beyond words, the minister, who was of a full habit of life, came to
give him consolation and good advice.
They sat down side by side and the dominie read the parable of the
Prodigal Son. The prisoner seemed to hang on the words. He nudged up
closer and closer, bending forward until his face almost was in the
minister’s face, and listened.
“Please read it over once more,” he said when the dominie had finished
the chapter and started to close the Good Book.
Touched by this further sign of penitence, the minister read it again.
“Tell me, poor man,” he said when he was done, “what was it held you so
close the while I was reading—was it the lesson of the Scripture or was
it the words?”
“Nay, nay,” said the tippler—“’twas your grand breath!”
§ 34 The Treacherous Warehouse
When the Yanks prepared to make their advance through Belleau Wood there
was brought up from the south of France, a negro labor battalion, not a
man of which until that time had ever heard a big gun crack in anger,
but who, before this, had been employed in building roads and mending
bridges and unloading freight cars. This outfit was set to work
constructing defences of fallen timbers in the lower fringe of the
forest, on the contingency that our troops, after their first onslaught
might be driven back and need shelter behind which to fight on the
retreat.
On a morning when the enemy, for reasons best known to themselves, were
feeling unusually peevish and fretful, one of the correspondents,
picking his cautious way through the thickets, came upon a coal black
woodchopper in a ragged khaki shirt, who was swinging his ax on a fallen
tree and between strokes looking up to where German shells were
whistling through the ragged foliage overhead and occasionally exploding
in his vicinity with a large, harsh, grating, unpleasant sound.
At each fresh report the darky would say—and even a perfect stranger to
him could tell that from the very bottom of his soul he meant it—
“Oh, Lawsy, how I does wish’t I wuz home!”
“Well,” asked the correspondent, “why did you enlist if you didn’t care
to face some danger?”
“Huh, man,” he snorted, “I never onlisted!”
“Well, why did you come over here, then?”
“I didn’t exac’ly come.”
“Well, you weren’t born over here, were you?”
“Naw suh, an’ I trusts not to die yere.”
“Well,” said the newspaper man, “you’re evidently past the draft age,
and since you did not enlist and didn’t come over here of your own free
will and weren’t born here, what I want to know is, how did you get
here?”
“Mister,” said the negro, “it meks a kind of a sad story. My reg’lar
home is Waycross, Georgia, an’ I suttinly does crave to be there right
this minute! Here ’bout a yeah ago a w’ite man come down frum de Nawth,
an’ he corralled a whole passel of us together an’ he say to us, he say:
‘Boys, I want you all to go up Nawth wid me an’ wuk fur de gove’mint.
Plain niggers is gwine git eight dollars a day; fancy niggers ’at shows
speed, is gwine git ten.’ An’ I sez to myse’f, I sez: ‘W’ite man, you
don’t know it yit, but you’s lookin’ at one of the ten dollar ones right
now!’
“So he loads a whole raft of us on board de steam cyars an’ he totes us
plum’ to Noo Yawk city. An’ w’en we gits thar we wuks jest one mawnin’,
down by de water. W’en de time come to knock off for dinner de w’ite man
gets up on a box an’ meks us a speech. ‘Boys,’ he says, ‘I wuz wrong
’bout you—w’y, they ain’t a eight dollar nigger in the lot. Come on wid
me to de warehouse an’ sign up for ten!’
“Natchelly I led de parade. Right behind me comes de w’ite man yellin’:
’Dis way to de warehouse!’ An’ right behind him comes all de rest of dem
Waycross niggers, jest runnin’.
“So he teks us th’ough a kind of a long shed. An’ he ’scorts us ’crost a
lil’ narrow plank. An’ he leads us th’ough a kind of a lil’ round iron
do’.
“An’ w’en we wuz all inside, de w’ite man slammed de iron do’—AN’ DE
WAREHOUSE SAILED AWAY!”
§ 35 A Scotchman’s Conscience
The purchasing agent of a big jobbing concern was a Scotchman. He gave
an extensive order—to a salesman for a supply house. Although he had
obtained the business in open competition, the salesman felt gratitude
at being favored and sought a way to show it.
He knew he dare not offer the Scot a commission; likewise a gift of
money, he figured, would be regarded as an insult. The Scot, he noticed,
constantly smoked cigars. So the salesman slipped out to a cigar store
and bought a box containing fifty of the finest Havanas the tobacconist
carried in stock. The price for the fifty was fifteen dollars. He
brought the box back and asked the purchasing agent to accept it with
his compliments.
