"Well, bring an egg and some toast," I said, amiably.
"Sorry, sir," chirped up Bright Eyes, "but cook's just beaten up the egg. She says you can have your share of it in the meringue pudding at dinner."
"Whathaveyou got, then?" I demanded with some acrimony.
"Hot lamb, cold lamb, roast lamb, and minced lamb," she gurgled. I subsequently ascertained that they sheared the lamb a few days before and that the poor innocent caught cold and died.
If they were as strict in their menu in these country hotels as they are in their rules, it would be all right. No hotel is complete without a long list of "Don'ts for Guests," plastered on the inside of the door. Here are a few that appealed to me with especial force:
"Please do not tip the waiters or the porter." (As the waiters did nothing for me and the porter weighed 285 pounds I conformed to this rule.)
"In event of fire an alarm will be sounded on the gongs if the night clerk is awake. The fire-escapes are in the office safe. In case of fire you can have one after you have paid your bill."
It is hard to get a decent night's rest in these hostelries. If it isn't one thing it's another. Last Saturday I was so tired that I felt I wouldn't care if I jumped Sunday right out of the calendar. Sunday morning I was sleeping beautifully when there was a rap on the door.
"Been't you a goin' to git up?" came a squeaky voice.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Half past seven," was the reply.
"Get up? No, go away," I shouted.
"Breakfast comes in half an hour," said the squeak.
"Don't want any breakfast," I thundered back.
"All right, the other boarders do."
"What in blazes is that to me?" I snarled.
"We want your sheets for tablecloths."
Do not worry. I shall not write long letters to "the House." They will be as short as my expense account will permit.
Your hungry but hopeful son,P.
P.S. On the dead, now, did my recital of my hotel experiences make you laugh? They are not quite genuine. How do you think they would go as a part of my sample line of stories for the trade?
LETTER NO. XI.
Pierrepont meets with some curious experience"on the road;" attends a "badger fight,"and relates some of his adventuresin country hotels.
Harrod's Creek, Ind., April 16, 189—
Dear Dad:
There's no use in telling me that I've got to dream hog if I want to get a raise—for that's what all this rumpus on the road amounts to, after all. There's no need, I say, to enforce the lesson, for I have porcine nightmares every time I go to bed out in this uncivilized country. And Idowake up with determination—the determination to do something to get back to dear old Chicago, if I have to do the Weary Waggles act over the pike. When I think that I used to disparage our city in comparison with Boston, I feel very humble indeed. In comparison with the villages I've struck since I've been theavant courierof Graham & Co., Chicago is a paradise which no sensible man ought todepreciate. Milligan used to tell about a purgatory to which wandering souls have to go for a bit of scrubbing up to fit them for the good things of heaven. Of course he referred to experience on the road.
You complain because my selling cost in this sort of life just balances the profit I turn in to the house, but I think it should be a source of great satisfaction that you've got a son who can so rise superior to circumstances as to pay his way with the Graham incubus hitched to his shoulders. It's worth something to make an Ananias of yourself a dozen times a day, with bad dreams thrown in at the end of it. A liar is popular only when his cause hits the popular taste, and I've yet to find a town where our bluff is worth more than twenty-five cents in the pot.
Of course life isn't all a vale of tears, even during the quest for orders. There was a rift of sunlight yesterday at Simkinsville Four Corners, where I assisted at the annual Spring dog-and-badger fight. This function is gotten up with such a regard for the proprieties that even a college man has to give it his approval. I happened to arrive in town on the day of the festivity,and just naturally wanted to see it. A big crowd gathered in an open space back of the town hall, and all other interests were neglected for the time being. Even the Presbyterian minister was on hand to see that the thing was carried out in a fair and square manner, and I felt that with such spiritual backing the fight ought to be a good go.
There was a good-sized box in the centre of the ring, under which some one told me was a badger of exceptional fierceness. About ten feet away was a bull terrier who looked like the veteran of a hundred fields. He was kept in leash by a muscular negro, and the way he strained at his chain convinced me that badger was his particular meat and that he ate a good many pounds a day.
At the time I arrived on the scene there seemed to be a difference of opinion as to who should pull the string of the box and liberate the badger. Finally the row grew so intense that an election was proposed, and nominations for the exalted office were made. But every one who was mentioned seemed to have some out about him. He had bet heavily on either the dog or thebadger, and such a thing as pulling the string with impartiality was thought to be out of the question. Meantime the odds were being chalked up on a big blackboard amid the excited roars of the crowd, and it began to look as if there wouldn't be any dog-and-badger fight at all.
Just at this point somebody suggested me as the proper string-puller, on the ground that I was a stranger and not biased either way. "Besides," he urged, "as a college athlete he is an expert on sport." Then the whole crowd yelled "Graham, Graham," and I felt that I ought to respond to the confidence imposed in me. So I made a little speech in which I said I was highly honored by the nomination and would accept the duty with the firm determination to do unswerving justice to all.
I took the string as the bulldog was making frantic endeavors to get at the box, and turned my head away so as to give a pull that should be absolutely fair. Then the umpire began to count, amid the breathless silence of the crowd. At the word "three" I gave a tremendous yank at the box, and—well, the result wasn't exactly conducive to the dignity of yourstruly, for there, where I had uncovered what was supposed to be a fierce badger, stood a full-fledged cuspidor.
I don't know which looked the sickest, the dog or I, but he had the advantage of being able to sneak off into the crowd, while I had to stand and take the wild cheers of the populace like a true hero of the Graham stock. It cost me considerable to wipe out the disgrace in drink for the gathering, but it simply had to be done if I am to sell any goods in this vicinity. And as what I am out for is orders with a capital O, it follows that I've got to have the capital necessary to get 'em. You understand, of course, and will approve my next expense account with a glad hand.
