About seventy-five traveling men were snowed in at Green Bay during a late
blockade, and they were pretty lively around the hotels, having quiet fun
Friday and Saturday, and passing away the time the best they could, some
playing seven up, others playing billiards, and others looking on. Some of
the truly good people in town thought the boys were pretty tough, and they
wore long faces and prayed for the blockade to raise so the spruce-looking
chaps could go away.
The boys noticed that occasionally a lantern-jawed fellow would look pious
at them, as though afraid he would be contaminated. So Sunday morning they
decided to go to church in a body. Seventy-five of them slicked up and
marched to the Rev. Dr. Morgan's church, where the reverend gentleman was
going to deliver a sermon on Temperance. No minister ever had a more
attentive audience, or a more intelligent one, and when the collection
plate was passed every last one of the travelers chipped in a silver
dollar.
[Illustration: THE SEXTON IN ALL HIS GLORY.]
When the sexton had received the first ten dollars the perspiration stood
out on his forehead as though he had been caught in something. It was
getting heavy, something that never occurred before in the history of
church collections at the Bay. As he passed by the boys, and dollar after
dollar was added to his burden, he felt like he was at a picnic, and when
twenty-five dollars had accumulated on the plate he had to hold it with
both hands, and finally the plate was full, and he had to go and
empty it on the table in front of the pulpit, though he was careful to
remember where he left off, so he wouldn't go twice to the same drummer.
As he poured the shekels out on the table, as still as he could, every
person in the audience almost raised up to look at the pile, and there was
a smile on every face, and every eye turned to the part of the church
where sat the seventy-five solemn looking traveling men, who never wore a
smile. The sexton looked up to the minister, who was picking up a hymn, as
much as to say, "Boss, we have struck it rich, and I am going back to work
the lead some more." The minister looked at the boys, and then at the
sexton as though saying, "Verily, I would rather preach to seventy-five
Milwaukee and Chicago drummers than to own a brewery. Go, thou, and reap
some more trade dollars in my vineyard."
The sexton went back and commenced where he left off. He had his
misgivings, thinking maybe some of the boys would glide out in his
absence, or think better of the affair and only put in nickels on the
second heat, but the first man the sexton held out the platter to planked
down his dollar, and all the boys followed suit, not a man "passed" or
"renigged," and when the last drummer had been interviewed the sexton
carried the biggest load of silver back to the table that he ever saw.
Some of the silver dollars rolled off on the floor, and he had to put some
in his coat pockets, but he got them all, and looked around at the
congregation with a smile and wiped the perspiration from his forehead
with a bandanna handkerchief and winked, as much as to say, "The first man
that speaks disrespectfully of a traveling man in my presence will get
thumped, and don't you forget it."
The minister rose up in the pulpit, looked at the wealth on the table, and
read the hymn, "A charge to keep I have," and the congregation joined, the
travelers swelling the glad anthem as though they belonged to a
Pinafore chorus. They all bowed their heads while the minister, with one
eye on the dollars, pronounced the benediction, and the services were
over.
The traveling men filed out through the smiles of the ladies and went to
the hotel, while half the congregation went forward to the anxious seat,
to "view the remains." It is safe to say that it will be unsafe, in the
future, to speak disparagingly of traveling men in Green Bay, as long as
the memory of that blockade Sunday remains green with the good people
there.