CHAPTER I.--THE SINGULAR BEGINNING OF A NEW CAREER

THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN

A Tale of the Battles of Peace

By Irving Bacheller

Author of “Eben Holden”

“Silas Strong” etc., etc.

New York and London

Harper & Brothers Publishers

Copyright, 1909

TO MY DEAR FRIEND E. PRENTISS BAILEY

[Illustration: 0010]

[Illustration: 0011]

FOREWORD

|THIS is a tale of youth--of its loves and dreams and hazards, and of

the incredible riches of purity which often belong to it.

Many of the adventures which led to the Hand-Made Gentleman and the shop

at Rushwater are from the author's own experience. Pearl is a composite

of Davenport (the country blacksmith who invented an electric motor in

1833) and of a certain modest veteran of northern New York.

It tells how steam-power chose its first long pathway and began its

swift errands from the Atlantic to the middle continent; how the roar

and rush of the water-floods betrayed their secret and suggested the

coming of great things; how “the horses of the river” began to tread the

turbine and yield their power to man; how the spirit of new enterprise

contended with conservatism, ignorance, and greed in the capitals, and

how, thereby, evils developed which we are now striving to correct.

For its background of railroad and political history the author is

indebted to many forgotten records, and to his friends A. Barton

Hepburn, William C. Hudson, Arthur D. Chandler, and Mark D. Wilber, an

honored Assemblyman in the sessions of 1865, 1866, and 1867, and later

United States District Attorney. For the color of the day in Pittsburg,

at the close of the war, he is under obligation to Mr. Andrew Carnegie;

for that of Black Friday, to Mr. Thomas A. Edison.

The author has held to no strict observance of the unity of place,

the work of his characters being that of turning the State into one

neighborhood.

BOOK ONE--IN WHICH THE ADVENTURES OF CRICKET PRESENTED, WITH SOME

ACCOUNT OF HIM

THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN

A TALE OF THE BATTLES OF PEACE

ADVENTURE I--BEING THAT OF CRICKET AND THE CHILD GHOST

[Illustration: 9023]

WAS born in 1843. Since then I have endured many perils, of which I

shall try to tell you. First of all, there was the peril of being named

Solomon; and it would appear that, fora day or two, I was threatened

also with the name of Zephaniah, but escaped at last with the lighter

penalty of Jacob.

When I found myself I had just printed my full name in big letters on a

slate--Jacob Ezra Heron. I have had some success, but--bless you!--it is

poverty when I think of the sense of riches that I had that day. I will

try to give only the merest outline of my chief assets, and they were:

this name, which was all my own; a mother, who was the joint possession

of myself and my sister, four years older than I; one friend of the name

of Lizzie McCormick, and one little green book which was a legacy

from my grandmother. I had practically no liabilities save a number of

unpunished sins.

Now, a little as to my schedule of assets. First of all, there is the

boy indicated by the name on my slate--a small boy five years old. I was

in the little red school-house! My eyes were not much above the level of

my reading-book that rested on the teacher's knee. The watch at her belt

seemed to prattle in my ear as if to put me out, and, when she opened

the hateful thing, I felt sure it complained of me, for immediately she

grew impatient. I was afraid, and spoke scarcely any louder than the

watch itself. I feared that somebody would do something to me, and I had

three occupations--looking out for danger, drawing cats, and printing my

name on a slate.

Every evening I used to sit by the fireside in my little chair and rock

and sing. My mother called me Cricket, because I was small and spry and

cheerful. Others called me Cricket because she did.

Now, an important item in the schedule is my friend and confidant,

Lizzie McCormick. She was one of the most remarkable things that ever

was, being much and yet nothing. She was a myth--a creation of my

fancy--but almost as real as any of you sitting here. There was a

drunken old bachelor of the name of McCormick who lived not far away,

and Lizzie claimed that she was his girl. I made her acquaintance one

day when I had been very bad and was shut in my room alone. She sprang

out of the air suddenly, and sat down beside me on the rag carpet,

and made a gulping sound--like that of “a hen with the pip,” as our

washerwoman said when I tried to make the sound for her. Lizzie was a

freckled girl with red hair and a very long neck, and gold teeth and a

wooden leg, because she had been shot in the war.

We played marbles together, and talked freely in a tongue so “foreign”

that no human being could understand it, as my mother informed me later.

She showed me her trinkets, and among them was a thing she called “a

silver horruck,” which Santa Claus had brought to her--a shiny thing

that looked like a goose's leg. She was with me a good deal after that,

and always slept with me in my trundle-bed. In due time she began to do

and say things for which I was held responsible, and eventually became a

ghost, when I would have no more to do with her.

You will remember I spoke of the little green book. It was kept in a

high drawer. Often I begged for a look at it, and when my mother opened

the drawer I was on my tiptoes and reaching for the sacred thing. When I

had looked at the pictures she put it away again very tenderly.

Well, that is about as things stood with me in my childhood. I have

given you a core out of the bed-rock, and let it go at that--saving one

circumstance. It will all help you to understand me.

I come now to the true tales, which are better for the fireside, on a

white Christmas, than all that kind of thing. First, I shall tell you

the very brief adventure of

CRICKET AND THE CHILD GHOST

Go back with me to the winter of 1850, when hard times travelled over

the land like a pestilence, and even entered the houses of the great. I

was in my seventh year, and my assets had been largely increased by the

steady friendship of Santa Claus. But he was going to pass me that year,

the times being harder for him than for other people. I felt sorry for

him, and sorry for my sister and mother, and sorry, too, for myself.

Well, it was the day before Christmas, and I had been to school and was

on my way home alone, my sister being ill, and night was near. Suddenly

I became aware that Lizzie McCormick was limping along beside me.

“It don't pay to be good,” said she, impatiently.

“I've been very good for a long, long time,” I answered. “I've filled

the wood-box every night an' morning, an' I gave half my candy to Sarah.

I guess God was surprised.”

“So was Sarah,” she answered, as I recalled the delight of my sister.

I thought a moment and then said, “God loves me.”

“Why don't he give you a pair of new boots, then?”

“It's hard times.”

“He gives 'em to some children.”

I felt of the treasure, which I had concealed in my pocket, and wondered

whether, under the circumstances, I had better let it go. I tried to

take a look at it, but the air was dusky and I could not see.

“Come on!” Lizzie called, swinging her wooden leg very fast and keeping

ahead of me. “I ain't going home. I'm going to see if I can find Santa

Claus.”

“So 'm I,” was my answer. “Maybe he'll give us a ride.”

We hurried along without speaking until I saw how dark it was, and knew

that we were a long way from home.

“My mother will be looking for me!” I called, with a little sob.

Lizzie stopped and again made a sound like that of a hen with the pip,

and I knew it to be a token of her contempt for me.

“I don't believe there is any Santa Claus,” she remarked, presently.

I had been thinking of that. The faith of my childhood was failing a

little, but I clung to the dear old saint and could not let him go.

However, I was on the brink of change.

In a moment Lizzie put her hand in my coat-pocket.

“There,” said she, “see what you've got now.”

I felt, and upon my word there was something hard in my pocket wrapped

in tissue-paper, and it felt very promising.

“It's a real horruck,” said she; “I am going to give it to you.”

Then I saw her hand moving before my face. I put up my own hand, but

hers began to fly around in the air, and I could not touch it. Now I

suddenly remembered that ghosts had a trick of that kind, for so the

washerwoman had informed me. For the first time I began to think of the

word, and felt its mystery. Lizzie stood shivering, and a sound came out

of her mouth like wind whistling in a chimney.

“You go 'way!” I cried, in a fright.

Lizzie turned and looked at me and uttered a cry of fear, and began to

run. Her clothes had a strange rustle, and I could scarcely see her in

the darkness. She seemed to run up a stairway into the snowy air, and

was out of sight in a jiffy. Then I could hear her screaming to me in a

dark tree-top, as if she saw something terrible.

“Look out, Cricket! Look out! Look out!”

I was in a panic of fear, knowing not the peril that threatened me. I

struggled through the drifts and ran till I 'could see the lights of the

village. The sight allayed my fear a little.

I had heard that hymn-singing was good in time of peril, and I began

to walk and sing, with a trembling voice, the Christmas hymn which my

mother had lately taught me.

Soon I knelt for a moment in the snow and said my prayers. Then I rose

and ran on, singing as I went, and thought less of my peril. Soon teams

began to pass me, coming and going, and my fear was gone.

I felt for my horruck. It was in my pocket, all right, and the feel of

it began to fill me with wonder. I forgot it when I came to one of the

stores, and entered behind the legs of a tall man, and stopped before a

basket of oranges, and stood looking down at them. There were a number

of people in the store.

“Would you like one?” a man asked me.

“I--I haven't any money,” was my answer.

“Put one in your pocket,” he whispered; “they wouldn't know.”

I shook my head, and answered in a voice so low that he held his ear

down to catch the words:

“It doesn't belong to me.”

He lifted me in his arms and asked my name, and I gave it, and told him

that I was out looking for Santa Claus.

“Isn't he coming to your house?” the man asked.

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“'Cause it's hard times,” I whispered,

Well, it was the storekeeper himself, and he kissed me and sat me on the

counter and gave me fruits and candies.

“Would you like to speak to Santa Claus?” he asked.

I nodded, and my heart began to beat all the faster.

He went to the rear end of the store and returned quickly with a stout,

gray-headed man in a big fur overcoat. I recognized the figure, and was

almost overcome with emotion. The thought of my mission bore me up. With

a trembling hand I took from my pocket the little green book which

my grandmother had given to me, and which was, indeed, my greatest

treasure. I had removed it slyly from the bureau drawer that morning. I

held it toward him. No human being ever offered more to charity.

“That's a Christmas present for you,” I said, fearfully.

He took my little book, and read the title on its green paper cover

aloud.

I spoke up faintly as soon as he had finished, saying, “My grandmother

gave it to me--you can have it.”

“Thanks,” said he, and laughed, which so took me down that I could not

keep back my tears.

“Are you a good boy?” he asked.

“He's one of the best boys in the county, and I'm going to keep track

of him,” said the storekeeper, and I was glad, for I was not able to

answer.

“Now,” said he to Santa Claus, “I want you to take him home and give

them all a merry Christmas.”

Well, they put a little fur coat upon me and a piece of goat-skin for

a beard, and a baby pack-basket, and filled it with grand things for my

mother and sister, and put a stub of a pipe in my mouth.

The man took me home, and I was forgiven, I fancy, on account of my

looks, for who could punish a fairy Santa Claus? And, all in all, what

a merry Christmas we had! I had exchanged the little green book for

something better, of which I shall try to tell you.

As to Lizzie McCormick, she remained a ghost, and probably found better

company, for I never saw her again, although sometimes I have heard her

whisper in the darkness. She taught me that ghosts are easily conquered

if a boy will be stern with them.

But there remains with me a strange souvenir of our parting, and that

is the horruck. It was a real thing; I have it now, a big silver dollar.

Here it is. Look at the odd device stamped on the face of the coin:

[Illustration: 0033]

I assure you, for many a long year it was the great mystery of our

house. And I got a certain fear of it by-and-by, knowing, as I did, that

a ghost gave it to me.

ADVENTURE II--BEING THAT OF CRICKET AND THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

[Illustration: 9034]

Y home had been a grist-mill in old times, and stood on the river-shore

near a small village. One side of it was in the stream, but firmly

founded on a ledge, and the year round water roared through a part

of the basement. A hanging stairway climbed the face of the mill to a

narrow landing under its eaves. There a broad door with a clanking iron

latch opened upon our home. Those days it was called the Mill House, and

a pretty thing it was--weathered gray, with broad windows that had small

panes in them, and vines and flowers on the ledges in summer-time, and

honeysuckle on the stair side.

When I look back at the old house the sun is ever shining on it and the

flowers are in full bloom, and I can see the lights and shadows of the

river. It was a full flowing stream, smooth and silent above the mill,

and stained and sprinkled with willow gloom; white and noisy-just below,

where the waters hurtled over a natural dam of rocks. It put me in mind

of the sea, toward which it was ever flowing, and which I had studied

with a curious eye in my geography. The river always seemed to invite me

to go along with it.

Well, one day, when near the end of my fifteenth year, I accepted its

invitation--launched my new canoe and went away with the swift water.

It was a clear, warm day, and the river gave me rare entertainment,

with its reeds and wild roses and quiet little bays and green, sloping

terraces, and birds and beasts. Where it bent to the edge of the highway

I saw a man sitting on the bank--a lank, tall man, with white hair and a

full, gray beard. A black setter dog with tan points sat beside him.

“Happy new year!” said the man.

I made no answer, but swung into the bay near him and stopped.

“Didn't you know that a new year begins every day?” he asked. He showed

the wear of hard times. He had a shoe on one foot and a slipper on the

other, and wore a soiled linen duster and a pair of goggles. I saw now

that his face had been badly scarred. He had a nose large at the end,

with white and red seams in it, which cut across the cheek to his temple

on one side.

“I can tell you something almighty singular,” he went on.

“What's that?” was my query.

He took off a shabby felt hat, spat into the river, and drew his hand

across his mouth.

“My name is Pearl,” said he; “I am the Pearl o' great price.”

I smiled, but he looked very serious.

“I am weary o' life,” he continued. “I came down to this river to drown

myself, but I am unable to do it on account o' my meanness. It's a

pity.”

I waited, full of curiosity, while he sat and whittled.

“My life is insured--that's what's the matter,” he went on. “You see, I

took out a policy years ago an' paid for it, an' an' ol' buzzard got it

for a few dollars that I owed him. If I die the meanest man in the world

'll git a thousand dollars, an' it won't do; come to think it over,

I 've got to outlive him if it takes a hundred years.”

He threw his slippered foot over his knee, laughed silently, and shook

his head.

“That's one on me,” he remarked. “It ain't decent for me to laugh, but I

can't help it.”

“Are you sick?” I asked.

“Not exac'ly sick,” he answered. “When I behave myself I wouldn't know

that I had a body if it wasn't for my big toe that keeps peekin' through

my shoe leather. Sometimes it makes a bow, very p'lite, an' says,

'Hello, there!'”

He rose and took off his hat. “Look at me--ain't I a gem?” he added.

“I'm sorry for you,” I suggested.

“That's good! I'm tired o' bein' sorry for myself, an' glad to have some

one 'tend to that part o' my business.”

He called the dog to his feet, put a hand on his head, and introduced

him in this manner:

“This is my friend and fellow-citizen, Mr. Barker--Adam Barker bein' his

full name. You see before you the firm of Pearl & Company.”

I smiled, and thought him an odd man.

“Mr. Barker, please take the floor,” he commanded.

The dog stood on his hind feet with a look of eager expectancy.

“Mr. Barker, I swear to you that hereafter I will be worthy of your

love,” said the stranger. “Shall the firm continue? Those in favor will

please say aye.”

The dog gave a bark, and his master said: “It seems to be carried; it is

carried. Is there any further business to come before this meetin'?”

Mr. Barker answered.

“Then we stand adjourned,” said the man, whereupon the dog began to jump

playfully. “Pearl & Company are now ready to resume business.”

Man and dog sat looking at me.

“We can do anything,” he went on. “Bring us a pig's tail an' we'll make

a whistle of it; bring us a ton of iron an' we'll build a steam-engine.

I put in the skill an' labor, an' Mr. Barker furnishes the company. Got

to have that in every kind o' business.”

I made no answer, but sat looking at this wonderful man.

“Where ye goin'?” he asked.

“Down the river.”

“So'm I,” said he. “Give me the stern seat an' I'll furnish the power.

If you're goin' to be sorry for me, you'll have enough to do.”

I swung her stem to the shore and let them in. He took the paddle, and

the dog a place between us.

“Handsome little river--this here,” said my new friend, as he cut the

ripples with a powerful stroke. “Think o' the strength of her,” he went

on presently; “she keeps a-pushin' night an' day. The power of a

thousand horses couldn't hold her for a second. If she only had brains

she could do half the work o' the county.” After a moment's silence, he

added: “If somebody would go into partnership with her and put up brains

against her strength, the firm would do wonders.”

That view of the river was new to me.

“Did you ever see Niagara Falls?” the stranger asked.

“No.”

“You must go and see that big water-hammer hit the side o' the world. It

weighs a million tons or more, an' swings a hundred an' fifty feet, an'

for a dozen miles you can hear the boom of it. Think o' the power in

that blow. One o' these days it's goin' to help push us along an' kick

a lot o' things out of our way. Down below, the rapids run like wild

horses. I call 'em God's horses. One o' these days they'll put 'em on

the tread.”

“On the tread!” I exclaimed.

“Yes; every one of 'em 'll tread a turbine an' move a belt, an' then--”

He paused and spat over the gunwale, and I looked at him full of wonder.

“'Lectricity!” he exclaimed; “streams and rivers o' lightnin'!”

His words impressed me deeply, but I did not fully comprehend them until

more familiar with his habit of putting his thought into terms of power.

But I thought often of the “big water-hammer” and of “God's horses.”

“Look at the fish,” he said, after a moment of impressive silence. “One

of 'em just looked up an' winked at me real insultin'. I don' know but

we'd better get offended an' go after em.

“No tackle,” was my answer.

“We'll make some,” said he, promptly. “We're goin' to be hungry

by-an'-by.”

He went ashore, stripped some bark off a willow, split it into strands,

and began to braid them. In a few moments he had made a fairly good

line, and tied it to the end of a pole.

“Will you have a snare or a hook?” he asked. “I can make ary one.”

“A snare,” I answered, for I had never seen a snare.

He removed a piece of wire from the anchoring, made a loop, and

fastened the line upon it.

“Now slip that over their noses an' jerk,” he said, as he passed the

pole to me.

He worked the paddle and I the pole, and soon we had half a dozen fish,

and quite enough for a meal.

“It's time that we organized for dinner,” said he. “I'll be the cook if

you'll be the commissary.”

“All right,” I answered.

“Do not be surprised if you find salt an' pepper in yon farm-house,” he

suggested.

I went to the house indicated, which was not a stone's-throw from the

river-bank, and there a woman gave me all I sought, and, when she had

learned my name, added butter and half a loaf of bread and a bit of

shortcake.

“You are promoted for meritorious conduct,” said the Pearl, on my

return. “You are appointed corporal of the guard, and will have nothing

to do now but keep the cows out o' camp.”

He had built his fire in a grove that flung its shade over a bit of

still water. There a number of cattle had gathered, and were gazing at

us. Soon a bull came roaring into camp, and stood and pawed the earth

and threatened me. I cut him with a beech-rod, and drove him away.

“You are promoted for bravery,” said the Pearl of great price; “I

appoint you my friend for life.”

He gave me his hand, and I looked up at him with amusement.

“Do you accept the appointment?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered, for I was delighted with my new acquaintance.

“Good!” said he, “and I promise, boy, that H. M. Pearl, Esquire, will

never bring the blush of shame to your cheek, and I am yours truly,

now an' forever--one an' inseparable.” In a moment he added: “I ain't

pretty, but I can be decent, you see.”

I enjoyed him more than the dinner, and we made a wonderful day of it.

After an hour's rest we set out again, and near three o'clock landed at

the little village of Mill Pond, some ten miles away. From the shore I

could see on a store-front the sign

SAM WEATHERBY'S EMPORIUM

A man stood on the steps of the emporium looking at us.

“Well, Pearl, is that you?” he exclaimed as we drew near.

“It's me, but it ain't Pearl,” my friend answered.

“How's that?”

“Turned over a new leaf. The late H. M. Pearl is now H. M. Pearl,

Esquire. This is my friend. His name is--”

“Heron,” I said.

“Not Cricket Heron?” the stranger asked.

I nodded.

“Don't you remember coming to my store at Heartsdale one Christmas eve?”

“And you said you would keep track of me?”

“Yes. I moved down the river long ago, and I've been thinking for a

month that I would go and have a talk with you and your mother. I want a

clerk, and if you wish to learn a good business I'll take you in.”

Well, he showed me through the store, and I was much elated, and told

about the child ghost and all the details of my straying that Christmas

eve, and showed them my horruck, and Mr. Pearl sat down to study it. .

“I shall have to go,” I said, as he reluctantly surrendered the coin;

“good-bye.”

“Not now,” he answered. “It's a hard pull against the current, an' I'm

goin' to take you home. You wouldn't get there till to-morrow mornin.'”

Well, he _would_ go with me, and so we set out together--the Pearl

having left his dog with Mr. Weatherby. As we made our way upstream he

told me tales full of the oddest fancies.

By-and-by it grew dark, and I could hear only the dip of his paddle and

water washing on the bow.

“Say,” he exclaimed, suddenly, “that's an awful curious riddle that

you've got in your pocket there.”

“What do you make of it?” I asked.

He seemed not to hear me, but continued to work his paddle in silence

until we got out below the Mill House.

“Did you ever hear of the ghost riddles?” he asked, presently.

“No.”

“Well, I wouldn't wonder if it was one of em.

“What are the ghost riddles?” I asked.

“I'll tell you some time; my sister had one give to her,” he said, as he

started down the river.

“I want you to stay all night with us!” I called. But I could hear only

the sound of his feet on the gravel as they hurried away.

ADVENTURE III.--BEING THAT OF THE BUNGWOOD COW

[Illustration: 9045]

HAT week my clerkship began with Mr. Weatherby. To my great

disappointment “the Pearl of great price” had left the village of Mill

Pond, having gone nobody knew where.

It was my duty to sweep the floor and clean the windows, pump the

kerosene, draw the West India molasses, and, when not otherwise

employed, to sell tea, candy, and tobacco. The kerosene department took

most of my time.

Of course, I was in love with a girl much older than I, but the odor of

petroleum, which, in spite of soap and water, maintained its hold upon

me day and night, gave me the feeling of a tethered dog. Hope would not

live with it, somehow. Then my face itself was so innocent of beard,

beauty, or manliness. The little mirror which hung in a corner of the

store flung back at me, always, a look of sheer contempt. One day, when

I was alone, I took a store razor and began my first shave. As I went

on, my face seemed to be enlarging and taking a highly serious view

of itself. I stood by the mirror feeling it. As I did so, secret and

burning thoughts began to move my tongue. Unconsciously I was talking to

myself when I heard a loud guffaw. It was Bony Squares, lately returned

from a far city to his home at Mill Pond. He was a printer who had

travelled much, and could box and play ball and keep a crowd roaring on

the store-steps every Saturday night. Moreover, he wore boiled shirts,

and collars cut very low, and wonderful neckties of colored silk, and

had a smart way with him.

“Ah, ha!” he exclaimed, “you've been a-shav-ing yerself!”

I smiled and blushed, and said nothing.

He dropped his walking-stick and hopped over it two or three times,

and cackled, “Ha, ha! ho, ho! You're going to have a mustache, and then

you're going to see a gal by the name o' Mary.”

It seemed as if ruin stared me in the face.

“Lend me two dollars,” Bony Squares demanded. “Come, be quick about, it

or I'll tell on ye--hope t' die if I don't.”

It was to me a large sum, for my income was only four dollars

and twenty-five cents a month. But my fear of ridicule had the

persuasiveness of a thumb-screw. I had two dollars and nineteen cents

that I had been saving for the fair at Heartsdale. With great solemnity

I took the two-dollar bill out of my pocket and put it in the hand of my

oppressor.

“I'm going for a drive to-night,” he said, as he took the money. “It's

a matter of business that 'll pay me pretty well, and I may need some

help. Come along, and I'll pay you back the money I've borrowed and a

dollar besides.”

“Where to?” I inquired.

“Oh, down the country about fifteen miles. I'm going to get a Bungwood

cow for a friend o' mine.”

“A Bungwood cow!” I exclaimed.

“An imported breed,” said he, “and the best in the world. They're frisky

and a little dangerous.”

That seemed to me rather curious, but, then, I did not know much

about cows. It was a greater compliment than I had ever received--the

invitation of this imperial and heroic figure; but I concealed my joy

with a look of calmness.

“When are you coming back?” I inquired.

The jaunty fellow crossed the floor, rattling his change and singing,

“Oh, we won't go home till morning!” He turned quickly and said, with a

sober face: “I'll get ye here in good season. Tell 'em you're going to

stay with a friend, an' will be back in the morning.”

I lied about it, for I knew that Mr. Weatherby had no high opinion of

Bony Squares, and got permission to go.

At seven o'clock that evening I set out for the corner below Mill Pond,

where Bony, with a horse and a buckboard, was to wait for me. There

he was, and away we went; and the horse's hoofs beat time for a lively

ditty sung by my new friend. The chill night fell, and a sense of

sadness and regret was in me. To what place he drove, or how long it

took him to get there, I know not even now. After a long time I fell

asleep. A rude shake and the light of a lantern awoke me. I got out of

the buggy in a shed back of a little church.

“Now for a boat-ride,” said my companion; “then a short drive, and we'll

be on our way home again.”

“Where you going?”

“After the cow, of course.”

I followed him a few rods to the shore of a great river. A man stood in

a boat near by, as if waiting for us. I had never seen so much water; it

sped and shimmered in the moonlight far from shore, and beyond was the

mystery of the night. The loud voices of the river filled me with awe,

and our boat creaked and swerved in roaring currents, and the boatman

grew weary with his struggle, and breathed like a spent horse by and by.

I knew it was the St. Lawrence, and wondered if he were going to swim

the cow through its whirlpools and rapids.

We landed safely by-and-by, and followed the boatman through thick

woods. There was a road just beyond them in the edge of the open. We

turned into it, and a moment's walk brought us to another stage in the

mystery. There, under a tree by the roadside, were a horse and wagon.

For half a moment Bony stood whispering to the boatman. Then, turning

quickly, he said, “Jump in--we've no time to lose.”

He leaped to the seat beside me, gave the horse a cut, and we sped away

on a road which he seemed to know. We drove for half an hour or so, and

drew up at a large building. A lighted candle was burning in a window

near the front door.

Bony got out of the wagon.

“Let me take your watch,” he whispered. “I want to keep track o' the

time. We haven't long to stay here.”

I handed him the gold watch and chain which had belonged to my father,

and which I was permitted to wear. They were to me precious above all

value. I had some misgivings, but who could resist Bony Squares?

He fastened the chain upon his waistcoat, mounted the steps, rapped, and

was soon admitted. Presently a big man came out of an open shed, which

was part of the building, and put half a barrel and two demijohns into

the wagon-box behind me. In a moment Bony came to the door and whistled.

“Come an' have a bite,” he said to me.

I was chilled to the bone, and my teeth were chattering as I climbed the

steps.

Crackers and cheese and a box of sardines, newly opened, lay on the

counter of a store, crowded with merchandise and rank with many odors.

Bony stood eating. Now and then he took a sip of liquor from a small

glass. He and the storekeeper spoke in low tones.

