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Colonel Mulberry Sellers—this was some days before he wrote his letter
to Lord Rossmore—was seated in his “library,” which was also his
“drawing-room” and was also his “picture gallery” and likewise his
“work-shop.” Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by
another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing
what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy; and was
apparently very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man,
now, but otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and
enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly
knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was
large, light, and had a comfortable look, in fact a home-like look,
though the furniture was of a humble sort and not over abundant, and
the knickknacks and things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty
and not costly. But there were natural flowers, and there was an
abstract and unclassifiable something about the place which betrayed
the presence in the house of somebody with a happy taste and an
effective touch.
Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without offence; in
fact they seemed to belong there and to add an attraction to the room—a
fascination, anyway; for whoever got his eye on one of them was like to
gaze and suffer till he died—you have seen that kind of pictures. Some
of these terrors were landscapes, some libeled the sea, some were
ostensible portraits, all were crimes. All the portraits were
recognizable as dead Americans of distinction, and yet, through
labeling added, by a daring hand, they were all doing duty here as
“Earls of Rossmore.” The newest one had left the works as Andrew
Jackson, but was doing its best now, as “Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore,
Present Earl.” On one wall was a cheap old railroad map of
Warwickshire. This had been newly labeled “The Rossmore Estates.” On
the opposite wall was another map, and this was the most imposing
decoration of the establishment and the first to catch a stranger’s
attention, because of its great size. It had once borne simply the
title SIBERIA; but now the word “FUTURE” had been written in front of
that word. There were other additions, in red ink—many cities, with
great populations set down, scattered over the vast-country at points
where neither cities nor populations exist to-day. One of these cities,
with population placed at 1,500,000, bore the name
“Libertyorloffskoizalinski,” and there was a still more populous one,
centrally located and marked “Capital,” which bore the name
“Freedomolovnaivanovich.”
The “mansion”—the Colonel’s usual name for the house—was a rickety old
two-story frame of considerable size, which had been painted, some time
or other, but had nearly forgotten it. It was away out in the ragged
edge of Washington and had once been somebody’s country place. It had a
neglected yard around it, with paling fence that needed straightening
up, in places, and a gate that would stay shut. By the door-post were
several modest tin signs. “Col. Mulberry Sellers, Attorney at Law and
Claim Agent,” was the principal one. One learned from the others that
the Colonel was a Materializer, a Hypnotizer, a Mind-Cure dabbler; and
so on. For he was a man who could always find things to do.
A white-headed negro man, with spectacles and damaged white cotton
gloves appeared in the presence, made a stately obeisance and
announced:
“Marse Washington Hawkins, suh.”
“Great Scott! Show him in, Dan’l, show him in.”
The Colonel and his wife were on their feet in a moment, and the next
moment were joyfully wringing the hands of a stoutish,
discouraged-looking man whose general aspect suggested that he was
fifty years old, but whose hair swore to a hundred.
“Well, well, well, Washington, my boy, it _is_ good to look at you
again. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself at home. There, now—why,
you look perfectly natural; aging a little, just a little, but you’d
have known him anywhere, wouldn’t you, Polly?”
“Oh, yes, Berry, he’s _just_ like his pa would have looked if he’d
lived. Dear, dear, where have you dropped from? Let me see, how long is
it since—”
“I should say it’s all of fifteen years, Mrs. Sellers.”
“Well, well, how time does get away with us. Yes, and oh, the changes
that—”
There was a sudden catch of her voice and a trembling of the lip, the
men waiting reverently for her to get command of herself and go on; but
after a little struggle she turned away, with her apron to her eyes,
and softly disappeared.
“Seeing you made her think of the children, poor thing—dear, dear,
they’re all dead but the youngest.
“But banish care, it’s no time for it now—on with the dance, let joy be
unconfined is my motto, whether there’s any dance to dance; or any joy
to unconfine—you’ll be the healthier for it every time,—every time,
Washington—it’s my experience, and I’ve seen a good deal of this world.
Come—where have you disappeared to all these years, and are you from
there, now, or where are you from?”
“I don’t quite think you would ever guess, Colonel. Cherokee Strip.”
“My land!”
“Sure as you live.”
“You can’t mean it. Actually _living_ out there?”
“Well, yes, if a body may call it that; though it’s a pretty strong
term for ’dobies and jackass rabbits, boiled beans and slap-jacks,
depression, withered hopes, poverty in all its varieties—”
“Louise out there?”
“Yes, and the children.”
“Out there now?”
“Yes, I couldn’t afford to bring them with me.”
“Oh, I see,—you had to come—claim against the government. Make yourself
perfectly easy—I’ll take care of that.”
“But it isn’t a claim against the government.”
“No? Want to be postmaster? _That’s_ all right. Leave it to me. I’ll
fix it.”
“But it isn’t postmaster—you’re all astray yet.”
“Well, good gracious, Washington, why don’t you come out and tell me
what it is? What, do you want to be so reserved and distrustful with an
old friend like me for? Don’t you reckon I can keep a se—”
“There’s no secret about it—you merely don’t give me a chance to—”
“Now look here, old friend, I know the human race; and I know that when
a man comes to Washington, I don’t care if it’s from heaven, let alone
Cherokee-Strip, it’s because he _wants_ something. And I know that as a
rule he’s not going to get it; that he’ll stay and try—for another
thing and won’t get that; the same luck with the next and the next and
the next; and keeps on till he strikes bottom, and is too poor and
ashamed to go back, even to Cherokee Strip; and at last his heart
breaks—and they take up a collection and bury him. There—don’t
interrupt me, I know what I’m talking about. Happy and prosperous in
the Far West wasn’t I? _You_ know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye,
looked up to by everybody, kind of an autocrat, actually a kind of an
autocrat, Washington. Well, nothing would do but I must go Minister to
St. James, the Governor and everybody insisting, you know, and so at
last I consented—no getting out of it, _had_ to do it, so here I came.
