RAHAM'S hotel was near the depot, as I asked my way of an officer, and he went with me. At the desk I inquired timidly for my friend.
“Mr. James Henry McCarthy is here,” the clerk answered, with a smile. “He is making the homes of this city bright and beautiful, Wish to see him?”
“Yes,” I answered.
He called a colored youth, and sent word to Mr. McCarthy. The colored youth returned presently, and said:
“Mr. McCarthy says, 'Please ask the gentleman to send up his card.'”
I wrote my name on a card, and in a few minutes presented myself at Mr. McCarthy's door.
“I am pleased to see you,” said he, with dignity. “Come in.”
He was well dressed in new clothing.
“How are you?” I inquired.
“How do I look?” he asked, promptly.
“Splendid,” was my answer.
“That suit cost me twenty-one dollars,” he remarked, with a glance at himself. “Feel of the cloth.”
I did as he bade me.
“Isn't this a grand room?” he went on. “I guess you must have thought that I was getting along in the world when you were asked to send up your card to Mr. McCarthy.”
He laughed, and rattled his change.
“Will you have a cigar?” he asked, removing two from his waistcoat-pocket.
“I do not smoke.”
“Nor I,” said he, “but I carry them for the sake of appearances.”
“How is business?”
“Grand,” said he. “I have six men at work for me, and have started a little factory at home. My sister makes Sal, and the agents buy it from us, and so we have no bother. We ship it in crates, like a lot of eggs, and each ball is neatly wrapped and all ready for the customer. I am also beginning the manufacture of soap.”
I expressed my delight over his good-fortune.
“How are you getting along?” he asked.
I told him the story of my failure.
“There's the trouble,” said Mr. McCarthy. “A green hand is apt to slip down making the goods.
“'There's many a fall
'Twixt the powder and ball,'
as ye might say. That's why I started the factory.”
I paid my debt to him.
“Are you going to take out another line of goods?” he asked.
“No; I'm going home,” was my answer. “I'll write to you if I decide to try it again.”
“Maybe you need this money to get home with,” he suggested, in a careless and opulent manner.
“No; I have enough,” was my answer.
“Sit down, an' le' 's have a little visit,” said he. “I like you, an' by-an'-by I'll take you out an' show you the sights. I want to treat you as one gentleman would treat another. Have you noticed that I don't say 'ain't' for 'isn't' or 'them' for 'those' any more?”
“I notice that you speak very properly,” I assured him.
“I've got a grammar, and have begun to study it,” said he. “My tea-pot is all made, as ye might say, an' I have begun to put a polish on it. Let me show ye.”
He rose and put on his hat.
“Now, suppose I've rung the bell an' Mrs. Smith opens the door. I bow so, and say: 'Good-morning, madam,' or 'Good-afternoon, madam. Would you like to engage a servant who will work for you at half a cent a day and board herself? I have one of the name of Sal. Sal cleans woodwork, silver, and all kinds of metal, and never complains.'
“I don't talk as much as I used to. Some way it don't sound honest, and I find out that gentlemen are not apt to be gabby. I try to please and show that I want to earn an honest living, and I get along.
“Ye see, the children like me because I like them, and everybody is glad to see me when I come around. The other day a woman asked me to mind her children while she went of an errand. It would have tickled you to see how they piled on me.”
He sat in a chair and laughed, and put his wooden leg on the bed, and pulled a grip and two pillows into his lap, and flung the bolster over his leg.
“There, that's about the way I looked,” he went on, with a laugh. “I made faces for 'em and told 'em how I lost my leg, and we had a grand time of it. It's the same way with grownup folks. If you want them to like you, you've got to like them. A gentleman never speaks badly of any one; that's another thing I've learnt.”
“I'm not a gentleman, then,” I answered.
“Why?”
“There's one man about whom I couldn't say anything mean enough.”
“Well, if you owe him a thrashing, wait until you can pay him off proper. You can't do it with your tongue.”
I knew then that James Henry McCarthy, crude as he was, had got a little ahead of me.
“You see, I'm working on my gentleman every day,” he went on, “I'll have him in decent shape by-an'-by. I read a good deal, because every gentleman reads, and I'm beginning to enjoy it.”
“I wish you'd make me a visit; I want you to meet my mother,” said I.
“I'd like to,” he answered. “You must come from a very respectable family.”
“What makes you think so?” I asked.
“Oh, I can tell by your looks and your way of talking,” he remarked. “You've been well brought up—a ready-made gentleman, as ye might say. It's grand to have all that done for ye. I wasn't so lucky. But I'm made upon honor—hand-sewed and stitched and double-soled. I ought to wear well. You could rely on me to behave myself if you took me into your home.”
Just then a colored boy came to the door and said: “There's a man down-stairs who wants to see Mr. McCarthy, and he won't give me a card.”
“Show the gentleman up,” said my friend, as if accustomed to many callers.
Presently in walked the Pearl of great price with the dog, Mr. Barker. I was overjoyed to see them.
“Let me feel of you,” he said, as he took my hand. “Now don't be scairt an' jump out o' the window. Just agree to stay with me for a minute. I'll agree not to kill you. I—I couldn't get even with you in that way.”
“What's the matter?” I asked.
“First, le' 's have the minutes of the previous meetin',” said Mr. Pearl.
It must be remembered that H. M. Pearl, Esq., had lived through years of oratory and public assemblage, and that his thoughts ran more or less in their cant.
“The meeting will now come to order, and Mr. Barker will take the floor,” said the Pearl of great price.