The latter explained that it was against the policy of his house for its
buyers to accept presents of any sort from those with whom the concern
did business. He was sorry, he said, but he could not take the cigars as
a present, even though he felt sure his young friend had tendered them
with the best of intentions and in absolute good faith.
The salesman had another idea:
“Well,” he said, “I hate to throw these cigars away. They are of no use
to me—I smoke only cigarettes. I wonder if you would buy them from
me?—there’s no harm in that, I’m sure.”
“What would you be asking for them, laddy?” inquired the prudent Scot.
“I’ll sell the whole fifty to you for a nickel,” stated the salesman.
The purchasing agent lifted one of the cigars from the top row, smelled
it, rolled it in his fingers and eyed it closely.
“Very well,” he said, “at that price I’ll take four boxes.”
§ 36 Establishing an Identity
It was plain the stranger was suffering from an excess of alcoholic
stimulant. He wavered and lurched and wabbled as he ran to catch the
trolley car; he slipped and almost fell as he swung aboard; he trampled
on the toes of those who rode upon the rear platform and at length when
he fell into a seat he struck with considerable violence a somewhat
testy gentleman alongside him.
The latter resented being jostled. Probably he had scruples against the
use of intoxicants in any form and at any time. He fixed a stern and
condemning eye upon the new passenger and of him demanded to know why he
did not exercise a little more care when entering a public vehicle.
The person thus reproved, focused his uncertain vision upon the face of
the other.
“Dye shee me when I gotta board thish car?” he asked.
“I did.”
“Dye ever shee me before in your who’ life?”
“No.”
“Ever hear an’body call my name?”
“No.”
“Ever hear an’body speak ’bout me?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then how the hell did you know it was me?”
§ 37 An Earnest Cry for Help
Our town—I mean the one where I was born—formerly abounded in
characters. One of our local institutions twenty years ago was a black
driver named Abe, but called Old Abe for short. Abe was popular with
both races. He had one social shortcoming, though. About once in so
often he would slip out on a dark night and acquire something of value
without the formality of speaking to the owner about it. For awhile he
escaped a penitentiary sentence.
But eventually he was caught with what the Grand Jury and the
prosecuting attorney regarded as the goods, the said goods consisting of
a stray calf. He was lodged in jail to await trial. His cell was in the
upper tier. On the Sunday afternoon following his incarceration his
wife, accompanied by five or six pickaninnies, came to pay him a visit.
It was the first time she had seen him since his arrest.
On her way out she was halted by the deputy jailer, whose name was
Grady.
“Dora,” he said, “have you hired a lawyer for Abe yet?”
“Naw, suh,” she said, “effen Abe was guilty, right away I’d git him a
lawyer. But he p’intedly tells me he ain’t de leas’ bit guilty. So, of
co’se, dat bein’ de case, he ain’t needin’ no lawyer to git him clear.”
From the floor above, down the iron stairwell, came floating the voice
of Abe:
“Mr. Grady, oh, Mr. Grady!—you tell ’at fool nigger ’oman down thar to
git a lawyer—an’ git a damn good one, too.”
§ 38 The Pride of Creative Genius
A colored person of a formidable aspect was arraigned on a charge of
mayhem. As Exhibit A, for the case of the prosecution, the mutilated
victim of his wrath was presented before the jurors’ eyes. The face of
the victim was but little more than a recent site—a place where a face
had been, but was no longer.
When the jury very promptly had returned a verdict of guilty, His Honor,
pointing to the chief complaining witness and addressing the defendant,
said:
“This is the most lamentable example of brutality I have ever seen in a
long experience on the criminal bench. Surely no human being, unless he
were inspired by infernal influences and suggestions, could deliberately
work such wreckage as you have worked upon the countenance of a
defenseless and helpless fellow creature. Demons from below surely must
have prompted you in what you did. It must have been the devil himself
who urged you on.”
“Well, Jedge,” said the prisoner, “come to think it over, I ain’t shore
but whut you’re right. As I look back on it now it do seem lak to me ’at
w’en I wuz cuttin’ his nose loose frum his face wid a razor, the devil
wuz right behind me sayin’ ‘Tha’s right, separate him frum his nose.’
An’ I ’spects it must a been them demons you mention w’ich suggested to
me stompin’ out his front teeth.