In this town I am staying at the Eagle Hotel,—a hostelry that would probably carry you back to your boyhood days. It's the kind where one roller-towel does duty for every one in the washroom, and a big square trough filled with sawdust is the general office cuspidor. There's no table in my room, of course, so I'm writing this on the slanting pine board they call the writing desk, listening to the shouts of the natives and the stories of mine host, Major Jaggins.
The major is a slab-sided, lantern-jawed individual, who got his title all right in the war, as his two cork legs prove. He's a very tall man, and when I ventured to remark on his unusual height the crowd roared and voted that I was elected to "buy." All strangers buy on this particular proposition, I was told.
It seems that Major Jaggins was a regular sawed-off before the war, and he felt his lack of height keenly, especially as he had a soaring mind and had to answer to the name of "Stumpy." But his time came. At the battle of Cold Harbor he had both legs taken off by a shell. When he came to he gave a yell of delight that paralyzed the nurses and nearly scared the rest of the hospital to death. He was simply thinking of what he was going to do on the leg matter, and he realized that he wasn't going to be "Stumpy" Jaggins any more. After he was cured he just gave his order to the cork leg people to make him two of the longest pins he could stand up on. Consequently he now walks the earth a trifle shakily, to be sure, but way above the general run of mankind, and that's what he likes. He swore he'd been short long enough.
I simply mention the case of Major Jaggins as a reminder that nature doesn't know everything, and that art sometimes has the last word. Even if I'm not cut out by an obliging providence to be the proprietor of a big packing house—and your letters sometimes have a pessimistic ring that implies your belief that I am not—a good deal can be done by kindness and a judicious expenditure of money. Which leads me quite naturally to remark that your ideas of a travelling man's expenses are evidently founded on your early knowledge of pack-peddling. Then again, these country yokels have to be conciliated, and, although whiskey is cheap, they have blamed long throats.
This hotel belies its name, for they say eagles don't feed on carrion. But it's no use kicking at the table, for Major Jaggins simply stivers out to the pantry and brings back a lot of Graham cans which he places at your plate with an injured air. I suppose he has the same gag for the drummers of all the different houses, but it's effective, just the same.
Apropos of hotels, I have discovered a curious fact: the farther you go the worsethey get, and even if you strike a good one occasionally it only increases your sorrow, for comparison augments the future misery. It's no use to try to pick your hotel. No matter which one you select in a town, you'll be sorry you didn't go to the other. And if you make a change and go to the other you're dead certain to regret that you didn't know when you were well off and stay where you were.
It's no use to complain. I've tried it. Night before last I slept in a room that was apparently a gymnasium for rats. About two o'clock, when they began to use the pit of my stomach for a spring-board, I went down to the office and pried the clerk out from behind the cigar counter.
"See here," I said, "I can't sleep, there's so much noise."
"Sorry, sir, but I can't help it," he replied, flicking a dust atom from the register. "This is a hotel. The Sanitorium is on the next street. Ever try powders?"
"What on?" I queried, not to be outdone, "the rats?"
"Rats? I do hope ye haven't got them. The last man that—"
"No, I haven't got 'em, but the room has. They're all over the place."
"Rats, eh?" and the clerk gave the register a twirl. "Let's see, you're in 51—dollar room. Couldn't expect buffaloes at that price, could ye?"
I stayed in the office the rest of the night and in the morning the clerk pointed me out to his chief.
"That gent," he said, "has insomniay."
"That won't do, young man," said the landlord, with a withering look. "We can't have such things in this house. It's a family hotel."
I tried making inquiries, but it's no good. Every man in town will swear that some particular hotel is "the best this side the Mississippi." Foolishly enough, I tried to quiz the clerk of one house, while I was registering. I wound up a few queries about the table with the conundrum, "Are your eggs fresh?" He knew the answer.
"Fresh?" he drawled, looking straight at me. Then he rang a bell, and cried, "Front!" The one bell-boy appeared from somewhere, eating what was once an apple.
"Gent to hund'erd an' thirteen," said the clerk. "An', boy, stop at the dining-hall on your way back and tell the head waiterthat this gentleman is to have his eggs laid on his toast by the hens direct."
That was the end of my attempts at previous investigating. Now if I cannot eat the food, I content myself with chewing the cud of bitter reflection. But I'd barter my immortal soul for a square meal at mother's round table.
The time I've put in at the different grocery stores to-day has served as a regular eye-opener to me as to the game I'm up against. Apparently nobody in this whole country except the patrons of the Eagle eat any packed provisions at all, and our special brand seems to be a dead one on all the shelves. I couldn't give the stuff away, much less sell it. I did place one order for a hundred pails of lard, but I learned to-night that the fellow is going into insolvency in a day or two, so I guess you'd better not send the stuff.
Taking it by and large, I have discovered that a thorough course in hypnotism would be the best equipment for a successful salesman of our particular kind of goods. For instance, if I could look old Sol Blifkins of the Harrod's Creek Bazaar and Emporium in the eye, and make himbelieve that folks were just clamoring for frankfurts instead of rum in these parts, and compel him to see a blank space where our aged cans are still lumbering his shelves, I fancy the thing would be a cinch. One of our fellows at Harvard, the son of an Episcopal bishop, wrote me a while ago that his father had decided upon his taking orders, and that it was a blamed hard proposition; I don't know what his special line is, but if it can match this gunning for pork buyers he has my sincere sympathy.
I keep running across Job Withers. I think he's detailed by his house to watch me. He arrived at the City Hotel this morning just as I was leaving it to go on a still hunt for a ham sandwich. He greeted me cheerily.
"Ah! been stopping at the City? Good hotel. Fine table."