The dog came and stood on his hind feet, facing his master.
“You will recall,” said Mr. Pearl, addressing the animal, “that I once spoke to you on the subject of bad company. Is the same true to-day or not?”
The dog gave a loud bark.
“It is true,” said Mr. Pearl; “of course it is true! Therefore, Mr. Barker, please bear in mind that there is nothing that makes so much trouble as bad company. It will bring your black hairs in sorrow to the grave.”
The dog was excused, and the Pearl turned to me and said:
“You went into the barn at Baker's, an' I'll swear ye didn't come out of it.”
It was he, then, who had followed me. My heart began to warm with delight, and that singular masquerade of mine came back to me, and I went through it all for them. So great was the amusement of Mr. Pearl that he flirted his feet in the air and laughed, while Mr. McCarthy whacked his wooden leg with the stove poker, and shook his head, and gave an odd cackle. Alas! I cannot tell it now as I did then, for those days I had the heart of youth in me and a voice for joy.
“I've chased you for three weeks,” said the Pearl. “You're like a flea on the body o' the United States. I had a talk with a friend o' your mother, an' set out to bring you back. Made a birch-bark canoe, an' run her down to the St. Lawrence an' up to the end o' the lake. Heard from your mother at Sackett's; she said you were at Baker's and would meet Mr. McCarthy here. You jumped from Baker's to somewhere, an' then to the Falls, an' then here, an' I've been a jump behind you all the way.”
I rose, dumb with surprise, and Mr. Pearl continued:
“I got back to Mill Pond a day or two after you an' Bony lit out. A good deal was bein' said, an' I had to lick a man for sayin' a part of it, which the said language wasn't calculated to improve your reputation. Oh, I tell ye, things have warmed up an' transpired since you went away! I says to 'em that you wasn't any Dan'l Webster, an' that Bony had drawed you into his game. I know you didn't have no more idea o' wrong-doin' than a pickerel has of a vest-pocket. One day I promised to go down to the big river an' see if I could pick ye up. So here I am, an' the next thing in the order of exercises will be new business. We've got to convey ourselves out o' here immediately, if not sooner.”
“I am ready,” I said, rising and putting on my hat.
“We've got to move, an' conversation won't carry us. To get down to plain language, have you any money?”
“Eight dollars and forty-three cents,” I answered.
“The report is accepted,” Mr. Pearl went on. “It is as good as a million dollars. We'll go down to the lake an' take a steamer, get off at Sackett's, walk a few miles, an' proceed with our own steam.”
It was arranged, with the hearty concurrence of H. M. Pearl, Esq., that Mr. McCarthy should go with us.
“It will give me a rest, and I can put some agents at work in your part of the country,” said the latter.
We set out together, and got to Sackett's Harbor next day. It was a long walk to the beach at Anderson's, where the big canoe of my friend was lying. He had left a small tent and two horse-blankets in a house near by. Mr. McCarthy bought a basket of provisions at a store, and soon after noon of the second day of our journey we were all aboard and headed down the river, Mr. Pearl in the stern seat and I in the bow. We two had paddles, while Mr.
McCarthy sat amidships near the dog, pushing further into the sea of knowledge with his grammar and dictionary. We went on with a steady stroke, and a light breeze behind us. It was a cloudless day, and the cool, crystal floor of the river chasm tempered the heat of the sun.
“I am in pursuit of history,” Mr. McCarthy remarked soon.
“Well, if you get acquainted with history, by-an'-by history is apt to get acquainted with you,” Mr. Pearl remarked.
“I have here a pack of white cards,” Mr. McCarthy went on. “Every one contains a fact. I'll read a few of them to show you what I mean. Number one says, 'Columbus discovered America, 1492 '; number two says, 'The French settled at Quebec in 1608'; number three says, 'The Spanish settled at St. Augustine in 1565,' and so on. Here's a hundred cards and a hundred facts. First, I put 'em all in one coat-pocket. Every day I take out a card and learn what's on it, and put it into another pocket, and keep the pack moving.”
“Have you got it down that H. M. Pearl, Esquire, was born at Machias, Maine, in 1817?” was a query that came from' the stem seat.
“No; Hildreth says that all history is necessarily incomplete,” Mr. McCarthy answered, with a laugh. “I like that word incomplete. It has a good sound to it. I've got my book full of new words. Say, what's a horruck? It ain't in my dictionary.”
I explained the term, which he had overheard in Pearl's talk at Graham's.
The islands were now thick around us, and we landed in a little cove on one of them, and went up under the shade of the trees for a bite of luncheon.
“There's power for ye,” said Mr. Pearl, with a glance at the river sweeping by us. “Lord! she's like a belt off the world's engine.”
I had begun to see the power in the man Pearl himself, young as I was. It is clear to me now: the genius of the Republic, soon to express itself in dauntless enterprise, in prodigious and unheard-of enginery, had begun to stir in him; the imagination that builds and discovers, the humor that accepts failure without discouragement, the energy which may not be overcome were all in this man.
“If I had capital,” Mr. Pearl added, presently, “I'd show ye some actions which speak louder than words.”
“What would you do with it?” I asked.
“Well, here's the river,” he said, mapping it on a stretch of sand with his finger. “Here's the falls at your house. Here's the town o' Heartsdale, about half a mile up the river—shops an' mills an' stores an' houses an' two thousand people, all about as slow as West Injy molasses.”
He looked up at us, and took another bite.