“But, Jedge, bitin’ off his ear wuz stric’ly my own idea!”
§ 39 The Prompt Response
Of all the stories relating to our colored troopers in their services
overseas, I think the one I like best has to do with a brawny black
infantryman, who, on his way up to the front for his first taste of
actual combat, fortified himself on a full quart of French wine.
As a result, he reached the forward position in a somewhat elevated and
groggy state. He had been warned in advance that he was going into an
exceedingly dangerous sector, but it so happened at the moment of his
arrival the immediate vicinity was strangely quiet. He glanced about him
in a foggy but disappointed way, and then, addressing his fellow
occupants of the trench, spoke as follows:
“Wha’s de war?—tha’s whut I wants to know! White folks suttinly is
mouty deceivin’. Yere dey promises me a war. So dey rides me ’crost mo’n
a million miles of ocean an’ dey marches me th’ough mo’n a thousand
miles of mud, an’ all de w’ile dey keeps on tellin’ me ’at w’en I gits
up yere dey’ll be a war waitin’ fur me. An’ yere I is all organized fur
a war an’ dey ain’t no war! Dat ain’t no way to act. Ef ary of you folks
is got ary war jest fetch it on an’ leave it to me.”
A veteran of several months’ experience told him that his desires should
shortly be gratified, inasmuch as the hostile positions were only about
two hundred yards away, and the enemy was both active and alert.
Hearing this, the green hand leaped upon the parapet and, standing there
in the moonlight, like a great black statue of defiance, he shook a
broad fist in the direction of the foes’ lines, and in a voice which
might have been heard half a mile away he cried out:
“Come on, you Heinie Germans, an’ gimme war! Gimme all de war you’s got!
Gimme exploserives! Gimme gas shells! Gimme scrapernel! Gimme bung
shells! Most in ’special I asts you fur bung shells!”
At this particular moment a German minnenwerfer, two feet long and nine
inches in diameter and filled with potential ill-health, went whirring
in its wabbly, uncertain flight just over his head, and with a crash
like the crack of doom struck not fifty yards behind him, tearing a hole
in the earth big enough for the foundations of a smoke house. The
belligerent warrior was slapped flat and instantly covered in a half
inch coating of powdered grit and gravel and dust.
There he lay, stunned, until the last reverberation had died away and
the tortured earth had ceased from its quiverings. Then, slowly and
cautiously, he sat up. First he felt himself all over to make sure he
was intact; then he stole a respectful glance rearward to where the
huge, new formed crater behind him still was smoking and fuming and
throwing off noxious smells, and then he cast a cautious look in the
direction from which the devilish visitor had come, and, finally, in a
small, curiously altered voice, he said:
“Well, suzz, dey’s one thing you’s got to say fur dem Germans—dey
suttinly does give you service!”
§ 40 Once Every Ten Years
Every time the Government takes a census this story is revived, which
means it enjoys a rejuvenated popularity at intervals of ten years. When
I catch myself laughing at it, I know that another decade has slipped
by.
The story has to do with the enumerator who called at a humble home, and
there found the head of the family humped up over a large volume. It
developed, in the course of the conversation, that the householder some
months before had been induced by a traveling agent to invest in an
encyclopedia. To get the worth of his money he had been reading the
books of the set pretty constantly ever since.
In reply to the caller’s questions he gave his name and age and his
wife’s name and age.
“How many infant children have you?” asked the census taker.
“I’ve got three,” said the citizen. “And that’s all there ever will be,
too, you take it from me.”
“What makes you so positive about that?” asked the visitor.
“I’ll tell you why there won’t never be but three,” said the man “It’s
wrote down in this here book that every fourth child born in the world
is Chinese.”
§ 41 One Detail Was Missing
On the historic afternoon when Jack Johnson fought Jim Jeffries in
Nevada for the world’s championship there was a baseball game at the old
Polo Grounds. In the press stand, among others, sat Sid Mercer, the
sporting writer, and Franklin P. Adams, the column conductor. For some
reason or other, ringside bulletins were not being received at the ball
park. Naturally, the crowd wanted to know how the fight was going.
Several hundred spectators, drawn by the fact that telegraph instruments
were clicking in the press stand, packed themselves solidly behind the
wire netting in the hope of hearing tidings from Reno over the wire.
Mercer and Adams had a joint inspiration. They pretended to be taking a
ringside description off one of the instruments. First one would chant
off a purely imaginary account of a round, and then the other would.
