He had said NOW! so loudly that it sounded like a signal for the Devil to appear and complete the bargain of which he had spoken, and was so stern that I was afraid of him.
“I must curb this terrible passion or it will do me serious injury. There is nothing in store for me except waiting and working, and I fear that by the time I accomplish what I desire I shall be so tired and indifferent that I cannot enjoy it as I would now. But if I am as happy when I possess her as I think I shall be, I will whip the man who says this is not a happy world. If she is given to me, I shall make her a queen if it is possible. My only fear is that being of a poor family I shall not be able to accomplish all I desire. Barker says an industrious man can accomplish more than a talented one; if that is true I will make Mateel proud of me, and cause her to bless the day she came to Fairview to live. But I intend to talk less in the future, and do more.”
He urged his horse into a gallop, and dashed through the dark woods like a man on fire, and I followed, expecting every moment to be thrown off and injured. I did not come entirely up with him until we had reached the mill, and after putting away the horses we went at once to bed, where Jo no doubt spent the night in waiting for daylight, that he might commence to distinguish himself.
MATTERS were going from bad to worse at Fairview. My father had been away to the country town a week, and had not yet returned.
As the attendance on the summer school was small, Agnes managed to come home very early, and go away very late, so that we were like three happy children having a holiday, for my mother remained up with us until midnight, if we did not get sleepy before that time, talking very little, but quietly enjoying our company, as though it was a pleasure usually denied her. I told them all I knew about Jo, Mateel, Barker, his strange sister, and Clinton Bragg, inventing incidents whenever the interest threatened to flag, and Agnes was always entertaining, so that we were very happy during that week.
It was the Saturday night after my return from the mill, when we were beginning to be seriously alarmed about my father’s long absence, and just after we had agreed that something should be done about it, the door opened, and he walked in. I had been expecting him to return in a bad humor, but much to my surprise he was in a very good humor, and appeared to be pleased about something, as though he had accomplished all he desired, and was good enough to ask me if I had enjoyed myself at Barker’s.
My mother and Agnes went out to the kitchen at once to prepare his supper, and he followed them to talk while they were about it. He had brought them presents, and, holding up the packages, asked them to guess what they were, and when they failed he laughed, and asked them to guess again. I looked on in wonder, and after he had seated himself at the table, and commenced eating without asking a blessing, he astonished us all by saying:—
“Well, I have bought the ‘Union of States’ newspaper, and a house in Twin Mounds, and we move there to live next Monday. What do you all think of it?”
We were so much surprised that we could not say what we thought of it, and he continued:—
“I have been making the trade for several weeks, but only finally closed it to-day, and I now hold the keys of the establishment in my pocket. The house in which we are to live is vacant, and I will go over with Ned on Monday, and Lee and his sons are already engaged to commence moving the next day. This may seem very sudden to you, but I have been thinking of it for months, and am already impatient at the delay. The farm will be rented to Lee, and his newly-married son will occupy this house. There is no reason I can think of why we should not move at once. In a month I shall drive over and attend the sale, which I have already advertised, and then I shall be through.”
Taking from his pocket a roll of hand-bills, which were apparently fresh from the press, he handed each of us one. It began with the heading “Public Sale,” and stated that the undersigned, having bought the “Union of States” newspaper in Twin Mounds, would offer at public sale, on the mentioned date, at his farm a half mile north of Fairview church, the following stock, implements, and effects. Here followed a long list of cattle, horses, ploughs, etc., with which I was very familiar, and I remember thinking they all looked exceedingly well in print.
“I am tired of Fairview,” he said, pushing back from the table, and resuming his old habit of thoughtfulness. “I am tired of its work and drudgery. I don’t dislike work, but, like other men, I am anxious that it pay me as much as possible. I shall continue to work as hard as ever, but I hope to more purpose. I make little enough here except in land speculations; that I can continue, and do more of. The profession I have chosen will afford me opportunity to study; that will be a part of my work, and we can live more genteelly in town than we have lived here. I feel that ten more years on a farm would make me an old man, whereas I should at that time only reach my prime. These are briefly the reasons why I made the change. I have figured it out; it will pay. I could not afford to make a mistake in this particular.”
I thought of the long rows of figures which he had lately been casting up in his private book, and the hours he spent in pondering over the result.
“Three men are now necessary to do the work in publishing the ‘Union of States.’ In a year Ned and I will be able to do it ourselves, for we will work as hard there as here, but, as I have said, to more purpose. The time a boy spends in learning the trade of a printer is equal to so much time at school, therefore Ned will practically be at school summer and winter, and of some use besides. The boy is now reaching an age when his education should be attended to, and to all intents and purposes he will begin a term in an academy next Monday.”
He got up at this and went to bed, leaving us to talk about it. From the cold and cheerless manner in which he said I would be able to do the work of a man and a half in a year, I judged there was to be little idleness for me in the new place, and besides my work he expected me to look after my education, which had certainly been neglected in the past.
Although the paper had been coming to the house for years we had paid but little attention to it, so Agnes and I took the lamp and ransacked everywhere for a copy of the “Union of States,” that we might examine it in a new light. We found one at last, artistically notched, and doing duty on a pantry shelf. It was a sheet of eight columns to the page, printed in large type, and we could not help admitting (it was really the case) that it was well printed, and very fair looking. I read most of the advertisements aloud, and wondered whether we should speedily become acquainted with the parties, or whether years would be required to get into their aristocratic circles, for, in connection with statements that they carried the principal stocks of goods in their line in the West, at that distance they seemed very important and distinguished. However, as they all claimed the distinction of being the leading merchant of Twin Mounds, I thought that perhaps the advertisements were overdrawn, and that I might know them, at least by sight, within a few months.
There was almost a full page of law notices, some of them from adjoining counties, where newspapers were not published; at the foot of each one was printed, “Printer’s fee, $12,” and it occurred to me that most of the revenue was derived from this source. I read four or five of these, but as they were all in nearly the same language, I gave it up.
