“’Tis not in history nor in the Bible where it was. But I saw it,
meself. The first pictures of cher-rubs and cupids was sculptured upon
thim walls and pillars. Two of the biggest, sir, stood in the adytum to
form the baldachin over the Ark. But the wings of thim sculptures was
intindid for horns. And the faces was the faces of goats. Ten thousand
goats there was in and about the temple. And your cher-rubs was
billy-goats in the days of King Solomon, but the painters misconstrued
the horns into wings.
“And I knew Tamerlane, the lame Timour, sir, very well. I saw him at
Keghut and at Zaranj. He was a little man no larger than yerself, with
hair the colour of an amber pipe stem. They buried him at Samarkand. I
was at the wake, sir. Oh, he was a fine-built man in his coffin, six
feet long, with black whiskers to his face. And I see ’em throw turnips
at the Imperor Vispacian in Africa. All over the world I have tramped,
sir, without the body of me findin’ any rest. ’Twas so commanded. I saw
Jerusalem destroyed, and Pompeii go up in the fireworks; and I was at
the coronation of Charlemagne and the lynchin’ of Joan of Arc. And
everywhere I go there comes storms and revolutions and plagues and
fires. ’Twas so commanded. Ye have heard of the Wandering Jew. ’Tis all
so, except that divil a bit am I a Jew. But history lies, as I have
told ye. Are ye quite sure, sir, that ye haven’t a drop of whiskey
convenient? Ye well know that I have many miles of walking before me.”
“I have none,” said I, “and, if you please, I am about to leave for my
supper.”
I pushed my chair back creakingly. This ancient landlubber was becoming
as great an affliction as any cross-bowed mariner. He shook a musty
effluvium from his piebald clothes, overturned my inkstand, and went on
with his insufferable nonsense.
“I wouldn’t mind it so much,” he complained, “if it wasn’t for the work
I must do on Good Fridays. Ye know about Pontius Pilate, sir, of
course. His body, whin he killed himself, was pitched into a lake on
the Alps mountains. Now, listen to the job that ’tis mine to perform on
the night of ivery Good Friday. The ould divil goes down in the pool
and drags up Pontius, and the water is bilin’ and spewin’ like a wash
pot. And the ould divil sets the body on top of a throne on the rocks,
and thin comes me share of the job. Oh, sir, ye would pity me thin—ye
would pray for the poor Wandering Jew that niver was a Jew if ye could
see the horror of the thing that I must do. ’Tis I that must fetch a
bowl of water and kneel down before it till it washes its hands. I
declare to ye that Pontius Pilate, a man dead two hundred years,
dragged up with the lake slime coverin’ him and fishes wrigglin’ inside
of him widout eyes, and in the discomposition of the body, sits there,
sir, and washes his hands in the bowl I hold for him on Good Fridays.
’Twas so commanded.”
Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the
_Bugle’s_ local column. There might have been employment here for the
alienist or for those who circulate the pledge; but I had had enough of
it. I got up, and repeated that I must go.
At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk, and burst again into
distressful weeping. Whatever it was about, I said to myself that his
grief was genuine.
“Come now, Mr. Ader,” I said, soothingly; “what is the matter?”
The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs:
“Because I would not … let the poor Christ … rest … upon the step.”
His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable answer; yet the effect
of it upon him scarcely merited disrespect. But I knew nothing that
might assuage it; and I told him once more that both of us should be
leaving the office at once.
Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishevelled desk, and
permitted me to half lift him to the floor. The gale of his grief had
blown away his words; his freshet of tears had soaked away the crust of
his grief. Reminiscence died in him—at least, the coherent part of it.
“’Twas me that did it,” he muttered, as I led him toward the door—“me,
the shoemaker of Jerusalem.”
I got him to the sidewalk, and in the augmented light I saw that his
face was seared and lined and warped by a sadness almost incredibly the
product of a single lifetime.
And then high up in the firmamental darkness we heard the clamant cries
of some great, passing birds. My Wandering Jew lifted his hand, with
side-tilted head.
“The Seven Whistlers!” he said, as one introduces well-known friends.
“Wild geese,” said I; “but I confess that their number is beyond me.”
“They follow me everywhere,” he said. “’Twas so commanded. What ye hear
is the souls of the seven Jews that helped with the Crucifixion.
Sometimes they’re plovers and sometimes geese, but ye’ll find them
always flyin’ where I go.”
I stood, uncertain how to take my leave. I looked down the street,
shuffled my feet, looked back again—and felt my hair rise. The old man
had disappeared.
And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw him footing it away
through the darkness. But he walked so swiftly and silently and
contrary to the gait promised by his age that my composure was not all
restored, though I knew not why.
