CHAPTER VII.
The Museum Scheme and the Six Widows—Traveling Without Paying Railroad Fare—Living on Free Lunches—At a Low Ebb—The Animated Chocolate Drop—Old Auntie From Smoky Row—The Corn Doctor—The Excited Mob—Not Only Broke, But Dead-Broke—The Letter From Home—Getting Out of Town.
Of course, it would take up too much time to tell of all my wanderings and my numerous ups and downs. My idea is not to give more than one experience with any particular line of business, and in that show just how I worked, and indicate about what was my percentage of profit.
I worked off the stock of goods sent me C. O. D. by my friend, the professor, bought a number of other stocks on my own account, and covered considerable territory. If my success was great, however, my personal expenses were large. I was not naturally an extravagant man, had not very well remembered the lessons of economy, and wealth did not accumulate in my hands as rapidly as the reader might suppose.
One morning I woke up with nothing special on my hands, and just three hundred dollars in my pockets. Impelled by what was probably a whim to start in some permanent business, I went to the town of Marshall, Georgia, on a prospecting tour. I saw no opening there which impressed me favorably, until, while I was waiting undecided what to do, I met the manager of a theatrical company which had just stranded in a neighboring city.
After a little conversation, an idea struck me, which I immediately carried into effect. I made my arrangements with the manager for himself and the six female members of the company, giving the gentleman enough money to get out of town. I rented a large hall, and opened it up as an original museum. We put the six ladies on exhibition as the principal and, in fact, the only attraction, advertising them as six beautiful widows in search of husbands.
Each exhibition was interspersed with little orations, in which we gave the ages and pedigrees of the different ladies, together with the amount of cash each one had in her own right. Every eligible single gentleman was entitled to registration by name or number—or by both—as a candidate for the hand of the lady he might select, and we started in with the number something like 22,911. The choice of the lady was to be made at the end of the season.
The widows looked very charming in their fancy full dress costumes, and did several dignified “turns” in singing and legitimate theatricals, proving a great drawing card, with the sterner sex. For a while the dimes and quarters came rolling in pretty fast, but eventually the novelty began to wear off and the audiences thinned out, so that I decided to shift my field of operations. My expenses had really been heavier than I knew. The manager gambled and lost a great deal of our capital; the various widows had divided up into pairs, each jealous of the others. The brightest lady of the troupe fell sick of a fever, the most beautiful one eloped with a worthless actor, one was really married to a planter residing in the neighborhood of Marshall, who bravely followed her up and cut her out from under my very nose, and two more “silently stole away” the very night of the walking of the ghost, leaving me with just a remnant of one charming widow on my hands.
Fearful lest I might be led into the only apparently legitimate outcome, that of marrying the unexpended balance, I left that lady the entire remnant of my fortune, amounting in all to about forty dollars, only reserving enough to get me out of town, and then ran away myself. It had taken about four months to find out that, though my ideas might be both original and good, I was not cut out for a successful museum manager. I quit the business a sadder and wiser man.
At that time the business of securing “free transportation” had not been brought down to the present fine point. Perhaps one reason was that most any person with a plausible excuse and the gall to apply could secure a pass from New Orleans to Halifax.
In my hours of prosperity, of course, I paid my fare over the railroads, the same as any other millionaire; when stranded I only walked when it was impossible to ride.
There was no special ingenuity displayed in beating the railroad, as long as my baggage had been forwarded by express, and I was not fastidious about my surroundings. Of course, there was a strong probability of being “ditched” before reaching destination, but that was part of the game. Occasionally I borrowed a box-car or rode the “blind baggage.” In moments of dark adversity, I was ready to try a brake beam or find a hiding place in the back part of the tender. I have ridden on top of a passenger coach, in the manger of a palace horse car, and even taken a flyer on the pilot of an express train. Once, when I was hard up and it was of vital importance for me to reach a town where a prepaid package of goods was awaiting me, I boldly went into a smoking car where there were four men sitting in seats facing each other. They had been traveling for some time and were going a long distance. The conductor had stuck his checks in the bands of their hats, and was not likely to pay them more than passing attention. As I entered, one of them got up and went out. I immediately dropped into his seat, and, taking off my hat, was busily engaged reading a newspaper when the conductor came around. Nine times out of ten this risky plan would have been a failure, but my lucky star happened to be in the ascendant, the conductor mistook me for the other fellow and passed me by. Before he noticed it I had reached my destination. I tried no such scheme as this at Marshall, however. I simply went out on the blind baggage. There may, indeed, have been a door in the front end—in those days there generally was—but, if so, it made no difference. I sat on the steps of the first platform and evaded the lynx-eyed glances of the captain.
