just come over from Poland where I imagine they had a pretty rough time
with the Germans on one side and the Russians on the other, both trying
to rob them of everything they had, they were down on all governments
on general principles, and it wasn't long before old Gabb had made a
big impression on them. I don't know as they could be blamed for Gabb
could talk louder, and longer, and faster, than anyone else I ever
heard, and I'll admit that some of the stuff he had to offer sounded
pretty well, until one sat down and started to figure out what it
really meant.
Those Poles couldn't have understood much Gabb said, but it sort of
flattered them to have an American take any notice of them, so in
a short time Gabb became their leader, and used to gather them all
together twice a week, on the common, and give them a harangue that
would make your hair curl.
Then Epping got the surprise of its life, for one day the Poles quit
the woolen mill in a body, and under old Gabb's leadership hiked over
to a deserted village five miles back in the hills, where they lived a
community life sharing everything alike.
This was a splendid arrangement for Gabb, for never having had
anything, when it came time to divide up what there was, Gabb got a
little something from each family, and owning nothing himself he didn't
have anything to give away. Then, too, as chief of the tribe, he was
allotted the best house, and was altogether much better off than he had
ever been in his life.
For a time, the village prospered, for the Poles were workers, and
weren't afraid to put in a little overtime when their farms needed it,
and old Gabb whenever he drove over to Epping used to crow over the
success of his socialistic experiment.
Now Gabb had a brother who lived at Bristol Centre, who was a regular
fellow, and couldn't see the Epping member of his family with a
telescope. The Bristol Centre Gabb had worked hard all his life, and
owned one of the largest hog ranches in New England. One day, this
brother who was a bachelor died, and Charlie suddenly found himself the
owner of a farm and about two thousand hogs.
[Illustration]
Now if Charlie Gabb really believed what he'd been preaching for years,
he'd have divided up his farm and two thousand hogs among the Poles,
who'd been more or less supporting him, but he did nothing of the kind.
He left his socialistic friends and moved over to Bristol Centre,
taking possession of his brother's farm, hogs, and all.
The Poles heard of their leader's good fortune and waited patiently for
him to divide. Nothing doing. Finally, a committee went over and asked
old Gabb when the grand division of pigs was to take place, and he
chased them off his farm with a pitchfork.
A week later, in the middle of the night, Epping was awakened by the
greatest yelling, and squeaking, and grunting, that was ever heard in
one place in the history of the world.
The Poles had raided old Gabb's hog farm, and were driving through
Epping what they considered their share of his property.
Old Gabb was trailing along behind, cursing and howling for the
sheriff, who when he heard what had happened couldn't be found,
although I remember seeing him hanging out his window in his night
shirt, laughing so hard I thought he'd bust.
Old Gabb started about a hundred lawsuits, but everyone sympathized
with the Poles, and as one pig looks about as much like another as
two peas do, Gabb couldn't swear to his property, so he lost every
case. From the time of the great pig raid until he died, Gabb was
the staunchest conservative in the country, and if anyone mentioned
socialism to him he nearly had a fit.
Now, Ted, you are going to cut out this radical business pronto, toot
sweet, and at once, and if I don't hear from you within a week that you
have resigned from that Radical Club and severed diplomatic relations
with that sort of nonsense, you'll leave Exeter so quick you won't know
what hit you, for as long as I'm head of the Soule tribe, no member of
my family is going to do anything that can in any manner be regarded
as harmful to the country that our grandfathers fought for from Bunker
Hill to Gettysburg.
I know that it is curiosity that has interested you in radicalism.
Well, try to realize that in these trying days when the whole future of
the world is at stake, every American no matter how young, has as stern
a duty to perform in upholding law and order as ever our continentals
had at Valley Forge.
Organize an American Club. Get together the biggest boys you can and
start a club to teach the young foreigners who work in the mills and
factories that America gives a square deal to all.
Show these young fellows through teaching them our American sports,
that clean playing and good sportsmanship are two of the biggest
things in life. Help teach them to build up, not tear down. You Exeter
boys are only boys, and yet as Americans there is nothing you cannot
accomplish; and God knows that to help in every possible way, the
newcomers among us, to understand our American ideals is as great a
privilege as was given to the boys who went "over there," that liberty
might not perish from the earth.
