Not much in my life at college is essential to this history—save the training. The students came mostly from other and remote parts of the north country—some even from other states. Coming largely from towns and cities they were shorn of those simple and rugged traits, that distinguished the men o' Faraway, and made them worthy of what poor fame this book may afford. In the main they were like other students the world over, I take it' and mostly, as they have shown, capable of wiling their own fame. It all seemed very high and mighty and grand to me especially the names of the courses. I had my baptism of Sophomoric scorn and many a heated argument over my title to life, liberty and the pursuit of learning. It became necessary to establish it by force of arms, which I did decisively and with as little delay as possible. I took much interest in athletic sports and was soon a good ball player, a boxer of some skill, and the best wrestler in college. Things were going on comfortably when an upper classman met me and suggested that on a coming holiday, the Freshmen ought to wear stove-pipe hats. Those hats were the seed of great trouble.
'Stove-pipe hats!' I said thoughtfully.
'They're a good protection,' he assured me.
It seemed a very reasonable, not to say a necessary precaution. A man has to be young and innocent sometime or what would become of the Devil. I did not see that the stove-pipe hat was the red rag of insurrection and, when I did see it' I was up to my neck in the matter.
You see the Sophs are apt to be very nasty that day,' he continued.
I acknowledged they were quite capable of it.
'And they don't care where they hit,' he went on.
I felt of my head that was still sore, from a forceful argument of the preceding day, and admitted there was good ground for the assertion.
When I met my classmen, that afternoon, I was an advocate of the 'stove-pipe' as a means of protection. There were a number of husky fellows, in my class, who saw its resisting power and seconded my suggestion. We decided to leave it to the ladies of the class and they greeted our plan with applause. So, that morning, we arrayed ourselves in high hats, heavy canes and fine linen, marching together up College Hill. We had hardly entered the gate before we saw the Sophs forming in a thick rank outside the door prepared, as we took it, to resist our entrance. They out-numbered us and were, in the main, heavier but we had a foot or more of good stiff material between each head and harm. Of just what befell us, when we got to the enemy, I have never felt sure. Of the total inefficiency of the stove-pipe hat as an article of armour, I have never had the slightest doubt since then. There was a great flash and rattle of canes. Then the air was full of us. In the heat of it all prudence went to the winds. We hit out right and left, on both sides, smashing hats and bruising heads and hands. The canes went down in a jiffy and then we closed with each other hip and thigh. Collars were ripped off, coats were torn, shirts were gory from the blood of noses, and in this condition the most of us were rolling and tumbling on the ground. I had flung a man, heavily, and broke away and was tackling another when I heard a hush in the tumult and then the voice of the president. He stood on the high steps, his grey head bare, his right hand lifted. It must have looked like carnage from where he stood.
'Young gentlemen!' he called. 'Cease, I command you. If we cannot get along without this thing we will shut up shop.'
Well, that was the end of it and came near being the end of our careers in college. We looked at each other, torn and panting and bloody, and at the girls, who stood by, pale with alarm. Then we picked up the shapeless hats and went away for repairs. I had heard that the path of learning was long and beset with peril but I hoped, not without reason, the worst was over. As I went off the campus the top of my hat was hanging over my left ear, my collar and cravat were turned awry, my trousers gaped over one knee. I was talking with a fellow sufferer and patching the skin on my knuckles, when suddenly I met Uncle Eb.
'By the Lord Harry!' he said, looking me over from top to toe, 'teacher up there mus' be purty ha'sh.'
'It wa'n't the teacher,' I said.
'Must have fit then.'
'Fit hard,' I answered, laughing.
'Try t' walk on ye?'
'Tried t' walk on me. Took several steps too,' I said stooping to brush my trousers.
'Hm! guess he found it ruther bad walkin' didn't he?' my old friend enquired. 'Leetle bit rough in spots?'
'Little bit rough, Uncle Eb—that's certain.'
'Better not go hum,' he said, a great relief in his face. 'Look 's if ye'd been chopped down an' sawed—an' split—an' throwed in a pile. I'll go an' bring over some things fer ye.'
I went with my friend, who had suffered less damage, and Uncle Eb brought me what I needed to look more respectable than I felt.
The president, great and good man that he was, forgave us, finally, after many interviews and such wholesome reproof as made us all ashamed of our folly.
