for it like that man!"
"O Beau," said Colonel Jeems Bee, "you've cotched it now! Reybold's
even with you. Little Crutch has cooked your goose! Crutch is right
eloquent when his wind will permit."
The fine old loafer looked at the boy, whom he had not previously
noticed, and it was observed that the last shaft had hurt his pride.
The boy returned his wounded look with a straight, undaunted, spirited
glance, out of a child's nature. Mr. Reybold was impressed with
something in the attitude of the two, which made him forget his own
interest in the controversy.
Beau answered with a tone of nearly tender pacification:
"Now, my little man; come, don't be hard on the old veteran! He's down,
old Beau is, sence the time he owned his blooded pacer and dined with
the _Corps Diplomatique_; Beau's down sence then; but don't call the
old feller hard names. We take it back, don't we?--we take _them_ words
back?"
"There's a angel somewhere," said Lowndes Cleburn, "even in a
Washington bummer, which responds to a little chap on crutches with a
clear voice. Whether the angel takes the side of the bummer or the
little chap, is a p'int out of our jurisdiction. Abe, give Beau a
julep. He seems to have been demoralized by little Crutch's last."
"Take them hard words back, Bub," whined the licensed mendicant, with
either real or affected pain; "it's a p'int of honor I'm a-standin' on.
Do, now, little Major!"
"I shan't!" cried the boy. "Go and work like me. You're big, and you
called Mr. Reybold mean. Haven't you got a wife or little girl, or
nobody to work for? You ought to work for yourself, anyhow. Oughtn't
he, gentlemen?"
Reybold, who had slipped around by the little cripple and was holding
him in a caressing way from behind, looked over to Beau and was even
more impressed with that generally undaunted worthy's expression. It
was that of acute and suffering sensibility, perhaps the effervescence
of some little remaining pride, or it might have been a twinge of the
gout. Beau looked at the little boy, suspended there with the weak back
and the narrow chest, and that scintillant, sincere spirit beaming out
with courage born in the stock he belonged to. Admiration,
conciliation, and pain were in the ruined vagrant's eyes. Reybold felt
a sense of pity. He put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a dollar.
"Here, Beau," he said, "I'll make an exception. You seem to have some
feeling. Don't mind the boy!"
In an instant the coin was flying from his hand through the air. The
beggar, with a livid face and clinched cane, confronted the Congressman
like a maniac.
"You bilk!" he cried. "You supper customer! I'll brain you! I had
rather parted with my shoes at a dolly shop and gone gadding the hoof,
without a doss to sleep on--a town pauper, done on the vag--than to
have been made scurvy in the sight of that child and deserve his words
of shame!"
He threw his head upon the table and burst into tears.