“What they need is power,” he went on. “That's what 'll put the zip into a town. It 'll wake up the people, an' shake 'em off the cracker-barrels an' tumble 'em out o' the rockin'-chairs. It 'll set a pace for 'em.”
I began to wonder what rude miracle he proposed for the dreaming village of Heartsdale.
“It was located wrong,” he went on; “but there it is, an' I know how to shove some power into it—power enough to put everything on the jump.” He turned to Mr. McCarthy, and added: “Make a note in your history that H. M. Pearl, Esquire, said it, an' that a full account of his actions will appear in a later volume.”
I asked him how he proposed to do this wonderful thing.
“How, wherefore, and, also, why,” he said, as he took another bite of cheese. “Well, ye know where the river jumps over the rocks an' stands up like a man thirty feet tall, there by your house? That's where I'll perform my actions—right there.” He drew a line in the sand.
“Here's a stream o' water thirty feet wide an' a foot an' a half thick. There's a horse-power in every square foot of it. I'll take off, say, one-quarter o' the fall an' head her into an iron pipe an' let her jump down. She strikes like a triphammer, dropping thirty feet in a big, cast-iron cylinder. There are holes around the bottom of it. The water squirts through 'em with power enough to kick a man's leg off. Now, I'll put a wheel there at the bottom, with a big steel rim that has buckets on it like the slats in a windmill. Well, out come the jets o' water an' give them buckets a cuff that sets the wheel goin'. A shaft on this wheel moves the dynamo, an' there you have it.”
“What?” Mr. McCarthy asked.
“'Lectricity,” was the prompt answer of the Pearl. “Don't you know how it's made? Nor I, neither, but I guess I can come as nigh tellin' as any one. Here's a stationary wheel out by the end o' the shaft with some short bars of iron fastened to the rim of it, an' each bar is wound with a coil o' wire. Now, when ye send a current through the coil, that bar o' iron gets alive. It will take hold o' any other piece o' iron an' hang on like a bulldog. Folk call it a magnet, an' it's some like a boy—never gives any reason for his conduct which nobody understands. It just takes hold, an' that's all there is about it. Now, there's another wheel that moves with the shaft an' has the same number o' bar ends on it, all made o' soft iron but not wrapped with wire. Set these wheels parallel an' close, so the bar ends are not more 'n a quarter of an inch apart. The magnets begin to pull. The power in 'em jumps over that quarter-inch o' open space an' takes hold o' the soft iron. You have to put an awful power on the shaft to stir the one wheel on account o' the cling o' the magnets. It's like pullin' a cat out of a hole backwards. The power begins to spit an' make actions. When you move the wheel an' break the hold o' the magnets the power begins to travel an' chases 'round the rim. It opens the gate o' the great reservoir an' out comes a stream, an' it's 'lectricity. Nobody knows why nor wherefore, an' the magnets keep to work an' say nothin'. It's like churnin' cream till ye get butter. Ye break the pull o' the magnets an' set it whirlin' in a kind of a current, an' you get a power that zips off on a wire at the rate of a hundred and eighty thousand miles in a second. That's 'lectricity. It's rather fractious an' fond o' travel. But ye can coop it up in the wheels an' steer it where ye like. Ye can pen it in with glass an' rubber an' other things just as easy as ye can hold water with a tin pail.”
“You hold it in popper sections, fastened to both wheels, sweep it up with a brush, an' send it off on a wire. I've got a scheme for takin' it from the other end o' the wire in large or small quantities to suit the purchaser, an' I believe that I can move all the wheels in Heartsdale, an' a good many more.”
“If I get along in business maybe I can furnish the capital one o' these days,” said Mr. McCarthy.
“Then you'll begin to make history,” said the Pearl of great price.
Mr. McCarthy looked thoughtful. The idea of making history brightened his eyes.
“We will see what can be done,” he answered.
Again we took our places in the canoe, and it seemed to spring away with the current.
“We'll ride the belt,” said Mr. Pearl. “We ought to make ten miles between now an' sundown.”
The breeze left us, and the river slackened its pace in a gentler mood. Reeds lined its margin with soft shadows into which, often, bunches of blue iris flung their color.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. McCarthy, presently, “I'm in need of advice.”
“Touchin' what subject?” Mr. Pearl inquired.
“My mind is set on matrimony,” said the young man.
“Tell it to get up an' move on,” said Mr. Pearl.
“Are you in love?” I asked.
“I fear that I am,” said Mr. McCarthy, with his accustomed frankness.
“All depends on the other party,” said Mr. Pearl.
“It's a beautiful girl by the name o' Betsey Fame,” the boy answered.
“Better be Miss Fame than Misfortune,” said the Pearl of great price.
“My trouble is all on account of this wooden leg,” Mr. McCarthy explained. “I saved her mother's life in a runaway an' got my ankle smashed. She took care o' me when I was laid up, and told me to study an' improve my mind and be a gentleman. I fell in love with her, and I'm getting along. But my gentleman has begun to crush the life out o' Pegleg McCarthy. He's killed my best hope, for he won't let me ask her to marry me. She's a wonderful nice girl, and belongs to a good family. But here's my wooden leg, and it comes o' my tryin' to save her mother. She might think she had ought to accept me whether she cares for me or not. She's just that kind of a girl. Do you think it's fair for me to ask her? I don't.”
Pearl and I rested the paddles. Our playful spirit had gone out of us in a jiffy.
“By the great horn spoon!” Pearl exclaimed. “Me being a gentleman, what can I do?” Mr. McCarthy inquired.
