E came to broad fields, where the brook we had followed wound through many acres of wheat. It stood thick and high as my shoulders, for I was rather small of my age, and rustled in the wind.
“Here's our hotel,” said Bony, as he began to wade in the brook again. “We'll find our rooms and put up for the day.”
Far out in this yellowing field we climbed the bank of the stream, and on our hands and knees crawled in among the wheat-stalks.
“Ah!” said Bony Squares as he lay back in the wheat; “no ice-water, thank you. Call me at seven.”
I lay down near, and soon heard him breathing heavily as he fell asleep. I looked up through the grain at a little patch of the blue sky, and thought and listened.
The great field rang with the chirp of crickets, that somehow set me thinking of my folly. It was a curious, beautiful country there, beneath the grain. Leaning on my elbow, I could look off under its green empyrean, supported by innumerable columns. There were little roads and trails, and a mouse came galloping up one of them. It suggested a forest of the fairies. A small bird went by me wandering in a little highway with the leisurely pace of a hen.
I could hear a bobolink singing just above my head, and then the whir of his wings. Soon he seized a swaying stalk—one foot above another—on the very edge of my bed, and as he rocked back and forth filled the breeze with song. A bumblebee, which had fallen through the wheat-blades, rose here and there and tried to ram his way upward into the sunlight. The roar of his wings reminded me of the big side-wheeler which had passed us the night before on the river. It suggested thunder in the low, green heavens above that little world. Innumerable bearded tops, now bleaching yellow, made a sort of æolian music in the breeze. It has often seemed to me that the birds have better ears for it than we; that, indeed, the fields are full of bells and harps and fragrance and color far beyond the reach of men.
Soon I began to think of my mother. She was away on a visit, and would not hear of my absence for a day or two. I had nineteen cents in my pocket, and took it in my hands and counted it carefully. But I had my horruck in a hidden pocket of my waistcoat.
Just as soon as possible I would stop somewhere and write my mother a letter, and let her know what had befallen me. I felt sure that by returning I should make her more trouble than by keeping away. She had often described to me the perils of bad company, and I had promised to be careful, but here I was up to my ears in it.
It was a mercy that sleep came to shorten that cloudless summer day. The hot sun mounted high, and for a time must have glared down straight upon us, and then descended below far wooded hills in the west; but still we slept. It was growing dusk when I was awakened by the roar of a bird's wings. Bony was on his knees within reach of my hand, looking down at me. A bird kept dipping close to the ears of my companion and snapping his wings.
Bony took a bun from his pocket, and crowded half of it into his mouth. It stuck out like a wen, and slowly diminished as he ate. He renewed his wen, saying as he did so:
“Come to supper, old man. The buns are all gone. Have some bread?”
I was hungry, and promptly answered, “Yes.”
“Plug or fine cut?” he demanded, taking crumbs of varying sizes out of his hip-pocket. “Here's bread and two pieces of turnpike cheese, and one egg on the half-shell, and three spikes.” The three spikes were dried herring, which he had taken out of his trousers-pocket.
“Aunt Maria!” he exclaimed, as he took a bite of herring; “it's like eating a jack-knife.”
He spoke glibly, and spread each article on a piece of newspaper in front of us. My tongue was parched, and I went to the brook on my hands and knees, and sank my mouth in the ripples and drank greedily, as if I had been a creature of four feet. I never knew there could be so much delight in the simple act of drinking water.
I ate two herrings and half of the cheese, and all the crumbs that fell, as it were, from the rich man's table.
Suddenly we heard the whistle of a locomotive. “There's a railroad nigh,” said Bony. “Ever ride on the cars?”
“No,” I answered. “Did you?”
“Pooh, hundreds o' miles!” he exclaimed, with disgust at the question. “Come on; maybe we can get that train. It was four or five miles away when it whistled.”
We hurried off in the dusk, and after walking a mile or so came to a railroad, and could see the lights of a depot near us. We mounted the wooden beams which, with straps of iron on their tops for a bearing, were the tracks of those days, and hurried to a point near the depot. There we sat down and waited in the darkness till the arrival of our train—a fearsome thing, that roared and creaked along with spark-showers and rags of flame in the air above it. The trainmen rudely shouted their commands, as if the waiting crowd were so many cattle. I trembled as I hurried with Bony to the side of the train.