That night I was foolish enough to take down some dust-covered volumes
from my modest shelves. I searched “Hermippus Redivvus” and “Salathiel”
and the “Pepys Collection” in vain. And then in a book called “The
Citizen of the World,” and in one two centuries old, I came upon what I
desired. Michob Ader had indeed come to Paris in the year 1643, and
related to the _Turkish Spy_ an extraordinary story. He claimed to be
the Wandering Jew, and that—
But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had not been light that
day.
Judge Hoover was the _Bugle’s_ candidate for congress. Having to confer
with him, I sought his home early the next morning; and we walked
together down town through a little street with which I was unfamiliar.
“Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?” I asked him, smiling.
“Why, yes,” said the judge. “And that reminds me of my shoes he has for
mending. Here is his shop now.”
Judge Hoover stepped into a dingy, small shop. I looked up at the sign,
and saw “Mike O’Bader, Boot and Shoe Maker,” on it. Some wild geese
passed above, honking clearly. I scratched my ear and frowned, and then
trailed into the shop.
There sat my Wandering Jew on his shoemaker’s bench, trimming a
half-sole. He was drabbled with dew, grass-stained, unkempt, and
miserable; and on his face was still the unexplained wretchedness, the
problematic sorrow, the esoteric woe, that had been written there by
nothing less, it seemed, than the stylus of the centuries.
Judge Hoover inquired kindly concerning his shoes. The old shoemaker
looked up, and spoke sanely enough. He had been ill, he said, for a few
days. The next day the shoes would be ready. He looked at me, and I
could see that I had no place in his memory. So out we went, and on our
way.
“Old Mike,” remarked the candidate, “has been on one of his sprees. He
gets crazy drunk regularly once a month. But he’s a good shoemaker.”
“What is his history?” I inquired.
“Whiskey,” epitomized Judge Hoover. “That explains him.”
I was silent, but I did not accept the explanation. And so, when I had
the chance, I asked old man Sellers, who browsed daily on my exchanges.
“Mike O’Bader,” said he, “was makin’ shoes in Montopolis when I come
here goin’ on fifteen year ago. I guess whiskey’s his trouble. Once a
month he gets off the track, and stays so a week. He’s got a rigmarole
somethin’ about his bein’ a Jew pedler that he tells ev’rybody. Nobody
won’t listen to him any more. When he’s sober he ain’t sich a fool—he’s
got a sight of books in the back room of his shop that he reads. I
guess you can lay all his trouble to whiskey.”
But again I would not. Not yet was my Wandering Jew rightly construed
for me. I trust that women may not be allowed a title to all the
curiosity in the world. So when Montopolis’s oldest inhabitant (some
ninety score years younger than Michob Ader) dropped in to acquire
promulgation in print, I siphoned his perpetual trickle of reminiscence
in the direction of the uninterpreted maker of shoes.
Uncle Abner was the Complete History of Montopolis, bound in butternut.
“O’Bader,” he quavered, “come here in ’69. He was the first shoemaker
in the place. Folks generally considers him crazy at times now. But he
don’t harm nobody. I s’pose drinkin’ upset his mind—yes, drinkin’ very
likely done it. It’s a powerful bad thing, drinkin’. I’m an old, old
man, sir, and I never see no good in drinkin’.”
I felt disappointment. I was willing to admit drink in the case of my
shoemaker, but I preferred it as a recourse instead of a cause. Why had
he pitched upon his perpetual, strange note of the Wandering Jew? Why
his unutterable grief during his aberration? I could not yet accept
whiskey as an explanation.
“Did Mike O’Bader ever have a great loss or trouble of any kind?” I
asked.
“Lemme see! About thirty year ago there was somethin’ of the kind, I
recollect. Montopolis, sir, in them days used to be a mighty strict
place.
“Well, Mike O’Bader had a daughter then—a right pretty girl. She was
too gay a sort for Montopolis, so one day she slips off to another town
and runs away with a circus. It was two years before she comes back,
all fixed up in fine clothes and rings and jewellery, to see Mike. He
wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with her, so she stays around town awhile,
anyway. I reckon the men folks wouldn’t have raised no objections, but
the women egged ’em on to order her to leave town. But she had plenty
of spunk, and told ’em to mind their own business.
“So one night they decided to run her away. A crowd of men and women
drove her out of her house, and chased her with sticks and stones. She
run to her father’s door, callin’ for help. Mike opens it, and when he
sees who it is he hits her with his fist and knocks her down and shuts
the door.
“And then the crowd kept on chunkin’ her till she run clear out of
town. And the next day they finds her drowned dead in Hunter’s mill
pond. I mind it all now. That was thirty year ago.”
I leaned back in my non-rotary revolving chair and nodded gently, like
a mandarin, at my paste-pot.
“When old Mike has a spell,” went on Uncle Abner, tepidly garrulous,
“he thinks he’s the Wanderin’ Jew.”
“He is,” said I, nodding away.
And Uncle Abner cackled insinuatingly at the editor’s remark, for he
was expecting at least a “stickful” in the “Personal Notes” of the
_Bugle_.