"Is it?" I said calmly.
"Yes, indeed; best this side of Indianapolis."
Thank heaven, I'm going the other way. I didn't tell him that. What I did say was: "You say this is a good hotel and a good table?" He nodded. "Well," Iwent on, "let me tell you a story." That staggered him, for I saw he realized that if I'd reached the story stage I was due for business.
"There was once a little boy," I proceeded, "who was sitting on the walk under a green apple tree, doubled up with cramps and howling like a pocket edition fiend. A bespectacled lady of severe cast of countenance, stopped and asked him his trouble. 'Them,' said the boy, pointing to the tree, 'and I've an orful pain.'
"'Pain!' said the lady, 'don't you know there's no such thing? You only think so. Have faith and you'll have no pain.'
"'Gee!' said the boy, 'that's all right. You may think there's no pain, but,' rubbing his stomach dolefully, 'I've positive inside information.' And so have I about this hotel," I said to Withers as I left him. Confidentially, I think Withers' label reads "N. G." My one object in life is to put him off the reservation. From now on watch
Your hustling son,Pierrepont.
P.S. Please ask the cashier to forward an immediate check for enclosed voucher—a bill presented by the landlord of the Eagle Hotel. The "medical services" were for typhoid fever, contracted by his family. It appears that your drummer who came here last fall emptied part of the contents of his sample case in a vacant lot back of the hotel.
Pierrepont Graham as a Travelling Salesman
Pierrepont Graham as a Travelling Salesman.
LETTER NO. XII.
Pierrepont puts one of the paternal theories intoexecution with unfortunate results andrecites some drummer's yarns withphilosophical addenda.
Muddy Fork, Ind., April 21, 189—
Dear Father:
The tone of your last letter isn't altogether pleasing to me, nor does it reflect credit on yourself. You hint that because I am patient under this life of hardship and abuse, spent in trying to convince people that what they know about Graham & Co's. stuff is all wrong—you hint, I say, that I am a mule. If that is so, your knowledge of natural history ought to show you that you are not patting yourself on the back to any great extent; you are my father, you know. You remind me of what Johnny Doolittle, who used to live next door to us, once said to his father when the old man remonstrated at his lack of table manners.
"Johnny, you are a perfect pig!" shouted old Doolittle.
"Well, pa," replied Johnny, as innocent as could be, "ain't a pig a hog's little boy?"
I mention Johnny merely to remind you that the sort of reviling I have been getting of late out here in this God-forsaken country; on duty for the house, has its recoil and you're the fellow who's getting hit. It's worse than old Elder Hoover's famous gun that Uncle Ephraim used to tell me about. According to him, there was a big rabbit hunt one day, and the Elder was persuaded to join. Some of the backsliders had rigged up a gun for his special use, loaded with a double charge of powder and shot and rammed tighter than glue. At last Doc drew a bead on a big jack and let go. When the roar had ceased and the smoke lifted, the Elder was seen on his back, pawing the air with hands and feet and shouting for help.
"Did the gun kick, Elder?" asked one of the bad hunters.
"Kick," roared the good man, "it nearly kicked me into hell, for if I hadn't been so stunned I'd have taken the name of the Lord in vain, as sure as I'm a miserable sinner."
Now if you want me to kick, dear father, I can do a job that would make a Missouri mule look like a grasshopper. I'm shod with good hard facts which you know as much about as I do. If decency doesn't suit you, I'll give you an exhibition of bag-punching that will make your head swim.
I now beg leave to report on the result of one of your pieces of advice as to ways and means in selling. A little while back, you remember, you said that I was pretty sure to run into a buyer who would bring me a pail of lard which he would say was made by a competitor, and ask what I thought of such stuff. Then, when I had condemned it by and large, you allowed he would tell me it was our own lard and the store would have the grand cachinnation on me. What I ought to say, you observed, was, that I didn't think So-and-So could produce such good stuff. That would clinch an order, sure enough—still according to you.
Well, I ran into the identical thing at Higginbotham Bros., in this town. Just as I was nailing an order for 200 pails with Lige Higginbotham, his brother Nat blewin with some lard that he said was made by Skinner & Co., our big rivals, and asked me what I thought of that for a bucket of slush.
I had presence of mind enough to remember what you had said, and I told him that it was a blamed sight better lard than I thought Skinner & Co. were capable of putting out. Then I waited for the laugh at Nat's expense, but there wasn't any. It was very, very quiet, a stillness relieved only by the working of Lige's jaws on his quid.
"Well," said he, after a pause that I knew was deadly, "if you, a competitor, say it's good lard, why, gosh dang it, itmustbe all right. And seein' that Skinner's always treated us white, I guess I'll telegraph that order for 200 pails instead of givin' it to you."
You see the lardwasSkinner's, as I saw a minute afterwards by the cover on the pail. This little incident gives me serious doubts whether you can safely regard all men as liars.
There happens to be quite a jolly crowd of drummers of various persuasions at this hotel just at present, and last night we had a littleseancein the smoking-room formutual inspiration and advancement. The talk naturally got rather shoppy at last, and the fellows began bragging of the business they did. A drummer for grindstones said that he thought he'd average up about six sales a day, and a fellow in whiskey allowed that he would make at least ten. Then a Hebrew, who travelled with neckties, declared that he could take in about a dozen orders, and so it went. I modestly admitted that I was handicapped, and that two sales per diem were about all I could attain to under the circumstances. Of course that's more than I do make, but, as you say, you've got to impress the world with the fact that you're some pumpkins or you won't get assessed at even cucumbers.
They'd all got through their little yarns, except one thin-faced, quiet chap who sat in a corner and didn't have much to say. Finally the Hebrew pounced on him, thinking he'd have some fun at his expense.
