Slowburgh
[Illustration]
While Sam accepted the explanations of the editor and Jonas as
expressions of wisdom from men who had had a far wider experience than
his, he had some faint misgivings as to some of the business
enterprises in which his new friends were embarked, and he hinted as
much to Cleary.
"Some of those things do sound rather strange," answered Cleary, as
they walked away, "but you must look at the world in a broad way. Is
our civilization better than that of the Cubapinos?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Well, then, we must be conferring a favor upon them by giving it to
them. We can't slice it up and give them only the plums. That would be
ridiculous. They must take us for better and worse. In fact, I think we
should be guilty of hypocrisy if we pretended to be better than we are.
Suppose we gave them a better civilization than we've got, shouldn't we
be open to the charge of misrepresentation?"
"That's true," said Sam. "I didn't think of that.
"Yes," Cleary went on; "at first I had some doubts about that saloon
business particularly, but the more you think of it, the more you see
that it's our duty to introduce them there. It's all a part of our
civilization."
"So it is," said Sam. "And then people have always done things that
way, haven't they?"
"Yes, of course they have."
"Then it must be all right. What right have we to criticize the doings
of people so much wiser than we are? I think you are quite right. As a
correspondent you ought to be satisfied that you are doing the right
thing. To me as a soldier it's a matter of no importance anyway,
because a soldier only does what he's told, but you as a civilian
have to think, I suppose, and I'm glad you're satisfied and can make
such a conclusive case of it. What was it that the editor wanted you
to tell me?"
"Oh! yes. I came near forgetting. You see what a lot they're going to
do for us; now we must help them all we can. They want you to leave
behind with them all the material about yourself that you can get
together. You must get photographed at Slowburgh in a lot of different
positions, and in your cadet uniform and your volunteer rig when you
get it. Then you must let them have all your earlier photos if you can.
'Hero Jinks as an infant in arms,' 'Hero Jinks in his baby-carriage,'
'Hero Jinks as a schoolboy'--what a fine series it would make! You
know what I mean. Then you must write your biography and your opinions
about things in general, and give the addresses of all your friends and
relations so that they can all be interviewed when the time comes.
You'll do it, won't you? It's the up-to-date way of doing things, and
it's the only way to be a military success."
"If it's the proper way of doing things I'll do it," said Sam.
"That's a good fellow! I'll send you a list of questions to answer and
coach you as well as I can. I'm dying to get off and have this thing
started. Isn't Jonas great? He's got just my ideas, only bigger. You
see, he explained to me that in this country trusts have grown up with
great difficulty, and it was hard work to establish the benefits which
they produce for the public. They were fought at every step. But in the
Cubapines we have a clean field, and by getting the Government monopoly
whenever we want it, we can found one big trust and do ever so much
good. I half wish I were a Cubapino, they're going to be benefited
so, and without doing anything to deserve it either. Some people
are born lucky."
"I can't quite follow all those business plans," said Sam. "My head
isn't trained to it; but I'm glad we're going to do good there, and
if I can do something great to bring it about, it will give me real
happiness."
"It will, old man, it will. I'm sure of it," cried Cleary, as he took
his leave of Sam in front of the hotel. "Let me know what steamer
you're going by as soon as you get orders, and I'll try to manage it
to get a passage on her too. They often carry newspaper men on our
transports."
On the following day Sam went to visit his uncle at Slowburgh, a small
sea-port of some four thousand inhabitants lying several miles away
from the railroad. The journey in the train occupied six hours or more,
and Sam spent the time in learning the Castalian language in a handbook
he had bought in town. He had already taken lessons in the language at
East Point and was beginning to be fairly proficient. He alighted at
the nearest station to Slowburgh and entered the rather shabby omnibus
which was standing waiting. Sam felt lonely. There was nothing military
about the station and no uniform in sight. He no longer wore a uniform
himself, and the landscape was painfully civilian. Finally the horses
started and the 'bus moved slowly up the road. Sam was impatient. His
fellow countrymen were risking their lives thousands of miles away, and
here he was, creeping along a country road in the disguise of a private
citizen, far away from the post of duty and danger. He looked with
disgust at the plowmen in the fields busily engaged in preparing the
soil for next year's grain.
"What a mean, poor-spirited lot," he thought. "Here they are, following
their wretched plows without a thought of the brave soldiers who are
defending their country and themselves so many leagues away. It is the
soldier, suffering from hunger and fever and falling on the battlefield
in the agony of death, who makes it possible for these fellows to spend
their days in pleasant exercise in the fields. The soldier bears
civilization on his back, he supports all the rest, he is the pedestal
which bears without complaint the civilian as an idle ornament. The
soldier, in short, is the real man, the only perfect product of
creation."
