And yet the Boy Chief was not entirely happy. Indeed, at times he
seriously thought of accepting the invitation extended by the Great
Chief at Washington, immediately after the massacre of the soldiers,
and once more revisiting the haunts of civilization. His soul sickened
in feverish inactivity; schoolmasters palled on his taste; he had
introduced base ball, blind hooky, marbles, and peg-top among his
Indian subjects, but only with indifferent success. The squaws insisted
in boring holes through the china alleys and wearing them as necklaces;
his warriors stuck spikes in their base ball bats and made war clubs of
them. He could not but feel, too, that the gentle Mushymush, although
devoted to her pale-faced brother, was deficient in culinary education.
Her mince pies were abominable; her jam far inferior to that made by
his Aunt Sally of Doemville. Only an unexpected incident kept him
equally from the extreme of listless Sybaritic indulgence, or of morbid
cynicism. Indeed, at the age of twelve, he already had become disgusted
with existence.
He had returned to his wigwam after an exhausting buffalo hunt in which
he had slain two hundred and seventy-five buffalos with his own hand,
not counting the individual buffalo on which he had leaped so as to
join the herd, and which he afterward led into the camp a captive and a
present to the lovely Mushymush. He had scalped two express riders and
a correspondent of the "New York Herald"; had despoiled the Overland
Mail Stage of a quantity of vouchers which enabled him to draw double
rations from the government, and was reclining on a bear skin, smoking
and thinking of the vanity of human endeavor, when a scout entered,
saying that a pale-face youth had demanded access to his person.
"Is he a commissioner? If so, say that the red man is rapidly passing
to the happy hunting-grounds of his fathers, and now desires only
peace, blankets, and ammunition; obtain the latter and then scalp the
commissioner."
"But it is only a youth who asks an interview."
"Does he look like an insurance agent? If so, say that I have already
policies in three Hartford companies. Meanwhile prepare the stake, and
see that the squaws are ready with their implements of torture."
The youth was admitted; he was evidently only half the age of the Boy
Chief. As he entered the wigwam and stood revealed to his host they
both started. In another moment they were locked in each other's arms.
"Jenky, old boy!"
"Bromley, old fel!"
B. F. Jenkins, for such was the name of the Boy Chief, was the first to
recover his calmness. Turning to his warriors he said, proudly--
"Let my children retire while I speak to the agent of our Great Father
in Washington. Hereafter no latch keys will be provided for the
wigwams of the warriors. The practice of late hours must be
discouraged."
"How!" said the warriors, and instantly retired.
"Whisper," said Jenkins, drawing his friend aside; "I am known here
only as the Boy Chief of the 'Pigeon toes.'"
"And I," said Bromley Chitterlings, proudly, "am known everywhere as
the Pirate Prodigy--the Boy Avenger of the Patagonian Coast."
"But how came you here?"
"Listen! My pirate brig, the 'Lively Mermaid,' now lies at Meiggs's
Wharf in San Francisco, disguised as a Mendocino lumber vessel. My
pirate crew accompanied me here in a palace car from San Francisco."
"It must have been expensive," said the prudent Jenkins.
"It was, but they defrayed it by a collection from the other
passengers--you understand, an enforced collection. The papers will be
full of it to-morrow. Do you take the 'New York Sun'?"
"No; I dislike their Indian policy. But why are you here?"
"Hear me, Jenk! 'Tis a long and a sad story. The lovely Eliza J.
Sniffen, who fled with me from Doemville, was seized by her parents and
torn from my arms at New Rochelle. Reduced to poverty by the breaking
of the savings bank of which he was president,--a failure to which I
largely contributed, and the profits of which I enjoyed,--I have since
ascertained that Eliza Jane Sniffen was forced to become a
schoolmistress, departed to take charge of a seminary in Colorado, and
since then has never been heard from."
Why did the Boy Chief turn pale, and clutch at the tent-pole for
support? Why, indeed!
"Eliza J. Sniffen," gasped Jenkins, "aged fourteen, red-haired, with a
slight tendency to strabismus?"
"The same."
"Heaven help me! She died by my mandate!"
"Traitor!" shrieked Chitterlings, rushing at Jenkins with a drawn
poniard.
But a figure interposed. The slight girlish form of Mushymush with
outstretched hands stood between the exasperated Pirate Prodigy and the
Boy Chief.
"Forbear," she said sternly to Chitterlings; "you know not what you do."
The two youths paused.
"Hear me," she said rapidly. "When captured in a confectioner's shop
at New Rochelle, E. J. Sniffen was taken back to poverty. She resolved
to become a schoolmistress. Hearing of an opening in the West, she
proceeded to Colorado to take exclusive charge of the pensionnat of
Mad. Choflie, late of Paris. On the way thither she was captured by
the emissaries of the Boy Chief--"
"In consummation of a fatal vow I made never to spare educational
instructors," interrupted Jenkins.
"But in her captivity," continued Mushymush, "she managed to stain her
face with poke-berry juice, and mingling with the Indian maidens was
enabled to pass for one of the tribe. Once undetected, she boldly
ingratiated herself with the Boy Chief,--how honestly and devotedly he
best can tell,--for I, Mushymush, the little sister of the Boy Chief,
am Eliza Jane Sniffen."
The Pirate Prodigy clasped her in his arms. The Boy Chief, raising his
hand, ejaculated:--
"Bless you, my children!"
"There is but one thing wanting to complete this reunion," said
Chitterlings, after a pause, but the hurried entrance of a scout
stopped his utterance.
"A commissioner from the Great Father in Washington."
"Scalp him!" shrieked the Boy Chief; "this is no time for diplomatic
trifling."
"We have, but he still insists upon seeing you, and has sent in his
card."
The Boy Chief took it, and read aloud, in agonized accents:--
"Charles F. Hall Golightly, late Page in United States Senate, and
Acting Commissioner of United States."
In another moment, Golightly, pale, bleeding, and, as it were,
prematurely bald, but still cold and intellectual, entered the wigwam.
They fell upon his neck and begged his forgiveness.
"Don't mention it," he said, quietly; "these things must and will
happen under our present system of government. My story is brief.
Obtaining political influence through caucuses, I became at last Page
in the Senate. Through the exertions of political friends I was
appointed clerk to the commissioner whose functions I now represent.
Knowing through political spies in your own camp who you were, I acted
upon the physical fears of the commissioner, who was an ex-clergyman,
and easily induced him to deputize me to consult with you. In doing
so, I have lost my scalp, but as the hirsute signs of juvenility have
worked against my political progress I do not regret it. As a
partially bald young man I shall have more power. The terms that I
have to offer are simply this: you can do everything you want, go
anywhere you choose, if you will only leave this place. I have a
hundred thousand-dollar draft on the United States Treasury in my
pocket at your immediate disposal."