In my second year, at college, Hope went away to continue her studies in New York She was to live in the family of John Fuller, a friend of David, who had left Faraway years before and made his fortune there in the big city. Her going filled my days with a lingering and pervasive sadness. I saw in it sometimes the shadow of a heavier loss than I dared to contemplate. She had come home once a week from Ogdensburg and I had always had a letter between times. She was ambitious and, I fancy, they let her go, so that there should be no danger of any turning aside from the plan of my life, or of hers; for they knew our hearts as well as we knew them and possibly better.
We had the parlour to ourselves the evening before she went away, and I read her a little love tale I had written especially for that occasion. It gave us some chance to discuss the absorbing and forbidden topic of our lives.
'He's too much afraid of her,' she said, 'he ought to put his arm about her waist in that love scene.'
'Like that,' I said, suiting the action to the word.
'About like that,' she answered, laughing, 'and then he ought to say something very, very, nice to her before he proposes—something about his having loved her for so long—you know.'
'And how about her?' I asked, my arm still about her waist.
'If she really loves him,' Hope answered, 'she would put her arms about his neck and lay her head upon his shoulder, so; and then he might say what is in the story.' She was smiling now as she looked up at me.
'And kiss her?'
'And kiss her,' she whispered; and, let me add, that part of the scene was in nowise neglected.
'And when he says: “will you wait for me and keep me always in your heart?” what should be her answer,' I continued.
'Always!' she said.
'Hope, this is our own story,' I whispered. 'Does it need any further correction?'
'It's too short—that's all,' she answered, as our lips met again.
Just then Uncle Eb opened the door, suddenly.
'Tut tut!' he said tuning quickly about
'Come in, Uncle Eb,' said Hope, 'come right in, we want to see you.
In a moment she had caught him by the arm.
'Don' want 'o break up the meetin',' said he laughing.
'We don't care if you do know,' said Hope, 'we're not ashamed of it.'
'Hain't got no cause t' be,' he said. 'Go it while ye're young 'n full 'o vinegar! That's what I say every time. It's the best fun there is. I thought I'd like t' hev ye both come up t' my room, fer a minute, 'fore yer mother 'n father come back,' he said in a low tone that was almost a whisper.
Then he shut one eye, suggestively, and beckoned with his head, as we followed him up the stairway to the little room in which he slept. He knelt by the bed and pulled out the old skin-covered trunk that David Brower had given him soon after we came. He felt a moment for the keyhole, his hand trembling, and then I helped him open the trunk. From under that sacred suit of broadcloth, worn only on the grandest occasions, he fetched a bundle about the size of a man's head. It was tied in a big red handkerchief. We were both sitting on the floor beside him.
'Heft it,' he whispered.
I did so and found it heavier than I expected.
'What is it?' I asked.
'Spondoolix,' he whispered.
Then he untied the bundle—a close packed hoard of bankbills with some pieces of gold and silver at the bottom.
'Hain't never hed no use fer it,' he said as he drew out a layer of greenbacks and spread them with trembling fingers. Then he began counting them slowly and carefully.
'There!' he whispered, when at length he had counted a hundred dollars. 'There Hope! take thet an' put it away in yer wallet. Might come handy when ye're 'way fr'm hum.'
She kissed him tenderly.
'Put it 'n yer wallet an' say nothin'—not a word t' nobody,' he said.
Then he counted over a like amount for me.
'Say nothin',' he said, looking up at me over his spectacles. 'Ye'll hev t' spile a suit o' clothes purty often if them fellers keep a fightin' uv ye all the time.'
Father and mother were coming in below stairs and, hearing them, we helped Uncle Eb tie up his bundle and stow it away. Then we went down to meet them.
Next morning we bade Hope goodbye at the cars and returned to our home with a sense of loss that, for long, lay heavy upon us all.
Uncle Eb and David were away buying cattle, half the week, but Elizabeth Brower was always at home to look after my comfort. She was up betimes in the morning and singing at her work long before I was out of bed. When the breakfast was near ready she came to my door with a call so fall of cheerfulness and good-nature it was the best thing in the day. And often, at night, I have known her to come into my room when I was lying awake with some hard problem, to see that I was properly covered or that my window was not open too far. As we sat alone together, of an evening, I have seen her listen for hours while I was committing the Odes of Horace with a curiosity that finally gave way to resignation. Sometimes she would look over my shoulder at the printed page and try to discern some meaning in it. When Uncle Eb was with us he would often sit a long time his head turned attentively as the lines came rattling off my tongue.