“Another drop 'll warm ye,” said the storekeeper, as he poured more for

him.

“It's as good as a hot stove,” said Bony, tipping his glass.

Soon we returned to the river and recrossed it with what Bony called

“the cow.”

Silently, hurriedly, we put our horse in the shafts and made off on a

smooth road. The moon had set, and we could not see our way. Bony let

the horse have his head and hurried him along. Suddenly, in the near

darkness, some one shouted: “Halt! Halt!”

Bony's whip fell savagely on the back of the horse, and the latter took

the first leap in a wild run. For half a minute we were in a bad mess,

and knew not how we were coming out of it. Pistols roared on both sides

of us, and bullets whizzed above our heads. For possibly three minutes

we flew down the dark road, our front wheels leaving ground with every

jump. Then suddenly it seemed as if the stars were falling on us. We had

struck something. The horse went down, and we plunged headlong into the

darkness. I rose unhurt, and ran around the wagon just as Bony got up

with a groan. We could hear our pursuers coming.

“Follow me,” my companion whispered. “We must take to the woods or go to

jail. You're in it as deep as I am.”

I hesitated in a sort of panic. My head was hot and more incapable than

ever. One allpowerful thought moved me: Bony had my watch and chain, and

was making off with them.

“Come, you ------ fool--they'll shoot us down!”

Bony whispered, and I followed him.

We were in the midst of a strip of woods, and went bumping the

tree-columns on our way-through it. We had come into an open field when

we heard our pursuers shouting, back where the horse fell. We ran like

frightened sheep, and slowed our pace beyond the top of a hill and began

to walk. We tramped for an hour in silence. The sky was clearing, and we

could discern the rocks and stones and fences.

“I am not going any farther,” I said, stopping suddenly.

“Well, go back, then,” said Bony Squares. “You've gone and got me into a

nice scrape,” I declared.

“Better git sore on me--ye saphead!” said Bony, with contempt. “As if I

expected to do anything but give ye a dollar an' a good time.”

“I didn't have anything to do with your smuggling,” I said. “If I'd

known you were in that kind of business I wouldn't have been with you.”

“Go on, ye cry-baby! Wasn't ye in the wagon?”

“Yes--but--”

“Well, that's enough--the goods was in the wagon, an' so was you an' so

was me. All they have to do is to ketch ye with the goods. If ye didn't

know what I was up to, what did ye run for?”

Between tears and perspiration I felt as if I were melting and running

down at the top like a tallow-candle. But I held myself up manfully, and

not a whimper came out of me. I had become a fugitive in spite of

myself.

“Guess they wouldn't do much to us if we did go home,” I said,

tentatively.

“No--ye Mary chaser! They wouldn't do much more than take us up before

we got a mile on the way. Then me an' you to jail, an' yer mother'd have

to pay a thousand dollars to git us out. My folks ain't got any money.”

A moment of silence followed.

“If ye go an' let out on me,” he went on, “I'll swear, by all that's

black an' blue, that you were in the game for a part of the profits.”

“Give me my watch and chain!” I demanded.

“Not unless you'll promise to stay by me till we're safe,” he said.

I promised, and so the watch and chain were returned to me then and

there.

I saw through the low cunning of Bony. He had drawn me into his

enterprise for the sake of getting my mother's help in case of trouble.

It was growing light, and we soon came out on a smooth road, and walked

along it for half a mile or so. Just before the sun rose we came to a

man milking in a field by the highway.

“Ho, ho! peaches an' cream!” said Bony, as he vaulted the fence. I

followed him.

“We're lost, broke, an' starving,” said he to the stranger. “Mind giving

us a little fresh-laid milk?”

“No, but you'll have to take it out o' the pail,” the milker answered.

“Just give me hold o' the tin,” said Bony, with glad eyes. He blew back

the froth and drank like a famished horse. He stopped for breath and

whispered: “Peaches and cream? Yes, kind lady,” and drank more. Again he

rested, smiling, as he added: “Ham and eggs? Yes, if you please, with a

cup o' coffee,” and continued his feast. Soon he passed the pail to me,

and I took a good drink. Then we went on across the field, climbed a

fence, and proceeded on our way. We left the road by walking in the bed

of a brook, so that no one could follow our footsteps.

“It's a big world,” said Bony. “If we keep out o' the way awhile it 'll

blow over and we can settle for a song, and everything 'll be all hunk.

We'll pike off West, where we can go to work for big wages, and I'll

show ye something o' the world.”

The thought presented a great temptation, for I longed to see Niagara

Falls, of which the Pearl had told me.

ADVENTURE IV--BEING THAT OF CRICKET AND THE PURPLE GHOST

[Illustration: 9055]

E came to broad fields, where the brook we had followed wound through

many acres of wheat. It stood thick and high as my shoulders, for I was

rather small of my age, and rustled in the wind.

“Here's our hotel,” said Bony, as he began to wade in the brook again.

“We'll find our rooms and put up for the day.”

Far out in this yellowing field we climbed the bank of the stream, and

on our hands and knees crawled in among the wheat-stalks.

“Ah!” said Bony Squares as he lay back in the wheat; “no ice-water,

thank you. Call me at seven.”

I lay down near, and soon heard him breathing heavily as he fell asleep.

I looked up through the grain at a little patch of the blue sky, and

thought and listened.

The great field rang with the chirp of crickets, that somehow set me

thinking of my folly. It was a curious, beautiful country there,

beneath the grain. Leaning on my elbow, I could look off under its green

empyrean, supported by innumerable columns. There were little roads and

trails, and a mouse came galloping up one of them. It suggested a forest

of the fairies. A small bird went by me wandering in a little highway

with the leisurely pace of a hen.

I could hear a bobolink singing just above my head, and then the whir

of his wings. Soon he seized a swaying stalk--one foot above another--on

the very edge of my bed, and as he rocked back and forth filled

the breeze with song. A bumblebee, which had fallen through the

wheat-blades, rose here and there and tried to ram his way upward into

the sunlight. The roar of his wings reminded me of the big side-wheeler

which had passed us the night before on the river. It suggested thunder

in the low, green heavens above that little world. Innumerable bearded

tops, now bleaching yellow, made a sort of æolian music in the breeze.

It has often seemed to me that the birds have better ears for it than

we; that, indeed, the fields are full of bells and harps and fragrance

and color far beyond the reach of men.

Soon I began to think of my mother. She was away on a visit, and would

not hear of my absence for a day or two. I had nineteen cents in my

pocket, and took it in my hands and counted it carefully. But I had my

horruck in a hidden pocket of my waistcoat.

Just as soon as possible I would stop somewhere and write my mother

a letter, and let her know what had befallen me. I felt sure that by

returning I should make her more trouble than by keeping away. She had

often described to me the perils of bad company, and I had promised to

be careful, but here I was up to my ears in it.

It was a mercy that sleep came to shorten that cloudless summer day. The

hot sun mounted high, and for a time must have glared down straight upon

us, and then descended below far wooded hills in the west; but still we

slept. It was growing dusk when I was awakened by the roar of a bird's

wings. Bony was on his knees within reach of my hand, looking down at

me. A bird kept dipping close to the ears of my companion and snapping

his wings.

Bony took a bun from his pocket, and crowded half of it into his mouth.

It stuck out like a wen, and slowly diminished as he ate. He renewed his

wen, saying as he did so:

“Come to supper, old man. The buns are all gone. Have some bread?”

I was hungry, and promptly answered, “Yes.”

“Plug or fine cut?” he demanded, taking crumbs of varying sizes out of

his hip-pocket. “Here's bread and two pieces of turnpike cheese, and one

egg on the half-shell, and three spikes.” The three spikes were dried

herring, which he had taken out of his trousers-pocket.

“Aunt Maria!” he exclaimed, as he took a bite of herring; “it's like

eating a jack-knife.”

He spoke glibly, and spread each article on a piece of newspaper in

front of us. My tongue was parched, and I went to the brook on my hands

and knees, and sank my mouth in the ripples and drank greedily, as if

I had been a creature of four feet. I never knew there could be so much

delight in the simple act of drinking water.

I ate two herrings and half of the cheese, and all the crumbs that fell,

as it were, from the rich man's table.

Suddenly we heard the whistle of a locomotive. “There's a railroad

nigh,” said Bony. “Ever ride on the cars?”

“No,” I answered. “Did you?”

“Pooh, hundreds o' miles!” he exclaimed, with disgust at the question.

“Come on; maybe we can get that train. It was four or five miles away

when it whistled.”

We hurried off in the dusk, and after walking a mile or so came to a

railroad, and could see the lights of a depot near us. We mounted the

wooden beams which, with straps of iron on their tops for a bearing,

were the tracks of those days, and hurried to a point near the depot.

There we sat down and waited in the darkness till the arrival of

our train--a fearsome thing, that roared and creaked along with

spark-showers and rags of flame in the air above it. The trainmen rudely

shouted their commands, as if the waiting crowd were so many cattle. I

trembled as I hurried with Bony to the side of the train.

“I've only nineteen cents,” I whispered.

“Never mind, sonny--I'll pay yer fare,” said he, jauntily, as if such

excitement and generosity were quite familiar to him.

We climbed the platform when all were aboard, and Bony said to me:

“We'll stand here, if they don't kick us off, until we get to the next

stop.”

So we stood in the spark-shower as our train roared and creaked along,

and the platform began to sway and jump and shove and jerk and waver. A

young man in a gay uniform of blue and brass came out with a lantern and

bawled this in my ear:

“Look a-here, bub!--see that picture?” He held his lantern so that

I could see the picture of a grave on the car door. Its headstone

contained these words:

_Sacred to the memory of a man who once stood on a car platform_

We passed into the car, and sat on a straight-backed seat by a rattling

window. It was much shorter than the cars of to-day, and permeated with

the odor of whale-oil that came from its lamps, and had a stove at each

end. The conductor told us, when we had paid four cents a mile for our

fare to the next stop, that we had just left De Kalb Junction and were

on the night express for the South. A man was asleep near us with a

curious framework of iron behind him. It extended from the middle of

his spine to the back of his head, and had a sort of spring in it which

permitted him to sit in a leaning posture.

I asked the conductor what it was.

“That,” said he, “is one o' them new contrivances. Some call it a

jolt-taker. It smoothes the way a little and is an aid to sleep.”

In a moment Bony whispered to me: “The coast is clear, and I guess we'll

go on a little farther, and I'll pay your fare if you'll give me your

jack-knife.”

I had one which had cost me ten shillings, and I gave it over. So

we rode on for some two hours or more, and left the train about ten

o'clock, and inquired our way of the agent, and then went on afoot. It

was very dark, and Bony said that the moon would be up by-and-by, then

we could find a barn or some place where we could turn in for the night.

We had smooth footing, and hurried on, but no moon came to guide us. It

was far past midnight when Bony halted, near some black object beside

the road, and struck a match and lighted a wad of paper.

We saw, then, a ruined gate and weeds growing beyond it. I followed as

my leader went in among the weeds. He lighted more paper, and we saw in

the flare an old mansion with broken windows and a sagging porch. It had

been long deserted, one could tell at a glance. We soon found the open

doorway and entered, and Bony's matches showed us a ruined hall as large

as my mother's door-yard. A broken fireplace and cracked chimney of red

brick faced the door. A plough and harrow, some fallen plaster, and old

iron littered the floor. A pair of sleighs, with a box on them, had been

stored in a corner. Some straw in the bottom of the sleigh-box seemed

to invite us to lie upon it, and we did so. Bony took off his coat

and spread it over him--a good thing to remember if one has no better

blanket--and I followed his example.

“What's that?” I whispered, having heard a sound like that of some one

stealthily crossing the floor above-stairs.

“Don't know--I guess Adam must 'a' built this house.”

“Haunted, maybe,” I suggested. “Probably some one has been murdered

here.”

“Shut up!” said Bony, with a shiver. “You'll give me the megrums.”

I lay awhile listening, and went to sleep cold and hungry. I do not know

how long I had slept--it was, probably, not more than half an hour--when

a shrill and awful cry awoke us.

Believe me, I have heard some yelling in my day, but that cry cut like a

knife. As I think of it now, it reminds me of Salvini's wail when I saw

him play the Ghost in _Hamlet_. Honestly, it made my heart tremble.

That sleigh-box seemed to palpitate with terror. I rose on my elbow and

looked off in the darkness. Bony covered his face and trembled. For

a moment I could hear only the slow, steady beat of raindrops; then

stealthy footsteps and the sound of trailing garments on the floor.

Again that weird, ghostly cry set my ears aching. I could feel each hair

in my scalp stir and quiver. I heard again the sound of stealthy feet

and of trailing garments. Then we heard the shaking of a sheet in the

darkness--or that, at least, was the only sound to which one could

liken it. Bony lay groaning and shivering beside me. I found a match

and struck it on a side of the sleigh-box. First, I stared off in the

darkness and saw nothing; then I looked down at my companion. His face

appalled me; it was the mask of horror. But the glimpse he got of my own

visage in the dim match-light had a worse effect upon him. He really saw

a spirit then, and I saw one also, and what I saw was a fearful thing to

behold--the guilty, evil spirit of Bony Squares. I could hardly resist

the impulse to fly from him. With a wild cry he leaped out of the

sleigh-box and stumbled toward the doorway and fled.

I lay back and covered my face with my coat. For hours I lay listening

and shivering, and fearing I knew not what.

In the faint, first light of the morning I rose and peered about me.

Soon I saw the silhouette of a big bird in an open window across the

ruined hall. The light grew clearer and my vision more acute. The bird

that stood on the window-sill was a peacock, with a purple body and a

tail some seven feet long. As I rose it flew to the ground, with that

weird shriek which had filled the darkness with terror. The mystery was

explained. There were the trailing garments, the wings that rustled like

a sheet when he rose to the window-sill.

This adventure served, as it were, to separate me from the goats. There

was yet another thing which it accomplished: it cleared the earth of

ghosts for me, so that I no longer feared them, having always a just

suspicion of such fancies.

ADVENTURE V--BEING THAT OF CRICKET AND THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN

[Illustration: 9065]

TOOK the road again, faint with hunger. I tell you, one will have faith

in the goodness of men and women who makes a journey like that of mine.

I remember it almost broke me down to go to a farm-house and face

the good woman who opened the door and ask for a chance to earn my

breakfast. When I spoke to her, there must have been something in my

voice and countenance not to be denied or even rudely dealt with. I got

all that I needed and more, and went on my way with a bundle of luncheon

and a heart full of gratitude.

The sun was shining out of a clear sky behind me, and I knew that I was

travelling in the right direction. The white-throated sparrow sang on a

wooded slope:

[Illustration: 0065]

The sidings were aglow with goldenrod and bluebells, and the breeze had

a musky breath, and every bush was a fountain of song. I posted a

letter to my mother in a little hamlet through which I passed about ten

o'clock.

Near noon I overtook a boy some two or three years older than myself. He

had a wooden leg--a rude stump on which his knee rested--and walked with

a grip in his hand. He was a rugged, serious-looking boy, with a face

browned by the sunlight. He asked for my name and “place of residence.”

“I'm a commercial traveller,” he informed me, presently.

“What do you sell?”

“Sit down an' I'll show ye.”

We sat on the grass together, and he opened his grip. It was full

of round white balls, differing in size and neatly wrapped in tinted

tissue-paper.

“What is it?” I asked.

“What is it?” he answered., with dignity. “That, sir, is Sal.”

“Sal?” said I

“Sal,” said he, with a fond look at one of the white balls which now

lay in his hand. “Sal cleans and polishes silverware, glassware, gold,

brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork and makes the home bright

and beautiful.”

He spoke this lingo as if it were some passage from a book of poetry,

and paused to note its effect upon me.

“What is your line?” he asked.

“I'm on my way West to find employment,” said I.

“How would you like to take Sal with you?” he asked.

“I don't know,” was my answer.

“I'll sell you the receipt for a dollar,” said the boy with a wooden

leg. “Fifty cents' worth of material will make a hundred balls. They

sell like hot cakes--ten cents for the small sizes, twenty-five for the

large.”

“I haven't much money--only sixteen cents,” I answered, with

embarrassment, remembering that I had just paid three cents for postage.

He looked me over from head to foot, and said, “I'll trust ye, if ye'd

like to try it.”

“All right,” I said.

He opened his little grip and counted out ten of the small balls and as

many large ones.

“There,” said he, “ye ought to be able to sell 'em all in a day. Then

you can send me a dollar for the receipt.”

“How do you go to work to sell it?” I asked.

“The towns are best,” said he. “When I get to a town I make a little map

of the main streets and put down the names--the hotel man is always glad

to help you. By-an'-by I begin to ring the door-bells. I don't ask for

the lady of the house--no, sir; I say, 'Is Mrs. Smith at home?' It works

grand--there she is. 'Kind lady,' says I, 'I'm introducin' Sal, who

cleans silverware, glassware, etc. Sal is better than a hired girl.'

“Don't forget to say that it makes the home bright and beautiful. It's

a nice chunk o' language an' tells just what the women are trying to do.

Course she says, 'No, thanks.' Then says I, 'If you've any old piece

o' tarnished silver, I'd like to make a little exhibition. As the poet

says:=

`````'”I'll make it shine

```As brightly as those eyes of thine.'=

“Throw in a little portry once in a while. It sounds good an' is easy to

remember. But ye got to be careful. Some don't like it. Women that wear

aprons an' rings an' breastpins, an' have their sleeves rolled up, 'll

generally stand portry, 'specially if they've got curly hair. Look out

for handsome women that wear diamonds an' set around with their feet up

readin' portry.' Seems so them that read portry get enough of it. Don't

ever give 'em any of yours.

“Women are funny. Around here there's two kinds of 'em--insiders an'

outsiders. The outsiders talk about their neighbors; the insiders talk

about their livers an' lungs, an' so on. I know one that talks about her

liver shameful. You'd think it was the meanest thing in the world.

“They ain't all alike. In some places you'll find 'em perched in their

fam'ly trees. Lord! I know one that sets an' chirps by the hour in her

fam'ly tree. You've got to let her go it, an' bym-by, maybe, you can

bring her down to the fam'ly tea-pot. If so, you're all right. It's

wonderful how they go on. You'll enjoy it, an' that's half the battle.

“Be sure to notice the children. I always let 'em fool with my wooden

leg. Sometimes I put one end on a chair an' let 'em set on it. I suppose

this old leg has been set on an' abused more than any leg in the world.

“You ain't got a wooden leg, an' it's kind of a pity, as ye might say,

for it's wonderful how this thing helps in business. Lots o' times it

helps ye git acquainted, an' that gives ye a chance. Then say, look

a-there.” He flung his wooden stump over his knee and felt the surface

of it, and explained: “That's where one kid drove a nail in it, an'

that's where one fetched a whack with a stove iron, an' there a little

red-headed boy bored a hole with his gimlet. Curious how they take to

it; an' I don't mind much. Helps business an' makes 'em happy.”

He called my attention to many small dents in the wood.

“That's where the dogs has bit it,” he went on. “If a dog comes at me, I

always put it out to him. It keeps 'em busy.”

He showed me a small atomizer, adding, “A little ammonia 'll shift the

trouble onto them.” We rose and resumed our journey. I had stored my

small stock of Sal in my coat-pockets.

“There's the receipt,” said he, gravely, as he handed me a piece of

paper.

It revealed the fact that Sal was chiefly composed of whiting and

ammonia.

“All ye need now is a small sponge an' some tissue-paper, an' here's a

piece o' chamois that ye can have an' welcome.”

He explained his method of applying the Sal, and presently handed me his

card, on which I read this legend:=

````JAMES HENRY MCCARTHY

````Commercial Traveller

`````Hermon Centre, N. Y.=

“I ain't much there,” he went on. “The boys call me Pegleg at home, an'

that's one reason I got out. I wish you'd call me Mr. McCarthy, please.

I intend to be a gentleman, an' try to be. Can you tell me what a

gentleman is?”

I looked thoughtful and said nothing. Mr. McCarthy continued:

“He's a man that don't git drunk or swear or pare his nails in public,

an' always takes off his hat to a lady. He washes his hands before

he goes to the table, an' eats kind o' slow an' deliberate, an' maybe

smokes a fine cigar after dinner, 'an always does as he'd like to be

done by. That's why I'm tryin' to help you along.”

I expressed my gratitude in no half-hearted way.

“I like you, dinged if I don't,” said Mr. McCarthy, with a kindly

patronage. “You'll git along all right--don't worry.”

After a moment of silence, he went on:

“Ye see, I'm careful about all these things. I keep my eyes an' ears

open, an' I'm teachin' myself. I'm a kind of a hand-made gentleman, an'

that's the most durable kind. But I ain't finished myself yet. You wait;

I'll show ye something one o' these days. How do you happen to be on the

road?”

I told him my story.

“Don't worry,” he went on. “Mr. James Henry McCarthy will see you

through. I try to be benevolent.”

We walked on a little way in silence.

“I suppose you've noticed that I can sling some rather big words,” he

remarked, presently. “Well, I always carry a pocket dictionary, an' when

I hear a word I like I look it up an' chalk it down in my note-book;

helps my conversation. I study it a good deal while I'm travelling. Ye

see, I never had a chance to go to school much--just learnt how to read

an' write an' cipher a little. My knowledge ain't very superior. Now,

that's quite a word--superior. How does it sound?”

“All right,” I answered.

“Never used it before--found it in the book to-day. I've got about forty

dollars saved, an' I've learnt thirty new words so 't I can use 'em.

When I go home by-an'-by they've got to look up to me.”

The oddness of it all was not lost upon me, young as I was. I think

often of the frankness of that young son of America, just beginning to

feel his way upward from the plane of lowly poverty and of his kindly

heart. I dreamed not then of what he was to do in the world.

“Come into this house with me,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I'll give ye an

exposition--ahem! that's one o' my new ones. Pretty fair kind of a

farm-house. Wouldn't wonder if there was some old silver in it.”

He led me to the front door of a big, square, old country mansion.

A maid opened the door and asked to know our business. Mr. McCarthy

removed his hat and bowed.

“Will you please communicate with the lady of the house,” said he,

“an' tell her that I am selling Sal? Kindly inform her that Sal cleans

silverware, glassware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from

woodwork, and makes the home bright and beautiful. If you've any old

silver I'd like to show ye what it 'll do.”

The maid brought him a tarnished tea-pot, and McCarthy went to work and

soon made it glow like a drop of dew in the sunlight. The maid took it

to her mistress, and returned presently with fifty cents to be invested

in Sal.

“I just wanted to show ye what Sal can do,” said Mr. McCarthy, as we

went away. “Ye got to believe what ye say or ye can't sell anything.

Make yourself believe in it, an' you'll succeed.” We came presently to

four corners in the road, where my new friend bade me sit down with him.

He consulted his note-book.

“Here,” said he, “are Jehoshaphat Corners. The straight road goes

to Canaan, Waterville, and Van Kleek's Huddle; the left to Putney,

Porridgeville, and Lawrence. You take one road an' I'll take the other,

an' four weeks from now we could meet an' settle up at Graham's Hotel in

Buffalo. It's only a dollar a day there. Here, I'll lend ye fifty cents;

it 'll help some till ye get a-going.”

“You're very kind, and I thank you for it.”

“Don't mention it,” said he. “It's no more than any gentleman would do.”

So we parted there, and I took the straight road and he turned to the

left.

ADVENTURE VI.--IN WHICH CRICKET HAS SUNDRY EXPERIENCES

[Illustration: 9075]

WAS lonely at leaving Mr. McCarthy, but full of hope. At Canaan I went

to work and sold about half my stock of goods and took the cars to

Waterville. There I bought a small hand-bag and a stock of ingredients

for my receipt, and had just left my hotel next morning to begin my

canvass when a trumpet sounded up the main street of the little city.

Turning, I saw a caravan of great red wagons coming toward me at a

swift pace, led by four beautiful white horses. A smart-looking lady and

gentleman occupied the high seat of the first van, and he was driving

the white horses.

“A circus!” I heard people exclaim near me, and every foot halted and

all eyes were bent on the red vans. They were fast approaching. The

driver referred to wore a white beaver hat and a coat of blue velvet

with a white flower in its buttonhole. The lady beside him was a

wonderful creature with a great hat and fluttering ribbons and gleaming

jewels, and a face more beautiful, as I thought, than any my poor eyes

had seen. Three glowing vans had gone by, each with its team of handsome

horses, and each van ornately lettered as follows:=

```JAMES FISK'S TRAVELLING EMPORIUM.

````Dry Goods and Yankee Notions=

A white banner on the first and third vans announced:=

```Our Great Store will be Open from Two to

````Six To-Day in the Vacant Lot Corner

`````of Crosby and Main Streets=

I began my work, and for an hour or so the vans were passing up and down

the streets, and most of the women I saw left me to go and look out of

their doors and windows. I could make little headway, for by two o'clock

the houses were all empty. Mothers, daughters, and hired girls were

on their way to the great travelling store. I went with the crowd, and

found the red vans in a row on the vacant lot and many gathered about

them. The sides of each van had been let down to serve as counters on

which the goods were displayed. The smart-looking man who had driven the

white horses sat under a little canopy of red-and-white bunting with the

wonderful lady who had ridden beside him. I stood with a score of other

people looking at them.

“What! do you think I would lie for a shilling?” he was saying to a man

who stood beside him. “Bosh! I might tell eight lies for a dollar, but

one for a shilling! No! That's below my price.”

He laid off his beaver hat and sat twisting his' sandy-hued mustache.

His curly hair was cut close.

“Hey, boy!” he said, as he beckoned to me, “want to earn half a dollar?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Well, trot down to the depot and bring me a copy of last night's _Utica

Observer_,” he commanded, as he put a shinplaster in my hand.

When I had returned with the paper, he asked, “What ye got in yer grip?”

“Sal,” I answered.

“Sal!” he exclaimed, with a laugh, “who's Sal?”

“A wonder!” I answered. “Cleans and polishes glassware, silverware,

gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork, and makes the home

bright and beautiful.”

He laughed again, and asked me to show him what Sal could do on the

large silver buckles which adorned his shoes. This I did, and the result

so pleased him that he offered me a dollar for the balance of my stock,

and I gladly closed the deal.

It was about three o'clock when I set out afoot for the Huddle. About

half-way there I found a puppy in the road--a small, lonely, pathetic

creature, abandoned by some one who had had enough of him. I wonder if

ever I felt such an appeal as came out of that warm little bundle of

playfulness, wrapped in the softest robe of silken fur and with eyes

saying, “Please, sir, take me and be kind to me.”