"But what's to become of me?" asked Chitterlings.
"Your case has already been under advisement. The Secretary of State,
who is an intelligent man, is determined to recognize you as de jure
and de facto the only loyal representative of the Patagonian
government. You may safely proceed to Washington as its envoy
extraordinary. I dine with the secretary next week."
"And yourself, old fellow?"
"I only wish that twenty years from now you will recognize by your
influence and votes the rights of C. F. H. Golightly to the presidency."
And here ends our story. Trusting that my dear young friends may take
whatever example or moral their respective parents and guardians may
deem fittest from these pages, I hope in future years to portray
further the career of those three young heroes I have already
introduced in the spring-time of life to their charitable consideration.
THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT EASY
He was a spare man, and, physically, an ill-conditioned man, but at
first glance scarcely a seedy man. The indications of reduced
circumstances in the male of the better class are, I fancy, first
visible in the boots and shirt; the boots offensively exhibiting a
degree of polish inconsistent with their dilapidated condition, and the
shirt showing an extent of ostentatious surface that is invariably
fatal to the threadbare waist-coat that it partially covers. He was a
pale man, and, I fancied, still paler from his black clothes.
He handed me a note.
It was from a certain physician; a man of broad culture and broader
experience; a man who had devoted the greater part of his active life
to the alleviation of sorrow and suffering; a man who had lived up to
the noble vows of a noble profession; a man who locked in his honorable
breast the secrets of a hundred families, whose face was as kindly,
whose touch was as gentle, in the wards of the great public hospitals
as it was beside the laced curtains of the dying Narcissa; a man who,
through long contact with suffering, had acquired a universal
tenderness and breadth of kindly philosophy; a man who, day and night,
was at the beck and call of anguish; a man who never asked the creed,
belief, moral or worldly standing of the sufferer, or even his ability
to pay the few coins that enabled him (the physician) to exist and
practice his calling; in brief, a man who so nearly lived up to the
example of the Great Master that it seems strange I am writing of him
as a doctor of medicine and not of divinity.
The note was in pencil, characteristically brief, and ran thus:--
"Here is the man I spoke of. He ought to be good material for you."
For a moment I sat looking from the note to the man, and sounding the
"dim perilous depths" of my memory for the meaning of this mysterious
communication. The good "material," however, soon relieved my
embarrassment by putting his hand on his waistcoat, coming toward me,
and saying, "It is just here, you can feel it."
It was not necessary for me to do so. In a flash I remembered that my
medical friend had told me of a certain poor patient, once a soldier,
who, among his other trials and uncertainties, was afflicted with an
aneurism caused by the buckle of his knapsack pressing upon the arch of
the aorta. It was liable to burst at any shock or any moment. The
poor fellow's yoke had indeed been too heavy.
In the presence of such a tremendous possibility I think for an instant
I felt anxious only about myself. What I should do; how dispose of the
body; how explain the circumstance of his taking off; how evade the
ubiquitous reporter and the coroner's inquest; how a suspicion might
arise that I had in some way, through negligence or for some dark
purpose, unknown to the jury, precipitated the catastrophe, all flashed
before me. Even the note, with its darkly suggestive offer of "good
material" for me, looked diabolically significant. What might not an
intelligent lawyer make of it?
I tore it up instantly, and with feverish courtesy begged him to be
seated.
"You don't care to feel it?" he asked, a little anxiously.
"No."
"Nor see it?"
"No."
He sighed, a trifle sadly, as if I had rejected the only favor he could
bestow. I saw at once that he had been under frequent exhibition to
the doctors, and that he was, perhaps, a trifle vain of this attention.
This perception was corroborated a moment later by his producing a copy
of a medical magazine, with a remark that on the sixth page I would
find a full statement of his case.
"Could I serve him in any way?" I asked.
It appeared that I could. If I could help him to any light employment,
something that did not require any great physical exertion or mental
excitement, he would be thankful. But he wanted me to understand that
he was not, strictly speaking, a poor man; that some years before the
discovery of his fatal complaint he had taken out a life insurance
policy for five thousand dollars, and that he had raked and scraped
enough together to pay it up, and that he would not leave his wife and
four children destitute. "You see," he added, "if I could find some
sort of light work to do, and kinder sled along, you know--until--"
He stopped, awkwardly.
I have heard several noted actors thrill their audiences with a single
phrase. I think I never was as honestly moved by any spoken word as
that "until," or the pause that followed it. He was evidently quite
unconscious of its effect, for as I took a seat beside him on the sofa,
and looked more closely in his waxen face, I could see that he was
evidently embarrassed, and would have explained himself further, if I
had not stopped him.
Possibly it was the dramatic idea, or possibly chance; but a few days
afterward, meeting a certain kind-hearted theatrical manager, I asked
him if he had any light employment for a man who was an invalid? "Can
he walk?" "Yes." "Stand up for fifteen minutes?" "Yes." "Then I'll
take him. He'll do for the last scene in the 'Destruction of
Sennacherib'--it's a tremendous thing, you know. We'll have two
thousand people on the stage." I was a trifle alarmed at the title,
and ventured to suggest (without betraying my poor friend's secret)
that he could not actively engage in the "Destruction of Sennacherib,"
and that even the spectacle of it might be too much for him. "Needn't
see it at all," said my managerial friend; "put him in front, nothing
to do but march in and march out, and dodge curtain."
He was engaged. I admit I was at times haunted by grave doubts as to
whether I should not have informed the manager of his physical
condition, and the possibility that he might some evening perpetrate a
real tragedy on the mimic stage, but on the first performance of "The
Destruction of Sennacherib," which I conscientiously attended, I was
somewhat relieved. I had often been amused with the placid way in
which the chorus in the opera invariably received the most astounding
information, and witnessed the most appalling tragedies by poison or
the block, without anything more than a vocal protest or command,
always delivered to the audience and never to the actors, but I think
my poor friend's utter impassiveness to the wild carnage and the
terrible exhibitions of incendiarism that were going on around him
transcended even that. Dressed in a costume that seemed to be the very
soul of anachronism, he stood a little outside the proscenium, holding
a spear, the other hand pressed apparently upon the secret within his
breast, calmly surveying, with his waxen face, the gay auditorium. I
could not help thinking that there was a certain pride visible even in
his placid features, as of one who was conscious that at any moment he
might change this simulated catastrophe into real terror. I could not
help saying this to the Doctor, who was with me. "Yes," he said with
professional exactitude; "when it happens he'll throw his arms up above
his head, utter an ejaculation, and fall forward on his face,--it's a
singular thing, they always fall forward on their face,--and they'll
pick up the man as dead as Julius Caesar."
After that, I used to go night after night, with a certain hideous
fascination; but, while it will be remembered the "Destruction of
Sennacherib" had a tremendous run, it will also be remembered that not
a single life was really lost during its representation.
