WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH
It is Anatole France, I think, who says somewhere that “robbery is to be
condoned; the result of robbery respected.” Even so, listen to this
story. We came into this hotel at eleven P. M. or thereabouts. Franklin,
who is good at bargaining, or thinks he is, sallied up to the desk and
asked for two rooms with bath, and an arrangement whereby our chauffeur
could be entertained for less—the custom. There was a convention of some
kind in town—traveling salesmen in certain lines, I believe—and all but
one room in this hotel, according to the clerk, was taken. However, it
was a large room—very, he said, with three beds and a good bath. Would
we take that? If so, we could have it, without breakfast, of course, for
three dollars.
“Done,” said Franklin, putting all three names on the registry.
It was a good room, large and clean, with porcelain bath of good size.
We arose fairly early and breakfasted on the usual hotel breakfast. I
made the painful mistake of being betrayed by the legend “pan fish and
fried mush” from taking ham and eggs.
After our breakfast we came downstairs prepared to pay and depart, when,
in a polite voice—oh, very suave—the day clerk, a different one from him
of the night—announced to Franklin, who was at the window, “Seven-fifty,
please.”
“How do you make that out?” inquired Franklin, taken aback.
“Three people in one room at three dollars a day each (two dollars each
for the night)—six dollars. Breakfast, fifty cents each,
extra—one-fifty. Total, seven-fifty.”
“But I thought you said this room was three for the night for three?”
“Oh, no—three dollars each per day. Two dollars each for the night. We
always let it that way.”
“Oh, I see,” said Franklin, curiously. “You know what the night clerk
said to me, do you?”
“I know the regular rate we charge for this room.”
For the fraction of a moment Franklin hesitated, then laid down a ten
dollar bill.
“Why do you do that, Franklin?” I protested. “It isn’t fair. I wouldn’t.
Let’s see the manager.”
“Oh, well,” he half whispered in weariness. “What can you do about it?
They have you at their mercy.”
In the meantime, the clerk had slipped the bill in the drawer and handed
back two-fifty in change.
“But, Franklin,” I exclaimed, “this is an outrage. This man doesn’t know
anything about it, or if he does, he’s swindling. Why doesn’t he get the
manager here if he’s on the level?”
This gentle clerk merely smiled at me. He had a comfortable, even
cynical, grin on his face, which enraged me all the more.
“You know what you are?” I asked him asudden. “You’re a damned, third
rate fakir and swindler! You know you’re lying when you say that room
rents for three per person when three occupy it. That’s nine dollars a
day for a room in an hotel that gets two or three dollars at the
outside.”
He smiled, unperturbed, and then turned to wait on other people.
I raged and swore. I called him a few more names, but it never disturbed
him the least. I demanded to see the mythical manager—but he remained
mythical. Franklin, shocked, went off to get a cigar, and then helped
Speed carry out the bags, porters being scarce. Meanwhile, I hung around
hoping that glaring and offering to fight would produce some result. Not
at all. Do you think I got back our three dollars, or that I ever saw
the manager? Never. The car was ready. Franklin was waiting. He looked
at me as much as to say, “Well, you _do_ love to fight, don’t you?”
Finally I submitted to the inevitable, and, considerably crestfallen,
clambered into the car, while Franklin uttered various soothing comments
about the futility of attempting to cope with scoundrels en route. What
was a dollar or two, more or less? But as we rode out of Sandusky I saw
myself (1) beating the hotel clerk to death, (2) tearing the hotel down
and throwing it into the lake, (3) killing the manager and all the
clerks and help, (4) marching a triumphant army against the city at some
future time, and razing it to the last stone.
“I would show them, by George! I would fix them!”
“Aren’t the clouds fine this morning?” observed Franklin, looking up at
the sky, as we rolled out of the city. “See that fine patch of woods
over there. Now that we’re getting near the Indiana line the scenery is
beginning to improve a little, don’t you think?”