“Well, first you go to New York an' get yourself a decent leg, if you can afford it,” said the Pearl of great price. “There's a man by the name o' Marks made a leg for a friend o' mine. He wears a shoe an' walks as well as ever. Ye wouldn't know that he had a wooden leg. It's a case o' wood an' wouldn't.”
“That's a good idea,” said Mr. McCarthy. “Then you can tell her that you're really better off than you was before the accident—that you've only half the liability to pains in the feet. Go to work an' pile up some money, an' show her that nobody has any license to be sorry for you. Maybe you'll see your chance by-an'-by.”
“I believe that I'm going to be a rich man,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I kind o' feel it in my bones.”
“My bones are beginnin' to talk to me,” said the Pearl, as he moved in his seat a little. “We must begin to look for a camping-place.”
The sun had gone down, and glowing bars of cloud were drifting over the west. Their reflection made a long, golden raft in the ripples.
The raft seemed to break as I was looking, and its timber floated far and wide into dusky coves and marshes, and some of it went leaping through rapids half a mile below. As we rode along in the still twilight, Mr. Pearl sang an old ballad in a voice of remarkable power and sweetness. Well, the river and the shadows and the sky sang with him, as I am well aware, but no music ever got so deep in me as that did.
We got out on a pebble beach. There were grassy shores, close-cropped by cattle, near us, and a hard-wood grove. The Pearl began to put up his tent, while we gathered a bit of wood for a fire, and spread our supper on a big napkin. When we had eaten, Mr. Pearl removed his coat and vest from a carpet-bag. He spread the coat over his shoulders, but hung the vest on a stick, which he had driven into the ground beside him. He had turned it inside out, so that two medals, pinned to its lining, could be seen in the firelight. “What are they?” Mr. McCarthy asked. “Medals of honor.” The Pearl spoke carelessly as he was filling his pipe.
“Medals of honor!” exclaimed Mr. McCarthy. “How did you get 'em?”
“Won 'em in the Mexican War.”
“Why don't you wear 'em on the outside of your jacket?” Air. McCarthy inquired.
“I rise to a point of order,” said the Pearl, as he got to his feet. “If I had a thousand dollars, would I wear it on the outside o' my pocket? Or if I was Mr. McCarthy, would I have to tell people that I was a gentleman?” The Pearl gathered power like a locomotive when he got to going. His words conveyed a message of special value to Mr. McCarthy.
“Never want to show your cards more than is necessary before you play 'em,” the Pearl continued. “I could have used those medals to get a job many a time when I wouldn't, any more than you'd let a girl marry you out o' pity. There have been years when I wa'n't as good as the medals—there's the truth of it. Every night when I go to bed I hang that vest on a chair, wrong side out, an' take a look at 'em, an' try to make myself as good as they are.”
“Tell me how you won them?” Mr. McCarthy urged.
“That isn't in the order o' exercises,” the Pearl went on. “The chair begs to advise the gentleman from Hermon Center that if he, the said gentleman, ever succeeds in doing a big thing, the sooner he forgets it the longer it will be remembered. If a man makes his history it's all that can be expected o' him. Somebody else ought to do the tellin', if it has to be told.”
“That's sound,” said Mr. McCarthy, “and I'm going to put it down in my note-book.”
“I'm goin' to forget it,” said the Pearl, as he began to prepare for bed.
We were up at sunrise in the morning. Late that day we landed, and Pearl took the canoe on his back and we put across country. A walk of six miles brought us to our own river, and we saved thereby a day of water travel. The sun was low when we wet our canoe again.
“The committee on refreshments will please report,” said Mr. Pearl, when he had put down his load.
Mr. McCarthy reported by laying out three pieces of cheese, half a dozen crackers, and a bit of dried beef.
The Pearl called “Mr. Barker,” and when the animal stood up before him, said: “The chair respectfully suggests that without food it will soon have no leg to stand on. You should cultivate the virtue of thoughtfulness. Do not wait to be told, Mr. Barker, but always consider what is to be done, and do it.”
If the Pearl had advice to give he invariably addressed it to “Mr. Barker,” and so it came to us through the dog, as one might say, and was never lost upon us.
Mr. McCarthy and I hurried away, while Mr.
Pearl got a fire going. We were both ashamed that the idea of increasing our stores had not occurred to us. We returned soon with eggs and bacon, and new bread and coffee, and all needed appliances.
“I move that the report be laid on the table,” said Mr. Pearl, as he began to warm the spider.
I think always with a grateful heart of that supper, which we ate in the cool twilight, with a knoll for a table, and, for a cloth, a mat of grass interwoven with white clover blossoms. It was quite dusk when we launched the canoe and resumed our journey.
Had I words fit for beauty and delight, I should try to tell of our night journey on the river—of the wondrous flattery of moon and shadow, of wet banks showered with “barbaric pearl,” of geese that sailed by, magnified to swanlike size, of a little village on the shore, whose painted boards shone like white marble and filled the eye with illusions of splendor and grand proportion.
When we were over the last carry at Mill Pond the hand-made gentleman fell asleep, but we kept on with a steady stroke of the paddles. I would not be the first to speak of stopping, for every stroke brought me nearer home, and the thought of it!—worth all the misery and peril I had known. Near two o'clock we got out on the shore, a mile below the Mill House, and lay down with our blankets and went to sleep.