'Cur'us talk!' he said, one evening, as I paused a moment, while he crossed the room for a drink of water. 'Don' seem t' make no kind O' sense. I can make out a word here 'n there but fer good, sound, common sense I call it a purty thin crop.'
Hope wrote me every week for a time. A church choir had offered her a place soon after she went to the big city. She came home intending to surprise us all, the first summer but unfortunately, I had gone away in the woods with a party of surveyors and missed her. We were a month in the wilderness and came out a little west of Albany where I took a boat for New York to see Hope. I came down the North River between the great smoky cities, on either side of it, one damp and chilly morning. The noise, the crowds, the immensity of the town appalled me. At John Fuller's I found that Hope had gone home and while they tried to detain me longer I came back on the night boat of the same day. Hope and I passed each other in that journey and I did not see her until the summer preceding my third and last year in college—the faculty having allowed me to take two years in one. Her letters had come less frequently and when she came I saw a grand young lady of fine manners, her beauty shaping to an ampler mould, her form straightening to the dignity of womanhood.
At the depot our hands were cold and trembling with excitement—neither of us, I fancy, knowing quite how far to go in our greeting. Our correspondence had been true to the promise made her mother—there had not been a word of love in it—only now and then a suggestion of our tender feeling. We hesitated only for the briefest moment. Then I put my arm about her neck and kissed her.
'I am so glad to see you,' she said.
Well, she was charming and beautiful, but different, and probably not more different than was I. She was no longer the laughing, simple-mannered child of Faraway, whose heart was as one's hand before him in the daylight. She had now a bit of the woman's reserve—her prudence, her skill in hiding the things of the heart. I loved her more than ever, but somehow I felt it hopeless—that she had grown out of my life. She was much in request among the people of Hillsborough, and we went about a good deal and had many callers. But we had little time to ourselves. She seemed to avoid that, and had much to say of the grand young men who came to call on her in the great city. Anyhow it all hurt me to the soul and even robbed me of my sleep. A better lover than I would have made an end of dallying and got at the truth, come what might. But I was of the Puritans, and not of the Cavaliers, and my way was that which God had marked for me, albeit I must own no man had ever a keener eye for a lovely woman or more heart to please her. A mighty pride had come to me and I had rather have thrown my heart to vultures than see it an unwelcome offering. And I was quite out of courage with Hope; she, I dare say, was as much out of patience with me.
She returned in the late summer and I went back to my work at college in a hopeless fashion that gave way under the whip of a strong will.
I made myself as contented as possible. I knew all the pretty girls and went about with some of them to the entertainments of the college season. At last came the long looked for day of my graduation—the end of my student life.
The streets of the town were thronged, every student having the college colours in his coat lapel. The little company of graduates trembled with fright as the people crowded in to the church, whispering and faring themselves, in eager anticipation. As the former looked from the two side pews where they sat, many familiar faces greeted them—the faces of fathers and mothers aglow with the inner light of pride and pleasure; the faces of many they loved come to claim a share in the glory of that day. I found my own, I remember, but none of them gave me such help as that of Uncle Eb. However I might fare, none would feel the pride or disgrace of it more keenly than he. I shall never forget how he turned his head to catch every word when I ascended the platform. As I warmed to my argument I could see him nudging the arm of David, who sat beside him, as if to say, 'There's the boy that came over the hills with me in a pack basket.' When I stopped a moment, groping for the next word, he leaned forward, embracing his knee, firmly, as if intending to draw off a boot. It was all the assistance he could give me. When the exercises were over I found Uncle Eb by the front door of the church, waiting for me.
'Willie, ye done noble!' said he.
'Did my very best, Uncle Eb,' I replied.
'Liked it grand—I did, sartin.' 'Glad you liked it, Uncle Eb.'
'Showed great larnin'. Eho was the man 'at give out the pictur's?'
He meant the president who had conferred the degrees. I spoke the name.
'Deceivin' lookin' man, ain't he? Seen him often, but never took no pertick'lar notice of him before.'
'How deceiving?' I enquired.