“I've only nineteen cents,” I whispered.
“Never mind, sonny—I'll pay yer fare,” said he, jauntily, as if such excitement and generosity were quite familiar to him.
We climbed the platform when all were aboard, and Bony said to me:
“We'll stand here, if they don't kick us off, until we get to the next stop.”
So we stood in the spark-shower as our train roared and creaked along, and the platform began to sway and jump and shove and jerk and waver. A young man in a gay uniform of blue and brass came out with a lantern and bawled this in my ear:
“Look a-here, bub!—see that picture?” He held his lantern so that I could see the picture of a grave on the car door. Its headstone contained these words:
Sacred to the memory of a man who once stood on a car platform
We passed into the car, and sat on a straight-backed seat by a rattling window. It was much shorter than the cars of to-day, and permeated with the odor of whale-oil that came from its lamps, and had a stove at each end. The conductor told us, when we had paid four cents a mile for our fare to the next stop, that we had just left De Kalb Junction and were on the night express for the South. A man was asleep near us with a curious framework of iron behind him. It extended from the middle of his spine to the back of his head, and had a sort of spring in it which permitted him to sit in a leaning posture.
I asked the conductor what it was.
“That,” said he, “is one o' them new contrivances. Some call it a jolt-taker. It smoothes the way a little and is an aid to sleep.”
In a moment Bony whispered to me: “The coast is clear, and I guess we'll go on a little farther, and I'll pay your fare if you'll give me your jack-knife.”
I had one which had cost me ten shillings, and I gave it over. So we rode on for some two hours or more, and left the train about ten o'clock, and inquired our way of the agent, and then went on afoot. It was very dark, and Bony said that the moon would be up by-and-by, then we could find a barn or some place where we could turn in for the night. We had smooth footing, and hurried on, but no moon came to guide us. It was far past midnight when Bony halted, near some black object beside the road, and struck a match and lighted a wad of paper.
We saw, then, a ruined gate and weeds growing beyond it. I followed as my leader went in among the weeds. He lighted more paper, and we saw in the flare an old mansion with broken windows and a sagging porch. It had been long deserted, one could tell at a glance. We soon found the open doorway and entered, and Bony's matches showed us a ruined hall as large as my mother's door-yard. A broken fireplace and cracked chimney of red brick faced the door. A plough and harrow, some fallen plaster, and old iron littered the floor. A pair of sleighs, with a box on them, had been stored in a corner. Some straw in the bottom of the sleigh-box seemed to invite us to lie upon it, and we did so. Bony took off his coat and spread it over him—a good thing to remember if one has no better blanket—and I followed his example.
“What's that?” I whispered, having heard a sound like that of some one stealthily crossing the floor above-stairs.
“Don't know—I guess Adam must 'a' built this house.”
“Haunted, maybe,” I suggested. “Probably some one has been murdered here.”
“Shut up!” said Bony, with a shiver. “You'll give me the megrums.”
I lay awhile listening, and went to sleep cold and hungry. I do not know how long I had slept—it was, probably, not more than half an hour—when a shrill and awful cry awoke us.
Believe me, I have heard some yelling in my day, but that cry cut like a knife. As I think of it now, it reminds me of Salvini's wail when I saw him play the Ghost in Hamlet. Honestly, it made my heart tremble. That sleigh-box seemed to palpitate with terror. I rose on my elbow and looked off in the darkness. Bony covered his face and trembled. For a moment I could hear only the slow, steady beat of raindrops; then stealthy footsteps and the sound of trailing garments on the floor. Again that weird, ghostly cry set my ears aching. I could feel each hair in my scalp stir and quiver. I heard again the sound of stealthy feet and of trailing garments. Then we heard the shaking of a sheet in the darkness—or that, at least, was the only sound to which one could liken it. Bony lay groaning and shivering beside me. I found a match and struck it on a side of the sleigh-box. First, I stared off in the darkness and saw nothing; then I looked down at my companion. His face appalled me; it was the mask of horror. But the glimpse he got of my own visage in the dim match-light had a worse effect upon him. He really saw a spirit then, and I saw one also, and what I saw was a fearful thing to behold—the guilty, evil spirit of Bony Squares. I could hardly resist the impulse to fly from him. With a wild cry he leaped out of the sleigh-box and stumbled toward the doorway and fled.