It was only a few weeks after this modest first appearance on the
boards of "The Man with an Aneurism," that, happening to be at dinner
party of practical business men, I sought to interest them with the
details of the above story, delivered with such skill and pathos as I
could command. I regret to say that, as a pathetic story, it for a
moment seemed to be a dead failure. At last a prominent banker sitting
next to me turned to me with the awful question: "Why don't your friend
try to realize on his life insurance?" I begged his pardon, I didn't
quite understand. "Oh, discount, sell out. Look here--(after a
pause). Let him assign his policy to me, it's not much of a risk, on
your statement. Well--I'll give him his five thousand dollars, clear."
And he did. Under the advice of this cool-headed--I think I may add
warm-hearted--banker, "The Man with an Aneurism" invested his money in
the name of and for the benefit of his wife in certain securities that
paid him a small but regular stipend. But he still continued upon the
boards of the theatre.
By reason of some business engagements that called me away from the
city, I did not see my friend the physician for three months afterward.
When I did I asked tidings of The Man with the Aneurism. The Doctor's
kind face grew sad. "I'm afraid--that is, I don't exactly know whether
I've good news or bad. Did you ever see his wife?"
I never had.
"Well, she was younger than he, and rather attractive. One of those
doll-faced women. You remember, he settled that life insurance policy
on her and the children: she might have waited; she didn't. The other
day she eloped with some fellow, I don't remember his name, with the
children and the five thousand dollars."
"And the shock killed him," I said with poetic promptitude.
"No--that is--not yet; I saw him yesterday," said the Doctor, with
conscientious professional precision, looking over his list of calls.
"Well, where is the poor fellow now?"
"He's still at the theatre. James, if these powders are called for,
you'll find them, here in this envelope. Tell Mrs. Blank I'll be there
at seven--and she can give the baby this until I come. Say there's no
danger. These women are an awful bother! Yes, he's at the theatre
yet. Which way are you going? Down town? Why can't you step into my
carriage, and I'll give you a lift, and we'll talk on the way down?
Well--he's at the theatre yet. And--and--do you remember the
'Destruction of Sennacherib?' No? Yes you do. You remember that
woman in pink, who pirouetted in the famous ballet scene! You don't?
Why, yes you do! Well, I imagine, of course I don't know, it's only a
summary diagnosis, but I imagine that our friend with the aneurism has
attached himself to her."
"Doctor, you horrify me."
"There are more things, Mr. Poet, in heaven and earth than are yet
dreamt of in your philosophy. Listen. My diagnosis may be wrong, but
that woman called the other day at my office to ask about him, his
health, and general condition. I told her the truth--and she FAINTED.
It was about as dead a faint as I ever saw; I was nearly an hour in
bringing her out of it. Of course it was the heat of the room, her
exertions the preceding week, and I prescribed for her. Queer, wasn't
it? Now, if I were a writer, and had your faculty, I'd make something
out of that."
"But how is his general health?"
"Oh, about the same. He can't evade what will come, you know, at any
moment. He was up here the other day. Why, the pulsation was as
plain--why, the entire arch of the aorta-- What! you get out here?
Good-by."
Of course no moralist, no man writing for a sensitive and strictly
virtuous public, could further interest himself in this man. So I
dismissed him at once from my mind, and returned to the literary
contemplation of virtue that was clearly and positively defined, and of
Sin, that invariably commenced with a capital letter. That this man,
in his awful condition, hovering on the verge of eternity, should allow
himself to be attracted by--but it was horrible to contemplate.
Nevertheless, a month afterwards, I was returning from a festivity with
my intimate friend Smith, my distinguished friend Jobling, my most
respectable friend Robinson, and my wittiest friend Jones. It was a
clear, star-lit morning, and we seemed to hold the broad, beautiful
avenue to ourselves; and I fear we acted as if it were so. As we
hilariously passed the corner of Eighteenth Street, a coupe rolled by,
and I suddenly heard my name called from its gloomy depths.
"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor, as his driver drew up by the
sidewalk, "but I've some news for you. I've just been to see our poor
friend ----. Of course I was too late. He was gone in a flash."
"What! dead?"
"As Pharaoh! In an instant, just as I said. You see, the rupture took
place in the descending arch of--"
"But, Doctor!"
"It's a queer story. Am I keeping you from your friends? No? Well,
you see she--that woman I spoke of--had written a note to him based on
what I had told her. He got it, and dropped in his dressing-room, dead
as a herring."
"How could she have been so cruel, knowing his condition? She might,
with woman's tact, have rejected him less abruptly."
"Yes; but you're all wrong. By Jove! she ACCEPTED him! was willing to
marry him!"
"What?"
"Yes. Don't you see? It was joy that killed him. Gad, we never
thought of THAT! Queer, ain't it? See here, don't you think you might
make a story out of it?"
"But, Doctor, it hasn't got any moral."
"Humph! That's so. Good morning. Drive on, John."
MY FRIEND, THE TRAMP
I had been sauntering over the clover downs of a certain noted New
England seaport. It was a Sabbath morning, so singularly reposeful and
gracious, so replete with the significance of the seventh day of rest,
that even the Sabbath bells ringing a mile away over the salt marshes
had little that was monitory, mandatory, or even supplicatory in their
drowsy voices. Rather they seemed to call from their cloudy towers,
like some renegade muezzin: "Sleep is better than prayer; sleep on, O
sons of the Puritans! Slumber still, O deacons and vestrymen! Let, oh
let those feet that are swift to wickedness curl up beneath thee! those
palms that are itching for the shekels of the ungodly lie clasped
beneath thy pillow! Sleep is better than prayer."
And, indeed, though it was high morning, sleep was still in the air.
Wrought upon at last by the combined influences of sea and sky and
atmosphere, I succumbed, and lay down on one of the boulders of a
little stony slope that gave upon the sea. The great Atlantic lay
before me, not yet quite awake, but slowly heaving the rhythmical
expiration of slumber. There was no sail visible in the misty horizon.
There was nothing to do but to lie and stare at the unwinking ether.
Suddenly I became aware of the strong fumes of tobacco. Turning my
head, I saw a pale blue smoke curling up from behind an adjacent
boulder. Rising, and climbing over the intermediate granite, I came
upon a little hollow, in which, comfortably extended on the mosses and
lichens, lay a powerfully-built man. He was very ragged; he was very
dirty; there was a strong suggestion about him of his having too much
hair, too much nail, too much perspiration; too much of those
superfluous excrescences and exudations that society and civilization
strive to keep under. But it was noticeable that he had not much of
anything else. It was The Tramp.