There was also a large advertisement of the paper itself, occupying two full columns, commencing with the figures of the year in which it was established, and the figures of the current year (from which I made out that the paper had been published seven years), followed by “Subscribe,” “Subscribe,” in large black letters. Then came a long platform of dull political principles, and a declaration that it was the duty of every good citizen to take it, because it advocated Benton County first, and the world afterward. After this came a paragraph, separated from the other part of the advertisement by dashes and o’s (—o—o—), stating that job printing in all its branches, from a mammoth poster to the most delicate visiting card, would be neatly and promptly executed on the new and fast presses belonging to the establishment, and immediately above the information that all letters should be addressed to the proprietor to insure prompt attention (as though there had once been a habit of sending letters intended for the printer to the blacksmith), it was said that one copy one year would be two dollars, invariably in advance; one copy six months, one dollar, also invariably in advance; one copy three months, fifty cents, also invariably in advance; and that single copies in neat wrappers for mailing could be had on application at five cents each.
We had no idea what the business was like, and sat there until midnight discussing and wondering about it, occasionally referring to the sheet to prove or disprove a notion advanced by one of the number. My own idea was that the paper was bought in a distant market, as an article of merchandise, and that my part of the business would be to stand behind a counter and sell copies at an advance in connection with mammoth posters and delicate visiting cards, but Agnes said that while she knew nothing about the newspaper business, she was certain that idea was wrong, and so it turned out.
When I suggested that Agnes could no longer live with us—it occurred to me all of a sudden, very late in the evening, and almost took my breath away—my mother (who had evidently not thought of it before, either) got up hurriedly, and went out of the room. I expressed the fear that she had gone away to cry about it, whereupon Agnes went after her, and came leading her back presently, with her arms tenderly about her.
“I can come over every Saturday,” Agnes said, “and we shall all be so busy during the week as not to notice the separation. I shall miss you more than you can possibly miss me, for I always think of this as my home, but it is not far, and we shall often be together. My school will be out in three weeks, when I will come over and stay until you are tired of me.”
As though we should ever tire of Agnes! But my mother would not be comforted, and continued to cry softly to herself—thinking, I have no doubt, that she was about to separate from the only creature in all the world who had ever been kind, and considerate, and fond of her. When I went to bed, I left them together, Agnes gently stroking my mother’s hair, and assuring her that she was her dear, kind, good friend, and that she would never forget how welcome she had always been made in her new home.
IT was barely daylight the following Monday morning, when I started with my father for Twin Mounds, where we were to take possession of the “Union of States” newspaper. As we were getting into the wagon, Agnes came out to hand me a letter, which she said she had written the night before because opportunity did not present itself to tell me what it contained. As my father was impatiently waiting to start, with the lines in his hands, I only had time to say that I would see her in a few weeks, and, kissing my hand to her, we drove away. She waved her handkerchief until we were out of sight, when I soon forgot her and the letter in the excitement of the visit to a strange place and the engaging in a work of which I had no knowledge.
My father’s usual humor had returned, and he drove along without speaking, except occasionally to the horses. Once or twice he began to sing the songs for which he was famous, but he was evidently not in tune that day, for he soon gave it up.
I had never been to Twin Mounds, as there was a post-office and a small trading-place several miles nearer, and had no idea how it looked, and knew nothing of it, except that it had a brick court-house, a stone jail, several wooden stores, a school-house, and about six hundred very wicked people. This I had incidentally learned from listening to people talk who had been there, and I was so occupied in thinking it all over that I had no inclination to talk, and it occurred to me that after I grew up, perhaps I shall be a thinking man, like my father, for we did not exchange a word during the long drive. Several times as we drove along I caught him looking at me, and I thought he was wondering how I would get on in the new business, but as he looked away quickly when I caught him at it, I concluded he was at his old habit of mentally accusing me of being dull, which made me very wretched. I never knew what his objection to me was, but I always believed that when he looked at me, and then resumed his thinking, he was accusing me of something.
At last we came in sight of the place—we came upon it suddenly, after reaching a high place which overlooked it—and I occupied myself in wondering where the house in which we were to live, and the office in which I was to work, were located, until we stopped at a place where horses were cared for, adjoining, and evidently belonging to a hotel, in front of which a swinging sign was displayed under a bell, announcing that the Twin Mounds House was kept there. I noticed that all the business places were in a square, in the centre of which was the brick court-house, and in one corner of the yard the stone jail. In a valley north of the town ran a river, and on its banks were mills, and the site of Twin Mounds had evidently been timbered originally, for in the people’s yards I saw great oak and hickory trees, and the woods adjoined the town on every side. Great numbers of impudent boys, dressed in a rakish fashion with which I was not at all familiar, abounded, and while I was thinking I should certainly have trouble with these, my father started down the street with long strides, telling me to follow.
Stopping in front of a low wooden building which had evidently been used at some time in its history as a dwelling, and on the front porch of which was a board sign reading “Printing Office,” we went in, where we found three men—two with paper caps on, who were throwing their arms violently around over a high stand, and the other, a pale man seated at a desk, who was evidently the retiring proprietor. This man and one of those with a paper cap on his head spoke pleasantly to my father, and looked inquiringly at me.
“This is the son I have told you about,” he explained, pointing at me as if I were a bag of corn. “He is ready to commence learning the printer’s trade.”
This was addressed to one of the men who wore the paper caps, and he began at once to initiate me in the mysteries of his craft. I soon learned that the high table at which he worked was covered with shallow boxes, and that each one contained a different letter; every character in the language was hid away in the nooks and corners, and my first work was to hunt them out, and remember them for future reference. This I began immediately, and became so interested in it that I did not notice for some time that a number of the rakish-looking boys I had seen when first driving into the town had collected outside the window to look at me. These were evidently the town boys of whom I had heard, and no doubt they were waiting for me to come out and fight, to see of what kind of stuff I was made. It was the understanding in the country that all town boys were knockers, and that every country boy who went there to live must fight his way to respectability. They were less ferocious than I had expected, and as I was much stronger than any of them, I should have gone out and thrown them all over the house, but for the fact that my father did not countenance fighting. They were generally delicate-looking—from high living and idleness, I thought—and while I was engaged with pleasant thoughts to myself that when Jo came over we would capture Twin Mounds, my attention was called to the circumstance, by my friend in the paper cap, that it was noon, and that my father evidently intended that I should go out with him to dinner, for he had gone himself without making any other arrangement.
