STAGE X.—WHICH BRINGS MR. HERON TO A HIGH POINT IN THE ROAD
CONTINUED my studies in New York for a year and a half. My growth, like McCarthy's, had been forced a little by the pressure of hard experience, and I was more serious and more thoughtful and observing, possibly, than boys of my age were apt to be. When I returned to Rushwater I had some knowledge of banking and bookkeeping, and the power and purpose of corporations, and, indeed, of the whole theory of business—not so much as I thought I had, of course, for no man has struck the right balance in the big ledger of his own mind until it is nearly full. He is so apt to overcredit himself and forget some of the charges. Well, in spite of that, I had things on the right side, and, among other items, my phonography, for my hand could follow the tongues of the orators, and that was a pace for you! Those days New York was full of prophets. I went to hear them for the sake of practice, and gathered reams of florid eloquence.
It is curious how I clung to that boy love in my heart. My sister had gone to Merrifield to visit a school friend, and met Jo, since when they had written letters to each other. So all my best news came roundabout, and was never too much, but always enough to sustain my passion.
There were perils in the big city for one of my age without a home, but this thing in my heart gave me good counsel. Whatever others may have thought of her, to me she was like Pallas to the Greek—a divinity—and I had to be worthy of her. I had met good people, and seen a bit of the best life of the city through my mother's uncle, Mr. Schermerhorn, and gathered knowledge of the amenities for my friend McCarthy.
Once again I had seen Mr. Vanderbilt when his famous Mountain Gal was to race near Coney Island. I took the horse-cars in Brooklyn, and went as far as they would carry me on my way to the track, and tramped down the road while others raced along in every kind of vehicle. It was after the hour, and the crowd had passed me, and I had not far to go, when along came the Commodore in his gig. I raised my hat to him, and he pulled up beside me.
“Have a ride, boy?” he asked.
I thanked him and got in, and away we sped. “Going to the race?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir. I want to see your horse go.”
“You know me?”
“Yes. You remember the big map?”
“Oh, I see you was somebody I knew. Great boy—that young Irishman. He'll make his mark. Have you a ticket?”
“No,” I said.
“Never mind; I'll fix it.”
So I entered with him in his gig, and he took me to the club-house and found a seat for me.
Next day I returned to my home in Hearts-dale, and hoped while there to go to Merrifield and see the Colonel and Jo. I was much taken down to learn from my sister that they had sailed for Liverpool the day before.
I was ready for my career at Rushwater, and my mother and sister were going to live with me in a snug house which the hand-made gentleman had built and furnished for us.
I called upon Judge Crocket and presented my compliments. Mr. Boggs and the soldiers were playing old sledge in a corner. All eyes were turned upon me. The Judge asked how I was getting along, and greeted my answer with a little smile of incredulity. His smiles at time had the gleam of steel and cut like a chisel; but I wanted to make friends, and said:
“I have thought it over, and made up my mind that you were very kind to me.”
“Oh, you have!” he answered, as if caring little what I thought.
Now I had meant to be polite, but his indifference stung me, and I added:
“Yes; you sent me out of bad business and worse company. I am grateful. You men who live in the shadow of death don't know how pleasant the world is. I want to thank you.” Judge Crocket began to carve the air with his chisel. “You're a scamp, sir,” he declared. “You wrote that 'scurrilious' poem about the dance at Jones'. It was an outrage—an outrage!”
“I deserve no such credit,” was my answer. “I did not write the poem, and, if it hurt your feelings, I am glad that I know nothing of its authorship. But you have no right to complain. For years you have been cutting people to the bone with sharp criticism. You seem to think well of no one. You have said things about me that were undeserved and scandalous.”
The Judge had resumed his cutting, and the wrinkles in his face had deepened, but he made no answer. Mr. Boggs nudged his neighbor and looked up at me with a smile, in which amusement was mingled with contempt.
I left the shop, and found Swipes and some of our old companions waiting for me outside the door. Swipes had grown so that I scarcely knew him.
“How are you and the shingle-nail?” I asked.