With that swift severity with which we always visit rebuke upon the
person who happens to present any one of our vices offensively before
us, in his own person, I was deeply indignant at his laziness. Perhaps
I showed it in my manner, for he rose to a half-sitting attitude,
returned my stare apologetically, and made a movement toward knocking
the fire from his pipe against the granite.
"Shure, sur, and if I'd belaved that I was trispassin on yer honor's
grounds, it's meself that would hev laid down on the say shore and
takin' the salt waves for me blankits. But it's sivinteen miles I've
walked this blessed noight, with nothin' to sustain me, and hevin' a
mortal wakeness to fight wid in me bowels, by reason of starvation, and
only a bit o' baccy that the Widdy Maloney gi' me at the cross roads,
to kape me up entoirley. But it was the dark day I left me home in
Milwaukee to walk to Boston; and if ye'll oblige a lone man who has
left a wife and six children in Milwaukee, wid the loan of twenty-five
cints, furninst the time he gits worruk, God'll be good to ye."
It instantly flashed through my mind that the man before me had the
previous night partaken of the kitchen hospitality of my little
cottage, two miles away. That he presented himself in the guise of a
distressed fisherman, mulcted of his wages by an inhuman captain; that
he had a wife lying sick of consumption in the next village, and two
children, one of whom was a cripple, wandering in the streets of
Boston. I remembered that this tremendous indictment against Fortune
touched the family, and that the distressed fisherman was provided with
clothes, food, and some small change. The food and small change had
disappeared, but the garments for the consumptive wife, where were
they? He had been using them for a pillow.
I instantly pointed out this fact, and charged him with the deception.
To my surprise, he took it quietly, and even a little complacently.
"Bedad, yer roight; ye see, sur" (confidentially), "ye see, sur, until
I get worruk--and it's worruk I'm lukin' for--I have to desave now and
thin to shute the locality. Ah, God save us! but on the say-coast
thay'r that har-rud upon thim that don't belong to the say."
I ventured to suggest that a strong, healthy man like him might have
found work somewhere between Milwaukee and Boston.
"Ah, but ye see I got free passage on a freight train, and didn't
sthop. It was in the Aist that I expected to find worruk."
"Have you any trade?"
"Trade, is it? I'm a brickmaker, God knows, and many's the lift I've
had at makin' bricks in Milwaukee. Shure, I've as aisy a hand at it as
any man. Maybe yer honor might know of a kill hereabout?"
Now to my certain knowledge, there was not a brick kiln within fifty
miles of that spot, and of all unlikely places to find one would have
been this sandy peninsula, given up to the summer residences of a few
wealthy people. Yet I could not help admiring the assumption of the
scamp, who knew this fact as well as myself. But I said, "I can give
you work for a day or two;" and, bidding him gather up his sick wife's
apparel, led the way across the downs to my cottage. At first I think
the offer took him by surprise, and gave him some consternation, but he
presently recovered his spirits, and almost instantly his speech. "Ah,
worruk, is it? God be praised! it's meself that's ready and willin'.
'Though maybe me hand is spoilt wid brickmakin'."
I assured him that the work I would give him would require no delicate
manipulation, and so we fared on over the sleepy downs. But I could not
help noticing that, although an invalid, I was a much better pedestrian
than my companion, frequently leaving him behind, and that even as a
"tramp," he was etymologically an impostor. He had a way of lingering
beside the fences we had to climb over, as if to continue more
confidentially the history of his misfortunes and troubles, which he
was delivering to me during our homeward walk, and I noticed that he
could seldom resist the invitation of a mossy boulder or a tussock of
salt grass. "Ye see, sur," he would say, suddenly sitting down, "it's
along uv me misfortunes beginnin' in Milwaukee that--" and it was not
until I was out of hearing that he would languidly gather his traps
again and saunter after me. When I reached my own garden gate he
leaned for a moment over it, with both of his powerful arms extended
downward, and said, "Ah, but it's a blessin' that Sunday comes to give
rest fur the wake and the weary, and them as walks sivinteen miles to
get it." Of course I took the hint. There was evidently no work to be
had from my friend, the Tramp, that day. Yet his countenance
brightened as he saw the limited extent of my domain, and observed that
the garden, so called, was only a flower-bed about twenty-five by ten.
As he had doubtless before this been utilized, to the extent of his
capacity, in digging, he had probably expected that kind of work; and I
daresay I discomfitted him by pointing him to an almost leveled stone
wall, about twenty feet long, with the remark that his work would be
the rebuilding of that stone wall, with stone brought from the
neighboring slopes. In a few moments he was comfortably provided for in
the kitchen, where the cook, a woman of his own nativity, apparently,
"chaffed" him with a raillery that was to me quite unintelligible. Yet
I noticed that when, at sunset, he accompanied Bridget to the spring
for water, ostentatiously flourishing the empty bucket in his hand,
when they returned in the gloaming Bridget was carrying the water, and
my friend, the Tramp, was some paces behind her, cheerfully
"colloguing," and picking blackberries.
At seven the next morning he started in cheerfully to work. At nine,
A. M., he had placed three large stones on the first course in
position, an hour having been spent in looking for a pick and hammer,
and in the incidental "chaffing" with Bridget. At ten o'clock I went
to overlook his work; it was a rash action, as it caused him to
respectfully doff his hat, discontinue his labors, and lean back
against the fence in cheerful and easy conservation. "Are you fond uv
blackberries, Captain?" I told him that the children were in the habit
of getting them from the meadow beyond, hoping to estop the suggestion
I knew was coming. "Ah, but, Captain, it's meself that with wanderin'
and havin' nothin' to pass me lips but the berries I'd pick from the
hedges,--it's meself knows where to find thim. Sure, it's yer childer,
and foine boys they are, Captain, that's besaching me to go wid 'em to
the place, known'st only to meself." It is unnecessary to say that he
triumphed. After the manner of vagabonds of all degrees, he had
enlisted the women and children on his side--and my friend, the Tramp,
had his own way. He departed at eleven and returned at four, P. M.,
with a tin dinner-pail half filled. On interrogating the boys it
appeared that they had had a "bully time," but on cross-examination it
came out that THEY had picked the berries. From four to six, three more
stones were laid, and the arduous labors of the day were over. As I
stood looking at the first course of six stones, my friend, the Tramp,
stretched his strong arms out to their fullest extent and said: "Ay,
but it's worruk that's good for me; give me worruk, and it's all I'll
be askin' fur."
I ventured to suggest that he had not yet accomplished much.
"Wait till to-morror. Ah, but ye'll see thin. It's me hand that's yet
onaisy wid brick-makin' and sthrange to the shtones. An ye'll wait
till to-morror?"