The puppy followed me until I yielded to his pleading and took him up in

my arms. Well, he was better than no company, and I buttoned him under

my coat and against my breast, where he lay asleep with only his nose

in view. At dusk I found lodgings in a farm-house, and went to my room

contented with the bit of luncheon that I had with me. A kindly old

woman had said that I could stay, and sent a hired man up-stairs with

me. He explained that “the boss and his wife” were away, and would not

return for an hour or so. I offered to pay him if he would take care of

the puppy, but he had to hurry to meet a train, and said that he would

come up and get him later.

I decided to make some Sal, and so I put the ingredients in my wash-bowl

and added water.

It became an obstinate, ill-looking mess, and one might as well have

tried to make balls out of buttermilk. It resisted all my efforts.

I wondered what I should do with it, and lay down upon the bed in

discouragement. The hired man had not yet returned, and the puppy had

gone to sleep in a corner. I would lie there and rest while I waited,

and so, thinking, fell asleep.

Some hours later the puppy woke me with loud cries of despair. The

hired, man must have forgotten his promise. I rose from the bed, and saw

the plight of my puppy. He had wallowed in my basin, and the soft Sal

lay thick on his body. He began wailing as if wild with all regret. I

could hear people jumping out of bed.

In a moment I heard a rap at my door, and opened it. A man, half

dressed, sprang aside as the puppy ran upon his bare feet. Farther down

the gloomy hall I could hear him calling and pursuing my pet; then a

soft thud on the floor. The man had picked up the puppy and dropped him,

saying, “Heavens!” It was only one word, but full of meaning.

I tried to clean the floor while my benefactors pursued the unhappy

creature.

“Pick him up!” said a woman, excitedly.

“Pick him up! Never!” said the man.

“Seems so he was covered with lather,” said the woman.

“Maybe he's mad!” another suggested. “Throw this sheet over him!”

“Come on, I've got him now,” said the first woman.

Soon there came a loud rap at my door. A tall, thin, long-nosed Yankee

entered as I opened it.

“See here, young man,” he drawled, “what do you mean by fillin' this

house with puppies?”

“There is only one, sir,” I answered.

“Only one!” said he, sharply. “I should think that was enough. He's

as big as an elephant. He filled the house from cellar to garret, and

crowded us all out o' bed and yelled for more room. Say, what's he got

on him?” '“Silver polish,” I answered.

“Silver polish!” said he. “Well, I've read o' their puttin' dogs in a

bath-tub, but I never heard o' their bein' polished before.”

“He got into the basin where I mixed it.”

My visitor picked up the dish of soft Sal, and held it near the light

for examination.

“Godfrey Cordial!” he remarked, “it's an awful-lookin' mess! What do you

call it?”

“Sal,” I answered.

“Sal!” he exclaimed. “I'm sorry that you an' Sal ever lit in my family

tree. You're a fine pair o' birds.”

I explained to him that the hired man had promised to take the puppy

out-of-doors, but had forgotten to do so, and he left me.

I went to breakfast soon after daylight in the morning. When I returned

to my room the Sal was gone. Some one had carried the bowl away with

its contents. I went below to look for the proprietor. I found him

shovelling dirt in the garden.

“Somebody took my polish,” I said to him, as pleasantly as possible.

“Yes, an' I'm about to bury it an' the dog, too.”

“Is the dog dead?” I asked, with a pang of regret.

“Yes; slain by his own deviltry! Oh, he had a busy night! Got to playin'

with our ol' cat; he polished her an' she polished him. Her paws are all

gummed up an' her eyes swelled an' kind o' shiny. He got at our shepherd

dog an' polished him. That dog has got a sore mouth an' is brighter than

he ever was before, The last performance of your puppy was to tackle

one o' the hind feet o' my ol' mare; he didn't live long after that.

The services have begun, an' I guess you're the only mourner. I've just

prayed that I may never see him again. The sermon will be short. Don't

ever take up any more room in the world than what you're entitled to.”

So ended my first adventure in business. It taught me the wisdom of

knowing how, and of being sure about it, and, further, that one is to be

careful not to take more than his share of room in the world.

ADVENTURE VII.--WHICH IS THAT OF CRICKET AND THE LOVER AND THE

POTATO-SACK

[Illustration: 9083]

HE farmer in whose house I had spent the night was a thrifty man of the

name of Ephraim Baker. My hope in Sal having been overthrown, I offered

him my services. I had had enough of disappointment and uncertainty.

“You don't look stout,” said he, “but you ought to be able to mow away

an' rake after.” Well, I made a bargain with him, and went to work at

once. My first task was to lead a great bull to water. He stood in the

stable with a ring in his nose, and roared as I took him out. It was

like leading a thunder-storm, but I thought of what General Washington

would have done, and walked without flinching. I was surprised to see

how easily I could handle the big bull with that ring in his nose. After

this initiation the harvesters--big, cordy fellows--tried to bury me

in the mow. They always did that with a fresh hand, “to see what he was

made of.” Well, I kept my head and shoulders above the grain, although

they had given me a fork with three corners on the stale. It was a hard

pace they set me, and I lay down at night like a wounded soldier.

I slept with the hired man, who had taken me to my room when I arrived,

with all my pride upon me. He was a big, friendly fellow with bristling

red hair, who bore the proud, sonorous name of Sam. He had forgotten to

remove the puppy--so he said--and thought it all an excellent joke.

He indulged in autobiography as I lay yawning--led me through his career

to romantic scenes where he first met his girl and “took a shine to

her.”

“I wished,” said he, after a moment of silence, “that you'd write a

letter for me which I could copy and send to her. I want it worded right

up to the mark. You've got learnin', an' will know how to write a good,

respectable, high-toned letter.”

I agreed to do my best for him.

Mr. Baker called us at four, and we dressed and went into the garden

and dug potatoes until breakfast-time. So each day began, its work

continuing in field, mow, and milking-yard until dark.

Next evening, when we went to our room, with pen and ink I sat down to

write the letter for him.

“To Miss Fannie Comstock, Summerville, New York,” he dictated, in a

whisper. “Dear Miss.”

He sat a moment thinking.

“Tell her I ain't forgot her,” he went on, “and that I am well an' hope

you're the same, an' so on an' so forth.”

So I began the letter as follows:

Dear Miss,--It is only a month since we parted, but it has been the

longest month in my life, and although I am far away it will surprise

you to learn that I see you often. I see you in the fields every day and

in my dreams every night.

“I don't think that will do,” he demurred, soberly, when I read it to

him.

“Why not?” was my query.

“Well, it don't seem as if it was exactly proper an' good sense,”

he continued, in all seriousness. “The month ain't had any more 'n

thirty-one days in it--that's sure.”

I tried again with better understanding, and this came of it:

Dear Miss,--I write these lines to let you know that I am well and that

I haven't forgotten you. I hope that you are well and that you haven't

forgotten me. I am working on a farm, and am as happy as could be

expected.

“That's good,” said he, when I read it to him; and added, proudly, with

his finger on the unfinished line, “Wages, thirty dollars a month.”

I did as he wished.

“Now go on,” he suggested. “Throw in a big word once in a while.”

“Aren't you going to say anything about love?” I asked. “A little poem

might please her.”

“Go light on that,” he answered, doubtfully. “She's respectable.”

It is a trait of the common clay of which Sam was made to consider love

a thing to be reluctantly, if ever, confessed. When the grand passion

showed itself in his conduct it was greeted with jeers and rude

laughter. It became, therefore, a hidden, timid thing.

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed; “she can't be more respectable than love and

poetry. If you love her you ought not to be ashamed of it.”

“Well, throw in a little if you think best,” he yielded, “but do it

careful.”

So the letter continued:

Lately I've been saving my money. Perhaps you can guess why. I want a

home and some one to help me make it happy, and I believe I've found

her. She is good and beautiful, and all that a woman should be. Do you

want to know who it is? Well, that's a secret. She's a lady, and that's

all I will tell you now. Fannie, you're a friend of mine, and I need

your advice. I am a little frightened and don't know just what to say to

her, and you could make it easy for me if you would. Please let me know

when I can see you.

Sam shook his head and laughed and exclaimed, “That's business!”

“No, it's love,” I objected.

“Well, it ain't foolish or unproper, an' it sounds kind o' comical.

She'll want to know all about it. Put in that I'm goin' to take a farm

an' be my own boss, an' have as good a horse an' buggy as any one. That

makes it kind o' temptin'.”

I did as he wished.

“Now say, 'Yours truly, with respect,'” said he, and so my task was

ended.

Three days later he came to me in high spirits, with a letter in his

hand.

“I'm goin' to see Fannie to-morrow,” he said, in a whisper. “If Sam

Whittemore can do anything for you, I want to know it.”

His opportunity came that evening. I was doing my chores in the barn.

Suddenly Sam burst upon me.

“They're after you!” he whispered.

“Who?” I asked.

“Two men in a buggy--they've heard you were here.”

I had told him of my trouble, and now it threatened to engulf me. Would

I give myself up and go home with the officers? I could not bear the

thought of going home like a felon. It would kill my mother. This all

flashed through my brain in a jiffy, while the dusk air seemed to be

full of chains and handcuffs. I started to climb a ladder.

“No use,” said he, as he picked up an empty sack. “They know you're

here. Get into this sack.”

A wagon stood on the barn floor loaded with potatoes, in big sacks.

Sam was holding the empty sack. I stepped into it and sat with my chin

between my knees while he stuffed a bundle of straw all around me.

Then he cut two holes near the top of the sack, to give me air and an

outlook, tied it above my head, and flung me on the load of potatoes. It

was all done in the shake of a lamb's tail, as they used to say.

“The old man is going to drive to Sackett's Harbor to-night with these

potatoes,” he whispered. “You go on to Summerville; I'll meet you there

to-morrow.”

Then he left me, and I lay quietly on the load.

“He isn't in there,” I heard him say, on his way to the house.

Well, they did some searching and tramping about for the next half-hour

or so. By-and-by they put the team on the wagon-pole, and we began our

journey--the potatoes and I. They nudged me while the wagon rattled over

stones in the stable-yard, as if they wished me to move along; but

we came soon to smoother going. Darkness had fallen, and through the

peep-holes in my sack I could see moonlight and a small section of the

Milky Way. My discomfort set me to work planning relief. I drew the new

jack-knife, which I had bought in my one day of plenty, and cut two long

slits in the bottom of the sack and gave my feet their freedom. With my

legs protruding a sense of the dearness of life returned to me. Two more

slits in the sack enabled me to put my arms out and to move freely on

the load. I lay quietly for an hour or so, and then thought I would try

sitting up. So I rose and adjusted my peep-holes and stared about me. My

employer sat on one end of the seat, singing. Soon I could hear only the

creak of the whiffletrees and the rattle of the wheels. The reins, which

were looped over a shoulder, fell limp, and he began to snore.

I could hear the distant roar of a railroad train. It was coming nearer,

and where was the crossing? A sense of prudence caused me to climb to

the seat and take the reins. I did this gently, and without waking him.

I had a fear of falling in with more officers, and kept my sack on me

and listened for teams. If I should hear one coming I would resume

my place on the load, and draw in my legs and arms like a turtle.

Completely taken up with my plans and perils, it never occurred to me

that I was one of the most uncanny creatures that ever went abroad in

the night. Suddenly I heard a swift movement beside me, and turned

my head. My companion had awakened, and was crowding as far away as

possible, his mouth and eyes wide open.

He gave a great gasp, and, before I could find words to calm him,

shouted: “Land! What's this?” and leaped from the wagon. It was a

wonder--the swiftness of him.

“Don't be afraid!” I called, as I checked the horses. “It's I--Cricket

Heron. I got away in a potato-sack and came on the load.”

He stood a moment looking up at me, and gasping for breath. “Cricket

Heron!” he exclaimed, presently, and stood gazing up at me in silence

for half a moment, and supporting himself on a front wheel.

“Say, boy,” said he, in a voice that betrayed his agitation, “excuse me,

but you'll have to find other company. You've wore me out.”

He paused half a moment for breath, and went on:

“When a sack o' potatoes sets down beside ye an' opens conversation,

it's a little more than I can stan'.” He resumed his seat and took a

look at me, and added, with a laugh, “You'd scare the devil.”

In a few words I told my story, and he seemed to believe and to pity me.

He put a few queries, and I answered freely.

“You better go home an' tell the truth about it,” he said, as he hurried

the horses. “The only thing I don't like about you is your runnin' away.

God hates a coward, an' He don't seem to care if a coward suffers. Take

that thing off. Be a man; don't be a sack o' potatoes. You'd cheat the

man that bought ye for two bushels o' potatoes. They're worth more than

a coward.”

He untied the string above my head, and I took off the sack. The lights

of the village were just ahead. He drove to a store whose proprietor was

awaiting him. There he paid me the sum of six dollars for my work, and I

left him and went to a small inn.

So ended the adventure of the potato-sack. It taught me that a man is

never so good as the thing he tries to be, whether it is a hero or a

sack of potatoes.

ADVENTURE VIII.--IN WHICH CRICKET MEETS THE COLONEL AND THE YOUNG MISS

[Illustration: 9093]

LAY until after midnight groping in the mine of thought which Mr. Baker

had laid open. It was a new kind of exercise, and, for one thing, after

digging in my conceit awhile, I found a brain. It was not a large find,

but there are some, surely, who go through life without as good luck. It

was the most impudent brain I ever knew.

“You're a fool and a coward,” it seemed to say to me. “What are you

going to do?”

“Look for employment,” I suggested.

“That's what I'm doing, and you're the only one in the world who can

give it. Try me.” And I did--thought it all over, and began to make

rules for the regulation of my conduct. Thereafter I would be brave; no

more skulking for me.

I was up at daybreak with a new tone in my voice. That morning I spent

half of my money for a new flannel shirt and some fresh underwear. I

felt very brave and careless when I started for Summerville with the

village behind me. It was a walk of seven miles, and nothing happened

except Sam, who had driven over in a buggy and come down the road to

meet me. He was dressed up, and had a dreamy eye and a red face. “What

luck?” I queried.

“Ain't seen her yet,” he said. “Get in here. I'm so scairt I'm all of a

tremble. You got through all right?”

“Yes.”

“So the old man said. Thought he'd die laughin' 'bout the potato-sack.”

“He cured me of being a coward.”

“Wish he could cure me,” said Sam Whitemore. “I ain't afraid o' man or

beast, or anything but a woman.”

“Women won't hurt you,” I argued.

“No, but they can make ye awful 'shamed.”

It seemed very curious--the timidity of this big, powerful man. I had

seen him handle a ton of wheat in five minutes.

“They all look dangerous to me,” he added. Then he sighed and exclaimed,

“Heavens to Betsey!”

“Isn't Fannie willing to marry you?” I asked.

“Looks that way, but maybe she's only foolin'.” He shook his head

nervously, and added: “If she was you'd see me light out. I wouldn't

stop runnin' this side o' Californey.”

“Don't be afraid,” was my ready counsel. “She wants to marry you or she

wouldn't have asked you to come.”

As if inspired with new courage, he drew up the reins and touched his

horse with the whip.

“I'll ask her if it kills me,” he said, his brow wrinkling with

determination.

Neither spoke until we entered the little village of Summerville. He

left me at the hotel, where I was to wait for him.

“Goin' up to see her,” he said, in low, half-whispered tones. “I'll ask

her to take a ride with me. Oh, I forgot! A letter come for you this

mornin'; here it is. An', say, one o' them men that come last night said

that he was a friend o' yours.”

“A friend of mine!”

“Yes, but I didn't believe him. I guess he was tryin' to fox me.”

I opened the letter as he drove away and read as follows:

My dear Son,--I believe all you say, and am very sorry for you. It is

a grief and a wonder to me that you didn't turn back and let him go his

own way when you saw that he was a law-breaker. You wouldn't have missed

the watch as much as you miss me and your self-respect. You remember

what I said to you about taking up with people you don't know. Since you

have chosen not to follow my counsel. I presume you have found your own

better than mine. If that is true, I shall need your advice, and will

rely upon you to guide me in every time of difficulty. You have strong

hands and have learned how to use them. You have many friends and a

mother who will do anything she can for you. But we must reap as we sow.

You should retrace your own steps in the wrong road and find your way

back. God help you! Come as soon as you can and tell the truth, and be

not afraid. Truth will beat all the lawyers. If you should be sick let

me know, and I will come to you. Tell me where to send clothing for your

comfort. I send a little money and much love.

That letter was a godsend. I was inclined to agree with Sam that women

can make one “awful 'shamed.” My young manhood really began that day.

I put the money, which would have paid my fare to Heartsdale, in my

stocking, and determined not to use it. I would find my own way back to

her. .

An hour or so later Sam returned with a cheerful look.

“We're goin' to be married,” he whispered, as he almost broke my hand.

“When?”

“Next week, Monday, an' we're goin' to Niagara Falls. It's a big

excursion, an' costs only a dollar an' sixty cents.”

Niagara Falls! The great water-hammers!

“I wish I could go with you,” I suggested.

“Come on,” said he; “we'll have a grand time. But you must go to the

weddin'--you'll kind o' steady me.”

I was thrilled by what lay before me, for now I should see the Falls and

the fleet horses.

“If I can earn my board, I'll stay where I am until Monday,” I said.

“Wait a minute,” said he. “I'm goin' to see the landlord. He's an old

friend o' mine.”

Well, within five minutes Sam got a job for me. I was to look after

the billiard-tables, and to receive my board for my labor until we went

away.

That evening an elderly man of distinguished appearance sat in the

billiard-room.

“Who are you, my boy?” he asked.

I told him my name and where I lived, and that I was going to the Falls,

Monday, and working for my board meanwhile.

“Ah, ha!” said he, stroking his white mustache and imperial, “so you're

from the land of Silas Wright?”

“Yes, sir,”

He asked about certain good people that he had known in my county, and

then said: “This is no kind of work for you to be doing. Pack your grip

and come home with me. You may share my room, and stay as long as you

like.”

Well, the end of it was that I went home with Colonel Busby--that being

his name--soldier, orator, philosopher. He and his daughter--a girl of

about my age--were alone in the house with one servant.

“Jo,” said he to the girl, as we entered, “this is a high-stepper from

St. Lawrence County, and a friend of mine. His name is Cricket Heron.”

The girl gave me her hand, and said, laughingly, that her name was

Josephine. She was tall and slender, and I remember thinking that she

had almost a woman's look in her dark eyes.

After supper the Colonel said he was going over town and would return

presently.

His daughter made me feel at home, and had pretty manners, and a sweet,

girlish way of talking, and that charm of youth which has no suspicion

of its riches.

First of all, I think of her mouth--perfect in its curves and color. Out

of it came joy and careless words set in wonderful music. What a voice!

Upon my honor, sometimes it was like a scale played on the flute. We all

know the music--that ringing of the golden bowl of youth when Pleasure

touches it, and know, too, how soon the bowl is broken. She sang and

played upon the guitar, and talked, and this, above all, I remember: she

seemed unconscious of herself and of her power over my foolish heart. We

compared our knowledge of poetry and romance, our aims and ideals, our

tastes and pleasures.

But the Colonel came not, although the clock had struck eleven. She

suggested that I might wish to retire. It was a thought of her, and not

of myself, that led me to rise and say that I was ready. She lighted a

candle and showed me to my room. I went to bed thinking that, after all,

my Mary was not her equal.

An hour or so later the Colonel's voice awoke me. He was calling my name

in a loud, imperative tone, and tramping about the house as if in search

of me. I lay still, not knowing what to do. Soon the Colonel entered my

room with a candle in his hand.

“Heron, you rascal, get out of this room!” said he, loudly. “Didn't I

say you were to sleep with me?”

Before I could answer he had gathered up my shoes and stockings and

flung them into the hall. He took my clothing under his arm while I got

out of bed.

“Forward, march!” he commanded, and I followed through the dusky halls

to his bedroom in silence. I observed that he walked unsteadily, and I

knew the nature of his affliction and felt some fear of him.

“Heron,” said he, with great frankness, “I want company--I need you

right here.”

He sang loudly, as I helped him to draw his boots:

“''Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone.'”

In a moment he rose and seized me by the shoulders and crowded me

against the wall, by way of demonstrating his strength.

“You are iron, boy, but I am steel,” he said, between his teeth, as he

lightly thumped my head upon the figured paper. I made no answer.

The severe look in his face turned to smiles in half a moment. He showed

me his wounds--a saber slash on his head, and a number of scars cut by

bullets and flying fragments of shell. He asked me to feel his biceps,

and I did so, not wishing to be impolite. Before I could step aside he

had my head in chancery, and was making a new demonstration. The candle

was knocked to the floor, and I struggled with Colonel Busby in the

darkness, feeling a dreadful uncertainty of his plans. Soon he had

pushed me into a corner, where I stood clinging to his waist.

“Unhand me, villain!” he commanded, and we released each other and I

relighted the candle.

The Colonel took off his tie and collar, and as he did so whispered

gruffly, and with a playful wagging of his head:

“'How ill that taper burns! Ha! who comes there? Cold drops of sweat

hang on my trembling flesh. My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with

horror.'”

I saw that it was all a kind of harmless frolic, and soon he proposed

that we “knit up the ravelled sleeve of care.”

We got into bed, and fortunately the Colonel soon fell asleep. I had

rather a bad night of it, for he snored and muttered, and was, on the

whole, an irksome creature. In the morning he said little, and sat with

a look of sadness. He went into the garden after breakfast, and Jo said

to me:

“I'm sorry my father disturbed you. I didn't think he would do it.”

“Oh, that's nothing,” I assured her, bravely. “I hope it doesn't worry

you.”

But I could see that my words had not relieved her unhappiness.

She went to school, and I spent the day writing letters--one to my

mother and one to Mr. McCarthy, in both of which I set down much that

I have tried to tell you. Then I composed a verse and engrossed it with

great care. For such folly--praise God--I had always a keen relish.

Again that evening the Colonel left us, and I helped the pretty girl

with her lessons, and we had two more wistful hours, the like of which

one remembers with thankfulness and a sad smile. Where should I look to

match them? Surely not in my own life, long as it has been. She sighed

when I spoke of leaving, and a little tremble in her lips said so much

to me--things rich with meaning and mystery.

“I'll have to help in the kitchen next week,” said she, with an air of

responsibility. “Fannie, our cook, is to be married.”

“Her name is Comstock?”

“Yes.”

“I know all about it--Sam told me.”

“Sam!” she exclaimed, with a look of contempt. “He kept her waiting

three years because he hadn't the courage to propose.”

Then I told her of my adventures, and how they led to Sam, and how Sam

had straightway led me to her, or, at least, so near that we could not

help meeting. I told her of our life at Baker's, but said not a word of

the letter--that seemed to me a sacred confidence. However, I did tell

of Sam's fear when he reached Summerville. She thought it very foolish

of him.

“I should think that would be the best part of it--asking her to marry

him and telling about his love,” said she, turning serious and feeling

her beads.

“What kind of a man would you prefer?” I bravely inquired.

“Let me see,” she said, leaning her chin upon her hands in a thoughtful

and pretty pose. “Of course, he must be good, and he really _must_ be

handsome and tall and strong and brave, and I want him to be a great

man; and I am studying very, very hard so that I can help him to be

great.”

I sat in silence for a little time, full of sad thoughts. I was

neither handsome nor tall nor brave, but sometimes I had thought myself

exceedingly good. As to becoming great, that was another respect in

which I felt strong and confident. .

I was undersized--yes, a little undersized. I would grow some,

however--possibly to six feet; who could tell? But--my face--there was

no dodging that. It was plain, very plain, I could see that myself, and

my hair did not curl and was too light, and my beard was not yet born.

Jo interrupted my thoughts. She began to clap her hands in a sudden

outburst of enthusiasm.

“I have a grand idea!” she said. “We'll give Fannie a little wedding

here if father will let us. I think it would be great fun.”

For half an hour or so we sat, making plans for the wedding. Before

going to bed, in the Colonel's room, I gave her my horruck--an act of

great generosity. I promised to tell her all about it if she could solve

the riddle, and she said that she would try.

I went to bed, and the Colonel returned shortly, very bad. I had drawn

his boots and remarked that he looked weary, when suddenly he rose and

picked up a foil and began to thrust and parry with a hand raised behind

him.

“Ah, you insult me, sir!” he hissed, as he danced on tiptoes in the

attitude of a fencer, and drove me across the room. He stopped suddenly,

his point on the floor, in a haughty pose, and demanded, “Will you have

a blade, sir, and a bout with me?”

“I do not know how to fence,” I said.

“Ah--then you are forgiven,” said he, with a loving smile and a jaunty

swing of his head. “But, mind you--mind you, I cannot brook an insult.”

Before the light was extinguished he sent his voice roaring through the

still house in two lines of _The Last Rose of Summer_.

We got into bed, and as soon as I could decently do it I feigned sleep,

to avoid conversation.

I lay thinking for hours after the Colonel had gone to sleep--hours,

indeed, of fearful expectation. It was awful to room with a man like

Colonel Busby, but, after all, it was a good schooling in bravery, and

the time had come when I must be brave. I longed for perils, and

for even a wound or two. If there should be a war I would enlist, if

possible, and show her how brave I could be. Perhaps, if I became very

brave and good and strong and great, she would forgive my lack of size

and beauty.

In the midst of these reflections my companion lay groaning with

nightmare, and this further thought came to me that, hard as it was

to be his friend, it would be still more terrible to be Colonel Busby

himself.

To such a hopeful state of mind my last adventure had brought me.

ADVENTURE IX.--WHICH DESCRIBES THE COERCION OF SAM AND HIS WEDDING

JOURNEY

[Illustration: 9107]

O went the days and nights with us there in the home of Colonel Busby,

and I am nearly through with them.

One morning Jo said to me: “I'm sorry that father behaved so last night.

It's dreadful. Did he hurt you?”

“Not a bit,” was my answer.

“You are as brave as you can be,” she went on, with a look of shame and

sorrow. “It worries me terribly. Oh, dear! I wouldn't marry a man who

drinks for all the money in the world.”

“You'd need it to repair the furniture,” I suggested, full of a great

joy that she thought me brave.

Her eyes filled with tears, and I remember well the tender dignity with

which I took her hand and tried to comfort her. It was a pretty picture,

upon my word--the boy and the maiden, and both so clean-hearted.

Well, now, as to Sam and the wedding. We invited a number of Fannie's

friends, who were servants in the neighborhood, and made a monster

cake and some ice-cream. Sam arrived early, red and uncomfortable, and

looking very new in a fresh suit of clothes. His voice, even, was afraid

to show itself, as one might say. He held it down near a whisper and had

a watchful eye.

Jo and a few of her school-girl friends had decorated the parlor, and

spread a table in the dining-room with refreshments. Now they stood

looking at Sam.

His eyes filled with alarm as we laid our plans before him.

“I ain't broke to this kind o' thing,” he said, “an' I'm scairt clear

through. Maybe it could be put off until I'm nerved up a little.”