“The nail an' I have gone out of partnership,” he answered. “I don't worry any more about that nail. I used to lie awake nights thinking of it. By-and-by I forgot it, and was all right. I drawed the nail out o' my mind, as ye might say, and have had no more trouble.”
Swipes had gone into deeper water than he knew. From that moment I began to draw the shingle-nails out of my own mind; the opposition of Boggs and Crocket was, after all, a little matter. What kind of man was I in fact?—there was the important thing, not what they thought of me. Death and his angels were ever striving to pull one down. I would not let them halt or baffle me for a moment. I had my belt on the great engine of life, as Pearl had told me, and I knew it would whirl me on.
So from that day I permitted little things to worry me no longer, but gave my strength wholly to greater issues. I forgot the shingle-nails.
The boys had heard of my adventure on the high rope, and now regarded me with a kind of awe, and put many queries. I answered them with a sense of sadness and humility that there was nothing else in my career which they thought it worth while to ask about.
On the whole, I was not sorry to leave the village of Heartsdale. It was greatly changed. The burned area was pretty well covered with new buildings. One man had left a black, dirty, charred ruin flush with the sidewalk in the very centre of the main street, and refused either to remove it or permit it to be removed. He blamed the firemen and the pump and everybody in the village for the loss of his store, and there stood the ruin for a punishment—a black memorial of his blacker scorn.
New faces were on every side. A steam-mill had come, and morning, noon, and night one could hear the peal of its whistle. The first waves of power had reached the little town. Instead of being content with its small farmer-traffic, the town itself had become a producer, and was shipping doors and blinds and sashes, and boats and canoes, and rough and dressed lumber to distant places. A new act was beginning in the great drama of the republic.
When we started for Rushwater there were at least a score of the friends and schoolmates of my sister who went to the station for a last word with us. There was not a prettier miss in the north country than that very sister of mine—save Jo, the incomparable Jo!
The hand-made gentleman met us at the depot in Rushwater, and drove us to our new home with a fine coach and pair.
“What a change!” said my sister, when he had left us for the night. “He has grown positively handsome and is a real gentleman.”
Success and observation and right thinking, above all, had distinguished the man—James Henry McCarthy. Something—was it the tireless upreach of his thought?—had straightened his figure and raised his chin a little, and covered him with a strong, calm dignity, as with a robe of higher office, and tuned his voice for new appeals, so that even I was surprised and got a little touch of awe, and felt my smallness when I took his hand. I spoke of these things and of my feeling.
“Well,” said my mother, “the only real gentleman is 'hand-made,' as he puts it. After all, one cannot inherit much of that. One has to begin, soon or late, and build slowly and patiently, putting one stone on another, just as Mr. McCarthy has done.”
BOOK THREE
In which the Youth and the Hand-Made
Gentleman See and Do Some
Wonderful Things
CHAPTER I.—THE SINGULAR BEGINNING OF A NEW CAREER
ARLY next morning Mr. McCarthy came and took me for a drive. He was a new man, quiet, serious, and inclined to let me do the talking. I thought of him no more as the land-made gentleman. Just the one word was enough for him now.
Something had gone wrong with him, and I wondered what it might be. I hoped he would speak of the love-affair. He put many questions, and said, by-and-by:
“I'm glad you've come, for the railroad work takes half my time, and poor Sal is neglected. I want you to tackle Sal. I'm going to organize a stock company for Sal, and make you president perhaps, and give all my time to larger things. The army of steam-power is going to need help at Albany, and I may try for a seat in the legislature. But you know Horace Bulger runs the county, and I won't buy honor. I've got to beat him. I thought it would be easy, with three hundred voters in my shop, but the first I knew Bulger had stirred them up. They're growling about our machines, and the trouble will last until convention time, you see. He did it to block my game. If I want to go I've got to settle with him.” After a moment of silence, he added: “There's a lot for you to do. I want you to begin by advertising the hygienic value of a bath every day. Keep dinging on the idea that soap and civilization go hand in hand. Let it be understood that a clean mind can only live in a clean body, that decency begins with soap. Let us assail the great army of the unwashed, and increase the respect of the people for Salome, the clover-scented sister of Sal.”