Unfortunately I did not wait. An engagement took me away at an early
hour, and when I rode up to my cottage at noon my eyes were greeted
with the astonishing spectacle of my two boys hard at work laying the
courses of the stone wall, assisted by Bridget and Norah, who were
dragging stones from the hillsides, while comfortably stretched on the
top of the wall lay my friend, the Tramp, quietly overseeing the
operation with lazy and humorous comment. For an instant I was
foolishly indignant, but he soon brought me to my senses. "Shure, sur,
it's only larnin' the boys the habits uv industhry I was--and may they
niver know, be the same token, what it is to worruk fur the bread
betune their lips. Shure it's but makin' 'em think it play I was. As
fur the colleens beyint in the kitchen, sure isn't it betther they was
helping your honor here than colloguing with themselves inside?"
Nevertheless, I thought it expedient to forbid henceforth any
interruption of servants or children with my friend's "worruk." Perhaps
it was the result of this embargo that the next morning early the Tramp
wanted to see me.
"And it's sorry I am to say it to ye, sur," he began, "but it's the
handlin' of this stun that's desthroyin' me touch at the brick-makin',
and it's better I should lave ye and find worruk at me own thrade. For
it's worruk I am nadin'. It isn't meself, Captain, to ate the bread of
oidleness here. And so good-by to ye, and if it's fifty cints ye can
be givin' me ontil I'll find a kill--it's God that'll repay ye."
He got the money. But he got also conditionally a note from me to my
next neighbor, a wealthy retired physician, possessed of a large
domain, a man eminently practical and businesslike in his management of
it. He employed many laborers on the sterile waste he called his
"farm," and it occurred to me that if there really was any work in my
friend, the Tramp, which my own indolence and preoccupation had failed
to bring out, he was the man to do it.
I met him a week after. It was with some embarrassment that I inquired
after my friend, the Tramp. "Oh, yes," he said, reflectively, "let's
see: he came Monday and left me Thursday. He was, I think, a stout,
strong man, a well-meaning, good-humored fellow, but afflicted with a
most singular variety of diseases. The first day I put him at work in
the stables he developed chills and fever caught in the swamps of
Louisiana--"
"Excuse me," I said hurriedly, "you mean in Milwaukee!"
"I know what I'm talking about," returned the Doctor, testily; "he told
me his whole wretched story--his escape from the Confederate service,
the attack upon him by armed negroes, his concealment in the bayous and
swamps--"
"Go on, Doctor," I said, feebly; "you were speaking of his work."
"Yes. Well, his system was full of malaria; the first day I had him
wrapped up in blankets, and dosed with quinine. The next day he was
taken with all the symptoms of cholera morbus, and I had to keep him up
on brandy and capsicum. Rheumatism set in on the following day, and
incapacitated him for work, and I concluded I had better give him a
note to the director of the City Hospital than keep him here. As a
pathological study he was good; but as I was looking for a man to help
about the stable, I couldn't afford to keep him in both capacities."
As I never could really tell when the Doctor was in joke or in earnest,
I dropped the subject. And so my friend, the Tramp, gradually faded
from my memory, not however without leaving behind him in the barn
where he had slept a lingering flavor of whisky, onions, and
fluffiness. But in two weeks this had gone, and the "Shebang" (as my
friends irreverently termed my habitation) knew him no more. Yet it
was pleasant to think of him as having at last found a job at
brick-making, or having returned to his family at Milwaukee, or making
his Louisiana home once more happy with his presence, or again tempting
the fish-producing main--this time with a noble and equitable captain.
It was a lovely August morning when I rode across the sandy peninsula
to visit a certain noted family, whereof all the sons were valiant and
the daughters beautiful. The front of the house was deserted, but on
the rear veranda I heard the rustle of gowns, and above it arose what
seemed to be the voice of Ulysses, reciting his wanderings. There was
no mistaking that voice, it was my friend, the Tramp!
From what I could hastily gather from his speech, he had walked from
St. John, N. B., to rejoin a distressed wife in New York, who was,
however, living with opulent but objectionable relatives. "An' shure,
miss, I wouldn't be askin' ye the loan of a cint if I could get worruk
at me trade of carpet-wavin'--and maybe ye know of some mannfacthory
where they wave carpets beyant here. Ah, miss, and if ye don't give me
a cint, it's enough for the loikes of me to know that me troubles has
brought the tears in the most beautiful oiyes in the wurruld, and God
bless ye for it, miss!"
Now I knew that the Most Beautiful Eyes in the World belonged to one of
the most sympathetic and tenderest hearts in the world, and I felt that
common justice demanded my interference between it and one of the
biggest scamps in the world. So, without waiting to be announced by
the servant, I opened the door, and joined the group on the veranda.
If I expected to touch the conscience of my friend, the Tramp, by a
dramatic entrance, I failed utterly; for no sooner did he see me, than
he instantly gave vent to a howl of delight, and, falling on his knees
before me, grasped my hand, and turned oratorically to the ladies.
"Oh, but it's himself--himself that has come as a witness to me
carrakther! Oh, but it's himself that lifted me four wakes ago, when I
was lyin' with a mortal wakeness on the say-coast, and tuk me to his
house. Oh, but it's himself that shupported me over the faldes, and
whin the chills and faver came on me and I shivered wid the cold, it
was himself, God bless him, as sthripped the coat off his back, and giv
it me, sayin', 'Take it, Dinnis, it's shtarved with the cowld say air
ye'll be entoirely.' Ah, but look at him--will ye, miss! Look at his
swate, modist face--a blushin' like your own, miss. Ah! look at him,
will ye? He'll be denyin' of it in a minit--may the blessin' uv God
folly him. Look at him, miss! Ah, but it's a swate pair ye'd make!
(the rascal knew I was a married man). Ah, miss, if you could see him
wroightin' day and night with such an illigant hand of his own--(he had
evidently believed from the gossip of my servants that I was a
professor of chirography)--if ye could see him, miss, as I have, ye'd
be proud of him."
He stopped out of breath. I was so completely astounded I could say
nothing: the tremendous indictment I had framed to utter as I opened
the door vanished completely. And as the Most Beautiful Eyes in the
Wurruld turned gratefully to mine--well--
I still retained enough principle to ask the ladies to withdraw, while
I would take upon myself the duty of examining into the case of my
friend, the Tramp, and giving him such relief as was required. (I did
not know until afterward, however, that the rascal had already
despoiled their scant purses of three dollars and fifty cents.) When
the door was closed upon them I turned upon him.
"You infernal rascal!"
"Ah, Captain, and would ye be refusin' ME a carrakther and me givin' YE
such a one as Oi did! God save us! but if ye'd hav' seen the luk that
the purty one give ye. Well, before the chills and faver bruk me
spirits entirely, when I was a young man, and makin' me tin dollars a
week brick-makin', it's meself that wud hav' given--"
"I consider," I broke in, "that a dollar is a fair price for your
story, and as I shall have to take it all back and expose you before
the next twenty-four hours pass, I think you had better hasten to
Milwaukee, New York, or Louisiana."