I had heard them call him Martin, and he appeared to be very much of a gentleman, for before we went out he showed me through the establishment, and explained as much of it as he thought I could understand. The press was in a little room by itself—there was but one, although I remembered that in the advertisement it was said that the office was supplied with new and fast presses—and from the paper on the wall I judged that the former owner of the house had occupied that particular part of it with a bed. Back of that was a place for plunder, formerly a kitchen, and back of that still a yard and a deserted garden. There was also in the yard a large oak-tree, and to the branches of this was suspended a hammock, in which Martin said I might sometimes sleep, if I became a friend of his, as he had no doubt I should.
While we walked to the hotel he explained that he was the foreman, and that, as I was to learn the trade under him, we should be a great deal together.
“It is not much of a trade,” he said, “and if you are a bright boy you will speedily acquire it. You can learn it in six months, or three years, just as you please, for I have known boys to become excellent printers in six months, while others, with thicker heads, were about it three or four years. But as your father said you were to stay with me to-night, I will tell you more about it then.”
Going into the hotel, we found a large number of men seated at a long table in a long room, every one eating hurriedly, as though oppressed with the fear that the supply in the kitchen was likely to give out before they were filled. Near the head of the table sat my father and the pale proprietor, and between them and Martin the other man who wore the paper cap, whose name seemed to be Adams, from which circumstance I thought there was no other hotel in the place. Opposite him sat Clinton Bragg, I noticed with some astonishment, forgetting for a moment that Twin Mounds was his home, and he looked as sullen and mean as ever, but he was not so well dressed as when I had seen him at Fairview. He could not help being aware of my father’s presence, but they had evidently mutually agreed not to renew their acquaintance, though I noticed that Bragg stopped working his jaws when my father was speaking to his companion, and listened to what was being said, as though he wondered how it came we were both there.
Some of the other men were flashily dressed, and some of them plainly, and they talked a great deal to each other about their business, and by listening to this I learned which of them occupied shops, and stores, and offices, and which one was the driver of the stage that made two trips a week to a railroad station a long way off.
The dinner was served in large plates, distributed at convenient distances apart, and two smart girls in stiff aprons and dresses were in attendance should any one think anything additional could be had by asking for it, and both of them seemed to be on very confidential terms with the boarders, for they talked to them familiarly, and called them tiresome, and impudent, and I don’t know what all. A small man with a hump on his back, who occasionally came into the room, I took to be the proprietor, and Martin told me afterwards that I was right, and that while he was rather an agreeable man, his health was wretched. After most of the boarders had gone out, his wife came in with her family, and from her conversation I learned that she conducted a shop for making bonnets and dresses in the parlor of the house, and that business was dreadfully dull.
I spent the afternoon in studying the mystery of the boxes, and was encouraged to find all the letters of my name. My father was very busy at the desk with the pale proprietor, posting himself with reference to his future work, and was very careful and thorough in his inquiries into the details, from which I believed he would speedily become accustomed to his new position. The pale proprietor was evidently not accustomed to so much work in one afternoon, for he yawned frequently, and seemed bored, but my father kept him at it steadily.
Half the boys belonging in the town appeared at the window before night to look at me, and I noticed with alarm that they were not all pale and sickly, as the first lot had been, which evidently meant trouble ahead. Several of them wore their father’s boots and coats, with leather belts around their bodies, which they buckled up from tune to time as the afternoon wore away, and most of them chewed plug tobacco, which was passed around by a boy I judged belonged to a storekeeper. Occasionally they got up a game, and tried to play at it, but the interest soon flagged, and they returned to the window to look at me. Once when they became more noisy than usual, the printer named Adams dashed out, and drove them away as he would chase so many hens, but they soon came back again, and stared at me. I pretended not to notice them, as though they were of no consequence, but they made me very miserable, for they were evidently the town boys I had been warned against.
There was one who appeared late in the afternoon who looked particularly like a fighter, and the others immediately gathered around him to tell him of my arrival. He was so bow-legged that I thought it would be impossible to get him off his feet when the inevitable clash came, for I was certain he was the boy picked out to do me bodily injury, and as soon as he had been told of my appearance among them, he walked straight over to the window, and, flattening his nose against the glass, looked at me with great impudence. I thought I would turn upon him suddenly, and frighten him, but he seemed rather glad that I had turned my head, that he might see my eyes and face. Indeed, instead of being abashed, he made the ugliest face at me I have ever seen, and, drawing back from the window, spit at me through a vacancy in his lower row of teeth. He remained around there for an hour or more, walking on his hands, and turning somersaults, for my benefit, and once he lay down flat in the road, and invited four of the others to hold him there. The ease with which he got up made me more uncomfortable than ever. Although they called him “Shorty,” he was really a very long boy of his age, and wore a coat which hung about him in shreds, and instead of a shirt he had on a brown duster, tucked into a pair of pants as much too small as the coat was too large. To add to my discomfort, I heard Adams say to Martin that the town authorities really ought to do something with Shorty Wilkinson for he was always fighting and hurting somebody.
When we went to supper at the hotel the same men were there, and, as I expected, Bragg was in better humor, promising by dark to be agreeable. His principal characteristic was sullen indifference, and I wondered if a bomb exploded under his chair would disturb him. They all disliked him, evidently, from which circumstance I imagined he regarded them as a herd, as he had regarded the people of Fairview. Nobody spoke to him or he to any one, and his only tribute to the approaching darkness was a noticeable softening in his indifference, for occasionally he stopped his jaws—he munched his food like an animal, and impatiently, as though he disliked the disagreeable necessity of having a habit in common with such people—to listen to what was being said; but at dinner he was oblivious to everything. He went out before me, and when I passed through the office I saw him looking at a copy of the “Union of States,” and I was glad we had not yet taken charge, for I was sure he was making fun of it.