The shop had doubled its size, and now covered half an acre of the river shore.
I found Pearl and Barker in a larger basement shop. The gray-haired man put his one arm around me and held me close for half a moment, and said not a word. Then he sat down and raised his goggles and wiped his eyes, and I remember that I felt a little ashamed of my own weakness.
“Oh, Mr. Barker!” he called, when the goggles were in place again.
Mr. Barker took his stand in the old familiar attitude of receiver for the firm.
“What do we say to the gentleman from New York, and late of St. Lawrence County?”
The dog barked almost gleefully.
“You are right, Mr. Barker. We are delighted to see him. We bid him welcome to the growing village of Rushwater. We do, indeed.”
He led me to the turbine.
“See,” he said, “it runs smoother and makes less noise; it has got dignity; it knows how to handle its power.”
I could not help thinking that it was, in a way, like McCarthy himself.
Well, I had no sooner entered the stirring life of the shop at Rushwater than things began to happen. One day Mr. Horace Bulger came into the office, where I sat alone with the gentleman. The power of Mr. Bulger was universally known and respected. He ran the politics of the county. For years no citizen within its boundaries had been elected to office without his consent. He was born poor; he had neither toiled nor spun; he never seemed to want anything for himself, but, somehow, Mr. Bulger had prospered, and very handsomely, as things went.
“I have something to say to you,” said Mr. Bulger, addressing the hand-made gentleman.
“Say it,” said the latter.
“Perhaps it had better be confidential.”
“Go right ahead. This young man is my private secretary, and knows all my business. If I should sell my soul, he'd have to know the price.”
Mr. Bulger hesitated.
“I do not need to say that your confidence will be respected by both of us,” my friend added.
“Mr. McCarthy,” said the wily Bulger, as he dropped into a chair, “I think you are likely to be nominated by the Republicans of our district for the Assembly.”
“You are too confident, Mr. Bulger,” said the hand-made gentleman. “I will bet you three thousand dollars that I am not nominated and elected this year.”
Those old models of gentlemanhood, after which Mr. McCarthy had fashioned himself, saw no harm in a wager.
The politician thought a moment and smiled. Then said he:
“I will take the bet, and am ready to post the money.”
“Your check is good enough,” Mr. McCarthy answered.
“No checks,” said the other. “Let's make it money.”
“Who shall be the stake-holder?” was the inquiry of my friend.
“Your secretary—if you will vouch for him.”
“I'd trust my life with him,” said the handmade gentleman.
So the money was put into my hands, to be deposited to my credit in Mr. Bulger's bank.
“One thing I have to ask,” Mr. McCarthy added: “You know I have no secrets, and don't want any. I'm not ashamed of this bet, and I hope you're not.”
“Not a bit,” said Mr. Bulger.
“All right then; we've got nothing to cover up.”
“Not a thing.”
“Good! I want everything aboveboard. We can either of us tell the whole truth if it should seem necessary.”
When Mr. Bulger had left us, I turned to my friend McCarthy and said:
“You're sure to be elected now.”
“Of course I am,” said the gentleman. “But he's got some work on his hands. I cannot understand his coming here. To begin with, he'll have to settle that strike for me, and it may not be so easy. He's got to unravel a lot of his own knitting or pay the forfeit. I don't think he knows what it means.”
We both laughed for a moment, after which he went on:
“It's his funeral—not mine. A gentleman can bet, but he could not make a bargain for a seat in the legislature, and it's undignified and immoral to pay for votes. Bulger has got to do the work.”
I regret sometimes that Mr. McCarthy had not then the surer light that came in due time. He was very human, so do not expect too much of him.
That day our evening paper contained this announcement:
Vanderbilt Owns the Harlem Road—Will
The Steamboat King Lead the Iron
Horse Cavalry in its Westward Charge?
“Now I understand,” said the hand-made gentleman; “Bulger was acting under orders when he came here to-day.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Vanderbilt controls the Republican party?” I asked.