"You hafn't told us vat you do, mein frent," he said to the quiet fellow. "Eferypody must speak in this exberience meeting. How many sales do you make?"
The man looked up with a sort of weary expression on his face and replied:
"Well, if I make one sale a year, I think I'm doing pretty well."
"Von sale a year!" exclaimed the descendant of Aaron, with a pitying smile. "Von sale ayear! Vy, vot do you travel for?"
"Suspension bridges," replied the quiet man, and we all regarded our cigar ashes in silence. After a while we suspended the Hebrew from the association for not making good at the bar.
One of the crowd is a Boston fellow who is out selling encyclopedias. He has the usual Hub classicism, aided and abetted by a desire to ask conundrums. He hit everybody good and hard, and then landed on me.
"Why are you so different from Circe?" he asked.
Of course I gave it up. Does anybody ever guess conundrums they don't know?
"Because Circe turned men into hogs, while you are trying to turn hogs into men," he replied, and I started for bed then and there. Always on the hog, always! When will it end?
This town is full and boiling over with drummers. I never saw so many in oneday in my life. There is more shop talk going on here to-night than occurs in a week in all the Siegel-Cooper stores. I verily believe that there are ten men here to try and sell something, for every man there is to buy. Somehow or other the town has assumed the proportions of a junction, or a drummers' fair. The townspeople, they say, are much excited over it, and the village constable is at the town hall swearing in two deputies. As Job Withers has made himself very conspicuous during the day, I think the reason for the reign of terror is evident.
Job, by the way, had a bit of the conceit taken out of him at the depot this evening. Several of us were down there to inquire about trains, etc. As no train would stop for nearly an hour, none of the station hands were about. Withers took the fact as a text and delivered a short, but exceedingly ornate, sermon to the crossing flagman on the moribund condition of the town. He fairly tore its reputation to shreds. Finally, with one finger laying down the law in the palm of his other hand, Job fired this at the defenceless old flagman:
"I tell you, sir, this town needs more life and energy. Something needs to come along and shake things up."
Just then the Inter-state Express dashed by at sixty miles an hour, and "something" came along. It was a heavy mail bag tossed from Uncle Sam's car, and it took poor Job plumb in the centre of gravity. Over he went, like an Arabian acrobat. When we picked him out of the ditch he looked like what's left after a Kansas cyclone. But he was game.
"Boys, this time the laugh's on me," he cried. "The evening's artificial irrigation will be charged to my house."
I hate to do it, but I must. When Job tries to cut me out of a trade with his stories, I'll make him the hero of one of mine. Then I guess I'll coax a little business by his fat sides.
Speaking of trains, reminds me of the laugh some of the boys had on Sol Lichinstein the other day. He was to take the 3.30 out of Michigan City, and about quarter of three his great bulk—he is very corpulent—was seen dashing down the street at furious pace. A half hour later two or three other drummers, whohad proceeded leisurely to the station, found him still out of breath. "What made you run so, Sol?" asked one of them.
"Hang it all!" he answered, "the clock in front of the jeweler's store in the hotel block was wrong. It said 3.20."
"The clock on the post, Sol?" asked one of the party.
"Yes; confound it!"
"Well, Sol, that clock's said 3.20 every time I've been here for four years. The hands are painted on."
When the story was told to a party of us, one man spoke up after the laugh and said: "Well, it's not surprising. Lichinstein is always chock full of business."
I met him to-day for the first time and found this statement is true. Heischock full of business—liquor business is his line.
Apropos of business, I may state that I think you must find some cause to congratulate yourself on the gains I am making. As you say, new methodsarebetter than old and I am beginning to believe I have discovered a few of them. It has taken me some time, for it's hard toteach an old dog new tricks and, although I'm not so old, still I'm somewhat removed from the young pup you once called me. Still, an old dog can learn new tricks—by himself. Old Gabe Short, of Harrod's Creek, says the only reason you cannot teach an old dog new tricks is because he has got on to the game and refuses to learn 'em, knowing that he will be called up to perform for company. Old Gabe knows, for he has heaps of opportunity for observation. He hasn't done any work for over thirty years. The story goes that he was such a coward at the outbreak of the Rebellion that he said, that rather than go to war he'd stay at home and lick stamps. And he did it, too. After all the men went to war he got the postmastership.
Gabe has a fat old water spaniel who is too lazy to do anything but eat and chase fleas. The latter task is usually performed in half-hearted fashion. One day—but I'll try to tell it as old Gabe does.
"One day an out-of-town dog was friendly with Neb and after he left there seemed to be a heap o' worry on my dog's mind. He just couldn't keep still. It was scratch here and nibble there. Fleas never seemedto stir him up like that afore and I made up my mind that the strange cur had imported a new brand of the critters. Finally the old fellow was so bad that I gave him a dose of flea powder. Seems like it druv the varmints all into his tail, fur he chased it fur hours, as he hadn't done since he was a purp. I was busy and anyway I'd used all the powder I had. He's so fat he couldn't catch that tail and it was funny an' a bit pitiful, too, the way he went after it.
"Finally, just as he seemed driven to desperation, he stopped short. He stood and looked around at that tail. Then he slowly backed up against the counter till his tail laid alongside. Then he pushed hard and grabbed. When he got through chewing that tail if there was a flea left it was mincemeat."
I merely mention this in passing to illustrate that experience is a pretty good teacher, and that it must be your own experience—no one's else will do. Your counsels and rules of life are very enlightening and all that, but they are really of little value compared with the hard knocks of actual experience. You may explain toa boy till you're black in the face that fire is a dangerous element to monkey with, but it takes a few burnt fingers to instill real dread of a cannon-cracker. You are giving me the experience and I have no doubt that it's the best thing that could happen to me. But really, father, you may overdo it. Your anxiety for my future may make my present unduly uncomfortable.