Just how I got to Mobile I’ll never tell you, but get there I did, and it took me several weeks to do so.
At that moment I was almost ready to forswear my occupation and settle down into the permanent and legitimate; but, alas, no opening presented itself, and I was forced to fall back on my wits. Luck had for some time been dead against me, and several promising schemes failed to work. I suppose I did not put soul enough into them. I had been living on free lunches longer than I cared to remember, and was growing desperate.
There was certainly game afoot somewhere, if I could only find it, and I strolled down, at last, to a part of the city where the colored population was largely concentrated. There I caught sight of an immense colored woman, and at once evolved a scheme. I went over, did some lively talking, and in the end struck up a bargain. There were a few dimes yet in my pocket, which I spent for muslin and the hire of a hack to bring her up in triumph to an empty store-room which I had hired without permission.
I have already alluded to my knack of sign making and lettering. For a few pennies I procured the loan of a paint pot, and fell to work on a gigantic banner for a place on the outer wall. It ran like this:
“The Animated Chocolate Drop!”See the Curiosity of the Age!This IsThe Biggest, Blackest, UgliestThing You Ever Saw.Living, Breathing, Seeing, Speaking,Chunk of5,000 Pounds.One Sight Will Be a Joy for a Lifetime!Walk In.
“The Animated Chocolate Drop!”See the Curiosity of the Age!This IsThe Biggest, Blackest, UgliestThing You Ever Saw.Living, Breathing, Seeing, Speaking,Chunk of5,000 Pounds.One Sight Will Be a Joy for a Lifetime!Walk In.
“The Animated Chocolate Drop!”
See the Curiosity of the Age!
This Is
The Biggest, Blackest, Ugliest
Thing You Ever Saw.
Living, Breathing, Seeing, Speaking,
Chunk of
5,000 Pounds.
One Sight Will Be a Joy for a Lifetime!
Walk In.
With this I covered the bay window on the outside, thus making it serve the double purpose of advertisement and curtain. Then, taking my stand at the door, I fell to work.
A good many people were passing that way, and with my knowledge of human nature it was not hard to pick out half a dozen of the right sort for free admission. Securing these as a start for an audience, I began my outside oration on the animated chocolate drop, the mountain of flesh, the visible evolution of the protoplastic through the missing link of Darwin’s chain. I talked of the baboons of Sumatra and the Dyaks of Borneo; of the chimpanzee of Abyssinian deserts and the gorilla of the Congo—“And all this lesson to be learned for the small sum of half a dime. The lecture itself is worth the money, and the sight of the chocolate drop would be cheap at a fortune.”
What my audience thought I never knew nor cared, so long as they did not mob me. It is an actual fact that over two hundred people paid a nickel a piece to see the wonder of the age—which was only old “auntie” from Smoky Row, throned on the counter and feeling as big as a box-car. After deducting expenses I divided fairly with the old woman, sending her home again in a hack, while I proceeded to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible, before the questions of rent or trespass and license should come up. It seemed a miracle that I had not been stranded on one of them.
But here I was, after the briefest of business adventures, with five dollars in my pocket, and again at a loss. That evening I once more ran over the list of my available accomplishments, to see which one was most applicable, and happened to think of one which had been escaping my mind. What was to prevent my pursuing the vocation of a corn doctor?
