Nobody ever knew, except himself, what made a foolish young newspaper
reporter, who happened into a small old-fashioned hotel in New York,
observe Mr. Abel Pinkham with deep interest, listen to his talk, ask a
question or two of the clerk, and then go away and make up an
effective personal paragraph for one of the morning papers. He must
have had a heart full of fun, this young reporter, and something
honestly rustic and pleasing must have struck him in the guest's
demeanor, for there was a flavor in the few lines he wrote that made
some of his fellows seize upon the little paragraph, and copy it, and
add to it, and keep it moving. Nobody knows what starts such a thing
in journalism, or keeps it alive after it is started, but on a certain
Thursday morning the fact was made known to the world that among the
notabilities then in the city, Abel Pinkham, Esquire, a distinguished
citizen of Wetherford, Vermont, was visiting New York on important
affairs connected with the maple-sugar industry of his native State.
Mr. Pinkham had expected to keep his visit unannounced, but it was
likely to occasion much interest in business and civic circles. This
was something like the way that the paragraph started; but here and
there a kindred spirit of the original journalist caught it up and
added discreet lines about Mr. Pinkham's probable stay in town, his
occupation of an apartment on the fourth floor of the Ethan Allen
Hotel, and other circumstances so uninteresting to the reading public
in general that presently in the next evening edition, one city editor
after another threw out the item, and the young journalists, having
had their day of pleasure, passed on to other things.
Mr. and Mrs. Pinkham had set forth from home with many forebodings, in
spite of having talked all winter about taking this journey as soon as
the spring opened. They would have caught at any reasonable excuse for
giving it up altogether, because when the time arrived it seemed so
much easier to stay at home. Mrs. Abel Pinkham had never seen New
York; her husband himself had not been to the city for a great many
years; in fact, his reminiscences of the former visit were not
altogether pleasant, since he had foolishly fallen into many snares,
and been much gulled in his character of honest young countryman.
There was a tarnished and worthless counterfeit of a large gold watch
still concealed between the outer boarding and inner lath and plaster
of the lean-to bedroom which Mr. Abel Pinkham had occupied as a
bachelor; it was not the only witness of his being taken in by city
sharpers, and he had winced ever since at the thought of their wiles.
But he was now a man of sixty, well-to-do, and of authority in town
affairs; his children were all well married and settled in homes of
their own, except a widowed daughter, who lived at home with her young
son, and was her mother's lieutenant in household affairs.
The boy was almost grown, and at this season, when the maple sugar was
all made and shipped, and it was still too early for spring work on
the land, Mr. Pinkham could leave home as well as not, and here he was
in New York, feeling himself to be a stranger and foreigner to city
ways. If it had not been for that desire to appear well in his wife's
eyes, which had buoyed him over the bar of many difficulties, he could
have found it in his heart to take the next train back to Wetherford,
Vermont, to be there rid of his best clothes and the stiff rim of his
heavy felt hat. He could not let his wife discover that the noise and
confusion of Broadway had the least power to make him flinch: he cared
no more for it than for the woods in snow-time. He was as good as
anybody, and she was better. They owed nobody a cent; and they had
come on purpose to see the city of New York.
They were sitting at the breakfast-table in the Ethan Allen Hotel,
having arrived at nightfall the day before. Mrs. Pinkham looked a
little pale about the mouth. She had been kept awake nearly all night
by the noise, and had enjoyed but little the evening she had spent in
the stuffy parlor of the hotel, looking down out of the window at what
seemed to her but garish scenes, and keeping a reproachful and
suspicious eye upon some unpleasantly noisy young women of forward
behavior who were her only companions. Abel himself was by no means so
poorly entertained in the hotel office and smoking-room. He felt much
more at home than she did, being better used to meeting strange men
than she was to strange women, and he found two or three companions
who had seen more than he of New York life. It was there, indeed, that
the young reporter found him, hearty and country-fed, and loved the
appearance of his best clothes, and the way Mr. Abel Pinkham brushed
his hair, and loved the way that he spoke in a loud and manful voice
the belief and experience of his honest heart.
In the morning at breakfast-time the Pinkhams were depressed. They
missed their good bed at home; they were troubled by the roar and
noise of the streets that hardly stopped over night before it began
again in the morning. The waiter did not put what mind he may have had
to the business of serving them; and Mrs. Abel Pinkham, whose cooking
was the triumph of parish festivals at home, had her own opinion about
the beefsteak. She was a woman of imagination, and now that she was
fairly here, spectacles and all, it really pained her to find that the
New York of her dreams, the metropolis of dignity and distinction, of
wealth and elegance, did not seem to exist. These poor streets, these
unlovely people, were the end of a great illusion. They did not like
to meet each other's eyes, this worthy pair. The man began to put on
an unbecoming air of assertion, and Mrs. Pinkham's face was full of
lofty protest.
"My gracious me, Mary Ann! I am glad I happened to get the 'Tribune'
this mornin'," said Mr. Pinkham, with sudden excitement. "Just you
look here! I'd like well to know how they found out about our comin'!"
and he handed the paper to his wife across the table. "There--there 't
is; right by my thumb," he insisted. "Can't you see it?" and he smiled
like a boy as she finally brought her large spectacles to bear upon
the important paragraph.
"I guess they think somethin' of us, if you don't think much o' them,"
continued Mr. Pinkham, grandly. "Oh, they know how to keep the run o'
folks who are somebody to home! Draper and Fitch knew we was comin'
this week: you know I sent word I was comin' to settle with them
myself. I suppose they send folks round to the hotels, these
newspapers, but I shouldn't thought there'd been time. Anyway, they've
thought 't was worthwhile to put us in!"
Mrs. Pinkham did not take the trouble to make a mystery out of the
unexpected pleasure. "I want to cut it out an' send it right up home
to daughter Sarah," she said, beaming with pride, and looking at the
printed names as if they were flattering photographs. "I think 't was
most too strong to say we was among the notables. But there! 'tis
their business to dress up things, and they have to print somethin'
every day. I guess I shall go up and put on my best dress," she added,
inconsequently; "this one's kind of dusty; it's the same I rode in."
"Le' me see that paper again," said Mr. Pinkham jealously. "I didn't
more 'n half sense it, I was so taken aback. Well, Mary Ann, you
didn't expect you was goin' to get into the papers when you came away.
'_Abel Pinkham, Esquire, of Wetherford, Vermont._' It looks well,
don't it? But you might have knocked me down with a feather when I
first caught sight of them words."
"I guess I shall put on my other dress," said Mrs. Pinkham, rising,
with quite a different air from that with which she had sat down to
her morning meal. "This one looks a little out o' style, as Sarah
said, but when I got up this mornin' I was so homesick it didn't seem
to make any kind o' difference. I expect that saucy girl last night
took us to be nobodies. I'd like to leave the paper round where she
couldn't help seein' it."
"Don't take any notice of her," said Abel, in a dignified tone. "If
she can't do what you want an' be civil, we'll go somewheres else. I
wish I'd done what we talked of at first an' gone to the Astor House,
but that young man in the cars told me 't was remote from the things
we should want to see. The Astor House was the top o' everything when
I was here last, but I expected to find some changes. I want you to
have the best there is," he said, smiling at his wife as if they were
just making their wedding journey. "Come, let's be stirrin'; 't is
long past eight o'clock," and he ushered her to the door, newspaper in
hand.