In this connection I am reminded of a story told by the pastor of Tremont Temple in Boston, Dr. George C. Lorimer, in a lecture that I attended. He didn't vouch for the truth of the story, but thought it enforced a moral. "A nestful of linnets," he said, "were in a field in India. Their mother had flown away and left them. They were cold and hungry and flapped their wings and cried. An enormous elephant chanced to note their plight. 'Poor little things,' said the elephant. 'No mother, no one to keep you warm and nestle you. My mother's heart aches for you. I will nestle you and keep you warm.' And the elephant, in pure goodness of heart, sat down upon the nest of poor little linnets."
It may not be out of order to mention that you quite frequently sit upon
Your loving son,Pierrepont.
P.S. Just a suggestion. A leading grocer here says, that if the labels on our canned goods did not display the name "Graham" so prominently, he thinks he could sell some of them.
LETTER NO. XIII.
A farmhouse, a farmer's daughter and bucolicpleasures and pastimes give Pierrepont arespite from commercial activities, butnot from the study of pig.
Doolittle Mills, Ind., May 25, 189—
Dear Father:
I take it that you are now enough of a philosopher to suppress any surprise you may feel to see a letter dated at this outpost of civilization. I admit that it's somewhat off the beaten track for the distribution of lard and pork products, but I got here legitimately enough, as you shall learn. The people hereabouts raise their own hogs, and I believe it would interest you to see the real article. Their lard is so attractive in appearance that I mistook it for vanilla ice cream when shown some last night, not stopping to think that your simon-pure farmer never uses his cream for such frivolous purposes. However, their stuff showed me that the nearer you get to nature and the farther from thestock-yards, the more respectable an animal is the pig.
But to the adventure that brought me here. I left for the southern part of the state yesterday morning on the Gatling Gun Express, and all went well until we struck a cow at about noon, a few miles from where I have pitched the Graham headquarters. The cow is now beef, all right, but the locomotive is also scrap-iron. The track was blocked for keeps at the lonely crossing where the horror occurred, and there seemed to be no escape from a dreary wait for the wrecking train. But I investigated, and soon discovered an ancient farmer with a horse whose meridian of life had long since passed, jogging along toward somewhere—anywhere, away from the slough of despond in which the cow had deposited us. I grabbed my samples—which, by the way, are of no earthly use in this section of the world—and begged for transportation. I got it for twenty-five cents and a cigar whose antecedents I fain would forget, and started for the interior.
It was an interesting locality where we brought up. Doolittle's Mills are apparently so named because there's so littledoing in them that the building which gives the place its name looks like a church where all the citizens are atheists. Once a year, in the time of the early spring freshets, they saw a few boards for exercise. But just now the farmers have the call, and the call is usually the tin-horn summons to dinner, which is the only sound that awakes any interest in the people. Just now they are putting in potatoes, corn, and beans, and the only fertilizer they use are cuss words and hard cider, which go well enough together at the start, but don't hitch worth a cent at harvest time.
My rustic benefactor was christened Martin Van Buren Philpot, but long use has shrunk his cognomen considerably, and he is now known as "Vebe." He has a big quiverful of children, the thirteenth of whom arrived about three weeks ago. "Vebe" has named him Theodore Roosevelt, and is still waiting for the silver mug. Says he's afraid the thirteen part of it will queer the kid's chances.
You would like Mrs. Philpot, I think. She is full of homely philosophy and has a face to match. Her cooking, though,might be improved by a course of training under Oscar of the Waldorf. I don't just remember the sort of biscuits Ma used to produce, but if they were anything like Mrs. Philpot's I can account for your dyspepsia.
The little Philpots are sportive creatures who insist on showing me the pigs about a dozen times a day. I believe I unwarily dropped a hint as to my occupation when I arrived, and they seem to think I want to see pork all the time. They call me the hog man, but they are such innocent kids that I can't show any resentment. This afternoon they took me out to the pasture to view a sit-still's nest. Said the mother bird was on the eggs and wouldn't fly, even when handled. Just before we reached the place two of them ran ahead, and Johnny Philpot clapped his straw hat on the ground and signalled me to hurry.
"She's here, all right, mister," said Johnny, quivering with excitement. "Now you jest stoop down, and when I lift my hat, you grab the bird."
Slowly the brim of yellow straw rose, and with lightning-like celerity I dashed my hand through the opening. Then therewas a sharp click and a wild whoop from myself as a steel trap closed its jaws on my fingers and held on like death. You never saw such delighted children in your life. They danced around me all the while I was trying to get the confounded thing off my hand, and said I "swore orful." I guess I did. After awhile Johnny helped me, and allowed I was real funny. He'll never know how near he came to a violent death in his happy childhood.
The way these simple people combine business and pleasure would be a revelation to the packing house. I saw a good example of this peculiarity at a barn-raising that "Vebe" Philpot arranged for this morning. It showed, too, that the countryman was the original socialist. About forty farmers gathered at the place in vehicles that would simply make the Lake Front howl. Every man then visited the toolhouse, where a tin wash-boiler filled with what they call here "horse's neck," a savage compound of whiskey and hard cider, occupied the place of honor. They tell me that "horse's neck" and barn-raisings are one and inseparable in these parts, and that any attempt to preach temperance at suchoccasions would lead to rioting. I'll do old Philpot the justice to say that his wash-boiler was the real thing, and erred a bit on the side of hard liquor, if anything.