Adams had a bet down on the negro to win, and accordingly favored the
dark contender. In his turn to “read” a round, he would depict Johnson
as hammering Jeffries to a pulp. But Mercer, who was a partisan of
Jeffries, would each time retaliate with a spirited but, of course,
purely fictitious account of how the white man, having rallied
heroically, was now dealing mighty blows upon the head and body of the
tottering, weakening black.
Naturally, the listening crowd was torn by conflicting emotions. Cheers
and groans marked the utterances of the two gifted romancers.
Eventually, when the multitude had grown in numbers until the pressure
of its bulk threatened to break down the netting, the conspirators
decided to bring their joke to a climax.
Mercer, cocking his head above an instrument as though the better to
hear, began reciting, somewhat after this fashion:
“Round-seven!
At-the-sound-of-the-bell-the-two-men-leap-to-the-center-of-the-ring!
They-exchange-a-whirlwind-of-jabs-and-upper-cuts!
The-fighting-is-the-fiercest-ever-seen-in-a-heavyweight-contest!
Suddenly-the-knockout-blow-is-delivered-full-upon-the-point-of-the-jaw!
The-defeated-man-drops-like-a-log!
His-seconds-drag-his-unconscious-form-into-his-corner!
The-maddened-throng-acclaims-the-winner-and-pandemonium-reigns-supreme!”
Here he paused with the air of one who has completed a hard job.
From a thousand throats behind him one question arose in a mighty
chorus:
“Who wins?”
Dramatically Mercer raised his hand for silence. A deep hush befell.
“The dispatches do not state,” he said, simply, and sat down.
§ 42 In Permanent Storage
Once upon a time, in the middle part of Georgia, there lived a banker
who was known far and wide as the Human Safety Clutch. In his day he was
accused of many things, but nobody ever charged him with being a
spendthrift. His home was on a plantation a mile from town. One Sunday
he remembered that he had left some important papers on his desk, and he
gave an aged negro servitor on the place his keys and sent him for the
documents.
It was a hot day and the road was dusty, but in an hour the old darky
had returned with the papers intact. The owner felt in all his pockets,
one after the other.
“That’s too bad, Uncle Jim,” he said finally; “I thought I had a nickel
here that I was going to give you.”
“Cap’n Henry,” said Uncle Jim, “you look ag’in. Ef ever you had a nickel
you got it yit.”
§ 43 What Might Be Called an Active Man
The wharf at New Orleans was crowded with foot travelers, vehicles and
freight piles. A brawny Irishman, driving a truck, locked wheels with
another truck operated by a negro.
As the trucks jammed the negro opened his mouth in profane and highly
disrespectful protest. But before he had uttered six words
unconsciousness shut off further speech from him.
For the Irishman, with one flying leap, had reached the earth. His left
hand closed on the negro’s ankle, and as the latter was jerked violently
into space the enemy’s right fist landed a wing shot squarely on the
point of his jaw, and for the time being he knew no more.
Ten minutes later the victim half opened his eyes. A policeman was
bending over him.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the officer.
“A w’ite man hit me,” said the darky, “an’ I wants him arrested.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know whut his name is, boss—never seed him befo’ in my life.”
“Well, then, what does he look like?”
“I don’t rightly know dat, neither. Hit all happen’ so quick-lak I
didn’t got a good look at ’im.”
“Then how do you expect me to find him if you can’t describe him?” asked
the puzzled policeman.
“Boss, dat ain’t goin’ be no trouble,” stated the negro. “You jest go
lookin’ for the doin’est man they is in Newerleans!”
§ 44 Sauce for the Goose
An East Sider of foreign birth prospered to the extent where he
graduated from the ranks of the sidewalk merchants and became a regular
business man, with a store and showcases and everything. Also, for the
first time in his life he was able to start a bank account.
One day he was engaged on the telephone by the assistant cashier of the
bank where he kept his checking fund.
“Mr. Abrams,” stated the cashier, “I called you up to tell you that on
the first day of this month your account appears overdrawn $108.”
“So?” droned Mr. Abrams. “Say, young man, would you do it for me a
favor?”
“Sure.”
“Then, please, you should look at your books und tell me how stood the
account on the foist day of last month.”
In a minute or two the bank functionary was back at the ’phone.
“Oh, Mr. Abrams,” he said, “on the first day of last month you had a
balance to your credit of $322.25.”