I lay back and covered my face with my coat. For hours I lay listening and shivering, and fearing I knew not what.
In the faint, first light of the morning I rose and peered about me. Soon I saw the silhouette of a big bird in an open window across the ruined hall. The light grew clearer and my vision more acute. The bird that stood on the window-sill was a peacock, with a purple body and a tail some seven feet long. As I rose it flew to the ground, with that weird shriek which had filled the darkness with terror. The mystery was explained. There were the trailing garments, the wings that rustled like a sheet when he rose to the window-sill.
This adventure served, as it were, to separate me from the goats. There was yet another thing which it accomplished: it cleared the earth of ghosts for me, so that I no longer feared them, having always a just suspicion of such fancies.
TOOK the road again, faint with hunger. I tell you, one will have faith in the goodness of men and women who makes a journey like that of mine. I remember it almost broke me down to go to a farm-house and face the good woman who opened the door and ask for a chance to earn my breakfast. When I spoke to her, there must have been something in my voice and countenance not to be denied or even rudely dealt with. I got all that I needed and more, and went on my way with a bundle of luncheon and a heart full of gratitude.
The sun was shining out of a clear sky behind me, and I knew that I was travelling in the right direction. The white-throated sparrow sang on a wooded slope:
The sidings were aglow with goldenrod and bluebells, and the breeze had a musky breath, and every bush was a fountain of song. I posted a letter to my mother in a little hamlet through which I passed about ten o'clock.
Near noon I overtook a boy some two or three years older than myself. He had a wooden leg—a rude stump on which his knee rested—and walked with a grip in his hand. He was a rugged, serious-looking boy, with a face browned by the sunlight. He asked for my name and “place of residence.”
“I'm a commercial traveller,” he informed me, presently.
“What do you sell?”
“Sit down an' I'll show ye.”
We sat on the grass together, and he opened his grip. It was full of round white balls, differing in size and neatly wrapped in tinted tissue-paper.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What is it?” he answered., with dignity. “That, sir, is Sal.”
“Sal?” said I
“Sal,” said he, with a fond look at one of the white balls which now lay in his hand. “Sal cleans and polishes silverware, glassware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork and makes the home bright and beautiful.”
He spoke this lingo as if it were some passage from a book of poetry, and paused to note its effect upon me.
“What is your line?” he asked.
“I'm on my way West to find employment,” said I.
“How would you like to take Sal with you?” he asked.
“I don't know,” was my answer.
“I'll sell you the receipt for a dollar,” said the boy with a wooden leg. “Fifty cents' worth of material will make a hundred balls. They sell like hot cakes—ten cents for the small sizes, twenty-five for the large.”
“I haven't much money—only sixteen cents,” I answered, with embarrassment, remembering that I had just paid three cents for postage.
He looked me over from head to foot, and said, “I'll trust ye, if ye'd like to try it.”
“All right,” I said.
He opened his little grip and counted out ten of the small balls and as many large ones.
“There,” said he, “ye ought to be able to sell 'em all in a day. Then you can send me a dollar for the receipt.”
“How do you go to work to sell it?” I asked.
“The towns are best,” said he. “When I get to a town I make a little map of the main streets and put down the names—the hotel man is always glad to help you. By-an'-by I begin to ring the door-bells. I don't ask for the lady of the house—no, sir; I say, 'Is Mrs. Smith at home?' It works grand—there she is. 'Kind lady,' says I, 'I'm introducin' Sal, who cleans silverware, glassware, etc. Sal is better than a hired girl.'
“Don't forget to say that it makes the home bright and beautiful. It's a nice chunk o' language an' tells just what the women are trying to do. Course she says, 'No, thanks.' Then says I, 'If you've any old piece o' tarnished silver, I'd like to make a little exhibition. As the poet says:
'“I'll make it shine
As brightly as those eyes of thine.'
“Throw in a little portry once in a while. It sounds good an' is easy to remember. But ye got to be careful. Some don't like it. Women that wear aprons an' rings an' breastpins, an' have their sleeves rolled up, 'll generally stand portry, 'specially if they've got curly hair. Look out for handsome women that wear diamonds an' set around with their feet up readin' portry.' Seems so them that read portry get enough of it. Don't ever give 'em any of yours.