And his heart was filled with thankfulness that he had selected the
career of a soldier and that there never could be any doubt of his
usefulness to the world. The only other occupants of the omnibus were
two men--one of them a commercial traveler, and the other an aged
resident of Slowburgh who had been at the county town for the day, as
Sam gathered from their conversation.
"I don't suppose that the war has caused much excitement at Slowburgh?"
asked Sam at last, introducing the subject uppermost in his mind.
"It ain't jest what it was when I went to the war," said the old man;
"but there is a deal o' talk about it, and all the young men are
wanting to go."
"Are they?" cried Sam, in delight. "And did you serve in the war? How
very interesting! Did you offer your life for your country without hope
of reward?"
"That's just what I did, young man, and if you doubt it, here's my
pension that I drew to-day in town, twelve dollars a month, and they've
paid it now these thirty-four years."
"That's a pretty soft thing," said the commercial man. "Better'n
selling fountain-pens in the backwoods."
"A soft thing!" cried the old man, "I ought to have twice as much.
There's Abe Tucker gets fifteen dollars because he caught cold on
picket duty, and I get a beggarly twelve."
"Were you severely wounded?" asked Sam.
"Well, no-o-o, not exactly, tho I might just as well 'a' been. I was
down bad with the measles. This is an ongrateful country. Here it is
only thirty-five years after the war, and they're only paying a hundred
and forty millions a year to only a million pensioners. It's a beggarly
shame!"
"Were there that many men in the war?" asked the traveler.
"Pretty near it, I reckon. But p'r'aps in thirty-five years there'd be
a natural increase. Think of it, a million men throwing away their
lives for a nothing like that! I jest tell our young fellers that
they'd better stay at home. Why, we've had to fight for what we've got.
You wouldn't think it, but we've had to pass around the hat, and shove
it hard under the nose of Congress, too, just as if we were beggars and
frauds, and as if we hadn't sacrificed everything for our country!"
"It's an outrage," cried Sam sympathetically. "But I hope you won't
keep the young men from going. I'm going soon, and perhaps the country
will be more generous in future."
"Take my advice, young man, and whenever anything happens to you while
you're away, take down the names of the witnesses and keep their
affidavits. Then you'll be all ready to get your pension as soon as you
come back. It took me three years to straighten out mine. Then I got
the back pay, of course, but I ought to have had it before. I've got a
claim in now for eight dollars more a month running all the way back.
It amounts to over three thousand dollars, and I ought to have it."
"Was that for the measles, too?" asked the stranger.
The old man glared at his interrogator, but did not deign to reply.
"Our Congressman, old Jinks, has my claim," he said, turning to Sam.
"But he doesn't seem to be able to do anything with it."
"He's my uncle," said Sam, fearing that he might hear something against
his worthy relative.
"So you're George Jinks' nephew, are you? Are you goin' to be a
captain? Do tell! I read about it in the Slowburgh _Herald_ last week.
I'm real glad to see you. You're the first officer I've seen in ten
years except the recruiting officer last week."
"Did they have a recruiting officer here, in Slowburgh?" asked Sam.
"Yes, they did, and there was thirteen fellers wanted to go, but he
only took five of 'em, and they hain't gone yet. The rest was too short
or too fat or too thin or something."
"Didn't any more men want to go than that?"
"No," said the old man. "They all want to wear soldier-clothes, but
they don't all want to go fighting. They've got up a militia battalion
for them now, and 'most everybody in town's got a uniform. I hadn't
seen a uniform in the county before in I don't know how long--except
firemen, I should say."
"I'm so glad they've got them now," cried Sam. "Doesn't it improve the
looks of the place? It's so much more homelike and-d-d glorious, don't
you think so?"
The old man had no opportunity to reply, as the 'bus now drew up at the
front door of the principal hotel. The commercial traveler got out
first and went into the house; the old man followed, and turning to Sam
as he passed him, he said with a glance at the vanishing stranger:
"He's a copperhead, that feller."
He went on toward the bar-room door, but called back as he went:
"If you get lonesome over at Jinks', come in here in the evening. Ask
for me; my name's Reddy."