The sunlight and the robins wakened us. It was one of my best days—that of my return. So much of it has come along up the road with me! Especially I remember its glad faces and the touch of its loving hands, and the sound of its gentle voices and its peace. Who can estimate the value of such a day save one who has been blessed with it? True, the moments go like falling water, but they return and are never quite ended, after all.
The cascade seemed to sing a welcome with its big, hearty voice. The garden flowers expressed my happiness in color, and sent their perfume to bid me welcome at the gate.
The Pearl and the hand-made gentleman turned away while I went up the old stair with my arms around my mother and sister, now dearer than ever to me. We sat down upon the old sofa, and I began to ravel out my follies. They rose to prepare breakfast, and I looked about me. There were the familiar three commandments of my mother hanging on the wall:
“If I had told the truth to Mr. Weatherby I would never have gone away,” was my remark.
“The more truth the less trouble,” said my mother. “It keeps you in the right road. If you're going to tell the truth you've got to make it worth telling, or, at least, good enough so that you will not be ashamed of it.”
While we had learned those three commandments, not until now had I begun to feel the power in them.
I looked about me at all the familiar things: the pictures—especially a crayon portrait of my father—the mottos, wrought in colored yam. Wisdom was more available than art those days in the north country, and the walls of many a simple home were decorated with the sayings of bard or prophet, each neatly framed. My mother's mottos were all her own, however. She was a daughter of the pioneers who had learned much in a hard school of experience. The best of it all had come down to her, and was a bit refined by her own thought. There was a kind of history in those mottos that hung on the walls of the Mill House—the heart history of men who had had to think for themselves. I read them anew and thoughtfully:
The kindly will never want a friend;
The mean will never lack an enemy.
One good word deserves another,
But receives more than it deserves.
To-day is the best of all days,
But to-morrow will be better.
Let heaven begin here.
After all my regretful thinking on that journey, which had now come to its end, these words began to fill with meaning. That last injunction, printed in golden threads, sank deeply into my heart and led to this conviction: that the Mill House was one of the outlying provinces of heaven; far removed, maybe, but still as much a part of it as those isles ten thousand miles from London are a part of the British Empire.
Breakfast being ready, I went down after my good friends. The Pearl would not come in.
“Just hand me a little snack,” said he; “I ain't fit to go in.”
He would not yield to urging, and so I brought his breakfast to him, and he sat down and ate at the foot of the stairway.
My mother and sister sat at the table with Mr. McCarthy and me. The manners of the handmade gentleman became exceedingly formal. He spoke only when spoken to, save when he said:
“May I be so bold as to ask for a glass of water?”
When I suggested the subject of Sal, he began to relax, and went to his grip and gravely presented my mother with a dozen balls of it.
The breakfast over, my mother went below-stairs with me to thank Mr. Pearl for his kindness, but he was gone. I found her looking up the river, where he was going out of sight, far up the shaded avenue of water, in his canoe. She looked very sad as I walked to the garden with her.
“Come, let us look at the flowers,” she said, as she put her arm-about me. “These roses have just opened this morning; they have been waiting for you, and so has this letter.”
My heart quickened, for I had seen the postmark and the girlish penmanship on the envelope, and had caught its odor of violets. Eagerly I broke the seal, and read as follows:
Dear Friend,—I have just been picking flowers and they reminded me of your letter. I have not forgotten you; everything that is beautiful makes me think of those days when you were here—we had such a good time; at least, I did. I should like to hear from you often, but I don't want you to think that I care so very, very much. I wouldn't want to have you try to remember me. I still have my troubles, but they are not quite so dreadful. Last night my father brought home another young man. I do not like him; he has such a queer way of staring into my eyes, and can talk of nothing but dogs and horses. Fannie has come back, and Sam is with her. He is going to take care of the garden and the grounds until they can find a farm. Fannie says that he has got over being afraid and is very affectionate. I think of you often, and of those pleasant evenings that we had together, and of all that you went through. I wonder if you would dare come again! Well, I am sure that I shall never get another letter from you, even, but I wish you good luck, anyway.
Yours truly, Jo.
P. S.—I have made this letter short for fear it would bore you.
It was my first letter from a fair maid, and what a state of mind it put me in! My mother read it with a smile.
“It's a pretty letter,” said she.
“Not so pretty as Jo,” I answered. Then I told about my visit in Summerville.
“And the girl is alone with that old drunkard?” said my mother.
“Yes.”
“Too bad! I wish I could see her.”
“I love her,” I said, soberly.
“Child!” she exclaimed, “you're not yet sixteen.”
“A boy has feelings,” I protested.
“If I'm not in love, I'd like to know what it is that makes me feel as I do. I would die for her.”
“Yes—yes, I know,” she answered, holding my hand in hers. “I was like you when I was a young miss—thought I was in love two or three times when I was not. Write to her if you wish, but you must be fair to her. Don't say a word about it until you see if it lasts. She may not care for you, anyway.”
This letter made me sure that she did care for me, however, and that and others like it were, indeed, the treasures of my youth. The notion of being fair to her grew in me, for, after all, my heart had had its change, and was it now to be wholly trusted?
Mr. McCarthy met us at the stairs.
“I've been reading your three commandments,” said he to my mother. “Are they in the Bible?”
“Yes; but I got them out of the Book of Nature,” said she. “You learn to be truthful by the study of men, for what is a man unless he is himself—the thing he pretends to be? Kindness—I learned that from the earth, where we all reap as we sow, and everything that lives teaches us to be happy. These birds and flowers—see how happy they are! And this boy of mine just returned from the path of error—who could be happier than he is?”