“No, indeed,” said Jo, as she locked the door and faced about with a

saucy look in her eyes. “You've simply got to be married at ten o'clock.

You might as well make up your mind to it first as last. You've kept

Fannie waiting for three years, and now you're going to be married.”

Poor Sam shook his head and smiled, and looked rather foolish and

unhappy.

“You needn't be afraid,” Jo went on. “We're not going to hurt you. We're

just going to marry you, and I should think you'd be very happy. Fannie

is a good girl, and a sweet-look-, ing girl, too, and she'll be a help

to you.”

It was as good as a play to hear her talk to him. Sam had an anxious

look, and was, in a way, like one condemned.

“I'd like,” said he, with just a little emphasis on the like--“I'd like

to go over to the village a minute.”

“I'm sorry, but there isn't time,” Jo answered. She was gentle but firm.

“I'm no coward,” he said, in a voice that trembled a little, “but--I

ain't used to women.”

“Poor thing!” said Jo, with just a touch of contempt for him. “You've

got to get used to them, and I'll give you the first lesson. Stand where

you are.”

Fannie, a comely, red-cheeked girl of about his age, had entered the

room. Jo took her arm and led her up to Sam.

“Now give him a good kiss,” the little wretch commanded.

Fannie gave him a kiss, but he stood unmoved save that his face grew

redder.

“Oh, it's not fair to take a kiss without returning it. That's

cheating,” Jo protested.

He kissed her, but with such a sober countenance! It suggested

retaliation.

“Brave Sam!--you're learning,” Jo said to him. She put her pretty hand

in his, and added, soothingly: “Be brave, Sam; be brave and cheer up;

nobody will hurt you. When the minister comes you will stand here, and

Fannie will stand beside you--like that. Please keep your hands down at

your side--so--and remember you must pay attention to the minister.”

Poor, old, good-hearted Sam! It was like bitting a horse, and he needed

it.

Well, he played his part rather poorly, but the wedding was successful

in its main purpose, and Sam hurried away to bring his horse and buggy.

He ran as he left the door-yard, like one escaping.

Jo beckoned to me, and I went with her into the sitting-room, where

for a moment we stood alone. How short it was, and yet how long it has

been--that little moment!

“May I kiss you once?” I asked, timidly.

She made no reply, but she let me kiss her. Dear girl! We were so young

and innocent, and all these years were ahead of us, and--excuse me--I

must change the subject.

The excursion train that was to take us to the Falls left our depot at

one o'clock. We were among the first who got aboard, and the cars filled

rapidly with men and women and crying babies and boys and girls. Ephraim

Baker and his wife had a seat near us. Venders passed up and down the

aisle with papers, lemonade, “popcorn just about salt enough,” apples,

and a curious, horn-shaped fruit called bananas, the “peth” of which was

declared to be “very tasty.”

We reached Syracuse in the evening, and changed to the night express

bound for Buffalo. An attraction of the trip, which had been much

advertised, was a chance to see one of the new sleeping-cars on the

Central, and an engine burning coal instead of wood. About eight

o'clock, while we were waiting on a side-track, the conductor invited us

to pass, through the train and take a look at the new sleeping-car. We

filed slowly through it--a car glowing with varnish and highly decorated

panels, and divided into four sections by curtains of heavy cloth. Each

section had a lower, middle, and upper berth.

Late at night, as I sat half asleep leaning on Sam's glazed satchel, a

man entered our car, picked up the satchel, and set it in the aisle and

took the seat beside me. In a moment the conductor came along calling

“tickets.” The man in my seat showed a pass.

“What's the name?” the conductor queried, as he took the card and held

it in the glow of his lantern.

“George M. Pullman,” said the man at my side. “I stayed in the

sleeping-car as long as I could stand it, and made my escape. You might

as well try to sleep in the middle of Broadway. The berths rattle, and

I was bumped around until I thought a horse and wagon were running over

me.”

Soon after that he began drawing a diagram on a large envelope with

a lead-pencil, and as he sat beside me I saw the beginning of a new

chapter in railroad history.

From every point of the compass, that night, people were on their way

to the Falls. Next morning they would see wonderful things--athletic

contests, a balloon ascension, and a man walking across the chasm on a

rope. I had longed to see the “big water-hammers” and the fleet horses.

I thought chiefly of them.

We arrived safely, and Sam led his wife by the hand through noisy

crowds, and warned me to keep near. We travelled a long time trying to

find shelter within our means. We found a place at last, although at a

price that made us thoughtful. I was a little worried for myself, there

in the cold, indifferent crowds, with so little in my pocket. I felt so

very small that day, and feared there was no hope for me.

Well, when the morning had come and I stood gazing at the water-hammers

and the flying horses below, and wondering how men were going to tame

and control them, who should come and whack me on the shoulder but Bony

Squares.

“Hello--old boy!” said he; “here's that two dollars I borrowed.”

It was almost a shock to me--his unexpected honesty and my good-fortune.

After all, he could not be so bad as I had thought him.

“Broke and lookin' for a job, I suppose?” he queried, with a smile.

“I've only a little money, and don't know yet what I'm going to do.”

“How would you like to earn fifty dollars to-day?”

Fifty dollars! It was a great sum! I could go home with it and possibly

pay my fine, if that were necessary. But how so much in a day if it were

honest money?

“It will take nerve,” he said. “I guess you're not brave enough.”

“You're wrong there. I'm brave enough for any work--if it's honest.”

“Oh, it's as honest as my aunt Maria,” he assured me.

I knew that venerable lady, and on the score of honor it seemed rather

promising.

“It's as safe as standing here on the sidewalk, but, old boy, it will

take some nerve,” he went on. “It will take more nerve than I've got,

and I'm no squab at that.”

“What is it?” I asked, burning with curiosity.

“Well, you've heard of the chap who's going to walk a rope across the

rapids? It will be way up in the air. You can just see it now, down

the river there, hanging between the cliffs. Looks like a spider's

thread--but, say, it weighs a ton. I've been helping 'em hang it. The

old man wants to carry some light, nervy chap on his shoulders when he

makes the trip. There's only one that's used to the game, and he's on a

spree, and they're stuck--can't find a fellow game enough for the job.”

It is hard to separate a boy from his folly--not all the schools in the

world can help much; and for a long time it is like a sword hanging over

his head.

I jumped at the offer, for had I not determined for her sake to fear no

peril?

“Come on, then,” said Bony. “He'll want to try you, and there's no time

to lose.”

I went to Sam and Fannie, and promised to see them at the inn at six.

“Look out for scamps, boy,” Sam whispered. “Keep your eye peeled.”

I assured him that I would do so, and hurried down the high shore with

Bony.

I wonder, sometimes, that I let myself go on. Well, there is something

deep in it which I do not profess to understand. The spirit of the time

was in me, and I was like ten thousand others. Men loved the perils

of adventure those days. No speculation was too reckless for them, no

hazard too fearful, no enterprise too difficult. The risks of the desert

and the plains and the battle-field had schooled us for that kind of

business.

Well, I had learned one thing, at least, since the last lesson--that

a good heart may be in a rough body. Remember--you children of

luxury--that some rather hard-handed people have been my friends.

ADVENTURE X.--WHICH IS THE ADVENTURE OF CRICKET ON THE HEMPEN BRIDGE

[Illustration: 9114]

E made our way through crowds of people near the end of the great rope.

Bony shouted like one in authority, and they let us pass. We found the

rope-walker in a small tent near the edge of the precipice. He was

a big, brawny Frenchman, who reminded me of the picture of Goliath

confronted by David in my bedchamber at home. He surveyed me from

head to foot while Bony called some one aside--it was a man I became

acquainted with in due time--and addressed him confidentially. Looking

out, I could see the long rope dipping low in the chasm from the cliff's

edge and ascending to the farther shore; I could hear the roar of the

rapids far below us, and felt a little tremor inside of me. Really,

now that I had a chance to make her and all the world wonder at me, I

thought of backing out. However, I was not brave enough for that.

The great man came presently, and took hold of my arms and lifted me as

if I had been a sack of potatoes. It seemed revolting, I remember, to

be so handled, for, clearly, he had no respect for me, and with good

reason. He said that he would try me when the rope was ready, and did,

and said I would do. Bony and I went outside the tent and saw the

great rope being tightened with horse and capstan. It lay almost level,

by-and-by, in a long, sweeping curve that could have gone to the moon,

I fancy, if its circle had been completed. The Frenchman came out of his

tent presently, in tights and shoulder-braces of new leather, upon

which two loops or handles had been fastened, one over each shoulder.

He carefully examined the capstan and the pawls beneath it. He spoke

a swift word or two in French, whereupon a young man, who acted as

interpreter, requested me to remove my boots, and I did so. Then the

performer stepped in front of me, and, reaching backward over his body,

took my hands in his. I jumped to his back and caught the loops over my

wrists and clung to the leathern braces, while he carefully placed my

feet on his hips.

The big Frenchman took a few paces and began to chatter.

“Loosen up a little,” said the interpreter. “Don't stand so stiff.

There, that's better.”

An attendant brought the balancing-rod, and the performer took it and

approached the end of the rope. I could now look down far into the abyss

and felt my heart failing me. But I thought of Jo, and imagined that she

was there, and said to myself that I would rather die than be a coward.

Before I knew it he was on the slant of the rope and slowly descending,

and so silently it seemed as if he were walking the soft air. I heard a

murmur start suddenly, and go up and down the shore near us. The roar of

the waters burst upon me from below. I knew that there was plenty of

air beneath us, but was not brave enough to look down through that long,

long drop to the foamy water-floor of the chasm. I kept my eyes on the

tree-top at the edge of the farther cliff. I heard a voice call to me:

“Are you afraid?”

I shook my head and answered, “No.”

The performer stopped and began to sway a little, his rod moving up and

down. I tightened my grip and breathed faster. I remember well the play

of his muscles under me. I could feel a change in their action--he was

going backward, but very slowly. The roar of the water was diminishing,

and stopped as suddenly as it began. We were back on the earth again,

and I was very glad and a little shaky.

Well, the Frenchman said that I would do, and half a dozen men shook my

hand and made me proud with their compliments. The interpreter told me

that we would “cross the bridge” at three, and that I should wait there

and have my dinner with them. The big Frenchman put on his clothes and

drove away in a carriage.

Those hours of waiting were a great trial to me. I paced up and down

before the tent, and Bony tried to talk to me, but I said little and

heard less. I remember his telling in a whisper that they would not take

a boy so young without the consent of his parents, and that he had told

them that he was my father. I assured him, with dignity, that I would

not lie about it.

“Just say nothing. I'll do all the lying that's necessary,” said Bony.

“If they ask me I shall tell the truth,” I affirmed.

“You'd better not put me in a hole when I'm trying to do you a favor,”

Bony pleaded.

I made no answer, but somehow his words had cheapened the enterprise, of

which I had had no high opinion since the performer had lifted me as if

I were a thing.

The edges of the cliffs began to turn black with people, and I could

hear the sound of many voices. Suddenly those near us began cheering.

The great Frenchman had returned. It was about three o'clock. He came

straight to me, and shook my hand, and said in French, “_Courage!_” and

added something which I could not understand.

“You'll be as safe as you are here,” said the interpreter. “Don't jump

if he sways a little, and don't look down.”

The Frenchman hurried to his tent. It was time to “cross the bridge.”

They gave me a pair of white stockings with soles of corrugated rubber,

and I drew them on.

The minutes dragged while the Frenchman was dressing. He came out in

pink tights, and the crowd, pressing on the ropes around us, began to

cheer. He tried his pole, and then came straight to me. That was a bad

moment, and I felt like running for my life, but--no--I could not do

so now. The interpreter asked me to remove my coat and put on a

close-fitting cap in place of the hat I wore.

In a second we were on the rope, and he began reaching for his balance.

He felt his way slowly.

The people were cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. The bands

ceased playing. He quickened his pace, and went on with a steady stride.

A roar of excitement followed the cheering, and then a hush fell on

the crowds. For half a moment I could hear only the breathing of the

performer and my own heart-beat. Then I heard the snort of the “white

horses” far below me. Suddenly the shrill, hysterical cry of a woman

rose out of the silence. Right after that I could hear the groans of men

behind us, and wild peals of laughter that echoed through the deep chasm

and had a weird note in them.

There were those for whom the sight of our peril was as a nightmare.

Phrases of prayer came out to my ears--“God have mercy on them,” and

the like. Little children called to us. There were two or three men who

groaned at every step of the walker, as if they felt the strain of his

muscles. It was an old Roman spectacle, and at no other time in the

nineteenth century would it have been possible.

I had kept my eyes on the tree-top, and now I could see the lift of

the rope before me; I could hear it creak as it bent beneath us. For an

instant I let my glance fall. Down, down it went like a plummet

sounding the depths below. I shut my eyes, but my thoughts went plunging

downward. I was like a man with his hands full of eggs--one falls, and

then they all begin to slip away.

When I looked again the cliffs were reeling before us. I had to stop

them, single-handed, and I can tell you it was a task. With a mighty

effort I shoved them back into place again and held them down--at least,

that is the way I thought of it.

We were down in the hollow of the rope, about half-way across the chasm,

and were swinging a little in a wind current. The Frenchman slowed his

pace, and I could feel the changing tension of his muscles. He struck

the rope with one foot and then the other--a sort of hammer blow. It

checked the swing, and for half a second he seemed to cling with his

feet. He took three quick steps, and settled into an even pace again. I

thought of letting go, for the relief of it. But this notion came to me,

and I laugh when I think of its oddity: if I should let go I should lose

the fifty dollars, which would buy something fine for my mother. And I

clung so that my hands ached. I watched a swallow, and ceased to think

of myself. That little bird may have saved my life, for me and for

you. He coasted through the sunlit air almost to the point of my nose,

checked himself with a giggle of surprise, and wound us in loops of

song. Somehow it heartened me to hear him.

The rope grew steeper. Now it seemed an impossible journey there ahead

of us. But he went on with a steady stride, and the hempen hill bent

inward as he put his feet upon it. With joy I could see my tree-top

coming nearer, but every step I had to look up a little farther to see

it. Suddenly the rope began to swing again--I do not know why. It has

been said that some reckless fellow had wilfully pulled a guy-rope. The

whole side of the cliff began to rock as before. The strands of muscle

under me tightened quickly. The performer slowed his pace, and stopped

for half a second. The ends of his pole went up and down like a

teeter-board. Again his feet struck the rope.

“_Courage!_” he whispered.

He took two or three quick steps and stopped again. He had checked the

swing of the rope, and now resumed his progress up the steep hill. He

climbed slowly near the end of it, and a mighty cheer ran up and down

the edge of the cliffs when he sprang ashore.

I jumped from his back, and saw, when he shook my hand, that his own

trembled a bit and that he was breathing heavily.

He put on a suit of clothes and beckoned me to a carriage that stood

near. I took a seat beside him, and went to his inn. The interpreter met

us there, and had my bouts, coat, and hat with him.

“Monsieur wishes me to thank you, and say that we have paid your

father,” he remarked.

“My father!”

“Yes; the man who came with you. Is he not your father?”

“No,” I said, “and he has taken my money and gone with it.”

So bitter was my disappointment that I sat down upon the floor, and

covered my face and wept. Then there was a great chattering in French,

and the performer came and gave me a pat of sympathy on my shoulder and

a ten-dollar bill.

A crowd of curious people followed me on my way to my inn--mostly boys

of about my own age and younger. They felt of my garments, and ran

before me, staring into my face. Grievous and heavy was my sense of

distinction. It covered me with shame. There was something wrong about

my bravery.

At the inn I found Sam and his bride and Ephraim Baker. Somehow they had

heard of my part in the rope-walking.

“Did that crowd of boys follow you?” Sam inquired.

“Yes.”

“They can't see the biggest fool in America _every day_,” said Mr.

Baker.

Well, I suddenly got a strong desire to move on. I was a bit wiser when

I started for Graham's hotel in Buffalo, where Mr. McCarthy was to

meet me. Ephraim Baker had called me a fool, but I knew better than

that. I had sense enough now, at least, to understand the difference

between courage and folly. It is about the last lesson of boyhood.

That narrow, bending path of hemp had been for me a bridge between the

cliffs of youth and young manhood, of recklessness and prudence. The

crossing is ever full of peril, and there is always some one to pull the

rope and increase our difficulty.

I asked Sam and his bride to say nothing of my adventure in Summerville,

and bade them goodbye at the depot, and went on my way to a new school

of experience.

ADVENTURE XI.--IN WHICH CRICKET MEETS THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN AND THE

PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

[Illustration: 9126]

RAHAM'S hotel was near the depot, as I asked my way of an officer, and

he went with me. At the desk I inquired timidly for my friend.

“Mr. James Henry McCarthy is here,” the clerk answered, with a smile.

“He is making the homes of this city bright and beautiful, Wish to see

him?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He called a colored youth, and sent word to Mr. McCarthy. The colored

youth returned presently, and said:

“Mr. McCarthy says, 'Please ask the gentleman to send up his card.'”

I wrote my name on a card, and in a few minutes presented myself at Mr.

McCarthy's door.

“I am pleased to see you,” said he, with dignity. “Come in.”

He was well dressed in new clothing.

“How are you?” I inquired.

“How do I look?” he asked, promptly.

“Splendid,” was my answer.

“That suit cost me twenty-one dollars,” he remarked, with a glance at

himself. “Feel of the cloth.”

I did as he bade me.

“Isn't this a grand room?” he went on. “I guess you must have thought

that I was getting along in the world when you were asked to send up

your card to Mr. McCarthy.”

He laughed, and rattled his change.

“Will you have a cigar?” he asked, removing two from his

waistcoat-pocket.

“I do not smoke.”

“Nor I,” said he, “but I carry them for the sake of appearances.”

“How is business?”

“Grand,” said he. “I have six men at work for me, and have started a

little factory at home. My sister makes Sal, and the agents buy it from

us, and so we have no bother. We ship it in crates, like a lot of eggs,

and each ball is neatly wrapped and all ready for the customer. I am

also beginning the manufacture of soap.”

I expressed my delight over his good-fortune.

“How are you getting along?” he asked.

I told him the story of my failure.

“There's the trouble,” said Mr. McCarthy. “A green hand is apt to slip

down making the goods.=

````"'There's many a fall

`````'Twixt the powder and ball,'=

as ye might say. That's why I started the factory.”

I paid my debt to him.

“Are you going to take out another line of goods?” he asked.

“No; I'm going home,” was my answer. “I'll write to you if I decide to

try it again.”

“Maybe you need this money to get home with,” he suggested, in a

careless and opulent manner.

“No; I have enough,” was my answer.

“Sit down, an' le' 's have a little visit,” said he. “I like you, an'

by-an'-by I'll take you out an' show you the sights. I want to treat you

as one gentleman would treat another. Have you noticed that I don't say

'ain't' for 'isn't' or 'them' for 'those' any more?”

“I notice that you speak very properly,” I assured him.

“I've got a grammar, and have begun to study it,” said he. “My tea-pot

is all made, as ye might say, an' I have begun to put a polish on it.

Let me show ye.”

He rose and put on his hat.

“Now, suppose I've rung the bell an' Mrs. Smith opens the door. I bow

so, and say: 'Good-morning, madam,' or 'Good-afternoon, madam. Would you

like to engage a servant who will work for you at half a cent a day

and board herself? I have one of the name of Sal. Sal cleans woodwork,

silver, and all kinds of metal, and never complains.'

“I don't talk as much as I used to. Some way it don't sound honest, and

I find out that gentlemen are not apt to be gabby. I try to please and

show that I want to earn an honest living, and I get along.

“Ye see, the children like me because I like them, and everybody is glad

to see me when I come around. The other day a woman asked me to mind her

children while she went of an errand. It would have tickled you to see

how they piled on me.”

He sat in a chair and laughed, and put his wooden leg on the bed, and

pulled a grip and two pillows into his lap, and flung the bolster over

his leg.

“There, that's about the way I looked,” he went on, with a laugh. “I

made faces for 'em and told 'em how I lost my leg, and we had a grand

time of it. It's the same way with grownup folks. If you want them to

like you, you've got to like them. A gentleman never speaks badly of any

one; that's another thing I've learnt.”

“I'm not a gentleman, then,” I answered.

“Why?”

“There's one man about whom I couldn't say anything mean enough.”

“Well, if you owe him a thrashing, wait until you can pay him off

proper. You can't do it with your tongue.”

I knew then that James Henry McCarthy, crude as he was, had got a little

ahead of me.

“You see, I'm working on my gentleman every day,” he went on, “I'll

have him in decent shape by-an'-by. I read a good deal, because every

gentleman reads, and I'm beginning to enjoy it.”

“I wish you'd make me a visit; I want you to meet my mother,” said I.

“I'd like to,” he answered. “You must come from a very respectable

family.”

“What makes you think so?” I asked.

“Oh, I can tell by your looks and your way of talking,” he remarked.

“You've been well brought up--a ready-made gentleman, as ye might say.

It's grand to have all that done for ye. I wasn't so lucky. But I'm made

upon honor--hand-sewed and stitched and double-soled. I ought to wear

well. You could rely on me to behave myself if you took me into your

home.”

Just then a colored boy came to the door and said: “There's a man

down-stairs who wants to see Mr. McCarthy, and he won't give me a card.”

“Show the gentleman up,” said my friend, as if accustomed to many

callers.

Presently in walked the Pearl of great price with the dog, Mr. Barker. I

was overjoyed to see them.

“Let me feel of you,” he said, as he took my hand. “Now don't be scairt

an' jump out o' the window. Just agree to stay with me for a minute.

I'll agree not to kill you. I--I couldn't get even with you in that

way.”

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“First, le' 's have the minutes of the previous meetin',” said Mr.

Pearl.

It must be remembered that H. M. Pearl, Esq., had lived through years of

oratory and public assemblage, and that his thoughts ran more or less in

their cant.

“The meeting will now come to order, and Mr. Barker will take the

floor,” said the Pearl of great price.

The dog came and stood on his hind feet, facing his master.

“You will recall,” said Mr. Pearl, addressing the animal, “that I once

spoke to you on the subject of bad company. Is the same true to-day or

not?”

The dog gave a loud bark.

“It is true,” said Mr. Pearl; “of course it is true! Therefore, Mr.

Barker, please bear in mind that there is nothing that makes so much

trouble as bad company. It will bring your black hairs in sorrow to the

grave.”

The dog was excused, and the Pearl turned to me and said:

“You went into the barn at Baker's, an' I'll swear ye didn't come out of

it.”

It was he, then, who had followed me. My heart began to warm with

delight, and that singular masquerade of mine came back to me, and I

went through it all for them. So great was the amusement of Mr. Pearl

that he flirted his feet in the air and laughed, while Mr. McCarthy

whacked his wooden leg with the stove poker, and shook his head, and

gave an odd cackle. Alas! I cannot tell it now as I did then, for those

days I had the heart of youth in me and a voice for joy.

“I've chased you for three weeks,” said the Pearl. “You're like a flea

on the body o' the United States. I had a talk with a friend o' your

mother, an' set out to bring you back. Made a birch-bark canoe, an' run

her down to the St. Lawrence an' up to the end o' the lake. Heard from

your mother at Sackett's; she said you were at Baker's and would meet

Mr. McCarthy here. You jumped from Baker's to somewhere, an' then to the

Falls, an' then here, an' I've been a jump behind you all the way.”

I rose, dumb with surprise, and Mr. Pearl continued:

“I got back to Mill Pond a day or two after you an' Bony lit out. A good

deal was bein' said, an' I had to lick a man for sayin' a part of it,

which the said language wasn't calculated to improve your reputation.

Oh, I tell ye, things have warmed up an' transpired since you went

away! I says to 'em that you wasn't any Dan'l Webster, an' that Bony

had drawed you into his game. I know you didn't have no more idea o'

wrong-doin' than a pickerel has of a vest-pocket. One day I promised to

go down to the big river an' see if I could pick ye up. So here I am,

an' the next thing in the order of exercises will be new business. We've

got to convey ourselves out o' here immediately, if not sooner.”

“I am ready,” I said, rising and putting on my hat.

“We've got to move, an' conversation won't carry us. To get down to

plain language, have you any money?”

“Eight dollars and forty-three cents,” I answered.

“The report is accepted,” Mr. Pearl went on. “It is as good as a million

dollars. We'll go down to the lake an' take a steamer, get off at

Sackett's, walk a few miles, an' proceed with our own steam.”

It was arranged, with the hearty concurrence of H. M. Pearl, Esq., that

Mr. McCarthy should go with us.

“It will give me a rest, and I can put some agents at work in your part

of the country,” said the latter.

We set out together, and got to Sackett's Harbor next day. It was a long

walk to the beach at Anderson's, where the big canoe of my friend was

lying. He had left a small tent and two horse-blankets in a house near

by. Mr. McCarthy bought a basket of provisions at a store, and soon

after noon of the second day of our journey we were all aboard and

headed down the river, Mr. Pearl in the stern seat and I in the bow. We

two had paddles, while Mr.

McCarthy sat amidships near the dog, pushing further into the sea of

knowledge with his grammar and dictionary. We went on with a steady

stroke, and a light breeze behind us. It was a cloudless day, and the

cool, crystal floor of the river chasm tempered the heat of the sun.

“I am in pursuit of history,” Mr. McCarthy remarked soon.

“Well, if you get acquainted with history, by-an'-by history is apt to

get acquainted with you,” Mr. Pearl remarked.

“I have here a pack of white cards,” Mr. McCarthy went on. “Every one

contains a fact. I'll read a few of them to show you what I mean. Number

one says, 'Columbus discovered America, 1492 '; number two says, 'The

French settled at Quebec in 1608'; number three says, 'The Spanish

settled at St. Augustine in 1565,' and so on. Here's a hundred cards and

a hundred facts. First, I put 'em all in one coat-pocket. Every day I

take out a card and learn what's on it, and put it into another pocket,

and keep the pack moving.”

“Have you got it down that H. M. Pearl, Esquire, was born at Machias,

Maine, in 1817?” was a query that came from' the stem seat.

“No; Hildreth says that all history is necessarily incomplete,” Mr.

McCarthy answered, with a laugh. “I like that word _incomplete_. It has

a good sound to it. I've got my book full of new words. Say, what's a

horruck? It ain't in my dictionary.”

I explained the term, which he had overheard in Pearl's talk at

Graham's.

The islands were now thick around us, and we landed in a little cove

on one of them, and went up under the shade of the trees for a bite of

luncheon.

“There's power for ye,” said Mr. Pearl, with a glance at the river

sweeping by us. “Lord! she's like a belt off the world's engine.”

I had begun to see the power in the man Pearl himself, young as I was.