Make me proud of you my boy, not ashamed. Make me feel that when I take
down the old family Bible and turn to its fly leaf, where the history
of our family has been written for generations, that in time your name
will be worthy of a place beside those of our men who did their part in
making the United States the greatest nation the world has ever known.
Play up Ted! You're one of the country's pinch hitters, and I know you
can be depended upon to deliver.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_May 26, 19--_
DEAR TED:
You can't imagine how proud I am of this new American Club of yours,
and the school is too, if the letters I received from the principal,
and most of the professors are good indications of what they feel. The
Boston papers have taken it up, and as you have probably seen, Andover
is forming an American Club for the young foreigners in the Lawrence
mills, and yesterday when I met the Governor, he asked to be introduced
to you when he speaks in Lynn next week.
This sort of work is so much more worth while than the radical
business, I know you can't help feeling you're a better American for
having undertaken it, and you may be sure that when you are older,
you'll get a heap of satisfaction out of the thought, that there are a
lot of good Americans who might have grown up to be trouble makers, if
you and your friends hadn't helped to steer them into good citizenship.
If I were you, I'd accept the principal's offer for the use of the
vacant room in the Administration Building. Fit it up as a reading
room with a lot of the best magazines, histories of the United States,
and lives of famous Americans for the young foreigners who can read
English, and get some of the instructors to help teach the ones who
can't. Thursday I'll send you a check for $200 which I've raised among
a few friends. This will help buy the books, so in the fall when school
reopens, you'll be ready to start things with a rush.
As to where you are going to college when you finish school, I wouldn't
worry about that now if I were you. Finish school first, by then you'll
probably know where you want to go.
I've always found it a pretty good rule to follow, never to worry about
another job, until I've finished the one I'm working on. There are lots
of people who make themselves sick worrying about things that never
happen, when they might as well save their doctor's bills and enjoy
life.
Personally, I think it doesn't make much difference where you go, as
long as you go to college to do a fair amount of work, and not just to
play football and have a good time.
There are a lot of advantages in going to one of the big universities,
where you can study anything from Egyptian Hair Dressing in the fourth
century B. C., to the vibrations caused by an airplane flying at one
hundred miles an hour, and where you have the advantage of wonderful
libraries, museums, and laboratories, to help you in your work.
Then again, the small college with its solid academic course, based
principally on honest to goodness horse sense, is a pretty good place,
for not having fifty-seven varieties of courses, it's apt to rub
thoroughly into a boy's hide what it does have to offer.
[Illustration]
When the time comes for you to go to college I'm not going to
interfere, I am going to let you make your own choice; but as that time
is nearly two years away, I'd do a little more thinking about how you
are going to pass your final exams, this year, than worrying about what
college you are going to enter a year from next fall.
You remind me of a clerk, by the name of Charlie Harris, I once had in
the factory. Charlie was a good, hard working boy, came to me right
from high school, and as he didn't seem to have a grudge against the
hands of the clock because they moved slowly, and was always willing to
do a little more than his share of the work, I became interested in him.
Charlie had one queer trick, though, he was never satisfied with
finishing the job he had on hand, but was forever worrying about the
next bit of work he might have to do, not worrying mind you, because he
had the next job coming to him. As I said before Charlie wasn't afraid
of work, but he was always afraid something was going to queer the
future job, before he could get to it, and get it finished.
[Illustration]
One winter, when you were a little chap, my shipper got the grippe and
was out for three months. I wished his job on Charlie, and Charlie made
good although you never would have thought so from the length of his
face. Our shipments were sent out on time, well packed, and properly
routed, but Charlie was as doleful as a rejected suitor at a pretty
girl's wedding.
There wasn't a day, he didn't come in and spill gloom all over my
office, prophesying that soon every thing would go wrong. Nothing
happened though, so I used to laugh at him, and tell him to forget it.
Early in February, I was due to make a big shipment of shoes to a
jobbers' warehouse on or before March first.