“That's sound,” said the hand-made gentleman. “I'm going to write it down in my book.” He sat down and wrote while she helped him a little in the phrasing of his notes.
“I must devote myself to business,” said Mr. McCarthy, when he had closed the book. “I will visit the leading villages in the county, and return as expeditiously as possible.”
He glanced at me as if to note the effect of this impressive declaration.
“Good luck; and remember here is always a good welcome,” my mother said to him, as he took the road to Heartsdale.
R. PEARL had opened a little shop in Heartsdale. It was up an alley next to a large mill, where he could connect his shaft with river-power. A smooth board, lettered with his own brush and nailed above his door, contained the words:
One bright, still morning in the early summer I walked to Heartsdale to begin my career anew. My mother wished me to be near home, and I was on my way to the shop of B. Crocket & Son, marble-cutters, who were making a monument for my father. They were going to teach me their trade. Heartsdale had always made me believe it very large and myself very little. Its buildings and its people had seemed to look down upon me from a great height. Now that I had been to Buffalo, that old feeling of awe and littleness had gone out of me and must be now, I believed, in the breast of Heartsdale itself, and I carried my head high.
From the eminence of my conceit I got a full view of its languor and littleness. Even the river slowed its pace half a mile above and came on like a spent horse. Near the Mill House half a mile below it began to hurry, and always I had the stir of the rapids in me.
Feet accustomed to the pace of the plow were going into town. The clink of an anvil broke the silence. I had often watched the great blacksmith as he worked. That clinking indicated the flow of his thought and the strength of his convictions. Words fell between hammer-strokes, and were often as hot as the beaten metal.
The shop of B. Crocket & Son, whither I was bound, stood on a narrow byway bordered with small wooden buildings. The shop itself had a little door-yard where headstones and monuments stood among blocks of marble. Inside were benches on which the stone was being trimmed, lettered, and polished. There everything was white with marble-dust. Mr. B. Crocket—called “Judge Crocket” by all who knew him, and so called because, in his own way, he pronounced judgment on those who lived and died about him—stood over a headstone cutting an epitaph. A number of men past middle age sat around a small table in one corner playing old sledge. They looked up at me as I entered. A man and a red-headed boy, the latter of about my age, were polishing a block of granite near the far end of the shop. I approached the Judge and bade him good-morning. He looked down out of gray eyes colder than the marble on which he leaned. His pale, wizened face was itself a wonderful bit of sculpture.
“Are you the young Heron?” he asked.
The men who were playing cards began to laugh, and I was a bit stung by it, having a strong sense of dignity.
“I am Mr. Heron,” was my answer.
“Huh!” my new employer grunted. “Take off your mister and your coat and vest and put on a pair of overalls.”
The men laughed loudly, in spite of the fact that I had been to Buffalo. I felt inclined to resent his words, but held my tongue and did as he bade me, for I had brought some overalls in my satchel.
He went on with his work, and said, presently, that his son would tell me what to do. The latter did not give me a mallet and chisel, as I had hoped, but set me polishing with the redheaded boy of my own age, familiarly known as “Swipes.” I had been reading the life of Michelangelo, which my mother had bought for me, and dreaming of high achievements. It had come to nothing but sweating over a hand-lathe and slopping in dirty water.
Two of those who played at the table were old soldiers, the third a business man, the fourth a retired farmer. One, with an empty sleeve, entered presently and sat on a half-finished monument that lay near them, as if accepting the invitation cut in its polished face, “Requiescat in pace.” He begged a chew of tobacco, and began to talk, telling how he got tobacco hunger in a battle and searched for it in the pockets of the dead. The other soldiers took the cue and told of many a like adventure as they played their game. The retired farmer was not unlike them, for he, too, had begun his long rest. He of the one arm passed a bottle as the game ended. Then all seemed to pry themselves out of their chairs with levers of necessity.
“I've got to go,” said one, as he yawned.
“So've I,” said another.
“Here goes,” said number three. All rose, save one, and tried their creaking joints.
It was Mr. Bulford Boggs, the undertaker, who remained in his chair—he that was known far and wide as “Bull” Boggs. His shop was across the way, and a line of parlor furniture filled its front window. He was a full-bodied man with a prominent nose and a short upper lip, and wore a high flaring collar and side-whiskers, now turned gray, and got soothing draughts of indolence from a big, meerschaum pipe. I remember that his nose and front and calm expression reminded me of a meadow-lark. It did seem to me often that he resented human life. There were times when, as he looked at one, his whole manner thus expressed itself: “What! you living? Good Heavens, man! How do you expect me to get along in business and you living on forever? Why don't you go hang yourself?”
Soon Mr. Crocket, who had been working silently on a headstone, rested his chisel and looked at Mr. Boggs. Then he read, with quaint irony, the flattering inscription that he had finished:
“It was her turn,” he said. “She was the survivor of three husbands.”
He continued pecking at the stone and also at the character of the deceased lady. His monologue was broken by the sound of his mallet, and I remember it went on as follows:
“Couldn't even live with herself [whack]. Tried it [whack], an' died [whack].”
Mr. Boggs gave a roar of joy as he held his big pipe in his hand.
“Reminds me of Harrison White [whack, whack]. He traded me a horse for a family monument, an'—wal, he got it for nothing. That horse began to waste away. Come to find out he was twenty-four years old. The horse got the heaves, an' Harrison got religion, but I got nothing. Come here one day an' offered to pray for me [whack], I told him to pray for the old horse. He gave me up. The old horse died an' so did Harrison. Oh, I've seen 'em come an' go for a good many years [whack, whack, whack]. What do you suppose they wrote out for an inscription to go under his name?”