It is clear to me now: the genius of the Republic, soon to express

itself in dauntless enterprise, in prodigious and unheard-of enginery,

had begun to stir in him; the imagination that builds and discovers, the

humor that accepts failure without discouragement, the energy which may

not be overcome were all in this man.

“If I had capital,” Mr. Pearl added, presently, “I'd show ye some

actions which speak louder than words.”

“What would you do with it?” I asked.

“Well, here's the river,” he said, mapping it on a stretch of sand

with his finger. “Here's the falls at your house. Here's the town o'

Heartsdale, about half a mile up the river--shops an' mills an' stores

an' houses an' two thousand people, all about as slow as West Injy

molasses.”

He looked up at us, and took another bite.

“What they need is power,” he went on. “That's what 'll put the zip into

a town. It 'll wake up the people, an' shake 'em off the cracker-barrels

an' tumble 'em out o' the rockin'-chairs. It 'll set a pace for 'em.”

I began to wonder what rude miracle he proposed for the dreaming village

of Heartsdale.

“It was located wrong,” he went on; “but there it is, an' I know how to

shove some power into it--power enough to put everything on the jump.”

He turned to Mr. McCarthy, and added: “Make a note in your history that

H. M. Pearl, Esquire, said it, an' that a full account of his actions

will appear in a later volume.”

I asked him how he proposed to do this wonderful thing.

“How, wherefore, and, also, why,” he said, as he took another bite of

cheese. “Well, ye know where the river jumps over the rocks an' stands

up like a man thirty feet tall, there by your house? That's where I'll

perform my actions--right there.” He drew a line in the sand.

“Here's a stream o' water thirty feet wide an' a foot an' a half thick.

There's a horse-power in every square foot of it. I'll take off, say,

one-quarter o' the fall an' head her into an iron pipe an' let her jump

down. She strikes like a triphammer, dropping thirty feet in a big,

cast-iron cylinder. There are holes around the bottom of it. The water

squirts through 'em with power enough to kick a man's leg off. Now, I'll

put a wheel there at the bottom, with a big steel rim that has buckets

on it like the slats in a windmill. Well, out come the jets o' water

an' give them buckets a cuff that sets the wheel goin'. A shaft on this

wheel moves the dynamo, an' there you have it.”

“What?” Mr. McCarthy asked.

“'Lectricity,” was the prompt answer of the Pearl. “Don't you know how

it's made? Nor I, neither, but I guess I can come as nigh tellin' as

any one. Here's a stationary wheel out by the end o' the shaft with some

short bars of iron fastened to the rim of it, an' each bar is wound with

a coil o' wire. Now, when ye send a current through the coil, that bar

o' iron gets alive. It will take hold o' any other piece o' iron an'

hang on like a bulldog. Folk call it a magnet, an' it's some like a

boy--never gives any reason for his conduct which nobody understands. It

just takes hold, an' that's all there is about it. Now, there's another

wheel that moves with the shaft an' has the same number o' bar ends on

it, all made o' soft iron but not wrapped with wire. Set these wheels

parallel an' close, so the bar ends are not more 'n a quarter of an

inch apart. The magnets begin to pull. The power in 'em jumps over that

quarter-inch o' open space an' takes hold o' the soft iron. You have to

put an awful power on the shaft to stir the one wheel on account o' the

cling o' the magnets. It's like pullin' a cat out of a hole backwards.

The power begins to spit an' make actions. When you move the wheel an'

break the hold o' the magnets the power begins to travel an' chases

'round the rim. It opens the gate o' the great reservoir an' out comes

a stream, an' it's 'lectricity. Nobody knows why nor wherefore, an' the

magnets keep to work an' say nothin'. It's like churnin' cream till ye

get butter. Ye break the pull o' the magnets an' set it whirlin' in a

kind of a current, an' you get a power that zips off on a wire at

the rate of a hundred and eighty thousand miles in a second. That's

'lectricity. It's rather fractious an' fond o' travel. But ye can coop

it up in the wheels an' steer it where ye like. Ye can pen it in with

glass an' rubber an' other things just as easy as ye can hold water with

a tin pail.”

“You hold it in popper sections, fastened to both wheels, sweep it up

with a brush, an' send it off on a wire. I've got a scheme for takin' it

from the other end o' the wire in large or small quantities to suit the

purchaser, an' I believe that I can move all the wheels in Heartsdale,

an' a good many more.”

“If I get along in business maybe I can furnish the capital one o' these

days,” said Mr. McCarthy.

“Then you'll begin to make history,” said the Pearl of great price.

Mr. McCarthy looked thoughtful. The idea of making history brightened

his eyes.

“We will see what can be done,” he answered.

Again we took our places in the canoe, and it seemed to spring away with

the current.

“We'll ride the belt,” said Mr. Pearl. “We ought to make ten miles

between now an' sundown.”

The breeze left us, and the river slackened its pace in a gentler mood.

Reeds lined its margin with soft shadows into which, often, bunches of

blue iris flung their color.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. McCarthy, presently, “I'm in need of advice.”

“Touchin' what subject?” Mr. Pearl inquired.

“My mind is set on matrimony,” said the young man.

“Tell it to get up an' move on,” said Mr. Pearl.

“Are you in love?” I asked.

“I fear that I am,” said Mr. McCarthy, with his accustomed frankness.

“All depends on the other party,” said Mr. Pearl.

“It's a beautiful girl by the name o' Betsey Fame,” the boy answered.

“Better be Miss Fame than Misfortune,” said the Pearl of great price.

“My trouble is all on account of this wooden leg,” Mr. McCarthy

explained. “I saved her mother's life in a runaway an' got my ankle

smashed. She took care o' me when I was laid up, and told me to study

an' improve my mind and be a gentleman. I fell in love with her, and

I'm getting along. But my gentleman has begun to crush the life out o'

Pegleg McCarthy. He's killed my best hope, for he won't let me ask her

to marry me. She's a wonderful nice girl, and belongs to a good family.

But here's my wooden leg, and it comes o' my tryin' to save her mother.

She might think she had ought to accept me whether she cares for me or

not. She's just that kind of a girl. Do you think it's fair for me to

ask her? I don't.”

Pearl and I rested the paddles. Our playful spirit had gone out of us in

a jiffy.

“By the great horn spoon!” Pearl exclaimed. “Me being a gentleman, what

can I do?” Mr. McCarthy inquired.

“Well, first you go to New York an' get yourself a decent leg, if you

can afford it,” said the Pearl of great price. “There's a man by the

name o' Marks made a leg for a friend o' mine. He wears a shoe an' walks

as well as ever. Ye wouldn't know that he had a wooden leg. It's a case

o' wood an' wouldn't.”

“That's a good idea,” said Mr. McCarthy. “Then you can tell her that

you're really better off than you was before the accident--that you've

only half the liability to pains in the feet. Go to work an' pile up

some money, an' show her that nobody has any license to be sorry for

you. Maybe you'll see your chance by-an'-by.”

“I believe that I'm going to be a rich man,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I kind

o' feel it in my bones.”

“My bones are beginnin' to talk to me,” said the Pearl, as he moved in

his seat a little. “We must begin to look for a camping-place.”

The sun had gone down, and glowing bars of cloud were drifting over the

west. Their reflection made a long, golden raft in the ripples.

The raft seemed to break as I was looking, and its timber floated far

and wide into dusky coves and marshes, and some of it went leaping

through rapids half a mile below. As we rode along in the still

twilight, Mr. Pearl sang an old ballad in a voice of remarkable power

and sweetness. Well, the river and the shadows and the sky sang with

him, as I am well aware, but no music ever got so deep in me as that

did.

We got out on a pebble beach. There were grassy shores, close-cropped

by cattle, near us, and a hard-wood grove. The Pearl began to put up his

tent, while we gathered a bit of wood for a fire, and spread our supper

on a big napkin. When we had eaten, Mr. Pearl removed his coat and vest

from a carpet-bag. He spread the coat over his shoulders, but hung the

vest on a stick, which he had driven into the ground beside him. He had

turned it inside out, so that two medals, pinned to its lining, could be

seen in the firelight. “What are they?” Mr. McCarthy asked. “Medals of

honor.” The Pearl spoke carelessly as he was filling his pipe.

“Medals of honor!” exclaimed Mr. McCarthy. “How did you get 'em?”

“Won 'em in the Mexican War.”

“Why don't you wear 'em on the outside of your jacket?” Air. McCarthy

inquired.

“I rise to a point of order,” said the Pearl, as he got to his feet. “If

I had a thousand dollars, would I wear it on the outside o' my pocket?

Or if I was Mr. McCarthy, would I have to tell people that I was a

gentleman?” The Pearl gathered power like a locomotive when he got to

going. His words conveyed a message of special value to Mr. McCarthy.

“Never want to show your cards more than is necessary before you play

'em,” the Pearl continued. “I could have used those medals to get a job

many a time when I wouldn't, any more than you'd let a girl marry

you out o' pity. There have been years when I wa'n't as good as the

medals--there's the truth of it. Every night when I go to bed I hang

that vest on a chair, wrong side out, an' take a look at 'em, an' try to

make myself as good as they are.”

“Tell me how you won them?” Mr. McCarthy urged.

“That isn't in the order o' exercises,” the Pearl went on. “The chair

begs to advise the gentleman from Hermon Center that if he, the said

gentleman, ever succeeds in doing a big thing, the sooner _he_ forgets

it the longer it will be remembered. If a man makes his history it's all

that can be expected o' him. Somebody else ought to do the tellin', if

it has to be told.”

“That's sound,” said Mr. McCarthy, “and I'm going to put it down in my

note-book.”

“I'm goin' to forget it,” said the Pearl, as he began to prepare for

bed.

We were up at sunrise in the morning. Late that day we landed, and Pearl

took the canoe on his back and we put across country. A walk of six

miles brought us to our own river, and we saved thereby a day of water

travel. The sun was low when we wet our canoe again.

“The committee on refreshments will please report,” said Mr. Pearl, when

he had put down his load.

Mr. McCarthy reported by laying out three pieces of cheese, half a dozen

crackers, and a bit of dried beef.

The Pearl called “Mr. Barker,” and when the animal stood up before him,

said: “The chair respectfully suggests that without food it will

soon have no leg to stand on. You should cultivate the virtue of

thoughtfulness. Do not wait to be told, Mr. Barker, but always consider

what is to be done, and do it.”

If the Pearl had advice to give he invariably addressed it to “Mr.

Barker,” and so it came to us through the dog, as one might say, and was

never lost upon us.

Mr. McCarthy and I hurried away, while Mr.

Pearl got a fire going. We were both ashamed that the idea of increasing

our stores had not occurred to us. We returned soon with eggs and bacon,

and new bread and coffee, and all needed appliances.

“I move that the report be laid on the table,” said Mr. Pearl, as he

began to warm the spider.

I think always with a grateful heart of that supper, which we ate in

the cool twilight, with a knoll for a table, and, for a cloth, a mat of

grass interwoven with white clover blossoms. It was quite dusk when we

launched the canoe and resumed our journey.

Had I words fit for beauty and delight, I should try to tell of our

night journey on the river--of the wondrous flattery of moon and shadow,

of wet banks showered with “barbaric pearl,” of geese that sailed by,

magnified to swanlike size, of a little village on the shore, whose

painted boards shone like white marble and filled the eye with illusions

of splendor and grand proportion.

When we were over the last carry at Mill Pond the hand-made gentleman

fell asleep, but we kept on with a steady stroke of the paddles. I

would not be the first to speak of stopping, for every stroke brought me

nearer home, and the thought of it!--worth all the misery and peril

I had known. Near two o'clock we got out on the shore, a mile below the

Mill House, and lay down with our blankets and went to sleep.

The sunlight and the robins wakened us. It was one of my best days--that

of my return. So much of it has come along up the road with me!

Especially I remember its glad faces and the touch of its loving hands,

and the sound of its gentle voices and its peace. Who can estimate the

value of such a day save one who has been blessed with it? True, the

moments go like falling water, but they return and are never quite

ended, after all.

The cascade seemed to sing a welcome with its big, hearty voice. The

garden flowers expressed my happiness in color, and sent their perfume

to bid me welcome at the gate.

The Pearl and the hand-made gentleman turned away while I went up the

old stair with my arms around my mother and sister, now dearer than

ever to me. We sat down upon the old sofa, and I began to ravel out my

follies. They rose to prepare breakfast, and I looked about me. There

were the familiar three commandments of my mother hanging on the wall:

BE TRUTHFUL. BE KIND. BE HAPPY.

“If I had told the truth to Mr. Weatherby I would never have gone away,”

was my remark.

“The more truth the less trouble,” said my mother. “It keeps you in

the right road. If you're going to tell the truth you've got to make it

worth telling, or, at least, good enough so that you will not be ashamed

of it.”

While we had learned those three commandments, not until now had I begun

to feel the power in them.

I looked about me at all the familiar things: the pictures--especially a

crayon portrait of my father--the mottos, wrought in colored yam. Wisdom

was more available than art those days in the north country, and the

walls of many a simple home were decorated with the sayings of bard

or prophet, each neatly framed. My mother's mottos were all her own,

however. She was a daughter of the pioneers who had learned much in a

hard school of experience. The best of it all had come down to her, and

was a bit refined by her own thought. There was a kind of history in

those mottos that hung on the walls of the Mill House--the heart

history of men who had had to think for themselves. I read them anew and

thoughtfully:=

```The kindly will never want a friend;

```The mean will never lack an enemy.=

```One good word deserves another,

```But receives more than it deserves.=

```To-day is the best of all days,

```But to-morrow will be better.=

```Let heaven begin here.=

After all my regretful thinking on that journey, which had now come to

its end, these words began to fill with meaning. That last injunction,

printed in golden threads, sank deeply into my heart and led to this

conviction: that the Mill House was one of the outlying provinces of

heaven; far removed, maybe, but still as much a part of it as those

isles ten thousand miles from London are a part of the British Empire.

Breakfast being ready, I went down after my good friends. The Pearl

would not come in.

“Just hand me a little snack,” said he; “I ain't fit to go in.”

He would not yield to urging, and so I brought his breakfast to him, and

he sat down and ate at the foot of the stairway.

My mother and sister sat at the table with Mr. McCarthy and me. The

manners of the handmade gentleman became exceedingly formal. He spoke

only when spoken to, save when he said:

“May I be so bold as to ask for a glass of water?”

When I suggested the subject of Sal, he began to relax, and went to his

grip and gravely presented my mother with a dozen balls of it.

The breakfast over, my mother went below-stairs with me to thank Mr.

Pearl for his kindness, but he was gone. I found her looking up the

river, where he was going out of sight, far up the shaded avenue of

water, in his canoe. She looked very sad as I walked to the garden with

her.

“Come, let us look at the flowers,” she said, as she put her arm-about

me. “These roses have just opened this morning; they have been waiting

for you, and so has this letter.”

My heart quickened, for I had seen the postmark and the girlish

penmanship on the envelope, and had caught its odor of violets. Eagerly

I broke the seal, and read as follows:

Dear Friend,--I have just been picking flowers and they reminded me

of your letter. I have not forgotten you; everything that is beautiful

makes me think of those days when you were here--we had such a good

time; at least, I did. I should like to hear from you often, but I don't

want you to think that I care so very, very much. I wouldn't want to

have you try to remember me. I still have my troubles, but they are not

quite so dreadful. Last night my father brought home another young man.

I do not like him; he has such a queer way of staring into my eyes, and

can talk of nothing but dogs and horses. Fannie has come back, and Sam

is with her. He is going to take care of the garden and the grounds

until they can find a farm. Fannie says that he has got over being

afraid and is very affectionate. I think of you often, and of those

pleasant evenings that we had together, and of all that you went

through. I wonder if you would dare come again! Well, I am sure that I

shall never get another letter from you, even, but I wish you good luck,

anyway.

Yours truly, Jo.

P. S.--I have made this letter short for fear it would bore you.

It was my first letter from a fair maid, and what a state of mind it put

me in! My mother read it with a smile.

“It's a pretty letter,” said she.

“Not so pretty as Jo,” I answered. Then I told about my visit in

Summerville.

“And the girl is alone with that old drunkard?” said my mother.

“Yes.”

“Too bad! I wish I could see her.”

“I love her,” I said, soberly.

“Child!” she exclaimed, “you're not yet sixteen.”

“A boy has feelings,” I protested.

“If I'm not in love, I'd like to know what it is that makes me feel as I

do. I would die for her.”

“Yes--yes, I know,” she answered, holding my hand in hers. “I was like

you when I was a young miss--thought I was in love two or three times

when I was not. Write to her if you wish, but you must be fair to her.

Don't say a word about it until you see if it lasts. She may not care

for you, anyway.”

This letter made me sure that she did care for me, however, and that and

others like it were, indeed, the treasures of my youth. The notion

of being fair to her grew in me, for, after all, my heart had had its

change, and was it now to be wholly trusted?

Mr. McCarthy met us at the stairs.

“I've been reading your three commandments,” said he to my mother. “Are

they in the Bible?”

“Yes; but I got them out of the Book of Nature,” said she. “You learn

to be truthful by the study of men, for what is a man unless he is

himself--the thing he pretends to be? Kindness--I learned that from the

earth, where we all reap as we sow, and everything that lives teaches us

to be happy. These birds and flowers--see how happy they are! And this

boy of mine just returned from the path of error--who could be happier

than he is?”

“That's sound,” said the hand-made gentleman. “I'm going to write it

down in my book.” He sat down and wrote while she helped him a little in

the phrasing of his notes.

“I must devote myself to business,” said Mr. McCarthy, when he had

closed the book. “I will visit the leading villages in the county, and

return as expeditiously as possible.”

He glanced at me as if to note the effect of this impressive

declaration.

“Good luck; and remember here is always a good welcome,” my mother said

to him, as he took the road to Heartsdale.

BOOK TWO--IN WHICH CRICKET TAKES THE ROAD TO MANHOOD AND MEETS WITH

SUNDRY MISHAPS

STAGE I.--IN WHICH CRICKET COMES TO A QUEER STOPPING-PLACE ON THE ROAD

TO MANHOOD

[Illustration: 9157]

R. PEARL had opened a little shop in Heartsdale. It was up an alley next

to a large mill, where he could connect his shaft with river-power. A

smooth board, lettered with his own brush and nailed above his door,

contained the words:

PEARL & COMPANY

One bright, still morning in the early summer I walked to Heartsdale to

begin my career anew. My mother wished me to be near home, and I was on

my way to the shop of B. Crocket & Son, marble-cutters, who were making

a monument for my father. They were going to teach me their trade.

Heartsdale had always made me believe it very large and myself very

little. Its buildings and its people had seemed to look down upon me

from a great height. Now that I had been to Buffalo, that old feeling

of awe and littleness had gone out of me and must be now, I believed, in

the breast of Heartsdale itself, and I carried my head high.

From the eminence of my conceit I got a full view of its languor and

littleness. Even the river slowed its pace half a mile above and came

on like a spent horse. Near the Mill House half a mile below it began to

hurry, and always I had the stir of the rapids in me.

Feet accustomed to the pace of the plow were going into town. The clink

of an anvil broke the silence. I had often watched the great blacksmith

as he worked. That clinking indicated the flow of his thought and the

strength of his convictions. Words fell between hammer-strokes, and were

often as hot as the beaten metal.

The shop of B. Crocket & Son, whither I was bound, stood on a narrow

byway bordered with small wooden buildings. The shop itself had a little

door-yard where headstones and monuments stood among blocks of marble.

Inside were benches on which the stone was being trimmed, lettered,

and polished. There everything was white with marble-dust. Mr. B.

Crocket--called “Judge Crocket” by all who knew him, and so called

because, in his own way, he pronounced judgment on those who lived and

died about him--stood over a headstone cutting an epitaph. A number

of men past middle age sat around a small table in one corner playing

old sledge. They looked up at me as I entered. A man and a red-headed

boy, the latter of about my age, were polishing a block of granite

near the far end of the shop. I approached the Judge and bade him

good-morning. He looked down out of gray eyes colder than the marble on

which he leaned. His pale, wizened face was itself a wonderful bit of

sculpture.

“Are you the young Heron?” he asked.

The men who were playing cards began to laugh, and I was a bit stung by

it, having a strong sense of dignity.

“I am Mr. Heron,” was my answer.

“Huh!” my new employer grunted. “Take off your mister and your coat and

vest and put on a pair of overalls.”

The men laughed loudly, in spite of the fact that I had been to Buffalo.

I felt inclined to resent his words, but held my tongue and did as he

bade me, for I had brought some overalls in my satchel.

He went on with his work, and said, presently, that his son would tell

me what to do. The latter did not give me a mallet and chisel, as I

had hoped, but set me polishing with the redheaded boy of my own

age, familiarly known as “Swipes.” I had been reading the life of

Michelangelo, which my mother had bought for me, and dreaming of high

achievements. It had come to nothing but sweating over a hand-lathe and

slopping in dirty water.

Two of those who played at the table were old soldiers, the third a

business man, the fourth a retired farmer. One, with an empty sleeve,

entered presently and sat on a half-finished monument that lay

near them, as if accepting the invitation cut in its polished face,

“Requiescat in pace.” He begged a chew of tobacco, and began to talk,

telling how he got tobacco hunger in a battle and searched for it in the

pockets of the dead. The other soldiers took the cue and told of many

a like adventure as they played their game. The retired farmer was not

unlike them, for he, too, had begun his long rest. He of the one arm

passed a bottle as the game ended. Then all seemed to pry themselves out

of their chairs with levers of necessity.

“I've got to go,” said one, as he yawned.

“So've I,” said another.

“Here goes,” said number three. All rose, save one, and tried their

creaking joints.

It was Mr. Bulford Boggs, the undertaker, who remained in his chair--he

that was known far and wide as “Bull” Boggs. His shop was across the

way, and a line of parlor furniture filled its front window. He was a

full-bodied man with a prominent nose and a short upper lip, and wore a

high flaring collar and side-whiskers, now turned gray, and got soothing

draughts of indolence from a big, meerschaum pipe. I remember that his

nose and front and calm expression reminded me of a meadow-lark. It did

seem to me often that he resented human life. There were times when,

as he looked at one, his whole manner thus expressed itself: “What! you

living? Good Heavens, man! How do you expect me to get along in business

and you living on forever? Why don't you go hang yourself?”

Soon Mr. Crocket, who had been working silently on a headstone, rested

his chisel and looked at Mr. Boggs. Then he read, with quaint irony, the

flattering inscription that he had finished:

“It was her turn,” he said. “She was the survivor of three husbands.”

He continued pecking at the stone and also at the character of the

deceased lady. His monologue was broken by the sound of his mallet, and

I remember it went on as follows:

“Couldn't even live with herself [whack]. Tried it [whack], an' died

[whack].”

Mr. Boggs gave a roar of joy as he held his big pipe in his hand.

“Reminds me of Harrison White [whack, whack]. He traded me a horse for

a family monument, an'--wal, he got it for nothing. That horse began to

waste away. Come to find out he was twenty-four years old. The horse got

the heaves, an' Harrison got religion, but I got nothing. Come here one

day an' offered to pray for me [whack], I told him to pray for the old

horse. He gave me up. The old horse died an' so did Harrison. Oh, I've

seen 'em come an' go for a good many years [whack, whack, whack]. What

do you suppose they wrote out for an inscription to go under his name?”

“I heard once, but I've forgotten,” growled the undertaker. .

“'He paid the debt,'” said the Judge, soberly, with another whack. “I

added something free of charge, an' it was this, 'but not the one due

me.--B. Crocket.'”

Mr. Boggs, who sat watching the door of his shop across the way as he

listened, let out his mirth in heavy bolts of sound.

There was to be a political meeting, and the town was filling up

with people. Mr. Crocket and his friend went to the open door of the

marble-shop and looked at the crowds passing in the main street. Soon

the Judge returned to his task, and Mr. Boggs stood looking out of the

door.

“They've all got to die,” said the latter, cheerfully, as he surveyed

the people. “Whenever I get blue I just think o' that an' take courage.”

These hard old cynics were to me a new kind of people. They rejoiced

in death--in the destruction of hopes, in the slaughter of reputations.

Their rough word-play gave my young soul a shock that I have not yet

forgotten. It went on day after day, while I wore away the cold marble

and my tender youth.

The whole place and its people reminded me of those lines which I had

heard the minister quote in a sermon:=

```"The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave, ```The deep, dank

vault, the darkness, and the worm."=

But I made no complaint, for my first undertaking had come to naught,

and if I failed again what would they think of me--especially Jo and

my mother. My employer pecked away at the epitaphs with his chisel and

amended them with his conversation. Every morning Mr. Boggs and his

three companions sat in a corner playing old sledge and boarding their

cards with appalling thumps in trying stages of the game, and, after

each hand', loudly confessing their calculations.

“If we don't win this game I'll bury you for nothing,” was one of the

cheering and familiar promises of Mr. Boggs.

The undertaker had a wise and threatening air about him. He often

bullied people, using loud words and a pouncing manner. Sometimes he

gave advice with a wearied look of toleration, and oh, the sadness of

Mr. Boggs at a funeral!