“He wants honest and progressive men in the legislature, and has a hand in many a caucus,” said McCarthy. “He's got to do it or have a lot of pirates to reckon with when he goes up to Albany for the legislation he needs. Any man likely to block the wheels of progress is killed in the conventions, if not before. He's paving the way for a new era.”
CHAPTER II.—IN WHICH PEARL'S OLD MARE BEGINS TO HURRY US ALONG
EARL had learned how to use and control the great draft-horse of the river. At a touch of his finger a belt moved, and up went the push of the falling waters into a thousand feet of shafting. Other levers could divide this stream of power into some forty currents guided by leathern belts to the labor-saving devices of my able friend. These latter had doubled the capacity of the shop without increasing its working force, and soon the machines which made “Sal and Sal's Sisters” began to be regarded as the rivals—and even as the enemies—of labor.
The candidacy of Mr. McCarthy had been announced; the caucuses were coming on; no sign of opposition had developed.
One morning the gentleman came in with important news.
“They will strike to-morrow,” he said. “I have learned the whole plot. Gaffney, that little red-headed Irishman who is the boss of the wrapping-room, is at the bottom of it. They had a secret session last night and made him spokesman. He will come here to-morrow morning and ask me to put out the machines. If I refuse, they will quit and fight me.”
He sat, thoughtfully, tapping with his pencil. In half a moment he said:
“That man Gaffney has quite a head on him. I think I'll promote the fellow.”
“Promote him!” I exclaimed.
“Yes; I never discharge anybody. I promote people if it becomes necessary to get rid of them.”
He tapped his call-bell, and said to the errand boy, “Ask Mr. Gaffney to come here.”
Gaffney arrived presently, a bit embarrassed. “Sit down a moment,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I said when you came here that I would keep an eye on you, and I've done it. I'm satisfied that you're too talented for your position. I'm going to send you to the shop in Troy, where our machines are made, and keep you there until you've learned all about them. Then I'll try you as superintendent, at a larger salary, and a 5-per-cent, interest in the profits. If you 'tend to business you'll make a fortune.”
Gaffney was dumb with surprise. His face turned red; his hands trembled; he voiced his gratitude in a stammered sentence.
“I'm glad to do it,” said McCarthy. “Go back to your work, and be ready to leave Monday morning.”
Gaffney retired, and my friend sent for another man.
“This is a different kind of chap,” said the gentleman. “He's a sore on the body of poor Sal, and we'll remove him by a gentle sort of surgery.”
His name was Hinkley, and presently in he came.
“Hinkley,” said my friend, “I'm going to promote you. To-morrow you may go to the plant at Amadam. You shall have a 3-per-cent, interest in the profits of that enterprise. Go ahead and make them as big as you can.”
Hinkley returned to his bench in a grateful spirit, although a bit puzzled, as I saw by the look of his face.
When we were alone, McCarthy turned with a smile and said:
“You see, the plant at Amadam is a reformatory for the promoted. Of course, it doesn't make any money, and as soon as it begins to lose a hundred dollars a month I shall stop it, and they'll be out in the cold world. I'm fair with them; they have a chance to make some profit if they will and keep their jobs. It's their funeral, not mine. If any man improves there, and develops talent and good-will, I promote him back to the home shop. If any one is unmanageable, I promote him to the soap-grease department at Buffalo. There I have a hard boss, and the probationer will do one of two things—reform or resign. He either improves or discharges himself. I never discharge any one.” After a moment's pause, he went on: “Now we'll send for Mr. Horace Bulger and give him some work to do. He should be able to stop the strike now. We've done him a great favor.” The Honorable Bulger came soon, and promptly the hand-made gentleman gave him a word of advice.
“You had better stop this trouble in my factory, if you can,” said he.
“What trouble?”
“The trouble you started some time ago; it's your trouble now. The men have decided to strike to-morrow. You'll have to make peace, or I'm defeated and you lose your money.”
Mr. Bulger rose with a worried look.
“Don't say a word to them,” he whispered; “let me do the talking.”