After Martin came out we walked down to the house where we were to live, which was a considerable distance down the street from where the hotel was kept, and which was in a lonely location on the brow of a hill overlooking the valley and the mills. Directly opposite, and across the river, were the mounds which gave the town its name, a pair of little mountains where it was said the Indians built signal fires when they occupied the country, and where they buried their dead, for human bones were often found there by curious persons who dug among the rocks. The house was built of stone, in the centre of a great many lots, surrounded by heavy hardwood trees, and as we went through the rooms Martin explained that it had been occupied long before he came there by an Indian agent, and that Twin Mounds was originally an agency, where the Indians came to draw their supplies. But the agency and the Indians had been removed further west years ago, and the house sold to an eccentric bachelor, who occupied it alone until a few months before, when he died, and the place being offered for sale, it came into possession of my father. It was two stories high, built in such a manner as to contain six large rooms of about the same size, and there were iron shutters at all the windows and doors, and the roof was of slate, which Martin said was a precaution the agent had taken against the treachery of his wards. It was in good repair, but I feared we should be very lonely in it, and felt better when we were out in the street again.
Returning to the office, I sat with him until dark on the little porch in front, on top of which was the long “Printing Office” sign, and I became convinced that I should learn rapidly under him, for he took great pains to prepare me for the work, and delivered a sort of lecture with reference to printing in general which was very instructive. He said after a while that he would go out and swing in the hammock, leaving me alone, and while wondering what I should do to amuse myself, I remembered the letter Agnes had given me. I opened it eagerly, and after finding a light with some difficulty, read:—
My Dear Ned: I tried to get an opportunity to say good-bye to you on Sunday night, but it did not present itself, therefore I write you this letter.
You said to me once that I loved every one in Fairview alike, which is very near the truth now that you are away, for I thought more of you than any of them, and express the sentiment since we are no longer to be together. I hope it will be a comfort to you to know that I esteem you as my best friend, and in your new home I desire you to think of me in the same way, for I shall never change. If I have been a blessing to you, as you have said, so you have been to me, and we have mutually enjoyed the friendship of the years we were together.
It is natural to suppose that you will rapidly improve in your new position. I sincerely hope you will, and I have so much confidence in you that I have no favor to ask except that you always remain my worthy friend. My greatest ambition for your future is that your boyhood will not fill your manhood with regrets. I have always told you that it is best to do right in everything, and while you may not succeed in this entirely, come as near it as you can. The next seven years will be the most precious of your life, and if I have a favor to ask it is that you will improve them.
I believe in you, and shall always be proud of your friendship. It has been manly, pure, and honest, and all the more acceptable because I have neither brothers nor sisters, like yourself. In one sense you have been my protégé; I undertook your education, and taught you more at home than at school, and if you succeed well in life (as I am confident you will), it will at least be evidence that I did the best I could. Probably I shall be your last teacher, for your father is a busy man, and will no doubt train you in his way; therefore I hope you will realize how necessary it is that you apply yourself, and learn whenever there is opportunity. There is nothing in the future for me but to teach other deserving boys, but everything for you. Do the best you can, and I shall be proud of you all my life.
Always your friend,
Agnes.
I had it in my mind to sit down and write a long reply at once, but much to my surprise Clinton Bragg came in at this moment and interrupted me. From what he said on entering I judged he was looking for the printer named Adams, who was a dissolute fellow, but seeing I was alone he sat down.
I had disliked Bragg from the first, but he seemed friendly enough, and, taking a bottle of liquor from his pocket, asked me to drink with him. This I refused to do; whereupon he held the bottle in his hand a long while, as if dreading to drink it. At length he went into another room and returned with a dipper of water, after which he took a drink of the liquor, but it gagged him so that he couldn’t get the water to his lips to put out the fire, and he coughed and spit in such a manner as to alarm me. The tears were standing in his eyes when he finished.
“I like GOOD liquor,” he replied, wiping the tears out of his eyes. “This is horrible. I believe I will throw it away.”
He made a motion as if to toss the bottle out into the street, but he didn’t do it, probably reflecting that it would do very well to carry in his pocket.
I am certain that he came in to let me know that he was addicted to drink, as he was very proud of that reputation, and although liquor was revolting to him he was always trying to create the impression that he could not possibly let it alone. I inferred, also, that he was well acquainted around the establishment, by reason of his association with Adams, for he seemed quite at home.
“Martin don’t drink,” he said, after trying to revive the stub of his cigar, and several ineffectual attempts to light it with a match. “Martin does nothing that is not sensible. He is out there in the hammock asleep now, while I carouse around half the night. Where do you intend to sleep?”
I replied that I believed I was to sleep there, somewhere, although I had it in my mind to say it was none of his business. I showed my contempt for him so plainly that he was ill at ease, as though he felt that his attempt to convince me that he was a drinking man had failed.
“There is a cot in the plunder room; I suppose that is for you,” he said. “I have a room above here. I believe I will wander up that way, and go to bed.”
He skulked off like a guilty dog, going through the court-house yard, and stopped occasionally as if to wonder if something that would amuse him were not going on at some of the places lit up around the square. Being satisfied at last, apparently, that the same old loungers were probably there, with their rude jokes and uninteresting experiences, he turned the corner, and passed out of sight.
IN Twin Mounds the citizens spent their idle time in religious discussions, and although I lived there a great many years I do not remember that any of the questions in dispute were ever settled. They never discussed politics with any animation, and read but little, except in the Bible to find points to dispute; but of religion they never tired, and many of them could quote the sacred word by the page. No two of them ever exactly agreed in their ideas, for men who thought alike on baptism violently quarrelled when the resurrection was mentioned, and two of them who engaged a hell-redemptionist one night would in all probability fail to agree themselves the next, on the atonement. The merchants neglected their customers, when they had them, to discuss points in the Bible which I used to think were not of the slightest consequence, and in many instances the men who argued the most were those who chased deer with hounds on Sunday, and ran horse races, for they did not seem to discuss the subject so much on account of its importance as because of its fitness as a topic to quarrel about.
There was always a number of famous discussions going on, as between the lawyer and the storekeeper, or the blacksmith and the druggist, or the doctor and the carpenter, and whenever I saw a crowd gathering hurriedly in the evening I knew that two of the disputants had got together again to renew their old difficulty, which they kept up until a late hour, in the presence of half the town.