The three friends went away soon after eleven o'clock, whereupon, if

there were “nothing doing”--an oft-repeated phrase of the undertaker--he

used to sit talking with the Judge or reading a newspaper. One day he

fell asleep in his chair. Mr. Crocket printed this inscription on a

sheet of cardboard and leaned it against the knees of the undertaker:=

````_Sacred to the Memory of B. Boggs_=

The Judge surveyed him with a playful eye, and added, “He is certainly

the flower o' the village.” It was an apt symbol, for he was, indeed,

one of the most perfect flowers of rustic commercialism that ever

bloomed.

The village boys relieved the monotony of my life with sundry insults.

Having travelled far, as I thought, and endured many perils, and having,

moreover, a proud spirit, I was, for my age and size, a bit nearer the

goal of manhood than most of them, and my dignity was natural enough.

They resented it with jeers and epithets and stickings out of the

tongue.

Mr. Crocket and his son went home at five, while I and the red-headed

boy continued our labor until six o'clock.

Swipes himself was a melancholy youth who had once swallowed a

shingle-nail and who cherished a great fear of it. For poor Swipes that

shingle-nail was like the sword of Damocles. The first evening that we

were alone together in the shop he confided his worst fears to me, and

asked if I knew of any medicine that would be likely to do him good. He

complained of pain in the pit of his stomach.

“I've took half a bottle of horse liniment that I found here in the

shop,” said he. “It may help some.”

He was deeply interested in the great fist-fighters, and his hero was

John Morrissey. In the last hour of work one day, after the Crockets had

gone home, three or four boys of about our age gathered in the shop.

We had removed our overalls and were getting ready to go, when Swipes

approached me. His fists were moving playfully.

“I could put an epitaph on that face o' your'n,” he threatened.

“It would be your epitaph,” I answered, promptly.

The others laughed and urged me to go on.

He began to jump up and down, with his fists out in front of me.

“Fight me, fight me, if you ain't a coward!” he hissed.

That word was more than I could endure. I flew at Swipes like a panther

and floored him. He rose, bleeding, but unwhipped. We fought fiercely up

and down among the gravestones, and in a moment were locked together. I

had the under hold and forced him into the water-tub. Swipes said

that would do, and I released my hold upon him. He rose, dripping, and

offered me his hand.

“You're all right,” said he, cheerfully. “I only wanted to know if you

could fight.”

He had a kind of pride in his bruised face, and would not let me wash

away the blood.

Directly another boy began to dance in front of me. It was a desperate

battle I had then, and Swipes, when he saw me getting the worst of it,

broke in for the sake of fairness.

“It ain't right,” said he. “You tackled him when he was tired.”

The bout ended, and Swipes gave me his hand with a cheering word as I

left him.

“I told 'em you could fight,” he whispered.

I had a hard week of it then, for they were bound to know what I was

made of--those warlike and barbaric people. I avenged my wrongs, and

stepped off the plane of reprobation and contempt forever.

I tried to like my task, and worked hard and spent three evenings a week

with Mr. Pearl. He lived in his little shop, and had been kind enough to

offer me what help he could in my studies. He had some learning, a

rare talent in mathematics, and a genius for explanation. I brought my

suppers with me, and we often ate together.

The first time I entered the shop, after my week of battle, the Pearl

looked at me and laughed.

“Confound that dog!” he exclaimed.

The dog stood up before him.

“I've often talked to you about fighting,” said the Pearl. “I want t'

tell you again it's poor business, Mr. Barker.”

“He's an awful quarrelsome cuss,” he added, as he dismissed the dog and

turned to me with an apology for delay.

We had scarcely begun our work when Mr. McCarthy entered. He had two

good legs under him--so one might have thought--and a shoe on each foot,

and a step like that of a sound man. He was “all dressed up,” as they

used to say, and a bit too well aware of it. He took off his hat and

bowed politely.

“Gentleman,” said he, “Mr. McCarthy presents his compliments.”

“I see that your off foot is on,” said Mr. Pearl.

“It's better than ever,” said Mr. McCarthy. “That's good!” exclaimed the

Pearl. “You can now make footprints in the sands of time.”

“Yes, I've got a pair o' feet and a new leg on my body, and five

thousand dollars in the bank, and more coming,” Mr. McCarthy went on,

while we were dumb with amazement. “You'll find Sal in every drug store

north of the Central Road, and I'm going to spread it all over Vermont

and Massachusetts. Two or three rivals have sprung up, and I've bought

'em out. I've got forty people at work in my central factory, which is

at Rushwater, New York.”

“He's geared for high power,” said the Pearl, as he turned to me. “He's

got his belt on the main shaft.”

The compliment pleased Mr. McCarthy. His eyes glowed and his fist

flashed down upon the bench before him with a loud thump. It was the

deep fire of his spirit showing itself in a kind of lightning thrust.

“I'm going to be somebody!” he exclaimed.

“If you can find use for it, you'll get all the power you need right off

the big engine,” said Mr. Pearl.

“What engine?”

“The one that runs the universe. When you've got accommodation for high

power it always comes to you. Then look out for the friction an' you're

all right.”

After a moment of silence he turned to me and said: “I've heard about

the three commandments of your house. They're like those of my

shop: Take your power off the main shaft--that means truth. Oil your

bearings--kindness. Reduce friction as much as possible--happiness. And

that reminds me, how is your gentleman?”

The Pearl turned to Mr. McCarthy as he put the query.

“A little more polished,” said the latter. “I think his deportment has

improved, an' he can converse upon many subjects or write an elegant

letter. He's a little more natural, as ye might say, and has so much

else to think of he's kind o' forgot himself. He reads the New York

_Herald_ every day, and can hold an argument on politics or religion. He

knows all the points in favor of the protection of home industries, an'

has learnt every great fact in American history.”

“Except one,” said the Pearl of great price.

“What's that?”

“A new thing discovered by H. M. Pearl, Esq., which is singular an'

likewise worthy of your attention.”

The Pearl paused for a moment while he looked at him. “A stream o' power

is rushing over those wires,” he went on. “I'll turn it into another

channel an' put a brake on it. Then you'll see some actions calculated

to produce loud and continued applause.”

He put out his lamp and stepped away in the darkness. I heard the turn

of a lever and then the room was flooded with light. We gazed at it with

a feeling of awe.

“These are sticks of carbon,” said he, pointing at the centre of the

glow. “When the current strikes the carbon it comes into hard sledding;

there's the rub, an' the rub makes heat an' the heat gives light, and

the light gives history and feelin's of surprise an' happiness in the

breast of H. M. Pearl, Esq. Wait until he gets the voltage he needs and

he can turn night into day.”

“What do you mean by voltage?” I asked.

He took us over to the hose tank that was fastened high in a corner, and

turned the faucet. Water came pouring through the hose into a large tub

on the floor.

“The voltage is the squirt of the stream, and the size of it is the

amperage, and the watts is the hole it would make in the snow. Do you

know why so many men use tobacco in this town?”

“No,” I answered.

“High voltage and little to do,” he went on. “Currents o' power are

flowin' into us, but--Lord!--we don't know what to do with it. We have

no purpose, no gear, no machinery. So we let it off in all kinds o'

folly. Look at the merchants--some of 'em are strong men, but every one

has got his belt on a pinwheel. There's twenty of 'em an' work enough

for two. The only men in town who are sure of a good living are the

undertaker and the carver of epitaphs. We all die, if we don't do

anything else.”

We turned again to the light and expressed our wonder.

“Lie low an' say nothin',” said Mr. Pearl, as he turned the lever. “I'll

make 'em roll in their sleep one o' these days. All I need is money for

patents an' tools an' material.”

“I'll furnish it some day,” said the young man.

“An' we'll share the profits,” said H. M. Pearl, Esq., as they shook

hands.

James Henry McCarthy and I left the shop together. I asked him to go

home with me, but he had to leave early next day, and so had taken

quarters at the inn.

“How is Miss Fame?” I asked.

“Splendid,” was his answer. “Do you suppose she'd care for me now?”

“I should think she would,” was my answer. “But I shall not ask her,”

said he. “I thought when I got my leg and handsome clothes and some

money that I'd be good enough for any one; but when I went to see her

the other day, it seemed as if she was a little cooler, if anything.”

There was a note of sadness in the voice of Mr. McCarthy. He went on in

a moment:

“I conversed with her on the subject of the Republican nominations. I

dropped into history and gave a quotation from Shakespeare, just to show

her that I was no fool, if I was the son of old Jack McCarthy. I guess I

let out about everything that I knew. I just told her that I was making

money, but I didn't talk shop--you know, gentlemen never do that.

By-an'-by she took my hand an' said: 'You're doing finely, James. I'm

delighted that you're getting along so well.' It seemed as if that was

the worst thing she could have said to me--the same old twaddle--as if I

needed a pat on the back. She never asked me to call again.”

“Don't let it worry you,” I suggested.

He continued. “After all, it isn't legs or clothes or deportment or

money or doing as you'd be done by that makes a gentleman--though they

help a good deal. You've got to be all right, and then forget it, and

it can't be done in a day. I'm like a new pair o' boots--they pinch a

little here and there, and have got too much of a squeak in 'em.”

STAGE II.--WHICH BRINGS CRICKET TO THE STATION OF REMORSE

[Illustration: 9174]

R. CROCKET played a bass horn which had belonged to his father. He had

much to say about “the cause of good music in Hearts-dale,” and both he

and Mr. Boggs were members of its Comet Band. Therein lay the weakest

point in Mr. Crocket's character. He did not lie or use tobacco or

strong drink or profanity, but I have thought sometimes that he would

have done well to change his sin for one more private and compact, for

the old horn cut a swath a mile wide in the silence. It had a part in

the string as well as the brass band of the village.

One night, more than a year after my initiation to the shop, there was

to be a celebration of the nomination of Lincoln for President and an

address by Colonel Remington. Capes and helmets for the musicians had

been sent to the marble-shop and were stored away in a closet. Swipes

and I had discovered them. Now, it should be explained that Swipes

regarded his shingle-nail with growing apprehension. He had come to

work with a poultice of mustard that morning. I had seen him spitefully

withdraw it from his bosom and fling it under his bench. When the

Messrs. Crocket had gone home we talked of the shingle-nail, and I

observed that he had great respect for the mustard and more confidence

in his future. He declared that his pains had been drawn to the outside

of his body, and he thought that a safer place for them. He showed me

the blister, and as we surveyed the same an evil purpose entered the

mind of Swipes, and I regret to say that it overflowed into my own.

The helmets had a partial lining of thin cloth attached to the visor.

Beneath the lining of each one we spread a mustard paste where it would

afflict the forehead of the player. That done, we ate our suppers and

went out to see the crowd. At half-past seven the musicians appeared in

front of the Opera-House, and began work at once. Soon I observed that

three or four of the players had begun to perspire, and were moving the

skin of their foreheads. The clarionet lagged and fell out of time. Mr.

Crocket lost the run of the score, and went roaring on for a moment and

abandoned the chase. Swipes nudged me as the marble-cutter removed his

helmet. The others were struggling with their parts.

The clarionet player began to talk to himself. The crowd was laughing

at the discords. The Heartsdale Cornet Band suddenly gave up, and, oddly

enough, on the first phrase of _Hail Columbia_. Every player uncovered

and felt his forehead and began to talk.

Mr. Boggs muttered and seemed to threaten his neighbor.

“I feel as if I'd blown my brains out,” said the clarionet player.

“This helmet ought to be spelt with a double _l_,” said Mr. Crocket, as he

felt the inside of his head-cover.

Unfortunately, we stayed too long and laughed too much. Mr. Crocket

discovered us, and had a stern and suspicious look. We retreated

promptly, and heard no more from the band until next morning. We met on

the street and entered the shop together.

“Boys,” said the Judge, “I've got a present for you.”

“What's that?” Swipes inquired.

“Hellmets,” said the marble-cutter, spelling the word with a double _l_,

after he had spoken it--“a pair of 'em; one for each of you. Try 'em

on.”

I did not dare refuse the honor, and poor Swipes had the same feeling.

The helmets were on our heads in a minute.

“They're becoming,” said Mr. Crocket. “I like to see 'em on you.”

He pulled them down and fastened them with a strong cord. He seemed to

enjoy tying the knot beneath our chins, and drew it tight.

We began our work, and were presently in the tortures of full atonement.

Swipes dropped his tools by-and-by, and tried in vain to raise the

helmet a little.

“I guess somebody has put some mustard in this helmet,” said he, in a

loud voice.

“Mustard!” Mr. Crocket exclaimed. “Nobody would be mean enough for

that.”

“It must be,” Swipes persisted.

“I guess you're mistaken,” said Mr. Crocket, calmly, as he resumed his

work. “Leastways, if there is mustard in 'em, it's only meant for a

joke.”

Mr. Boggs, who sat in his corner, began to roar.

“It's hard when ye have to invent the joke an' take it, too,” said Mr.

Crocket.

Swipes seized the cord and put all his strength upon it.

“You fool, don't you know it's funny?” said the marble-cutter.

Swipes could see no occasion for laughter, and continued to pull the

string until it came free.

“Look here, boy, if you can't take your own medicine you'll have to take

mine,” said Mr. Crocket, sternly. “You may pick up your things an' go;

I'm done with you.”

Poor Swipes! Things had come to a bad turn for him, and his lips were

trembling as he prepared to leave.

The thought of him, then, was more to me than my own torture. He was

poor and sorely needed his place. I should not have done, or permitted

him to do, an act so foolish as that we had been guilty of.

So I spoke up for him with odd mendacity: “It was my fault, Mr. Crocket.

Swipes is not to blame. I put the mustard into those helmets.”

It is past finding out--the things a boy will do when he is put to it.

“Oh, you did,” said the marble-cutter, “you little-souled, narrer,

contracted cuss!”

His eyes seemed to be searching me for other qualities likely to serve

his scorn. He added, with a look of sternness: “Boy, you've done a great

injury to the cause of good music in Heartsdale!”

I wondered if music had suffered more than I, and, answered, timidly:

“It was only meant for a joke.”

“Well, the joke is on you,” said Mr. Crocket, with a rude look at me.

“You are both discharged.”

So my second trial in business came to its end, and people began to

shake their heads and say that I was a wild boy and would come to no

good.

I went to the shop of my old friends, “Pearl & Barker,” and told of my

trouble. The Pearl had a thoughtful look on his face, and said nothing

for a few moments.

“Confound that dog!” he exclaimed, presently, and began to call Mr.

Barker. The dog stood up before him.

“You rascal!” the Pearl began, “you'll have to take another dose. I

trust that you will soon be a dog, Mr. Barker, an' get over bein' a

puppy. Not that I would have you too good--there are no angels in this

world, Mr. Barker. But I am moved to suggest that you always show proper

respect for age.”

Every word that he said to “Mr. Barker” sank into my soul, and made me

see how foolish I had been.

“Those in favor of reform will please say aye,” said the Pearl, and Mr.

Barker and I both voted loudly. “It seems to be carried--it is carried,”

the Pearl went on, and then, turning to me, he added: “That dog is

getting a good deal of useful knowledge. It may be worth your while to

whack up with him.”

It was said gently, and yet, somehow, the words fell like a lash. I went

home sore with remorse and wrote a letter of apology to Judge Crocket,

and fully confessed my folly.

STAGE III.--IN WHICH CRICKET PROCEEDS WITH HEAVIER BAGGAGE

[Illustration: 9181]

HAT evening there came a rap at our door, and when I opened it who

should walk in upon us but Sam--the apprehensive and affectionate Sam.

I presented him to my mother and sister, and he removed his cap and coat

and sat down with us. In his Sunday suit and manners Sam was neither

cheerful nor communicative. I tried to talk with him of the days we

had known together, but he only smiled and shook his head with, now and

then, a timid exclamation. When my mother and sister had gone to bed he

nudged my leg and whispered:

“Le' 's go outdoors.”

We went down the road together, and he turned to me and said:

“I'm up a stump.”

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“Deviltry, which is a caution,” said he.

“Married life?”

“The Colonel,” said Sam.

“Why don't you leave him?”

“Can't,” he answered.

“Why not?”

“It's my duty to stan' it, an' I'll have to. Don't have much to do but

sleep with the Colonel, an' that's a man's work. It takes an uncommon

kind of a man, too. You have to praise his strength an' look at his

wounds an' hear him sing an' be shoved around the bedroom an' get your

head thumped on the wall, an' run for your life when he chases ye. He

wants to rassle an' pull fingers about every night. Sometimes he comes

home drunk an' sets an' sings like a bird at two o'clock in the morning.

I have to get up an' pull his boots off an' let him shove me around.

It ain't an easy job, but it's better than some, an' we can't leave Jo

alone with him. I've got to put up with it. One night he drove me all

over the place with a kind of a spear. I didn't know but he was goin' to

stick me with it. By-an'-by I see that he wasn't vicious.

“One evenin' a young feller come there when the Colonel was away, an'

behaved himself improper. Jo told Fannie, an' I went an' kicked him

out o' the house. The Colonel was wild when he heard of it. He wouldn't

allow a boy on the place after that. The first one that come he grabbed

a sword off the wall an' made for him. The boy run like a scairt deer,

an' the Colonel chased him acrost the door-yard an' half-way to the

bridge.

“One day the Colonel found a letter from you to Jo. He see that you was

in love with her, an' flew mad an' forbid her to write to you, an'

I come to tell ye. He won't let her go on the street alone, which is

agoin' too fur--altogether. Jo is a lady--don't you forget it. There's

only one man that comes to the house, an' he's a friend o' the Colonel.

I guess he's a gentleman.”

Jo's silence had worried me, and now this attitude of her father filled

me with alarm.

“Do you--do you think she cares for me?” I asked.

“You bet I do,” he answered, promptly. “There's every sign of it. She

promised him that she wouldn't write to you--she had to do it, I guess,

an' she wanted me to come an' bring you this.”

He paused and gave me a small package.

“The Colonel has had a fortune come to him,” my friend went on. “He's

goin' to move to the old homestead in Merrifield, an' it ain't over

twenty mile from here. They'll move in the spring--soon as the snow's

off--an' maybe things 'll change by then, so you can come an' see us.”

“You write me when to come, and I'll be there if it's a possible thing,”

was my answer..

Sam questioned me as to my work and pay, and I gave him all the

particulars.

“You'll have to get into bigger business,” he suggested. “Jo's a lady.

I ain't goin' to tell 'em that you're smoothin' rocks. It don't fit

ye--someway.”

“It's respectable,” I said, “and I've been studying every day.”

I didn't have the courage to speak of my discharge, and I hoped, too,

that Mr. Crocket would soon take me back.

“You've got to be a big gun if you're goin' to fit her, there ain't any

two ways about that. You'd better go to school, an', if you need it,

I'll lend you a little money.”

I thanked the big-hearted fellow, and said that I would consult my

mother about it.

“You set down an' write her a letter,” said he, “an' I'll see that she

gets it.”

“But the Colonel--” I began.

“He ain't forbid _you_ to write, has he?” Sam went on. “You write her a

good, long, high-toned letter, such as a lady ought to get. You know

how to do it. Don't speak o' the rocks. I've told 'em that you was a

gentleman, an' very partic'lar fine in every way, shape, an' manner, an'

I guess she b'lieves it. She can marry the best chap in the land if she

wants to.”

I took his hard hand in mine. “Sam, you're a friend worth having,” I

said.

“You done me a favor once,” he went on, “an' I ain't forgot it, an'

never will, an' I'm goin' to help you in any way that I can. Do you

remember when I was married? She just took hold o' my bit an' give me

a slap on the side, an' walked me up to the neck-yoke where I belonged,

an', old boy, I'd go through fire an' water for her.”

“I shall not write to Jo at present,” I said. “It wouldn't be fair to

the Colonel. We must win him over.”

We climbed the hanging stair, and I conducted Sam to the spare room.

“Thank God,” Sam exclaimed, “I ain't got to hear about battles or the

last rose o' summer, an' prob'ly I won't have to jump out an' rassle in

the dead o' the night!”

I took the little package Sam had given me to my room, and when it

was undone there lay the horruck, wrapped in a sheet of paper which

contained these words:

_I have read the delightful message of the horruck. I send it back, and

it will do for a letter._

I sat for hours trying to solve the riddle, and fell asleep in my chair

by-and-by. When I awoke the horruck was gone. It had dropped from my

hand, no doubt, but, although I looked high and low, I was not able to

find it. Had Lizzie McCormick returned in my sleep and taken it away?

The thing had left me as mysteriously as it came.

I went to bed and lay awake, hearing the roar of the falling water, and

the thought came to me that my own life was like a river now, creeping

over the flats. Maybe it would gather power and go on with a rush

by-and-by.

STAGE IV.--IN WHICH CRICKET COMES TO A TURN IN THE ROAD

[Illustration: 9187]

Y sister was now in the Heartsdale Academy, and my mother and I had a

wholesome pride in her. It was partly for her sake, I must confess to

you, that I had been in a when my desire would have sent me to school.

One of us had to work, and there were many reasons for my sacrifice, and

no credit due me. In a dozen houses I knew one might have seen better

deeds: mothers working nights, sons and daughters hired for long hours

and hard labor, and with no clothes fit for a holiday, so that some one

of the children could go to college or the normal school.

My sister had many friends--boys and girls of her own age--who came to

visit her. She was a comely girl, and sprightly and light of heart as a

bird in the springtime.

At home I had either a book or a biscuit in my hand always--so my mother

said of me. The supper dishes out of the way, our table was drawn to the

fireside and our big lamp glowed upon us until past ten o'clock. What

a magic in its light and the silent hours! Far tribes and peoples, the

sayings of wise men, immortal tales and poems, the wonders of art and

invention, were gathered into the lamplight. Above all, I enjoyed the

poets, even the best of them, and committed pages of classic verse, and

had burning thoughts of great accomplishment.

We went one night to the Thanksgiving ball at Jones'--I and my sister

and some of her schoolmates--in a big sleigh. It was, I may say,

historic, being the last of its kind in the neighborhood. We were not

to see again the careless, old-time frolic. The bass horn, also, was

thenceforth banished from like scenes forever. The big fire came, and

the telegraph followed in the early spring, and the railroad in the

summer; and new brick buildings, including that of the Hearts-dale

Academy, and many students and workingmen. A new editor appeared who

began to poke fun at the old fashions. Then came the dress-suit, and

novel forms of entertainment, and a big fire-engine. All these things

had their effect upon us.

Mr. Crocket appeared at this last of the oldtime dances. He sat with

the fiddler, and came in, now and then, with a long streak or a sudden

splash of bass.

Between dances we heard the bells ringing and hurried out-of-doors. A

light rose high in the heavens above Heartsdale. The village was afire,

and we made a rush for coats and caps, and our horses were soon speeding

along the road.

The Rogers block was burning, and what a scene it was! A squad worked

on a force-pump at the town well. Men rushed aimlessly about shouting

orders mingled with profanity. Others swore back at them with equal

emphasis. Every one had a plan of his own. A few were arguing loudly

face to face. Mr. Boggs stood looking on with an “I-told-you-so”

expression.

Some were bravely at work in the heat passing water-buckets. One was on

a roof near the fire playing the hose. They said he was H. M. Pearl. I

saw the ladder he had climbed, and the thought came to me that here was

my chance at last, and I made my way up it through heat and smoke to

the side of my friend. As I fought the falling cinders I wondered if Jo

would ever hear of it.

“The fire has got more power than we have!” Pearl shouted to me.

He worked for a few minutes only when the water gave out. The fire had

been forcing us back, and a blast now and then scorched our faces.

“We'll have to adjourn,” said Pearl; and we slid down the smoking ladder

with blistered hands and faces, and our coats afire.

Heartsdale was more than half destroyed that night, and the marble-shop

was in ruins. Pearl had seen the truth--the village had not power enough

for its foe. Every day or two some town or city was burning up for that

reason.

“The country is like a boy that has outgrown his strength,” Pearl said

to me. “It needs more power; that stream o' water didn't have squirt

enough to drown a bee.”

“And better management,” I suggested.

“Power and management go hand in hand,” said he. “When power comes it

will bring brains along with it.”

I wrote an account of my adventure on the roof for the weekly _Courier_.

It was published over my full name, and not since have I so pleased

myself. Did not the editor speak of me as “a polished writer” and “a

brave lad”? I read it over again and again, and sent a marked copy to my

friends in Summerville.

The _Courier_ of that week was full of history.

There were lines in it by some unknown writer which put an end to the

despotic sway of the bass horn. These lines were, in a way, the Magna

Charta of Heartsdale, which thereafter might have been described as a

limited monarchy. Let me read a moment:=

````To Jones' tavern, near the ancient wood,

````Come young and old from many a neighborhood.

````Here comes B. Crocket with his old bass horn,

````Its tone less fit for melody than scorn.

````They say that thro' its tubes from first to last

````A century's caravan of song has passed.

````The boys and girls, their mirthful sports begun,

````With noisy kisses punctuate the fun.

````O careless youths and red-lipped little misses!

````O blush that marks the sweet disgrace of kisses!=

````The fiddler comes, his heart a merry store,

````And shouts of welcome greet him at the door.

````Tho' fashioned rough and rude the jest he flings,

````What power has he to wake the tuneful strings!

````The old folks smile and tell how, long ago,

````Their feet obeyed the swaying of his bow,

````And how the God-sent magic of his art

````To thoughts of love inclined the youthful heart,

````And shook the bonds of care from aged men

````Who, 'neath the spell, returned to youth again.=

````He raps the fiddle-back as t'were a drum,

````The raw recruits of Cupid's army come,

````And heeding not the praise his playing wins,

````The ebullition of his soul begins.