Having gotten themselves in first-class trim, the barn-raisers proceeded to business. The way they do the work is this: Two uprights lying on the ground are fastened top and bottom by crossbeams and a long rope is hitched to each end. About fifteen men attach their persons to each rope, and the other ten jam big crowbars against the bottom beam to prevent its slipping. Then somebody yells "hist her!" and the crowd on the ropes tug like bulls and that part of the frame goes slowly up. They prop this up lightly to prevent its falling, and proceed to get the other end perpendicular in the same fashion. Then up go the sides to be cleated to the end, and the thing is done.
But it wasn't quite done this morning, for just as the second side was being fastened in place by my genial host, who had been boosted up on the corner to do the job, one of the props broke, and the whole blamed frame, including "Vebe," came to the ground in a grand crash. "Vebe"wasn't hurt very much physically, but his spirits were greatly damaged. Father, you may think you can juggle expletives pretty well, you may believe that Milligan can swear good and plenty; but neither of you ever dreamed of such a Niagara of blue-streaked and sulphur-fumed cuss words as came from that irate farmer. The rest of the crowd lit out, after a farewell visit to the wash-boiler, for, as one weazened old veteran told me confidentially, "When 'Vebe' war in tarntrums it war no use treatin' him like a civilized critter."
To that mishap of the morning I attribute the rather doleful ending of something that occurred this evening. It seems that old Philpot's son Ike got married a day or two ago, and, after the poetic custom of the country, the neighbors determined to give him a serenade. To-night was the chosen time. I guess it was a surprise, all right, for when the awful pandemonium of tin horns, cow-bells, rattles, cracked cornets and whistles broke upon the peaceful air like a blast from a madhouse, old "Vebe" made a dash for his double-barrelled shotgun and let go twice into the crowd.
"Dern fresh fools," he growled, as he cleaned his smoking gun. "Guess that'll season 'em all right." I was horrified and asked him if he wasn't afraid he had killed somebody.
"Kill nuthin'," he snorted. "That thar was good honest rock salt. It'll melt inside their blasted pelts and sting like all possessed, but that's all. Don't you worry about any of 'em dyin', they're too consarned tough."
Of course Ike and his new wife appeared on the scene as soon as the rumpus began, and the young husband bitterly upbraided his dad, until I thought I should have to serve as referee in a good bout then and there. Ike said that the old man had ruined his credit in the town forever; that he never could hold his head up again. He appealed to me, and asked why fathers always wanted to make jackasses of themselves where their sons were concerned. I couldn't tell him, of course. Finally the household quieted down, but the upshot of it is that Ike is going to quit to-morrow and get out a handbill, saying that his father was drunk when the unfortunate affair occurred, and inviting the town toserenade him again in his new home. You see it's almost a religious point with young couples in this section of the world that their banns be blessed with the most outrageous racket man can devise. They actually feel sort of shame-faced otherwise.
Speaking of banns naturally leads me to remark, that however shy on personal beauty Mrs. Philpot may be, she has a daughter of the A1 pure leaf brand. Her name is Verbena, and she can certainly give points to her namesake in the matter of sweetness. Naturally, she was somewhat upset after the stirring experiences of this evening, and I felt it my duty to restore her equanimity, especially as I was a guest in the house. We sat for quite a while in the best parlor and Verbena grew somewhat confidential. She said she had a beau over at Bumstead Four Corners, but that as a sparker he was about as useful as a pig of lead. Asked me if I didn't think that city men had more real romance and made better husbands. At this point I slowly withdrew my hand from her pretty one, for there was something in the suggestion that looked ominous.
I think I might have kissed Verbenagood-night had not old Philpot appeared on the scene. I am almost inclined to believe that he had some notion as to what I meditated and that he was simply a little ahead of time. For, before coming to my room to write, I strolled out for a smoke and met one of Philpot's neighbors, a garrulous old fellow.
"Verbena's a likely gal," was the way he opened on me. I admitted it. "Engaged yit?" was his astounding query. Quietly but firmly, I denied the soft impeachment. "So-ho" he said, "Vebe's a-gettin' slow."
Curiosity got the better of me and in a half hour's talk I wormed considerable information out of my companion. It seems that the three oldest girls married recently and that their husbands were travelling men who, for some occult reason, had penetrated into this country. In two cases there was an elopement, said my informant.
"What did the father do?" I asked, thinking of old Philpot's shotgun.
"Do?" echoed the old farmer, "waal, he helped the hired man to sot the ladder under Dahlia's window, and when Lobelia skipped with her feller, 'Vebe' routed the hired man out o' bed at two in the morningto hitch up the best hoss, so's he could foller the elopers with the girl's trunk. I tell yer, it's tough tripe to have so many darters in this country."
I've made up my mind that Verbena's flier than she looks and that she and her old man have an understanding.
To-morrow I leave this sylvan retreat and start once more on the pursuit of the man who wants pig. I believe this little outing has given me new nerve, and that you will soon get Orders, More Orders and Big Orders, the only trinity you seem to think has any holiness in it. I wonder how Verbena will take my departure.
Your dutiful son,Pierrepont.
P.S. I've been thinking over old Philpot's rock salt shooting, and it suggests a great idea. "Why not kill hogs with volleys of the stuff, thus obviating the necessity of salting 'em?" Do I get a raise for this invention?
P.
LETTER NO. XIV.
A companionable deputy sheriff, a hospitabletownsman, and "the best-natured wife onearth" inspires Pierrepont's pen to thenarration of lively incidents.
Jasper, Ind., July 21, 189—
My Dear Father:
I am surprised that my broker should have given you the particulars of my little flyer in short ribs—I mean ribs short—and in future I shall patronize another broker. The few hundreds I made in that deal I had relied upon to dispose of a little bill I owe in Chicago. When it started it wasn't quite so much like the national debt as it is now; but the fact is, I have been carting a deputy sheriff round the country for three weeks, paying for his time and board. Now you want me to return the check, endorsed to the treasurer of some orphanage. If you saw that deputy sheriff you wouldn't have the heart. If I sent you back the check it was lost in the mail and we'll forget it.