XIII.
THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES
When Major Pendleton Talbot, of Mobile, sir, and his daughter, Miss
Lydia Talbot, came to Washington to reside, they selected for a
boarding place a house that stood fifty yards back from one of the
quietest avenues. It was an old-fashioned brick building, with a
portico upheld by tall white pillars. The yard was shaded by stately
locusts and elms, and a catalpa tree in season rained its pink and
white blossoms upon the grass. Rows of high box bushes lined the fence
and walks. It was the Southern style and aspect of the place that
pleased the eyes of the Talbots.
In this pleasant, private boarding house they engaged rooms, including
a study for Major Talbot, who was adding the finishing chapters to his
book, “Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Alabama Army, Bench, and
Bar.”
Major Talbot was of the old, old South. The present day had little
interest or excellence in his eyes. His mind lived in that period
before the Civil War, when the Talbots owned thousands of acres of fine
cotton land and the slaves to till them; when the family mansion was
the scene of princely hospitality, and drew its guests from the
aristocracy of the South. Out of that period he had brought all its old
pride and scruples of honour, an antiquated and punctilious politeness,
and (you would think) its wardrobe.
Such clothes were surely never made within fifty years. The major was
tall, but whenever he made that wonderful, archaic genuflexion he
called a bow, the corners of his frock coat swept the floor. That
garment was a surprise even to Washington, which has long ago ceased to
shy at the frocks and broadbrimmed hats of Southern congressmen. One of
the boarders christened it a “Father Hubbard,” and it certainly was
high in the waist and full in the skirt.
But the major, with all his queer clothes, his immense area of plaited,
ravelling shirt bosom, and the little black string tie with the bow
always slipping on one side, both was smiled at and liked in Mrs.
Vardeman’s select boarding house. Some of the young department clerks
would often “string him,” as they called it, getting him started upon
the subject dearest to him—the traditions and history of his beloved
Southland. During his talks he would quote freely from the “Anecdotes
and Reminiscences.” But they were very careful not to let him see their
designs, for in spite of his sixty-eight years, he could make the
boldest of them uncomfortable under the steady regard of his piercing
gray eyes.
Miss Lydia was a plump, little old maid of thirty-five, with smoothly
drawn, tightly twisted hair that made her look still older. Old
fashioned, too, she was; but ante-bellum glory did not radiate from her
as it did from the major. She possessed a thrifty common sense; and it
was she who handled the finances of the family, and met all comers when
there were bills to pay. The major regarded board bills and wash bills
as contemptible nuisances. They kept coming in so persistently and so
often. Why, the major wanted to know, could they not be filed and paid
in a lump sum at some convenient period—say when the “Anecdotes and
Reminiscences” had been published and paid for? Miss Lydia would calmly
go on with her sewing and say, “We’ll pay as we go as long as the money
lasts, and then perhaps they’ll have to lump it.”
Most of Mrs. Vardeman’s boarders were away during the day, being nearly
all department clerks and business men; but there was one of them who
was about the house a great deal from morning to night. This was a
young man named Henry Hopkins Hargraves—every one in the house
addressed him by his full name—who was engaged at one of the popular
vaudeville theatres. Vaudeville has risen to such a respectable plane
in the last few years, and Mr. Hargraves was such a modest and
well-mannered person, that Mrs. Vardeman could find no objection to
enrolling him upon her list of boarders.
At the theatre Hargraves was known as an all-round dialect comedian,
having a large repertoire of German, Irish, Swede, and black-face
specialties. But Mr. Hargraves was ambitious, and often spoke of his
great desire to succeed in legitimate comedy.
This young man appeared to conceive a strong fancy for Major Talbot.
Whenever that gentleman would begin his Southern reminiscences, or
repeat some of the liveliest of the anecdotes, Hargraves could always
be found, the most attentive among his listeners.
For a time the major showed an inclination to discourage the advances
of the “play actor,” as he privately termed him; but soon the young
man’s agreeable manner and indubitable appreciation of the old
gentleman’s stories completely won him over.
It was not long before the two were like old chums. The major set apart
each afternoon to read to him the manuscript of his book. During the
anecdotes Hargraves never failed to laugh at exactly the right point.
The major was moved to declare to Miss Lydia one day that young
Hargraves possessed remarkable perception and a gratifying respect for
the old regime. And when it came to talking of those old days—if Major
Talbot liked to talk, Mr. Hargraves was entranced to listen.
Like almost all old people who talk of the past, the major loved to
linger over details. In describing the splendid, almost royal, days of
the old planters, he would hesitate until he had recalled the name of
the Negro who held his horse, or the exact date of certain minor
happenings, or the number of bales of cotton raised in such a year; but
Hargraves never grew impatient or lost interest. On the contrary, he
would advance questions on a variety of subjects connected with the
life of that time, and he never failed to extract ready replies.