Everything had gone smoothly. I'd had no labor troubles, had bought my
stock right, and stood to make a nice juicy profit, for on the first
day of February all the shoes were in cases in the shipping room, ready
to start on their journey to Chicago.
[Illustration]
On the night of the second, it started to snow, for three days it came
down in perfect clouds burying Lynn four feet deep.
For three days traffic was completely stalled, for although the snow
was wet and sticky when the storm started, along in the afternoon of
the second day, it turned cold, with the result that the whole mass
turned into ice, and made it impossible to clear the streets.
Still I wasn't worrying any, for Jim Devlin my old truckman, I knew,
would be among the first to do business as soon as it was possible to
get through the streets, and I still had several days leeway before my
shoes must start for Chicago.
On the morning of the fifth day when pungs were beginning to get
around, Charlie gloomed into my office, and informed me that Devlin
hadn't a single team on runners, having the previous fall traded off
all his pungs for drays. Devlin had been so sure he could hire enough
pungs to take care of our big shipment, he hadn't even told us the fix
he was in, until having tried every teamster and livery stable within
miles of Lynn, he found he couldn't get a single one. Everybody wanted
pungs, and the truckmen who owned any were rushing theirs night and day
to take care of their regular customers.
[Illustration]
I tried to borrow from everyone I knew, with no luck, for all the
shoe manufacturers had use for every pung they could get their hands
on to get their own shoes to the freight yards. Finally, I gave up in
disgust, and sat down to figure out my loss, when I happened to glance
out the window of my office, that looks out on the alley that leads to
our shipping room door.
There were about three hundred kids lined up there, each one with
a sled, and I wondered what in the world they were up to, when one
staggered around the corner of our building, dragging a sled after him,
on which was perched a shoe case with "The Princess Shoe," stencilled
in red letters across the top.
I let out a whoop, and dove for the shipping room, where I found
Charlie and his crew as busy as ants, tying cases of shoes onto the
kids sleds as fast as the boys backed them up to the shipping-room door.
Before night, every case of shoes had been delivered to the freight
yards, and Charlie's pay had been increased $10 a week, but the next
morning when I reached the factory, I found him almost weeping because
he was afraid that when the snow melted it would flood our shipping
room which in those days was level with the street.
For five years after that, I used Charlie as a sort of pinch hitter
around the factory giving him all sorts of work, but never letting him
know what his next job was to be, and as he couldn't worry about what
was coming, he more than made good.
Ted, any real college is a good college. It's all up to you, for so far
as I know, there's nothing to prevent you learning a lot in any one of
them. The thing for you to do for the next two years, is to study hard
at Exeter, then when it comes time to take your exams, you needn't be
afraid about being able to get into any college you choose.
I'll be in Exeter Saturday to have a look at your American Club, and at
his special request I'm bringing the Governor's private secretary with
me. So long old boy.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_June 8, 19--_
DEAR TED:
If the super. had come in, and told me the hands were going to strike,
unless I lowered the piecework rates, I wouldn't have been more
surprised, than I was at your last letter. It was some shock; and at
first I couldn't believe you were serious; after re-reading it I see
you are, and I guess a few hints from the old man may help relieve
the pain a bit, for it's as plain as your Aunt Sarah you're going to
suffer, no matter how your love affair turns out.
To me, the idea of your really being in love, seems as impossible as
Trotsky being elected Alderman by the Beacon Hill Ward of Boston, but
it doesn't take a specialist to diagnose the symptoms, and from the
stuff you have spilled all over the pages of your last letter, I should
say you had an acute case with a fever going on 105 degrees.
Now, I say no matter how things turn out it is going to be painful, and
at your age and vast experience of life, it can only turn out one way,
and that's a broken heart for you for about a week, and then a gradual
interest in life, until two weeks from now the outcome of the baseball
game with Andover, will be even more important to you than how to get
enough to eat between meals.