We were in a more fertile land, I thought—smoother, more prosperous. The
houses looked a little better, more rural and homey.
“Yes, I think so,” I grumbled.
“And that’s the lake off there. Isn’t the wind fresh and fine?”
It was.
In a little while he was telling me of some Quakers who inhabited a
Quaker community just north of his home town, and how one of them said
to another once, in a fit of anger:
“Wilbur, thee knows I can lick thee, the best day thee ever lived.”
The idea of two Quakers fighting cheered me. I felt much better.
But now tell me—don’t you think I ought to destroy Sandusky anyhow, as a
warning?
After we left Sandusky I began to feel at home again, for somehow this
territory southwest was more like Indiana than any we had seen—smooth
and placid and fertile—it was a homelike land. We scudded through a
place called Clyde, hung madly with hundreds of little blue and white
triangular banners announcing that a Chautauqua was to be held here
within a few days—one of those simple, country life Chautauquas which do
so much, apparently, to enliven this mid-western world. And then we came
to a place called Fremont, which had once had the honor of being the
home and death place (if not birthplace) of the Hon. Rutherford B.
Hayes, once President of the United States by accident—the man who stole
the office from Samuel J. Tilden, who was elected. A queer honor—but
dishonor is as good as honor any day for ensuring one a place in the
memory of posterity.
And after that we drove through places called Woodside and Pemberton and
Portage—you know the size—only in these towns, by now, I was seeing
exact duplicates of men I had known in my earliest days. Thus at
Woodside where we asked our way to Pemberton and Bowling Green, Ohio,
the man who leaned against our car was an exact duplicate of a man I had
known in Sullivan, over thirty years before, who used to drive a
delivery wagon, and the gentleman he was driving (a local merchant of
some import, I took it) was exactly like old Leonard B. Welles, who used
to run one of the four or five successful grocery stores in Warsaw. He
had a short, pointed, and yet full beard, with steely blue eyes and a
straight, thin-lipped mouth—but not an unkindly expression about them. I
began to think of the days when I used to wait for old Mr. Welles to
serve me.
Later we came to a river called Portage, yellow and placid and flowing
between winding banks that separated fields of hay from fields of grain;
and then we began to draw near to a territory with which I had been
exceedingly familiar twenty years before—so much so that it remains as
fresh as though it had been yesterday.
You must know, because I propose to tell you, that in the fair city of
St. Louis, at the age of twentytwo, I was fairly prosperous as a working
newspaper man’s prosperity goes, and in a position to get or make or
even keep a place not only for myself but for various others—such
friends, for instance, as I chose to aid. I do not record this
boastfully. I was a harum scarum youth, who was fairly well liked by his
elders, but with no least faculty, apparently, of taking care of his own
interests. From Chicago one of those fine days blew a young newspaper
man whom I had known and liked up there. He was not a very good
newspaper man, humdrum and good natured, but a veritable satellite of
mine. He wanted me to get him a place and I did. Then he wanted counsel
as to whether he should get married, and I aided and abetted him in
that. Then he lost his job through his inability to imagine something
properly one night, and I had to get him another one. Then he began to
dream of running a country paper with me as a fellow aspirer to rural
honors and emoluments, and if you will believe me, so rackbrained was I,
and so restless and uncertain as to my proper future, that I listened to
him with willing ears. Yes, I had some vague, impossible idea of being
first State Assemblyman Dreiser of some rural region, and then,
perchance, State Senator Dreiser, and then Congressman Dreiser, or
Governor Dreiser, if you please, and all at once, owing to my amazing
facility and _savoir faire_, and my clear understanding of the rights,
privileges, duties and emoluments of private citizens, and of public
officers, and because of my deep and abiding interest in the welfare of
the nation—President Dreiser—the distinguished son of the state of
Indiana, or Ohio, or Michigan, or wherever I happened to bestow myself.