“Women are funny. Around here there's two kinds of 'em—insiders an' outsiders. The outsiders talk about their neighbors; the insiders talk about their livers an' lungs, an' so on. I know one that talks about her liver shameful. You'd think it was the meanest thing in the world.
“They ain't all alike. In some places you'll find 'em perched in their fam'ly trees. Lord! I know one that sets an' chirps by the hour in her fam'ly tree. You've got to let her go it, an' bym-by, maybe, you can bring her down to the fam'ly tea-pot. If so, you're all right. It's wonderful how they go on. You'll enjoy it, an' that's half the battle.
“Be sure to notice the children. I always let 'em fool with my wooden leg. Sometimes I put one end on a chair an' let 'em set on it. I suppose this old leg has been set on an' abused more than any leg in the world.
“You ain't got a wooden leg, an' it's kind of a pity, as ye might say, for it's wonderful how this thing helps in business. Lots o' times it helps ye git acquainted, an' that gives ye a chance. Then say, look a-there.” He flung his wooden stump over his knee and felt the surface of it, and explained: “That's where one kid drove a nail in it, an' that's where one fetched a whack with a stove iron, an' there a little red-headed boy bored a hole with his gimlet. Curious how they take to it; an' I don't mind much. Helps business an' makes 'em happy.”
He called my attention to many small dents in the wood.
“That's where the dogs has bit it,” he went on. “If a dog comes at me, I always put it out to him. It keeps 'em busy.”
He showed me a small atomizer, adding, “A little ammonia 'll shift the trouble onto them.” We rose and resumed our journey. I had stored my small stock of Sal in my coat-pockets.
“There's the receipt,” said he, gravely, as he handed me a piece of paper.
It revealed the fact that Sal was chiefly composed of whiting and ammonia.
“All ye need now is a small sponge an' some tissue-paper, an' here's a piece o' chamois that ye can have an' welcome.”
He explained his method of applying the Sal, and presently handed me his card, on which I read this legend:
Commercial Traveller
Hermon Centre, N. Y.
“I ain't much there,” he went on. “The boys call me Pegleg at home, an' that's one reason I got out. I wish you'd call me Mr. McCarthy, please. I intend to be a gentleman, an' try to be. Can you tell me what a gentleman is?”
I looked thoughtful and said nothing. Mr. McCarthy continued:
“He's a man that don't git drunk or swear or pare his nails in public, an' always takes off his hat to a lady. He washes his hands before he goes to the table, an' eats kind o' slow an' deliberate, an' maybe smokes a fine cigar after dinner, 'an always does as he'd like to be done by. That's why I'm tryin' to help you along.”
I expressed my gratitude in no half-hearted way.
“I like you, dinged if I don't,” said Mr. McCarthy, with a kindly patronage. “You'll git along all right—don't worry.”
After a moment of silence, he went on:
“Ye see, I'm careful about all these things. I keep my eyes an' ears open, an' I'm teachin' myself. I'm a kind of a hand-made gentleman, an' that's the most durable kind. But I ain't finished myself yet. You wait; I'll show ye something one o' these days. How do you happen to be on the road?”
I told him my story.
“Don't worry,” he went on. “Mr. James Henry McCarthy will see you through. I try to be benevolent.”
We walked on a little way in silence.
“I suppose you've noticed that I can sling some rather big words,” he remarked, presently. “Well, I always carry a pocket dictionary, an' when I hear a word I like I look it up an' chalk it down in my note-book; helps my conversation. I study it a good deal while I'm travelling. Ye see, I never had a chance to go to school much—just learnt how to read an' write an' cipher a little. My knowledge ain't very superior. Now, that's quite a word—superior. How does it sound?”
“All right,” I answered.
“Never used it before—found it in the book to-day. I've got about forty dollars saved, an' I've learnt thirty new words so 't I can use 'em. When I go home by-an'-by they've got to look up to me.”
The oddness of it all was not lost upon me, young as I was. I think often of the frankness of that young son of America, just beginning to feel his way upward from the plane of lowly poverty and of his kindly heart. I dreamed not then of what he was to do in the world.
“Come into this house with me,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I'll give ye an exposition—ahem! that's one o' my new ones. Pretty fair kind of a farm-house. Wouldn't wonder if there was some old silver in it.”