“I heard once, but I've forgotten,” growled the undertaker. .
“'He paid the debt,'” said the Judge, soberly, with another whack. “I added something free of charge, an' it was this, 'but not the one due me.—B. Crocket.'”
Mr. Boggs, who sat watching the door of his shop across the way as he listened, let out his mirth in heavy bolts of sound.
There was to be a political meeting, and the town was filling up with people. Mr. Crocket and his friend went to the open door of the marble-shop and looked at the crowds passing in the main street. Soon the Judge returned to his task, and Mr. Boggs stood looking out of the door.
“They've all got to die,” said the latter, cheerfully, as he surveyed the people. “Whenever I get blue I just think o' that an' take courage.”
These hard old cynics were to me a new kind of people. They rejoiced in death—in the destruction of hopes, in the slaughter of reputations. Their rough word-play gave my young soul a shock that I have not yet forgotten. It went on day after day, while I wore away the cold marble and my tender youth.
The whole place and its people reminded me of those lines which I had heard the minister quote in a sermon:
“The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep, dank vault, the darkness, and the worm.”
But I made no complaint, for my first undertaking had come to naught, and if I failed again what would they think of me—especially Jo and my mother. My employer pecked away at the epitaphs with his chisel and amended them with his conversation. Every morning Mr. Boggs and his three companions sat in a corner playing old sledge and boarding their cards with appalling thumps in trying stages of the game, and, after each hand', loudly confessing their calculations.
“If we don't win this game I'll bury you for nothing,” was one of the cheering and familiar promises of Mr. Boggs.
The undertaker had a wise and threatening air about him. He often bullied people, using loud words and a pouncing manner. Sometimes he gave advice with a wearied look of toleration, and oh, the sadness of Mr. Boggs at a funeral!
The three friends went away soon after eleven o'clock, whereupon, if there were “nothing doing”—an oft-repeated phrase of the undertaker—he used to sit talking with the Judge or reading a newspaper. One day he fell asleep in his chair. Mr. Crocket printed this inscription on a sheet of cardboard and leaned it against the knees of the undertaker:
Sacred to the Memory of B. Boggs
The Judge surveyed him with a playful eye, and added, “He is certainly the flower o' the village.” It was an apt symbol, for he was, indeed, one of the most perfect flowers of rustic commercialism that ever bloomed.
The village boys relieved the monotony of my life with sundry insults. Having travelled far, as I thought, and endured many perils, and having, moreover, a proud spirit, I was, for my age and size, a bit nearer the goal of manhood than most of them, and my dignity was natural enough. They resented it with jeers and epithets and stickings out of the tongue.
Mr. Crocket and his son went home at five, while I and the red-headed boy continued our labor until six o'clock.
Swipes himself was a melancholy youth who had once swallowed a shingle-nail and who cherished a great fear of it. For poor Swipes that shingle-nail was like the sword of Damocles. The first evening that we were alone together in the shop he confided his worst fears to me, and asked if I knew of any medicine that would be likely to do him good. He complained of pain in the pit of his stomach.
“I've took half a bottle of horse liniment that I found here in the shop,” said he. “It may help some.”
He was deeply interested in the great fist-fighters, and his hero was John Morrissey. In the last hour of work one day, after the Crockets had gone home, three or four boys of about our age gathered in the shop. We had removed our overalls and were getting ready to go, when Swipes approached me. His fists were moving playfully.
“I could put an epitaph on that face o' your'n,” he threatened.
“It would be your epitaph,” I answered, promptly.
The others laughed and urged me to go on.
He began to jump up and down, with his fists out in front of me.
“Fight me, fight me, if you ain't a coward!” he hissed.
That word was more than I could endure. I flew at Swipes like a panther and floored him. He rose, bleeding, but unwhipped. We fought fiercely up and down among the gravestones, and in a moment were locked together. I had the under hold and forced him into the water-tub. Swipes said that would do, and I released my hold upon him. He rose, dripping, and offered me his hand.
“You're all right,” said he, cheerfully. “I only wanted to know if you could fight.”
He had a kind of pride in his bruised face, and would not let me wash away the blood.
Directly another boy began to dance in front of me. It was a desperate battle I had then, and Swipes, when he saw me getting the worst of it, broke in for the sake of fairness.
“It ain't right,” said he. “You tackled him when he was tired.”
The bout ended, and Swipes gave me his hand with a cheering word as I left him.
“I told 'em you could fight,” he whispered.
I had a hard week of it then, for they were bound to know what I was made of—those warlike and barbaric people. I avenged my wrongs, and stepped off the plane of reprobation and contempt forever.
I tried to like my task, and worked hard and spent three evenings a week with Mr. Pearl. He lived in his little shop, and had been kind enough to offer me what help he could in my studies. He had some learning, a rare talent in mathematics, and a genius for explanation. I brought my suppers with me, and we often ate together.
The first time I entered the shop, after my week of battle, the Pearl looked at me and laughed.
“Confound that dog!” he exclaimed.
The dog stood up before him.
“I've often talked to you about fighting,” said the Pearl. “I want t' tell you again it's poor business, Mr. Barker.”
“He's an awful quarrelsome cuss,” he added, as he dismissed the dog and turned to me with an apology for delay.