Without further reply, Mr. Bulger hurried into the factory. For the first time in his life this wily, easy-going gentleman had work to do, and it gave him no rest. Gaffney helped him, and he kept-the men with us, although they had gone so far in the way of discontent, upon which he himself had led them, that Mr. Bulger was in sore trouble.
Old and new forces had begun a conflict which was to last for half a century. Hand labor versus machines became an issue in the campaign of James Henry McCarthy, and nearly defeated him. He went to New York and remained there until Bulger had struggled up to the convention with a majority of two. When the nomination was secure he told us about one of the winning votes.
It had been a stubborn fight in the town of Edgewood. The night before the caucus he knew that he needed one vote to secure his delegate. A politician of the name of Barber had worked against him, and spent a good deal of money. Late in the evening he hired a horse and drove to the house of a certain farmer who lived about a mile from the village. He had learned that Barber had bought the vote of this man. The farmer let him in.
“I want to talk with you and your wife about an important matter,” said he.
Soon they both sat beside him.
“You are supposed to be respectable people,” said Bulger. “You have some property and two children, and of course you'd like to have a good name.”
The farmer agreed.
“Well, now, I've come here to inform you that Barber got drunk this evening, and has been telling down there at the hotel that he had bought your vote.”
“Then don't you vote for his candidate,” said the wife to her husband. “If you do, everybody will believe the story.”
“And he voted for our delegate,” said Bulger, as he turned to the hand-made gentleman. “That's the kind of a fight I've had on my hands, but now the worst is over.”
“Not yet,” said McCarthy. “There's the shame of such a victory, and that will fall upon me. I don't like it.”
“Oh, you're one o' them high-moral cusses!” said Mr. Bulger, with a look of contempt.
Then said the hand-made gentleman: “My morals are just high enough to believe in fair play.”
“Well, you don't have to answer for my sins,” Mr. Bulger retorted.
“I'm not sure of that.”
“You're in the game of politics, young man,”
Bulger went on. “You've got to take it as it is or keep out. It's as tricky and full o' bluff as a game o' poker. I'd like to see you make it better. You'll have a chance by-and-by; go ahead and see what you can do.”
Well, there was some mud-flinging in the campaign, and Mr. McCarthy was blamed for the sins of Bulger, and came to his honors by-and-by with tempered enthusiasm and increased humility. A certain newspaper had opposed him with cruel vindictiveness. It told of his humble origin, and called him “Pegleg McCarthy” and “the son of a washwoman” and “a man of vaulting and unwarranted ambitions.” These were the poisoned arrows of a rude time, and they scarred the soul of McCarthy and helped to make him a fighter.
Meanwhile I sat one evening in the shop with Pearl and Barker.
“Mack is a great boy,” said my old friend. “Sat here until midnight the other evening; said he hated politics, and wished he was out of it. I called Barker up, and give him a talkin' to right then and there.”
“How about the talented young lady?” I inquired.
“I don't believe he'll marry her. He ain't so green as he used to be—”
He was interrupted by a rap at the basement door. I opened it, and four masked men crowded over its threshold. I grappled with their leader, for the truth had flashed upon me—they were after Pearl, “the machine man.” I fought like a tiger, and stopped them for a second there by the doorway, and then they stopped me. One of them threw a piece of iron and struck me in the face with it; but I had saved my friend, with the help of Mr. Barker, who had seized one by the seat of his trousers. I came to in a dash of spray. A man had fallen across my legs and another lay near me. I saw a shaft of water strike a third and lift him off his feet and hurl him through the open doorway. He went like a leaf in the wind. A dash of spray put out the lamp. I scrambled to my feet, and stood to my ankles in water. I could hear the turbine purring like a great cat. In a second Pearl's electric lamp, that hung from the ceiling, began to glow. He stood by the pen-stock with a big iron nozzle in his hand. Two men lay near me. The water had struck like a sand-bag, and knocked the breath out of them. They had come to, and begun making for the open door on their hands and knees.
“Good-night, boys,” said the Pearl, pleasantly; “call again.”