He led me to the front door of a big, square, old country mansion. A maid opened the door and asked to know our business. Mr. McCarthy removed his hat and bowed.
“Will you please communicate with the lady of the house,” said he, “an' tell her that I am selling Sal? Kindly inform her that Sal cleans silverware, glassware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork, and makes the home bright and beautiful. If you've any old silver I'd like to show ye what it 'll do.”
The maid brought him a tarnished tea-pot, and McCarthy went to work and soon made it glow like a drop of dew in the sunlight. The maid took it to her mistress, and returned presently with fifty cents to be invested in Sal.
“I just wanted to show ye what Sal can do,” said Mr. McCarthy, as we went away. “Ye got to believe what ye say or ye can't sell anything. Make yourself believe in it, an' you'll succeed.” We came presently to four corners in the road, where my new friend bade me sit down with him. He consulted his note-book.
“Here,” said he, “are Jehoshaphat Corners. The straight road goes to Canaan, Waterville, and Van Kleek's Huddle; the left to Putney, Porridgeville, and Lawrence. You take one road an' I'll take the other, an' four weeks from now we could meet an' settle up at Graham's Hotel in Buffalo. It's only a dollar a day there. Here, I'll lend ye fifty cents; it 'll help some till ye get a-going.”
“You're very kind, and I thank you for it.”
“Don't mention it,” said he. “It's no more than any gentleman would do.”
So we parted there, and I took the straight road and he turned to the left.
WAS lonely at leaving Mr. McCarthy, but full of hope. At Canaan I went to work and sold about half my stock of goods and took the cars to Waterville. There I bought a small hand-bag and a stock of ingredients for my receipt, and had just left my hotel next morning to begin my canvass when a trumpet sounded up the main street of the little city. Turning, I saw a caravan of great red wagons coming toward me at a swift pace, led by four beautiful white horses. A smart-looking lady and gentleman occupied the high seat of the first van, and he was driving the white horses.
“A circus!” I heard people exclaim near me, and every foot halted and all eyes were bent on the red vans. They were fast approaching. The driver referred to wore a white beaver hat and a coat of blue velvet with a white flower in its buttonhole. The lady beside him was a wonderful creature with a great hat and fluttering ribbons and gleaming jewels, and a face more beautiful, as I thought, than any my poor eyes had seen. Three glowing vans had gone by, each with its team of handsome horses, and each van ornately lettered as follows:
Dry Goods and Yankee Notions
A white banner on the first and third vans announced:
Our Great Store will be Open from Two to
Six To-Day in the Vacant Lot Corner
of Crosby and Main Streets
I began my work, and for an hour or so the vans were passing up and down the streets, and most of the women I saw left me to go and look out of their doors and windows. I could make little headway, for by two o'clock the houses were all empty. Mothers, daughters, and hired girls were on their way to the great travelling store. I went with the crowd, and found the red vans in a row on the vacant lot and many gathered about them. The sides of each van had been let down to serve as counters on which the goods were displayed. The smart-looking man who had driven the white horses sat under a little canopy of red-and-white bunting with the wonderful lady who had ridden beside him. I stood with a score of other people looking at them.
“What! do you think I would lie for a shilling?” he was saying to a man who stood beside him. “Bosh! I might tell eight lies for a dollar, but one for a shilling! No! That's below my price.”
He laid off his beaver hat and sat twisting his' sandy-hued mustache. His curly hair was cut close.
“Hey, boy!” he said, as he beckoned to me, “want to earn half a dollar?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Well, trot down to the depot and bring me a copy of last night's Utica Observer,” he commanded, as he put a shinplaster in my hand.
When I had returned with the paper, he asked, “What ye got in yer grip?”
“Sal,” I answered.
“Sal!” he exclaimed, with a laugh, “who's Sal?”
“A wonder!” I answered. “Cleans and polishes glassware, silverware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork, and makes the home bright and beautiful.”
He laughed again, and asked me to show him what Sal could do on the large silver buckles which adorned his shoes. This I did, and the result so pleased him that he offered me a dollar for the balance of my stock, and I gladly closed the deal.
It was about three o'clock when I set out afoot for the Huddle. About half-way there I found a puppy in the road—a small, lonely, pathetic creature, abandoned by some one who had had enough of him. I wonder if ever I felt such an appeal as came out of that warm little bundle of playfulness, wrapped in the softest robe of silken fur and with eyes saying, “Please, sir, take me and be kind to me.”