There was a certain man who kept a drug store, who was always in nervous excitement from something a fat blacksmith had said to him in their discussions, and who had a habit of coming in on him suddenly in the middle of the day; and whenever I went into the place of business of either one of them I heard them telling those present how they had triumphed the night before, or intended to triumph on a future occasion. Some of the greatest oaths I have ever heard were uttered by these men while discussing religion, and frequently the little and nervous drug-store keeper had to be forcibly prevented from jumping at his burly opponent and striking him. The drug store was not far away from the office where I worked, and whenever loud and boisterous talking was heard in that direction a smile went round, for we knew the blacksmith had suddenly come upon his enemy, and attacked him with something he had thought up while at his work. I never knew exactly what the trouble between them was, though I heard enough of it; but I remember that it had some reference to a literal resurrection, and a new body; and I often thought it queer that each one was able to take the Bible and establish his position so clearly. Whenever I heard the blacksmith talk I was sure that the druggist was wrong, but when the druggist called upon the blacksmith to stop right there, and began his argument, I became convinced that, after all, there were two sides to the question.
These two men, as well as most of the others, were members of a church known then as the Campbellite, for I do not remember that there was an infidel or unbeliever in the place. There were a great many backsliders, but none of them ever questioned religion itself, though they could never agree on doctrine. It has occurred to me since that if one of them had thought to dispute the inspiration of the Bible, and argued about that, the people would have been entirely happy, for the old discussions in time became very tiresome.
The people regarded religion as a struggle between the Campbellite church and the Devil, and a sensation was developed one evening when my father remarked to the druggist, in the presence of the usual crowd—he happened to be in the place on an errand, as he never engaged in the amusement of the town—that sprinkling answered every purpose of baptism. The druggist became very much excited immediately and prepared for a discussion, but my father only laughed at him and walked away. The next Sunday, however, he preached a sermon on the subject in the court-house, and attacked the town’s religion with so much vigor that the excitement was very intense.
Most of the citizens of Twin Mounds came from the surrounding country, and a favorite way of increasing the population was to elect the county officers from the country, but after their terms expired a new set moved in, for it was thought they became so corrupt by a two years’ residence that they could not be trusted to a re-election. The town increased in size a little in this manner, for none of these men ever went back to their farms again, though they speedily lost standing after they retired from their positions. Many others who left their farms to move to the town said in excuse that the school advantages were better, and seemed very anxious for a time that their children should be educated, but once they were established in Twin Mounds they abused the school a great deal, and said it was not satisfactory, and allowed their children to remain away if they were so inclined.
There was the usual number of merchants, professional men, mechanics, etc., who got along well enough, but I never knew how at least one half the inhabitants lived. Some of them owned teams, and farmed in the immediate vicinity; others “hauled,” and others did whatever offered, but they were all poor, and were constantly changing from one house to another. These men usually had great families of boys, who grew up in the same indifferent fashion, and drifted off in time nobody knew where, coming back occasionally, after a long absence, well-dressed, and with money to rattle in their pockets. But none of them ever came back who had business of sufficient importance elsewhere to call them away again, for they usually remained until their good clothes wore out, the delusion of their respectability was broken, and they became town loafers again, or engaged in the hard pursuits of their fathers. The only resident of Twin Mounds who ever distinguished himself ran away with a circus and never came back, for although he was never heard of it was generally believed that he must have become famous in some way to induce him to forego the pleasure of returning home in good clothes, and swaggering up and down the street to allow the people to shake his hand.
This class of men never paid their debts, and to get credit for an amount was equal to earning it, to their way of thinking, and a new merchant who came in did a great business until he found them out. I have said they never paid; they did sometimes, but if they paid a dollar on account they bought three or four times that amount to go on the books.
They always seemed to me to be boys yet, surprised at being their own masters, and only worked when they had to, as boys do. They engaged in boys’ amusements, too for most of them owned packs of dogs, and short-distance racehorses, and it was one of their greatest accomplishments to drive a quarter-horse to a wood-wagon to some out-of-the-way neighborhood, match it against a farmer’s horse threatened with speed, and come back with all the money owned in that direction. I suppose they came West to grow up with the country, like the rest of us, but they were idle where they came from, and did not improve in the West, because work was necessary, whereupon the thought no doubt occurred to them that they could have grown rich in that way anywhere.
A few of them were away most of the time—I never knew where, but so far away that they seldom came home—and their families supported themselves as best they could, but were always expecting the husbands and fathers to return and take them away to homes of luxury. Occasionally news came that they were killed by Indians, and occasionally this was contradicted by the certainty that they were locked up for disreputable transactions, or hanged. Whenever a Twin Mounds man died away from home otherwise than honorably, it was always said that he had been killed by the Indians.
All of this, and much more, I learned during the first three years of my residence there, which were generally uneventful and without incident, save that on rare occasions I was permitted to visit Jo and Agnes at Fairview, who made so much of me that I dreaded to come away. I had long since displaced Adams, and Jo was out of his time at the mill, and for more than a year had been receiving wages enabling him to save considerable money, which he invested in his enterprise at the Ford with a steadfastness for which I, his best friend, did not give him credit. He was engaged now to be married to Mateel Shepherd, and he worked and studied to make himself worthy of her. Barker had been known to confess that Jo was the better miller of the two—I believe he really was—and when he came to town he spent more of his time in examining the machinery in the mills on the river than in visiting me, and it was plain that the old-fashioned establishment on Bull River would not satisfy him when he began the building of his own.
Dad Erring’s hands had improved somewhat during the three years, and the great piles of framed timbers lying at the ford now were his work, but Jo had paid him from his earnings as much as he would take. These were hauled from the woods, where they were fashioned by Jo himself on odd occasions, with ox teams and low wagons, assisted by the cheap labor which abounded in winter.
While the creek was low, he had laid a broad foundation for his dam, with stones so large that a great many men were necessary to handle them, which were sunk into the creek, and the succeeding layers fastened to them by a process he had invented. I think he worked there a little every week during the three years, assisted by young men he hired for almost nothing, and there was system and order in everything he did. Occasionally it happened that the water at Barker’s was too high or too low to run the mill, when he worked on his own enterprise from daylight until dark, living at his father’s house. Barker often gave him the half of one day, and all of the next, when trade was dull, and these opportunities he improved to the very best advantage; every time I went to Fairview I visited the mill, and it was always growing.