'Talked so kind of plain,' he replied. 'I could understan' him as easy as though he'd been swappin' hosses. But when you got up, Bill'. Why, you jes' riz right up in the air an' there couldn't no dum fool tell what you was talkin' 'bout.'
Whereat I concluded that Uncle Eb's humour was as deep as it was kindly, but I have never been quite sure whether the remark was a compliment or a bit of satire.
The folks of Faraway have been carefully if rudely pictured, but the look of my own person, since I grew to the stature of manhood, I have left wholly to the imagination of the reader. I will wager he knew long since what manner of man I was and has measured me to the fraction of an inch, and knows even the colour of my hair and eyes from having been so long in my company. If not—well, I shall have to write him a letter.
When Uncle Eb and I took the train for New York that summer day in 1860, some fifteen years after we came down Paradise Road with the dog and wagon and pack basket, my head, which, in that far day, came only to the latitude of his trouser pocket, had now mounted six inches above his own. That is all I can say here on that branch of my subject. I was leaving to seek my fortune in the big city; Uncle Eb was off for a holiday and to see Hope and bring her home for a short visit. I remember with what sadness I looked back that morning at mother and father as they stood by the gate slowly waving their handkerchiefs. Our home at last was emptied of its young, and even as they looked the shadow of old age must have fallen suddenly before them. I knew how they would go back into that lonely room and how, while the clock went on with its ticking, Elizabeth would sit down and cover her face a moment, while David would make haste to take up his chores.
We sat in silence a long time after the train was off, a mighty sadness holding our tongues. Uncle Eb, who had never ridden a long journey on the cars before, had put on his grand suit of broadcloth. The day was hot and dusty, and before we had gone far he was sadly soiled. But a suit never gave him any worry, once it was on. He sat calmly, holding his knee in his hands and looking out of the open window, a squint in his eyes that stood for some high degree of interest in the scenery.
'What do you think of this country?' I enquired.
'Looks purty fair,' said he, as he brushed his face with his handkerchief and coughed to clear his throat of the dust, 'but 'tain't quite so pleasant to the taste as some other parts o' the country. I ruther liked the flavour of Saint Lawrence all through, but Jefferson is a leetle gritty.'
He put down the window as he spoke.
'A leetle tobaccer'll improve it some,' he added, as his hand went down for the old silver box. 'The way these cars dew rip along! Consarned if it ain't like flyin'! Kind o' makes me feel like a bird.'
The railroad was then not the familiar thing it is now in the north country. The bull in the fields had not yet come to an understanding of its rights, and was frequently tempted into argument with a locomotive. Bill Fountain, who came out of a back township, one day had even tied his faithful hound to the rear platform.
Our train came to a long stop for wood and water near midday, and then we opened the lunch basket that mother had given us.
'Neighbour,' said a solemn-faced man, who sat in front of us, 'do you think the cars are ag'in the Bible? D'you think a Christian orter ride on 'em?'
'Sartin,' said Uncle Eb. 'Less the constable's after him—then I think he orter be on a balky hoss.'
'Wife'n I hes talked it over a good deal,' said the man. 'Some says it's ag'in the Bible. The minister 'at preaches over 'n our neighbourhood says if God hed wanted men t' fly he'd g'in 'em wings.'
'S'pose if he'd ever wanted 'm t' skate he'd hed 'em born with skates on?' said Uncle Eb.
'Danno,' said the man. 'It behooves us all to be careful. The Bible says “Go not after new things.”'
'My friend,' said Uncle Eb, between bites of a doughnut, 'I don' care what I ride in so long as 'tain't a hearse. I want sumthin' at's comfortable an' purty middlin' spry. It'll do us good up here t' git jerked a few hunderd miles an' back ev'ry leetle while. Keep our j'ints limber. We'll live longer fer it, an' thet'll please God sure—cuz I don't think he's hankerin' fer our society—not a bit. Don' make no difference t' him whuther we ride 'n a spring wagon er on the cars so long's we're right side up 'n movin'. We need more steam; we're too dum slow. Kind o' think a leetle more steam in our religion wouldn't hurt us a bit. It's purty fur behind.'
We got to Albany in the evening, just in time for the night boat. Uncle Eb was a sight in his dusty broadcloth, when we got off the cars, and I know my appearance could not have been prepossessing. Once we were aboard the boat and had dusted our clothes and bathed our hands and faces we were in better spirits.