There's one thing you have done though Ted, you've played fair with the
old man, and that's entered on the credit side of your ledger, although
you may not think so when you've finished this letter. I am glad you
introduced me to the girl at the game last Saturday, and I assure you I
enjoyed every minute of her society, and would again, for she and I had
a lot in common, both of us being practical business men. But when it
comes to having her for a daughter-in-law, I can think up more reasons
for not wanting her, than a jobber can for refusing to stock a line of
shoes he feels may be out of style, before he can unload them on the
retailer.
In the first place, Ted, I should judge she is slightly older than you,
about eight years is my guess, and although eight years is all right
when it's on the man's side, it's apt to be pretty awkward when your
wife is constantly referred to by strangers as your mother; likely to
make you feel foolish, and the lady peevish; and about the time you'll
be thinking of changing from tennis to golf, she'll be changing from
one piece dresses to wrappers, and wrappers never yet kept a man's eyes
from straying in other directions.
Miss Shepard is good looking, I'll admit; real attractiveness though
in spite of the soap advertisements and beauty doctors, is more than
skin deep, and you must remember that no matter how perfect a surface a
thing has, it's the quality underneath that counts.
After all there's not much difference between girls and sole leather. A
run of leather on the warehouse floor, may look like nice profits, and
when it's cut you find it didn't figure out at all as you expected; and
a girl may look like a June morning before marriage, and turn out an
equinoctial storm afterwards.
A smart shoe man, doesn't buy a block of leather without sizing up
what's under the grain, and a young man when looking around for steady
company can well do likewise. I don't want you to think I have anything
against good looks, I haven't and if you can get them with other
qualities, all right. It must be tough, to have to sit opposite a face
at breakfast, that curdles the milk in your coffee, but better that and
sizzling ham and eggs, than a rose bud for looks, and cold oatmeal.
Your lady-love didn't strike me as a young woman of means, and as for
your capital, it consists principally of some loud clothes and a fair
knowledge of football, neither being what you might call liquid assets,
when it comes to setting up housekeeping. And speaking of housekeeping,
do you think she is the kind of girl, who would enjoy getting three
squares a day, running the vacuum cleaner in between, with dish washing
and mending as side lines?
Now Hortense may be only six or eight years older than you. In wisdom
she's nearly twenty, and you had better believe she's got no fool ideas
about trying to live on three dollars a day, with sugar twenty cents
a pound. No girl who's lived all her life in an academy town is so
foolish as that, and if you think I'm going to finance you a couple of
years from now, in a home of your own, you're taking off with the wrong
foot.
I know I married when I was only twenty and was getting $18.00 a week,
but your Ma is one woman in a million, a country town girl who was
taught housekeeping from childhood, and who could make a dollar go
further than even the immortal George, when he made his famous throw
from deep center in the Potomac League. She could take my week's pay on
a Saturday night, after having set aside the rent and insurance money,
buy enough food for the next week, the clothes we needed, and still
have some left to tuck away in the savings bank. And right here, let
me tell you if you ever make another crack like you did two weeks ago,
about your Ma wearing too many rings, I'll give you the worst licking
you ever had. Perhaps she does, but she likes 'em, and when I think of
the work those fingers have done for us, she's welcome to cover 'em
with rings, if she likes, and her thumbs also for that matter.
Your Ma made me, and the right girl is the best inspirer of success a
young fellow can have, while the wrong kind, is about as much help to
a man trying to shin up the greased pole of success, as a nice thick
coating of lard on his fingers.
Probably you don't remember John White. John and I were great pals when
we were boys. Used to swim, play ball, and hunt together, fought at
least one pitched battle a week, but when any one touched either of us,
the other was on the intruder like a wildcat. We both got married about
the same time, and John who was sensible as he could be in most things,
picked out a girl who hadn't the brains of an intelligent guinea pig.
We were both working in Clough & Spinney's at the time, and three
months after John was married, he had indigestion, and was wearing
safety pins on his clothes instead of buttons.
Noon hours, he used to tell me what a lucky fellow he was to have
married Priscilla, but as the weeks went by his praises seemed to lack
the right ring, although I must say he did his best.