_A day too late_, Washington. Think of that—what little things change
the world’s history—yes, sir, the place had been filled. Well, there I
was, you see. I offered to compromise and go to Paris. The President
was very sorry and all that, but _that_ place, you see, didn’t belong
to the West, so there I was again. There was no help for it, so I had
to stoop a little—we all reach the day some time or other when we’ve
got to do that, Washington, and it’s not a bad thing for us, either,
take it by and large and all around—I had to stoop a little and offer
to take Constantinople. Washington, consider this—for it’s perfectly
true—within a month I _asked_ for China; within another month I
_begged_ for Japan; one year later I was away down, down, down,
supplicating with tears and anguish for the bottom office in the gift
of the government of the United States—Flint-Picker in the cellars of
the War Department. And by George I didn’t get it.”
“Flint-Picker?”
“Yes. Office established in the time of the Revolution, last century.
The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied from the
capitol. They do it yet; for although the flint-arm has gone out and
the forts have tumbled down, the decree hasn’t been repealed—been
overlooked and forgotten, you see—and so the vacancies where old
Ticonderoga and others used to stand, still get their six quarts of
gun-flints a year just the same.”
Washington said musingly after a pause:
“How strange it seems—to start for Minister to England at twenty
thousand a year and fail for flintpicker at—”
“Three dollars a week. It’s human life, Washington—just an epitome of
human ambition, and struggle, and the outcome: you aim for the palace
and get drowned in the sewer.”
There was another meditative silence. Then Washington said, with
earnest compassion in his voice—
“And so, after coming here, against your inclination, to satisfy your
sense of patriotic duty and appease a selfish public clamor, you get
absolutely nothing for it.”
“Nothing?” The Colonel had to get up and stand, to get room for his
amazement to expand. “_Nothing_, Washington? I ask you this: to be a
perpetual Member and the _only_ Perpetual Member of a Diplomatic Body
accredited to the greatest country on earth do you call that nothing?”
It was Washington’s turn to be amazed. He was stricken dumb; but the
wide-eyed wonder, the reverent admiration expressed in his face were
more eloquent than any words could have been. The Colonel’s wounded
spirit was healed and he resumed his seat pleased and content. He
leaned forward and said impressively:
“What was due to a man who had become forever conspicuous by an
experience without precedent in the history of the world?—a man made
permanently and diplomatically sacred, so to speak, by having been
connected, temporarily, through solicitation, with every single
diplomatic post in the roster of this government, from Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James
all the way down to Consul to a guano rock in the Strait of
Sunda—salary payable in guano—which disappeared by volcanic convulsion
the day before they got down to my name in the list of applicants.
Certainly something august enough to be answerable to the size of this
unique and memorable experience was my due, and I got it. By the common
voice of this community, by acclamation of the people, that mighty
utterance which brushes aside laws and legislation, and from whose
decrees there is no appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the
Diplomatic Body representing the multifarious sovereignties and
civilizations of the globe near the republican court of the United
States of America. And they brought me home with a torchlight
procession.”
“It is wonderful, Colonel, simply wonderful.”
“It’s the loftiest official position in the whole earth.”
“I should think so—and the most commanding.”
“You have named the word. Think of it. I frown, and there is war; I
smile, and contending nations lay down their arms.”
“It is awful. The responsibility, I mean.”
“It is nothing. Responsibility is no burden to me; I am used to it;
have always been used to it.”
“And the work—the work! Do you have to attend all the sittings?”
“Who, I? Does the Emperor of Russia attend the conclaves of the
governors of the provinces? He sits at home, and indicates his
pleasure.”
Washington was silent a moment, then a deep sigh escaped him.
“How proud I was an hour ago; how paltry seems my little promotion now!
Colonel, the reason I came to Washington is,—I am Congressional
Delegate from Cherokee Strip!”
The Colonel sprang to his feet and broke out with prodigious
enthusiasm:
“Give me your hand, my boy—this is immense news! I congratulate you
with all my heart. My prophecies stand confirmed. I always said it was
in you. I always said you were born for high distinction and would
achieve it. You ask Polly if I didn’t.”
Washington was dazed by this most unexpected demonstration.
“Why, Colonel, there’s nothing _to_ it. That little narrow, desolate,
unpeopled, oblong streak of grass and gravel, lost in the remote wastes
of the vast continent—why, it’s like representing a billiard table—a
discarded one.”
“Tut-tut, it’s a great, it’s a staving preferment, and just opulent
with influence here.”
“Shucks, Colonel, I haven’t even a vote.”
“That’s nothing; you can make speeches.”
“No, I can’t. The population’s only two hundred—”
“That’s all right, that’s all right—”
“And they hadn’t any right to elect me; we’re not even a territory,
there’s no Organic Act, the government hasn’t any official knowledge of
us whatever.”
“Never mind about that; I’ll fix that. I’ll rush the thing through,
I’ll get you organized in no time.”
“_Will_ you, Colonel?—it’s _too_ good of you; but it’s just your old
sterling self, the same old ever-faithful friend,” and the grateful
tears welled up in Washington’s eyes.
“It’s just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done. Shake hands.
We’ll hitch teams together, you and I, and we’ll make things hum!”