The fox hunts, the ’possum suppers, the hoe downs and jubilees in the
Negro quarters, the banquets in the plantation-house hall, when
invitations went for fifty miles around; the occasional feuds with the
neighbouring gentry; the major’s duel with Rathbone Culbertson about
Kitty Chalmers, who afterward married a Thwaite of South Carolina; and
private yacht races for fabulous sums on Mobile Bay; the quaint
beliefs, improvident habits, and loyal virtues of the old slaves—all
these were subjects that held both the major and Hargraves absorbed for
hours at a time.
Sometimes, at night, when the young man would be coming upstairs to his
room after his turn at the theatre was over, the major would appear at
the door of his study and beckon archly to him. Going in, Hargraves
would find a little table set with a decanter, sugar bowl, fruit, and a
big bunch of fresh green mint.
“It occurred to me,” the major would begin—he was always
ceremonious—“that perhaps you might have found your duties at the—at
your place of occupation—sufficiently arduous to enable you, Mr.
Hargraves, to appreciate what the poet might well have had in his mind
when he wrote, ‘tired Nature’s sweet restorer,’—one of our Southern
juleps.”
It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it. He took rank
among artists when he began, and he never varied the process. With what
delicacy he bruised the mint; with what exquisite nicety he estimated
the ingredients; with what solicitous care he capped the compound with
the scarlet fruit glowing against the dark green fringe! And then the
hospitality and grace with which he offered it, after the selected oat
straws had been plunged into its tinkling depths!
After about four months in Washington, Miss Lydia discovered one
morning that they were almost without money. The “Anecdotes and
Reminiscences” was completed, but publishers had not jumped at the
collected gems of Alabama sense and wit. The rental of a small house
which they still owned in Mobile was two months in arrears. Their board
money for the month would be due in three days. Miss Lydia called her
father to a consultation.
“No money?” said he with a surprised look. “It is quite annoying to be
called on so frequently for these petty sums. Really, I—”
The major searched his pockets. He found only a two-dollar bill, which
he returned to his vest pocket.
“I must attend to this at once, Lydia,” he said. “Kindly get me my
umbrella and I will go down town immediately. The congressman from our
district, General Fulghum, assured me some days ago that he would use
his influence to get my book published at an early date. I will go to
his hotel at once and see what arrangement has been made.”
With a sad little smile Miss Lydia watched him button his “Father
Hubbard” and depart, pausing at the door, as he always did, to bow
profoundly.
That evening, at dark, he returned. It seemed that Congressman Fulghum
had seen the publisher who had the major’s manuscript for reading. That
person had said that if the anecdotes, etc., were carefully pruned down
about one half, in order to eliminate the sectional and class prejudice
with which the book was dyed from end to end, he might consider its
publication.
The major was in a white heat of anger, but regained his equanimity,
according to his code of manners, as soon as he was in Miss Lydia’s
presence.
“We must have money,” said Miss Lydia, with a little wrinkle above her
nose. “Give me the two dollars, and I will telegraph to Uncle Ralph for
some to-night.”
The major drew a small envelope from his upper vest pocket and tossed
it on the table.
“Perhaps it was injudicious,” he said mildly, “but the sum was so
merely nominal that I bought tickets to the theatre to-night. It’s a
new war drama, Lydia. I thought you would be pleased to witness its
first production in Washington. I am told that the South has very fair
treatment in the play. I confess I should like to see the performance
myself.”
Miss Lydia threw up her hands in silent despair.
Still, as the tickets were bought, they might as well be used. So that
evening, as they sat in the theatre listening to the lively overture,
even Miss Lydia was minded to relegate their troubles, for the hour, to
second place. The major, in spotless linen, with his extraordinary coat
showing only where it was closely buttoned, and his white hair smoothly
roached, looked really fine and distinguished. The curtain went up on
the first act of “A Magnolia Flower,” revealing a typical Southern
plantation scene. Major Talbot betrayed some interest.
“Oh, see!” exclaimed Miss Lydia, nudging his arm, and pointing to her
programme.
The major put on his glasses and read the line in the cast of
characters that her finger indicated.
Col. Webster Calhoun . . . . H. Hopkins Hargraves.
“It’s our Mr. Hargraves,” said Miss Lydia. “It must be his first
appearance in what he calls ‘the legitimate.’ I’m so glad for him.”
Not until the second act did Col. Webster Calhoun appear upon the
stage. When he made his entry Major Talbot gave an audible sniff,
glared at him, and seemed to freeze solid. Miss Lydia uttered a little,
ambiguous squeak and crumpled her programme in her hand. For Colonel
Calhoun was made up as nearly resembling Major Talbot as one pea does
another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the aristocratic
beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, ravelling shirt front, the string
tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated.