The puppy followed me until I yielded to his pleading and took him up in my arms. Well, he was better than no company, and I buttoned him under my coat and against my breast, where he lay asleep with only his nose in view. At dusk I found lodgings in a farm-house, and went to my room contented with the bit of luncheon that I had with me. A kindly old woman had said that I could stay, and sent a hired man up-stairs with me. He explained that “the boss and his wife” were away, and would not return for an hour or so. I offered to pay him if he would take care of the puppy, but he had to hurry to meet a train, and said that he would come up and get him later.
I decided to make some Sal, and so I put the ingredients in my wash-bowl and added water.
It became an obstinate, ill-looking mess, and one might as well have tried to make balls out of buttermilk. It resisted all my efforts. I wondered what I should do with it, and lay down upon the bed in discouragement. The hired man had not yet returned, and the puppy had gone to sleep in a corner. I would lie there and rest while I waited, and so, thinking, fell asleep.
Some hours later the puppy woke me with loud cries of despair. The hired, man must have forgotten his promise. I rose from the bed, and saw the plight of my puppy. He had wallowed in my basin, and the soft Sal lay thick on his body. He began wailing as if wild with all regret. I could hear people jumping out of bed.
In a moment I heard a rap at my door, and opened it. A man, half dressed, sprang aside as the puppy ran upon his bare feet. Farther down the gloomy hall I could hear him calling and pursuing my pet; then a soft thud on the floor. The man had picked up the puppy and dropped him, saying, “Heavens!” It was only one word, but full of meaning.
I tried to clean the floor while my benefactors pursued the unhappy creature.
“Pick him up!” said a woman, excitedly.
“Pick him up! Never!” said the man.
“Seems so he was covered with lather,” said the woman.
“Maybe he's mad!” another suggested. “Throw this sheet over him!”
“Come on, I've got him now,” said the first woman.
Soon there came a loud rap at my door. A tall, thin, long-nosed Yankee entered as I opened it.
“See here, young man,” he drawled, “what do you mean by fillin' this house with puppies?”
“There is only one, sir,” I answered.
“Only one!” said he, sharply. “I should think that was enough. He's as big as an elephant. He filled the house from cellar to garret, and crowded us all out o' bed and yelled for more room. Say, what's he got on him?” '“Silver polish,” I answered.
“Silver polish!” said he. “Well, I've read o' their puttin' dogs in a bath-tub, but I never heard o' their bein' polished before.”
“He got into the basin where I mixed it.”
My visitor picked up the dish of soft Sal, and held it near the light for examination.
“Godfrey Cordial!” he remarked, “it's an awful-lookin' mess! What do you call it?”
“Sal,” I answered.
“Sal!” he exclaimed. “I'm sorry that you an' Sal ever lit in my family tree. You're a fine pair o' birds.”
I explained to him that the hired man had promised to take the puppy out-of-doors, but had forgotten to do so, and he left me.
I went to breakfast soon after daylight in the morning. When I returned to my room the Sal was gone. Some one had carried the bowl away with its contents. I went below to look for the proprietor. I found him shovelling dirt in the garden.
“Somebody took my polish,” I said to him, as pleasantly as possible.
“Yes, an' I'm about to bury it an' the dog, too.”
“Is the dog dead?” I asked, with a pang of regret.
“Yes; slain by his own deviltry! Oh, he had a busy night! Got to playin' with our ol' cat; he polished her an' she polished him. Her paws are all gummed up an' her eyes swelled an' kind o' shiny. He got at our shepherd dog an' polished him. That dog has got a sore mouth an' is brighter than he ever was before, The last performance of your puppy was to tackle one o' the hind feet o' my ol' mare; he didn't live long after that. The services have begun, an' I guess you're the only mourner. I've just prayed that I may never see him again. The sermon will be short. Don't ever take up any more room in the world than what you're entitled to.”
So ended my first adventure in business. It taught me the wisdom of knowing how, and of being sure about it, and, further, that one is to be careful not to take more than his share of room in the world.
HE farmer in whose house I had spent the night was a thrifty man of the name of Ephraim Baker. My hope in Sal having been overthrown, I offered him my services. I had had enough of disappointment and uncertainty.