Jo made a good deal of money every month by running extra time, which opportunity Barker delighted to give him, and often after he had worked all night or all day he would commence again and work half of his employer’s time, studying his books when everything was running smoothly.
His ambition had become noised about, and partly because a mill was needed in that part of the country, and partly because the people had lately grown to admire Jo, they proposed to raise him a certain sum of money to be returned at any time within five years after the mill should commence running. My recollection is that the amount was three or four hundred dollars, and I have always believed that Damon Barker paid Lytle Biggs out of his own pocket to solicit subscriptions to the fund, for he seemed to have something to do with it.
During this time I had mastered the mystery of the boxes so well that I wondered how it was possible I had puzzled my brain over them, they seemed so simple and easy, and if I improved the time well, I am sure it was due to the kindly encouragement and help of Martin, who was not only a very clever printer, but an intelligent man besides. It had always been a part of his work, I believe, to write the few local items of the town, and he taught me to help him; making me do it my way first, and then, after he had explained the errors, I wrote them all over again. If I employed a bad sentence, or an inappropriate word, he explained his objections at length, and I am certain that had I been less dull I should have become a much better writer than I am, for he was very competent to teach me.
My father, as an editor, was earnest and vigorous, and the subjects of which he wrote required columns for expression, so that his page of the paper was always full. I spent a quite recent rainy holiday in a dusty attic looking over an old file of the “Union of States” when he was its editor, and was surprised at the ability he displayed. The simple and honest manner in which he discussed the questions of the day became very popular, for he always advocated that which was right, and there was always more presswork to do every week, which he seemed to regard as an imposition on Martin, who had formerly had that hard part of the work to perform, and on the plea of needing exercise he early began to run the press himself, and in the history of the business at that time no man was known who could equal him in the rapid and steady manner in which he went about it.
Soon after my introduction into the office I had learned to ink the forms so acceptably with a hand roller that I was forced to keep at it, for a suitable successor could not be found, but at last we found a young man who had a passion for art (it was none other than my old enemy, Shorty Wilkinson; I fought him regularly every week during the first year of my residence in town, but we finally agreed to become friends), and after that Martin and I spent a portion of the two press days of the week in adorning our page with paragraphs of local happenings; or rather in rambling through the town hunting for them. Sometimes we invented startling things at night, and spent the time given us in wandering through the woods like idle boys, bathing and fishing in the streams in summer, and visiting the sugar-camps in early spring, where we heard many tales of adventure which afterwards appeared in print under great headings.
By reason of the fact that it was conducted by a careful and industrious man, and the great number of law advertisements which came in from that and two of the adjoining counties, the “Union of States” made a good deal of money, and certainly it was improved under my father’s proprietorship. Before it came into his possession it was conducted by a man who had ideas, but not talents, beyond a country newspaper, who regarded it as a poor field in which to expect either reputation or money; but my father made it as readable as he could, and worked every day and night at something designed to improve it. The result was that its circulation rapidly extended, and the business was very profitable.
His disposition had not changed with his residence, except that he turned me over entirely to Martin, and a room had been fitted up in the building where the paper was printed for our joint occupancy, where we spent our evenings as we saw fit, but always to some purpose, for the confidence reposed in Martin was deserved.
From my mother, who was more lonely than ever in the stone house in which we lived, I learned occasionally that the Rev. John Westlock still read and thought far into every night. Into the room in which he slept was brought every evening the dining-table, and sitting before this, spread out to its full size, he read, wrote, or thought until he went to bed, which was always at a late hour.
It occurred to me once or twice, in an indifferent sort of way, that a man who had no greater affairs than a country printing office, and a large amount of wild land constantly increasing in value, had reason to think so much as he did, but I never suspected what his trouble was until it was revealed to me, as I shall presently relate.
When I rambled through the town at night, and passed that way, if I looked in at his window, which was on the ground floor, he was oftener thinking than reading or writing, leaning back in his chair, with a scowl on his face which frightened me. Whether the procession of forbidden pictures was still passing before him, and the figures accompanying them were still beckoning, will never be known until the Great Book of Men’s Actions, said to be kept in Heaven, is opened, and I hope that those who are permitted to look at the writing under the head of John Westlock will be able to read, through the mercy of God: “Tempted and tried; but forgiven.”
Almost every Saturday afternoon he drove away into the country without explanation, and did not return until Sunday night or early Monday morning. Where he went we never knew, but we supposed he had gone to preach in some of the country churches or school-houses, for persons who came into the office through the week spoke in a way which led us to believe that such was the case, although he was not often at Fairview, Jo told me, but he heard of him frequently in the adjoining neighborhoods.
During the latter part of the second year of our residence in Twin Mounds, my father came home one Monday morning in an unusually bad humor, and though he went away occasionally after that, it was usually late in the evening, and I came to understand somehow that he did not preach any more, the result of some sort of a misunderstanding. Even had I been anxious to know the particulars, there was no one to inform me, as no one seemed to know, and in a little while I ceased to think about it entirely, for he at once gave me more to do by teaching me the details of the business. The men who came to the office to see him after that annoyed him, and made him more irritable, therefore he taught me the routine of his affairs, that I might relieve him of them. We all usually worked together, but after this he took whatever he had to do into the room where Martin had his bed, and when the people came in I was expected to attend to them. From my going into the bedroom to ask him questions about his land business, which I did not so well understand, it came to be believed that he was failing in health, and his old friends frequently expressed the hope that he would soon be better. If I had trouble in settling with any one, he came out impatiently, and acted as if he would like to pitch the man into the street, for his affairs were always straight and honest, and there was no occasion for trouble. Frequently he would propose to work in my place if I would go out in town, and solicit business, and when there were bills to collect, I was put about it, so that for weeks at a time he did not see any one, and trusted almost everything to me.