'Consarn it!' said Uncle Eb, as we left the washroom, 'le's have a durn good supper. I'll stan' treat.'
'Comes a leetle bit high,' he said, as he paid the bill, 'but I don' care if it does. 'Fore we left I says t' myself, “Uncle Eb,” says I, “you go right in fer a good time an' don' ye count the pennies. Everybody's a right t' be reckless once in seventy-five year.”'
We went to our stateroom a little after nine. I remember the berths had not been made up, and removing our boots and coats we lay down upon the bare mattresses. Even then I had a lurking fear that we might be violating some rule of steamboat etiquette. When I went to New York before I had dozed all night in the big cabin.
A dim light came through the shuttered door that opened upon the dinning-saloon where the rattle of dishes for a time put away the possibility of sleep.
'I'll be awful glad t' see Hope,' said Uncle Eb, as he lay gaping.
'Guess I'll be happier to see her than she will to see me,' I said.
'What put that in yer head?' Uncle Eb enquired.
''Fraid we've got pretty far apart,' said I.
'Shame on ye, Bill,' said the old gentleman. 'If thet's so ye ain't done right. Hedn't orter let a girl like thet git away from ye—th' ain't another like her in this world.'
'I know it' I said' 'but I can't help it. Somebody's cut me out Uncle Eb.'
''Tain't so,' said he emphatically. 'Ye want t' prance right up t' her.'
'I'm not afraid of any woman,' I said, with a great air of bravery, 'but if she don't care for me I ought not to throw myself at her.'
'Jerusalem!' said Uncle Eb, rising up suddenly, 'what hev I gone an' done?'
He jumped out of his berth quickly and in the dim light I could see him reaching for several big sheets of paper adhering to the back of his shirt and trousers. I went quickly to his assistance and began stripping off the broadsheets which, covered with some strongly adhesive substance, had laid a firm hold upon him. I rang the bell and ordered a light.
'Consam it all! what be they—plasters?' said Uncle Eb, quite out of patience.
'Pieces of brown paper, covered with—West India molasses, I should think,' said I.
'West Injy molasses!' he exclaimed. 'By mighty! That makes me hotter'n a pancake. What's it on the bed fer?'
'To catch flies,' I answered.
'An' ketched me,' said Uncle Eb, as he flung the sheet he was examining into a corner. 'My extry good suit' too!'
He took off his trousers, then, holding them up to the light.
'They're sp'ilt,' said he mournfully. 'Hed 'em fer more'n ten year, too.'
'That's long enough,' I suggested.
'Got kind o' 'tached to 'em,' he said, looking down at them and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Then we had a good laugh.
'You can put on the other suit,' I suggested, 'and when we get to the city we'll have these fixed.'
'Leetle sorry, though,' said he, 'cuz that other suit don' look reel grand. This here one has been purty—purty scrumptious in its day—if I do say it.'
'You look good enough in anything that's respectable,' I said.
'Kind o' wanted to look a leetle extry good, as ye might say,' said Uncle Eb, groping in his big carpet-bag. 'Hope, she's terrible proud, an' if they should hev a leetle fiddlin' an' dancin' some night we'd want t' be as stylish as any on em. B'lieve I'll go'n git me a spang, bran' new suit, anyway, 'fore we go up t' Fuller's.'
As we neared the city we both began feeling a bit doubtful as to whether we were quite ready for the ordeal.
'I ought to,' I said. 'Those I'm wearing aren't quite stylish enough, I'm afraid.'
'They're han'some,' said Uncle Eb, looking up over his spectacles, 'but mebbe they ain't just as splendid as they'd orter be. How much money did David give ye?'
'One hundred and fifty dollars,' I said, thinking it a very grand sum indeed.
''Tain't enough,' said Uncle Eb, bolting up at me again. 'Leastways not if ye're goin' t' hev a new suit. I want ye t' be spick an' span.'
He picked up his trousers then, and took out his fat leather wallet.
'Lock the door,' he whispered.
'Pop goes the weasel!' he exclaimed, good-naturedly, and then he began counting the bills.
'I'm not going to take any more of your money, Uncle Eb,' I said.
'Tut, tut!' said he, 'don't ye try t' interfere. What d' ye think they'll charge in the city fer a reel, splendid suit?'
He stopped and looked up at me.
