THE PECULIARITIES OF A COUNTRY TOWN.
There was one thing I noticed of Twin Mounds which is probably true of
every other country town--it was constantly threatened either with great
prosperity or great danger, but whether the event threatening the
prosperity or the danger came to pass, the town progressed about the
same. There was no perceptible effect from any of the events the people
were certain would prove either very disastrous or of great benefit,
from which I am led to believe that no one is familiar with the art of
town-building, although I have never known a man who did not profess to
know all there is worth knowing about the science. Towns seem to be the
natural accretion of years, and although the people in Twin Mounds often
related how desperate were their struggles with adversity, the facts
probably are that the place would have been fully as large as it was
three years after Jo’s marriage without the great number of public
meetings for public purposes, and the endless worry of individuals with
reference to it.
There was a very general impression that manufactories were needed, and
this was talked about so much, and so many inducements were offered,
that the people became discouraged, believing that the average
manufacturer had a wicked heart and a hollow head to thus wrong Twin
Mounds in the face of his own interest, therefore we were very much
surprised to learn once, after all hope had been abandoned, that a
quiet man was building a woollen mill down the river, which he completed
and afterwards operated without the help of the committees which had
been appointed to aid in such matters of public weal. The trouble was
that the man lived in Twin Mounds, whereas we had been expecting a man
and money to come from a distant point for that purpose, and had never
thought of looking about home, but spent a great deal of money in
sending committees away to make arrangements for a woollen mill. This
circumstance, although humiliating, proved a good thing, for it taught
the people that, if the town were to be built up at all, it must be by
its own citizens, which knowledge was afterwards used to good advantage.
The people were always miserable by reason of predictions that, unless
impossible amounts of money were given to certain enterprises, the town
would be ruined, and although they always gave, no sooner was one fund
exhausted than it became necessary to raise another. It was said during
the collection of each amount that it would never be necessary again to
give to this sort of charity (as the enterprise then in hand would
insure the future of Twin Mounds), but there was never an end to the
ridiculous business, and we were always in a state of dreariness on this
account, as the men demanding the charity for insignificant enterprises
loudly threatened to go to the rival towns, and permit the grass to grow
in our streets. In thinking of the matter since, I have thought that
Twin Mounds would have been a much better town but for the fact that it
was always expecting improbable disaster, but which never came, for the
people were thus prevented from exercising their energy, if they had
any.
I never formed a good opinion of a man there that I was not finally told
something to his discredit by another citizen, causing me to regard him
with great suspicion, and if I said a good word for any of them, it was
proved beyond question immediately that he was a very unscrupulous, a
very ridiculous, a very weak, and a very worthless man. There were no
friendships among them, and they all hated each other in secret, there
being much quiet satisfaction when one of them failed. There seemed to
be no regular aristocracy, either, for I heard so frequently how
ignorant and awkward the prominent citizens were when they first came,
that I finally found them all out. If Dr. Medicine told me what an
unpromising lout the present magnificent Honorable Legal was when he
first arrived, and how much difficulty he had in getting him introduced
into respectable society, I was certain to meet Honorable Legal soon
after, and hear him recite a similar experience with reference to Dr.
Medicine. One of the stories, and I found afterwards that it was true,
was that a man of ordinary worth, who seemed to be prosperous, had
collected his money of a railroad company in the country he had moved
from, because of an injury to his first wife, and that his second was
enabled to go elegantly dressed because of the misfortune of the first.
Thus it went on until I was familiar with the poor origin of all of
them, and perhaps this was one reason why we did not respect one another
more.
It was a popular expression that every one favorably mentioned was the
“worst overrated man in America,” and the only real ability any of them
ever displayed was in looking up the previous history of each other,
which they carried on with great vigor, and frequently with alarming
results. I began to believe in course of time that it was fortunate that
the discreditable part of my history was well known, for it was the
sooner forgotten, because it was not necessary to look up old records
to find it out, and thus was not made worse than it really was.
Very few of the Twin Mounds men had positive opinions of their own, as
they seemed to have got them second-handed from some source, and none of
them was original or natural in his methods of conducting business, or
in his habits. Two or three times a year most of them visited a city a
good many miles away, where they spent a great deal of money they could
not afford, to create an impression that they were accustomed to what
they supposed was good society, and where they met men who filled their
ideas of greatness. These they mimicked, each one choosing a different
example; so it happened that the men of Twin Mounds were very
ridiculous. There was a lawyer, I remember, who had met somewhere a
distinguished member of his profession, who shook hands (Ho! ho!) with
everybody, and (Ha! ha!) patronizingly wanted to know how they were
getting along. It was not his natural way, and as he only adopted it
because he believed it would make him popular, it became him very
poorly. Perhaps it was very effective with the man the habit had been
copied from, but it was very absurd with our citizen, whose pretence was
that every man he shook hands with (and he shook hands cordially with
everybody) was not getting along as well as he in his great compassion
desired.