````The zeal of Crocket, turned to scornful sound,

````Pursues the measure like a baying hound;

````The sprightly phrases fall like gusts of rain,

````The dancers sway like wind-swept fields of grain;

````And, midst the storm, to maddening fury stirred,

````The thunder of the old bass horn is heard.=

STAGE V.--IN WHICH CRICKET MOUNTS ONE OF GOD'S HORSES

[Illustration: 9193]

HOSE days they were stringing wires through the North, and even there

human thought had begun to move faster. Now one could fling his words

far over the distant hills in a moment. Men gathered in groups and

talked of the wonder of it, and looked with awe upon the operator; for

had not tidings of far capitals come to him out of the sky, and news of

death which had made the strong tremble?

Pearl had been helping to install a new line. For a time--a long time,

as it seemed to me--the shop door was locked.

The night of his return I found him overhauling instruments at his

bench, but as I came in he dropped his work and his face brightened.

“How goes it?” I asked.

“Swift,” he answered. “I've been helping 'em lay a track for lightning.

A stream o' power is flashing over the hills to Merrifield this minute.

Do you see that wire that goes by the window there? Well, it's a nerve

out o' the brain o' the universe, an' we're connected. It makes us a

part o' the great body o' the world, as ye might say.

“There's goin' to be a war between life an' death in this country. In

Heartsdale you an' I will lead the new army. Boggs an' Crocket will

command the old.”

That little shop was for me “the House of the Interpreter,” and there I

began to get the drift of things.

He gave me a book which contained the Morse alphabet, and taught me to

make the letters on a telegraph key, and showed me how it checked the

current and so produced the dots and dashes.

“I'll run a wire to your house,” he promised, “an' we'll string our

thoughts on it an' learn some useful knowledge. I can get a place for

you as soon as you can read an' send the current, I never liked the

headstone business. It's at the wrong end o' the line. If it was the

cradle business, I'd like it better. Life is the thing for you an' me,

not death.

“There's four churches and two cemeteries in this little town. Life here

has been a kind o' preparation for the grave, an' not much else.

Death has done most o' the business. It's time we had a change.”

I was to help the swift, mysterious current of power to quicken the

minds of the people.

Pearl lent me a telegraph key, and I stayed at home with my mother and

sister for a few weeks, learning how to sound the letters on it. I went

often to Pearl's shop of an evening and talked with him by telegraphy,

and he was pleased with my progress, and within a month said I was good

enough for any place on the line. We felt his kindness deeply there in

the Mill House, and my mother wrote her thanks to him, and begged him to

come and sup and spend the evening with us any day.

“My friend and fellow-citizen,” said Mr. Pearl, when I saw him again,

“nothing would please me better than to sit by your fireside and enjoy

all that exalts and embellishes civilized life. But, firstly, I am not

decent enough; and, secondly, my clothing is fit only for the 'sacred

precinks' o' my own shop, as Mr. Boggs would say; and, thirdly, I have a

lot to do an' only sixteen hours a day to do it in.”

So he never came to the Mill House, and, although my mother had called

twice at his shop to tell her gratitude, she had not been able to find

him.

One day he gave me glad news in this manner: “How would ye like a job?”

“What kind of a job?” I inquired.

“To jerk lightnin'.”

That was his way of describing the work of an operator.

“I'd like it very much.”

“You're to take the office in Heartsdale at forty dollars a month on

trial,” he said.

It staggered me--the prospect of such opulence--and that very day I

began my work. I have been lucky and prospered rather handsomely since

then, but I have never received a sum so enduring and massive as that

which came to me at the end of every month. I always hurried home with

the roll of bills and flung it into my mother's lap proudly. Oh, what a

lavish hand was mine those days! About the best happiness of all my life

was in the few moments of sublime generosity at the month's end when

I renounced the money and saw the look in my mother's face and hurried

away to my chores. And when I saw the splendor of my sister's hats and

gowns, and the neatness of her shoes, and heard people speak of her

beauty, I was about as happy as one may be.

I had “jerked lightning” some eight months and had become a figure in

the life of Heartsdale, for I guided the flying horse of God that sped

in and out of the village on its slender highway, and I was looked upon

as a kind of sorcerer. Moreover, I--a boy of seventeen--received the

princely income of forty dollars a month!

In all this time, although I had written to Jo about the loss of the

horruck and my ignorance of its secret and my growing curiosity, no word

of her had come to me save a letter from Sam, which told me that Jo was

well and hoped those few lines would find me the same.

One afternoon my call came clicking into the sounder with the letters M.

F. behind it. I knew that M. F. stood for the office at Merrifield.

The operator said that he would have an important message for me at

eight that evening, and, asked if I could be at the key to take it.

The request was not unusual, for mine was the repeating office at the

junction of two lines. I promised to be on hand, and went to the office

at eight o'clock.

Soon I got the call and answered it, and these words flashed into the

sounder:

“Is this Mr. Heron?”

And I answered, “Yes; who are you?”

“I am the operator at Merrifield, and I have a message for you.”

“Well, go ahead,” I clicked, impatiently. I could see it was a new

operator with a rather timid hand. So the message ran:

_To Jacob Ezra Heron:_

Do you still care to hear from an old friend?

Jo.

I answered that very moment:

_To Jo:_

I am dying for news of you. Answer.

Cricket.

Then I asked, “Can you deliver the message to-night?”

“Yes; it has been delivered. I am Jo,” the sounder clicked. “This is

confidential. See if any one is on the line.”

I rang off the calls of the hill circuit and got no answer, and knew we

had the wire to ourselves.

“Are you an operator?” I asked.

“Yes. I had to have a talk with you, and so here I am, at last.”

“I'd rather talk face to face than with lightning,” I said. “Why can't I

go and see you?”

“Not now. Wait a little while,” she answered.

“Why?”

“Well, it's a long story. There's a young man who came here from New

York last summer. He's a friend of father's, and knows you. Since they

met, my father has asked me not to see or write to you until he could

get some information.”

“Who is the young man?”

“Mr. Bonaparte Squares.”

“Oh, it's Bony Squares!” I clicked. “I know him very well.”

“And I know him better than I ever wished to,” she went on. “He has

tried to make love to me.”

“Tried to make love to you!” I exclaimed, with indignation. “I cannot

believe it. Your father had better get some information about him. Tell

him to write to the postmaster of Heartsdale. Any one here or at Mill

Pond could tell him all about Bony. He couldn't marry you!”

There was a pause of two or three seconds, and then the sounder

answered, timidly:

“Why?”

“Because I wouldn't let him,” I said.

“There's no danger,” she answered.

“Except for Bony,” I flashed back.

I held my ear close to the sounder for fear of missing a word.

“I am too young to think of marriage.”

“Until you have consulted me,” I said. “I know things that you must know

before then.”

“I will ask father to write to your postmaster about his friend,” she

continued, as if she thought I had things to tell about Bony.

“Don't let them turn you against me,” I urged.

“Don't fear. If I had another horruck I would send it to you.”

“I was never able to read the horruck's riddle,” I said.

“Oh, you didn't know!” she exclaimed. “I thought you meant it for me.”

“I cannot say until I know the message.”

“But I wouldn't dare tell you. It's one thing to say it yourself,

and another to speak with the horruck. You must find and study it.

Goodnight! My dear old father is dozing here beside me, and doesn't

dream that I am talking to you. I feel guilty, but I was afraid that you

would come here.”

“Don't say good-night. I'm not half through talking.”

“But we mustn't say everything at once, and he is tired. We'll have

another talk. Goodnight!”

I closed the office, and started for my home. As I walked alone in the

darkness under the singing wires, I got my first broad view of their

mission. My sweetheart and I were miles apart, but that rushing power

on the string of metal had almost removed the distance and helped us

to understand each other. Would it not, by-and-by, remove seas and

continents and make all the races of one mind, and keep them in peace

and good-will?

STAGE VI.--MY LAST WEEK ON THE FLYING HORSE

[Illustration: 9202]

EARL had invented a water-turbine, a dynamo, and a method of producing

light by electricity, and many valuable devices, but had been able to

patent only two of them. It is curious how, when there is universal need

of a thing, men agree, without ever a word between them, that it shall

be done, and nothing is so wonderful as the likeness of their energy and

inspiration, as the rhythm of their hammer-strokes, the world over.

Pearl, struggling in the privacy of his little shop, was marching, step

by step, with the great inventors, and never even suspected it until his

best devices were a matter of record in the Patent Office to the credit

of other men.

One evening I found him asleep on his bench. A hand hung over the edge,

and a letter had dropped from it. His scarred face had a weary look. I

turned to leave without disturbing him when he awoke and greeted me.

“Jake, I'm tired,” said he, as he rose, yawning, and began to fill his

pipe. “I ain't up to the mark.”

“What's the matter?”

“Had a fall,” he said, passing the letter. “Read that.”

I read the news which had disappointed him, and he said:

“Yesterday I was a great man, an' wouldn't have sold out for a million

dollars. I've rolled off the lap of luxury an' hit the floor with a

bump. Old Aunt Luxury is a long lady, an' no mistake. It's forty feet to

her knees, an' a good deal of a tumble. You see before you a melancholy

ruin.”

“Here,” I said, “let me lend you some money. I'll trust you with all

I've got.”

I had just received my pay, and showed it to him.

“I'm so poor that I wouldn't trust myself,” he answered; “an' that bein'

so, I wouldn't ask you to trust me.”

He left me to get some wood for the fire, and I saw a Bible lying on his

desk and put a twenty-dollar bill between its leaves, at the eleventh

chapter of Job, and closed it again. I talked with him for an hour or

so, and asked, when I was leaving, if he had read the Book of Job.

“Not sence I was a boy,” he answered.

“Read the eleventh chapter before you go to bed,” I suggested, and went

away.

Next day he came to my office.

“We're off this evenin', with all our tools and implements,” said he.

“If it hadn't been for you an' Job we couldn't have got away. You're a

strong pair. I read in that chapter, 'Thou shalt forget thy misery and

remember it as waters that pass away.' It was the very sermon I needed.

My misery is gone. We have given you a vote o' thanks. It was hearty an'

unanimous.”

He was to take the freight and accommodation which left Heartsdale about

eleven o'clock. He did not tell me his destination, but said that I

should hear from him by-and-by. I went to the depot with Pearl and

Barker, and saw them off.

As I passed the house of the postmaster on my way home, a man in a tall

beaver hat came out of its front door and walked hurriedly to a carriage

and drove away. It was a cool night in November, and the collar of his

overcoat was up around his ears. Something familiar in the step of the

man caused me to turn and look at him and remember the incident.

Three evenings later M. F. was with me on the wire of the hill circuit,

deserted by all save us, and I was taking my part in this dialogue:

“I have important news,” said Jo.

“What?”

“Father has had a letter from the postmaster of Heartsdale about

Mr. Squares. The letter says that he is a man of good character and

excellent family.”

I saw, then, that mine was a rival who had the will and cunning to win

his point. It was strange that I had failed to recognize that swagger

of his when I had seen him walk to his carriage the night I passed the

postmaster's house.

“It's enough to make lightning laugh,” I said. “Your father told him

what he was going to do, and Bony drove to Heartsdale on Tuesday night

and made friends with the postmaster. He came late in the evening and

did not intend to be observed, but I saw him.”

“It is too bad,” she clicked.

“I can bear it as long as you think well of me,” I said. “Suppose I go

to Merrifield and have a talk with your father?”

“Not now; there's time enough.”

“No, there isn't! You seem to forget that I'm getting along in life.”

“Poor boy!--you're almost eighteen!”

“I'm older than most gentlemen of twenty.”

“Why can't you wait?”

“Because I have something to tell you,” I wrote.

“To tell me?”

“Yes, and it's too sacred for the wires. I must look into your eyes and

hear your answer.”

“I wonder what it can be,” the receiver clicked. “I shall let you come

as soon as I can. I want to see you very, very much. Good-night. Father

has come for me. We are going to Washington in a day or two.”

At that moment I caught the first words of a thrilling message on

the main line. It said: “Fort Sumter has been fired upon. It is the

beginning of war.”

I took the news to my mother, and declared my wish to go and fight for

the North.

“No,” she said; “your father gave his life in the war with Mexico. Now

my health is gone and you are all that's left to us. You are enlisted in

a war with Poverty, and I can't spare you.”

She put her arms around me and cried, and I promised to stay at home, if

possible, and it seemed a hard fate in spite of my happiness.

I wrote a long letter to the Colonel and confessed my love for his

daughter, and begged him not to think ill of me without full information

as to my character, and referred him to a number of good people.

This brief and suggestive letter came promptly:

Dear Sir,--As to your character, I have had all the information I

desire. I should think better of it if you were to cease communicating

with my daughter against my wishes.

It hurt like the blow of a hammer, and I could not think of the Colonel

with any degree of charity for a week or more, but, after all, it

helped to make a man of me. In the heat of such days a man shapes his

character--as the smith his iron that is hot from the forge--and tempers

it in cool reflection. Soon I got a letter from Sam that told of the

departure of Jo and the Colonel for Washington.

STAGE VII.--IN WHICH MR. HERON ARRIVES AT THE SHOP OF THE HAND-MADE

GENTLEMAN

[Illustration: 9208]

CTOBER had returned, and a letter had come from my friend McCarthy,

asking me to visit him. My sister had learned telegraphy at home, and

could take and send well enough to do my work at the office. It was

arranged, therefore, that she and my mother should close the Mill House

and come to town for a week or two, so that she could take my place.

The hand-made gentleman had built his factory in the thriving town of

Rushwater, on the Central Railroad. It took a long summer day to get

there, for the engine was fed with wood, and we had now and then to load

the tender with fuel, corded on the right of way, or drive cattle from

the track or water the locomotive or mend a coupling, and had to wait at

the junction for trains in equally bad luck.

Early in the evening I found my friend McCarthy at the leading hotel in

Rushwater, where he boarded.

“Pleased to see you,” he said, with dignity, as he shook my hand. “Have

you been to supper?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Is there any kind of refreshment I can offer you?”

“Nothing except your company.”

He took me to the desk and introduced me as his friend, “Jacob Ezra

Heron, Esq., a gentleman from St. Lawrence County.”

“Give Mr. Heron the best the house affords, and put it on my bill,”

he added. I protested, whereupon he touched my arm and said: “You will

find, sir, that nobody will take your money in this town. If you will

walk with me, I will show you my factory.”

I asked for my friend Pearl, and McCarthy said that Pearl and Barker

were in New York, and were coming to Rushwater in a day or two. The

inventor had worked awhile in the shop, and planned a lot of machines

which had hastened the process of manufacture. In June he had drawn his

pay and left suddenly for parts unknown.

“I think that he went to the war,” said Mr. McCarthy; “but he never let

on. Said he'd turn up here one of these days, and last week I got a long

letter from the old man. Said he'd been sick, and was ready to come back

to the shop if I wanted him. Of course, I said come on. We made our way

through dark streets and stopped in front of a building--large for that

day and country--on the river shore.

“There it is,” he remarked, as we gazed for half a moment at the dim

outlines of his building. “I am the most extensive shipper of small

freight on the railroad.”

We entered the building, and he led me to his office and lighted a lamp.

It was a large room, elegantly furnished. The chairs and table were made

of mahogany and a soft carpet covered the floor. A large portrait of

Napoleon Bonaparte hung on the wall.

Those days the face and story of “The Little Corporal” were a power in

the land, and not the most wholesome one, I have thought.

“This is grand,” was my remark.

“I am making money,” said the hand-made gentleman, “and I propose to

look as prosperous as I am. Sal is now the smallest part of my business.

I spend twenty thousand a year advertising. My harp has four strings and

one tune. Here it is.”

The hand-made gentleman began to read from a newspaper as follows:

“SPEAKING OF SAL

“Sal is willing; Sal can make the house shine; Sal is a worker--never

cross and tired; the best and cheapest hired girl in the country. Cleans

silver, glass, metal, and woodwork. Give Sal a chance.

“SAL'S SISTERS

“There are three of them: Sally, the Brick, who cleans knives, forks,

pots, and kettles; Sal's Sister, a wonderful laundry soap; also

Salome, a clover-scented soap for the toilet. You will find them in all

groceries.”

“I began little--put it in a paper of five thousand circulation. I

found that every dollar that I invested brought me four dollars and

thirty-four and a half cents. The second ad. brought me four dollars

and thirty-seven cents; the third four dollars and forty-one, and so

it grew. I tried all the leading papers, and got the rate of profit and

learned the exact value of repetition for each. The return increased as

my goods travelled, and people began to talk about 'em. You see, I make

something that the people want, and my first problem was to let them

know it. That was easy. My next problem was to manufacture within a

certain limit of cost. In that Pearl has helped. My next problem was

to deliver the goods, and that is the greatest problem of all. The

railroads are slow and unreliable. They have no more system than a

carrier-pigeon. Y our freight is transferred until the boxes are worn

out; it is side-tracked and lost and forgotten. You see, there are

eleven railroads between here and Buffalo. They have been consolidated,

but not harmonized. They are like eleven horses in the hands of a

poor teamster; they don't pull together. They waste their strength. I

complained to Mr. Dean Richmond.

“He said to me, 'We're doing our best, and if you want a better service

you'll have to show us how to give it.'

“I gave him a few ideas, and he liked 'em, and what do you suppose

happened?”

Mr. McCarthy paused, but I could only shake my head and await his

revelation.

“Well, one day the manager called and said the Chairman of the Executive

Committee would like to see me,” Mr. McCarthy went on. “I pulled up

my check-rein a little and went to Albany. It surprised him to see how

young I was.

“'Why,' said he, 'you're nothing but a boy!'

“'I'm twenty-three,' I said, 'but they count double. I've done two

years' work in every one that I've lived.'

“He asked me to dinner; it was grand. I didn't dare eat much--just

sat and talked and listened and saw how they behaved themselves at his

table. I learnt a number of things.”

“What were they?”

“To keep my knife away from my face, for one thing,” he answered. “Then

a gentleman eats very slowly while he indulges in conversation. He's got

to be able to talk about Brignoli and Madame Piccolomini--ain't that a

grand name?--and Mrs. Siddons and Lester Wallack, with a word once in a

while about the Missouri Compromise. When he gets through he washes the

tips of his fingers. One of them told a vulgar story, and it seemed to

me that we needed a bath for our minds as well as for our fingers. The

chairman liked me, I guess, for he offered me some of his stock at a low

price, and said they wanted me on the directory. I went in, and now I'm

looking into the whole railroad problem.”

He began to unroll a great map which he had been making, and which lay

on a broad table. It was sixty feet long, and showed a section of the

country some two hundred miles wide from Boston to Chicago.

“I won't bother you with details,” he 'said, “but I have a great plan.

It will narrow this space between New York and Chicago. It will build

up a chain of great cities. It will make a market for goods and quicken

their delivery. It will furnish a model for the development of other

parts of the republic.”

The eyes of the young man glowed with enthusiasm. Then he shook with

laughter.

“That's pretty good for the boy with a wooden leg that you met on the

road to Canaan, isn't it?” he asked. “You see, the hand-made gentleman

is getting along. He's took his mind off himself--partly--and put it on

to other things. I don't need so much looking after as I did. I can

talk pretty well, and know how to conduct myself in any company. Ye see,

practice makes perfect, and I've practised decency for a long time. It's

like breathing. Of course, I might be better inside, but outside I'll do

for the time being.”

“I'd like to hear more of your plan,” I suggested.

“It's this, in a nutshell,” he said: “I want to combine all the

railroads between Boston, New York, and Chicago in one system. Now, if

you're going from New York to Chicago, you change at Albany and stay

all night; you change again at Syracuse and stay all night, and again at

Buffalo, and so on. Of course, you can ride all night, but it wears you

out. I want a better road-bed and heavier rails and lighter cars and

bigger engines and more power to handle 'em, and a continuous trip. Why

shouldn't we travel nights with comfort?”

The hand-made gentleman strode up and down the room and gestured like a

man making a speech.

“Five men have twenty times the power of one. Did you ever think of

that?” he asked. “When you put two and two together you get about

sixteen, but they've got to be one before they can be sixteen. That

suggests the value of combination.” He paused before me, and added:

“Here's the trouble. The idea is bigger'n I am. There's only one man in

the world who can carry it out.”

“Who is that?” I inquired.

“Vanderbilt,” said he. “There's the biggest man in the country. He's

made twenty million dollars with his brain. Think of that! He's the

Napoleon of this day.”

There came a rap at the door, and Mr. McCarthy shouted, “Come in!” and a

young man entered with a large blank-book in his hand.

“Mr. Heron, this is Mr. Magillies, a graduate of the commercial college

at Poughkeepsie, and a grand penman,” said the hand-made gentleman. “He

takes down my letters for me, and writes 'em off and sees that they're

worded proper. Would you like to hear me answer my correspondence?”

I assured him of my interest, and thereupon the hand-made gentleman

dictated many letters with a look and tone of great dignity. Now and

then he addressed some delinquent and unscrupulous debtor with great

emphasis, and more than once he described the virtues of Sal and Sal's

sisters and the clover-scented soap loudly and with gestures suited to

the word, so that he reminded me of the picture in my reading-book of a

Roman senator addressing the populace.

The young man left us late in the evening with his record of their work.

Then said the hand-made gentleman: “I must have somebody for that

position who is more than a mere writing-machine. I want some gentleman

who thinks as I do and will stand up for me like a brother. I want you!”

It took me by surprise, and I thanked him and expressed doubt of my

fitness.

“I know you, and you know me,” he said. “I like you, Mr. Heron, and

believe in you; and if you feel the same, let's pull together. I have

some big things to do, and you can help me; and I'll double the pay

you're getting.”

I was a rapid writer, and many had praised the neatness and legibility

of my penmanship. Then, too, I was rather fond of the hand-made

gentleman, and had a great faith in him. But how about my mother and

sister and Jo, for both Heartsdale and Merrifield were a long way from

Rushwater.

“I'd like to go to the war,” I answered, “if my mother will consent.”

“The ambition is meritorious,” said he. “There can be nothing nobler

than the wish to serve your country, but I don't think it needs you.

The war will be over in a few weeks. Then there are your mother and

sister--don't they need you more than the country does?”

“I'm afraid they do.”

“Then you mustn't think of going. Your father gave his life in battle. I

think your mother has given the country enough.”

I walked up and down the room thinking. “It's hard work,” said Mr.

McCarthy. “I sit here until midnight sometimes pounding at the letters.

But you'll have a chance to travel and meet men who amount to something,

and we'll have a good time together.”

“It's only a matter of arranging my affairs,” I said to him. “There's my

mother and sister.”

“Go home and see if you can get them to move here.”

He lighted a long cigar, and sat down with one foot on the desk. The

hand-made gentleman had learned to smoke.

“There's another thing--I want to open my heart to you,” he said. “I

haven't a brother or sister or friend that I can talk to about certain

matters. The fact is, I'm in love and engaged to be married.”

He paused, and was smoking thoughtfully, as I asked, “To Miss Fame?”

“No; she didn't reciprocate; and maybe it's just as well. I am engaged

to a talented actress by the name of Maud Isabel Manning.”

He paused again as if to note the effect of this impressive name, and

continued: “She's from New York, and beautiful as a dream. Came here

with a show, and one morning she walked into the office. Told me that

she used my toilet soap, and wanted to see the factory. I showed her

about, and fell in love with her. She's a wonder--grand clothes, and

knows how to wear 'em; wonderful education, fine talker, sings like a

bird, and can make the piano roar. I told her about my false leg and

foot and my family--that's worse than a wooden leg--but she doesn't

mind, and we're going to be married.”

I fear that I shared the prejudice of my Puritan fathers against

the stage, and was a little taken aback and a bit conservative in my

comment.

I think he felt it, for he blushed and began to argue, although a little

off the point.

“I think every gentleman ought to marry. There's something about women

that makes a man gentle. Old bachelors are about as ugly as a bear with

a sore head. I want somebody to work for besides myself. I can't love

myself well enough to pay for the struggle. I've got to have somebody

who grows happy as I grow rich, or I wouldn't care for money, upon

my word I wouldn't. Then the Bible says that men should increase and

multiply and replenish the earth.”

I wished him all happiness, and tried to put his mind at ease.

“I am forgetting you in talking of myself--you will want to retire,” he

said, and we closed the office and walked to the inn together.

Next morning some one rapped at my bedroom door. “Who's there?” I

demanded.

“A friend and fellow-citizen from St. Lawrence County,” was the answer,

and I knew it was Pearl.

I opened the door, and there stood my old friend in the familiar goggles

and linen duster, but with his left sleeve empty and a new scar on the

side of his face.

“Mr. Pearl!” I exclaimed; “what's happened to you?”

“Oh, I've just been trimmed up a little,” he said, with a smile, as he

gave me his hand. “It's nothing. Every tree needs it once in a while. I

had too much wood for my sap.”

“An accident?” I asked, with tears in my eyes.

“An accident, an' I'm tryin' to forget it,” said he. “How are the

folks?”

And I saw clearly that he wished me to say no more of his misfortunes.

Soon Mr. McCarthy came, and he and the Pearl went to the shop together.

STAGE VIII.--IN WHICH YOUNG MR. HERON COMES TO A TURN IN THE ROAD

[Illustration: 9221]

FTER breakfast I found the handmade gentleman at his factory, and went

with him into all its departments, and saw a hundred men and women at

work.

“I want you to go and ride behind my trotter with me,” said Mr.

McCarthy, presently. “Every gentleman has a trotter these days, and bets

a little money on him once in a while.”

The hand-made gentleman lived at an inn not far from Saratoga, and one

could not even enter it without getting a touch of the gay spirit of the

summer capital.

As we opened the shop door a drunken wretch in dirty clothing sat on the

porch. He rose, clinging to a column, and asked for a dollar.

“Well, uncle, back again, eh?” said the handmade gentleman. “No more

to-day--no more to-day.”

He spoke in a kindly tone, and said to me, as he went on:

“I know it's a disgrace, but I can't help it; and maybe he can't. He's

my uncle, and very fond o' me, after all. Followed me down here. Has a

spree every little while, and spends all he has earned in a day or two.

If I don't give him money he curses me, and goes about the place and

runs me down, and does all he can to make me ashamed o' myself. Many a

time I've felt like shooting him, but by-and-by I forgive the poor man

and lift him out o' the gutter and buy him new clothes and set him to

work again. And, do you know, he's been a great help to me, as ye might

say? Lord Chesterfield says that a gentleman should forgive injuries,

and I guess it's so. He's given me practice in the art of forgiving.

It's done me good. I kind o' think, sometimes, that when you help

another fellow to get on his feet you do more for yourself than ye do

for him.”

His trotter, hitched to a light buggy, was waiting at the door of the

inn, and we drove away.

“This is a daughter of one of the Morgans,” he said, as the mare began

to show her stride. “They're breeding for less weight and more power

and quicker action. It's a tendency of the times. Foot and wheel are

beginning to move faster. Everybody is tired of going slow. Mr. Bonner

says that he'll show us a horse by-and-by that can trot in 2.15.

“It's a funny thing,” he added, after a moment's pause; “my factory

kind o' sets the pace for this town. It starts the day and ends it. My

whistle sends every one to work, and tells 'em when to knock off, in

and out o' the shop. When it sounds in the morning you'll see men who

started a little late running to get to their jobs. It's brought new

ideas and business methods and a quicker step into the old town.” The

hand-made gentleman took me to my train soon after dinner. Pearl was

there to see me off.

“I'm glad you're comin' here, Jake,” he said, as he shook my hand.

“You've always been a great help to me.”

“I don't see how,” was my answer.

“You've helped me to live,” he said, with a sober look. “As soon as you

get back you and McCarthy will go down and see Vanderbilt. I've got it

all arranged. The medals helped me. It's the only time I ever used 'em.

They landed me in the Commodore's office, and I had a talk with him

straight from the shoulder. Told him if he went into the transatlantic

ferry business he'd lose every dollar he had, as Collins had done. He

wanted to know what made me think so, an' I told him that he couldn't

compete with the English, who had been doing that job for centuries with

cheaper labor than we could hire. I explained to him that the business

was a growth and not a product; that one might as well try to compete

with the forest by planting trees. He agreed with me.”

At Heartsdale I found my sister in love with her work, and had a talk

with the superintendent in Montreal, who promised to retain her. That

evening, as we sat by the fire at home, I got a view of myself that was

quite new to me. For a time it filled me with bitterness, but taught me

what I had to know, and set me forward in the race a little.

Report of my adventure on the back of the rope-walker had got to

Heartsdale--to this day I know not how, although I suspected Bony. It

had set idle tongues wagging. A letter to my sister, from one of her

friends on a far side of the county, told how she had heard the story,

and, of course, I confessed the truth. The harm it did lay in this: It

singled me out and stood me up for scrutiny. Follies which would have

been forgotten were enlarged and raked together and made to shine forth.

The undertaker and the carver of epitaphs had marked me for execution,

and, assisted by the Heartsdale Comet Band, had made hopeful progress.

They had travelled far, and everywhere people had wished to know about

me, and I had been well set off as a conceited, dare-devil sort of a

ne'er-do-well who had been concerned in the smuggling business.

I began to understand why Colonel Busby thought so ill of me, and there

was only one way to correct his opinion, and my mother made that clear.

I must needs go to work and make a character for myself and show it in

my conduct--as the hand-made gentleman had done. My way would not be

quite like his, but I must be hand-made and upon honor, as he put it.

The ready-made article had not stood the wear.

“Perhaps you had better put the pretty girl out of your head for a

while,” said my mother. “You can keep her in your heart, and that will

give you something to work for. But you mustn't give your brain to her.

You've got to make a man of yourself, and you need your brain for your

work.”

“Suppose she marries somebody else,” I suggested.

“Then you should not be sorry, because if she loves you she will wait

for you.”

That seemed like rather cold philosophy. Its power over me grew as I

thought of it, however, and by-and-by it began to have a sustaining

force.

“I wish I could go to the war,” I remarked, with a sigh, for I longed to

be a hero and show my courage, as my father had done.

“That's a wicked business,” said my mother, sadly. “I hoped that you

would never want to go. I think it would be wise for you to go with Mr.

McCarthy. He is fond of you and has good principles, and I presume it is

best for you to leave this town; but I can't spare you for the war.”

I told them all about my visit to the handmade gentleman.

“Is he as homely as ever?” my sister asked.

“No, he has grown good-looking,” I answered. “He is going to be

married.” And I told of his engagement.

“My land! I wouldn't marry him if he were the last man in the world!”

Sarah exclaimed.

“Why?” was my query.

“He looked and talked so funny--just like a young old man. Then he was

so afraid of me--hardly dared to look me in the face. I don't see how he

had the courage to ask her.”

“I presume she furnished all the courage that was necessary. But you'd

be surprised to see him. He's handsome, and can walk as well as anybody;

and I believe he's going to be a great man.”

“I'm sure I wish him well.”

“Pearl says that he is a born leader--that the new spirit is in him. I

think that girl is lucky.”

“I hope that you will stick to him,” said my mother. “You see I have a

new motto on the wall.”

It occupied a prominent place above the mantel--a yard of wisdom in

letters of red silk:

_STICK TO NOTHING AND NOTHING WILL STICK TO YOU_

It was rather good counsel for a boy, and, in truth, I had begun to

share the uneasiness which, beyond doubt, had inspired this gentle

reproof.

“I'm glad you thought of that motto, for I want you to stick to me,” I

suggested. “Mr. Pearl says that as soon as I get my hand in you should

come and live with me, both of you.”

“Mr. Pearl is a mystery,” said my mother. “Sometimes I think I have seen

him before, but I cannot place him. The goggles cover his eyes so, and I

have heard his voice but once.”

I gathered all my clothing and treasures and packed them into my trunk,

and when we were ready to go to bed my mother gave me the horruck.

“One night I found you asleep in your chair,” she said, “and the horruck

lay beside you. I saw it was robbing you of rest, and so I put it away.”

“The horruck!” I exclaimed. “What can it mean?”

“Your teacher put the coin in your pocket that day before Christmas,

years ago. It is one of a number of silver pieces that were marked by an

old and kindly man who lived in Hearts-dale years ago. They taught his

religion, and he used to slip them into the pockets of needy people, who

wondered where they came from. We used to call them the ghost riddles.”

That night I solved the riddle of the horruck by writing down the

alphabet and discarding _x_ and choosing letters to the right and left

of _m_, the middle letter. So I got this message:=