Sam did not get out of the omnibus, but told the driver to take him to
Congressman Jinks'; and on they went, first to the right and then to
the left along the wide and gently winding streets, which would have
been well shaded with maples if the yellow leaves had not already begun
to fall. They drove in at last through a gate in a wooden fence and
round a semi-circular lawn to the front of a comfortable frame house,
and in a few moments he was received with open arms by his relations.
Congressman Jinks was a widower and had several children, all of whom,
however, were away at school except his eldest daughter, a young lady
of Sam's age, and his youngest, a girl of seven. The former, Mary, was
a tall damsel with fair hair and a decidedly attractive manner. Mr.
Jinks reminded Sam of his father with the added elegancies of many
years' life at the Capital.
"Well, Samuel, I am glad to see you at last. We know all about you, and
we're expecting great things from you," he cried out in a hearty voice.
Sam felt at home at once.
"Come, Mary, show your cousin his room. Here, give me your grip. Yes,
you must let me carry it. Now get ready for supper as soon as you can.
It's all ready whenever you are."
After supper they all sat round a wood fire, for it was a little chilly
in the evening now. Mr. Jinks had his little girl in his lap, and they
talked over family history and the events of the day. Sam asked who Mr.
Reddy was whom he had met in the train.
"Oh! you mean old Reddy. Was he drunk? No? That's odd."
"He'd been away for the day drawing his pension," said Sam.
"Of course," said Mr. Jinks. "I might have known it. That is his one
sober day in the month. He sobers up to go to town, but he'll make up
for lost time to-night. That twelve dollars will last just a week, and
it all goes into the bar-room till. He's been that way ever since I was
a boy, tho they say he was a steady enough young fellow before he went
to the war. It's a curious coincidence, but there are two or three old
rum-soaked war veterans like that hanging round every tavern in the
country, and I'd like to know how much pension money goes that way.
It's a great system tho, that pension system. I see something of it in
Whoppington when I'm attending Congress. It distributes the money of
the country and circulates it among the people. I like to see the
amount increase every year. It's a healthy sign. I'm trying to get some
more for Reddy. It helps the county just that much. Swan, the hotel
man, spends it here. I believe in protecting home industries and
fostering our home market. I wish you could have heard my speech on the
war-tax bill--it covered that point. My, how this war is costing, tho!
A million dollars a day! But it's well worth it. The more money we
spend and the higher the taxes, the more circulation there is. You
ought to see how things are booming at Whoppington. I'm sorry you
couldn't come to see me there, but I had to be here this week looking
after election matters in my district. In Whoppington all the hotels
are full of contractors and men looking for commissions in the army,
and promoters and investors, all with an eye to the Cubapines. You can
just see how the war has brought prosperity!"
"I should have liked to see Whoppington very much," said Sam, "but I
suppose I must wait till I come back. It must be very different from
other cities. You must feel there as if you were at the center of
things--at the very mainspring of all our life, I mean."
"You've hit the nail on the head," said his uncle. "Whoppington holds
up all the rest of the country. There is the Government that makes
everything go. There's no business there to speak of; no manufacturing,
no agriculture in the country round--nothing to distract your attention
but the power of the Administration that lies behind all the rest.
Just think what this country would be without Whoppington! Just imagine
the capital city sinking into the ground and what would we all do? Even
here at Slowburgh what would be left for us?"
"Wouldn't we have breakfast to-morrow morning, papa?" asked the little
girl in his lap.
"Er-er-well, perhaps we might have breakfast----"
"Wouldn't we have clothes, papa?"
"Perhaps we might have--but no, we couldn't either; it's the tariff
that gives us our clothes by keeping all foreign clothes out of the
country, and then we shouldn't have er-er----"
"It would upset the post-office," suggested Sam, coming to the rescue.
"Yes, to be sure, that is what I meant. It would cause a serious delay
in the mails, that's certain."
"And then there would be no soldiers," added Sam.
"Of course. How stupid of me to overlook that. How would you like to
see no soldiers in the street?"
"I shouldn't like it at all, papa."
"Yes, my dear boy," he proceeded, turning to Sam, "I would not want to
have it repeated in my district, but I confess that I am always
homesick for Whoppington when I am here. That's the real world there.
There's the State Department where they manage all the foreign affairs
of the world. What could we do without foreign affairs? And the
Agricultural Department. How could we get in our crops without it? And
the Labor Department. Every man who does a day's work depends on the
Labor Department for his living, we may say. And the----"
"The War Department," said Sam.
"Yes, the War Department. We depend on that for our wars. Perhaps at
first that does not seem to be so useful, but----"
"Oh! but, Uncle George, surely it is the most useful of all. What could
we do without wars. Just fancy a country without wars!"