And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the major’s
supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted,
ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment
could have been designed from no other pattern. From then on, the major
and Miss Lydia sat bewitched, and saw the counterfeit presentment of a
haughty Talbot “dragged,” as the major afterward expressed it, “through
the slanderous mire of a corrupt stage.”
Mr. Hargraves had used his opportunities well. He had caught the
major’s little idiosyncrasies of speech, accent, and intonation and his
pompous courtliness to perfection—exaggerating all to the purposes of
the stage. When he performed that marvellous bow that the major fondly
imagined to be the pink of all salutations, the audience sent forth a
sudden round of hearty applause.
Miss Lydia sat immovable, not daring to glance toward her father.
Sometimes her hand next to him would be laid against her cheek, as if
to conceal the smile which, in spite of her disapproval, she could not
entirely suppress.
The culmination of Hargraves’s audacious imitation took place in the
third act. The scene is where Colonel Calhoun entertains a few of the
neighbouring planters in his “den.”
Standing at a table in the centre of the stage, with his friends
grouped about him, he delivers that inimitable, rambling, character
monologue so famous in “A Magnolia Flower,” at the same time that he
deftly makes juleps for the party.
Major Talbot, sitting quietly, but white with indignation, heard his
best stories retold, his pet theories and hobbies advanced and
expanded, and the dream of the “Anecdotes and Reminiscences” served,
exaggerated and garbled. His favourite narrative—that of his duel with
Rathbone Culbertson—was not omitted, and it was delivered with more
fire, egotism, and gusto than the major himself put into it.
The monologue concluded with a quaint, delicious, witty little lecture
on the art of concocting a julep, illustrated by the act. Here Major
Talbot’s delicate but showy science was reproduced to a hair’s
breadth—from his dainty handling of the fragrant weed—“the
one-thousandth part of a grain too much pressure, gentlemen, and you
extract the bitterness, instead of the aroma, of this heaven-bestowed
plant”—to his solicitous selection of the oaten straws.
At the close of the scene the audience raised a tumultuous roar of
appreciation. The portrayal of the type was so exact, so sure and
thorough, that the leading characters in the play were forgotten. After
repeated calls, Hargraves came before the curtain and bowed, his rather
boyish face bright and flushed with the knowledge of success.
At last Miss Lydia turned and looked at the major. His thin nostrils
were working like the gills of a fish. He laid both shaking hands upon
the arms of his chair to rise.
“We will go, Lydia,” he said chokingly. “This is an
abominable—desecration.”
Before he could rise, she pulled him back into his seat. “We will stay
it out,” she declared. “Do you want to advertise the copy by exhibiting
the original coat?” So they remained to the end.
Hargraves’s success must have kept him up late that night, for neither
at the breakfast nor at the dinner table did he appear.
About three in the afternoon he tapped at the door of Major Talbot’s
study. The major opened it, and Hargraves walked in with his hands full
of the morning papers—too full of his triumph to notice anything
unusual in the major’s demeanour.
“I put it all over ’em last night, major,” he began exultantly. “I had
my inning, and, I think, scored. Here’s what the _Post_ says:
His conception and portrayal of the old-time Southern colonel, with his
absurd grandiloquence, his eccentric garb, his quaint idioms and
phrases, his moth-eaten pride of family, and his really kind heart,
fastidious sense of honour, and lovable simplicity, is the best
delineation of a character role on the boards to-day. The coat worn by
Colonel Calhoun is itself nothing less than an evolution of genius. Mr.
Hargraves has captured his public.
“How does that sound, major, for a first nighter?”
“I had the honour”—the major’s voice sounded ominously frigid—“of
witnessing your very remarkable performance, sir, last night.”
Hargraves looked disconcerted.
“You were there? I didn’t know you ever—I didn’t know you cared for the
theatre. Oh, I say, Major Talbot,” he exclaimed frankly, “don’t you be
offended. I admit I did get a lot of pointers from you that helped me
out wonderfully in the part. But it’s a type, you know—not individual.
The way the audience caught on shows that. Half the patrons of that
theatre are Southerners. They recognized it.”
“Mr. Hargraves,” said the major, who had remained standing, “you have
put upon me an unpardonable insult. You have burlesqued my person,
grossly betrayed my confidence, and misused my hospitality. If I
thought you possessed the faintest conception of what is the sign
manual of a gentleman, or what is due one, I would call you out, sir,
old as I am. I will ask you to leave the room, sir.”
The actor appeared to be slightly bewildered, and seemed hardly to take
in the full meaning of the old gentleman’s words.
“I am truly sorry you took offence,” he said regretfully. “Up here we
don’t look at things just as you people do. I know men who would buy
out half the house to have their personality put on the stage so the
public would recognize it.”
“They are not from Alabama, sir,” said the major haughtily.