“So!” shouted Mr. Abrams. “Und did I call you up?”
§ 45 Driven Beyond His Strength
There was a down-and-outer, who made a precarious living as a sandwich
man. Encased front and back, like a turtle in its shell, between broad
boards which bore advertisements for a dairy lunch, he marched the
Bowery all day long for wages barely sufficient to keep body and soul
together.
One day, as he plodded his weary route, he saw a shining coin lying upon
the sidewalk. Instantly he set his foot upon it, and then, stooping with
difficulty because of his wooden waistcoat, he clutched it in his eager
fingers and raised it to his eyes. His heart inside of him gave a great
throb. It was a twenty-dollar gold piece. He was wealthy beyond his
wildest ambitions.
Across the street was an excavation for a new building. He hurried
thither. Standing on the edge of the digging he unbuckled the straps
which bound the squares of planking to him, and, kicking them to pieces
with a glad, exultant cry, he flung the shattered emblems of his
servitude down into the hole below. Then straightway he departed for the
nearest saloon. Stalking in, a triumphant figure even in his tatters, he
slapped his precious gold piece down upon the bar and called for a drink
of whiskey. It was to have been the first of a long and gorgeous
succession of drinks of whiskey.
Some one jostled him in the side. He turned his head, and when he looked
back again his double eagle mysteriously had vanished, and the barkeeper
was motioning him to depart.
He protested, naturally. Whereupon the barkeeper reached for the bung
starter, swung it with a skill born of long practice, and struck him
squarely between the eyes. A moment later the ex-sandwich man found
himself sprawling on the sidewalk, his happy visions gone forever.
A prey to melancholy, filled with deep disappointments and a yet deeper
sense of injustice, he got upon his feet and started to limp away.
Next door to the saloon was a basement barber shop. From it at this
instant there emerged a Bowery mission worker, an elderly gentleman of a
benevolent aspect, his pink jowls newly scraped and his face powdered.
As he climbed up the steps to the level of the sidewalk this gentleman
bent over to refasten a loosened shoelace.
Now, to the best of his knowledge and belief, the derelict never before
had seen the missionary, but as the latter stooped, presenting before
him an expanse of black coat tails, the misanthrope hauled off and dealt
the gentle stranger a terrific kick.
With a yell of astonishment and pain the clergyman landed ten feet away.
“What did you mean by that?” he demanded, rubbing the seat of his
trousers with both hands. “Why did you kick me?”
“Oh,” said the ex-sandwich man, in tones of an uncontrollable annoyance,
“you’re _always_ tying your shoestring!”
§ 46 The Custom of the Country
The English have the credit for being a conservative race—a breed in
which respect for traditions is so strong that they hesitate to change
anything which has behind it the merits of antiquity and established
comfort. The story which follows would tend to indicate that this trait
really does persist in our Anglo-Saxon cousins.
Through the fields between two villages in Sussex ran a footpath. It was
not the quickest route for one going from one of the hamlets to the
other, for it wandered about, but it had been traced originally by the
horny, naked feet of Saxon serfs, and now was worn deep into the turf by
the heels of countless generations, and everybody in the neighborhood
used it, because everybody always had.
A country gentleman lived midway between the towns. One day he heard a
vicious bull was straying about the countryside, chasing pedestrians,
frightening children and generally misbehaving himself.
Seeking for variety from the monotony of his life, the gentleman went
forth in the afternoon hoping to glimpse the bull. Once he heard him
bellow, but he did not see him.
He lingered afield until nearly dusk. He had reached a stile where a
hedge crossed the footpath when he heard in the distance, through the
thickening gloom, the patter of flying feet, mingled with the thud of
heavy hoofs, a convulsive panting and the snorts of some large animal.
Into sight came the local postman, an elderly person. He was legging
along at top speed, his mail pouch bouncing on his hip, his whiskers
neatly parted by the wind and blowing backward over his shoulders, and
just behind him came the bull, lunging with his horns at the seat of the
fugitive’s trousers.
By half a length the fleeing man reached the hedge ahead of his pursuer.
He flung himself headlong over the stile and in its protection lay
breathless, while the bull, bellowing his disappointment, strolled off
to seek an easier victim.
The spectator aided the quivering postman to his feet.
“He almost had you to-night, Fletcher,” said the gentleman,
sympathetically.
“’E’s almost ’ad me every night this week, sir,” gasped Fletcher.
§ 47 Sight Unseen, As It Were