When my father was away, I was expected to stay at home, and I could not help noticing that my mother was growing paler and weaker, and that the old trouble of which she had spoken to Jo was no better. The house in which we lived was built of square blocks of stone, and the walls were so thick, and the windows so small, that I used to think of her as a prisoner shut up in it. The upper part was not used, except when I went there to sleep, and it was such a dismal and lonely place that I was often awakened in the night with bad dreams, but I always had company, for I found her sleeping on a pallet by the side of my bed, as though she was glad to be near me. I never heard her come, or go away, but if I awoke in the night I was sure to find her by my side.
“There is a great change in you, Ned,” she said to me one evening when I had gone to stay with her, “since coming to town.”
I replied that I was glad to hear her say so, as I was very ignorant when I went into the office to work.
“The rest of us are unchanged,” she said. “We are no happier here than in Fairview; just the same, I think.”
It was the only reference she had ever made to the subject to me, and I did not press it, for I feared she would break down and confess the sorrow which filled her life. A great many times afterwards I could have led her up to talk about it, fully and freely, I think, but I dreaded to hear from her own lips how unhappy she really was. Had I those days to live over—how often are those words said and written, as though there is a consciousness with every man of having been unwise as well as unhappy in his youth—I would pursue a different course, but it never occurred to me then that I could be of more use to her than I was, or that I could in any way lessen her sorrow. She never regretted that I no longer slept in the house, nor that I was growing as cold toward her as my father, which must have been the case, so I never knew that she cared much about it. Indeed, I interpreted her unhappiness as indifference toward me, and it had been that way since I could remember. Had she put her arms around me, and asked me to love her because no one else did, I am sure I should have been devoted to her, but her quietness convinced me that she was so troubled in other ways that there was no time to think of me, and while I believe I was always kind and thoughtful of her, I fear I was never affectionate.
ALTHOUGH I met him almost every day, I never cared to renew my acquaintance with Clinton Bragg. The dislike was evidently mutual, for while he never came in my way, I knew he made fun of me, as he did of every one else, and I believe he had an ill word for whatever I did or attempted.
Although it was said that he drank more than was good for him, he did not have the appearance of a drunkard, and it seemed to me that when he was drinking, he was anxious that everybody know it, and that he drank more because it was contemptible and depraved than because he had an appetite. A few of the sentimental people said that were it not for his dissipating, he could greatly distinguish himself, and that he was very talented; therefore I think he drank as an apology for his worthlessness, knowing he could never accomplish what the people said he could if he remained sober. He probably argued that if he kept his breath smelling with liquor, he would only have to answer to the public for that one fault (receiving at the same time a large amount of sympathy, which a better man would have rejected), whereas if he kept sober he would be compelled to answer to the charge of being an insolent loafer, and a worthless vagabond.
From a long experience with it, I have come to believe that the question of intemperance has never been treated with the intelligence which has distinguished this country in most other particulars. We pet drunkards too much, and a halo of sentimentality surrounds them, instead of the disgust and contempt they deserve. If a man is a noted liar, or a noted vagrant, society allows him to find his proper level, and reform himself (since no one else can do it for him), but if he drinks too much, great numbers of men and women who are perhaps temperate in nothing except that they do not drink, attempt to reform him with kindness, although that method prevails in nothing else. As a reason why he should not dissipate, he is told what distinguished positions he could occupy but for the habit, and while this is well-intended, the facts generally are that the fellow is entirely worthless whether drunk or sober. The young man who practises temperance in the whiskey and other particulars because it is necessary in his ambition to be of use to himself and to those around him, is entirely neglected that the disgusting pigs who swill that which is ruinous to health, mind, and pocket may be “encouraged,” and who perhaps only drink for the poor kind of attention it insures them, and from being told of it so often, they come to believe themselves that but for their dissipation they would be wonderful fellows, so it often happens that their egotism is even more detestable than their maudlin drunkenness. Many young men are thus led into the false notion that great brains feed on stimulants, and regard an appetite as intellectual.
The same mistaken people also talk too much about the allurements and pleasures of drink; of the gilded palaces where drink is sold, and of its pleasing effects, causing young men and boys who would otherwise never have thought of it to be seized with an uncontrollable desire to try the experiment for themselves, although there is nothing more certain than that all of this is untrue. They visit these places, to begin with, because they have been warned so frequently against them, and before they find out—which they are certain to, sooner or later—that whiskey is man’s enemy in every particular, and his friend in nothing; that the “gilded palaces” in which it is sold are low dens kept by men whose company is not desirable; that the reputed pleasure in the cup is a myth; and that drinking is an evidence of depravity as plainly marked as idleness and viciousness,—they form the habit, and become saloon loafers. I firmly believe that hundreds of young men become drunkards by misrepresentation of this sort, whereas the truth is easier told, and would prove more effective in keeping them away.
The first step in a career of dissipation is not the first glass, as is sometimes asserted, but a cultivation of saloon society. There is nothing to do in a place where drink is sold, no other amusement or excuse for being there, than to drink, gamble and gossip, and when a man learns to relish the undesirable company common to such places, the liquor habit follows as a matter of course, but not before. It is an effort for most men to drink whiskey, even after they have become accustomed to its use; it is naturally disgusting to every good quality, and every good thought; it jars every healthy nerve as it is poured down the throat; it looks hot and devilish in the bottle, and gurgles like a demon’s laugh while it is being poured out, and until the young men of the country are taught that drinking is low and vicious rather than intellectual, we cannot hope for a reform in this grave matter.
I believe that familiarity with it breeds contempt, for I have noticed that very few drunkard’s sons follow in the footsteps of their fathers, and the men who sell it seldom drink it. Most drunkards are such notorious liars that little can be told from their confessions, but if accurate statistics could be collected, it would no doubt turn out that most men having the habit formed it because they were particularly warned against it. To say to a man that he shall not drink creates within him a strong desire to drink to excess, and prohibitory laws generally increase rather than decrease the consumption of liquor, because of this strange peculiarity. We regulate other evils, and admit they cannot be blotted out, but with strange inconsistency we insist that liquor of every kind must be driven from the face of the earth; that to regulate such a horrible evil is a compromise with the Devil, and that efforts for its extermination only are worthy of temperate men and women.