“Perhaps not. I have a pretty good memory, major; let me quote a few
lines from your book. In response to a toast at a banquet given
in—Milledgeville, I believe—you uttered, and intend to have printed,
these words:
The Northern man is utterly without sentiment or warmth except in so
far as the feelings may be turned to his own commercial profit. He will
suffer without resentment any imputation cast upon the honour of
himself or his loved ones that does not bear with it the consequence of
pecuniary loss. In his charity, he gives with a liberal hand; but it
must be heralded with the trumpet and chronicled in brass.
“Do you think that picture is fairer than the one you saw of Colonel
Calhoun last night?”
“The description,” said the major frowning, “is—not without grounds.
Some exag—latitude must be allowed in public speaking.”
“And in public acting,” replied Hargraves.
“That is not the point,” persisted the major, unrelenting. “It was a
personal caricature. I positively decline to overlook it, sir.”
“Major Talbot,” said Hargraves, with a winning smile, “I wish you would
understand me. I want you to know that I never dreamed of insulting
you. In my profession, all life belongs to me. I take what I want, and
what I can, and return it over the footlights. Now, if you will, let’s
let it go at that. I came in to see you about something else. We’ve
been pretty good friends for some months, and I’m going to take the
risk of offending you again. I know you are hard up for money—never
mind how I found out; a boarding house is no place to keep such matters
secret—and I want you to let me help you out of the pinch. I’ve been
there often enough myself. I’ve been getting a fair salary all the
season, and I’ve saved some money. You’re welcome to a couple
hundred—or even more—until you get—”
“Stop!” commanded the major, with his arm outstretched. “It seems that
my book didn’t lie, after all. You think your money salve will heal all
the hurts of honour. Under no circumstances would I accept a loan from
a casual acquaintance; and as to you, sir, I would starve before I
would consider your insulting offer of a financial adjustment of the
circumstances we have discussed. I beg to repeat my request relative to
your quitting the apartment.”
Hargraves took his departure without another word. He also left the
house the same day, moving, as Mrs. Vardeman explained at the supper
table, nearer the vicinity of the down-town theatre, where “A Magnolia
Flower” was booked for a week’s run.
Critical was the situation with Major Talbot and Miss Lydia. There was
no one in Washington to whom the major’s scruples allowed him to apply
for a loan. Miss Lydia wrote a letter to Uncle Ralph, but it was
doubtful whether that relative’s constricted affairs would permit him
to furnish help. The major was forced to make an apologetic address to
Mrs. Vardeman regarding the delayed payment for board, referring to
“delinquent rentals” and “delayed remittances” in a rather confused
strain.
Deliverance came from an entirely unexpected source.
Late one afternoon the door maid came up and announced an old coloured
man who wanted to see Major Talbot. The major asked that he be sent up
to his study. Soon an old darkey appeared in the doorway, with his hat
in hand, bowing, and scraping with one clumsy foot. He was quite
decently dressed in a baggy suit of black. His big, coarse shoes shone
with a metallic lustre suggestive of stove polish. His bushy wool was
gray—almost white. After middle life, it is difficult to estimate the
age of a Negro. This one might have seen as many years as had Major
Talbot.
“I be bound you don’t know me, Mars’ Pendleton,” were his first words.
The major rose and came forward at the old, familiar style of address.
It was one of the old plantation darkeys without a doubt; but they had
been widely scattered, and he could not recall the voice or face.
“I don’t believe I do,” he said kindly—“unless you will assist my
memory.”
“Don’t you ’member Cindy’s Mose, Mars’ Pendleton, what ’migrated
’mediately after de war?”
“Wait a moment,” said the major, rubbing his forehead with the tips of
his fingers. He loved to recall everything connected with those beloved
days. “Cindy’s Mose,” he reflected. “You worked among the
horses—breaking the colts. Yes, I remember now. After the surrender,
you took the name of—don’t prompt me—Mitchell, and went to the West—to
Nebraska.”
“Yassir, yassir,”—the old man’s face stretched with a delighted
grin—“dat’s him, dat’s it. Newbraska. Dat’s me—Mose Mitchell. Old Uncle
Mose Mitchell, dey calls me now. Old mars’, your pa, gimme a pah of dem
mule colts when I lef’ fur to staht me goin’ with. You ’member dem
colts, Mars’ Pendleton?”
“I don’t seem to recall the colts,” said the major. “You know I was
married the first year of the war and living at the old Follinsbee
place. But sit down, sit down, Uncle Mose. I’m glad to see you. I hope
you have prospered.”
Uncle Mose took a chair and laid his hat carefully on the floor beside
it.
“Yassir; of late I done mouty famous. When I first got to Newbraska,
dey folks come all roun’ me to see dem mule colts. Dey ain’t see no
mules like dem in Newbraska. I sold dem mules for three hundred
dollars. Yassir—three hundred.
