GENTLE READER:--Let me make you acquainted with my book, “Back Home.”
(Your right hand, Book, your right hand. Pity's sakes! How many times
have I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward, shoulders back and
down, and turn your toes out more.)
It is a little book, Gentle Reader, but please don't let that prejudice
you against it. The General Public, I know, likes to feel heft in its
hand when it buys a book, but I had hoped that you were a peg or two
above the General Public. That mythical being goes on a reading spree
about every so often, and it selects a book which will probably last out
the craving, a book which “it will be impossible to lay down, after it
is once begun, until it is finished.” (I quote from the standard book
notice). A few hours later the following dialogue ensues:
“Henry!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Aren't you 'most done reading?”
“Just as soon as I finish this chapter.” A sigh and a long wait.
“Henry!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Did you lock the side-door?” No answer.
“Henry! Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you lock the side-door?”
“In a minute now.”
“Yes, but did you?”
“M-hm. I guess so.”
“'Guess so!' Did you lock that side-door? They got in at Hilliard's
night before last and stole a bag of clothes-pins.”
“M.”
“Oh, put down that book, and go and lock the side-door. I'll not get a
wink of sleep this blessed night unless you do.”
“In a minute now. Just wait till I finish this...”
“Go do it now.”
Mr. General Public has a card on his desk that says, “Do it Now,” and so
he lays down his book with a patient sigh, and comes back to it with a
patent grouch.
“Oh, so it is,” says the voice from the bedroom. “I remember now, I
locked it myself when I put the milk-bottles out.... I'm going to stop
taking of that man unless there's more cream on the top than there has
been here lately.”
“M.”
“Henry!”
“Oh, what is it?”
“Aren't you 'most done reading?”
“In a minute, just as soon as I finish this chapter.”
“How long is that chapter, for mercy's sakes?”
“I began another.”
“Henry!”
“What?”
“Aren't you coming to bed pretty soon? You know I can't go to sleep when
you are sitting up.”
“Oh, hush up for one minute, can't ye? It's a funny thing if I can't
read a little once in a while.”
“It's a funny thing if I've got to be broke of my rest this way. As much
as I have to look after. I'd hate to be so selfish.... Henry! Won't you
please put the book down and come to bed?”
“Oh, for goodness sake! Turn over and go to sleep. You make me tired.”
Every two or three hours Mrs. General Public wakes up and announces that
she can't get a wink of sleep, not a wink; she wishes he hadn't brought
the plagued old book home; he hasn't the least bit of consideration for
her; please, please, won't he put the book away and come to bed?
He reaches “THE END” at 2:30A.M., turns off the gas, and creeps into
bed, his stomach all upset from smoking so much without eating anything,
his eyes feeling like two burnt holes in a blanket, and wishing that
he had the sense he was born with. He'll have to be up at 6:05, and he
knows how he will feel. He also knows how he will feel along about three
o'clock in the afternoon. Smithers is coming then to close up that deal.
Smithers is as sharp as tacks, as slippery as an eel, and as crooked as
a dog's hind leg. Always looking for the best of it. You need all
your wits when you deal with Smithers. Why didn't he take Mrs. General
Public's advice, and get to bed instead of sitting up fuddling himself
with that fool love-story?
That's how a book should be to be a great popular success, and one
that all the typewriter girls will have on their desks. I am guiltily
conscious that “Back Home” is not up to standard either in avoirdupois
heft or the power to unfit a man for business.
Here's a book. Is it long? No. Is it exciting? No. Any lost diamonds
in it? Nup. Mysterious murders? No. Whopping big fortune, now teetering
this way, and now teetering that, tipping over on the Hero at the last
and smothering him in an avalanche of fifty-dollar bills? No. Does She
get Him? Isn't even that. No “heart interest” at all. What's the use of
putting out good money to make such a book; to have a cover design for
it; to get a man like A. B. Frost to draw illustrations for it, when he
costs so like the mischief, when there's nothing in the book to make a
man sit up till 'way past bedtime? Why print it at all?
You may search me. I suppose it's all right, but if it was my money,
I'll bet I could make a better investment of it. If worst came to worst,
I could do like the fellow in the story who went to the gambling-house
and found it closed up, so he shoved the money under the door and went
away. He'd done his part.
And yet, on the other hand, I can see how some sort of a case can be
made out for this book of mine. I suppose I am wrong-I generally am in
regard to everything--but it seems to me that quite a large part of the
population of this country must be grown-up people. If I am right
in this contention, then this large part of the population is being
unjustly discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount
for the aid and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to
turn their hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their
upper lips to feel the pleasant rasp, but I don't believe in their
monopolizing everything. I don't think it 's fair. All the books
printed--except, of course, those containing valuable information; we
don't buy those books, but go to the public library for them--all the
books printed are concerned with the problem of How She can get Him, and
He can get Her.