'Probably as much as fifty dollars,' I answered.
'Whew-w-w!' he whistled. 'Patty steep! It is sartin.'
'Let me go as I am,' said I. 'Time enough to have a new suit when I've earned it.'
'Wall,' he said, as he continued counting, 'I guess you've earnt it already. Ye've studied hard an' tuk first honours an' yer goin' where folks are purty middlin' proud'n haughty. I want ye t' be a reg'lar high stepper, with a nice, slick coat. There,' he whispered, as he handed me the money, 'take thet! An' don't ye never tell 'at I g'in it t' ye.'
I could not speak for a little while, as I took the money, for thinking of the many, many things this grand old man had done for me.
'Do ye think these boots'll do?' he asked, as he held up to the light the pair he had taken off in the evening.
'They look all right,' I said.
'Ain't got no decent squeak to 'em now, an' they seem t' look kind o' clumsy. How're your'n?' he asked.
I got them out from under the berth and we inspected them carefully deciding in the end they would pass muster.
The steward had made up our berths, when he came, and lit our room for us. Our feverish discussion of attire had carried us far past midnight, when we decided to go to bed.
'S'pose we musn't talk t' no strangers there 'n New York,' said Uncle Eb, as he lay down. 'I've read 'n the Tribune how they'll purtend t' be friends an' then grab yer money an' run like Sam Hill. If I meet any o' them fellers they're goin' t' find me purty middlin' poor comp'ny.'
We were up and on deck at daylight, viewing the Palisades. The lonely feeling of an alien hushed us into silence as we came to the noisy and thickening river craft at the upper end of the city. Countless window panes were shining in the morning sunlight. This thought was in my mind that somewhere in the innumerable host on either side was the one dearer to me than any other. We enquired our way at the dock and walked to French's Hotel, on Printing House Square. After breakfast we went and ordered all the grand new things we had planned to get. They would not be ready for two days, and after talking it over we decided to go and make a short call. Hope, who had been up and looking for us a long time, gave us a greeting so hearty we began to get the first feeling of comfort since landing. She was put out about our having had breakfast, I remember, and said we must have our things brought there at once.
'I shall have to stay at the hotel awhile,' I said, thinking of the new clothes.
'Why,' said Mrs Fuller, 'this girl has been busy a week fixing your rooms and planning for you. We could not hear of your going elsewhere. It would be downright ingratitude to her.'
A glow of red came into the cheeks of Hope that made me ashamed of my remark. I thought she looked lovelier in her pretty blue morning gown, covering a broad expanse of crinoline, than ever before.
'And you've both got to come and hear me sing tonight at the church,' said she. 'I wouldn't have agreed to sing if I had not thought you were to be here.'
We made ourselves at home, as we were most happy to do, and that afternoon I went down town to present to Mr Greeley the letter that David Brower had given me.
I came down Broadway that afternoon aboard a big white omnibus, that drifted slowly in a tide of many vehicles. Those days there were a goodly show of trees on either side of that thoroughfare—elms, with here and there a willow, a sumach or a mountain ash. The walks were thronged with handsome people—dandies with high hats and flaunting neckties and swinging canes—beautiful women, each covering a broad circumference of the pavement, with a cone of crinoline that swayed over dainty feet. From Grace Church down it was much of the same thing we see now, with a more ragged sky line. Many of the great buildings, of white and red sandstone, had then appeared, but the street was largely in the possession of small shops—oyster houses, bookstores and the like. Not until I neared the sacred temple of the Tribune did I feel a proper sense of my own littleness. There was the fountain of all that wisdom which had been read aloud and heard with reverence in our household since a time I could but dimly remember. There sat the prophet who had given us so much—his genial views of life and government, his hopes, his fears, his mighty wrath at the prospering of cruelty and injustice.
'I would like to see Mr Horace Greeley,' I said, rather timidly, at the counter.
'Walk right up those stairs and turn to the left,' said a clerk, as he opened a gate for me.
Ascending, I met a big man coming down, hurriedly, and with heavy steps. We stood dodging each other a moment with that unfortunate co-ordination of purpose men sometimes encounter when passing each other. Suddenly the big man stopped in the middle of the stairway and held both of his hands above his head.
'In God's name! young man,' said he, 'take your choice.'