I had only one hundred and fifty dollars all told in the world at the
time—but somehow money didn’t seem so very important. Perhaps that was
why I listened to him. Anyhow, he hailed from this northern section of
Ohio. His father lived just outside of the village of Grand Rapids
(Ohio, not Michigan), and between there and a town called Bowling Green,
which we were now approaching, lay the region which we were to improve
with our efforts and presence.
Looking at the country now, and remembering it as it was then, I could
see little, if any, change. Oh, yes—one. At that time it was dotted on
every hand with tall skeleton derricks for driving oil wells. The
farming world was crazy about oil wells, believing them to be the open
sesame to a world of luxury and every blessed thing which they happened
to desire. And every man who owned so much as a foot of land was sinking
an oil well on it. The spectacle which I beheld when I first ventured
into this region was one to stir the soul of avarice, if not of oil. As
far as the eye could see, the still wintry fields were dotted with these
gaunt structures standing up naked and cold—a more or less
unsatisfactory sight. I remember asking myself rather ruefully why it
was that I couldn’t own an oil well and be happy. Now when I entered
this region again all these derricks had disappeared, giving place to
small dummy engines, or some automatic arrangement lying close to the
ground, and controlled from afar, by which the oil pumping was done.
These engines were very dirty, but fortunately inconspicuous. And
apparently nearly all the wells which I had seen being dug in 1893 had
proved successful. In every field was at least one of these pumping
devices, and sometimes two and three, all in active working order. They
looked odd in fields of corn and wheat. But where were the palaces of
great beauty which the farmers of 1893 expected if they struck oil? I
saw none; merely many fairly comfortable, and I trust happy, homes.
But to return to my venture into this region. The most disturbing thing
about it, as I look back on it now, is that it shows me how nebulous and
impractical I was at that time. Clearly I had had a sharp desire to be
rich and famous, without any understanding of how to achieve these terms
of comfort. On the other hand, I had the true spirit of adventure, else
I would never have dropped so comfortable a berth as I had, where I was
well liked, to come up here where I knew nothing of what the future held
in store. Great dreams invariably shoot past the possibilities of life.
Those cold, snowy, silent streets, those small bleak homes, shut in from
the February or March cold, with all the force of their country life
centered around the parlor stove! H——, my fellow adventurer, had
preceded me, occupying with his wife a comfortable portion of his
father’s home, and it was he who met me at the train. He could live here
comfortably and indefinitely, and think nothing of it. He was home.
After a single day’s investigation, I now saw that there was nothing to
his proposition as far as I or Grand Rapids was concerned—not a thing.
The paper which he had outlined to me as having a working circulation of
sixteen hundred and advertising to the value of a thousand or more had
really nothing at all. The county, which had only perhaps 10,000
population, had already more papers than it could support. The last
editor had decamped, leaving a novice who worked for the leading
druggist, owner of the printing press and other materials of
construction, to potter about, endeavoring to explain what was useless
to explain. And I had thrown up a good position to pursue a chimera.
But in spite of this, H—— wished to see all the leading citizens to
discover what encouragement they would offer to two aspiring souls like
ourselves! I can see them yet—one a tall, bony man of a ministerial cast
of countenance. He was the druggist, and by the same token one of
several doctors living here. There was a short, fat, fussy man, who ran
the principal feed and livery stable. He had advertised occasionally in
other days. Then there were the local banker and four or five others,
all of them meager, unimportant intellects.
They looked us over as if we were adventurers from Mars. They weren’t
sure whether they needed a newspaper here or not. I agree now that they
did not. They talked about small advertisements which they might or
might not run, but which they were certain had never paid when they
did—advertisements which they had placed as a favor to the former editor
or editors. In addition, they wanted assurances as to how the paper
would be run and whether we were good, moral boys and whether we would
work hard for the interests of the town and against certain
unsatisfactory elements. It was amazing. Oh, yes, the paper had to be
Republican in politics.