“Den I open a blacksmith shop, suh, and made some money and bought some
lan’. Me and my old ’oman done raised up seb’m chillun, and all doin’
well ’cept two of ’em what died. Fo’ year ago a railroad come along and
staht a town slam ag’inst my lan’, and, suh, Mars’ Pendleton, Uncle
Mose am worth leb’m thousand dollars in money, property, and lan’.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said the major heartily. “Glad to hear it.”
“And dat little baby of yo’n, Mars’ Pendleton—one what you name Miss
Lyddy—I be bound dat little tad done growed up tell nobody wouldn’t
know her.”
The major stepped to the door and called: “Lydia, dear, will you come?”
Miss Lydia, looking quite grown up and a little worried, came in from
her room.
“Dar, now! What’d I tell you? I knowed dat baby done be plum growed up.
You don’t ’member Uncle Mose, child?”
“This is Aunt Cindy’s Mose, Lydia,” explained the major. “He left
Sunnymead for the West when you were two years old.”
“Well,” said Miss Lydia, “I can hardly be expected to remember you,
Uncle Mose, at that age. And, as you say, I’m ‘plum growed up,’ and was
a blessed long time ago. But I’m glad to see you, even if I can’t
remember you.”
And she was. And so was the major. Something alive and tangible had
come to link them with the happy past. The three sat and talked over
the olden times, the major and Uncle Mose correcting or prompting each
other as they reviewed the plantation scenes and days.
The major inquired what the old man was doing so far from his home.
“Uncle Mose am a delicate,” he explained, “to de grand Baptis’
convention in dis city. I never preached none, but bein’ a residin’
elder in de church, and able fur to pay my own expenses, dey sent me
along.”
“And how did you know we were in Washington?” inquired Miss Lydia.
“Dey’s a cullud man works in de hotel whar I stops, what comes from
Mobile. He told me he seen Mars’ Pendleton comin’ outen dish here house
one mawnin’.
“What I come fur,” continued Uncle Mose, reaching into his
pocket—“besides de sight of home folks—was to pay Mars’ Pendleton what
I owes him.”
“Owe me?” said the major, in surprise.
“Yassir—three hundred dollars.” He handed the major a roll of bills.
“When I lef’ old mars’ says: ‘Take dem mule colts, Mose, and, if it be
so you gits able, pay fur ’em’. Yassir—dem was his words. De war had
done lef’ old mars’ po’ hisself. Old mars’ bein’ ’long ago dead, de
debt descends to Mars’ Pendleton. Three hundred dollars. Uncle Mose is
plenty able to pay now. When dat railroad buy my lan’ I laid off to pay
fur dem mules. Count de money, Mars’ Pendleton. Dat’s what I sold dem
mules fur. Yassir.”
Tears were in Major Talbot’s eyes. He took Uncle Mose’s hand and laid
his other upon his shoulder.
“Dear, faithful, old servitor,” he said in an unsteady voice, “I don’t
mind saying to you that ‘Mars’ Pendleton’ spent his last dollar in the
world a week ago. We will accept this money, Uncle Mose, since, in a
way, it is a sort of payment, as well as a token of the loyalty and
devotion of the old regime. Lydia, my dear, take the money. You are
better fitted than I to manage its expenditure.”
“Take it, honey,” said Uncle Mose. “Hit belongs to you. Hit’s Talbot
money.”
After Uncle Mose had gone, Miss Lydia had a good cry—for joy; and the
major turned his face to a corner, and smoked his clay pipe
volcanically.
The succeeding days saw the Talbots restored to peace and ease. Miss
Lydia’s face lost its worried look. The major appeared in a new frock
coat, in which he looked like a wax figure personifying the memory of
his golden age. Another publisher who read the manuscript of the
“Anecdotes and Reminiscences” thought that, with a little retouching
and toning down of the high lights, he could make a really bright and
salable volume of it. Altogether, the situation was comfortable, and
not without the touch of hope that is often sweeter than arrived
blessings.
One day, about a week after their piece of good luck, a maid brought a
letter for Miss Lydia to her room. The postmark showed that it was from
New York. Not knowing any one there, Miss Lydia, in a mild flutter of
wonder, sat down by her table and opened the letter with her scissors.
This was what she read:
Dear Miss Talbot:
I thought you might be glad to learn of my good fortune. I have
received and accepted an offer of two hundred dollars per week by a
New York stock company to play Colonel Calhoun in “A Magnolia
Flower.”
There is something else I wanted you to know. I guess you’d better
not tell Major Talbot. I was anxious to make him some amends for
the great help he was to me in studying the part, and for the bad
humour he was in about it. He refused to let me, so I did it
anyhow. I could easily spare the three hundred.
Sincerely yours,
H. Hopkins Hargraves,
P.S. How did I play Uncle Mose?
Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia’s door open and
stopped.
“Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?” he asked.
Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress.
“The _Mobile Chronicle_ came,” she said promptly. “It’s on the table in
your study.”