“You don't look stout,” said he, “but you ought to be able to mow away an' rake after.” Well, I made a bargain with him, and went to work at once. My first task was to lead a great bull to water. He stood in the stable with a ring in his nose, and roared as I took him out. It was like leading a thunder-storm, but I thought of what General Washington would have done, and walked without flinching. I was surprised to see how easily I could handle the big bull with that ring in his nose. After this initiation the harvesters—big, cordy fellows—tried to bury me in the mow. They always did that with a fresh hand, “to see what he was made of.” Well, I kept my head and shoulders above the grain, although they had given me a fork with three corners on the stale. It was a hard pace they set me, and I lay down at night like a wounded soldier.
I slept with the hired man, who had taken me to my room when I arrived, with all my pride upon me. He was a big, friendly fellow with bristling red hair, who bore the proud, sonorous name of Sam. He had forgotten to remove the puppy—so he said—and thought it all an excellent joke.
He indulged in autobiography as I lay yawning—led me through his career to romantic scenes where he first met his girl and “took a shine to her.”
“I wished,” said he, after a moment of silence, “that you'd write a letter for me which I could copy and send to her. I want it worded right up to the mark. You've got learnin', an' will know how to write a good, respectable, high-toned letter.”
I agreed to do my best for him.
Mr. Baker called us at four, and we dressed and went into the garden and dug potatoes until breakfast-time. So each day began, its work continuing in field, mow, and milking-yard until dark.
Next evening, when we went to our room, with pen and ink I sat down to write the letter for him.
“To Miss Fannie Comstock, Summerville, New York,” he dictated, in a whisper. “Dear Miss.”
He sat a moment thinking.
“Tell her I ain't forgot her,” he went on, “and that I am well an' hope you're the same, an' so on an' so forth.”
So I began the letter as follows:
Dear Miss,—It is only a month since we parted, but it has been the longest month in my life, and although I am far away it will surprise you to learn that I see you often. I see you in the fields every day and in my dreams every night.
“I don't think that will do,” he demurred, soberly, when I read it to him.
“Why not?” was my query.
“Well, it don't seem as if it was exactly proper an' good sense,” he continued, in all seriousness. “The month ain't had any more 'n thirty-one days in it—that's sure.”
I tried again with better understanding, and this came of it:
Dear Miss,—I write these lines to let you know that I am well and that I haven't forgotten you. I hope that you are well and that you haven't forgotten me. I am working on a farm, and am as happy as could be expected.
“That's good,” said he, when I read it to him; and added, proudly, with his finger on the unfinished line, “Wages, thirty dollars a month.”
I did as he wished.
“Now go on,” he suggested. “Throw in a big word once in a while.”
“Aren't you going to say anything about love?” I asked. “A little poem might please her.”
“Go light on that,” he answered, doubtfully. “She's respectable.”
It is a trait of the common clay of which Sam was made to consider love a thing to be reluctantly, if ever, confessed. When the grand passion showed itself in his conduct it was greeted with jeers and rude laughter. It became, therefore, a hidden, timid thing.
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed; “she can't be more respectable than love and poetry. If you love her you ought not to be ashamed of it.”
“Well, throw in a little if you think best,” he yielded, “but do it careful.”
So the letter continued:
Lately I've been saving my money. Perhaps you can guess why. I want a home and some one to help me make it happy, and I believe I've found her. She is good and beautiful, and all that a woman should be. Do you want to know who it is? Well, that's a secret. She's a lady, and that's all I will tell you now. Fannie, you're a friend of mine, and I need your advice. I am a little frightened and don't know just what to say to her, and you could make it easy for me if you would. Please let me know when I can see you.
Sam shook his head and laughed and exclaimed, “That's business!”
“No, it's love,” I objected.
“Well, it ain't foolish or unproper, an' it sounds kind o' comical. She'll want to know all about it. Put in that I'm goin' to take a farm an' be my own boss, an' have as good a horse an' buggy as any one. That makes it kind o' temptin'.”
I did as he wished.
“Now say, 'Yours truly, with respect,'” said he, and so my task was ended.
Three days later he came to me in high spirits, with a letter in his hand.
“I'm goin' to see Fannie to-morrow,” he said, in a whisper. “If Sam Whittemore can do anything for you, I want to know it.”