“No, no, no,” I finally said to H——, in a spirit of dissatisfaction and
at the end of a long, cold, windy day. We had walked out the country
road toward his house and I had stopped to stare at an array of crows
occupying a bleak woodpatch, and at the red sun, smiling over a floor of
white. “There’s nothing in this. It would set me crazy. It’s a wild
goose chase. Is there anything else around here, or shall I skip out
tonight?”
He wanted me to stay and visit Bowling Green, a town near at hand. (This
was the one we were now approaching.) There was another newspaper there
for sale on easy terms. I agreed after some coaxing, and, having
lingered three days to secure suitable roads—the distance was twentyfive
miles—we drove over. That was the time I saw the gas wells. It was a
better place than Grand Rapids, but the price of the paper, when we
reached there, was much more than we could pay. I think we figured,
between us, that we could put down two hundred dollars and the owners
wanted five hundred, with the balance on mortgage and a total selling
price of eight thousand. So that dream went glimmering. In the
meanwhile, I browsed about studying country life, admiring the Maumee
River at Grand Rapids (H——'s home faced it from a beautiful rise). Then
one fine spring day the sun rose on fields from which the snow had
suddenly melted, and I felt that I must be off. I went, as I have said,
to Toledo first. Here I encountered the youth to whom I have frequently
referred and with whom I was destined to lead a curious career.
But now that I am upon the subject, perhaps I might as well include the
story of my journey into Toledo, where was a principal paper called the
_Blade_ with which I wished to connect myself, if possible. The place
only had a hundred thousand at the time, and I did not think it worth
the remaining years of my life, but I thought it might be good for a
little while—say six months. Although I was considered (I am merely
quoting others) an exceptional newspaper man, I did not know what I
wanted to be. Already the newspaper profession was boring me. It seemed
a hopeless, unremunerative, more or less degrading form of work, and yet
I could think of nothing else to do. Apparently I had no other talent.
I shall never forget the first morning I went into Toledo. The train
followed the bank of a canal and ran between that canal and the Maumee
River. The snow which had troubled us so much a day or two before had
gone off, and it was as bright and encouraging as one might wish. I was
particularly elated by the natural aspects of this region, for the
Maumee River, beginning at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and flowing
northeastward, makes a peculiarly attractive scenic diversion. It is a
beautiful stream, with gently sloping banks on either hand, and in
places rapids and even slight falls. At Grand Rapids and farther along
it broadened out into something essentially romantic to look upon, and
Toledo itself, when I reached it, was so clean and new and
industrious—without all the depressing areas of factory and tenement
life which lowers the charm of some cities. It seemed to me as I looked
at it this Spring morning as if life must be better here than in cities
older, or at least greater—cities like St. Louis and Chicago, where so
much of the oppressive struggle for existence had already manifested
itself. And yet I knew I liked those cities better. Be that as it may,
it was a happy prospect which I contemplated, and I sought out the
office of the _Blade_ with the air of one who is certain of his powers
and not likely to be daunted by mere outward circumstances.
I have always felt of life that it is more fortuitous than anything
else. People strive so mightily to do things—to arrange life according
to some scheme of their own—but little, if anything, comes of it in most
cases. Children are taught by their parents that they must be this,
that, or the other to get along—economical, industrious, sober, truthful
and the like—and what comes of it? Unless they are peculiarly talented
and able to use life in a direct and forceful way—unless they have
qualities or charms which draw life to them, or compel life to come,
willy-nilly, they are used and then discarded. A profound schooling in
manners, morals and every other virtue and pleasantry will not make up
for lack of looks in a girl. Honesty, sobriety, industry, and even other
solemn virtues, will not raise a lad to a seat of dignity. Life is above
these petty rules, however essential they may be to the strong in ruling
the weak, or to a state or nation in the task of keeping itself in
order. We succeed or fail not by the socalled virtues or their absence,
but by something more or less than these things. All good things are
gifts—beauty, strength, grace, magnetism, swiftness and subtlety of
mind, the urge or compulsion to do. Taking thought will not bring them
to anyone. Effort never avails save by grace or luck or something else.