He closed the door and bolted it, and took his pistol from a closet and turned off the light.
“Come on,” he whispered, “we've got to make for a doctor.”
At precisely that moment I began to feel the pain in my nose and the warmth of my own blood on its way to the floor. We hurried up a stairway, and through the long hall, and out of the front door.
“Thanks, old boy,” Pearl said, warmly, as he took my arm in his, “you have won further promotion for meritorious conduct. I make you my hero as well as my friend.”
“I did little,” was my answer; “but I should like to know what it was that you did to them.”
“It was the ol' mare o' the river,” said Pearl. “I had her fixed so I could cut her loose. She just h'isted up her hind legs an' threw 'em into every corner o' the shop. An' they hit hard. Ye see, I was expectin' 'em. Had a spout rigged at the bottom o' the pen-stock with a double j'int in the neck of it. The ol' mare jumped through it an' raised”—he checked himself, and added—“everything in reach.”
My nose had been badly cut and broken, and I was a month in the Albany hospital undergoing repairs, and came out with this battered visage. I wept when I saw myself in the mirror.
It was not so very bad, you see, after all, but that day I thought it bad enough to make a dog bark at me. I gave up all thought of marriage, but—yes, oh yes, dear child, I loved her more than ever.
I remember the day that Pearl came down to cheer me up. He put his hand on my head and whispered:
“Don't worry about that, boy. It's your medal of honor, and you can't hide it under your vest, either.”
We learned that the men had worse injuries, and before a day had passed their names were known, and within a week they were promoted to the grease department. They had planned to tar and feather my friend and carry him out of the village on a fence-rail, and Pearl and his “old mare” had exposed and kicked them out of favor in their own ranks. The working-men turned to McCarthy, and always stood by him after that.
CHAPTER III.—THE GENTLEMAN DISCOVERS A NEW KIND OF POWER
REMAINED at Rushwater to run the shop while McCarthy was beginning his legislative career. I was going about a good deal looking after branches in Chicago and New York. The hand-made gentleman was at home and doing something for Sal in the intervals of adjournment, but I saw little of him. Two or three times in my absence he called to see my mother and sister.
When I had returned from a long journey, one evening Sarah said to me:
“I have seen that girl.”
“What girl?”
“Mr. McCarthy's girl—the one you say he loves.”
“Has she been here?”
“Yes; and I don't like her.”
“Why?”
“I don't believe she cares for him, and she ought to be ashamed of herself.”
My sister turned away, her cheeks red with indignation.
“No woman has any right to marry a man that she does not love,” she went on. “Do you really think he cares for her?”
“So he told me.”
“Well, I do hope she makes him a good wife. They are to be married in June.”
“In June!”
“Yes; he spoke of it one evening to mother and me, and looked as if he were talking about his funeral.”
“It may be something has come between them,” I said; “but he will keep his word if he dies for it, unless—well, no sentimental reason would turn him.”
“What a wonderful man he is!” said Sarah; and then she brought my slippers to me, and came and sat on the arm of my chair and tenderly stroked my weary head.
“And what a wonderful sister you are, and how beautiful you have grown! Some day you will be getting married.”
“No,” she answered, as she put her arms around my neck; “I am going to live with you and mother, if you will let me.”
“There are many fine young fellows who come to see her,” said my mother, who had been sitting near us.
“But I do not care for them,” Sarah answered, as she rose and left us.
Meanwhile the hand-made gentleman was changing. The legislature adjourned in April, and then we saw much of him, and the wear of problems deeper than those I shared had begun to show in his face. Moreover, his plans had changed.
“I shall need you with me at Albany and everywhere,” he said, one evening when we were alone together in the office. “There are plenty of business men, but there is only one Jacob Heron. I've got another man for the shop, and you and I will start for Pittsburg in a day or two.”
“For Pittsburg!”
“Yes; they've asked me to 'look into the subject of rails and signals,'” he went on. “The superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad is a man of the name of Andrew Carnegie. He has invented a block-signal system to enable trains to keep their speed with safety. He knows more about iron than any other man in the world, and is the head of the Keystone Bridge Company.