"I don't know but you're right, Sam."
"And then the Treasury Department depends a good deal on the War
Department," said Sam, in triumph, "for without the War Department and
the army it wouldn't have any pensions to pay."
"That's so."
"Papa," said Mary Jinks, who had modestly taken no part in a
conversation whose wisdom was clearly beyond her comprehension--"papa,
why didn't everybody go to the war like Mr. Reddy, and then they'd all
have pensions and nobody'd have to work."
"It's their own fault if they didn't," answered her father; "and if
some people are overworked they have only their own selves to thank for
it. I have no patience with the complaints of these socialists and
anarchists that the poor are getting poorer and the number of
unemployed increasing. In a country with pensions and war taxes and a
tariff there's no excuse for poverty at all."
"Yes," said Sam, "they could all enlist if they wanted to."
The following day was spent in driving about the country. Mr. Jinks was
obliged to visit the various centers in his Congressional district, and
he took Sam with him on one of these expeditions. The country was
beautiful in the clear, cold autumn air. The mountains stood out blue
on the horizon, and the trees were brilliant with red and yellow
leaves. Sam, however, had no eyes for these things. He was eager to
hear about the militia company, and was pleased to see several pairs of
military trousers, altho they were made to do duty with civilian coats.
Such for him were the incidents of the day. After supper in the evening
he bethought him of old Reddy's invitation to the hotel bar-room, and
thinking that he might learn more about the local military situation
there, he excused himself and hied him thither. He found the room
crowded with the wiseacres of the place, the Bohemian, drinking element
perhaps predominating. The room was so full of smoke that, as Sam
entered, he could hardly distinguish its contents, but he saw a
confused mass of men in wooden arm-chairs tipped at every conceivable
angle, surrounding a tall round stove which was heated white hot. The
room was intensely warm and apparently totally wanting in ventilation.
"Here's my friend, Captain Jinks," said a husky voice which Sam
recognized as that of old Reddy. "Here, take this chair near the fire."
Sam accepted the offered chair, altho he would have preferred a
situation a little less torrid.
"Gentlemen, this is Captain Jinks," said the old man, determined to get
all the credit he could from his acquaintance with Sam. "Captain, this
is my friend, Mr. Jackson."
Mr. Jackson was a tall, thin, narrow-chested man with no shoulders, a
rounded back, and a gray, tobacco-stained mustache. His face was
covered with pimples, and a huge quid of tobacco was concealed under
his cheek. He was sitting on a chair tipped back rather beyond the
danger-point, and his feet rested on the rim which projected from the
stove half-way up. He made no effort to rise, but slowly extended a
grimy, clammy hand which Sam pressed with some hesitation.
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Captain," he drawled in a half-cracked
voice that suggested damaged lungs and vocal organs. "Shake hands with
Mr. Tucker."
Mr. Tucker, a little, old, red-faced man on the other side of the
stove, advanced and went through the ceremony suggested.
"We were just a-talking about them Cubapinos," explained Reddy. "The
idee of them fellers a-pitching into us after all we've done for 'em.
It's outrageous. They're only monkeys anyway, and they ought to be
shot, every mother's son on 'em. Haven't we freed 'em from the cruel
Castalians that they've been hating so for three hundred years?"
"They seem to be hating us pretty well just now," said a man in the
corner, whose voice sounded familiar to Sam. He turned and recognized
the commercial traveler of the day before.
"They're welcome to hate us," answered Jackson, "and when it comes to
a matter of hating I shouldn't think much of us if we couldn't make 'em
hate us as much in a year as the Castalians could in three hundred.
They're a blamed slow lot and we ain't. That's all there is of it. What
do you think, Captain?"
"I fear," said Sam, "that they don't quite understand the great
blessings we're conferring on them."
"What blessings?" asked the drummer.
"Why," said Sam, "liberty and independence--no, I don't mean
independence exactly, but liberty and freedom."
"Then why don't we leave them alone instead of fighting them?"
"What an idee!" exclaimed Tucker. "They don't know what liberty is, and
we must teach 'em if we have to blow their brains out."
"You're too hard on 'em, Tucker," drawled Mr. Jackson. "We mustn't
expect too much from pore savages who live in a country so hot that
they can't progress like we do." Here Mr. Jackson took off his hat and
wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow with a red bandanna
handkerchief. "Don't expect too much from cannibals that have their
brains half roasted by the tropical sun."