We had scarcely begun our work when Mr. McCarthy entered. He had two good legs under him—so one might have thought—and a shoe on each foot, and a step like that of a sound man. He was “all dressed up,” as they used to say, and a bit too well aware of it. He took off his hat and bowed politely.
“Gentleman,” said he, “Mr. McCarthy presents his compliments.”
“I see that your off foot is on,” said Mr. Pearl.
“It's better than ever,” said Mr. McCarthy. “That's good!” exclaimed the Pearl. “You can now make footprints in the sands of time.”
“Yes, I've got a pair o' feet and a new leg on my body, and five thousand dollars in the bank, and more coming,” Mr. McCarthy went on, while we were dumb with amazement. “You'll find Sal in every drug store north of the Central Road, and I'm going to spread it all over Vermont and Massachusetts. Two or three rivals have sprung up, and I've bought 'em out. I've got forty people at work in my central factory, which is at Rushwater, New York.”
“He's geared for high power,” said the Pearl, as he turned to me. “He's got his belt on the main shaft.”
The compliment pleased Mr. McCarthy. His eyes glowed and his fist flashed down upon the bench before him with a loud thump. It was the deep fire of his spirit showing itself in a kind of lightning thrust.
“I'm going to be somebody!” he exclaimed.
“If you can find use for it, you'll get all the power you need right off the big engine,” said Mr. Pearl.
“What engine?”
“The one that runs the universe. When you've got accommodation for high power it always comes to you. Then look out for the friction an' you're all right.”
After a moment of silence he turned to me and said: “I've heard about the three commandments of your house. They're like those of my shop: Take your power off the main shaft—that means truth. Oil your bearings—kindness. Reduce friction as much as possible—happiness. And that reminds me, how is your gentleman?”
The Pearl turned to Mr. McCarthy as he put the query.
“A little more polished,” said the latter. “I think his deportment has improved, an' he can converse upon many subjects or write an elegant letter. He's a little more natural, as ye might say, and has so much else to think of he's kind o' forgot himself. He reads the New York Herald every day, and can hold an argument on politics or religion. He knows all the points in favor of the protection of home industries, an' has learnt every great fact in American history.”
“Except one,” said the Pearl of great price.
“What's that?”
“A new thing discovered by H. M. Pearl, Esq., which is singular an' likewise worthy of your attention.”
The Pearl paused for a moment while he looked at him. “A stream o' power is rushing over those wires,” he went on. “I'll turn it into another channel an' put a brake on it. Then you'll see some actions calculated to produce loud and continued applause.”
He put out his lamp and stepped away in the darkness. I heard the turn of a lever and then the room was flooded with light. We gazed at it with a feeling of awe.
“These are sticks of carbon,” said he, pointing at the centre of the glow. “When the current strikes the carbon it comes into hard sledding; there's the rub, an' the rub makes heat an' the heat gives light, and the light gives history and feelin's of surprise an' happiness in the breast of H. M. Pearl, Esq. Wait until he gets the voltage he needs and he can turn night into day.”
“What do you mean by voltage?” I asked.
He took us over to the hose tank that was fastened high in a corner, and turned the faucet. Water came pouring through the hose into a large tub on the floor.
“The voltage is the squirt of the stream, and the size of it is the amperage, and the watts is the hole it would make in the snow. Do you know why so many men use tobacco in this town?”
“No,” I answered.
“High voltage and little to do,” he went on. “Currents o' power are flowin' into us, but—Lord!—we don't know what to do with it. We have no purpose, no gear, no machinery. So we let it off in all kinds o' folly. Look at the merchants—some of 'em are strong men, but every one has got his belt on a pinwheel. There's twenty of 'em an' work enough for two. The only men in town who are sure of a good living are the undertaker and the carver of epitaphs. We all die, if we don't do anything else.”
We turned again to the light and expressed our wonder.
“Lie low an' say nothin',” said Mr. Pearl, as he turned the lever. “I'll make 'em roll in their sleep one o' these days. All I need is money for patents an' tools an' material.”
“I'll furnish it some day,” said the young man.
“An' we'll share the profits,” said H. M. Pearl, Esq., as they shook hands.
James Henry McCarthy and I left the shop together. I asked him to go home with me, but he had to leave early next day, and so had taken quarters at the inn.
“How is Miss Fame?” I asked.
“Splendid,” was his answer. “Do you suppose she'd care for me now?”
“I should think she would,” was my answer. “But I shall not ask her,” said he. “I thought when I got my leg and handsome clothes and some money that I'd be good enough for any one; but when I went to see her the other day, it seemed as if she was a little cooler, if anything.” There was a note of sadness in the voice of Mr. McCarthy. He went on in a moment:
“I conversed with her on the subject of the Republican nominations. I dropped into history and gave a quotation from Shakespeare, just to show her that I was no fool, if I was the son of old Jack McCarthy. I guess I let out about everything that I knew. I just told her that I was making money, but I didn't talk shop—you know, gentlemen never do that. By-an'-by she took my hand an' said: 'You're doing finely, James. I'm delighted that you're getting along so well.' It seemed as if that was the worst thing she could have said to me—the same old twaddle—as if I needed a pat on the back. She never asked me to call again.”
“Don't let it worry you,” I suggested.
He continued. “After all, it isn't legs or clothes or deportment or money or doing as you'd be done by that makes a gentleman—though they help a good deal. You've got to be all right, and then forget it, and it can't be done in a day. I'm like a new pair o' boots—they pinch a little here and there, and have got too much of a squeak in 'em.”