“The fact is, we've got to have a new kind of iron. Our rails are breaking down. They can't stand up under heavy loads and big engines. The country will have to poke along at twenty miles an hour until we can get something better. On our way we'll stop in New York and see the Commodore.”
I began to think of my mother and sister, who had come to live with me in Rushwater. He seemed to read my thoughts, for he added:
“You can take the folks to Albany if you like. They've never seen much of city life; I'm sure they'd like it; and, say, do you—do you suppose they'd be willing to put up with me for a boarder?”
“I'm sure they'd be glad to have you,” I said.
“Don't tell 'em that I spoke of it, but just propose the thing and see what they say. You can be frank with me. We ought to know each other well enough for that. I'm afraid you're just a little too much inclined to please me.”
“Not without provocation,” I remarked, having great respect for him.
“But I want you to find fault with me,” he went on; “I'm far from perfect. Just remember that I'm trying to improve myself. All that I know I picked up here and there. If you hear me say anything that doesn't sound right, I want you to tell me. I want you to look over me a little every day, and tell me if I dress and act as a gentleman ought to. You've seen how people do in New York.”
“I've often thought that I would speak to you about the color of your neckties,” I suggested, mildly. “You seem to like red as well as I do, but it is not the best form.”
He turned, blushing, and took from his pocket a twenty-dollar bill, and said: “I'm glad you spoke of it. Take this and go and get me some good ties in the morning. If you see anything that you think I need, buy it; my credit is good here. But there's another matter—my soul is feeling a bit shabby and ashamed of itself; it needs a little advice.”
“What's the trouble?” I asked.
“Well, I've found a greater power than the push of steam or water or electricity. It can put them all out of business—it could stop every wheel in the world.”
He paused, and I looked into his eyes and guessed his meaning.
“It is love, and it has stopped me,” he went on—“stopped me on the brink of a precipice. I don't know what to do. I wish I were somebody—anybody but the low-bred, common, Pegleg McCarthy that I am.”
His voice began to tremble a bit, and he left his chair and walked up and down the room in silence.
“Don't throw mud on yourself,” I protested. “There are plenty of us who would like to be that same McCarthy.”
“I'm not so bad,” he went on. “The trouble is, I have the pride of a king in me and the blood of a hodman. But I may do something by-and-by. I've been reading about Lincoln. He was a man of humble birth and limited education. It gave me hope for myself.”
“What's the trouble?” I asked again.
“I have met the woman I love, and she is not Miss Manning,” he continued. “She is a lady—the sweetest, dearest lady in the land, and so far above me that we could never be man and wife. But I love her. God! she is more to me than all the rest of the world. I have nothing in me but the thought of her.”
He turned away and fussed with the papers on his desk.
“I care no more for business,” he continued, “and the honors I had hoped for are nothing to me now. All my plans are like the withered stems of a garden sticking out of the snow.”
He strode up and down the room and stopped before me, and something out of the depths of his heart shone in his countenance and lifted him to greatness, it seemed to me, so that he saw his way clearly.
“I shall do my work,” he said, solemnly. “I will do what my God tells me to do. I will try to be good enough for her—that is something—and I shall marry Miss Manning.”
“Do you think you ought to do that?” I asked. “I have promised, and a gentleman keeps his word unless—unless there's some good reason why he shouldn't.”
“I have sometimes thought that she was not the woman for you,” I suggested.
“So have I. Poor girl! We're quick to judge, and not any of us are perfect. My life isn't much; I'm glad to give it for a principle.”
“I know how you feel,” I said, thinking of my own troubles. “But then it may be that she doesn't care for you.”
“Well, I've got to believe her, haven't I?”