I handed him the dollar. "Mind, I don't want to see your face again."
"Ye wun't, captain."
And I did not.
But it so chanced that later in the season, when the migratory
inhabitants had flown to their hot-air registers in Boston and
Providence, I breakfasted with one who had lingered. It was a certain
Boston lawyer,--replete with principle, honesty, self-discipline,
statistics, aesthetics, and a perfect consciousness of possessing all
these virtues, and a full recognition of their market values. I think
he tolerated me as a kind of foreigner, gently but firmly waiving all
argument on any topic, frequently distrusting my facts, generally my
deductions, and always my ideas. In conversation he always appeared to
descend only half way down a long moral and intellectual staircase, and
always delivered his conclusions over the balusters.
I had been speaking of my friend, the Tramp. "There is but one way of
treating that class of impostors; it is simply to recognize the fact
that the law calls him a 'vagrant,' and makes his trade a misdemeanor.
Any sentiment on the other side renders you particeps criminis. I
don't know but an action would lie against you for encouraging tramps.
Now, I have an efficacious way of dealing with these gentry." He rose
and took a double-barreled fowling-piece from the chimney. "When a
tramp appears on my property, I warn him off. If he persists, I fire
on him--as I would on any criminal trespasser."
"Fire on him?" I echoed in alarm.
"Yes--BUT WITH POWDER ONLY! Of course HE doesn't know that. But he
doesn't come back."
It struck me for the first time that possibly many other of my friend's
arguments might be only blank cartridges, and used to frighten off
other trespassing intellects.
"Of course, if the tramp still persisted, I would be justified in using
shot. Last evening I had a visit from one. He was coming over the
wall. My shot gun was efficacious; you should have seen him run!"
It was useless to argue with so positive a mind, and I dropped the
subject. After breakfast I strolled over the downs, my friend
promising to join me as soon as he arranged some household business.
It was a lovely, peaceful morning, not unlike the day when I first met
my friend, the Tramp. The hush of a great benediction lay on land and
sea. A few white sails twinkled afar, but sleepily; one or two large
ships were creeping in lazily, like my friend, the Tramp. A voice
behind me startled me.
My host had rejoined me. His face, however, looked a little troubled.
"I just now learned something of importance," he began. "It appears
that with all my precautions that Tramp has visited my kitchen, and the
servants have entertained him. Yesterday morning, it appears, while I
was absent, he had the audacity to borrow my gun to go duck-shooting.
At the end of two or three hours he returned with two ducks and--the
gun."
"That was, at least, honest."
"Yes--but! That fool of a girl says that, as he handed back the gun,
he told her it was all right, and that he had loaded it up again to
save the master trouble."
I think I showed my concern in my face, for he added, hastily: "It was
only duck-shot; a few wouldn't hurt him!"
Nevertheless, we both walked on in silence for a moment. "I thought
the gun kicked a little," he said at last, musingly; "but the idea of--
Hallo! what's this?"
He stopped before the hollow where I had first seen my Tramp. It was
deserted, but on the mosses there were spots of blood and fragments of
an old gown, blood-stained, as if used for bandages. I looked at it
closely: it was the gown intended for the consumptive wife of my
friend, the Tramp.
But my host was already nervously tracking the bloodstains that on
rock, moss, and boulder were steadily leading toward the sea. When I
overtook him at last on the shore, he was standing before a flat rock,
on which lay a bundle I recognized, tied up in a handkerchief, and a
crooked grape-vine stick.
"He may have come here to wash his wounds--salt is a styptic," said my
host, who had recovered his correct precision of statement.
I said nothing, but looked toward the sea. Whatever secret lay hid in
its breast, it kept it fast. Whatever its calm eyes had seen that
summer night, it gave no reflection now. It lay there passive,
imperturbable, and reticent. But my friend, the Tramp, was gone!
THE MAN FROM SOLANO
He came toward me out of an opera lobby, between the acts,--a figure as
remarkable as anything in the performance. His clothes, no two
articles of which were of the same color, had the appearance of having
been purchased and put on only an hour or two before,--a fact more
directly established by the clothes-dealer's ticket which still adhered
to his coat-collar, giving the number, size, and general dimensions of
that garment somewhat obtrusively to an uninterested public. His
trousers had a straight line down each leg, as if he had been born flat
but had since developed; and there was another crease down his back,
like those figures children cut out of folded paper. I may add that
there was no consciousness of this in his face, which was good-natured,
and, but for a certain squareness in the angle of his lower jaw,
utterly uninteresting and commonplace.
"You disremember me," he said, briefly, as he extended his hand, "but
I'm from Solano, in Californy. I met you there in the spring of '57.
I was tendin' sheep, and you was burnin' charcoal."
There was not the slightest trace of any intentional rudeness in the
reminder. It was simply a statement of fact, and as such to be
accepted.
"What I hailed ye for was only this," he said, after I had shaken hands
with him. "I saw you a minnit ago standin' over in yon box--chirpin'
with a lady--a young lady, peart and pretty. Might you be telling me
her name?"
I gave him the name of a certain noted belle of a neighboring city, who
had lately stirred the hearts of the metropolis, and who was especially
admired by the brilliant and fascinating young Dashboard, who stood
beside me.
The Man from Solano mused for a moment, and then said, "Thet's so!
thet's the name! It's the same gal!"
"You have met her, then?" I asked, in surprise.
"Ye-es," he responded, slowly: "I met her about fower months ago. She'd
bin makin' a tour of Californy with some friends, and I first saw her
aboard the cars this side of Reno. She lost her baggage-checks, and I
found them on the floor and gave 'em back to her, and she thanked me.
I reckon now it would be about the square thing to go over thar and
sorter recognize her." He stopped a moment, and looked at us
inquiringly.
"My dear sir," struck in the brilliant and fascinating Dashboard, "if
your hesitation proceeds from any doubt as to the propriety of your
attire, I beg you to dismiss it from your mind at once. The tyranny of
custom, it is true, compels your friend and myself to dress peculiarly,
but I assure you nothing could be finer than the way that the olive
green of your coat melts in the delicate yellow of your cravat, or the
pearl gray of your trousers blends with the bright blue of your
waistcoat, and lends additional brilliancy to that massive oroide
watch-chain which you wear."
To my surprise, the Man from Solano did not strike him. He looked at
the ironical Dashboard with grave earnestness, and then said quietly:--
"Then I reckon you wouldn't mind showin' me in thar?"
Dashboard was, I admit, a little staggered at this. But he recovered
himself, and, bowing ironically, led the way to the box. I followed him
and the Man from Solano.