True enough, my knowledge was theoretical rather, than practical, having been gleaned from a few incidental remarks made by Professor Carter; but I thought I remembered all he had said on the subject, and was sure that anything more would be confusing. I decided to launch out the next morning and test for myself the possibilities of the profession.
In the outset, I may as well premise that as a corn doctor I was a miserable failure, and after the first day’s experience never had the nerve to attempt the scheme again. I had none too much confidence in the start, and before the day’s work was done had mentally vowed that the corn doctor was the most worthless piece of mechanism ever manufactured.
The day bid fair to be blazing hot, and the chances were that before getting through I would be hotter. I went along, trying to muster up courage, and laughing at myself for a cowardice which I had never felt since breaking the ice with calling cards. What troubled me was the fact that my inexperienced hand would most likely be employed, if at all, on the corns and bunions of the sweeter sex, and I felt shy of presenting myself as a spectacle for their roguish or discriminating eyes. Door after door I passed, and at each one my courage failed me and I went on with a muttered “not yet.”
“This will never do,” I said to myself at length.
“At the fifth house from this I stop and begin work. Rich or poor, young or old, high or low, no matter what state or condition of men, women or children I may meet with, I intend to extract their corns, eradicate their bunions, and obtain the full market price for my services.”
The fifth house was a neat cottage and the name of Higbie was on the door. I rang the bell and a young lady appeared at the threshold.
Good heavens! If it had been her grandmother the case would have been bad enough, but I confess the sight of this beautiful young lady, with the big blue eyes and the lovely golden hair, frizzled all over her head in some bewildering manner, broke my nerve at the very outset. I felt an immediate desire to ask for a glass of water, but remembered that I had exhausted that racket in my Chicago experience, and came to business as well as I could.
The longer I thought of those wide blue eyes which were on me, the more confused and excited I became, and the less inclined I felt to break the ice, though I knew it had to be done in some way. When, at length, in a very sweet voice, she asked what I wanted, I blurted out:
“Do you want to buy any corns today? Ah—oh, no—I don’t mean that. I wanted to ask if you had any corns in here. That is—are you—no—so to speak—I am a corn doctor, selling corns, bunions and ingrowing toe nails. I have only a few more left of the same sort, and I am disposing of them ridiculously cheap.”
And right then I brought up with a short turn. I had started in on the wrong string, and for the life of me could not stop until I had made a mess of it. When I realized what I had done I stammered a little and was speechless. Somehow, that young lady affected me as no young woman ever did, before or since.
She seemed to notice my predicament, for she said, very sweetly:
“Oh, you are a corn doctor, are you?”
“Yes, miss, I am—a graduate of the Entaw Chiropedic Institution, and with seven years’ experience. Corns, as you know, are divided into two classes—the curable and the incurable, the latter being most generally found on the feet of persons well advanced in life, though sometimes affecting the younger. Under the new system their removal is practically painless and but the work of a moment. A bare glance is sufficient to decide as to the treatment required. If there are any corns in this household I shall be happy to inspect them, and until the operation is decided on the consultation will not cost you a cent.”
Once started, my confounded glib tongue ran away with me. Before I knew it I had Miss Higbie—that was her name, Miss Mattie Higbie—converted to my way of thinking. While I was talking I gradually edged my way into the house, and when I politely suggested she show me the corn she had admitted the ownership of, she consented without hesitation.
Alas! the work of my tongue was more artistic than the work of my hand. I must have still been bewildered, for on seeing that corn I fell on it in haste, and without preliminary exhortations tore it out by the roots.
I had said the operation would be painless. On the contrary, the pain was so intense that the young lady gave a scream and fell back fainting.
I did not lose my wits as completely as I might have done, but, raising her head, I shouted for water. Mrs. Higbie came running into the room with a whole basin full, which she dashed into Miss Mattie’s face, and under this heroic treatment the young lady began to revive. I have since wondered whether she had entirely fainted.
“You horrid man,” she exclaimed, faintly; “I just allowed you to look at my corn. Nobody said you might jerk it out. I shan’t pay you a cent.”
“And I tell you,” shouted Mrs. Higbie, “that you had better be getting away from here before I get a bucket of hot water. If I get a scald on you the hair will come off, bristles and all.”