Well, now. It was either yesterday morning or the day before that you
looked in the glass and beheld there The First Gray Hair. You smiled a
smile that was not all pure pleasure, a smile that petered out into a
sigh, but nevertheless a smile, I will contend. What do you think
about it? You're still on earth, aren't you? You'll last the month out,
anyhow, won't you? Not at all ready to be laid on the shelf? What do you
think of the relative importance of Love, Courtship, and Marriage? One
or two other things in life just about as interesting, aren't there?
Take getting a living, for instance. That 's worthy of one's attention,
to a certain extent. When our young ones ask us: “Pop, what did you say
to Mom when you courted her?” they feel provoked at us for taking it so
lightly and so frivolously. It vexes them for us to reply: “Law, child!
I don't remember. Why, I says to her: 'Will you have me?' And she says:
'Why, yes, and jump at the chance.' What difference does it make what
we said, or whether we said anything at all? Why should we charge our
memories with the recollections of those few and foolish months of mere
instinctive sex-attraction when all that really counts came after,
the years wherein low passion blossomed into lofty Love, the dear
companionship in joy and sorrow, and in that which is more, far more
than either joy or sorrow, 'the daily round, the common task?'” All that
is wonderful to think of in our courtship is the marvel, for which
we should never cease to thank the Almighty God, that with so little
judgment at our disposal we should have chosen so wisely.
If you, Gentle Reader, found your first gray hair day before yesterday
morning, if you can remember, 'way, 'way back ten or fifteen years
ago... er... er... or more, come with me. Let us go “Back Home.” Here's
your transportation, all made out to you, and in your hand. It is no use
my reminding you that no railroad goes to the old home place. It isn't
there any more, even in outward seeming. Cummins's woods, where you had
your robbers' cave, is all cleared off and cut up into building lots.
The cool and echoing covered bridge, plastered with notices of dead and
forgotten Strawberry Festivals and Public Vendues, has long ago been
torn down to be replaced by a smart, red iron bridge. The Volunteer
Firemen's Engine-house, whose brick wall used to flutter with the gay
rags of circus-bills, is gone as if it never were at all. Where the
Union Schoolhouse was is all torn up now. They are putting up a new
magnificent structure, with all the modern improvements, exposed
plumbing, and spankless discipline. The quiet leafy streets echo to the
hissing snarl of trolley cars, and the power-house is right by the
Old Swimming-hole above the dam. The meeting-house, where we attended
Sabbath-school, and marveled at the Greek temple frescoed on the wall
behind the pulpit, is now a church with a big organ, and stained-glass
windows, and folding opera-chairs on a slanting floor. There isn't any
“Amen Corner,” any more, and in these calm and well-bred times nobody
ever gets “shouting happy.”
But even when “the loved spots that our infancy knew” are physically the
same, a change has come upon them more saddening than words can tell.
They have shrunken and grown shabbier. They are not nearly so spacious
and so splendid as once they were.
Some one comes up to you and calls you by your name. His voice echoes in
the chambers of your memory. You hold his hand in yours and try to peer
through the false-face he has on, the mask of a beard or spectacles, or
a changed expression of the countenance. He says he is So-and-so. Why,
he used to sit with you in Miss Crutcher's room, don't you remember?
There was a time when you and he walked together, your arms upon each
other's shoulders. But this is some other one than he. The boy you knew
had freckles, and could spit between his teeth, ever and ever so far.
They don't have the same things to eat they used to have, or, if they
do, it all tastes different. Do you remember the old well, with the
windlass and the chain fastened to the rope just above the bucket, the
chain that used to cluck-cluck when the dripping bucket came within
reach to be swung upon the well-curb? How cold the water used to be,
right out of the northwest corner of the well! It made the roof of your
mouth ache when you drank. Everybody said it was such splendid water. It
isn't so very cold these days, and I think it has a sort of funny taste
to it.
Ah, Gentle Reader, this is not really “Back Home” we gaze upon when
we go there by the train. It is a last year's bird's nest. The nest is
there; the birds are flown, the birds of youth, and noisy health, and
ravenous appetite, and inexperience. You cannot go “Back Home” by train,
but here is the magic wishing-carpet, and here is your transportation in
your hand all made out to you. You and I will make the journey together.
Let us in heart and mind thither ascend.
I went to the Old Red School-house with you. Don't you remember me? I
was learning to swim when you could go clear across the river without
once “letting down.” I saw you at the County Fair, and bought a slab
of ice-cream candy just before you did. I was in the infant-class in
Sabbath-school when you spoke in the dialogue at the monthly concert.
Look again. Don't you remember me? I used to stub my toe so; you ought
to recollect me by that. I know plenty of people that you know. I may
not always get their names just right, but then it's been a good while
ago. You Il recognize them, though; you'll know them in a minute.