Now, the belle in question happened to be a gentlewoman--descended from
gentlewomen--and after Dashboard's ironical introduction, in which the
Man from Solano was not spared, she comprehended the situation
instantly. To Dashboard's surprise she drew a chair to her side, made
the Man from Solano sit down, quietly turned her back on Dashboard, and
in full view of the brilliant audience and the focus of a hundred
lorgnettes, entered into conversation with him.
Here, for the sake of romance, I should like to say he became animated,
and exhibited some trait of excellence,--some rare wit or solid sense.
But the fact is he was dull and stupid to the last degree. He
persisted in keeping the conversation upon the subject of the lost
baggage-checks, and every bright attempt of the lady to divert him
failed signally. At last, to everybody's relief, he rose, and leaning
over her chair, said:--
"I calklate to stop over here some time, miss, and you and me bein'
sorter strangers here, maybe when there's any show like this goin' on
you'll let me--"
Miss X. said somewhat hastily that the multiplicity of her engagements
and the brief limit of her stay in New York she feared would, etc.,
etc. The two other ladies had their handkerchiefs over their mouths,
and were staring intently on the stage, when the Man from Solano
continued:--
"Then, maybe, miss, whenever there is a show goin' on that you'll
attend, you'll just drop me word to Earle's Hotel, to this yer
address," and he pulled from his pocket a dozen well-worn letters, and
taking the buff envelope from one, handed it to her with something like
a bow.
"Certainly," broke in the facetious Dashboard, "Miss X. goes to the
Charity Ball to-morrow night. The tickets are but a trifle to an
opulent Californian, and a man of your evident means, and the object a
worthy one. You will, no doubt, easily secure an invitation."
Miss X. raised her handsome eyes for a moment to Dashboard. "By all
means," she said, turning to the Man from Solano; "and as Mr. Dashboard
is one of the managers and you are a stranger, he will, of course, send
you a complimentary ticket. I have known Mr. Dashboard long enough to
know that he is invariably courteous to strangers and a gentleman."
She settled herself in her chair again and fixed her eyes upon the
stage.
The Man from Solano thanked the Man of New York, and then, after
shaking hands with every body in the box, turned to go. When he had
reached the door he looked back to Miss X., and said,--
"It WAS one of the queerest things in the world, miss, that my findin'
them checks--"
But the curtain had just then risen on the garden scene in "Faust," and
Miss X. was absorbed. The Man from Solano carefully shut the box door
and retired. I followed him.
He was silent until he reached the lobby, and then he said, as if
renewing a previous conversation, "She IS a mighty peart gal--that's
so. She's just my kind, and will make a stavin' good wife."
I thought I saw danger ahead for the Man from Solano, so I hastened to
tell him that she was beset by attentions, that she could have her pick
and choice of the best of society, and finally, that she was, most
probably, engaged to Dashboard.
"That's so," he said quietly, without the slightest trace of feeling.
"It would be mighty queer if she wasn't. But I reckon I'll steer down
to the ho-tel. I don't care much for this yellin'." (He was alluding
to a cadenza of that famous cantatrice, Signora Batti Batti.) "What's
the time?"
He pulled out his watch. It was such a glaring chain, so obviously
bogus, that my eyes were fascinated by it. "You're looking at that
watch," he said; "it's purty to look at, but she don't go worth a cent.
And yet her price was $125, gold. I gobbled her up in Chatham Street
day before yesterday, where they were selling 'em very cheap at
auction."
"You have been outrageously swindled," I said, indignantly. "Watch and
chain are not worth twenty dollars."
"Are they worth fifteen?" he asked, gravely.
"Possibly."
"Then I reckon it's a fair trade. Ye see, I told 'em I was a
Californian from Solano, and hadn't anything about me of greenbacks. I
had three slugs with me. Ye remember them slugs?" (I did; the "slug"
was a "token" issued in the early days--a hexagonal piece of gold a
little over twice the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece--worth and
accepted for fifty dollars.)
"Well, I handed them that, and they handed me the watch. You see them
slugs I had made myself outer brass filings and iron pyrites, and used
to slap 'em down on the boys for a bluff in a game of draw poker. You
see, not being reg'lar gov-ment money, it wasn't counterfeiting. I
reckon they cost me, counting time and anxiety, about fifteen dollars.
So, if this yer watch is worth that, it's about a square game, ain't
it?"
I began to understand the Man from Solano, and said it was. He
returned his watch to his pocket, toyed playfully with the chain, and
remarked, "Kinder makes a man look fash'nable and wealthy, don't it?"
I agreed with him. "But what do you intend to do here?" I asked.
"Well, I've got a cash capital of nigh on seven hundred dollars. I
guess until I get into reg'lar business I'll skirmish round Wall
Street, and sorter lay low." I was about to give him a few words of
warning, but I remembered his watch, and desisted. We shook hands and
parted.
A few days after I met him on Broadway. He was attired in another new
suit, but I think I saw a slight improvement in his general appearance.
Only five distinct colors were visible in his attire. But this, I had
reason to believe afterwards, was accidental.
I asked him if he had been to the ball. He said he had. "That gal,
and a mighty peart gal she was too, was there, but she sorter fought
shy of me. I got this new suit to go in, but those waiters sorter run
me into a private box, and I didn't get much chance to continner our
talk about them checks. But that young feller, Dashboard, was mighty
perlite. He brought lots of fellers and young women round to the box
to see me, and he made up a party that night to take me round Wall
Street and in them Stock Boards. And the next day he called for me and
took me, and I invested about five hundred dollars in them stocks--may
be more. You see, we sorter swopped stocks. You know I had ten shares
in the Peacock Copper Mine, that you was once secretary of."
"But those shares are not worth a cent. The whole thing exploded ten
years ago."
"That's so, may be; YOU say so. But then I didn't know anything more
about Communipaw Central, or the Naphtha Gaslight Company, and so I
thought it was a square game. Only I realized on the stocks I bought,
and I kem up outer Wall Street about four hundred dollars better. You
see it was a sorter risk, after all, for them Peacock stocks MIGHT come
up!"
I looked into his face: it was immeasurably serene and commonplace. I
began to be a little afraid of the man, or, rather, of my want of
judgment of the man; and after a few words we shook hands and parted.
It was some months before I again saw the Man from Solano. When I did,
I found that he had actually become a member of the Stock Board, and
had a little office on Broad Street, where he transacted a fair
business. My remembrance going back to the first night I met him, I
inquired if he had renewed his acquaintance with Miss X. "I heerd that
she was in Newport this summer, and I ran down there fur a week."
"And you talked with her about the baggage-checks?"
"No," he said, seriously; "she gave me a commission to buy some stocks
for her. You see, I guess them fash'nable fellers sorter got to
runnin' her about me, and so she put our acquaintance on a square
business footing. I tell you, she's a right peart gal. Did ye hear of
the accident that happened to her?"