````Love is the key of heaven.

``````I love you.=

It made me know that Jo loved me, and I went to bed happier than I had

ever been.

It was my last night in the Mill House for many a long year. The cry

of the wind in the chimney and the sound of the falling water put a new

prayer in my heart and a solemn sense of the dearness of my old home,

not to be lost in care and toil, in pleasures and palaces.

Next day I returned the horruck to Jo, so as to let her know, plainly,

that I loved her also.

STAGE IX.--IN WHICH WE MEET THE CAPTAIN OF THE NEW ARMY

[Illustration: 9230]

GOT to Rushwater late at night, and reported at eight next morning at

the factory office. Mr. McCarthy had not arrived, and I went down to

Pearl's shop in the y friend sat by a lathe. He rose and embraced me

with his one arm. Near us a carpenter was working at a long bench. The

Pearl put on an apron and began to heat up his forge.

“How are you getting along here?” I asked.

“I am surprised at my success,” he answered. “I have made myself the

most hated man in Rushwater. I am abhorred, hissed at, despised. I

deprive honest labor of its occupation and grind the faces o' the poor.”

“How is that?”

“Well, I have invented a machine that does the work of ten men, and does

it better than they did. Now, the ten had to find other jobs, and

they didn't like it. Did you ever pull a hen off her perch late in the

evening? You know what a noise it makes--all the others get scairt an'

begin to holler. Well, you pull a man off his perch and you get the same

sort of a ruction. I happen to be the leg-grabber. I didn't mean to do

any harm. The purpose o' the factory is to make the goods as cheap as

possible, and I was employed to help solve the problem. I've got our

wheels on the main shaft, and God's draft-horse is whirlin' 'em.”

He took me into the sub-cellar, where a rush of water struck the buckets

of a turbine and made it shriek as it sped on its pivot, and the power

of a hundred horses went up the shaft.

Soon a boy came down to find me, and said that Mr. McCarthy had arrived.

I went to the office at once, and within half an hour had begun my

new work. The hand-made gentleman had secured for me a copy of Isaac

Pitman's treatise, and I spent all my leisure in the acquisition of

“soundhand,” or shorthand, as we now call it. I enjoyed my work, and saw

at once that I was likely to do some good in it. Mr. McCarthy wished me

to spend a few months in a business college, as much in his interest as

my own, he said to me, and in New York he made arrangements to that end.

“I want you to get the pace of the city,” he said to me, “and learn how

to score up in proper style. There's a lot of very polished people down

here. See how they dress and behave themselves morning, noon, and night.

It will be a help to both of us.”

We went to the big city that week, I to begin my studies, and he to

have a talk with the great Mr. Vanderbilt. The Pearl had said to the

hand-made gentleman, when we were leaving Rush water:

“Don't let him scare you. He's as full o' power as my turbine; has a

good deal of a whir to him. Likes resistance; so does every great force.

Used to row a boat all day, an' every day. Fought the wind an' the tide.

Stiffened his hands on the oar. Can't straighten 'em to this day. He's

fought a thousand difficulties. He'll take you for another an' pitch

into ye--like as not. Don't let him scare ye. If he jumps on ye, jump on

him; he'll enjoy it, an' begin to respect ye. It's like puttin' a belt

on the turbine--you'll take off a bit of his power an' ease him down.”

We passed through two offices on our way to that of the Commodore.

“Walk right in,” said a colored man, who sat near an open door, when Mr.

McCarthy had claimed his right to an interview.

We entered, and saw a large, handsome man sitting by a desk on the

farther side of a big room. He had a massive head, and white hair and

side-whiskers--the latter neatly trimmed--and sat with legs crossed in

a big arm-chair. The elegance of his attire impressed me, especially

the waistcoat of figured silk, the jewel in his shirt-front, and the

spotless white choker. He looked up over his glasses. The skin began to

wrinkle a bit around his dark eyes.

“Well, what is it, sonny?” he demanded.

“My name is James Henry McCarthy, of Rush-water, New York,” said my

friend.

“I don't care what your name is; tell me your business,” said Commodore

Vanderbilt--for he it was--and he spoke sternly.

“It's a railroad project, referred to by my friend, H. M. Pearl, Esq.,

in his talk with you.”

“My God!” said Mr. Vanderbilt, as he flung a paper on the desk before

him. “I've got projects enough now. Will you please let me alone?”

“No, I will not,” said the hand-made gentleman, decisively. “I've

travelled over two hundred miles to keep an appointment with you, and I

insist that you show me proper respect.”

The Commodore changed his tone. “Young man,” said he, “I won't talk with

you; I can't talk with you. Come to my house to-night. I'll see you at

half-past seven.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the hand-made gentleman as we left the room.

Mr. McCarthy's feelings had been hurt and his confidence began to

leave him. He had gone there with a good deal of honest pride in his

heart--perhaps, even, a little too much--and I think he would rather I

had not seen his embarrassment.

“I am surprised,” he said to me as we were going down the stairs

together. “He cannot have read the letters of Lord Chesterfield.”

“Hasn't had time, probably,” I answered.

Our inn was near, and no word passed between us after that until we got

to our room. My friend strode the floor in silence, and tears stood in

his eyes for a moment. I felt for him, but could think of nothing to

say.

“I think one gentleman ought to be careful of the feelings of another,”

said Mr. McCarthy. “He made me feel like a dog.”

“He was out of sorts,” I remarked.

“I have learned this,” said the hand-made gentleman: “business is war.

I see it clearer every day. If you want respect you've got to fight for

it.”

We recovered our composure by-and-by, and spent the rest of the day

among tradesmen extending the acquaintance of Sal and the sisters of

Sal.

At half-past seven we presented ourselves at the house of the Commodore

at 10 Washington Square.

Mr. McCarthy carried his map under his arm, and it was about half the

diameter of a piece of stove-pipe.

A servant showed us into a large parlor. We could see Mr. Vanderbilt

in a room back of it, sitting by a table in his shirt-sleeves reading

a newspaper. We observed him fearfully as he took our cards from the

tray--plain written cards they were, save that Mr. McCarthy's had a

bird on it, drawn by his secretary. He flung his paper aside and rose--a

splendid figure of a man, full chest, broad shoulders, and the six feet

of him straight as an arrow--and came slowly into the parlor where we

sat.

“Well, sonny, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I have a map to show you,” said Mr. McCarthy.

“Where is it?” was the sharp query of the Commodore.

My friend began to unroll his map, and said, “Here it is.”

The steamboat king was impatient. A sharp exclamation shot from his

lips, like the toot of a warning whistle, and he added: “It's bigger'n

a bill-board. Unfurl it on the floor there. Run it down into the back

parlor.”

In a moment Mr. McCarthy had spread his map and begun talking.

“Here's Albany,” he said, pointing with his cane. “Here's eleven

railroads reaching west to Buffalo, called the Central System. Here are

others that go on to Chicago and others that run east to Boston. Here is

the steamer line from New York to Albany, closed half the year. Here are

two lines of railroad that run north from New York to the capital--the

Harlem and the Hudson River. The Harlem road can be bought for less than

six cents on the dollar. I want you to buy it.”

“What the devil do I want of it?” the Commodore demanded.

“It's the key o' the future, and you need it,” said McCarthy. “It's the

beginning of a great plan. First buy the Harlem, and then buy the Hudson

River road. And do you not see that all these railroads that run

east and west up here can't reach the metropolis without your

help--especially in the winter when the steamers are out of business?

Did you ever see a small boy lead a big bull? It's surprising how easy

he does it when he has a ring in the bull's nose.”

I remembered the bull at Baker's, and felt the truth of his remark.

The Commodore was now leaning over the map and looking down upon it.

“These two railroads will give you command of the whole situation,” my

friend continued, “and that's important.”

Mr. McCarthy paused for half a moment.

“Go on, go on,” said the Commodore; “let's have your argument.”

“You can whip 'em all into one system, from New York and Boston to

Chicago. You can give us a continuous trip between these cities. You

can run freight to any point in the system without rehandling on through

cars, to pay each railroad according to the mileage it supplies. You

would make it possible for me to sell my goods in Chicago and other

distant cities and deliver 'em on time. You would quicken the pace

of business. Every factory on the line would double its output in two

years. It means growth and a new republic and a string of great cities,

and a stream of traffic flowing east and west like a river. There are

not so many tons in the St. Lawrence as your wheels would carry, and

they would roll on like the waterfloods, never stopping. They would

enrich you beyond the dreams of avarice.”

The hand-made gentleman saw the truth clearly, and flashed the torch of

his enthusiasm on all sides of it. He shook his cane over the map;

his eyes glowed like a prophet's. After all this time, I can but dimly

suggest the quaint dignity and the singular power of his appeal. I felt

it, and have tried to remember all, since these years have complimented

his insight by making history of his dreams. I recall how his ardor

thrilled me, and how the Commodore rose from his knee and looked at him.

“Young man,” he said, “the dreams of avarice do not bother _me_. I have

money enough.”

The tone of his voice made it clear to me, even, that Mr. McCarthy's

talk had impressed him.

“True,” said the hand-made gentleman; “but you have power, composed of

brains, money, and public confidence. You're the only man who can do

this thing, and it ought to be done. You _must_ do it for the sake of

the country. Patriotism, and not avarice, will inspire you.”

The Commodore smiled.

“Boy, how old are you?” he queried. “Twenty-three years; but they count

double.”

“They tell me you've made some money?”

“I'm getting along very well.”

“Sit down a minute.”

A man about thirty years of age had just entered the room. Mr.

Vanderbilt turned to him.

“I want you to come over and keep my books,” he said, brusquely.

“But, uncle, I'm not a bookkeeper,” said the young man. “I don't know

how.”

“You know enough to take the money that comes in?”

“Yes.”

“And add up the expenses?”

“Yes.”

“And give me the difference?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's all I want, and any d------ fool could do that. You may

begin Monday. Goodnight.”

The thoughts of the Commodore went straight to their mark and his words

followed them.

He put his right hand on the arm of Mr. McCarthy. I saw then how the

grip of the oar had stiffened his fingers.

“Young man, I'll think it over,” said he. “You go home and don't talk

too much. What ye don't say will never do any harm. I make it a rule of

my life never to talk of anything I'm going to do until I've done it.”

We left the house and walked slowly in the direction of Broadway.

“He'll do it,” said the hand-made gentleman. “He caught my point on the

fly. His brain is quick as lightning, and he had the whole thing in

a second. He let me go on to make sure that I knew what I was talking

about.”

“Suppose he does what you want him to, how are you going to make by it?”

I asked.

“I'll trust him for that,” said Mr. McCarthy. “However, I can take

care o' myself. As soon as he makes a move I'll buy stock, that's what

I'll do. James Henry McCarthy will not be left behind.” After a moment's

reflection, he added: “I'm surprised at one thing: he swears like a

trooper. And did you see that he came out in a pair of carpet slippers?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“He would have shocked Lord Chesterfield,”

Mr. McCarthy went on. “A gentleman ought to be more careful.” He stopped

presently and gave me his hand, saying: “I'm going to see Miss

Manning; she's the dearest girl in all the world. Leaves on a long tour

to-morrow, and I shall spend a week with her on the road.

It doesn't seem right for her to be travelling unattended. I want her to

be a lady. Perhaps I shall hire some woman to go with her.”

STAGE X.--WHICH BRINGS MR. HERON TO A HIGH POINT IN THE ROAD

[Illustration: 9241]

CONTINUED my studies in New York for a year and a half. My growth, like

McCarthy's, had been forced a little by the pressure of hard experience,

and I was more serious and more thoughtful and observing, possibly, than

boys of my age were apt to be. When I returned to Rushwater I had some

knowledge of banking and bookkeeping, and the power and purpose of

corporations, and, indeed, of the whole theory of business--not so much

as I thought I had, of course, for no man has struck the right balance

in the big ledger of his own mind until it is nearly full. He is so apt

to overcredit himself and forget some of the charges. Well, in spite

of that, I had things on the right side, and, among other items, my

phonography, for my hand could follow the tongues of the orators, and

that was a pace for you! Those days New York was full of prophets. I

went to hear them for the sake of practice, and gathered reams of florid

eloquence.

It is curious how I clung to that boy love in my heart. My sister had

gone to Merrifield to visit a school friend, and met Jo, since when they

had written letters to each other. So all my best news came roundabout,

and was never too much, but always enough to sustain my passion.

There were perils in the big city for one of my age without a home, but

this thing in my heart gave me good counsel. Whatever others may have

thought of her, to me she was like Pallas to the Greek--a divinity--and

I had to be worthy of her. I had met good people, and seen a bit of the

best life of the city through my mother's uncle, Mr. Schermerhorn, and

gathered knowledge of the amenities for my friend McCarthy.

Once again I had seen Mr. Vanderbilt when his famous Mountain Gal was to

race near Coney Island. I took the horse-cars in Brooklyn, and went as

far as they would carry me on my way to the track, and tramped down the

road while others raced along in every kind of vehicle. It was after the

hour, and the crowd had passed me, and I had not far to go, when along

came the Commodore in his gig. I raised my hat to him, and he pulled up

beside me.

“Have a ride, boy?” he asked.

I thanked him and got in, and away we sped. “Going to the race?” he

inquired.

“Yes, sir. I want to see your horse go.”

“You know me?”

“Yes. You remember the big map?”

“Oh, I see you was somebody I knew. Great boy--that young Irishman.

He'll make his mark. Have you a ticket?”

“No,” I said.

“Never mind; I'll fix it.”

So I entered with him in his gig, and he took me to the club-house and

found a seat for me.

Next day I returned to my home in Hearts-dale, and hoped while there to

go to Merrifield and see the Colonel and Jo. I was much taken down to

learn from my sister that they had sailed for Liverpool the day before.

I was ready for my career at Rushwater, and my mother and sister were

going to live with me in a snug house which the hand-made gentleman had

built and furnished for us.

I called upon Judge Crocket and presented my compliments. Mr. Boggs and

the soldiers were playing old sledge in a corner. All eyes were turned

upon me. The Judge asked how I was getting along, and greeted my answer

with a little smile of incredulity. His smiles at time had the gleam of

steel and cut like a chisel; but I wanted to make friends, and said:

“I have thought it over, and made up my mind that you were very kind to

me.”

“Oh, you have!” he answered, as if caring little what I thought.

Now I had meant to be polite, but his indifference stung me, and I

added:

“Yes; you sent me out of bad business and worse company. I am grateful.

You men who live in the shadow of death don't know how pleasant the

world is. I want to thank you.” Judge Crocket began to carve the air

with his chisel. “You're a scamp, sir,” he declared. “You wrote that

'scurrilious' poem about the dance at Jones'. It was an outrage--an

outrage!”

“I deserve no such credit,” was my answer. “I did not write the poem,

and, if it hurt your feelings, I am glad that I know nothing of its

authorship. But you have no right to complain. For years you have been

cutting people to the bone with sharp criticism. You seem to think

well of no one. You have said things about me that were undeserved and

scandalous.”

The Judge had resumed his cutting, and the wrinkles in his face had

deepened, but he made no answer. Mr. Boggs nudged his neighbor and

looked up at me with a smile, in which amusement was mingled with

contempt.

I left the shop, and found Swipes and some of our old companions waiting

for me outside the door. Swipes had grown so that I scarcely knew him.

“How are you and the shingle-nail?” I asked.

“The nail an' I have gone out of partnership,” he answered. “I don't

worry any more about that nail. I used to lie awake nights thinking of

it. By-and-by I forgot it, and was all right. I drawed the nail out o'

my mind, as ye might say, and have had no more trouble.”

Swipes had gone into deeper water than he knew. From that moment I began

to draw the shingle-nails out of my own mind; the opposition of Boggs

and Crocket was, after all, a little matter. What kind of man was I in

_fact?_--there was the important thing, not what they thought of me.

Death and his angels were ever striving to pull one down. I would not

let them halt or baffle me for a moment. I had my belt on the great

engine of life, as Pearl had told me, and I knew it would whirl me on.

So from that day I permitted little things to worry me no longer, but

gave my strength wholly to greater issues. I forgot the shingle-nails.

The boys had heard of my adventure on the high rope, and now regarded me

with a kind of awe, and put many queries. I answered them with a sense

of sadness and humility that there was nothing else in my career which

they thought it worth while to ask about.

On the whole, I was not sorry to leave the village of Heartsdale. It

was greatly changed. The burned area was pretty well covered with new

buildings. One man had left a black, dirty, charred ruin flush with the

sidewalk in the very centre of the main street, and refused either to

remove it or permit it to be removed. He blamed the firemen and the pump

and everybody in the village for the loss of his store, and there stood

the ruin for a punishment--a black memorial of his blacker scorn.

New faces were on every side. A steam-mill had come, and morning, noon,

and night one could hear the peal of its whistle. The first waves of

power had reached the little town. Instead of being content with its

small farmer-traffic, the town itself had become a producer, and was

shipping doors and blinds and sashes, and boats and canoes, and rough

and dressed lumber to distant places. A new act was beginning in the

great drama of the republic.

When we started for Rushwater there were at least a score of the friends

and schoolmates of my sister who went to the station for a last word

with us. There was not a prettier miss in the north country than that

very sister of mine--save Jo, the incomparable Jo!

The hand-made gentleman met us at the depot in Rushwater, and drove us

to our new home with a fine coach and pair.

“What a change!” said my sister, when he had left us for the night. “He

has grown positively handsome and is a real gentleman.”

Success and observation and right thinking, above all, had distinguished

the man--James Henry McCarthy. Something--was it the tireless upreach of

his thought?--had straightened his figure and raised his chin a little,

and covered him with a strong, calm dignity, as with a robe of higher

office, and tuned his voice for new appeals, so that even I was

surprised and got a little touch of awe, and felt my smallness when I

took his hand. I spoke of these things and of my feeling.

“Well,” said my mother, “the only real gentleman is 'hand-made,' as he

puts it. After all, one cannot inherit much of that. One has to begin,

soon or late, and build slowly and patiently, putting one stone on

another, just as Mr. McCarthy has done.”

BOOK THREE

```In which the Youth and the Hand-Made

````Gentleman See and Do Some

`````Wonderful Things=

CHAPTER I.--THE SINGULAR BEGINNING OF A NEW CAREER

[Illustration: 9251]

ARLY next morning Mr. McCarthy came and took me for a drive. He was

a new man, quiet, serious, and inclined to let me do the talking. I

thought of him no more as the land-made gentleman. Just the one word was

enough for him now.

Something had gone wrong with him, and I wondered what it might be.

I hoped he would speak of the love-affair. He put many questions, and

said, by-and-by:

“I'm glad you've come, for the railroad work takes half my time, and

poor Sal is neglected. I want you to tackle Sal. I'm going to organize

a stock company for Sal, and make you president perhaps, and give all my

time to larger things. The army of steam-power is going to need help at

Albany, and I may try for a seat in the legislature. But you know Horace

Bulger runs the county, and I won't buy honor. I've got to beat him. I

thought it would be easy, with three hundred voters in my shop, but

the first I knew Bulger had stirred them up. They're growling about our

machines, and the trouble will last until convention time, you see. He

did it to block my game. If I want to go I've got to settle with him.”

After a moment of silence, he added: “There's a lot for you to do. I

want you to begin by advertising the hygienic value of a bath every day.

Keep dinging on the idea that soap and civilization go hand in hand. Let

it be understood that a clean mind can only live in a clean body, that

decency begins with soap. Let us assail the great army of the unwashed,

and increase the respect of the people for Salome, the clover-scented

sister of Sal.”

The shop had doubled its size, and now covered half an acre of the river

shore.

I found Pearl and Barker in a larger basement shop. The gray-haired man

put his one arm around me and held me close for half a moment, and said

not a word. Then he sat down and raised his goggles and wiped his eyes,

and I remember that I felt a little ashamed of my own weakness.

“Oh, Mr. Barker!” he called, when the goggles were in place again.

Mr. Barker took his stand in the old familiar attitude of receiver for

the firm.

“What do we say to the gentleman from New York, and late of St. Lawrence

County?”

The dog barked almost gleefully.

“You are right, Mr. Barker. We are delighted to see him. We bid him

welcome to the growing village of Rushwater. We do, indeed.”

He led me to the turbine.

“See,” he said, “it runs smoother and makes less noise; it has got

dignity; it knows how to handle its power.”

I could not help thinking that it was, in a way, like McCarthy himself.

Well, I had no sooner entered the stirring life of the shop at Rushwater

than things began to happen. One day Mr. Horace Bulger came into the

office, where I sat alone with the gentleman. The power of Mr. Bulger

was universally known and respected. He ran the politics of the county.

For years no citizen within its boundaries had been elected to office

without his consent. He was born poor; he had neither toiled nor spun;

he never seemed to want anything for himself, but, somehow, Mr. Bulger

had prospered, and very handsomely, as things went.

“I have something to say to you,” said Mr. Bulger, addressing the

hand-made gentleman.

“Say it,” said the latter.

“Perhaps it had better be confidential.”

“Go right ahead. This young man is my private secretary, and knows all

my business. If I should sell my soul, he'd have to know the price.”

Mr. Bulger hesitated.

“I do not need to say that your confidence will be respected by both of

us,” my friend added.

“Mr. McCarthy,” said the wily Bulger, as he dropped into a chair, “I

think you are likely to be nominated by the Republicans of our district

for the Assembly.”

“You are too confident, Mr. Bulger,” said the hand-made gentleman. “I

will bet you three thousand dollars that I am not nominated and elected

this year.”

Those old models of gentlemanhood, after which Mr. McCarthy had

fashioned himself, saw no harm in a wager.

The politician thought a moment and smiled. Then said he:

“I will take the bet, and am ready to post the money.”

“Your check is good enough,” Mr. McCarthy answered.

“No checks,” said the other. “Let's make it money.”

“Who shall be the stake-holder?” was the inquiry of my friend.

“Your secretary--if you will vouch for him.”

“I'd trust my life with him,” said the handmade gentleman.

So the money was put into my hands, to be deposited to my credit in Mr.

Bulger's bank.

“One thing I have to ask,” Mr. McCarthy added: “You know I have no

secrets, and don't want any. I'm not ashamed of this bet, and I hope

you're not.”

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Bulger.

“All right then; we've got nothing to cover up.”

“Not a thing.”

“Good! I want everything aboveboard. We can either of us tell the whole

truth if it should seem necessary.”

When Mr. Bulger had left us, I turned to my friend McCarthy and said:

“You're sure to be elected now.”

“Of course I am,” said the gentleman. “But he's got some work on his

hands. I cannot understand his coming here. To begin with, he'll have

to settle that strike for me, and it may not be so easy. He's got to

unravel a lot of his own knitting or pay the forfeit. I don't think he

knows what it means.”

We both laughed for a moment, after which he went on:

“It's his funeral--not mine. A gentleman can bet, but he could not

make a bargain for a seat in the legislature, and it's undignified and

immoral to pay for votes. Bulger has got to do the work.”

I regret sometimes that Mr. McCarthy had not then the surer light that

came in due time. He was very human, so do not expect too much of him.

That day our evening paper contained this announcement:=

```Vanderbilt Owns the Harlem Road--Will

````The Steamboat King Lead the Iron

`````Horse Cavalry in its Westward

``````Charge?=

“Now I understand,” said the hand-made gentleman; “Bulger was acting

under orders when he came here to-day.”

“Do you mean to tell me that Vanderbilt controls the Republican party?”

I asked.

“He wants honest and progressive men in the legislature, and has a hand

in many a caucus,” said McCarthy. “He's got to do it or have a lot of

pirates to reckon with when he goes up to Albany for the legislation he

needs. Any man likely to block the wheels of progress is killed in the

conventions, if not before. He's paving the way for a new era.”