Another one, who carried on a business which one busy day would have
exhausted, had heard of a man who achieved commercial greatness by
finding fault (I am sure the man was mistaken, for no one ever made
money in such a ridiculous way), and I never heard of anything that
suited him. This he regarded as business shrewdness, and he finally
became very sour in disposition because he was generally regarded as a
fool instead of a prophet. Still another, naturally full of fool’s gab,
carried on a bank in awful silence because he had heard that still water
runs deep, though I have seen ponds of perfectly still water which were
very shallow.
As I grew older, and began to notice more, I thought that every man in
Twin Mounds had reason to feel humiliated that he had not accomplished
more, but most of them were as conceited as though there was nothing
left in the world worthy of their attention. Their small business
affairs, their quarrels over the Bible, and an occasional term in the
town council, or a mention for the legislature or a county office,
satisfied them, and they were as content as men who really amounted to
something.
Although I believe there never was a more virtuous community, the men
pretended to believe that their associates were great libertines, and
many of the women were scandalized in an unjust and cruel manner. The
men rather took a pride in reputations of this sort, for they never had
any other, and, although pretending to deny it, they really hoped the
people would continue to accuse them. I have known citizens of this
description to stay out late at night, and take aimless rides into the
country, to create the impression that they were having clandestine
meetings with the first ladies of the town. The people watched each
other so closely that there was no opportunity to be other than honest
and circumspect in this particular, even if they had been differently
inclined, and since the men were always looking for amours, but never
found them, and believed that others were notoriously successful, they
must have had a very contemptible opinion of themselves when they
thought about the matter candidly.
I often heard from Jo, and frequently met him, and he always seemed to
be happy and prosperous. The debt on the mill was being gradually
reduced through his sturdy efforts, and in the middle of the second
year of his marriage, he had built an addition to his house which made
it very complete. His business was prosperous, because he gave it a
great deal of intelligent attention, and he became widely known as one
of the promising young men of that part of the country, for nobody
worked so hard as he did, nor to so much purpose, and the business
principles he had adopted were excellent. The product of his mill was
called the “Erring’s Ford” brand, we having agreed on the name together
because it was odd, and because it celebrated a hope which had been
ridiculed by the Fairview folks, and we printed large bills announcing
its superiority, which were distributed so well that wherever I went I
was reminded of my skill as a printer, and Jo’s superiority as a miller.
At long intervals he came to our house with his pretty wife, and I
always thought they were very happy, as I have no doubt they were. I do
not remember that I thought much of them during the three years I am now
passing rapidly over, except that Jo had made himself the equal of his
wife, which was a pleasant reflection to me because he had begun so far
behind her, and with the utmost friendship for Mateel, I was always
pleased when Jo appeared to better advantage than she did, or when I
thought that if a stranger should judge between them, the impression
would be that Jo was the superior one of the two.
I had the impression that Jo was an excellent husband, for he was always
thinking of what would please Mateel, and when they were together he was
as gentle and gallant as he had been when they were lovers, which I have
heard is very unusual. Mateel was a good wife, but I do not know that I
ever heard her say a kind word for her husband, although others talked
about him a great deal. She thought, no doubt, that his excellences
were understood, and did not need to be mentioned. I thought of this
circumstance then, because I believed it would have been no more than
natural for her to say that Jo had succeeded well, or that he had
bravely won her, but she never did, although she seemed pleased when I
complimented her husband, as though it was an expression of a hope that
if he were not so rich then as she desired, he might be in the future.
Usually when Jo and Mateel came to Twin Mounds, Agnes came with them, as
it was their custom to drive over on Saturday, and back in the evening
of the next day, and with so many of her old friends around her, my
mother perceptibly revived, but when they had gone away, she resumed her
old melancholy, and pined away in the room where she watched at night.
If they offered to take her home with them, she refused, and never went
out, except occasionally to ride with me, and then I thought it was more
to admire the speed of “Dan” and “Dave” than because she cared to leave
the house.
Although the Rev. John Westlock was never heard of, the light was always
burning in his old room at night, and his deserted wife was always
waiting to forgive him. I think she never for a moment gave up the hope
that he would come back; for, winter and summer alike, she waited for
him every night, and was weaker the next day because he did not come.