"That's a fact!" said some one in the throng.
"Yes," said Jackson, crossing his legs on a level well above his head,
"them pore critters need our civilization, that's what they need," and
he dexterously squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice on the white-hot
stove, where it sizzled and gradually evaporated. "We must make real
men of 'em. We must give 'em our strength and vigor and intelligence.
They're a dirty lot of lazy beggars, that's the long and short of it,
and we must turn 'em into gentlemen like us!"
A general murmur of approval followed this outburst.
"I hear," said Sam, anxious to get some definite information as to the
warriors of the town, "I hear that several Slowburghers are going to
the war."
"Yes," said Tucker, while Jackson after his effort settled down into a
semi-comatose state, "six of our boys are a-going. There's Davy Black,
he drives the fastest horse in these parts, and Tom Slade. Where is
Tom? He's generally here. They'll miss him here at the hotel, and Jim
Thomson who used to be bartender over at Bloodgood's, and the two
Thatchers--they're cousins--that makes five."
"The village ought to be glad they are going to represent her at the
front," said Sam.
"From all I can hear," said the commercial man, "I think they are."
"Naturally," cried Sam, "it will reflect great glory on the place. You
ought to be proud of them."
"It'll help the insurance business here," said a young man who had not
yet spoken.
"How is that?" asked Sam. "I don't exactly see."
"Well, it's this way. You see I'm in the insurance business and I can't
write a policy on a barn in this township, there's been so many burned;
and while I don't want to say nothing against anybody, we think maybe
they won't burn so much when the Thatchers clear out."
"Nothin' ain't ever been proved against 'em," said Tucker.
"That's true," said the young man, "but perhaps there might have been
if they'd stayed. They say that Squire Jones was going to have Josh
Thatcher arrested next week for his barn, but he's agreed to let up if
he'd go to the Cubapines. Maybe that isn't true, but they say so."
"I venture to say that it is a mistake," said Sam, who had been much
pained by the conversation. "Young men who are so patriotic in the hour
of need must be men of high character."
"Maybe they are and maybe they aren't," replied the insurance agent,
"but old Mrs. Crane told me she was going to buy chickens again next
week for her chicken-yard. There was so many stolen last year that she
gave up keeping them, but next week she's beginning again, and next
week the Thatchers are going away. It's a coincidence, anyhow."
"Oh, boys will be boys," said Reddy. "When they get a good pension
they'll be just as respectable as you or me. Here comes Tom Slade now,
and Josh Thatcher, too."
The door had opened, and through the smoke Sam descried two young men,
one a slight wiry fellow, the other a large, broad-shouldered,
fair-haired man with a dull expression of the eye.
"Who says 'drinks all around'?" cried the former. "Everybody's blowing
us off now."
"Here," said Jackson, waking up, "I'll do it, hanged if I don't. You
fellows are a-goin' to civilize the Cubapinos, and you deserve all the
liquor you can carry."
He got up and approached the bar and the crowd followed him, and soon
every one was supplied with some kind of beverage.
"Here's to Thatcher and Slade! May they represent Slowburgh honorably
in the Cubapines and show 'em what Slowburghers are like," said
Jackson, elevating his iced cocktail.
The health was heartily drunk.
"And here is to that distinguished officer, Captain Jinks. Long may he
wave!" cried old Reddy.
"Speech, speech!" exclaimed the convivial crowd.
"Gentlemen," responded Sam, "I am a soldier and not an orator, but I am
proud to have my name coupled with those of your honored fellow
townsmen. It is a sign of the greatness of our country that men of just
the same character are in all quarters of this mighty republic
answering their country's call. Soon we shall have the very pick of our
youth collected on the shores of these ungrateful islanders who have
turned against their best friends, and these misguided people will see
for themselves the fruits of our civilization as we see it, in the
persons of our soldiers. Permit me in responding to your flattering
toast to propose the names of Mr. Reddy and Mr. Tucker as
representatives of an older generation of patriots whose example we are
happy to have before us for our guidance."
This, Sam's first speech, was received with great applause, and then
Josh Thatcher proposed three cheers for Captain Jinks, which were
given with a will. The only perverse spirit was that of the commercial
traveler, who had sat in the corner reading an old copy of the
Slowburgh _Herald_, and now on hearing the cheers, took a candle and
went upstairs to bed.
"That man's no good," said Reddy with a shake of his head. While the
whole company were expressing their concurrence with this sentiment,
Sam bade them good-night and took his leave.