I've been so busy arranging to sell carloads of our stuff that I really haven't been able to write before, but when I got rid of that deputy a great load was removed from my mind. It's a tough thing to go in to try and sell a hard proposition a bill of goods—thisisa euphemism in our case—and know that the eye of the law is glued upon the show-window, lest you escape by the back door. If I'm to keep up my present spurt in the market you'll have to raise the limit. Thirty a week might do for a drummer when you started business, but for a commercial traveller of to-day it's only tip money. I'm making good now, and if I'm not worth more than thirty I'm useless to you. I may mention in passing that I've had an offer from Soper & Co. to jump over to them. They don't know I'm your son. They know that I'm the same fellow who was at your mailing desk a while back, and probably cannot imagine that you would treat your only the way I was treated. You will agree with me that business is business and I can learn it quite as well selling car lots for Soper as for any one else. A word to the wise—and to the cashier—is sufficient.
Don't worry about my becoming a victim to gambling on margin. Your tip on the market—that you will fire me if I keep it up—is valuable. I will see to it that you hear no more of my trading. I should not have taken this particular flyer had it not been for the fact that you wrote the last sheet of one of your recent letters on the back of a typewritten note from Gamble & Chance, in which they advised you that they had placed your order to sell ribs short. I just made up my mind that what was good enough for pop must be real velvet for sonny. You know you have always urged me to follow your example. I am quite certain that, now you are in possession of the full facts, you will revise your idea about that check. At all events, as I have hinted, that particular check is so full of bank teller's stamps that its own father would scarcely know it.
I never did take much stock in trading "on 'change." It's a form of gambling where interest is sacrificed by the fact that you do not see the ball rolled or the cards dealt. Even when you see the play you may be up against a brace game, so what can you expect when two or three bigdealers, like my revered parent, get together and mark the cards for a big game? Anyway, I'd rather bet any day on something straight. If a man gambles on whether the sun will shine or not on certain days he may be unlucky enough to lose every trip, but he will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that no thimble rigging in somebody's back office introduced the clouds.
Finance, as I understand it, is the art of making the other fellow's dollar work for the financier; but this requires a sort of hypnotism that I do not yet possess. I may grow to it; indeed, now that I find myself able to sell the goods manufactured by our house, I am almost afraid to look a mirror in the face lest I discover that I am possessed of the evil eye. The "marts of trade," as the poet puts it, strike me as queer places. The interior of a stock or produce exchange is certainly an understudy for bedlam, if my imagination is correct.
"Give you 86 for C.P. & N.," shouts one.
"No," comes the reply, "want 86 and an eighth."
"All right."
"Sold."
"I'll take 500."
And nobody takes a thing, for the man who sells it hasn't got it and the man who buys don't want it. No wonder the poor lambs lose their fleece and their heads. Nevertheless, that short-rib check was a life-saver.
I was actually so poor that I had to descend to living in lodgings for three days. Think of it, the heir of Graham & Co. in lodgings! What would "the street" say of that? But I have found that the Graham credit is all covered with N.G.'s at the hotels and I scarcely cared to come home with a deputy sheriff among my excess baggage. So I went into lodgings in an "over Sunday" town. It gave me a lesson on the danger of officiousness that I'm not likely to forget, but, although for a few minutes I could see the danger lights of a sound thrashing dead ahead, it ended pleasantly. Lodgings were hard to find, but the cigar store man finally recommended me to a place. The woman who answered my ring was willing to let me—and the sheriff—a room, but before we arranged terms she took me one side and made an explanation.
Her husband, she said, was apt to stayout very late at night in convivial company and I might be disturbed by his noise when he came home. I assured her that, as a patron of hotels, I was quite used to this sort of thing, and forthwith negotiated for the use of her front parlor. About two o'clock in the morning we were awakened by the sound of bacchanalian revelry outside the window. I looked out and saw a man on the grassplot in front of the house. He was just able to move—and howl—and his frantic struggles to get on his feet were funnier than Milligan's attempts to put on superior airs.
"Ah, the inebriate husband!" I said to the sheriff, who agreed with me that it would be a good scheme to get him off the lawn and into the house. So we slipped on enough clothing to cover the law and the major part of our persons and went out. The serenader was light weight and we carried him up the steps without difficulty. He stopped singing long enough to roar:
"Whas-yer-doin'—lemme go—lemme go, I tell yer."
"Come to bed," I said, soothingly.
"Done wan ter go ter bed—never go t'bed Sat'day night," he hiccoughed. "This not (hic) my bed."
We bore him into the front hall, and laid him down to get a fresh hold for the journey upstairs. He was happy again and started a new song. Just then a light appeared at the top of the stairs, and I saw the landlady's face peering over the balustrade. In my most courteous manner I asked:
"Shall we bring him upstairs, madam?"
"Who?" she asked.
"Your husband."
She did not reply, but another voice did. "I am her husband, sir," and another head, with a jolly face and a big moustache, appeared beside the landlady's.
We dumped our operatic load across the street and I hid my shamed head in the pillows, making a sacred vow that for ever more I shall keep very busy attending to my own affairs. This led to a very pleasant Sunday for me—and the sheriff—however. The landlady's husband could take a joke—especially when it was on me, and at breakfast we became very good friends. He invited me to his club and we—and the legal limb—spent the afternoonthere. His face grew bigger and jollier each hour, and finally he became very confidential. Referring to his own peccadilloes, he made the statement that he had the best-natured wife in the world. I had no reason to controvert this, but he seemed to think that I doubted it, and went on to accumulate testimony.