The fear began to oppress me that some morning we should find her dead
at her post, and I proposed to get some one to stay with her at night,
but she would not hear of it, thinking, no doubt, that when he came he
would much prefer to find her alone. Thus the months went by, and at the
close of every one I found that her head was whiter and her step more
feeble.
I saw Lytle Biggs nearly every week, and Big Adam often came there with
products of the farm to sell, and he always came in to see me, usually
having the information to impart that another relative had been killed
by the Indians, or that his old mistress “jawed” him more than ever. If
he found it necessary to stay in the town over night, which was
sometimes the case, I took him home with me, and treated him with so
much consideration in other ways that he soon became my greatest friend.
From him I learned that Agnes only came home during the two vacations of
the year, and that her mother was about the same with respect to visions
of poisoning and smothering, which humiliated them all very much except
Big Adam, who said he considered it an honor for the people to believe
that he would poison his mistress if he had opportunity, for they all
knew she deserved it. Mrs. Biggs and the children had changed but
little, except that the children had grown larger and more unruly, and
their mother more shrivelled than formerly. Big Adam was quite a novelty
in Twin Mounds, by reason of his great size and hoarse voice, and a
crowd always gathered at the office when he was there in the evening, to
hear him tell about the great farm he was expected to cultivate alone.
Although I was always hoping he would kill himself with dissipation,
Clinton Bragg continued to be only about as worthless as when I had
first known him, and there was no change in his manner except that he
made up with every old wreck who came to town, and induced him by treats
to listen to his brags about himself. Bragg came from a place somewhere
in the East which was given over to the manufacture of knives and forks,
and the three or four proprietors of the works comprised the
aristocracy. These, lacking better company, associated occasionally with
the small tradesmen and professional men of the town, which led them to
talk a great deal of the excellent society in which they moved, and
judging them by their representative in Twin Mounds, they became very
unpopular wherever they went, by reason of this unpleasant egotism. His
father, a hard-working but ignorant man, by close attention to the
business of keeping a keg house, had risen to the dignity of a merchant,
and was reputed to be well-to-do, although, as is usually the case, I
doubt if he had half the money with which he was credited.
Bragg considered this fork-making community as the greatest the world
had ever produced, and made himself very disagreeable in talking about
it. Being a great liar naturally, and as no one in Twin Mounds knew
differently, he used a citizen of the town where he had lived to traduce
citizens of Twin Mounds, and if a lawyer lost a case, or won it, he told
cheerful anecdotes of his brilliant friend Bighead, the leader of his
profession in Forkston. No difference what happened in Twin Mounds, it
reminded him of a friend of his in the town where knives were made, who
always did whatever was in hand in a much more creditable manner.
When he was drinking, he went about inquiring who Alexander Bighead was,
who Cornelius Deadhead was, who Elwyn Flathead was, who Godfrey Hardhead
was, or who Isaac Jughead was. Nobody being able to inform him (none of
them having ever been heard of outside of the community where they
lived), Bragg would answer that Alexander Bighead was a great lawyer and
a great drunkard, and that Cornelius Deadhead was as noted for his
knowledge of medicine as he was noted for his intemperance; that Elwyn
Flathead was a heavy trader, and a heavy drinker; that Godfrey Hardhead
was frequently on the public platform, and frequently in the gutter;
and that Isaac Jughead was as often on a spree as he was on the bench;
which argument was intended to convey the impression that all talented
men (Clinton Bragg included) drank more than was good for them.
Lytle Biggs, being a professional politician, was often in town, and as
has been the case when he first met me, he was of the opinion that while
I was a little delicate in asking him for the favor, I was burning with
impatience to hear more of his philosophy. I had enjoyed it very much at
first, and laughed a great deal at his oddities, and though it finally
grew tiresome, I could not very well flatly tell him so. Hence he came
in frequently when I was very busy, and when I knew he was not in a
philosophical humor, but reasoning that I had grown to expect it, and
had little other amusement, he consented to favor me with a few of his
thoughts. Thus it came about that he walked in one evening when I was
anxious to go home, and, seating himself, prepared to spend several
hours with me, though I could see he regarded himself as a martyr to be
compelled to instruct me in ordinary affairs which should be understood
at a glance.
“Speaking of the newspaper business,” he said, of which we were not
speaking at all, “I make considerable money advising the farmers to
patronize the ‘Rural Home,’ than which, in my opinion, a greater
literary thug never existed, but unfortunately for an oppressed people,
the publisher of the ‘Home’ (his name is Litch; it should be Leech) pays
liberal commissions, and I must live. I have a copy in my pocket; you
may examine it when there is positively nothing else to do.”