XIV.
LET ME FEEL YOUR PULSE
So I went to a doctor.
“How long has it been since you took any alcohol into your system?” he
asked.
Turning my head sidewise, I answered, “Oh, quite awhile.”
He was a young doctor, somewhere between twenty and forty. He wore
heliotrope socks, but he looked like Napoleon. I liked him immensely.
“Now,” said he, “I am going to show you the effect of alcohol upon your
circulation.” I think it was “circulation” he said; though it may have
been “advertising.”
He bared my left arm to the elbow, brought out a bottle of whiskey, and
gave me a drink. He began to look more like Napoleon. I began to like
him better.
Then he put a tight compress on my upper arm, stopped my pulse with his
fingers, and squeezed a rubber bulb connected with an apparatus on a
stand that looked like a thermometer. The mercury jumped up and down
without seeming to stop anywhere; but the doctor said it registered two
hundred and thirty-seven or one hundred and sixty-five or some such
number.
“Now,” said he, “you see what alcohol does to the blood-pressure.”
“It’s marvellous,” said I, “but do you think it a sufficient test? Have
one on me, and let’s try the other arm.” But, no!
Then he grasped my hand. I thought I was doomed and he was saying
good-bye. But all he wanted to do was to jab a needle into the end of a
finger and compare the red drop with a lot of fifty-cent poker chips
that he had fastened to a card.
“It’s the hæmoglobin test,” he explained. “The colour of your blood is
wrong.”
“Well,” said I, “I know it should be blue; but this is a country of
mix-ups. Some of my ancestors were cavaliers; but they got thick with
some people on Nantucket Island, so—”
“I mean,” said the doctor, “that the shade of red is too light.”
“Oh,” said I, “it’s a case of matching instead of matches.”
The doctor then pounded me severely in the region of the chest. When he
did that I don’t know whether he reminded me most of Napoleon or
Battling or Lord Nelson. Then he looked grave and mentioned a string of
grievances that the flesh is heir to—mostly ending in “itis.” I
immediately paid him fifteen dollars on account.
“Is or are it or some or any of them necessarily fatal?” I asked. I
thought my connection with the matter justified my manifesting a
certain amount of interest.
“All of them,” he answered cheerfully. “But their progress may be
arrested. With care and proper continuous treatment you may live to be
eighty-five or ninety.”
I began to think of the doctor’s bill. “Eighty-five would be
sufficient, I am sure,” was my comment. I paid him ten dollars more on
account.
“The first thing to do,” he said, with renewed animation, “is to find a
sanitarium where you will get a complete rest for a while, and allow
your nerves to get into a better condition. I myself will go with you
and select a suitable one.”
So he took me to a mad-house in the Catskills. It was on a bare
mountain frequented only by infrequent frequenters. You could see
nothing but stones and boulders, some patches of snow, and scattered
pine trees. The young physician in charge was most agreeable. He gave
me a stimulant without applying a compress to the arm. It was luncheon
time, and we were invited to partake. There were about twenty inmates
at little tables in the dining room. The young physician in charge came
to our table and said: “It is a custom with our guests not to regard
themselves as patients, but merely as tired ladies and gentlemen taking
a rest. Whatever slight maladies they may have are never alluded to in
conversation.”
My doctor called loudly to a waitress to bring some phosphoglycerate of
lime hash, dog-bread, bromo-seltzer pancakes, and nux vomica tea for my
repast. Then a sound arose like a sudden wind storm among pine trees.
It was produced by every guest in the room whispering loudly,
“Neurasthenia!”—except one man with a nose, whom I distinctly heard
say, “Chronic alcoholism.” I hope to meet him again. The physician in
charge turned and walked away.
An hour or so after luncheon he conducted us to the workshop—say fifty
yards from the house. Thither the guests had been conducted by the
physician in charge’s understudy and sponge-holder—a man with feet and
a blue sweater. He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face; but
the Armour Packing Company would have been delighted with his hands.
“Here,” said the physician in charge, “our guests find relaxation from
past mental worries by devoting themselves to physical
labour—recreation, in reality.”
There were turning-lathes, carpenters’ outfits, clay-modelling tools,
spinning-wheels, weaving-frames, treadmills, bass drums,
enlarged-crayon-portrait apparatuses, blacksmith forges, and
everything, seemingly, that could interest the paying lunatic guests of
a first-rate sanitarium.
“The lady making mud pies in the corner,” whispered the physician in
charge, “is no other than—Lula Lulington, the authoress of the novel
entitled ‘Why Love Loves.’ What she is doing now is simply to rest her
mind after performing that piece of work.”
I had seen the book. “Why doesn’t she do it by writing another one
instead?” I asked.
As you see, I wasn’t as far gone as they thought I was.
“The gentleman pouring water through the funnel,” continued the
physician in charge, “is a Wall Street broker broken down from
overwork.”