"We've never had a quarrel yet, though we've been married sixteen years," he declared. "I'll bet that no matter what I might do when I go home, she'd smile through it all."
This didn't interest me, but my legal guardian seemed curious. He even went so far as to doubt our friend. It wasn't long before they had patched up some sort of a wager between them. The husband was to go home to supper, appear intoxicated, raise a row, break dishes and otherwise generally make an ass of himself. If his wife kept her temper it was on the sheriff, andvice versa.
Bill—his name was William Jenks—started off ahead. We were to follow at a distance and observe results from the yard. Bill began to totter and sway as he neared the house, and presently Mrs. J. ran out ofthe front gate to meet him. She picked up his hat from the ground, brushed it and put it on, and then kissed him. Then she guided his uncertain legs into the house. When we reached the window which looked into the parlor we saw Bill sitting on the floor, howling incoherencies at his wife, who was trying to help him pull off his shoes. When they were off he commanded: "Put 'em on the mantelpiece," and she did it. Then he got up and staggered across the room and fell, just before he reached a sofa.
"What did yer pull sofa 'way for?" he howled.
"Oh, William, forgive me. I didn't know. I'm so awkward. Did you hurt yourself?" And she tried to help him up. But he wouldn't get up, and continued to abuse her like a pickpocket. Finally she induced him to go into the dining-room and sit down at the supper table. As a prelude he shied a teacup past her head and against the wall. Then he pulled away the tablecloth and with it the dishes, and sat down on the floor amid the ruins.
What did that wonder of a woman do but plump down on the floor in front of himand say, with a smile as of gratified pleasure, "Why, William, isn't this nice? We haven't eaten on the floor since we were married. So like the old picnic days!" Then she tried to rearrange the broken crockery and rescue the supper. It was too much for me, and I guess Bill thought he had gone far enough, for he began to smile and abandoned his assumed inebriety.
"Mary, my dear," he said, "I brought home a couple of friends to supper. They're outside and—"
"Brought home friends to supper," cried his wife, jumping to her feet, "brought them home to supper, did you, without notice to me, when you knew it was Sally's afternoon out? I'll teach you," and she set both hands in his hair and shook him. "I've stood your freaks for sixteen years and been patient and loving, but this is more than human nature is capable of. Friends? No warning? What would they think of me?"
Our entrance relieved the tragedy, but Jenks was terror-stricken. The surprise was too much for him. For the first time he realized that even the most docile of women have reservations and that everyworm has some turning point. He finally explained the joke and it was received with his wife's smiles. He was desperately anxious to square himself and then and there presented her with twenty dollars, to which the sheriff added the ten-dollar bill which he insisted he had lost on the wager. I saw Jenks the following evening. "You'll never guess," he said, "what that woman did with the thirty?"
I acknowledged my incapacity to cope with the subject.
"Bought me a smoking-jacket, a meerschaum pipe and three boxes of Havanas. And, my boy," he added, "I've quit drinking. She's so good that I'm going to see all I can of her in my lifetime, for we'll keep house separately in the next world."
I guess he's right, for they'll certainly feel called upon to build a special alcove in heaven when she reaches there.
Your snappy observation that the poorest men on earth are the relations of millionaires strikes me in a very sensitive spot. I realize its truth, and I can assure you that if something is not done speedily to decrease the discrepancy between my income and my outgo, there will be asensational story for the newspapers, with cuts—cuts of you and me, with possibly a picture of the hog plant thrown in for decorative purposes. If you think this would be a good ad., I'll play the cards as they lay. If not, please see to it that my expense accounts are accepted more in the spirit in which they are made.
My ex-guardian, the sheriff, has given me many pointers on how to escape the debt trap—it was after I settled his particular claim—but I don't think you'd care to have me get a reputation as a shirker of obligations. Sometimes, though, the escapes from the clutches of the law are very amusing. The sheriff tells of a good one that happened recently in Indianapolis. It seems that a young spendthrift was arrested for debt on the very day he was to be married to a wealthy widow. Knowledge of his plight would put an end to his expectations in this direction, and he was at his wits' ends as the two officers escorted him along the street.
In front of the City Hall a carriage was standing and as they approached the mayor of the city entered it and conversed for a moment through the window with a friend.
Mr. Spendthrift had an inspiration and said to the officers: "You know that gentleman who got into that carriage?"
"Yes," said one of them, "It's Mayor B——."
"Well, he's my uncle, and if I ask him he'll see me out of this thing. You'll take his guarantee, of course."
The deputies thought it would be satisfactory and when they reached the carriage the men hung back. The young man took off his hat and put his head into the carriage window just as it was about to start.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Mayor," he said, "but there are two men with me who have influence in the seventh ward. They say they'll be glad to work for you at the election next week if you'll give them any encouragement."
"Very well," said the mayor, "bring them here."
The spendthrift beckoned to the deputies and they approached. The mayor looked them over and said: "Come around to my office at 5 o'clock this afternoon and I'll fix up this matter." Then he drove off and the spendthrift borrowed half a dollar ofone of the deputies, went and got shaved and then married.
I simply mention this to illustrate to what extremities an appetite for truffles and mushrooms may lead a young man whose pocket money prescribes cheese sandwiches and spinach. For the honor of the name I must not be permitted to be set down as deficient in credit. This reallymustappeal to you. As you say, a man must not overwork a dollar, and the thirty of them I am now receiving per week get fatigued to a standstill within twenty-four hours after I make their acquaintance.
Yours in trust,P.
P.S. I would respectfully suggest that you do not show this letter to mother. The story of Bill Jenk's wife might not appeal to her.