His opportunity came that evening. I was doing my chores in the barn. Suddenly Sam burst upon me.
“They're after you!” he whispered.
“Who?” I asked.
“Two men in a buggy—they've heard you were here.”
I had told him of my trouble, and now it threatened to engulf me. Would I give myself up and go home with the officers? I could not bear the thought of going home like a felon. It would kill my mother. This all flashed through my brain in a jiffy, while the dusk air seemed to be full of chains and handcuffs. I started to climb a ladder.
“No use,” said he, as he picked up an empty sack. “They know you're here. Get into this sack.”
A wagon stood on the barn floor loaded with potatoes, in big sacks. Sam was holding the empty sack. I stepped into it and sat with my chin between my knees while he stuffed a bundle of straw all around me. Then he cut two holes near the top of the sack, to give me air and an outlook, tied it above my head, and flung me on the load of potatoes. It was all done in the shake of a lamb's tail, as they used to say.
“The old man is going to drive to Sackett's Harbor to-night with these potatoes,” he whispered. “You go on to Summerville; I'll meet you there to-morrow.”
Then he left me, and I lay quietly on the load.
“He isn't in there,” I heard him say, on his way to the house.
Well, they did some searching and tramping about for the next half-hour or so. By-and-by they put the team on the wagon-pole, and we began our journey—the potatoes and I. They nudged me while the wagon rattled over stones in the stable-yard, as if they wished me to move along; but we came soon to smoother going. Darkness had fallen, and through the peep-holes in my sack I could see moonlight and a small section of the Milky Way. My discomfort set me to work planning relief. I drew the new jack-knife, which I had bought in my one day of plenty, and cut two long slits in the bottom of the sack and gave my feet their freedom. With my legs protruding a sense of the dearness of life returned to me. Two more slits in the sack enabled me to put my arms out and to move freely on the load. I lay quietly for an hour or so, and then thought I would try sitting up. So I rose and adjusted my peep-holes and stared about me. My employer sat on one end of the seat, singing. Soon I could hear only the creak of the whiffletrees and the rattle of the wheels. The reins, which were looped over a shoulder, fell limp, and he began to snore.
I could hear the distant roar of a railroad train. It was coming nearer, and where was the crossing? A sense of prudence caused me to climb to the seat and take the reins. I did this gently, and without waking him. I had a fear of falling in with more officers, and kept my sack on me and listened for teams. If I should hear one coming I would resume my place on the load, and draw in my legs and arms like a turtle. Completely taken up with my plans and perils, it never occurred to me that I was one of the most uncanny creatures that ever went abroad in the night. Suddenly I heard a swift movement beside me, and turned my head. My companion had awakened, and was crowding as far away as possible, his mouth and eyes wide open.
He gave a great gasp, and, before I could find words to calm him, shouted: “Land! What's this?” and leaped from the wagon. It was a wonder—the swiftness of him.
“Don't be afraid!” I called, as I checked the horses. “It's I—Cricket Heron. I got away in a potato-sack and came on the load.”
He stood a moment looking up at me, and gasping for breath. “Cricket Heron!” he exclaimed, presently, and stood gazing up at me in silence for half a moment, and supporting himself on a front wheel.
“Say, boy,” said he, in a voice that betrayed his agitation, “excuse me, but you'll have to find other company. You've wore me out.”
He paused half a moment for breath, and went on:
“When a sack o' potatoes sets down beside ye an' opens conversation, it's a little more than I can stan'.” He resumed his seat and took a look at me, and added, with a laugh, “You'd scare the devil.”
In a few words I told my story, and he seemed to believe and to pity me. He put a few queries, and I answered freely.
“You better go home an' tell the truth about it,” he said, as he hurried the horses. “The only thing I don't like about you is your runnin' away. God hates a coward, an' He don't seem to care if a coward suffers. Take that thing off. Be a man; don't be a sack o' potatoes. You'd cheat the man that bought ye for two bushels o' potatoes. They're worth more than a coward.”
He untied the string above my head, and I took off the sack. The lights of the village were just ahead. He drove to a store whose proprietor was awaiting him. There he paid me the sum of six dollars for my work, and I left him and went to a small inn.
So ended the adventure of the potato-sack. It taught me that a man is never so good as the thing he tries to be, whether it is a hero or a sack of potatoes.