I often wondered how he was getting along, for in my estimation
Priscilla Brown was pretty much of a lightweight, and although a nice
enough girl, about as useful around a house, as one of those iron dogs
some folks have on their front lawns. One day, John invited us over
to Topsfield, where he lived, to supper. When we got there, I thought
your Ma would have a fit. She's as orderly as a West Point Cadet, and
there were clothes strewn all over John's parlor, and more dust on the
furniture, than there is in some of the seashore lots the fly-by-night
real estate companies sell.
We waited, and waited, and then waited some more for our supper.
Finally, we had it, everything out of a can and cold, but the prize
performance came when Priscilla started to serve jam and bread for
dessert. She put down beside me, a loaf of bread she said she had just
baked, and asked me to cut it. I tried. All I had was a knife. What I
needed was a chisel. In my efforts to hack through the crust, the loaf
slipped off the table and landed like a thousand bricks on my pet corn.
I hollered right out, and made an enemy of Priscilla for life.
After supper, while Priscilla and your Ma were doing the dishes, John
and I held a funeral in his back yard, and buried that loaf of bread
beside a stone wall at the rear of the garden. A month later, old Josh
Whipple who was near sighted, struck it while he was mending John's
wall, and before he realized it wasn't a stone, he had slapped it into
a hole in the wall with a lot of mortar. It stayed there until the next
winter, when the weather finally destroyed it.
John had brains, and ambition, and was never an enemy of work, but
to-day he is foreman of the making room in a measely little Maine
factory, when he might be running his own, and it was only Priscilla
who queered him. Whenever he'd manage to put by a little money, she
always needed a new set of furs, or a vacation, or a thousand other
things which she got. John never got his factory.
After all, I think I'm indebted to Hortense Shepard, for letting you
spend most of your allowance on her, and clutter up her front porch on
spring evenings. You might be spending your time and my money, in worse
places. I'm not going to forbid you seeing her. What I am going to do
is to ask you as man to man, if you don't think it would be fairer to
the lady in question, not to propose until you have some visible means
of support? Just think of the awful hole you'd be in, if you did, and
she called your bluff and said, "Yes."
[Illustration]
A school widow like Hortense, isn't a bad institution after all, for
she gives a young man like you a chance to be in a love with a nice
girl, even if she is old enough to be, let's say, his aunt. I'd ease
off gradually, there, if I were you. I'm sure it won't keep her awake
nights, if you call only once a week instead of five times. For no
matter how much you may think she cares, she doesn't, any more than for
any nice young fellow, who'll give her candy and flowers, and beau her
around to the games.
After you've gone through school and college, and have been in the
factory long enough to have faint glimmers of shoemaking, it'll be time
enough to think of getting married. Now, I'd spend more time with the
queens of history and less time with those of Exeter.
Don't take it too hard my boy, and remember that when the right time
and right girl come along, the old man will be rooting tooth and nail
for you to win.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_June 16, 19--_
DEAR TED:
Well son the school year is about over now and taking it all in all
you haven't done so badly. Of course that probation mess last winter
was not at all to my liking, and I could have survived the shock of
a higher average of marks for the year, still I think you have given
promises of better things to come.
When I asked you last Sunday what you intended doing this summer
vacation, thinking you had planned hanging around home most of the
time, I must say I was startled to learn the itinerary you had laid out
for yourself. It looks as though you were going to be about as busy as
the Prince of Wales was when he was visiting in New York, and he was
busier than a one-armed paper hanger with St. Vitus dance.
Now I never believed in bringing you up on the all work and no play
theory, but from the jobs you've set yourself I should judge you will
be working harder at playing this summer than you ever did at anything
else.
Newport, Narragansett, Magnolia, Kenneybunkport, and Bar Harbor are not
exactly the places I should choose to get rested in for a coming year
of work, but you are young and maybe you can stand it. Still I don't
want you to make the mistake I did the year of the panic.
Nineteen seven was some year for me. Business was so jumpy I never
knew when I came home at night whether the next day would bring the
sheriff into the factory, or whether I might get a big order that would
float me safely over the rocks. By June, I had lost thirty pounds and
couldn't sleep nights, but the sheriff wore a disappointed look when
I met him, and I didn't have to walk on the opposite sidewalk when I
passed the Company's store in Boston.