From which I judged she was acquainted with the implements and process of hog killing, and that it was time for me to leave. I slipped out of the house speechless, made my way to the hotel, and vowed this was the last time I would ever pose as a corn doctor.
That evening the landlord, or the hotel clerk, or whoever was running the caravanserai I stopped at, got me in a corner, and before the interview was ended I was broke. Not only broke, but dead-broke. By that time he had heard of some of the schemes I had worked, or tried to work, but worst of all a report had reached him of my late exploit as a corn doctor. After collecting all that was due him, completely emptying my pockets, he informed me that his hotel could shelter me no longer, and that if I wanted to avoid a coat of tar and feathers it would be well for me to leave the city on the first train. As an afterthought he handed me a letter, which had come for me to the hotel during my absence.
Through all my wanderings I had kept in pretty close touch with the old folks at home, and usually I was glad enough to receive a letter dated from the spot I loved so well.
But this made me mad rather than glad, and yet the tidings in it were pleasant enough. My sister was to be married soon, and sent an urgent request, backed by both father and mother, that I should return home in time for her wedding.
You can imagine my feelings. Here I was, hundreds of miles from home, without a cent in my pockets, or a roof in sight under which I might lay my head, and the folks at home were rejoicing in my prosperity and inviting me to a wedding.
Thus far my life had been a pretty stormy one. I had worked numberless schemes, visited towns by the hundred, and had experience by the cubic ton, but I had no money. By this time, too, I scarcely had decent clothes. When I began to figure the whole thing over, and thought of my sister’s approaching marriage, and how I would like to be there to see the old folks and all the neighbors, I tell you right now I was pretty blue.
It was, of course, an impossibility to get home, and I decided to write a letter telling them so, giving some plausible excuse if I could think of one, but the more I thought of my present condition the madder I got. I finally rose up and shook myself together.
“Look here, old boy,” I thought to myself, “this will never do. The world is large, other people are making a living in it, and more than a living. There is money enough going, and all that you want to do is to see that you get your share. Here goes.”
I took a start toward the office door, and it seems it was a relief to mine host.
“Hope you don’t go away mad,” he said, “but the fact is, I can’t afford to have a lynching party raid my hotel. Don’t tell anyone I warned you, but get out of sight as soon as possible. The wonder is the crowd is not here now.”
I made no great haste, but I certainly did not linger, and it is an actual fact that before I had got two squares away the crowd had commenced to gather and I could hear someone shouting, “Bring out the blamed rascal.”
There was no use for me to go to the railroad station. Indeed, that was the very place for me to avoid. Without a doubt, the landlord would give the gang the tip that I had promised to leave town by the next train, and they would look for me there. There was no train leaving for at least an hour, and in that time a great deal that was unpleasant could happen.
In my penniless condition, and with such trouble imminent, I knew that my best plan was to get out of town and into the country; and not only that, but to get as far away as I could in the shortest time possible, trusting to finding something on the road to keep the mill of life going until luck took a more friendly turn.
Fortunately, I got away without personal damage, and before long was plodding along the country road, safe but sullen, and it was some time before my face took on its usual smiling expression and I become again the debonnaire soldier of fate.
The change which turned my fortunes occurred in this way:
I heard behind me the rattle of wheels and the swift stepping of horses. Looking back over my shoulder I saw a two-horse wagon, with a falling top over the seat in front, coming towards me at a clipping gait.
The driver drew up a trifle as he neared me and I braced up sufficiently to ask him for a ride.
Without hesitating to consider, he came to a full stop and I climbed in. The tide had turned again and I was to get the advantage of its flow. We soon became very congenial, and when we had exchanged confidences, and I had suggested that I was open for an engagement, my newly-made friend fell in with the idea at once. He was a fakir himself, at present in the patent medicine business, traveling with his own rig.
It did not take us long to reach an understanding. For the present he was to pay my expenses in return for my assistance, and I was to be at liberty to work my side schemes when not engaged about his affairs.