“Yes—if—if she's a lady,” was my answer. “Well, you see, I'm a pretty common fellow myself, and I must treat other people as I would have them treat me. Miss Manning is a good-hearted girl; she's had bad luck—the company stranded, and all that. In the morning I wish you to go to New York and find her. She lives at the Waverly Place Hotel. I'll give you a check signed in blank. Get a schedule of her debts, if possible; satisfy yourself as to the sum she really needs if it takes a week, and make the check for any amount you think best. When you're ready, wire me, and I'll meet you and we'll go on to Pittsburg. One moment,” he added, as I was leaving him, “you will be apt to find her at home about six. If she isn't there, her maid will tell you where she is, and you might look her up.”
It was a curious mission—the kind of duty one would rarely delegate to another. Yet, somehow, it was characteristic of the gentleman to be frank and businesslike, even in a matter of benevolence. But how was I to learn what sum “she really needed”?
I took a train in the morning, and about six that afternoon called at the rooms of Miss Manning, in Waverly Place. She had gone to dine at Delmonico's, the maid told me.
Delmonico's! I had heard of the famous café and restaurant, the resort of the rich and the high-born, where, it was soberly affirmed, one could pay, and many had paid, as much as ten dollars for a dinner. I had plenty of money, and a feeling of opulence, too, and decided that I would go and have a look at the place and the people and the food, for I had no notion that I should like the taste of it. So I put on my best clothes, and walked down Broadway, and entered as boldly as if I had been there every day of my life. A young man of the name of Gillette, whom I remembered meeting one day at a tea-party at Mrs. Schermerhom's, rose from one of the tables and greeted me. My memory was better than his, for I recollect that he addressed me as “Mr. Horn,” and talked so volubly that he gave me no opportunity of correcting him. He had heard of my injuries, and assured me of his sorrow, and asked me to join his dinnerparty at a large, round table.
“I really need you, old man,” he whispered. “You see, one of my friends has disappointed me, and there's an empty chair.”
I accepted his kindness, and he presented me as “Mr. Horn,” and as “my old friend, Mr. Horn,” so what could I do but accept the name and make the best of it. Well, to my great surprise, one of the ladies at the table was Miss Manning herself, and a very handsome girl she was. I was about to say that I knew a friend of hers when it occurred to me that if I did I should have to explain that my name was Heron and not Horn, and so embarrass the friendly Mr. Gillette. I said nothing, therefore, and was soon glad of my forbearance.
All were drinking freely save myself, and by-and-by the conversation grew oddly intimate and the manners most unrestrained. Miss Manning held the hand of the young man who sat beside her, and spoke freely of her “angel” up the State, who was going to marry her; and I could not hold up my head or heart in the midst of it, and excused myself and left them with a kind of world-sickness in me—the first touch of it that I had known. Yet, as the friend of a noble gentleman, I thanked God for it all, and the great soul of McCarthy himself could not have felt a keener pity.
I telegraphed to my friend that I had finished my work, and next evening he met me at the St. Nicholas. He came into my room and pressed my hand eagerly, and asked:
“What's new?”
“Nothing,” I said; “it's a rather old story.”
“You saw Miss Manning?”
“Yes.”
“And gave her the check?”
“No; I return the check to you,” I said, and briefly gave my reasons.
“Heron, most any one can obey orders, but the man who knows enough to disobey them to save a principal is above price,” he said, as he shook my hand again. “I couldn't say a word of my suspicions, for, you know, one has to be careful not to injure a lady. For fear of that I couldn't bring myself to engage a detective to watch her—it seemed so brutal and ruthless and cold-blooded.”
He turned away, and for a moment neither spoke.
“I was sure that you would know how to do the errand,” he added. .
Mr. McCarthy drew a letter from his pocket and flung it on the table, and said:
“You will understand me when you have read that.”
I drew the letter from the envelope, and read as follows:
Mr. McCarthy,—You are being deceived, and I write to warn you about Miss Manning. If you or any friend of yours would go to her hotel unexpected, almost any evening about dinner-time, you could learn where to find her. I could tell you many things, but you might as well learn them for yourself.
A Well-Wisher.
“I think it was written by her maid,” said McCarthy, as I returned the letter. “But come, come, we are due at the Commodore's.”
We hurried away, and as we left the inn I could not help thinking how cleverly he had planned my errand of good-will.