He spoke in a high, squeaky voice that cut me with the sharpness of its irritation. I went on past him and entered an open door near the top of the stairway.
'Is Mr Horace Greeley in?' I enquired of a young man who sat reading papers.
'Back soon,' said he, without looking up. 'Take a chair.'
In a little while I heard the same heavy feet ascending the stairway two steps at a time. Then the man I had met came hurriedly into the room.
'This is Mr Greeley,' said the young man who was reading.
The great editor turned and looked at me through gold-rimmed spectacles. I gave him my letter out of a trembling hand. He removed it from the envelope and held it close to his big, kindly, smooth-shaven face. There was a fringe of silky, silver hair, streaked with yellow, about the lower part of his head from temple to temple. It also encircled his throat from under his collar. His cheeks were fall and fair as a lady's, with rosy spots in them and a few freckles about his nose. He laughed as he finished reading the letter.
'Are you Dave Brower's boy?' he asked in a drawling falsetto, looking at me out of grey eyes and smiling with good humour.
'By adoption,' I answered.'
'He was an almighty good rassler,' he said, deliberately, as he looked again at the letter.'
'What do you want to do?' he asked abruptly.'
'Want to work on the Tribune,' I answered.'
'Good Lord! he said. 'I can't hire everybody.'
I tried to think of some argument, but what with looking at the great man before me, and answering his questions and maintaining a decent show of dignity, I had enough to do.
'Do you read the Tribune? he asked.'
'Read it ever since I can remember.'
'What do you think of the administration?
'Lot of dough faces! I answered, smiling, as I saw he recognised his own phrase. He sat a moment tapping the desk with his penholder.'
'There's so many liars here in New York,' he said, 'there ought to be room for an honest man. How are the crops?'
'Fair, I answered. 'Big crop of boys every year.'
'And now you're trying to find a market, he remarked.'
'Want to have you try them,' I answered.
'Well,' said he, very seriously, turning to his desk that came up to his chin as he sat beside it, 'go and write me an article about rats.'
'Would you advise-,' I started to say, when he interrupted me.
'The man that gives advice is a bigger fool than the man that takes it,' he fleered impatiently. 'Go and do your best!'
Before he had given me this injunction he had dipped his pen and begun to write hurriedly. If I had known him longer I should have known that, while he had been talking to me, that tireless mind of his had summoned him to its service. I went out, in high spirits, and sat down a moment on one of the benches in the little park near by, to think it all over. He was going to measure my judgement, my skill as a writer—my resources. 'Rats,' I said to myself thoughtfully. I had read much about them. They infested the ships, they overran the wharves, they traversed the sewers. An inspiration came to me. I started for the waterfront, asking my way every block or two. Near the East River I met a policeman—a big, husky, good-hearted Irishman.
'Can you tell me,' I said, 'who can give me information about rats?'
'Rats?' he repeated. 'What d' ye wan't' know about thim?'
'Everything,' I said. 'They've just given me a job on the New York Tribune,' I added proudly.
He smiled good-naturedly. He had looked through me at a glance.
'Just say “Tribune”,' he said. 'Ye don't have t' say “New York Tribune” here. Come along wi' me.'
He took me to a dozen or more of the dock masters.
'Give 'im a lift, my hearty,' he said to the first of them. 'He's a green.'
I have never forgotten the kindness of that Irishman, whom I came to know well in good time. Remembering that day and others I always greeted him with a hearty 'God bless the Irish!' every time I passed him, and he would answer, 'Amen, an' save yer riverince.'
He did not leave me until I was on my way home loaded with fact and fable and good dialect with a savour of the sea in it.
Hope and Uncle Eb were sitting together in his room when I returned.
'Guess I've got a job,' I said, trying to be very cool about it..
'A job! said Hope eagerly, as she rose. 'Where?
'With Mr Horace Greeley,' I answered, my voice betraying my excitement.
'Jerusalem! said Uncle Eb. 'Is it possible?'
'That's grand! said Hope. 'Tell us about it.'
Then I told them of my interview with the great editor and of what I had done since.
'Ye done wonderful!' said Uncle Eb and Hope showed quite as much pleasure in her own sweet way.
I was for going to my room and beginning to write at once, but Hope said it was time to be getting ready for dinner.