The illusion of the self made is one of the greatest of all.
Here in Toledo I came upon one of the happiest illustrations of this. In
the office of the _Blade_ in the city editorial room, sat a young man as
city editor who was destined to take a definite and inspiriting part in
my life. He was small, very much smaller than myself, plump, rosy
cheeked, with a complexion of milk and cream, soft light brown hair, a
clear, observing blue eye. Without effort you could detect the
speculative thinker and dreamer. In the rôle of city editor of a western
manufacturing town paper, one must have the air, if not the substance,
of commercial understanding and ability (executive control and all
that), and so in this instance, my young city editor seemed to breathe a
determination to be very executive and forceful.
“You’re a St. Louis newspaper man, eh?” he said, estimating me casually
and in a glance. “Never worked in a town of this size though? Well, the
conditions are very different. We pay much more attention to small
items—make a good deal out of nothing,” he smiled. “But there isn’t a
thing that I can see anyhow. Nothing much beyond a three or four day
job, which you wouldn’t want, I’m sure. As a matter of fact, there’s a
street car strike on—you may have noticed it—and I could use a man who
would have nerve enough to ride round on the cars which the company is
attempting to run and report how things are. But I’ll tell you frankly,
it’s dangerous. You may be shot or hit with a brick.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling and thinking of my need of experience and cash.
“Just how many days' work would you guarantee me, if any?”
“Well, four. I could guarantee you that many.”
He looked at me in a mock serious and yet approving way. I could see
that he was attracted to me—fate only knows why. Something about me (as
he told me later) affected him vigorously. He could not, he admitted,
get me out of his mind. He was slightly ashamed of offering me so
wretched a task, and yet urged by the necessity of making a showing in
the face of crisis. He, too, was comparatively new to his task.
I will not go into this story further than to say that it resulted in an
enduring and yet stormy and disillusioning friendship. If he had been a
girl he would have married me, of course. It would have been inevitable,
even though he was already married, as he was. That other marriage would
have been broken up. We were intellectual affinities, as it were. Our
dreams were practically identical, approaching them though we were, at
different angles. He was more the sentimentalist in thought, though the
realist in action; I the realist in thought, and sentimentalist in
action. He kept looking at me and that same morning, when having ridden
about over all the short lines unharmed and made up a dramatic story,
and when, in addition, for a “Romance Column” which the paper ran, I had
written one or two brief descriptions of farm life about Toledo, he came
over to tell me that he was impressed. My descriptions were beautiful,
he said.
We went out to lunch, and stayed nearly three hours. He took me out to
dinner. Though he was newly married and his delightful young wife was
awaiting him in their home a few miles out of the city, duty compelled
him to stay in town. Damon had met Pythias—Gawayne, Ivaine. We talked
and talked and talked. He had worked in Chicago; so had I. He had known
various newspaper geniuses there—so had I. He had dreams of becoming a
poet and novelist—I of becoming a playwright. Before the second day had
gone, a book of fairytales and some poems he had completed and was
publishing locally had been shown me. Under the action of our joint
chemistries I was magically impressed. I became enamoured of him—the
victim of a delightful illusion—one of the most perfect I have ever
entertained.
Because he was so fond of me, so strikingly adoring, he wanted me to
stay on. There was no immediate place, and he could not make one for me
at once, but would I not wait until an opening might come? Or better
yet—would I not wander on toward Cleveland and Buffalo, working at what
I chose, and then, if a place opened, come back? He would telegraph me
(as he subsequently did at Pittsburg). Meanwhile we reveled in that
wonderful possession—intellectual affection—a passionate intellectual
rapprochement, in youth. I thought he was beautiful, great, perfect. He
thought—well, I have heard him tell in after years what he thought. Even
now, at times, he fixes me with hungry, welcoming eyes.
Alas, alas, for the dreams and the perfections which never stay!