The most convincing argument for reform in any particular is necessity. When a man says to himself, “I must quit this habit or starve,” or “I can never obtain a position of trust in business, or a place of respectability in society, until I convince the people of my intelligence and manhood by reforming a habit which is the most contemptible as well as injurious of all other habits,” he is on the right road, and will in time accomplish a victory over himself, and the best thing society can do for him—however heartless it may seem—is to let him alone during his reformation, only visiting upon him its severe contempt when he falls, for if the fall is hard and disagreeable, he will be more careful the next time. When a man disgraces himself in any other way, we insist that he must be humiliated, as sending him to jail for petty larceny, or to public work for vagrancy; but when he becomes a disgusting, beastly drunkard, we tell him in confidence that he is not to blame, and that his enemies the saloon-keepers are responsible. The man who sells the pistol or the poison is not to blame for the suicide, nor is the man who sells the whiskey to blame for the drunkard.
It is no more remarkable that men drink too much than that men eat too much, and die, before their time, of dyspepsia. The one we regard as a glutton, and despise him that he does not use the knowledge God has given him to better advantage, but the other is fondled and pitied until he is made to feel almost comfortable in his disgrace. The result is that men are oftener cured of excessive eating than of excessive drinking. We never think of punishing the grocer for selling unhealthy but palatable food, but we are very severe on the men who sell palatable but demoralizing drink. Men have frequently been cured of kleptomania by a term in jail, and of lying and loafing by the contempt of the people among whom they live, and the same rule applied to drunkards would be equally satisfactory in its results.
Because temperance is right, too many insist that it must prevail, although the experience of ages proves that it never was, and never will become a common virtue. We might reason with equal goodness of heart that because children are pretty and healthy, they should never be stricken down with disease, and die, although our sorrowing hearts tell us that the reverse is the rule.
In everything else we profit from experience, but we seem to have learned nothing from the past in dealing with intemperance. The methods used for its suppression now are exactly the same as were used hundreds of years ago, although we know them to be ineffective. As a sensible people, as a people desiring the good of the unfortunate, we cannot afford to practise methods which we know beforehand will be of no avail. Intemperance is growing too rapidly to admit of an unsatisfactory pretence that we have discharged our duty, and while the theory advanced by the writer of this may not be the best one, it is certain that the one generally adopted is wrong, for the people are disheartened and discouraged because with all their work they have accomplished nothing.
Clinton Bragg was this sort of a drunkard, and drank whiskey for no other reason than that everybody said it wasn’t good for him. It was known that he always drank large quantities of water after using his bottle, as if the liquor had set fire to his throat, and the water was intended to put it out. While I never knew him to be helplessly intoxicated, he was frequently under the influence of his bottle, or pretended to be, although I have seen him sober very suddenly, and I always thought he was dissatisfied that the people did not talk more about his dissipation, as they did of Fin Wilkinson’s, the town drunkard, who was often on the streets in danger of being run over by wagons.
Every two or three months he received an allowance of money from his father, which he expended selfishly but lavishly as long as it lasted, but for a few weeks before his money came, and while he was without it, he was a more decent fellow, and it occurred to me that had he been compelled to make his own way in the world, he might in time have developed into a respectable man. But as it was he had no friends, and spent the mornings of his days in sleeping, and his nights in aimless excursions over the country, riding a horse as mean and vicious as himself. A decent man would not have owned the animal, for he had a reputation for biting and kicking, but Bragg lavished upon him the greatest attention, and was delighted to hear occasionally that he had injured a stable boy. It was a pleasure to Bragg to know that his horse laid back his ears in anger at the approach of any one, in the street or on the road, and his master teased him for hours to cultivate his devilish disposition.
Where he went on these excursions nobody ever knew except that I knew he frequently rode by Barker’s mill, as if on his way to the Shepherds, galloping back the same way at a late hour, to create the impression that he was so popular there that he only got away with difficulty, though I believe he usually rode aimlessly about to be different from other men, for while he often rode that way, it was only on rare occasions that he went to the house of the minister.
Bragg was educated, and when he talked to the town people at all it was to point out their ignorance, which he did with a bitter tongue. If he was seated in front of the usual loitering places on a summer evening, which he sometimes did because there was nothing else to do, he made everybody uncomfortable by intently watching for opportunity to insolently point out mistakes, and if he ever read or studied at all it was for this purpose. Occasionally there came to the town a traveller who was his equal in information, who beat him in argument and threatened to whip him for an insolent dog, which afforded the people much satisfaction. I remember a commercial traveller who sold the merchants nearly all their goods because he once threw a plate of soup in Bragg’s face at the hotel table, and then, leading him out into the yard by the ear, gave him a sound beating; but I do not remember what the occasion of the difficulty between them was, though it was probably no more than his ordinary impudence.
He had an office and apartments over a leather store a few doors above the place where I worked, in front of which there was a porch, and he sat out upon this, when the weather was pleasant, for hours at a time, smoking cigars, and spitting spitefully into the street. The only man I ever knew who visited his rooms was the leather dealer, who called on Bragg once every three months to collect his rent. It was a part of the town gossip that this man said the rooms were splendidly furnished, but always darkened with rich and heavy curtains at the windows, and that it was full of stuffed snakes, lizards, bats, and other hideous things; that his match-safe was a human skull, and that a grinning skeleton hung against the wall, which rattled and wildly swung its arms and legs every time a draft or a visitor came in at the door. It was also related that by means of ingenious strings he made the skeleton shake or nod its head, and point with its arms, and I have imagined that when he was in his apartments he employed himself in causing the figure to nod its head in response to the assertion that Clinton Bragg was a fine fellow, or shake it violently when asked if Clinton Bragg was a worthless dog, as the people said.
Occasionally people who had lines to run knocked at his door in response to the sign, “C. Bragg, C. Engineer,” but even if he was at home he would not let them in, for he had no intention of walking over the prairie in the hot sun when he put out the sign. I never knew of his doing anything in his line, although he might have been a great deal employed, and finally no one applied there for admission except the saddler for his rent, and a lame negro who swept and cleaned his apartments, although it was quite generally believed that the Devil called on him every bad night.