He handed it to me, and although it was folded, I saw on the first page
a picture of an animal so admirably proportioned that but little was
wasted in legs, being solid meat with the exception of a small head and
four pins to hold it up. By examining the note at the bottom, I found
it was a pig, although I should not have suspected it in the absence of
the statement, and that pairs of the breed could be had by addressing
the publisher, and enclosing money order or draft for fifty dollars.
“If you should do yourself the injustice at some time in the future to
look it over,” Mr. Biggs continued, indicating that I was not to look at
it then, but to listen, “you would find it filled with all sorts of
ingenious appeals for the farmer’s money, and that the editor claims to
be poor, but honest, and oppressed by monopolies, like the rest of them.
But what are the hard, uncomfortable facts?”
I looked at him as if to say that I did not know what the facts were,
but had no doubt they were bad enough.
“The facts are that while the agricultural population is cooped up in
hot school-houses drinking spring water, and attending Alliance
meetings, the publisher of the ‘Rural’ is holding ice in his mouth at an
elegant club, only changing this delightful occupation to gulp down
expensive champagne. He lives in a villa, does this agricultural fraud
of the name of Litch, and makes a fortune every year; and, although he
earnestly advises the farmers’ wives and daughters to spend their spare
time in churning the butter and gathering the eggs, to buy good books to
improve themselves (P. S.--For which he is agent), he sends his own wife
and daughters to spend their spare time in summer at cool places, where
they may swim in the sea. That’s the kind of an oppressed citizen of a
groaning government Litch is, and I happen to know that he is the friend
of the monopolists he denounces, and that he is in their pay; that he is
the tool of the thieves who manufacture worthless machinery for farmers;
of the confidence men who advertise eggs, pigs and calves at a high
price, and that he is the worst enemy of the farmers generally.”
I pretended to be very much surprised at this, though I was not.
“If you should be caught in a lonely place on a rainy day, with no other
paper in your pocket than that, you would find a column of inquiries
with reference to agricultural matters addressed to the editor (who is
supposed to be informed, but who really gets all his information from
the agricultural departments of the metropolitan papers), each one of
which closes with a good word for ‘your noble,’ or ‘your brave,’ or
‘your widely circulated’ paper. The scoundrel writes them himself! And
there is another column from ‘Aunt Sue.’ He is also ‘Aunt Sue.’ In
short, he is everything except an honest man.”
Although I said nothing, I remembered that every farmer who moved to
Twin Mounds found out the agricultural papers, and denounced them; in
short, that everybody except the farmers knew what dreadful frauds they
were.
“If I should talk as candidly and honestly to my friends of the plough
as I talk to my friends of the pen,” Mr. Biggs continued, “I should
advise them to take the papers which other people take; the papers which
censure the farmer when he deserves it, instead of pandering to his
ignorance, and forever rubbing him on the back as an honest but
oppressed fellow, through no fault of his own. You cannot possibly do a
man more harm than to assure him that whatever he does is right, and
that whatever his enemy does is wrong, but this is what Litch does, and
he is well paid for doing it. The farmer follows the furrow because he
can make more at that than at anything else; he is no more oppressed
than other men, except as his ignorance makes it possible, for there
never was an age when it was not profitable to be sensible (the world
being full of unscrupulous men), therefore the pretence that a man
cannot be honest except he plough or sow for a living is not warranted
by the facts. Getting up very early in the morning, and going about
agricultural work all day in rough clothes, does not particularly tend
to clear the conscience, but because politicians who occasionally have
use for them have said these things, the farmers go on accepting them,
stubbornly refusing to be undeceived, because it is unpleasant to
acknowledge ignorance after you have once thought yourself very cunning.
In my time, I have harangued a meeting of well-to-do farmers over the
wrongs they were suffering at the hands of miserable tradesmen,--they
call them middle-men,--who did not know one day whether they would be
able to open their doors the next, and received earnest applause, after
which I got ten dollars for a charter for an Alliance (which cost me at
the rate of two dollars a thousand) without difficulty. It would not be
a greater confidence game were I to borrow ten dollars of them to pay
express charges on the body of a dead brother, giving as security a
bogus bond, for the time a farmer spends attending Alliance meetings
should be spent at home in reading an honest work entitled, ‘Thieves
Exposed,’ or ‘The Numerous Devices Men Invent to Live without Work,’ but
they rather enjoy my lectures on the beauties of combination for
protection, and the cheapness of Alliance charters, for I never fail to
relate how honest, how industrious, how intelligent, and how oppressed
they are. If they want to pay big prices for such comforts, it is their
misfortune; I must live, and if you say that I am a fraud, I reply that
all men are frauds. The lawyers never go to law; the doctors never take
medicine; the preachers seldom believe in religion, and I never farm.