I had not.
"Well, you see, she was out yachting, and I managed through one of
those fellers to get an invite, too. The whole thing was got up by a
man that they say is going to marry her. Well, one afternoon the boom
swings round in a little squall and knocks her overboard. There was an
awful excitement,--you've heard about it, may be?"
"No!" But I saw it all with a romancer's instinct in a flash of
poetry! This poor fellow, debarred through uncouthness from expressing
his affection for her, had at last found his fitting opportunity. He
had--
"Thar was an awful row," he went on. "I ran out on the taffrail, and
there a dozen yards away was that purty creature, that peart gal,
and--I--"
"You jumped for her," I said, hastily.
"No!" he said gravely. "I let the other man do the jumping. I sorter
looked on."
I stared at him in astonishment.
"No," he went on, seriously. "He was the man who jumped--that was just
then his 'put'--his line of business. You see, if I had waltzed over
the side of that ship, and cavoorted in, and flummuxed round and
finally flopped to the bottom, that other man would have jumped
nateral-like and saved her; and ez he was going to marry her anyway, I
don't exactly see where I'D hev been represented in the transaction.
But don't you see, ef, after he'd jumped and hadn't got her, he'd gone
down himself, I'd hev had the next best chance, and the advantage of
heving him outer the way. You see, you don't understand me--I don't
think you did in Californy."
"Then he did save her?"
"Of course. Don't you see she was all right. If he'd missed her, I'd
have chipped in. Thar warn't no sense in my doing his duty onless he
failed."
Somehow the story got out. The Man from Solano as a butt became more
popular than ever, and of course received invitations to burlesque
receptions, and naturally met a great many people whom otherwise he
would not have seen. It was observed also that his seven hundred
dollars were steadily growing, and that he seemed to be getting on in
his business. Certain California stocks which I had seen quietly
interred in the old days in the tombs of their fathers were magically
revived; and I remember, as one who has seen a ghost, to have been
shocked as I looked over the quotations one morning to have seen the
ghostly face of the "Dead Beat Beach Mining Co.," rouged and plastered,
looking out from the columns of the morning paper. At last a few
people began to respect, or suspect, the Man from Solano. At last,
suspicion culminated with this incident:--
He had long expressed a wish to belong to a certain "fash'n'ble" club,
and with a view of burlesque he was invited to visit the club, where a
series of ridiculous entertainments were given him, winding up with a
card party. As I passed the steps of the club-house early next
morning, I overheard two or three members talking excitedly,--
"He cleaned everybody out." "Why, he must have raked in nigh on
$40,000."
"Who?" I asked.
"The Man from Solano."
As I turned away, one of the gentlemen, a victim, noted for his
sporting propensities, followed me, and laying his hand on my
shoulders, asked:--
"Tell me fairly now. What business did your friend follow in
California?"
"He was a shepherd."
"A what?"
"A shepherd. Tended his flocks on the honey-scented hills of Solano."
"Well, all I can say is, d--n your California pastorals!"
THE OFFICE SEEKER
He asked me if I had ever seen the "Remus Sentinel."
I replied that I had not, and would have added that I did not even know
where Remus was, when he continued by saying it was strange the hotel
proprietor did not keep the "Sentinel" on his files, and that he,
himself, should write to the editor about it. He would not have spoken
about it, but he, himself, had been an humble member of the profession
to which I belonged, and had often written for its columns. Some
friends of his--partial, no doubt--had said that his style somewhat
resembled Junius's; but of course, you know--well, what he could say
was that in the last campaign his articles were widely sought for. He
did not know but he had a copy of one. Here his hand dived into the
breast-pocket of his coat, with a certain deftness that indicated long
habit, and, after depositing on his lap a bundle of well-worn
documents, every one of which was glaringly suggestive of certificates
and signatures, he concluded he had left it in his trunk.
I breathed more freely. We were sitting in the rotunda of a famous
Washington hotel, and only a few moments before had the speaker, an
utter stranger to me, moved his chair beside mine and opened a
conversation. I noticed that he had that timid, lonely, helpless air
which invests the bucolic traveler who, for the first time, finds
himself among strangers, and his identity lost, in a world so much
larger, so much colder, so much more indifferent to him than he ever
imagined. Indeed, I think that what we often attribute to the
impertinent familiarity of country-men and rustic travelers on railways
or in cities is largely due to their awful loneliness and nostalgia. I
remember to have once met in a smoking-car on a Kansas railway one of
these lonely ones, who, after plying me with a thousand useless
questions, finally elicited the fact that I knew slightly a man who had
once dwelt in his native town in Illinois. During the rest of our
journey the conversation turned chiefly upon his fellow-townsman, whom
it afterwards appeared that my Illinois friend knew no better than I
did. But he had established a link between himself and his far-off
home through me, and was happy.
While this was passing through my mind I took a fair look at him. He
was a spare young fellow, not more than thirty, with sandy hair and
eyebrows, and eyelashes so white as to be almost imperceptible. He was
dressed in black, somewhat to the "rearward o' the fashion," and I had
an odd idea that it had been his wedding suit, and it afterwards
appeared I was right. His manner had the precision and much of the
dogmatism of the country schoolmaster, accustomed to wrestle with the
feeblest intellects. From his history, which he presently gave me, it
appeared I was right here also.
He was born and bred in a Western State, and, as schoolmaster of Remus
and Clerk of Supervisors, had married one of his scholars, the daughter
of a clergyman, and a man of some little property. He had attracted
some attention by his powers of declamation, and was one of the
principal members of the Remus Debating Society. The various questions
then agitating Remus,--"Is the doctrine of immortality consistent with
an agricultural life?" and, "Are round dances morally wrong?"--afforded
him an opportunity of bringing himself prominently before the country
people. Perhaps I might have seen an extract copied from the "Remus
Sentinel" in the "Christian Recorder" of May 7, 1875? No? He would
get it for me. He had taken an active part in the last campaign. He
did not like to say it, but it had been universally acknowledged that
he had elected Gashwiler.
Who?
Gen. Pratt C. Gashwiler, member of Congress from our deestrict.
Oh!
A powerful man, sir--a very powerful man; a man whose influence will
presently be felt here, sir--HERE! Well, he had come on with
Gashwiler, and--well, he did not know why--Gashwiler did not know why
he should not, you know (a feeble, half-apologetic laugh here), receive
that reward, you know, for these services which, etc., etc.
I asked him if he had any particular or definite office in view.
Well, no. He had left that to Gashwiler. Gashwiler had said--he
remembered his very words: "Leave it all to me; I'll look through the
different departments, and see what can be done for a man of your
talents."
And--
He's looking. I'm expecting him back here every minute. He's gone
over to the Department of Tape, to see what can be done there. Ah!
here he comes.