When we came down at half-past six we were presented to our host and the guests of the evening—handsome men and women in full dress—and young Mr Livingstone was among them. I felt rather cheap in my frock coat, although I had thought it grand enough for anybody on the day of my graduation. Dinner announced, the gentlemen rose and offered escort to the ladies, and Hope and Mrs Fuller relieved our embarrassment by conducting us to our seats—women are so deft in those little difficulties. The dinner was not more formal than that of every evening in the Fuller home—for its master was a rich man of some refinement of taste—and not at all comparable to the splendid hospitality one may see every day at the table of a modern millionaire. But it did seem very wonderful to us, then, with its fine-mannered servants, its flowers, its abundant silver. Hope had written much to her mother of the details of deportment at John Fuller's table, and Elizabeth had delicately imparted to us the things we ought to know. We behaved well, I have since been told, although we got credit for poorer appetites than we possessed. Uncle Eb took no chances and refused everything that had a look of mystery and a suggestion of peril, dropping a droll remark, betimes, that sent a ripple of amusement around the table.
John Trumbull sat opposite me, and even then I felt a curious interest in him—a big, full bearded man, quite six feet tall, his skin and eyes dark, his hair iron-grey, his voice deep like David s. I could not get over the impression that I had seen him before—a feeling I have had often, facing men I could never possibly have met. No word came out of his firm mouth unless he were addressed, and then all in hearing listened to the little he had to say: it was never more than some very simple remark. In his face and form and voice there was abundant heraldry of rugged power and ox-like vitality. I have seen a bronze head of Daniel Webster which, with a full blonde beard and an ample covering of grey hair would have given one a fairly perfect idea of the look of John Trumbull. Imagine it on a tall, and powerful body and let it speak with a voice that has in it the deep and musical vibration one may hear in the looing of an ox and you shall see, as perfectly as my feeble words can help you to do, this remarkable man who, must, hereafter, play before you his part—compared to which mine is as the prattle of a child—in this drama of God's truth.
'You have not heard,' said Mrs Fuller addressing me, 'how Mr Trumbull saved Hope's life.'
'Saved Hope's life!' I exclaimed.
'Saved her life,' she repeated, 'there isn't a doubt of it. We never sent word of it for fear it would give you all needless worry. It was a day of last winter—fell crossing Broadway, a dangerous place' he pulled her aside just in time—the horse's feet were raised above her—she would have been crushed in a moment He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the sidewalk not a bit the worse for it.
'Seems as if it were fate,' said Hope. 'I had seen him so often and wondered who he was. I recall a night when I had to come home alone from rehearsal. I was horribly afraid. I remember passing him under a street lamp. If he had spoken to me, then, I should have dropped with fear and he would have had to carry me home that time.
'It's an odd thing a girl like you should ever have to walk home alone,' said Mr Fuller. 'Doesn't speak well for our friend Livingstone or Burnham there or Dobbs.
'Mrs Fuller doesn't give us half a chance,' said Livingstone, 'she guards her day and night. It's like the monks and the Holy Grail.
'Hope is independent of the young men,' said Mrs Fuller as we rose from the table. 'If I cannot go with her myself, in the carriage, I always send a maid or a manservant to walk home with her. But Mr Fuller and I were out of town that night and the young men missed their great opportunity.
'Had a differ'nt way o' sparkin' years ago,' said Uncle Eb. 'Didn't never hev it please anybody but the girl then. If ye liked a girl ye went an' sot up with her an' gin her a smack an' tol' her right out plain an' square what ye wanted. An' thet settled it one way er t' other. An' her mother she step' in the next room with the door half-open an' never paid no 'tention. Recollec' one col'night when I was sparkin' the mother hollered out o' bed, “Lucy, hev ye got anythin 'round ye?” an' she hollered back, “Yis, mother,” an' she hed too but 'twan't nothin' but my arm.'
They laughed merrily, over the quaint reminiscence of my old friend and the quainter way he had of telling it. The rude dialect of the backwoodsman might have seemed oddly out of place, there, but for the quiet, unassuming manner and the fine old face of Uncle Eb in which the dullest eye might see the soul of a gentleman.
'What became of Lucy?' Mr Fuller enquired, laughingly. 'You never married her.'
'Lucy died,' he answered soberly; 'thet was long, long ago.'
Then he went away with John Trumbull to the smoking-room where I found them, talking earnestly in a corner, when it was time to go to the church with Hope.