The different trades and professions are only respectable because
little is known of them except by those interested in their profits, and
I am no worse than the rest of them. Whoever will pay for being
humbugged will find humbugs enough, and the only difference between me
and other professional men is that I acknowledge that I am dishonest. My
position on the reform question is briefly this (and I may add that it
is the position of every man): I am against monopolies until I become a
monopolist myself. I am at present engaged in the reform business that I
may become a monopolist. If I should suddenly become rich, what would I
do? This: Refer to Alliances as dangerous, and such demagogues as myself
as suspicious loafers.”
Mr. Biggs seemed to greatly enjoy this denunciation of himself, and
ripped out an oath or two expressive of contempt for his victims.
“Our friend Bilderby, for example, who writes letters for your paper on
finance, and who professes to know all about money, in reality knows so
little about his subject that he cannot earn a living, although he seems
to be constantly worried with the fear that, from a mistaken financial
policy, the government will come to ruin. In fact, Bilderby only gets
time to write his letters on finance, and make excuses to his creditors.
The fellow owes the doctor for nearly all his children; I am certain he
has not paid for the younger ones. That is Bilderby’s way of being a
humbug; I have a different way; you have another, and there are so many
varieties, that every man is accommodated.”
Mr. Biggs was warming up, and unbuttoned his collar to talk with more
freedom.
“I see occasional notices in your publication to the effect that Chugg,
the groceryman, or whatever the name or the business may be, has just
returned from the East, which is extremely dull, and that he is
extremely glad to get back to the enterprising, the pushing, the
promising, the noble, and the beautiful West. That is YOUR way of being
a humbug, for in reality Chugg is glad to get back to the West because
he is of some importance here, and none there. The East is full of
hungry and ragged men who are superior in every way to the prominent
citizen of the name of Chugg, and Chugg knows it, therefore he is glad
to get back where he is looked upon as a superior creature. I have no
hesitancy in saying privately that the people in this direction are not
warranted in the belief that all the capable and energetic men have left
the East, though it would be disastrous to say as much publicly. When I
am in the East it occurs to me with great force that the miles of
splendid business buildings I see on every hand must be occupied by
talented and energetic men, and as we have no such buildings in the
West, it follows that we have no such men. When I see towering
manufactories--swarming with operatives who would be ornaments to the
best society out here--I think that at least a few men of energy and
capacity have been left to operate them, for ordinary men could not do
it. I ride down the long avenues of private palaces, each one of them
worth a township in the Smoky Hill country, and I am convinced that we
are mistaken in the opinion that a man must live on the frontier in
order to be energetic.”
I had a habit of scribbling with a pencil when idle, and as I picked up
a piece of paper to amuse myself in this manner, Mr. Biggs caught my
hand, and said, “No notes!” fearing I intended to publish his opinions.
He then explained, as he had often done before, that he talked candidly
to me for my own good, and that he would be ruined if I quoted him
either in print or privately. Being assured that I had no such
intention, he went on:--
“Haven’t you noticed that when a Western man gets a considerable sum of
money together, he goes East to live? Well, what does it mean except
that the good sense which enabled him to make money teaches him that the
society there is preferable to ours? When we go away for recreation and
pleasure, in what direction do we go? East, of course, because it rains
oftener there than here; because the caves, the lakes, the falls, the
sea, and the comforts are in that direction. If I should get rich, I
would leave this country, because I know of another where I could live
more comfortably. I stay here because it is to my interest; all of us
do, and deserve no credit. It is rather humiliating to me than otherwise
that I am compelled to live where living is cheap, because I cannot
afford the luxuries. Men who are prosperous, or men who live in elegant
houses, do not come West, but it is the unfortunate, the poor, the
indigent, the sick--the lower classes, in short--who came here to grow
up with the country, having failed to grow up with the country where
they came from.”
My visitor got up at this, and without ceremony took his hat, and walked
out, giving me to understand that I should feel greatly favored. I
followed him soon afterward, and passing along the street, I heard him
gayly talking to a crowd of men in front of one of the stores, but in a
different strain--in fact, he seemed to feel guilty for what he had
said, and was denying it.